Attachment Styles EXPLAINED: Which One Are You?

👇 SUBSCRIBE TO MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL - so this show can reach more people 👇 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIprGZAdzn3ZqgLmDuibYcw?sub_confirmation=1 Click Link Below to Subscribe to my email list to MAXOUT your life (all value, no fluff) https://konect.to/edmylett Are you showing up as your real self… or just who you think you should be? In this Mashup episode, I get raw with Thais Gibson, John Kim, Christina Pazsitzky, and Dr. Marisa G. Franco as we peel back the curtain on something that shapes every relationship you’ve ever had: your attachment style. And let me tell you, this isn’t just a theory—it’s the rulebook you’ve been unknowingly using your whole life to give and receive love. For years, I believed I was great at loving others but struggled to feel love myself—and for the first time, I understood why. Thais Gibson lays the groundwork for understanding the four core attachment styles: Secure, Anxious, Dismissive Avoidant, and Fearful Avoidant. She breaks down how childhood experiences shape our subconscious patterns and shows us how we can rewire them to build healthier relationships—with others and ourselves. I shared with Thais how my upbringing with an alcoholic parent shaped my own attachment behaviors—and she nailed it. That pattern of giving love but not receiving it? Classic fearful avoidant. John Kim takes it even further. We talked about the difference between your pseudo self and your solid self—and how most of us live outside-in, searching for validation, instead of from within. I told him about the moment I realized I didn’t really know myself. Not liking yourself doesn’t start with hate—it starts with never taking time to meet you. Christina Pazsitzky brings incredible vulnerability and grit to the conversation. She opens up about growing up between a mentally ill mother and an alcoholic father, and how comedy became her survival tool. Her story is a testament to the resilience built through suffering—and why boundaries, self-awareness, and healing are the keys to reclaiming your power. Dr. Marisa Franco ties it all together, explaining how our attachment style doesn't just affect romance, but friendships and business too. If you’ve ever asked why people pull away or why connection feels out of reach—this is the truth you’ve been waiting for. Key takeaways from this episode: - What the four attachment styles are and how they shape your relationships - How your childhood patterns show up in your adult life - The difference between your “pseudo self” and “solid self” - Why so many high performers struggle to feel love even if they give it freely - Practical steps to reprogram core fears and shift to secure attachment - Why self-awareness is the foundation for deeper connection—with others and yourself - How unresolved attachment wounds sabotage your growth if left unchecked If you’re ready to stop living from patterns and start choosing your life, this episode is your wake-up call. The transformation doesn’t come from changing your partner, your job, or your situation—it starts with getting honest about you. Thank you for watching this video—Please Share it and get the word out! 👇 SUBSCRIBE TO MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL👇 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIprGZAdzn3ZqgLmDuibYcw?sub_confirmation=1 ▶︎ Visit My WEBSITE | https://www. EdMylett.com #EdMylett #Motivation Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Ed Mylett?

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• 0:45Ed Mylett?

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• 1:00Speaker 01

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• 1:31Ed Mylett?

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• 2:16Ed Mylett?

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• 2:38Ed Mylett?

  This is the Ed Mylett Show.

• 2:43Ed Mylett?

  Hey, everyone. Welcome to my weekend special. I hope you enjoy the show. Be sure to follow the Ed Mylett Show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. I was just telling this lady that off camera that her work's really made a profound impact on me, even in the last few days of my life. Her name is Thais Gibson. So Thais, welcome to the show.

• 3:02Thais Gibson?

  Thank you so much, Ed, for having me. I'm really grateful to be here with you.

• 3:05Ed Mylett?

  Yeah. Let's, let's step back just for a second and, because there's, tell us what attachment style is. We'll get into the four types in a minute. And then also where it comes from. I was really struck about this one parent thing that you talk about. So what is an attachment style in general and where's it come from? And then we'll talk about what the ones are.

• 3:22Thais Gibson?

  Perfect. So, so our attachment style is basically the subconscious set of rules that we've learned about how to give and receive love and really what to expect in relationships. And I often give people the analogy that if you have a different attachment style than somebody else, it's like sitting down to play a board game and you have the rules for Monopoly and I have the rules for Scrabble. Like even if we want to have fun and play the game, we're just going to have unnecessary friction and confusion because we have different rules. So our attachment style, which first of all, every single person has one, is the set of rules that we've had for love. So when we have different rules, it creates a lot of problems and challenges, but also three of the four styles are insecurely attached.

• 4:02Thais Gibson?

  And that makes for some difficult strategies and points of communication. So there's a lot that we can really improve there and become securely attached and that will help create a lot of transformation.

• 4:14Ed Mylett?

  Isn't there the theory or your theory is that it comes from some sort of dynamic with one of your parents primarily? Am I right about that?

• 4:21Thais Gibson?

  That's exactly correct. So, so basically you learn how to give and receive love through your parents as a whole. Like those are our first subconscious programs we develop in regards to what love looks like, how our needs are met, how our emotions should be treated, how we should be spoken to in relationships. All of that is modeled to us at a very young age. And the three ways we really pick up programming from a very young age are what we see repetitively or what's modeled to us, what we hear repeatedly and what our firsthand experiences are. So those relationships we have with our caregivers as children really form that strong foundation for exactly how we expect love and relationships to go in our adult life.

• 5:01Ed Mylett?

  See, I, I told you off camera, I think the reason your work is so profound and this conversation today will be everybody is self-awareness is such a powerful tool to have in your life. And by the way, my favorite people that I like to have around me, I think have a heightened self-awareness. They've done some work on that. But the reason this works contextually, what we're about to cover everybody is you're really going to begin to understand yourself so well and why you feel or don't feel loved when you're in a relationship and it could be an intimate relationship or a friendship. And, and then also how to give it to the right person at the same time. So that they can feel it. I've often said on the show, not often, I've said a couple of times, that I think I'm, and this is a confession that

• 5:46Ed Mylett?

  was, I don't know, painful to admit, but in my case, I think I'm pretty good at giving love to other people. You know, I, I think in my life, I've been pretty good to my friends and family, but I have struggled to allow myself the gift of feeling it. And I want to more. And I think the last few years, that's improved to some extent, but you nodded when I said that. Do you hear that often? Or do you relate to that?

• 6:11Thais Gibson?

  I knew the moment you shared about your childhood. So, so as I had mentioned to you off camera, I'd seen some of your videos before doing speaker training. And actually one I listened to was a beautiful story about having a parent who was an alcoholic. And basically that's most likely to create a fearful avoidant attachment style. And fearful avoidants are renowned, this is actually what I was as well before doing the work. Fearful avoidants are renowned for being very loving, very Then show up 10 out of 10 for people in times of crisis, emergency, really good at rolling with the punches, very resilient, but also actually have a hard time truly being vulnerable about the things that are deeply vulnerable to them, specifically relying on people, letting people in deeply, feeling like they can really

• 6:53Thais Gibson?

  trust that somebody will always be there for them. And so it's like you over give and under receive, and that's very fearful of waiting. So as soon as you said that, I was like, that probably would be par for the course. So that's why I nodded.

• 7:05Ed Mylett?

  No, and you're right. I started to read your work like, yep, that one's me. And by the way, one thing she says, we're going to go through it now too, that I love is this isn't necessarily a static thing either. And so just it's so great. So let's, let's take our time on this because I think just this right here, if someone could understand themselves or others, is an invaluable lesson that will actually could alter the direction of your life and the bliss that you feel in your life, the joy, the love that you feel. So what are the four attachment styles and take your time on each one. And if you want to describe the behaviors that go with them, because that's what helped me, the style and then the behaviors, I think is, I think everybody right now, if you're driving, you're going to want to probably go back and listen to this again, because you're gonna, you're gonna want to write this down.

• 7:49Thais Gibson?

  Okay, perfect. So the first of four is our securely attached style. And this is the one that we ideally want to become, because as you've just mentioned, our attachment style, it's not like a personality disorder or a diagnosis. It's basically just a set of programs that you have about love. So this is something we can change. Now, the securely attached style gets a lot of what we call approach oriented behaviors in childhood. And approach oriented behaviors psychologically means that when a child cries or expresses emotion, caregivers go towards that child and they are very attuned, very present. They are able to try to soothe the child. I know that sounds like it might be a small thing, but it actually has a massive impact because what a child learns growing up in this kind of environment is

• 8:34Thais Gibson?

  It's safe to express emotion. It's safe to rely on other people. My needs are worthy of being met and listened to. And I can really trust other individuals to look out for me, to take care of me. So securely attached individuals grow up to essentially have really healthy modeling and skills for relationships. And as a result, statistically, they report being in the longest lasting relationships. But I'm sure we can both agree that that's not what we would call a thriving relationship per se. Securely attached individuals also report being happiest in their relationships. They report actually feeling really happy and fulfilled by their romantic partner. So that's our securely attached style. There are three insecurely attached styles.

• 9:20Thais Gibson?

  At one end of the continuum, in a sense, there's the anxious attachment style. Now, the anxious individual grows up with a lot of inconsistency in childhood, but often loving and fairly present caregivers when they are with that parent.

• 9:33Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 9:34Thais Gibson?

  So generally, what you'll see is an anxious attachment style may have love and very caring parents, but perhaps they work a lot. So it's like love is there, love is taken away. Love is there, love is taken away. Now, neuroplastically, we get conditioned through repetition and emotion. So this will fire and wire these deep rooted fears of, okay, love keeps getting taken away. Am I going to be abandoned?

• 9:56Ed Mylett?

  Does this happen with divorced parents too, where you go to one loving parent to another loving parent? Or would that be different?

• 10:02Thais Gibson?

  That would be an exact example. So I'm just giving one example, but that could be one. It could also be that we have a very loving parent, but another parent who's much more inconsistent or a little bit withdrawn. So the juxtaposition of love there, love not really there in the same way. All of those things would create the consistency of inconsistency, which is that overarching theme that will create an anxious attachment style. So anxious attachment styles then grow up to have these big core wounds in relationships. They fear being abandoned, alone, rejected, disliked, excluded. And they basically cope with these fears by trying to maintain proximity. So your anxious attacher is often the person who will call repeatedly, text many, many times,

• 10:47Thais Gibson?

  move very fast in relationships, really derive a lot of their sense of self-esteem and self-confidence through their relationships rather than through a relationship with self. And they often will get caught people pleasing a lot, sometimes be boundaryless in relationships. And of course, unfortunately, a lot of these things become self fulfilling prophecies. So because they hold on so tightly, they often accidentally push people away. And exactly what they're afraid of usually comes to fruition.

• 11:16Ed Mylett?

  I can hear millions of people nodding their heads right now. Thinking about themselves, starting to explain yourself to you, didn't? If you're in that category, everybody, okay, please keep going. I just think this is just so good.

• 11:29Thais Gibson?

  Thank you. And at the other end of the continuum is the dismissive avoidant attachment style. So they're very much the opposite of the anxious in many different ways. The dismissive avoidance overarching theme from childhood is childhood emotional neglect. Now, I think when a lot of us think of neglect, we think of like the child's left in the corner. There's no food on the table. Oftentimes, I would say 95% plus of the time, it's very covert neglect. It's things like having, you know, parents in the household, there's structure, there's stability, food's on the table, kids are at school on time. But if you express an emotion, go in the other room, come back when you're done crying. Or don't be a crybaby, or that's embarrassing, don't cry in front of other people, hold it together.

• 12:13Thais Gibson?

  And the constant messaging, which creates that programming, that repetition and emotion that fires and wires those narrow pathways, that constant programming or messaging the child receives is your emotions, they're dysfunctional, they're defective, we don't really want them here. Because a child is wired for attunement, all of us biologically are wired for attunement and closeness. A child doesn't know how to make sense of that experience and they don't go, oh, my parents emotionally unavailable because they can't conceive of that yet. So they go, there must be something wrong with me. This part of me must be defective and shameful and wrong at the core because it just constantly gets rejected. So they

• 12:53Thais Gibson?

  cope or adapt to that kind of experience by going, okay, I am literally going to just keep myself very distant from people emotionally, never open up, never allow myself to get seen, or feel too much, or feel anything too real. Now, as adults, the dismissive avoidant ends up often being in a relationship, things are good early on, and as things, as soon as things feel too serious, they often drop out, leave very abruptly, sometimes, you know, blindside somebody. And their big core fears in relationships are, I'm defective, something's wrong with me at my core. So they're very sensitive to criticism, even though they're very stoic and most people would never know. And they also feel afraid

• 13:34Thais Gibson?

  of being unsafe emotionally, if they're too open, afraid of being weak, disrespected, um, not capable, if they're, they're vulnerable, they have a lot of these deep wounds. And so they often are individuals who struggle a lot with commitment, with settling into relationships, and with wanting to really let people in and allow themselves to be seen much at all.

• 13:53Ed Mylett?

  So good. I'm just thinking of somebody that I know very well right now. It's great about the way you described the attachment styles, is that everybody right now is either so far thought of themselves or a very close friend they know that fit one of these attachment styles. I just want to say one thing too, before we get to the last one or the next one. I, I know that the nature of your work, everybody listening to this, is sort of romantic relationships. But I have to tell you all, when I read this, I actually have thought about friendships that I've had. I actually think about business and leading people and understanding the way in which they respond or won't respond. Um, I think the application of her work is, is very, very broad in understanding human beings and how to affect them and how

• 14:37Ed Mylett?

  to connect with them, or understanding why you're not connecting with somebody. So, but anyway, continue, please.

• 14:43Thais Gibson?

  And to your point, I couldn't agree more. This is because our relationships, it's a primarily first a relationship to ourselves. So that goes with us everywhere, but you'll see these patterns popping up absolutely in the workplace, with friendships, family, everything. So, so the last attachment style, this is what I was and, and I'm sure this is probably what you are from the sound of it, or were, but basically the last attachment style is called fearful avoidant. And sometimes it's referred to as disorganized attachment style. And basically, um, often the example I actually give for what will form a disorganized attachment style would be an example of somebody having a parent who's, who's an addict or an alcoholic. It can also be things like having a really bad divorce and being parentified. That was a lot of my experience.

• 15:26Thais Gibson?

  Parents went through this 13, 15 year divorce. I was always in the middle of it at a young age, lots of chaos, lots of really big fights happening my, my whole childhood. But basically what this is creating in terms of programming is I never know what I'm gonna get. Sometimes I have these positive experiences with love where sometimes love is safe and it's okay and I yearn for it. And, and so I, I care about love and I want to connect. But other times love is scary, unpredictable, has moments of cruelty perhaps. And so what happens with a fearful avoidant in their childhood is they learn to have these basically extreme competing associations about love that are on opposite ends of the spectrum. I want love and it can be really scary. Love can be beautiful sometimes, terrifying others.

• 16:11Thais Gibson?

  And so what happens for a fearful avoidant attachment style is growing up in an environment that's really unstable, unpredictable, chaotic. They basically learn, I have this anxious side and they share in the feelings of the anxious, anxious attachment style. They can fear abandonment. They can fear being rejected or not good enough, but they also share in the avoidance side. They fear being too close, being trapped, helpless, powerless in the wrong situation. And so fearful avoidance basically are very hot and cold in relationships. They're kind of pinballing back and forth. And for me as an example, I grew up feeling like I wanted to be close to people. I would be very loving and generous and giving. And then when people would get too close, I would be like, get back.

• 16:52Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 16:52Thais Gibson?

  And oftentimes the fearful avoidant flip flops back and forth. And a lot of this is because of those deep inner wired programs from childhood of, okay, love is good, but love is also scary. And it can create a lot of that sort of internal push, pull and confusion, which of course often shows up in external relationships as a result.

• 17:11Ed Mylett?

  It's so. Great. I have, you know, everybody, we're talking a lot about childhood here. And the more and more I've been doing the work I do the last 25 or 30 years, the more I realize like the vast majority of the work we're all doing is connected to our childhood. Like just the vast majority of our work is those, I don't know, those years where, you know, are from infancy to 10, 12, 15 years old and beyond, even to teenage years. And I think the more you dive into that work, the more you are going to be an effective parent, an effective human, an effective friend, effective business person. You say in the book, um, 95% of your thoughts and behaviors originate in your subconscious mind. And so basically our lives are sort of on this auto kind of pilot program.

• 17:56Ed Mylett?

  And then you also talk about the subconscious reality lens. I'm just curious as to what that term, I think I know, but I, not everyone's read the book. So what does that mean? And why does it matter that we have an appreciation or understanding of that?

• 18:11Thais Gibson?

  Yeah, it's a great question. So we all see reality through a filter of our past, right? So I often give the example that somebody could have the exact same external experience. We could take, for example, an anxious attachment style and a dismissive, who's the more avoidant one, and they could both be dating, let's say, somebody who doesn't call them back. Well, the anxious attachment style, because we see through the filter of our past programming, it's really the lens that we see and interact with the world through. They're probably going to make it mean I'm about to be abandoned because that's their past experience. Those are the conclusions the mind will jump to. Whereas a dismissive avoidant attachment style, they're probably going to make it mean, I'm free. I don't have to talk on the phone because they often fear too much vulnerability, too much closeness.

• 18:55Thais Gibson?

  So, you know, we never really have these objective points of view. We're all living through this subjective worldview that's first being conditioned by and wired in by our pre-existing programs from childhood. Now, one thing that's really important to recognize is that our mind is also wired from a survivalistic perspective to hang on to negative things much more than positive things. If you are walking through a forest tomorrow and you see a bear and you run away and you, you're safe, but tomorrow, the, the following day, you have to go back through the same path. You don't think, oh, yesterday I saw such a pretty tree next to the bear and there was such a pretty flower on the floor. You remember the bear and its teeth.

• 19:37Thais Gibson?

  So we're wired to hang on to more negative experiences, especially when they impact us emotionally, because we think that by holding on, we then have a better chance to protect ourselves from them. Which is why we hold on to our negative experiences from childhood. And then to keep ourselves safe, although it doesn't happen emotionally, we constantly re-project them back out onto our external world. We'll jump to those conclusions. We'll assume those same patterns will happen with other people in relationships. And that's often the actual place that we end up sabotaging relationships from. If we have unresolved childhood attachment challenges from a younger age.

• 20:15Ed Mylett?

  I think you also um repeat those patterns to stay consistent with yourself. In other words, if I don't consistently do this, I'm somehow not being the me that I'm familiar with, and that's a scary change in and of itself. Do you agree with that?

• 20:29Thais Gibson?

  There's a lot of research to back this. I actually talk about this all the time. I couldn't agree more. Our subconscious mind works very hard to maintain its comfort zone. Because to your, to your point, it says, well, what's familiar is safe and thus I'm more likely to survive. And it's something that's so interesting is you'll see when people meet each other. So our conscious mind takes up to about forty to sixty bits per second of data. And our subconscious and unconscious collectively take up to a billion bits per second of data. So we may meet somebody and be like, you know, we're picking up all this web of information about their micro-expressions, their body language, their tone of voice, how long they maintain eye contact for. And people are often choosing people who will mirror back to them their childhood as well, because that's what's most familiar.

• 21:13Thais Gibson?

  So if you look at anxious attachment style, they're so externally focused, they're so people-pleasing everybody else. They're dismissing and avoiding themselves. So guess who we often choose? People who mirror back to us the relationship to self first, because that's what's most familiar and thus most safe. And so anxious attachment styles will often choose emotionally unavailable people. Hence, that cycle will continue for their likelihood of being abandoned.

• 21:39Ed Mylett?

  Outstanding. I'm thinking of one of the other applications I want to ask you about. So I, obviously, you're in a romantic or intimate relationship with somebody. One of the things, I was thinking about this, reading this yesterday. One of the main questions I get, and I bet you get too, is people that are in relationships together.

• 21:59Ed Mylett?

  Trying to, they'll say, how do I get my spouse, my boyfriend, or my girlfriend to support my dream? Or this change I want to make? And I started reading these different attachment styles and I'm like, well, if you could really have an understanding of the attachment style of your partner, that would certainly help you understand how to help them support your dream, help them support this business you want to start. Do you agree with that? Like if you've got an abandonment issue and somebody says, I'm going to start a business or start to pursue a dream. I have to think part of their thinking is, if you, if you're successful, you're going to leave me. If we just stay the way that we are, you'll never leave me. And so one of their, their real fears is, well, if you start to win and change and grow, you're, you're going to leave me.

• 22:42Ed Mylett?

  And so if I knew that, I would think if I was in a relationship with that person, I would want to be overly reassuring that I'm going to stay, that I'm going to be here, that we're going to build this dream together, that I'm doing this for us. Do you, do you see what I'm saying? Do you agree with that?

• 22:55Thais Gibson?

  100%. So a big part of what we focus on actually in this work, and people hear it in the book too, is, is again, to your point, it's that each attachment style not only has these core fears, but they also have these core needs. And if you imagine, you know, if you've ever heard of the, the work of Dr. Gary Chapman, Dr. Gary Chapman talks about the five love languages. And he says, okay, they are words of affirmation, physical touch, quality time, acts of service, and gifts. Now, I would make a very strong argument that our needs are much more impactful than love languages. Because for me, I, for example, have a huge quality time need or love language. But if I sit down and I watch Netflix with somebody for an hour,

• 23:38Thais Gibson?

  that's going to be way different than having like a deep conversation with somebody because that meets the need for emotional connection, for authenticity. And so, you know, our needs, in my opinion, have a much greater impact on the ways that we give and receive love in relationships. And what happens is each unique attachment style has different needs. So you know, anxious attachment styles, they need, exactly like you said, they need more reassurance. They need more validation, encouragement, certainty, consistency. Dismissive avoidance, they need more freedom, autonomy, independence. But they also actually really need empathy, support and acceptance, as well as appreciation about small things. And fearful avoidance tend to need a lot of depth. They need novelty exploration, they need growth.

• 24:20Thais Gibson?

  Um, they also want, you know, this, this intimate connection and closeness. But they also want their freedom and independence because they sort of share on both sides of that attachment continuum. So I always tell people, like, if, if we had like a prescription for relationships, it would be know each other's needs and relationships. And then when we go through these big life changes or transformation, like you're building something, you're creating something. Rather than somebody having to be like, oh no, I want to stay familiar and safe and accidentally sabotaging the relationship as a result, or having these protest behaviors or ways of acting out. It's like, well, if you know your partner's needs, when we go through a big change, just pour into each other's needs during those times. And it will strengthen the relationship and also ensure that you're growing together, rather than growing apart.

• 25:03Ed Mylett?

  So good. I was thinking, uh, I'm thinking about a lot of different things, but one of them is, you know, when you're understanding these attachment styles, your own and that of your partner, helps you understand where resistance can be coming from. Sometimes what's, what's the resistance that I'm getting from them? Why don't they want me to start this business? Why are, why is it they don't want me to go do this? And now you might have a deeper understanding of, of the reasoning behind, you know, not only their behaviors, but if you understand their behaviors and their needs, you understand where this resistance is coming from. I wrote a term down just because I didn't understand if it was different than what I was reading. So I, this is just for my edification. What is integrated attachment theory?

• 25:45Thais Gibson?

  So integrated attachment theory is the science of how we can actually change to become securely attached. We're not stuck with our attachment style. So it's actually the study of these, these five major places that we can do the work at a subconscious level, so that we can become secure and have like the, the strengths that came out of having an insecure attachment style. Cause there are strengths, we become resilient, resourceful, more empathetic, more compassionate in a lot of ways. But also have wired in those healthy patterns of secure attachment.

• 26:13Ed Mylett?

  Can you elaborate on what some of those places are?

• 26:15Thais Gibson?

  Yes. So the first one is we have to reprogram core fears. So we all have these core fears like we talk, we've talked about the abandonment or the fear of being trapped or defective or criticized. And so we can actually, we're not born with those fears. We can recondition them through leveraging the science of neuroplasticity. So repetition and emotion fires and wires new ideas. And it's not through something like affirmations. I'll sort of go down a rabbit hole here. Please. But a lot of people will try to do affirmations. So let's say somebody, for example, has a core fear, I'm not good enough. You're not going to really help yourself by saying, I'm good enough, I'm good enough, I'm good enough. I think it's a little bit futile. And the reason is because your conscious mind speaks

• 26:55Thais Gibson?

  language. If I say to you, Ed, whatever you do, do not think of a chocolate chip cookie. Right. How did that go? So, so what happens is your conscious mind hears do not, but your subconscious actually speaks in emotion and in images. So nobody's waking up intentionally having these core fears. Nobody's saying, oh, I'm going to tell myself I'm not good enough forty seven times today and hope that I feel good. What's actually happening is these are subconscious pre-existing programs. So we have to speak to the subconscious mind to solve for that. So what I give people as an original tool to recondition these core fears that really are the big saboteurs of our relationships. I'll be abandoned, I'm not good enough, I'll be alone forever.

• 27:37Thais Gibson?

  These huge things that wreak havoc on our life and relationships is we start by number one, identifying the core fear and its opposite. Very simple. I'm not good enough, I am good enough. Number two, we need ten pieces of memory of times we did feel good enough. And the reason we have memory and the reason we pick ten is because we need repetition for firing and wiring. And memory is just container for emotions and images. If somebody recounts their favorite childhood memory, maybe it's them playing on the playground, what do you see? The images of the slide, as you tell the story, you smile, your body language shifts and changes. So now we're using our conscious mind to speak to our subconscious mind.

• 28:19Thais Gibson?

  Step three, we record it for twenty and listen back to it for twenty one days because it takes about twenty one days to fire and wire these new strong neural pathways. And as long as we have like ten pieces of proof for how we feel good enough or why we're worthy of connection instead of abandonment. Or we're levelable instead of unlevelable, or whatever the core wound is that we're targeting. Ten pieces of evidence, listen back for twenty one days. We will actually rewire these ideas that we've carried about ourselves and relationships for very long periods of time. So that's the first one. So is reprogramming these core fears. And I'm sure anybody listening, if they're like, oh, twenty one days, it feels like a lot. I would really encourage anybody listening to think of how many times that core fear has actually sabotaged your relationships.

• 29:01Thais Gibson?

  And it will always be more work not to do the work. It's it's a lot to have to live like that.

• 29:06Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, you built those neural pathways, probably doing it for twenty one years. You can spend twenty one days trying to undo it.

• 29:12Thais Gibson?

  Exactly, exactly.

• 29:13Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 29:13Thais Gibson?

  And it only takes like five minutes of the morning routine or something. It's very simple. So so the second one is we need to learn our own needs. And so, you know, I mentioned those earlier, you know, for some people, they need the reassurance, the validation, the certainty. For other people, they need the autonomy, the acknowledgement, the independence. So when we can go back and and actually see what our our needs are according to our attachment style. We actually first have to learn to meet them ourselves. There's there's a great quote from Dr. Gabor Maté, and he says, trauma are the things that happen that shouldn't have happened. Okay, so let's say verbal abuse, for example, which would maybe cause somebody to feel I am not good enough, and we have those core fears. But it's also the things that didn't happen that should have happened.

• 29:56Thais Gibson?

  So this could be if somebody gets neglected growing up, we're wired for attunement. So we will have these deeply unmet needs that come from trauma, whether it's small T trauma or big T trauma. And because of the subconscious comfort zone, because we want to keep that subconscious comfort zone alive in the relationship to self. We keep those needs unmet in our own lives first.

• 30:20Thais Gibson?

  So you'll see like dismissive avoidance, they're neglected. And what do they do? They grow up and they neglect their own emotions. And so, you know, we see this time and time again for each person. So our step two is after we reprogram core fears. Number two, we learn to meet our own needs. In doing this, if we can show up and meet a need that's deeply unmet every day for 21 days, we actually will change that within ourselves. And then what will happen is we will be attracted to the right people who will mirror that back to us. Because our point of familiarity, our own subconscious comfort zone has now shifted. So we don't keep attracting that those old patterns, those old people who will keep, you know, that self fulfilling prophecy alive. So that's really step two, identify your deeply unmet needs, meet them in relationship to self for 21 days.

• 31:05Thais Gibson?

  Step three, very simple, a little nervous system regulation, because every insecure attachment style is often sitting too much into fight or flight or parasympathetic nervous system mode. So a little breath work in the evening or a little meditation on a daily basis, just something for 20 minutes a day to help recondition our bodies. So it follows our subconscious mind into feeling like it is safe to be in our body, it's safe to be more present with ourselves. And again, it tends to come full circle and giving to ourselves those deeply unmet needs. Now, those first three steps, I like to think of as being in relationship to self. Okay, I'm doing the work on me first. I'm removing my core fears. I'm meeting my own needs. I'm regulating my nervous system.

• 31:48Thais Gibson?

  The second ones are out into relationship with others. Because healthy interdependency means I'm a master of the relationship to myself. And I'm a master at being able to relate to, rely on and be vulnerable with others. It's not one or the other. And so our second two steps are communicating our needs to others and allowing ourselves to receive them. And having healthy boundaries so we can show and share our true selves with other people. I often say to people when it comes to boundaries, you know, when people don't set boundaries, they're like, no, boundaries are off, they're, they're gonna, they're like a separation instead of adjoining. But a boundary is you sharing the no's in your life. You know, if you're not connecting fully or truthfully by just sha- sharing all the things you do like

• 32:32Thais Gibson?

  or that are great, you also have to say, hey, I don't like when this happens. Hey, I don't like these things because that's you sharing without your mask. And so if we can do these five major things and really connect in a real honest way with ourselves first and then with others, that's how we move the needle from insecure to securely attached in a fairly short period of time and it will transform the relationship we have to ourselves and the relationships in all aspects of our lives.

• 32:58Ed Mylett?

  This is so good. A basic question, you cover it in the book. By the way, thank you for this. It's just, I love real work that really makes a difference and really changes people. This episode is sponsored by Ro. A lot of people assume GLP-1s cost a fortune and that assumption keeps them from even looking into treatment. Ro helps people find a more affordable path to FDA-approved GLP-1 treatment. Ro wants to help people lose weight. That's why they have more affordable GLP-1 options, whether you're paying with insurance or cash. Ro's free insurance checker makes it easy to see if you're covered for GLP-1 injections. Just submit your insurance card and Ro handles the rest. No paperwork, no waiting on hold, no confusing phone calls. And if insurance doesn't cover treatment, there are still options.

• 33:43Ed Mylett?

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• 34:25Ed Mylett?

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• 35:15Speaker 03

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends. Like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra because it's not just a superior light beer. It's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com slash superior access to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 35:44Ed Mylett?

  Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Be sure to follow the Ed Mylett Show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. And really, we're going to talk about today is relationships and not just your relationships with other people, but also your relationship with yourself and how it impacts other people. And the man I have put in this seat today is so unique and so special. He is one of a kind. He's called the angry therapist, which if you meet him in person, he's not so angry. John Kim, John, welcome to the show, brother.

• 36:15Speaker 04

  Uh, first, thank you for calling me a man. I appreciate that. Yeah, I feel very blessed to be here and to create dialogue for you.

• 36:21Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, so I'm really grateful you're here. All right, let's get into it. We're getting into relationship stuff, not just, I mean, a lot of it's going to be boyfriend, girlfriend, significant other, whatever you want to call it, but it's also the one with you.

• 36:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's the most important.

• 36:32Ed Mylett?

  Okay, so let's.

• 36:33Speaker 04

  And the hardest.

• 36:33Ed Mylett?

  So you say this thing self versus self, like uppercase versus lowercase. Let's just start there for a second. What does that mean?

• 36:40Speaker 04

  Oh, man. You know, I'll start with.

• 36:46Speaker 04

  The book before this was called I Used to Be Miserable. And a true story and in my twenties. I was exchanging my truth for membership a lot. I grew up in L.A. And so I didn't have a relationship with self. I was living very outside in instead of inside out. And it's really good that I wasn't successful then because I would have been, you know, the douchebag. It would have been very predictable story. I've got addiction in my blood. Me too. But, but yeah, I had no relationship with self, no sense of self. And so very approval seeking. And especially when it came to relationships and women. Doing whatever I could to get the dopamine to get the, you know, whatever it is, the sex, the love, the approval.

• 37:30Speaker 04

  And it wasn't until thirty five. Went through divorce. And at that point I had nothing. I lost my friends, had no money. I was broke. I just went on Craigslist, found a roommate. And I was like, man, what do I do from here? And I thought, okay. I want to start. Living a different life. Because I have nothing to lose because I have nothing. What would it be to actually now start to? Live inside out instead of outside in? What would it look like to maneuver more in my solid self? So when people say self, the S for me stands for solid. And what I mean by that is we all have a pseudo self. We all have a solid self and I got him tattooed on my.

• 38:14Speaker 04

  These are all kind of like bookmarks of. They're dog eared pages of my life, my tattoos. And if you've seen the movie Fight Club, because I think it best explains this. At the end, we realize disclaimer, I'm gonna have to give away the ending to do my point. But at the end, we realized it's one person, right? So there's Edward Norton and there's Brad Pitt. And Edward Norton doesn't have a sense of self, right? He's kind of like, you've seen the movie, right? In the beginning, he's just buying Ikea furniture and just like not sleeping, going to movies and all that. Meetings and that's his pseudo self. And then he collides with himself, which is Brad Pitt. And at first there's resistance, get away from me. I don't want to have anything to do with you. And then. Through that collision, he starts finding his solid self.

• 38:58Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 38:58Speaker 04

  And then because of that, he finds a movement. He, you know, he's injected with passion. He becomes a leader. He gets to grow. Like, all these things happen, the whole character arc.

• 39:07Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 39:07Speaker 04

  And I think we all have the Edward Norton inside of us. And we all have the Tyler Durden, I think was his name.

• 39:13Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, so good.

• 39:14Speaker 04

  And so the self.

• 39:15Ed Mylett?

  That's so good.

• 39:16Speaker 04

  The self, to me, is the solid self. It's the, what Marty Bowen in therapy school calls, well, many people call it the authentic self.

• 39:25Ed Mylett?

  Mm-hmm.

• 39:25Speaker 04

  You know?

• 39:26Ed Mylett?

  Mm-hmm.

• 39:26Speaker 04

  Um, but I call it the solid self.

• 39:28Ed Mylett?

  Do you think that, I'm asking you about that, that outside in, inside out. Is outside in meaning you're trying to get external stuff to give you a feeling?

• 39:34Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 39:34Ed Mylett?

  So, okay.

• 39:35Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 39:35Ed Mylett?

  It's definitely.

• 39:36Speaker 04

  You're living based on things that are outside of self. Instead of living from a place of value, character, you know, stuff that isn't on the outside, but is that is internal.

• 39:50Ed Mylett?

  If you don't have that, so, by the way, I told you guys, here we go. We're three minutes in and it's already friggin' great stuff. But if you are an outside in living person, does that mean you're probably gonna have pretty hollow, empty relationships? Or can you actually have an effective, loving relationship if you don't even know who you are?

• 40:06Speaker 04

  Oh, I think the relationship would be lopsided. Because I think what you're bringing to the table is the cardboard cutout. Instead of like the human, three-dimensional, right? And I think, um, most of my life, I was that cardboard cutout. Um, if you are pulling from your pseudo-self, which is the false version of you. And by the way, no one's solid, I mean, you know.

• 40:28Ed Mylett?

  I hope not, because I'm not.

• 40:29Speaker 04

  Jesus, Buddha, maybe, but like, as humans, depending on who you're around, like, if you're around your boss, you may be a little more pseudo. If you're with your kids, you're gonna be solid. If you're with, you know, friends, different friends and stuff. But generally speaking, if you pull more from your solid self, what you're bringing to the table is uniquely you. You're bringing your potential, you're bringing who you are, you're bringing the acceptance of your story. So, a lot of pseudo-self people rip out chapters. And they, um, they're kind of false advertising and they pick out the good parts of their story and present themselves in a way that is attractive.

• 41:04Ed Mylett?

  I certainly still do that sometimes.

• 41:06Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 41:06Ed Mylett?

  I think I'm loving this. So, you do believe that? It's a, because I think some people listen to this are like, shoot, I still do do that. You're saying everyone still does it a little bit. It's to the extent or the propensity you have to do it.

• 41:18Speaker 04

  It's when most of your days, most of your weeks, you're pulling from your pseudo self.

• 41:24Speaker 04

  That you're at your lowest frequency, that you're not bringing much to the table. And so in that relationship, you're kind of a shell. You may be fancy, you may be funny, you may be good in bed or whatever. But your potential is low because your humanness isn't there and you know. And what makes you unique is the solid self.

• 41:42Ed Mylett?

  How do you do that? So by the way, you came to becoming a therapist late in life.

• 41:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm a late bloomer, man. I, at 35, I did my first squat. I looked like a pigeon. I was a guy that, you know, biceps and then no legs.

• 41:57Ed Mylett?

  Beach workout.

• 41:59Speaker 04

  Found CrossFit at 35 after divorce. And I was a screenwriter, a failed screenwriter. And put my wife at the time on a pedestal, so I revolved around her. So when the marriage ended, I had no life, which is great because then you start. It's a black light, right?

• 42:17Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 42:18Speaker 04

  It's like God says, this is what you have. And so I found fitness and I found CrossFit and I was like, what is this? This is back, this is 12, 13 years ago when they were like flipping tires and alleyways and stuff. And I was really interested in it and then I kind of got obsessed with it. And it was always about challenging myself because it was timed and dysfunctional movement. Things I've never done before. And that became kind of my daily ritual, so I wouldn't fall into depression.

• 42:49Ed Mylett?

  So your way out of, your way out of that, which for a lot of people is too, was physiology, literally moving your body.

• 42:55Speaker 04

  That was one way in. It was that and motorcycles.

• 42:58Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 42:59Speaker 04

  One of the things that I tell people is. With clients, they ask, you know, okay, so you got the pseudo unsolid. I need to connect to my solid self. And the solid self is usually the whisper. The pseudo self is the thundering voice, right? That's been programming, advertising, right? The shoulds, you know, followers, social media. It's very loud. The solid voice is usually the quiet whisper because we ignore, we don't listen to our solid self. We don't listen to our truth because we're scared to.

• 43:26Ed Mylett?

  Stay there. You say this in your book and in your content, that you need to listen to the quiet whisper.

• 43:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, more so.

• 43:32Ed Mylett?

  Yeah. What's that look like when you do it? Is it just getting alone and turning out the noise? Because this is profound, what you're about to say. This is profound.

• 43:40Speaker 04

  I think, um, I think it's in the stillness. You know, when we talk about our truth, our intuition, I think it's in our stillness because we're so not used to listening to the quiet voice, that we have to practice it until that voice then becomes louder and we trust that voice. I think our relationship with self is like any relationship in that it's built. You know, and then, you know, when people say self-love,

• 44:08Speaker 04

  I kind of, I kind of feel like it's a bumper sticker because it's like thrown around a lot. Like gratitude, right? And I get it, it's, of course, self-love. But self-liking, I think that's harder, man. Because we love, we love family members that we don't really like or we'd be friends with because, but they're family, so we love them. It's a choice. But liking someone's not a choice, right? Like, if I want you to like me, that's earned, man.

• 44:32Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 44:33Speaker 04

  You know, I could say I love you as a brother, as another human.

• 44:35Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 44:36Speaker 04

  I don't know you.

• 44:37Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 44:37Speaker 04

  But then liking is earned. And so when you apply that to self, now enter the journey. And so when someone says, oh yeah, love yourself, that's like, what, over the weekend? What do I need to do to do that? That's like a choice, okay, I do love myself. I choose to, you know, I'm alive, I'm feeding myself. I love myself in that way. But if someone says, like yourself, then it's like, I... So that's where I started.

• 45:02Ed Mylett?

  Mm-hmm.

• 45:03Speaker 04

  Do I like myself? What does that look like? And then I fell into fitness and, uh... Bought a motorcycle and spent a lot of time alone.

• 45:11Ed Mylett?

  Brother, like, uh, you're helping millions of people right now. And the way you articulate this, I have to tell you something interesting. I love, when I'm with a vulnerable person, I become more vulnerable, right?

• 45:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 45:23Ed Mylett?

  That's why I love my show. And I think about the same age I started to evaluate that.

• 45:28Speaker 04

  Oh, wow.

• 45:28Ed Mylett?

  About thirty-five. I'm fifty-one now. I'm, by the way, huge work in progress on these things as well. But as I started to get to know me even, I don't even, so it didn't start with liking me. It started like actually getting to know me.

• 45:43Ed Mylett?

  I found that my external relationships really dramatically became deeper. And by the way, over time, once I got to know me, I'm like, I kind of do like me.

• 45:50Speaker 04

  What was the catalyst for you? So for me, it was divorce. What was it for you?

• 45:53Ed Mylett?

  Success. Ex- success, meaning, okay, I did exactly what you were saying.

• 45:58Speaker 04

  Right.

• 45:58Ed Mylett?

  I'll get another, uh, more money, uh, more accolades, more people know me, more followers, more of this, more, more successful friends, more notoriety, more invites to cool parties, more jets, more this, more of that. And I'm like, and I still am not happy. And this is a game I'm playing that is like, by the way, I've gotten really good at this game. I got different than you in the sense that I got good at that game.

• 46:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:19Ed Mylett?

  But it didn't produce what I thought it would produce.

• 46:20Speaker 04

  So you had success early. So by the time you were thirty-five, you were?

• 46:23Ed Mylett?

  I was, yeah, I had some wealth by the time I was thirty-five and came from none of it. But I'll tell you what happened. I remember one day I'm literally brushing my teeth. I caught a glimpse of myself brushing my teeth. And I realized in this moment, like, I never even look at me. Like, I might get ready to make sure I think I look good.

• 46:38Speaker 04

  Right.

• 46:39Ed Mylett?

  But I'm never alone with me, where I just like, look at me. Who is this man?

• 46:44Speaker 04

  Well, you're busy being successful.

• 46:45Ed Mylett?

  I was busy being my pseudo-self.

• 46:48Speaker 04

  Right, right.

• 46:49Ed Mylett?

  All the time.

• 46:50Speaker 04

  Right.

• 46:51Ed Mylett?

  By the way, a pretty nice pseudo-self, a kind person. I was a giving person. I wasn't a mean person. I've always, you know, I think I've been a pretty good human. But I didn't know me.

• 47:00Speaker 04

  Right.

• 47:01Ed Mylett?

  And I remember just looking at me going, I don't know that guy. I don't even spend any time looking at me, never mind being with me or talking with me or enjoying me. And it started, it scared me. I'm like, I probably only have one more of these blocks. I don't have great genetics. So I'm halfway. That's when I was thirty five, I'm like, I'm halfway, probably for me genetically. Now, now I think maybe hopefully it goes longer than that. But it's like, man, I don't want to get out of this life with never knowing me. Never liking me.

• 47:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:31Ed Mylett?

  And then really, how deep are these relationships that I have if I don't even know who I'm bringing to the relationship?

• 47:36Speaker 04

  Right.

• 47:36Ed Mylett?

  And so your work, man, like really resonates with me.

• 47:40Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 47:40Ed Mylett?

  Deeply. And I think a lot of people, this would be surprised to hear two dudes about our age, you know?

• 47:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:45Ed Mylett?

  Kind of.

• 47:46Speaker 04

  I'm forty nine.

• 47:46Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, we're, I'm a couple of years older than you, right?

• 47:48Speaker 04

  Well, if I was in Korea, I'd be fifty because they count the, the time in your mom's stomach.

• 47:52Ed Mylett?

  Do they really?

• 47:52Speaker 04

  That's why I don't live in Korea. That's why I stay in L.A.

• 47:54Ed Mylett?

  That's the reason. Oh, okay. So you're a year younger.

• 47:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:57Ed Mylett?

  The other thing you said a minute ago, I want to go there is you were talking about how you put your first wife on a pedestal.

• 48:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:01Ed Mylett?

  You have something you said, bro, that in your work that I just went, oh, my gosh, which you said that we are taught. Listen to this, everyone. You ready to go for like a moment, which you're gonna get a lot with John? You said, we are taught that love looks like codependency.

• 48:17Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 48:17Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 48:18Speaker 04

  Demeshment, codependency.

• 48:19Ed Mylett?

  So what is that? What is, what do you mean?

• 48:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, I used to believe that, um, if you go down, I go down with you. If I go down, you go down with me because it's romantic and also, you know, Disney movies, rom coms. And that feels, it just feels like love, right? We're all, all for, we're, we're all in this together.

• 48:37Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 48:38Speaker 04

  And now I believe if you go down, I'll give you my hand, but not my life.

• 48:42Ed Mylett?

  Hmm.

• 48:43Speaker 04

  You know what I'm saying?

• 48:44Ed Mylett?

  Hmm.

• 48:44Speaker 04

  We are two different people and the image, uh, and I remember this so well.

• 48:48Ed Mylett?

  A lot of people just heard that one. No, no, I don't want that. I want that thing that I see in the movie.

• 48:52Speaker 04

  Well, because it shoots more dopamine and, and it's sexier, you know? Uh, the, the images that I see for a healthy relationship. I thought it was a yogurt ad, but someone, uh, D M me said, no, that was actually a Viagra ad. And I was like, okay, but it was two people in a, uh, they're like in their eighties on, like on, on the Grand Canyon. You know, um, in separate bathtubs, facing outward. And the only thing that was connecting them was their hand outside of the bathtub.

• 49:18Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 49:18Speaker 04

  And I remember coming across that in a magazine and thinking. Oh, this is what a healthy relationship looks like. Because what I would imagine is two people in a hot tub on top of each other, facing each other. You know, and yes, that's sexy and that produces a lot of dopamine. And that's kind of, I think we've been brainwashed to believe in the one happily ever after and all that.

• 49:40Ed Mylett?

  You believe the one is BS.

• 49:42Speaker 04

  I do. I believe in the one in front of you. I think, I think when you, when, when, uh, and, and you've been married for so long. So I don't know how you feel about this, but.

• 49:52Ed Mylett?

  Twenty-five years.

• 49:52Speaker 04

  Yeah. And I think today that, that like doubles. It means more today than those years. But, but when you're, when you're programmed to believe that, that there is the one. I think the danger in that is whoever you're dating, you're gonna bust out your checklist. And this, if this person is the one and the one for the rest of your life, man, they better be perfect. And everything better check off and the sex must be mind blowing and all in. That's not, we're human, you know, and relationships are hard. And so it puts a lot of pressure and a black light on the relationship. Now, if the one is just the one in front of you, now you're more present. And you're not thinking if there's someone else in the world that is better for you or suited for you. You know what I'm saying?

• 50:37Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 50:37Speaker 04

  The, the one is always the one that you're looking at.

• 50:40Ed Mylett?

  Well, I actually think when you have a belief that there's just the one that when you meet them, that potentially you come across as desperate or needy because.

• 50:47Speaker 04

  Oh, sure.

• 50:47Ed Mylett?

  There's this one human now.

• 50:48Speaker 04

  Right.

• 50:49Ed Mylett?

  And I think sometimes people that are in the dating circles don't realize that they have an energy they're giving off, that once they think this person is the one, if you have that belief system.

• 50:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:57Ed Mylett?

  Potentially there are multiple ones that would be right for you, right? There aren't, not everyone is right for you. But that when you do have this belief, this is the only walking human being on earth that will satisfy the things that I need in my life. How can you not come across as somewhat desperate?

• 51:12Speaker 04

  Well, you're gonna do everything you can to get this person or make this relationship work.

• 51:16Ed Mylett?

  Right. And then, by the way, I think in that, I want you to talk about it because you're the therapist, not me. But that probably fosters code dependency.

• 51:22Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, absolutely.

• 51:22Ed Mylett?

  I mean, I am, I need you.

• 51:24Speaker 04

  Yes, yes. There's a dependency and that's also when you go from solid to pseudo. You know what I'm saying?

• 51:29Ed Mylett?

  Why? Why do you have to go from solid to pseudo?

• 51:30Speaker 04

  Because you're not bringing your authentic self. You're bringing a self that is lined with desperation, that is now putting this person, you know, high up. That is now going back to the, uh, the hot tub with two people on top of each other instead of in their own separate bathtubs. And then also if you believe that this person is the one that you're supposed to be with for the rest of your life, what if it doesn't work out? What if she leaves, like, you know?

• 51:53Ed Mylett?

  You just explained where most people find such misery, bro.

• 51:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 51:56Ed Mylett?

  Cause they think they had them.

• 51:57Speaker 04

  Well, also then you also get controlling, you also get jealous, you know, all these other things, you know, the, the shadow sides come out. If you believe this is the one person for you in this world.

• 52:07Ed Mylett?

  But I think some people listening, so let's go there, cause you know what they're thinking. Okay. They're thinking, yeah, but then how deep's the connection? If I don't go down with you.

• 52:14Speaker 04

  Right.

• 52:15Ed Mylett?

  When you say go down, I assume you mean like, maybe they've, you know, become a drug addict or an alcoholic even here. Like, I'm just supposed to ride this out with you forever as you ruin your life and mine.

• 52:24Speaker 04

  Right.

• 52:24Ed Mylett?

  So there is, I, you know, I often think sometimes that with my children, you have kids.

• 52:31Ed Mylett?

  That's unconditional love. There's really nothing my kids can do that's going to stop this relationship with me. My daughter killed somebody. I hate to say this, but. I'm probably helping her bury the body somewhere.

• 52:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, I mean, all parents, right, right, right.

• 52:43Ed Mylett?

  But other relationships, there are conditions.

• 52:47Speaker 04

  There should be.

• 52:47Ed Mylett?

  There should be conditions, right? Like, hey, if you repeatedly do these things to me. That's a condition that's broken. And I think sometimes people go to this, the one thing or this codependency thing, whereas there are no conditions.

• 52:59Speaker 04

  Right.

• 53:00Ed Mylett?

  And, and then if there are no conditions, if there are no boundaries, you're putting an awful lot of pressure on that other human being not to push the limits of that.

• 53:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 53:07Ed Mylett?

  Don't you think?

• 53:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. Vanessa, my partner says it in this book and I think we wrote it together. She, she says it really good about codependency. That's all her whole thing is, um, she describes it as if I'm, so basically if it, what's healthy is. If I'm okay and you're not okay. Of course I could support you and stuff, but it's, but it's, it's okay. Codependency is when you're not okay, that ma- that makes me not okay.

• 53:35Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 53:35Speaker 04

  If I'm not okay, you should not be okay too. You know what I'm saying?

• 53:39Ed Mylett?

  Very good.

• 53:39Speaker 04

  And that's like the whole, like, I'll give you my hand, but not my, it doesn't mean that if you see your partner going through a winter or a depression that you just, oh, that's not me. It's not that, of course you, you helping your support, but at what point do you, um, you can't lose self or your life because. You know, cause then they're taking you hostage, whether they want to or know it or not.

• 54:00Ed Mylett?

  This self thing is. So profound, bro, because one, I think a lot of us come into a relationship. By the way, and again, I'm being transparent. I think till I was about thirty five years old, but I'm still a work in progress on it.

• 54:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:09Ed Mylett?

  But if you don't know who you are, what do you bring into a relationship? And then also, this loss of self when we enter a relationship is a really dangerous thing. One, I don't think that you're bringing the vibrational frequency, the energy, the interesting things about you. If you die in order to be one in a relationship.

• 54:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:27Ed Mylett?

  And it's an interesting thing I wanted to explore with you because I've watched relationships and of friends of mine that were very loving. They were two wonderful people that got together, they formed a bond. There's us now, which I think is powerful. But at some point, that us eroded me and I. Meaning that they were no longer an individual.

• 54:48Speaker 04

  Right, right, they meshed.

• 54:49Ed Mylett?

  They meshed, and ironically, that lack of individuality, that lack of expression of who one is.

• 54:55Speaker 04

  Right.

• 54:56Ed Mylett?

  Became less attractive to the other person over time.

• 54:59Speaker 04

  It's called false advertising. Because, you know, it's funny, because when you're single, you're working on yourself, you're going to the gym, you're doing all these things. And you're really doing everything to connect to you. And then you get into a relationship and over time, you know, then it's the sweats. And the, you know, people kind of like, let go of taking care of themselves and all that. And I think we have a responsibility when we're in a relationship to continue the relationship with ourselves. Or else it is false advertising. Because when I met you, you were this type of person. And now, like, we never go out, you don't, you know, you don't court me anymore, which should be continuous, right?

• 55:38Speaker 04

  You're not fanning the flames, you don't, all the stuff that you were doing when we started is now gone because things have gotten too comfortable. You know, and so that's when it gets murky. And that's when people start getting curious about other people.

• 55:51Ed Mylett?

  I think you're exactly right, brother. What about this idea of, thank you for being so good at this?

• 55:56Speaker 04

  Oh, I don't know if I'm good, but.

• 55:58Ed Mylett?

  You're outstanding, and you're, the way you express it is unique, and it's why you're sitting here.

• 56:02Speaker 04

  Thanks.

• 56:04Ed Mylett?

  And like, I know when I'm in a good one of these. I know when I'm in something and I'm like, hey, this is, this is special. You talk about different attachment styles. Can you talk about that a little bit?

• 56:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, and I'll just go through three. There's more. Um, secure attachment is, and attachment styles stem from, from childhood and of course, starting with our parents, but um, there's anxious attachment and that is uh, when you're holding on to the person's leg instead of their hand, right? That's like me. Uh, I need the person to uh, tell me that I'm beautiful and that they're, they're not leaving and they love me and all that kind of stuff, right? Lots of, lots of text and connection. There's avoidant. And that's more like my partner who uh, goes, runs the other way is, is, is uh, not is avoidant with intimacy and, and hard conversations and, and vulnerability. Uh, we, we are not that much anymore because we've done a lot of work, but-

• 56:50Ed Mylett?

  I was gonna say, that would be pretty difficult. You, you're one of all-

• 56:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. There's, you know, different extremes of that.

• 56:53Ed Mylett?

  Sure.

• 56:54Speaker 04

  Um, but if we were to classify, that's where I come from, that's where she comes from. And then there's secure. And secure is again, when you have your own sense of self. Interdependence, when you are your own person, you have your own opinions. You can say no. You can say to your boyfriend how you want him to go down on you. You can express yourself. You can say, no, I don't want tacos today, I want pizza. And I know, I know it sounds very, very simple. Um, but in relationships, we don't do that. We actually start loving the, because we think what love looks like is loving the other person more than us.

• 57:27Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 57:28Speaker 04

  More than us. And because that's what a good husband looks like. I'm gonna always put her uh, ahead of, she wants pizza, she's getting pizza. That's what, that's what a man looks like. It's like, is it? Or are you exchanging your truth for love or for validation? Are you exchanging something that, you know what I'm saying?

• 57:45Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 57:45Speaker 04

  So now, if that's the case, are you giving or taking? Because if you want something back from the person, you're taking, you're not giving.

• 57:52Ed Mylett?

  Oh my gosh.

• 57:53Speaker 04

  Giving would be like, hey, I love you, but today I want pizza.

• 57:56Ed Mylett?

  Is that what you mean by choosing ourselves, or is that a little bit different?

• 57:59Speaker 04

  Uh, yeah, I think, I think that also is uh, choosing yourself, meaning stand on your truth and put action behind uh, what loving slash liking yourself looks like. And I think some people are good at that when they're single, but I think when they get into a relationship, when love enters the picture, right? Especially if it's toxic, right? Especially if someone is um, needy or codependent or controlling or all of that. Um, the wheels fall off. And it happens over time, you know, it's like the boiling frog, right?

• 58:31Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 58:31Speaker 04

  It's a slow drip that can still drown you. It's not like, people don't fall into toxic relationships when on the date, they sense all these red flags and they're like, okay, I'm gonna invest in this person anyway. Usually, it's over time, five, six years in, and now they wake up and they're like, I don't even know who I am.

• 58:49Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 58:49Speaker 04

  I don't know who I am. A lot of women, and mostly women than men, from my experience with working with clients, wake up, mostly in their 30s, and been with people for, you know, five, 10 years, and this happens. And they're like, I have no sense of, I'm just here. I'm existing, I'm not living. And just having sex because it's obligation, and they don't know what to do, and they've really lost like who they are.

• 59:16Ed Mylett?

  Okay, so like 5 million people just are going, oh my gosh, you just described me, right?

• 59:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, now what do I do?

• 59:21Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, right, so what would be, what's a, you're going right where I wanna go, so...

• 59:24Speaker 04

  Well, it's kind of like, I think where I started, you know, it's the hero's journey, man. It's the cult, you know, the hero's journey, right? The cult adventure and selling your dragons. I think it's starting, going back full circle to suit over solid.

• 59:41Speaker 04

  What is your solid self and can you start listening to that solid self? And it comes in micro moments, it's not like these big decisions like, you know, life-changing. I mean, it can be, but it can be something as like, hey, you know what? Today, I'm not gonna go to work, I'm gonna go to the beach. It's a quiet whisper, but then there's this giant should. Yeah, but you're this and you're that, and that means you're a lazy piece of ****, whatever. And so can you give yourself love, compassion, understanding? And today, can you execute what you want, the quiet whisper? And actually go to the beach? Can you give that yourself without the shame, without the... And it's gonna be really hard, most people can't. You start there, and then you build, and then you build. And you get to a place where you start then able to set boundaries, to make choices. And it's also more attractive, right?

• 1:00:26Speaker 04

  And then, the people around you are like, ****, I'll have what she's having.

• 1:00:30Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 1:00:31Speaker 04

  Man, she's kind, but she's assertive.

• 1:00:34Ed Mylett?

  And you know what also happens? I'll have her. No, really, like what ends up happening is this becomes a magnetic, attractive being again. Or maybe for the first time.

• 1:00:42Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:00:42Ed Mylett?

  I, I so totally agree with you and it, and it could be actually standing up for what you want. Like, I actually want tacos tonight. It sounds so trivial.

• 1:00:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, it sounds, but it's in the mundane.

• 1:00:50Ed Mylett?

  Or actually, honey, you're going to watch the kids and I am going to the gym.

• 1:00:54Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:00:54Ed Mylett?

  And actually stand for yourself and do something caring and loving for yourself, right?

• 1:00:58Speaker 04

  And, and coming from that place, not a place of controlling or getting back at anyone. It's, it's coming from your truth and it's coming from a place of self-love. You know?

• 1:01:06Ed Mylett?

  What is, you got this terms, man. What is repetition compulsion?

• 1:01:10Speaker 04

  Repetition, I don't, I think my partner wrote that one.

• 1:01:13Ed Mylett?

  Okay, so that must be from your partner.

• 1:01:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:14Ed Mylett?

  You're talking, I think what it was is that you, I think, I want to go there with it because I think it was like repetitiously falling into a pattern in a relationship. Where like you have a compulsion to continue to serve them in a way that maybe doesn't serve you anymore.

• 1:01:27Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 1:01:27Ed Mylett?

  So actually, I, I'll, I'll make my own term of it.

• 1:01:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, I love it.

• 1:01:30Ed Mylett?

  Let's just say I'm right.

• 1:01:31Speaker 04

  I love it. I think you're right.

• 1:01:33Ed Mylett?

  But I think that happens intimately wise too. Where like, there's something that, and this, we're going really deep here. But like, there's something intimately that your partner really loves that you don't enjoy, that you don't like.

• 1:01:44Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:01:45Ed Mylett?

  But you repetitiously do it out of some compulsion to serve them. Or maybe some verbal thing you do, or a particular behavior you have. Maybe it's not even in an intimate way. But you, it doesn't serve you, it doesn't make you feel good about you. There's a way they speak to you or you speak to them. But it makes them feel good, so you have this compulsion to continue to do it. That's my version of it.

• 1:02:01Speaker 04

  Yes, uh, my, so we all went out to dinner the other night, me and like four other therapists. Uh, my partner's a therapist, our friend's a therapist. And we were talking, and I don't know how we got on this topic, but we're talking about how, um, women can go down on a guy and actually, um, oh, as, as a way to avoid sex. And I was like, wait a minute, I said, but that's so intimate. Um, and they're like, it might be for men, when men are going down on women. But for women, they're, they're saying that, and these are all women, they're saying, it's not, it could be, it's easy, it's not intimate, and it could be a great way to get out of sex. And it blew my mind and I was thinking, and they're like, yeah, and we've been doing it for years. And I was thinking, so that's kind of an example of a pattern that could happen, right?

• 1:02:45Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:45Speaker 04

  If you don't want to be intimate.

• 1:02:46Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:46Speaker 04

  Where that's kind of how you take care, and it shouldn't be happening because it's misleading. And also you shouldn't be doing it if you don't want to.

• 1:02:53Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 1:02:53Speaker 04

  Um, but something like that, over the years, the pattern of that is damaging, right?

• 1:02:58Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:58Speaker 04

  And that's, we're just talking about. Just everyday stuff, you know?

• 1:03:02Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, yeah, that's super interesting.

• 1:03:04Speaker 04

  And it shocked me because I was thinking, oh, and then I started playing back on my relationships and was thinking, how many of them were just doing it because they didn't want to have sex with me?

• 1:03:12Ed Mylett?

  Right?

• 1:03:15Ed Mylett?

  You look back in your life.

• 1:03:15Speaker 04

  I thought they wanted to do it.

• 1:03:17Ed Mylett?

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• 1:04:01Ed Mylett?

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• 1:04:46Ed Mylett?

  I feel great and I bring energy to the entire day. Go to im8health.com/ed10 right now or click the link in the description and use code ED10 for a free welcome kit, five free travel sachets plus 10% off your order. That's code ED10 at im8health.com/ed10. Code ED10 at im8health.com/ed10. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, prevent any disease. That was a great conversation. And if you want to hear the full interview, be sure to follow the Ed Mylett Show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way.

• 1:05:28Ed Mylett?

  I reached out to this woman to be on my show after I experienced her work. And I haven't done that in probably two years. I was telling her, I said, I want you to come on my show. She has a special out on Netflix right now called Mom Jeans, which I've watched four times, including last night with my kids. And we were literally belly laughing, falling over. And I cannot wait for this hour because I want to know you and I want you to help a bunch of people. So Christina P., welcome to the show.

• 1:05:50Christina Pazsitzky?

  Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much for having me.

• 1:05:52Ed Mylett?

  You have two parents. The good parent, who you speak highly of is who this is the good one, by the way. And so as I understand it, you're the good one, your dad has been married five times. Is that right? Is it five?

• 1:06:05Christina Pazsitzky?

  Well, you know, there's a little factual fudging here and there. But yeah, a few times.

• 1:06:11Ed Mylett?

  Is he really married to someone that much younger than him? Is that actually a true story? Or dates someone younger than him?

• 1:06:16Christina Pazsitzky?

  Younger. Yeah. And I fudge a little.

• 1:06:18Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, everybody does.

• 1:06:19Christina Pazsitzky?

  Yeah, it's for comedic purposes. But the but the gist of it is yes.

• 1:06:23Ed Mylett?

  Your dad was a player.

• 1:06:24Christina Pazsitzky?

  Oh, I mean, well, yeah, let's look. I'll give you the stats. So, parents are Hungarian immigrants. They escaped from communism 1969. They get married at 19 and 20 and leave their country at that young age. Can you even imagine being like, I'm up, I'm out, let's escape, escape communism, bro. They go to Canada. They have me in Canada. And then we moved to the US in 1980. By then, their marriage has just dissolved because my mother is mentally ill. She's a borderline. But back then, nobody called it anything. We didn't know it. And she later became schizophrenic. And my father is is an alcoholic, obviously to deal with his, you know, they had horrendous upbringings. It's not their fault. It's

• 1:07:08Christina Pazsitzky?

  right. They divorce. And then it's me alone ping ponged between my mentally ill mother or my alcoholic, sex addict father.

• 1:07:18Ed Mylett?

  Wow.

• 1:07:19Christina Pazsitzky?

  Right. But you know, but you know it. Because did your parents stay together?

• 1:07:23Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:23Christina Pazsitzky?

  Oh, I'm not sure what's worse.

• 1:07:25Ed Mylett?

  Well, mine was redemptive because my mom was well adjusted. My mom was there and was solid. The reason I probably connected with you is I picture your dad, maybe not all that much unlike my dad. And then I'm thinking, though, if I didn't have my mom, and then you having a probably even more Disconnected mother.

• 1:07:44Christina Pazsitzky?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:45Ed Mylett?

  And I'm, I literally, I'll be honest with you. I'm watching your show. I want to make sure I do a great interview with you today because I actually feel like this can care for you from watching you, which is a comedy special. I've never laughed harder either, but when you were speaking and doing your show, I was picturing you as a little girl. I was actually picturing it with your mom and how like scary that might've been sometimes seeing her not be functional and normal and losing her temper and stuff like that. What, can you tell us a little bit what it was actually like? Now that you're off stage, what's the real?

• 1:08:17Christina Pazsitzky?

  It's, uh, God, like I'm still in therapy, you know? Just to, just to let people know, like I've, I've been in, uh, therapy for 12 years. And then I feel like just now I'm getting into the actual trauma work where you feel the feelings of terror that you had as a child. And I had terror and, and fear because there was no, there's no safe place. Yeah. When you're like that, right? So my mother would become, I remember one time she made these lunches for me that I didn't like. It was like Hungarian lunch, you know, like, like salami with butter. And I, I take it to school and I'm like, I don't want to eat this, you know?

• 1:09:01Christina Pazsitzky?

  Everyone's making fun of me because I'm a foreigner. And so I hide the sandwiches in the bottom of my book bag because I don't, I can't throw them out because I feel too guilty about throwing them out. I'll get in trouble and I can't tell her that I don't like the sandwiches. Can't tell her because she'll get mad. So I, I hide a bunch, but eventually I have a stockpile of like 14 or 15. God, my hands are sweating, you're telling a story. And I hid them in my closet. Well, eventually the stench of 14 or 15 salami and butter sandwiches caught up. And she found them and it was a rage and it was like, you know, everything, my anger. And then, and then she kicks me out and that's the beginning of like kicking me out to go live with my father. And my dad's house wasn't a lot better.

• 1:09:44Christina Pazsitzky?

  So that, you know, because of alcohol and girls and party and all that jazz. So it's basically like, I'm betrayed everywhere I go. I look and I don't have a safe place. And it's, uh, it's scary and terrifying.

• 1:10:01Ed Mylett?

  What's your day to day like then? Are you always scared, always? Do you have, were you not a confident kid? The reason I ask people, you know why I'm asking you this? People, millions of people listening to this will be like, okay, there's a piece of me in her.

• 1:10:13Christina Pazsitzky?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:13Ed Mylett?

  I really believe this in life. Like, if you really want to impress everybody, just show them how perfect you are. If you want to connect with people and help them, show them your imperfections.

• 1:10:20Christina Pazsitzky?

  For sure.

• 1:10:21Ed Mylett?

  And you and I both do a really good job of that. And so you're this little girl and I just picture you bouncing from these two dysfunctional people.

• 1:10:28Christina Pazsitzky?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:29Ed Mylett?

  And with no other even siblings to grab on to and say, okay, they love me, they'll protect me. Nothing.

• 1:10:34Christina Pazsitzky?

  No, but you know who I did have along the way were sensible adults, teachers that I liked and that I could speak to. I had American, I say American because like, you know, I'm an alien in the sense, you know this too as a child and I'm an alcoholic, you're an alien because you're different and you know it and you can't tell people at school like what's going on at home because you know that that's a secret you must keep. So I would go to my friend's house. I lived at my friend's house. By the time I was 12, I was out. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, by the time I'm 12, I have this epiphany that I'm alone, truly alone and an existential, like I was a latchkey kid, so I was physically alone, but that I was an adult. I was gone. So I would, I would try to stay at my friends' houses and get the [BLEEP].

• 1:11:18Christina Pazsitzky?

  But, uh, but how did I, I'll tell you what I did know at that age is that my suffering,

• 1:11:25Christina Pazsitzky?

  you know, when you're like, you know, you're suffering, but you don't really know as a kid. You don't know.

• 1:11:29Ed Mylett?

  It's all you know.

• 1:11:30Christina Pazsitzky?

  But I knew that there was something inside of me. That was resilient. There is some magic, do you know what I'm saying? Like, I would watch Pippi Longstocking.

• 1:11:39Ed Mylett?

  Me too.

• 1:11:40Christina Pazsitzky?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:41Ed Mylett?

  So did I.

• 1:11:41Christina Pazsitzky?

  Yeah, and it was like, because of those characters, because of the mythologies and the, whatever it is I was glomming on to stories, I would like pretend to be that person. Like, my life isn't this, I'm Pippi Long... Isn't this fun that I actually turned it into like, I'm living with my single dad, and he makes me eat on paper plates, but I can cut my spaghetti with scissors, because I'm Pippi Longstocking. Like, I turned it into a fun thing.

• 1:12:06Ed Mylett?

  Yep, yep.

• 1:12:07Christina Pazsitzky?

  You too?

• 1:12:08Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, I think that, look, stuff's oversaid in personal development. Everything's happening for me, not to me. I don't know if I was the first person to say that, or the third. I'd like to think I was the first. But sometimes that stuff's easy to say and hard to apply. But I do think like, I became really resilient because of it. I became, I really, you know, like in the business world, I've made a lot of money. One of the ways I've made a lot of money is like, two things. Both of them because my dad was a drinker. One, I have learned to be really, read people well.

• 1:12:37Christina Pazsitzky?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:12:38Ed Mylett?

  And be present with them. The reason was, I had to figure out when my dad was coming through that front door, which one was I getting? Was I getting the sober one, who was gonna be, okay, we're gonna have dinner and play basketball? Or was it the drunk one, and you know, maybe my mom and sister should go upstairs? So I would read this man. And that, I didn't know, Napoleon Hill says in Think and Grow Rich.

• 1:12:56Christina Pazsitzky?

  Love that book!

• 1:12:57Ed Mylett?

  Me too. It's the second best book ever written on personal, and other than The Power of One More, which is sitting next to you.

• 1:13:02Christina Pazsitzky?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:02Ed Mylett?

  And, but in that book, he says, "On the other side of temporary pain, you meet your other self."

• 1:13:09Christina Pazsitzky?

  Mm.

• 1:13:09Ed Mylett?

  And I met this version of me that wouldn't have existed, where I'm really good at reading people and being present with them. And then the other thing I'm decent at doing is communicating. So are you. And because I had to learn how to talk to my dad when he was in those states, so that I could change him just a little bit, or even move certain ways I would move. Little did I know that those two things were forming this version of me that I would use someday to help millions of people. And I watch you, and I watch your ability to have like insights into human beings' behaviors.

• 1:13:42Christina Pazsitzky?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:13:43Ed Mylett?

  And how they move and operate, how they think, and then your ability to communicate.

• 1:13:47Christina Pazsitzky?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:13:48Ed Mylett?

  And I think, some of that's got to be part of the blessing of going through what you went through.

• 1:13:53Christina Pazsitzky?

  Suffering. Suffering makes you funny, makes you clever. Makes you resourceful. You know, everybody I know, like you. Most of the guys I know that are hugely successful didn't graduate from Harvard.

• 1:14:08Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, right, me too.

• 1:14:09Christina Pazsitzky?

  Or crappy at school and had horrible upbringings.

• 1:14:13Ed Mylett?

  Isn't that interesting?

• 1:14:13Christina Pazsitzky?

  It's the secret sauce, isn't it?

• 1:14:15Ed Mylett?

  It is.

• 1:14:15Christina Pazsitzky?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:15Ed Mylett?

  It is.

• 1:14:16Christina Pazsitzky?

  But I think for me, my father loved comedy and good humor. So I was watching Richard Pryor when I was little and Eddie Murphy and Saturday Night Live and Cheech and Chong. And this was my education. And then the truly tasteless joke books, I would memorize those because those would be in the bathroom. And I would tell those jokes to my father or to my schoolmates at school. I would go to school in like third grade and I would repeat these jokes that are, you know, by today's standards, completely verboten, right? Like blonde jokes and Jewish jokes and da, da, da, da, da. I didn't even know what they were, but I knew that people laughed.

• 1:14:51Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:51Christina Pazsitzky?

  And that's how I could get out of stuff. And I also, I became entertaining to my dad so that I wasn't a burden.

• 1:14:58Ed Mylett?

  Interesting.

• 1:14:59Christina Pazsitzky?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:59Ed Mylett?

  You, um, see, if you, right now in the middle of this, like, took a minute and went over to YouTube and watched Christina, you'd see this like, I mean, I'm just, I'm not saying it's a compliment, you'd just see this very powerful, very together, very, to walk out on a stage, any stage, and own it like you do, there's a command, there's, there's something. So, I don't know if you've done a lot of interviews like this, I don't think you have.

• 1:15:21Christina Pazsitzky?

  No, we don't talk, comedians are generally like, let's talk about our farts.

• 1:15:24Ed Mylett?

  Right, but comedians are also usually pretty dark people in real life, right? Would you agree with that? I think that's one thing most people wouldn't know. My friends that are super funny or that do it for a living, there's a, I guess I'd call it a darkness or a pain or something they're moving away from most of the time in their life. Is that true?

• 1:15:41Christina Pazsitzky?

  Well, here's the deal, the funnier you are, the more you've embraced the darkness, in my opinion. It's the funny, the funniest ones are the ones. Who get, who know it's there and don't push it away. That's why personally, my taste in comedy has always been Bill Hicks or Carlin or these guys. I love Greg Giraldo, he passed away from drugs, but these guys that could really harness the darkness and go there. I don't give a shit about cookie. What's the difference between cookie and cookie? I don't care.

• 1:16:10Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:11Christina Pazsitzky?

  Shut up. Tell me the real, you know?

• 1:16:14Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:14Christina Pazsitzky?

  So, yes, but here's where I would argue is that most people are dark. There's, everyone has the shadow self and comedians aren't always afraid of going there. But your accountant, your lawyer, your dentist, guess what? They're dark too, probably.

• 1:16:29Ed Mylett?

  Probably true, yeah.

• 1:16:30Christina Pazsitzky?

  But, but you haven't looked, you don't, you don't want to peek.

• 1:16:34Ed Mylett?

  If I'd have met you at like 12,

• 1:16:39Ed Mylett?

  who would I, who would I be meeting?

• 1:16:41Christina Pazsitzky?

  Oh my god.

• 1:16:42Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:43Christina Pazsitzky?

  Yeah. Okay, you do you though, you do you too, okay?

• 1:16:47Ed Mylett?

  Okay, okay.

• 1:16:48Christina Pazsitzky?

  Okay, so 12, I started smoking cigarettes already.

• 1:16:52Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 1:16:52Christina Pazsitzky?

  Started wearing all black.

• 1:16:54Ed Mylett?

  You did.

• 1:16:55Christina Pazsitzky?

  I was already, um, school was kinda not interesting. I wanna hang out, smoke cigarettes, listen to punk rock. I started, I wanna go to nightclubs by 13, 14, I'm in goth nightclubs and like doing, yeah. Just kinda angry and confused.

• 1:17:13Ed Mylett?

  Go back a minute, I'll tell you me.

• 1:17:15Christina Pazsitzky?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:16Ed Mylett?

  Is it really true that you were in bars with your dad when you were a little girl? That's actually true, that's a true part of your act.

• 1:17:20Christina Pazsitzky?

  Yeah, that part's true, a hundred percent.

• 1:17:22Ed Mylett?

  Your father would take you out to a bar at six, seven, eight years old and you would be dancing to White Lines in a bar. Is there some truth to that?

• 1:17:28Christina Pazsitzky?

  Yeah, it's all true. So that part's true and that's why, so I actually paid out of my own money to license that Frankie Goes to Hollywood song.

• 1:17:34Ed Mylett?

  I wondered at the end, I, it's so, I'm so screwed up because I know about all these things. I'm like, damn, she must have paid for that to be at the end because that ain't free. I thought about that last night.

• 1:17:42Christina Pazsitzky?

  I paid so much money. Because Netflix paid for my crazy outfit, which was unfortunate. And they paid for this New York City. It was like huge, huge budget. And then I was like, and I want Frankie Goes to Hollywood.

• 1:17:53Ed Mylett?

  Because it's the perfect ending.

• 1:17:54Christina Pazsitzky?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:55Ed Mylett?

  You guys gotta go see this. But so that, I want to say that.

• 1:17:57Christina Pazsitzky?

  So I go to, so, so my dad, my dad goes to party and, and you know, back in the old country, you don't, there's no babysitters. So his dad would take him to the bar. I imagine is what hap, that is what happened. And so I grew up in bars and nightclubs very early. So at third grade, I've, I've actually really fun memories as a kid, going to these bars and dancing and dancing to the eighties music, which is the best, dude. Like I really lucked out in that regard. And I was, I have a vivid memory of dancing with sailors. And there's literally sailors, they're at Fleet Week or whatever, and I'm this little girl, and that song, "Moni, Moni" comes on. And do you know what the hidden chorus is? "Hey, mother effer, get, get effed." And they, and here I am.

• 1:18:38Ed Mylett?

  Everyone yells it.

• 1:18:39Christina Pazsitzky?

  Yeah, and then I was like, what? Oh, and then I'm chanting it, like, but it was fun for me and, and.

• 1:18:44Ed Mylett?

  You thought White Lines was a coloring book?

• 1:18:46Christina Pazsitzky?

  I did. I had no idea what, that it was about cocaine. I was so little. And, but then, then I'd go to school the next day and I knew to keep it a secret.

• 1:18:53Ed Mylett?

  You knew. So there's something you do. I want, um, this sounds really corny, but I'm listening to the part of your act. And I like, want to hug this little girl. I also just picture you at your age and me at that age and what I was doing.

• 1:19:05Christina Pazsitzky?

  What are you into at 12?

• 1:19:06Ed Mylett?

  Well, at 12, I went the other way. Well, first, if you met me at 12, yeah. If you met me at 12, you would meet a really shy kid. Really shy, really introverted, no confidence whatsoever of any type. But I was good at baseball. And so I kind of went the other way. I was more like straight laced, never got in trouble. Was afraid to become what I was seeing in my house.

• 1:19:29Christina Pazsitzky?

  Aha, yes.

• 1:19:30Ed Mylett?

  My dad was still drinking when I was 12. So I kind of became more like an athlete type, I guess. But I wasn't like one of those athletes where like I was a cocky athlete. It was just the only thing I was any good at. It was the only thing, like, it was the one place I went where I was like, oh, I don't completely totally suck here. And no one was bullying me there, right? My, you know, I would worry, there was worries, like I would worry on game days if my dad was going to show up to a game. And if he did, was he drunk? If he was at the game, was he going to say or do anything? Sometimes I feel bad because I'm describing these times and I know my mom listens to my show and she's like, was it really that bad? And I'm like.

• 1:20:08Ed Mylett?

  I don't know, maybe it is worse when I describe it now because it's all I knew, right? Like it's all I knew. And my dad did end up getting sober and so there's like, the reason I'm in this like you can change yourself space is I watched my old man do it, right? So I'm like, I watched my hero do it. But probably if you met me then, I don't even know that I'd be that much different than I am now. I think when people meet me now, they're like, I kind of expected, you know, I don't know, you'd have more, uh, I don't know, like that front that people have that are successful or whatever. I still am like, hey man, I'm working on myself and there's certain environments I'm comfortable in. You put me in front of 15,000 people on a stage, I'm completely at home and I own it. You put me in a cocktail party with like six or eight people and someone's right here and I'm like, yeah, I gotta, you gotta make the, go to the restaurant.

• 1:20:49Ed Mylett?

  Like I'm constantly trying to avoid, you said that your Tom's a little that way.

• 1:20:54Christina Pazsitzky?

  Yeah, my husband's an introvert like that too. He's not the life of the party. I think I'm a lot more fun at a party than he is.

• 1:20:59Ed Mylett?

  You think that's from the bar experience? Seriously, like you're used to being social?

• 1:21:02Christina Pazsitzky?

  I love party, uh, yeah. And, and it's also cultural, like my, we're Hungarian, so like on Sunday we have a party, everybody comes over, you're telling dirty jokes, you're drinking, gives me awful, you know, it's like this, this, I was never like shy as a kid. Cause my mother pushed me into acting when I was four. So I was like, yeah, I was auditioning and already kind of a show business. And then I think around 10 or 11, I do like a pilot and then I'm like, I don't want to be an actor. This is for the birds, this is, I'm depressive. And that's actually what I was going to share with you. So by the time I'm 14, upside down, this is when I get super depressed. Cause now, you know, when you're messed in childhood, guess what? It comes back in adolescence.

• 1:21:43Christina Pazsitzky?

  And now the drama, so I'm 14 years old, I'm goth, I'm cutting, right? I'm cutting up my arms just to feel some release because I'm so depressed. And I'm sitting in the room, in my room, just try to hide from my parents and the reality and I, you know, you're confused. You think you're being dramatic, like, is this really true? Is my family this wonky or like, I don't know, am I, am I, I must be messed up because. You know, like, I'm the one that's flawed. So you, by the time I'm 14, I'm convinced it's me and not them. And I'm suicidal. And life is, like, I have straight Ds.

• 1:22:22Christina Pazsitzky?

  I remember, like, I just decided to stop going to school. I just decided I was in, I was in ninth grade and I was like, I'm not going anymore. And then I just stopped going. I was like, no, thank you. And I stopped going. And then I, and then I was, I had straight Ds, I remember, and I did, I eventually went back. And I was failing out of school. And then one day, I just went nuts in, in this, in the bathroom stall, cutting. And I was just like, whoa. And I just cut, I just went crazy. And this friend of mine, this girl I had been friends with, and we had a following up, whatever, like, she found me, she took me to the office at school. Oh, my God. Yeah, so dramatic. And then my mom came to get me. And she saw my arms, and then she started to hit me. I remember she beat me. And I was like,

• 1:23:09Christina Pazsitzky?

  Yeah, and I was like, just put me in a mental hospital. Like, I begged them. I'm like, put me away. I think something's wrong with me. Put me away. And my mother had worked for a psychiatrist, and I think she's just worried about putting me in a mental hospital or whatever, like, that it would stigmatize me or mess me up worse. So she kept, she was like, no. I didn't see a therapist yet. She's like, but do you want to go to Catholic school? And I was like, yeah. I mean, she showed me this brochure to this old girl's Catholic school. And I was like, I, yeah, okay. So I went to the nuns. And I loved it. I f***ed, I loved it, man. I had a mohawk at the time, like, an orange mohawk. And I remember the, the, this nice head nun, the principal goes,

• 1:23:54Christina Pazsitzky?

  "Listen, sweetie, you shouldn't come this way." She goes, "It doesn't have to be the color God gave you. It just has to be a God-given color." I know. So I dyed it brown, and I hid my mohawk, and I grew it out. And I could put my bookbag down, and nobody would steal it. And by the time I had graduated, I was like, a leader of this retreat, and I had, I just flourished because of the, the boundaries and the...

• 1:24:17Christina Pazsitzky?

  It was an all-girls school too, so there was like, oh, I don't have to be cute. I'm wearing a uniform. I can just be a little girl again. And I reverted and I was able to be safe. And that saved my life.

• 1:24:27Ed Mylett?

  Saved your life.

• 1:24:27Christina Pazsitzky?

  Catholic school saved my life, yeah.

• 1:24:29Ed Mylett?

  It's pretty amazing to see your face right now. You know, this is mainly audio. I wish everyone could see your face. It's interesting to see you talk about that time.

• 1:24:40Ed Mylett?

  Think about your mom there for a second.

• 1:24:43Ed Mylett?

  So she loved you. I mean, she was trying with the limited

• 1:24:46Christina Pazsitzky?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:47Ed Mylett?

  capacity she had to help her daughter there, right? I mean, did that ever dawn on you that, I mean, she did love you, right?

• 1:24:53Christina Pazsitzky?

  Yes, yes. No, obviously too, a lot of what I say for comedic, it's, it's no good if they're shades of gray.

• 1:24:59Ed Mylett?

  But I actually think you really feel it. Like, I, I, I actually think you really, let me tell you what I mean by that. I really do feel these things about my dad. I feel guilty about feeling them because I know that, that that's not, wasn't his intent. It was his.

• 1:25:11Christina Pazsitzky?

  You feel guilty about having negative feelings towards him?

• 1:25:14Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, I do because I love him so much. I know he loved me so much. I've got to the other side of it now where I can, and this is so good for everyone listening to this who goes through these things, but I, I don't, I, I think it's okay that I feel it. I feel sometimes weird that other people know I feel it because I don't want them to think that about my dad.

• 1:25:31Christina Pazsitzky?

  Judge him or you?

• 1:25:33Ed Mylett?

  Both, both. I don't want to be judged for feeling that way. And also like, I do know that my dad hurt people, hurt people, right? So I know my dad was operating out of something that happened in his life, in his upbringing, and same with his dad and so on and so on, but I, I feel weird about the fact that there's this man I love so much, but that I, these things did happen. I do feel this way, you know? I have both feelings. I remember what it's like when I didn't feel good about him and I remember what it feels like when I do. And I, and in your case, your mom was trying, but so when you went there, when you, you Catholic school, does that, when you start to change permanently, or do you end up reverting back? Like,

• 1:26:10Christina Pazsitzky?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:26:11Ed Mylett?

  When do you become you?

• 1:26:13Christina Pazsitzky?

  So, so that's a good question. So, so also before, before I go there, I, I love what you say about having two simultaneous feelings. And I think that's what you learn in therapy, um, is that I can love and hate my mom at the same time. I can love and hate my dad at the same time. I can thank my mother for all the wonderful qualities she had. She was fashionable. She had flair. She had timing. She was funny. She was crazier than [BLEEP] too.

• 1:26:42Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:42Christina Pazsitzky?

  You know what I'm saying? Like, my dad too is just like funny, antisocial, brooding, independent, resilient. Like, brilliant, nut.

• 1:26:55Ed Mylett?

  Does it ever dawn on you, and I'll let you keep going, that they end up raising? I mean, because you're really humble, and, but, does it ever dawn on you that these two people raised a daughter who now, I mean, let's just be real, like, you're one of the more, I mean, you're gonna roll your eyes as I say this, but you are one of the more influential people on the planet in terms of your show and your reach and your husband and you.

• 1:27:17Christina Pazsitzky?

  So funny. I don't even feel that way.

• 1:27:18Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, I know you don't.

• 1:27:19Christina Pazsitzky?

  But do you feel that way?

• 1:27:20Ed Mylett?

  No, not at all. But, but it's

• 1:27:21Christina Pazsitzky?

  It's ridiculous.

• 1:27:22Ed Mylett?

  But you are. And so these two totally dysfunctional human beings, no, really, raised this single child together, right?

• 1:27:30Christina Pazsitzky?

  How?

• 1:27:30Ed Mylett?

  How, right? And then you end up, I mean, it's just, I'm picturing you cutting yourself.

• 1:27:35Christina Pazsitzky?

  Yeah, it's terrible. These maniacs.

• 1:27:38Ed Mylett?

  And I was, by the way, I went through this stage where like, I was so depressed. I don't know if I was, I just, I used to think, what the heck is life about? Why am I living this life? What is this? Is this worth it at all?

• 1:27:47Christina Pazsitzky?

  So that goes into that.

• 1:27:47Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, and I, did you have that too?

• 1:27:49Christina Pazsitzky?

  Yeah, man. So the darkness. So, okay, so hold on. Back where you're just saying, how did they raise someone? I'll tell you why. Because it makes me sad. Because my parents are wildly awesome people who had a, a bad go of it, man. Could you imagine being born in communist Hungary?

• 1:28:05Ed Mylett?

  No.

• 1:28:06Christina Pazsitzky?

  It's after World War II. So the country's already been ravaged by the Germans, war, war, awful poverty, and now the Russians come and destroy your country. And it's a nightmare. They have nothing. So I always think of them as this pure potential that just got destroyed.

• 1:28:21Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:22Christina Pazsitzky?

  So I know that they, they've got the makings. Oh, but had they just had my life?

• 1:28:27Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:28Christina Pazsitzky?

  Damn it.

• 1:28:28Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:29Christina Pazsitzky?

  I lucked out.

• 1:28:29Ed Mylett?

  They had your life. So you lucked out being raised by the two of them compared to what they had?

• 1:28:34Christina Pazsitzky?

  A hundred percent. A hundred percent. And here's another lucky thing I had. Money.

• 1:28:41Christina Pazsitzky?

  Now, we weren't rich. I'm not saying I was rich.

• 1:28:42Ed Mylett?

  Get food every day. You have to worry about where meals were coming from.

• 1:28:45Christina Pazsitzky?

  No, not like that. We were like middle class. And I think back in the 90s, there was a middle class, right?

• 1:28:49Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:50Christina Pazsitzky?

  And I hate when people poo poo money. It makes me bonkers when they're like, you need money and everything. That's not everything, but it's awesome.

• 1:28:56Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, and the lack of it is horrible.

• 1:28:58Christina Pazsitzky?

  And it sucks being broke.

• 1:28:59Ed Mylett?

  Right, the lack of it's horrible.

• 1:29:00Christina Pazsitzky?

  Yeah, so it changes, so it gives you toys. So the fact that I was educated was a huge blessing. Now, I barely eked my way into college, right? Barely got in, man, but I did. And then once I was out of the house, I was getting straight A's. And I was like, oh, I'm not an idiot. It's just that I was in this place that I couldn't study because everybody was screaming and yelling and this is a bad environment. And that's when I found philosophy. So I started studying philosophy and that changed my life. And that's when I was like, oh, I have, I have a brain. I'm not just like a screw up who tried to kill herself in ninth grade. And I was always trying to outlive that stigma of being a loser. Because my parents were like, oh, you tried to kill yourself. You know, it was like, I disappointed everybody in my family. My grandmother wouldn't give me money that year for Christmas because

• 1:29:43Christina Pazsitzky?

  she thought I was going to spend it on drugs, which I wasn't even really on drugs. You know what I mean? So I was like this, this loser in my family. So I found philosophy and I was getting A's. And I was like, you know what? Screw you, man. I'm gonna be, I'm gonna, I'm gonna show you, right? I'm gonna show you I'm a winner. And then I got into Oxford for a year.

• 1:30:02Ed Mylett?

  What?

• 1:30:02Christina Pazsitzky?

  And I went to study philosophy at Oxford. Yeah, man.

• 1:30:04Ed Mylett?

  What?

• 1:30:05Christina Pazsitzky?

  Yeah, as I'm telling you, so I went from like

• 1:30:07Ed Mylett?

  What?

• 1:30:07Christina Pazsitzky?

  Loserville to like, I don't know what I'm gonna be, but I'm gonna show you, mom.

• 1:30:12Ed Mylett?

  Holy [bleep].

• 1:30:13Christina Pazsitzky?

  Yeah. Yeah, so I studied philosophy at Oxford. I come back and I'm, and then I do that show Road Rules.

• 1:30:19Ed Mylett?

  I didn't know you did Road Rules.

• 1:30:20Christina Pazsitzky?

  Yeah, a million years later. And then I was like, wouldn't it be great if I could make a living just being myself? Flash forward to podcasting. But anyway, I had this great boss after college. I had this degree in philosophy and I was such a useless degree. And he was like, he's like, you're the worst employee I've ever had. His name is Chris Abrago. Shout out to Chris Abrago.

• 1:30:37Ed Mylett?

  What's up, Chris?

• 1:30:38Christina Pazsitzky?

  Anna, you're the worst employee I've ever had, but you're funny. Go do the Groundlings. I was 23.

• 1:30:43Ed Mylett?

  Come on.

• 1:30:44Christina Pazsitzky?

  And then I went to the Groundlings and I was like, this is it. I found it. It's like when you find your thing you're good at.

• 1:30:49Ed Mylett?

  Yep.

• 1:30:50Christina Pazsitzky?

  You found sports.

• 1:30:51Ed Mylett?

  Yep.

• 1:30:52Christina Pazsitzky?

  And then I'm like, alright, hey man, maybe, you know, I'm an idiot, I'm a loser, whatever, but this is something I love. And once you get obsessed, you know how it is, like when you find your obsession? I don't care what it takes, bro. I'm gonna keep coming and do this.

• 1:31:06Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:06Christina Pazsitzky?

  Put me in a motel six.

• 1:31:08Ed Mylett?

  Yep.

• 1:31:09Christina Pazsitzky?

  Okay. Like, yeah, I'll do, you want me to go Afghanistan? Can I do 15 minutes of stage time in Afghanistan? Yeah, dude, I'll go.

• 1:31:15Ed Mylett?

  You did that?

• 1:31:16Christina Pazsitzky?

  Hell, yeah. I did everything.

• 1:31:18Ed Mylett?

  You did.

• 1:31:18Christina Pazsitzky?

  Well, I'm sure you did everything by any means.

• 1:31:20Ed Mylett?

  But in your case, so you find it. By the way, it's one of the great blessings of life. I always feel for people that have not yet found it.

• 1:31:27Christina Pazsitzky?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:27Ed Mylett?

  Because it's, I feel like of all the things I got cheated out of in life, I did find some talents and skills when I was relatively young, outside of baseball too, that I was like, okay, I like business, I like speaking, this is stuff I'm pretty, really good at. I feel at home. It doesn't feel like a work when I'm doing it.

• 1:31:42Christina Pazsitzky?

  That's the, boom. Doesn't feel like work when I, I always laugh when people call, you want to work tonight? Stand up? I'm like, that's not, it's never work, baby. I've had day jobs. I had 22 of them before I became a stand-up comedian. They all sucked.

• 1:31:55Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:55Christina Pazsitzky?

  That's not a job. This ain't work, man.

• 1:31:57Ed Mylett?

  That's how I feel.

• 1:31:58Christina Pazsitzky?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:59Ed Mylett?

  Today is all about friends. We're gonna talk about how to be a better friend, why friendships matter so deeply. I have the woman here that's gonna help you with it. My guest today is Dr. Marissa Franco. She is currently a New York Times bestselling author of the new book called Platonic, How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make and Keep Friends. She's also got a PhD in Counseling Psychology. She's been an expert on, you know, different programs, including Good Morning America, and now on the Ed Mylett Show. So, Dr. Franco, great to have you here. Welcome.

• 1:32:30Dr. Marisa Franco?

  Thank you so much for having me. Happy to be here.

• 1:32:32Ed Mylett?

  So what about your work? Because you say how the science of attachment can help you make and keep friends. So what is the science of attachment? I want to get to the root of this before we leave. What is the science of attachment? And in your words, before we leave and take as much time as you want, how does that help us make and keep friends? The science of attachment?

• 1:32:55Dr. Marisa Franco?

  Yeah. So as I sort of sifted through the research on friendship, what I found was that our personalities are fundamentally a reflection of our experiences of connection or disconnection. Whether I am open, warm, trusting, cynical, all of these things are predicted by whether I've had healthy connection in the past. But not only that, if I've had that healthy connection, I cultivate a number of traits that contribute to me continuing to connect, right? And that's if I'm securely attached, I've had those healthy relationships, I begin to display these healthy behaviors that allow me to continue to attach to other people. Insecurely attached people, they haven't had... Oh, Ed, did you want to ask me a question?

• 1:33:39Ed Mylett?

  No, I'm profoundly agreeing with you right now. Keep going, please.

• 1:33:43Dr. Marisa Franco?

  Yes. Insecurely attached people, they haven't had healthy connection in the past. They carry around this unconscious template for connection. Either that everybody is going to abandon me, or sort of betray me. And this becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. They look out for instances where this is true. They do not register instances that are counter to this assumption. And it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy too, Ed. Because if I think you're going to abandon me, when the situation is ambiguous, you might be hangry, for example. I think you're rejecting me. I reject you. I become cold and withdrawn. And then you reject me because you feel rejected by me, right? And so if we don't understand our own attachment, which is really our internal template for

• 1:34:27Dr. Marisa Franco?

  how people are treating us, which then affects our own behaviors in our relationships, we will continue to think, the world is just cruel. People just reject me. People can't be trusted. And if we understand our own attachment, we can be empowered to think, there are behaviors I can change so that I can foster deeper connections with others.

• 1:34:46Ed Mylett?

  I love you. This is exactly why. No, this is exactly the question I asked you earlier where I think we agree, but we word it differently. You're so flipping right. So my main male relationship was with my dad. And my dad was a drinker when I was young and wouldn't show up and and I started to build these belief systems. You're talking about that idea that, hey, maybe you shouldn't have people around you that are different than you until you're ready, because you haven't had these healthy other relationships. You were using the example with you earlier. And you're very right about it because my, when I had male relationships in my life, I thought, well, they're all going to lie to me. They're all going to eventually leave. They're all going to screw me over. They're all going to do this or that. Because the one relationship I had with the most important male, that had happened. And I had to really learn in my relationships,

• 1:35:31Ed Mylett?

  not to project that pattern and dynamic into my new friendships. And early in my life, you're so right, early in my life, I lost a lot of friendships because I would jump to the conclusion that that was happening because it looked like what it used to look like. And so I'd go, oh, they're doing it. They lied right there. They're, they're like my dad. Well, no, they're a human and they fibbed a little bit and they're still a really good person who loves me. It doesn't mean all these other things are going to happen. And so that's why your work matters so much because you're exactly right about that. And it's worth going back the last three minutes there and evaluating what Dr. Franco just said, because we do do that in our patterns and our relationships. We do sort of project into them that way. And I totally agree with that. And that's why I was nodding.

• 1:36:13Ed Mylett?

  I certainly wasn't trying to jump in and interrupt you there because I think that was gold. So I think you are too. I think your work, I just want to tell you, thank you for doing the work you do.