Session 2: Attachments - The Loss of Love
Speaker Aaron Goodrich
Session 2 – Attachment - The loss of love
Good morning, last evening we talked about how our desire (feelings) is meant to lead us back to God. He is our core longings and our heart is restless until it finds deep rest in Him. Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.” We are learning what it means to return – do a one eighty uturn back to the Father’s love. He delights in us and in this session we are going to learn about the broken homes that we grew up in and how we tried to get our core longings needs met through trying to earn love or attach through our appetites, others approval and performance. The three main attachment wounds are avoider, pleaser and vacillator. There is disorganized in a more extreme wounds as well.
This is where our disintegration and divided soul comes in because we are meant to be unified and integrated in God’s loving face. We are ultimately made to be attached to God. “To the extent our emotional attachment with our primary caregivers is lacking while we are children, we will find our relational capacity limited as adults.”
Avoidant – When parents are unavailable the child learns to avoid trusting others. They defend against pain by avoiding others emotionally. They say it is better to feel distant than disappointed. They have a distrust of others and have a hard time showing up when most needed. Intimacy requires the capacity to trust ones heart to another. How we related to God is how we relate to others. They hoard their self-love to protect themselves and are often self-righteous?
Anxious/pre-occupied – A child overly depends on others and doesn’t trust themselves. When caregivers are unreliable a child learns to avoid trusting themselves. The child assumes the parents not being available is due to a major flaw in their soul. These people are clingy and dependent looking for someone to be emotionally available. They over depend on others for their sense of identity. True intimacy requires two individuals showing up to give and receive love. These people strive for love and are desperate for it and are more self-loathing.
Disorganized distrust self and others where as secure trust themselves and others. They are able to give and receive love. I think it is significant to note that at the foundation of our faith God asks us to trust or have faith in Him.
The avoider is the avoidant style. Pleaser is anxious pre-occupied and they often say if you are okay than I am okay and vacillator is also anxious/pre-occupied because they are looking for someone to tell them they are okay. The problem is only God can do that for them. They are saying get close because they want you to meet their needs but when you make mistakes which all people do they feel shame and say stay away from me. Hand motion – come close/no get away. You are hurting me. This goes back to one of the video’s that I sent you and the reading. Any questions?
Switch this one and the matress illustration – Glori – avoidant – Aaron – Anxious/pre-occupied. We enjoy playing together by doing some lake therapy like many others in west Michigan. We had an RV and a spot at Sand Lake up north for years and Glori would graciously pull me water skiing because I absolutely love to slalom ski. Now… I want you to be gracious to me as I am a recovering vacillator…. If you are a slalom skier you know that being pulled straight is extremely important because if you are in the middle of the cut and the boat turns it can cause some problems. So… I would yell out to her directions from the water. This made sense to me. I had done this for years and one day a few years back I said to Glori… I wonder what others around the lake think of me yelling out directions. She looked at me and said… are you seriously just thinking about that now? She is a recovering pleaser and so she has been mortified by my yelling. Tell them what it was like for you. When we are fully blended in any of these imprints we have 0 true awareness or differentiation. Hyper awareness or unawareness. I was thinking about skiing and having an effective ski… I wasn’t thinking about everyone else on the lake Glori was thinking about the opposite which led to some conflict. So let’s look at how awareness can create a much deeper intimacy in our marriages.
Slide - Video – Still face video
What are you feeling as you watch this video? What shifted inside of you once the mom began to break out in a smile?
We all come into the world looking for someone looking for us. We long for a face of delight to look for us. Last night I layed a gospel foundation on our attachment blessing by looking at how Adam and Eve were blessed with the core longings in the garden before they submitted themselves to sin. They were banished from the tree of life and began to hide, cover and blame through avoiding, pleasing and vacilating. Because we chose to follow the father of lies each generation passes this sin down to the next and because of these lies there are deep wounds that we pick up in our family of origin. We were made for the garden and our family was a far cry from the garden no matter how mature it was. We develop compensating strategies of attaching to the world through avoiding, pleasing, vacillating. This can grow into controlling and being a victim and we are going to talk more about these in this session. 80/20 rule and the log and the speck. Curt Thomson. We don’t see the world as it is but as we are. The unconscious purpose of marriage is to complete childhood. In other words we are unconsciously stuck at a certain age in childhood often at whatever age our parents were emotionally unless we have done a lot of work. We can either run from this awareness by having a midlife crisis or we can grow in our awareness and see how much our wounds from our past have us stuck in unhealthy patterns. We also marry our emotional equal but it doesn’t seem like that because we are on opposite sides of the emotions. One person in the marriage often diminishes emotions and the other can be dominated by emotions or exaggerate them.
The ways we attach at a very young age is the pattern or the imprint that we learn and we recreate this in our marriage unless we update the files. As kids we have to attach or we die. For those of you familiar with avoidant and anxious attachments the avoider is avoidant and anxious is anxious pleaser or anxious vacillator.
We all have an attachment tendency and for some it will be easy to identify and for others it will be more challenging. By the way we are not blaming our parents for this but it does explain why we are the way we are. The one degree rule is an aviation rule. If we are 1 degree off in a plan from Los Angeles to New York we will miss the target by 50 miles. The older we get the more we see if we were off a degree or two and it becomes more evident. We are responsible for believing the lies of the enemy. When people hear this session there can be a tendency towards toxic shame. Instead I want to encourage us to use the energy we receive from the session to lead us towards repentance and realizing that we are loved by God and therefore can view our brokenness. Conscious awareness of self and God!
No one is perfectly secure except for Jesus. For the rest of this time we will be using the attachments talked about in the book How We Love by Milan and Kay Yorkavich.. These attachments are avoider, pleaser and vacillator and the chaotic styles are controller and victim.
The first one we are going to look at is the avoidant attachment style.
Glori:
In your notes you’ll find a section on each of these…
Avoider tendency – These people hide from their shame by emotionally shutting down
Avoiders value independence and self-reliance. They avoid their emotions and others’ emotions & comfort themselves in non-relational ways. They were the ones who were able to emotionally regulate parents or siblings by being emotionally steady. They have learned to limit their feelings and needs in order to deal with the anxiety of not being nurtured as a child. When times were tough growing up they would often retreat to their room, avoid through humor or even leaving and going somewhere else.
Hand motion: stay away
Glori – Here are some ways to identify if you have an avoidant imprint
● If you like to busy yourself to distract from the uncomfortable emotions.
● If you grew up in a family who was unable to attend to your feelings and as a result your emotional life was ignored and underdeveloped.
● Avoidant children are typically raised by parents who find emotions and needs overwhelming and sometimes even irritating.
● As kids, Avoiders are the ones who respond to lack of comfort and nurturing by disconnecting.
● They were forced to grow up too soon and limit their emotions.
● in these families, the answer to life is self-sufficiency. The predominant message in childhood is “You’re fine! Deal with it and grow up”.
● They are out of tune with the feelings in their bodies. They’re also out of tune with other’s feelings.
● When stressful situations hit avoiders want to run.
● The avoiders try to focus on only happy/joyful emotions and avoid the afraid, sad or angry emotions.
● Avoiders have learned to comfort themselves in non-relational ways, through exercise, food, shopping, work, sports, gambling, alcohol, drugs to name a few. When life gets difficult they isolate.
● Childhood pets may have met the avoider’s need for touch and affection. An adult avoider has a tough time with emotional connection and finds it difficult to share details of their past.
● They enjoy their own space, value independence and self-reliance and are not good at reaching out for help. When asked how are you feeling avoiders will look at you as if you are speaking a different language. Often avoiders love to stay busy, are accomplished in their careers, and become task-masters, often times workaholics.
Aaron – Avoidant people avoid one aspect of their mind by shutting off their emotions. They focus so much on their problem solving left brain that they often are out of tune with their emotions.
Slide – Left and Right Brain – Teeter totter.
The interesting thing about this is that there are two hemispheres in the brain and avoidants overemphasize the left brain (logical, analytical thought, tasks, math and science) and underemphasize their right brain (creativity, imagination, feelings etc). Beach ball illustration.
Also, avoiders greatest fear is a fear of failure, not being enough or being insufficient.
Aaron -
Growth Goals for an Avoider–Remember that avoiders love to hide. They do this by hiding emotionally
● Learn to identify and express their sadness and fear in appropriate ways
● Finally, learning to be vulnerable is essential growth goal for avoiders.
The Pleaser tendency – They cover their fear/anxiety by pleasing others
Glori: Pleasers are especially notorious for covering things up by focusing on others. People pleasers start as parent pleasers and then they grow up feeling fearful of saying no and of being alone. They are preoccupied with what others think and feel.
Hand motion
They can often be the golden child in their family of origin. This was me… it’s actually made it very difficult in our marriage. I feel the struggle between pleasing my family and Aaron because growing up, I played the role of being the “pleasing child”, keeping everyone happy. Machinac Island with mom and brother. 2 very different speeds of vacationing. Josh likes to take all the pictures and read all the history signs and so does Glori’s mom. I wanted to ride my bike around the Island as fast as I could and see if we could do it in record time. I wanted adventure and playing frisbee and intense physical exercise. At one point I took Glori’s brother mountain biking and he said you cannot even enjoy all the beauty when you are doing it as fast as you can. I thought beauty. I am looking for intensity here my friend. We can look at beauty when we are done or stop. Glori is trying to please and make everyone happy like a stretchy toy which only makes matters worse for all involved. Fortunately, Gloris brother and I learned how to handle conflict up front instead of her trying constantly to be the middle man. (This really came to light when we worked with my mom and brother on a landscaping project at our first house as a married couple. We came to a point of decision and of course, being a pleaser who always wants her family to be happy, I went around and asked everyone what they thought...)
● without even realizing it, I live much of my life in this state of underlying anxiety, making sure that people are happy & pleased.
● Children with a pleaser attachment style often have a parent or parents who are overprotective, anxious, critical or irritable.
● The child learns that carefulness makes their helicopter parent happy or that performance can help them stay under the radar from their reactive parent. The child finds relief from their own anxiety by making others happy.
● These children are very aware of and feel responsible for the feelings of others but lack the capacity to process their own feelings. This is a key distinction between avoiders & pleasers- avoiders are out of touch with their feelings AND other’s. Pleasers are out of touch with their own, but very tuned into others.
● Pleasers are really attracted to things that look good. They desire to look good to others and show them how amazing they are, to keep people approving of them.
● They often find themselves stuck in relationships where they give more than they get, but the underlying motivation for being in the helping role and focusing on the needs of others is to reduce one’s own anxiety by keeping people close, content and satisfied.
● Pleasers may feel anxiety when a partner wants time alone or with friends.
● Perpetual pleasers need someone to take care of. Since they calm their own anxiety by focusing on and caring for others, they can feel quite lost if no one is available.
● Quiet moments often make them uneasy, they often don’t like time alone.
● Disagreement and conflict can alienate people, so anger is often an underdeveloped emotion for pleasers. If the anger is expressed, it’s usually indirect in a passive-aggressive way. Saying no can cause conflict and disapproval, so pleasers struggle with boundaries and like to keep themselves busy.
● After pleasers spend a number of years of chronic worry and over-giving, resentment often emerges and they can tend to live with a lot of bitterness built up.
● Pleasers often struggle with covering things up and dishonesty because of fear of others. CHILI STORY
Glori:
Growth Goals
● They need to learn to speak the truth to others so that they can be honest instead of covering things.
● Stop allowing others feelings and needs to dictate their actions or decisions.
The fear for pleasing is being along, abandoned or being exposed
Remember that this applies to all the relationships but covenant relationships are most intense and that is why we keep using this. Family of origin – birth order we are often opposite.
The Vacillator Tendency – They deal with their guilt by powerfully blaming others
Hand motion - Push pull
Aaron – The mattress illustration – Graciously painting our bedroom when the twins were young. After completing everything we needed to move the mattress back. It seems as though Glori only gives half of her strength while moving things. We have had many arguments about moving things. Glori was barily pushing and I am pulling this queen sized matress. I powered up a bit and said… Glori come on. Pull your weight. Give it your all. So she probably engaged about 50% but when we were in the room she thought it would be funny to put her shoulder into it so then she decides to give it everything she has. Unfortunately I was completely unprepared for this and it hit me and sent me flying. I don’t know why these types of things play out in slow motion but I was looking for any alternative to flying straight backwards but there were none. As I propelled through the air I put my arms out to stop me but I couldn’t slow myself down and I crashed through our bedroom window. We laugh about it now but in the moment I wasn’t laughing. I want to highlight that clearly she has more in the tank than what she is giving. We laugh often about this now. In the moment her smile and smug look changed to surprise and fear. I powered up and said I just spend my entire weekend painting and now we have a window to replace. You fix it. I was in enemy mode and vacillating and man I wish I could take that back. Vac. often grew up with a parent who was emotionally sporadically connected. Left in a constant state of waiting, they grow up looking for consistent attention, yet they cannot trust others to truly provide it. They want to bond but then pull away in fear. They can over-emote and focus too much on their own feelings and needs. They are constantly looking for intense connection.
“The Vacillator attachment style is formed when a child is raised in a home where there is some connection and bonding, but it is sporadic, unpredictable, and governed by the mood or emotional state of the parent(s) rather than the needs of the child. Here are some characteristics that are true of a vacillator imprint.
● Vacillators desire and long for connection. They idealize new relationships in hopes of satisfying their longing for love and attention.
● They vacillate back and forth, first pushing others away and then wanting them to come back. ‘This push-pull style of relating usually creates greater distance rather than the desired connection, and anger increases.
● The vacillator devalues the relationship and focuses on the hurts and disappointments, seeing little good or redeeming value.
● Quick to feel neglected vacillators experience a building tension. A burst of anger may provide temporary release of the tension so the underlying anxiety and shame remain unnoticed by them.
● Also, because of their underlying sensitivity, vacillators have difficulty calming themselves down, and anger will dominate their interactions until they recognize their past hurts.
● We often tell vacillators they need to get sad, not mad, and to share the hurt under their anger.
● Their ability to intuitively read others, combined with their strong desire for connection, make them magnetic connectors. They can idolize new relationships and then feel angry and hurt when their high expectations are not met.
● They have difficulty seeing their part in destructive patterns and more readily focus on the ways others have hurt them. Sadly, whether vacillators are mommas or papas, they characteristically dictate the emotional climate of the home, and everyone else adapts to their mood.” (How We Love)
● Like I talked about at Texas Roadhouse last night.
● Recognize that you are longing for the new heaven and new earth. We have to bring that down to half. Not because we long too much…
Their greatest fear is being worthless or not worth pursuing and often feel like they are too much.
Vacillators look for intimacy by pushing and pulling relationally. They strongly don’t trust others because they have often been hurt deeply. When stressful times come they tend to fight others and blame by pointing to others around them.
Growth Goals of a Vacillator - Glori
● Express sadness rather than anger. Set realistic expectations on spouse and on relationships.
● Express emotions in a healthy way instead of over-emoting like a volcano. Take time outs and come back to it.
You cannot die to a self that you do not know. Pain that is not transformed is transmitted and whatever you do not own from you past will end up owning you. This is meant to grow awareness around our attachment imprint. Our attachment was initially formed in our family of origin and carries into our adult relationships especially marriage.
By the way if you want to take the how we love quiz you can type that into google. Also, the book “How We Love” by Milan and Kay Yorkavich is a great resource and we are drawing from this book for these talks.
Here is the good news. If you are willing to do the hard work you can break the chain of unhealthy patterns that has been passed down generationally. (The sins of the father) This is the most important legacy you could leave pointing your kids and the future generations back to Christ.
You have to know your diagnosis to gain healing and treatment in any area and this is true emotionally as well. So instead of you focusing on your own brokenness we want to encourage you that we have a Father who sent his son to creating a hiding place for us, cover over our ugly brokenness and take all the blame upon him for our broken ways of relating. This is the most doom and gloom session that we have and we will be getting to Jesus.
I appreciate Tim Kellers quote in the Meaning of Marriage. “The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.”
I want everyone to think about the family that you grew up in. If you could take your fathers face all throughout childhood and it was one face what would that face be? How about for your mother? One face?
Slide - Baylor University recently did a study and found that 77% of believers have a non-benevolent view of God. They view him as angry, critical or distant.
This comes from your family of origin. Go back to psychoanalysis video and God representation. We will not truly change until we receive the love of God. God is love… it is his very essence and he cannot stop loving you just like water cannot stop being wet. The goal of this retreat is to help you encounter the loving face of God and realize He is way better than you thought he was! Pg. 34-36
How we view our parents face is the garden of eden or formational space that we grew up in. This obviously was a far cry from the garden of eden and often shapes how we view the Father’s face.
Let’s take a minute and ask ourselves what face do you automatically think of with the heavenly Father? How similar or different is that from your parents faces growing up?
What did you learn about your attachment pattern and how this impacts how you view God?
How do you believe this impacts your relationships with other people? Start with the closest to you.
What did you notice about your view of your parents faces? What did you notice about God’s face.
Sometimes people grew up in a child centered family and their parents parenting didn’t prepare them for a world that would be harder to deal with than the family they grew up in.
Now let’s take a minute and ask God to show us His true face over us. We know that He is love at his very essence. He like the Father with the prodigal son is longing for us to come home and he wants to run and meet us. He sings songs of delight over you and quiets you with his love. He says come to me all who are weak and heavy laden and I will give you rest. He turns his face of delight on us and it says in the Psalms that his gentleness makes us great. Lastly, he speaks the same blessing over us that he said to his Son… You are my son or daughter, whom I love – my beloved. With you I am well pleased. The number 1 predictor of long term mental health is the ability to calm oneself.
Over the past couple of years Jesus has been walking with me as I realize how broken I really am. He has picked up the child within me and put that child on his shoulders to remind me that I am his son and that He is a proud dad. I have been taking walks in the woods where I remember that He performed perfectly in my place and paid my way so I am his beloved son fully significant and have deep satisfaction and belonging in His love! He has reminded me of how he takes me in his arms as I am just weary from life's journey and he carries me, hugs me, listens to me and protects me. He is calming me and attaching to me in ways that went unneeded as a child. This isn’t just theological truths but are experiential reality that transforms my heart to experience Jesus face of delight shining on me. Recently a part of me that feels shame was transformed by his delight. The light of his face melted the disgust and transformed this part into an amazing passionate and creative little boy that longs for love. The more I learn to surrender to his love and grow in trust he breaks in.
We are talking about returning home to the fathers love. Instead of a house built on fear or broken attachment we want to build a house full of joyful attachment to God. We are going to spell out CASA – Spanish for home. Returning Home to the Fathers love. The first thing we are going to do is learn to calm. Calming, Appreciation, Story-telling, Attach (accept) to the Fathers love.
Pray – Break and Q and A. Immediate homework is the information below. In the afternoon take 1 hour to walk with God – Surrender to love.
What tension do you notice in your body and how relaxed do you feel? Thank Jesus. Then move into Lectio Divina
“The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; he will quiet you in his love; he will rejoice over you with singing.” Zeph. 3:17 ESV and NIV
What are you noticing?
What do you sense Jesus invited is to you? How is He looking at you and interacting with you?
What would it look like to receive this from God and surrender to Him?
Take some time to identify your broken attachment tendencies. I know it may feel overwhelming how much of life is influenced by your brokenness. Don’t worry… we will get to the good news but for now we are focused on our unbelief and the ways we bought into the lies of the enemy and how it is affecting our relationships.
What are your primary and secondary attachments?
In what ways was your primary attachment evidenced in your family of origin? How have you looked to your spouse (if married) to help you heal the wounds of your childhood?
What is your primary fear/lie you have believed. Avoider (fear of failure/not being enough), Pleaser (fear of being alone/abandoned), Vacillator (Fear of not being worth pursuing/worthless/rejected).
Learn to name and tame your feelings so you can grow in giving and receiving love.
My dad was an avoider/controller and my mom was a pleaser/victim. My dad used to require my mom to finish the food on her plate and my mom would let them. Controllers and victims are from chaotic families and have a lot of relational chaos. Unfortunately, they rarely seek help. I believe all people need and could really benefit from counseling but if you are a controller or victim it is essential for you to seek counseling in order to break some of the deeply entrenched habits from your family of origin. There are many chaotic habits that promote unhealthy independence and self-sufficiency that are difficult to own and break.
Glori:
Victims –
Hand motion is - hands at their side. Aunt Virginia
● Victims use passivity and turn their anger on themselves to avoid being alone. Depression is almost always at play
● They are triggered by the anger in others and turn inward, doing whatever it takes to keep the peace.
● They experienced chaos growing up and there was intense anger and stress from at least one parent.
● They protect themselves through passivity and living in a state of numbed detachment
● They feel trapped in a low view of self along with anxiety, depression and a sense of helplessness and hopelessness. They have an underlying belief that they are bad, flawed, and unlovable.
● Their primary motivation is fear- they conform to their surrounds to try & keep the peace.
● Victims have similar tendencies to pleasers, but they do not draw boundaries and are willing to tolerate abuses.
● They also hide the abuse and mistreatment because of fear that if they expose it, there will be anger and retaliation to deal with.
● They stay busy with the present to avoid thinking about the past.
Growth Goals
¡ Learn assertiveness and a capacity to say no.
¡ Create boundaries to protect yourself- ask for help with this.
¡ Seek refuge and protection for yourself and your children if abuse is happening.
Controllers – They use anger and aggression to win and make sure they are never controlled.
Hand Motion - Finger pointing and yelling
Controllers experienced chaos growing up and there was intense anger and stress from at least one parent. They protect their poor view of themselves through intimidation, aggression and being in charge. They are often unaware of how they use control to cover vulnerable feelings of fear and humiliation. They blame their spouse for the problems they are having. They stay busy with the present to avoid thinking about the past.
● It is more common for males but there are plenty of controller females as well.
● Their anger feels like their friend to keep them safe.
● Controllers are out of touch with their sadness but will not tolerate being controlled by anything or anyone!
● They are irrationally jealous because they expect to be rejected or abandoned.
● They are highly critical and constantly belittle family members.
● They have trouble submitting to authority of any kind.
Growth Goals
¡ Acknowledge the past and its hurts. Grieve and accept the fact that your past and the pain you experienced is controlling you, to this day.
¡ Learn to listen and take advice and instruction from others.
¡ Learn to accept differing opinions and grow in submission to others.
