Defining Attachment Trauma: How to Heal Attachment Wounds

I'm Alan Robarge a relationship coach and a psychotherapist and I like to talk about attachment injuries and healing attachment trauma and on this video let's talk about very much what do we mean when we say developmental emotional relational trauma let's come up with a definition and let's explore creating a context of where's this coming from now keep in mind the content that I'm sharing here the information is the content the information that we explore in the membership community improve your relationships that I created a group of like-minded people we come together to explore these ideas and then also name and identify a plan of self-directed healing if you want to learn more about that I will acknowledge it at the end of this video as well but for now let's jump in and what do mean we mean when we talk about attachment trauma now I want to make the distinction between the old history of trauma as a definition being incident specific and based upon something that happened and so if someone says they're traumatized or that was traumatic event we want to focus on what is the event and historically that's how they came about to really notice PTSD you notice the symptoms of PTSD post traumatic stress disorder and started to think about what where's this coming from and understandably our brain goes to well what happened and so we identify the instant there was a earthquake there was a tornado there was a natural disaster there was some kind of assault there was some kind of violent attack perhaps it was sexual assault perhaps it was rape perhaps it was sexual abuse also traumatic events that take place like a car accident things that overwhelm us in a way that you know to be held hostage to be in war obviously you're a soldier if you were a soldier if you've seen war if you've been in war we can very quickly say well that's a traumatic experience however over time they began to realize everyone who has been in a traumatic experience does not necessarily mean that every person will have post-traumatic stress disorder and with the advances in research neuroscience looking at the biology the physiology the brain functioning what what is going on in the brain and very much the nervous system in the body they started to move away from it's still important but it's not the defining factor to look at an instant you don't have to prove that something happened to you to have symptoms and experiences of trauma looping in your nervous system and activate it in your brain and creating this hormonal cocktail that is producing trauma symptoms or trauma like symptoms so we move away from an incident and instead we're focusing on the person's brain and nervous system and their ability to integrate and their ability to manage the flood of the overwhelm the hormonal cocktail that gets stirred up the intense anxiety and the this feeling of being bombarded was something that I cannot manage I can handle this and if the nervous system is not able to process the intensity of that overwhelm and all of the physiological functioning that's going on in the body the raised heart rate the breathing the oh there's a whole series of things going on that are activating this fight flight or freeze response and that if we are not able to integrate both in the moment and and afterwards our body's not able to come back into equilibrium the body gets stuck looping in that place so that is a basic foundation of a shift from looking at a very obvious overt incident specific definition of trauma and now we're beginning to look at the individual person's experience of a event or living their life in such a way that they could not manage chronic intensity chronic overwhelm chronic anxiety chronic distress that is taking over now the leap here or the link is in the word chronic when we start talking about developmental attachment trauma attachment trauma means the quality of bonding that we have with the people that we love and that very much our survival is dependent on staying connected to those people that we love and our survival is dependent on feeling a sense of closeness with those people that we love and developmental trauma comes from attachment injuries or we could say developmental attachment trauma comes from attachment injuries and in some ways we can think the attachment injuries are more like the incidence if we're looking you know what really happened or when did it happen we might be able to hone in on attachment injuries or things that take place now they could take place just you know in one moment today you know something happened but we're also looking at over seared of series of time a span of time with a series of events that cumulatively together in your development through childhood age 10 age 11 and age 12 age 5 you know it happens very early that your loved one your parent your caregiver the primary person that we really depend on in some ways is just not there emotionally and this can get very confusing because we can also start really thinking and talking in covert terms that it's not obvious it doesn't have to be an obvious sense of abuse you don't have to have you know an obvious parent who has some challenges to to being quote unquote a good parent you can have a loving parent and a parent who is participating in the child's life but still not emotionally offering connection engagement emotional attunement seeing that child really listening to that child being available wanting to move into and know that child's inner world and so developmentally that means over a span of time we've had this ongoing chronic absence this emotional absence and these multiple incidents of attachment injury where the child imploded on him or herself the child felt a degree of distress and disconnect and the realization that wow mom is really not here or Wow dad is really not here wow you know my aunt who takes care of me my answers really not here or whoever it is that is you know the important person the caregiver to the child that over time if these attachment injuries had continued we begin to say there was developmental emotional relational trauma and the trauma will show up later in life based upon how we are in relationship and that we have a degree of a heightened degree of a sense of insecurity around relationships and this insecurity is not just simply an idea this kind you know like I'm feeling insecure you know I'm feeling insecure about myself or is it's not just the thought or the idea insecure is a reference or a identifying that the actual bond the quality of bonding the connection the strength of the bond is compromised it is not secure so therefore it is insecure so we're more focusing on in naming the quality of the bond it's not just saying you know oh you feel insecure but what this means is in our adult relationships when we are with someone we are going to experience higher levels of concern and confusion and distress and emotional anxiety around is it safe to be in relationship with this person is it can I trust this level of vulnerability is this person really available to me am i available to him or her or can we trust this can we really trust you know being vulnerable with each other and is it reliable or will I end up feeling neglected will I end up being abandoned will I end up being rejected so this stirs the nervous system it's not only a psychological process it's not just how you were feeling this releases a flood of hormones in your body a hormonal cocktail that can skew your perception of reality can also make you feel and intensity and an urgency in what's referred to as primal panic so you now have this ongoing experience where relationship equals insecure attachment and relationship releases that it's it's this the the place of the trauma is stored where you experience intimacy and I was just whenever I say that I like to follow that up with say wow that sounds like a curse I mean you just want to love and be loved I just want to love and be loved I mean we just want to be in a relationship that is meaningful and connected and we want to grow and evolve and and and many of us are reasonable where we say well it doesn't have to be perfect but we we want to feel a sense of moving towards deeper bonding deeper relating emotional connection well it's that actual emotional connection as you go deeper into intimacy that's the place where the trauma is stored and gets activated and all of this gets stirred up so very painful stuff very confusing stuff and we have to make sense of it so real quickly I want to acknowledge this video is a series of brainstorming idea I'm making a bunch of videos about this content and I have also creating a video that I'm referring to as the solution and it's actually solutions plural there's a number of things to think about so I'm not going to go into all of the specifics here but I'm going to name them and on every video I'm going to name them but please know you'll be able to find other videos that really more go into in depth what I'm talking about when I talk about the solution but it's really important I have learned after making videos for two years after creating this membership community and receiving it talking to people you know constantly about relationships and attachment trauma inevitably you might have the same thought and feeling right now is that you're going that the question comes up well how do you heal this how do you work with this and so every video I make from now on I want to I'm going to drive that home I want to make mention of that and for the sake of time I'm just going to list them as bullet points but over time I'll continue to make videos and you'll be able to find other videos that are more specific to what are these bullet points of what do I mean so to name them what do we need the solution for healing attachment trauma we need corrective experiences of emotional attunement that re wire our brain the brain is a plastic neuroplasticity means you can override overwrite new experience and we need to have experiences of emotional attunement limbic resonance where we are with someone that really is open and available to us and we need to do the same and it is the ability to do something a beyond and different and take risk than what you did or had in your life previously that will help invite recoding your brain so that your template changes your relationship template and you can rely on that in your new relationships or salvaging changing your current ones and so therefore there's all very good news when we're working with trauma the information that we have is that trauma healing trauma therapy and I'm a big fan I promote what I call self-directed healing and while we are engaging and have a very clear path and plan of what we're doing healing is possible specifically when we are thinking and focusing on rewiring our brain our brain and creating new corrective experience of experiences of emotional connection and limbic resonance so again I'll say more about that on another video but that's number one the next one is we need to grieve a healing process is a grief process and grieving process is a healing process and this everything we're talking about if you want to start to center yourself get focused and look at where you been where you're at and where you're going what happens is you start some feelings stirring or a loss and some sadness and this is very much about absence relational trauma relational attachment trauma is coming into dropping into realizing that there has been a disconnect and a loss of emotional connection and that there was an absence a neglect and abandonment a not being available and this might show up mostly through your childhood but it could also show up in your adult years you had such good great intentions of creating a adult relationship and you thought everything was going to be positive and perhaps you had positive experiences growing up and then you find 10 years later five years into whatever the timeframe it could happen in three months but you notice these relationships are just not working out and if you want to change these old patterns and really begin a life of self-reflection and being conscious and changing all patterns of relationship that's a grief process and it's gonna bring some feelings of grief so we need skills to grieve and we are grieving not only what happened but we are grieving what didn't happen so that's number two for the solution number three is we need to choose a life of connection and a life of letting in emotional nourishment in all areas so this is not just about the special relationship partner relationship primary relationship this is not just about a few select people that you consider you know the place where you have emotional connection this means really shifting your focus on how you define relationship and realize that all relationships are important and that you must counter a life of isolation and counter a life of feeling disconnected or even if you're emotionally shut down in some way and to really think about how can you live a life where you invite and you put forth action and efforts very proactive plan to be connected and that you cannot be selective about well I like this kind of relationship but I'm not going to value this one as much we really elevate and value all relationships because as human beings we know that we are not going to be selective in that way and that we we can experience a great sense of emotional safety and groundedness and clarity and knowing who we are and feeling inspired by relationship no matter the type of relationship it's with your neighbor it's with your coworker it's with you know the people that you meet at the coffee shop and you chat every weekend with I mean whoever it is we're we're really on a path of valuing relationships in all forms and for a number of us who seek out running away hiding shutting down disconnecting living in isolation we're not doing that now and we're doing the opposite and I like to call this zesty living we're gonna really you know invite zesty living in all areas nurture who we are in all areas this might mean your spiritual life this might mean in the areas of friendship etc etc you get the idea the next thing that we are going to do is we are going to confront our core beliefs about ourself so when we're in relationship growing up if this has happened to you your attachment trauma by right of childhood we learn about ourselves based upon the mirroring and the messaging that we get back from other people and if other people are disengaged and shut down and let's say they're preoccupied with their own stuff they are depressed they have an addiction they are overworked in working so much they don't have that much energy to spare they are preoccupied in their own drama around their lips or their marriage or primary relationships where they're not giving their full or giving their all are really able to be present to the child so what happens is we develop core beliefs then at some point the child consciously or unconsciously will say oh there must be something wrong with me because mom's not actually interacting with me or you know I think that I'm unloved because dad totallys checked out and he basically ignores me or I just don't matter I don't matter as a person because when I'm hanging out with the family I just feel like I'm a piece of furniture I'm just sitting there people don't really talk to me so over time we really personalize it and we develop these core beliefs about ourselves that then influence how we create more relationships in our adult life and I said it earlier and I'll say it again in a way that's you know it's it's really it feels like a curse and I don't mean that in any kind of evil demonic sense but just in a playful metaphor science it's it's it feels like a curse where you just want to be in relationship and and already you have this obstacle where you don't even believe that you can be in relationship you don't believe that you're lovable you don't believe that you're good enough you don't believe that you matter so if you want to heal from attachment trauma there will also be an ongoing amount of healing work or a chapter of healing work where you really have to confront what are your core beliefs about yourself and what did you learn about yourself when you're in an environment where the quality of the bonding or the quality of the attachment was compromised usually what it means is we diminish our sense of self our sense of self has been diminished so we want to change that now the other thing you need to think about is that we get core beliefs we get information about how who we are within ourselves or our self-identity but now we also got messaging from our family the bigger picture of the family that we got messaging from our environment of our community and people around us and we get core messaging about relationships and we get information about that beliefs that are planted of what a relationship is supposed to look like and that even comes from the culture and this can be referred to as the romantic narrative and we all know it we we live in it you see any kind of romantic comedy there is a formula and there are all of these assumptions and beliefs and what a partner relationship is supposed to be and provide for us you know how we meet someone and it's love at first sight and we're feeling all giddy and excited and they just rock our world and then we grow in loving each other and get to know each other and then we have our forever relationship and this person just really is my soulmate and the one and knows who I am well let me tell you that that is a story and we refer to it as a narrative and if you have an attachment injury if you have attachment trauma and your healing attachment wounds the fantasy and I really really emphasize the fantasy and Eve you confront the romantic narrative you will begin to see how incredibly delusional and ungrounded and unrealistic it is it is not a healthy definition of relating it is very immature it is an immature way of relating so if you want to heal attachment trauma you not only have to confront your beliefs about yourself that were created in as a result of living in an environment where they were ongoing chronic attachment distress and attachment injuries were happening but you also have to confront your bigger picture beliefs about what is a relationship how do relationships work how do people meet each other how do they grow in depth how do they how do they cultivate compassion and compassion together and grow in relationship it is not the template of the romantic narrative and until we all confront this we are setting ourselves up for a life of delusion and fantasy and relationships that were fail and then we all wonder why the divorce rate is over you know 50% or higher it's it's not a healthy mature way to go about creating adult-to-adult relating so we have to heal that we have to look at that we have to dissect it decode it and replace it with some new beliefs so new beliefs about your course about yourself core beliefs about yourself and new new beliefs that you define what is a relationship and what is a healthy relationship now as the process is we're doing this another component the solution I'm running through all these ideas we need to strengthen our sense of self and is going to link to our core beliefs but it sort of it starts moving into a very conscious active plan or approach or discipline of self love and self compassion and this is cultivating a greater amount of kindness so we're not only undoing the beliefs about ourselves we're also really actively valuing ourselves we're able to set boundaries we were able to raise our standards and this links to another component of this healing process is no longer accepting crumbs of relating we have been trained to be tolerant of people who are emotionally unavailable and emotionally check out and we have this incredible capacity so in some ways we're super super sensitive that we pick up attachment disconnect and our radar systems our nervous system activate and it's alarm alarm alarm this person is unavailable so that we have a very finely tuned awareness that we we are very sensitive to that but at the same time in despite this sensitivity we also are able to override dumb down checkout give the benefit of the doubt talk yourself out of ignore all of this distress and our approach is that well we just have to live with this distress and we have to try harder to get connection well this is not working because it means that we have very low standards and many people then will choose to stay in relationships that are not good for them with partners they don't really feel connected to really trying to create a relationship where a relationship can't be created so we have to change our level of tolerance by practicing intolerance and that's the way I phrase that and think about that is no more crumbs of emotional relating or emotional non relating now the other thing that we need to think about in this process is about checking into our body and waking up our body and everything that I said is is going to be underscored and simultaneously experienced through the felt sense of the awareness in your body and that trauma work healing trauma is about taking a path of paying attention to body sensation and your felt sense and helping your nervous system you're participating with your brain but your nervous system needs to recalibrate it needs to reset itself and there is a very particular approach of working with a window of activation when this happens and how do we cultivate the awareness and the sensitivity to ride the wave ride the intensity be with our body offering ourselves attention and love and kindness and letting the body come back into a grounded state of equilibrium so it is learning the skill of felt sense awareness and it is taking a body based approach we do definitely need that when we are on a path of healing attachment trauma this would mean not ignoring yourself not ignoring the messaging the intuition the feeling states that you're getting and we're really act we're really increasing your sensitivity of your own body awareness and then your sensitivity to respond to that body awareness as opposed to thinking you need to live in chronic distress and attachment to stress with this trauma that keeps getting activated in your relationships so I hope that this was helpful this video is a series it is the content that we talk about and share and I've created a community people like-minded people like yourself who values this information and we come together let's talk about this let's to know what is your plan is self directed healing of those six or seven things I just named which one stands out for you and what want which one are you working on this week and and what is a very proactive not only the goal of how you're going to you know focus on it but the the very individual tasks that you're going to name taking you one step closer to reaching that goal and this is this is the program within the eight-week program it's reoccurring every week a different discussion topic every week a suggested activity that you are invited to participate and engage and there's a component of self accountability where you can share you can update us on how's it going this week how did it go last week what are you looking forward to and every month we create what's called Project rewired challenge which is a relationship field trip where I suggest a context or way that you can explore finding connection emotional relating and then you're going to observe what was that like in your body that might be positive experience it might be a negative experience it doesn't really matter what matters is that we're not sitting on the couch just watching a video trying to figure out what the heck is going on we're going out into the world we're being very proactive in putting ourselves in situations where we are inviting nourishment emotional connection we want to practice limbic resonance and emotional treatment with other people and that is going to rewire our brain in one way that we can do that is get it on the calendar pick a place pick a time pick some people and you're going to experiment and then you're going to come into the community you're going to report back on what we're doing this is part of the program the eight-week program improve your relationships if you would like to join us we would love to have you please know we're gathering place we're a safe place to express your feelings this is a learning laboratory so you can learn more at Alan Robarge comm forward slash community and also pay attention to videos more videos up and coming lots to talk about I mean we've really have a lot to talk about when it comes to relationships thank you for watching this more videos coming soon

Channel: Alan Robarge / Attachment Trauma Therapist

Views: 92,907

Rating: 4.9179487 out of 5

Keywords: emotional neglect, healing abandonment, self love codependency, healing attachment injuries, insecure attachment, cptsd, grieving relationship, attachment trauma, alan robarge attachment trauma, alan robarge, attachment disorder, attachment styles, attachment disorder adulthood, attachment issues, healing trauma, anxious attachment healing, trauma healing, how to heal, trauma therapy, overcoming trauma, #selfhealers, selfhealers, psychologist, psychology, holistic

Id: AiUjc2qV0BA

Length: 28min 32sec (1712 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 25 2017