What Attachment Style Are You? How To Know, Why It Matters, and How To Change It If You Need To | Amir Levine

26:11I answer the phone if I can, obviously. If not, I call right back because it's with love. You want to keep the back and forth. You don't want them to feel excluded. You're not trying to get to them or get at them. So he calls me and we talk and everything's really nice. It helped our relationship because we've been friends for 20 years. And there were times where it was not an easy relationship. Like I think for about a year and a half, we didn't speak to each other. And now we'd really find the right balance where if I have a problem or if I have an issue that I want to talk to, I'm not going to go to him because in the past I did and it wasn't good.

26:49He either was very quiet on the phone or he hung up very quickly and it made me very upset. So I have my other, my secure village, my car people that I go to. And with him, I do the Walt Tennis with Love and it actually preserved the relationship. So interesting. Let me ask a technical question about texting and emailing back promptly. I do that most of the time. Sometimes my team members have to remind me that I've failed to respond to a slack. I think Eleanor, who's producing this episode, had to do that with me today. But generally speaking, I try to be quite prompt. I have heard some people, including Adam Grant, who I have a lot of affection and respect for, argue that especially in a business context, given how overloaded and overwhelmed we are, all are, you shouldn't feel too much responsibility to answer every email right away.

27:42And you also shouldn't apologize, as I often do, with sorry for the delayed response. So I have sympathy for both sides of these arguments. I'm interested to hear where you come down. I'm really glad that you said that. And also, I think it's important that we'll, in a minute, we should just remind me, because it's important to talk about people with ADHD and being carp. But I have to say, first of all, your response is the secure response. Because you really convey that you have this commitment to this back and forth between people. But it's not that his response is wrong. It's just like, it's whatever we bring to the table.

28:19And the truth be told, we're very savvy social species. And we learned there's something that I call in the book, this attachment homeostasis. We learned to identify what the attachment homeostasis is. And so I will learn that Adam Grant takes him several days to answer his emails. He doesn't always answer the emails or he doesn't always text back. I'm not going to expect that at all. But I will learn that you answer very quickly. And I will learn to expect that. My brain, my social brain will learn to expect that. So I think you see both are right. And you know that there is that expectation and you live up to it.

29:02And he creates a different baseline and he lives up to it too. So it's okay. And the same thing with people with ADHD. They oftentimes forget and they oftentimes don't respond. They get overwhelmed. But I think a lot of my patients who have ADHD, they've learned to say, you know what? I may really forget or I may not be able to always respond and it actually overwhelms me. But don't be afraid if I didn't respond enough, just send me like several reminders. I actually like that. It helps organize me. So you can still be carb and not always respond right away. You just have to create a certain framework that people will learn what to expect.

29:43It's more about setting a certain expectation and creating a certain baseline. But then once you created that baseline, you have to stick to it. Just in defense of Adam Grant, two things. One, he does, in my experience, reply with extraordinary speed. And two, I may not even be articulating his POV on this correctly. So Adam, on the off chance that you're listening, I apologize if I did you dirty there. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. For some people, summer is their favorite season. Travel picks up, kids are out of school, and adventure is the focus. for others. Juggling it all can be tough and can lead to overwhelm and counting down the minutes until the kids are back in school.

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34:37Let's just go back to CARP for a second. Can you just go through the acronym again? I'm glad that you're asking about that because Is it, there's a nuance there. So the idea is that I have to learn to be consistent, available, and responsive because that really maintains that back and forth. It's not enough that I think, oh, I'm so great. I'm consistent, available, and responsive to this person. I then have to, it's like a two-factor authentication. I have to reach out to you and say, and make sure that you actually experience me as reliable and predictable. So, because it's attachment, it's a dyadic process.

35:12So that's why it's consistent, available, responsive. And then the other part of it is reliable and predictable. And if we can do that, then I think it's really a brain just, it's really what it's the social brain. It's really creating that hyper-included, that reverse cyberball. You're creating this scenario for the brain when it feels hyper-included. I just want to make sure I really understand this. there are two levels to the acronym again the acronym is c-a-r-r-p one wants to you want to make sure that in your relationships you are consistent available and responsive and you want to make sure you're checking with the other person that they are experiencing you as reliable and predictable yeah so this is a personal practice we have agency we can be this in we can be carp in the world.

36:08And there is a high likelihood that we will get back what we're putting out there, as Paul McCartney said on the I believe the last song the Beatles ever recorded, the love we take is equal to the love we make. But I also just want to say the other part of CARP is not just a personal practice. It's what you are looking for in the world that you want to make sure you are surrounding yourself by CARP. Exactly. No, that's exactly it. You described it really well. Yeah, I mean, it's not enough. You really want to create a secure environment for yourself. And so it's not enough that you yourself are carp.

36:47You also want to make sure that your environment is carp. And so you want to reach out to other people. And I mean, if you did that attachment topography initially, and you see who are the people in your life that are secure, they're most likely very like carp because that goes along together with being like securely attached. Secure people are like naturally very carp. They just do it automatically. So you'll see, you'll get your attached topography and you'll see who are these people that are carp in your life and who are those, like it's like four quadrants. So I'm like really thinking about it topographically.

37:23Who are those who actually are further out there? And those people are usually less carp. And what I invite people to do is to, part of secure primic therapy is to really recurate your social environment or like remold your social environment in the direction of creating a more secure environment. I call it the CARP intervention and I've mentioned it before. You really, you can come to people and you can say, hey, you know, I've emailed you and you have, like I call you and you don't respond for two weeks and like it really bothers me. For me, I try to be consistent, available and responsive, but I also want other people in my life to be the same.

38:04And you can even blame it on your brain, blame it on your social brain. You don't have to say, oh, I was abandoned as a child or as a child that wasn't really treated well, because we saw that those attachment styles are not necessarily related to how you were treated in childhood. You can actually morph them in the here and now. So you say in the here and now, my social brain really doesn't like those disruptions. So that's what I'm trying to do for myself. Is it harder for some people to be carp, though, if they did have a tough childhood, you know, and are naturally avoidant or fearful or both?

38:42In Secure, I really try to go into a lot of really explain some of the origins of attachment styles. And a lot of it we don't know, but there's been really fascinating research about what it means to have these different attachment styles. And I think the way that I see it in Secure is that there are advantages to having these different attachment styles. And I think the best experiment that captures that is like when they got a group of people into a room and they had a little bit of smoke come out of one of the computers. and it was the people with the anxious attachment style that identified the smoke the earliest and alerted everybody else.

39:28But it was those with the avoidant attachment styles were first out the door. And so for me, I can tell you if there was a little bit of smoke, I would probably notice it, but I was like, I would turn to the people next to me. Should we go? Should we leave? What do you think? Is it okay? Should we stay? What should we do? But if you're avoidant, like you don't really ask anyone. You operate like you really are self-sufficient. This is like, I'm out of here. You guys can do whatever you want. And other people follow. So you can see the advantage of having the anxious, which is the canary in the coal mine that can identify things in the environment that other people can't.

40:04But also having the avoidant attachment or mindset that you're a free thinker and you're like, I don't care what you all are doing. I'm out of here. And then other people follow. So there are advantages of having different attachment styles. And I think it's very important to emphasize that. It's not just like always only a deficit. I think it's much more nuanced than that. Is that your way of saying we can all be carved no matter what our background is? I think so. There's a certain logic to attachment and we can learn how to really maintain that connection. But sometimes we have to be more creative about it.

40:41One of the examples that I give in the book is about this mother of college kids who, when her kids went to college, when she'd call them, they're like, we don't have time for you. It'll be very dismissive on the phone. And it hurt. The way that she found the workaround is that she got connected with them on their exercise apps. So now they all see each other, what they're doing. And so they thumb up. Like if she sees that they're walking, they've reached 10 ,000 steps, she gives them a thumbs up. They give her a thumbs up. And also she started a Snapchat also around their family dogs, sending like cute little pictures of the family dog.

41:20And so they interact through there. So she found a way to maintain that back and forth. And she also she knows like around what time they call her when they're driving or something. So she makes it a point to be available. But she really found a way to maintain that connection. And again, our brain really loves the connection. And that brings us to the other acronym in the book. There's only two acronyms, I promise. It's the how important are those what have come to call the seemingly insignificant minor interactions in everyday life, or I call it like simies, because oftentimes when people come to therapy, they think like I need to talk about difficult things that happened to me in childhood in order to change or like about really big events that happened in my life.

42:06And I'm not saying that's not true, but people hardly ever think about the seemingly insignificant minor interactions of everyday life as a vehicle for change and of how the brain really changes. But as a molecular neuroscientist who does epigenetic work on the brain, I know that those small interactions, each and every interaction like that is a potential vehicle for change, of really showing the brain something new or teaching it something new. Many of us think that in order to be happy, we need big things to happen, fall in love, get a promotion, make a big sale. But your argument is that these seemingly what's the seemingly seemingly insignificant minor interactions.

42:50So your argument is that these seemingly insignificant minor interactions or simis are actually like a constant daily source of joy. And it's kind of like we're leaving money on the table by not paying attention to them. So each simi is an opportunity to show the brain something different and an opportunity to create a connection. so for example when I used to go on Ubers I used to be like don't talk to me I'm really interested in my phone and ever since I've done the research on this book and I wrote this book and I understood how much that hyper-inclusive and being connected to others is important I actually found it as an opportunity to connect and I talk to drivers I welcome people talking to me about the weather in the elevator I nod and say hello to people like even those people at the gym that I like always talk and I used to sort of circle around and try to avoid.

43:46I talk to them now and it made a huge difference in my life. I've made a similar change in recent years. So I'm on your side with this, but let me just throw you a skeptical question because I think some people are worried, especially like type A high achievers are worried that if they're stopping and chatting all the time, they're never going to get anything done. I actually would argue that it's the opposite because I think if anything, there's all these research about the benefits of being more securely attached. I was astounded when I found out all this information because, you know, we go, we take all these supplements and cold plunges and peptides and we do all these things for longevity.

44:25But being connected is one of the biggest longevity hacks that we have. And it decreases mortality by 50 percent, but it also increases cognition and it actually also increases brain volume. So if you're really worrying about being able to be on top of your game, it's the opposite. You want to connect more. You want to create that feeling of connectedness. And then you feel more in control of your life. Remember that life is more meaningful and increases self-esteem. I really was my own self-experiment because I wasn't like that at all. And I have to say that even at the gym now, that one person who talks to everyone that I used to really try to say, I talk to him now.

45:07And it's been about 10 minutes talking to him about different things. But I do feel there's a sense of community now for me there at the gym that I never had before. And I know now I can feel the value of it. I really like in my in my body, like somatically. Yeah, I really plus one on all of that. And I say this as somebody as and I've made this joke many times before, but my factory settings are firmly at Frosty New Englander. And getting over that has has really helped me just a little. You were just listing all the the benefits that show up in the research for people who have what you call secure magic, who have, you know, who have secure attachments and positive relationships in their lives.

45:53I made a note that I believe one of the other benefits of generally having secure relationships in your life is that you can better handle social media. I'm glad that you bring that up. That's what I found so surprising and why in this book, there's been so much more research since Attached about how secure, how it goes much further than our romantic relationships or even just our relationships with others and how it affects how we behave in the world. So one of the things that they found is that it actually helps with shopping. People who are secure are less susceptible to consumerism. So logos and such, it doesn't really affect them as much.

46:33Another thing that they found is that if you're searching for a job, you're doing it much more securely. You're less bogged down by it. And it doesn't affect your self-esteem as much. In terms of healthcare, they found there's one study where they looked at fibromyalgia. like people who have fibromyalgia, and they found that people who have secure or more secure have better relationships with their health care provider, but also report less symptoms and less pain and really manage their illness much better. And finally, what you were asking about, I just couldn't help but really bring up all the other highlights, is that people are also able to handle social media much better.

47:16They don't really, it doesn't affect them. Did I get like 100 likes or how many people viewed my thing or they didn't view my thing? It's just like, whatever. I just want to, in the name of being reliable and predictable, I do want to check. Did I give you enough of an opportunity to talk about ADHD? I think I alluded to it, but I think it's important to say that it's harder for people with ADHD to be CARP. And so, because sometimes they forget certain things. You can still be carp, even if you have attention deficit disorder, and you can say, hey, you know, I have attention problems. But if you see that I'm not responding, just hit me up more and I'll respond eventually.

47:56And it actually helps me. And whenever I think people really welcome that, people with ADHD, sort of the ability to be proactive and say something and then giving people the authority or the permission to try to get a response from them more if they need it. So that's like a secure way of dealing with that. What is the appendix rule? It's a tool that's specific for people with anxious attachment because those carp simies, these are tools that you'll use very differently if you have an avoidant attachment style or you have an anxious attachment style because it's a different script that you have to attend to.

48:35So people with an anxious attachment style have a very sticky attachment. And unlike the way that you said it, that you even knew like in junior high, you know, this friend, they don't show up for me as much. And so I'm going to stick with my other more secure friends. Like people with anxious attachment are not very good at it. And so they keep going back to, I don't know, for lack of a better word, to the scene of a crime and trying to make their relationship work even though it's not working. And so part of secure priming therapy is to tell them the appendix rule means telling them you are really harming your brain by going back to these insecure relationships and trying to make them work.

49:19And you're ignoring, and usually that's the case on the topography, you're ignoring all these secure people in your life that can give you so much by trying to fix something that you've tried with CARP intervention and it's not working and it's not fixable for your own health. Let go of those relationships in order to be able to foster a more secure brain and get into that secure mode. So the appendix rule basically says you have to let go of those relationships and you can't hold on to them because it's harmful for your brain. This brings up a lot because I had a conversation here on this show not long ago with Esther Perel, who I'm sure you know, the legendary couples therapist and author.

50:03And she made an argument that really landed with me because I've cut people out of my life, not many, but a few. We were like really bad relationships. Esther was arguing that sometimes when you cut somebody out of your life, they start to occupy even more space in your brain. A hundred percent. But remember, I don't actually, if anything, I say that to do the opposite, to use wall tennis with love in order to right-size the relationship. So it's a hundred percent like cutting someone out of your life. Like what happens from an attachment perspective is that you get an attachment backlash and then you start really missing them.

50:46It's very painful. They totally take center stage. You actually, you achieve the opposite of what you wanted. In order to really right-size the relationship, that's why the World Tennis with Love is so important for people with anxious attachment because you don't like fool your brain. The relationship is still there and it's manageable and you're continuing the back and forth. But secretly, you've shifted your priorities and now you're really giving a lot more time and a lot more effort into those secure relationships. So you haven't left them. You haven't cut anyone out. You just really reshuffled your priorities.

51:26Got it. It's about like a volume knob that makes a ton of sense. It actually makes a lot of sense if you think about it. Like with my friend, when I used to go to him with all some issues and some problems, like if something happened and I needed advice. And for whatever reason, he wasn't able to give it to me. And then what usually what happens from an attachment perspective, it's important to understand how powerful secure bonds are. Because I'm sure you also have that in your head. Like if something bad happens to you, I'm sure there's this, you know exactly who's person number one that you'll go to, who's person number two or number three.

52:02And then if we're securely attached to those people, sometimes all it takes is a hug or a word or a sentence to make us feel better. It's such a powerful thing because we're social species. There's no Klonopin or Xanax that even comes close to the powerful effect of a secure bond. But the opposite is also true. Like insecure attachments can be one of the most powerful instigators of emotional turmoil. And so I always say that attachment really is at the basis of both suffering and healing from suffering. There was a therapist on the show a while ago who said something that's been knocking around in my head, which is that wounding happens in relationships.

52:43Healing also happens in relationships. And so choose wisely. Exactly. But also, if you understand the attachment logic, you can approach disagreements from a much better place, I think. And I think a lot of people don't know that logic. I recently have these two rules of secure engagement to really help people in an argument. What are they? I'd love to hear. So the first rule, and it all has to do, I'll explain the attachment logic. and then I explain the rule. Because as I told you before, when you really think about secure attachment and really the role of a secure relationship, it's to really help regulate our emotions.

53:27Secure relationships are very, very good in regulating our emotions. Like I said before, there's no Xanax or Klonopin in the world that comes even close to that. So if we accept that the role of a secure relationship is to help regulate our emotions, then we can also accept the first rule that the only one person is allowed to be upset at a time in any given argument, because if you're upset, then it's my role now to help regulate your emotions and help you to calm down. And that's really the basic tenant of a secure relationship. But unfortunately, it's not always easy when the one person is upset to stay calm, because when we're attached to people, it's like we almost become like one physiological unit.

54:12and the feelings reverberate between people. So when two people are upset, oftentimes what happens, they say, wait a second, there's a first rule, only one person is allowed to be upset at a time. And I was upset first, so it's my turn. And they start laughing about it. And that helps diffuse some of the tension. But let's say even that, they're beyond that. Even that doesn't help diffuse the anger and both are now upset. So then comes the second rule, which is the, I call it the mea culpa rule. It's my fault rule. So if you're both upset now, then you both have to apologize to each other. And oftentimes, people get so hung up on who's right and who's wrong.

54:52And there's like, they try to argue their case. It's like, no, but I need you, Dan, I need you to understand me. And no, I'm right here. So you need to really understand it so you can give me what I need. But it's really a big mistake because oftentimes, attachment, because that's a lot of prefrontal cortex chatter. But you have to remember that attachment is pre-language. We get attached way before we can even speak. And it has a different logic. It doesn't care about who's right and who's wrong. It cares about being connected. And it's upset because of the disruption of the connectedness. So from the point of view of attachment, you both have to upset for disrupting that connection.

55:34So you can say, you know, I'm really sorry that I wasn't able to help you. calm down that I actually may have been even worse by actually me getting upset. And now you became more upset and we're just like not going anywhere good. So I'm really sorry about that. I really want to help us feel better. And I'm like, what can I do? And you can say something else similar to that effect. So both parties really apologize about not being able to bring it down a notch. And if you want to argue about who's right and who's wrong, you can do it tomorrow. or once you've come down. And from my experience, people don't really care usually about who was right and who was wrong.

56:10They just want to feel that connectedness again. Yeah, I'm kind of in a self-critical space as I'm listening to you talk here because I think I just have historically such a need to be right that I can't imagine myself not being able to follow these two rules. But the other thing maybe that potentially would be helpful is to understand that because of these different attachment styles and because we see the world from a very different perspective, both people can be right at the same time. So I can give you so many examples. Let's say a couple that are dating. They're going out, they spend a really like an amazing weekend together and they're very close to one another.

56:51And then come Monday, the avoidant person forgets, they usually text on Monday morning, every morning, he forgets to text because, you know, it needs a little bit more distance or she, it can be he or she, it doesn't matter. It's like, it's not, women are avoidant too. But then the other person who is more anxious is like, oh my God, it's the beginning of the end. I know this is all too familiar. There was so much closeness and that they're backing away. I'm sure this is it. I know this is it. And so they try to text you, but you don't really see it. You don't text back. Later on at night, you talk.

57:24The other person is really upset. They're cold or they lash out or they say something. And then you're the avoidant. you think, what do they want from me? I just gave them so much all this weekend and now they want more. There's no end to how much they, to their neediness. So in a way you're both right because you both have these different scripts in your head. But if you understand attachment logic, then you can understand that this one person needs more of their distance and this other person needs that stability. And then you can say, yeah, you know what? You're right because I wasn't able to be stable.

57:59And then you're right, because now I'm like I'm aggravating like whatever is going on. And let's just like both apologize because we haven't dealt with that attachment baseline well enough in order to be able to keep it all like stable. It sounds like if we have a basic understanding of attachment theory, we can avoid so many fights and so much unnecessary anger. So much. If we understand the basic attachment logic, which is a different logic than our intellectual logic, it really lives in our emotional brain about being connected. So it really operates from a different brain area. And if we understand that logic, we can avoid so many issues.

58:45Like if you're avoidant and you understand, oh, there's an attachment baseline and I always text on Monday. And if I don't text on Monday, that's going to be like, then they're going to hit up my phone. Then you don't really feel, oh my God, they're like now trying to get my independence away. No, you understand, you know, that's what I did. So I'm getting the attachment backlash. It helps in so many different ways. And there are little things. Remember, because it's really more about the simis. It's about little like little tricks that you can change in little ways that can go so much further than most people even can imagine.

59:23My parents live in assisted living. My dad had a stroke, so he can't really talk well. He can't even hear well either. And so my parents have this little thing that when they see each other across the room, they give each other the finger and it's kind of there. They laugh. They think it's funny. And that's like a little see me. It's like their little love language. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. It's like it's this back and forth of connectedness. And it's like it's just really actually gives me goosebumps to hear that because I have to say since writing Attach and then Secure, part of the problem is that we oftentimes ignore the secure people in our lives because they're so dependable and they're always there for us and there's no drama.

1:00:06and especially if you're insecure, you gravitate to more trying to fix the insecurity. But I really learned to, I've fallen in love with the secures of this world over this process of writing these two books and doing this new type of therapy. But also seeing that we all have this secure potential in each and every one of us that can be called out. And really some part of that whole idea of the carpal intervention is to reach into that secure potential that I think resides in each and every one of us and bring that out and give it a chance to come out and really show itself. We are big fans of Wayfair at my house.

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1:03:18We've talked about a bunch of tools. Have we hit them all? I seem to remember there's an idea you have about working on your secure spiel. That's a Yiddish term for your secure story. Narrative. Yes, like a secure narrative. I think so. There are specific tools also for avoidance that I can talk about. But also the secure spiel, the secure narrative is more about how that's really like it talks about the third part of the book. It's about the secure mind. and it's really these different ideas because in the first two parts, I talk about the secure brain and then the second part is about how to get into secure mode.

1:03:57So if you have these different attachment styles, how to use the sinis and the carp to actually get into that secure mode. And the third part of the book that I'm really glad that you asked me about because I hardly ever get a chance to talk about is about the secure mind and these different ideas that stand in the way from us becoming more secure. So one of them is having all sorts of different ideas in our head about oftentimes things that I call in the book hidden sparks of talent that we see as impediments or that we don't really understand that are like we have these innate biological talents, but we have a different shatter in our head that comes in the way from seeing how we can actually, by finding the right environment, they can really flourish.

1:04:46Some of the work that we do in secure priming therapy is look at what we some of what we believe as impediments and see that oftentimes they can actually are potential strengths that are misunderstood or they just don't have the right setup in order to really flourish. Tell me a little bit more about how that would work specifically if if, for example, I'm an anxious in insecure attachment style. So someone who has, for example, an anxious attachment style, what I describe in the book, and you see it when you go through the data, it's really amazing to see, even though I have to say that even some of the research is biased because they always show that they have a sixth sense for danger.

1:05:27But when you look at the data, you see that they really can notice patterns and notice little subtleties that other people can't see. I'll give you one example of a patient that came to me when this woman basically ghosted him and he was in immense pain. He was really, really bad. And he just said, you know, I want you to extract this anxious attachment from my brain. And I said, you know, it doesn't exactly work like that. We can't exactly extract it from your brain. But also, this person was hugely wealthy and he did most of his fortune in the stock market. And I explained to him, you know, you have this sixth sense of identifying trends before anybody else can.

1:06:10And that really worked for you in an amazing way, because that's part of how you made all this massive wealth that you have by noticing different trends in the market and betting on them way before anybody else could. So would you still want to get rid of it? I can help you. I can teach you how to really navigate the whole dating world to find more secure people. But you wouldn't want to get rid of all of it. It's almost like, you know, these movies with the people with superpowers and how initially when they try to use them. It's like it backfires because they don't know how to control their power.

1:06:43It's a little bit like that with people with anxious attachments. It's learning how to hone in your instincts and your ability to identify things in their environment in a way that works for you and not against you. Tell me if I'm close to being able to summarize this. The goal here is we want to be as secure as possible as much of the time as possible. However, and somewhat counterintuitively, the way to reach that goal is not to make our anxious or avoidant tendencies bad. It's to come up with a spiel or a story about ourselves that allows us to use the natural upsides of these tendencies to our advantage to get us closer to secure.

1:07:27It's a three-part scenario. First, you have to understand what your social brain needs. Then you understand your attachment style and what are the specific social brain needs for your specific attachment style. And then once you accept that, then you can create an environment for yourself that would actually counteract some of your world beliefs about other people. And by doing that, by showing the brain different evidence, you see these simies, like people are not always going to try to leave you. People actually can be there for you. People can't show up for you. Then that's how the brain changes on a molecular level when you really engulf it in an environment, a social environment that is filled with those carpsimis.

1:08:18And then the latter part is those different ideas that stand in the way. And it's funny because a lot of the time people come to therapy and they think, oh, acceptance is just a way, it's a wishy-washy thing that therapists say. You just have to learn to accept how you are instead of really trying to change them. But if you understand the brain, it's the first step of changing. Because once you understand this is how I am, this is my biology, like, yeah, I'm more of an introvert and I'm a better writer than someone who's going to be able to climb up the corporate ladder. So maybe I should work from home more and look after the kids and also write.

1:08:57And then my wife is going to go out and work in the corporate world instead of me. Really finding and honing in on your talents and giving yourself the right biology instead of trying to say, no, I shouldn't let this bother me. I should muscle through this. I shouldn't let the fact that someone ignored me get to me. Because guess what? Our social brain doesn't care what you think what you should or shouldn't do. It will care. And the opposite is true. If you create the right environment, the amount of potential that you can reach from your brain is almost endless. Okay, so leave us with some closing wisdom here.

1:09:36Send us out into the world with a way to think about most effectively upping our secure quotient. I would say first really figure out where your attached topography is. not just that you really get a whole map of your social realm and where you fit in that realm. And then you start to see who are the secure people in your life. And you can really learn to give them, to really up the volume there. Because oftentimes, I told you, oftentimes some people tend to really ignore them and not give them the value that they should be given. Because these are, essentially, these are your vehicles for change.

1:10:19And the more you increase the volume on those people and the more you increase those seemies or those interactions with them, the more they'll teach you how to become more secure. The other part that we didn't talk about is like the, and not all of us have pets, but the importance of pets in helping us become more secure. Because I have a dog and to me specifically, he's not like the easiest dog in the world. He loves my partner. And whenever I come to pet him, he growls at me. You can even see my partner pets him. He's happy and can be like more, more, more. When I pet him, he growls at me immediately.

1:10:55But I've learned to really accept him for who he is. And I've learned to love him so dearly. And I think our pets really remind us. And pets have attachment styles too. Some love closeness. Some like more and more distance. But I think we really give the pets around us more the benefit of the doubt than we give the humans around us. So for those of us who have pets, to really use that as a potential framework of how we can also become more securely attached to the people around us. This has been great. So fun to talk to you. Is there anything else that you were hoping to get to that we didn't?

1:11:32No, I mean, you know, the book really describes the whole sort of method of therapy. There's so much there. It's hard to really summarize it, even in a short conversation. I really, the way that I wrote it, it's like if you read it and went through all the different exercises, it's almost like being in a whole year of therapy with me. It's kind of like the equivalent of that. So I think we've covered a lot and hopefully people can take home some of these ideas of changing the social realm, really learning to accept their looking for their hidden sparks of talent and inching those carp simies and inching towards greater security.

1:12:11Amir Levine, the book is called Secure, The Revolutionary Guide to Creating a Secure Life. It follows on his previous book, which was a huge bestseller called Attached. And his website, I'm going to try to recreate it from memory, is amirlevinemd.com. Am I right about that? That's correct, yes. Thanks, Dan. Yeah, what a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much for your time. Same here. I really enjoyed it. Thanks a lot, Dan. Thank you so much to everybody who worked so hard to make this show. 10 % Happier is produced by Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vasili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People.

1:12:46Lauren Smith is our managing producer. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Kashmir is our executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the great indie rock band Islands wrote our theme. One last thing I want to say before you go. If you enjoy this show, please do me slash us a solid. Follow the show and leave a rating and a review on whatever platform you watch or listen to us on. It only takes a minute. It's free, and it really helps new people find us and spread the good news that the mind is trainable. Thank you. Sincerely, I mean it. Thank you.

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