Insecurities can rob us as individuals & in relationships. Insecurities feed everything from a shopping addiction to look good on the outside; or a secret life of porn because real people are confusing and messy. Insecurities can stop us from dreaming. Fighting our insecurities is a battle all of us share. Insecurities are those nagging doubts that whisper in the back of our minds.
Attachment Anxiety: Tackling Insecurities for Healthy Relationships
Attachment anxiety. Tackling insecurities for healthy relationships. Insecurities can rob us as individuals and in relationships. Insecurities feed everything from a shopping addiction so you look good on the outside or a secret life of porn because real people are confusing and too messy. Fighting our insecurities is a battle all of us share.
I remember 9 years ago when podcasting was not something people really knew about & I launched my first 3 episodes in 2015 completely unsure of what I was doing, it was a real struggle between doubting self talk & facing the test of technology. Insecurities have a remarkable power to disrupt the delicate dance of attachment in relationships. They weave themselves into the fabric of our interactions, influencing how we perceive both ourselves and our partners. In this podcast episode, we delve into the multitude of ways insecurities can interrupt attachment & exploring how to meet these challenges head on.
At the core of many insecurities lies a fear of inadequacy. Whether stemming from past childhood experiences or internalized beliefs, these feelings of not being “enough” can cast a shadow over even the strongest bonds. When individuals doubt their own worth, they may struggle to trust in the stability of their relationships, constantly seeking reassurance or pulling away in fear of rejection.
Moreover, insecurities can manifest in all kinds of behaviors that destroy trust and intimacy. From the loudness of jealousy and possessiveness to the quiet internal constant comparison with others, these patterns can poison the well of connection, fostering resentment and misunderstanding. Couples may find themselves locked in a cycle of defensiveness and blame, unable to bridge the gap between their insecurities and how to see the reality of their relationship.
Communication, the cornerstone of healthy relationships, can become a casualty of insecurity. Fearful of vulnerability, individuals may hesitate to express their true feelings or needs, leading to a breakdown in emotional intimacy. Unspoken fears and anxieties fester in the silence, creating barriers that prevent authentic connection and understanding.
Insecurities can also exaggerate the impact of external stressors on relationships. When faced with challenges such as financial strain or career uncertainty, individuals may turn inward, questioning their own worthiness of love and support. This internal turmoil can spill over into their interactions with their partners, heightening tension and exacerbating conflicts. There is a French movie called Time Out from 2001 that is about a man who is fired and pretends to go to work every day….just imagine that burden!
In 2016, Mikulincer & Shaver’s research found that Individuals high in attachment avoidance and/or attachment anxiety are said to be insecurely attached. The link between attachment insecurities and relationship satisfaction has been found to be significant both in cross-sectional (Chung & Choi, 2014; Liu & Jackson, 2018; Meyers & Landsberger, 2002), and in longitudinal studies (Beaulieu-Pelletier, Philippe, Lecours, & Couture, 2011; Fitzpatrick & Lafontaine, 2017).
Ultimately, navigating insecurities in relationships requires a delicate balance of self-awareness, empathy, and commitment. It demands a willingness to confront uncomfortable truths, to challenge stuck patterns of thought and behavior, and to cultivate a sense of trust and security within oneself and with one’s partner. By fostering open dialogue and a supportive environment, couples can begin to unravel the knots of insecurity through vulnerability & forge stronger bonds. Vulnerability creates mutual understanding and greater acceptance.
My guest today to help us unravel our insecurities & improve our attachment is Dr. Leslie Becker-Phelps is dedicated to helping people understand themselves and what they need to do to become emotionally healthy — for themselves and their relationships. Fundamental to this process is what she describes as Compassionate Self-Awareness. She is in private practice & hosts a YouTube channel. She has 2 blogs Making Change on Psychology Today & Authentically You is a blog on her website. Her books include: Bouncing Back from Rejection, Insecure in Love, and now The Insecure in Love Workbook subtitled: Step-by-Step Guidance to Help You Overcome Anxious Attachment & Feel More Secure with Yourself & Your Partner & it has just been published! Thanks so much for being here with us today!
Rhoda Sommer (06:51.545)
Thanks so much for being here, Dr. Leslie.
Leslie (06:55.123)
thank you so much for having me on. I’m really looking forward to our conversation.
So I want to share a quote from your introduction that helps us understand insecure attachment “ that the way you relate to others is based on how lovable you feel and on how emotionally available you tend to think others will be”. Please tell us more about this important idea so we are all on the same page of understanding it.
Leslie (07:22.707)
Absolutely. For me, this is really, it’s so central to everything that I’ve written, to what it is that enables us to feel good in ourselves and in our relationships. It is based, this comes based from attachment theory. So the idea is that we are wired to survive, right? Any species, we want to survive, we need to survive, we’re driven to survive. And as humans, central to that is our ability to connect.
So an infant comes into the world, it’s not going to take care of itself, so it needs caregivers to take care of it. And in order to engage in that, to have that happen, it connects with the caregiver. So you have infants, and they look to the caregiver, the caregiver looks to them, and there’s this sense of connection and bond, and it makes the caregiver want to take care of the infant, and the infant is then responsive.
from infancy all the way through childhood, really into our adulthood. It’s all about this connection and our connections are so powerful because it’s tied to our drive to survive. So sometimes you wonder like, why do we care so much about what other people think or what the relationships, why that doesn’t have to be important. I could just, you know, take care of myself. But the truth is it’s wired into us from our biology to need connections. So even the most independent of us have this
drive to connect with others. And to back up to what you were quoting, if you think about going back to infancy, and again, it extends through life, but when a caregiver responds, like what’s the baby doing? It’s crying, it’s eating, it’s sleeping, it’s pooping, and these are change. When the child gets upset, if the caregiver could be responsive in a caring way, the child gets the message that it’s love.
I am loved whether I’m crying or giggling or whatever’s happening. It’s not about what I’m doing. The infant is not like making major accomplishments. It’s just being. And so it gets the message that it’s loved, it’s valued, it’s lovable. He, she, they are lovable. And also, I mean, hopefully they get this. This is when all goes well. They get the message that they are lovable and they get the message that the caregiver, the other significant other is emotionally available to them.
Leslie (09:49.173)
And so when you have both of those things, those both of those resources, as you go through life, when you hit struggles, if you can have the sense of, I have value, there’s like a treasure in me, right? I am a lovable being. You can turn to yourself for help, but also life’s art and we need others. So you also have the sense you can turn to others. This is someone who we would call a securely attached. They feel strong in their presence in the world.
Unfortunately, when we don’t get all those needs met, when either we have the sense that we’re not lovable and or others are not available to us. And that may mean that they are just not there, that they’re hostile to us, that they’re incompetent, they just don’t have the ability. But if we get the message that they’re not there for us, then we are missing that resource. We have the sense they are not emotionally available. And so that breaks down our ability to connect, which again,
connected with survival means it’s a very powerful experience. I know I just said a whole lot in response. Did you follow it? Do you have questions of what I’m saying?
Rhoda Sommer (10:51.74)
Absolutely, no, I think that was great. I think there’s so many things that get in the way of attachment if you have a mentally ill mother, if you have a mentally ill or alcoholic father, or both, they can be both, whatever. There’s so many things, or even…
just frustration because somebody’s got cancer and has to go to radiation and they don’t have the bandwidth to do what they need to do for an infant. There’s so many things that are involved in that disconnecting. And so that the topic of connecting and disconnecting to me is just really, really important when it comes to relationships.
Leslie (11:40.79)
Absolutely, and I think what you’re saying is hugely important. This is not about parents blaming, okay? This is not parent blaming at all. There’s a lot of reasons and maybe the parent has their own emotional struggles, so they’re doing the best they can, but they’re coming up short or angry or whatever. A parent dies. Poverty. You think about people who just don’t have the resources. If a parent has got to be at work, how many, three jobs.
Rhoda Sommer (11:45.372)
No, no, not at all, no.
Leslie (12:07.638)
They’re not home for their child. And that’s not a failing of the parent. That’s just situation. You live in a war zone, right? You live in a war zone. It’s going to shake people up. So there’s a lot that comes into play here. And I just like to reinforce that it’s not parent blaming because too often people get that message. And I think that’s really unfortunate.
Rhoda Sommer (12:12.828)
Survival. Yes. Yep.
Rhoda Sommer (12:30.127)
Yes, I’ve had both clients and their parents say, so I guess you’re talking about me, you know, defensively. And it’s like, no, not really. It’s really about trying to get that,perception of what that connection strengths and weaknesses were. And it isn’t, I hate, there was a book a few years ago, and you might be too young, Toxic Parenting, and it just really was unbearable to me. Because people came in, having read this book, and I’m like, wait a minute. You know, let’s not leap into that.
Leslie (13:06.999)
Right, right. But, right, and even if you talk about a situation, let’s say you have an alcoholic parent or a parent who rages, right? We can stop there, then you could be angry with the parent, but one, where does that get you? You’re just angry, so you need to mourn your own thing. But as you expand out, as you feel stronger, you might be able to get the perspective on the parent, what’s gone on with them?
you know, what did they go through that that’s because nobody likes to be that way. That’s not like woohoo. I think I aspire to be a rageful person, you know, so you can’t start there. Sometimes you have too much of your own pain to get that perspective and you need to take care of your own pain. But at some point you may get the perspective. my gosh, I see what they went through and I get why they were angry. It doesn’t excuse it, but it helps you understand it. And sometimes that helps with healing.
Rhoda Sommer (13:59.23)
which is about the time to develop an understanding and a wider perspective, a more complicated view of who they are with their strengths and weaknesses. And that to me is what it’s all about, you know? And that is what connection’s about, having the ability to see that bigger picture.
Also, in your introduction, you say, quote, you must begin your journey toward being secure in love by learning to be at home within yourself. So tell us how we can begin with this when we’re stuffed full of self -doubt.
Leslie (14:54.648)
Right, this is not something like you find a light switch and you flip it on, it’s like, okay, I’m good, you know. It’s a process, just as so much in life is, it’s a process. So I talk a lot about developing self -awareness, that we can get the strength by developing our self -awareness, we get to know ourselves. And the more we get to know ourselves, then we can have some empathy for ourselves, which can extend into having compassion for ourselves.
relating to ourselves in a more caring way and this enables us to then tackle some of our struggles. That’s really the way that I see that. So for instance, if you… I can’t think of it, but you’re self -doubting, you’re saying, my gosh, I’m just so dumb. I’m not capable of doing this. I can’t believe what a jerk I am to be able to pause and say, my gosh, this does not feel good.
Wow, here I am, someone calling myself a jerk or that I’m such a dope. That’s like not a great way to feel about yourself. And that’s kind of sad. And I feel bad that I even feel that way. Okay. When you start doing that, what you’re doing is you’re stepping out of the experience and you’re reflecting upon it. A lot of the self -awareness is the ability to have the experience, but then also reflect upon it. So we talk about relationships and…
I personally, when I talk about relationships, it also includes your relationship to yourself. We’re not just a single entity going through the world. When we experience ourselves as just a single entity, we can get stuck in those thoughts, those feelings, and they feel so true. You feel incompetent, inadequate, deficient, and you have all these terrible thoughts about yourself. But when you think about yourself as an experience where you can relate to you, now it’s an inner dialogue.
then you can step out of it and say, wow, like I said before, wow, I’ve been feeling like such a dope. That’s so sad. You start relating to yourself. Now you’ve got some wiggle room to start making some changes and start healing. It doesn’t work to totally step out of yourself altogether, because then you end up living kind of your, your, from your neck up. A lot of us do that too. We try to just deny all the emotional stuff, but we have to access the emotional stuff.
Leslie (17:21.144)
but then also relate to it. Is that making sense? Is that?
Rhoda Sommer (17:25.184)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. One of the ways you can also step out, and pause is a big word that my last four or five interviews have talked about. So that pause and step out and, okay, do I really need to self torture myself this much? And can I step out and maybe get a little more complicated look at what it is that’s going on?
Leslie (17:34.008)
Mm -hmm. Yep.
Rhoda Sommer (17:50.337)
And accepting also that mistakes and our, I think, embracing our both sides of who we are, our strengths and our weaknesses. And maybe this isn’t, I keep telling my husband spatial relationships are not his best thing, which is why I try to pack the car. And he still hasn’t really accepted that as much as I wish he would. But I think there’s just something about embracing both sides and pausing and taking that breath.
Leslie (18:21.626)
Absolutely, the pause allows you to step back. And that’s essential. And it’s essential to understand being human means we are imperfect. We have limitations and that’s okay. That doesn’t mean you’re flawed. That means you’re human. And that’s a big step for a lot of people. They judge themselves. They label themselves because what they see is their inadequacies as opposed to like…
Leslie (18:47.194)
All right, well, this is my strength and this is my weakness, or this is something I want to work on. You could say, I’m horrible at this, or you can say, wow, this is something I want to really get good at. What do I need to grow? You could still say I’m horrible at it. So long as you’re not defining yourself that way. Where I start now is I am not so good at this and how can I change? Or like you say, accepting it. So I actually, when I meet with patients, I will often just put out there, I say, you know what? I am terrible with time.
So at the end of every session, I confirmed the date and the time of our next session. I repeated out loud. They like, and it’s just the thing. And if I, they, we say like, when was the last time we met? Or I say like, I’ll see you next Thursday. They’ll, they’ll say, it’s Tuesday. I’m like, sorry. And I just kind of like, so for me, I’ve had a lot of years to adjust to the fact that I confuse time and it’s okay. I’m not lesser of a person. You wouldn’t want to rely on me when it comes to scheduling things. You want to check the calendar.
but to learn to be okay with it. And in our relationships, if you can learn to be okay with yourself, but also your partner. So with your husband, right? If, yeah, maybe that’s not his strength, but maybe something else is his strength. So he could be like, I’m the one in charge of this. My husband is in charge of navigating everything except for getting out of a parking lot. For whatever reason, parking lots confuse him. I can figure out how to get out of a parking lot, but you do not want me navigating you on your trip.
So, you know, it’s all about being human and finding that the self acceptance, but to have self acceptance, you need to have self awareness and the self awareness again leads to self to having some empathy, to having some compassion, and then you can go forward. So I talk about compassionate self awareness because when you have deep self awareness, it leads to that, that compassion, that compassionate self awareness.
which allows for self -acceptance, it allows for healing and growth. So I kind of tie that together. And forgiveness, any relationship, you need forgiveness because if you’re gonna be close with someone, even within yourself, if you’re gonna be close, you’re gonna hurt somebody at some point. If you’re just gonna, you know, you’re not trying to be perfect all the time, which lead to terrible anxiety. If you can allow for that fallibility, then you also need to…
Rhoda Sommer (20:47.361)
and forgiveness.
Leslie (21:08.155)
have forgiveness within yourself and for your partner or the other person in the relationship. So I agree with you.
Rhoda Sommer (21:14.915)
Yes, yes. And it also teaches, I think, some humility that when you have…
some you’re embracing both sides of who you are and you have some humility about your mistakes not self -torture but humility and that makes you more generous towards your partner and other people in other relationships because you recognize what it is to be human as you said.
Leslie (21:45.692)
Absolutely. I mean, humility is important. See, it’s interesting in the work that I’ve done, the research I’ve done over the years of therapy, you know, writing the books, what I find is how much of what I do honestly overlaps with religion or spirituality. And what I’m doing is really a psychology thing, but this idea of connection and accepting our fallibility to humility.
Any religious stuff that I’ve read, it just fits like hands in glove. The idea of God is like the loving that connection there, the idea of humility. So I’m not gonna turn this into a conversation about religion. That’s not my area of expertise, but I do, I see it as humans that this connects on so many levels.
Rhoda Sommer (22:37.668)
Yeah, yeah, I agree, I agree. And I think connection is really what everything’s all about. So explain to us some differences in attachment. And if you want, you can talk about anxious attachers and avoidant attachers, but it’s really about both of them being in secure positions.
Leslie (22:59.805)
Right, right. So you remember before I said someone who is securely attached through their life experiences, they learn that they are lovable, they have value, they have worth, they’re okay in that solid sense of like, I’m okay. Like they have that. That’s the relationship to themselves. Then the relationship to others is they see others as being emotionally available. Of course, the other…
We’re talking realistically. If they’re going to choose a partner or be in a relationship that they feel is healthy, they’re going to see it that way. You’re not going to just as a default see everybody is emotionally available because that’s ignoring reality. But you know, your default is to see that. So those are people who are securely attached. People who are insecurely attached, they can feel insecure in different ways, but it’s always a combination of or relates to two different things. Your relationship to yourself and your relationship to others.
This runs through my books. It’s going to run through everything we talk about. So people, when they relate to themselves and their experience of themselves is flawed, unlovable, having no value, essentially deficient or essentially flawed, we’re going to see some insecurity. Hugely important to understand that this is a range. It’s not a yes, no. So,
I call it, in the literature we call it your model of self. And your model of self runs from I am lovable and worthy to I am unlovable and unworthy and you can have the whole range. So people who are more toward the I am unlovable will have the experience that they lack value, there’s something wrong with them, they’re always, they self doubt themselves all the time, they’re expecting to be rejected.
and they spend a lot of time fearing rejection or abandonment or doing the wrong thing. So that’s just, these people are more anxiously attached. Just being in the world creates anxiety. Then people who, then we talk about the model of others and your model of others runs from significant others are emotionally available, they’ll be there for you, all the way to they are not available.
Leslie (25:19.805)
As I said earlier, that could mean they’re just not there or they’re hostile or they’re incompetent, but somehow they’re not, you can’t rely on them. The more you are towards that side, the more you’re going to have insecurity in your relationships because you can’t rely on them. So that’s where we would talk about somebody who has an avoidant, more of an avoidant attachment style, because they’re going to avoid relying on others in relationship because why would you do anything else?
You know, so now you have that avoidant person or avoidant attachment style, and then you have the anxious attachment style. And those are the two broad levels of attachment that people often talk about.
Rhoda Sommer (25:59.462)
and there can be a mixture.
Leslie (26:01.374)
There can absolutely be a mixture. So not only over time, so these are constructs, if you will, and we’re just trying to get a read on things. So you can be different in different relationships. So if you’re in a relationship with someone who is, say, verbally abusive, any of your inner insecurities are going to get heightened, so you’re going to be more insecure.
Rhoda Sommer (26:04.197)
even over time, flipping.
Leslie (26:24.99)
If you leave that relationship and then you enter a relationship with somebody who’s securely attached and caring and loving and supportive, then it reinforces you feeling better about yourself. So you may find that you move more towards a secure attachment style. So it helps you in that way. So you can change over relationships in areas of your life. So maybe you are securely attached more at home, but you even find at work that you struggle more or vice versa, changes with particular people, with say in certain friendships.
You might find that you’re very insecure and in other ones, you know, you’re more secure. So it varies. But I will say there tend to be certain themes that get played out over the course of your life. And then there’s based on experiences you have or relationships you pick, there’s variability with it, which is great news by the way, because what that means is you can change. It’s why we can help so many people in therapy or with self -help materials.
Some people can be helped because we can change these things. It’s not easy. Especially when you have a foundation and a particular insecure attachment style, that’s your template, if you will. So you’re looking at changing your template, which isn’t going to just happen overnight, but it’s definitely doable. And that is great news for people.
Rhoda Sommer (27:44.037)
Yes, yeah, I would completely agree with that. Tell us about preoccupied attachment, dismissing attachment, and fearful avoidant attachment.
Leslie (27:56.096)
Sure. So I’m sure there’ll be a number of your listeners who would relate to the preoccupied attachment. And the way this works, these are people who are anxiously attached, okay? So you have these struggles where there’s something wrong with me. Maybe I’m not lovable. There’s something wrong with me. But you think that other people could be emotionally available. The problem is not with the other people. The problem is with you because you know what?
you’re you don’t have value or there’s something wrong with you you’re not lovable so they are not really going to accept you not because of them but because of you so what you do is you think okay i need to get them to love me or care for me or accept me so you are going to try to earn that you’re extra nice you’re just so nice to everybody because then they’re going to really care about you or you’re going to earn a lot of money because you’re going to earn their acceptance that way
or prestige or something and you become preoccupied with getting their caring or their acceptance. You have a preoccupied attachment style. That’s what we would call that. So it’s a very specific kind. Then we have, so there’s three different insecure attachment styles. Preoccupied is one, the dismissing is another. So these are people who, inside of myself, I feel good about me. I really, I am good.
When it comes to other people, I don’t trust them because they’re just not going to be there for me or they’re going to be hostile to me or something like that. So I feel good about me and I’m going to be able to handle the world. I take on the world. That’s great. But you still need relationships. So you’re in relationships because remember we need that as just part of our biological makeup. But we are going to dismiss a lot of what say our partner offers us.
is not good enough, you’re not really going to listen much, because you expect to be let down there. So you can, it makes you vulnerable to rely on someone else who’s going to let you down or be hostile towards you. So you’re going to dismiss them. What you may not realize, and this may be the people who are listening or maybe their partners or they know people like this, they don’t realize is not only are they dismissing their partner, but in order to feel good,
Leslie (30:12.928)
These people, when things don’t go well, if they’re upset or they’re struggling in some way, what they do is they suppress the negative feelings or the fears or the difficult feelings they have. They suppress those. They dismiss their own experience so they can only grab onto the positive things. And these are people who often who work very hard. They can accomplish a lot, but emotionally they’re out of sync kind of with themselves and with others and they’re dismissing of themselves.
to a degree dismissing of others, thus they have a dismissing attachment style. Now remember, all of these are a combination of their model of self and model of others, and just because you have a dismissing attachment style or a preoccupied attachment style does not tell your story because you could be anywhere, remember each one of those model of self and model of others is a range, you could be anywhere along the range of each one, which means there’s a whole different.
A whole lot of different ways this can present. The third insecure attachment style, which you were asking me about, is fearful avoidant. Sometimes we call it a disorganized attachment style. So for these people, their model of self is, I am unworthy, unlovable. Their model of others is, they are not emotionally available to me. So sadly, when they are going through a hard time, they’ve got nowhere to turn. So they’re struggling.
and they need support or help or whatever, they go to turn to themselves. It’s like, my gosh, that I can’t turn to me because I am incompetent, unlovable, whatever. So then they go to turn to someone else, but they can’t turn to the other person. And so they are like all over the board. And a lot of these people, they have very disruptive relationships. There’s a lot of turmoil in their relationships because nothing ever feels quite right. There were studies done. I’m not going to get into the whole study, but Ainsworth did a…
classical study on this. And so with toddlers, the way this was demonstrated is a mother left the room when the mother came back, those toddlers would run towards the mother and then fall down in the middle of the room. So never could quite get help from mom. Or they would go to mom or mom would scoop them up because the child was upset because mom left after a bit. So the child’s upset and they would hug mom but they would arch backward. They would arch their bodies away from mom. So you can see how their
Leslie (32:37.411)
It’s a very confused, disorganized, right? Very confused, we call it disorganized, because you’re partly leaning in, partly leaning away. You’re partly turning yourself, partly turning to the other people. And it’s very confusing. And so the relationships tend to be very tumultuous, very confusing. So those are the three. Unfortunately, not as many people have that attachment style. And again, these aren’t like, yes, no. So you might be leaning, kind of getting into the attachment style, but not fully there. And it can vary.
Rhoda Sommer (32:39.561)
Confused is the word I was thinking, yeah.
Rhoda Sommer (33:07.113)
Yes, it’s complicated.
Leslie (33:07.202)
But it’s complicated. In my books, and I always find it easier with a visual, which we cannot do on an audio podcast, but I draw a line, it’s a graph, and the line, horizontal line is the model of self, the crossing vertical line is the model of others, so now you’ve got that big plus and you have the four different quadrants, and I find visually, even though I’m not always a visual learner, visually sometimes that’s easier, so…
Rhoda Sommer (33:24.745)
Mmm.
Leslie (33:36.546)
If there are self -help materials and you look at and you see that diagram, sometimes that can help you understand this better and understand how you can look different because you could be at different places in each of those quadrants.
Rhoda Sommer (33:47.115)
As much as I’ve covered this topic, which hasn’t been immense over nine years, but I haven’t heard anybody talk about the self and the relationship with others and how it’s different for each attachment style. And I think that’s really, really a great construct to understand.
Leslie (34:04.995)
Well, let me say this, a lot of times people want to just know their particular attachment style, but when you think of it as my model of self or my model of others, to me that gives you a place to go. Because you can say like, I’m more towards feeling not lovable, this is the direction I have to go, or I’m not really trusting others. And it provides kind of at least somewhat of an idea of a path out.
Rhoda Sommer (34:16.106)
Yes.
Rhoda Sommer (34:28.97)
Yes, yes, I really think it’s great. So the goal is to develop more secure attachment or earned security by learning to nurture a sense of yourself as worthy and lovable and a sense of others as emotionally available, which is exactly what we’ve been talking about. Do you want to add anything?
Leslie (34:49.316)
Yes. So what I would add is, so then how can you do this? You have to become self -aware. We talked about that, right? But what does self -awareness mean? That’s a very vague term, self -aware. So I did a lot of research and that’s how I came up with self -awareness to see how different lines of research, lines of therapy, areas of psychology studied this. And what I found were there are particular domains of awareness. Every, every,
Rhoda Sommer (34:59.787)
Yeah, it is.
Leslie (35:17.827)
therapy I looked at, every area I looked at, there’s always about self -awareness but they focused on different things. So I ended up developing an acronym, yes, yet another acronym to learn because everybody’s got one. STEAM. So you want to gain STEAM. What does that mean? S is for sensations. What do you sense in your body? So that would be I have a churning in my stomach, my chest is tight and it’s hard for me to breathe, I feel tears in my eyes. Those are your sensations.
T is for thoughts. What are you thinking? What are your thoughts about what you’re thinking? I’m thinking I’m an idiot. I’m thinking no one would love me. Those are thoughts. E is for emotions. What are you feeling? What do you feel about what you’re feeling? I am feeling inadequate. I am, what do I feel about what I’m feeling? I am angry with myself for always putting myself down and for feeling inadequate. So that’s S for sensations, T for emotions, T for thoughts.
E for emotions, A is for actions and reactions. So if you tend to be anxious in your relationship, your partner heads out, you’re afraid that they’re going to cheat on you, what are your actions? You text them every three minutes. And then what are your reactions? You know, your actions, your reactions, then you start beating yourself up because you’re doing this and you know it’s going to undermine the relationship. The tricky one is the and that’s the word for that is mentalizing.
And it is admittedly a jargony kind of word, but I didn’t make it up. And what mentalizing is, is really to get where someone’s coming from, to understand someone’s actions based on their mental states or what’s going on inside of them. So if you can understand someone’s thoughts, their emotions, their desires, their fears, their fantasies, and not just understand it from your head, this isn’t an intellectual thing, from your head and from your heart to really connect with it.
If you get all of that, then you can empathize with the person, have compassion for them, offer forgiveness, you can relate in those ways, and you can mentalize yourself, and you can mentalize others. So we use the first four areas of STEAM, sensation, thoughts, emotions, actions, to, we pull those areas of awareness together to do the mentalizing. And so you mentalize yourself.
Rhoda Sommer (37:43.596)
create a picture.
Leslie (37:45.222)
create, right, it’s a rich narrative of yourself or your partner. Now just to clarify, you don’t, you can’t see sensations from the outside on your partner, but you can see evidence of it. Somebody’s face turns red, their hands are in a fist, you notice that they’re not breathing deeply, you can get a sense of what’s going on and you pick that up. So I really see that STEAM, if you can work on STEAM, so for those of you listening,
Rhoda Sommer (38:01.868)
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.
Leslie (38:11.749)
put on a piece of paper, S -T -E -A sensations, thoughts, emotions, actions, mentalizing, and think of a situation or you’re in a situation and work on each of those areas. What you’ll find is there’s certain areas that come more easily than others and then you can fill the other ones because they’ll weave together. The more you get to know one, it’ll open the other. So if you don’t know what your emotions are, but you can identify your physical sensations and you’re like, okay, I feel butterflies in my stomach and…
my heart’s beating fast then you might be like wow i’m feeling anxious i’m feeling free like and you start filling that in so that’s important that can really help you understand yourself and i will say one other thing that’s real important people often confuse thoughts and emotions and so you really want to get clear work on getting clear on that difference so you know what am i feeling i am feeling like i’m such a dope or i’m an idiot
That is not a feeling, that is a thought.
And then the feeling is, I’m feeling insecure, I’m feeling afraid or whatever. You bring this together and now if you can do STEAM, you have an understanding of yourself. You will find that you can move towards empathy of yourself, compassion, forgiveness. And again, if you do it in relationship, you can do STEAM with your partner. Then, you know, that helps with that relationship too.
Rhoda Sommer (39:39.278)
So I just want to mention for the audience that when I was incest director for Pittsburgh Action Against Rape, I developed a feeling word vocabulary list. It was on index cards for people to go through. And so there’s two pages on the website you can print out. And there’s no ads on the website. There’s 450 pages for everybody for free.
but having a vocabulary list. And I actually just said to a client a couple of days ago, hey, I asked you to print that out because your wife is really hungry for more emotional connection. And I asked you to pick, just pick four or five words off that list and make sentences with them two, three times a week.
It would show her concrete evidence that you’re actually working on something and trying to embrace more self -awareness about your emotions. And he looked sheepish, because he’s very smart. And he said, you’re right. And so hopefully when I talk to him again, he’ll have practiced. But I think, I just think that…
Leslie (40:40.935)
Yes.
Rhoda Sommer (40:53.871)
What you’re doing is offering even more direction so you understand where you fall in the grid that you described. And then you pick a place in this stem where you’re going to practice doing something better and understanding more. And that’s a lot of concrete information.
Leslie (41:14.471)
a lot of concrete stuff and just like what you were saying, so in my book, actually my book, so both my, the insecure and love workbook and the original insecure and love book. And if I think about it, even in my bouncing back from rejection book, which tells you that I really believe in this, but on my website, there are downloads and in the downloads are emotion lists. And the way that I do them is my emotion list, they have categories. So there might be, you know, afraid.
Rhoda Sommer (41:29.614)
Yes.
Rhoda Sommer (41:40.622)
Leslie (41:42.761)
fear or afraid, however I word it. And then under the year, like, yeah, I can identify with that. Then there’s like 15 words that relate to that category. So you have to figure out, you know, which category you fit in and then you expand that. And I will tell you a wonderful story with this. So I was working with someone who was struggled a lot of self -doubt and she struggled with depression a lot. And we use the word lists and it was helped. It really expands her vocabulary, but we were talking about it and she said, can I take the list home? I said, sure.
you know, I saw the physical list she takes up, she comes back and she said, I had no idea there were so many words for happy because she knew all the other ones she’d been using them. But happy, which was great because sometimes we’re stuck in our sadness because we don’t, those are the words we have. And then if you can start knowing some of the words for happiness, you can start identifying that and highlighting that and growing that. So you definitely in your word lists, you hopefully you will also have some of the positive ones because sometimes we don’t.
know enough of those.
Rhoda Sommer (42:43.024)
Absolutely. Yes, no, that’s absolutely true. So a phrase jumped out at me in your workbook, collaborative communication. And it almost sounds too good to be true. Could you talk about what that is? And I think I’ve already got some ideas, but I want to hear what you have to say.
Leslie (42:54.12)
Yes.
Leslie (43:03.88)
Sure, so collaborative communication is what we want to have happen in relationships. It begins when we are little. So I’ll give you an example. Here’s an example of non -collaborative communication. Child’s running and they fall down and they’re crying and they come back and the mother looks and she kind of, she’s like, she’s, she’s, it’s okay honey, it’s all better. She wipes it, she puts it back in, go out, it’s all better.
and the child’s still crying and just like, you know, you’re better now. There’s not a problem. That’s non collaborative communication. Collaborative, collaborative communication is the child comes back and is crying and mommy says, sweetie, here, let me give it a kiss. All better. And the child looks and she shakes her head. No, not better. You know, with the quivering lip. Mommy says, not better.
Come on, sweetie, come here. Come on, let’s, we’ll clean it up and let’s put your favorite band -aid on it. With a little smile on the face, is that better? And the child kind of nods, this is a little better. Okay, mom gives her a hug and a kiss. All better? Child says all better. And off they go. Collaborative communication is the back and forth. So we, and that’s part of how we learn to see that others are emotionally available to us from a young age too, right? Do they collaborate with us? And you could even go all the way to infancy where there’s, it’s not about words, it’s about,
reactions and tone of voice and all of that. There’s the back and forth and the child, the infant even learns that it’s being cared about. Like the mom has a sense over the caregiver has a sense or the child has a sense that the caregiver gets that they’re in pain and is yet soothing. And that’s all the way to our adult relationships. And a lot of times in therapy, part of what is so healing is that the therapist can enter, can have rapport with you and enter a collaborative.
relationships so you feel heard and then they can offer something and you can take it in but something doesn’t fit and then and they’re working with you they’re emotionally available to you and that enables collaborative communication which I agree with you is hugely important.
Rhoda Sommer (45:11.089)
And in therapy, it’s a lot easier because to do collaborative in the sense that you are, as a person, are not in the mix. You are focused on them. And even if you share something about yourself, it’s to benefit them. And so collaborative communication in the real world gets more difficult because there’s two people in the mix and it requires time and attention.
and focus, all of which we seem to be pretty bankrupt on almost sometimes, you know, running around.
Leslie (45:46.731)
Right. So when I work with couples, I talk with them, even if I don’t mention STEAM per se, but basically that’s what I’m talking to them about. And we talk about conversations need to be, each person for a moment needs to compartmentalize their stuff in order to really hear the other one. And if you can use STEAM and you could really get where they’re coming from, you can mentalize your partner, you’re going to have empathy, you’re going to have compassion, they’re going to feel heard. They will then…
Rhoda Sommer (46:04.049)
That’s true, yeah.
Leslie (46:15.018)
be less defensive so that you can then, you know, the stuff that you were compartmentalizing, you can then, because you don’t necessarily have to agree with them, you just have to get them. Then you can share what’s going on with you and hopefully they could be more open to really getting where you’re coming from. And so there’s this process of using STEAM, of this awareness, compassionate self -awareness, compassionate other awareness. And this is where we do the work of nurturing and maintaining and repairing our relationships.
Rhoda Sommer (46:44.499)
Yes, love it. Okay, how can we go about improving our ability to calm each other down? Which is what you’re talking about, compartmentalizing would really help that. Any other tips? Because reactivity spoils so much connection.
Leslie (46:55.882)
Yes.
Leslie (47:04.907)
Absolutely, it does and remember this is where we started. This is all biologically driven, right? So if you feel vulnerable if you’re feeling really upset you’re it’s not just like you’re thinking you’re upset or you’re sad your body is in it and so if your body is feeling it so strongly you can’t think straight as As humans we can’t think straight when we are caught up in our emotions. So we need to be able to calm them a bit
So there’s a lot of ways to do it. If you can recognize, learn to know the signs, remember this is all about self -awareness. So if you’re aware of when your intensity is getting to the point where you can’t think, you can hopefully think enough to say, I think I need a break. And so you step away and you do whatever you need to do to bring yourself down so that you can be calm enough to engage more openly. Hopefully you don’t just say I’m going away and then you don’t come back. You do this within a short period of time.
Rhoda Sommer (47:42.226)
Yes, yes.
Leslie (48:02.636)
whether it’s an hour or you come back to your partner later and you say, you know what, I’m still not calm. Let’s talk about it tomorrow. But you engage that way. And then you have to know what are the things that work for you. Also, depending upon where you are in your relationship, you can help each other. This is the beauty of being in a relationship. You don’t have to carry everything on your own. So if on the whole you’re a loving couple, a loving couple, and you can really understand that your partner is getting…
triggered into whatever distress they’re triggered into, if you can stay calm and you can just be caring towards them, that often will help them to calm down. This is the co -regulation. You’re helping to regulate your partner. You can do it for each other. So you want to be able to do agree, regulate your own feelings, step away, take breaths in these deep breaths. Sometimes it can really help whatever it is. So you regulate yourself. You can also do co -regulation and that becomes then part of the process.
of navigating the relationship together.
Rhoda Sommer (49:01.811)
Yes. great stuff, really. Any final thoughts that we haven’t covered that you want to share before you remind us your book title and website info?
Leslie (49:16.908)
I just think I think it’s all about connection and I you know, so I’ll tell you this. I my I just had my website redone and so my my web designer person she kept writing self -love all over the place. I’m like, god, it’s like self -love. It just sounds corny to me and yet I have to tell you I really think it all comes down to love not in the hokey kind of like start but like if you think about it.
Rhoda Sommer (49:31.955)
Heheheheh
Leslie (49:43.884)
compassionate self -awareness or compassionate other awareness. To have compassion, it means you are really open, caring, connected, really seeing yourself and really seeing the other person. To me, that’s the essence of what love is. It’s being loving, not just being in love, but being loving towards yourself or others or whatever. So, and that’s connection, a true pure connection is that. So that’s my way of thinking about it these days for whatever, to whatever degree that That helps.
Rhoda Sommer (50:14.963)
And how rare it is in our lives to really feel seen. And how when we know it though when it’s happening, we absolutely know when we feel somebody really gets us and is witnessing us accurately. And how, what a lovely part of life that is. And to be able to give it is lovely as well as to feel seen.
Leslie (50:39.66)
Mm -hmm.
Right, right. It’s the feeling. So for those people who have heard the term active listening, it’s an exercise you do with couples. Too often people miss the point. They think active listening is just summarizing what the other person said. That’s not it. I mean, yes, you need to do it as part of it. You need to understand that. But then you need to connect with the other person. It’s all about the connection and the feeling seen and the feeling heard. Then whatever it is you need to work out, you can work out. If you each feel heard, you feel like you’re on the same team, it’s about,
Rhoda Sommer (50:51.155)
Yeah.
Leslie (51:12.141)
coming together truly as a team. So if you think about it, teammates can have different perspectives. You know, if you’re both playing soccer, you’re going towards the same goal, but you may have different perspectives on things, that’s fine. As long as you’re heading in the same direction, you’re working together. In fact, you don’t want your partner to have all the same thoughts and feelings about everything. It’s not really relating to another person. So one, it’s not possible, and two, I don’t think you’d really want it.
Rhoda Sommer (51:37.62)
So remind us how to connect to you and your book.
Leslie (51:41.229)
Sure, sure. Well, first of all, I want to tell people about my YouTube channel because I have a YouTube channel. They’re like four minute videos, these brief videos on a lot of these topics. And so I love to share that. And then they’re tied to articles I’ve written. So if you want to learn more than the three minutes, you can kind of go in that way. So my current book, The Insecure in Love Workbook, was actually, I just came out with that and it was because my first book, Insecure in Love,
people really have been finding it so helpful. My publishers came back and said, Hey, would you do a workbook to help people? Like I said, absolutely. You know, so you can, you can get that. You can get it on Amazon. You can get it new Harvard publications. You know, you just go on the website, the go on the internet, you’ll find the insecure love workbook. If you go to my website, which is drbeckerfelps .com, D R B E C K E R hyphen P H E L P S.
And then you can find more information. You can find the downloads for each of my books, and access to my YouTube and just like all kinds of stuff. And I also have a newsletter. So if you find what I’m saying, interesting, you sign up for the newsletter and then my most recent articles, videos, podcasts like this, the law come through there. And so you can, you know, continue to learn more. And I’m, I love, like you said earlier, I love doing this, talking to people, helping people out.
put all kinds of stuff out there that’s free stuff. If you want to buy my book, that’s great. I would love for you to buy my book. If you don’t have the money, go to the library or, you know, get the download through the library because it’s most important to get the information so that you can help make your life feel better. So you can have a greater sense of wellbeing and happiness for yourself. And then all those people in your circle that you’re connected to, it helps them too, by you being happier or having greater wellbeing.
Rhoda Sommer (53:36.534)
for satisfaction. To notch it down a little. As we draw the curtains on this episode, let’s remember that while insecurities and attachments may linger in the wings of our lives, it’s ultimately our performance on the stage of self -extrepanence that steals the show. Thanks for listening to the podcast that helps couples make it. Please share the podcast with your friends.
And you can follow me also on YouTube at Rhoda on Couples.
