Kevin Thompson [00:00:00]:
Hey, welcome back to Change the Odds, the podcast where marriage and family were never meant to be a game of chance. My name is Kevin Thompson. Hey. We're in this little mini series looking through my book, Love Styles. It's the simplest explanation of attachment theory from a Christian perspective. And attachment really is. It's the hidden influence over every relationship you have. While I tend to write primarily about marriages and then parenting as well, the attachment theory plays into my work relationships with my friendships.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:28]:
Every relationship you have is now influenced by how your needs were originally met in your first couple years of life and the work that you've actually done since this. So in the previous episode, we just gave an overview of what attachment theory actually looks like. Talk through the infant strange scenario. Well, we divided attachment primarily into two major categories. So you have secure attachment and then you have non secure attachment. While, yes, there are four categories, ultimately, because non secure can be defined now, it expresses itself in three different ways. Anxious, avoidant, and disorganized. I actually think we tend to overplay the importance of those individual kind of expressions of non secure attachment and get too nuanced into, is this anxious, Is this avoidant, is it disorganized? Well, that's helpful and I want people to do some of that work.
Kevin Thompson [00:01:20]:
I think a more important question, just in general is to say, is this secure or non secure? Is how I'm thinking, how I'm acting this relationship, is it secure or is it non secure? And the details of that non secure approach, whether it is anxious, avoidant, disorganized, I don't think that matters nearly as much as just recognizing, hey, this is a non secure approach. I now need to make sure I'm acting and thinking and processing in a very secure kind of way. So here's what we want to do now, kind of in this second episode of this little miniseries on love styles, is we want to go have a good, strong overview of what is secure attachment and to have this in our mind of what it actually looks like so that we can understand it to the best of our abilities. Because here's the truth, the answer to every attachment question that I ever get. When somebody says, hey, what should I do? I'm acting in an anxious way or an avoidant way. Hey, what do I do in these situations? My partner is acting in an anxious or avoidant way. What do I do? The answer is always the same. Fixate on what a secure approach is and act in that way.
Kevin Thompson [00:02:31]:
So this is why understanding secure attachment is so important, because it's going to be the answer to literally everything that this is how we approach whatever it is that's going on within our lives. And so within the book love styles, page 54, I describe a secure attachment as this. A secure attachment is a relational state where a person consistently experiences emotional safety within the context of intimate relationships. And so the person has this perspective of that I'm rightly safe here. They're not downplaying or denying anything. Instead, they just understand this is what human relationships feel like. They have the ability to recognize what a safe relationship actually looks like they're drawn to. Here's one of the powers of secure attachment is when you have a more secure approach and more secure relationships in your life, you are actually drawn toward people that have secure approaches.
Kevin Thompson [00:03:34]:
Whereas when you tend to not have a more secure mindset within your life, you can actually be attracted to somebody else's lack of health. We've seen this on previous episodes that have changed the odds where we've deconstructed a couple's kind of relationship. And one thing that we've said is, oh, in your personality, you don't like conflict. That's why you're actually drawn and attracted to this person with avoidant attachment. And while it's good that you're drawn to them, that actual area of their life isn't as healthy as it needs to be. And if they get healthy, you might actually lose a bit of your attraction toward them. So we have to begin to fixate on what does a secure attachment looks like. And as we grow that in our lives, we'll actually be more attracted, more drawn towards secure approaches and we will be more turned off from non secure approaches.
Kevin Thompson [00:04:27]:
So somebody with a secure attachment has a basic mindset in their life. They believe that they are lovable. So this isn't. They don't have an inflated ego by any means, but at the same time, they don't look down on themselves too much. They have a right understanding of look, I am lovable, imperfect, no doubt, but I do deserve love. And there are aspects within me which I can be loved. And notice this, they have a healthy sense of love for themselves. So often one of the problems that we have in the midst of marriage specifically is we're asking our spouse to love a person that we ourselves actually don't love.
Kevin Thompson [00:05:04]:
And so we're expecting them to do something that we're not doing for ourselves. With a secure approach, you can have a rightful appreciation of yourselves. They believe that others are generally trustworthy. Now notice that's generally trustworthy. So Someone with a secure approach is not naive. They understand that there are evil people in the world. They understand that there are foolish or unhealthy people that are out there, and that would limit how they would respond and be in relationship with those people. But at the same time that they haven't bought into the lie that I can't trust anybody.
Kevin Thompson [00:05:36]:
There's no one trustworthy out there. I have to lean and depend solely on myself. Instead, somebody with a secure attachment understands that people generally are trustworthy, and then I can be vulnerable with them to begin to see what that looks like. They can express their own needs without fear. So somebody with a secure attachment, not only do they have the ability to recognize their needs, they have a language to communicate those needs. And then they actually believe that communicating them will be valuable, that there's a purpose in me communicating these needs because other people can help meet those needs on occasion. Whereas somebody, let's say with an avoidant attachment, it may not even cross their mind to communicate a need, because why would anybody care? And somebody with an anxious attachment might actually downplay their needs to some extent out of fear of becoming too needy. Whereas somebody with a secure attachment can now express them freely and without fear.
Kevin Thompson [00:06:34]:
Somebody with a secure attachment can manage emotions without collapsing or exploding, so they can have a proper communication. In previous previous episodes, one of our most watched episodes of Change the Odds, we talk about Dan Siegel's window of tolerance. So somebody with a secure attachment tends to stay in that window of tolerance longer. It's a wider window of tolerance. And so when emotion comes in, they're not flooded by it. They don't explode, but at the same time, they don't live in denial of them somehow pushing down what those emotions look like. And then they can handle both intimacy and autonomy. So somebody with a secure attachment can be alone and can be with others.
Kevin Thompson [00:07:22]:
They can recognize their need and their longing for relationship and experience that. And yet, whenever there's a separation from those that they love or they're just by themselves, they're comfortable in their own skin. They're comfortable being alone. They know that they will reconnect with others at other times. Whereas somebody with an avoidant more pathway tends to be very happy, isolated, uncomfortable in relationship. Whereas somebody with a more anxious pathway tends to be more comfortable in relationship, but not as comfortable by themselves or alone. So a securely attached adult now has this kind of grounded sense of self, the capacity to trust others, and a belief that relationships, even imperfect relationships, can truly be safe and enduring. And then throughout love Styles.
Kevin Thompson [00:08:13]:
Now, one of the things about love Styles is there's a series of charts throughout them. And the purpose of the charts is to make the book a resource so it can sit on your shelf. And in moments in which you're struggling in some way, you just want to remind yourself you don't have to go back and reread the whole book. You can just take it off the shelf, turn, turn to the charts. I kind of dog eared them. You can do the same and just remind yourself of some of the basic principles. And so let's look at what does secure attachment look like in several different relationships. So in a romantic relationship, a secure attachment, a person will be fully engaged with intimacy and affection.
Kevin Thompson [00:08:51]:
There'll be a confidence in the midst of their connection when it comes to communication. They can express their needs clearly and they can also listen well. So they're not talking between the lines. They're not having to downplay what they say. They're not holding within what's going on and then exploding, trying to be forceful in some way. They can just say, hey, here's what I need and be very open to ask, what is it that you need? And so they believe somebody with this more secure pathway, secure relationship has this belief that communication is safe, that we can openly talk about these things and they can be productive. A secure relationship has productive conversations, not non productive ones. And so whenever it comes to conflict, they don't avoid it, but they also don't escalate it.
Kevin Thompson [00:09:39]:
They can have meaningful conflict, have their passions and disagreements, and yet not be outside their window of tolerance because of it. That they can trust that repair is possible. So I can see this when Jenny and I feel disconnected, I know that we're going to reconnect and we have the tools in which we can reconnect. Whereas years ago, when I was much more anxiously attached with Jenny, I didn't have that confidence. I didn't know how. I just knew I was disconnected and I panicked because of it. But I didn't know what to do about it. And I didn't have this confidence that we would necessarily reconnect in a romantic relationship.
Kevin Thompson [00:10:15]:
A secure relationship would have a closeness without control or a fear of loss. So we're really connected, but that doesn't infringe on who I am as a person. I don't feel like she's trying to control me. Instead she's bringing out the most in me. And at the same time my fear of losing this actually begins to lessen because there's such a Confidence in the midst of it. So securely attached partners, securely attached spouses, not an issue of perfection by any means, but they show up. They just consistently keep on bringing the fullness of who they are in the midst of the relationship. But you can also have securely attached friendships.
Kevin Thompson [00:10:57]:
And in friendships with a secure approach, you can give and receive support without any sense of imbalance. There's very healthy boundaries and reciprocity. The relationship isn't one sided. At the same time, you aren't so enmeshed that there's no difference between the two of you. Healthy friendships have healthy boundaries. I'm not going to treat my friends the exact same way that I'm going to treat Jenny. There's a difference in what those relationships actually look like. In a secure friendship now there's a low reactivity, so you can respond calmly, whether it be to silence or to space.
Kevin Thompson [00:11:33]:
And so if you know, life gets busy and you haven't connected with this friend a little bit, it doesn't create this inner turmoil in some way. There's an inner stability, an internal stability in what's going on. And yet you can share openly and honestly without oversharing. Have you ever had that friend that just tends to overshare? Chances are that's anxious, that's an anxious approach. They're trying to draw you in with more information. Whereas a secure friendship, there's a proper boundary. I know what's inside of me that I can rightly share with you. And, and I know what I actually shouldn't share in very specific relationships.
Kevin Thompson [00:12:11]:
I think we've probably all, especially in the church world, have been in that small group where that one person just overly shared and chances are that they have a more anxious approach to those relationships rather than a secure approach. And so with a secure approach to friendships, friendships become this very life giving reality to who they are. And they aren't now ruled by some kind of social anxiety or a people pleasing kind of mentality. When it comes to what does secure parenting look like? So secure parenting now that you can read the child's cues and respond appropriately. So in secure parenting you can read the child's cues and respond appropriately. You can trust in the midst of our relationship you can show up and own your mistakes and make things right. You know that you're going to fail and yet you don't believe that love is lost in the midst of that failure. And you can demonstrate now for the child emotional regulation and honesty.
Kevin Thompson [00:13:14]:
You have that capacity. And here's one of the keys I think of what secure Parenting looks like insecure parenting. The adult is the adult. Because so often in non secure approaches, what happens in parenting is, is the adult begins to mimic the behavior of the child. So insecure parenting, the adult models appropriate behavior and the child begins to mimic the parent. In non secure parenting, the adult begins to mimic the behavior of the child and the parent begins to act like, you know, they might throw a temper tantrum, they might emotionally shut down that they're not modeling for the child emotional regulation and, and healthy forms of relationship. And so in secure parenting, we model for our children that emotions are welcome and that relationships truly can withstand mistakes. There's a steadiness now without a need to control who the child actually is.
Kevin Thompson [00:14:15]:
Now we see on page 61 that it plays out even within our work relationships. The secure approach to work allows for critique, doesn't personalize it. There's this internal security apart from our job to where our job doesn't define who we actually are. We have a set of values and we work from those values, but we're not defined by them, by our work in any way. We have a clear sense of who we are and we can work well with others. We don't hold back, we bring our full selves to our relationships with others and then also allow that from us. And so in a secure work relationship, we're working from the sense of identity and purpose, not out trying to achieve it in some way. And so we can lead or follow with humility and just a sense of presence of who we actually are.
Kevin Thompson [00:15:07]:
Now, one aspect of a secure attachment, a secure approach to all of life, and specifically our most intimate of relationships, is I lay out within the book 16 characteristics. It's not an exhaustive list by any means, but it begins to show us what does a secure attachment look like in our most important relationships. And for me, I think first and foremost about Jenny and then Ella and Silas. But you can look at it in whatever relationships you actually have. And so here are some of the characteristics of, of what a secure approach is. And as you listen, as you're driving down or as you're watching on YouTube that just begin to ask yourself the question, does that really define do I have that characteristic now in my relationship and am I providing it now for my spouse as well? So the first one is this. It's trust. A secure relationship now has trust.
Kevin Thompson [00:16:02]:
So I know that Jenny's going to treat my heart right. I just have no doubt about that, which now frees me to bring the fullness of who I am to her to be open to her, to trust in every situation that, hey, she's going to come at it, she might make a mistake, but she's not going to intentionally try to harm me in any way. And that trust now for me provides the very foundation of what friendship think about friends, partners and lovers. We talk about how trust is the key element of what friendship is all about. And in fpl, we talk about how respect now is the very source of where partnership is. And so the second characteristic for me of a secure attachment is respect that I value your opinion that I'm not threatened by who you are. And at the same time, I don't stand now over you believing I'm better than you. To some extent, it.
Kevin Thompson [00:16:57]:
It could be this might be overstatement. I don't think it is. A more anxious pathway would tend to overvalue who the other person is and even pretend like maybe they're more than what they actually are because they don't want to lose the relationship where a more avoidant pathway might downplay who that other person is and their giftedness and their skill and their ability. Whereas a secure approach now means I see that you. I see the weight that is within your life, the value that you actually bring to my life, and the ideas and the mindsets that you actually have. And so a secure approach is characterized by respect and then continuing kind of the friends, partners and lovers mode of these first three characteristics of a secure attachment. Intimacy. Lover is built on vulnerability.
Kevin Thompson [00:17:48]:
And so in a secure relationship, you can have vulnerability with each other. One of the questions I encourage men to test out is as you grow insecure attachment, you will grow in your ability to ask this question to your wife. And it's a very vulnerable question. It's a question most men would never naturally ask. But it's just this question of this will you hold me? It's not a sexual meaning, but instead it's an intimate meaning of I'm tired, I'm frustrated, I just need this contact in this moment, and will you provide that for me? Think about the courage that that now takes for a person to actually say, I need reassurance. Can you give that to me? That's a secure approach. The trust and the respect is there to know that you're not going to mock me, you're not going to make fun of me, you're not going to downplay me. You are more than likely, if at all possible, going to reciprocate that now to me and to assist me in this moment.
Kevin Thompson [00:18:49]:
I feel safe with You. I can be vulnerable. I can let my guard down. There's such power in that very simple question of will you hold me? Specifically, I think from a man's perspective, where in this culture, men oftentimes aren't projected or seen as somebody that can be vulnerable in that way, I do think there's a power in the midst of that vulnerability. The fourth characteristic is exploration. So it's the ability to launch out. Because there's such a secure base within this relationship, I can go explore. Think about to the previous episode where we were talking about the infant Strange scenario, Remember when the child was securely attached to the parent, they could go explore the toys across the way in the room.
Kevin Thompson [00:19:31]:
They could have a disengagement from the proximity of their parent because they felt such safety. To know that they could return, to know that the parent was probably watching them, that there's this ability to go explore. In a healthy relationship, you can grow, you can experience new things, you can try new things. Why there's such a bond, such a connection between you and this other person. It frees you, it liberates you. Whereas with a more anxious or avoidant approach, you get more tied down. You're not free to go and to do those things. The fifth characteristic is emotional regulation.
Kevin Thompson [00:20:10]:
So what that means is I can feel without being ruled by every feeling. So I have the ability to understand. I have emotions. I don't live in denial of them. A more avoidant pathway tends not to recognize their emotions. And so I'm not that. I know that what my emotions are. I'm learning to vocalize them, to label them, to understand them.
Kevin Thompson [00:20:31]:
I have a language for them, so. So I have the ability to see them, I have a language for them. And now I can begin to communicate them in a proper way. But at the same time, I'm not ruled by those emotions. I recognize emotions come and go. It's useful pieces of information, but I can bring logic into it as well. And now I take full responsibility for my own emotional life. I'm not triggered by other people.
Kevin Thompson [00:20:56]:
I can have breathing techniques. I can control my. My body. I know when I need space. I have the right amount of energy and I can form it. I can regulate it in the proper way. That's a sign now of a secure approach. The sixth sign, the sixth characteristic now is communication.
Kevin Thompson [00:21:17]:
So I can say and I can listen. I can tell you what I'm feeling and I can listen to what you're feeling without it being a threat to me. So what I'm doing Here in communication is again, I'm not holding back part of myself, but I'm also not forcing myself upon you. We talk about in the guidebook for friends, partners and lovers, the book we use for marriage mentoring, or our small group material that's Also available on YouTube, we talk about the power of assertive communication. So a non secure approach to communication is passive aggressive or passive aggressive? Passive. I'm not going to really tell you what I'm saying. Passive aggressive. I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to say what I'm saying in a joking way.
Kevin Thompson [00:22:02]:
That way I can, I can disengage from it if you take it the wrong way or aggressive, I'm going to force my way to where you basically can't speak at all because I'm coming with you at too much energy. All those are non secure forms of communication. Assertive communication is I'm going to clearly state what I think, believe and feel. But to do so in a way that's not threatening to you in any way whatsoever, that's a clear communication of who I am, that's putting my heart out on the table and then gives you time and space not only to receive that, but then to reply to it. Think about when emotions go poorly within your relationship. Chances are you no longer assertively communicate, but instead you and your spouse either do so passively aggressively or passive aggressively. And you can't be productive in those non secure forms of communication. So a secure relationship now is defined by an assertive communication.
Kevin Thompson [00:23:04]:
It becomes a powerhouse within the relationship. Now notice this, this doesn't mean perfection at all. Jenny and I laugh all the time. She has a degree in marketing, she owns an advertising company, right? She makes her living by communicating. Obviously I'm a speaker, I write books, have the website. I make my living by communicating. So these two people, if there's anybody who should have great communication, it should be Jenny and I. And yet Jenny and I regularly miscommunicate and whenever we do, we laugh about it all the time.
Kevin Thompson [00:23:36]:
So this does not mean a secure relationship does not mean you communicate perfectly. Instead it means that you communicate well on many occasions. But then I think you have a proper vantage point of viewpoint of the difficulty of communication just in general. And it could be that that's influenced by the seventh characteristic, which is that of empathy. In a secure attachment, we have empathy for each other. Why? Because we actually have the ability to see the other. You see, in a non secure approach, our needs are so unmet and we're so uncertain and we're going down a road that really won't meet those needs, that we don't have the ability now to have a proper view of ourselves and others. So with an anxious attachment, you tend to be overly fixated on the other person and you lose your sense of self.
Kevin Thompson [00:24:27]:
With an avoidant attachment now, you are fixated on yourself. You lose sight of who the other person actually is. Disorganized, it kind of is both. But in a secure attachment, I can actually see Jenny, I can have empathy for what she's experiencing, for what she's going through, without losing a sense of myself, which allows me now to say I see you. And there's such power in a, such that the eighth characteristic now is flexibility. It means we're not rigid. Some non secure forms of attachment. The only way you know how to operate is in very rigid forms that if I, if I don't do exactly what my parents do, I don't know what I'm going to do.
Kevin Thompson [00:25:12]:
If I don't, if you don't follow the rules, I don't know what's going to happen. And the moment life kind of throws at you a curveball, you don't know what to do. And yet in a secure relationship there's a flexibility. There's predictability, no doubt, and we'll see that in upcoming kind of characteristics, but there's just a flexibility. We don't have to operate in exactly this way in this season of life. We might kind of change roles in what we do around the house or who's taking care of what. With the kids and the relationship, we can kind of go with the flow. Why there's such a, a bond in the relationship that whatever's happening around us doesn't impact who we actually are as a couple.
Kevin Thompson [00:25:52]:
That's what a secure attachment and connection actually looks like. There's a flexibility. If, if, if your relationship has to always follow the rules, whatever those rules are, that's a sign that you're probably operating from a more non secure approach. Dan Siegel talks about rigidity as being a lack of health, where we find an identity in following the rules rather than an identity in the actual relationship that is there. The ninth characteristic now of a secure relationship is stability. So notice we're flexible. So we can change, we can adapt. But there is this stability that I know who I am, you know who you are, and we know who we are and we know the direction that we're headed.
Kevin Thompson [00:26:38]:
And so while everything around us I think about like the eye of the Hurricane. While everything around us might be chaotic, we aren't chaotic. Instead, we have the stability about us which provides, I think, the opportunity now for the tenth characteristic. And the tenth one is resilience. We understand that we're going to make it through this. This is maybe the power of being married 25 years now. For Jenny and I, it's is I just have this confidence that even if we feel a disconnection, whatever life throws our way, we just have this confidence of hey, we're going to figure this out, we're going to find a way through it. There's a resilience about who we are.
Kevin Thompson [00:27:17]:
Whereas a non secure approach doesn't have that. An avoidant approach will just kind of quickly be done with other people. An anxious approach is so clingy they lose their sense of self. Whereas in a secure approach we have this sense of resilience about ourselves and about each other. Characteristic number 11, I got to speed up here from time. Characteristic number 11 is healthy thirds. If you've never heard this concept, it's on page 74 of Love Styles, go get the book. But it's this idea of whenever we have a secure attachment, we can leverage other relationships for our benefit.
Kevin Thompson [00:27:56]:
Whereas a non secure attachment allows other relationships now to be a threat on our connection. It could be within marriage. The ultimate threats now are the idea of adultery. It could be in some families the threats could be the in laws invading our lives in ways that they actually shouldn't. Or us not being able to honor our parents and to be in relationship with them. We have in non secure attachment we tend to have unhealthy thirds. But in a secure approach, as I'm responding to you, in a secure pathway, it creates much healthier relationships to where Jenny and I's relationship is bettered. By my parents, by her mom, by her family, by our friends, by our church, by our community.
Kevin Thompson [00:28:47]:
We can now leverage all these other relationships in very meaningful and healthy ways without feeling threatened, without feeling endangered. It's because we have a secure connection that now allows these other relationships to be very healthy. I would say one of the most overlooked aspects of the source of adultery tends to be a non secure attachment style that's gone kind of uninhimbered their entire lives. And ultimately you develop unhealthy thirds with others. Number 12. This is 16 characteristics of a secure relationship. That number 12 is support. So we can support each other in a secure relationship.
Kevin Thompson [00:29:28]:
I am Jenny's biggest cheerleader and she is mine. As a matter of fact, in a secure relationship Sometimes you get more excited about your spouse's success rather than your own. Whereas in a non secure relationship, your spouse's success could be a threat to you. So there's some relationships where one spouse actually sees themselves as the rescuer of the other and they actually don't want their spouse to get healthy because if so, who am I now in their lives? There are other relationships that are non secure in which if my spouse succeeds then I don't have value and my whole value is on me being better than them. Those are non secure approaches where then you can't truly support each other. You're actually kind of holding each other back. I've seen this far too often where one spouse will actually sabotage the hopes and dreams of their husband or wife. And they don't even understand that they're doing it.
Kevin Thompson [00:30:26]:
And they clearly don't understand why they're doing it. And the reason that they're doing it is because they're living in this non secure pathway of attachment. Whereas a secure attachment style man, I I want to see Jenny's success. I'll sacrifice for Jenny's success. What do I need to do to help make your dreams come true? The very reason that love styles exist is because some 15 years ago Jenny sat me down one night and said, hey, you want to write books? What do I need to do? What do we need to do to make this happen? And as she cheered me on, books like love styles came into existence. In a secure attachment to you have this level of support that in a non secure attachment you just Simply can't have. Number 13. We have this idea of shared goals.
Kevin Thompson [00:31:11]:
So we are creating this life that we want. We're in this together because we have a proper viewpoint of ourselves and each other. I know who I am and I know who we are. Now we can have these shared goals and divide them up and go out and to accomplish them and each kind of do individual work and then work together with where we're accomplishing these things. Whereas in a non secure approach, couples tend to be fighting against each other. Here's what I want, here's what I want. And they see them in conflict, whereas in a secure approach they complement one another. Number 14, conflict resolution.
Kevin Thompson [00:31:46]:
A secure approach has the ability to have productive conversations and productive conflict, which means we're going to resolve this. It doesn't mean we're necessarily going to agree with each other. It just simply means we're going to be able to hear each other, understand each other, have compassion and empathy. Remember what Jenny and I say all the time to each other, I don't have to understand you to believe you. So I'm going to believe her perspective. Even if I don't see the world that way or even understand how anybody else could see the world that way, I'm going to have the humility to recognize I don't have the full knowledge of everything. And the way she is communicating to me, what she is telling me is true. It's her perspective.
Kevin Thompson [00:32:24]:
And I'm going to bring that into my understanding of my worldview. And this is now going to empower us to figure out what's our next step in this. We may not fully have this figured out, but we can figure out in this moment even how to live in the midst of the disagreement. A secure approach allows you to experience that and understand what that looks like. Number 15, physical intimacy. A secure approach has better sex, has a better intimate life because non secure pathways will inhibit healthy intimacy. A secure pathway will not only enable healthy intimacy, once you experience that healthy intimacy, you will want and desire it even more. And so there's this longing to be with each other and to have this connection and this appreciation for what is actually there.
Kevin Thompson [00:33:11]:
And Then finally, number 16 of 16 characteristics of a secure attachment is there's a positive outlook. So there is this belief now that man, not only are we in a spot together, that we appreciate we're headed in the right direction and we know that we're going to be able to figure things out and go forward in the way that we actually want to move forward. And we know exactly what that's going to look like. Or maybe we live in the midst of uncertainty. But. But even in the uncertainty, we're excited about what this next season has in store for us. Before we wrap up here, I want to talk about one thing about a secure attachment. A secure attachment now impacts how we experience shame.
Kevin Thompson [00:33:58]:
So shame will be a main driver. As next time we look at anxious and avoidant attachment, we'll see how shame plays in that in a very meaningful way. Where whereas in a secure attachment, shame is minimized. And so somebody with a secure approach never thinks to themselves, oh, I'm too much or I'm not enough. So an anxious approach would be I'm too much. An avoidant approach is I'm not enough. A disorganized approach might be I will be left or controlled or exposed. A secure attachment just doesn't have those thoughts.
Kevin Thompson [00:34:30]:
Instead, a secure relationship has these thoughts. I made a mistake, but I'm not a mistake. I feel Awkward in the moment, but I'm still worthy of love. I failed here, I failed, but I am not an actual failure. Instead, a secure approach has this proper understanding of who we are. It's a healthy approach of what it means to be a child of God, who's now a sinner, who's now in the midst of transformation from Jesus and trying to figure out life. You need to fixate on what secure attachment looks like. Before we even discover what your non secure pathway might be.
Kevin Thompson [00:35:15]:
Begin to get in your head, what does a healthy relationship even look like? What are the characteristics? And walk through maybe these 16 characteristics. Buy the book and just look at, there's literally one page a characteristic and just say is this present in my most important relationships? And if not, this is now my goal. This is what I want to build. If you're listening with your spouse right now, or if you want to send this to your spouse and you listen to these 16 characteristics and you think to yourself, man, this, this doesn't define us, then send this episode to your spouse and say, hey, not all of these things define us, but. But I want them all to define us. Let's get to work to figure this out. Here's the power of love styles. Even if you don't have these things in your life now, even if you are defined much more by a non secure approach in your most important relationships, you don't have to stay there.
Kevin Thompson [00:36:08]:
You can change, you can grow, you can learn what a secure attachment actually looks like. And this can become your go to approach over time. But how you will love in the future is determined by how you choose to love today. Make a different choice and that will go a long way to changing the odds. We'll see you next time.