Forrest and I explore how we can become securely attached to ourselves: building an internal foundation that lets us connect with others, regulate our emotions, and explore the world from that secure base. We talk about how this is supposed to develop in childhood, why it doesn’t for many people, and what we can actually do about it as adults. Topics include the research on early attachment, why so many of us arrive at adulthood with a strong inner critic and weak inner support, and four practical paths forward: creating a coherent narrative about your past, reparenting yourself, rescaling your sense of self in relation to others, and building self-trust through healthy exploration.

Rick’s Attachment Course: Join Rick for a 5-week online course on using the research-backed HEAL method to heal insecure attachment and create new neural pathways for interacting and connecting securely. You can learn more here.

Key Topics

• 0:00: Introduction to Secure Attachment and Attachment Styles
• 2:00: The research on becoming a “secure base”
• 8:17: How we internalize early sources of regulation and recognition
• 15:43: What happens when love is contingent
• 18:44: Forming a coherent narrative
• 29:14: Reparenting yourself
• 42:07: Rebuilding your sense of self
• 57:40: Using your secure base to explore, try, and fail
• 1:09:18: Recap