#104 Adam Lane Smith - Is your attachment style ruining your relationships?

0 (0s): So guys come into my coaching practice and they say, Adam, I can never get a second date. And women just say they think I'm not interested. And I say, buddy, do you switch topics all the time? Are you constantly trying to be interesting and bring up new topics all the time? Well, yeah, I wanna be interesting or otherwise she'll lose interest and she'll go date someone else. And I say Somebody along the way taught you that they will not take you seriously or pay attention to you unless you're interesting to them. 2 (33s): Hello everybody. You are listening or watching Chatting with Candace. I'm your host Candice. Horbacz. Before we jump into the intro, if you could hit that like and subscribe button wherever you are listening or watching that would help me out a ton. I wanna start out with some shout outs. I wanna say a big thank you to Paul a few times to Joseph, Dale, Paul again, and Roger, thank you so much for those cups of coffee. If you wanna contribute to the podcast, you can click the link below. That is the buy me a coffee link. All of the resources go right back into the podcast and I greatly, greatly appreciate it. We'll also link some programs and affiliates and sponsors below. So if you wanna support the podcast, that is also an excellent, excellent way to do so. 2 (1m 16s): Sorry guys, I'm a little tongue tied. It happened a couple of times in the episode too. I don't know what's going on. My tongue's a little fat today. Today we have Adam, Lane, Smith joining the podcast and I'm so excited to have him on. He's doing really incredible work within the attachment space, the relationship space, transformative personal development. He's a licensed psychotherapist. I will make sure I link all of his resources below. Definitely check him out. His social medias are amazing. His Twitter is really great and he has some really great perspectives. I think that is all of the housekeeping. So without further ado, please help me welcome Adam, Lane, Smith. Adam, thank you so much for coming on. I've been really excited for this conversation. 2 (1m 57s): You hit so many topics that are very much alive for me and I'm sure a lot of my listeners right now. So this, I just know this is gonna be a blast. 0 (2m 6s): Absolutely. I've been really looking forward to this. Let's, let's tear up the internet right now. 2 (2m 9s): Let's tear it up. So I was looking at, I always journal before I have someone come on and it's very unorganized. We were talking offline about how organiza organization is not my strong suit. It's kind of like this cl cloud of thoughts. And I have a whole bunch of topics and I'm like, where do we begin? Because there's so many topics that I hope that we can at least touch on during this conversation and where it came down. Like where I think we, our origin should be is attachment, because I think everything comes back to Attachment. I agree with that and it seems to be a hot topic. One of the books that I read when I was early on into parenthood with my first child was attached. 2 (2m 49s): And that was my first understanding and learning that there were different attachment styles and even beginning to identify my own, my husbands and how important all of these are. So can we kind of get into what is Attachment theory and different attachment styles and what they look like? 0 (3m 6s): Absolutely. So I will preface this by saying my life also changed who I learned about attachment and attachment styles and Attachment theory. And I was already a licensed psychotherapist at the time and they had not trained us on this in school. So what I'm about to teach you, I teach everybody in the audience, is stuff that most therapists don't even know. And I'll to explain exactly why. But attachment theory is, it very simply is the way that we learn to give and receive love with other human beings when we were a child. It is drawn from our experiences with our parents and our understanding of those experiences. So if we don't get our needs met, if we don't feel like we are taken seriously, if we don't feel safe opening up to other people or asking for help or trusting them because we got hurt or pushed away or ignored or something went wrong consistently, we learn that we have to play games to try to make other people either not abandon us, that's anxious attachment style, obsessed with it, with abandonment, okay? 0 (4m 5s): Or we have to play games to try to make other people do what we need them to do so we can live our life, which is more avoidance style. You avoid intimate connections and being vulnerable 'cause you don't wanna get hurt. And yes, everybody listening, there's a few of you out there probably saying, can I be both? Yes you can. There's a disorganized established just means cannot be neatly organized into either one, but it all comes back, like you said, perfectly. It all comes back to attachment. 2 (4m 29s): So what does, well, I guess What, Does, Healthy, Attachment, Look Like within like the parent child dynamic and then within a Romantic dynamic. 0 (4m 37s): Oh, good question. So yeah, secure Attachment, I should have mentioned that one. Secure Attachment, the research shows only about 35% of people in the west now have secure Attachment, especially here in America. 2 (4m 46s): As adults. 0 (4m 47s): As adults, or 2 (4m 48s): 5% percent 0 (4m 49s): Children. Only 35% of adults that we have measured have secure attachment anymore. Whoa. It used to be 40 years ago, it was about 65%. 20 years ago, the research says it was about 50%. Now it's about 35%. It's getting much, much worse. So when people say, I've never met someone with what you're describing, what I'm gonna describe in a minute, it's 'cause it's getting more and more narrow. There's, there's healing to be done, but, but it's, there's hope. So secure attachment, it looks like this. I I I have four kids of my own and, and when they come to me, they can just say, dad, I want this. And I say, okay, well talk to me about why you want that. Why is that important? Okay, well this, this, and this. Okay, well, I don't think we could do that right now. Right? You can't have ice cream for dinner every single night, but if you want ice cream 'cause you really enjoy it, why don't we find a way that you can have it that will take care of that and also keep you healthy. 0 (5m 35s): Why, why don't we work together to build that right? Instead of No, you can't have ice cream. How dare you even ask me. It's, it's, okay, let's, let's talk about this. Let's understand each other. It's providing more context. It is getting to the root of their need. Okay, why do you feel like you need to eat ice cream? We had ice cream yesterday. Well, I'm kind of, I'm just, I'm kind of bored or I want something sweet. Oh, hey, let's find a way to meet that need that's a little bit different. My, my son, he's seven years old and and right now, as any parents would be shocked to hear, he doesn't want to go to bed on time. So instead of me screaming at him, go the heck to bed. I'm tired of you. I don't wanna look at you. Go to bed, go to bed, go to bed. Stop what you're doing. Spanking him. Like all, all kinds of stuff that when parents get really frustrated, they might do, I sit 'em down and say, look buddy, I'm super tired. 0 (6m 21s): You're super tired. Let's have a great day tomorrow. What do you wanna do tomorrow? Oh, I wanna do this, this and this. Cool. Do you wanna be Exhausted while you're doing that or do you wanna have some energy to do that tomorrow? Oh, I wanna be, I wanna energy. We have fun. Great, okay. Hey, going to bed at this time would be really helpful for that. What do you need from me so that you can ease off into sleep? Oh, I need another song. Oh, I need 10 more minutes to read my little book. Okay, I need whatever. And I work with him on it. Right? Cooperation, cooperation, context, listening, taking each other seriously. That's what a secure relationship looks like. No, drama, just helping each other. 2 (6m 57s): Oh my gosh, you, I can already tell you're such a good papa. I love to hear that so much. It's, thank you. It's so, it's so refreshing. And then when you bring up that statistic of, what did you say, 35%, 30%? I'm not, I'm not surprised because of, I mean just existing in the world and what, what people you're exposed to and what parenting styles and advice you're exposed to. And it's like anyone with a camera can now pretend to have wisdom and suggest parenting advice. And oftentimes they don't even have kids, which is the kicker. It's this idea. I we, me, me and me and me and my husband call it nineties parenting. Like a lot of the times it's like when you see nineties parenting and it's do as I say, yeah, I'm not gonna offer an explanation. 2 (7m 40s): And often there's like a physical repercussion, right? Like there's a whack, a Spanking, a belt. It's not teaching someone to understand agency sovereignty. Cooperation. Yeah. Cause and effect, like there's no understanding or learning. It's you're teaching compliance. Yeah. And then do you want someone that is going to be easily persuaded, duped and not learn to think for themselves? Or do you want a, an independent sovereign being when they become an adult, right? Like, do you want them to be whole? And if the answer is yes, then they need to challenge authority even if that authority is you. And they can do it in a respectful way, but answer the wise. And then like you said, like how can we get, how can we both get what we need? 2 (8m 21s): And then honoring like their development. And that's what we do with our son. 'cause again, or bedtime is not necessarily always easy, but it's, if you don't get rest, you are gonna feel like junk tomorrow. And then he is been doing this thing where he wakes up at like four in the morning just screaming, mama, papa, I'm awake. And I'm like, it's still the middle of the night and explaining it every time you do that, that makes us tired. And then we're cranky and do you like when we're cranky and it's just providing so much more context. But I guess getting into the alternative parenting style, I feel like, I know, I'm gonna guess your answer, but Does, Spanking, Work does physical punishment work? 0 (9m 0s): So here's an interesting question because the research, the biggest, biggest, biggest experiment that they ever did with physical discipline, I have a major problem with it. And there there's, there's a whole movement called peaceful parenting. And, and people cite this study over and over about physical discipline and they say, look, kids who don't have physical discipline have much better mental health outcomes than children who experience physical discipline. And that sounds on the surface sounds amazing, but here's the problem. So they took kids who have zero physical discipline. Well, what are those parents doing instead? They probably are reading books. They're probably getting training, they're probably learning about how to have healthy Attachment. They probably learned about healthy attachment. 0 (9m 40s): That's why they're rejecting all these, the physical discipline, trying to connect with their kids differently. They put them in one camp over here and in the other camp they put any kind of physical discipline whatsoever, like a swat on the hand, a club in the head with a two by four all just dumped into one big pot. And parents with no parenting skills or very few parenting skills got put in that pot. So then they said, look, if you have somebody over here who never ever uses drugs, they have better mental health outcomes of opposed to people who use drugs like aspirin and meth. And that's, that's the difference there. So I haven't seen compelling research that shows that Spanking itself can be really harmful. Now what I have seen, and anecdotally I was a licensed marriage and family therapist for many years, is parents who use physical discipline to vent their frustration at their child. 0 (10m 29s): Parents who use any kind of discipline, physical or otherwise, where they don't explain it. Parents who don't go through the experience with the child who just use it arbitrarily the first time, right? What I train parents to do is, if you are going to use physical discipline, for example, like Spanking, sit your child down, explain to them the consequence that could come explain to them that this is something so important that you need to make sure that they remember it. There is a principle called biofeedback. When we experience pain, it makes that memory stronger. But you explain to them, look, this is so dangerous, I will do this. Or, or if, if you continue to do this and reserve physical discipline for like, Hey, I am throwing a flaming axe at my brother's head. 0 (11m 10s): Right? Reserve physical discipline for really dangerous things if you're going to use it. But sit them down, explain in advance, and then warn them the next time it actually happens, Hey, this is a warning buddy. I I don't wanna do this. Then when it happens, you don't just grab 'em and go to town and start wailing on them. You sit 'em down and say, look, this is a serious thing. I warned you about this. So here's what's about to happen. I don't like it and I know you don't like it. We're going to do this and then we're going to talk it through. Okay, do you understand why this is happening? Then if you're going to spank at that point you spanked, then you pick them up and you say, okay, I I didn't like this either. I'm sorry that this happened. Let's make sure together this never happens again. Here's the plan going forward. Can we both do this? What do you need from me to be able to do this? 0 (11m 52s): Use it more like maybe an employer would use like a writeup or, or a performance improvements plan if you're going to use physical discipline at all. That is the only method that I can condone because the child fully understands what's happening and why, and they maintain that agency and they know how to stop that from happening in the future. That's it. What do you think of that? 2 (12m 11s): I think that that sounds great. I would challenge the application of it. Like how so right? The like that sounds perfect in a vacuum. If you have someone, so there's this, there's this thought. It's like a zen, a zen fable, essentially like a samurai fable. And you have this samurai leader that takes over this, this village or this, this kingdom dynasty, whatever. And he gets the leader into a room and he's supposed to execute him. So he goes in and he is ready to behead the guy and the the guy spits in his face and then the samurai gets enraged. So he takes a breath and he leaves the room and the guy's like, ha ha ha, I just won, right? 2 (12m 54s): And then he comes back the next day and he goes to execute him. And he's like, well, why didn't you just do it the, the day before? He's like, well, because you, you made me angry and my emotions were in control and I can't make a decision out of anger. I have to make it from a place of being centered. Oh yes. So I had to center myself and he centered himself and went in and chopped the guy's head off. So it's not like the guy avoided what was going to happen. But the samurai had a code of ethics, which is I have to do something from a place of centeredness and not a place of being reactionary. So where I have an issue with this concept is I think, and this is just my, just what I see, it's like people are, it's very hard to self-regulate. 2 (13m 38s): It's for most people, it's very hard for them to know why they do what they do, let alone when they're in the throws of like a, a toddler tantrum. So I think so many people when they do exercise, physical punishment, it's in that moment. It's like, I'm pissed and whack. Here you go. You did something wrong. Absolutely. That's not the way to do it. So I, I wonder how many people are even able to, and how many people are doing it the this way? Yes, this centered way. 0 (14m 1s): And that is a fantastic question. If you get to a place where you cannot and, and people will have to self-regulate and self-assess. If you cannot do this in a dispassionate way, you cannot do it. Physical discipline won't work because what you're gonna do and, and what the research shows is the child won't learn the lesson to change their behavior. The child will learn to avoid you so that they don't face those consequences because now they don't. Right? They don't understand. Everything is based on your mood. Absolutely not. Nothing can be based on your mood. It must be based on pure calm logic and rules that they can understand. And if you, you're, you've exactly, you've got it right. If you cannot maintain your control and your discipline, you cannot do this. 0 (14m 43s): And that is the number one lesson I think for any parents, whether you use physical discipline or not, is learn to manage your mood and your anger. Because your children rely on you for stability. They rely on you for understanding why you're doing certain things, why you're reacting. You are modeling for them every relationship they will ever have. And the worst thing you can do is let your mood and your emotions or your traumas completely railroad that relationship and train your child to live around somebody's trauma. Worst thing you could do, I hundred percent with you, Candace. 2 (15m 13s): Yeah. And it's like the person that represents, there's this idea that your parents up until a point represent God like they are God to you, right? Like they're everything to you and they are the son and you revolve around them. So they were, they are the arbiters of love and truth and right and wrong and safety and all of these things. And then you have that god, right? That uncondition, what is supposed to be, I should say, unconditional love. And then now that's met with fear and violence. That becomes disruptive and so confusing to a little person. So if you're not able to, which I would argue most people, like I would probably guess in the 90th percentile, are not able to do this without an emotional charge. Then you create that like schism, you create that tear and in that relationship and then that goes out into adulthood. 2 (15m 59s): So now you go into the world not feeling safe and unable to attach because this person that's supposed to love me is also going to be the resource of a lot of pain and sometimes 0 (16m 8s): Physical. And this is exactly why the research shows that about half of those people who have insecure Attachment, right? That's 65%, about half of them have what's called avoidant attachment of, I don't believe other people will regulate themselves. I don't believe other people are capable of being calm and rational during a crisis. I think I have to solve everything myself. I have to keep people out with a wall and I will avoid emotional intimacy. So many of these guys come flooding into my coaching practice so that I can train them on emotional intimacy with their female partner on how to open up and how to conversation with her on how to share needs, on how to be loving and connected in a way that isn't just throwing love bombing at her, but to really build emotional intimacy so much. 0 (16m 52s): Some of these guys, they, they attract insecure women. 'cause those are the only people they know how to manage. They spend their time managing other people, but they hate it. So they come to me and I train them, look, this is how to feel safe. This is how to open up, this is how to share your needs. And they're like, why would I do this? This is terrible. This is whole. It never ends well, no, wait a minute. Your parents trained you that, they trained you to believe that. And then you have had biased experiences through your life that have reconfirmed that. But you can build this. So everybody listening, if you've are like crying right now, 'cause you're like, those were my parents, I'll never get better. No, no, no. There there's ways to learn how to get better. How to build intimacy, how to open up. This is all fixable. It is all fixable. 0 (17m 32s): Just don't do it to your kids so they don't have to fix it. 2 (17m 35s): Exactly. Fix. Like, you have an obligation to constantly be working on yourself. Yes. And your marriage for your children, right? Yes. Like you don't want to pass on all of your damage and all of your pain and to constantly be evolving so that hopefully they're more evolved than you. Right? 0 (17m 49s): And, and, and so many of our parenting skills, we think we have the nineties parenting skills. It, it, it's residual trauma from generations of brokenness. Surviving through difficulties surviving through catastrophes. Just, just get the kids in line. 'cause I have an 18 hour shift at the factory, right? Just, just get through. I'm barely surviving single parents, barely making ends meet. It's surviving behaviors that we now have used as parenting behaviors. All of us now, like the work you're doing, helping people learn with parenting and everything, all of that is bringing back skills that were there before all these catastrophes fell upon us. And we are learning parenting skills for the first time ever. It it's, we're bringing it back into our culture. So I value what you're doing and how you're helping people too. 0 (18m 30s): Candice, 2 (18m 31s): I appreciate it. Thank you. I have a, so I have a question with these men that are recognizing their own attachment issues and coming to you and do you feel like part of the reason, part of the origin of that story or that the development of that attachment style that is not secure in whatever area that it is, whether it's avoidant or what was the other ones? 0 (18m 52s): Avoidant. Anxious and disorganized. 2 (18m 54s): Right. So if it's one of those other three, I find a lot of the men that have one of those, they typically had a mother that was like that new feminist era. Like they were the working mom and they just weren't, they outsourced motherhood. So they would have the full-time nanny or daycare. Someone else would be cooking, someone else would be cleaning because they were working. And it's not to shame women that have ambitions outside of the household. I think it's so important that no matter if like you are a mom or a woman or if you're a man or your father or both, that you need to have something outside of your functions and your roles, right? Like you need to have passions, you need to have a career or some kind of philanthropy work. 2 (19m 35s): Like there needs to be, you are a multidimensional person and you have so many needs that exist outside of those functions that you play. Whether it's wife, husband, father, mother. So this is not going back to like barefoot in the kitchen and that's all you're supposed to do. It's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that there was this an overcorrection or this lie that was perpetuated on a lot of our Mothers, which was being a boss babe being a career woman is the only thing that matters. It's actually embarrassing if you're a stay at home mom. They don't need you, right? Like these are just, their needs can be fulfilled at a daycare. So as long as you're there to put them to bed, that's all that matters. And then you have all of these kids that are now growing up in as millennials and Gen Zs and we have anxiety, we have depression, we have lack of direction and purpose and like nothing excites us. 2 (20m 29s): It's like if you're, you were to ask me when I was getting outta high school and even worse getting out of college. It's like, what makes you feel alive? Like what? Like what is, what are your real curiosity? So many people are like, I don't know. I don't know what I wanna do. That's what you hear. Like 9, 18, 19 year olds. Well what do you wanna do? Like what do you wanna do with your life? I don't know. We'll just go for a general like liberal arts degree. I don't know. Like, why don't we know? And so we lo we have fundamentally, fundamentally lost our connection with ourself and with like, with our sovereignty, with knowing that we have our own resources. Like we can, we are capable. Like whether there seems to be a lack of faith within ourselves. 2 (21m 9s): And that to me, I think a lot of that is the breakdown of getting both parents out of the household for most of the day. 0 (21m 16s): I agree with you fully. What I see is people come in, they're either very avoidant because they just don't know that other people can ever be trusted. Maybe they were in daycare and they learned that they'd have to compete with other kids to get their needs met from a stranger or facilitator. Maybe they were in the NICU in the first three weeks of life and, and they didn't get the oxytocin. They were crying. They were not held the way that they needed to be. Just 'cause it's not mom's fault. It's just like medical issues made that happen. Maybe mom came home Exhausted every day and could barely put energy into playing with the child or connecting. So the child thought, mom doesn't want me, mom isn't connecting with me 'cause she doesn't want me. Sometimes they say, you know, the brain says other people aren't to be trusted because they are just, they're dysregulated, they're messed up. 0 (22m 1s): I'm okay, I will take care of myself. That's the avoidant piece. But sometimes people say something I did was wrong, there's something wrong in me. Everybody sees it and it's unlovable and no one will ever care about me. That's the anxious attachment style. I actually grew up with that myself of, of feeling like I was unlovable and I had to fix that alone at about 20, 21 years of age. I had to fix it. It was horrible trying to do it all alone. So then I went to school and I studied psychology to become a therapist, to help other people do what I had done. And I took that system, I built it into a program. It, it's my attachment bootcamp video course on my website right now. Hopefully we'll put some Links down in the show notes for that. Yes. We'll, but that, that course right there, a lot of people take that. 0 (22m 42s): And the number one step, the number one step to Fixing all of this, you guys is even just learning that this exists. Like you said, Candace, it was an eye-opening moment for you when you learned that attachment exists. So usually people listen to this and they say, I can't believe this. This is, this is everything. And it is so yes, it's real. Yes, fix it. And yes, we need to do better for our kids. We can't just play this game of saying, you know, whatever, they'll get their needs met. Kids are, kids are resilient. I don't think we should play. The kids are resilient card anymore. Have you 2 (23m 11s): Heard there's say that's a gene for that. Yeah, there's gene. Gene gene's a gene for resilience, right? And not everyone has it. And it, I don't believe it's super common. That was an area that I wanted to get into because there's this idea that we perpetuate, which is kids are resilient. Like no, they're just really good at hiding their emotions and shutting down. That's what kids are good at. Yeah. And then that turns into addiction later on into life. 0 (23m 31s): Absolutely. Oh, absolutely. Which 2 (23m 32s): Is devastating. But yeah, the idea of, and you see this a lot of like the bro culture and a lot of like the man culture, which is provide, provide, provide, pursue. You can sleep when you're dead. And it's this idea that pressure builds Diamonds, right? And you can be forged in the fire. And while that is true for some people, some very strong motherfuckers, it's not true for everyone. And some amount of pressure breaks things and destroys things to a point where it's beyond repair. So that's a really big gamble to take with somebody or yourself and you, unless you are very self-aware and you know where your boundaries are. 2 (24m 13s): Like that whole flow challenge chart. Like you wanna have it the, just the right amount of challenge to be able to get into a flow state and really crush whatever you're doing. But if you break that, if you go outside of that bounds, if, and there's too much of a challenge, you actually shut down and it's counterproductive. Yeah. So we blankly prescribe these like things that sound catchy, right? Like pressure builds Diamonds, you're forged in the fire. Like use that good, all of this stuff. And yes, that's true if you have that wiring or you have keeping yourself within that perfect, that perfect chart between challenge and flow. But like, again, it's not, it's not wholly true. No. And I think that we're really tough on kids and often what looks like them coping with things is, is not healthy. 0 (24m 56s): Absolutely. Well, just to get a little dark for a moment, there are some slogans that sound great, that have been used throughout history for evil purposes. I believe it was above the camp at Auschwitz. They had work shall set you free and no it didn't. So pressure creates Diamonds. Well, cool, but pressure in what areas? Pressure for how long, right? Pressure with what kind of support system. Pressure with a team pressure that keeps you together with people. Pressure when you're alone, pressure on your deepest insecurities pressure where and for how long are you going to be able to endure it? You know, cortisol release can shred your body and destroy you and also blocks the production and release of oxytocin, which is your bonding hormone. 0 (25m 37s): So if you're always under pressure, you'll actually stop bonding with other people. And oxytocin by the way, helps a lot with chronic pain. It releases gaba gamma amino bio uric acid, which is an inhibitory neurotransmitter, which builds resilience by giving you anti-anxiety and antidepressant pieces. And also helps release melatonins. You can sleep at night. So high pressure for long periods of time that crushes your oxytocin production, diminishes your ability to deal with pressure. Yes, periods of pressure sometimes can help you get stronger, they can help you grow, but it prolonged intense pressure. It shreds you, it destroys you. Otherwise people wouldn't have heart attacks. It's, we need to be aware of the words we're using and the pressure we're putting on ourselves. 0 (26m 19s): There are times where we don't have options, right? There's times where single moms have to work and you have to say, my kids are gonna, they're gonna get hurt. It's gonna suck. We're gonna have very little time together. But you must then step in and say, what can I do to mitigate this? So one thing that I train parents in, when they come in and they say, Adam, I, I barely have any time with my kids and their attachment is really weak. Maybe they're, they're having a bunch of behavior problems, they're acting out, they're angry at me a lot. They're throwing tantrums. One thing I step in and do is I have the 10 minute challenge. It's 10 minutes a day of focused branching questions where you, the parent are not allowed to make any statements. You're not allowed to have teaching moments, you're not allowed to discipline, you're not allowed to, you know, tell them what to do. 0 (27m 4s): You ask questions, probing questions about the child, about their interests, about why they're interested in that. Who's your favorite power ranger? Why? What does that make you feel? And you just ask questions while playing some kind of a game or doing a puzzle, something with your hands for 10 minutes a day. And it is amazing what kind of relief this brings. 'cause it bonds the child and, and makes the child feel like they're worthy of your time and that you care about them and that they can open up to you without it being any black backlash and that you actually care 10 minutes a day. I have seen angry teenagers with 10 minutes a day for 30 days in a row. I've seen angry teenagers turn around and becoming loving members of the family who come out of their rooms, who sit with you, who eat meals with you because they actually feel like you love them and care about them. 0 (27m 50s): So yeah, kids are resilient and they'll beautifully said Candace, they'll hide it and they'll get really good at hiding it. But sharing the time with them and building those bonds, it requires a little less time than most of us think. The more time you can spend great, but focused time. So many parents don't have a plan for focused time. Have you seen that? 2 (28m 8s): Yeah, I think that's very common. I think that there's probably a lot of reasons for it. I think mostly it's overwhelm and whatever their cause of that is. I don't think that that matters. Like it could be your hormones, like if you're postpartum, it could be work life balance. Oh yeah. It could be that you're in depression and you might not know it. And it, I was talking to one of my like spiritual teachers, his name is Dr. Carlos Waterer. And he, he's been feeling like a really big drive to look at parenting, which I would love to get into the, the lack of people having children primarily. But he says so many people, so many parents are so lost, like they don't know what to do with their kid. And they're so Exhausted that it's constantly like this ebb and flow between feed the kid, put the kid to bed, feed the kid, put the kid, the kid to bed. 2 (28m 53s): And that's all that they know to do. And that's all that the, that they're doing. And that's not a real deep connection. That's not, that doesn't require any presence. You can absolutely go on autopilot and be in a daze and do all of those things. So even taking the 10 minutes to be focused and actually look into their eyes, like if you don't know the last time you've done that with like, even if it's your husband, your wife or your child. Yeah. You see them and they're like, oh, you see me? Yeah. And that's so important to be seen, to know that we are seen. And it seems like I, it doesn't need to be said, but I think it does for a lot of people. So he's like, we have these parents that are ebbing and flowing between feeding their kid and putting their, their kid to bed. And what does that leave us? That leaves us with a society that's asleep and obese. 2 (29m 34s): Right. And that's kind of where we're at. And it's, it was like an interesting metaphor, but I think a lot of times, yeah, we're overwhelmed and we don't realize how impactful just real connection is, even if it is 10 minutes. Yeah. 0 (29m 47s): Just being able to sit down for 10 minutes and have a discussion with somebody where you ask them a question, then you ask them a question about their answer, then you ask them a question about that answer. When guys come in, when avoidant men or anxious men come into my, my coaching for dating help, for example. They have no idea how to talk to women. Women and moms used to train men for how to talk to women. And men don't know how to talk to women anymore. 'cause their moms and their sisters and aunts and grandmas didn't really talk to them this way either. They didn't have time. So guys come into my coaching practice and they say, Adam, I can never get a second date. And women just say they think I'm not interested. And I say, buddy, do you switch topics all the time? 0 (30m 27s): Are you constantly trying to be interesting and bring up new topics all the time? Well, yeah, I wanna be interesting or otherwise she'll lose interest and she'll go date someone else. And I say, somebody along the way taught you that they will not take you seriously or pay attention to you unless you're interesting to them. And here's a point for parents, if you're training your kids that they have to be interesting to get your attention. That's the problem. So these guys, what I say, I say is, look, if somebody asked you a question and you gave an answer and they just looked at you and then asked you a question about a completely different topic, as if your question didn't matter, how would you feel? Well, I would feel pretty bad. 0 (31m 7s): Yeah. Did you ever have someone do that to you? Well, yeah, my dad, like he never wanted to talk about me. Okay, here's your chance to learn how to talk to women. Act like what they said mattered. Well. Oh, why? Because that tells them you're listening. It tells them you're not just pushing buttons to receive sex. It tells them that you're capable of carrying a conversation. You're capable of listening to them. You wanna get to know them, you're gonna share with them a little bit about you ask more questions about the answers they gave you. And when guys do this, their dating life improves like 50%. And all of a sudden the women are very engaged and thoughtful and talking to them and asking questions back. But it, it all starts in childhood. 0 (31m 47s): If you don't ask your kids questions, like I ask my kids all the time, Hey buddy, what are you draw there? Oh, it's Godzilla. Oh, hey, cool. Godzilla. Which Godzilla is it? Oh, it's this one. Is he your favorite? Yeah. Why is he your favorite? Well, because he, you know, whatever he knocks down buildings super, super loud or he, he's the cool color, he's purple or, you know, whatever it is. Cool. Why is that? Why is that great? Who do you, what's your favorite monster? The Godzilla fights. Do you always like Godzilla or do you like the monsters? The other monsters better sometimes asking these questions, they learn that they don't have to be interesting because they are interesting. Think of it that way. You're training your kids for one dating pool, which is interest and stimulation, or you're training them for the other dating pool, which is companionship, transparency and cooperation. 0 (32m 31s): Which dating pool are you training your kids into for life? 2 (32m 35s): Mm, yeah. And which one, which one is going to last, right? Which one is gonna, right. If if everything is built on a facade at some point like that, we go back to pressure is going to be too much. And either it's gonna be exposed in one way or another, whether oh man, intentionally or not. And then it's like, I mean you can use the, the topic of, I think sexuality is a really good one because I get so many couples that I talk to, whether it's like emails or dms and they can't even have the, the conversation with like their husband or wife around sex and Yes. Like that's the pers like go all in with that person. Like there should be no shame around that topic, whatever. 2 (33m 16s): And they can't have the communication there. So if someone has a need that's not being met, well then they start Outsourcing it, right? Yeah. 'cause like there's so much shame around it. Yeah. And then when that gets discovered, there's this sense of betrayal. Yeah. And then you're like, well she, she or he wouldn't have accepted me if I shared that. Well, that's making a really big assumption. Yeah. Yeah. And then if they don't accept you for that, then they're, the, what they're accepting is not really you to begin with, man can. So then what do you have? 0 (33m 43s): Can I launch on this because this is something I work with so much, please. So let's talk about the brain chemicals really quick. So when you have weak attachment as a child and you don't connect other people, you don't share your needs, you stay locked at, locked down inside. There's five big brain chemicals we need to talk about. There's more than this. But let's talk about these five oxytocin. So bonding in the absence of stress, warmth, care, nurturing, I'm loved. We're hugging, we can be open and relaxed. Fantastic gaba, gamma amino bio uric acid and inhibitory neurotransmitter that's released, especially when the presence with oxytocin. It, it's anti-anxiety, anti-depression. It's these two are your brain saying, I don't have to be stressed or sad because people love me. That's what that com, that cocktail is right there. 0 (34m 24s): Then you've got what's called vasopressin. Vasopressin is a hormone released in the presence of stress when you solve it with somebody else. We have worked as a team. My brain recognizes teamwork and says, we did this together. I want to keep you around vasopressin. Men have more receptors for this than women do. Go figure. Men are goal oriented and team oriented. But then that loops back around. 'cause then they want to oxytocin bond with you. 'cause they want to keep you in the relationship with them. So it it, it kind of feeds back and forth. It's cool. We also have serotonin, which is linked in a lot of ways to mood mental health. Serotonin, yes, you can release it through exercise, through clean eating, through taking walks, through journaling. But you can, a, a huge amount of it should come through your healthy relationships, good conversations, feeling accepted, talking deeply with other people when you don't have deep conversations and that deeper connection, you're missing these four, which means dopamine on the end is the number one thing you're binging. 0 (35m 18s): So you have these four very weak or gone or largely gone. And then you have dopamine, dopamine, dopamine. So this is the mental health cycle here in America. And then we bing dopamine, pornography, cheating, sugar, caffeine, transverse, some of your serotonin over into dopamine. It's one of the things it does. Anything that makes you feel good. Any addiction, a lot of addictions over here. Instant dopamine dump. This is why people do this. So for the first seven months in a relationship, you've got Novelty and fun. Yay. Tons of dopamine sex happening during this time. And if you're avoidant, you, you do things that make the other person feel loved and safe. And you could get them some oxytocin, but you won't really feel it yourself. The anxious person will feel it and then they feel approved of and loved and accepted for the first time in their life. 0 (36m 2s): They get really addicted to it. But at seven months, the anxious person says, I can't pretend to be perfect anymore. You're eventually gonna abandon me. And the avoidant person says, I have poured everything into this relationship and I'm Exhausted. I kind of need some space. The avoidant person kind of pulls back, the anxious person gets anxious and chases. And now from seven to 12 months, they kind of play this game of, I'm not sure this is right for me. Let's, but we can't talk about it. Let's just try to make each other feel good. More dopamine binging. This is usually where a lot of avoidant people will say, man, I'm not feeling good. I need something to feel good. But they don't know oxytocin exists. So they chase dopamine, they start looking on apps, right? They start going cruising on Instagram. They do all kinds of stuff to kind of think like, well, what could I be doing instead? 0 (36m 44s): Grass is greener somewhere else. This is why the sex drive for the couples drops off a cliff at about one year because oxytocin for, for both partners, it usually switches to the sex drive to oxytocin at one year. We know it does it for women because women start wanting, well, I'm not intimately bonded to you, so my sex drive goes down. If you have high oxytocin and secure attachment with your partner, you're open, you're sharing, you're, you're friendly, you're excited. Oxytocin takes over in your sex drive, pretty much goes up and stays high like for life with oxytocin. But the male sex drive also needs to go up with oxytocin. These are the guys that say, I could never imagine just having sex with one woman for the rest of my life. That's because he doesn't have any oxytocin experience. It's all dopamine. And that's from the Novelty. 0 (37m 25s): So that's, those are my thoughts there. Candace, have you experienced that or work with couples with this? Is this something you're, you're seeing a lot of? 2 (37m 32s): I see a lot of it, yes. And I think the Novelty thing is interesting because there's so many ways to introduce Novelty within a relationship. And I think it goes back to like what I would call Conscious Conscious sex, right? I think Conscious sex, most people do not have in any dynamic, whether you are monogamous and married with a union or if you are in a poly situation, I think that there is equal amounts of unconscious sex happening. And what I call unconscious sex is there's an undertone of shame or guilt or insert disgust, whatever that feeling is secrecy. It's not the removal of that. It's not the reclamation of connection and love and experiencing a moment of convergence with someone or just, or simply frivolous pleasure, right? 2 (38m 22s): Like there's, until you have that moment where all of that is gone, and you can be present with that person in that moment, I think it's pretty unconscious. Yeah. 0 (38m 32s): It's kinda like the, Hey, I forgot you were here sex, right? Yes. Where the guy looks up and he's like, whoa, you're not just body parts, you're a person. And she's like, what are you doing that it's, yeah, 2 (38m 40s): It's right. And she's not just performing and actually focusing on herself. And so many people do that. Absolutely. And that's devastating for our relationship. And then we think that because we have an unfulfilled sex life, it's because it's not the right person. Or, or we kind of self-sabotage when really first it becomes, the first step is becoming Conscious with the sex. So removal of the shame and being able to like really understand how important, necessary and powerful that interaction is. Totally. And then if you get bored, and I mean, I've been with the same man for like 13 years, right? Like that's, and hopefully until I'm, I'm old gray and, and dying. 2 (39m 20s): Like, that's the plan. Love it, love it. We're gonna have to figure out Novelty and what does that look like that, well first if I have shame, I can't even have that conversation with him. So like, maybe we try this, maybe we try that. Maybe we like pretend whatever, right? You have to be able to go super deep and at the risk of embarrassing yourself with someone to like keep it playful, right? And that's what it's like. Never stop flirting with your husband or dating your wife. That's so important. That's so important. And you can't do those things authentically if you have shame attached to it. 0 (39m 51s): You're reminding me of a great meme I saw the other day. It says at the beginning of sex, women say, be gentle with me. And then 10 minutes in they say, okay, now hit me with a brick. It's when when the sex grows, it's bonding. But really quick, can we talk about Orgasms here on this show? 'cause that's, yeah, of course. Please, let's do it. So women who cannot orgasm or who struggle to orgasm, that's usually an oxytocin problem. And it usually traces back to attachment issues. 'cause when you have high oxytocin bonding, relaxed emotional intimacy with your partner, oxytocin's flowing, and then they give it to you during the day with hugs and care, and then you head into foreplay and it like boosts the oxytocin through the roof. So then you're, you're fully aroused and ready to go. These women who have this usually orgasm fairly easily. 0 (40m 34s): And they're usually the ones that when you look at research, they're like, oh, they can orgasm just through veg, through just pure intercourse. Like, that's amazing. That's usually massively high oxytocin. And then oxytocin, the, the orgasm releases more oxytocin. So they chain like 10, 15 Orgasms. And other women who don't have secure attachment and high oxytocin look at them and go, how are you doing that? I don't understand a lot of it, not all of it. But a lot of that, that process being able to do that is high oxytocin. So number one, any ladies out there who have orgasm problems fix your attachment usually and bond with your partner. But then during sex men, what, what's really cool, and I say this and it, it makes women mad sometimes, but during sex, men don't release as much oxytocin as women do necessarily. 0 (41m 18s): Men tend to, especially if if, if they're, they're used to just banging one out really quick, so to speak. They focus on body parts and actions instead of the intimate unit of experience. So they're releasing a lot more dopamine. But then during the moment of orgasm, men tend to release oxytocin a little bit differently. Where with women it bonds you emotion, you feel so close to him, oh, this is so great men, they release oxytocin a little bit and it kind of just moves the fluid along. And it does. They don't as much typically get the, oh, I feel so close to you right now, feeling. Which is where jokingly we say women wanna cuddle after relation after sex. And men wanna sandwich. Men are more likely to release dopamine during that orgasm afterward. Aftercare, nurturing, hugging, they can release oxytocin. 0 (41m 59s): They're not unfeeling monsters. But again, we go back to that vasopressin men love solving problems with you. So we can actually solve all of this together. Women who have orgasm problems almost never talk to their partners about it or get help with it. They're just like, I don't know, whatever. It's fine. Or I'll fake it or No, I'm just here for you. It's totally okay. I don't need one. And what you're doing is shutting down a great avenue for bonding with him and bonding him to you. So va suppressant sex, Hey babe, I am gonna need your help having this orgasm and we're gonna have it together. And he's like, oh, I'm in. Right? And guys are like, all right, we're doing this. If he loves you, he wants to give you like 50. And you're like, please, no, I wanna walk. So you, you have a couple and you enlist his help and you guide him and you do this together. 0 (42m 40s): And when you achieve it, you're like, oh, this was great. And he's like, yeah. And he releases vasopressin 'cause you did something together. Now he's bonding with you during sex. So every sexual experience is a suppressant bonding team building. It's a team building exercise. And afterward he's like, that was awesome. And ladies out there like, do this, enlist his health and having that orgasm Candice. Do you, I, I get a lot of flack for this because people say men don't wanna help women have Orgasms. Do you agree with that or disagree with that? Do you think a loving partner will help a woman have an orgasm? 2 (43m 14s): Yes. And I, I would even, I'd stretch it to say you, it doesn't even need to be within a commitment. I think that you can have someone that you have a very deep connection with. And if you have a man, a man is going to care about his partner, even if they just met, he's gonna make sure that like the experience is mu mutually beneficial. Right. Exactly. Like that's what a man does, a boy takes. Right? Right. And that's, that is the difference. Great 0 (43m 40s): Distinction. Great distinction. So ladies, I encourage you and list his help. Get him bonded to you. It'll be a great experience for both of you. 2 (43m 48s): Yeah. And to add a little bit more to like the physiological element of this whole exchange. So I think, yeah, safety is paramount. And this goes back to women, whether you are having casual sex or within a committed relationship, if there's not safety, there's not gonna be orgasm. Which is why women tend not to have casual sex or enjoy it. Enjoy it because they don't feel safe. Right? Right. So it's like, well why can't I have an orgasm even though I find this guy really hot? It's 'cause you don't feel safe. Some part of you doesn't feel safe right now. Introduce a guy that you know, but maybe aren't dating and you are attracted to. It will be easier to climax with him because he in some way has proven that he's a safe man to be around. So safety is huge. 2 (44m 30s): Women and this like, this is one of my soapbox things that I've recently found myself on is you see Kegel stuff everywhere, like as at least as a woman, right? Kegel, Kegel, Kegel. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And make sure you're super tight. And again, this isn't for you, this is for him. Most doctors, if you talk to what, like female physical therapists that work on the pelvic floor, most women are hyper-engaged down there. So that shows, right? If you believe in Chakras or energetic storages in the body, like that is your safety security. Am I Okay That is your base chakra. So if that is overstimulated over contracted constantly tight that says I don't feel safe. Yeah. On some level that's, and so women are walking around regular life not knowing that they are clenched because some part of them doesn't feel safe and secure. 2 (45m 18s): And then they wonder why they can't have a fulfilling sex life. Yeah. It's because you fundamentally don't feel safe. So if you're out there kegeling and you're already tight, you're actually exacerbating a problem. Yeah. So once you start to feel safe, and once you start to do both physical work on that area and mental spiritual work on that area, you'll find a release and then you'll be able to have a more fulfilling sex life. But it shows up and manifests medically in that kind of area. And I'm sure you've seen this with other illnesses, whether it's like specifically probably autoimmune, right? Like there is some weird connection between our spiritual, psychological, and physical self. And they all intertwine with each other. And a lot of it comes down to how we were raised, our traumas, how we deal with stress, how we're releasing that, our fundamental self sense of safety and wholeness. 2 (46m 4s): Yeah. And so ladies, stop doing your Kegels. I actually encourage you to relax and figure out do you feel safe? And if not, how can I establish safety within myself? Absolutely. And I think that's important because we outsource that and we, and I definitely see this going back into relationship and why people aren't getting married, aren't having kids aren't having sex, or just avoiding it all together. It's like we're trying to outsource everything instead of understanding our own power and our own safety and our own ability to give ourself what we need in order to approach a relationship with wholeness. And not from a deficit where you, you complete me, you're my other half. And it's like, well that's a recipe for disaster. Yeah. 'cause I want you to feel whole centered safe. 2 (46m 46s): Yes. Before we even go into building a life together. 0 (46m 49s): Yes. Voluntary interdependence, yes. Is the right term for this. Not dependence. You shouldn't be two people dependent on each other. Voluntary interdependence where you have chosen to specialize in different areas, usually the masculine and the feminine. And you take care of each other and compliment each other. But to do that, you've got to be full people. You can't exactly. You, you have to do it. Right. Maybe instead of Kegels, we introduced the idea of emotional Kegels, right? Emotional Kegels. Do you feel safe? I love that you, you put so much emphasis on safety and women do emotional safety. So if you have attachment issues, bring it back to attachment. Like we said, when you're having attachment issues, you never feel safe anywhere. Even if you objectively should, you won't, you can't because you feel like you are inherently unlovable and you're one step away from screwing everything up or you're avoidant. 0 (47m 38s): A lot of women, interestingly, they have an oxytocin phobia where they start releasing it, they wanna run away. So after sex, like no. And they throw their clothes back on and jump out the window to try to escape from oxytocin. I, I help a lot of couples with that. But if you cannot relax, even when you feel like you should your gut is telling you this is a good person. They are kind of coaxing you to open up and you cannot go there. Emotional keggs, right? Fix your attachment and then begin opening up slowly to the other person. Every time you open up to the other partner that's emotional Kegels, you're releasing oxytocin and you feel so safe. And it reconfirms, this is a good, safe person that takes me seriously. So if we have sex, if we we go through this, they will take me seriously and care for me. 0 (48m 22s): I'm not just here for them to use and, and leave. Build your, build your attachment. If you can do that, then you can start opening up and have emotional Kegels throughout the day. And then you'll, pelvic floor relaxes, by the way, feels pretty good. 2 (48m 36s): So there's a sense of, and it it goes into safety and it goes into feeling I'm worthy of love. And I think that a lot of men also don't feel safe and they also don't feel worthy of love. And they, they fear if they even approach a woman that they're going to be demonized or shouted at or be like, you're a pig, whatever, you're creepy. All of these things, it's, it's really crazy. So they, again, they give up and we wonder why people aren't getting married, having kids going into relationship. It's because the cost seems to be too much. Yes. And then you have women on the other side that are, if he doesn't approach me, he's not willing to pay that social cost. 2 (49m 15s): He's not willing to be vulnerable. So he's unworthy of my attention. So now you have two people that seem to be at odds. So how do you bridge that gap? Is if you, if you have these men that are throwing their hands up in the air saying, I don't know what to do, because if I do approach, she's gonna say, I'm a creep. But if I don't approach, then I end up alone. 0 (49m 32s): You know what's funny is the secure dating pool, of those 35% of people when I talk with them, they laugh at this idea because they say, it's not this complicated. Why are people making it this complicated? It's by and large a insecure attachment problem of, of constantly hedging your betts, trying to figure out who's gonna hurt you, trying to figure out how you're gonna get blindsided next. It it, it's this constant game. And yes, there's the me Too movement. Yes, there, there's call out show all over the place. You open TikTok and there's your face. Someone like laughing at you, right? Yeah. And, and yes, that's fearful, but mostly secure. People don't really worry much about that, to be honest with you. It's shocking to them that people would even do that. Insecurely attached. People are waiting for this all the time because either they think other people just will naturally betray them or they think that they are inherently unworthy of love. 0 (50m 17s): So they're wandering around this world trying to desperately earn it through codependency. So when you want to talk about this and fix this, man, there are steps you must take to fix your inner self. You have to define your core values, your core principles of who you are. It's the beginning of my Attachment course. My Attachment bootcamp is define your core principles of who you are and then start making decisions according to those principles. Instead of reducing friction or trying to make people like you appeasement and friction reduction and feeling safe. Identify how to actually be safe and then start living your principles and maybe start using those principles as boundaries with other people and explain to them, Hey, I can't do this because I have to always be honest. 0 (51m 1s): So let me be honest with you about this. And they share it and they're like, okay, I can respect that. If they don't respect it. Don't be around that person anymore. Start filtering for principles and then be so much more, be so much more clear about your goals and what you want in life and start talking to people that way. I, I have a three date method that I teach that filters this out really fast on the first three dates so that you don't have to wonder at year eight if he's going to marry you. Right? It's been eight years. I get those all the time. Adam Adam, it's been eight years. He's not gonna do it. I don't know. It's not gonna happen. How, how can I talk to my boyfriend at eight years about if he wants to have kids? What have you been doing for eight years? Like wasting 2 (51m 38s): Your fertility sister. Yeah. 0 (51m 39s): And, and so many anxiously attached women do this and they come to me at eight years like Adam, I'm kind of desperate. Like, you know, I'm 34 and we've been with it together for eight years and I haven't asked him about kids or marriage yet and he hasn't brought it up. How do I make him bring it up? Let's take a step back. Why don't you feel worthy of bringing it up? Why are you with somebody who also doesn't want to bring it up? Why are you afraid to talk about what you need and what you want with your partner? You've been together eight years, why can't you have this conversation? Let's talk about you first and then let's see if this person's the right match for you by having some of those talks, let's do that discussion. Sometimes their partner comes with them on the journey. Sometimes their partner's like, what you wanna talk about labels? 0 (52m 21s): Now it's eight years. Like it's, we're way past that. Don't worry about it. Like, we're married, we're married in spirit. Don't, they'll feel and, and no, they, they don't wanna have that experience or that discussion. So then they have to shut it down and yeah, they have to go on a frantic hunt to try to find somebody who wants kids pretty quick. And a lot of those women come in for help, but have those discussions. The the, the more you have these talks, the more you realize people are not gonna scream at you or spit on you for having these discussions. That's that childhood fear of when you weren't taken for, taken seriously. That's your parent yelling at you and whacking you because you did something slightly outta step on a bad day when they were mad and they didn't discipline themselves. That is your parent not having time to talk to you. 0 (53m 1s): So you think it's your fault. That's what those fears are springing from experience is the only thing that corrects these fears. 2 (53m 8s): Yeah. And it just sounds like sacrificing your authenticity and the life that you actually want for an attachment for a partner. Yes. That is only there based off of that illusion. That's it's so then you lose, it's 0 (53m 23s): It. That's it. Yeah. You're not even connected to each other. You're just connected to the feelings you give each other. 2 (53m 27s): Right? And then it's like the thing that you are trying to avoid, which is abandonment ends up happening because you were, you built the relationship on a lie. Yes. So it's built the relationship. So it's almost self-fulfilling pro, pro prophecy. It is. 0 (53m 40s): Exactly. You got it. It's you, you connected, if you're anxious, you connected with someone who avoids, avoids emotional intimacy because it terrifies them. And if you're avoidant, you connected with somebody who is obsessed with codependency and becomes addicted to you and then will chase you obsessively and never let you have space. So neither one of you will ever really be happy until you fix your Attachment and maybe fix it with your partner. And going back to that VA suppressant bonding earlier, if you fix your Attachment together as a team, there is almost nothing else on this earth that bonds you quite like that experience because then you are the really, the truly first, first real love of the other person and the first person that they ever received love from, which is an incredible experience to share with a partner. 0 (54m 25s): So fix your attachment. It makes everything better. 2 (54m 27s): Yeah, I couldn't, I couldn't agree more. And I really love the advice. So going back to like the alarming numbers, but also not shocking at the same time. If you only have about 30% of people that have a secure attachment style and then the rest of the dating pool does not, it's kind of inevitable that you are going to a be a person that doesn't have a secure Attachment and also find someone that doesn't have a secure attachment. So what you're left with is only personal development and accountability. You can't change other people. So come up with your principles and your virtues and who you want to step into as a man and don't waver and don't accept anything less than what you deserve. So I think it's, you can approach it with love, but if you have this woman that has an anything that is an insecure attachment and she's behaving in such a way you can present with love ways that you will not tolerate that behavior, that's, and she will either, and she will she'll res hopefully, if she loves you, she'll respect that you stood up for yourself and take responsibility and say, oh my gosh, I don't wanna lose this man. 2 (55m 29s): I didn't realize that I was even operating this way. How can I work on myself and through your personal devel development, if she loves you? And this goes both ways, then she'll start to dev work on her personal development. There's no like, yes, working on the relationship is a thing, but fundamentally it comes down to Working on Personal, Development. 'cause as you rise, hopefully the person you're with rises. And if not, if that gap is made bigger than I think it's just exposing a seam that was already there. That 0 (55m 57s): Is so true. Oh that is so true. And and to your point, to your excellent point that most of the dating pool out there right now is gonna be insecure. A lot of people say, well then I guess I'll give up 'cause I will, I'm a man. I will never find a woman who will ever be secure. Women say, I will never find a man who is secure enough to commit and build a relationship. I am astounded. I'm astounded by how many women, number one are flooding in desperate to learn about attachment, right? I blow up on TikTok in about six weeks. I went from 300 followers to 180,000. Now I'm at 300,000. And women are just like so hungry to learn about attachment. And then they start DMing me on TikTok on Instagram, they read my book and they're like, Adam, here is what I learned. 0 (56m 38s): It was game changing. I am going to apply it from now on forever and always have these talks. I'm like, yes. That's awesome to hear. So there's women out there who are working to improve. So guys, don't be afraid. Like every woman who's going to eat me alive, red pill stuff. No, there, there's so many women out there who were insecure and now have a deeper appreciation for love than anybody else because they're looking for you women out there who are afraid that men don't want commitment and that there's no men healing and that everyone's a dude, bro. Janice, I, I don't know if this has been your experience, but I have been as I have been shocked, equally shocked by the number of guys who were dude bros and were red pill bros. And they like, they have these pictures of them like flexing and their abs or holding a fish right on their social media. 0 (57m 20s): But then they step into my dms and they're like, Adam, I watched three of your videos and I learned about this Attachment thing. I'm not sure which direction to go. This feels like the next part of my journey. I have been this, this gym bro for so long. This feels like the next step for me. How do I get better with my Attachment so I can be emotionally intimate? And it's conversations women would like, women would die if they saw these conversations. 'cause it's shocking. Men are asking for help to learn to be emotionally intimate by the scores. This is most of the people I end up coaching is guys wanting to do this. So women out there who feel hopeless that there's no men who want commitment, they absolutely do. The number one thing I can tell you is to be open from the beginning in your relationship about what you want. 0 (58m 3s): Men and women don't say, Hey, I'm here for fun. We'll just see how it goes. Whatever. It's cool. Be clear about what you want. If you're looking for a committed relationship, my three date method, end of the first date, Hey, you know what, this has been fun. I'm having a great time. I just wanna make sure we're on the same page. I I am looking for a committed relationship down the line. We don't have to get married today, but, but that is what I would like to hit eventually. Are you on the same page? If so, great, we can have a second date. And guys, this is a really easy way to move into that. Ask for the second date right there. You just say that, but you say, great, we have a second date. If not, that's awesome. We can finish our dinner. We'll high five and we'll go our separate ways. Guys, this is a great way to illustrate that you're not just here for casual sex. You are actually looking for a committed relationship. And ladies, this is a great way here to also advertise that you are deeply invested in that intimate relationship instead of just trying to get someone to pick you. 0 (58m 49s): And then you say, what do you want? Are you looking for a commitment too? That is a great way at the end of the first date and a casual way to do all of those things and signal to a partner and start filtering. There's a lot of ways to do this, but what do you think Candace? Would that work? Is that too much? 2 (59m 4s): No, I agree. I I hate when people get like, it's like, like one of those matrix boards where they're pulling all of these things and they're strategizing and they're like, what do I do? How do I present this topic? How do I say what I really want and how do I, how do I, I don't know, like almost create this like smoke and mirrors and dancing act and like look over here, but this is what I really want and they're overcomplicating everything. And I'm like, I, it's been a while since I've been in the dating pool, but I feel like if I was that I would be pretty straightforward with everything because what are you doing? Like what? Like if all you want is like casual sex, then that's do that. Oh my, but like don't but don't do that and don't pretend that's what you want. 2 (59m 47s): If what you really want is to, if you're dating for marriage, if you're trying to find a life partner, if you really want kids or it just be honest with yourself and be honest with the other person. And they're like, well what if he runs away? Well then he's not the, he's not your person, right? No. And you found out super like super fast and the only thing you can never get back is time. Right? So that's such a gift. He gave you a gift by leaving, he gave you a gift and then now you have the time to find your person and he's not wasting it. And it's just so, it's so awful when you have these men who they're like, I'll give you a baby next year. I'll give you a baby next year. I'm just not ready now if he's not giving you like my husband, we were at dinner and he's like, I want you to give me another baby. And I was like, that is the most romantic thing anyone has ever done. 2 (1h 0m 28s): Like you, that's what you want. If you want kids, you want the man to be like saying, yes, I want you to give me another baby. Absolutely. You don't wanna say, well maybe next year. I'm just not, it's not the right time, it's never the right time. It's never, there's always something, you always have something you're trying to build or heal or fix or just, it's almost, it's almost done. Like life's never done. And when it's done there's no more of it. No. So correct. Yeah. So go after the things that you want. 0 (1h 0m 54s): And one last thought on that is if you are advertising free, no strings attached casual sex, you're not attracting everybody. You are attracting the guys who want free, no strings attached. Casual sex. If you want commitment, you are actually driving away the people who look for commitment because you're advertising that they are not, you're not for them and they're not for you when you switch and advertise, I want commitment and I'm just not interested in anything else. Yeah. You filter out the guys who are either gonna run from the table or the women who are gonna run from the table. 'cause they, that's what they want. But you are gonna filter in the people who want commitment. That's when you really start by being honest. You pull them in, they will handcuff themselves to you by the end of the day. 0 (1h 1m 37s): So you can't escape. Like my wife and I, we used this method. We talked about everything right up front. We were so clear. We got engaged at two weeks and we got married. Oh wow. And married at 11 months and we've been married for 15 years. Our 15 new wedding anniversary is in January and we're on baby number five. Like guys, this works. If you want a person who is looking for what you want, you must be clear from the start about what you want. You don't have to be a jerk about it, but advertise for them. So they know that you are for them and, and they, they know that they're for you. Otherwise they'll think they aren't and they'll move on. 2 (1h 2m 8s): So how fast do you think people know if it's the one, if it's their person, 0 (1h 2m 12s): Guys know very, very quick. And the the, the truth, the surprising truth is that guys know very, very quick if a person is their person, women usually take a bit longer. Women take 3, 4, 5, 6 dates before they can really lock in if this is a good match. I say three or four dates typically is where you should start getting a little more serious and say, Hey, what about putting a label on this? How do you think about this? I say, if you don't use the first year correctly, you're not gonna use anything correctly. It, it should be one year to know if you're a good match for marriage or not. You shouldn't have to go beyond one year if you do it right. 2 (1h 2m 45s): And does that change with age? Like is there a difference if you are dating, let's say you're 20 years old versus 35? 0 (1h 2m 50s): Sure, sure. So if you're 35, 1 year definitely is enough to know. But if as long as you guys are doing it right, if you're 20, you know what? Maybe a little bit longer. Maybe you're still developing what you want. Maybe you're still developing those ideas. I, I am not opposed to young marriage as long as you guys have done the work to identify who you want to be, where you want to go. If you are completely lost in life, it may not be a great idea if you haven't even mapped out your values yet, what your beliefs are yet, who you want to be the goal that you're trying to build. 'cause you can't commit to building a life together 'cause you don't even have a vision for that life. So as long as you have a unified vision for what you want life to be and a plan to get there about one year is probably enough for you guys to start figuring out if you're the right match or not. 0 (1h 3m 31s): But make sure you have that vision first. 2 (1h 3m 35s): Well this has been incredible and I know I could keep talking to you forever, so I'd love to have you back on in the future. Wonderful. Before we close out, do you wanna tell the listeners how they can support you, where they can follow you, projects you're working on and I'll make sure that it is all linked below. Oh, 0 (1h 3m 50s): I'd be honored, thank you so much. So my website is Adam Lane Smith dot com and lane is spelled LANE, like a road, Adam Lane Smith dot com. There you'll find my attachment bootcamp video course, you'll find my coaching, my private coaching community, my books, all kinds of resources to help you with everything we've talked about here. I'm also on Instagram as at attachment Adam. You're gonna find tons of reels and carousels on there. All kinds of usable information. I'm on Twitter now called X where I am the Prometheus, which I've been that for 13 years now. I don't know that I'll ever change that silly name. I'm also on YouTube where I have over 450 free video guides where you can watch my material, learn from me directly, drop comments there and all kinds of good stuff. I would love to help anybody who's ready for help. 0 (1h 4m 30s): Please don't hesitate to reach out. 2 (1h 4m 33s): Oh, beautiful. And thank you so much again. 0 (1h 4m 35s): Thank you for having me. 2 (1h 4m 36s): And that's it for this week's episode of Chatting with Candace. But before you take off, please leave us that five star review. If it's been a while, you can do it more than once. This helps feed the machine. So thank you very much. Check out the resources below and I'll see you next week. Bye everybody.