Amir Levine (on attachment theory)

Amir Levine (Secure: The Revolutionary Guide to Creating a Secure Life, Attached) is a psychiatrist, neuroscientist, and author. Amir joins the Armchair Expert to discuss dispelling myths and misconceptions about attachment theory, how the love he has for his dog helped him to understand his relationship with his father, and the test experiments that showed how attachment styles develop in early childhood. Amir and Dax talk about why attachment is really just a radar of availability for other people, the reasons secure adult attachment is linked to our exploratory drive, and how a breakup was the catalyst that led him to co-write Attached. Amir explains the role a sense of reciprocity plays in shifting into secure attachment, the physiological and neurological responses involved as we evolve our attachments, and the beauty in appreciating the hidden sparks of talent in our loved ones. Check Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds: https://www.allstate.com/ Head to turbotax.com to find a store location near you and get matched with a TurboTax expert — with real-time updates in the iOS app. This episode is sponsored by AppleTV. Learn more at: https://tinyurl.com/mr2caw2c See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dax Shepard?

  Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, experts on expert. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Lily Padman.

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Hi.

• 0:05Dax Shepard?

  Hi, we have the author of an incredibly popular book.

• 0:09Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 0:10Dax Shepard?

  Read by millions.

• 0:11Speaker 01

  Millions, indeed.

• 0:12Dax Shepard?

  His first book was Attached, Amir Levine. He is a psychiatrist, a neuroscientist, and of course, a bestselling author, and he has a new book out, kind of answering as he talks about Attached, outline these different attachment styles, and then people were naturally curious, can I change mine?

• 0:29Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 0:30Dax Shepard?

  And so his new book is to address that exact question. Secure: The Revolutionary Guide to Creating a Secure Life. Please enjoy Dr. Amir Levine. This episode of Armchair Expert is presented by Apple TV, the new US home of Formula One. Starting March 7th, you can watch complete, all access, live coverage of every Grand Prix, including practice, qualifying, and sprints, all in one place. Watch every race live, only on Apple TV. We get support from Quince.

• 1:03Speaker 01

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• 1:12Dax Shepard?

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• 1:53Dax Shepard?

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• 2:02Speaker 01

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• 2:03Dax Shepard?

  Mm hmm.

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• 2:57Speaker 01

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• 3:10Dax Shepard?

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• 3:24Speaker 01

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• 3:28Dax Shepard?

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• 3:38Speaker 01

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• 3:45Dax Shepard?

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• 4:26Dax Shepard?

  Hi, Monty. How are you?

• 4:29Speaker 01

  I'm good.

• 4:30Dax Shepard?

  Did you have a good weekend?

• 4:31Speaker 01

  I did have a good weekend.

• 4:32Dax Shepard?

  Anything spectacular happen?

• 4:33Speaker 01

  Nothing spectacular, which is a good weekend.

• 4:37Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 4:37Speaker 01

  You know, relaxing weekend. I'm moving this week.

• 4:41Dax Shepard?

  Friday?

• 4:42Speaker 01

  I'm sleeping there on Friday.

• 4:44Dax Shepard?

  Oh, my God. Monica's been building a house across the street for, what, five, six years?

• 4:48Speaker 01

  It'll be six years.

• 4:50Speaker 02

  Wow, congratulations.

• 4:51Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 4:51Speaker 02

  That's amazing.

• 4:52Speaker 01

  Thank you. It's been a long time coming, so I am very excited. So this week is a big week, because there's a lot of, like, moving parts and getting this stuff over.

• 5:00Dax Shepard?

  I wonder if any of your attachment theory stuff is coming up.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  Oh, I hope. I hope. I'm so obsessed with attachment theory. I'm so glad you're here, because I'm obsessed with it, and I don't think I really understand it. And I think a lot of people feel that way. Like, they reference attachment theory a lot, but I don't know if we're all doing it correctly.

• 5:17Speaker 02

  There's a lot of myths and misconceptions, for sure.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  Okay, great. Well, we're gonna learn.

• 5:21Dax Shepard?

  Where are you from, Amir?

• 5:22Speaker 02

  Originally, I grew up in Jerusalem.

• 5:24Dax Shepard?

  Okay. Do you find this to be true, that the Israelis, they tick up highest on the disagreeability category? We've had a lot of experts talk about that.

• 5:31Speaker 02

  Oh, that Israelis disagree a lot? Oh, yeah, it's part of our culture.

• 5:35Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, I like it.

• 5:36Speaker 02

  It took me time. What Americans would consider being rude?

• 5:38Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 5:39Speaker 02

  Is actually just normal way of speaking, like, they go like that, which is like, no, I don't agree with you.

• 5:44Speaker 01

  Right, like dismissing.

• 5:46Speaker 02

  So rude. No one would speak like that here.

• 5:50Dax Shepard?

  Do you know Orna?

• 5:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:51Dax Shepard?

  Does she work at NYU in some capacity?

• 5:53Speaker 02

  I think she does. I don't know her personally, but I know her work.

• 5:56Dax Shepard?

  But you're at Columbia, as we're researching.

• 5:57Speaker 02

  I am in Columbia, yeah.

• 5:58Dax Shepard?

  Well, we had her on, and I was saying to her, she has this wonderful gift of, she's endlessly hopeful and empathetic. And also, and I asked her, I'm like, is this the Israeli side? You can also, on a dime, be like, okay, disagreeable time. Like, you're very comfortable in the disagreeability.

• 6:17Dax Shepard?

  I'd say I'm high on the disagreeability.

• 6:18Speaker 02

  Not only that, I think that's how I got into Columbia to do my residency there.

• 6:23Dax Shepard?

  Really?

• 6:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, I went to medical school in Jerusalem and they said, don't bother. They don't take foreign medical graduates. And I said, okay, I'll just go and at least I'll get to talk to all these interesting researchers. And I read about the research and some of the people I knew about the research. Because usually you go and you go to grand rounds, you spend a day on the wards. And I said, no, I want to meet with the researchers.

• 6:42Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 6:42Speaker 02

  So then I met with one guy who seemed kind of like old and very non-threatening. And I knew about his work. So I told him how much I liked his work, but I could have been improved. There's all these like different shortcomings in his methodology. And it sort of went on and on.

• 6:59Speaker 02

  I was just like, what do I have to lose?

• 7:00Dax Shepard?

  You had nothing to lose. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 7:02Speaker 02

  And at the end of it, he said, okay, I want you to meet with a few more people. He called a few more people around. It was the Department of Epidemiology. And they all got together and wrote a letter on my behalf to the head of the residency program.

• 7:14Dax Shepard?

  Oh, no kidding?

• 7:14Speaker 02

  And that's how I got in.

• 7:15Speaker 01

  That's great.

• 7:16Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I love that. Well, am I right, or at least to believe from this book, that you were originally definitely aiming at being a therapist of some variety?

• 7:26Speaker 02

  I still am a therapist.

• 7:27Dax Shepard?

  Yes, yes, but the original site was set up.

• 7:30Speaker 02

  I was going to be a psychoanalyst. That's how I basically ended up where I am today in a completely unexpected way. Because back then, in order to become a psychoanalyst, you had to do a year of analysis before going into analytics school.

• 7:43Dax Shepard?

  I love this.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  Personal analysis?

• 7:46Speaker 02

  Your own analysis.

• 7:47Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 7:47Speaker 02

  Like four times a week on the couch, talking or whatever, kind of they sit behind you, you don't see them.

• 7:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, wow.

• 7:53Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, we've had numerous. In fact, we just had someone on who they themselves were a therapist. And they got to a point in their life where they had to return to therapy. And how much there can be a resistance to that, even from therapists?

• 8:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, Freud said that there's always resistance. It's kind of like built into the treatment.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:10Speaker 02

  There's always all that part of the work as a therapist is working through those resistances.

• 8:14Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, so during this year of therapy, you came to realize in some free association that you really still yearn for the biological.

• 8:22Speaker 02

  So I was going to do potentially epidemiological research, but then during that. Time I was looking for the kind of research that I wanted to do. And I got some advice and they said, you know, a researcher's life is a really hard life. A scientist's life is really hard. So you better choose something that you're really interested in because it's going to be a rough ride. And so I looked to see what I really liked. And I've always had an affinity to basic science and to molecular research. But I didn't really pursue molecular, I didn't have a PhD. But I really liked it and it was the analyst who said, well, maybe you should give it a try. But he didn't really know what it means. I didn't barely knew even how to hold it by pet.

• 8:58Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 8:59Speaker 02

  But I found this one paper that I really, really liked about long-term memory and how long-term memory is conserved. And epigenetic changes in the neurons in a plesia, which is a sea slug.

• 9:10Dax Shepard?

  That has enormous neurons?

• 9:11Speaker 02

  Yes, huge neurons. And then I went and again, I guess that theme of going and talking. So I went and I talked to the last author on that paper, but he wasn't the one who masterminded it. So he listened to me for two minutes. It was Eric and Dale. And then he basically said, let's go up the floor. And we went, that's where I met James Schwartz, Jimmy, my first mentor. I basically talked to him a little bit about my thoughts again, the same thing about the research and the ideas that I had. Then he said, okay, we'll give you a try for three months and see how you fare. And then we'll see what happens after that. So there I was, going into the lab, which I've never imagined that I would do. Behind the bench, studying all these molecular experiments.

• 9:49Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 9:50Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 9:50Dax Shepard?

  Now, do you think you had a primary question about life in humans? That you thought was going to be answered in psychoanalysis or the pursuit of it and the practice of it? And that you saw in this epigenome work, oh, maybe the answer lies over here. Or had that not even occurred to you yet? Do you think you had like a driving curiosity, like a primary question?

• 10:14Speaker 02

  I really did want to understand what makes human tick. And I really wanted to understand the brain better. But I don't think that at the time I had a specific idea. I've always had this thirst for knowledge, which maybe will explain why I did what I did. Because at that time I was almost done with my residency. It's been many years going through medical school and then coming here and doing another year of internship to, I had to do two years. I had to repeat a year of internship. Then I did adult psychiatry and then child psychiatry altogether another five years. So after doing all that training.

• 10:45Dax Shepard?

  You were seventy one years old.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  Seriously, you're aging back.

• 10:48Speaker 02

  And when we think, okay, it's time to make money, right?

• 10:50Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 10:51Speaker 02

  You have to open up your private practice and start making money. And then, oh, wait a second. I still really want to learn more and I'm going to take a salary, which maybe is like a tenth of the amount, and just continue with my education and learning. But I didn't even think about it that way at the time. Now, looking back, I can see, whoa, these are important years where you could have saved money for retirement. It didn't occur to me at all. I just really wanted that pursuit of knowledge. That's what I did. I went to the lab and then for many, many years, I did a lot of molecular biology work.

• 11:21Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so I'll overshare with you. So I ended up doing anthro and I really think about why I did anthropology. I think I was immediately drawn to the fact that, oh, there's a lot of different ways you can live. And I think that was comforting because I felt like with the single mom and all these other things, that we didn't click so well with the culture I inherited. And then so I was quite critical of the culture I inherited. And I wanted to know, do we have any basis to think that this is the way we should do things? So I guess I'm wondering for you, can you think of any kind of primary angst?

• 11:57Speaker 02

  Definitely the pursuit of knowledge is a huge one. And I grew up in that environment. I had a very unusual upbringing. My mom had an even more unusual upbringing. The education that she received, it was very, very progressive. They didn't care about grades at all. They didn't have exams. They just would give them comments about what they did. Yeah, and so she lived in a kibbutz, so it's like a commune. So they had to work a lot, also agriculturally. They didn't live with their parents. So they wanted everyone to be equal, so they sort of separated. It's kind of crazy.

• 12:27Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 12:28Speaker 02

  So she came from a very, very unusual upbringing. But I grew up in Jerusalem. I grew up with my parents.

• 12:34Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 12:34Speaker 02

  But she also, she didn't believe in grades and she didn't really care about school so much. So I could actually stay home whenever I wanted from school. And I did. I stayed home a lot and we had this huge library and I would read a lot. It was completely uncensored. Seven, I would read the Kama Sutra. I was trying to make sense of it.

• 12:51Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 12:52Speaker 02

  Different books that I read at the time that I could barely understand, but I just read them anyway. And especially on days when we had exams, I didn't have to go because she didn't believe in exams.

• 13:02Dax Shepard?

  It's crazy, you ever went to medical school?

• 13:05Speaker 02

  It was very unusual. And whenever we would come home, so we would read together. It was a very rich intellectual environment. And my mom, she was the editor of the equivalent of Scientific American.

• 13:16Dax Shepard?

  Oh, no kidding.

• 13:17Speaker 02

  So there's also a lot of talk about science and popular science. So here's why I ended up also writing popular science and popular psychology. I really grew up with it.

• 13:26Dax Shepard?

  And by the way, I would say in probably the best motivated way possible, which is like intrinsically, it's not about getting the good grade. It's not about getting the test right. Knowledge for knowledge's sake.

• 13:37Speaker 02

  Also to think about something original, something that can make people think differently or look at things differently.

• 13:44Dax Shepard?

  Were your parents divorced?

• 13:45Speaker 02

  They're not divorced. Very, very long relationship. You're asking because I didn't mention my dad yet.

• 13:49Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, yeah.

• 13:50Speaker 02

  If you're asking about a motivation to understand human behavior.

• 13:54Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 13:54Speaker 02

  They're completely opposites, my mom and my dad. My mom was a single child who came from an Ashkenazi European ancestry, Jewish ancestry. My dad was a Sephardic Jew. They had 10 siblings, came from a very poor family. And he never even finished the fifth grade.

• 14:12Dax Shepard?

  Wow.

• 14:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, he had horrible ADHD. He was bouncing. Whenever the teacher would come into the classroom, he was like, you out.

• 14:19Dax Shepard?

  Get off your desk and leave the classroom.

• 14:21Speaker 02

  By the fifth grade, he was done with the formal education. But he was a very smart person and very, very unusual person also. Exactly the opposite of this progressive.

• 14:29Dax Shepard?

  Even high on the disagreeability scale within?

• 14:32Speaker 02

  Completely high on the disagreeability scale. Like off the charts.

• 14:37Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 14:38Speaker 02

  Can I tell you what he did once we were at the hotel? I don't remember who the president was. The president of the United States was visiting. He was there with all of his entourage and everyone surrounding him. They're all wearing the suits and I got nervous. So I kind of like clutched on to my dad's hand. And he said, you have nothing to be afraid of. Here, they're all humans, just like you. Let me show you something.

• 14:59Dax Shepard?

  Oh, boy.

• 14:59Speaker 02

  And he took out a quarter and he flipped it in the air and then he fell on the marble floor and he made like this little sound. And they were all looking down to see what had fell. It was like an instinct. And you see, you see, we're all the same.

• 15:12Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I love that example. I thought he was gonna do something wild. And one hit the president? Yeah.

• 15:21Speaker 01

  This is a weird question, but were you embarrassed by him? Cause he was so different?

• 15:26Speaker 02

  We were so different. I think it took me many, many years to now really more understand what was going on in that relationship. It was not an easy relationship. For many, many years, I saw it from really my point of view of like, he was really difficult, stubborn, everything had to be done his way. Sort of like the opposite of what my mom was.

• 15:44Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 15:45Speaker 02

  Like with him, if I didn't make it to school, that was a big deal. Thankfully, he wasn't around a lot and that's how I was able to get away with it. But if he were around, eventually he let my mom do whatever she wanted to do.

• 15:55Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 15:55Speaker 02

  But he was very, very difficult. Later on, and actually that's part of why I even wrote this new book, Secure, because all of my understanding and everything that I understood about our relationship really shifted. And I see it now from a more secure place.

• 16:09Dax Shepard?

  Because he was more an avoidant.

• 16:10Speaker 02

  Oh gosh, he was definitely somewhat avoidant and I think also somewhat fearful avoidant. Sort of like a mixture of it.

• 16:17Dax Shepard?

  Now that we know a lot more about ADHD, the rigidity in the game plan, how much different that is for his experience and your mom's or other people's.

• 16:26Speaker 02

  Definitely.

• 16:26Dax Shepard?

  Maybe a little compassion.

• 16:27Speaker 02

  I have so much more compassion to him now. And then because of this whole process that I went through in understanding how to look at the world more securely. And that has helped me so much because yes, he was difficult, but I was not easy either. And I was this smart ass kid who was really highly educated, was reading all these books.

• 16:46Dax Shepard?

  Belittled him.

• 16:48Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 16:48Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 16:49Speaker 02

  And corrected his language and was like, do all these things.

• 16:52Dax Shepard?

  Triggered his insecurities.

• 16:53Speaker 02

  Yes, constantly.

• 16:54Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Isn't it so sad that we realized this all, is your dad gone? Mine is?

• 16:59Speaker 02

  He's gone, yeah.

• 17:00Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, mine too. And I'm like, I just hate that I now have all this compassion for him. Cause I was the great challenger of him as well in my household.

• 17:09Speaker 01

  Kids, that's almost part of their role. They are there to challenge. It's normal.

• 17:15Speaker 02

  But he can get vicious.

• 17:17Speaker 01

  I know, it can, trust me, I know.

• 17:19Dax Shepard?

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

• 17:31Speaker 02

  It sounded like karma gets you eventually. So now I have this little dog who's really, really cute. But he likes me, but he always growls at me. He has a contentious relationship with me.

• 17:42Dax Shepard?

  He's you.

• 17:42Speaker 02

  Yes, basically. And I see how much I love this dog. And that also helped me. And again, it's those secure shifts that I've had in my understanding of myself and my life that really helped change how I see things. And so now I understand, wow, my dad really loved me. Because I see how much I love this dog, even though he's so mean to me.

• 18:01Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 18:03Speaker 02

  And I'm like, yeah, my dad really loved me. Because even though I was mean to him, I know that he did. But then I had this idea, like, how did he feel about me when I was behaving towards him in that way? And now I know, because I can feel it inside me.

• 18:14Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah. I don't even think it's ever anger, it's just kind of hurt.

• 18:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:18Dax Shepard?

  It's just even sadder.

• 18:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:20Dax Shepard?

  You know, it's just angry about. Okay, so at some point in your 65 years in academia and residency and all this stuff, you yourself come across attachment theory. And you're learning about it. So just give us a, as brief as possible, explanation of attachment theory, which started maybe in the 50s or something?

• 18:39Speaker 02

  Yes, I came across adult attachment theory by chance. When you learn to become a psychiatrist, psychologist, you know about childhood attachment. But I didn't know that adults have attachment styles and that they attach. During that time when we worked in attachment therapy with kids and their mothers, I loved it so much, so I read everything that there was about it. That's where I came across adult attachment. There's the anxious, avoidant and secure and fearful avoidant. And at the time, I was going through a breakup and it explained so much.

• 19:07Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 19:07Speaker 02

  It felt like a light bulb went in my head. And like, wow, now I understand what went down in this relationship, why it didn't work out and what also happened in other relationships. And so basically, do we really need to understand about these attachment styles?

• 19:22Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, let's start with the children.

• 19:24Speaker 02

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

• 19:47Dax Shepard?

  No, he did coke and sat in his room and thought.

• 19:50Speaker 02

  Pretty much. He actually said, no, I beg to differ because he saw what happens when children get all of their material needs met, but they were not giving the attachment that they needed. And so he said, no, attachment is a basic need, just like food and water. It's not a byproduct. It's something that we need. And then there's the Harlow experiments that show even in monkeys, how much they really need.

• 20:13Dax Shepard?

  These poor little monkeys clinging to a claw.

• 20:15Speaker 02

  Instead of the wired mother versus the cloth mother. The wired mother gave food and the cloth mother, it was just a piece of cloth.

• 20:22Dax Shepard?

  Gave intimacy, basically.

• 20:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, but it was cold and metal, but there was this cloth and the monkeys went to the cloth.

• 20:27Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 20:28Dax Shepard?

  At the expense of food.

• 20:29Speaker 02

  They would eat a little bit and then sort of go to the cloth. But remember what he said, because we don't really understand it so much in adulthood. And Bobby did say that attachment starts in birth, actually starts before and then goes on until we die. And I would argue even after, here we were talking about our fathers.

• 20:43Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow, great point.

• 20:45Speaker 02

  Basically, he said that, but then came Mary Answorth, who was more of an experimental psychologist. So brilliant. She discovered these attachment styles, anxious, avoidant and secure in children in something that's called the strange situation test.

• 21:00Speaker 01

  Ooh, tell us.

• 21:01Dax Shepard?

  Tell us.

• 21:01Speaker 02

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

• 21:41Speaker 02

  And it's remarkable to see, it's basically how effective is that bond in regulating the child's emotion.

• 21:49Speaker 01

  Oh, interesting.

• 21:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's very important, actually, that co-regulation is so important and also translates to adulthood. So then I'm sort of stressing. I'm like really making a point of it.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:59Speaker 02

  So basically, the secure bond, the mother picks them up. And immediately, it's just like magic, they just calm down right away. And then, and start pointing at the toys, wanting to engage again. Anxious, not so much.

• 22:12Speaker 01

  What happens? What do they do?

• 22:13Speaker 02

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

• 22:30Dax Shepard?

  Is it fair to say they're pissed at the caregiver?

• 22:33Speaker 02

  So you think, oh, sometimes they look like, I don't care, whatever. But when you look at their blood pressure, their pulse, it's through the roof.

• 22:38Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 22:39Speaker 02

  So they're blocking their attachment needs. But at the same time, they're alone in trying to regulate the emotions. They don't know how to utilize the bond to regulate their emotions.

• 22:50Speaker 01

  Right. Oh, interesting.

• 22:51Speaker 02

  So it all has to do with how good are people, children and then adults, in using others to regulate their feelings and emotions?

• 22:59Dax Shepard?

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

• 23:11Speaker 02

  That's a very good question. And we do know a little bit. It's kind of like the wild field.

• 23:16Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 23:16Speaker 02

  Because apparently, there's something that's called the adult attachment interview. There's same attachment styles in adulthood, but they have nothing to do with the other attachment styles, the more romantic ones, or in their other relationships. It has more to do how we remember our childhood. Not so much the memories themselves, but how we narrate our childhood. There's the adult attachment interview. It gets scored by psychologists. And that can predict to some degree the attachment style of the child. So how well, if you're very structured in your narration of your past, then the child will be more secure in the strange situation test.

• 23:51Speaker 01

  If the parent is?

• 23:52Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 23:52Speaker 01

  Oh, wild.

• 23:53Speaker 02

  Yes, it's pretty wild.

• 23:55Dax Shepard?

  So if they have a pretty coherent, chronological story of their own life?

• 24:01Speaker 02

  That makes sense.

• 24:02Dax Shepard?

  That's coherent, makes sense. Odds are they're going to have a More secure.

• 24:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's better chances. Again, nothing in this is like one to one ever.

• 24:11Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.

• 24:13Speaker 02

  But does predict to some degree the child attachment style. And then if you're avoidant, then if you're like, oh, my God, I had the most amazing childhood. But then actually, when you talk about the memories, there's sort of like a discrepancy.

• 24:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 24:25Speaker 02

  Then the child is more avoidant and the anxious jump around from one topic to another. But I still don't really know what to make of it.

• 24:32Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, right. This is very hard. So now, tell me how you, you're going through a breakup, you're learning about this.

• 24:39Speaker 02

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

• 25:21Speaker 02

  And you two probably also have an idea in your mind where your loved ones are and that they're okay. But if I were to tell you that, God forbid, and I even hate saying that, there's something that happened somewhere. You won't be able to continue to have this conversation. You'd have to stop and immediately check to see that they're okay. So we have this surveillance system going in the back of our head all the time. People with an anxious attachment style, their surveillance system can pick up on very subtle changes of that availability and potential threat. But the research also shows that it's not the only thing they're very good at picking up. They're picking up on picking a lot of different social cues. There is a downside to it, but it also comes with a huge upside. Let's say if you're, and I've seen it so many times with patients and just in people in the world.

• 26:05Speaker 02

  Like if you're better at day trading, can sort of really see subtle changes that other people won't be able to detect. They're just very, very good at detecting. And then also one then questions, and that's what I. Really try to do in this book is turn around that whole causality thing because oftentimes people blame their parents for their adult attachment style and it's completely wrong. But think about how hard it is to raise a child that has that level of ability, really superpowers to pick up cues from the environment.

• 26:33Dax Shepard?

  It can be a little stressful.

• 26:34Speaker 02

  For all parties involved.

• 26:36Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 26:37Speaker 02

  I gave an example in the chapter because I really was trying to look for an example that people would understand. No, it's not only about danger. It's not only about sort of like bad things. True, they can also identify danger. But in the book, I give an example about a woman who has an adopted daughter and she takes her to the first day of school. She starts playing with another girl there that she also finds out is adopted. And then all of a sudden she stops and like, I can't believe I'm seeing this. These girls are sisters. And she saw like in their facial expression, they weren't exactly the same, but you could sort of detect the similarities in their sort of facial structure, in the way that they smile, the way that they move. And she started talking to other people and there's no way, no one believed her.

• 27:19Dax Shepard?

  The odds are staggering.

• 27:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 27:20Speaker 02

  Exactly, but she kept at it. And lo and behold, they actually are sisters.

• 27:26Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 27:27Dax Shepard?

  And what did she do with that information?

• 27:28Speaker 02

  These two sisters are bonded. She found her daughter, her sister. I think it's years later and they're as close as ever. So it's really a good story.

• 27:36Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 27:36Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 27:37Dax Shepard?

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

• 27:46Speaker 02

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

• 28:24Dax Shepard?

  Is it servicing your goals or not?

• 28:26Speaker 02

  From an attachment perspective, it's specifically, are you able to use this, it's something that's called a secure base? Is it giving you a secure base? Because the point of view of relationships from an attachment perspective, remember, it's like a safety mechanism. It's for you actually to fade into the background. So you know, in the strange situation, when the child wants to play with all these toys, and every once in a while, looks back to see if the mother is there. That's the point of a relationship. So we can kind of like check to see if they're there, but not to think about you that much. So you to be in the background, so we don't play with toys, but we have hobbies, we have careers, we parent, we have all these different things. So attachment is really linked to our exploratory drive. When we feel safe, we can explore.

• 29:10Speaker 02

  So it's more related to that.

• 29:12Dax Shepard?

  OK, so to bring everyone up to speed. So you wrote with Helen Attached, which was applying this attachment theory to adults and specifically romantic.

• 29:21Speaker 02

  Right, because that's what it was initially about.

• 29:23Dax Shepard?

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

• 29:39Speaker 02

  Initially, when we wrote the book, we had this running joke between us that it's only going to sell one copy to the Library of Congress.

• 29:46Dax Shepard?

  They have to mandate it to get it.

• 29:48Speaker 02

  I went through this breakup and she's my childhood friend. And so instead of just, you know, how you talk about breakups incessantly. So I said, you know what? Instead of sort of wasting all that energy about talking about the breakup, let's make something good about it.

• 30:00Dax Shepard?

  Can I ask what your style was? Was it anxious?

• 30:03Speaker 02

  With this person, yes. It wasn't so much anxious, I didn't understand what was going on. And then that goes to this idea, like all these myths that we have. If you don't know about attachment theory, we have this idea that everybody loves the same. But science doesn't show that everybody loves the same. We love very differently if we're anxious, avoidant, insecure. We haven't even gone to it yet. Because we'll get to it in a moment, but we love very, very differently. So for me, I was more like the anxious, secure part. And then it was certainly driven more towards anxious when the other person stopped responding on. They said, you know, when I really like someone, I actually think about. Getting on a plane and moving away to the West Coast. And for me, it didn't make any sense because why would you want to do that? If you really like someone, don't you want to see a future together?

• 30:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:45Speaker 02

  Don't you want to think about being together? But avoidance, they don't like too much closeness. And oftentimes, when they feel too much closeness, they want to bulk, they want to run away. But I didn't know that, that that's 25% of the population.

• 30:56Speaker 01

  God.

• 30:57Speaker 02

  That it's scary for them, that it means that they feel a loss of independence.

• 31:01Dax Shepard?

  I'll add a layer, because I think when I was younger, I probably, you'll be the first to acknowledge it. But like, these are all spectrum categories.

• 31:08Speaker 02

  This new book is really emphasizing.

• 31:10Dax Shepard?

  And also, we are very fluid and context dependent, so I'm.

• 31:14Speaker 02

  Relationship dependent.

• 31:15Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I'm one way here, I'm one way there. But if I had to say what I leaned more towards, it's actually zero fear of intimacy. Being close, that felt wonderful. But I would be immediately overwhelmed with the responsibility of that. And then this fear, almost in an OCD way, well, if I have to break up with this person, this is going to be so painful. And I'm now so afraid of this responsibility of potentially hurting this person, that now I'm starting to feel a little trapped by it.

• 31:42Speaker 02

  So yeah, it's a version of avoidance.

• 31:43Dax Shepard?

  There's all these hues of it.

• 31:44Speaker 02

  It is, yeah, exactly. You weren't afraid by the physical closeness?

• 31:48Dax Shepard?

  Or even the emotional.

• 31:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, you weren't afraid by that.

• 31:50Dax Shepard?

  None of it scared me.

• 31:52Speaker 02

  Somehow it felt like, whoa, this is a big responsibility. Definitely a tinge of avoidance there. And also, I listened to some of your podcasts. I saw also there were moments of change. And I really put a lot of emphasis in this book of those small moments of change. I think, Monica, you brought it up in one of the podcasts about sort of the glass of water story that you used to have.

• 32:11Dax Shepard?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 32:12Speaker 01

  Oh, with Kristen.

• 32:13Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 32:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:14Speaker 02

  That it's like, why should I get her? Like, no, she should get it herself.

• 32:17Dax Shepard?

  Sitting here.

• 32:17Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly. But no, why should I do that? And then I was like, potentially, what does it mean?

• 32:23Dax Shepard?

  What pattern am I setting now? Is it for the rest of my life, I'll be waiting on this person?

• 32:27Speaker 02

  Right, exactly.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  Or I'm getting taken advantage of.

• 32:30Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 32:30Speaker 01

  That type of thing.

• 32:31Dax Shepard?

  And then the leap of faith of, no, actually, hold on. Do I think this person is someone who will exploit and take advantage of me? Because I'm nice this one time? And then that was the kind of the breakthrough, was like, no, I don't think this person is that way. I don't need to have this fear.

• 32:46Speaker 02

  Moment that shift, that's exactly how our brain changes towards greater security. I love that example. That's what I thought I would bring it up because it's such an important. It seems like, oh yeah, but it's really, it's a major shift for our brain. So you were able to use what we call metacognition, which is like thinking about a thought. And hopefully you got up and got the glass of water.

• 33:04Dax Shepard?

  I did, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I haven't minded. But then it starts all over again when you have kids. Am I setting them up for a pattern that I think is untenable for their life?

• 33:13Speaker 02

  I heard that. Maybe you mentioned something about when they call from the kitchen.

• 33:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:19Speaker 02

  It was like they fall, something happened in the kitchen. It's like, oh, I don't want to get up. And then eventually, no, but maybe I should. And sometimes you do, and sometimes you don't, but you've evolved.

• 33:30Speaker 03

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

• 33:35Dax Shepard?

  Thank you to our presenting sponsor, Apple TV, the new US home of Formula One. You can now watch complete all access live coverage of every Grand Prix, including practice, qualifying and sprints, all in one place. I will be consuming all of those things, Monica.

• 33:50Speaker 01

  I know you will.

• 33:51Dax Shepard?

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• 34:33Dax Shepard?

  Watch the Formula One Chinese Grand Prix live on Sunday, March 15th at 3 a.m. Eastern, or watch race replays on demand anytime only on Apple TV. The new US home of F1. We are supported by Allstate. Checking Allstate first could save you hundreds on car insurance. That's smart. Not checking which platform you watch that new show on. So frustrating. 15 minutes later, you've logged into seven apps, reset two passwords and still haven't found it. Yeah, checking first is smart. So check Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds. You're in good hands with Allstate. Potential savings vary, subject to terms, conditions and availability. Allstate North American Insurance Co. and affiliates, Northbrook, Illinois.

• 35:15Dax Shepard?

  We are supported by Intuit TurboTax. April 15th is coming up fast. And if you're like most people, you're probably dreading the whole tax thing. You know, the old way, sitting in some waiting room for hours or sending over your tax docs and waiting and waiting for any kind of update. You want something modern and tech forward, but you also want that human connection. And this year brings a major upgrade. Intuit TurboTax now has in-person locations nationwide. You can walk into a tech-enabled TurboTax location near you and meet face-to-face with a real tax expert. Drop off your documents in the store and see them uploaded to your TurboTax app instantly. Just like that, you're done.

• 35:57Dax Shepard?

  Your new TurboTax expert stays back and works tirelessly to get you every dollar you deserve while you get real-time notifications as you go about your day. Honestly, it feels like someone finally figured out what we've all been wanting. It's not some sterile tax office from 1987. And it's not just an app where you're on your own. It's both. The human expertise with smart, modern tech. You drop off your stuff, go about your day and get real-time updates as your expert works through everything. That's the upgrade. Head to TurboTax.com to find a store location near you and get matched with a TurboTax expert with real-time updates and iOS app. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. We've talked before about Rob building our website on Squarespace,

• 36:42Dax Shepard?

  and I bring it up again because it's a perfect example of what they do well. Rob had all the pieces, the content, the vision, the ideas, but he needed something to actually take all that and make it public facing. And Squarespace was that bridge. Maybe you're in the same spot. You've been developing something, a business, a skillset, a body of work, and it's been private. It's been yours, but at some point you're ready to put it out there. And that transition from private It to public can feel like a huge leap. Squarespace makes it feel like a step. Beautiful templates, built in SEO, email campaigns, scheduling, analytics, everything you need to go from I've been working on this to here it is, come find me. All in one place, no code, no stitching together a bunch of different tools.

• 37:26Dax Shepard?

  So if you've been sitting on something and waiting for the right moment, this might be it. Head to squarespace.com slash DAX for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code DAX to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

• 37:47Dax Shepard?

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

• 37:57Speaker 02

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

• 38:21Speaker 01

  But some people could be in that exact same situation and probably have an anxious attachment.

• 38:27Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 38:27Speaker 01

  You know, so it's like, it's not like one equals this, a different person in that exact same environment.

• 38:33Dax Shepard?

  Well, your genetics are hugely in the mix too, right?

• 38:36Speaker 02

  Yes, of course, because there's so many different parameters that go into this mix. So you're right, some people will actually say, well, because I didn't have a mother that doted on me. Now I have all these issues and now I can detect threat when someone tries to pull away because I can identify it.

• 38:52Dax Shepard?

  Right. Yeah, it looks so familiar. I know what this looks like.

• 38:55Speaker 01

  I think I have anxious.

• 38:57Dax Shepard?

  I wasn't going to self diagnose you, but yeah, I mean, look, the way you would pray for your family members.

• 39:02Speaker 01

  A lot of fear.

• 39:04Dax Shepard?

  Superstition, if I miss this prayer, they're gonna die.

• 39:07Speaker 01

  But that's not really attachment, or is it?

• 39:09Speaker 02

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

• 39:31Speaker 01

  I do have that, but I don't know why.

• 39:33Dax Shepard?

  But it's more peer derived than parental.

• 39:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's weird because I don't have that at all with my parents.

• 39:40Dax Shepard?

  But her otherness in her peer group.

• 39:42Speaker 02

  So that's the beauty and that's why I really wanted to, I mean, look, 15 years has passed with my last book and a lot of new information was discovered about attachment. And I really found that there's a potential here to help people flourish. And actually, after I finished writing the book, then all these people started coming to me asking, okay, help me become more secure. But I didn't have an immediate answer for that because we never really learned about it in the clinical world. Basically, Rachel and I took it from papers and tried to breathe clinical life into it. But I didn't have an immediate answer to how you become more secure. And then the answer came over time, from the lab, actually, not from my work, from understanding the brain.

• 40:22Dax Shepard?

  Not from cocaine use in your study?

• 40:29Speaker 02

  But really from understanding the brain.

• 40:31Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, so the first book helped you understand your attachment style. And then people want to know, well, how do I change it?

• 40:38Speaker 02

  Right.

• 40:38Dax Shepard?

  Right, and now this book, Secure, is going to help us change into a secure attachment.

• 40:44Speaker 02

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

• 41:30Speaker 02

  And that really changes the brain on such a fundamental level.

• 41:33Dax Shepard?

  What you do is you merge together three different fields. You're kind of, you've all harari this. You're like, you're doing the neuroscience, you're doing the clinical psychology, you're doing.

• 41:44Speaker 02

  The attachment.

• 41:45Dax Shepard?

  The attachment and you're creating what you would call now.

• 41:48Speaker 02

  The secure priming therapy, but it's not only therapy and coaching, but it's also the way I started creating it. Actually, I started creating a course for high school. Anybody could learn. I had a student and she wanted to do some sort of a science exhibit on the social brain. And she asked me, what would be the most important lessons? And I came up with five and then actually like three of them made it into the book. And it was the things that I thought would be the most beneficial for people to know. And then I thought, oh, I can actually make a course out of this where people can actually learn. If you really believe that you should only count on yourself, that's not a bad thought necessarily. Or it's not a pathology, but it's really more to explain about how the brain responds to exclusion. Our brain hates exclusion and I call it the cyberball effect.

• 42:34Speaker 02

  And then I developed an antidote to it. How do we sort of then create the opposite because our brains loves hyper inclusion or hyper connectedness? How do we then orchestrate that in our everyday life? So these are the three lessons that I started the book with.

• 42:47Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, so you talk about the science of the brain in part one. So what do we need to understand about how the brain works?

• 42:54Speaker 02

  So our brain loads exclusion. That was like the most important thing that I would start with. I called it the sabable effect. The biggest thing is safety because we're not descendants of eagles or elephants.

• 43:05Dax Shepard?

  Leopards.

• 43:05Speaker 02

  Or lions. Yeah, we're not. We're like these like primates who lived for a long time in the middle of the food chain. And it was only when I was on a safari in Africa.

• 43:14Dax Shepard?

  You realize how fucking vulnerable we are.

• 43:16Speaker 02

  Because we went, they took us, most of the time we're in those like vehicles and you feel it's okay, even though one time an elephant started charging it at us, it was pretty scary. But the one time, we walked outside in the wild.

• 43:27Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 43:28Speaker 02

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

• 43:55Dax Shepard?

  You're dead.

• 43:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're dead.

• 43:56Dax Shepard?

  It's life or death.

• 43:57Speaker 02

  And the fact that we're all close to each other here, for example, now. So if a predator came, I have 66% of survival better than if I were by myself because they're gonna go after you.

• 44:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 44:07Dax Shepard?

  No, Rob's fucked. He's gonna get picked off back there behind that wall.

• 44:11Speaker 01

  Well, no, not if they come in this way, then he'll run out that door and he'll be safe.

• 44:15Dax Shepard?

  And they're...

• 44:16Speaker 02

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

• 44:21Dax Shepard?

  We have a 360 degree view right now between our combined perspectives.

• 44:25Speaker 02

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

• 44:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:57Speaker 02

  Or like an empty alley, we instinctively feel it. It's a safety thing.

• 45:01Dax Shepard?

  You intuitively do that math. The birds know like, oh, there's three of us. I should be looking up a third of the time, even though they don't know that.

• 45:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 45:08Dax Shepard?

  And there's a hundred, so it's like, oh, I only gotta look up 1% of the time.

• 45:11Speaker 02

  Because it was hugely advantageous to do that. And then those who didn't get that social monitoring sort of upgrade, they couldn't really compete. There was such a huge advantage.

• 45:19Dax Shepard?

  They got picked off.

• 45:19Speaker 02

  Because they were constantly looking up and they were all eating while they were looking up.

• 45:23Dax Shepard?

  And then we get into so much fun stuff. It's like the birth of lying comes from There are calls for chimpanzees to say leopard and this and that.

• 45:30Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 45:31Dax Shepard?

  And they would make a fake call so they could go fuck the high-status female while the alpha was looking over here.

• 45:36Speaker 02

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

• 46:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 46:01Speaker 02

  And that ability to compare, to evaluate, it's key for us as humans.

• 46:05Dax Shepard?

  This is theory of mind stuff, yeah?

• 46:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:07Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I can think about how you're thinking. I can assess your thoughts.

• 46:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, and are you gonna be there for me? Yeah, I can get her a cup of water because she probably has my back and she'll also get me a cup of water later.

• 46:18Dax Shepard?

  It'll be reciprocal.

• 46:19Speaker 02

  So we have that ability to assess and that's a key part in becoming more secure. And I even have a questionnaire. There's like, oh, assess how good is your collaboration? And then also rate how close you are to different people. And then see, are those really good collaborations also the people that are closest to you? Because if not, maybe you wanna think about changing your priorities, your relationship priorities, in the process of becoming more secure.

• 46:44Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 46:45Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 46:46Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, cyberball effect.

• 46:47Speaker 02

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

• 47:14Dax Shepard?

  The amygdala's on fire, is that what's happening?

• 47:16Speaker 02

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

• 47:39Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 47:40Dax Shepard?

  And less self esteem.

• 47:41Speaker 02

  Yes, so things that I always thought my my self esteem is not related to or how much control I have over my life or that life is meaningful. Why does it matter to who is interacting with me? It's things that come from within. They don't come from within.

• 47:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:56Speaker 02

  And they found the opposite of the Sablewell effect. When you actually put the person in the middle and now I'm in the middle and I'm throwing the ball to you, you'll throw it back to me. I'm throwing it to you, you're throwing it to me. I'm hyper included now. So basically you see the opposite. You feel that life is more meaningful. You feel more self esteem and you feel greater control in your life. So these are amazing things that we can create by hyper inclusion. But then the question is, how do you create that?

• 48:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 48:20Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 48:20Speaker 01

  How do we?

• 48:23Speaker 01

  Teach us.

• 48:24Speaker 02

  So that's when I came up with these five pillars.

• 48:26Dax Shepard?

  CARP?

• 48:26Speaker 02

  Yes, the CARP, the five pillars of secure life, which consists of consistency, availability, responsiveness. And then you also have to make sure it's not enough. It's like, oh, I'm consistent, available and responsive. You have to make sure that the other person experiences you as reliable and predictable. And that creates CARP. So it's like a two factor authentication.

• 48:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:47Speaker 02

  It's something that happens in a relationship. So if you learn to be CARP and you can also teach others to be CARP with you, then you can really create that hyper included. And it's not that hard. It's actually pretty easy. That's what I'm trying to explain to people. Attachment is not a very sophisticated system. It's a monitoring system.

• 49:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:07Speaker 02

  Like if you give it what it needs, remember I told you, you are supposed to disappear into the background. You just have to learn how to strategically give that. So you don't wait until a child is super hungry to feed them or super tired to put them to sleep. You kind of like try to anticipate what they need and sort of give it to them and then you can sort of coast.

• 49:25Speaker 01

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

• 49:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're not carp. So what happens is they push your button, they activate the radar. But I like how you said, we always have these people that we know that they're there. But what I find is that oftentimes, people tend to ignore those people.

• 50:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 50:04Speaker 02

  Because there's no drama. We tend to shift more to where the alarm goes off. So let's see where it goes off.

• 50:09Dax Shepard?

  You're like inversely rewarded for being carp sometimes in some relationships.

• 50:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, and then what happened in the course of writing this book and the course of this work, I really learned to fall in love with the secures of this world. Because there's just so good relationships. And so what I really try to teach my patients and my students and when I supervise, is to really shift the focus and find those people. Because we really ignore them. Instead of like, why is this person not texting me? Oh, but this person texts me all the time.

• 50:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:36Speaker 02

  Why shouldn't I text them?

• 50:37Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 50:38Speaker 01

  Right, a lot more energy there.

• 50:40Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly. And so you create that shift. And then what happens is we come to the final tool, which is when you start to pay attention, and it's not in the big things. It's in what I come to call the seemingly insignificant minor interactions, which is also short for semis, of everyday life. It's in those little moments, like that glass of water moment, that a lot of major change can happen because it re-challenges your brain. If you have this belief, yes, I really have to work hard for people to interact with me. I need to get their attention, otherwise they wouldn't want to be with me. They wouldn't want to necessarily reach out to me. That's more of the anxious thing. Instead, you get all these experiences, all these semis, that are counteracting that world belief. Because really, attachment styles are basically kind of a world belief, which is set in some ways.

• 51:25Speaker 02

  And then our brain sifts information based on that world belief. What I'm asking you to do is don't sift information based on your world belief. Look here to your right or to your left, and there's additional information that can change your brain with those little semis.

• 51:40Dax Shepard?

  So one of my issues with, like, all this stuff, again, is trade-offs. There's positives, there's negatives. But in the mass pop psychology genre of social media.

• 51:54Dax Shepard?

  What I seem to see the most of is identifying somebody. You know, everything's about another person's problem. You know, if you're with a narcissist.

• 52:01Speaker 02

  And then also from childhood.

• 52:03Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, so either childhood's to blame or these other people are to blame.

• 52:07Speaker 02

  Or they have terrible pathology.

• 52:08Dax Shepard?

  I don't find a ton of it about how about you make yourself the thing that you think you deserve? And then just kind of see what happens down river from that. For this is priority number one to make sure you're carp.

• 52:21Speaker 02

  I'm so glad you asked that. One of the reasons it was so important for me to write this book because it's just like, I don't see things that way anymore. Instead of going back to this idea as a child, just sort of like, no, but you can see things differently. So here, maybe try to look at it from a different angle. These are little tricks to fool your biology that wants to go in a certain way. And make it see things a little bit differently. So the brain can see, well, all things can look different. So I'm not even saying like you have to take accountability. I'm not even going there. I'm just saying, look, but the thing is anxious and avoidant have to use those tools very differently. And that's where it gets a little bit more tricky.

• 52:56Dax Shepard?

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

• 53:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. Because we have this surveillance system that was in some way maybe very sensitive and maybe the opposite, I'm constantly suppressing it. And then it starts ruling our life. If we get triggered, then two different things happen for anxious and avoidant. For secure, the thing is they don't really get triggered that often. They just don't see a lot of threat. So even maybe I think they would be the last people to know if someone cheated on them. They're not going to see the signs.

• 53:36Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 53:36Speaker 02

  It's just like not something that they'll see. Or even at work, that can give you so many different scenarios. The other day, someone emailed me and they said, hey, when do you have a time to talk? And then my sister said, oh my God, she probably got fired. And I said, like, why would you say that? She just wanted to say when we can talk. Sure enough, she got fired.

• 53:52Speaker 01

  See, yeah.

• 53:54Speaker 02

  And then more research recently have shown that it also affects how we interact with our healthcare providers. And even if we have a chronic illness like pharma malgia, how much pain we're going to And then it affects how we shop. Secure people don't care so much about.

• 54:10Speaker 02

  They don't care so much about logos. Why are you laughing?

• 54:13Speaker 01

  I just love shopping so much.

• 54:16Speaker 02

  But you can love fashion, but it may be less about status and more about, or maybe it also about status.

• 54:21Speaker 01

  Status is in the mix. I have to be honest. I don't want it to be, but it is in the mix.

• 54:25Dax Shepard?

  You're such a good girl.

• 54:27Speaker 02

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

• 54:58Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 54:58Speaker 02

  And even a lot of other people followed, but you can see there can be an advantage. Just like, you know what? Fuck you all, I'm out of here. But I want to go back to what you said about this whole thing on social media, we're pointing at others. I just think that it's the wrong conversation or the wrong way of looking at it, because there's this whole potential, and that's the beauty of the science, that we all have these secure people in our lives and secure experiences from our own childhood that we can tap into and become more secure. And the opportunity and the advantages for being more secure in that way, we can really flourish. I want my patients to flourish and do want them to heal from trauma, and I'm not saying that's wrong, but I want to take it a step further.

• 55:39Speaker 02

  I think that this science, for really understanding and combining neuroscience with the attachment, really can give people the opportunity to flourish.

• 55:49Dax Shepard?

  I just stumbled upon this chatting with my brother in New York. We took a trip for three days before Christmas. And we were discussing, there's a lot of good social science behind. Although I don't believe in The Secret, the book, I do believe in an aspect of it, right? Which is your focus and attention can create a bit of confirmation bias. So if you're looking towards the future and you're thinking of only the ways you're going to fail, those are the ones you're going to focus on, and you're going to see proof of that more often. Then you will see proof of a different theory that you're trying to service. So I was talking to my brother. I was telling him honestly, I'm like, you know, I'm writing this memoir and I feel a bit guilty because it's really the highlights reel of the bad stuff. Because that's drama, that's everything, that's a good book.

• 56:33Dax Shepard?

  And I said, but when I'm being honest, that probably, and all your and I's combined stuff, that might have maybe been point two percent of our overall waking experience.

• 56:43Speaker 02

  That's amazing, actually.

• 56:44Dax Shepard?

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

• 57:09Speaker 02

  The way that you described it here is a big part of the essence of the secure priming therapy is really recasting your past from a more secure place and really looking at the other influences and the other people that were in your life. Even the people where things were difficult, that's how we started the conversation. I was able to see my part in it also. And really also see other times when actually my father really loved me and gave me attention. And that moment when we were in the hotel lobby, when he threw the coin.

• 57:39Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 57:40Speaker 02

  And actually, that shift is huge for our brain. And it can really help us, it really changes also who we are in the here and now. Remember that narrative and how we create the narrative? It's richer and it's more true.

• 57:54Dax Shepard?

  It's more true, yeah. And weirdly, I'm dealing with it now. It's really crazy that I can intellectually understand that. And yet I do have this fear of letting that go.

• 58:04Speaker 02

  I know.

• 58:04Dax Shepard?

  I think it's so interwoven in my, quote, identity, that to let go of it would be threatening to my identity.

• 58:12Speaker 02

  And we live in a world that's really ruled by Freudian psychology. That everything is because of these things happened to us in childhood. But actually, the science shows that the attachment styles that we have as children predicts less than 10% of the attachment styles that we have in adults.

• 58:29Dax Shepard?

  Whoa. That's a huge.

• 58:31Speaker 02

  And a lot of what really changes our attachment style happen later.

• 58:35Dax Shepard?

  Well, that's mind blowing. It's counterintuitive and it's encouraging.

• 58:39Speaker 02

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

• 58:48Dax Shepard?

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

• 58:59Speaker 02

  I was actually going to grieve that example because I listened. I did my homework.

• 59:02Speaker 01

  Such a good student.

• 59:03Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I'm telling you. I feel like he used AI though to scan all of them.

• 59:07Speaker 02

  Oh, no, I listened. No, no.

• 59:08Speaker 01

  He went back to school eighty million times.

• 59:10Dax Shepard?

  He listened to two thousand hours.

• 59:12Speaker 02

  No, no, actually it was fascinating, I have to say. And I love that story of the math teacher who recognized he was a geometry.

• 59:19Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. We had the little blocks and we were learning.

• 59:21Speaker 02

  And then he asked you to sort of teach the other students.

• 59:23Dax Shepard?

  Changed my life.

• 59:24Speaker 02

  Something that happened in a moment, someone did something really good by my brain. He changed my brain to a different trajectory and made me really see myself differently and think about things differently.

• 59:35Dax Shepard?

  Is the muscle analogy not good or is it good? When we use certain thoughts that embolden certain pathways.

• 59:41Speaker 02

  Oh, definitely. It describes it really, really well because what happens? Our current belief is that our memories lie in our synapses, in the structure of the synapses. Usually LTP, long-term potentiation, is like electrophysiology that we strengthen memories. The synapses get tighter and there's more, even there's actin growing in the synapses to kind of like build the structure. So that's why the analogy of the muscles, the actual molecules, some of them are the same molecules. And then when memories weaken, which is a very important part because we also have to forget. And forgetting is an active process in the brain, an active molecular process. Synapses actually weaken. They get further apart. That's why I brought up the whole semis thing. Because people when they go to therapy and think, I have to talk about my childhood, really difficult events that happened to me.

• 1:00:25Speaker 02

  But really the avenue for change in the brain are through those semis. Because every interaction gives you a moment, a chance to rewrite something. To strengthen those synapses or weaken those synapses. And that's basically the synaptic plasticity idea.

• 1:00:41Dax Shepard?

  It's such an empowering way to look at it all because you have absolutely no. Sway over what happened thirty years ago. That's done.

• 1:00:50Speaker 02

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

• 1:01:22Dax Shepard?

  You're so right. When it hits me the most is I'll be watching some documentary on chimpanzees. And, you know, they're probably our closest thing to look at.

• 1:01:30Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, they are.

• 1:01:31Dax Shepard?

  And these little babies, they get fucked up. These alpha males will come through and they'll be thrashing the jungle and they'll throw one thirty feet and everything. And I just am watching that and I'm like, it's curious to me that they're so resilient. They go through what we would call capital T trauma almost daily.

• 1:01:50Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, their lives are vicious.

• 1:01:51Dax Shepard?

  They still persevere, right? And I'll look at that and I'll go, as much as I do like honoring what has happened to us, we also have forgotten how fucking resilient we are. You can't live with this many members of a group and not be traumatized many times.

• 1:02:05Speaker 02

  So that's what brings me to that chapter ten about causality?

• 1:02:08Dax Shepard?

  Yes, I've circled that one. I wanted to talk about that. Anne, you want to tell the story of Anne?

• 1:02:13Speaker 02

  A woman who as a child had terrible suppression anxiety. But unfortunately for her, her dad had to travel a lot for business. And so whenever he would travel, she would sort of cry and really sort of hold on to his leg and like really, don't go, don't go. And then she would have a hard time falling asleep. They would try to reassure her, but he had to go for work. But they didn't know she had suppression anxiety. There's actually good treatment for suppression anxiety in children.

• 1:02:34Dax Shepard?

  He says like four to six percent maybe have that.

• 1:02:37Speaker 02

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

• 1:03:11Speaker 01

  She was afraid they were gonna leave? Like she was trying to get ahead of it?

• 1:03:14Speaker 02

  She didn't feel any safe and like she's just like, no, this doesn't feel right to me. I don't know what's gonna happen here. This doesn't feel right to me. I don't know if I belong here. Is this the right thing for me or is it not the right thing for me? And so as a someone who learned psychology and learned to do therapy, then you said, well, because as a child, even though your parents were loving and cared about you, still there was that basic experience that relationships are dangerous. Relationships are a source of pain and anguish. So I'm gonna be very careful how I'm going to approach this relationship. And the truth is, I would have given this explanation and I would have stood by that explanation until I became a scientist. And once I became a scientist, I said, wait a second. When you're a scientist, finding causality, that's the holy grail of scientific discovery.

• 1:03:59Speaker 02

  That's so hard to do.

• 1:04:01Dax Shepard?

  Do you wanna explain the difference between correlation and causality? I think people think they're experiencing causality.

• 1:04:06Speaker 02

  We think in causality, but oftentimes people find things actually correlate or confound. The best example, because I love that example, when you talked about how you came from a family of little means. So you had to sort of fend for yourself and you had to sort of make sure that you're taking what you need. And so the best example is that marshmallow test that has been disproven.

• 1:04:27Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 1:04:27Speaker 02

  Yes, it's been disproven.

• 1:04:29Dax Shepard?

  Milk it? Who did marshmallow?

• 1:04:31Speaker 01

  Oh, no, I don't remember.

• 1:04:33Speaker 02

  They tried to replicate it and it was completely disproved.

• 1:04:36Dax Shepard?

  Come on, this is an exclusive. What? Tell me.

• 1:04:39Speaker 01

  Okay, tell everyone.

• 1:04:40Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:40Speaker 02

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

• 1:05:18Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 1:05:19Speaker 02

  And not only that, they found that the original studies were confounded by socioeconomic status.

• 1:05:25Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:05:26Speaker 02

  So of course it would make sense if you come from a lower socioeconomic status to jump at that marshmallow needed.

• 1:05:32Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, there ain't no two coming back.

• 1:05:34Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly.

• 1:05:35Dax Shepard?

  Bullshit.

• 1:05:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's why.

• 1:05:37Speaker 02

  And everybody knows that socioeconomic status is.

• 1:05:39Dax Shepard?

  The biggest predictor.

• 1:05:40Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:05:41Speaker 01

  Oh my God, they've been lying that this whole time.

• 1:05:44Dax Shepard?

  There have been thousands of books written on the shoulders of the marshmallow.

• 1:05:47Speaker 02

  But that's the beauty of science. When I work with single molecules, I can give you astounding examples. I worked with mice and aplesia, much simpler animals, even those when we think we found causality, at some point they thought PKMZ, it's like a molecule. That's the reason why we have long-term memory. It's responsible for long-term memory. There's a big splash in science paper and everybody believed that and they gave this medication that inhibited PKMZ, they could erase memories, prevent them from happening. Amazing. And it's all done in mice, very simple fear memory stuff. Several years later, another study came out in Nature, sort of science rival. It's like, no, sorry, we actually were able to knock out PKMZ from mice. They remember perfectly well.

• 1:06:32Speaker 02

  And not only that, we gave them the medication that you thought and they don't have PKMZ, which they thought was specific. It did disrupt their memory and that medication is not specific. It actually completely, I'll just say it in a way that will make it more simple, it completely fucks up the brain. So that's why they didn't have it.

• 1:06:50Dax Shepard?

  It's a systemic collapse of brain activity of which memories apart.

• 1:06:54Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly. Something like that.

• 1:06:56Speaker 01

  Oh wow.

• 1:06:57Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, like we hit them in the head with a club.

• 1:07:00Speaker 02

  Weirdly.

• 1:07:00Dax Shepard?

  Access to memory.

• 1:07:01Speaker 02

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

• 1:07:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:07:30Speaker 02

  So we don't know.

• 1:07:31Dax Shepard?

  That's a simpler animal in a much more controlled environment.

• 1:07:34Speaker 02

  You still don't know.

• 1:07:35Speaker 01

  My therapist actively does not like talking about the past.

• 1:07:39Speaker 02

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

• 1:07:58Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:58Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:08:01Speaker 03

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

• 1:08:07Dax Shepard?

  Thank you to our presenting sponsor, HP, for supporting this episode. Their HP Smart Tank printer is the last printer you'll ever need. Oh, here we go, Monica. With a refillable ink tank and up to three years of ink included, so you get thousands of pages of cartridge-free printing. Hallelujah. To learn more, search for HP Smart Tank. This episode is supported by Helix.

• 1:08:35Speaker 01

  Dax, is there anything better than crawling into a perfect bed on a cold fall night? Candlelit, hoodie on, maybe even some rain outside. The dream.

• 1:08:45Dax Shepard?

  That's the dream. You just described one of my ideal fall nights.

• 1:08:49Speaker 01

  I know, and thanks to Helix, my bed actually lives up to the vibe. All I had to do was take the Helix Sleep Quiz, and within two minutes, they matched me to a mattress built for exactly how I sleep. I have a midnight mattress. It also has cooling technology, which I really...

• 1:09:05Dax Shepard?

  Increasingly so.

• 1:09:06Speaker 01

  I need it. I have to have it. And I... I heard that you're supposed to sleep at a cold temp.

• 1:09:13Dax Shepard?

  Hmm.

• 1:09:14Speaker 01

  Optimal sleep. It's very, very helpful.

• 1:09:16Dax Shepard?

  She is not wrong. I have one too, and it's been such a game changer for sleep. And I love that they make it so easy. Free shipping right to your door. And with their happy with Helix guarantee, you'll get a full 365 nights to try it. A whole year to live in that cozy. They've got over 20 mattress models. So no matter how you sleep, they've got one for you.

• 1:09:36Speaker 01

  And it's not just us saying it. Helix has been named the most awarded mattress brand by Forbes, Wired and more. You gotta try it for yourself.

• 1:09:43Dax Shepard?

  Go to helixsleep.com/armchair for 20% off site wide. That's helixsleep.com/armchair for 20% off site wide. Helixsleep.com/armchair. We get support from Superhuman. Look, I love what I do. The conversations, the ideas, the creative stuff. But there's this whole other layer of work that eats my day alive. The inbox that never ends. Docs I need to get through, threads I'm behind on. And by the time I've dealt with all that, the stuff I actually want to focus on gets whatever's left. What I needed was something that just works where I'm already working. Not another tab to open, not another thing to set up. Superhuman Go from the makers of Grammarly is different.

• 1:10:27Dax Shepard?

  It's already right there inside your email, your docs, your browser. You don't go to it. It's already working alongside you. You're deep in a long thread, highlight it, and it pulls the key points. About to send something important? It flags what doesn't add up before it leaves your hands. It knows your style, your workflows, and it just backs you up without getting in the way. A thought partner that's already up to speed at your service, not after your job. So do yourself a favor and try Superhuman Go from the makers of Grammarly. Find out more at superhuman.com. This episode is brought to you by ServiceNow. Look, I have my dream job. I get to talk to folks I admire like crazy

• 1:11:11Dax Shepard?

  and ask them virtually any question that I want to. I can't imagine a better way to spend my time. But even dream jobs have some not so dreamy parts. The stuff that gets in the way of the actual work. Now that's where ServiceNow's AI specialists come in. They don't just tell you. What you should do about your busy work. They actually do it. Start to finish. Cases closed, requests handled, no extra work for you. So you and your team can focus on what matters most. Which for me is, are they obsessed with male bodies on the same level as I am?

• 1:11:43Speaker 01

  They never are.

• 1:11:44Dax Shepard?

  To learn how to put AI to work for people, visit servicenow.com.

• 1:11:56Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so let's talk about secure mode and what life actually looks like daily. Oh, we didn't finish Anne. What did we figure out?

• 1:12:03Speaker 02

  Basically with Anne, when I became a scientist, like, yeah, I mean, I can get that story. And it's good, but it's not fact. I mean, you can think about it as a narrative that can potentially help people. And I can say, you know, maybe there are echoes from the past, which is fine. But the truth is, we can work in the here and now to really instill meaningful changes that will really help you. And that's what we did. Luckily, she had a very secure partner. That's always good because that's sort of like the vehicle for change. Because they're like, I told you, I fell in love with the secures of this world because they're like having a built in relationship coach in the relationship. It can be in friendships, in romantic relationships, it can be at work, it can be in so many different areas of our life. So those relationships are really, really important. And then it didn't take it personally.

• 1:12:45Speaker 02

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

• 1:13:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:10Speaker 02

  But there is something to be said about recalling past events in therapy or in general with even with friends. What actually does happen is an opportunity to rewrite your memories. You're recalling something. And what we now know is that from a neuroscience perspective, when we recall a memory, we to some degree disrupt it. We know it in like in animal models, when they recall a memory, you can prevent the new protein synthesis. And I may be getting too technical, but. New protein synthesis, in order for long-term memory to resolidify, you need new protein synthesis. You completely erase their memories. So basically, by recalling something, you disrupt the memory and you have a chance to not just create a causal connection.

• 1:13:53Speaker 02

  I think it's actually more powerful to change the actual memory, to edit it to suit you more now to where you are now.

• 1:14:00Speaker 01

  That's why everyone's memories of the same experience are very different.

• 1:14:04Speaker 02

  Very different.

• 1:14:05Speaker 01

  Because over time, they're thinking about it and they're changing it.

• 1:14:07Speaker 02

  Constantly editing it, constantly, and can be affected by how other people talk to you about it, how you recall it. Memory is very vulnerable, in a good way, I think.

• 1:14:16Dax Shepard?

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

• 1:14:59Dax Shepard?

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

• 1:15:16Speaker 02

  Completely. So that's the second. The first part is the sort of re-editing those memories. And the second part is that when you sit together with someone that you trust, and how often do we get to talk about those really difficult moments or intimate moments and recall them with someone that you fully trust, that you have a very unique... Therapeutic relationship is unlike any other relationship in the world.

• 1:15:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:37Speaker 02

  That you can open up, and they're there just to listen and to help you and to understand you. And if you feel that connection, they give you the secure base to be able to... To process some of the information and really change it in a way that now actually feels more secure. So that's the thing. And actually, a lot of studies show that it doesn't really matter so much the modality of the treatment. You know, there's CBT, there's IPT, there's all these different types of treatments. But actually, it's more about the fit with the therapist. Yeah. So again, we come back to that attachment thing. Exactly. Of how well do you feel that you connect with someone and how much attachment is powerful. I like to say that attachment is both at the base of suffering and healing from suffering.

• 1:16:20Speaker 02

  Because remember the strange situation, how effective it can be in regulating our emotions. So we have an attachment hierarchy in our head. We all have it. And I know that if something bad happens to me, I know exactly who's number one I'm gonna go to. Who's number two? You see, you're all nodding because you know too. Yeah. I know exactly who to go to, and that's very important for our brain. And then if I'm securely attached to them, most of the time, a single word from them or a sentence or even a hug will calm me down immediately. There's just no Xanax or Klonopin in this world that can be as powerful. And no wonder, because it works on so many different neurotransmitters altogether. Like opiates, oxytocin, dopamine, you name it, it works on those and other things that we haven't discovered yet.

• 1:17:05Speaker 02

  It's so powerful, but the opposite is also true. Insecure attachments can be the most powerful instigator of emotional distress. So attachment is the basis of both suffering and healing from suffering. And part of the reason why I wrote this book is kind of like to really try to shift people towards getting better and making things work for you better than being stuck in that place where your brain constantly is surveying and feels that danger. So interesting. Another part of the book talks about biological diversity and hidden sparks of talent.

• 1:17:36Dax Shepard?

  So please tell us about that.

• 1:17:38Speaker 02

  When you become a molecular neuroscientist, you see the enormity of molecular diversity that we all possess and how different it is. And we know it because we all look a little bit different and we all have these different abilities, even just in the way that we can flip our tongue or like even with our finger, all these different things.

• 1:17:55Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:56Speaker 02

  But also it goes way, way further than that. Evolution loves diversity.

• 1:18:02Speaker 02

  It's really one of the best survival mechanisms. But we don't really fully appreciate how diverse we are and also in our talents. And not only that, oftentimes, especially people with insecure attachment, sometimes their biggest talents, they perceive as impediment. But here, like a hidden spark of talent that someone actually identified was your math ability.

• 1:18:24Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:18:25Speaker 02

  And so when you lean into that ability, how it can really profoundly change your world.

• 1:18:29Dax Shepard?

  Oh, it's dominoes. If I'm actually good at math, maybe I can be good at other things.

• 1:18:34Speaker 02

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

• 1:19:13Dax Shepard?

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

• 1:19:21Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly. Now you're like talking from the attachment logic. Because that, oh, am I being left out?

• 1:19:27Dax Shepard?

  Scarcity.

• 1:19:28Speaker 02

  But that's where we can really learn to transcend our biology using metacognition, basically. So metacognition, how we think about our thoughts. So it's like, wait a second, yeah, I mean, I have that solvable effect. Am I feeling, but hey, look at, and that's where also it's good to have, I call that secure people in your life, a secure buddy, where like if you get upset, and that's what I do like in the secure therapy. I just sort of real time sometimes with text. You're also the recipient of it, and it actually doesn't take away from you. And you teach them a secure way of looking at things that secure love is actually bountiful and not scarce. Remember, secure relationships are not about being attached at the hip. All it needs is like a little bit more.

• 1:20:12Speaker 02

  Acknowledgement, so a little bit more texting. The other thing is, is actually say, well, I wish you were here. Well, actually also remember that hyperconnectedness to always give an opportunity if possible to include. Oh, it's too bad you can't come. Everybody talked about you. Everybody mentioned you. So there's psychological way of including people, even if they're not there.

• 1:20:33Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:34Speaker 02

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

• 1:20:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I feel like just telling people you miss them is so huge. Because like, I'm thinking about you. I know you're not here. I'm thinking about you.

• 1:20:53Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 1:20:53Speaker 01

  A lovely way to include people.

• 1:20:55Dax Shepard?

  Was there anything I've left out that you would want to cover?

• 1:20:58Speaker 02

  I don't know if I actually, actually really defined, I should have done it. I always tell, like, put myself over the head, like, I should define those attachment styles early on. Should I define it just in case if you wanted to?

• 1:21:08Speaker 01

  Let's do it.

• 1:21:08Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, let's do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:21:09Speaker 02

  So it all has to do with how comfortable we feel with intimacy and closeness, but also how sensitive radar we have to potential danger in the relationship. So if we have an anxious attachment style, we love closeness and intimacy, but we also have a very sensitive radar to a potential danger. If someone doesn't become available, we notice it right away. And that can lead to thoughts of like, you being rejected, take things personally. So that's the anxious attachment. Then secure attachments are people who are warm and loving, and they love a lot of closeness, as much as you can give them, but they're also not sensitive to danger in their relationship. So if you don't give them that much closeness, they're fine with it too. They just don't see, oh, my God, something is wrong. They don't like me anymore.

• 1:21:53Speaker 02

  No, it just goes over their head. So that's secure attachment. And people who have an avoidant attachment style, they also want relationships because we're a social species, but they just don't feel too comfortable with too much closeness. They want you, but they want you from a little bit of a distance. And so they find ways of creating that distance so they can feel more comfortable.

• 1:22:11Dax Shepard?

  What might that look like? Because when you say the anxious attachment, I immediately, I think we all can, you can think of like your big friendship group and you can think of the ones that are like really upset and monitoring. When they've been invited and when they've not. And I mean, this is a brag, but it's like, I don't notice that, right? Like, I don't notice on Instagram.

• 1:22:28Speaker 02

  It's not a bag, it's just it is what it is.

• 1:22:30Dax Shepard?

  This group was at dinner. It doesn't even cross my mind. So to me, that's a very obvious example. So what does the avoidant one look like?

• 1:22:37Speaker 02

  I'm glad that you said that you don't notice that because secures don't notice it oftentimes. But if they're asked to do it, they will do it.

• 1:22:44Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, uh huh, right.

• 1:22:45Speaker 02

  Avoidance, they have a harder time with it because they have this worldview that you have to be independent. You have to be self-reliant and they are to themselves. But they don't understand, as we said, they're about 25% of the population. They don't understand that they're the minority. They're not the majority. Most people need other people to help when they're in time of need, when they come to you. So when you come to them in time of need, it's like, what do you want from me? Take care of it. But then it actually triggers your attachment even more. It's like, no, no, now you've become the center of their problem. I'm coming for help and you're not helping me. They forget about the bad thing that happened to them and now you're the bad thing that's happened to them. So they fall into these constant traps unknowingly often, not knowing how to manage.

• 1:23:26Speaker 02

  Like, no, you're their minority report. You need to understand that when people come to you, they can't deal with it on their own. So that's one thing. The other thing, sometimes they create a lot of closeness. Well, they spent a really amazing weekend together. Everything is very intense and fun. And then comes Monday and they need their time. Okay, we've had enough, right? They have this idea that they can carry it forward like credit, but attachment doesn't work that way. It's a radar.

• 1:23:50Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:23:51Speaker 02

  They actually disappear. They do the opposite of what they intended to do. They actually increase the change, the delta. And now you're actually even more, what's happening? Why are you not answering?

• 1:23:59Speaker 01

  It feels like love bombing.

• 1:24:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, they don't understand what's happening.

• 1:24:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:03Speaker 02

  Like, why are you disappearing all of a sudden? So remember the consistency, available, responsive? They don't even understand what's happening.

• 1:24:09Dax Shepard?

  They're like, yeah, don't you feel filled up?

• 1:24:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. And then the last thing that happens is that sometimes when they get too close too quickly, they don't pace themselves. Because they kind of like, no, I want this to happen. I want it to work now. I've looked for all these people and it doesn't work and now I want it to. They get very close real fast because they think all the other people that I met, they weren't the one. This person is going to be one. I may just swoop in and go in like full force. To make it work, but that's exactly what they don't need to do. Because the problem is not that they weren't into that person. They were into all these other people. The problem is that there's too much closeness for comfort. And then they have these deactivating strategies. Like, oh, I don't know if I like this person. I don't like how they chew. I like this, all these little things.

• 1:24:51Dax Shepard?

  Their toenails.

• 1:24:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's these deactivating strategies. They have to learn to pace themselves. And they have to learn not to get, I call it the closeness overdose. Because then they're gonna sound like, no, this is suffocating. I don't want you anymore. And then again, they create this sort of push-pull. So you can teach them how to sort of engage in more carpesias, basically.

• 1:25:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Did you once say that one of your criticisms of your own book, Attached, would be that you didn't necessarily give the avoidant.

• 1:25:20Speaker 02

  Oh, I'm glad you brought that up.

• 1:25:21Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, the avoidant group, as much compassion as maybe they deserve.

• 1:25:24Speaker 02

  This is my, like, amends. But it's not entirely my fault. This book is definitely my amends to the avoidants. Not just mine, I have to say, also just the research in general. Because research is also biased and the questions that people ask are biased. And I feel that in this book, I really present a much more biological explanation of avoidance. Not necessarily, you know, again, blaming the mothers, like that your parents were not responsive to you. I don't think that's the case, and I really make a strong case of it. But I really think that we presented the data, the science, and the show, oh, they have a wondering eye. They don't take care of you so well if you're sick. And so we just wrote it out there. But then, over the years, working with avoidance.

• 1:26:05Dax Shepard?

  Are you laughing at me?

• 1:26:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:07Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, she's laughing at me. When someone gets sick, I'm like, just go deal with it, man, I do.

• 1:26:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's like, we all get sick.

• 1:26:14Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, we all get sick.

• 1:26:15Speaker 02

  You see, but it's sick.

• 1:26:18Dax Shepard?

  I was sick too, but I didn't fucking bother you with it.

• 1:26:20Speaker 02

  Right, exactly, because they don't. They don't bother other people.

• 1:26:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:26:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:26:25Dax Shepard?

  I'm so guilty of it. What's happening biological with me?

• 1:26:27Speaker 02

  So biologically, I give an example in the book of C. elegans, which is like a tiny worm that neuroscientists love. Because they have, again, huge neurons. And they can be manipulated and experimented on. So in C. The elegance, they found that they have two types of feeding behavior, solitary feeding behavior and social feeding behavior. And so they eat E. coli.

• 1:26:51Dax Shepard?

  Thank God. We don't want it.

• 1:26:52Speaker 02

  I know. So when the social ones, they detect E. coli, you see like a whole pile of worms voraciously eating.

• 1:26:59Dax Shepard?

  No, thank you.

• 1:26:59Speaker 02

  And then.

• 1:27:00Speaker 01

  They ate that image.

• 1:27:02Speaker 02

  I know, I'm sorry. But it's important because the solitary one, if one swims in that direction, they swim the other way. They're chemotactically repelled by the other worms. And it's a change in a single amino acid, in a single protein. They can switch solitary to social and vice versa.

• 1:27:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's very.

• 1:27:20Speaker 02

  So.

• 1:27:24Speaker 02

  The case that I'm trying to make is that this preference for closeness and distance, a lot of it is also biologically driven. And we can see it everywhere around us, like even you can see in pets. Some people say some dogs are like cats. They don't like to be that close. They actually will stay away, like, okay, I like you from a distance. Some cats will stick to you and they actually are not that separate as you would think. You can see it in birds and you can see it in people. Some people feel more comfortable with more closeness. And there's a big, big, big spectrum. But if we can also focus on the here and now and make these changes that can really lead us to be in secure mode. It's a way to flourish in the world, to feel safe, to not worry all the time. It's so much so, and that's kind of like chapter four in the book. I write about energy in the brain because you really have to understand

• 1:28:09Speaker 02

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

• 1:28:52Speaker 02

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

• 1:29:15Dax Shepard?

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

• 1:29:35Speaker 02

  I think that's the promising part of this whole book, our versatility and our ability to sort of like to change, to understand, to accept certain things. And also knowing, so if you're not such a great person, when you get sick, then why shouldn't I call someone else?

• 1:29:49Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:29:50Speaker 02

  No, I'm serious. Why does one person have to do everything?

• 1:29:53Dax Shepard?

  Right, right, right.

• 1:29:53Speaker 02

  It doesn't make any sense.

• 1:29:55Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah. Okay, great. Amir, this is awesome. Please, everyone, check out Secure: The Revolutionary Guide to Creating a Secure Life. This is just so encouraging and hopeful, and I really appreciate it. Thanks so much for coming.

• 1:30:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, thanks.

• 1:30:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was fun, actually. I was nervous about it, but I enjoyed it.

• 1:30:13Dax Shepard?

  We aim to be fun. All right, be well.

• 1:30:17Dax Shepard?

  We hope you enjoyed this episode. Unfortunately, they made some mistakes.

• 1:30:25Dax Shepard?

  When's mom and dad arrive?

• 1:30:27Speaker 01

  They land at like 3:40. They'll probably like 5:00, 5:30.

• 1:30:32Dax Shepard?

  LAX. There's no good Burbank.

• 1:30:34Speaker 01

  Mm mm. Which is sad.

• 1:30:37Dax Shepard?

  We gotta expand Burbank.

• 1:30:38Speaker 01

  I know, but then it's-

• 1:30:39Dax Shepard?

  But only to the destinations we want.

• 1:30:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, because then it's gonna become the same situation, which we don't.

• 1:30:44Dax Shepard?

  I will support an Atlanta route if you support a Nashville route.

• 1:30:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, there is a Nashville. They had one flight, one time, to Atlanta out of Burbank.

• 1:30:55Dax Shepard?

  A single flight in the history?

• 1:30:56Speaker 01

  Yes. Callie and I took it home for Christmas.

• 1:31:00Dax Shepard?

  Was it Air Kmart?

• 1:31:01Speaker 01

  No, it was Delta.

• 1:31:03Dax Shepard?

  Oh, it was Delta?

• 1:31:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it was like a lot of years ago. They tried it. I guess they decided it.

• 1:31:09Dax Shepard?

  I'm not gonna call them out, but I am gonna say what is really weird is how much these airlines jock you for quality. Like if I go back 15 years ago, what I would have listed is like the best quality airline. Like the cleanest, most up to date, everything. That has shuffled dramatically. And I don't really understand that. I want to know what forces make these ones that were kind of good just

• 1:31:34Speaker 01

  Bad.

• 1:31:34Dax Shepard?

  tumble.

• 1:31:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:35Dax Shepard?

  I guess it's management. Like, I'll just say, someone at Delta has turned that thing into a real wonderful airline.

• 1:31:42Speaker 01

  It's a great airline.

• 1:31:42Dax Shepard?

  But I used to have to fly it nonstop. They absorb Northwest.

• 1:31:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:31:47Dax Shepard?

  And I always had to fly Northwest because that was Detroit was a hub for Northwest. Basically, the Northwest loved to fly anywhere where you might get snowed in and have to get a hotel room.

• 1:31:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:59Dax Shepard?

  But you know, it was just, it wasn't, you know, whatever.

• 1:32:02Speaker 01

  Well, Delta probably is, they took in, they're like, we're making it good.

• 1:32:07Dax Shepard?

  I just want to tip my hat to them. They're not a sponsor. I want to tip my hat. They've really upped their game, I think.

• 1:32:11Speaker 01

  They're not a sponsor, but they are my preferred airline. Except, we did fly Emirates to India and that

• 1:32:21Dax Shepard?

  That was nice.

• 1:32:22Speaker 01

  Was really nice.

• 1:32:24Dax Shepard?

  That was nice. That was nice.

• 1:32:25Speaker 01

  Really, really, really nice.

• 1:32:27Dax Shepard?

  Are you excited about anything? It's a very exciting time for me.

• 1:32:30Speaker 01

  Oh, go ahead.

• 1:32:31Dax Shepard?

  MotoGP returned last weekend. So we had our first race of the year after four months layoff. And Formula One's been gone for three and a half months. They've been in their winter break.

• 1:32:42Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 1:32:43Dax Shepard?

  That returns this weekend.

• 1:32:45Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:32:46Dax Shepard?

  So I have, I'm coming out of my three or four month fast of racing and I'm pretty excited about it.

• 1:32:53Speaker 01

  That's fun.

• 1:32:54Dax Shepard?

  Knowing that, you don't have something like this, right? Where it's multiple events over the course of a weekend. And I may or may not partake in all them, but just knowing if I wanted, there's a lot of stuff on Friday I could check in with. Saturday's a big day. And then, of course, the race on Sunday.

• 1:33:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:13Dax Shepard?

  That is the power of having something to look forward to. Is gigantic.

• 1:33:17Speaker 01

  Yes, that's huge. Speaking of that, we really dropped the ball on the Olympics this year. We didn't watch it, we didn't talk about it, we didn't do anything. That's upsetting.

• 1:33:31Dax Shepard?

  And you know, it wa- I read a thing that it was the most viewed Olympics in like, um, 16 years or something.

• 1:33:38Speaker 01

  It what?

• 1:33:39Dax Shepard?

  I was a little shocked to see that, no, it was a hugely successful and, and, and watched Olympics.

• 1:33:44Speaker 01

  I'm surprised by that too, because I don't, not because I wasn't interested, but because no one I knew was talking about it at all. Um, and even on podcasts and stuff, I wasn't like hearing about it.

• 1:33:59Dax Shepard?

  I tried, right? I was in Miami when they kicked off. Uh, Erin and I were excited to consume some Olympics and do some napping while we did that.

• 1:34:08Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:34:09Dax Shepard?

  Cause it's good napping material. Cause there's a lot of downtime. It's like someone does a run and you hear a lot of talks, waiting for scores, whatever. And so when I, this is terrible to admit, but when I checked in, I was having this feeling of like, cause I was watching on YouTube TV, right? So I can see every single thing that's happening. It's all there.

• 1:34:27Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:34:28Dax Shepard?

  And I'm like, did they take some events out of the Winter Olympics? Like, what is it I like? I liked snowboarding, AKA Sean White. I loved watching him perform every year. That was an exciting thing.

• 1:34:41Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:34:41Dax Shepard?

  But I'm watching, like, the first thing I watched was people cross-country skiing for like three hours.

• 1:34:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was on my face.

• 1:34:47Dax Shepard?

  I was like, I don't know. And then another one was like, they were kinda cross-country skiing, but there was a little bit of downhill. I was like, still not very hair-raising. And I was like, what is my, I don't know.

• 1:34:59Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:34:59Dax Shepard?

  I got confused and then I just never went back.

• 1:35:02Speaker 01

  Sure. I like ice skating.

• 1:35:04Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:35:05Speaker 01

  A lot, but.

• 1:35:07Dax Shepard?

  I kind of even forgot about ice skating.

• 1:35:09Speaker 01

  Ice skating is the main one in my, for me.

• 1:35:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:12Speaker 01

  Um, I did watch a couple clips, uh, and there was a whole story about this, this Olympian who was in the Olympics, maybe a couple Olympics ago, and then she was really, really young and, um, was mistreated and was like, you know what? I'm like, not doing this anymore. She took life back into her own hands.

• 1:35:32Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, good person. Personal story.

• 1:35:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then she's back on her own, like, you know, two feet on the ice, yes, and she won.

• 1:35:41Dax Shepard?

  Oh, great.

• 1:35:42Speaker 01

  And it's like, great. And normally I'd be so into all of that, but.

• 1:35:47Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:48Speaker 01

  I don't know what happened.

• 1:35:49Dax Shepard?

  I don't either, but I was, I was, I was saddened that I wasn't interested in it.

• 1:35:54Speaker 04

  Hockey was fun this, this year.

• 1:35:56Dax Shepard?

  There we go, Rob. Thanks. Yeah, that's what I should have been watching. Hockey was.

• 1:36:00Speaker 04

  Men and women, US won.

• 1:36:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right. I did hear about that.

• 1:36:04Dax Shepard?

  Boys and girls.

• 1:36:05Speaker 04

  In overtime. It was the first time US beat Canada since.

• 1:36:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, see, all that's cool and like, and I didn't.

• 1:36:12Dax Shepard?

  I take away everything I just said.

• 1:36:14Speaker 01

  Well, no, you can't, you can't take away that you didn't care. And like, either did I, and I don't know why.

• 1:36:21Dax Shepard?

  My critique would have been to start day one with some more exciting stuff than the cross-country thing for three hours, maybe. But I bet there are people riveted by cross-country skiing.

• 1:36:32Speaker 01

  Course, there, there are.

• 1:36:33Dax Shepard?

  And there's people that watch the walk, the competitive walking.

• 1:36:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's people, there's, there's a lid for every pot.

• 1:36:41Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:42Speaker 01

  I forgot to tell you the other day that something weird happened. I almost got in another person's car.

• 1:36:47Dax Shepard?

  Oh, tell me.

• 1:36:48Speaker 01

  It was strange. I was leaving a place with Jess. It was at night and I had bad eyes. And I was a little sick. I don't know if that has anything to do with it. But we were walking and I start to get in his car.

• 1:37:05Dax Shepard?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:37:06Speaker 01

  And he was like, that's not mine. And I was like, oh, silly me.

• 1:37:11Dax Shepard?

  Dull.

• 1:37:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, silly me. And then I'm walking up further and, you know, there, there's his car with the light, like he had un.

• 1:37:20Dax Shepard?

  It's flashing, the light.

• 1:37:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, he had unlocked it so the, the lights come on. And so I go to get in the car. And then there's a man standing there and he says, that's my car. And I was like, oh, oh, oh my God, I'm so sorry.

• 1:37:35Dax Shepard?

  So you tried to get into two wrong cars?

• 1:37:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I look over and just as I cross the street.

• 1:37:40Dax Shepard?

  You were on the wrong side of the street, Monica?

• 1:37:42Speaker 01

  Well, we were both on the wrong side and then in that interim time when I saw the flashing lights and thought that was his, he had crossed.

• 1:37:51Dax Shepard?

  Were you tipsy?

• 1:37:52Speaker 01

  I, it was not that.

• 1:37:54Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:37:55Speaker 01

  Really not that. I, I was so, and I was like, what's going on?

• 1:37:58Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, cuz I, the, you lost me at wrong side of the street.

• 1:38:01Speaker 01

  Well.

• 1:38:02Dax Shepard?

  I think like you should have your bearings of which side of the street you guys parked on.

• 1:38:05Speaker 01

  Hmm, I get, I mean, I'm not very good at that. I, I don't know. We were both walking on that side.

• 1:38:13Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:38:14Speaker 01

  For a while, like down the sidewalk and then he just crossed in the middle.

• 1:38:18Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:38:19Speaker 01

  Where the car was, I, I guess. Nope, nope, this, he dropped me off to get in line.

• 1:38:25Dax Shepard?

  Okay. See, I knew there was an explanation. If you didn't remember what side of the street you parked on, that's, that's alarming.

• 1:38:32Speaker 01

  Okay, that is something that might happen to me, just FYI. I'm not good at directions. I'm not paying that much attention if I'm not driving.

• 1:38:39Dax Shepard?

  Right, right.

• 1:38:40Speaker 01

  Um, but he did drop me off to get in line, so I did not muscle memory know where the car was parked, that type of thing.

• 1:38:48Dax Shepard?

  Well, that explains that.

• 1:38:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it was still.

• 1:38:50Dax Shepard?

  Otherwise, you're in Strokeville.

• 1:38:52Speaker 01

  Right, right, right, right. Well, anyway, the ma, it was just, he was right there and he was like, um, that's my car. I was like, oh my God, I'm so sorry.

• 1:39:03Dax Shepard?

  I parked next to yours at your car and at the SAG night.

• 1:39:06Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:39:07Dax Shepard?

  SAG Awards.

• 1:39:07Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 1:39:08Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:39:08Speaker 01

  It needs a wash. Is that what you were thinking?

• 1:39:10Dax Shepard?

  Nope.

• 1:39:11Speaker 01

  Okay, it really needs a wash.

• 1:39:13Dax Shepard?

  I just thought, look at these two handsome cars.

• 1:39:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, great, very beautiful car.

• 1:39:18Dax Shepard?

  What are your plans with mom and dad?

• 1:39:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, my parents are coming today. I'm doing a tour of the rape treatment center. It's not funny.

• 1:39:25Dax Shepard?

  Okay, well, you're laughing pretty hard.

• 1:39:27Speaker 01

  It's not funny.

• 1:39:28Dax Shepard?

  I'm not, just for the record.

• 1:39:30Speaker 01

  Is not funny at all.

• 1:39:32Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:39:33Speaker 01

  But I am, I had planned to do that for a, a while.

• 1:39:36Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:39:37Speaker 01

  And I was like, oh, I can't cancel it. Like, that's for one, bad.

• 1:39:42Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:43Speaker 01

  And two, I wanna do it and the, but it's like, I don't know that my parents.

• 1:39:49Dax Shepard?

  That might not be for them.

• 1:39:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know that.

• 1:39:51Dax Shepard?

  It's not like a fun, you're on vacation, let's go to the.

• 1:39:53Speaker 01

  Let's go tour the rape treatment center.

• 1:39:55Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:39:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't.

• 1:39:57Dax Shepard?

  And is it psychological treatment? That's what they're offering or?

• 1:40:00Speaker 01

  No, they offer physi- like, it's like-

• 1:40:03Dax Shepard?

  Rate kits?

• 1:40:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, it's kind of like, instead of going to a hospital, you can go to the rate treatment center.

• 1:40:09Dax Shepard?

  Oh, great, yeah, yeah.

• 1:40:10Speaker 01

  And it's-

• 1:40:11Dax Shepard?

  And get your examiner, yeah, uh-huh.

• 1:40:13Speaker 01

  And, and there is like psychological resources and legal resources and things-

• 1:40:20Dax Shepard?

  Okay, great.

• 1:40:21Speaker 01

  And it's, um, it's a really cool thing. So, uh, I am gonna do that, but I think I'll probably leave them at home for that.

• 1:40:29Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, let them, you know, lounge around the house a little bit. Maybe that's when I'll take your dad out for a beer and ask him about his previous girlfriends. I almost forgot my objective for this trip. Find out about past lovers for your parents. Remember I said I was gonna ask them?

• 1:40:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:42Dax Shepard?

  Their dating history?

• 1:40:43Speaker 01

  I'm not sure if we're gonna have time for that. Um, yeah, so, I think that's really, we're just gonna like be, there's, they're very, very excited to see the house-

• 1:40:55Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:56Speaker 01

  And stay in the house, cuz normally, my apartment was so small, you know, they, they stayed in a hotel when they came to visit.

• 1:41:01Dax Shepard?

  And they would just come in, you'd get ready, and y'all leave to go somewhere.

• 1:41:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:41:06Dax Shepard?

  Now your mom can watch her YouTube.

• 1:41:08Speaker 01

  Shit, she will.

• 1:41:09Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:10Speaker 01

  She'll watch her YouTube.

• 1:41:11Dax Shepard?

  I wonder what she's, uh, what, what she's got her fangs into right now?

• 1:41:14Speaker 01

  I wonder, I mean, I'm-

• 1:41:15Dax Shepard?

  Is there any trials going on, or?

• 1:41:17Speaker 01

  Uh, I mean, I'm sure she is very knowledgeable on everything that's going on with Epstein.

• 1:41:25Dax Shepard?

  Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure.

• 1:41:26Speaker 01

  So that's probably the main, the main thing she's consuming right now would be my guess.

• 1:41:30Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:31Speaker 01

  But I don't really know, I'm, I will find out.

• 1:41:33Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:33Speaker 01

  Um, and, yeah, and they'll get to like go make their coffees and stuff, and it'll be really nice. It'll be really nice to have them. I did my final walk-through of the apartment today.

• 1:41:46Dax Shepard?

  To turn it back over?

• 1:41:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:47Dax Shepard?

  What's that experience like?

• 1:41:49Speaker 01

  Um, it was goo- I mean, it was good, it was sad. It's sad to say bye to something and the chapter.

• 1:41:57Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:57Speaker 01

  It was also weird cuz it's empty and I haven't seen it like that since I got it. And I was like, oh, yeah, like, it was, I remembered going to see it and, um, Lincoln came with me, I remember.

• 1:42:10Dax Shepard?

  Oh. For the first walk through.

• 1:42:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, to go check it out. Um, and that was a long time ago.

• 1:42:16Dax Shepard?

  I thought, I know you already know this, but um, I was sad to leave our old house. And I thought I was gonna be really sad. And then we left and I've never thought about it again. I've been shocked with the fact that I don't think about it at all. Cause it held a very, it's like the epicenter of some of my favorite memories and experiences. I have such warm feelings about it, but I don't at all miss it. And I thought I was going to.

• 1:42:39Speaker 01

  But don't you think that's kind of in keeping with?

• 1:42:41Dax Shepard?

  My personality?

• 1:42:43Speaker 01

  Cause like same thing with relationships, like you still have an affinity, you like, you like love the time and the people. But you're not like an, you're not like missing them. I mean, you've told me that maybe that's incorrect, but.

• 1:42:55Dax Shepard?

  Elaborate, give me an example.

• 1:42:57Speaker 01

  Uh, I guess that's just something you've told me. That like, you don't yearn for any past relationship, that it's like.

• 1:43:04Dax Shepard?

  I don't yearn to be romantically. Romantically involved with any of my exes, but I still love being friends with them.

• 1:43:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what I just said. You still love the people.

• 1:43:14Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I thought you were saying that when I walk away, that they're dead to me and I don't ever think about them again.

• 1:43:18Speaker 01

  But that you, you still have an affinity and a fondness and there's like all these positive associations and you, you love them as people. But yeah, you're not like, oh, like, you don't miss them.

• 1:43:31Dax Shepard?

  Kiss, well, no, I miss them as friends, but I don't wanna kiss them. I was always saying this in reference to a lot of people have a pattern of hooking up with exes. Which is great. I don't, I don't care about, I'm not suggesting I have a moral position on it. I just have not had that. I've not had a pattern of hooking up with my ex-girlfriends. That part to me when we sever has.

• 1:43:58Speaker 01

  It's over, yeah.

• 1:44:00Dax Shepard?

  The romantic part. But the friendship part and the missing them and wanting to connect with them, for sure, I still have that. I'll randomly. Carrie will find, Carrie, my girlfriend in high school, I was with for like five years. She will, she knows, she and I love the same kind of music. She'll find a new album and she'll send it to me.

• 1:44:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:21Dax Shepard?

  And I love it and then we'll, we'll have like seven exchanges about it. And I go, oh, Carrie's still so fun and so engaged in devouring life and finding new things. And I'm proud of her. She's maintained the essence of who she, who she was when I met her that I found so appealing about her.

• 1:44:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:40Dax Shepard?

  And then I'll talk to Bree and she's on fire for innumerable things. Second time I've said innumerable, which is questionable.

• 1:44:47Speaker 01

  Maybe it's your new word.

• 1:44:48Dax Shepard?

  I hope not. And I get this swell of excitement that she is still held on to that sparkly curiosity. Yeah. And.

• 1:45:00Speaker 01

  But that's different. You like, that's different than what I'm, than what a lot of people feel, like that there's.

• 1:45:07Dax Shepard?

  But I do have what you're saying about objects, which kind of shocks me because I have coveted objects so much my whole life.

• 1:45:18Dax Shepard?

  And then when I don't have them, I don't think about them anymore.

• 1:45:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:45:21Dax Shepard?

  Which is a little shocking to me because I wanted them so bad or I coveted them so bad. And then when they're gone, I'm like, I don't even really remember that I cared about objects.

• 1:45:31Speaker 01

  That house is a big, big object.

• 1:45:33Dax Shepard?

  It is. And it's like, it's, it's, it's symbolic. It, it's a marker of your life and, and your accomplishments.

• 1:45:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:42Dax Shepard?

  It can represent so much.

• 1:45:44Speaker 01

  It does.

• 1:45:45Dax Shepard?

  And then I see videos of the kids playing in that little area we had between the kitchen and the living room. That was like their zone.

• 1:45:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:53Dax Shepard?

  And I go, oh yeah, I love sitting on the couch and watching them be little babies.

• 1:45:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:58Dax Shepard?

  But I don't need to walk back in there. That's the weird part.

• 1:46:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. It wasn't like, I wasn't like, oh, like I wasn't like devastated, but I was like, yeah, this is like the end of the era.

• 1:46:08Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:09Speaker 01

  That's.

• 1:46:10Dax Shepard?

  A chapter's closing.

• 1:46:11Speaker 01

  And, and sad.

• 1:46:14Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:15Speaker 01

  Just when new things start, it's like, yeah, there's no going back. Like there's no. No, it's just, it's just a reminder that like time keeps moving and you can't pause it. You can't go back. Um, and that's, you know.

• 1:46:29Dax Shepard?

  We have a guest today after this fact check, whose book is about consciousness.

• 1:46:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:34Dax Shepard?

  And so I'm really locked into this book and thinking about life and consciousness. And yeah, many of the experts that he interviewed for this book try to explain that like thought is. There was a traditional way of thinking, which is like, uh, Rene Descartes, which is like, I think therefore I am. And thoughts are one thought built to top another and it's kind of, um, one thing leads to another. And there's other people who think more like it's a stream. There's no marker of this thought led to this thought. There's just this, and, and you'll never have the same thought or consciousness ever again, is a fascinating thing.

• 1:47:18Dax Shepard?

  And it's what you're saying. It's like, life's moving forward and it's taking with it everything that preceded it. And so it can't ever be the same because more things are preceding it. And the way we rewrite memories every time we think of them.

• 1:47:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:34Dax Shepard?

  Like your brain's evolving nonstop. Your experience on earth is, is, is evolving nonstop. And that can feel scary and, and maybe untethered. But it is the nature and facts of life. And I think the discomfort's when you're fighting that.

• 1:47:53Speaker 01

  Right. I think it's, it's, uh, you can feel untethered, but you're also just reminded of mortality. It's like, oh yeah, like that phase is over. Now I'm in this phase. There'll be another. And how many more do I have? Not very, who knows?

• 1:48:06Dax Shepard?

  We know the ultimate phase.

• 1:48:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So, um, but it, and then sort of ding, ding, ding with relationships. Probably like people who do.

• 1:48:20Speaker 01

  Hook up with their exes and stuff like it's probably more about that like wanting to go back in time as opposed to like I miss this person. I mean, maybe obviously there's a million reasons why, but I bet a lot of it is like I I miss me then I miss that time of my life and that person is connected to that time. So I want to like click into that.

• 1:48:43Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. And I think, yes, that's the Esther thing, which I love is like people are cheating on you with themselves. They want to visit a version of themselves from the past.

• 1:48:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:54Dax Shepard?

  But I think the easy cycle to get into with going back to exes is with some time away. When you come back, you can revisit the initial easy uncomplicated phase of it.

• 1:49:08Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:49:09Dax Shepard?

  And that is very pleasurable, but the complications arise immediately after.

• 1:49:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:14Dax Shepard?

  But I think you succumb to the joy of getting to relive the, the part that was easy, the falling in love part.

• 1:49:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:23Dax Shepard?

  And then I just think quickly it ends up exactly what it always is.

• 1:49:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:28Dax Shepard?

  And I think that's the cycle that's appealing is like, oh, I want to go back to the original moment.

• 1:49:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:49:34Dax Shepard?

  We fell in love and it was so easy and.

• 1:49:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:38Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. Complicated.

• 1:49:40Dax Shepard?

  Complicated.

• 1:49:42Speaker 01

  Um, should we do some facts?

• 1:49:46Speaker 03

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert. If you dare.

• 1:49:52Dax Shepard?

  We are supported by HP. My mental to do list is already full. Uh, fix something around the house, refill prescriptions, remember to text someone back. Keep track of a million little life things. The last thing I want on that list is, oh, don't forget printer ink.

• 1:50:08Speaker 01

  No, it's horrible.

• 1:50:09Dax Shepard?

  It's the bane of everyone's existence. What if you could just take that off your list for years?

• 1:50:14Speaker 01

  The dream.

• 1:50:15Dax Shepard?

  That's the idea behind the HP Smart Tank printer from America's most trusted printer brand. Instead of those tiny cartridges that always seem to run out at the worst time, the HP Smart Tank uses a refillable ink tank and it comes with up to three years of ink and It's built to be simple, the easiest tank printer you'll ever use with the best print quality. Period. It's the last printer you'll ever need. I've definitely been in this situation where something that should take two minutes turns into a whole thing. Like I need to print tickets and get out the door, but then I realize I'm out of ink and have to deal with it right then. With the HP Smart Tank, that's just not something you're dealing with all the time. It's one of those things that just works when you need it to.

• 1:50:56Dax Shepard?

  If you want to take one more thing off your mental to do list, search for HP Smart Tank.

• 1:51:07Speaker 01

  Okay, Amir Attachment.

• 1:51:10Dax Shepard?

  Had you read this book? I mean, this book was wildly popular.

• 1:51:13Speaker 01

  So popular. I had not read it. I just heard so much about it.

• 1:51:18Dax Shepard?

  You had.

• 1:51:18Speaker 01

  And I looked into the theories and stuff.

• 1:51:21Dax Shepard?

  I wasn't aware of the book. I know I was aware that people were talking about attachment theory a lot.

• 1:51:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:25Dax Shepard?

  But I just assumed that's in the same way people are talking about ADHD. Or whatever, that that was just the thing we were.

• 1:51:32Speaker 01

  Obsessed with.

• 1:51:33Dax Shepard?

  Zeitgeisty, but I didn't realize there was such a specific origin for it all.

• 1:51:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I find it very intriguing.

• 1:51:41Dax Shepard?

  You do?

• 1:51:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:51:42Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I talked about it.

• 1:51:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:44Dax Shepard?

  I found myself talking about it a bit.

• 1:51:46Speaker 01

  It's just interesting that we all do have ways of relating to others that are kind of predictable, well worn.

• 1:51:56Dax Shepard?

  I thought the thing that I was most interested in is I love anything that's counterintuitive, which is your attachment styles as a child has nothing to do with your attachment style as an adult.

• 1:52:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:06Dax Shepard?

  Like you would, I would have thought it just led into your permanent, they set this attachment style.

• 1:52:11Speaker 01

  Totally, yes.

• 1:52:12Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:12Speaker 01

  I thought that too. It made me think about a couple of people in my life that have very secure attachments.

• 1:52:18Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:52:19Speaker 01

  And I was like, huh, yeah, they don't, they're not threatened, they're totally chill.

• 1:52:25Dax Shepard?

  Taking stuff personal.

• 1:52:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:26Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:27Speaker 01

  It's pretty admirable.

• 1:52:28Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:28Speaker 01

  Okay, now he told the story of his dad, like, you know, throwing the penny or the coin when the president was in town.

• 1:52:37Dax Shepard?

  Oh, uh huh.

• 1:52:38Speaker 01

  And I was trying to figure out which president it was, and I can't figure out Amir's age.

• 1:52:43Dax Shepard?

  That's not known on the internet?

• 1:52:44Speaker 01

  I didn't, I couldn't, I didn't see it on the internet. Maybe Rob, maybe you'll see it, but I didn't see it. So my guess is gonna be it was in the nineties.

• 1:52:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, no public information. Well.

• 1:52:57Dax Shepard?

  How on earth could you be alive in the era of the internet and your age not be known?

• 1:53:01Speaker 04

  Is he 50, around there, I think? Cause there's a Amir Levine born on April 22nd, 1975.

• 1:53:08Dax Shepard?

  So he, he would have probably been talking about Reagan or Carter.

• 1:53:12Speaker 01

  If it was in the eighties, but if it was in the nineties, could have been Clinton.

• 1:53:17Dax Shepard?

  But he would have been more teenager.

• 1:53:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:53:22Dax Shepard?

  Versus a little boy?

• 1:53:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I couldn't tell exactly his age. I mean, I guess he was small enough that he was a little anxious.

• 1:53:28Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:53:29Speaker 01

  Carter visited in 79.

• 1:53:32Dax Shepard?

  So four years old.

• 1:53:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, four years old if he was born in 75, maybe.

• 1:53:37Dax Shepard?

  Maybe.

• 1:53:38Speaker 01

  Clinton started his visits in 94.

• 1:53:40Dax Shepard?

  Where was he visiting?

• 1:53:41Speaker 01

  Uh, Israel.

• 1:53:42Dax Shepard?

  Oh, Israel.

• 1:53:43Speaker 01

  The 1980s saw high level diplomatic tension, particularly under Reagan, with key meetings occurring in DC rather than Israel.

• 1:53:50Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 1:53:51Speaker 01

  So maybe he didn't really go there.

• 1:53:53Dax Shepard?

  Right. I'm sure Carter went there.

• 1:53:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, he did. He visited in 79.

• 1:53:58Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. He went to a bunch of places presidents hadn't gone in a long time. He was known for that.

• 1:54:03Speaker 01

  From Georgia.

• 1:54:04Dax Shepard?

  Peanut farmer.

• 1:54:05Speaker 01

  Yep. This has no US president made an official state visit to Israel during the 1980s. It said Carter 79 and then Clinton in 94.

• 1:54:16Dax Shepard?

  Oh boy, big gap, 14 years.

• 1:54:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. We're gonna go with Carter.

• 1:54:21Dax Shepard?

  We're sticking with Carter. That's our final guess.

• 1:54:23Speaker 01

  Yep. Um, primates, middle of the food chain. Primates generally occupy the middle of the food chain. Acting as both consumers of plants, insects, and as prey for larger predators. I wanted to figure out top of the food chain.

• 1:54:41Dax Shepard?

  If it goes by continent, I'd like to guess.

• 1:54:43Speaker 01

  Okay, we can do environment.

• 1:54:45Dax Shepard?

  Okay. You could also do apex predators in other search.

• 1:54:50Speaker 01

  Apex predators are the, are at the top of the food chain is the first thing it says.

• 1:54:55Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:54:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:55Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. So in Africa, that continent, I think it's the lion. And then in the subcontinent, India, I think it's the tiger. In fact, I think it's the tiger through all of Asia.

• 1:55:06Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:55:08Dax Shepard?

  And into Russia, except for the polar bear in the Arctic, I think is the apex predator. And then I think in the Americas, it's the grizzly bear.

• 1:55:17Speaker 01

  Okay. Okay.

• 1:55:20Dax Shepard?

  Although we also have polar bears in the Americas, but.

• 1:55:22Speaker 01

  So this.

• 1:55:23Dax Shepard?

  And then in South America, I would say it's the jaguar.

• 1:55:27Speaker 01

  All right. Well, this says apex predators are at the top of the food chain, acting as the highest tropic level, tropic level with no natural predators. In various ecosystems, these include lions, tigers, polar bears, orcas, and great white sharks. Humans are also considered top predators capable of affecting or being the absolute peak of many food chains. Now, this also breaks it down by environment. Land, lions, tigers, wolves, polar bears, and grizzly bears.

• 1:55:57Dax Shepard?

  Grizzlies.

• 1:55:58Speaker 01

  Ocean, orcas, great white sharks, and leopard seals.

• 1:56:03Dax Shepard?

  Mmm.

• 1:56:03Speaker 01

  Air, bald eagles, golden eagles, and other large raptors.

• 1:56:09Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, raptors. I love raptors.

• 1:56:11Speaker 01

  Reptiles, saltwater crocodiles, and Komodo dragons.

• 1:56:16Dax Shepard?

  Oh, Komodo dragon.

• 1:56:18Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh.

• 1:56:19Dax Shepard?

  Tell me about them. I guess you're with a saliva, it's nasty. Komodo.

• 1:56:24Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:56:26Dax Shepard?

  Komodo.

• 1:56:27Speaker 01

  He loves her stinky mouth.

• 1:56:29Dax Shepard?

  Oh, I guess you can smell them from quite a distance, those Komodo dragons.

• 1:56:33Speaker 01

  I'm sure.

• 1:56:33Dax Shepard?

  Foul, bacteria-laden jaws.

• 1:56:36Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:56:36Dax Shepard?

  Become poison.

• 1:56:37Speaker 01

  Speaking of that, have you noticed like that there's like somebody in your life who has not good breath?

• 1:56:48Dax Shepard?

  Mm, mm, mm. As we've discussed, I'm very sensitive, hypersensitive to bad breath.

• 1:56:53Speaker 01

  But it's like, it's bad, but it's not like, it's not.

• 1:56:57Dax Shepard?

  Objectively offensive?

• 1:56:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so it's like, I kind of think I'm the only one who notices this. And it's an unexpected person. I'm not gonna say who.

• 1:57:06Dax Shepard?

  Okay, great.

• 1:57:06Speaker 01

  I don't think anyone else thinks this.

• 1:57:09Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:57:09Speaker 01

  I've never been, no one's ever said it.

• 1:57:12Dax Shepard?

  Gossiped about it?

• 1:57:12Speaker 01

  Exactly. No one's ever said anything to me alluding to the fact that that's the case.

• 1:57:17Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:17Speaker 01

  And, um, but yeah. It is repetitive for me.

• 1:57:21Dax Shepard?

  It's rough. I mean, I had a friend who I could stop going to the movies with. I couldn't, just sitting next to them at the movies, all I could smell was their breath. And I just was like, I can't, I can't do it. I blame me, but I couldn't do it.

• 1:57:34Speaker 01

  And I just wonder though, is it pheromones? Because why can't you guys smell what I'm smelling?

• 1:57:41Dax Shepard?

  I think obviously we all smell different things and we're, we're sensitive to different odors. Some, I mean, again, I see people who are in relationships with people who I think have wretched breath. And I think, well, they can't smell it.

• 1:57:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:57:56Dax Shepard?

  There's no way.

• 1:57:57Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:57:57Dax Shepard?

  Cause they're kissing and loving and right.

• 1:57:59Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:58:00Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I don't think, or they're just not sensitive to smell, period.

• 1:58:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:04Dax Shepard?

  Because I just think like, I just, I can't, it's a deal breaker for me.

• 1:58:07Speaker 01

  Same.

• 1:58:08Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:09Speaker 01

  But I just wonder also if it's actually more, is breath actually, I mean, maybe there's, there's obviously halitosis. There's some objective stuff, but maybe the rest of it is just pheromones.

• 1:58:21Dax Shepard?

  Well, I also think there's certain medical conditions that give you kind of a predictable outcome. And I'm gonna leave it at that.

• 1:58:27Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, I just, I, I just, I was, I was somewhere and I had already thought it and then it was happening again.

• 1:58:33Dax Shepard?

  What kind of activities you do with the person? Cause there's certain things where it's not an issue.

• 1:58:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:38Dax Shepard?

  And there are others where like, again, the movies, you're sitting like,

• 1:58:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:41Dax Shepard?

  Your, your mouths and noses are, are what, 18 inches apart.

• 1:58:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:58:46Dax Shepard?

  And so that might be a non-starter. Like, I love this person, but I'm just not gonna go to the movies with them. That's, that was my decision.

• 1:58:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's interesting. I, um.

• 1:58:55Dax Shepard?

  And then there's also, there's the case too, where someone's, they have that and then they also tend to talk close and you're constantly trying to keep your distance and then you wonder if it's obvious.

• 1:59:06Dax Shepard?

  I think the only one I'm unsympathetic to or unforgiving of is, um, I think when you're a dentist, you've got to be on it like no one's ever been on their breath.

• 1:59:16Speaker 01

  Yes, we've talked about this.

• 1:59:17Dax Shepard?

  Because they are in your nose. They work in your nose.

• 1:59:20Speaker 01

  But they normally, they often, the hygienists often have masks on.

• 1:59:24Dax Shepard?

  Do a goddamn thing. If you have shit breath and you got a little paper between there, forget it. That's not, no way. Have your friend wear a mask. Just make up a reason why it's cute if they wear a mask and see, you're still gonna smell it.

• 1:59:37Speaker 01

  It's not that strong. That's the thing. It's not like.

• 1:59:41Dax Shepard?

  You're making a mountain out of a molehill?

• 1:59:43Speaker 01

  I mean, no, I just, I've just noticed it many times and I just wonder if anyone else has noticed it. And I don't think they have, which has just led me to believe, oh, this is something like pheromonal.

• 1:59:56Dax Shepard?

  It's me. You're like, it's me.

• 1:59:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's, it's.

• 2:00:00Dax Shepard?

  Which again is possible.

• 2:00:01Speaker 01

  Well, it's not me. It's the way I, it's the way, yeah, my nose perceives.

• 2:00:07Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I'm smelling an odor here that other people don't smell, in which case I'm saying it's you.

• 2:00:12Speaker 01

  Well, right. I mean.

• 2:00:14Dax Shepard?

  Like you're the anomaly.

• 2:00:16Speaker 01

  I'm the anomaly, I think, yeah.

• 2:00:18Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:19Speaker 01

  But I don't actually know. Maybe I'm not, maybe.

• 2:00:22Dax Shepard?

  You could ask around.

• 2:00:23Speaker 01

  I could ask around. It feels really mean to do that.

• 2:00:27Dax Shepard?

  Oh, man, I, I couldn't feel worse for someone who just can't. Help it. I mean, my God, I, I really feel terrible.

• 2:00:35Speaker 01

  It's also because it's a specific, it is a specific smell.

• 2:00:39Dax Shepard?

  A note.

• 2:00:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a note. So I know in that case, it is, it is a little pheromonal because it's not like, oh, this person ate something a second ago or something like.

• 2:00:51Dax Shepard?

  They don't smell like a hot dog. They smell like their body.

• 2:00:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00:55Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:55Speaker 01

  It's interesting. It's very interesting.

• 2:00:58Dax Shepard?

  You should ask if you can smell their armpits and their groin to see if it's consistent everywhere.

• 2:01:04Speaker 01

  I mean, it's, this is a very, this.

• 2:01:07Dax Shepard?

  Do you think people with better, more secure attachment styles don't smell odors as much?

• 2:01:13Speaker 01

  Maybe, maybe.

• 2:01:16Dax Shepard?

  I think everything just ticks up.

• 2:01:18Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:01:18Dax Shepard?

  When you were listening to all this stuff, did you self-assess as being any part of this spectrum?

• 2:01:23Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, we talked about it in the, in the episode. I definitely feel like I have an anxious attachment.

• 2:01:28Dax Shepard?

  Anxious attachment.

• 2:01:29Speaker 01

  And you were saying you felt like you did lean a little avoidant.

• 2:01:32Dax Shepard?

  When I was young. But the more I read about it, I was like, I think I'm secure attachment. I think that's what I felt in general after learning all about the thing.

• 2:01:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:42Dax Shepard?

  But then I thought, oh, no, I was, I used to be avoidant. And then I think, yeah, you can change.

• 2:01:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:48Dax Shepard?

  Just like the stuff I don't take person, like again, back to like the Instagram stuff, all this kind of stuff that drives people nuts. That I know that just I don't even think about.

• 2:01:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:58Dax Shepard?

  Or getting invited to things or all that kind of stuff. I don't.

• 2:02:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Um, well, we can find out.

• 2:02:05Dax Shepard?

  Is there a test?

• 2:02:06Speaker 01

  Yes. I know I can count on my friends to be there for me if I'm going through a rough time. And we got our normals. Agree strongly. Agree. Neutral. Disagree. Strongly disagree.

• 2:02:14Dax Shepard?

  Uh, strongly agree.

• 2:02:15Speaker 01

  I sometimes feel like I'm not good enough for my loved ones.

• 2:02:18Dax Shepard?

  Um, strongly disagree.

• 2:02:19Speaker 01

  I feel uncomfortable when my friends or family act like they rely on me.

• 2:02:23Dax Shepard?

  Hmm. What's the middle?

• 2:02:24Speaker 01

  Neutral.

• 2:02:25Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:26Speaker 01

  And then there's disagree and agree, and then strongly.

• 2:02:29Dax Shepard?

  I would say neutral.

• 2:02:30Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:02:30Dax Shepard?

  Again, that has evolved.

• 2:02:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:02:32Dax Shepard?

  I used to felt feel burdened by that.

• 2:02:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:35Dax Shepard?

  And now I feel lucky as much as I feel burdened. That puts me at neutral.

• 2:02:39Speaker 01

  Okay. I always make the first move, but usually become disinterested after I get what I want.

• 2:02:45Dax Shepard?

  I disagree.

• 2:02:45Speaker 01

  Disagree.

• 2:02:46Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:46Speaker 01

  I know I can be my true self in relationships. Once I have enough time to get comfortable.

• 2:02:51Dax Shepard?

  Hundred percent.

• 2:02:52Speaker 01

  I sometimes hold back on relationships because I feel that if I share too much about myself, I might get hurt.

• 2:02:57Dax Shepard?

  I wish.

• 2:02:58Speaker 01

  Strongly disagree. I tend to worry that my loved ones don't love me as much as I love them.

• 2:03:03Dax Shepard?

  Strongly disagree.

• 2:03:04Speaker 01

  I consider myself a good friend and a good partner.

• 2:03:07Dax Shepard?

  Strongly agree.

• 2:03:07Speaker 01

  I stay away from long-term relationships.

• 2:03:10Dax Shepard?

  No, I've had nothing but long-term relationships.

• 2:03:12Speaker 01

  So strongly disagree.

• 2:03:13Dax Shepard?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:03:14Speaker 01

  Okay, being alone sometimes scares me.

• 2:03:17Dax Shepard?

  I'd strongly disagree. Although, you know, I did, I ex- I experienced great boredom last week. Being alone on a Saturday night.

• 2:03:25Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 2:03:26Dax Shepard?

  Cause I had to, Christmas was due to play and Lincoln had a play date.

• 2:03:30Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:03:31Dax Shepard?

  So at first I was like, cool, I have my whole night to myself. And then I watched like three episodes of Fallout in a row. And I was like, I wanna be with somebody.

• 2:03:41Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 2:03:43Dax Shepard?

  I was like, I'm bored with just myself watching the show. Yeah, yeah. I was like, I am, I am tragically social.

• 2:03:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:52Dax Shepard?

  It hit me.

• 2:03:52Speaker 01

  I like going out with friends and family, but I still value my personal time and space.

• 2:03:56Dax Shepard?

  I mean, I prefer being out with people than I do by myself, but I'm not afraid to be myself. I don't know. What does that make me?

• 2:04:02Speaker 01

  You do value your personal time and space. You're always like, why are there so many people here? Why?

• 2:04:06Dax Shepard?

  Oh, space. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:04:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, so.

• 2:04:09Dax Shepard?

  So what does that mean? I agree?

• 2:04:11Speaker 01

  I think you agree.

• 2:04:12Dax Shepard?

  Okay, I'll agree.

• 2:04:13Speaker 01

  I don't like relying on others and that way I avoid getting disappointed.

• 2:04:18Dax Shepard?

  Uh, agree.

• 2:04:21Speaker 01

  I find it

• 2:04:21Dax Shepard?

  You know what? Strongly agree.

• 2:04:23Speaker 01

  Uh oh.

• 2:04:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I gotta be honest.

• 2:04:24Speaker 01

  I think it's too late.

• 2:04:25Dax Shepard?

  Okay, that's fine.

• 2:04:26Speaker 01

  I find it difficult to express love even when I feel it.

• 2:04:29Dax Shepard?

  Strongly disagree.

• 2:04:30Speaker 01

  I prefer casual flings than serious relationships.

• 2:04:33Dax Shepard?

  Disagree.

• 2:04:34Speaker 01

  I avoid arguments with my partners, friends, or family to avoid the chance of losing them.

• 2:04:38Dax Shepard?

  Strongly disagree.

• 2:04:39Speaker 01

  Sometimes I want to be completely alone and then suddenly change to feeling like I need around people to be around.

• 2:04:45Dax Shepard?

  Oh, that just happened Saturday night. Agree.

• 2:04:47Speaker 01

  Agree. I never make the first move in a potential relationship for fear of being rejected.

• 2:04:51Dax Shepard?

  Strongly disagree.

• 2:04:53Speaker 01

  My friends and family often tell me that they feel like they don't really know me.

• 2:04:56Dax Shepard?

  Oh, never. Strongly disagree.

• 2:04:59Speaker 01

  If my partner went on a trip without me, I'd miss them but would ultimately be happy that they're having fun.

• 2:05:03Dax Shepard?

  Strongly agree.

• 2:05:04Speaker 01

  A big portion of my self-esteem and self-worth comes from my relationships with other people.

• 2:05:08Dax Shepard?

  Oh, strongly agree.

• 2:05:10Speaker 01

  Sometimes when I feel like I'm getting too close to someone, I get scared and start to push them, pushing them away.

• 2:05:15Dax Shepard?

  Strongly disagree.

• 2:05:16Speaker 01

  I feel bad when my loved ones do things without inviting me.

• 2:05:19Dax Shepard?

  Disagree.

• 2:05:19Speaker 01

  I trust that the people I love want what's best for me.

• 2:05:22Dax Shepard?

  The people that love me?

• 2:05:23Speaker 01

  I trust that the people I love want what's best for me.

• 2:05:26Dax Shepard?

  Agree.

• 2:05:27Speaker 01

  I much prefer being alone, but I'll attend social engagements if I'm required to.

• 2:05:30Dax Shepard?

  Disagree.

• 2:05:31Speaker 01

  Even when things get tough, I feel confident that my partner will support me and will work through challenges together.

• 2:05:36Dax Shepard?

  Strongly agree.

• 2:05:37Speaker 01

  I often find myself over-analyzing interactions with my partner, wondering if they truly understand my feelings and intentions.

• 2:05:43Dax Shepard?

  Disagree.

• 2:05:43Speaker 01

  Sometimes I push people away when they get too close, even though deep down I crave connection and intimacy.

• 2:05:48Dax Shepard?

  Strongly disagree.

• 2:05:49Speaker 01

  It's hard for me to relax in relationships because I'm always worrying about whether my loved ones truly care about me.

• 2:05:54Dax Shepard?

  Strongly disagree.

• 2:05:55Speaker 01

  I prefer to keep my emotions to myself, believing that vulnerability only leads to unnecessary complications and potential disappointment.

• 2:06:01Dax Shepard?

  Hmm. Can I go neutral on that one?

• 2:06:03Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. I enjoy spending time with my friends and family, knowing that we can share both good times and bad times with each other.

• 2:06:08Dax Shepard?

  Strongly agree. It's really funny to answer these questions in my mind because I have like two different families. Which one are we talking about? Are we talking about the family I created or the one I was born into?

• 2:06:17Speaker 01

  Right. I feel uncomfortable when people get too emotionally close to me. I value my independence and personal space.

• 2:06:26Dax Shepard?

  Emotionally dependent on me, that was part of the question?

• 2:06:28Speaker 01

  I feel uncomfortable when people get too emotionally close to me. I value my independence and process.

• 2:06:32Dax Shepard?

  Okay, I disagree.

• 2:06:34Speaker 01

  Okay. Knowing that I have a strong support system of friends and family gives me the confidence to tackle life's challenges with optimism and resilience.

• 2:06:41Dax Shepard?

  I disagree.

• 2:06:42Speaker 01

  I worry that if I show vulnerability or express my needs in relationships, I'll end up being rejected or abandoned.

• 2:06:48Dax Shepard?

  I'd go neutral.

• 2:06:49Speaker 01

  I appreciate the balance between independence and closeness in my relationships, allowing me to pursue my own interests while still feeling connected to others.

• 2:06:56Dax Shepard?

  Strongly agree.

• 2:06:57Speaker 01

  I often find myself feeling anxious about the state of my relationships, constantly seeking reassurance from my partner or friends to alleviate my doubts.

• 2:07:04Dax Shepard?

  Strongly disagree.

• 2:07:05Speaker 01

  I prefer to handle my problems on my own rather than relying on others for support or advice.

• 2:07:09Dax Shepard?

  Agree. Maybe size, yeah.

• 2:07:13Speaker 01

  My mind often races with thoughts about potential conflicts or misunderstandings in my relationships, making it difficult to fully enjoy moments of connection without worrying about the future.

• 2:07:21Dax Shepard?

  Strongly disagree.

• 2:07:22Speaker 01

  When I face challenges, I feel reassured knowing that my friends will offer their support and encouragement without judgment.

• 2:07:27Dax Shepard?

  Neutral.

• 2:07:28Speaker 01

  I tend to seek constant validation from my friends and romantic partners to reassure myself of their love and commitment.

• 2:07:34Dax Shepard?

  Well, that's a tricky one, because I definitely like endless validation, but it's not to reassure myself that they like me.

• 2:07:40Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 2:07:41Dax Shepard?

  So I'm gonna go neutral. I just enjoy validation.

• 2:07:44Speaker 01

  I tend to downplay the importance of romantic relationships in my life, focusing instead of my individual goals and interests.

• 2:07:50Dax Shepard?

  Disagree.

• 2:07:50Speaker 01

  Despite craving intimacy and connection, I struggle to fully trust others and often find myself holding back out of fear of being hurt or abandoned.

• 2:07:57Dax Shepard?

  Strongly disagree.

• 2:07:58Speaker 01

  I value the mutual trust and respect in my relationships, which allows me to be my authentic self without fear of rejection.

• 2:08:04Dax Shepard?

  Strongly agree.

• 2:08:05Speaker 01

  Spending quality time with loved ones fills me with a sense of warmth and security, knowing that we have each other's backs no matter what.

• 2:08:10Dax Shepard?

  Strongly agree.

• 2:08:11Speaker 01

  I have a tendency to push people away when they try to get close to me, fearing that allowing them in will only lead to disappointment or betrayal.

• 2:08:17Dax Shepard?

  Strongly disagree.

• 2:08:18Speaker 01

  Despite my efforts, I struggle to shake off the feeling of insecurity that lingers in my mind, questioning whether I'm truly valued and loved by those closest to me.

• 2:08:26Dax Shepard?

  Disagree.

• 2:08:26Speaker 01

  I find it challenging to open up to others about my innermost thoughts and feelings, preferring to maintain a sense of distance to protect myself from potential rejection.

• 2:08:33Dax Shepard?

  Disagree.

• 2:08:34Speaker 01

  The fear of rejection or betrayal sometimes prevents me from fully investing in relationships, leaving me feeling stuck in a cycle of longing for connection while simultaneously fearing it.

• 2:08:44Dax Shepard?

  Strongly disagree.

• 2:08:44Speaker 01

  Independence is important to me, and I prioritize maintaining autonomy in my relationships, often avoiding becoming too reliant on others for emotional support or validation.

• 2:08:52Dax Shepard?

  Agree.

• 2:08:53Speaker 01

  I have to pay.

• 2:08:54Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 2:08:55Speaker 01

  I'm gonna do it.

• 2:08:56Dax Shepard?

  Don't do it.

• 2:08:57Speaker 01

  It's $1.95.

• 2:08:59Dax Shepard?

  Just a one-off? They're tricky. That was smart. They let you do the whole test.

• 2:09:02Speaker 01

  I know.

• 2:09:03Dax Shepard?

  That's a feel betrayed. Is it his website?

• 2:09:05Speaker 01

  I don't think so. Oh, no. American Express is not supported.

• 2:09:09Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I bet people.

• 2:09:13Speaker 01

  Shit. I have to get another, my other card. Wow. Yeah, we have to know.

• 2:09:18Dax Shepard?

  I think we know. You don't think we know? It's a fact check. Okay.

• 2:09:23Speaker 01

  Oh, secure. Your attachment style is secure. Secondary fearful.

• 2:09:28Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 2:09:29Speaker 01

  The secure attachment style serves as the bedrock for healthy and fulfilling relationships, characterized by a strong sense of trust, emotional security, and a balanced approach to both intimacy and independence. Individuals with a secure attachment style have typically experienced consistent and responsive caregiving during their early years, fostering a foundational belief in the availability and reliability of others in times of need.

• 2:09:49Dax Shepard?

  Okay, I guess myself, this time, my self-assessment.

• 2:09:53Speaker 01

  Was right.

• 2:09:54Dax Shepard?

  Bore out.

• 2:09:54Speaker 01

  That's right. Yours goes 57.5% secure, 18.2% fearful, 16.7% dismissive, 7.6% preoccupied.

• 2:10:05Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:10:06Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 2:10:07Dax Shepard?

  Interesting.

• 2:10:08Speaker 01

  Well, that was fun. Um, who did the marshmallow test? Walter Michel.

• 2:10:15Dax Shepard?

  This is another one I've been repeating, finding out that the marshmallow test isn't real.

• 2:10:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:20Dax Shepard?

  I mean, it's a real test, but it, the conclusions aren't.

• 2:10:23Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 2:10:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Boy, it's incredible to think how much work has been built on the shoulders of that.

• 2:10:30Speaker 01

  I know.

• 2:10:30Dax Shepard?

  That's not right.

• 2:10:31Speaker 01

  Scary a little bit. The human brain consumes roughly 20% of the body's total resting energy, about 260 to 300 calories per day, despite representing only 2% of body weight.

• 2:10:43Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 2:10:43Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 2:10:44Dax Shepard?

  That's it?

• 2:10:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:10:46Dax Shepard?

  Well, I enjoyed Amir.

• 2:10:48Speaker 01

  Me too.

• 2:10:49Dax Shepard?

  Uh, we'll die with the great mystery of how old he is.

• 2:10:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, anyway, yeah, Amir was great.

• 2:10:56Dax Shepard?

  Love you.

• 2:10:56Speaker 01

  Love you.