I invited Sarah Sherwood back on the show today to talk about adult attachment theory and adult attachment styles. I'm relatively new to attachment theory, but the little I have dug into it helped me start understanding my own patterns of relating and why they exist.

The basic understanding of this theory is that how you regulate and experience yourself is in some ways a product of how you learned to relate with your primary care givers. We develop patterns of engaging with other people and relating based on whether or not our needs were being met and whether or not the world felt safe.

As you'll hear Sarah talk about, we develop behaviors from that experience to relate with other people to ensure we get what we need.

In this episode you'll learn

• How each of us have these biologically wired in patterns of relating
• Our most driving need is connection with other humans and how that helps us understand our sense of safety
• How these styles get patterned into our nervous system
• The 4 Attachment styles
• How our emotional needs getting met or not greatly impacts our attachment style and patterns of relating
• The relationship between attachment style and healthy boundries
• How anxiety and distraction could possibly stem from these attachment styles
• A mantra for parents is perceptive over perfect
• Having a balance between chaos and rigidity in parenting
• Practicing affective communication and vulnerability in safe relationships are some of the biggest places to start

Karla McLaren, M.Ed. is an award-winning author, social science researcher, and empathy pioneer. Her lifelong work focuses on her grand unified theory of emotions, which revalues even the most “negative” emotions and opens startling new pathways into self-awareness, effective communication, and healthy empathy.

Karla also developed the groundbreaking Six Essential Aspects of Empathy model that makes all of the processes in empathy easily understandable and accessible -- so that people can develop and manage their empathy intentionally.

Karla is the author of The Art of Empathy: A Complete Guide to Life’s Most Essential Skill (2013), The Language of Emotions: What Your Feelings are Trying to Tell You (2010), and the multi-media online course Emotional Flow: Becoming Fluent in the Language of Emotions (2012). She is also the coauthor (with cult expert Janja Lalich, PhD) of Escaping Utopia: Growing Up in a Cult, Getting Out, and Starting Over (Routledge, 2018), which focuses on the stories of 70 people who grew up in and escaped from cults spanning a dozen countries.

In this episode you'll learn

• Ways to slow down and examine your choices when different emotions arise.
• Tips and practices to overcome the anxiety of our modern world.
• The reasons you shouldn’t run from your emotions and how to work with the ones that make you uncomfortable
• Why emotions are neither good or bad, and how you can use them to your benefit
• How shame can be used in a healthy way to help you control your actions.
• Learning to read other’s emotions so you increase your caring and empathy
• How to increase your emotional vocabulary and better handle feelings when they arise.

Hall’s music, a blend of roots and folk music with hints of inspiration from India, has led him to a series of sold-out tours and collaborations with artists such as Steel Pulse, The Wailers, Jimmy Cliff, Matisyahu, Michael Franti, Xavier Rudd and Nahko & Medicine for the People.

Trevor Hall’s Chapter of the Forest (2014) and KALA (2015), debuted at #3 and #2 on the iTunes singer/songwriter chart respectively. He is currently touring around the US and Australia. While on tour, Hall collects donations to support children’s education in India.

The Fruitful Darkness released in November of 2017, became the #1 Kickstarter Music campaign of 2017 (#30 of all time out of 53,000 Music projects) and is being released in three song installments on specific lunar dates, culminating in a 14-song deluxe edition release, June 1st 2018.

The Fruitful Darkness Part III just dropped this past Friday, so be sure to pick it up on Spotify or your favorite music platform.

Trevor kicks off his A Night in the Village Tour February 21st in Minneapolis, MN with events in IL, OH, MD, CT, NY and more. Tickets are selling out fast for this special event where Trevor will be sharing songs, the stories behind them, as well as rare images and footage from his journeys to India, Nepal and beyond. You’ll have the opportunity to interact and ask questions at the end of the evening during a Q&A. 'A Night in the Village' will give listeners a unique insight into the inspiration and stories behind the songs of Trevor Hall's life journey.

Trevor's mix of deep spiritual work and the stories behind how his songs came to be are food for any creatives soul and for me has deepened the practice of seeing a miracle in every day life.

In this episode you'll learn

• How music can help you explore your inner being.
• Why pushing down emotions can cause them to unconsciously affect your behaviors and relationships.
• Ways to develop a deeper connection and love with others.
• Learning to find mental and emotional freedom by exploring the depths of your consciousness.
• How you can maintain positive energy while navigating a major change in identity.
• Why separateness is actually an illusion and how you can embrace the collective oneness of the world.

In this week's episode I wanted to share a little story with you because I realized in the last few weeks as I've been navigating some personal challenges in my life as well as some things in business that I that I found myself over focusing on the details... let's call it the problem, the circumstances and trying to move around the known pieces in the box of my known reality trying to figure things out.

If you're in a place where maybe you feel hyper focused on the problem or you may even feel  a lot of stress or anxiety or overwhelm in your body, my hope is that sharing this perspective with you will give you some relief by taking the pressure off and being able to see things from a greater perspective.

Have The Vision, Patience, and Perspective Of An Eagle.

Full practice and show notes at http://jeffa.co/126

My guest today Jessie May Wolfe describes HeartRise as plugging into the radiant, integral, soul energy (R.I.S.E)... the electricity of the heart.

Her presence empowers those around her. Spreading light and energy, her infectious spirit connects many beautiful souls around the world.

With a strong creative & corporate background in fashion, publishing & marketing,

Jessie May's experience coaching & empowering thousands of creatives, entrepreneurs, and change-makers worldwide, along with her training in various modalities with renowned teachers, led her to develop the unique impactful HeartRise Method.

As a speaker, mentor, and inspirational guide, Jessie May brings the HeartRise Method to organizations, communities and companies across the world.

Her corporate clients include Soho House, Gen Art, Wework, Wanderlust, Amazon, GOOP, Westside Collective, Parachute Home, Nick Fouquet, Juice Served Here, Health-Ade, Sakara.

Jessie May's heart holds a torch for everyone.

Today we'll dive into HeartRise Method and Jessie May's new book High On Heart: The HeartRise Method.

In this episode you'll learn

• How you can win the battle between your head and your heart.
• Identifying your negative go-to thoughts that take up precious time and energy.
• Why the modern world is in desperate need for more heart centered intelligence.
• Strategies to calm and quiet the incessant chatter in your mind.
• Why it's easier to relate and connect with others when you come from the intelligence of the heart.
• How to release negative energy and tap into good vibrations.

If you've ever felt flooded by strong thoughts and emotions, then this one is for you.

Starting to create a healthy distance from strong thoughts and emotions is the first step to creating a more resourceful state where you can lower the stress response and work yourself into better feeling thoughts.

Today I'll distill a practice I use to loosen the hold on these strong thoughts and feelings to be able to tackle the current situation from a more grounded, less emotionally charged position.

These two phrases come from the work of Susan David and Emotional Agility and they are really quite simple. Our tendency when we feel something strongly is to over identify with the feeling. For me and those I've worked with, being able to loosen the grip and see thoughts and feelings as an experience we are having and not something we are has proved extremely useful for creating a mindset that allows for more creativity and solutions to emerge.

The typical response to strong emotions such as anger would be "I am angry."

Susan David suggests using the two phrases:

"I am having the feeling that..."

"I am having the thought that..."

Putting these two tools to use would look like this...

"I am having the feeling that I am angry."

"I am having the thought that what she did made me angry"

Everyone's experience is unique so try these out and play with the variations. You know it's working when you feel the charge start to subside and you can see it more as an experience instead of a state of being.

I get deeper into this in the podcast, so be sure to tune in and leave a comment below letting me know how you're going to put this into practice.