The Pay What You Please Online Course Sale is happening NOW through Sunday, April 24!
Read More
I have been dreaming about sharing some big news with you for months, and I am finally able to tell you! I’m just going to get right into it:
I wrote a book!
I recently returned from a short trip back to where I grew up—southeastern Michigan, the suburbs of Detroit. I don’t know about you, but when I visit the place where I spent my childhood, I have an intense emotional experience. As I walked around my undergraduate college campus, I was flooded with feelings of grief. I wish I had known and understood certain aspects of my identity when I was younger. I wish I had been more self-confident. I wish I hadn’t stayed in those terrible relationships (if you could even call them that) with people who didn’t respect or appreciate me. I wish I didn’t try to control people. I wish I didn’t try to convince people to love me. I wish I loved myself more. I wish I understood my worth and potential and was able to relax and enjoy my life instead of chasing people who didn’t recognize it either.
Read More
I read an article recently that shared this statistic that I hadn’t heard before in my attachment theory studies:
“Further research tells us that in approximately 85 percent of cases a child…will have the same attachment pattern as the parent” (Buckwalter and Ehmen, 2013).
It makes sense that children will have a similar attachment style to their caregiver in a number of cases—but 85% of the time?!
Read More
If you’ve been around Heirloom for a while, you already know this but I think it’s important to share again: connected relationships require the presence of intentional behaviors just as much as the absence of unhealthy patterns.
Read More
One of the first blog posts I wrote about attachment in relationships has turned out to be my most-read post to date, and for good reason: the anxious-avoidant relationship dynamic can be REALLY HARD. I totally get it. If you have experienced it before, you know exactly what I’m talking about. All it takes is a snag in an interaction to trigger the negative cycle and before you know it, one person is pulling away and “going out for a while” and the other person is crying and angry and wondering how they ended up in a partnership with someone who doesn’t talk about feelings—ever.
Read More
This moment in history is not new; I know in my heart and feel in my body that we have been here before, that people of color and queer folks and other marginalized groups have been feeling this pain for as long as they have been alive. We must honor and acknowledge that if we are going to step forward with integrity…
Read More
A partner who doesn’t have self-awareness or isn’t interested in growing with you is probably not a good bet. This trait can belong to a person with any primary attachment style. I believe the popular literature that exists about attachment theory does not distinguish between people who are lacking self-awareness and people who have avoidant attachment. They are not the same thing.
Read More
Hello!
I am going to be completely honest here and do a little self-disclosure: I have always been in relationships with people who have shown up with some piece of the avoidant attachment adaptation. Always. My current partner is much more secure and only occasionally will the avoidant part come forward (side note: we have gone to therapy together to work on this dynamic, it didn’t just “happen”), but we had our struggles in the beginning of our relationship, and I fell into my old anxious patterns. We had to do a lot of work to get to where we are now.
Read More
Hi!
As I'm facilitating the Attachment Exploration Group (another one is happening in June!) that started last week, I am realizing how often I have alluded to the concept of secure attachment, but haven't spent much time focused directly on the importance of secure attachment--or what it really means to embody security in relationships. So let's dive in!
Read More
Dear You,
I want you to know I see you.
Relationships may be difficult for you. You probably find yourself in the same pattern over and over and you wonder why you always end up with someone who criticizes you and wants more, or someone who ends up pulling away and shutting down and feels emotionally unavailable to you. You wonder if you will ever land in a relationship that feels good. If you will ever find someone who gets you. Where you can share who you really are and not be afraid that they will leave you. Where you can finally get off of the emotional rollercoaster. Where you can feel stable, grounded, and safe.
Read More
In my sessions and my friendships, we do this dance about how things are going in our partnerships. We talk about some of the good things happening in the relationship, the challenges, and the day to day struggle. Then at some point, we get to the deep, nagging fear that I would venture to guess nearly every person in a long-term relationship has thought at one point or another: did I choose the wrong partner?
Read More