How To Stop Being Anxious in Relationships with Psychologist Dr. Leslie Becker-Phelps

Unlock the secrets to healthier, more fulfilling relationships with insights from renowned psychologist Dr. Leslie Becker-Phelps. We explore how childhood attachment styles shape our adult relationships.  Discover her innovative STEAM model, designed to enhance self-awareness and cultivate secure attachments, and get a sneak peek into her transformative new book, "The Insecure in Love Workbook."
Key Topics Discussed:
1. Attachment Theory and Adult Relationships. 
      -How early interactions shape our "model of others" and "model of self"
      -The impact on expectations and self-worth in relationships.
2. The STEAM Model for Self-Awareness
      - Sensations, Thoughts, Emotions, Actions, and Mentalizing. 
      - Structured approach to improving self-awareness and emotional regulation
3. Overcoming Anxious Tendencies in Relationships
       - Understanding pursuit-withdrawal cycles
       - Tips for moving towards secure attachment 
4. Developing Compassionate Self-Awareness
        - Strategies for cultivating self-compassion
         - Resources for transformative healing
5. Addressing Attachment Issues in Relationships
        - Importance of understanding partner's attachment style
        - Using the STEAM model for relationship growth

Compassionate self-awareness is a key focus of Dr. Leslie Becker-Phelps' approach to mental health and relationships.  It involves developing a deeper understanding of oneself while maintaining a kind and nurturing attitude. .  Compassionate self-awareness is linked to building emotional resilience.  By understanding and accepting oneself, individuals can better navigate life's challenges.  

 Connect with Dr. Leslie
Website
Purchase:  Insecure in Love Workbook
Facebook
Youtube

Chapters

• 0:00 Attachment Theory and Self-Awareness Model
• 6:22 Understanding Attachment Styles and Relationships
• 22:08 Understanding Relationship Attachment Styles
• 34:12 Developing Self-Awareness Through STEAM
• 43:40 Effects of Social Media on Attachment
• 48:13 Developing Compassionate Self-Awareness

Transcript

Rose: 0:00

Ever wonder why you keep repeating the same patterns in your relationships or why your partner seems to pull away when you want more closeness? On today's episode, renowned psychologist, Dr Leslie Becker-Phelps explains how your childhood attachment style impacts your adult relationships. She'll introduce her groundbreaking STEAM model to help you develop greater self-awareness, build secure attachments and create more understanding with your partner. Unlock the keys to healthier, more fulfilling bonds as we dive into attachment theory, overcoming insecurities and nurturing the love you deserve. Welcome to Chat Off The Mat, the podcast that explores the transformative journey of healing and self-discovery where energy, spirituality, mind and body intersect. Hi, I'm your host, Rose Wippich, and I invite you to join me and explore ways to invite more holistic practices into your life. I will feature experts and practitioners who provide insights, tips and practical advice. From Reiki to Qigong, Chakra balancing to Shamanism, this podcast will be your guide to understanding how these practices can lead to more harmony and greater energy. Whether you're seeking stress relief, emotional balance or a deeper connection to your authentic self, Chat Off The Mat provides you with insights and inspiration. Let's start discovering the possibilities that lie within you.

Rose: 1:46

Today on Chat Off The Mat.

Rose: 1:48

I welcome Dr Leslie Becker-Phelps, a renowned psychologist, therapist, speaker and author, whose work is about helping people understand their inner selves and what they need to become emotionally and psychologically healthy. Dr Leslie is the author of several books, including her most recent, the Insecure in Love Workbook a step-by-step guidance to help you overcome anxious attachment and feel more secure with yourself and your partner. There she weaves together attachment theory, self-awareness, self-acceptance and self-compassion. She has developed a model called STEAM and the concept of compassionate self-awareness, which can develop greater empathy and compassion, which enables you to nurture security within yourself and your relationships. Welcome, dr Leslie Becker Phelps. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here with you today and I am so happy and grateful that you're here.

Rose: 2:50

Just a little back story I met Dr Leslie at a presentation that she was giving nearby. We live in nearby areas and I felt that the presentation I wanted so much more. So I knew her book was coming out and I was really interested in the topic and we will talk about that today. So I invited her to come on to the show and when her book recently became published, she agreed to. So I'm really grateful that you're here today and I know my audience will love to hear what you have to say about the topics in your book?

Dr. Leslie: 3:32

So the first thing is you can just tell us about yourself.

Rose: 3:34

Wow, that's a broad question. Yeah, whatever you want to share with us about what, what brought you to what you do helping people.

Dr. Leslie: 3:40

Right? Well, yeah, I always enjoyed connecting with people, helping people, so that was a focus from early on. Actually, when I was in high school, you know, and you're kind of looking for activities, things you might want to do, I signed up to be part of a program called Women Helping Women, and I think the person who was running it was getting an advanced degree in either social work or psychology and was setting up this program, and so, as a high school student, I was trained to be on this crisis line and it was so women I was a young, very young woman at the time was helping anybody who might call in, whatever difficulties they had, and so that was my first step into the world of of really helping others at that level, um, kind of fast forward. I went through graduate school, got my doctorate in psychology, uh, but always really I like helping people and I really enjoy the therapy I do, but I also have someone who needs diversity, so, and I like to really learn about things. So that's how I started to bring together this idea of doing therapy but then exploring more of what can really help people. I have a.

Dr. Leslie: 4:56

I worked as a director of a women's trauma program, so on the heels of that, I was exploring other things like positive psychology, which is great, but I kept saying like, but what about the people who can't use these things? You know, there's some great tools out there, but what about when they fall short? What's going on? And that got me to explore attachment theory and eventually write the first book, which was Insecure Love. So the workbook's just coming out because it seems that people really have found the first book very helpful. So I expanded that and that's how we got to where we are In.

Dr. Leslie: 5:33

Between there I then was exploring and expanding this concept of compassionate self-awareness, which I look forward to sharing with you, and had developed the STEAM, which is just their five domains of self-awareness. So when we say in all areas of our lives, people are like, oh, you should be introspective or develop self-awareness, but really, what does self-awareness mean? So that's where I came up with the STEAM to try to help guide people with okay, yes, I want to learn more about me, but how do I do it? What does that mean?

Rose: 6:02

So that brings us here, so we'll. We'll start by. I'm going to ask you about attachment theory. You already mentioned about attachment theory and and if you could talk about what that is. And also there are different styles of attachments. If you can mention what those are as well. Sure, sure.

Dr. Leslie: 6:20

So it's our. Our attachment system is is based in a wiring. It's our evolutionary system for survival. We connect with others in multiple levels. So we're born into the world. You're an infant. Infants look up at their caregivers pretty quickly. They're connecting because they need that connection in order for someone to take care of them Because, let's face it, an infant's not going to make it out in the wild by themselves. So we are wired with this attachment system and we connect that way.

Dr. Leslie: 6:56

And from infancy, through a childhood into adulthood, when we look at people, there's this connection. You feel and, beginning at a young age, you develop a foundation in your connections. What you learn is when you look to someone else who's older and wiser, you learn is someone available for me? Are they there, are they supportive? And you develop what I would call a model of others, how available someone is to you. And that is from available. It's a range, it's not on off switch, a range from available to not available, and at the not available range the person could be. The other person can be not available because they're just not there. They've abandoned you. They could be harsh and kind of mean towards you, cruel, they could be inept. So there's a lot of ways, somebody could not be available. So you have this model of others where you take in how do I expect others to be In those initial relationships the responses of their others. If they're emotionally attuned to you, you get a sense of oh wow, I'm cared about, I'm loved. Now, this isn't like a thought, like I'm saying it out now, it's a sense, it's an experience I am loved. So even when you're crying, you're loved, and not only love, but like the person is attuned to you, that you have a sense that the caregiver feels your pain and can respond in a way that's comforting. And that is you've developed your model of self, the model of self from either I'm lovable, I'm worthy, I have value, I'm okay, like in that good, solid way of okay. The range from there all the way to I'm unlovable, I'm essentially flawed, I'm deficient, I have no value, something in that range. Different words resonate for different people, but it's that range.

Dr. Leslie: 8:52

So when we talk about attachment theory, it's based on the styles that people have, are based on those two models model of self and model of others. When you put them together, you end up with four different attachment styles and I, you know I do lay it out for people. I find it less helpful for me than looking at the model of self, model of others, because that gives you some direction on where you can focus on to help yourself. It's not just like, oh, I am securely attached or I am preoccupied. That's another attachment style, like, okay, great, but what do you do with that?

Dr. Leslie: 9:35

Whereas if you realize like, oh, I feel like I have no value, oh, my direction is to move towards wanting to have value. I feel like others are emotionally unavailable to move towards wanting to have value. I feel like others are emotionally unavailable, oh, wow, I would like to be in a place where I feel like I can really turn to and rely on others. And so you develop that there are, like I said, four attachment styles. There's only one securely attached style. I noticed that. Yeah, yeah, there's only one, I noticed that out of four.

Rose: 10:04

There's only one. I noticed that out of four, there's only one.

Dr. Leslie: 10:07

Absolutely so. Before I even explain what the attachment styles are, look, it's a general category. Every person who's securely attached is going to look a little bit different because it's based on those two models model of self, model of others that are arranged so you can be in different places in the attachment. So in my in the first book, the way I describe it is like with colors. You could be red, but you could be orangey red or yellowy red or, you know, just red, red and attachment styles are like that. So just knowing your attachment style doesn't say everything about you. It just gives you a range.

Dr. Leslie: 10:46

So somebody who's securely attached has a model of self where they feel lovable, they feel worthy and when they're in a relationship, they see others as emotionally available. So what this means is that if you feel threatened remember this is based on our survival mechanism If you feel threatened, if you're struggling, what do you do? Well, if you have a sense of yourself as capable, you can turn inward and look to yourself, but you also see if others is available to you so you can turn to others. Or model of self is less secure, you don't feel so good about yourself, you don't feel lovable or valued. You start to have anxiety just being in the world. So we say you're more anxiously attached because you have anxiety just being, because you have anxiety just being, so someone who feels not lovable, but they see others as emotionally available to them. That's great. So if they feel threatened they can turn to others and get that help and so that engages them, supports them in the world.

Dr. Leslie: 11:59

The problem with this is that if you feel emotionally like you are not worthy or lovable, great. Others are available, but why are they going to help you? Because you know you're not worth it. So what happens is people who tend to feel like they're not okay in some way. They have to work at it. So they'll try to be really extra, extra, extra nice.

Dr. Leslie: 12:21

Some of your listeners may be like oh, please you know, or they have to earn a lot of money, or they have to have prestige, or they have to look beautiful, but they have to earn the caring of the other. So they become preoccupied with getting that, that attention and that caring and we call that a preoccupied attachment style Makes sense, yeah. So then on the the other side, for the people who feel, um, that they are worthy and lovable and capable, but they don't think others are available to them remember this people who are securely attached, they feel lovable, but other people are available to them. But people are like oh no, I'm good, but I can't trust others because they're going to be mean to me, they're going to let me down, or I just can't. I can't trust others because they're going to be mean to me, or they're going to let me down, or I just can't open up to them For them. They're going to avoid those relationships, avoid being let's stop it being relationship. We all need a relationship but they'll avoid being open.

Dr. Leslie: 13:18

So this is very interesting. So they are dismissing of others. Right, they'll dismiss others. But what we don't realize, if we're more towards this attachment style, is that we're also dismissing of ourselves. Yeah, you feel good, but the way you feel good is to minimize your distress, like, oh, I shouldn't worry about that, or that's stupid to worry about, and so they push that stuff down. So they are dismissing of their own experience and dismissing of others. So we call that a dismissing attachment style.

Rose: 13:50

Is this making sense? It is making sense. Yes, absolutely yeah, okay.

Dr. Leslie: 13:55

Yeah, I always find this easier with paper because I can kind of point at the styles. There is one style I haven't mentioned and that is what we call either disorganized or fearful avoidance, and that's the person who feels like I am not lovable, I have no value, and then also they feel like others are not available to them. Close together. What happens is the person is struggling, they have some kind of difficulty they're facing and they say, oh my gosh, how do I get through the difficulty? I'm having a really hard time. They turn to themselves oh, that doesn't work because I'm not worthy. Then they turn to somebody else oh, they're not going to be there for me. And so it becomes very disruptive and they have very disruptive relationships because they take a step forward and a step back and they can't find the place where they can get comfort, and that's a very painful place to be. Fortunately, not as many people are caught in that style.

Dr. Leslie: 14:54

Also, very importantly, just because you have a foundation in a particular style doesn't mean you're doomed to be there forever. This is why we work on this in therapy. Or you can have life experiences that help change it, that help you develop a better sense of yourself or more openness to others. Also, it's very important to understand that not only can it change over time, but you may have a different attachment style in different relationships or in different areas of your life. So it's a bit amorphous. But that's good because that means you can direct it. So if you're in a relationship that's say kind of abusive or the person's critical, you start feeling worse and worse and worse about yourself. Eventually you get out of that relationship and now you're in a relationship with someone who's caring and supportive and sees you positively, you start to feel better about yourself. Yes, you're taking it in from them at first, but hopefully with experience you don't not just taking it in from them, you start to build it up in yourself. So you can see these shifts over time and in different, different areas.

Rose: 16:01

Well, one hopes. Because as I'm listening to you, I'm thinking about myself and I'm like I probably have experienced all those attachment styles at one point or another and they have may have caused relationship breakdowns or, you know, we're going to talk about awareness theory and self-awareness in a bit. But you know, as a young child new to this world, you don't remember much about it, what happened then and how you were taken care of. So you're only going by what you're feeling today. You know, and if you don't understand how you're relating to someone having that awareness, you're, you're not. You're either going to be stuck in that, in that attachment style, or recognize that something needs to change in order to have healthier relationships. And that's where your book is really helpful, because as I'm going through it, you're talking about the pen and paper and having the, the, the. You know the. I looked at it's the grid that you have. Right, I have a grid, I have a grid for people who are listening.

Dr. Leslie: 17:12

I take the model of self and I put it along an axis, then I cross it with a vertical axis of the model of others.

Rose: 17:32

So what you end up with is like a big plus sign. And there's four about relationships and a lot of people right away they think about their, their primary, maybe intimate relationship, but there's many, many relationships which we can have and I'm even think, as I'm going through this book, I'm even thinking about the relationship that I have with my children and I'm like, is there like this attachment thing that I have there, like OK, like all right, he's not responding to me. Why is that I have there? Like okay, like all right, he's not responding to me. Why is that? You know things like that. So it's helpful on many levels to go through this exercise so that you're aware of and you can even almost find out like a common denominator, like, okay, you know, you take five relationships and and you do this exercise and you and you was like okay, well, I'm more of a secure attachment, this is awesome. Or I'm, I'm, I'm more here, and then you know work with, with that knowledge.

Dr. Leslie: 18:22

Yeah, that exercise that I have in in the beginning of the book. I love it because it does have people do their attachment style in different relationships and then across time. So I have people look at like your mother when you were like young and then your mother, so your relationship with your mother now and then you can see that. Or maybe if you've been in other romantic relationships you can plot those out and then look over time has there been a shift or a trend? So it really opens up. The exercise helps to open up people's awareness of where they are in different relationships, different times of life. It's really interesting.

Rose: 18:55

And you're not focusing so much on the relationship itself although you are, because you do. You know it's about relating and how you respond to people, but it's really more about okay, it's about me or the person working on this. You know it's like I always. You know I've been on this earth for a while, I've had relationships and but I realized at the end it's I need to work on myself. I can't fix anybody else absolutely right and that's you know, people have asked.

Dr. Leslie: 19:25

They said you know, yes, it's a relationship book, but so much of it's about self-awareness. I'm gonna have some stuff about developing the relationship skills, relationship skills but so much of it's about self-awareness, because how you show up in this world says so much. And also I include your relationship with yourself as well as your relationship with others, and I think that's an important concept, important way to think that you're actually relating. It's not just you feel a certain way or think a certain thing about yourself, but you're relating to yourself Right, and so that can be shifted or changed.

Rose: 19:58

Right, you, you, you have a relationship to yourself, or you should nurture that relationship to yourself, which you do talk about in your book as well. So how might someone with an anxious attachment style behave or think differently in their relationship compared to someone with a more avoidant style? Let's say so just as an example to give two perspectives.

Dr. Leslie: 20:21

Sure, so avoidant for the purposes of today we'll say avoidant and dismissing that's what I described are the same. They're really not, but it's close enough for our purposes right now. So someone with an avoidant style of attachment or dismissing they are more likely to dismiss what their partner brings to the relationship. So if they're having a bad day they're not going to turn to their partner for support. They're more likely to go inside to work things out, to develop whatever they need to develop on their own, to turn away from the partner. And in fact, if you have a dismissing style or avoidance style, or if you have a partner who does, you may find that when you approach your partner that they may actually push you away.

Dr. Leslie: 21:10

When you try to help, they may act as if you just did a bad thing and that's because it doesn't feel supportive. They're expecting that you would be letting them down or hurting them in some way. So they need to be pushing away when you're trying to help, whereas someone with an anxious style they're someone, even though they're feeling they have that model of self where they're not feeling so worthy. They want the help from someone else. So they're going to turn to their partner and ask for help and maybe look for comfort or a hug or something positive, and so they'll pull for that to help them feel better. It's really very different. It's a very different style, very different look. Yeah, almost the opposite ends.

Rose: 21:53

It's a very different style, very different look. Yeah, almost the opposite ends, but the person with the anxious style. They may look to their partner, but they may not necessarily get that. Yeah Right, one of the most yeah.

Dr. Leslie: 22:08

Well, one of the most common relationship difficulties is what we call um a pursuit, a withdrawal, uh relationship or cycle.

Dr. Leslie: 22:18

And that's where you get someone who is very anxiously attached connected with somebody who's avoidant so the person who is anxious. So they come together, they they're both, they fall in love, they both feel good connected, right, so that all works. And then you know that initial um limerence kind of fades a bit and the person who's anxiously attached turns to the one who's more avoidant and kind of reaches out to them. That person then backs up because they don't want that level of closeness. That's not comfortable. Then the person who's anxious steps forward again and that other person steps back, um, you know, and then what happens is eventually the person who's anxious says, oh, this isn't going to work, and so they back way off.

Dr. Leslie: 23:01

Well, the person who was avoidant didn't want them to leave, they just didn't want to be so close. So now they step forward and then the person who's anxious is like, oh, wow, maybe they really do care, Maybe they really do like me. So they reach out and that person backs up and they end up in this cycle. And it's a very common cycle. It happens in different ways, yeah.

Rose: 23:22

And you know, you think about when I hear you say this. I think about, you know, when your first relationships or intimate relationships are in high school, and that happens a lot. Because you know, you hear about that or you experience that and then you wonder like, is that the right relationship? If you understand attachment styles at that young age which I wish I had read your book your book was that when I was younger would have saved me a lot of heartache Do you say you know, do you start to become more aware of what's happening and then understand if those are the right people you should be with or not?

Dr. Leslie: 23:59

So you know and it's also the age where your, your brain, is kind of coming more fully online. So you're beginning to think more and be able to introspect more and understand more, and you're trying to pull this all together with your hormones, you know, starting to kick up. There's a lot to work out.

Rose: 24:16

Yeah, that's true. How does one move more towards it as a more secure style of attachment?

Dr. Leslie: 24:25

So this is where I think it's very helpful to think in terms of those two models. So, if you are in the have a model of self where you feel, to whatever degree, that you're not lovable or worthy or you don't have value, something's not okay about you. It's very clear. If you want to be more secure, you want to move towards feeling better about you. I mean, it just to me seems just clear, obvious, and then you can look at your model of others. Do you see others as emotionally available, generally speaking, if they, you know, show themselves to be solid people, and if you see them as emotionally available, that's great. You're going to work more on yourself. If you see people as not emotionally available, even the people that you would expect to be, then maybe that's something you need to work on and that gives you a focus of you know where you want to go towards, trying to see how do you help yourself, see or develop relationships where people are available to you and where you also feel good about you. You put those together, you're more secure.

Rose: 25:30

Do you ever encourage I'm sure couples come to you because you do couples therapy as well Do you ever encourage people, even if they come in by themselves and talk to you about this, to speak to their partners, about talking about attachments theory or maybe finding out? Why are you avoiding me? Or do you understand creating that communication?

Dr. Leslie: 25:54

Yeah, so, as you've mentioned, self-awareness is central to what it is. I talk about the way I think about this, and my answer to that question really goes back to the awareness thing. So for you to feel good about yourself, to have a positive relationship with yourself, you have to know you, you have to get to know you, you have to have self-awareness, because without that, how do you feel good about you? Cause you don't know who you are. So you want to develop that self-awareness. Then, with that self-awareness, you hopefully develop some empathy for whatever your struggles are, some compassion for your difficulties. You become more supportive of yourself. You start to feel better about you. That's wonderful.

Dr. Leslie: 26:37

If you want a relationship, a close relationship with someone else, you want to do the same thing with them.

Dr. Leslie: 26:42

You want to get to know them, develop greater awareness of them, not just the external but also internally, what's happening for them, if you can understand it with your head and your heart. You can't just do it with your head, you have to also do it with your heart. You can't just do it with your head, you have to also do it with your heart. Then and, by the way, we call this mentalizing getting to know someone with your head and heart. Then you can have empathy for them and you can have compassion for them. And let's face it, when people are in close relationships, they sometimes hurt each other and so and they don't mean to so you would have forgiveness and this helps you to feel closer or develop a closer relationship. So, yes, I work with a lot of couples or individuals who are wanting to work on their relationships and we talk a lot about how do they get to know themselves and how do they come to understand their partners from kind of the inside.

Rose: 27:36

So I hope that answers that yeah, it does, it does. That's great. I know we're going to talk more about it. As you were talking about it, I'm like this sounds like the mentalizing which took me a while to understand it. But then you know, of course, I was like, yes, that makes a lot of sense and it's part of your STEAM model. So before we talk about the STEAM model I'm going to segue into that I want to talk a little bit about the autonomic nervous system, which makes up, I guess, the two branches and I talk a lot about that in yoga. I teach yoga we were talking about that before the parasympathetic and the sympathetic nervous systems, because you talk about that in your book as well.

Dr. Leslie: 28:14

So if we can talk about that, so boy, there's a lot here. So I'm going to keep this very basic, because otherwise we won't get to anything else. No, Each segment of what we're talking about. I'm like wow, that could be like a whole big conversation by itself, a whole course. Yeah, whole course, whole course. So I'm working on it.

Rose: 28:29

I know you are. I have a feeling you are.

Dr. Leslie: 28:31

Where I'm going. I plan to be working on it anyway. Um, so I do have a chapter in my book. I think it's preparing to heal, is what I call it. Um, in order to take steps forward in trying to grow and to heal, you have to be in the head space to be able to do that. So you have to be able to think clearly, to start making some choices that are different, or to try things that are uncomfortable.

Dr. Leslie: 28:57

And when we're all stirred up, right, we're really afraid or angry, or just our emotions are big, then we're not really we're likely to repeat old, problematic behaviors and not venture into other ones. So we need to calm our bodies down so that we can work more productively, more constructively. Remember, this is based in our bodies, our survival system, and so when your body is feeling disrupted or you're in a fear state, you need to find a way to calm yourself down. So the first thing is, if you're in a fear state is oh my gosh, do I have something to be this afraid of? You know, our bodies are set up If there's a mountain lion coming after you, you darn well want to have that extra adrenaline and, um, you know, get away. So, but in our lives, day to day, often what happens is other things are being triggered. We're afraid of things and we're afraid maybe somebody's going to get really upset with us and it's not realistic. So we have to know how to calm ourselves down, to think more clearly and actually, even if you're in a physical situation where you need to do something to get safe, it also helps to calm yourself down so you can think clearly as to what those steps would be. And this is what you're talking about is. It's based in our nervous system and we need to calm the body. So we have the autonomic nervous system, which we revs us up right, gets, gets us aroused, increases our arousal or energy level, so we can outrun our friend who's also running from the lion, or like things are okay now, when your body is still like churning really fast.

Dr. Leslie: 30:45

How to calm it down, and that's your parasympathetic nervous system. So one of the things we talk about is how do you engage your parasympathetic nervous system, how do you calm your nervous system? This ties into something called polyvagal theory, but there's also just different theories about your body. So I guess what I'm trying to say is there's a lot out there about this, but it's about calming your body. And how do you do that? We do that in a lot of ways, so you do it by learning some breath work, and there's a lot of different kinds of breathing you can do to calm your body.

Dr. Leslie: 31:19

You may decide to take a bath Maybe that's helpful. Listening to music, getting together with a friend. There's a whole bunch of ways that you can calm your body. The first, actually, is if you are in a situation that's causing you to be distressed, you want to separate from it. So if you are having an argument with your partner and it just keeps ratcheting up, what you might want to say is I think I need to take a break, and you don't take a break forever. We'll come back in an hour or I'll come back whenever, and in that break time you can use it to disengage from what's causing you to get more upset and you calm yourself down. When you're in a calmer place, then you can re-approach, thinking about whatever the situation is and trying to find a better way to move through that.

Rose: 32:04

Right, perfect. I love that. I think it was really important because I know personally, you know, I've experienced overreacting when I get triggered by something, and I know a lot of people out there may have as well. So, before overreacting, we pause and we do an exercise and I think STEAM, your model of STEAM, helps with moving towards that parasympathetic state.

Dr. Leslie: 32:28

I want to add one other thing that I didn't see. So, broadly speaking, we want to calm our bodies, but if you think in terms of attachment theory the model of self and model of others because we want both of our bodies. But if you think in terms of attachment theory the model of self and model of others because we want both of those to be strong. We want our relationship with ourselves to be strong and that we can help ourselves, and we want our relationship with others to be strong. So, when you are looking for ways to calm, you think in terms of make a list of the things that calm you when you're just within yourself listening to music, going for a walk, but also connecting with others so talking with this friend or that friend, playing with your dog or your cat because those qualify as others. You want to have resources in both places. If you only have resource within yourself or within others, then it's really important that you build the other resources up. That will move you towards being more secure. Right,

Rose: 33:19

good

Rose: 33:20

resources. Good resources Right. Good resources Right. So let's introduce your STEAM model and if you can explain what it is and how it's used.

Dr. Leslie: 33:29

Sure, absolutely. So. This begins with the idea that it's important for us to get to know ourselves, to have greater self-awareness, and you'll see that across different kinds of therapies and religion and yoga, different areas If it's about having a sense of well-being, almost categorically, they all look at self-awareness, they just define it differently. So I did a lot of research and tried to pull together what I found in different areas and what I realized where there were certain general domains of awareness that different therapies or other experiences focus on. So the I broke it into steam. I have five categories. So there's S is for sensations. This is what's happening in your body. What do you sense in your body? Your heart beating fast, your stomach clenching what do you sense in your body? T is for thoughts. What are your thoughts? What do you think about your thoughts? So we have thoughts going on all the time, but sometimes we're like living in them. So we want you to be able to observe the thoughts and then you may have thoughts about your thoughts. I think that my partner is cheating on me and I'm really angry with myself for continuing to go back to that thought. E is for emotions. What am I feeling? What do I feel about what I'm feeling. I'm feeling jealous and I'm having those angry feelings. So there's a thought that goes with it and emotion goes with it. A is for actions. So what are my actions and my reactions? My actions are I start yelling at my partner or I text them a ridiculous number of texts because I'm trying to grab onto them actions.

Dr. Leslie: 35:20

And then M is for something called mentalizing. That's less obvious and it's a very jargony word, but it is the word that best fits. And that is when you can understand what's going on in someone, some of their mental states, then you're going to understand their actions. So what do I mean by that? If you understand someone's thoughts, their feelings, their desires, their fears, their inner experience, if you get that not only intellectually, get it like you can summarize it, but emotionally, from your heart kind of connect with it, heart kind of connect with it Then with your head and your heart you can get where they're coming from and you're able to have empathy because you can imagine what it's like in their shoes.

Dr. Leslie: 36:04

You can have compassion, you feel their pain and it hurts you to feel their pain. You can have forgiveness because you get where they're coming from, even though they hurt you, they did something that was upsetting, you're able to forgive because you get them better, and those are some very important strengths to have in terms of developing a stronger relationship, moving through things better with someone, and it allows you to be more persistent and more curious. But curiosity is great because you can explore the different awarenesses. You pull all this together. So that's the mentalizing and that pulls together the other areas of self-awareness, so you can mentalize. Just to cap it, you can mentalize yourself and you can mentalize others yes, the other person.

Rose: 36:50

And this model and it's wonderful and it's easy to remember as far as the acronym and you can use this, like if you're having a situation or anything and, like I said, I think you can use this outside of any relationship model as well or example, you pause and you start to think about you know, if you get triggered, you're like okay, like what are you feeling in your body? And you start to go through S-T-E-A-M and then you can become more grounded almost instantaneously and and how you were going to react, that goes away hopefully and you know you're moving towards healing because the more you do this, the more you're like reconditioning yourself to. Does that make sense? Like, am I right in a way?

Dr. Leslie: 37:48

Yeah, absolutely so. One of the things about this in my developing it was that different people struggle in different areas. So one of the important things is to figure out where you're struggling and in what ways. And if you go through STEAM, that sometimes can help you. So you may realize that you're in your head all the time. But if you go through STEAM, you have no idea what's going on in your body and emotions. You don't even know how to label them. So you're like, oh, I'm filling out the STEAM thing and really you could just write on a piece of paper S-T-E-A-M, drop them, you know, like going down the paper and then draw a line for each one and just fill out what you can say about each one and you'll start to see like, oh, I know how to do this, but I don't know what's going on here, and then you can work on those areas.

Dr. Leslie: 38:35

If you come up with like I have no idea what's going on inside of me, sometimes people just get a block Start with sensations. If you really don't know, it's a great place to start. And if you need to, you do a body scan, meaning you start at one end of your body. Let's say you start at your feet, like do we feel anything? Do you notice anything in your feet, in your calves, in your thighs, in your belly, chest, back, your neck, your head, all the way to top of your head, your face? And as you do that, you may notice something. It doesn't have to be a big thing. It could be like oh, I noticed subtle, subtle, right, exactly, and like this is a big yoga thing. You want to be able to be aware of your body and so you start, you notice maybe something subtly, like I didn't think there was anything, but maybe my chest is a little tight. And then, if you keep your awareness that you just stay there, it may get more tight or less tight, it may move. You may, all of a sudden, you notice that there's tension in your throat, maybe there's tears in your eyes, and so you just say with it, the more you can fill in, kind of what's going on in your sensations.

Dr. Leslie: 39:44

That's very often a wonderful portal to your emotions, because then you could be like oh, what emotions go with this, which is trickier than you may think, because a lot of people confuse their thoughts with their emotions. What am I feeling? I'm feeling like I'm such an idiot. That's actually a thought, not a feeling. So if you're feeling like an idiot, then it's like oh, I'm thinking that the feeling may be, in part, anger, but you can want to break these things up so you get a fuller understanding of yourself. I have on my website. In the book you can want to break these things up so you get a fuller understanding of yourself. I have on my website. In the book you can find list of emotions. It's amazing how helpful it is to do that so slowly. You fill in each, each level of awareness.

Rose: 40:27

Yeah, I have the book here and I know I can't show people, but I was like, oh, wow, this is awesome, you have like listed all these words and it really can help people identify what they're. Wow, this is awesome, you have like listed all these words and it really can help people identify what they're, what they're actually feeling. Like you said, we're we're always stuck in our heads and we are. And then that's why I believe that there is and we talked about before, about yoga, there's a. You know, the more we practice, or the more people do practice yoga, it internalizes our practice and where we're able to feel what's going on in our bodies a little bit more. But but practicing this exercise of steam, the more you do it, the more you are able to, you know, realize the sensations, and then you'll get to a point where you're not actually stopping and doing the S T E A M. You're starting, you're starting to it's like second nature Exactly.

Dr. Leslie: 41:16

It becomes second nature, Absolutely.

Rose: 41:19

And also I, because I, by studying meridian theory as well and chakra theory, that where the sensations, where you're feeling them in the body, relate or correspond to the subtle energy system, like the chakra system and the meridian theory which we talk in Chinese medicine. I'll just give you a quick example. My one son started a job. He had to drive further and he never drove this far and just thinking about it, I felt it in my legs, in my back, and that's the trunk, and then that's the fear, like the kidneys is the fear, and I was feeling that and I knew right away and I was like, and I was, and I almost in the legs or the, the fright and flight, I was frozen. So I was like, wow, this is not good.

Dr. Leslie: 42:08

I have a great exercise in the book on this and it's it's a new exercise I came up with. I don't, honestly seen it any place else. There are some diagrams of outlines of bodies and I have people color in where they're feeling an experience and they use a different color depending on the level of intensity, and so you can start to learn to identify in your body where things are. And I learned in researching this book about how our bodily sensations really develop over time. So young children, you know, they kind of freak out, they're having a tantrum or whatever they don't have, generally, don't have it discerned where they're having an experience, so they have it all over.

Dr. Leslie: 42:50

As we get older we start to hopefully become more aware that it can be more in particular areas of the body and then as we got even older it becomes less intense. So people say, who become very overwhelmed by the intensity of emotions. They may mellow with age and part of it's because our bodies are changing. It makes it less, the sensations less overwhelming, and then they can reflect on them better. So there's all these things that you can learn over your time, but also in the exercise. It helps you to give some focus and to identify, like oh, with these emotions. These are some of the sensations I tend to experience.

Rose: 43:29

Right, right, right. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, I do. I saw the models. Right, right, right. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, I do, I saw those, the models. Yeah, that's great because it'll help people focus on where these sensations, where they're feeling them. I love that, Love this you do mention in your book. I want to just make a quick quote that I loved. It says by recognizing patterns of thinking, you can begin to question them, and I love that. You said about being curious. If you're not curious, you know you have to be curious. This is how we heal. This is how we heal. Yeah, I love this. What are your thoughts about? I want to shift a little bit Sure. What are your thoughts about how attached people are to these, to celebrities and influencers and social media? And, like you know, you're going to have, like people in your office, say, I'm so attached to this and this and this because of social media. It's going to be a whole nother book you have to write.

Dr. Leslie: 44:24

I'm not sure how to answer that question. Can you just give me like an example, or something I don't know.

Rose: 44:28

You know, I'm just thinking, like people are going to. It's a whole different attachment theory, almost like why are people so attached, you know, maybe maybe we can just put it out there, Like why are people so attached to, to TikTok and watching these people do what they do? I don't know, I guess maybe I'm just wondering myself what's that, what's the attraction? Maybe I don't know I guess maybe a different generation.

Dr. Leslie: 44:53

Yeah, this is a topic and I have not fully researched. I think of technology and things moving fast and we don't have a chance to do some of that self-awareness, some of that, because that requires some slowing down. We're like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom and people aren't slowing down and it is a concern. I know for me and for a lot of people in our society that there have been a lot more mental health problems. Children are having more problems.

Dr. Leslie: 45:22

I saw someplace where they and I've got to go back and find the article or see what it's based on, but they tied it to beginnings of people really using smartphones, to, uh, beginnings of people really using smartphones. That if you look 10 years, 12 years, after the smartphones um came out I forget when, like the end of the nineties or whatever, um that you see kids starting to have more problems not connecting in the same way, uh I, there's so much to be said. I mean, if you see a parent and they're focused on their phone and or on their iPad or whatever it is, if they're not face-to-face with their child, that's how children learn to go back to where we started, learn to feel regulated by the other person. They learn to develop a sense of who they are. If that's not happening really it has to be happening a lot, all those different moments in a day if there are anybody who has children there's a zillion of them they really add up to something. But if that's not happening, then we are not developing, we're sidestepping the whole survival mechanism, the attachment system, we're not feeding it for people to develop a sense of who they are, what to expect of others, and that's seriously problematic.

Rose: 46:38

Yeah, I agree with you. Well, well answered. I mean, I didn't know what to expect, but I kind of thought of the same thing. When you were talking about attachment theory earlier, an image came to my mind of parents that I see often in their phone constantly and just totally ignoring their kids and it's kind of sad.

Dr. Leslie: 47:01

You know, I don't know if you've ever heard of it there's something called the still face experience experiment. No people could actually Google it. I think there's a little videos of it. So years ago they did. They did an experiment where they had a parent child's in like a high chair and the parent, the child's playing and the mom's going back and forth with the child and then the mom just stops and she's just got a straight face, doesn't respond to the kid very young kid and the kid tries to. You see this child then acting in ways to try to engage the parent, try to engage the parent and then starts like getting very dysregulated, very upset, very distressed, and then the mom clicks and she's like interacting with the child. Again. The child calms down and so just by the lack of response, what it does because to the child. So then someone, interestingly um, did it with a parent looking at a phone and the child gets the same response because the parent's not responding to the child interesting.

Dr. Leslie: 47:51

So you see the child getting all this distressed because the parent's not responding to the child. So you see the child getting all distressed because the parent's not responding Right.

Rose: 47:59

So it's just concerning Well, you could see that just walking around the mall. You know that same, but it is concerning I totally agree with you, definitely agree with you. I'm going to ask one more question because I know we're going to wrap up soon, but you talk about finding meaning outside of, or finding meaning of life outside current relationships, which is important, right. So doing things that you love. So not just focusing on our relationships, but also nurturing yourself and doing things that are important to you, right, right, that are healthy.

Dr. Leslie: 48:37

Absolutely Again model of self and model of others. Everything I'm going to say is going to go back to being aware of both of those. So you want to develop a relationship with yourself that's positive and feels good and you get a sense of well-being from that, and so that means doing activities that feed you and then also the relationship. What I haven't really talked much about today but comes with STEAM if you really develop your self-awareness on all those levels, you will develop what I call compassionate self-awareness. We need self-compassion because when we face difficulties in the world, we need to be kind to ourselves, to support ourselves, to help ourselves move through difficult times. So you develop this compassionate self-awareness and when you have that, you'll realize that you want to feel happy. You want to do things that make you feel good, not just in the relationship but within you, so it motivates people to do just what it is you're talking about.

Rose: 49:32

Your model leads to that self-compassion because at the end, with the mentalizing, you know you're thinking about how you're reacting, how this is making you feel. So that's that self-compassion, and then you have the compassion for others, so cultivating self-compassion. I know that is a topic that is being explored a lot more now because people you know people they need to be reminded that you have to have that compassion for yourself, just like you would for someone else who's hurting.

Dr. Leslie: 50:04

And you know, importantly, I talk about compassionate self-awareness and you'll notice, compassion, it's the adjective, the real focus is self-awareness. So, yes, it gets people to self-compassion. But the tricky part, when people talk about self-compassion, they're like well, I can't do that. Well, you know, that's just ridiculous. It all stopped, I won't be motivated or they'll have negative responses to it, or I just don't know how. I just beat myself up and I can't stop. So if you think of compassionate self-awareness, there isn't pressure to make yourself be compassionate, because that's like you know, when you're trying to fall asleep at night, you're like okay, sleep now sleep now.

Dr. Leslie: 50:43

I need to sleep now and you can't make yourself sleep, you just can't. So you can't force compassion. It's the same thing. But if you develop the self-awareness in all the ways I've talked about, then one compassion self-compassion tends to come, but to the degree it doesn't. Now you can begin to focus on that more from the awareness piece and it helps to nurture it. That's why I make that distinction, because I think in the real world it's often an important and essential distinction. Otherwise people feel like they're failing with being self-compassionate. They can beat themselves up for that.

Rose: 51:16

Yeah, thank you for clarifying that. I appreciate that. That's brilliant. Thank you, yeah. Is there anything else you wanted to add before we wrap up?

Dr. Leslie: 51:24

No, I love chatting with you. Yeah, this has been great.

Rose: 51:27

I love this and I appreciate you getting onto the, to the podcast, and I'm going to put all the links for your book. It's already out there. Actually, I have a link for the book on my website, but I'll put all of Dr Leslie's links as well, and I know she's done a lot. She's written books. She's also, I think, a regular author on psychology today as well. You've written a lot of articles.

Dr. Leslie: 51:48

I do. I have a blog on psychology today. I also have a new blog now on my website called Authentically you.

Rose: 51:55

Yes, I love that. I love the name of that, don't want to forget my YouTube channel.

Dr. Leslie: 51:59

Oh my gosh, I love doing that. I give you, like these three, four minute videos on all these topics and just like little, little, bite-sized things to think about, so, and I'm kind of getting a really nice community of people, people responding and it seems like they're helpful.

Rose: 52:13

So well, that's wonderful and the work you're doing is wonderful, so thank you for doing that.

Dr. Leslie: 52:18

Thanks, I really appreciate it.

Rose: 52:25

Thank you for joining me here on Chat Off T he Mat. I hope these stories have inspired you. If you've enjoyed this episode, please share it with those who might benefit. Your support helps me spread awareness about the power of transformative healing. Stay connected with me on social media. Reach out with your own healing stories or topics you'd like me to explore in future episodes. Your voice is an essential part of this community. Your voice is an essential part of this community. I hope that your healing journey is filled with self-discovery, curiosity, resilience and the unwavering belief in the power that resides within you. Until next time, I'm Rose Wippich, wishing you a journey filled with love, laughter and endless possibilities.