Secure Attachment & The Good Life: Surprising Insights | Amir Levine, M.D.

The tiny moments you ignore may hold the key to it all. New research in neuroscience and attachment science reveals that your brain is constantly monitoring your relationships through small, everyday interactions, and the signals it picks up quietly shape everything from your self-esteem to your sense that life has meaning.

Most of us pour energy into the big relationship gestures, the long conversations, the grand repairs. But the seemingly insignificant exchanges, a returned text, a warm nod, a moment of simply being seen, may matter far more to your brain and your sense of security than you ever realized.

Amir Levine, M.D. is a psychiatrist, neuroscientist, and Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia University who trained in molecular neuroscience under Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel. He is the coauthor of the international bestseller Attached, which has sold over two million copies in more than 30 languages, and his newest book is Secure, The Revolutionary Guide to Creating a Secure Life.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

The brain science behind why even brief moments of exclusion can erode your self-esteem, sense of control, and feeling that life is meaningful A 5-part framework (with a memorable acronym) for building the foundation of every secure connection, one you can start practicing today Why your attachment style isn’t something to “fix,” and the hidden superpower built into your specific wiring that you may be overlooking Two simple rules for navigating conflict that keep even heated moments from damaging the bond An overlooked relationship practice that works like two-factor authentication for trust and deeper connection

If you’ve ever wondered why certain relationships feel effortless while others leave you anxious, guarded, or drained, this conversation will change how you see every interaction in your day. Hit play and discover how small, consistent shifts can help you build the kind of secure, connected life your brain has been searching for.

You can find Amir at: Website | Take the Attachment Quiz | Episode Transcript

Next week, be sure to tune in for an episode with me about the ‘Unbusy Manifesto‘ and the six daily practices that will help you reclaim your time and your sanity.

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photo credit: Shira Weiss

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Episode Transcript:

Jonathan Fields: [00:00:00] So here’s something that caught me off guard. Your brain is consistently scanning your relationships, not the big dramatic moments, but the tiny ones. A return text, a nod in passing, a moment where someone just kind of sees you. When those small signals say you belong, you’re safe. Something in us shifts your confidence, your sense of meaning, even how much you feel in control of your own life. But when those signals go quiet, your brain sounds the alarm, whether you realize it or not. My guest today is Amir Levine, a psychiatrist, neuroscientist, and professor at Columbia University who trained under Nobel laureate Eric Kandel. He’s a co-author of the international bestseller attached, and his newest book is called secure. And in our conversation, we explore why rejection stings so hard at the neurological level. We talk about the hidden superpowers inside each attachment style, and we talk about a five part framework for building the kind of deeply connected, secure relationships that your brain has been searching for. So excited to share this conversation with you. I’m Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project.

Jonathan Fields: [00:01:13] One of my big curiosities just out of the gate is why does being ignored or rejected universally hurt us so much?

Amir Levine: [00:01:25] So much. I’m so glad you asked it right out of the gate because it’s kind of it’s it’s kind of like the basis of all this whole new book is based on. It’s kind of like the biggest thing that a lot of us are not aware of how much it hurts us. And even our society actually accepts exclusion. And I just don’t like it just it’s something. And I’ll give you a little bit of background of how we actually found that it hurts the brain so much and how much it hurts the brain. And then I’ll tell you why I think that is. Um, and where I realized it. It happened in a very specific trip that I took. Um, but it took me time to get there. So the whole science of exclusion comes from a series of studies that are called the Cyberball experiments. And based on that, I’ve called, I’ve come to call it the Cyberball effect. Um, and in the Cyberball experiment, uh, it all came from one researcher, Kip Williams, who actually was walking in the park with his dog one day, and then all of a sudden a Frisbee came sailing in his direction, and he picked it up and he sort of threw it back at the people, like who were playing. And they started to include him in the game. And then just as, uh, all of a sudden, just as they just started to include him, all of a sudden they just went back to playing the two of them. And he remembered. I remember talking to him and he said he remembered feeling surprisingly bad of being left out, even though he expected it. No one thought he was going to continue playing with them. They were strangers.

Amir Levine: [00:02:58] But that’s kind of like stuck in his mind. And he went on to create this amazing set of experiments called the Cyberball experiments, where you watched a video game. It’s kind of like a two dimensional video game. There’s nothing immersive or even persuasive about it. And you’re like a figure, and you play catch with two other figures, and all of a sudden they stop throwing the ball in your direction. And what they found was two different, two separate sets of findings, one, how it affects the brain and how the second, how it affects our psychology. So our brain like areas of painful distress, just like go online and like preoccupation and sort of assessment, what’s wrong? What have I done wrong? Why is this happening? And like a lot of distress, it really triggers distress. And the psychological part of it is that it causes it sort of elicit what I’ve come to call e-m-c. So it really, uh, decreases people’s self-esteem. Uh, it makes people feel that life is less meaningful and it makes them feel that they’re in less of control of their lives. And that’s crazy to me. When I read that, I was like, that’s just insane. Things that I always thought how much I feel I’m controlling my life, my self-esteem, or that life is meaningful. I never thought that it related to how other people relate to me, especially not like in such small relational moments. So these are the findings of the, I call it the cyber ball effect, because to me, it’s like all these things that we think that are related to us and how we feel about ourselves, not necessarily in relation to others, are really connected to how others relate to us.

Jonathan Fields: [00:04:41] Yeah. I mean, so it’s wild that what you’re describing. Tell me if I’m getting this right. So basically people sort of like play a virtual game where you’re like, you’re playing catch, and then all of a sudden you’re excluded from the catch. Like nobody’s throwing you the ball anymore, basically. Right. Um, and even that, which seems like it’d be kind of innocuous, like this is we all kind of know it’s, you know, it’s a game like, um, you’re saying you are able to register very clear changes in brain physiology showing like the distress centers lighting up and on the psychological side of it, um, feelings of exclusion and lack of self esteem and sort of like being almost like cast out. It’s not like a conscious process. It’s, it seems like it’s something that’s more wired into us. It’s primal.

Amir Levine: [00:05:23] Right? Completely. That’s like I thought about like a knee jerk reaction. Like we can’t stop it. We can’t control it. Very similar here. It’s something that’s ingrained in us.

Jonathan Fields: [00:05:33] As you’re describing that, um, it’s reminding me of years back, I was actually working on something and I started going deep into the research, the work of John Cacioppo, um, on loneliness and lack of belonging. And he’s describing a lot of the same things that you’re describing. I don’t recall him actually doing fMRI studies or, you know, like neurological studies where they could see what was happening, but behaviorally, they saw like all these same things. And it was profound. But for some people, it made them prosocial. Like, how can I change? How can I be nicer? How can I be kinder? How can I be so I can be included again from for other people made them antisocial. They got filled with anger and rage and actually learned. How can I get back at this person? How can I hurt them for excluding me? Have you looked at that like the response also?

Amir Levine: [00:06:20] Yeah, I love that you’re saying that people react differently. And I think that also relates to the attachment styles that we have different programming inside us. That’s kind of like decides for us how we’re going to react. Like we’re not fully at the helm here and we don’t really completely. And we know that a lot of the way that we react to the world through the relational world really depends on our attachment style. And so like, if your people have a more secure attachment style, they don’t see it as much as a threat. And sometimes maybe even though they’ll have the soluble effect and but they may just like say, oh, they are able to really the they don’t register it as much of a threat. They can register it, but their brain doesn’t react as powerfully to it. Whereas people who have insecure attachment styles, they respond to it much more powerfully. Um, and I guess that’s one of the reasons, just the fact that respond so differently to our environment is one of the things that I really, um, that I’m actually used to try to help people become more secure by, by learning to engineer your environment in such a way that can actually can calm your brain, can sort of find a way to change, not just calm the brain because you feed it different messages that can help it change.

Jonathan Fields: [00:07:40] Yeah. Let’s talk a bit about attachment styles before we dive more, more in a more focused way into security because this is one of those phrases so many of us have heard. You know, like, and it’s almost like it’s entered pop culture in a lot of different ways. What’s your attachment style? And like, you know, um, but I don’t think many of us really understand what we’re talking about when we actually say the phrase attachment style. So break this down for me, maybe in language that, you know, just somebody who’s never even heard about this could, could get.

Amir Levine: [00:08:11] Yeah. I mean, it’s amazing to me that so many people talk about it because when I wrote my first book attached, I’m almost like more than 15 years ago, it was just some lingo, scientific lingo, but I found it so useful myself. The way I think about attachment styles is that we it all has to do with how comfortable we feel with intimacy and closeness that’s on the one side and then on the other side. How much of a. How sensitive of a radar do we have for potential disruption in the um, in the connection. So if we have, if we love, love, love, closeness and intimacy. But at the same time, we have a very sensitive radar to potential threat. And when I mean threat in, in attachment lingo is everything that can that stands in the way of the availability of the other person. Um, so like the soluble effect, the, like a, a one on one version of the soluble effect is called still facing. When someone all of a sudden doesn’t respond to you, they sort of have a blank face, they ignore you. So it’s like, that’s a, like a special case of cyber ball, which is called I called still facing. It’s based on a still facing experiment. And so when people with anxious attachment style have love, love, closeness, but are very sensitive, like a little like if you come and you’re sad, they say like, oh my God, what’s wrong? Like they’re, they’re sick of me. They don’t, they, they don’t want to be with me. There’s a lot of fear that relationships are fragile and that can easily be destroyed and that you’re not going to be loved as much as you love others. So it’s sort of like this world belief about around that that’s anxious attachment. Now the avoidant. Yeah.

Jonathan Fields: [00:09:51] So just, just I want to make sure I’m really clear. So anxious attachment would be somebody who really craves and values deep connection. Um, but when there’s even the slightest hint of, of somebody feeling like they’re tuned out, they’re not connected, they’re sort of like focused away from them, whether that’s real or imagined. Um, that creates a spin cycle on them.

Amir Levine: [00:10:17] Yeah. And the thing is, so what I found a lot in the literature, and I think even in my humble opinion, even the literature, the research literature is a little bit biased because they really do point out that they have this amazing they’re like the canary in the coal mine. They have these amazing sensors for detecting danger. And sometimes they do jump into conclusions, but oftentimes they are very accurate. They they are accurate. But what they found was that it goes beyond just, uh, detecting danger or potentially in relationships is a lot of what I look. When I looked at some of the imaging studies, I see that they really find that not only they can detect danger, they’re just very good in detecting nuance in, in, in people, in environment and in general. So that can be an amazing gift, uh, if given the right circumstances and the right environment. And that’s what I try to do in this new book is really come up with a set of tools that can help people create a secure environment for themselves. But in some ways, I think about the anxious attached, the people who are anxiously attached. I sort of there’s a whole theory about orchids and dandelions, and I think about them more like orchids. And there there is findings that show that like a segment of the population are more like orchids. They’re very finicky. They need very specific environment to flourish, but they really flourish beautifully. And dandelions, they can grow anywhere and it’s fine. And like it wouldn’t matter if you gave them a better environment. They’ll grow here, they’ll grow there, but they’re not. But the orchids of this world. And that’s what they’ve shown in multiple studies. When you give them the right environment, they outperform the dandelions. So it’s just like really like helping people create the right environment for themselves.

Jonathan Fields: [00:12:10] Yeah, it’s so nuanced. It’s fascinating. Um, so that’s anxious. Talk to me about the other sort of like common ones that we’ve heard of.

Amir Levine: [00:12:18] So now we’ll move to the other one. Like that’s like the anxious ah, like I wouldn’t call them troublemakers, but you know that it doesn’t. Relationships don’t often come easy to them. And the avoidance also relationships don’t come easy to them and for a different reason. It’s kind of like the other side of the coin, the avoidance. They want to be in a relationship. We’re all we’re very social species, so we all need relationships. But when they get into a relationship and it doesn’t have to be only romantic relationships, and I’m talking even the anxious, I’m talking about different types of relationships. They don’t feel too comfortable with too much closeness. So they start to use what we call in attachment lingo, deactivating strategies to create distance in their relationship. So they’ll walk a few steps ahead of you. Let’s say you’re going on a trip and you’re like, oh, I’m going to go on this amazing vacation in Paris. We’re going to walk hand in hand down the Seine. And then all of a sudden, you find that your partner is walking a few steps ahead of you all the whole time, and it’s like, what the hell is going on? And then you can get like, so again, how you will respond to that really depends much, a lot on your attachment style. Like someone anxious will say, oh my God, this is so horrible. They get upset or get like despondent about themselves. I’m not loved. Or who did they think they are? And then they might start a huge fight. But someone who’s secure may not feel it as much.

Amir Levine: [00:13:41] But the avoidant or will have a different way of responding to it. And we can talk about that in a moment. But the avoidant, they have these deactivating strategies that they use all the time to minimize closeness. And oftentimes they don’t know it themselves that that’s what they need. And so that sends them on, that gets them into so much relationship problems. And I try to sort of really show them in this, like in this new book, like I have these three and this really it’s not just a, it’s a new kind of therapy that I started to help people become more secure, secure priming therapy. I teach them the three common pitfalls that they fall into without even knowing it. That gets them into trouble in relationships, because oftentimes they don’t even understand what they did wrong because they engage with someone. And then all of a sudden, okay, it’s been, it’s been nice to spend the weekend together. And now I’m back to work. And you don’t even think about it. They don’t. They naturally create distance because they need it. So that’s the avoidant attachment style. Um, and you can see how, uh, and you can see how like anxious and avoidant can, uh, about one like once a lot of intimacy and closeness and very sensitive to potential threat. And the other instills a lot of threat by activating strategies and constantly get the other person like, uh, like his attachment neurocircuitry that whole cybermail effect gets that constantly triggered.

Jonathan Fields: [00:15:09] Yeah. So we’ve got anxious and avoidant. Um, and you referenced secure a number of times now. Yeah. Is there or are there any, is it basically those three? Those are the three.

Amir Levine: [00:15:19] There’s also a small segment of the population that are fearful avoidance. It’s kind of like a mix of the anxious and the, uh, and the avoidant. So they do want. So avoidance was like, I don’t really need closeness. I need I’m self-sufficient. They don’t like the idea to think that they’re going to depend on anyone. There’s like, for each his own. Uh, they’re fearful. Avoidant. No, they want closeness similar to the anxious. But when people get close to them, they start to feel really uncomfortable. So there’s this constant push pull scenario where like with one hand, they say, come closer and with the other, like, stay away, stay away. And they really struggle between vacillating between the two. And that creates a lot of relationship instability as you can imagine.

Jonathan Fields: [00:16:03] Yeah. So I mean, with the anxious you describe that. Yes, there’s there are certain struggles built into it, but they’re also potentially benefits, you know, like there’s a superpower side of this too. Do you see the same thing with avoidant styles?

Amir Levine: [00:16:14] Oh yeah. For sure. So, um, and I know, I think, and that’s the other thing, you know, in social media, they, they’re sort of really, and some of them, I have to say in my new approach and in my new, I, I, I have to say, I kind of like make amends to the avoidance of this world because in the original book and attached, I, we just took the research finding and we described them. And I think even the research is a little bit biased because, I mean, it shows that if their partner is sick, they’re they’re not going to take care of him that well, that they have a wandering eye that they’re like, they do all these things like that. Even if you do all these amazing things to them, they ignore it and kind of like they look for like for the negative, all sorts of things. But in my practice, because after I wrote like attached, I spent like 15 years like trying to help people become more secure. People came to me and said, oh, how can I become more secure? I didn’t have an immediate answer to that initially. And then I built all these like set of tools and really a new type of, of therapy, of treatment to help people become more secure. And I found that oftentimes avoidance are really misunderstood, uh, that there’s this innate need for distance and that they just don’t know how to handle it.

Amir Levine: [00:17:26] Right? And they sort of like, uh, trip themselves and others don’t know how to like approach it so much. So I think, um, the, the, the main power, their superpower is that ability to function on their own and carry on despite difficult things happening around them, relational things happening around them. And one amazing study that shows you the benefit of both the anxious and the avoidant. It’s such a brilliant study. They, uh, put a group of people in a room and they, uh, they all of a sudden there’s a tiny, a little bit of smoke coming out of one of the computers. And the anxious attackers were the first to identify it and the avoidance were the first out the door and everybody else followed. So like, I’m out of here. I’m not waiting for you guys to decide because, you know, sometimes like, are we going to go out to relieve should we stay? They’re like, no, they’re not stopping, not checking. They function on their own. And it worked. Like they can really work well on their own. They can do their like they can decide things on their own. They don’t really need a lot of reassurance from others. They value their autonomy. So there are advantages to that.

Jonathan Fields: [00:18:37] Mhm. That’s so fascinating. I wonder if you’re aware of. I’m so curious about it. I wonder if you’re aware of any research that looks at any correlations between we get this right. Avoid avoidant attachment styles and sensory processing issues or struggles.

Amir Levine: [00:18:59] So the what the research does show is that people with avoidant attachment styles suppress, like really suppress their, um, their attachment needs. And they actually, they had this research when you have to identify words that are related to attachment, like you just press on a, on a word and that word, it’s sort of a common psychological thing. And they avoidance oftentimes don’t regularly recognize the attachment words that quickly, but if they gave them a cognitive load like they tell them, remember a set of numbers before you do this experiment. So now they’re working hard in their brain to do something else. Also, all of a sudden that suppression lifts and they perform as well as others. So that’s how they find that there’s an active suppression of their attachment needs. Um, so yeah, I mean, there is a level of, um, I don’t really need anyone and I’m going to like really push a whole level of awareness out of my, uh, a whole level of need or subtlety out of my awareness because it’s too much for me or I don’t even know if to give it. Yeah. I think that’s how I would say too much for me.

Jonathan Fields: [00:20:14] Yeah. I mean, that kind of makes sense. All right. So then you’ve referenced secure a number of times. Take me more into what this is and how we experience it.

Amir Levine: [00:20:21] So secure, I have to say, uh, oftentimes, uh, there, what I found before I even sort of came across this whole body of information about the adult attachment styles, finding out about secures really transformed my life and how I see people because secures in my mind throughout this work, I fell in love with the secures of this world. But oftentimes they’re ignored because they’re always there for us. They’re warm and loving. They they love closeness. But if you also you need your distance. They’ll give you your distance. They really are easygoing in a relationship. And that’s one of the reasons is because they don’t have a very sensitive radar. So a lot goes over their head. They’re not going to notice things that are happening, uh, in their relationship. Probably the last people to know if they’re being cheated on or they just don’t notice things. Um, but not only that, they’re also amazingly good in, um, regulating their affect and their, their partner’s affect. And that is such a huge gift in a relationship. And I remember this one example that a patient of mine gave me. They went to Whistler on a ski trip with his or her partner. And this is the first like secure partner that she had. And she said they got to their cabin in Whistler, and I don’t know what happened in the first two minutes. They were there. Like he got very upset with her about something and he stormed off. Um, and her heart was sinking because like, oh, no, it was all too familiar to her.

Amir Levine: [00:21:57] This is just like this big fight in the beginning of, of a, of a, of a vacation, of a trip. And it’s going to ruin the whole vacation. But then two minutes later, he’s like, she, like, he sort of comes through the door and he said, I’m so sorry. I really don’t want to. I really don’t want this to be this way. I’m sorry I overreacted here. Come, let’s have a hug and start all over again. And like, they did that. And she said that was it. Like it kind of like changed the whole course. There was no like long sort of like silences, like all this sort of like additional fights or talking about how this was wrong or that was wrong. It all dissipated. And that’s what secures are so good at. It’s kind of like really regulating people’s affect. And so if you have secure people in your life are really, they’re almost like having a relationship coach or even like a life coach built into your life. But oftentimes they’re the ones we ignore because they always text us back. They always respond to us too. Like our mind goes to places where, oh my God, we’ve been cyberbullied, we’ve been still faced and we need to fix this. And the ones that are there on the side are always there. We ignore them even though there’s such a huge asset for us in in our journey, and they can help us become more secure.

Jonathan Fields: [00:23:17] And we’ll be right back after a word from our sponsors. So it’s like if you if you are a secure attachment style, um, you may have a higher risk of kind of being taken. Just not taken advantage of, but taken for, you know, like for people just for granted, you’re just to just assume you’re always going to be around, you’re just that kind of person. And I don’t really have to give you as much love or pay attention to you. So you may end up, I would imagine, even though you feel, you feel secure, um, over time, you know, a certain amount of upset may start to build.

Amir Levine: [00:23:53] I think so, but the thing is oftentimes secures also really know how to ask for what they need.

Jonathan Fields: [00:24:00] Oh that’s interesting.

Amir Levine: [00:24:01] Yeah. No, I told you, there’s just like this sort of magical creatures when it comes to relationships. So they know how to ask for what they need. They know how to do it in a way that’s effective. They’re just like, uh, because there’s no feeling of danger. And the way that they go about doing it. Like there’s this whole thing in the. I write about like even this whole idea of people pleasing. If they need to say no, they’ll just say no. But they don’t think, oh my God, if I say no to this person, they’re going to respond so badly. They don’t really it doesn’t register to them like that. So it creates a the opposite of a self-fulfilling prophecy. I mean, it creates a secure, self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s just like things even at work, they need to have difficult conversations. They can have them. They just like they. Everything is less because everything. You don’t feel that the danger is bubbling up behind. So it makes it easier.

Jonathan Fields: [00:24:53] Yeah. It’s like they themselves probably don’t feel that danger. They’re more comfortable than expressing their needs and probably also appreciations. And in and it’s almost like they’re modeling, you know, exactly safety so that you can actually do the same thing back to them.

Amir Levine: [00:25:08] I love that you said that because that’s exactly it. And that’s what I so what I try to sort of to do in this, um, in this new approach, the secure primary therapy or primary coaching is to teach people that. And the other part that’s really important is that it’s, um, I basically developed an antidote to that cyberball effect and I call it, uh, carp. It’s kind of an acronym, C a r P, which means which stands for consistent, available, responsive, um, reliable and predictable and the way that it works. And that’s basically these are like the five pillars of a secure connection. And that’s what secures naturally do they’re naturally carved, they’re consistent, available and responsive. And the other part of it is that you have to experience them. It’s kind of like a two factor authentication. It’s reliable and predictable and secures. Do that automatically. And I try to teach people who have insecure attachment style about car and how to, uh, b carp and how to converse with others and tell them about those five pillars of secure connection and teach them, because these are things we can learn. We just don’t know them, but they’re not that difficult to learn. And also because it’s not in the big things that people need to be our brain and the attachment system, it’s like a radar system.

Amir Levine: [00:26:36] It checks in the little things. Uh, and that I’ve come to call the seemingly insignificant minor interactions of everyday life also seems so it’s in those SMEs that our attachment lives. It doesn’t care if you’ve talked to me all night, but then if all of a sudden disappear, it will care about the little things. Uh, so if you want to like if you really want to invest, work in a relationship, invest in, if you, if you understand the attachment logic, you’ll invest in those SMEs and make them consistent, available and responsive. You don’t need to go all out and spend like be attached to the hip. The attachment system doesn’t need that at all. In fact, it’s the opposite. It’s a system of safety. Secure relationships end up sort of being in the background of our lives. It actually allows us to kind of like, forget about the people for a while and engage in work and engage in sort of like parenting and all the things that you want to do. They serve as a safe base, basically.

Jonathan Fields: [00:27:38] Yeah. I mean, that makes so much sense. I love the acronym Simi, also seemingly insignificant.

Amir Levine: [00:27:43] What was the seemingly insignificant minor interactions?

Jonathan Fields: [00:27:47] Right. So it’s like the tiny moments, you know? Exactly. Often we don’t even focus on we don’t pay attention to, but they can actually really matter. I do want to drop into your car model in more detail, but before we get there, there’s this lingering question which is, so you’ve shared these three different attachment styles and maybe kind of like a less frequent fourth one, the more the fearful, right? Um, it seems like they’re incredible benefits to the secure attachment style. Um, but at the same. And so you would assume, well, we should all want to try and find our way to that style, but I guess the question is spinning in my head is but you also shared that each of the insecure attachment styles, they also have certain superpowers, certain benefits. So do we lose those benefits by somehow being able to become more secure? Um, and if so, is that loss outweighed by the benefits of actually the secure style?

Amir Levine: [00:28:49] I’m so glad you asked that, because I can’t tell you how many patients come to me. And that’s like, like I have this one particular person that I can think of that was like his biggest fear that he’s going to lose his edge.

Jonathan Fields: [00:29:01] Like that trainer that you were talking about. I’m like, well, like I’m making millions of dollars because of this. Why would I want to lose his edge?

Amir Levine: [00:29:07] I mean, so you know, my answer. I wish, I wish like we were like that. Our ability to intervene is like to extract it. That we were so powerful. But in the truth of the matter, with the way that it works, we have a certain biology that sort of identifies all these semis, and people that say they’re anxious can identify those semis much better. Uh, that doesn’t go away. What you can create is what I’ve come to call, um, what you can create is what I’ve come to call. You can live in secure mode and you can take that particular area where it comes as a disadvantage to you, and you can take that particular area that comes as a disadvantage to you and learn to shape it using those carb and seems to something that would actually be more aligned with your biology. You can’t really change that basic biology, biology that much, that ability to sense things in the environment that doesn’t entirely go away. But what does go away? Is that what happens when that environment gets triggered? Initially, we became hyper aware and hyper aroused, but when you it’s like a tracker, like in like when you walk like in, uh, like, like when you’re trying to track and you think that there’s danger, all of a sudden you’ll be much more aware of every little sound. But if you know, you know, actually the environment is actually not much safer. You’re going to, you’re going to let your guard down and you’re going to not notice any like every little thing in that particular environment.

Amir Levine: [00:30:38] And that’s what I’m trying to achieve in this new treatment or this new approach is to lift, to learn to live in secure mode. And there’s areas, uh, that are like in places where things, it’s not working for you. And that’s what I really love about this whole attachment, you know, attachment, the whole, the whole body of knowledge doesn’t come from the medical model, which I love. It’s not about health or disease. It’s about is it effective or ineffective? Is it working for you or not working for you? So it’s like about 25% of the population are avoidant, about 20% are anxious and about 50% are secure. So it’s not that people are avoidant or anxious are like, uh, it’s not unhealthy. It’s just a variation of the norm. It’s just for evolutionary speaking. There was an advantage to having a portion of the population be able to act decisively in a, in a moment of crisis, or be able to detect potential threat. Uh, in terms of just like survival, but the survival, but like evolution, like doesn’t care about our personal happiness. It’s about the survival of the species. We’re just like this. Uh, we are gene carrying like entities that are supposed to carry on the genes to the next generation and our personal happiness. It couldn’t care less about it. Uh, but I care about our personal happiness. So I thought about a way to design a system that helps people live in secure mode in where they find things challenging.

Jonathan Fields: [00:32:12] Yeah. I mean, I love the way you described that, you know? So it’s almost like if I’m getting this right, like if you’re, you have this anxious style, it’s not going to go away. It’s, it’s to a certain extent wired into you. You’re still going to be scanning the environment and picking up a lot of inputs, probably much more nuanced and subtle ones than other people. But maybe if you also sort of develop the skill to drop into secure mode on a much more regular basis, maybe those all that stimulus is still coming in at you. You’ll be able to process without basically saying like, red alert, red alert, red alert, just more like, oh, interesting information. I’ll take it in. And there’s a different way that I can sort of like move with it.

Amir Levine: [00:32:53] So the answer, uh, to how to do that came to me from a completely different field that I work in. I’m also a molecular neuroscientist. And there I found like when you do all these experiments and you really see how the brain changes on the molecular level, the structural brain, like how the brain changes on a structural level from changing the environment. So our brain, we think about our brain as something sheltered inside our skull, but it’s really one of the most environmentally sensitive organs in our body. Uh, it sends all of our sensors sense it sends all of our sensors like these tendrils that constantly survey the environment. It’s very, very sensitive to the environment. So the idea is to create an enriched, uh, secure environment for yourself. So for example, if you have an anxious attachment style, you’re very sensitive to those themes that are not carved, that are not consistent, available, and responsive. Mhm. And, but remember, I told you that we tend to our brain tends to sort of really go, especially for people who are anxious, really goes to the areas that to those people who are not calm and try to correct that or engage with that, while all the while there’s all these secure people that are there, uh, that you can interact with, but you neglect because your brain goes where all the sort of drama happens.

Amir Levine: [00:34:22] And that’s also part of your world belief that this is how relationships are. So the brain kind of like ignores the other thing. And I say, no, you have to go and you have to take a look at your relationships and take an inventory. And, and I’m not just talking about your romantic partner. I’m talking about your friends, other people in your life are they carp? And if they’re not carp, then I sort of suggest then maybe try to do a carp intervention. I call it a carp intervention. It’s kind of like explain to them about desirable effect, about all these different things, uh, because oftentimes people go into their history. Oh, I’m reacting like that because I was like this or like that in childhood. But I find that it’s really wired into our brain. Uh, it doesn’t necessarily have to come from childhood. Um, and so you can explain to them and give them a chance to be more calm. And the truth is, many of us, and that’s what the also, the theory shows that we have these secure kernels inside us, like some experiences that we have today, even now with the secure people around us or growing up of, uh, really, really secure moments that we’ve had with the different people in our lives in, in the book secure.

Amir Levine: [00:35:38] I start the book by telling you about this vacation that I, this summer vacation that I went to with my sister’s friend and her mother and her mother, Ruth, was amazingly secure and I still I still remember that even now when I think about it, I get goosebumps because that was such an amazing vacation, but part of it, because it was. Ruth was so secure and she. That affected me to the core. So you can sort of tap into those, uh, secure, uh, kernels inside people and try to summon it to come out by telling them about what it means to be calm. Uh, and if they can learn and become more that way, then you’ve achieved sort of you, you, you’re trying to create a, like a secure village to yourself, then that’s great. You’ve recruited another person. But what I’d also say is that if they can’t do it, I don’t say you don’t have to cut off ties with them. But maybe, I mean, better to give them less priority in your life so they don’t sort of board on group number 1 or 2. They, they get they don’t get priority boarding to your to your plane. They’re bored like, you know, group number eight.

Jonathan Fields: [00:36:45] Yeah. So let’s walk through the cart model in a little bit more detail. I want to really understand what these, the five different qualities mean with the language that you’re using. So consistency, availability, responsiveness, reliability, and predictability. Talk me through each one of these. And what do you actually mean by them?

Amir Levine: [00:37:02] So consistent. The brain, our brain is our attachment system is like a surveillance system. It’s it’s really what people like. Do you like? It’s a, it’s a way. It’s the way that we feel safe in the world. People think, oh, if I have a lot of money in the bank, if I have a condo, that’s how I’m going to feel safe. But that’s not how our emotional brain feels safe because our emotional brain wasn’t created when these things were around. It was created when other, uh, other people like me were around. And that’s how. And it computes. So it starts at the level that if I, if you and I were sitting in the same room, just by the sheer fact that you’re sitting next to me, that reduces my chance of being becoming prey by 50% because it’s either going to go or they’re going to go after you or after me. And so that’s I can run away, but that’s huge. And the brain knows it. But the human brain goes a step further. Not only the human brain, also social birds, by the way. It’s very fascinating. Uh, there’s all these experiments in social birds and how there’s this census capability that it can, uh, our brain senses that others are around us and we feel safer that way. Think about walking in a dark alley by yourself or with someone else.

Amir Levine: [00:38:17] Immediately you feel better if you were someone else. Um, so that’s one thing. And then, uh, but then the other thing, our brain can really assess the quality of their relationship. So that’s an upgrade that we got as human. The quality of their relationship. And if the quality is better, then we feel safer. So the consistency is a way for us to assess the quality of the relationship. There’s like people show up for us in a consistent way and the brain monitors for that. So if you text someone every day and all of a sudden if someone texts you every day and all of a sudden they stop texting you immediately. You’ll notice that. Because that’s what we’re programmed to notice it. Oh, but if they texted you once a week, you’re not going to notice that they haven’t texted you every day because you create this level, this baseline. So that’s where the consistency is. It’s about that attachment homeostasis a baseline that’s created. That’s one thing. And then the availability it’s an internal decision. Once you understand how important it is to be consistent. And that also that we depend on one another for emotional well-being, uh, that we think about the Super Bowl effect and how much we respond to, to sort of potential disconnect from others. Then you have to make an internal decision that you’re going to be available to the people in your life.

Amir Levine: [00:39:38] Um, and I am so we can say even to the immediate people in your life, but if you think about those CMEs and connection, even nodding and saying hello to the elevator to someone, uh, that also increases that feeling of hyper connectedness, which kind of like the opposite of the cyber bull effect. So you have to make a decision to be available to the people in your life. So that’s, uh, and then consistently available, responsive. And so the responsiveness is sort of the actual act of that availability, right? Once you make that decision, if they reach out to you, then you respond to them. So that’s kind of like seals the consistent, available and responsive, but it’s not enough that I will feel, oh, I’m so far, I’m so great. No, no, no, it’s not enough. It’s a it’s a two way street. It’s a two factor authentication model. You need to make sure that the other person actually experiences you that way, that they experience you as reliable, someone who shows up in a reliable way and predictable that you don’t all of a sudden ghost them in a jarring way. So then that seals the deal. It’s kind of like you have to be car, but you have to make sure that the other person actually perceives you as reliable and predictable. And then your car.

Amir Levine: [00:40:53] And that’s sort of like the five pillars of a secure connection and what it does. I didn’t tell you that Cyberball experiment. They also did the opposite experiment where it’s called a reverse cyberball. So now you’re standing in the middle and you’re throwing the ball to someone. They’re throwing it back to you. You turn around, you’re throwing to the other guy, they throw it back to you and you’re always hyper. So you’re hyper included. Um, and they find that it actually has all these amazing, it’s kind of like the opposite. It has these amazing effects. It makes you feel more self esteem that life is more meaning and you’re more sense of control. So that being hyper included, really the brain loves it as much as the brain loads up that disconnect. It loves being included. So I, I thought I really thought for a long time, how do I create that immersive, hyper inclusive way? And that’s where I came up with those car scenes. You really want to try to make as many as your car seems to create that amazing things. And think about like how amazing it is to sort of like with those little in little increments to increase your self-esteem, that life is more meaningful. All of these good things that can happen. Um, when you feel this sense of connection around us.

Jonathan Fields: [00:42:11] And we’ll be right back after a word from our sponsors. So I mean, and it’s kind of, it sounds like it would be a two way street where, yes, you would like to, to be on the receiving end of the consistency and the availability and responsiveness and the reliability, predictably. And you also want to show up that way for others because there’s, there’s, there’s going to be like the expectation of, you know, you can’t just sort of like be on the receiving end of all of this and expect nothing to be off.

Amir Levine: [00:42:37] It all has to be reciprocal.

Jonathan Fields: [00:42:39] Of course. Yeah, yeah. Um, and, and doing this again, not in these big grand gestures, which might be fine, might be great, like, hey, that’s awesome. But it also feels like it takes the pressure off a bit when you talk about these semis, these the seemingly insignificant minor interactions, because you’re kind of like, I can literally, you know, it can be the barista, you know, like just acknowledging them, saying hi and remembering their name and this, um, you know, it can be just these random people that you pass through or that you interact with on a, on a regular or somebody really close to you, but just like a moment that neither of you would identify as being like a big moment. But it’s just, it matters, you know, it’s like these little innocuous things that really aren’t innocuous and they’re opportunities for us if we start to look at them that way.

Amir Levine: [00:43:23] Yes, I love that you said that there are opportunities because that’s exactly it. It’s not just something that’s nice for us to have because again, when people come to therapy, they think, I need to talk about like the things that happen to me in childhood or like the big event that happened in my life. And they rarely think about those things as a vehicle for change in the brain. But really, like each and every sim is an opportunity for you to rewire those expectations where like, if you create, if you now make all these secure people a priority for you, let’s say you’re anxious and now you’re like, instead of like, why are you not texting me? Why not you actually, instead of like doing that, it’s like, oh, this person always texts me, but I never text them because I’m like, let me start conversing with them. And all of a sudden you develop a different back and forth and it’s just like, and your brain rewires on that because it’s, it’s attachment styles are also, they’re called working models. It’s a set of expectations that we build around certain beliefs about the world. But now you’re giving, you’re giving your brain, uh, different data. It’s like, wow, actually, people do show up for me in a regular basis. Actually, I am lovable, actually. Relationships are not that fragile. They actually very, very, um, stable. And all of a sudden your brain is getting all that information in little bits, but over time. And that’s the that’s the beauty of that, uh, enrichment idea of her. And it changes the brain on a structural level. Mhm.

Jonathan Fields: [00:44:56] Um, and it takes time. You know, it’s not like, hey, try this and you’re like once a month and see, it’s, it sounds like what you’re describing is more of, can I make this a practice? You know, can I just, just, just see if I can repeat it on a regular basis because it’s through that repetition that you start to gain the evidence that your brain needs to be like, oh, wait, that original assumption about danger or flakiness or anger or, you know, like abandonment. I’m like in all these little micro moments, it’s being disproven. And eventually over time, that’s going to start to say, oh, like maybe that initial assumption wasn’t founded in something that.

Amir Levine: [00:45:33] It just like gets rewritten. That’s the beauty of it.

Jonathan Fields: [00:45:36] Yeah, it’s like re-encoded. Um, another thing that pops into my mind And this is actually something I recall you wrote about is this notion. Okay, so let’s say we’re doing this work. We’re we’re looking for the CMEs. We’re, we’re adapting this cart model and really, really trying to operationalize this in our relationships, in our life. And it’s kind of working like we feel like we’re dropping into that secure mode on a regular basis. Um, and then like that person who you regularly feel pretty secure around, they’re feeling secure around you. Um, there’s a fight, you know, and I would imagine there’s this assumption that say like, oh, that, that.

Amir Levine: [00:46:15] This.

Jonathan Fields: [00:46:15] No security like this was never, this was all an illusion. This is fake. But it doesn’t like conflict, doesn’t mean that security doesn’t mean that there’s never any conflict.

Amir Levine: [00:46:27] No, of course not. Remember I told you the story of the secure person who stormed out, right. And then two minutes later. So that’s why I have like, I think the last chapter of the book, I have this, um, I have these two rules of secure engagement. And, um, and, and because you really have to understand that attachment has its own logic. It’s a very different logic than the logic that we’re used to, but we it’s not a very complicated logic. It’s just a different logic. And it’s a pre-verbal logic. It’s not because attachment formed way before language formed, like we get attached to our mothers and others like we like. It’s just like, it’s, it’s pretty verbal. And so if we understand what the function of a secure relationship is, then that really helps us understand these true rules. So the function of a secure relationship is to keep our um, is to regulate our emotions because we are heavily social species. And one of the most powerful ways for us to regulate our emotions is through a connection with a secure person. Because think about it, if something bad happened to you, uh, I would imagine unless you’re avoiding it. Um, but most people, there’s like rest of the 75% of the population. There’s usually like, but even avoiding something really bad happened to them. You’ll know there’s like we have an attachment hierarchy, you know, who’s that number one person you’re going to go turn to immediately and try to talk to. And then if they’re not there, there’s probably number two and number three.

Amir Levine: [00:47:55] Uh, but we know immediately and often time when those people are there for us, sometimes a single word or even just a hug can make us feel better so quickly. There’s no like Xanax or Klonopin in this world that can work as fast because we’re like deeply ingrained social species and that’s how we feel safe. But on the other hand, insecure attachment interactions are one of the most potent instigators of emotional upset. So attachment really is the basis of like suffering and healing from suffering. So if we understand that a secure relationship is important to our meant to the function of it, we’re both responsible to keep the other person emotions at bay. Then we get into a fight. So based on that, there’s a the number one rule is that only one person is allowed to be upset at the time, because the other person is like their function is to help them to help the other regulate their feelings. Um, so in that example, he got upset and she was like really upset that he left the room. So he decided, I’m not going to be upset. I’m going to be responsible. I’m going to come back and make it better. Um, only one person is allowed to be upset at the time. It’s very hard to maintain. I always say that knowing that it’s almost impossible to maintain because we when we attach to other people, we create one physiology like it’s very hard to keep that barrier. Once you feel that someone else is upset, even if they didn’t do anything like you get upset too, because their emotions reverberate between us.

Amir Levine: [00:49:28] So but sometimes what happens is they say, hey, wait a second, there’s that rule, I was upset first, you’re not supposed to be upset. And couples like they start laughing about it. But let’s say that didn’t work. And now both are upset. So the second rule, I call it the mea culpa rule like it’s my fault. So think about it. If now you’re both upset, you both have failed your function of sort of maintaining the other. Um, um, like emotional equilibrium. So now, Mia culpa, you both have to apologize for your role in disrupting the attachment. Sort of like homeostasis and quiet. And sometimes they’re like, like people try to go, no, but I was right there was right. Attachment doesn’t care about that. It doesn’t care about all the words that come up, because often times the words are just concealing something much deeper. Need for just reassurance and to help me feel better. It’s like two cats on a tree hissing at each other and not knowing how to come down from the tree. Someone needs to come down from the tree and help the other. So that’s why both the both need to apologize. You’re both responsible. And it doesn’t matter. Like who was right and who was wrong. You can talk about it later once you both have calmed down. Your attachment system and oftentimes later, it doesn’t really matter so much anymore.

Jonathan Fields: [00:50:49] Yeah. Um, what are you actually apologizing for in that moment.

Amir Levine: [00:50:54] You’re apologizing for? I’m glad that you asked that. For not keeping up. It’s almost like a secure connection is, um, you making, um, a commitment to be consistent, available, and responsive. So like to be, um, to take care of the other people’s other person’s emotions. And if you fail to do it and he’s upset and you’re upset and he failed to like find a way to keep you less upset, you both, um, hurt sort of that promise to each other, that ability to do the back and forth and by by you both apologizing for not keeping up that to that role, then you’re actually realizing something much deeper that it doesn’t matter who’s right and who’s wrong here. There’s a deeper role that’s much more important of helping each other feel more calm. And then things can be worked out much more easily. But if you’re like, no, I’m not going to apologize. Or like, sometimes it’s not about words, it’s about giving a hug. Um, or it’s just like, like the one really good example. And I told you, it’s not only in romantic relationships.

Amir Levine: [00:52:05] It’s like my, uh, my brother in law, he’s a very difficult person and he sometimes says he’s not very difficult. He’s actually very nice, but he can say hurtful things to people. Uh, and he does it to all of his family. They have a very large family. But one time he said something very hurtful to me, and I got upset and I got up and I said, you know what? I don’t want to stay here. I’m leaving. And he said, oh, I’m so sorry. And like, and he grabbed me and he like this big guy and he hugged me really hard. I was trying to get away, but he wouldn’t let me get away. And then he said, I’m sorry. And he hugged me, and then he just dissipated the whole upset because I saw how much he cared. And he was just like. And then yeah, and he was fine. So sometimes even just like a hug, it’s not about only language. And it’s actually a lot of it is free language. It can make a huge difference.

Jonathan Fields: [00:52:51] Yeah. I mean that now, like I’m, I’m thinking about opportunities to try these things out, you know, in my, in my own life. And like you said, not just in the, you know, like an intimate relationship, but with friends, with colleagues, with people that you just work with on a regular basis. I think it’s a really interesting sort of thing to explore, to experiment with, especially if you’re somebody that feels like, um, you’re not getting what you need, you’re not getting the feelings that you need. Um, and realizing that there are environmental changes, that there are relational changes that can actually help you feel what you want to feel on a more regular basis, right?

Amir Levine: [00:53:30] And I think one really another really important thing is that people who have an anxious attachment style often have, I like to say both the need and the ability for a lot of closeness. And sometimes the one person may not be enough. Uh, or, and sometimes, sometimes that’s why I think about creating that secure village. We’re highly, highly social species, and we’re now living like more in a more isolated sort of bubbles. And even just like that one person may not be enough. And it’s actually, and I’m glad that you said it takes practice because I really end sort of the book secure with sort of like, like the, the last part is like your secure practice, right? But it doesn’t sound that what I try to say there. I mean, it’s not a bad practice. What’s wrong with sort of like making more secure connections, like really in sort of and finding, calling them everywhere, like, or texting those secure people in your life and getting those texts back and creating all those amazing secure. Seems like we. Our brain loves it and we love it. There’s nothing difficult about it. It’s actually really a lot of fun. And I think that’s why I was thinking a lot lately about this whole research about loneliness, and how much do people feel lonely because of lack of connection to others and how much they feel lonely because they are connected insecurely to others, which can really instigate a lot of difficult feelings.

Amir Levine: [00:54:53] So it’s not enough to just connect to others. Like to feel all that sort of like the self esteem and all those like it’s, it’s, um, the, the secure connection is really what makes us open up to the world because there’s a direct link between attachment and exploratory drive. You see it in children like they, they bring them into a room full of toys. They play with all the toys. Every once in a while they look at their mom and then their mom is in the background. But the minute the mom leaves the room and they can’t see her anymore, they don’t want to play anymore. They become hyper focused on the mom. So we as adults, we don’t play with toys anymore, but we parent, we have hobbies, we work. And so when we have that secure base and when we check those things, check to see if they’re there and they’re there, then it gives us the freedom to soar. It really makes a huge difference.

Jonathan Fields: [00:55:40] That makes so much sense to me. Um, it feels like a good place for us to come full circle in our conversation as well. So I always wrap with the same question in this container of Good Life Project.. If I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up?

Amir Levine: [00:55:53] Oh, definitely. To live a secure life. Yeah, I would definitely say that.

Jonathan Fields: [00:55:59] Thank you.

Amir Levine: [00:56:00] Thanks a lot.

Jonathan Fields: [00:56:03] Hey, before you leave, be sure to tune in next week for an episode with me about what I call the Unbusy Manifesto and the six daily practices that will help you reclaim your time and your sanity, and maybe just your life. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you don’t miss any upcoming episodes. This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers Lindsey Fox and me, Jonathan Fields. Editing help by Alejandro Ramirez and Troy Young. Kris Carter crafted our theme music. And of course, if you haven’t already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts. If you found this conversation interesting or valuable and inspiring, chances are you did because you’re still here. Do me a personal favor. A seven-second favor and share it with just one person. If you want to share it with more. Hey, that’s awesome. But just one person even then, invite them to talk with you about what you both discovered to reconnect and explore ideas that really matter. Because that’s how we all come alive together. Until next time. I’m Jonathan Fields signing off for Good Life Project.

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