Mental Health

Ryan Michler – Brotherhood, Isolation, And Rising Above The Noise

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Talking points: friendship, masculinity, culture

Ryan Michler and I have been in the men’s work biz for a long time, and we’ve seen the changes—some good, some bad—in how men are talked about and marketed to by our culture and by the wellness and therapy industries. We dig into the necessity of male friendship in the face of growing isolationism, the upcoming Men’s Forge, and a whole lot more. Listen in, team.

(00:00:00) – Intro and why does it seem like men are having a harder time maintaining relationships?

(00:12:27) – On men needing social time and where modern therapy misses the mark

(00:17:56) – How are men contributing to their own isolation and loneliness?

(00:31:44) – On the importance of some confrontation in male friendships

(00:38:32) – Why men need brotherhood as well as challenge, and what to do if you want deeper friendships with other men

Ryan Michler is a husband, father, Iraqi Combat Veteran, and the Founder of Order of Man. Ryan grew up without a permanent father figure and has seen first-hand how a lack of strong, ambitious, self-sufficient men has impacted society today. He believes many of the world’s most complicated problems could be solved if men everywhere learned how to be better husbands, fathers, businessmen, and community leaders.

It has now become his life’s mission to help men across the planet step more fully into their roles as protectors, providers, and presiders over themselves, their families, their businesses, and their communities. You can find him blogging and podcasting at Order of Man where he is working to help men become all they were meant to be.

Connect with Ryan

-Join myself, Ryan Michler, Larry Hagner, and Matt Beaudreau on a mission to improve yourself as a man, husband, business owner, and community leader at the Men’s Forge. May 1-4, St. Louis, MO: https://orderofman.clickfunnels.com/uprising-landing-page1715263442491

-Website: https://www.orderofman.com/

-Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanmichler/

-Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanmichler

-Book: The Masculinity Manifesto: https://amzn.to/3jJcmiE

-Book: Sovereignty: https://amzn.to/3G6zwqQ

How To Develop Self-Worth As A Man

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Talking points: mindset

This is something I’ve seen a LOT of men battle, and with no success—and I include myself in that. This week, I want to reframe the idea of self-worth and give you a few insights that will likely change the game for you. Dig in.

(00:00:00) – Reframing self-worth, and why many men struggle with it

(00:04:27) – Reasons why self-worth gets damaged

(00:07:26) – You don’t build it by winning all the time; recognize effort instead. Here’s why it works

(00:12:00) – Release the beast from the basement

Transcript

How do you as a man develop self-worth? This is something that I have seen so many men struggle with, something that I struggled with for a very long time. And so today I’m going to be talking to you about what self-worth is, what infringes on it and actually inhibits your ability to have inherent self-worth and develop self-worth, and then what can you do specifically to begin to develop it. I’m going to lay those three things out.

There’s so much more that you can do to develop self-worth, but I’m going to give you some of the core tools and tenets that I think are very important. So let’s just start at the beginning. What is self-worth? Well, self-worth, by definition, is a kind of inner recognition of your life, your thoughts, your existence as holding inherent value independent of external approval or validation. External approval, validation, or accomplishment. 

Now that last part is pretty important because for the majority of men, the reason why you struggle with self-worth is that you have offloaded and outsourced that validation that is necessary to the external world, to society, to women, to parents, to other men, to friends, etc. And so there is no internal mechanism of self-recognition, of validating your own existence, your own value, and your own worth, and there’s a constant looking for other people to validate that value for you.

So self-worth is something that is internalized, okay? Something that is internalized. It’s the intersection for me, and I’m going to give you a redefinition of what it is. Self-worth is the intersection of having done hard shit to develop competency in areas that you give a shit about and genuinely liking who you are and being able to recognize both, okay? So self-worth, and I’m just going to break it down very simply.

Self-worth is your willingness to do hard things that you genuinely care about that are meaningful and liking who you are in the process and the ability to validate both. So you can validate, I do hard things. I do things that I really care about. I do things that are meaningful to me, whatever those might be. Maybe it’s woodworking. Maybe it’s volunteering.

Maybe it’s the work that you do as an accountant, as a real estate agent, and I like who I am while I am doing it. I like who I am as a father, as a husband. I can acknowledge the worth and the value that I bring into these relationships.

So self-worth is kind of that duality of I am able to recognize my skill in what I do and how I do it and how well I do it. My mastery of it or my, you know, the journey that I’m on to master it. And I’m also able to recognize how I show up in relationships.

So what I do and who I am relationally. Now, there’s a couple of things that really damage and impact self-worth. And this is very important for you to know. And it’s important for you to know because in order for you to develop self-worth, you are likely going to have to work through the things that damaged it. So maybe you don’t have a lot that you feel like you can celebrate yourself for. Maybe you don’t like how you operate in relationships.

This was a big one for me. How I operated in relationships wasn’t good. I didn’t honor my word. I wasn’t faithful. I was, you know, kind of slippery. And then how I operated in my life professionally was like mediocre, subpar. I didn’t feel very masterful. I didn’t feel very competent. And so it was very hard for me to celebrate myself.

Now, part of the reason for that as I discovered was that my sense of self-worth growing up was really damaged. And this is the case for a lot of men. A lot of you had your sense of self-worth or your value diminished and damaged when you were younger.

So there’s a couple of things I’m going to lay out. Number one, any type of trauma, whether it’s physical abuse, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, all of those types of traumas will and can damage your sense of self-worth. There’s many different reasons for this.

But one of the main reasons is that when you are young, you have a high level of omnipotence. You have a high level of ego. And so you think that you’re at the center of everything.

And anything that happens in your environment, you think that somehow you had something to do with it. So if you’re a kid and your parents are constantly arguing, you think that you have something to do with it. You don’t think it consciously.

But in an unconscious way, what you take on is, I’m causing this. Or I should be able to fix this. Or I should be able to solve this. Or what’s wrong with me that this keeps happening? This is very common in kids that experience divorce. Their parents get divorced. The big internal question is, what did I do to cause this? How am I responsible for this? Same thing if you experienced abuse, any type of verbal, emotional, etc.

The common trope for a lot of, for almost every single individual is, what was wrong with me that that was happening? How did I cause that? So kids take on the stuff that happens to them in their environment with their primary caretakers and around them in their primary caretaking system, your family, etc. So any type of trauma will do that. Any type of verbal abuse will do that.

Hypercriticism will do that. A lack or we’ll call it malnourishment of validation and recognition. Children need encouragement. There’s a lot of research and data that shows that children really need to be praised for their efforts specifically. Not necessarily coming first place. Not necessarily coming second or third.

But having their efforts praised really helps them to develop a robust sense of self-worth and self-value and capacity and ability, etc. So you may have grown up in an environment where nothing was ever good enough. Your parents were the classic perfectionists or they were constantly criticizing, right? You’d bring home a 95.

Where’s the other 5%? Or you only got love and validation when you performed well, right? You’d get an A-plus on a test. Boom, you’d get love and praise. You would do well in a sport. Boom, you’d get love and praise. But your love and praise was very conditional on how you operated. You didn’t receive any I love you’s, you’re a great kid just because.

And so children need that. They need to have love infused into them for no good reason whatsoever. And they also need to have their efforts praised in order for them to develop that sense of self-worth and confidence.

Now, why is this important? Why am I telling you this last part specifically? Because this is giving you a clue into what you are going to need to do. Oftentimes as men, what we think we need to do to develop self-worth is win all the time and then celebrate those wins. What likely needs to happen for you, and this is, there’s two parts I’m going to be talking to you about today, about how you can develop self-worth.

The one major thing is that you need to start to celebrate your efforts in a meaningful, continuous, consistent way. And your ability to continually reinforce and recognize your efforts, right? The alarm goes off. You said you’re going to get out of bed. You get your ass out of bed. Celebrate the effort for getting out of bed, not the outcome of getting out of bed. 

That is a big mindset shift. Because what happens for a lot of men who lack self-worth is they are chronic perfectionists or chronic procrastinators. So they’re never taking action because why bother? Or when they do take action, they shit on themselves because it’s not perfect. And both of those erode self-worth because no effort is being praised. Effort is seen as the enemy. An outcome is the god that they are praying to in some capacity. 

So hopefully that frame and context resonates with you. But the main point here is that you have to start to develop a really rigorous and meticulous system of recognizing your efforts in all areas of your life, physically, mentally, emotionally, in your health, in your finances, recognizing your effort in having the conversation with your wife or your girlfriend, not the outcome, right? It’s like, did it go perfect? Probably not. Recognize your effort in having the conversation that felt uncomfortable or confronting, right? Going to the gym. Maybe you haven’t been in weeks or months on end.

And you go to the gym. Praise your effort. Recognize your effort for doing so instead of, was the workout perfect? Did I do everything that I said I was going to do? Blah, blah, blah, blah. Recognize the effort. This isn’t about a participation trophy. This isn’t about any of that.

It’s that you start to develop a rigorous internal system of being able to validate and recognize when you are putting effort into something. That does a couple things. Number one, it starts to reinforce you have capability and capacity.

And number two, it starts to reinforce self-respect. When you can consistently put effort in, it reinforces self-respect. You start to like yourself more, even if the outcome isn’t always what you want it to be. And it de-weights or it de-indexes. That’s probably not a word. That’s probably not a way of saying it.

It downgrades the importance of the outcome, which we can oftentimes get fixated on. And you get fixated on outcomes because when you lack self-worth, those outcomes need to happen in order for you to feel like you might have value. So your worth and your value becomes externalized on the outcome, on the result.

Now, obviously, I’m not saying that those things don’t matter. Results do matter. Outcomes do matter.

Again, I’m saying that those things are important, but they are not the indicators of whether or not you have worth and value. They are independent of your worth and value. However, the man that lacks self-worth will have conflated those two things together.

Your worth and your value will be contingent on outcome and results. And for relationships, this is brutal. This is where anxious attachments go wild. And I’ll be doing a separate video on that. So start to recognize and validate your efforts that you put in in every single place in your life. Journal it.

Recognize yourself real time. I’m proud of myself that I put that effort in. I really love how much effort I put into that conversation, into that work project, into getting out of bed in the morning.

You know, it was a battle, but I did it. Really start to recognize yourself day in and day out and shift the culture in your inner dialogue. The second thing I’m going to say, and then we’ll wrap it up, is release the beast from the basement.

All of you have a kind of beast in the basement of your psyche, of your body, of your mind that is waiting to be let out, that is really designed to charge you towards something meaningful and that is meant to fight for your sense of value and worth. And that part of you, if you experience trauma or abuse or neglect or abandonment or hypercriticism or whatever it was that you experience that diminished your sense of self-worth, that thing got locked away. That hunger to pursue meaning, that vitality, that wants to pursue something hard, right? That wants to actively pursue hard things and do hard things.

That part of you got locked away and what replaced it was a voice of harshness or criticism or feebleness or meekness instead. And so you have to be willing to release a little bit of the beast from the basement that’s going to start to contend with that inner dialogue that is constantly shitting on you, putting you down, hypercriticizing you, judging you, telling you that you can’t do it, telling you that you’re not worth it. You know, when you look at your girlfriend, I want to have that conversation or take this to the next level.

I want to approach that woman and it’s like, you can’t do it. You’re not worthy of it. You have to find the fire inside of yourself to fight that conversation.

There has to be a bit of confrontation inside of you that says, I’m no longer going to stand for this. I am no longer going to speak to myself like this because this is the last thing I want to drive home. It is very common that when you lack self-worth, you are carrying on the legacy of what you experienced earlier on in life that diminished your self-worth, okay? So you become the legacy of the person who neglected you, abused you, abandoned you, criticized you, never gave you the love and affection that you needed, made you question your own self-worth.

We take on that commentary internally, that belief structure internally, and we have to be able to battle that a little bit. So you have to release the beast from the basement. Let me know your thoughts on this one.

Please don’t forget to man it forward and share this episode with somebody that you know needs it. Until next week.

Men’s Work Sessions – Four Stories, Four Strengths, Four Struggles

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Talking points: trauma, validation, mindset, relationships

Recently, I put out a call on Instagram: who wants to join me for a short, recorded Q&A. We had a TON of respondents, but I wanted to highlight four in particular that I feel are unique, but at the same time offer a window into what so many men endure.

These are everyday men from completely different walks of life, all different ages, but united in a single fact: they’re doing the work. I’m deeply grateful to each of them for agreeing to be on the show.

(00:00:00) – The story of S, six years sober, who struggles with people pleasing and feeling stuck

(00:16:04) – C’s struggle with internal validation and the relationship with his father

(00:35:15) – D’s working on feeling worthy, but his relationships have never felt safe or trustworthy

(00:56:47) – P wrestles with some of the contradictions in the self-help space and past trauma

David Whyte – On Forgiveness, Fear, And Being Fully Human

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Talking points: masculinity, culture, gratitude, anger, poetry

I don’t typically get starstruck or awed in interviews, even though I’ve talked to many incredible people. But David? Well, he’s had an immense impact on my life, and so much of my work and way of thinking lives inspired by him. He joined me in Seattle and shared so much wisdom, beauty, and of course, poetry. Dig into this one.

(00:00:00) – What is the “conversational nature of reality”, why the unknown is so uncomfortable, and the fear of “descent”

(00:18:44) – How the need for control kills off meaning and purpose, and how real poetry and philosophy come from NOT knowing what to say

(00:25:53) – David reads “Blessing of the Morning Light”

(00:32:42) – How does a man start building a relationship to the unknown parts of himself, and David’s relationship with his father

(00:44:24) – The role of anger and the power of poetry

(00:56:16) – On forgiveness and male friendship

(01:31:57) – How do you properly thank someone who’s had a profound impact on you?

David Whyte is an internationally renowned poet and author, and a scintillating and moving speaker. Behind these talents lies a very physical attempt to give voice to the wellsprings of human identity, human striving and, most difficult of all, the possibilities for human happiness. He draws from hundreds of memorized poems, his own and those of other beloved poets such as Wordsworth, Emily Dickinson, Keats, Pablo Neruda, Fleur Adcock and the sonnets of Shakespeare. He is the author of ten books of poetry, three books of prose on the transformative nature of work; a widely-acclaimed, best-selling book of essays, and an extensive audio collection.

Connect with David

-Website: https://davidwhyte.com/

-Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidjwhyte/

-Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PoetDavidWhyte/

-YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@poetdavidwhyte

-SubStack: https://davidwhyte.substack.com/

Jason Wilson – Becoming The Man The Moment Demands

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Talking points: masculinity, culture, race

It’s always a highlight of my life speaking with Jason. This man and his tireless work shaping comprehensive, authentic men is nothing short of inspiring. Deeply grateful to have sat down with him to dig into the nuances of his new book (out Jan 28!), the manosphere, Black America, and what modern men miss out on. Listen. To. This.

(00:00:00) – How Jason’s environment shaped his perception of manhood, and the challenges of hypermasculinity

(00:11:02) – Jason’s take on the idea that men need to build value because they don’t have any inherently

(00:17:40) – What do young men find appealing about the manosphere, in spite of the reactivity and misogyny?

(00:23:39) – Why men don’t share their emotions with women, and what Jason wishes more non-Black men knew about growing up in Black America

(00:35:09) – Do men need extreme hardship in order to have self-respect?

(00:42:11) – On Jason’s new book and being a Comprehensive Man

(00:50:25) – What aspect of a comprehensive man is missing the most in modern culture?

Jason Wilson is the director of the Cave of Adullam Transformational Training Academy and bestselling author of Cry Like a Man and Battle Cry. Since 2005, Jason has been mentoring boys and young men, teaching them how to rise above life’s inevitable challenges. His impactful work earned him the President’s Volunteer Service Award from President Obama, and acclaimed actor Laurence Fishburne executive produced the award-winning ESPN Films documentary about Jason’s work, titled The Cave of Adullam. He is a man of the Most High, a faithful husband to Nicole, and a devoted father to Alexis and Jason II.

Connect with Jason

-Website: https://mrjasonwilson.com/

-NEW Book: The Man The Moment Demands: https://mrjasonwilson.com/the-man-the-moment-demands/

-Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrjasonowilson

-Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mrjasonowilson/

-YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/MrJasonOWilson

A Man’s Guide To Inner Child Work

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Talking points: psychology

You’ve probably seen this idea floating around social media for a while, and it’s a solid framework for healing. But what does it actually mean, how does it work, and is it worthwhile if you’re a man? This week, let’s talk about what inner child work entails.

(00:00:00) – “What’s hidden in the father is revealed in the son”, and what inner child work actually means

(00:10:10) – The main benefits of this kind of work, and where to start

(00:17:35) – Two useful journaling exercises, and how to “father yourself”

(00:24:23) – Next steps

Transcript

All right, team. Welcome back to the ManTalks Show. Connor Beaton here.

And today, this is actually a video that so many of you requested because I mentioned it in a previous video about disorganized attachment. I’m going to be doing a man’s guide to inner child work. What actually is that? Now, for the purpose of today’s conversation, I’m going to be talking and referring to this as fathering yourself, fathering the boy that exists inside of you.

And there’s a great quote by Friedrich Nietzsche who said that what is hidden in the father is revealed in the son. What’s hidden in the father is revealed in the son. And that quote is going to be important for some of the stuff that we’re going to talk about later on.

But one of the things I’ll just say right here is that it’s very common that the thing or the things that your father lacked are the things that the boy in you is actually needing for you as a man to contribute and give to him. So I’m going to say that again because it might sound a little like, what? But I want you to write this down. I’m going to give you a question in a second.

The boy in you, the things that your father lacked are the things that the boy in you, the younger version of you, the younger subconscious part of you is looking for from you. So as an example, if your father was a flaccid wet noodle that had zero connection to his anger, never stood up for himself, never had boundaries, the boy in you needs you to be somebody who is able to set boundaries, who’s able to say no, who’s able to develop a robust spine that can stand up for himself, that can stand up for that boy because otherwise that boy is going to feel like he has to do it all the time. So that’s just a bit of a context and container because sometimes inner child work doesn’t really land with a lot of men.

They’re like, I don’t know, but like inner child, is this really for me? So think about it as you are fathering your younger self. You’re fathering that boy inside of you. And so a great question that you can write down right now is, what was my father missing or what did I need from my father that my younger self is needing from me? What did I need from my father that my younger self was, is needing from me? And again, that can be compassion.

It can be discipline. It can be love. It can be empathy.

It can be a whole bunch of things. So what is inner child work? I’m going to go through a couple of different pieces. I’m going to talk about what inner child work is, why it’s relevant and important, and I’m going to give you some very specific exercises that you can deploy in order to begin to work on that younger self and kind of reclaim that boy, okay, and integrate him into your personality and integrate him into your psyche.

So the concept of the inner child refers to the childlike part of your subconscious mind that holds all of those emotional wounds, fears, unmet needs, the pain of neglect or abandonment or criticism that you’ve tried to either disconnect from or that you didn’t know how to deal with as a child, all right? So if you were an eight-year-old boy and your parents went through a really nasty divorce, that eight-year-old boy probably didn’t know how to deal with that. Seeing the yelling, seeing the screaming, not seeing dad or mom for sometimes weeks at a time, he didn’t really know what to do with that. And so it would have left a lot of question marks, especially if he wasn’t supported properly through that experience, and it will interrupt the way that you go through relationships as an adult.

So inner child work involves connecting to, beginning to understand, beginning to reconcile with the pain that that younger self felt. Because in all of you, there is your younger versions, right? They don’t disappear. Five-year-old you, hasn’t disappeared.

Still in there somewhere. 10-year-old you, hasn’t disappeared. Still in there somewhere, right? The angsty teenager that was listening to Metallica and punching holes in the wall, still in there, right? Still a part of you.

So part of this is about reconnecting to that much younger self and beginning to understand what did that younger version of me really need? Because for most of you, and this is why this is important, okay? This is why inner child work is important. What happens in relational conflict, right? So for example, my good friend and mentor, Dewey Freeman, has this great saying, we’re wounded in relationship, we have to heal in relationship. What that means is that in your adult relationships, the conflicts, the challenges that you go through in your marriage, in your relationship with your girlfriend or your boyfriend, those challenges are oftentimes, not always, but oftentimes those challenges are connected to a pain, an obstacle, a hurt that you felt early on in life, in one of your early attachments as a child.

Your relationship to your mom, your relationship to your dad. So another example on this front, if you keep getting into arguments with your partner and you think that they’re too harsh, they’re too critical, and then you really start to sit with it and you were a boy who was criticized a lot by his mom, you probably have a high level of sensitivity to that. And maybe as a boy, you never felt like you could stand up to her.

And so you didn’t develop the boundary and the skill to be able to stand up to your mom. And how that shows up in your adult relationships is you still don’t stand up to your partner and you develop a ton of resentment towards them. And you have a high level of sensitivity towards their disappointment, their frustrations.

If they want anything done differently, their criticisms, there’s just a high level of sensitivity to that. So being able to develop the skill of standing up to them, setting a boundary, being able to receive disappointment sometimes from your partner, which is absolutely necessary in relationships, is going to help you parent that younger self that comes online. Because a lot of the times, and this is the last thing I’ll say about this part and I’ll move into what do we actually do, a lot of the times you regress developmentally when you get into conflict with your partner.

So what do I mean by that? When you get into an argument that pokes at or hits on that pain from childhood, that feeling of abandonment, that feeling of neglect, that feeling of being hyper-criticized or never enough, when that part gets activated, right? Your partner says something that pokes at that, like, oh, I never feel like I’m enough. You regress developmentally. So you move from being that 28-year-old, 35-year-old, 55-year-old, 65-year-old man back down into that five-year-old boy, and you begin to respond from that five-year-old boy.

You become overly emotional. Maybe you start to attack their character. You start to pout and shut down, all sorts of things, right? So, but what happens is you regress developmentally.

And that’s because the pain is not from that 35-year-old self. It’s from that five-year-old version of you that needs somebody to look after him and that somebody is you. So why is it important? It’s important first and foremost for being able to heal trauma.

If you experienced trauma as a kid, right? Abuse, neglect, abandonment, all of those things can have a traumatic impact on a child. And that child, again, will live inside of you and will need a caretaker who is the adult version of you. Healing emotional wounds, being able to address some of that childhood hurt.

If you were bullied as a kid, if you had a lot of fear as a kid that wasn’t tended to, right? Let’s say you kept having like reoccurring nightmares, but your parents would like lock you in your room and no one really supported you as a kid with that fear or with the shame that you were dealing with. Inner child work can be incredibly helpful for improving your sense of self-esteem and your sense of self-worth. So a big thing that happens is when you are early on in life, this is where your sense of self-esteem is starting to develop.

Once you enter into being sort of five or six, you’re starting to develop this curiosity for how well can I do things, right? How well can I jump off of this? How well can I color? How well can I write? How well can I ride my bike? And what can happen is that in those formative years of development, your sense of self-worth can be really impacted again through criticism, through events that have happened in your environment. And that younger self will be holding on to that pain of I’m not worthy. I’m not good enough.

There’s something wrong with me. And again, it’s not the adult version of you. It’s not the 48 year old corporate executive or a construction worker that’s standing there like I’m such a piece of crap.

What’s wrong with me? It’s that younger self that had the wounding happen way back when. And so the importance of inner child work is that we work with when the wounding happened, okay? That’s really important. We work with where the wounding happened because we can talk about it conceptually as adults.

And as adults, we can intellectualize, rationalize our way around it. But when we can connect the pain of what that must’ve been like as a child who didn’t have all of these beautiful cognitive abilities to be able to rationalize like, oh, my dad said that because he was an asshole and his father beat him. Or my mom said that because she was an alcoholic and she was drunk all the time because of her trauma.

As a child, you just didn’t have that conceptually. So we need to work with where and when that hurt occurred. The next thing is that you are going to dramatically improve your relationships because when you are not responsible for the pain that your inner child is carrying, that younger version of you, it gets offloaded and outsourced onto your partner.

So very, very, very common that people who are in relationships where dysfunction is happening, what’s really going on, again, this isn’t every single time, but what happens quite a bit is that you project the hurt from that younger self onto your partner. Or you expect them to take care of it. You expect them to tend to you.

You expect them to, you know, nurture you and caretake you back into healing. So really important that as you do this inner child work, you can move more into a place of maturity. You will no longer be projecting that childlike expectation onto your partner, hoping that they’re going to save you.

They’re going to fix you. They’re going to constantly validate you and your experiences. You’ll actually have the tools and the skills to do that for yourself.

Because again, when you look at this from the frame of fathering yourself, it’s generally the pieces that you needed from your parents. So those are some of the real reasons. I mean, there’s, the other one is like, you’re going to, you’re going to be able to release some playfulness and some creativity that are often bound up in this.

Imagination is another really big one. I’ve noticed that when I work with people around doing really focused, intense inner child work, oftentimes what happens is that their imagination starts to come back online in a really beautiful way. Because usually imagination gets co-opted by the pain and the trauma that you experienced in childhood.

And what I mean by that is that when you experience a traumatic event as a kid, whether it’s a small one or a really big one, right? You’re getting bullied at school, criticized at home. You don’t feel like you fit in and belong. What that does is co-ops your imagination to look for all the ways that it might show up and happen again in your adult life.

Because trauma co-ops that energy in your imagination to try and make sure that it never happens again. And so your imagination turns into a kind of, I don’t want to say enemy, but it turns into this, this tool that is constantly imagining all of the ways that you might be hurt or betrayed again or abandoned again or abused again or neglected again. Instead of a tool for imagining positive outcomes, creative outcomes, positive possibilities, it gets co-opted for just imagining all of the crap that that might go wrong.

Okay. So now that we have what child work is, inner child work is, and why it’s so important and what can happen on the other side of that, I’m going to give you a couple different options for how you can begin to do this work. Now, some of this work, I really just strongly recommend doing with somebody that is skilled in it, right? Because there’s nothing like being led through it.

There’s some exercises that I can’t exactly give you via this video, but I’m going to give you some ideas that you can begin with. So number one is reconnecting to your inner child. Now you might, I don’t know if you can actually see this, but this is a picture that I have on my desk.

And this is a picture of me as a boy, sitting in a bucket, having a bath on the balcony after digging in the dirt endlessly. So what I want you to do is to find an ideal photo of your younger self and a photo that represents the deepest part of your younger self that you loved. 

So for me, I love this picture because I look so happy. I look free. There’s innocence there. It’s very, very playful. I’m like, sitting in a bucket. I got a bandaid on my knee. So I want you to go and find and just connect to a picture of your younger self.

So you might need to connect with your parents and get some photos and whatnot, but find a photo that really resonates with the highest version of your younger self, or that is sort of embodies the most beautiful or innocent or playful or loving or kind version of your younger self, where when you look at that picture, you’re like, oh, that kid wasn’t effed up. He wasn’t so upset. And just try and find a photo that you can connect with.

And maybe it’s not so much about that kid wasn’t effed up, but that kid was in a good space. And I really love and can connect to that child. So find a photo. And that’s step number one. 

Step number two is begin to reconnect to that younger self. So start to recall childhood memories. Reflect on some of your memories from your childhood, the good, the bad, the ugly, some of your most positive, fond memories. 

Now, for some of you that have either had trauma or just have had events where certain things unfolded that you don’t remember a lot of your childhood, this is where photos, talking to your family members, talking to your siblings, talking to your parents, talking to your aunts and uncles, those types of things are really going to help to inform and fill in. And the things that you’re really looking for are, what was I like? What was I going through? What was I questioning? What did I really enjoy doing? Who did I like being around? And if it works for you, you can close your eyes and kind of visualize it.

You can spend some time trying to just recall some of those memories from being a kid. And really just what you’re doing is building the foundation of the relationship with that younger self. Because for many of you that have never done anything like this, that younger version of you is probably going to feel so far away.

What he was like, what he did, what he enjoyed, who he liked being around, what he didn’t like, those types of things, they’re going to feel far away depending on how old you are. The next thing is that you can begin to sort of visualize that kid. And some people find it helpful to try and draw an image of them, to find a picture of them, to try and connect with family members about them.

And so just start to really get a sense of like, what was that inner child like? And then list out some of the characteristics of that kid. So what was that younger version like? Like for me, I was super playful, really high energy, kind of mischievous, didn’t mind getting into trouble, loved to be in nature. And so really try and get into outside of the memories, like what was that young boy actually like? Now, once you’ve got that foundation and you feel some type of connection with him, this is where you can start to go deeper.

So the next layer that you can start to work on is a bit of a dialogue with that younger self. And what I recommend is you can either journal, which is going to be much easier. Or if you have somebody that you can work with that does something like IFS, internal family systems, or parts work, or does like somatic processing, gestalt, attachment theory, attachment-based work, they can guide you through some inner child practices that can help you.

But this exercise is really helpful. So there’s two ways to do the journaling exercise with your inner child. Number one, I call it the pen pal. And the pen pal is that you write a full letter to that inner child. So it’s just from you as an adult. Hey, I’m 36. This is what’s going on in my life. This is how things are going. This is how things have unfolded.

Just kind of like everything that you want that younger self to know. What do you want that younger self to know? And then what do you want to know from that younger self? And then you’re going to set it aside and you’re going to leave it for however long, half a day, a day, two, three days, not too long though. Don’t like wait months.

And then you’re going to sit back down, pen and paper, and you’re going to read that letter back as if you were that younger self. And then you’re going to respond and you’re going to write a whole letter back to your adult self. And you just repeat this process as often as you want.

Usually I recommend that you do this for a month or two, and that will really give you a develop a much stronger bond with that younger version. And what you’re really exploring in this pen pal situation is what did they need? What did that younger self need? What do they need from you? What have they been disappointed in by you? What do they need you to develop more of in order for them to feel taken care of? What does that younger self want you to know about what it was like for them growing up that didn’t really ever get acknowledged by mom, by dad, by the people that they were surrounded by. And then you are trying to reinforce that child.

Here’s what I’m doing. Here’s the action I’m willing to take, acknowledging their experience, acknowledging that it was challenging for them, being able to reinforce what you’re working on as an adult to parent them and really work with them. And then the other option, if you don’t want to do pen pal, is that you just do like a straight up conversation.

So you can have a piece of paper and you ask a question and the inner child responds. And then you respond to that and you just have this back and forth dialogue. I really like the pen pal situation.

I think I’ve seen that work better than just the more dialogue oriented version. But that back and forth can also be helpful just depending on you and what works for you. So try both. Or if you feel a gut instinct towards one versus the other, then go for that. The next thing is about really reparenting. Now you’ve probably heard this word a lot.

I like to call it fathering yourself, right? Fathering yourself. That you are fathering that younger boy inside of you that needed attention, that needed validation, that needed whatever it was that you needed growing up. So fathering yourself really is about identifying what that younger version of you needed and then being able to create a system and a strategy to support that younger self.

Now some of this is going to be very clear and direct and some of it’s going to be much more vague and ambiguous. So for example, if what your younger self needed in his household was compassion, you are going to have to embark on the journey of starting to be more compassionate with yourself. That means setting boundaries with tearing a strip out of yourself whenever you get something wrong.

That means having more willingness to lean towards self-forgiveness and developing the compassion that that younger self just did not get within the household. So here’s what I want you to do. Step number one, identify and through that last exercise of the journaling, the pen pal or the dialogue, you should have a sense of what some of the things are that your younger self actually needed and is needing from you.

So step number one in the reparenting is what are the key or what are the core things that my younger self needed from my caretakers that he didn’t get? So what are those things specifically? Did he need compassion? Did he need validation? Did he need somebody to just play with him once in a while because he was freaking lonely? Like what did he actually need? Step number two is what emotional needs did he not get met? So what emotional needs? Did he not get compassion? Did he not get words of affirmation? Did he not get somebody that knew how to be firm with him and help him develop discipline? What was actually missing for him? And then step number three is beginning to deploy those behaviors and looking for opportunities in your adult relationships to build that, to develop those missing areas. So again, if your younger self needed a dad to stand up for him, where in your life are you not standing up for yourself that you can do so? Maybe you aren’t setting very good boundaries in your relationship. You just chronically say yes to everything.

You’re like this notorious people pleaser. That is a great place for you to begin to just, okay, I’m going to start saying no once a day. Just once a day I’m going to say an active no with no explanation. I’m not going to say why I’m doing this. I’m just going to say no. And so you start to parent yourself.

You start to father yourself by providing that younger version within you with the things that he needed in your life today. And that might also look like visualizing him in a conversation, right? If you’re in a relationship and there’s conflict and that younger self was terrified of conflict because conflict was loud and volatile or violent when you were growing up in your household, you can visualize when any type of conflict happens in your life, visualize taking that younger self, putting him behind the man in you. Because what can happen, again, when we go through ruptures in our adult relationships, what often happens is we regress.

We regress psychologically to that younger self and we become that boy who’s like, oh crap, I’m terrified of conflict. I don’t want to be here. I’m shutting down. Get me out of this situation. And so you can visualize having that boy standing behind you like nobody, like you’re good. I got this. I’m going to have this conversation. You don’t have to worry about it. And you start to connect to the more mature adult masculine energy within you that is protecting that younger self from the challenge and the conflict that’s unfolding in your life.

So you start to deploy the things that you know that that child needed younger in life. Lastly, well, there’s a couple more steps, but the next one is finding opportunities for playing creativity. So you can ask the question, what type of creative expression and play did my younger self need that he didn’t get? And this can be, you know, maybe you wanted to paint when you were younger.

Maybe you wanted to learn how to draw, um, sort of like realistic drawings. Maybe you wanted to learn an instrument or learn how to dance in a certain way, or I don’t know, like learn how to recite Shakespeare. I don’t know what it is for you, but connecting to that younger self and how he wanted to play and how he wanted to be creative and then beginning to give yourself time to do that.

So you might want to say, okay, younger me always wanted to learn how to play the guitar. So I’m going to buy a guitar and I’m going to schedule 30 to 30 minute blocks a week where I just start to learn the basics. And I connect with that younger self that I’m intentionally just going to play. It’s just about having fun. It’s not about becoming BB King or John Mayer. It is just about me having a little bit of joy in my life that allows me to be playful and feel youthful and feel creative.

And so you carve out specific time where you kind of just get to be that kid and you get to be a beginner at something, you know, as adults, we can get so rigid because the expectation is that when we embark on anything, we should be exceptional straight out the gates. And when you’re a kid, that’s, you know, hopefully you have the freedom to just suck at something, to just be really bad at something in the beginning. And as you take on this exercise of finding creative, playful time, you create a distraction-free, mindful space for play, which is very, very important, even as adults.

The very last piece is to really reflect as you go through this journey, try and keep a journal of how this progress is going, you know, try and see if you can listen for the voice of that younger self, that inner child that pops up sometime and is like, man, thank you so much for handling that conflict. Or that was great. Thank you for dealing with that. Or, you know, I really loved playing guitar today. That was so much fun. And just notice what that inner child is saying.

Does he need something different from you? Is he validating how you’re showing up? Does he appreciate how you’re standing up for him and for yourself? So keeping a journal as you go through this process to just refine and get a sense of, you know, how are you doing? How is that younger self responding? And then the last piece, honestly, is really about finding somebody that can help you work with this inner child, because the reality is, is that if you experienced a lot of heavy pain in your childhood, trauma, abuse, neglect, abandonment, it’s likely that as you get in touch with that younger self, you’re also going to get in touch with a lot of the really heavy emotions that that younger self had to feel, and that that younger self received, that he didn’t know how to deal with. And that can feel overwhelming for you, even as an adult, like, oh, I’m connecting with my inner child. But what I’m connecting with is this well of grief, or this really deep sense of loneliness, or a really big amount of fear in lacking trust towards relationships and other people.

And that can be challenging to deal with, to say the least. So having somebody that can guide you through certain exercises can be very, very, very helpful. Because again, and the last thing I’ll say is that the inner child work is really about acknowledging and healing that younger version of you that still exists within your emotional and psychological landscape.

And a big part of that is kind of signaling to him, to that younger version of you, that you have the capacity to be with whatever he’s experiencing—the frustration, the disappointment,  the hurt, and the pain—that you are willing to sit with him and feel those things that likely other people were not there for him with.

Adam Nisenson – Navigating And Healing From Infidelity

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Talking points: relationships, infidelity, betrayal

The damage from infidelity in a relationship can be complex, traumatic, and last far longer than you might think. What’s more, there aren’t a lot of men-specific resources out there. Fortunately Adam is changing that. If you or someone you know has experienced infidelity, strongly encourage you to share this one.

(00:00:00) – Why Adam wrote his book, and the stigmas men experience when they’re cheated on

(00:05:13) – How important is it that all parties see the part they may have played, and what NOT to do

(00:15:35) – What leads a woman to have an affair, what to do when you find out, and what happens to a man’s identity when betrayed

(00:26:10) – Navigating jealousy and grief

(00:40:27) – What’s possible in the reconciliation process?

(00:43:53) – On creating safety and repair after betrayal

Adam Nisenson, also known as the Betrayal Shrink, is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Certified Sex Addiction Therapist. He’s dedicated to helping men navigate the complex emotions and challenges of betrayal trauma. Adam understands firsthand what it’s like to be a betrayed partner, which gives him a unique perspective on how to support clients on their healing journey. He creates a safe and understanding space where clients can explore their feelings and work through their trauma with compassion and wisdom.

Adam graduated from Pacifica Graduate Institute with degrees in Marriage and Family Therapy, Professional Clinical Counseling, and Depth Psychology. He’s committed to addressing important issues like betrayal, infidelity, sex addiction, and the life challenges that come with them. With Adam, the journey isn’t just about recovery; it’s about personal growth and rediscovery.

Connect with Adam

-Book: A Man’s Guide To Partner Betrayal: https://www.sanopress.com/books/mgtpb

-Website: https://betrayalshrink.com

-Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/betrayalshrink

Anton Nootenboom – Serving Men’s Mental Health—One Step At A Time

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Talking points: masculinity, culture

Honored to have connected with the Barefoot Dutchman himself this week. In case you hadn’t heard, Anton Nootenboom recently finished walking over 3100 miles—barefoot—from LA to NYC to support men’s mental health. Yes. Barefoot. We dig into the why, the how, and Anton’s core philosophies. Listen in, team.

(00:00:00) – Intro, and what the mental and emotional strain was like

(00:15:39) – Why Anton wanted to raise awareness for men’s mental health

(00:22:04) – What are men struggling with the most these days, and what needs to change

(00:37:48) – The struggle of shifting perspectives on men’s culpability and responsibility, and what to say to younger guys

(00:44:12) – Why is it important for men to do hard things?

Anton Nootenboom is a military veteran with three tours in Afghanistan. He faced severe mental health challenges afterwards, including depression and suicidal thoughts. He found healing in barefoot walking and speaking out about his experiences. Today, his journey embodies his message: men should feel empowered to seek help and talk about mental health.

The #BraveMenTalk initiative, launched in partnership with Barebarics, emphasizes that one man dies by suicide every minute globally. Anton’s walk aimed to raise critical funds and encourage men to embrace a new type of bravery—one that fights against stigma and opens up pathways for support.

Connect with Anton:

-Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebarefoot_dutchman/

-TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@barefootdutchie

-Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anton.nootenboom.3

A Man’s Guide To Disorganized Attachment

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Talking points: attachment, mindset, psychology

Diving into the deep end for 2025, team. The disorganized attachment style is complex, hard to manage, and my heart goes out to anyone who struggles with this. But over the years of training and study, and working with clients with disorganized attachment, I’ve found some things that help. Here’s your primer, team.

(00:00:00) – Why disorganized attachment is so challenging, what makes it different, and the biggest origin points

(00:09:26) – Digging deeper: how does disorganized attachment get formed?

(00:19:47) – Signs of disorganized attachment as an adult

(00:32:05) – How do you heal this?

(00:43:16) – On the importance of working with your nervous system, and one final piece of advice

Transcript

All right, everybody, welcome back to the ManTalks Show, Connor Beaton here. Today we’re going to be talking about disorganized attachment. This is going to be a full and robust guide to disorganized attachment.

I’m going to define it for you. I’m going to tell you about how it gets formed, what actually creates that disorganized attachment, how it shows up in your life or in your partner’s life or in somebody’s life that you know, and then what do you do? How do you actually begin to work with and move through your disorganized attachment style? Now, admittedly, this is a challenging attachment style for a number of reasons. Just as in the title, as in the name of it, it’s disorganized.

The person really struggles to stay connected to any type of intimacy and relationship. There’s a desire and a fear of intimacy. There is a desire for closeness, but a fear of abandonment.

So the way I like to break it down is, “I don’t know how to be in relationship.” That’s the sort of moniker or narrative going on inside of an individual with disorganized attachment. You could also put on the sort of title of, I deeply crave intimacy and relationship, but I’m also afraid of it, and I don’t know how to make it happen.

So for the disorganized person, there is one real big component that is different from almost every other attachment style, whether it’s avoidant, fearful avoidant, anxious, et cetera, which is that there is a kind of hypervigilance towards any small relational changes. Any changes within their partner, any change within the relationship itself can send that disorganized person into a bit of a spiral, a panic about the relationship being changed or that being a threat. Because for the disorganized person, it’s almost always the case that their disorganized attachment style was created because of painful inconsistencies in their childhood.

I’ll just give you a quick example and then we’ll dive in a little bit deeper. But imagine that you’re a kid and you bring a book or a toy to your parent and they smile at you, right? You’re two, you’re three years old, they smile at you and they take the book from you and they start reading the book. And then you get off their lap and you walk away and you go grab another book and you bring back the book to your parent and they smack the book out of your hand and they yell at you and you start crying and you’re forced to go away and leave them.

That’s very much the case for a lot of disorganized attached people. In their childhood, they were surrounded by inconsistencies. One moment a caregiver would be loving and kind and connected and the next moment they’d be abusive and yelling or cold and shut down and there would kind of be this unpredictable cycle that would play out at home where the child never really got any type of grounding or foundation of what to expect in relationship.

And this is a very, very important part. I mean, if you look at attachment just in general, what you’ll see is that on average people need 35% to 40% of the time when we’re a kid, when you’re a kid, you need 35% to 40% of the time for a parent or a caregiver to understand that there’s a need and to be able to meet and fulfill that need without punishment, without breaking relationship, without disconnecting from you, yelling at you, making you wrong. You need to begin to realize that there can be a consistent pattern of I can bring you what I need and what I want.

I can try and connect with you and you’ll meet those needs. You’ll connect back with me. You’ll engage in relationship with me.

For a disorganized person, that didn’t happen. That consistency, even a 25% of the time consistency of being able to see, oh, there’s a pattern here. When I bring mom this book, mom’s happy.

When I ask dad to play with me, dad engages with me, right? There’s not a consistent response to that child and their needs. Think about disorganized attachment as a form of attachment style that’s really characterized by a lack of an internal system or structure that is designed for managing relationship and emotional needs. The actual internal systems of being able to regulate emotional needs, being able to know that other people care about your emotional needs, and being able to trust relationships, feel safe in relationships, those internal systems never really got fully developed within a disorganized attached person.

Now, this doesn’t mean that they’re defective. It doesn’t mean that you’re broken. It doesn’t mean that there’s something fundamentally wrong with you.

It simply means that the circumstances that you grew up in were not conducive for you to develop that, really to sort of like pour the concrete and the foundation of your internal home with regards to relationships and your emotional needs. Now, the good thing is that you can learn these things, all right? I’ve started to look at a lot of the conversation that’s out there around disorganized, and I’ve seen your comments. I mean, the comments that I get from you guys on YouTube are phenomenal.

I really, really love how much you guys engage with this content around attachment. And what breaks my heart quite a bit is that I see a lot of people that are either hating on avoidance and disorganized people or disorganized people that genuinely feel hopeless. And so if you are a disorganized attached person, please know that you are not hopeless.

You’re not fundamentally broken. And I’m going to walk you through a very deep understanding of what created this, how it up in your life, and what you can actually do to go about building an internal system and structure to be able to engage in relationships and trust intimacy and feel safe and bring your emotional needs forward and meet your own emotional needs. Because that’s one of the other hallmarks of the disorganized person is that they don’t know how to meet their own needs or have others meet their needs.

So last piece about the disorganized attached person, and then we’ll get into the real formation of it. The disorganized attachment can really be identified as a mix of fear and confusion. Confusion is a big, big, big player when it comes to the disorganized person.

They’re very confused. They’re confused about how to create intimacy. They’re confused about how to get their needs met.

They’re confused about whether or not they should stay or go. Now, a lot of people experience that. So just know that if you are thinking about, I don’t know if I should stay or go in a relationship, that doesn’t mean that you’re disorganized attached.

But for the disorganized attached person, this is a pattern. It’s like they just deeply have this sense of, I don’t know if I’m in the right relationship. I don’t know if I should stay in this relationship.

I don’t know if I’m good enough to be in this relationship. Sometimes disorganized attached people are confused about why the other person would even choose to be with them. So confusion is a really, really big, big part of this.

Remember, disorganized attachment, the hallmark of it is unpredictability. I’m going to drive this home a couple times because I haven’t heard enough people talk about this. Because in the wounding is the remedy, right? In the wounding is the remedy.

If unpredictability was the kind of hallmark of what created this interrupted attachment style, this attachment style where you struggle to maintain relationship, then predictability, as boring as it may sound initially, predictability is really going to be a huge, huge part of the reconciliation, the healing, the rewiring of your system, which we’re going to go into. The last piece to this, the last piece I want to add on to this is that your primary caretakers, it’s very, very likely that if you are a disorganized attached person, one or both of your primary caretakers or whoever your primary caretakers were, they were a source of comfort and fear and deep confusion. And this led to a kind of internal conflict and unrest where you don’t ever really know whether it’s safe to approach somebody that you love.

You don’t ever really know unequivocally whether the other person wants to be with you, wants to know how you’re feeling, wants to know what you want. And so there’s a kind of mistrust that happens that it’s not okay for me to be in relationships or relationships just aren’t okay for me. So how does disorganized attachment get formed? Well, I’ve laid out a couple of things already, but I’m going to go a little bit deeper into this.

So it’s usually a response from childhood and a response to your primary caregivers. And there’s a few things that can cause this. So the first one is certain types of abuse and neglect.

Depending on how that abuse looked and how that neglect looked, for example, maybe you had a parent that was very loving and kind sometimes, but just wouldn’t show up to your sporting events or your music recitals or whatever it was. And this was like sort of sporadic. Sometimes they’d be nice at home.

Sometimes they’d be loud and violent. Sometimes they’d show up to your school events and sometimes they wouldn’t. And there would be no rhyme or reason.

There was sort of like no predicting what they were going to do. And you’re kind of on the edge all the time of like, are they going to show up? Are they going to yell at me? Like, I just really have no idea and I can’t figure it out. The next one obviously is trauma.

Trauma can play a big role. And again, here we’re talking about acute trauma, the capital T trauma of physical abuse, direct emotional abuse, sexual abuse, et cetera. Those types of abuse specifically coming from a primary caregiver or somebody adjacent to the primary caregiver that the primary caregiver likely should have protected you from or known about or et cetera, some version of that.

So trauma will and definitely can create a disorganized attachment. Because again, trauma can create fear for some people, really deep-rooted fear. And for others, it can create deep-rooted confusion.

And again, for the disorganized attached person, you can kind of think of it as like the cloud over top of them and the relationship. And they’re constantly sort of wondering and thinking and not really too sure. And they can never really settle in and exhale into a relationship and know that they’re okay.

They’re safe. They’re wanted there. And that’s clear.

The next piece is inconsistency and unpredictability from primary caregivers. So you had a mom that was sometimes emotionally okay, other times bursting out into tears, other times yelling and screaming, other times throwing things, other times not talking to you for hours on end. And there was this kind of emotional whirlwind where you just like, you never knew what was going to happen.

You’re like, I just do not know what to expect. There’s no rhyme or reason. There’s no ability to predict how she’s going to be feeling.

Or you had a father who was there and present and then not there or loud and abusive or jovial and happy and kind of cycled through these sort of like really intense emotions, maybe really close and connected to you and then very distant and far away. And so again, this unpredictability and this inconsistency, when you’re a kid, your nervous system and your brain are actually wiring. And they’re wiring for many things.

But one of the biggest things that your nervous system and your brain are actually wiring for when you’re a kid is relationship. Your nervous system is literally, your body is literally wiring for, how should I feel when I’m in relationship with people? What should I come to expect? And the brain is doing the same thing. Remember, your brain is a pattern recognition machine.

And so in part, the brain, when you’re a kid and you’re growing up in an environment that’s really inconsistent and there’s really unpredictable behaviors and emotions and situations and circumstances that happen, your brain wires to not be able to recognize consistent patterns of safety, security, attachment, connection. So this is one of the big, big parts where your caretaker as a parent or whomever may have cycled or alternated through these behaviors of loving, kind, harmful, abusive, present, disconnected, available, unavailable, and just generally left you as a kid feeling deeply, deeply confused about where you stood. And the last piece I want to say on this unpredictability and inconsistency is that because of the way that our brains form and our nervous systems form, and because of the way that the psyche forms when you’re a child, specifically in certain developmental stages that you go through, you are going to be a kind of a little bundle of ego.

And so all the things that happen out in your external environment with mom and dad and caregivers and family, they kind of get internalized as, what am I doing to cause this? What am I doing to cause mom or dad’s erratic, inconsistent behavior? How come I can’t get them to respond in a way that is consistent and loving and kind and grounded and calm and et cetera? So it’s very common that when you dig down, when I’ve worked with people that have disorganized attachment styles, when you start to dig down into it, there is at the sort of core, the foundation, a belief that that inconsistency was somehow their doing. Like I did something wrong or there was something wrong with me fundamentally that caused this behavior in my environment. I was the reason why dad was never consistent.

And again, this doesn’t logically make sense. As an adult, we’re like, of course, I mean, he was just a mess or she was just a drunk or whatever it was. But internally, as a child, in your body, in your nervous system, in the unconscious, in the pre-verbal states, before you even had language to explain or try and rationalize what the hell was going on in your household, your body and your brain were coding things as, I am contributing to what’s happening to me.

I am doing something that’s causing this. And your little brain and your little body would have been working tirelessly, just extensively to try and figure out what am I doing that’s causing this inconsistency because I can’t figure it out. And so it can be really, really deeply frustrating.

This is one of the things that I really have a tremendous amount of empathy for people that have disorganized attachment because the more that I’ve learned about their stories, the more that I hear about childhoods and relationships in their adult years where they have worked tirelessly to try and figure out and get clarity on what have I done to cause this situation? Like, what’s my part in this? And there’s really, and we’ll get to this in the healing part of it, there’s really oftentimes a mislabeled or misplaced level of responsibility on them for relational issues, specifically in their childhood. They might be causing and contributing to them for sure in their adult relationships, but specifically in their childhood, there’s a misplaced level of responsibility of like, mom was a disaster and I really made it my fault. The last piece, the last two pieces about what forms disorganized attachment is emotionally unavailable parents.

So you might have had a caregiver that is just really, they’re emotionally overwhelmed. They’re struggling with their own trauma, their own PTSD. This is very common when I’ve had people that grew up with military parents or parents that were doctors or first responders.

It’s a big one. First responders have a lot of trauma, a lot of PTSD from what they have seen, being on the scene of car accidents and gun violence and stabbings, et cetera. And so they can really take a lot of that stuff home with them.

And so that can create an environment where that person is emotionally distant. And again, internally, it can be very confusing for the child, for you as a child to know, how do I get my needs met? How do I get some type of connection from a parent who doesn’t seem to be willing or wanting or able to connect with me consistently? And again, as a child, you would have and you will have internalized that as your fault, as something that was wrong with you. Not necessarily something that you were doing wrong.

This is the big difference. Children do not have the capacity to separate personhood from behavior. So they don’t think like, oh, I did something wrong.

They think I am wrong. Something’s wrong with me that’s causing this because they don’t understand that who I am is different from what I do, even though there’s many adults of us that don’t understand that either. But for kids, that’s a very real experience.

It’s just like, mom yells at me, something’s wrong with me, you know? And so they internalize everything. A couple of examples, a child whose parent comforts them in one moment is sort of like loving and nurturing and kind, but then lashes out, is unpredictable, yelling, maybe hitting them, slapping them, spanking them in the next moment may develop disorganized attachment. So this sort of response of, I don’t know what I’m going to get.

Am I going to get hostility? Am I going to get loving, nurturing? Like, what am I going to get from my parent? Having and growing up with a diagnosed or undiagnosed bipolar parent can replicate this. And you can grow up in an environment where they’re cycling through. And so if you have a parent who was sort of manically happy in some moments and then terribly depressed the next day and then kind of okay the day after that.

And they were going through this cycle and you never really knew it was happening. That can certainly cause disorganized attachment. Kids witnessing domestic violence, so you may not have even experienced the abuse on you, but witnessing the abuse, witnessing this sort of erratic, hostile behavior between your parents, that can also lead to disorganized attachment.

So all of these types of things, I’m just trying to give you the landscape. So I’m going to truck through signs of the disorganized attachment. This is also important because it’s going to help you understand what it is that you actually need to work on in order to develop a more secure attachment style.

So if you are disorganized, then you definitely want to stay in on this part. If you don’t think that you’re a disorganized attached person, you could skip ahead to the healings just so if you want to know how to work with your partner. But this part can be very helpful, especially if you are in a relationship with somebody to be like, okay, I’m not crazy.

Like this is this disorganized attachment showing up in our relational dynamic. So people with disorganized attachment styles, they often exhibit a mix of behaviors that for you, if you’re not disorganized, can be very confusing. You kind of feel their confusion.

You feel this disorganized, cumbersome, confused, unsure behavior because it comes out into the relationship. And there’s sort of an inconsistent pattern where they’ll be connected to you. Sometimes they’ll be super avoidant.

Other times they might act like irrational and anxious. Other times, and they kind of oscillate through and you’re like, can we just find solid ground here? Can we land the plane? And it kind of always feels like you’re going through some type of turbulence when you’re in relationship with a disorganized person. What are some of the signs? Number one is fear of intimacy coupled with a very deep fear of abandonment.

So this is where the disorganized person has a kind of conundrum, right? I’m afraid of intimacy. I want it. I’m afraid of it because it’s been inconsistent or it’s been dangerous or it’s been unhealthy or abusive or traumatic, but I’m also afraid of being abandoned.

And so that’s where the disorganized person is constantly sort of dancing between these two sides. I don’t want you to leave me, but I also don’t want to get close enough to you to actually feel the depth of love and connection and relaxation and ease that could come from consistent, connected intimacy. So the person may desire the close relationship, but simultaneously fear being hurt.

As soon as you start to get close and you feel like things are going well, they pick a fight and blow things up. Or you feel like things are going well and all of a sudden they’re anxious and they’re like text bombing the crap out of you. And you’re like, what’s going on? You were just pulling away and didn’t want to be with me three days ago.

Like what’s happening? So they oscillate between clinging to you, clinging to someone, or if you’re the disorganized person, you oscillate from clinging to your partner to pushing them away. And you kind of create this push-pull dynamic. And it’s kind of like this yo-yo effect where you as the disorganized person, you’re like, come closer, come closer, come closer.

And then there reaches this certain point where it feels like, holy crap, they’re so close. And your whole body goes into an alarm. An alarm goes off, right? It’s like, this feels dangerous.

This feels like a threat. This feels foreign for a lot of disorganized people. The consistent, loving, safe attachment is what feels foreign.

And all of the questioning starts to happen. Is this normal? Do I want this? Usually when stability starts to enter into the relationship, that’s when the disorganized person has all of the alarm bells go off internally. They start to question whether they’re safe or not.

And they start to question the relationship itself because stability, ease, connection, closeness, intimacy, all of that is foreign. It’s unknown. And so when it starts to happen, all of the alarm systems start to go off.

And maybe they pull away. They become sort of disengaged and disconnected. Or they start to become anxious.

There’s a deep difficulty trusting other people. So you might notice that if you’re a disorganized person, there’s this constant projection onto your partner of like, I don’t know if I can trust them to take care of themselves, to take care of me, to meet my needs. I don’t know if I can trust them to stay faithful.

And there’s this kind of pervasive thought or pervasive sense of mistrust that the other person is somehow out to get you, going to betray you, going to hurt you. And there’s a suspicion of that other person or the relationship. Now, I want to say something on this because part of what happens for a lot of you disorganized people is that you do attract people who are not trustworthy.

And that is part of the pattern. And usually these people who are not trustworthy, sometimes you have great wild sexual connection with them, but the relationship itself is toxic, unhealthy. You know, really wild and inconsistent.

And it’s just this big push-pull dance and they’re close and it’s intense and they’re gone and it’s not, and it’s a bit of a mess. So your sort of radar for relationship, depending on where you are and how intense your disorganized attachment might be, it’s common that disorganized people sometimes will attract other disorganized people, okay, which is a bit of a storm. It’s a bit chaotic.

You probably, if you’ve experienced this, you know exactly what I’m talking about because that relationship will stick out in your mind like a sore thumb because it’ll just have been this like nuclear bomb that happened in your life. But you can attract disorganized people or you will attract people who legitimately do not want intimacy, do not want closeness, do not want connection and relationship. And so you attract these people that you can’t actually trust and push away the people that you can trust.

Now, this is super important for the healing process. We’re going to touch on it more later. But the basic part that I want to emphasize here is that your relationship radar, for lack of a better word, is a bit skewed.

And it’s skewed towards people who are going to reinforce your current attachment style. Now, that is a problem inherently, okay? It’s a bit of a pickle and a conundrum. So what I want you to start to look towards are the people that would normally feel a bit too safe, almost a bit boring.

I use the word boring. The people that you’re like, oh, yeah, like that would be easy or that relationship, you know, it’s like, oh, that was just going to bore me or I’m not really too sure if that would be exciting for me. Those are generally speaking, and honestly, those are the types of relationships that you want to go and try to have because your nervous system needs to get a sense of stability, of predictability before you can really have a clear sense of being able to choose who you really want to be with.

So you need to have a relationship or some relationships with people that are stable, that are very grounded, that are, you know, again, like I said, I’m just going to keep using the word, that are, to your perspective, probably kind of boring and overly safe and kind of like vanilla. That is going to be a healing experience for you. So moving on, a couple more things that hallmark the disorganized attachment style, unpredictable behavior in relationships.

So again, very common, no fault of your own, that disorganized people become disorganized in the relationship, right? They become the unpredictable person. So they experienced a lot of inconsistency and unpredictability growing up, and how they show up in relationships is the exact same behavior. There’s a lot of reactions to emotional situations that can be erratic.

You can oscillate from being super intense to wanting a lot of closeness to rejecting it to emotional withdrawal. And you might find yourself struggling to maintain any type of consistent patterns of communication, affection, intimacy, right? You might show affection one day, and then the next day when your partner texts you or calls you, you just like flat out ignore them for the next like two days. And all of a sudden they’re like, what happened? So there’s this kind of erratic behavior that can start to show up.

There’s a deep fear of rejection and criticism. This is seen as a huge threat for the disorganized person. And there’s a heightened sensitivity because rejection and criticism of any kind, right? No, I don’t want to go on that date with you, or no, I don’t want to watch that movie, or no, I don’t want to eat at that restaurant.

That is encoded, encrypted internally as a threat. That might mean I’m going to get hurt if I’m disorganized. That might mean that this person is going to leave me.

They’re going to abandon me. They’re going to blame me for something. And so any type of rejection or criticism is seen as a threat internally.

Emotional dysregulation is another big hallmark of the disorganized attached person. So you likely have a big challenge processing, managing, sometimes even understanding the emotions that are happening inside of you. And they just kind of take over. It’s like a weather system moves in and mood swings, outbursts, all of these types of things begin to unfold.

You might be somebody that experiences intense anxiety or despair whenever there’s any kind of relational stress. Okay, depending on the origin of your disorganized attachment style, you will either go to intense anxiety or you can go to intense despair. Like I’m never going to be loved.

Relationships are terrible. They never work. You know, this sort of like Eeyore effect can really set in.

And that can happen at the drop of a hat with any type of relational conflict or stress. It doesn’t even have to be big. It can just be like a reoccurring small thing. And it can send you into this type of despair. Two more things that are really, really important. The next one is low self-worth.

Very common for disorganized people to have low self-worth. Again, the primary cause of this is that the lack of consistent connection and relationship and intimacy growing up, of love, receiving love growing up, became internalized as there’s something wrong with me that I’m not getting the love and affection that I want or there’s something wrong with me that I keep getting this very negative, abusive, whatever it was. So very common that there’s a lot of low self-worth.

And then the big last piece is hypervigilance. This is a big one, team. Disorganized people have a lot of hypervigilance towards any incongruencies, any incongruencies in the relationship, any behavioral changes in their partner, any behavioral changes, any changes within the relationship, the temperature of the relationship, like when things are hotter or colder, they’re closer, they’re more connected, they’re less connected.

A disorganized person will be extremely hypervigilantly tuned in to all of that because when they were growing up, they had to learn to just be in a constant state of externalized awareness, externalized awareness. What is happening outside of me? And they had to do that in order to try and provide any type of safety and stability and internal sense of just being okay. And so there’s a lot of externalization of how are you doing, what’s happening in our relationship.

They might even be very hypervigilant about what’s happening in their environment, things within the apartment or your house, being moved or in the wrong place can cause a lot of dysregulation, can cause them to move into a space of like, is there something wrong with us? Are you leaving me? It can cause this sort of descent into that despair or that anxiousness. So hypervigilance, a big, big, big hallmark of it. Okay, let’s get deep into how do you heal? How do you heal disorganized attachment? The first thing I’m gonna say is work with somebody that specializes in this.

If you are a disorganized person, if you have a disorganized attachment style, this can be very challenging. I’m not saying that working with avoidant and anxious can’t be challenging, but working with disorganized is genuinely, it is a very challenging thing. So if you know that you are that person, if you’ve come this far and you’re like, yes, I’ve checked literally all of these boxes and I 100% am a disorganized person and you’ve gone through and you’ve sort of done the test and you’re like, yes, I’m a disorganized person, definitely work with somebody that has a few skillsets to support you.

Number one is that they know how to work with attachment specifically, okay? That they are specifically trained in attachment. My good friend and mentor, Dewey Freeman, he’s been working with attachment for 40 plus years. That’s what I am trained in and it is a beautiful modality.

It’s very, very important to work with somebody that understands attachment and somatic therapy, some type of somatic processing. Because again, a lot of the hypervigilance, a lot of the confusion that you experience, a lot of the yo-yo push-pull stuff that happens, it is what’s called pre-verbal. It’s not a rational process that’s unfolding.

It is something that is ingrained into your nervous system and your body and it’s something that is in your unconscious and it’s something that is somatically baked in that you need to begin to work with. So very, very important that you begin to work with somebody that knows how to help you get into the body, develop safety in the body, be able to work with your body in a way that is effective, okay? Super, super important. The next thing is rediscover safety with the self first and with the other second.

So very important, a lot of disorganized attached people, they lack a felt sense of safety in their body. So there’s this constant state of like, am I okay, am I all right? And they maybe feel okay if things are fine in their relationship or fine in their external environment, but the minute that any of that changes, they lose any kind of internal sense of safety. So beginning to develop systems where you can regulate yourself, breath work, meditation, maybe getting into like Qigong or Tai Chi, some forms of yoga can be very helpful for you to actually get into your physical body and begin to work on what does safety actually feel like for me? Because as I said, a lot of the things that contributed to your disorganized attachment style are less memories in your mind and more memories of the body, okay? And this is something that I’ve just started to talk about more and more.

It’s this notion that your body has memories, right? Memories of the body are usually the things that are getting in the way in the relationship, right? Your partner does something or they say something in a specific way, in a certain tone, or they text you something, and it’s usually, it’s not your mind that triggers things first, it’s your nervous system in your body that activates some memory of like, oh crap, am I safe? Am I okay? Are they pulling away? They’re getting too close. This doesn’t feel safe. And so in many ways, you have to be able to develop that safety within your body and your nervous system so that your alarm system isn’t constantly going off and that your alarm system in your body isn’t going off at the inappropriate or incorrect times.

So being able to develop safety within yourself, there’s a number of things you might look at. Again, you will want to do guided with a psychedelic therapist, but you could do certain forms of psychedelics. MDMA have been shown to be very, very helpful, and psilocybin has been shown to be very, very helpful.

Things like EMDR have also been shown to be helpful when it comes to things like disorganized attachment. But the main piece I wanna reinforce is that as you work towards developing safety internally and with your partner, it’s very important that you have a third-party person, that you have a therapist, a psychologist, a coach that specializes in this. And again, I’m not trying to pitch myself here.

There’s tens of thousands of people that specialize in this. Go and find somebody so that you have someone that can help you move towards consistent, safe, trustworthy connection. That is the aim.

And unfortunately, as a disorganized person, your body doesn’t know what that feels like. And so you need a third party outside of you to act as a kind of tuning fork for your nervous system, for your brain to be able to trust relationship, okay? And somebody that’s good to see through your BS. So begin to rediscover safety with the self.

Again, breath work, yoga, qigong, working out, all these types of things can be very, very helpful for you to develop that sense of safety. The next one is really important when it comes to the relationship. You have to start to map your yo-yo push-pull pattern, okay? You have to start to map your push-pull pattern.

When do you push away, why, and what’s happening inside of your body? So that’s a question that I want you to write down. If you’re a disorganized person, do some homework out of this video. When do I push away, how, and why? What’s actually happening in my relationship? Am I pushing away because that person feels too close? Am I pushing away, oh yeah, and what’s happening in my body, right? Am I pushing away when somebody brings something up that they don’t like, when they express disappointment, when they start to really love on me and try and meet my needs? Like, when is it that you start to push away your partner? What’s happening in the relationship? And what does it somatically or physically feel like in your body? Does it feel constrictive? Does it feel like this big wall goes up? Like, what actually starts to transpire? And then when do you move into the pull pattern, the pull cycle of trying to get that person closer and closer and closer and closer and closer? Again, what’s happening in the relationship when you move into that pull cycle? What’s happening physically and somatically in your body? What does it feel like when you’re in that pull cycle and pull space? All of this is going to be super, super important so that you can identify where you are because what happens for a lot of disorganized people is they oscillate between these two extremes, right? They oscillate, I mean, imagine in the political spectrum oscillating between like the far left and the far right.

And I know it’s kind of like a funny, ridiculous analogy, but for disorganized people, that is often what happens is that you are oscillating between get further away from me and I need you to come closer to me. Get further away from me, I’m not okay. I need you to come closer to me because I’m not okay.

And there’s not a lot of middle ground. And so as you can start to contextualize, oh, I’m in that pull cycle again. Oh, I’m in that push cycle again.

You can begin to regulate and there’s a very clear pathway that you can begin to walk, right? If you’re pushing somebody away, call out the pattern. If you’re with a partner that you trust or that you’re starting to develop that trust with, just label it, identify it. Hey, you know what? I noticed I’ve started to push you away.

Not because you’re doing anything, not because it’s your fault, not because of anything, but I felt like things were getting too close and I started to push you away. My bad, I apologize. I’d like to spend some time with you tonight or whatever it is, right? Like maybe you ask for a little bit of space.

Maybe you genuinely want some time. This is a process of you really beginning to notice that cycle of push-pull, this yo-yo and back and forth, and beginning to tune more deeply into what is it that I actually need in order to be secure and safe and trusting in this relationship. And again, you might not know initially, but the first step is getting very clear on what the cycle is and being able to communicate that cycle to your partner, right? You have to out yourself, you have to out your cycle.

So out your cycle to your therapist, your psychologist, your coach, whoever it is that you’re working with, and then ideally out yourself to your partner when you get this awareness, because this will do two things. One, it will help you begin to get a sense of, I know where I am, I know what’s happening inside of me, and you’ll have a better understanding of why the relationship keeps oscillating. And then secondly, it’s gonna help your partner begin to trust you a little bit more because you will be identifying what’s happening with you.

And that will actually allow the relationship to find some consistency, to find some stability that it has likely been missing. The next piece is very important, which is begin to reparent your younger self. Now, this is a concept that is in many different modalities.

I started doing it in psychology for a long time, reparenting the self. I don’t think Jung called it reparenting the self, but working with the inner child is a big part of it. In IFS or internal family systems, that’s a big part of it.

So beginning to give that younger self what they needed that they didn’t get from your caregivers, right? So if you needed consistent validation or recognition from your parents, begin a ritual, a daily ritual and process of recognizing yourself as often as possible to reinforce, to start to give yourself this thing, this skill, this behavior, this recognition that you didn’t get growing up. That’s just a very basic part of it. But creating safety will be reparenting that younger self, doing some inner child work with somebody.

I’m not gonna outline that right here and now, but doing that inner child work can be very, very helpful because part of what happens, part of that memory in the body is that younger self. And that younger self comes online, takes over cognitively and emotionally and physically, and says, oh crap, I’m not safe. I need to protect myself.

And I need to protect myself by pushing this person away or by trying desperately to get them to come closer to me. And so it’s that younger self that needs a more mature adult-oriented version of you to step in and say, we’re okay, we can ground right now, we don’t need to chase after them, we don’t need to push them away, or here’s where we are in the cycle. So being able to reparent is going to be a very, very, very important piece of the equation.

The last piece that is very important outside of everything that I’ve talked about is being able to work with your nervous system. Being able to work with your nervous system. Your little nervous system when you were a kid didn’t have any type of consistency.

And that inconsistency is disorienting for your nervous system. And so it can never really tell when it’s safe. And so you need to work with somebody who’s skilled to be able to help you develop a very deep sense of safety within yourself.

Now there’s ways that you can begin to do this on your own. Some of them are more extreme, some of them are rituals that you need to have on a daily basis, but I strongly recommend that you have some type of a daily grounding practice to get you into your nervous system. To start to connect to how does the energy in my body actually feel right now? And when you start this practice, you might feel like it’s just a giant question mark.

Where you’re like, I have no idea. I have no idea how I feel, or I just feel like crap constantly, or I feel confused constantly, or whatever it is. But you just begin a ritual.

And it might be a meditation, it might be that you commit to daily breath work, right? You do Wim Hof, or some breath work style, and you just commit to it for 45 days, or 60 days. And you start this practice of forcing yourself to get back into your body, and to try and reestablish a baseline of safety and security so that you know what to return to when you feel that oscillation into pushing the other person away, or trying desperately to get them to move closer to you. Because again, that cycle for the disorganized, they move into that cycle when they become aware, when you become aware of I don’t feel safe relationally, or I don’t feel safe with myself.

And it’s either in one of those two moments where you push or pull the person away, just depending on what’s happening in the relationship. And so the more that you can work with your own nervous system and your own body, for your own body to be a safe place for you to live, the more that you are going to be able to show up in a consistent way in your relationship. Because the real, and this is how I’m gonna wrap up this episode, the real sort of tragedy or hardship of the disorganized is that it doesn’t just cause a disorganized attachment for you with others, is that it creates that disorganized connection with yourself.

And so the real hardship for the disorganized person is I don’t know how to be safe with me. I don’t know how to be consistent with me. I feel inconsistent and out of control in myself.

And that’s the real challenge. And so at the base of this, being able to slowly and incrementally commit to practices and rituals that are going to embed safety into your body, that are gonna embed consistency into your mind and your habits and your nervous system, the more that you are going to start to lower your baseline from a frenetic, frantic, disoriented, confused place to a more grounded, consistent state of being. And the last thing that I’ll say is that for disorganized people, when they start to have more grounding and regularity, it can feel so foreign that it’s almost like this unbearable thing.

I’ve noticed this in working with a number of disorganized people, where the more they find consistency and grounding, the more intense the confusion, the more intense the urge to self-destruct, push people away, et cetera, becomes. And so please know that if you are a disorganized person and you start to do this work, what you’re going to notice, and I promise you this will happen. I’m sorry to say, I promise you this will happen.

As you start to move closer and closer to having safety, security, trust within yourself and within your relationship, the more, for a period of time, not forever, the more that the intensity of confusion, wanting to push people away, wanting to pull them closer, you might find yourself becoming way more needy or way more avoidant because for disorganized, how do I say this part? For disorganized people, the way out is usually through avoidance or anxiety and then back to secure. You don’t generally go straight from disorganized to secure. Usually what happens for disorganized people is they move through one of those pathways.

They become more anxious, more anxious, more anxious, and then they move back to secure or they become more avoidant and then really have to lean in to relationship and security and safety. And so just know that if you feel like you’re doing this work and you’re becoming more anxious or more avoidant, it’s probably that you’re on the right path. Keep going.

Now, that doesn’t mean that I’m advocating for you to be an anxious, attached person or avoidant, attached person. It simply means that that is the direction that’s moving you towards safety. It means that you’re picking a side.

It means that you’re finding a path. And for disorganized people, that is part of the problem to begin with. They don’t know which energy to inhabit.

They can’t find safety. They can’t find avoidance. They can’t find anxiousness.

And there’s kind of this oscillation between all of them. So as you do this work and you start to ground and you start to find more safety and more security, you are going to notice that the urge to pull away, disconnect, sell everything and move to Bali, the urge to become more anxious and needy and clingy in your relationship, those things are probably going to heighten. Know that that’s going to happen.

Know that that’s okay. Be honest about it with the people that you’re working with, with your therapist or psychologist. Be honest with your partner about it.

Just be as transparent as possible and you’ll move through that phase much, much faster.

Best Of ManTalks 2024

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Talking points: trauma, culture, attachment, masculinity

Maybe you’re new (or new-ish) to the podcast. Maybe you’re gunning for new insights so you kick off 2025 right. Either way, we here at ManTalks have got your back. In this episode, you’ll find extended clips from 2024’s top interviews, from the veteran perspectives of Michael Meade to the attachment expertise of Sarah Baldwin. Happy New Year, team.

(00:00:00) – Peter Levine on the symptoms of trauma and using active imagination

(00:19:41) – Michael Meade on the importance of myth, and AI’s possible effects on humanity

(00:31:48) – Sarah Baldwin on anxious and avoidant attachment, and the goals for healing each

(00:47:22) – Owen Marcus on co-regulation and importance of genuine connection for men

Is Attachment Genetic Or Environmental? The Latest Research

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Talking points: attachment, genetics, psychology

Attachment as a framework for working on and healing your relationships is powerful stuff. But it’s also complex. I wanted to nerd out a bit this week with all of you over this fascinating study on attachment, genetics, and environment—with a PSA at the end.

Dig in and let me know what you think!

You can find the abstract of the study and request a full PDF here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/385437792_Genetic_and_environmental_contributions_to_adult_attachment_styles_Evidence_from_the_Minnesota_Twin_Registry

(00:00:00) – Intro

(00:04:28) – Why it’s interesting and a potential game changer, and why heritability doesn’t mean it’s game over

A Man’s Guide To Helping Your Anxious Partner

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talking points: anxiety, psychology, relationships

If you’ve ever been with someone who struggles with anxiety, this one’s for you. A lot of men lean heavily into trying to fix things, even making it their entire mission. Here are some alternative steps that respect responsibility, autonomy, and help strengthen the relationship.

(00:00:00) – Intro, my working definition of anxiety, and the many places it comes from

(00:05:42) – Signs of anxiety in your partner

(00:10:47) – So what do you do? On reinforcement and co-regulation

(00:14:59) – Attune to her signs, and physical touch

(00:17:36) – How to balance leaning into discomfort with backing off

***

Pick up my book, Men’s Work: A Practical Guide To Face Your Darkness, End Self-Sabotage, And Find Freedom: https://mantalks.com/mens-work-book/

Heard about attachment but don’t know where to start? Try the FREE Ultimate Guide To Attachment

Check out some other free resources: How To Quit Porn | Anger Meditation | How To Lead In Your Relationship

Build brotherhood with a powerful group of like-minded men from around the world. Check out The Alliance.

Enjoy the podcast? If so, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Podchaser. It helps us get into the ears of new listeners, expand the ManTalks Community, and help others find the tools and training they’re looking for. And don’t forget to subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify

For more episodes, visit us at ManTalks.com | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

Transcript

All right team, welcome back to the ManTalks Show, Connor Beaton here. And today, I’m going to be talking to you about how to help your partner when they are anxious. So if your girlfriend or your wife is somebody that struggles with anxiety and you’re not really too sure what to do, whether they have an anxious attachment, whether they just struggle with anxiety in general, we are going to be talking about what anxiety is, the signs that your partner might be anxious, and the signs that oftentimes we miss, and then what to do specifically.

Now what I want you to know up front is that just because she’s anxious, just because your partner is anxious, it doesn’t mean that there is something wrong with her or you or the relationship. And it doesn’t mean that there is something for you specifically to fix. What happens for a lot of men, especially the nice guys or the guys that find their worth and their value in sort of providing solutions within a relationship, is that they can get caught in this loop that every single time that your partner gets anxious or has some anxiety, that your rational brain turns on and is like, okay, let me figure out how to solve this problem.

And that can create more anxiousness in your partner. It can cause them to feel like there’s something wrong with them, perpetuate the anxiety. It can frustrate the crap out of you because you are very likely not able to solve their anxiety or fix it indefinitely, and so it can create all types of challenges.

So what is anxiety? Well, the anxiety that I’m talking about and the way they’re going to be talking about is an excess of energy in the body, right? So neurologically, when you look at the brain and you look at the different centers of the brain and the neurons that are firing in different centers of the brain when you are having anxiety is very similar to the parts of the brain that are firing when you are having excitement. So the anxiety that I’m talking about is an elevated state within the body, an elevated energetic state and an elevated alarm state in the body. So it might be an excess of thoughts, might be an excess of unwanted physical sensations, it might be an excess of emotions that feel a little wild or uncontrollable, and it’s generally an excess of future-based realities, future-based worrying.

Now that worrying–just to sort of hone in on that one piece for a moment–very common for people with anxiety to be experiencing something in the present that they are worried is not going to go away, right? It’s like, oh no, I feel anxious. Is this ever going to go away? Am I going to have to deal with this all day now? Is this going to be around until I go to bed? And that can spiral up the anxiety. So that’s the anxiousness that I’m talking about.

Generally speaking, when people have anxiety, depending on the severity of it, and this is all to contextualize it for you because maybe you and your partner have never really talked about how they experience their anxiety, which I would encourage you to do if they are comfortable with it. But generally speaking, you can think about anxiety as the sensation that things are starting to move very quickly, and move very quickly energetically either within, so your emotions are starting to go fast, your thoughts are starting to go fast. For a lot of people, their breath and their heart rate start to elevate when they have more anxiousness and more anxiety in their body.

And so that state, that physiological state or the mental state that they can find themselves in often sets off the alarm system in their body and they want to escape from it. It’s like, get me the heck away from this. I don’t want to feel this way. How do I get rid of what I’m feeling right now? So the anxiety can be caused by a number of different things. It can be from past trauma, right? It could be remnants of, like, a PTSD type of situation. It can be because that individual is lacking some self-worth and it manifests in their relationship as anxiousness.

It can be because of past betrayals from you or previous partners and a host of other causes. So there’s many different things that can contribute to anxiety for that person. Knowing some of their triggers can be helpful, but to be honest, anxiety can, you know, set in at strange times.

You know, it’s like when you were a young man, oh boy, this is going to be an analogy. Here we go. It’s like when you were a young guy and you would be in random places when you’re going through puberty and all of a sudden you’d be getting, you’d get a boner and there’d be no reason for it, right? You’re like, you’re on the school bus on your way to school, and all of a sudden you have an erection. You’re like, what is this doing here? Like, why do I have this right now, you know, or just strange situations where you all of a sudden have an erection.

That’s what anxiety is like for a lot of people. That’s a terrible analogy because erections are great and anxiety for a lot of people is not so great, but that’s what it’s like. It can just happen at certain moments when you’re least expecting it with no real prompting, you know, with no real external or internal trigger.

Now, again, it can be helpful for that individual to start to identify what they know some of their triggers are. You know, for some people, it’s going to be certain social situations. For other people, it’s going to be certain conversations within the relationship. I mean, we just go down the rabbit hole, but those can be helpful. I’m going to give you the signs now. Okay, let’s talk about the signs.

I’m going to talk about women specifically. These, some of these are going to cross the border into how men display their anxiety, but let’s talk about how to know when your partner is anxious. A good sign is that she may not want to be social on a regular basis or that there are certain social situations that she does not want to be in because those situations might cause her to feel anxiousness.

I remember I was with a friend recently, one of my wife’s friends, and we were out in a public setting, lots of people around, and we were walking and I noticed immediately that as more and more people started to come around us in this social setting, she, her whole body language started to change, and I just went and put a hand on her shoulder and I said, how are you doing? She’s like, man, I feel so anxious right now. I was like, yeah, I can tell. So certain social environments might cause her to feel anxious.

Different moods and swings, you might notice that she’s easily irritated or constantly overthinking. Those can be a manifestation of anxiousness and anxiety in certain people. Constantly checking in on you and the relationship like, oh, are you okay? Is everything all right? Are you all right? That can be a really, really strong sign of that anxiety that manifests in your relationship where she might just text you and check in on you or constantly checking in on you. Again, it’s not a personal thing. You don’t need to personalize it. It is a manifestation and a byproduct of her anxiety.

Negative self-talk, you might notice that sometimes she self-deprecates or puts herself down and you’re like, where does that come from? That can also be a part of the anxiety. Another big one that I see very common in a lot of professionals is hyper busy and overworked. So some people will, instead of dealing with their anxiety directly, they are constantly busy.

This is the person that’s working super, super hard, comes home, needs to be cleaning, needs to be busy, doing busy work, kind of like doing nothing all the time, but doing something all the time, and can’t seem to sit still and just find calmness and peace. That is a very big sign that they have anxiousness and anxiety in their body, and they don’t really know what to do with it, and so they’re trying to busy it out. Last one is this kind of paranoid, I hear a lot of guys say this, my partner, my girlfriend, my wife, she’s paranoid.

She’s paranoid that I’m going to betray her, I’m going to do something, or I’m not telling the truth, and it’s like, I’m telling her exactly how I feel and what I think, but she just doesn’t believe me. That can be another sign of anxiety. It’s not to excuse any behavior that might ensue from that, like digging through your phone constantly, or invading some of your privacy, or whatever that looks like, but that paranoia sometimes can come from that anxiousness of, is he going to betray me? Is he lying? Am I safe? Because remember, anxiety is an excess of energy that is generally coming from the experience of lacking safety.

I am unsafe in some way, and what that can do is cause your partner to try and over-rely on you, try and over-index on ensuring that there’s safety within the relationship, that it’s solid, looking for different cues. She might also be very hyper-vigilant in noticing any subtle changes in you, so if you’re tired or if you’re stressed out and overwhelmed in a certain way. I’ve seen this a lot in couples that I’ve worked with where the guy’s like, I just can’t catch a break.

She just is so hyper-vigilant and hyper-tuned into what I’m feeling and thinking and going through that if I’m ever off, she’s like lasered in on it, and it’s almost like it’s not okay for me to not be okay. That is a very common theme. I’m going to get into what to do next, but that’s a very common theme that can cause some frustration in a relationship.

Whenever you are not okay, you’re stressed, you’re overwhelmed, you’re maybe a little disconnected or withdrawn, that’s going to activate the crap out of her anxiety, and this is why a lot of anxious-attached people get in relationship with avoidant-attached people and why it’s so hard for that dynamic to end. Oftentimes when an anxious and avoidant come together, it is a recipe for a disaster in the relationship, but it’s also a recipe for a very hard ending because they almost never want to let go because there’s something about it, that dynamic, that activates the avoidance and activates the anxiousness, and it can be intoxicating in some ways and really, really frustrating in other ways. What do you do? What do you do? How do you support your partner when they are anxious? A couple of different things.

If she’s worried about the relationship, asking questions, are we okay? Are you all right? Are you thinking about it? I don’t even know. I don’t want to give some examples and then get in shit for this, but do you think about other women? Are you sure you want to be with me? Do you think about leaving me? Those types of worries and insecurities that can come up from an anxiousness, there’s nothing wrong with reaffirming your commitment, reassuring that you love her, and reinforcing that you want to be in the relationship. Sometimes that is the prescription that’s necessary.

Now, what I want to put as a caveat, an asterisk in here, is it’s not your responsibility to do that all the time in the relationship. So you need to have a conversation with your partner, with your anxious partner, when their anxiousness is not hyperactivated, and say, hey, listen, I love you. I love reinforcing that I want to be with you.

I’m happy to reassure you in moments when maybe worry and concern happens, but I really would love for you to start working on reassuring yourself and looking for the clues and the cues that tell you that I really want to be here. Can you start to do that? So get her buy-in and commitment so that the reassurance and the reaffirmation that you want to be in the relationship, that the relationship is stable and okay, doesn’t rest solely on your shoulders.

And this is what a lot of men do. They see a mission. They’re like, oh, I can reinforce that I want to be with you. And then that becomes all-consuming.

So get her buy-in to have her start to look for the cues and the clues that the relationship’s okay, it’s stable, you love her, you want to be in the dynamic, and that will help her move into a more secure, less anxious space. Number two, begin to help co-regulate. Now there’s a number of different ways that you can do this.

I’m going to give you a couple of them because this is one of the biggest things that you can do with your partner. When she’s not anxious, ask the question, based on what you know about yourself and your anxiety, what do you know or think would help you when you’re anxious? So what can I actually do to support you? She might have some ideas. She might have no idea at all.

Either one is okay, but exploring this as a couple can be incredibly helpful because she might say, you know what, I just need you to put your arm around me, or I just need you to give me some words and remind me that I’m okay. You know, those types of things. The next thing that you can do to help co-regulate is have some code words to lessen the possible embarrassment of when she’s feeling anxious.

So I’m going to use an example. In my marriage, this isn’t about anxiety, but it’s about being hangry. My wife, when we first started dating, she’d get hungry when we were traveling. I remember we were in Paris once and we were exploring the city, and I could just see her getting more and more and more crunchy. And I was like, what is going on? She’s like, I’m so hungry right now. And if we don’t get food, I’m going to tear somebody’s head off.

And I was like, oh, okay. And so we created code words, lemonade, pink lemonade, and Arnold Palmer. And it was like degrees of hanger. And so she would say, I’m lemonade right now. And I was like, oh, okay, we got to find food. So if you put some language to this, it can be very helpful, especially if your partner is somebody that struggles with social anxiety.

They might not want to just come out and say, hey, I’m feeling anxious right now. That might feel overwhelming, confronting, et cetera. And so if you have a little bit of playfulness around it and you have this shared language and she can come to you and say, hey, lemonade.

And that’s the signal of like, oh, she’s got a little bit of anxiety. It’s like, okay, well, here’s what I can do. I can put my arm around you and et cetera. You can have some mechanisms to then co-regulate together during that space. So have code words that can lessen the possible embarrassment. And next, begin to attune to the possible signs that she might be struggling.

Changes in breath, changes in body posture and body language, changes in communication and the way that she’s engaging with you or other people. There are patterns, right? People that have anxiety, they have very specific patterns of expressing that anxiety through their body, through their breath, through their language, how they begin to maybe start to shut down or pull away or close off. And so start to attune yourself to the external signs that you see that she might be experiencing anxiety because then you can check in.

Hey, how are you doing? How are you feeling today? That can be helpful under certain circumstances. But what I will say is please do not over-ask your anxious partner how they are doing. Because what that does is cause them to then self-reflect.

And for some people, they’re going to start to worry like, oh, am I okay? And like, why is he asking? So start to tune into the signs for yourself and you can be preemptive. If you notice like, oh, she’s doing that thing where she’s starting to close off and she seems like a little squirrely and she’s like frantically cleaning something, that’s the sign. Okay, that’s the sign.

I’m going to go in. I’m going to give her a big bear hug and get her to take a couple breaths with me. Next, physical touch, physical co-regulation, okay? For some people, when I’ve worked with couples, they’ve found that helping your partner get some of that energy out, that excess energy, like, hey, I’m going to hold your hands.

Let’s jump up and down. Let’s stomp our feet right now. I’ll shake your shoulders a little bit playfully, right? Not aggressively. We’re not trying to like shake the baby. That’s a very dark joke. But playfully, all of this is playfully. Bear hug, a little bit of a squeeze. What I do with my wife is I’ll wrap my arms around her. I’m not giving her a tight squeeze and hug, but I’ll give her enough of a hug that I’m like, I’ve got you. I could pick you up right now. I’m holding you. And then I’ll say, take a couple breaths with me. And I’ll lead that like deep inhale, nice long exhale. And I’ll just say, soften into me. I got you.

And guiding your partner through that in that way can be very helpful for her, even if she’s not really aware that she’s anxious. And even if she’s not anxious, sometimes it’s just nice to have this baseline that you’ve created in your relationship of regulation, that you are leading the charge of regulation in the dynamic. The last thing I’m going to say is about not going along with the anxiousness, but sometimes with anxiety, people will want to change plans.

They’ll want to cancel things. They’ll want to shift behaviors. They won’t want to engage with things that they have agreed to engage with.

And generally speaking, I like to use the 80-20 rule. So if you are the non-anxious partner, it can be very beneficial to be a stand for moving into the places and spaces that might be anxiousness inducing or that your partner, not actively anxious inducing, not like trying to jump out of an airplane or anything like that, but in the places and spaces, the conversations where that person knows they’re probably going to feel a little bit of anxiousness. And so if you are the stand for moving into that space, that can be very helpful.

The 80-20 rule comes into a lot of the times people with anxiety are going to want to back out. They’re going to want to change plans. They’re not going to want to do, especially if it’s somebody that has social anxiety.

And what you can do is be really grounded and somewhat firm in saying, no, we’re going to go do this. And so 20% of the time, you might need to shift. You might need to alter things.

You might need to stay put and just breathe and support them. 80% of the time, you can support your partner in facing, leaning into the anxiousness, right? As the saying goes, the only way out is through. The only way through the anxiety is to face it and not hate it.

People with anxiety generally hate their anxiety. And they really loathe when it comes up, whether it’s just with you in a sexual encounter, or it’s in a conversation with you, or it’s in a social setting. Generally speaking, when their anxiety comes up, it’s like, oh, here’s this thing.

I hate this part of me. And that can cause them to start to collapse. So if you can support them in facing the anxiety by having some of those hard conversations, engaging in the places and spaces that might be anxious, and support them in a kind of exposure therapy, again, you are not their therapist.

It’s not your responsibility to fix them. It’s not your responsibility to do this for them. But it can be your responsibility to hold the frame that this is where we are going to move.

And usually that is best if it comes from a place of, I trust you, and I see you as somebody that can face this. I see you as somebody that can make it through this experience. Not just your anxiety as a whole, but this maybe anxious-inducing situation.

So those are my rules of engagement, the things that I have found to work really, really well for couples. Let me know which one really landed for you. Definitely man it forward.

Send this to somebody, and probably listen to this if you’re in a relationship with somebody that has anxiousness, if they are comfortable with listening to it. Send it to them and say, hey, what about this really resonated? Maybe there’s a bunch of stuff that I disliked 90% of what he said, but that 10% really hit. Great. Take that 10%. So share this with your partner. And as always, this is Connor Beaton signing off.

See you next week.

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