Eli Harwood is a licensed therapist, creator of Attachment Nerd, and author of the books "Securely Attached" and "Raising Securely Attached Kids," who has over 18 years of clinical experience helping people process relational traumas and develop secure attachment relationships with their children and partners. Eli has three children, one husband, two cats, 4 chickens, and an extraordinary number of plants!
574: Everything You Need to Know About Attachment
Eli Harwood
Eli Harwood, licensed therapist, creator of Attachment Nerd, and author of "Securely Attached" and "Raising Securely Attached Kids", joins Hunter Clarke-Fields to explore the crucial role of attachment in parenting.
In this conversation, they discuss how early relational patterns shape children’s development, the four main attachment styles, and practical strategies for fostering secure connections with kids. Eli also highlights the importance of self-compassion, repairing disconnection, and leveraging community support to nurture emotionally resilient families.
Parents will leave with actionable insights to strengthen connection, support emotional well-being, and cultivate secure attachment in everyday life.
Ep 574- Harwood
Read the Transcript 🡮
*This is an auto-generated transcript*
Hunter (00:00)
You're listening to the Mindful Mama Podcast, episode #574. Today, we're talking about everything you need to know about attachment with Eli Harwood.
Welcome to the Mindful Mama podcast. Here it's about becoming a less irritable, more joyful parent. At Mindful Mama, we know that you cannot give what you do not have. And when you have calm and peace within, then you can give it to your children. I'm your host, Hunter Clarke-Fields. I help smart, thoughtful parents stay calm so they can have strong, connected relationships with their children. I've been practicing mindfulness for over 25 years. I'm the creator of the Mindful Parenting Course and Teacher Training. I'm the author of the international bestseller, "Raising Good Humans", "Raising Good Humans Every Day", and the Raising "Good Humans Guided Journal".
Hey there, happy new year. Welcome back to the Mindful Mama Podcast. I am so glad you're here. In just a moment, I'm gonna be sitting down with Eli Harwood, a licensed therapist, creator of Attachment Nerd and author of the books, "Securely Attached" and "Raising Securely Attached Kids". She has over 18 years of clinical experience helping people process relational traumas and develops secure attachment relationships with their children and partners. And Eli has three children, one husband, two cats, four chickens, and quite a lot of plants. So I'm so excited for you to kick off the new year with this episode. This is a great, great conversation. We're gonna talk about the role of attachment in parenting, and I want you to listen for how we can understand secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganized attachment. And you're gonna be able to recognize and shift some generational patterns through this and she offers some daily practices and more. This is a really, really great episode. If you want to start the new year right with your kiddo, this is an awesome, awesome episode for you. So join me at the table as I talk to Eli Harwood.
Eli, thank you so much for coming on the Mindful Mama podcast.
Eli Harwood:
Yeah, it's so good to be here.
Hunter:
Well, you are the attachment nerd. So for the one listener in the world who is brand new to the concept, how do you define attachment? And maybe a better question is kind of like, why does it matter so much in our parenting and even our adult relationships?
Eli Harwood:
My favorite phrase to use when describing attachment is, human beings are "relational creatures". So we develop in relationships to other people, and we thrive, or not, in relationships to other people. And attachment is really the research on how the relationship between a parent and a child develops and the quality of that relationship. So, you know, to oversimplify it, the really nerdy researchers would hear some of this and be like, there's some nuance here, right? Of course there's nuance in all of this. But the oversimplification would be the quality of a connection between a caregiver or a parent and a child has a profound impact on how the child develops their sense of self, their sense of trust in their close relationships, their brain development.
Literally the structure of their brain, how much prefrontal cortex develops versus how large an amygdala becomes. You know, the way we relate to our children becomes an internal physical mental template for how they view themselves and themselves in relationship to others. So it's very big. It's a very big deal.
Hunter:
It's funny because, people ask me with like raising good humans. I get the question a lot, like, "Well, what do you think a good human is?" And what you've just described is my definition of that: someone who feels comfortable in their own skin, who cares about others, like in relationship can be in good relationship with others. And then of course you're working prefrontal cortex and, and, and having that ability to reflect.
Eli Harwood:
I mean, it's raising connection-focused humans, raising human beings who know how to feel solid in themselves and offer respectful, thoughtful, empathetic ways of relating to other people. Which is easier said than done if you're not feeling like a hundred percent all of those things yourself, you know? So that leads us to let's talk about what are the attachment styles. Cause obviously, I mean, obviously, but we want our kids to have a secure attachment style. Yeah. don't think a lot of us worry. We may not fully know it's all a little in a gray area, but whether we did have that secure attachment ourselves. talk us through the different styles of attachment.
Okay, so in general, this is what the really smart research people have figured out. There are four categories that we can assign to a parent-child relationship. So one category is a relationship that we would call secure, and this is the gold standard. This is what we're all working towards, and I want to start out with hope in this conversation that this is still possible, even if, as you're listening to me, you think, that's not what I do or what I have or what I had with my parents.
That's the beauty of attachment research is that's okay. Let's talk about how to get there. You can still get there and you and your child can still get there even when you're older. A relationship can't go from being coded as insecure in one stage of development and then coded as secure later on because the caregiver or the parent intentionally changes dynamics. So the secure pattern between a parent and child is a parent who is highly responsive and relationally oriented and warm most of the time.
Hunter:
Yeah, because we don't want all the time, which is something we can talk about later as well.
Eli Harwood (06:33)
-be a robot, right? Like you couldn't relate to that parent. and you know, even the term most of the time is actually not totally true to the research. Enough of the time is really the right term, because nobody is that most of the time. It's are you that enough of the time? Enough of the time for a child to sense I can rely on my parent when I feel tender, crusty, musty, overwhelmed, lost in the world. This is somebody who will care for me, see me and help soothe me. That's the secure relationship. Will they always have empathy for me? Not 100 % 24-7, but when we are disconnected, that parent will come back around and say, hey, I'm so sorry. I overreacted, I underreacted, I was distracted. Can we try again? That the child will sense the most important thing to my parent is my heart and their connection to me. That's what they care about the most in the world, even if sometimes they're off their kilter. That's the general sense.
Okay, so then the other three categories we would all code as insecure dynamics. One, and we would call it, and this is actually really annoying, so don't worry about the titles, y'all. Worry about the spirit of what this is because there's been research in different ways. So it gets titled one thing in childhood, one thing in adulthood, one thing in the social psychology, one thing in the developmental psychology. So it gets a little confusing.
The popular term that people use to describe this pattern is anxious attachment. But the clinical research term is actually resistant or ambivalent attachment in childhood and preoccupied attachment in adulthood. So this pattern is a child has a relationship with a parent who is sometimes warm, responsive, soothing, but not enough to rely on. So it's almost like the child has tasted security with this parent in these little glimmers or glimpses, but the majority of the time, and not, know, the majority of the time the experience is, I can't rely on you for this kind of support. But sometimes I can. So I feel a little bit overwhelmed and confused by that. And what happens in a child's attachment pattern is they become very hypervigilant of their parent. Because if sometimes you can feed me emotionally, but I don't know why or when that happens or how to predict it, I'm gonna be constantly trying to figure out, you love me? Do you love me now? Are you there for me? Are you there for me now? I get hypervigilant in my attachment relationship as a way to keep someone close to me. And I feel responsible. Like it's my job to make you love me or to make you respond to me in some particular way.
The third experience is what happens when caregivers are really not able. So the child really doesn't have a taste of those secure moments. That's not been the experience emotionally. And so the child develops what's called an avoidant pattern. In the child research, we actually call it anxious avoidant. And I think this is really important to remember because sometimes we think, if someone's avoidant, it means they aren't anxious. But no, they just aren't showing you their anxiety in the relationship, especially with children. But the child learns, "when I am distressed, when I am tender, my parent is either going to dismiss me, ignore me, misinterpret me in some way, shame me for what I'm feeling". Or, "my parent is going to be so anxious about what I'm feeling that their dysregulation is going to intrude upon me and overwhelm me more. So the best thing I can do when I'm tender is swallow it inside and distract myself, because being with my parent in these tender moments means more pain. Letting my parents see what I feel equals more dysregulation, not less dysregulation".
And the last category- it's really heartbreaking- is what happens when a caregiver is a source of fear for a child. So it's frightening in some way. That might be a parent who has a really serious drug addiction and acts erratically when they're on heroin or methamphetamines or a parent who has severe mental illness, undiagnosed, untreated schizophrenia or bipolar disorder who responds in ways that are really confusing and disorienting, or a parent who has abusive mindsets or attitudes. You know, "my job is to be in control of you and to dominate you and to teach you, who's the boss in a scary, frightening, threatening way". And so what happens for kiddos in these situations is their attachment instinct is to go towards their caregiver when they're tender. But if the caregiver is a source of danger, then the nervous system gets very mixed up. So if there's a grizzly bear chasing me, I want my mom, I want my dad, I want my parent. I'm going to run towards those people, but what if those people are saber-toothed tigers? I'm caught between the grizzly bear and the saber-toothed tiger. And the response in the nervous system becomes- close relationships are dangerous and threatening. And that's very confusing as a relationally oriented creature. And so there's a lot of like, you know, fight, flight, freeze, faint, fawn responses that start coming up in those moments.
Hunter (12:14)
Stay tuned for more Mindful Mama podcasts right after this break.
This is fascinating because as I'm listening to you describe these afresh- I'm just realizing that like for most of us, it's all mixed up. You know what I mean? Because I was thinking about, you know, I remember listening to this in psychology in college and being like, maybe I had an anxious attachment. You know, maybe this has happened for me. And then, but then thinking about you describing it now and thinking about, well, you know, my dad rubbed my back every night at bedtime. And I snuggled with him and that was very comforting, even though at times he was scary and spanked me and that was scary, right? But I wasn't like this, I don't know, not to make it all about me, but like just to say like, probably it was like, I was probably secure enough, right? Like I didn't feel like what's gonna happen. Like I knew what was gonna happen when I was in trouble. But I wasn't what's going to happen in general in the course of general everyday life. felt secure.
Eli Harwood:
Well, a lot of people, I think, get caught up in sort of, I joke about it as the like, which My Little Pony are you? You know, kind of like quiz on the internet. I'm Apple. Right, exactly. And that isn't how attachment works. And I think it's a great entry point into talking about it. But here's what we know is true is that we attach to more than one person. We attach to many people throughout our development and our attachments dynamics can shift.
So, you know, it's not like, okay, I have a secure attachment with my child, good, I never have to think about how I relate to my child again. No, like your child's gonna grow and develop and like their story and your life are gonna have nuances that are gonna change things inside of you. And you have to kind of do that work to figure out how do I get back into a place of being in tune with my child, available to my child. And so I think if you view it more as like a complex process, that's helpful too, to be able to say, "I'm going to have one dynamic with my child. My partner or the aunties in our life, they're going to have different dynamics with my child. And the quality of those relationships will all have a variety of things. You know, I had a very clear preoccupied dynamic with my mom and I had a very clear avoidant dynamic with my dad. And I learned both of those patterns of relating as a result. And so as I've gone through my life in different relationships, depending on what's going on in the other person's nervous system, I might deploy an avoidance strategy in a relationship with someone who's highly anxious and preoccupied with me. But I might deploy a more preoccupied dynamic with someone who is more avoidant in their sharing of emotions and needs. Or a more secure dynamic with someone who's more secure. So there's a lot of room for nuance around it.
And so I tend to use the term "pattern" instead of "style" because I think the style has more of this identity thing. And I think it's more helpful to go, what's my pattern right now in this moment? What am I using an avoidant pattern with my child or a preoccupied pattern or an anxious pattern, or am I using a more secure pattern? And then I can work on changing my pattern and also my mindset, right? Those two things. Those are the two things our kids need us to work on the most is how am I thinking and conceptualizing their needs and my feelings about their needs and what's happening in this moment? And how do I move towards a more secure way of doing that? And so focusing on studying secure patterns and secure mindsets so that whether we are in an avoidant moment or an anxious moment or a disorganized moment, that we have this anchor to go back to. was like, yeah, this is what I'm trying to move towards. Yeah, if that makes sense.
Hunter (18:12)
What you're describing mindfulness, right? You're describing the ability to be aware of what's happening for me, right? I'm aware of these thoughts that are arising: "my kid is trying to manipulate me. My kid is doing XYZ to me and then being aware"-which is a disorganized mindset, by the way. With aware of these thoughts, you might say that's disorganized or you might say, that's not that helpful, right? Not going to lead me to reconnect? What's going to lead me?
Eli Harwood:
Here's a great question to of sit with when you're thinking about your relationships with your kids: "what are the mindsets and the actions and the emotional states that I need to learn, develop, practice in order for my child to want to use me as a place of safe haven?" That's attachment research terminology, an emotional safe haven. What do I need to do in order to be an emotional safe haven for my child so that they can get that sort of recharge, that emotional reset, that soothing from me that allows them to then feel more confident, feel more resilient, and then launch off of me and explore the world and develop themselves in whatever they need to. And then this dance of that back and forth: "You know, you can come to me when you feel tender and I'm here and I'm going to help support you and see you and understand you in a compassionate, dignified way, which by the way, you're manipulating me". There's no compassion and there's no dignity in that. So anytime that pops into your head, you can go ahead and just see that in a little bubble and pop it. That is an unhelpful metaphor for understanding a child's emotional state. And then whatever it is else that's there, you know, my gosh, my child, doesn't love me as much as they used to. I'm going to pop that bubble. Does that help me give my child a safe haven? Do I want to be around people who are feeling rejected when I am enjoying some form of other outside experience from them? No, I feel controlled when that's happening. So sort of reflecting, is this thought mindset or way of relating going to help my child feel more comfortable in my presence? Or is it potentially going to make it harder for them to be authentic with me, to rely on me, to come to me with the stuff that feels complicated for them.
Hunter:
As you describe this, you know, I'm sure many listeners may be concerned about passing on your own wounds. For anybody who's been around this podcast or "Raising Good Humans", that was a big worry of mine. could see that I was passing on my own wounds. could see that I was damaging our relationship. And you know, I had to do this incredible work of kind of becoming the parent that my kid needed to be. I had to learn a lot of restraint, a lot of healing, a lot of like how to digest feelings that before I didn't really have a process or a way of digesting and a lot of feelings that were coming up anew because I was back in this parent-child relationship and they just don't come up as well and behold in like our adult life before that.
Eli Harwood (21:17)
Which one?
Hunter (21:41)
There's a lot of these, and I also want to say that I like the word patterns that you said, because for me, it relates to the word that the Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh used, is "habit energies": that we have habit energies and then we can practice new habits, we can practice new patterns, what we practice grows stronger. But anyway, what are some of the signs for the listener that we might be repeating those generational patterns and how can we begin to shift them?
Eli Harwood:
I'm such a word person, I'm so ridiculous about words, but I'm going to shift it just a tiny bit because I think one of the myths is that when we repeat generational patterns that we'll be doing the same thing that our parents did. And actually, I think the thing we're looking out for more astutely is that we are handing down generational anxiety or generational trauma or generational disconnection. Because I've seen a lot of people where maybe they experienced a lot of emotional neglect. So they grew up in a house where you want to cry, I'll give you something to cry about. You're fine. Get over it. Get over it. Get over it. And so then they're like, I'm not going to do that pattern. But they go into parenthood having not fully healed the pain around that. They still carry the same pain that was behind that pattern, but it shape and the shape changes into anxiety, hypervigilance, and helicoptering over their child's emotional state. Are you okay now? Are you sure you're okay? Did I say something wrong? How is that going? And even though it's a different attachment pattern, underneath it, it's the threat of insecurity and it doesn't leave a child feeling secure with you. If you're constantly monitoring a child's emotional state because you don't want them to feel as abandoned as you felt, they don't feel not abandoned. They feel in charge of soothing your emotional state because they can tell how intensely you are in pain. And so I think the key thing is, is this a right side up dynamic where I am the emotionally grounded person in the relationship? and I am the emotional mentor? Or is it upside down and I'm looking to my child to soothe me?
Hunter:
Yeah, "you calm down so I feel better". Whatever it is, right?
Eli Harwood:
You tell me I'm doing this right, that you don't feel abandoned like I did. Well, that's about me feeling soothed. So I think the first key is asking ourselves, "have we really done the work to heal the pain"? You know, use the word "habit energy", but I would maybe even just use like the historical energy- the sense of insecurity that you felt in your relationship to your parents in your childhood. Have I done what I needed to do to believe that I am enough? I am worthy. I am the parent my child needs to be self-assured enough to then truly be available for your children because our kids have to sense from us that we are simultaneously soft and sturdy. Soft in that we are empathetic, attuned, connected, but sturdy in that just because they're having a meltdown doesn't mean we are going into panic mode. no, right? And kids are messy emotionally. Secure kids are not cool, calm, and collected. Secure kids are two years old. Secure kids are seven years old, 15 years old. And at all of these developmental stages, you know, there's a lot of feelings.
And sometimes they're saying, "I hate you, you're the worst parent in the world". And if you haven't dealt with that, trauma piece, your body and your nervous system are like, oh shit, I'm failing. I'm failing. Instead of being able to go, oh my gosh, adolescence is so intense.
Hunter:
Not taking this personal thing. Yeah, exactly.
Eli Harwood:
-or at face value. And this response just came up because I said, I'm so sorry, I'm not going to make you a separate dinner of this, this, this, this, or whatever the thing was. So I think, you know, I have, my first book is kind of goes over all of the nitty gritty of like, this is what attachment is, and this is how you develop in a secure way. So anyone who's like, okay, help me understand all the attachment. That's called raising securely attached kids. but I have a book coming out in a few months that is focused on how do I deal with my stuff so that my kids don't have to? And I think that's key.
Hunter (26:33)
Which we will be talking to Eli more about when it comes along because we are so fascinated about this. Okay. So, I mean, this is a big question then, like how can we create more security in ourselves? How can we create steadiness, groundedness? I mean, this is what I'm obsessed with. I'm fascinated with, right? How can we create groundedness and steadiness in ourselves so that we can be that secure base when we're like, "oh, I didn't realize I've been going through adult life and everything's been fine. And now I have these heat-seeking hovercrafts who are exposing every single possible insecure place in my nervous system itself?" And a lack of support in general for parents, in the United States- an incredible lack of support. Bless New Mexico that just got free universal childcare. Did you hear about that? That's amazing. As of 2024, dear listener, that happened in New Mexico. But yeah, we're dealing with our own issues, etc. And we're dealing with it in a very tense and unsupported way, whereas humans started out as forager mammals that were in communities, then, etc.
Eli Harwood (27:56)
I actually, I do, I think that's such, I'm so glad you brought that up because it can get missed. We are wired for attachment relationships. Human beings are wired to have a handful of very close relationships where we sense belonging and identity. We are also wired for community. So attachment flourishes best in the context of supportive community. So, you know, this is not just your individual job to work on yourself and then figure out this dynamic. It's also, you're going to need people. So in an ideal setting, you are looking for people who help you regulate, whether that's therapists, support groups, know, faith communities, meditation groups, but you need people in your corner offering you empathy, understanding, support, because the more you experience it, that's how you get mentored and did doing it well. You know, I know how to sit with my children in their pain because people sat with me in my pain. And it wasn't my caregiver: my caregivers early on didn't know how to do that. Although I will say this, my mom has done some unbelievable work on herself and can do that much more now than she could when I was little.
Hunter:
That's beautiful. Has she shifted since all the work you've done on attachment?
Eli Harwood:
She's a model parent in all of this. I came to her in my early 20s and was like, oh my gosh, that was traumatic. That was traumatic. That was traumatic. And she'll tell you it was the hardest thing she ever did was sat on that phone and just kept her mouth shut because she wanted to say, but I was doing everything I could and don't you understand why? And this is what was happening. And she just said, I'm so sorry, that sounds horrible. And she let me tell her what was hard. And then she's like, and I went and cried to my husband. My parents were divorced by this point. She was like, can I talk to my therapist about it and I work through it? And we have a close relationship in part because she was determined not to dismiss me about what it felt like to be in my childhood, even though my childhood was way less traumatic than hers. She broke cycles, she changed things, but it was not possible for her to give me a trauma-free childhood. That was not possible. I'm hoping it's possible for my kids. We'll find out. I plan on being that same mom if my kids come back to me later and are like, this was horrible. That was awful. Even if in my mind I'm thinking like, I don't know, on a scale of one to 10 though. Yeah, like, that's bad kids.
Hunter:
Yeah, like the kids who never get yelled at and then you raise your voice or talk sternly like a little bit and they're like, "my god", you and I'm like, "no".
Eli Harwood:
Yeah, well, now I think, "uh-oh, did we create fragility here?" I know, exactly. But, you know, shouldn't human beings be disturbed by aggression? Shouldn't human beings be disturbed by disconnection? You know, I think one of the things that is surprising about being like a cycle-breaking parent or someone who's healing while they're dealing with their stuff is that if you do this well, you actually create a world in which your children cannot understand you. So you're now dealing with the pain of the fact that your parents didn't understand you and give you what you needed. And so you give your kids what they need, which means they also can't understand you. So you're sandwiched between two generations that can't see you. that's a sign that you've succeeded at this and why it's so important that you have people in your life who can see you, who can go, holy guacamole, you went from this level of disconnection and whatever, and you created this with your kids. This is masterful. This is beautiful. This is profound. And of course your kids are annoyed at you. The metaphor I use is if you grew up without enough food on your plate and you knew what hunger felt like in your body and you knew the trauma of hunger. You work so hard then for your kids not to know that trauma and you make sure there is always enough food on their plate. And so then you have the gift of your children complaining about what's on their plate. Because that's the pain they know. And then you have to figure out how to not misunderstand them in that moment. It's a good metaphor.
Hunter (32:19)
Stay tuned for more Mindful Mama podcasts right after this break.
Okay, so let's rewind to like the parent who is in the thick of it, who's like, "I'm seeing my patterns come up. I'm seeing my big reactions come up. I'm seeing maybe my avoidance or my anxiety coming up". What, you know, if they're in that place of I'm recognizing it, I'm seeing it. What do they do then?
Eli Harwood:
Well, the first thing I want you to do is actually develop self-compassion. We are far more likely to effectively give compassion to our kids once we have given it to ourselves. So I think a lot of people get stuck in like a panic cycle where I reacted, I overreacted in harsh ways or I yelled or it was demeaning or harsh. And then now I'm panicking because I can see the impact it had on my kid. And now I'm in panic and shame and I'm trying to like, talking trash to myself.
Hunter:
Yes. And that's depleting the compassion well inside of you. So, any time that you react, want you to of like imagine yourself like a little kid who just doesn't know better. And I want you to go, "honey, that was really overwhelming. That was really hard. I'm so sorry that that scared you. What do you want to go back and do differently now?" You know, and become a master at forgiving yourself, giving yourself compassion, and then repairing from that place and going back to your kid and going, "I'm so sorry, I really lost my marbles. That's my favorite thing to say because it's so compassionate and it's also accurate". Like my kids are like, "yep, you did lose your marbles". And I can, "but it's not like I'm sorry, I was a bad mom or a terrible person or so, you know, I'm so sorry I lost my marbles. I got really scared about X, Y, or Z, or I was really stressed about something." And I try that over because I can tell I really did not give you what you needed in that moment. And that process, like imagine your parent coming to you now and saying, I'm so sorry I did that. I wish I had done something different and not beating themselves up, but holding simultaneously their humanity and your humanity at the same. It's unimaginable for my parents. But it would be amazing. It would be amazing. Yeah, still, still it would be amazing. I'm 47. It would be amazing. Yeah. I ain't no dead calf. Yep.
Eli Harwood (35:21)
Right? I my mom, I watched my very, very harsh, abusive, disconnected grandfather age and my mom, I watched my mom kind of process him and he never knew how to say I love you. I he never said I love you. And there was this moment when he was kind of in dementia zone where he looked at her and he said, I love you, Barbie. Her name's Barbara. I love you, Barbie. You know, and it was like a healing, it was like a watershed healing moment.
And like, yeah, he hadn't been able to do it for all those years, but it didn't change the power of him doing it at the end. There was still power in that. so, you know, whenever you can repair, become a master at repairing. And you become a master at repairing by forgiving yourself before you ask your kids for their forgiveness and giving yourself compassion that you are doing the best you can with what you have.
You didn't choose it. You didn't choose to have this reaction, right? Like this built, you know, this is built into your upbringing, your DNA, all this stuff. weren't like, I think I will wake up and I'm going to say X, Y, Z to my child. Like no one made a conscious choice to choose it. It's so important for us to understand that it wasn't our active choice.
And you know, the circumstantial pieces of it too, like I'm thinking of a time a couple months ago, we found out there was this like undisclosed pit of sewage under our house. And like my husband almost fell into it. It was like, you know, giant. So, you know, we're like dealing with this like pit of sewage and my five-year-olds are like screaming at each other over like a piece of, you know, shiny paper in the other room.
And I'm processing that like, we're going to probably have to spend like $15,000 we don't have on this sewage situation. And my husband is literally covered in our crap as he's trying to figure out. mean like, right. Did I respond to my five-year-olds with maturity and kindness? No. Right? No. You know, from a five-year-old perspective.
Was there anything that would have made what, how I responded to them? Okay. mean, I went in and I was like, enough. It's a piece, you know, I was like, I was just, of course not. And I can still have self-compassion from, mean, you obviously just had a lot of compassion for me in that moment. I can still have self-compassion that like really nobody is probably going to have a Zen reaction to that specific situation. And by the way, one of my daughters has a scream that I can only describe as the pterodactyl. It hits a sensory level that like, I mean, I've sometimes been like, should I check my ear for bleeding? It's just so intense. It's just how her vocal cords work. So there's like a sensory experience. There's a context experience. We can always go back and say to ourselves, like, my gosh, of course you reacted like that. That was overwhelming. And then go back to our kids and say, I'm so sorry I reacted like that. That was probably overwhelming for you.
Hunter:
Yeah. What do you need? What can I do to help us reconnect? What do you need from me? Do you need some time and space? Do you need me to say, I'm sorry a few more times? Do you need some ice cream? What could we do here? You know, and that rhythm becomes with our kids. Yeah, there's disconnection, but my caregiver always finds a way back to me and always rediscovers me even when there's conflict or stress. So I think what you're describing, I love that you're describing this about.
Eli Harwood (39:08)
The shit are literal shit. All the shit. I love that. That's amazing. But I think what you're describing is like a process of self-awareness, self-compassion, practicing that.
Hunter:
And I think what I'm thinking of for the listener who's like, "I have these things going on. I'm seeing these things come out. I can do these things". I'm imagining also involved in here is some awareness of like we mentioned before, these external circumstances: maybe there isn't a pile of sewage under your house, but maybe your schedule is cuckoo crazy wacko. |
Eli Harwood:
Yes. And you're doing a million things. Maybe because you haven't felt like enough, you're doing too much, right? Or maybe, there's other things too. One of the things I think about a lot is like encouraging people to lower their overall baseline of reactivity. Right? So that means like just maybe some little practice of calm, know, practice what you practice calm being having calm three minutes in the day when you first wake up or practice taking a few deep breaths before you answer your kid or practice just not filling your schedule so that your baseline of stress and re isn't like up here and then kids come in with the pterodactyl scream and it's like tipped over super easily.
I think what I would say is there are seasons in our life where we can adjust the volume on our stress when we have a volume button available to us. So whether that's, hey, my kids don't need to do three sports. I'm going to turn that down. you know, I don't need to keep answering my mother's phone call because she just emotionally berates me every single time she calls. I'm just going to stop answering as often. You know, like if there is a volume control button in a season of our life to use that so that I like the term buffer so that we have more buffer in our nervous. So that, know, or capacity is another good word. Like what's my capacity to be an emotional container for my kids? And it's, if I'm all the way full and my kids have emotions that they need me to contain, it's just going to spill over me and them and us because I'm already full. So how do I make sure that my container has space and room for the inevitable emotions my kids are going to have and the needs they're going to have?
Hunter (41:27)
Yeah, buffer.
Eli Harwood (41:51)
There are also seasons where it doesn't matter how hard you look, you can't find that volume button. Death, loss in your life, systemic oppression and political unrest. There are things that can happen in our worlds where we don't have access to that volume control button. And so when that's the case, it's just really loading up on the self-compassion and the repair and the forgiveness on all fronts for everybody as much as possible. And coming back to, I'm so sorry, that was so hard. I'm going to keep trying to do better. We're going to keep trying to do better. This is just going to be a hard season and that's okay. We're okay even when we're having these hard moments. But when you can see that volume button on the wall, making sure that you are adjusting it so that you can be available and reliable for your kiddos as much as possible. I'm sure you've talked about this before, but we have longitudinal data that says when a parent and child have a secure relationship. So they've been scored by the researchers. Check, check, check. This is a secure way of relating between these two. It's estimated that that relationship is connected and in sync 30 to 50 % of the time. Hmm. This comes from Edtronic's work and there's another longitudinal study, which I can never remember the name of the researcher. So I need to go do that. But you said 30%, the other study said 50%. All that to be said, it's not 70%, 80%, and it's certainly not 100%.
Nobody is doing that. Like the human species, there's so much that we have to do in order to thrive and survive life. It's not possible for us to be constantly or even mostly in connection and sync with our kids. It's about being in sync enough. And that's 30 to 50 % of the time. So, you know, if you can feel in your nervous system like, me and my kids are at it 80, 90 % of the time right now.
That's a good like, okay, what do I need to do in terms of the volume button to turn that volume down for my nervous system so that I can be more of a container and less of an instigator with them or reactor. And then what are the internal things that I need to do? What do I need to heal or learn? What skills do I need in order to be more emotionally sturdy and soft? And some people really have a lot of work to do on the softness because they harden themselves as a way to cope. And so they may not be reactive, but they are cold because I am not going to let anybody hurt me. And other people are really great at the softness, but not so good at the sturdiness. You it doesn't take much to pull you down into a pit of self-doubt. So you're really having to look at yourself and be like, what do I need to be more soft and sturdy for my kids? And who in my community can support me in that journey? Not just, how do I do this on my own, know, bootstrap and John Wayne in it? Where can I reach? You know, where can I reach?
Hunter:
Good question. I really appreciate that you're bringing that out. Okay, so I'd love to sort of end on a positive note. We're thinking about all of these different things. We've talked about repair, we've talked about self-compassion, we've talked about lowering the volume. What are maybe some things a parent who wants to develop, make more security in their relationship?
could do going forward that just to just affect that parent-child relationship in a really positive way for the softness and sturdiness.
Eli Harwood (45:19)
Okay, I'm going to have you all get out a little piece of paper or, you know, make sure you bookmark this so that you can like go back and listen to it again. But these are my four really easy things to remember that every parent can be doing to give you and your child deeper security in your connection. The first is light up when they come into the room. So I call this the dog treatment, you know, when you get home from work or you're you've been away on vacation, like no one is wondering like, is my dog glad that I'm home? Like it's I'm so glad you're here. Make sure that your children can sense that you want them in the room, that you are thankful to be reunioned with them after maybe just going to bed at night, you know, so they get up in the morning. And this is different with different kids. So let's acknowledge neurodivergence that some kids, if you act like a, you know, bouncing puppy will feel overwhelmed and triggered by that, you know, so you can be a loyal golden retriever and still act like a dog, an old dog, you know, and teenagers also teenagers are not into you being a puppy. But just make sure they can see it in your eyes, in your smile, in their- I know, I've learned to say, are you ready for a hook? Not just a mat. Yes. Yes. Yeah. And that your presence is like, I'm paying attention to the fact that you enter the room and I'm glad you're here. May your presence communicate to your child, I'm glad you're here when they enter the room. So that's an easy one. Well, I guess it depends on who you are. But overall, I think that's probably the easiest to execute. The other three are be a parent who shows up for these two things, tender moments and triumphant moments as much as you can, when your child is melting down in tears, even if it's over something small, definitely if it's over something that they think is big, know, responding in a way that is, I'm here for you. I see you're in pain and I'm here for you. I may not always know what to say or what to do, and I'm certainly not going to be able to make this go away, but I'm here. Show up for the tenderness. And then the triumphant moments are the things where they're proud of themselves and they feel like they want you to celebrate them, you know, and it might be like, oh my gosh, I just built this pig castle in Minecraft, or I, you know, finally wrote this letter I hadn't written before, or I found a bug on the side of the road, or so-and-so asked me out on a date, even though you're like, so-and-so is a dweeb, why you gonna go out with that person? You know, show up for their triumph with solidarity. I'm so excited you're excited. I'm celebrating you, I'm seeing you.
The third thing is be a parent who listens up. Listen up to those kids. Let them tell you their stories of the things they think, of the things they've gone through, even when they're in that stage where they just want to talk incessantly. And you're like, land the plane, land the plane. You you want to be a parent that shows them that kind of full frontal attention enough that they want to keep telling you things, you know? Like, that's the goal. You want to be a place where your kids come in and let you in on the tee, right? Yeah. What is going on in their world and their thoughts, including
What feedback do they have for you about what is or isn't working in their relationship with you? And then the last one is be a parent who makes up when you mess up. That's like, just, you're going to do this every day. I mess up with my kids multiple times every day. Disconnection is a core element of secure attachment. It happens in every secure relationship. So master the art of saying, hey, I don't like how I showed up there. Can I try again?
Or, how did that impact you? What do you need from me? You know, if you can do those four things, light up, show up, listen up, and make up when you mess up, you're gonna be good.
Hunter (49:03)
Okay, awesome. Well, Eli, thank you so much. I love what you're doing. Eli's books on attachment are out everywhere, books are sold, a new one coming up. You'll hear from her real soon. So thank you so much for coming on the Mindful Mama podcast. Such a gift to be with you. Thank you for everything you do.
Thank you so much for listening. I really, really appreciate it. And hey, happy new year. I'm so glad you are here with me here at the Mindful Mama podcast. Make sure you're subscribed and you share these episodes so that we can continue to provide the podcast to thousands of people all around the world. And I wanna keep getting this good stuff out to you: if you ever have any suggestions for guests, you can send those to me at MindfulMamamentor.com. There's the Podcast page, which has a place where you can submit suggestions for guests. Would love to see who you think I should talk to here on the podcast. And you can submit your own questions too, if you have questions. So occasionally I do a Q&A episode, happy to answer your question on the podcast. So yeah, all that. I hope you're well. You know, it's a new start, it's a new beginning, it's a new year. I feel hopeful and I think that this is a good time for us to just maybe start small, little, little changes that aren't so big that can help us just be more present and appreciate the lives that we have a little more, maybe just shift them a little bit more towards whatever your North Star is.
I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're this podcast is part of that. And if you have any feedback, hit me up on the socials. I'm @MindfulMamaMentor, and I would love to hear from you here. How did this have any impact on you? I would love to know. yeah. Wishing you a great week, my friend. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here and I will be back next week. Namaste.
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