Amir Levine (on attachment theory)

11:51Amir Levine:Were your parents divorced? They're not divorced.

11:53Dax Shepard:Very, very long relationship. So you're asking because I didn't mention my dad yet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you're asking about a motivation to understand human behavior, they're completely opposites. My mom and my dad. My mom was a single child who came from an Ashkenazi European ancestry, Jewish ancestry. Yeah. My dad was a Sephardic Jew. They had 10 siblings. He came from a very poor family. And he never even finished the fifth grade. Wow. Yeah, he had horrible ADHD. He was bouncing whenever the teacher would come into the classroom. It was like, you out. Get off your desk and leave the classroom.

12:29Dax Shepard:By the fifth grade, he was done with the formal education. But he was a very smart person and very, very unusual person also. Exactly the opposite of this progressive. Even high on the disagreeability scale within. Completely high on the disagreeability scale. Like off the charts. Can I tell you what he did once we were at the hotel? I don't remember who the president was. The president of the United States was visiting. He was there with all of his entourage and everyone surrounding him. They're all wearing these suits. And I got nervous, so I kind of like clutched onto my dad's hand. And he said, you have nothing to be afraid of.

13:03Dax Shepard:Here, they're all humans just like you. Let me show you something. Oh, boy. And he took out a quarter and he flipped it in the air. and he fell on the marble floor and he made like this little sound. And they were all looking down to see what had fell. It was like an instinct. And you see, you see, we're all the same.

13:20Amir Levine:Oh, I love that example. I thought he was going to do something wild. Lunge at the president? Yeah. This is a weird question, but were you embarrassed by him? Because he was so different?

13:33Dax Shepard:We were so different. I think it took me many, many years to now really more understand what was going on in that relationship. It was not an easy relationship. For many, many years, I saw it from really my point of view of like he was really difficult, stubborn. Everything had to be done his way. So like the opposite of what my mom was. Like with him, if I didn't make it to school, that was a big deal. Thankfully, he wasn't around a lot and that's how I was able to get away with it. But if you were around, eventually he let my mom do whatever she wanted to do. But he was very, very difficult.

14:05Dax Shepard:Later on, and actually that's part of why I even wrote this new book, Secure, because all of my understanding and everything that I understood about our relationship really shifted. And I see it now from a more secure place. Because he was more an avoidant. Oh, gosh. He was definitely somewhat avoidant. And I think also somewhat fearful avoidant. Sort of like a mixture of it.

14:25Amir Levine:Now that we know a lot more about ADHD, the rigidity in the game plan, how much different that is for his experience and your mom's or other people's. Definitely. Maybe a little compassion.

14:35Dax Shepard:I have so much more compassion to him now. And then because of this whole process that I went through in understanding how to look at the world more securely. And that has helped me so much because, yes, he was difficult, but I was not easy either. And I was this smart ass kid who was really highly educated, was reading all these books. Belittled him. Yes. Yeah. And corrected his language and was like do all these things. Triggered his insecurities.

15:01Amir Levine:Yes, constantly. Yeah. Yeah. Isn't it so sad that we realized this all? Is your dad gone? Mine is. He's gone, yeah. Yeah, mine too. And I'm like, I just hate that I now have all this compassion for him. Because I was the great challenger of him as well at my household. Kids, that's almost part of their role. They are there to challenge. It's normal. I know.

15:24Dax Shepard:But he can get vicious.

15:25Amir Levine:I know. It can. Trust me. I know. For me, it's just sad. It's like, here's this man on earth that had this boy he clearly loved, and I could have adored him more and that would have filled him up more. And that was on the table for me to do and I didn't for all my many reasons. That's a bummer.

15:39Dax Shepard:It's kind of like karma gets you eventually. So now I have this little dog who's really, really cute. But he likes me, but he always growls at me. He has a contentious relationship with me. He's you. Yes, basically. And I see how much I love this dog. And that also helped me. And again, it's those secure shifts that I've had in my understanding of myself and my life that really helped change how I see things. And so now I understand, wow, my dad really loved me because I see how much I love this dog, even though he's so mean to me. Right, right. And I'm like, yeah, my dad really loved me because even though I was mean to him, I know that he did, but then I had this idea, like, how did he feel about me when I was behaving towards him in that way?

16:20Dax Shepard:And now I know because I can feel it inside.

16:22Amir Levine:Yeah, yeah. I don't even think it's ever anger. It's just kind of hurt. Yeah. It's just even sadder. Yeah. You know, he's just angry about it. Okay, so at some point in your 65 years in academia and residency and all this stuff, you yourself come across attachment theory. And you're learning about it. So just give us a brief as possible explanation of attachment theory, which started maybe in the 50s or something.

16:47Dax Shepard:Yes, I came across adult attachment theory by chance. When you learn to become a psychiatrist, psychologist, you know about childhood attachment. But I did know that adults have attachment styles and that they attach. During that time when we worked in attachment therapy with kids and their mothers, I loved it so much. So I read everything that there was about it. That's where I came across adult attachment. There's the anxious, avoidant, insecure, and fearful avoidant. And at the time, I was going through a breakup, and it explained so much. It felt like a light bulb running in my head. And like, wow, now I understand what went down in this relationship, why it didn't work out, and what also happened in other relationships.

17:25And so basically, we really need to understand about these attachment styles.

17:30Dax Shepard:Yeah, let's start with the children. So with children, the way that it works, Balbi is the founder of attachment theory. And he had this idea that wasn't prevalent at the time because Freud always thought that we attach to our mothers and fathers. Freud blames the mother a lot. We attach to the mother because she gives us sustenance and food. And it's a byproduct of that. But then Balbi, who actually worked with children because Freud didn't really work with children.

17:55Amir Levine:No, he did coke and sat in his room and thought.

17:58Dax Shepard:Pretty much. He actually said, no, I beg to differ because he saw what happens when children get all of their material needs met, but they were not given the attachment that they needed. And so he said, no, attachment is a basic need, just like food and water. It's not a byproduct. It's something that we need. And then there's the Harlow experiments that show even in monkeys how much they really need. These poor little monkeys clinging to a cloth. Instead of the wired mother versus the cloth mother. The wired mother gave food and the cloth mother, it was just a piece of cloth. Gave intimacy, basically.

18:31Dax Shepard:Yeah, but it was cold and metal, but there was just cloth and the monkeys went to the cloth.

18:35Amir Levine:Oh, no.

18:36Dax Shepard:At the expense of food. They would eat a little bit and then sort of go to the cloth. But remember what he said, because we don't really understand it so much in adulthood. And Bobby did say that attachment starts in birth, actually starts before, and then goes on until we die. and I would argue even after. Here, we were talking about our fathers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow, great point. Basically, he said that, but then came Mary Ainsworth, who was more of an experimental psychologist. So brilliant. She discovered these attachment style, anxious, avoidant, and secure in children in something that's called the strange situation test.

19:08Amir Levine:Ooh, tell us.

19:08Dax Shepard:Tell us. So the strange situation test, it's basically you bring a toddler and their caregiver into a room full of toys and you watch them through a one-way mirror. You can see it on YouTube. It's really remarkable. You bring them in. The child sees the toys. Immediately, I want to play. I want to play. Starts pointing at things. They rush over, start playing. And then they ask the caregiver to leave the room. Immediately, they drop what they're doing. They sort of run to the door. They start banging on the door, crying. And then they ask the mother, the caregiver, to come back to the room. And it's in that reunion, that moment, where Mary Answorth identified the three attachments fell, The anxious, avoided, and secure.

19:49Dax Shepard:And it's remarkable to see. It's basically how effective is that bond in regulating the child's emotion.

19:57Amir Levine:Oh, interesting.

19:58Dax Shepard:Yeah, and it's very important, actually, that co-regulation is so important and also translates to adulthood. So now I'm sort of stressing it. I'm like really making a point of it. So basically, the secure bond, the mother picks them up, and immediately, it's just like magic. They just come down right away. and then start pointing at the toys, wanting to engage again. Anxious, not so much.

20:20Amir Levine:What happens? What do they do?

20:21Dax Shepard:It just takes a long time to calm them down. Sometimes they calm down and then start crying again. It's called the calm-on-calm paradigm. So the bond is not as effective in regulating their emotions. And the avoidant, sometimes they don't even cry, or even they do a little bit. They stay limp in their mother's hands.

20:38Amir Levine:Is it fair to say they're pissed at the caregiver?

20:40Dax Shepard:So you think, oh, sometimes they look like I don't care, whatever. But when you look at their blood pressure, their pulse, it's through the roof. So they're blocking their attachment needs. But at the same time, they're alone in trying to regulate the emotions. They don't know how to utilize the bond to regulate their emotions. Oh, interesting. It all has to do with how good are people, children and then adults, in using others to regulate their feelings and emotions.

21:07Amir Levine:Do we know what the contributing factors are that end up in an anxious attachment versus the avoidant attachment? Are there patterns within that parenting style that produce that outcome?

21:19Dax Shepard:That's a very good question. And we do know a little bit. It's kind of like a wild field because apparently there's something that's called the adult attachment interview. There's the same attachment styles in adulthood, but they have nothing to do with the other attachment styles. They're more romantic ones or in their other relationships. It has more to do how we remember our childhood. Not so much the memories themselves, but how we narrate our childhood. There's the adult attachment interview. It gets scored by psychologists. And that can predict to some degree the attachment style of the child.

21:50Dax Shepard:So how well, if you're very structured in your narration of your past, then the child will be more secure in the strange situation test.

21:58Amir Levine:If the parent is? Yes. Oh, wild.

22:01Dax Shepard:Yes, it's pretty wild.

22:02Amir Levine:So if they have a pretty coherent, chronological story of their own life. That makes sense. That's coherent, makes sense. Odds are they're going to have a more secure.

22:15Dax Shepard:Yeah, there's better chances. Again, nothing in this is like one-to-one ever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's predict to some degree the child attachment style. And then if you're avoidant, then if you're like, oh, my God, I had the most amazing childhood. But then actually when you talk about the memories, there's sort of like a discrepancy. Yeah, yeah. Then the childhood's more avoidant and the anxious jump around from one topic to another. But I still don't really know what to make of it. Yeah, right. This is very hard.

22:42Amir Levine:So now tell me how you, you're going through a breakup, you're learning about this.

22:47Dax Shepard:Lo and behold, adults also have these attachment styles, anxious, avoidant, insecure. Only we don't play with toys like that anymore. But it has to do with our attitudes towards closeness and intimacy on the one hand. And then on the other hand, how sensitive of a radar do we have for infractions in the relationship? And what I mean from an attachment perspective is when all of a sudden we feel that the other person is not available to us. Because attachment is really a radar of availability of other people. It's a safety system. People think it's such a deep thing about bonding. It really is a very rudimentary safety system.

23:22Dax Shepard:It's how we feel safe in the world. And so we survey the environment and we kind of have an idea in our mind. And you two probably also have an idea in your mind where your loved ones are and that they're okay. But if I were to tell you that, God forbid, and I even hate saying that there's something bad happened somewhere, you won't be able to continue to have this conversation. You'd have to stop and immediately check to see that they're okay. So we have this surveillance system going in the back of our head all the time. People with an anxious attachment style, their surveillance system can pick up on very subtle changes.

23:54Dax Shepard:of that availability and potential threat. But the research also shows that it's not the only thing they're very good at picking up. They're picking up and picking a lot of different social cues. There is a downside to it, but it also comes with a huge upside. Let's say if you're, and I've seen it so many times with patients and just in people in the world, like if you're better at day trading, can sort of really see subtle changes that other people won't be able to detect. They're just very, very good at detecting. And then also one then questions, and that's what I really try to do in this book, is turn around that whole causality thing because oftentimes people blame their parents for their adult attachment style and it's completely wrong.

24:33Dax Shepard:But think about how hard it is to raise a child that has that level of ability, really superpowers to pick up cues from the environment. It can be a little stressful. For all parties involved. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I gave an example in the chapter because I really was trying to look for an example that people don't understand. no, it's not only about danger. It's not only about sort of like bad things. True, they can also identify danger. But in the book, I give an example about a woman who has an adopted daughter and she takes her to the first day of school. She starts playing with another girl there that she also finds out he's adopted.

25:07Dax Shepard:And then all of a sudden she stops and like, I can't believe I'm seeing this. These girls are sisters. And she saw like in their facial expression, they weren't exactly the same, but she could sort of detect the similarities in their sort of facial structure, in the way that they smiled, the way that they moved. And she started talking to other people and said, no way. No one believes her. The odds are staggering. Right. Exactly. But she kept at it. And lo and behold, they actually are sisters.

25:34Amir Levine:Wow.

25:35Dax Shepard:And what did she do with that information? These two sisters are bonded. She found her daughter, her sister. I think it's years later and they're as close as ever. So it's a really good story. Yeah.

25:45Amir Levine:You're right, though. So we tend to pathologize every single thing that we know about. And it's like, all these things are trade-offs. They all come with some benefit or you wouldn't have gotten to this point.

25:54Dax Shepard:I'm glad that you said that because I would say that my biggest mission in this book for people to realize that attachment, and that's one of the biggest misconceptions. And when you look on social media, that people equate anxious and avoidant with pathology. That's why I'm so drawn to the science because attachment, it doesn't come from the medical model of pathology and healing and curing pathology. It actually comes from social psychology and the neurodevelopmental model. So the question is not about what's wrong and how we can cure it or heal it. It's more about is it effective or is it not effective?

26:27Dax Shepard:Is the bond effective in regulating the emotions? Is it working for you or is it not working for you?

26:32Amir Levine:Is it servicing your goals or not?

26:34Dax Shepard:And from an attachment perspective, it's specifically, are you able to use this as something that's called a secure base? Is it giving you a secure base? Because the point of view of relationships from an attachment perspective, remember, it's like a safety mechanism. It's for you actually to fade into the background. So, you know, in the strange situation when the child wants to play with all these toys and every once in a while looks back to see if the mother is there. That's the point of a relationship. So we can kind of like check to see if they're there, but not to think about you that much.

27:04Dax Shepard:So you to be in the background. So we don't play with toys, but we have hobbies. We have careers. We parent. We have all these different things. So attachment is really linked to our exploratory drive. When we feel safe, we can explore. So it's more related to that.

27:20Amir Levine:Okay, so to bring everyone up to speed, so you wrote with Helen Attached, which was applying this attachment theory to adults and specifically romantic parents.

27:29Dax Shepard:Right, because that's what it was initially about.

27:31Amir Levine:Yeah, and so this book is enormously successful, and it also has a very peculiar trajectory as a book in that it's kind of hockey-shaped in its distribution. Didn't it just continue to swell over time and there were some interesting catalysts like COVID and TikTok?

27:47Dax Shepard:Initially, when we wrote the book, we had this running joke between us that it's only going to sell one copy to the Library of Congress. They have to get it. I went through this breakup and she's my childhood friend. And so instead of just, you know, how you talk about breakups incessantly, so I said, you know what, instead of sort of wasting all that energy about talking about the breakup, let's make something good about it. Can I ask what your style was? Was it anxious? With this person, yes. Yeah. It wasn't so much anxious. I didn't understand what was going on. And then that goes to this idea, like all these myths that we have, if you don't know about attachment theory, we have this idea that everybody loves the same.

28:23Dax Shepard:But science doesn't show that everybody loves the same. We love very differently if we're anxious, avoidant, and insecure. We haven't even gotten to it yet, which we'll get to in a moment. But we love very, very differently. So for me, I was more like the anxious, secure part. And then it was certainly driven more towards anxious when the other person stopped responding. They said, you know, when I really like someone, I actually think about getting on a plane and moving away to the West Coast. And for me, it didn't make any sense because why would you want to do that? If you really like someone, don't you want to see a future together?

28:52Dax Shepard:Don't you want to think about being together? But avoidance, they don't like too much closeness. And oftentimes when they feel too much closeness, they want to bulk, they want to run away. But I didn't know that, that that's 25 % of the population. God. That it's scary for them. that it means that they feel a loss of independence.

29:09Amir Levine:I'll add a layer because I think when I was younger, I probably, you'll be the first to acknowledge it, but like these are all spectrum categories.

29:15Dax Shepard:That's what this new book is really emphasizing.

29:18Amir Levine:And also we are very fluid and context dependent. So I'm one way. Relationship dependent. Yeah, I'm one way here, I'm one way there. But if I had to say what I lean more towards, it's actually zero fear of intimacy. Being close, that felt wonderful. But I would be immediately overwhelmed with the responsibility of that. And then this fear, almost in an OCD way, well, if I have to break up with this person, this is going to be so painful. And I'm now so afraid of this responsibility of potentially hurting this person that now I'm starting to feel a little trapped by it.

29:50Dax Shepard:So yeah, it's a version of avoidance.

29:51Amir Levine:There's all these hues of it.

29:52Dax Shepard:It is, yeah, exactly. You weren't afraid by the physical closeness. Or even the emotional. Yeah, you weren't afraid by that. None of it scared me. Somehow it felt like, whoa, this is a big responsibility. Definitely a tinge of avoidance there. And also I listened to some of your podcasts. I saw also there were moments of change. And I really put a lot of emphasis in this book of those small moments of change. I think, Monica, you brought it up in one of the podcasts about sort of the glass of water story that you used to have. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, with Kristen. Yes. That is like, why should I get her?

30:23Dax Shepard:Like, no, she should get it herself. We're both sitting here. Yes, exactly. No, why should I do that? And then I was like, potentially, what does it mean? What pattern am I setting that?

30:32Amir Levine:So for the rest of my life, I'll be waiting on this person. Right, exactly. Or I'm getting taken advantage of, that type of thing. And then the leap of faith of, no, actually, hold on. Do I think this person is someone who will exploit and take advantage of me because I'm nice this one time? And then that was kind of the breakthrough. It was like, no, I don't think this person is that way. I don't need to have this fear.

30:53Dax Shepard:And that moment, that shift, that's exactly how our brain changes towards greater security. I love that example. That's what I thought I would bring it up because it's such an important, it seems like, oh, yeah, but it's really, it's a major shift for our brain. So you're able to use what we call metacognition, which is like thinking about our thoughts. And hopefully you got up and got the glass of water. I did, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I haven't minded.

31:15Amir Levine:But then it starts all over again when you have kids. Am I setting them up for a pattern that I think is untenable for their life?

31:21Dax Shepard:I heard that. Maybe you mentioned something about when they call from the kitchen.

31:26Amir Levine:Yeah.

31:27Dax Shepard:I was like, they fall or something happens in the kitchen. Like, oh, I don't want to get up. And then eventually, no, but maybe I should. And sometimes you do and sometimes you don't. But you've evolved.

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34:49Amir Levine:As I always say, it's like my life now is stepping over the many bad thoughts I have in route to who I want to be. But they're going to come up every time. It's like, oh, that's that thing. That's that.

34:59Dax Shepard:The thing is what I'm trying to sort of really show in this book is that it's not necessarily a bad thought. It's more like this belief that every person should take care of themselves. And it's not a bad belief. It's just a belief. We then assign it blame or bad or sort of even give it a potential causal mechanism. But if we just examine it phenomenologically for what it is, it's a belief. And then you say, but is it working for me or is it not working for me?

35:23Amir Levine:But some people could be in that exact same situation and probably have an anxious attachment.

35:29Dax Shepard:Oh, yeah.

35:30Amir Levine:You know, it's like it's not like one equals this, a different person in that exact same environment. Well, your genetics are hugely in the mix.

35:38Dax Shepard:Yes, of course, because there's so many different parameters that go into this mix. So you're right. Some people will actually say, well, because I didn't have a mother that doted on me, now I have all these issues and now I can detect threat when someone tries to pull away because I can identify it. Right. It looks so familiar. I know what this looks like.

35:57Amir Levine:I think I have anxious. I wasn't going to self-diagnose you, but yeah. I mean, look, the way you would pray for your family members. A lot of fear. Superstition. If I miss this prayer, they're going to die. But that's not really attachment, or is it?

36:12Dax Shepard:I think it's more about how effective is the bond between you two. Like if you reach out to them, how quickly can you calm down? Anxious attachment is not necessarily just having separation attachment. It's more about being afraid that the bond, that you're not going to be loved as much as you want to be loved, that other people will leave you, that other people will fail you.

36:33Amir Levine:I do have that, but I don't know why.

36:35Dax Shepard:But it's more peer-derived than parental.

36:38Amir Levine:Yeah, it's weird because I don't have that at all with my parents.

36:42Dax Shepard:But her otherness in her peer group. So that's the beauty. And that's why I really wanted to, I mean, look, 15 years has passed through my last book. And a lot of new information was discovered about attachment. And I really found that there's a potential here to help people flourish. And actually, after I finished writing the book, then all these people started coming to me asking, okay, help me become more secure. But I didn't have an immediate answer for that because we never really learned about it in the clinical world. Basically, Rachel and I took it from papers and tried to breathe clinical life into it.

37:15Dax Shepard:But I didn't have an immediate answer to how you become more secure. And then the answer came over time from the lab, actually, not from my work, from understanding the brain.

37:24Amir Levine:Not from cocaine use in your study. Yes, exactly.

37:31Dax Shepard:But really from understanding the brain.

37:33Amir Levine:Yeah. So the first book helped you understand your attachment style. And then people want to know, well, how do I change it? Right. And now this book, Secure, is going to help us change into a secure attachment.

37:46Dax Shepard:As a neuroscientist, it's the kind of therapy I wish I could go into with people know more about the brain because most therapies haven't been updated. Some of it is not the blame of the therapies because the NIH doesn't really sponsor them on studies about new therapies. But there's so much more that we know about the brain. it's kind of like the kind of therapy that me as a neuroscientist would want to have but it didn't exist and so over time I didn't have this grandiose idea I'm going to create it but it just over time just happened on its own and I created these tools and the whole idea is if you know that a part of your life is much more secure than others that certain relationships are much more secure then why not then really increase the volume on that part of your life and just like shift the attention and the focus to sort of create a more secure life.

38:32Dax Shepard:And that really changes the brain on such a fundamental level.

38:35Amir Levine:What you do is you merge together three different fields. You're kind of, you've all Harari this. You're like, you're doing the neuroscience, you're doing the clinical psychology, you're doing the attachment.

38:47Dax Shepard:And you're creating what you would call now the secure priming therapy. But it's not only therapy and coaching, but it's also the way I started creating it, actually. I started creating a course for high school. anybody could learn. I had a student and she wanted to do some sort of a science exhibit on the social brain. And she asked me, what would be the most important lessons? And I came up with five. And then actually like three of them made it into the book. And these was the things that I thought would be the most beneficial for people to know. And then I thought, oh, I can actually make a course out of this where people can actually learn.

39:21Dax Shepard:If you really believe that you should only count on yourself, that's not a bad thought necessarily, or it's not a pathology, but it's really more to explain about how the brain responds to exclusion. Our brain hates exclusion and I call it the cyberball effect. And then I developed an antidote to it. How do we sort of then create the opposite because our brains loves hyperinclusion or hyperconnectedness? How do we then orchestrate that in our everyday life? So these are the three lessons that I started the book with.

39:50Amir Levine:Yeah. So you talk about the science of the brain in part one. So what do we need to understand about how the brain works?

39:56Dax Shepard:So our brain loads exclusion. That was like the most important thing that I would start with. I call it the cyberball effect. The biggest thing is safety because we're not descendants of eagles or elephants or lions. Yeah, we're not. We're like these primates who lived for a long time in the middle of the food chain. And it was only when I was on a safari in Africa. You realize how fucking vulnerable we are. Because we went, they took us, most of the time we're in those like vehicles and you feel like it's okay. even though one time an elephant started charging at us. It was pretty scary. But at one time, we walked outside in the wild.

40:30Dax Shepard:But they had a guy with a rifle behind us and a guy with a rifle in front of us. And we had to keep a single file. And at no point could we have actually opened the gap. And if we did, they would tell us immediately, close the gap. And then I realized, whoa, when we were there, there's no people with rifles in the front. And then it's not about just like, oh, I like being hyper-included. It's so nice. I love it. It's so comfy and warm and cozy. It's more of like if you're excluded, then you can fall prey at any second.

40:57Amir Levine:You're dead. Yeah, you're dead.

40:58Dax Shepard:It's life or death. And the fact that we're all close to each other here, for example, now. So if a predator came, I have 66 % of survival better than if I were myself because they're going to go after you. Rob's fucked.

41:11Amir Levine:He's going to get picked off back there behind that wall. Well, no. Not if they come in this way, then he'll run out that door and he'll be saved.

41:19Dax Shepard:And that doesn't take into account. the fact that we can warn each other, we can try to fight them off together.

41:23Amir Levine:We have a 360 degree view right now between our combined perspectives. Yeah, so we can alert each other.

41:28Dax Shepard:We can use all of our senses to help each other, all of which happens. And you see it in so many different social animals. Even you see it in social birds, peck, peck, peck all the time. And every once in a while, they swoop up, they look for food, and then to look to see if they're going to be prey. But then if they have more birds around, they will swoop up, they will look up a lot less. Their brain computes it into the mix. And our brains also compute it into the mix. You're not in New York, but like walking into an empty subway car in the middle of the night. I don't know if I will do that.

41:57Dax Shepard:I would go to the subway car because there's more people. Or like an empty alley. We instinctively feel it. It's a safety thing.

42:03Amir Levine:You intuitively do that math. The birds know like, oh, there's three of us. I should be looking up a third of the time, even though they don't know that. Yeah, exactly. And there's a hundred. So it's like, oh, I only got to look up 1 % of the time.

42:13Dax Shepard:Because it was hugely advantageous to do that. And then those who didn't get that social monitoring sort of upgrade, they couldn't really compete. There was such a huge advantage. They got picked off. Because they were constantly looking up and they were all eating while they were looking up.

42:25Amir Levine:And then we get into so much fun stuff. It's like the birth of lying comes from this. There are calls for chimpanzees to say leopard and this and that. Oh, yeah, yeah. And they would make a fake call so they could go fuck the high status female while the alpha was looking over here.

42:38Dax Shepard:Yeah, it becomes very intricate in humans and also in other social, and also even in some birds. We have an upgrade to that system because we compare ourselves to others. And there's a whole chapter involved to why we compare and why we can't help it. But part of our ability to compare, it's really about assessing the other. Are they stronger than me? Are they not stronger than me? But also, we have this upgrade that we can determine, are they going to work well with me or not? Right. And that ability to compare, to evaluate, it's key for us as humans.

43:07Amir Levine:This is theory of mind stuff, yeah?

43:09Dax Shepard:Yeah.

43:09Amir Levine:Yeah, I can think about how you're thinking. I can assess your thoughts.

43:13Dax Shepard:Yeah. And are you going to be there for me? Yeah, I can get her a cup of water because she probably has my back and she'll also get me a cup of water later. It'll be reciprocal. So we have that ability to assess and that's a key part in becoming more secure. And I even have a questionnaire. There's like, oh, assess how good is your collaboration and then also rate how close you are to different people and then see, are those really good collaborations also the people that are closest to you? Because if not, maybe you want to think about changing your priorities, your relationship priorities, and the process of becoming more secure.

43:47Amir Levine:Yeah. Interesting.

43:48Dax Shepard:Yeah, cyberball effect. Right. So the cyberball effect is based on the cyberball experiment. And basically what happens, you're playing a game of catch with two other people on a video game, a very rudimentary video game, two-dimensional. And all of a sudden, they stop throwing the ball in your direction. and the brain hates it. And psychologically, we hate it. You see areas of pain, distress, self-scrutiny in the brain. They all sort of like light up.

44:16Amir Levine:The amygdala is on fire. Is that what's happening?

44:18Dax Shepard:Parts of the amygdala, other areas of self-scrutiny. It's all like threat and what's happening and why is it happening? Potentially also pain, not too different from physical pain. It's very, very distressing. And psychologically, they looked and they found that certain domains are being affected that I personally was very surprised by it. Like we feel that life is less meaningful, less in control of our life and less self-esteem.

44:42Amir Levine:Oh, yeah.

44:42Dax Shepard:And less self-esteem. So things that I always thought my self-esteem is not related to or how much control I have over my life or that life is meaningful. Why does it matter to who is interacting with me? It's things that come from within. They don't come from within. Yeah. And they found the opposite of the solvable effect. When you actually put the person in the middle, And now I'm in the middle and I'm throwing the ball to you. You'll throw it back to me. I'm throwing it to you. You're throwing it to me. I'm hyper-included now. So basically you see the opposite. You feel that life is more meaningful.

45:12Dax Shepard:You feel more self-esteem and you feel greater control in your life. So these are amazing things that we can create by hyper-inclusion. But then the question is, how do you create that? Yeah, how do you create that? Teach us. So that's when I came up with these five pillars. CARP? Yes, the CARP. The five pillars of secure life, which consists of consistency, availability, responsiveness. And then you also have to make sure it's not enough. It's like, oh, I'm consistent, available and responsive. You have to make sure that the other person experiences you as reliable and predictable. And that creates CARP.

45:47Dax Shepard:So it's like a two-factor authentication. It's something that happens in a relationship. So if you learn to be CARP and you can also teach others to be CARP with you, then you can really create that hyper-included. And it's not that hard. It's actually pretty easy. That's what I'm trying to explain to people. Attachment is not a very sophisticated system. It's a monitoring system. Like if you give it what it needs, remember I told you, you are supposed to disappear into the background. You just have to learn how to strategically give that. So you don't wait until a child is super hungry to feed them or super tired to put them to sleep.

46:23Dax Shepard:You kind of like try to anticipate what they need and sort of give it to them. and then you can sort of coast. Yeah.

46:28Amir Levine:It is funny because I'm sure all the listeners can think about people in their lives who they don't have to think about the fact that they're there. They're not worried about that relationship. It's just there. It's constantly you and Aaron. There's people like that. And then you have people that you're like, do I need to check in on them? Or maybe that's just me because I'm anxious. But people who are more on the fence of, are they there?

46:52Dax Shepard:Yeah, they're not carp. So what happens is they push your button. They activate the radar. But I like how you said, we always have these people that we know that they're there. But what I find is that oftentimes people tend to ignore those people because there's no drama. We tend to shift more to where the alarm goes off. So let's see where it goes off. You're like inversely rewarded for being carp sometimes in some relationships. Yeah. And then what happened in the course of writing this book and the course of this work, I really learned to fall in love with the secures of this world because there's just so good relationships.

47:24Dax Shepard:And so what I really try to teach my patients and my students and when I supervise is to really shift the focus and find those people because we really ignore them. Instead of like, why is this person not texting me? Oh, but this person texts me all the time. Why shouldn't I text them? Right.

47:41Amir Levine:More energy there.

47:42Dax Shepard:Yes, exactly. And so you create that shift. And then what happens is we come to the final tool, which is when you start to pay attention. And it's not in the big things. It's in what I come to call the seemingly insignificant minor interactions, which is also short for simmies, of everyday life. It's in those little moments, like that glass of water moment, that a lot of major change can happen because it re-challenges your brain. If you have this belief, yes, I really have to work hard for people to interact with me and need to get their attention. Otherwise, they wouldn't want to be with me.

48:13Dax Shepard:They wouldn't want to necessarily reach out to me. That's more of the anxious thing. Instead, you get all these experiences, all these simies that are counteracting that world belief. Because really attachment styles are basically kind of a world belief, which is set in some ways. And then our brain sifts information based on that world belief. What I'm asking you to do is don't sift information based on your world belief. Look here to your right or to your left. And there's additional information that can change your brain with those little simies.

48:42Amir Levine:So one of my issues with like all this stuff, again, is trade-offs. There's positives. There's negatives. But in the mass pop psychology genre of social media, what I seem to see the most of is identifying somebody. You know, everything's about another person's problem. You know, if you're with a narcissist. And then also from childhood. Yeah. So either childhood's to blame or these other people are to blame. Or they have terrible pathology. I don't find a ton of it about how about you make yourself the thing that you think you deserve and then just kind of see what happens downriver from that.

49:21Amir Levine:For this is priority number one to make sure you're carp.

49:24Dax Shepard:I'm so glad you asked that. One of the reasons it was so important for me to write this book because it's just like I don't see things that way anymore. Instead of going back to this idea as a child, just like, no, but you can see things differently. So here, maybe try to look at it from a different angle. These are little tricks to fool your biology that wants to go in a certain way and make it see things a little bit differently so the brain can see, well, things can look different. So I'm not even saying, like, you have to take accountability. I'm not even going there. I'm just saying, look.

49:53Dax Shepard:But the thing is anxious and avoidant have to use those tools very differently. And that's where it gets a little bit more tricky.

49:59Amir Levine:Well, this is where we get into one of my favorite AA sayings, which is like it's easier to act your way into thinking different than think your way into acting different. So maybe explain a little bit what's happening biochemically and with neurons. And then why does this work with neuroplasticity and neural pathways?

50:14Dax Shepard:What's happening? Yeah, exactly. Because we have this surveillance system that was in some way maybe very sensitive and maybe the opposite, I'm constantly suppressing it. And then it starts ruling our life. If we get triggered, then two different things happen for anxious and avoidant. For secure, the thing is they don't really get triggered that often. They just don't see a lot of threats. So even maybe I think they would be the last people to know if someone cheated on them. They're not going to see the signs. Interesting. It's just like not something that they'll see. Or even at work, they can give you so many different scenarios.

50:43Dax Shepard:The other day, someone emailed me and they said, hey, when do you have a time to talk? And then my sister said, oh my God, she probably got fired. And I said, like, why would you say that? She just wanted to say when we can talk. Sure enough, she got fired. Yeah. And then more research recently have shown that it also affects how we interact with our health care providers. And even if we have a chronic illness like fibromyalgia, how much pain we're going to be in. And then it affects how we shop. Secure people don't care so much about logos. Why are you laughing? I just love shopping so much. But you can love fashion, but it's maybe less about status and more about...

51:22Dax Shepard:Or maybe it's also about status. Status is in the mix. I have to be honest.

51:25Amir Levine:I don't want it to be, but it is in the mix.

51:27Dax Shepard:You're such a good girl. But it's fine. I think I said it from the beginning, about 25 % of the population are avoidant, about 20 % are anxious, and about 50-something percent are secure, and a very small percentage are fearful avoidant. These are just like variations on the norm. There's different studies that show the amazing advantage to have that variability within the population. They had one study where they had like a little smoke come out of a computer and a group of people, and the anxious ones were the first to notice it, and the avoidants were the first out the door. And even a lot of other people followed.

52:02Dax Shepard:But you can see there can be an advantage. Just like, you know what? Fuck you all, I'm out of here. But I want to go back to what you said about this whole thing on social media. We're pointing at others. I just think that it's the wrong conversation or the wrong way of looking at it because there's this whole potential. And that's the beauty of the science that we all have these secure people in our lives and secure experiences from our own childhood that we can tap into and become more secure and the opportunity and the advantages for being more secure in that way. You can really flourish. I want my patients to flourish.

52:36Dax Shepard:I do want them to heal from trauma. And I'm not saying that's wrong, but I want to take it a step further. I think that this science, the really understanding and combining the neuroscience with the attachment really can give people the opportunity to flourish. I just stumbled upon this

52:52Amir Levine:chatting with my brother in New York. We took a trip for three days before Christmas. And we were discussing, There's a lot of good social science behind. Although I don't believe in the secret, the book, I do believe in an aspect of it, right? Which is your focus and attention can create a bit of confirmation bias. So if you're looking towards the future and you're thinking of only the ways you're going to fail, those are the ones you're going to focus on. And you're going to see proof of that more often than you will see proof of a different theory that you're trying to service. So I was talking to my brother.

53:25Amir Levine:I was just telling him, honestly, I'm like, you know, I'm writing this memoir and I feel a bit guilty because it's really the highlights reel of the bad stuff. Because that's drama. That's everything. That's a good book. And I said, but when I'm being honest, that probably in all your and I's combined stuff, that might have maybe been 0.2 % of our overall waking experience.

53:46Dax Shepard:That's amazing, actually.

53:47Amir Levine:And, you know, why wouldn't the same premise apply to looking backwards as it does forward? Like you and I could construct any story we want. We have enough info back there to come up with any story. And perhaps by us focusing on these things that were no doubt gnarly, we're kind of excluding all the other stuff that would confirm, no, we actually had a very blessed, lucky childhood.

54:11Dax Shepard:The way that you described it here is a big part of the essence of the Secure Priming Therapy is really recasting your past from a more secure place and really looking at the other influences and the other people that were in your life. Even the people where things were difficult, that's how we started the conversation. I was able to see my part in it also and really also see other times when actually my father really loved me and gave me attention. and that moment when we were in the hotel lobby, when he threw the coin. Yeah. And actually that shift is huge for our brain and it can really help us.

54:49Dax Shepard:It really changes also who we are in the here and now. Remember that narrative and how we create the narrative? It's richer and it's more true.

54:56Amir Levine:It's more true, yeah. And weirdly, I'm dealing with it now. It's really crazy that I can intellectually understand that and yet I do have this fear of letting that go. I know. I think it's so interwoven in my, quote, identity, that to let go of it would be threatening to my identity.

55:14Dax Shepard:And we live in a world that's really ruled by Freudian psychology, that everything is because of these things happened to us in childhood. But actually, the science shows that the attachment styles that we have as children predicts less than 10 % of the attachment styles that we have in adults. Whoa, that's huge. And a lot of what really changes our attachment style happen later.

55:37Amir Levine:Well, that's mind-blowing. It's counterintuitive. And it's encouraging.

55:41Dax Shepard:Completely encouraging because you can change your attachment style and you can evolve. And that's why, actually, I thought that it was fair to write this book because the science shows that you can change it.

55:50Amir Levine:Yeah, I want to know a little bit about neural pathways. What happens when you dwell on those five, you know, for me, I had two terrible stepdads. I had four great teachers. Why aren't I looking at the four great teachers?

56:01Dax Shepard:I was actually going to agree with that example because I listened. I did my homework.

56:04Amir Levine:Such a good student. Yeah, I'm telling you.

56:06Dax Shepard:I feel like he used AI, though, to scan all of them. Oh, no, I listened. He went back to school 80 million times. He listened to 2 ,000 hours. No, no, actually, it was fascinating, I have to say. And I love that story of the math teacher who recognized it was geometry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We had the little blocks and we were learning. And then he asked you to sort of teach the other students. Yes. Changed my life. Something that happened in a moment. Someone did something really good by my brain. And he changed my brain to a different trajectory and made me really see myself differently and think about things differently.

56:37Dax Shepard:Is the muscle analogy not good or is it good? When we use certain thoughts that embolden certain pathways? Oh, definitely. It describes it really, really well because what happens, our current belief is that our memories lie in our synapses, in the structure of the synapses. Usually LTP, long-term potentiation, is like electrophysiology that we strengthen memories. The synapses get tighter and there's more. So even there's actin growing in the synapses to kind of like build the structure. So that's why the analogy of the muscles, the actual molecules, some of them are the same molecules. And then when memories weaken, which is a very important part because we also have to forget.

57:14Dax Shepard:And forgetting is an active process in the brain, an active molecular process. Synapses actually weaken. They get further apart. That's why I brought up the whole semis thing. Because people when they go to therapy, they think I have to talk about my childhood, really difficult events that happened to me. But really, the avenue for change in the brain are through those simies because every interaction gives you a moment, a chance to rewrite something, to strengthen those synapses or weaken those synapses. And that's basically the synaptic plasticity idea.

57:43Amir Levine:It's such an empowering way to look at it all because you have absolutely no sway over what happened to you 30 years ago. That's done.

57:52Dax Shepard:But also, I mean, if you think about it, we're social species. We're not particularly strong animals. We're actually pretty weak. We live in every niche on this planet just because our ability to sort of collaborate and cooperate so well. So it doesn't really make sense that we'll stay like stuck in something that happened to us really early on. What advantage is there in that at all? It's just like, it doesn't make sense to me. We need to be socially versatile and we are extremely socially versatile. Much, much more than we give us credit for because of that Freudian biology.

58:24Amir Levine:You're so right. When it hits me the most is I'll be watching some documentary on chimpanzees. And, you know, they're probably our closest thing to look at. Oh, yeah, they are. And these little babies, they get fucked up. These alpha males will come through and they'll be thrashing the jungle and they'll throw 130 feet and everything. And I just am watching that and I'm like, it's curious to me that they're so resilient. They go to what we would call capital T trauma almost daily. Oh, yeah. Their lives are vicious. They still persevere, right? And I'll look at that and I'll go, as much as I do like honoring what has happened to us, we also have forgotten how fucking resilient we are.

59:02Amir Levine:You can't live with this many members of a group and not be traumatized many times.

59:07Dax Shepard:So that brings me to that chapter 10 about causality.

59:11Amir Levine:Yes, I've circled that one. I wanted to talk about that.

59:14Dax Shepard:Anne, you want to tell the story of Anne? A woman who as a child had terrible separation anxiety. But unfortunately for her, her dad had to travel a lot for business. And so whenever he would travel, she would sort of cry and really sort of hold on to his leg and like, really, don't go, don't go. And then she would have a hard time falling asleep. They would try to reassure her, but he had to go for work. But they didn't know she had separation anxiety. There's actually good treatment for separation anxiety in children. He says like 4 % to 6 % maybe have that. Yeah, it's very prevalent. Eventually, she learned it's not going to work, and I'm just going to bottle it up.

59:44Dax Shepard:They thought it was over, like that she was fine. In many cases, it does go away. So it wasn't unreasonable to think that. But she really kept that fear inside for many, many years and she couldn't fall asleep. She just kept a brave face. And then when she was an adult, she had a really hard time in relationships. She would be in a relationship, but she would always want to leave. Every day was like, should I stay or should I leave? Should I stay? And she would keep even boxes packed because no, no, no, I shouldn't unpack them because I'm going to leave. And that happened in several relationships.

1:00:13Amir Levine:She was afraid they were going to leave? Like she was trying to get ahead of it?

1:00:16Dax Shepard:Because she just didn't feel any safe. And look, she's just like, no, this doesn't feel right to me. I don't know what's going to happen here. This doesn't feel right to me. I don't know if I belong here. Is this the right thing for me or is it not the right thing for me? And so as someone who learned psychology and learned to do therapy, then you said, well, because as a child, even though your parents were loving and cared about you, still there was that basic experience that relationships are dangerous. Relationships are a source of pain and anguish. So I'm going to be very careful how I'm going to approach this relationship.

1:00:46Dax Shepard:And the truth is, I would have given this explanation and I would have stood by that explanation until I became a scientist. And once I became a scientist, I said, wait a second, when you're a scientist, finding causality, that's the holy grail of scientific discovery. That's so hard to do. Did you want to explain the difference between correlation and causality? I think people think they're experiencing causality. We think in causality, but oftentimes people find things actually correlate or confound. The best example, because I love that example when you talked about how You came from a family of little means.

1:01:20Dax Shepard:So you have to sort of fend for yourself and you have to sort of make sure that you're taking what you need. And so the best example is that marshmallow test that has been disproven.

1:01:29Amir Levine:Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa.

1:01:31Dax Shepard:Milk it?

1:01:32Amir Levine:Who did marshmallow? Oh, no. I don't know.

1:01:35Dax Shepard:They tried to replicate it and it was completely disproved. Come on. This is an exclusive. What? Tell me.

1:01:42Amir Levine:Tell everyone. Yeah.

1:01:43Dax Shepard:So the marshmallow test, they took children and they put a marshmallow in front of them. And they told them, if you wait for a certain time, then when we get back, you'll get two. And so they waited a certain time and some kids were able to wait and got two and some weren't able to wait. You can see them like sitting on their hands, singing, trying to sort of distract themselves. And then they found that those kids who didn't have that impulse control, then they didn't wait. They didn't fare as well later in life as the kids who had better impulse control. And there was a whole theory about impulse control and how good it is and how important it is and all of that.

1:02:15Dax Shepard:Lo and behold, they did a larger study with a larger cohort, and they didn't find any of that effect. Interesting. And not only that, they found that the original studies were confounded by socioeconomic status. Oh. So, of course, it would make sense. Of course, yeah. If you come from a lower socioeconomic status, to jump at that mushroom and eat it. Yeah, there ain't no two coming back. Yes, exactly.

1:02:38Amir Levine:Yeah, that's why.

1:02:39Dax Shepard:And everybody knows that socioeconomic status is... The biggest predictor. Yes.

1:02:43Amir Levine:Oh, my God. They've been lying to us this whole time.

1:02:46Dax Shepard:There have been thousands of books written on the shoulders of the marshmallow. But that's the beauty of science. When I work with single molecules, I can give you astounding examples. I worked with mice and aplysia, much simpler animals. Even those, when we think we found causality, at some point they thought PKM zeta, it's like a molecule. That's the reason why we have long-term memory. It's responsible for long-term memory. There's a big splash in science paper, and everybody believed that. and they gave this medication that inhibited PKM Zeta. They could erase memories, prevent them from happening.

1:03:18Dax Shepard:Amazing. And it's all done in mice. Very simple fear memory stuff. Several years later, another study came out in Nature, sort of science rival. It's like, no, sorry. We actually were able to knock out PKM Zeta from mice. They remember perfectly well. And not only that, we gave them the medication that you thought, and they don't have PKM Zeta, which they thought was specific. It did disrupt their memory. and that medication is not specific. It actually completely, I'll just say it in a way that will make it more simple. It completely fucks up the brain. So that's why they didn't have it. It's a systemic collapse of brain activity

1:03:54Amir Levine:of which memory is a part. Yes, exactly. Something like that. Oh, wow. Yeah, like we hit them in the head with a club that connects us to memory.

1:04:03Dax Shepard:Something of that, yes, basically. So even a single molecule in simple animals is so hard to establish causality. How can I really stand behind such causal inferences? Like in mice even, if you take them, if you expose them to a bully, I don't know how long they put them there, and they beat them up. And then sometimes some of them, I think maybe 50 % will really suffer and develop symptoms of depression and anxiety. Another 50 % will completely, like nothing happened.

1:04:31Amir Levine:Right.

1:04:32Dax Shepard:So we don't know.

1:04:33Amir Levine:That's a simpler animal in a much more controlled environment.

1:04:36Dax Shepard:You still don't know.

1:04:37Amir Levine:My therapist actively does not like talking about the past.

1:04:41Dax Shepard:Because a lot of the evidence-based therapies really focus on the here and now. They really evidence-based therapies for depression or anxiety. And I really try to create something that will help people become more secure while focusing on the here and now. While creating these small interactions that gives your brain another chance.

1:05:00Amir Levine:Yeah. Exactly. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

1:05:31Dax Shepard:people. And I can say, you know, maybe there are echoes from the past, which is fine. But the truth is we can work in the here and now to really instill meaningful changes that will really help you. And that's what we did. Luckily, she had a very secure partner. That's always good because that's sort of like the vehicle for change because they're like, I told you, I fell in love with the secures of this world because they're like having a built-in relationship coach in the relationship. It can be in friendships, in romantic relationships, it can be at work, can be in so many different areas of our life.

1:06:00Dax Shepard:So those relationships are really, really important. And then he didn't take it personally. And it's easier for securers not to take things personally because they don't sense danger. So it's like, oh, it's easier. And so, yeah, I understand this is something that comes up. And so she was able to learn to open up to him and talk to him about her fears and then slowly to unpack the boxes. All the angst that prevented her started to sort of melt away and it worked really well, but it worked in the here and now. And it really didn't depend so much on understanding the past.

1:06:29Amir Levine:Yeah.

1:06:30Dax Shepard:But there is something to be said about recalling past events in therapy or in general with even with friends. What actually does happen is an opportunity to rewrite your memories. You're recalling something. And what we now know is that from a neuroscience perspective, when we recall a memory, we to some degree disrupt it. We know it in like in animal models. When they recall memory, you can prevent a new protein synthesis. I'm maybe getting too technical, but new protein synthesis, in order for long-term memory to re-solidify, you need new protein synthesis. You completely erase their memories.

1:07:04Dax Shepard:So basically, by recalling something, you disrupt the memory, and you have a chance to not just create a causal connection. I think it's actually more powerful to change the actual memory, to edit it, to suit you more now to where you are now.

1:07:19Amir Levine:That's why everyone's memories of the same experience are very different.

1:07:24Dax Shepard:Very different.

1:07:24Amir Levine:Because over time, they're thinking about it and they're changing.

1:07:27Dax Shepard:Constantly editing it. Yeah. Constantly and can be affected by how other people talk to you about it, how you recall it. Memory is very vulnerable in a good way, I think.

1:07:35Amir Levine:I'm with you and I am concerned about modern pop psychology for all the reasons we're listening. One thing I found about going through my past when I actually did real therapy starting five years ago, I guess, I was telling these stories that I had told a million times. But in this context with this man, I do believe I was feeling the emotions attached to those feelings that I had never let myself feel. And I feel like I got to actually cry when I was telling the story for the first time. And I felt like I was allowing myself to experience and grieve for something I just never made space for because I thought it might have killed me.

1:08:16Amir Levine:So for me, I felt like there was utility in it. And then I had delayed the emotional response to some of these things for so long in that once I had the emotional response, they got smaller. I knew somehow on the other side of that door was crying and I was just not going to go there. And then once I did that part, I did feel like it liberated me to go forward.

1:08:35Dax Shepard:Completely. So that's the second. The first part is the sort of re-editing those memories. And the second part is that when you sit together with someone that you trust, and how often do we get to talk about those really difficult moments or intimate moments and recall them with someone that you fully trust, that you have a very unique therapeutic relationship is unlike any other relationship in the world. That you can open up and they're there just to listen and to help you and to understand you. And if you feel that connection, they give you the secure base to be able to process some of the information and really change it in a way that now actually feels more secure.

1:09:14Dax Shepard:So that's the thing. And actually a lot of studies show that it doesn't really matter so much the modality of the treatment. You know, there's CBT, there's IPT, there's all these different types of treatments, but actually it's more about the fit with the therapist. So again, we come back to the attachment thing. Exactly. How well do you feel that you connect with someone and how much attachment is powerful? I like to say that attachment is both at the base of suffering and healing from suffering. Because remember the strange situation, how effective it can be in regulating our emotions. So we have an attachment hierarchy in our head.

1:09:48Dax Shepard:We all have it. And I know that if something bad happens to me, I know exactly who's number one I'm going to go to, who's number two. You see, you're all nodding because you know too. I know exactly who to go to. And that's very important for our brain. And then if I'm securely attached to them, most of the time, a single word from them or a sentence or even a hug will calm me down immediately. There's just no Xanax or Klonopin in this world that can be as powerful. And no wonder because it works on so many different neurotransmitters all together, like opiates, oxytocin, dopamine, you name it, it works on those and other things that we haven't discovered yet.

1:10:24Dax Shepard:It's so powerful, but the opposite is also true. Insecure attachments can be the most powerful instigator of emotional distress. So attachment is the basis of both suffering and healing from suffering. And part of the reason why I wrote this book is kind of like to really try to shift people towards getting better and making things work for you better. Then being stuck in that place where your brain constantly is surveying and feels that danger.

1:10:50Amir Levine:So interesting.

1:10:52Dax Shepard:Another part of the book talks about biological diversity and hidden sparks of talent. So please tell us about that. When you become a molecular neuroscientist, you see the enormity of molecular diversity that we all possess and how different it is. And we know it because we all look a little bit different and we all have these different abilities, even just in the way that we can flip our tongue or like even with our fingers, all these different things. But also it goes way, way further than that. Evolution loves diversity. It's really one of the best survival mechanisms. but we don't really fully appreciate how diverse we are and also in our talents.

1:11:29Dax Shepard:And not only that, oftentimes, especially people with insecure attachment, sometimes their biggest talents they perceive as impediment. But here, like a hidden spark of talent that someone actually identified was your math ability. And so when you lean into that ability, how it can really profoundly change your world.

1:11:49Amir Levine:Those dominoes. If I'm actually good at math, maybe I can be good at other things.

1:11:53Dax Shepard:Right. And so I find that when people can learn to identify both theirs and other people's hidden sparks of talent, it really changes the way that they look at others and themselves. So, for example, if someone is actually very, very generous, but they give to everyone, but his wife doesn't like that he gives to everyone, but he also gives to you also a lot too. You can't just decide, oh, I want him to be generous to me and sort of mean to everybody else. It doesn't work that way. It's almost like a hidden spark of talent. So when you learn to look at things that way, you say, oh, wow, actually, I see that.

1:12:24Dax Shepard:I don't have to resent that he gives and he gives and he gives. I'm also the recipient of that giving. So I can see that as a hidden spark of biological talent.

1:12:33Amir Levine:As you said, it's a system that's scanning how available someone is. So you could misread that as a lack of availability because they're available for other people.

1:12:40Dax Shepard:Yes, exactly. Now you're talking from the attachment logic because, oh, am I being left out? Scarcity. but that's where we can really learn to transcend our biology using metacognition, basically. So metacognition, how we think about our thoughts. So he's like, wait a second. Yeah, I mean, I have that soluble effect. Am I feeling? But hey, look at, and that's where also it's good to have, I call that secure people in your life, a secure buddy where like if you get upset and that's what I do like in the secure therapy, I do sort of real time sometimes with text. You're also the recipient of it and it actually doesn't take away from you.

1:13:17Dax Shepard:And you teach them a secure way of looking at things that secure love is actually bountiful and not scarce. Remember, secure relationships are not about being attached to the hip. All it needs is like a little bit more acknowledgement. So a little bit more texting. The other thing is, it's actually say, well, I wish you were here. Well, actually also remember that hyperconnectedness to always give an opportunity if possible to include, Oh, it's too bad you can't come. Everybody talked about you. Everybody mentioned you. So there's a psychological way of including people, even if they're not there.

1:13:53Amir Levine:Yeah.

1:13:54Dax Shepard:Everybody talked about you. Oh, my God. Everybody mentioned, like, how come? And then even in the middle of a dinner, hey, this food, you would have loved it. So, like, you include it, even if you're not there. It's easy to do it.

1:14:04Amir Levine:Yeah, I feel like just telling people you miss them is so huge. Huge. Because, like, I'm thinking about you. I know you're not here. I'm thinking about you. Exactly. A lovely way to include people. Yeah. Was there anything I've left out that you would want to cover?

1:14:17Dax Shepard:I don't know if I actually really defined. I should have done it. I always tell people, like, put myself over the head. Like, I should define those attachment styles early on. Should I define it just in case if you wanted to? Let's do it. Yeah, let's do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it all has to do with how comfortable we feel with intimacy and closeness, but also how sensitive radar we have to potential danger in the relationship. So if we have an anxious attachment style, we love closeness and intimacy, but we also have a very sensitive radar to a potential danger. If someone doesn't become available, we notice it right away.

1:14:49Dax Shepard:And that can lead to thoughts of like being rejected, take things personally. So that's the anxious attachment. And then secure attachments are people who are warm and loving and they love a lot of closeness as much as you can give them. But they're also not sensitive to danger in their relationship. So if you don't give them that much closeness, they're fine with it too. They just don't see, oh my God, something is wrong. They don't like me anymore. No, it just goes over their head. So that's secure attachment. And people who have an avoidant attachment style, they also want relationships because we're social species, but they just don't feel too comfortable with too much closeness.

1:15:23Dax Shepard:They want you, but they want you from a little bit of a distance. And so they find ways of creating that distance so they can feel more comfortable.

1:15:31Amir Levine:What might that look like? Because when you say the anxious attachment, I immediately, I think we all can, you can think of like your big friendship group and you can think of the ones that are like really upset monitoring when they've been invited and when they've not. And I mean, this is a brag, but it's like, I don't notice that, right? Like I don't notice on Instagram. It's not a bag, it's just what it is. This group was at dinner. It doesn't even cross my mind. So to me, that's a very obvious example. So what does the avoidant one look like?

1:15:56Dax Shepard:I'm glad that you said that you don't notice that because secures don't notice it oftentimes. But if they're asked to do it, they will do it. Yeah, right. avoidance, they have a harder time with it because they have this worldview that you have to be independent, you have to be self-reliant, and they are to themselves, but they don't understand. We said they're about 25 % of the population. They don't understand that they're the minority. They're not the majority. Most people need other people to help when they're in time of need, when they come to you. So when you come to them in time of need, it's like, what do you want from me?

1:16:28Dax Shepard:Take care of it. But then it actually triggers your attack even more. It's like, no, no, now you become the center of their problem, I'm coming to help and you're not helping me. They forget about the bad thing that happens to them. And now you're the bad thing that's happened to them. So they fall into these constant traps unknowingly often, not knowing how to manage. Like, no, you're the minority report. You need to understand that when people come to you, they can't deal with it on their own. So that's one thing. The other thing, sometimes they create a lot of closeness. Well, they spend a really amazing weekend together.

1:16:57Dax Shepard:Everything is very intense and fun. And then comes Monday and they need their time. Okay, we've had enough, right? They have this idea that they can carry it forward like credit, but attachment doesn't work that way. It's a radar. And so they actually disappear. They do the opposite of what they intended to do. They actually increase the change, the delta. And now you actually even more, what's happening? Why are you not answering?

1:17:19Amir Levine:It feels like love bombing.

1:17:21Dax Shepard:Yeah. They don't understand what's happening. Like why are you disappearing all of a sudden? So remember the consistency, available, responsive, they don't even understand what's happening. They're like, yeah, don't you feel filled up? Yeah. And then the last thing that happens is that sometimes when they get too close too quickly, they don't pace themselves because they're kind of like, no, I want this to happen. I want it to work now. I've looked for all these people and it doesn't work and now I want it. So they get very close real fast because they think all the other people that I met, they weren't the one.

1:17:48Dax Shepard:This person is going to be one. I may just swoop in and go in like full force to make it work. But that's exactly what they don't need to do because the problem is not that they weren't into that person. They were into all these other people. The problem is that there's too much closeness for comfort. And then they have these deactivating strategies. Like, oh, I don't know if I like this person. I don't like how they chew. I like these are all these little things. Their toenails. Yeah, there's these deactivating strategies. They have to learn to pace themselves. And they have to learn not to get, I call it the closeness overdose, because then they're going to sound like, no, this is suffocating.

1:18:24Dax Shepard:I don't want you anymore. And then again, they create this sort of push-pull. So you can teach them how to sort of engage in more carpsinis, basically. Yeah.

1:18:32Amir Levine:Did you once say that one of your criticisms of your own book, Attach, would be that you didn't necessarily give the avoidant. Oh, I'm glad you brought that up. Yeah, the avoidant group. As much compassion as maybe they deserve.

1:18:43Dax Shepard:I feel this is my, like, amends. But it's not entirely my fault. This book is definitely my amends to the avoidance. Not just mine. I have to say also just the research in general. because research is also biased and the questions that people ask are biased. And I feel that in this book, I really present a much more biological explanation of avoidance, not necessarily, you know, again, blaming the mothers like that your parents were not responsive to you. I don't think that's the case. And I really make a strong case of it. But I really think that we presented the data, the science and the show, they have a wandering eye, they don't take care of you so well if you're sick.

1:19:20Dax Shepard:And so we just wrote it out there. But then over the years, working with avoidance.

1:19:25Amir Levine:Are you laughing at me? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's laughing at me. When someone gets sick, I'm like, just go deal with it, man. I do. He's like, we all get sick. Yeah, we all get sick. You see? I was sick too, but I didn't fucking bother you with it. Right, exactly.

1:19:41Dax Shepard:Because they don't. They don't bother other people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. I'm so guilty of it. What's happening biological with me? So biologically, I give an example in the book of C. elegans, which is like a tiny worm that neuroscientists love because they have, again, huge neurons. And they can be manipulated and experimented on. So in C. elegans, they found that they have two types of feeding behavior, solitary feeding behavior and social feeding behavior. And so they eat E. coli. Thank God.

1:20:11Amir Levine:We don't want to.

1:20:12Dax Shepard:I know. So when the social ones, they detect E. coli, you see like a whole pile of worms voracious eating. No, thank you. And then...

1:20:20Amir Levine:I hate that image. I know, I'm sorry.

1:20:23Dax Shepard:But it's important because the solitary one, if one swims in that direction, they swim the other way. They're chemotactically repelled by the other worms and it's a change in a single amino acid, in a single protein. They can switch solitary to social and vice versa. Yeah, that's very... So... The case that I'm trying to make is that this preference for closeness and distance, a lot of it is also biologically driven. And we can see it everywhere around us. Like even you can see in pets. Some people say some dogs are like cats. They don't like to be that close. They actually will stay away. Like, okay, I like you from a distance.

1:21:01Dax Shepard:Some cats will stick to you and they actually are not that separate as you would think. You can see it in birds and you can see it in people. Some people feel more comfortable with more closeness. and there's a big, big, big spectrum. But if we can also focus on the here and now and make these changes that can really lead us to be in secure mode. It's a way to flourish in the world, to feel safe, to not worry all the time. It's so much so, and that's kind of like chapter four in the book. I write about energy in the brain because you really have to understand that the brain is a huge energy guzzler.

1:21:30Dax Shepard:It can't really get reinforcements. It can only deal with the amount of energy that it gets. It can't increase the blood flow all of a sudden, like our muscles can or when we eat. That's not possible for the brain because it's encased in the skull and the pressure will mount and we'll have a bleed. So you get the amount of energy that you get, which is 20%, which is a huge amount. The brain is 2%, but it's taking 20 % in the children, even more. Five-year-olds, it's like 50%. It's kind of crazy. And then all that you can do is you can divert energy from one area to the brain to the other. So if you feel safer, and especially those prefrontal areas that we think and abstract and create.

1:22:10Dax Shepard:These are the ones that are most energy heavy. So when you create a safer, like a secure mode environment for yourself, you can free up that energy to sort of be diverted more to thinking, like the child in this strange situation, like playing, doing things. It's not just about, oh, this is nice to me. I don't really have to worry about what the other person is doing. It's really more about this frees up energy to actually achieve more.

1:22:35Amir Levine:And then the last thing, and this is now stemming from immediate defensiveness. Obviously, it's also, I think, tempting for us to label ourselves one thing across all domains, right? So it's like, I could be avoidant in caregiving of an illness. And then if you call me for AA,

1:22:53Dax Shepard:I've got unlimited time for you. I think that's the promising part of this whole book, our versatility and our ability to sort of like to change, to understand, to accept certain things. And also knowing. So if you're not such a great person, when you get sick, then why shouldn't I call someone else? Right. No, I'm serious. Why does one person have to do everything? Yeah, exactly. Right, right, right. It doesn't make any sense.

1:23:14Amir Levine:Yeah, yeah. Okay, great. Amir, this is awesome. Please, everyone, check out Secure, the revolutionary guide to creating a secure life. This is just so encouraging and hopeful, and I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks so much for coming.

1:23:29Dax Shepard:Yeah, thanks.

1:23:29Amir Levine:Yeah, it was fun, actually.

1:23:30Dax Shepard:I was nervous about it, but I enjoyed it. We aim to be fun.

1:23:34Amir Levine:All right, be well. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Unfortunately, they made some mistakes.

1:23:45Amir Levine:When's mom and dad arrive? They land at like 340. Okay. Probably like 5, 530. LAX? There's no good Burbank. Mm-mm. Which is sad. We gotta expand Burbank. I know, but then it's... But only to the destinations we want. Yeah, because then it's gonna become the same situation, which we don't. I will support an Atlanta route if you support a Nashville route. Yeah, there is a Nashville. They had one flight one time to Atlanta out of Burbank. A single flight in the history? Yes. Callie and I took it home for Christmas. Was it Air Kmart? No, it was Delta. Oh, it was Delta. Yeah, and it was like a lot of years ago.

1:24:26Amir Levine:They tried it. I guess they decided it. I'm not going to call them out, but I am going to say what is really weird is how much these airlines jockey for quality. Like if I go back 15 years ago, what I would have listed is like the best quality airline, like the cleanest, most up-to-date everything. That has shuffled dramatically. And I don't really understand that. I want to know what forces make these ones that were kind of good just tumble. I guess it's management. Like I'll just say someone at Delta has turned that thing into a real wonderful airline. It's a great airline. But I used to have to fly it nonstop.

1:25:04Amir Levine:They absorb Northwest. Right. And I always had to fly Northwest because that was, Detroit was a hub for Northwest. Basically, the Northwest love to fly anywhere where you might get snowed in and have to get a hotel room. Yeah. But, you know, it was just, it wasn't, you know, whatever. Well, Delta probably is, they took it and they're like, we're making it good. I just want to tip my hat to them. They're not a sponsor. I want to tip my hat. They have really upped their game, I think. They're not a sponsor, but they are my preferred airline. Except we did fly Emirates to India, and that... That was nice.

1:25:42Amir Levine:Was really nice. That was nice. That was nice. Really, really, really nice. Are you excited about anything? It's a very exciting time for me. Oh, go ahead. MotoGP returned last weekend. So we had our first race of the year after four months layoff. And Formula One's been gone for three and a half months. They've been in their winter break. Right, right. And that returns this weekend. Oh. So I'm coming out of my three or four-month fast of racing, and I'm pretty excited about it. That's fun. Knowing that you don't have something like this, right, where it's multiple events over the course of a weekend.

1:26:21Amir Levine:And I may or may not partake in all of them, but just knowing if I wanted, there's a lot of stuff on Friday I could check in with. Saturday is a big day. And then, of course, the race on Sunday. That is the power of having something to look forward to is gigantic. Yes, that's huge. Speaking of that, we really dropped the ball on the Olympics this year. We didn't watch it. We didn't talk about it. We didn't do anything. That's upsetting. And, you know, I read a thing that it was the most viewed Olympics in like 16 years or something.

1:26:58Dax Shepard:It was? What?

1:26:58Amir Levine:I was a little shocked to see that, no, it was a hugely successful and watched Olympics. I'm surprised by that, too, because I don't—not because I wasn't interested, but because no one I knew was talking about it at all. And even on podcasts and stuff, I wasn't, like, hearing about it. I tried, right? I was in Miami when they kicked off. Erin and I were excited to consume some Olympics and do some napping while we did that. because it's good napping material because there's a lot of downtime. It's like someone does a run and you hear a lot of talks, waiting for scores, whatever. And so when I, this is terrible to admit, but when I checked in, I was having this feeling of like, because I was watching on YouTube TV, right?

1:27:44Amir Levine:So I can see every single thing that's happening. It's all there. And I'm like, did they take some events out of the Winter Olympics? Like, what is it I like? I liked snowboarding, a.k.a. Sean White. I loved watching him perform every year. That was an exciting thing. Okay. But I'm watching, like, the first thing I watched was people cross-country skiing for, like, three hours. Yeah, it's on my face. I was like, I don't know. And then another one was like, they were kind of cross-country skiing, but there was a little bit of downhill. I was like, still not very hair-raising. And then I was like, what is my, I don't know.

1:28:19Amir Levine:I got confused, and then I just never went back. Sure. I like ice skating. Right. A lot. But. I kind of even forgot about ice skating. Ice skating is the main one for me. Yeah. I did watch a couple clips, and there was a whole story about this Olympian who was in the Olympics maybe a couple Olympics ago. And then she was really, really young and was mistreated and was like, you know what? I'm, like, not doing this anymore. She took life back into her own hands. Yeah, good personal story. Yeah. Yeah, and then she's back on her own, like, you know, two feet on the ice. Ice, and two skates. Yes, and she won.

1:29:01Amir Levine:Oh, great. And it's like, great. And normally I'd be so into all of that, but I don't know what happened. I don't either, but I was saddened that I wasn't interested in it. Hockey was fun this year. There we go, Rob. Thanks. Yeah, that's what I should have been watching. Hockey was. Yeah, men and women, U.S. won. Yeah, that's right. I did hear about that. Boys and girls. In overtime? It was the first time US beat Canada since the 80s? Yeah, see, all that's cool. And I didn't care. I take away everything I just said. Well, no, you can't take away that you didn't care. And like, either did I. And I don't know why.

1:29:40Amir Levine:My critique would have been to start day one with some more exciting stuff than the cross-country thing for three hours, maybe. But I bet there are people riveted by cross-country skiing. Of course, there are. And there's people that watch the walk, the competitive walking. Yeah, there's people, there's a lid for every pot. Yeah. I forgot to tell you the other day that something weird happened. I almost got in another person's car. Oh, tell me. It was strange. I was leaving a place with Jess. It was at night and I had bad eyes. And I was a little sick. I don't know if that has anything to do with it.

1:30:19Amir Levine:but we were walking and I start to get in his car and he was like that's not mine and I was like oh silly me yeah silly me and then I'm walking up further and you know there there's his car with the light like he had done it's flashing the light yeah he had unlocked it so the lights come on and So I go to get in the car and then there's a man standing there and he says, that's my car. And I was like, oh, oh, oh my God. I'm so sorry. And then I look over. So you tried to get into two wrong cars. Yeah. I look over and just as I cross the street. You're on the wrong side of the street, Monica? Well, we were both on the wrong side.

1:31:04Amir Levine:And then in that interim time when I saw the flashing lights and thought that was his, he had crossed. Were you tipsy? It was not that. Okay. It was really not that. I was, and I was like, what's going on? Yeah, because I, you lost me at wrong side of the street. Well. I think like you should have your bearings of which side of the street you guys parked on. Hmm. I get, I mean, I'm not very good at that. I don't know. We were both walking on that side. Okay. For a while, like down the sidewalk. And then he just crossed in the middle. Uh-huh. Where the car was. Yeah. I guess. Nope. Nope. Oh, this, he dropped me off to get in line.

1:31:45Amir Levine:Okay. See, I knew there was an explanation. If you didn't remember what side of the street you parked on, that's alarming. Okay, that is something that might happen to me, just FYI. I'm not good at directions. I'm not paying that much attention. If I'm not driving. Right, right. But he did drop me off to get in line. So I did not muscle memory know where the car was parked.

1:32:06Dax Shepard:There we go.

1:32:07Amir Levine:That type of thing. Well, that explains that. Yeah, but it was still. Otherwise, you're in Strokeville. Right, right, right, right. Well, anyway, it's just he was right there. And he was like, that's my car. I was like, oh, my God. I'm so sorry. I parked next year's at your car at the SAG night. Oh. SAG Awards. Nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It needs a wash. Is that what you were thinking? Nope. Okay. It really needs a wash. I just thought, look at these two handsome cars. Yeah. Great. Very beautiful car. What are your plans with mom and dad? Yeah, my parents are coming today. I'm doing a tour of the rape treatment center.

1:32:44Amir Levine:It's not funny. Okay. Well, you're laughing pretty hard. It's not funny. I'm not, just for the record. It's not funny at all. Right. But I am, I had planned to do that for a while. Okay. And I was like, oh, I can't cancel it. Like, that's, for one, bad. Yeah. And two, I want to do it. And, but it's like, I don't know that my parents. That might not be for them. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know that. It's not like a fun, you're on vacation, let's go to the. Let's go tour the rape treatment center. Right. Yeah, I don't. And is it psychological treatment? That's what they're offering or. No, they offer physical, like it's like.

1:33:23Amir Levine:Rape kits? Yeah, like it's kind of like instead of going to a hospital, you can go to the rape treatment center. Oh, great. Yeah, yeah. And get your exam. Yeah, uh-huh. And there is like psychological resources and legal resources and things. And it's a really cool thing. So I am going to do that. But I think I'll probably leave them at home for that. Yeah, let them, you know, lounge around the house a little bit. Maybe that's when I'll take your dad out for a beer and ask him about his previous girlfriends. I almost forgot my objective for this trip. Find out about past lovers for your parents.

1:34:00Amir Levine:Remember I said I was going to ask them their dating history? I'm not sure if we're going to have time for that. Yeah, so I think that's really... We're just going to, like, be. They're very, very excited to see the house and stay in the house. Because normally my apartment was so small, you know, they stayed in a hotel when they came to visit. And they would just come in and get ready and y 'all leave to go somewhere. Yeah, exactly. Now your mom can watch her YouTube. She will. Yeah. She will watch her YouTube. I wonder what she's got her fangs into right now. I wonder. Is there any trials going on?

1:34:36I mean, I'm sure she is very knowledgeable on everything that's going on with Epstein.

1:34:44Amir Levine:Sure, sure, sure, sure. So that's probably the main thing she's consuming right now would be my guess. But I don't really know. I will find out. Yeah. And yeah, and they'll get to like go make their coffees and stuff and it'll be really nice. It'll be really nice to have them. I did my final walkthrough of the apartment today. To turn it back over? Yeah. What's that experience like? It was good. I mean, it was good. It was sad. It's sad to say bye to something and the chapter. Yeah. It was also weird because it's empty and I haven't seen it like that since I got it. And I was like, oh, yeah. Like, I remembered going to see it.

1:35:26Amir Levine:And Lincoln came with me, I remember. Oh, for the first walkthrough? Yeah, to go check it out. And that was a long time ago. I thought, I know you already know this, but I was sad to leave our old house. Yeah. And I thought I was going to be really sad. And then we left and I've never thought about it again. I've been shocked with the fact that I don't think about it at all. Yeah. Because it held a very, it's like the epicenter of some of my favorite memories and experiences. Yeah. I have such warm feelings about it, but I don't at all miss it. I know. And I thought I was going to. But don't you think that's kind of in keeping with.

1:36:00Amir Levine:My personality? Yeah. Because like same thing with relationships. Like you still have an affinity. You like love the time and the people, but you're not like an act. You're not like missing them. I mean, you've told me that maybe that's incorrect, but. Elaborate. Give me an example. I guess that's just something you've told me that like you don't yearn for any past relationship that it's like. I don't yearn to be romantically involved. To be with them. Romantically involved with any of my exes, but I still love being friends with them. Yeah, that's what I just said. You still love the people. Oh, I thought you were saying that when I walk away that they're dead to me and I don't ever think about them again.

1:36:38Amir Levine:No, but that you still have an affinity and a fondness and there's like all these positive associations and you love them as people. But, yeah, you're not like, oh, like. You don't miss them. I don't want to kiss. Well, no, I miss them as friends, but I don't want to kiss them. I was always saying this in reference to a lot of people have a pattern of hooking up with exes. Right. Which is great. I don't care about it. I'm not suggesting I have a moral position on it. No, no. I just have not had that. Right. I've not had a pattern of hooking up with my ex-girlfriends. Yeah. That part to me when we sever has dies.

1:37:18Amir Levine:It's over. Yeah. Yes, the romantic part. Yeah. But the friendship part and the missing them and wanting to connect with them, for sure I still have that. Right. I'll randomly carry my girlfriend in high school. I was with her for like five years. She will, she knows, she and I love the same kind of music. She'll find a new album and she'll send it to me. Yeah. And I love it. And then we'll have like seven exchanges about it. And I go, oh, Carrie's still so fun and so engaged in devouring life and finding new things. And I'm proud of her. She's maintained the essence of who she was when I met her that I found so appealing about her.

1:37:59Amir Levine:Yeah. And then I'll talk to Bree and she's on fire for innumerable things. Second time I've said innumerable, which is questionable. Maybe it's your new word. I hope not. And I get this swell of excitement that she is still held on to that sparkly curiosity. And. But that's different. Like that's different than what a lot of people feel. Like that there's a tug. But I do have what you're saying about objects, which kind of shocks me because I have coveted objects so much my whole life. Uh-huh. And then when I don't have them, I don't think about them anymore. Right. Which is a little shocking to me because I wanted them so bad or I coveted them so bad.

1:38:45Amir Levine:Yeah. And then when they're gone, I'm like, I don't even really remember that I cared about objects. And a house is a big, big object. It is. And it's like it's symbolic. It's a marker of your life and your accomplishments. Yeah. And it can represent so much. It does. And then I see videos of the kids playing in that little area we had between the kitchen and the living room. That was like their zone. Yeah. And I go, oh, yeah, I love sitting on the couch and watching them be little babies. Yeah. But I don't need to walk back in there. That's the weird part. Yeah. It wasn't like, I wasn't like, oh, like I wasn't like devastated, but I was like, yeah, this is like the end of the era.

1:39:28Amir Levine:And that's happy and sad. Yeah. Just when new things start, it's like, yeah, there's no going back. Like there's no, it's just a reminder that like time keeps moving and you can't pause it. You can't go back. And that's, you know. We have a guest today after this fact check whose book is about consciousness. Yeah. And so I'm really locked into this book and thinking about life and consciousness. Consciousness. And yeah, many of the experts that he interviewed for this book try to explain that like thought is, there was a traditional way of thinking, which is like Rene Descartes, which is like, I think therefore I am in thoughts are one thought built to top another.

1:40:19Amir Levine:And it's kind of one thing leads to another. And there's other people who think more like it's a stream. There's no marker of this thought led to this thought. There's just this, and you'll never have the same thought or consciousness ever again is a fascinating thing. And it's what you're saying. It's like life's moving forward and it's taking with it everything that preceded it. And so it can't ever be the same because more things are preceding it. And the way we rewrite memories every time we think of them, like your brain's evolving nonstop. your experience on earth is is evolving non-stop and that can feel scary and and maybe untethered but it is the nature and facts of life and i think the discomforts when you're fighting that right i think it's it's you can feel untethered but you're also just reminded of mortality it's like oh yeah like that phase is over now i'm in this phase there'll be another and how many more do I have?

1:41:24Amir Levine:Not very, who knows? And we know the ultimate phase. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So, um, but it, and then sort of ding, ding, ding with relationships, probably like people who do hook up with their exes and stuff. Like it's probably more about that, like wanting to go back in time as opposed to like, I miss this person. I mean, maybe obviously there's a million reasons why, but I bet a lot of it is like, I, I miss me then I miss that time of my life. And that person is connected to that time. So I want to like click into that. Yeah. And I think, yes, that's the Esther thing, which I love is like, people are cheating on you with themselves.

1:42:09Amir Levine:They want to visit a version of themselves from the past. But I think the easy cycle to get into with going back to exes is with some time away when you come back you can revisit the initial easy uncomplicated phase of it and that is very pleasurable but the complications arise immediately after yeah but i think you succumb to the joy of getting to relive the the part that was easy the falling in love part yeah and then i just think quickly it ends up exactly what it always is yeah and i think that's the cycle that's appealing it's like oh i want to go back to the original moment right we fell in love and it was so easy and yeah yeah yeah complicated complicated um should we do some facts Yes.

1:43:06Amir Levine:Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

1:43:19Amir Levine:Okay, Amir, attachment. Had you read this book? I mean, this book was wildly popular. So popular. The original book. I had not read it. I had just heard so much about it. You had. And I looked into the theories and stuff. I wasn't aware of the book. I was aware that people were talking about attachment theory a lot. Yeah. But I just assume that's in the same way people are talking about ADHD or whatever. Right. That was just the thing we were. Obsessed with. Zeitgeist-y. But I didn't realize there was such a specific origin for it all. Yeah. I find it very intriguing. You do? Yes. Yeah, I talked about it.

1:43:54Amir Levine:Yeah. I found myself talking about it a bit. It's just interesting that we all do have ways of relating to others that are kind of predictable and well-worn. I thought the thing that I was most interested in is I love anything that's counterintuitive, which is your attachment style as a child has nothing to do with your attachment style as an adult. Yeah. I would have thought it just led into your permanent set this attachment style. Totally, yes. Yeah. I thought that too. It made me think about a couple people in my life that have very secure attachments. Uh-huh. And I was like, huh, yeah, they don't, they're not threatened.

1:44:34Amir Levine:They're totally chill. Not taking stuff personal. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty admirable. Yeah. Okay. Now, he told the story of his dad, like, you know, throwing the penny or the coin when the president was in town. Oh, uh-huh. And I was trying to figure out which president it was, and I can't figure out Amir's age. That's not known on the internet? I didn't see it on the internet. Maybe, Rob, maybe you'll see it, but I didn't see it. So my guess is going to be it was in the 90s. Yeah, no public information. How on earth could you be alive in the era of the internet and your age not be known? Is he 50 around there, you think?

1:45:14Amir Levine:Because there's Amir Levine born on April 22, 1975. So he would have probably been talking about Reagan or Carter. If it was in the 80s. But if it was in the 90s, could have been Clinton. But he would have been more a teenager. Right. Versus a little boy. Yeah, I couldn't tell exactly his age. I mean, I guess he was small enough that he was a little anxious. Uh-huh. Carter visited in 79. So four years old. Yeah, four years old if he was born in 75. Maybe. Maybe. Clinton started his visits in 94. Where was he visiting? Israel. Oh, Israel. The 1980s saw high-level diplomatic tension, particularly under Reagan, with key meetings occurring in D.C.

1:46:00Amir Levine:rather than Israel. Oh, okay. So maybe he didn't really go there. Right. I'm sure Carter went there. Yeah, he did. He visited in 79. Yeah. He went to a bunch of places presidents hadn't gone in a long time. He was known for that. I'm Georgia. I'm a peanut farmer. Yep. This says no U.S. president made an official state visit to Israel during the 1980s. It said Carter 79 and then Clinton in 94. Oh, boy. Big gap 14 years. Yeah. We're going to go with Carter. We're sticking with Carter. That's our final guess. Yep. Primates, middle of the food chain. Primates generally occupy the middle of the food chain, acting as both consumers of plants, insects, and as prey or larger predators.

1:46:48Amir Levine:I wanted to figure out top of the food chain. If it goes by continent, I'd like to guess. Okay. We can do environment. Okay. You could also do apex predators, another search. Apex predators are at the top of the food chain is the first thing it says. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So in Africa, that continent, I think it's the lion. And then in the subcontinent, India, I think it's the tiger. In fact, I think it's the tiger through all of Asia. Okay. And into Russia, except for the polar bear in the Arctic, I think, is the apex predator. And then I think in the Americas, it's the grizzly bear. Okay. Okay. Although we also have polar bears in the Americas, but.

1:47:33Amir Levine:So this. And then in South America, I would say it's the jaguar. All right. Well, this says apex predators are at the top of the food chain acting as the highest trophic level. trophic level with no natural predators. In various ecosystems, these include lions, tigers, polar bears, orcas, and great white sharks. Humans are also considered top predators capable of affecting or being the absolute peak of many food chains. Now, this also breaks it down by environment. Land, lions, tigers, wolves, polar bears, and grizzly bears. Grizzlies. Ocean. Orcas. Great white sharks and leopard seals. Air. Bald eagles.

1:48:17Amir Levine:Golden eagles and other large raptors. Raptors. I love raptors. Reptiles. Saltwater crocodiles and Komodo dragons. Oh, Komodo dragons. Oh, my God. Tell me about them. It gets you with the saliva and stuff. Nasty. Komodo. Oh. Oh, Komodo. He loves her stinky mouths. Oh, I guess you can smell them from quite a distance, those Komodo dragons. Foul, bacteria-laden jaws become poison. Speaking of that, have you noticed, like, that there's, like, somebody in your life who has not good breath? Mm-mm-mm. As we've discussed, I'm very sensitive, hypersensitive to bad breath. But it's like, it's bad, but it's not like, it's not.

1:49:08Amir Levine:Objectively offensive. Yeah. And so it's like, I kind of think I'm the only one who notices this. And it's an unexpected person. I'm not going to say who. Okay, great. I don't think anyone else thinks this. I've never been, no one's ever said it. Gossiped about it. Exactly. No one's ever said anything to me, alluding to the fact that that's the case. Yeah. And, but yet, it is repetitive for me. It's rough. I mean, I had a friend who I could stop going to the movies with. I couldn't. Just sitting next to them at the movies, all I could smell was their breath. And I just was like, I can't do it.

1:49:42Amir Levine:I blame me, but I couldn't do it. And I just wonder, though, is it pheromones? Because why can't you guys smell what I'm smelling? I think obviously we all smell different things. And we're sensitive to different odors. I mean, again, I see people who are in relationships with people who I think have wretched breath. And I think, well, they can't smell it. Right. There's no way. I know. Because they're kissing and loving. I know. Yeah. I don't think. Or they're just not sensitive to smell, period. Yeah. Because I just think like, I just got cancer deal breaker for me. Same. Yeah. But I just wonder also if it's actually more.

1:50:22Amir Levine:Is breath actually. I mean, maybe there's obviously halitosis. There's some objective stuff, but maybe the rest of it is just pheromones. Well, I also think there's certain medical conditions that give you kind of a predictable outcome. And I'm going to leave it at that. Well, yeah, I just I just I was I was somewhere and I had already thought it. And then it will impact what kind of activities you do with the person. Because there's certain things where it's not an issue. Yeah. And there are others where like, again, the movies you're sitting like. Yeah. Your mouths and noses are, what, 18 inches apart.

1:50:56Amir Levine:Right. And so that might be a non-starter. Like, I love this person, but I'm just not going to go to the movies with them. That was my decision. Yeah, that's interesting. And then there's also the case, too, where someone's, they have that, and then they also tend to talk close, and you're constantly trying to keep your distance, and then you wonder if it's obvious. I think the only one I'm unsympathetic to or unforgiving of is I think when you're a dentist, you've got to be on it like no one's ever been on their breath. Yes, we've talked about this. Because they're in your nose. They work in your nose.

1:51:31Amir Levine:But they normally, they often, the hygienists often have masks on. That doesn't fucking do a goddamn thing. If you have shit breath and you got a little paper between there, forget it. That's not, no way. Have your friend wear a mask. Just make up a reason why it's cute if they wear a mask and see. You're still going to smell it. It's not that strong. That's the thing. It's not like. You're making a mountain out of a molehill. I mean, no, I just, I've just noticed it many times. And I just wonder if anyone else has noticed it. And I don't think they have, which has just led me to believe, oh, this is something like pheromonal.

1:52:07Amir Levine:It's me. You're like, it's me. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's. Which again is possible. Well, it's not me. It's the way I, it's the way, yeah, my nose perceives. Yeah, I'm smelling an odor here that other people don't smell. In which case I'm saying it's you. Well, right. I mean. Like you're the anomaly. I'm the anomaly, I think, yeah. Yeah. But I don't actually know. Maybe I'm not. Maybe. You could ask around. I could ask around. It feels really mean to do that. Oh, man. I couldn't feel worse for someone who just can't. help it i mean my god i i really feel terrible it's also because it's a specific it is a specific smell a note yeah it's a note so i know in that case it is it is a little pheromonal because it's not like oh this person ate something just a second ago or something like they don't smell like a hot dog they smell like their body yeah yeah it's interesting it's very interesting you You should ask if you can smell their armpits and their groin.

1:53:12Amir Levine:This is consistent everywhere. I mean, this is a very— Do you think people with better, more secure attachment styles don't smell odors as much? Maybe. Probably. Maybe. I think everything just ticks up. Sure. When you were listening to all this stuff, did you self-assess as being any part of this spectrum? Oh, yeah. We talked about it in the episode. I definitely feel like I have an anxious attachment. Anxious attachment. And you were saying you felt like you did lean a little avoidant. When I was young. But the more I read about it, I was like, I think I'm secure attachment. I think that's what I felt in general after learning all about the thing.

1:53:53Amir Levine:Yeah. But then I thought, oh, no, I used to be avoidant. And then I think, yeah, you can change. Yeah. Just like the stuff I don't take personally. Like, again, back to like the Instagram stuff. All this kind of stuff that drives people nuts. Right. And I know that just I don't even think about. Yeah. Or getting invited to things or all that kind of stuff. I don't. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we can find out. Is there a test? Yes. I know I can count on my friends to be there for me if I'm going through a rough time. And we got our normals. Agree. Strongly agree. Neutral. Disagree. Strongly disagree. Strongly agree.

1:54:26Amir Levine:I sometimes feel like I'm not good enough for my loved ones. Strongly disagree. I feel uncomfortable when my friends or family act like they rely on me. What's the middle? Neutral. Yeah. And then there's disagree and agree and then strongly. I would say neutral. Okay. Again, that has evolved. Right. I used to feel burdened by that. Yeah. And now I feel lucky as much as I feel burdened. That puts me at neutral. Okay. I always make the first move but usually become disinterested after I get what I want. I disagree. Disagree. Yeah. I know I can be my true self in relationships once I have enough time to get comfortable.

1:55:02Amir Levine:100%. I sometimes hold back on relationships because I feel that if I share too much about myself, I might get hurt. I wish. Strongly disagree. I tend to worry that my loved ones don't love me as much as I love them. Strongly disagree. I consider myself a good friend and a good partner. Strongly agree. I stay away from long-term relationships. No, I've had nothing but long-term relationships. So strongly disagree. Mm-hmm. Okay. Being alone sometimes scares me. Strongly disagree. Although, you know, I did, I experienced great boredom last week being alone on a Saturday night. Oh. Because I had to, Kristen was doing a play and Lincoln had a play date.

1:55:42Amir Levine:So at first I was like, cool. I had my whole night to myself. And then I watched like three episodes of Fallout in a row. And I was like, I want to be with somebody.

1:55:52Dax Shepard:Oh. I was like, I'm bored with just myself watching this show.

1:55:58Amir Levine:Interesting. Yeah, yeah. I was like, I am tragically social. Yeah. It hit me. I like going out with friends and family, but I still value my personal time and space. I mean, I prefer being out with people than I do by myself, but I'm not afraid to be myself. I don't know. What does that make me? You do value your personal time and space. You're always like, why are there so many people here? Oh, space. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So. What does that mean? I agree. I think you agree. Okay, I'll agree. I don't like relying on others, and that way I avoid getting disappointed. Agree. You know what? Strongly agree.

1:56:34Amir Levine:Uh-oh. Yeah, I gotta be honest. I think it's too late. Okay, that's fine. I find it difficult to express love even when I feel it. Strongly disagree. I prefer casual flings and serious relationships. Disagree. I avoid arguments with my partners, friends, or family to avoid the chance of losing them. Strongly disagree. Sometimes I want to be completely alone and then suddenly change to feeling like I need around people. Oh, that just happened Saturday night. Agree. Agree. I never make the first move in a potential relationship for fear of being rejected. Strongly disagree. My friends and family often tell me that they feel like they don't really know me.

1:57:07Amir Levine:Oh, never. Strongly disagree. If my partner went on a trip without me, I'd miss them but would ultimately be happy that they're having fun. Strongly agree. A big portion of my self-esteem and self-worth comes from my relationships with other people. Oh, strongly agree. Sometimes when I feel like I'm getting too close to someone, I get scared and start pushing them away. Strongly disagree. I feel bad when my loved ones do things without inviting me. Disagree. I trust that the people I love want what's best for me. The people that love me? I trust that the people I love want what's best for me. Agree.

1:57:37Amir Levine:I much prefer being alone, but I'll attend social engagements if I'm required to. Disagree. Even when things get tough, I feel confident that my partner will support me and we'll work through challenges together. Strongly agree. I often find myself overanalyzing interactions with my partner, wondering if they truly understand my feelings and intentions. Disagree. Sometimes I push people away when they get too close, even though deep down I crave connection and intimacy. Strongly disagree. It's hard for me to relax in relationships because I'm always worrying about whether my loved ones truly care about me.

1:58:05Amir Levine:Strongly disagree. I prefer to keep my emotions to myself, believing that vulnerability only leads to unnecessary complications and potential disappointment. Can I go neutral on that one? I enjoy spending time with my friends and family knowing that we can share both good times and bad times with each other. Strongly agree. It's really funny to answer these questions in my mind because I have like two different families. Which one are we talking about? Are we talking about the family I created or the one I was born into? I feel uncomfortable when people get too emotionally close to me. I value my independence and personal space.

1:58:37Amir Levine:Emotionally dependent on me? That was part of the question? I feel uncomfortable when people get too emotionally close to me. I value my independence and personal space. Okay, I disagree. Okay. Knowing that I have a strong support system of friends and family gives me the confidence to tackle life's challenges with optimism and resilience. I disagree. I worry that if I show vulnerability or express my needs in relationships, I'll end up being rejected or abandoned. I'd go neutral. I appreciate the balance between independence and closeness in my relationships, allowing me to pursue my own interests while still feeling connected to others.

1:59:07Amir Levine:Strongly agree. I often find myself feeling anxious about the state of my relationships, constantly seeking reassurance from my partner or friends to alleviate my doubts. Strongly disagree. I prefer to handle my problems on my own rather than relying on others for support or advice. Agree. Maybe Stice, yeah, yeah. My mind often races with thoughts about potential conflicts or misunderstandings in my relationships, making it difficult to fully enjoy moments of connection without worrying about the future. Strongly disagree. When I face challenges, I feel reassured knowing that my friends will offer their support and encouragement without judgment.

1:59:38Amir Levine:Neutral. I tend to seek constant validation from my friends and romantic partners to reassure myself of their love and commitment. Well, that's a tricky one because I definitely like endless validation, but it's not to reassure myself that they like me. So I'm going to go neutral. I just enjoy validation. I tend to downplay the importance of romantic relationships in my life, focusing instead of my individual goals and interests. Disagree. Despite craving intimacy and connection, I struggle to fully trust others and often find myself holding back out of fear of being hurt or abandoned. Strongly disagree.

2:00:09Amir Levine:I value the mutual trust and respect of my relationships, which allows me to be my authentic self without fear of rejection. Strongly agree. Spending quality time with loved ones fills me with a sense of warmth and security, knowing that we have each other's backs no matter what. Strongly agree. I have a tendency to push people away when they try to get close to me, fearing that allowing them in will only lead to disappointment or betrayal. Strongly disagree. Despite my efforts, I struggle to shake off the feeling of insecurity that lingers in my mind, questioning whether I'm truly valued and loved by those closest to me.

2:00:36Amir Levine:Disagree. I find it challenging to open up to others about my innermost thoughts and feelings, preferring to maintain a sense of distance to protect myself from potential rejection. Disagree. The fear of rejection or betrayal sometimes prevents me from fully investing in relationships, leaving me feeling stuck in a cycle of longing for connection while simultaneously fearing it. Strongly disagree. Independence is important to me and I prioritize maintaining autonomy in my relationships, often avoiding becoming too reliant on others for emotional support or validation. Agree. I have to pay. I'm going to do it.

2:01:07Amir Levine:Don't do it. It's$1.95. Just a one-off? They're tricky. That was smart. They let you do the whole task. I know. That's a feel betrayed. Is it his website? I don't think so. Oh, no. American Express is not supported. Yeah. I bet people. Shit. I have to get another, my other card. Wow. Yeah, we have to know. I think we know. You don't think we know? It's a fact check. Okay. Oh, secure. Your attachment style is secure. Secondary fearful. Oh. The secure attachment style serves as the bedrock for healthy and fulfilling relationships characterized by a strong sense of trust, emotional security, and a balanced approach to both intimacy and independence.

2:01:49Amir Levine:Individuals with a secure attachment style have typically experienced consistent and responsive caregiving during their early years, fostering a foundational belief in the availability and reliability of others in times of need. Okay. I guess myself, this time, my self-assessment was right. Bore out. That's right. Yours goes 57.5 % secure, 18.2 % fearful, 16.7 % dismissive, 7.6 % preoccupied. Okay. Interesting. Interesting. Well, that was fun. who did the marshmallow test? Walter, Michelle. There's another one I've been repeating, finding out that the marshmallow test isn't real. Yeah. I mean, it's a real test, but the conclusions aren't.

2:02:33Amir Levine:That's right. Yeah. Boy, it's incredible to think how much work has been built on the shoulders of that. I know. That's not right. It's scary a little bit. The human brain consumes roughly 20 % of the body's total resting energy, about 260 to 300 calories per day, despite representing only 2 % of body weight. That's it. That's it? Yes. Well, I enjoyed Amir. Me too. We'll die with a great mystery of how old he is. Yeah. Anyway, yeah, Amir was great. Love you. Love you.

2:03:18Thank you.