4 Surprising Facts About Attachment
Get ready! We’re humans, so our brains are pro-social. We came into the world with an innate drive to establish healthy relationships with our caregivers. . . we’re hard-wired for connection and inter-dependence.
And our brains (which don’t finish basic development until age twenty-five) long for relationships because they’re good and normal and healthy and regulating. When all goes according to plan.
#1. We’re Brilliant at Adapting.
So our neuroplastic brains learn on the job, prune neural networks we don’t need (chop, chop) and build, strengthen, and prime the networks that keep us safe. We’re doing this all the time, and while it’s an ongoing process, we also have two massive brain pruning events before adolescence, which is why those early years are so pivotal.
Our attachment position really solidifies in the first five years, mostly during our second year of life, based on whatever relational waters we swim in. If our caregivers helped us feel safe and have fun in the water while we learned to swim, we’ll have a much different relational blueprint than if our parents dumped us off the edge of the boat and said, “good luck, champ” and turned their backs.
Our internal working models or attachment maps categorize all this incoming info, and we start developing expectations.
We may have a great time swimming in relational waters and feel very capable, or it may make us nervous or terrified if we had an unpredictable caregiver. We might even refuse to get on a boat.
We internalize how important people treat us, and it isn’t conscious.
Most people are oblivious . . . completely unconscious they even have a style. And that’s normal because we assume we’re just responding to “reality,” not our interpretation of reality.
Keeping with the earlier metaphor, when it comes to relationships, we might think, “swimming is awesome, I love it!” Or we might think, “oh no. This is the place where I get left. I flail around and almost drown. I’m not going back in.”
Whenever it’s time to swim our efficient brains will bring up those implicit feelings, and we’ll think they reflect the reality of how safe it is to be in the water. But they’re really just a story about our experience of that relational space. Our brains helps us adapt to avoid danger and move toward safety.
When belonging is dangerous, an unconscious story that helps us survive as an infant can block our adult capacity to belong to ourselves and others.
Thank heavens we had the capability to adapt, but what do we do with that as an adult who may have trouble trusting?
#2. The Mind Uses Implicit Memory to Time Travel and Make the Past Feel Like It’s Happening NOW.
Before I answer, I’ll just mention that another reason why it seems like there’s just A WAY relationships work, and we’re oblivious to our conditioning is because our attachment imprint happens before our hippocampus is developed.
Hot Tip: The hippocampus is the keeper of time-and-place in the brain.
So when we’re babies, our brain hungrily forms memories and observes how our parents interact with us, but these experiences are held in implicit memory instead of explicit memory (the kind we can call up) because our time-and-place keeper isn’t online. So we keep the felt sense but not the details.
And guess what. Implicit memory doesn’t eff around. Implicit memory isn’t bound by time.
Implicit memory lives in the eternal now, so we have a sense that it’s always in the present with us. And we aren’t even aware it’s a map.
Implicit memory is a somatic (body), felt-sense “knowing” that there’s A WAY THINGS GO. It’s way more powerful than the (explicit) memories we can call up.
Going back to our swimming metaphor, whenever the opportunity to swim comes up, if safety was our early experience, it still fills us with the sensation of fun, even though we don’t remember learning to swim.
So looking at the attachment system, when we’ve been cherished and tended to when we’re very young, when our caretakers delighted in us and protected us; when they comforted and soothed our distress and used their nervous systems to regulate our emotional state while our own nervous systems were still developing, then we will forever carry that implicit, eternal felt sense of knowing we’re safe now within relationships, no matter what’s happening . . . we’ll live within a field of their love that always feels present when we need to call on it.
We have the message hardwired into our nervous systems that even when life gets hard, everything will work out. We have this realistic optimism. We see the world as a friendly place where we belong and are loved and can expect to have our needs met . . . which makes us far more resilient and more likely to bring about the story we see.
The story we get to keep, from what I call Heroic parenting, is that we are safe and we belong. And because of implicit memory, we get to carry that story like it’s still happening now.
It’s the most beautiful gift. The way we interpret our story really does become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
#3. The Mind Can Shelve Painful Moments as Over-And-Done in Explicit Memory.
It’s a great system because when we’re older and painful events get processed through hippocampus, it’s different than when we’re young. The hippocampus lets us move the events into explicit memory, stamped with a unique time and place. Over-and-done. We remember the bad things, but they live in the past, where they don’t cripple us emotionally when we remember.
With explicit memory, the emotional heat doesn’t stay in our present. It’s not like experiencing it all over again, when it’s called up.
That’s not the case with implicit memory. When implicit memory is called up it feels like it’s happening to us for the first time. We don’t have the context, it’s unconscious, and it feels like it’s our current reality although it’s a past experience that never got shelved.
Implicit memory lays track under two significant conditions:
- up to around age 5 before the hippocampus is finished developing
- and whenever we experience a trauma, which is a loss of connection that’s too overwhelming or frightening for the brain to process through the hippocampus
That’s why it’s rare for people to even be aware of their attachment style.
#4. The Attachment System Lives in Implicit Memory.
Our implicit attachment memories are triggered every time we start to feel close to someone. Bonnie Badenoch prefers to use the terms touched and awakened instead of triggered. And I like that too. It feels more gentle.
So our implicit attachment memories activate as we get close to someone, and they become more prominent as we rely on the person more. When we’re under stress, they unleash their full power.
If we swam in inconsistent, unpredictable, empty, or threatening relational waters when we were very young—if we couldn’t rely on our caregivers—developing closeness with someone can awaken incredible anxiety, fear, or the desire to run for the hills.
We might have a really hard time taking in their kindness, like we’re waiting for the other shoe to drop, as Diane Poole Heller says. The words, “yeah, but” might be a prominent way we keep people at a distance.
For example, “Yeah he did that great thing for me, but if he really cared he wouldn’t have left his socks on the floor.”
Whether we’re aware of it or not, our attachment style profoundly impacts how we experience ourselves and others.
It plays out in our adult relationships over-and-over. It’s the story we unconsciously “tell ourselves” that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. There’s nothing we repeat more throughout our lives than our relational attachment patterns.
But there’s a way around them.
Because of the power of neuroplasticity, we can deliberately cultivate secure attachment. We can develop neural tracks that compete-with and eventually take prominence over the neural nets that don’t serve our wholeness.
We can become our own StoryKeeper. We can become each other’s.
Attachment is born in relationship. And that’s where it heals.
The process of returning to our natural, secure attachment can feel like magic because turning toward a safe other is always ultimately about turning toward ourselves
Get ready! We’re humans, so our brains are pro-social. We came into the world with an innate drive to establish healthy relationships with our caregivers. . . we’re hard-wired for connection and inter-dependence.
And our brains (which don’t finish basic development until age twenty-five) long for relationships because they’re good and normal and healthy and regulating. When all goes according to plan.
#1. We’re Brilliant at Adapting.
So our neuroplastic brains learn on the job, prune neural networks we don’t need (chop, chop) and build, strengthen, and prime the networks that keep us safe. We’re doing this all the time, and while it’s an ongoing process, we also have two massive brain pruning events before adolescence, which is why those early years are so pivotal.
Our attachment position really solidifies in the first five years, mostly during our second year of life, based on whatever relational waters we swim in. If our caregivers helped us feel safe and have fun in the water while we learned to swim, we’ll have a much different relational blueprint than if our parents dumped us off the edge of the boat and said, “good luck, champ” and turned their backs.
Our internal working models or attachment maps categorize all this incoming info, and we start developing expectations.
We may have a great time swimming in relational waters and feel very capable, or it may make us nervous or terrified if we had an unpredictable caregiver. We might even refuse to get on a boat.
We internalize how important people treat us, and it isn’t conscious.
Most people are oblivious . . . completely unconscious they even have a style. And that’s normal because we assume we’re just responding to “reality,” not our interpretation of reality.
Keeping with the earlier metaphor, when it comes to relationships, we might think, “swimming is awesome, I love it!” Or we might think, “oh no. This is the place where I get left. I flail around and almost drown. I’m not going back in.”
Whenever it’s time to swim our efficient brains will bring up those implicit feelings, and we’ll think they reflect the reality of how safe it is to be in the water. But they’re really just a story about our experience of that relational space. Our brains helps us adapt to avoid danger and move toward safety.
When belonging is dangerous, an unconscious story that helps us survive as an infant can block our adult capacity to belong to ourselves and others.
Thank heavens we had the capability to adapt, but what do we do with that as an adult who may have trouble trusting?
#2. The Mind Uses Implicit Memory to Time Travel and Make the Past Feel Like It’s Happening NOW.
Before I answer, I’ll just mention that another reason why it seems like there’s just A WAY relationships work, and we’re oblivious to our conditioning is because our attachment imprint happens before our hippocampus is developed.
Hot Tip: The hippocampus is the keeper of time-and-place in the brain.
So when we’re babies, our brain hungrily forms memories and observes how our parents interact with us, but these experiences are held in implicit memory instead of explicit memory (the kind we can call up) because our time-and-place keeper isn’t online. So we keep the felt sense but not the details.
And guess what. Implicit memory doesn’t eff around. Implicit memory isn’t bound by time.
Implicit memory lives in the eternal now, so we have a sense that it’s always in the present with us. And we aren’t even aware it’s a map.
Implicit memory is a somatic (body), felt-sense “knowing” that there’s A WAY THINGS GO. It’s way more powerful than the (explicit) memories we can call up.
Going back to our swimming metaphor, whenever the opportunity to swim comes up, if safety was our early experience, it still fills us with the sensation of fun, even though we don’t remember learning to swim.
So looking at the attachment system, when we’ve been cherished and tended to when we’re very young, when our caretakers delighted in us and protected us; when they comforted and soothed our distress and used their nervous systems to regulate our emotional state while our own nervous systems were still developing, then we will forever carry that implicit, eternal felt sense of knowing we’re safe now within relationships, no matter what’s happening . . . we’ll live within a field of their love that always feels present when we need to call on it.
We have the message hardwired into our nervous systems that even when life gets hard, everything will work out. We have this realistic optimism. We see the world as a friendly place where we belong and are loved and can expect to have our needs met . . . which makes us far more resilient and more likely to bring about the story we see.
The story we get to keep, from what I call Heroic parenting, is that we are safe and we belong. And because of implicit memory, we get to carry that story like it’s still happening now.
It’s the most beautiful gift. The way we interpret our story really does become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
#3. The Mind Can Shelve Painful Moments as Over-And-Done in Explicit Memory.
It’s a great system because when we’re older and painful events get processed through hippocampus, it’s different than when we’re young. The hippocampus lets us move the events into explicit memory, stamped with a unique time and place. Over-and-done. We remember the bad things, but they live in the past, where they don’t cripple us emotionally when we remember.
With explicit memory, the emotional heat doesn’t stay in our present. It’s not like experiencing it all over again, when it’s called up.
That’s not the case with implicit memory. When implicit memory is called up it feels like it’s happening to us for the first time. We don’t have the context, it’s unconscious, and it feels like it’s our current reality although it’s a past experience that never got shelved.
Implicit memory lays track under two significant conditions:
- up to around age 5 before the hippocampus is finished developing
- and whenever we experience a trauma, which is a loss of connection that’s too overwhelming or frightening for the brain to process through the hippocampus
That’s why it’s rare for people to even be aware of their attachment style.
#4. The Attachment System Lives in Implicit Memory.
Our implicit attachment memories are triggered every time we start to feel close to someone. Bonnie Badenoch prefers to use the terms touched and awakened instead of triggered. And I like that too. It feels more gentle.
So our implicit attachment memories activate as we get close to someone, and they become more prominent as we rely on the person more. When we’re under stress, they unleash their full power.
If we swam in inconsistent, unpredictable, empty, or threatening relational waters when we were very young—if we couldn’t rely on our caregivers—developing closeness with someone can awaken incredible anxiety, fear, or the desire to run for the hills.
We might have a really hard time taking in their kindness, like we’re waiting for the other shoe to drop, as Diane Poole Heller says. The words, “yeah, but” might be a prominent way we keep people at a distance.
For example, “Yeah he did that great thing for me, but if he really cared he wouldn’t have left his socks on the floor.”
Whether we’re aware of it or not, our attachment style profoundly impacts how we experience ourselves and others.
It plays out in our adult relationships over-and-over. It’s the story we unconsciously “tell ourselves” that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. There’s nothing we repeat more throughout our lives than our relational attachment patterns.
But there’s a way around them.
Because of the power of neuroplasticity, we can deliberately cultivate secure attachment. We can develop neural tracks that compete-with and eventually take prominence over the neural nets that don’t serve our wholeness.
We can become our own StoryKeeper. We can become each other’s.
Attachment is born in relationship. And that’s where it heals.
The process of returning to our natural, secure attachment can feel like magic because turning toward a safe other is always ultimately about turning toward ourselves
