Why We Get Stuck in Relationships - Attachment Trauma

in this video we talk about the tolerance to be stuck in relationship and where that comes from stay tuned welcome to the new love addiction I'm Alan Robarge a relationship coach and a psychotherapist and let's talk about moving on and very specifically for some of us why we cannot move on and when we find ourselves unable to exit a relationship we might go through a prolonged period of time of feeling stuck and then also preoccupied about how to get unstuck so on this video let's talk about some ideas that might be operating here perhaps not operating for everyone but it's very possible specifically from the point of view of an attachment injury and coming from a family where in your history in your childhood with your primary caregivers with your parents it could also be with other family members but mostly with your parents if there was a situation over an extended period of time while growing up where you were stuck in your family or you were stuck to in a way where your emotional needs your attachment needs were not being met and perhaps there were distractions going on in the family home such as tension such as anxiety walking on eggshells perhaps someone had an active addiction that is influencing pulling attention away from actual relating and instead taking care of the stress and the tension and the dysfunction around the addiction that's happening also it could be if a family members distracted just because of let's say for financial reasons a parent who works frequently or a parent who is working so hard to try to keep the how hold together nonetheless the children are going to notice a distance and a distancing and an unavailability and few fewer moments fewer opportunities for emotional connection and mirroring and investment and warmth in ways that the child would not feel seen known heard and understood and when this happens over a period of time we could say developmentally emotionally this child has experienced a series of attachment injuries and we could then just group those all together and make it a plural or excuse me the singular form of just instead of saying multiple attachment injuries we just say you know there's an attachment injury from childhood it's a kind of placeholder acknowledging all of these missed opportunities some of them very significant some of them on the surface appearing somewhat minor but collectively when they add up they have impacted this child's nervous system this child who's now adult and adult they have impacted a person's template in their mind how the brain is mapped to be in relationship and if we're looking at this template if we're looking at how a person is in relationship we were trained if you came from a family where there was some aspect of being ignored neglected abused betrayed abandoned in any any multiple of scenarios or degrees but collectively if it impacted your development and particularly impacted your brains mapping of a relationship template which we enjoy more more would refer to as your attachment style if your attachment style has been impacted and influenced by an attached an injury then oftentimes what this means is you have been trained to stay in a relationship that is dysfunctional and healthy so there is a logic to that just here the logic that we know we do what we know we do what is familiar familiar means of the family and so if you grew up in a home where there is a certain consistent inability inability to have emotional needs met then the template in your mind your relationship style you are going to have a very high tolerance to be in relationship with someone who offers very little emotional attunement emotional connection emotional harmony emotional mirroring emotional warmth emotional presence that is what you know that is normal however this is really challenging because in the event that you're in a relationship and over time you realize this is not fulfilling and you need to move on it's very easy to get stuck in relationship and one reason why many of us cannot move on is because we have one been trained to stay and also we have this incredible tolerance to endure not getting our needs met so this creates an inner conflict you will have some awareness or some consciousness usually driven by suffering in pain you will know you will be in pain internally to say this relationship is disappointing the person that I'm with is not connecting with me it has run its course the relationship has run its course it is time to end so you have that part of yourself that part of clarity that part that wants to take action and move forward but simultaneously you're going to have you're going to bump up against this other part these other beliefs it's going to be coded into your how your brain is mapped and how you orient to relationships that you just stay no matter what that is what you were trained to do so you have these two parts of yourself now they're in conflict that you are holding true to the old attachment style the old attachment system the old way of being in a relationship is to accept and endure ultimately from the child's point of view it means to be dependent upon the child just was dependent on that scenario dependent for survival to stay in that dysfunctional system so that's what we bring into our adult relating is that we maintain a dependency to this dysfunctional relating so again to repeat I have these two parts the part of me that has some clarity that I need to leave and then the other part of me that says well just make it work no matter what and let's just let's just stay and I'm not moving on when I err on the side when we err on the side of not taking action to follow through with exiting the relationship and being able to endure and overcome the obstacles and the fears of actually leaving every time I convince myself to stay I am denying my reality I'm denying that part of me that says this is not working this is painful this is hurtful this is not healthy every time that I try to override that reality what's happening is I am betraying my self and if I continue to betray myself multiple times I'm going to lose my sense of self I'm not here people report a feeling like a shell of themselves another phrase that applies here is that I have my spirit it is lost I don't I don't even have my spirit about I have lost my soul I'm just a shell of a person showing up in relation here but I have lost my connection to my law into two life force when we betray ourselves enough by trying to stay committed to being in a dysfunctional situation of staying stuck which is how we were trained in our family to have a tolerance for this very low-level emotional connection to have a tolerance for people who are emotionally absent to have a tolerance for accepting crumbs emotional crumbs relational crowns to not have a full nourishing meal of emotional treatment we were trained we are not tolerant and when we do this enough when we continue to override the part of ourselves that has some clarity that says this is unhealthy for me this is not working for me and yet I stay because I am having allegiance to my tolerance I'm betraying myself and I become a shell of the person and I override my truth and I disconnect from agency and will and the ability to take action I disconnect from my wherewithal to make something change we are talking about a trauma we are talking about an attachment trauma and there's such thing as a phrase called trauma reenactment and this whole scenario everything I've described so far up to this point we could use as an example to say this is trauma reenactment we are playing out the same old pattern in such a way that is perpetuating the wounding and not only are we experiencing a wounding with our significant other through not being nourished and enduring the experience of a lack of emotional connection but we're doing it to ourself this is a form of trauma reenactment where I have internalized this behavior and the same way that the people I were was in relationship with in my family growing up and how there was not emotional connection essentially I'm doing to myself as an adult is I also am disconnecting from taking care of myself I'm disconnecting from giving myself the emotional nourishing the the emotional nurturing that I need to take care of myself and in this instance in this case taking care of myself means really being honest with myself and saying I am stuck in a relationship that is not working I do not see it creating any sense of repair there's no way I can create repair here if I'm not even present anymore I'm not even a self I don't even have connection to my spirit or my soul or to my life force I am so depleted and I am just stuck you're going through the motions I do not want to be in this relationship and yet I am stuck and cannot move forward oh I can imagine if you're listening to this if you're in this situation I can imagine your pain and or if you are listening to this video we can all just slow down and take a moment to realize how incredibly hurtful incredibly painful this is for so many people I have some personal history and personal experience so I know what it is like to lose your spirit and lose your sense of self in relationship and I also know what it's like to be stuck and not have any connection it's like it's like you're in the car you might even have the keys to the car but there's no gas there is just no or let's pretend let's say we have an electric car there's no electricity in the car there's just no fuel that you're able to engage one reason why this is if we're looking at this from the term from the point of point of view from the perspective of trauma and we're looking at the front of point of view of attachment trauma is that when the trauma mind is activated we are disconnected from our inner resource and one in a resource that we very definitely need is this inner resource of fuel electricity energy a better way of saying it from a psychological standpoint is to assert your will also psychologically it's referred to as having agency if I have agency I know what I am capable of if I have agency I'm able to trust that I can move my life forward or move a situation forward when we are activated in trauma mind when we are perpetually stuck in this trauma reenactment of a scenario where we are being denied emotional nurturing and emotional nourishment we do not have agency which speaks to why it is so challenging to leave we don't have a self if you're disconnected from yourself you don't have a self how can you leave there's no self to leave are not able to internally orient to internally solidify around my strong sense of self and then move forward to take care of that self my sense of self in those moments are so lost and fragmented that I am unable to pull pull myself together connect to the electricity to the energy to the resource to the will to the agency and actually take a step forward to move beyond the trauma reenactment so when I'm working with clients and what I have noticed over the years is that a number of clients need to really think about this word tolerance and intolerance and it's slightly funny because you know mostly collectively or culturally we think of having intolerance as not much of a virtue but in this scenario it's really really really helpful we need to be in tolerant of receiving emotional crumbs we need to be in tolerant of convincing ourself to stay in a situation that is repeatedly hurtful to us we need to be in tolerant to feeling the absence the continued absence of emotional disconnect so we're we're trying to recalibrate we're trying to change the calibration so that if I have this incredible tolerance for non emotional connection a non-emotional attunement I'm trying to change the dial and one way to do that is to really think in terms of being in tolerant another way to do this has to do with boundaries to think about what are boundaries boundaries very simplistically it's a way for me to know where I end and where you begin so it does have a some conscious awareness of space but it also has to do with asserting a sense of self so there's a physical space around me it's like a force field and so I have boundaries this is my personal space another person has personal space and in that sense we know where do I end and where does the other person begin and we're really looking at how do I maintain that sense of self however boundaries also mean internally what's happening for me internally boundaries around my thoughts boundaries around my emotions boundaries around my spiritual desires my spiritual learnings your spiritual yearnings and what this means is I can affirm my preferences and preferences are simply I like this I don't like that and when we can do preference work when we can continue to affirm yes I like this no I don't like this that a way of strengthening our sense of self because each time I'm consciously acknowledging if I like something or don't like something and I'm allowing myself to have ownership of that preference I'm strengthening my sense of self I'm affirming my sense of self so again one way to work with being a shell of a person in a relationship where you're stuck and you've lost disk a lost connection with your spirit in your life force is to look at your relationship to tolerance and practice more in tolerance to these moments in these situations where you are being denied emotional connection number two we're going to look at boundaries you want to strengthen your internal boundaries and you can do this to begin by focusing on what are your preferences what do you like and what don't you like this affirms your sense of self because you're trying to strengthen a sense of self so that you can begin to activate and find a link find a bridge to your inner resource because you're disconnected from resource I also want to share an idea about this this phrase bridge so losing inner resource when we are activated in an attachment trauma is going to feel sometimes confusing and bizarre because when we are in our adult wisdom self when we are in our current adult self and let's take an example of at work many people in their job and in in their work life are able to hold a sense of presence they are able to hold a sense of responsibility they are able to speak up and speak their mind and say yes I like this project no I don't like this project or if perhaps they work with clients they're an industry where they talk to other people they're able to be very direct with the client and say yes I hear your concern I hear your problem let's get right on top of it and take care of that or they're able to go to the clients and have a difficult conversation and say you know there was something wrong with the billing we need to adjust to the numbers you know oops we're going to charge you an extra thousand dollars whatever the scenario these are examples where when we are in other realms so not the interpersonal realm not the relationship realm not the family realm but when we're in the work realm when we are in the community realm when we are in the spiritual realm when we are in a friendship realm which sometimes the friendship realm might be a little iffy we will notice we have resource we have this inner capacity to actually have a presence we can feel connected to our sense of self so the word here the the the technique piece the teaching piece the the tool the tip that I'm giving is this word bridge we want to try we know what it's like when we are in imploded when we are imploded into our lack of resource what we need to do is review our life on a regular basis review where do I actually feel some resource where do I feel empowered where do I feel connected to my spirit and the example that I just gave is let's call it work so let's imagine that there is some area of your life and again let's pretend it's work that I am able to feel some sense of agency some sense of healthy pride some sense of skill where I am able to assert myself and I'm able to let in influence and I'm in relationship with my co-workers and undoing my job well so the idea of this tool is we want to really think about that scenario we want to try to conjure up the feeling that we have that that feeling of agency of where with all of the ability to move something forward and when we can cultivate and feel that feeling it's going to be a felt sense in your body you're just going to feel a sense of perhaps power it might feel like a sense of strength there's other words here too a word that I like is warriorship a warrior to feel like a warrior and I don't mean it in the sense of revenge or aggression it's more than the idea of a gentle warrior but someone who is able to very clearly have have the ability to protect oneself and in the spirit of a warrior move out and and make something happen to protect if we're using mythological terms in mythology to say to protect the kingdom the the warrior can move forward and take action and protect the kingdom so if we have these moments they might be fleeting they might be few they might not be in all areas of your life but we're trying to but you are not in activated trauma mind all the time it's just not impossible or I mean it's just not possible I suppose anything's possible you know I can't yeah perhaps someone's living you know 24/7 100% of the time and trauma and trauma state but my training my any number of modalities that I've been introduced to is that we have what are they call these gaps and we have I've also learned them to be phrased these islands of clarity there's going to be a time when your mind softens when when when the clouds part when the sunshine comes through there's going to be this island of clarity and there's going to be a gap in the activated trauma mind and you are not going to be under the influence and in a confused state of this trauma reenactment you're either going to feel neutral or you might be able to feel what I'm suggesting this sense of strength and power and you're beginning to notice you're bringing awareness and sensitivity to notice these and notice these islands of clarity and we then inventory them we we then remind ourselves oh yes last Tuesday at that meeting at work I felt confident so the bridge here is we take that feeling of confidence and we say can i link it can i bridge that to how I feel stuck in my current relationship and oftentimes many of us are going to say no I can't do that I cannot feel that transfer me or that linking I cannot feel making the transition over the bridge it's a very literal literal image here I'm going over the bridge from this place of confidence can I bring confidence to the part of me that feels disempowered and shut down and stuck in this relationship many of us early on are going to say no I can't do that because we're so disconnected but we we keep practicing this begin to inventory what are these other resources that you do have in other areas of your life one last example of a resource that many people can pull from has to do with their spiritual connection their spiritual practice if they identify in some capacity of being religious or linked to a particular practice of a religion or for some of for some people it's the relationship to God and there are many words that we could use here for God relationship to a great Holy Spirit relationship to the great divine relationship to of the power of nature and the power of being connected to something bigger than who we are so if you have moments where you're feeling and experiencing a divinely inspired strength you can use that as a bridge also that is that is a resource you are tapping into the resource of your spiritual connection so you can again very literally very visually think of a bridge and you're going to bring that spiritual connection the strength that you feel in the warmth in the positivity in the power of your connection to God to your connection to a divine presence your connection to Holy Spirit whatever it is if you can take that and you imagine well I know I feel when I'm at my church I know I feel uplifted when I'm praying I know I feel uplifted when I'm going for a walk and I'm in nature and I'm moved through inspiration and awe and I feel a transcendent moment where I'm connected to life bigger than myself and bigger than my own little problems in my own little relationship what we do is we tap into that resource and we try to bridge it to the parts of ourselves that feel disconnected initially this might be a bit more of an intellectual exercise as opposed to a feeling based in exercise you might be so shut down that what I'm saying is just a fancy idea and when you actually go to do it you feel nothing and it's it's even more confusing because like well I don't feel anything I don't know what to do there give yourself time give yourself patience and practice it three or four times practice it for two or three weeks and write it down in a journal and even if you don't feel different set the intention set the awareness to open to be able to link where you do have resource in your life to bridge it and bring it to those places where you're shut down and you have no resource the last thing I want to talk about in all of this experience one way to get unstuck when we are caught in feeling tolerant and behaving in a from a historical tolerance to not being connected with through emotional Tumen we are suffering from not having positive mirroring so I use these words slightly interchangeably and then in some ways they also have their own unique definition but there's a interchangeable use of the word emotional attunement and emotional mirroring how it's slightly different is that emotional mirroring could literally mean physically mirroring another person if you go to a restaurant and you look at two people on in relationship and they're sitting at a table and one person you know folds his or her arms another person is you know or sometimes a person leans their head on their on their hand you'll notice the other person instinctually without even thinking will do the same thing so if one person shifts their body weight and moves a little bit to the left the other person does the same thing shifts body weight in the chair moves a little bit to the left and you'll be able to observe it's very easy to do this at a restaurant but what happens is that both people are mirroring each other now we also mirror each other through facial expressions and we near each other through emotional responses so let's pretend if I just won the lottery and we oh my god gosh it's amazing I won the lottery won you know got a hundred thousand dollars this is incredible if I share that with another person and they are engaged and connected with me and offering emotional mirroring they're going to match my level of excitement their face is going to light up they're going to feel happy for me and I'm going to feel happy to share my happiness with them and so in a way we're both winning and there's this the word attainment then means is that it's a cycle it's happening back and forth this is happening through body language when I jump up it down and wave my hands and they say I want I won the lottery I won the lottery and then the other person also is jumping up and down saying oh my gosh you won you won you won we are mirroring each other and the process that's taking place back and forth that's what's called emotional Tooman if you're in a relationship where there is a lack of emotional Tooman and your emotional needs are not getting met that also means you're not having you're not getting enough positive emotional mirroring in your life so I gave that big set up I gave that premise if we're talking about tools and tips and skills tools to use in your tool bag one way to break this cycle and to begin to counter staying stuck in the attachment trauma is to realize that you are hungry you are starving for positive emotional mirroring and you need to find some friends you need to find a group of people you need to find an organization you need to find a community perhaps you already have some other additional loving family members who are able to really see you and really sit with you and enjoy you for being you and if you do not have this then that's your homework assignment that you must go out into this world and even if you can't find them right away you need to begin to find some other people who and I say this metaphorically but when you win the lottery they're just as excited and joyous about the fact that you've won the lottery and they are able to join you in that place of jumping up and down and smiling and nodding and saying yes you won the lottery good for you that's so exciting I hope this is helpful to recap a summary we're talking about the struggle to stay stuck is more complicated and not about your inability to quote unquote just move on we can't move on because we lose ourself we're engaged in this trauma re-enactment we do not have access to an inner resource that gives us the agency to move forward and we are then reinforcing it by engaging the learned tolerance to be stuck in relationships where our emotional needs will not be met we'll never get met and where we will just keep looping in this place of discouragement and keep looping in this place where we lose our sense of self lastly same thing I've said before empathy to you anyone who's in this situation it is so painful and there is hope there is way there is a way to break this pattern some of that way is what I've mapped out on this video keep doing your healing work stay on the path stay committed to your process it is tiring it is daunting it is confusing and you wake up the next day you take a breath and you keep going you continue to expand your consciousness you continue to learn about the neuroscience the neurobiology the neurophysiology of relationships and attachment you allow yourself to you educate yourself to learn about attachment styles and attachment injuries and the nature of trauma and you educate yourself on how to work with the body you work with the felt sense in the body and that's going to be your your saving grace working with the sensation in the body is going to ground you and is going to be the instrument that you use to gauge the range of when you're in a stronger sense of self and when you become dissociated or fragmented and you're not in your own resource thank you for watching this video I appreciate it I'm so thankful that you're I'm receiving a number of comments frequently about how beneficial the videos are and I just want to say thank you so much it means it's very inspiring and encouraging for me to continue on with the videos if you would like to see more videos coming up please subscribe to this YouTube channel if you want to learn more about me you can at Alan Robarge com I do work with clients on a consultation basis of one-on-one consultation to acknowledge where you're at what skills that you might need to learn if that interests you you can learn more Alan Robarge calm and then finally there is a Facebook group of like-minded people who resonate with these ideas it's a group of wonderful lovely people who are very insightful and intelligent and value dialogue and value conversation and that's the whole point of that Facebook group is to share some ideas so if you want to join the Facebook group please do it is I will include it's called the new love addiction on Facebook I will include the URL so that you can join thank you so much and I will see you next time

Channel: Alan Robarge / Attachment Trauma Therapist

Views: 22,328

Rating: 4.9395347 out of 5

Keywords: breakups, attachment trauma, grief, divorce, heartbreak, love addiction, codependency, adult children of alchoholics, getting unstuck, anxiety attack, relationship problems, attachment unavailable, attachment therapy, secure attachment, break up, boundaries, alan robarge, stuck in a relationship, feeling stuck in a relationship, inner child healing, inner child work, inner child, relationship anxiety, holistic, psychologist, psychology, selfhealers, #selfhealers

Id: A3k3q7zM0vo

Length: 36min 20sec (2180 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 10 2016