How Attachment Influences Self-Image: Judy Ho (Transcript)

Here is the full transcript of neuropsychologist Judy Ho’s talk titled “How Attachment Influences Self-Image” at TEDxReno 2024 conference.

Listen to the audio version here:

TRANSCRIPT:

I have a confession to make. I talk to myself all the time in all sorts of situations, when I’m by myself and when I’m in the presence of others. And I know I’m not the only person in this room who does this on a daily basis. Anyone else know? Okay. Thank you. Don’t leave me hanging, guys.

Well, self-talk is what makes us uniquely human. Our ability to talk to ourselves, to narrate what we’re doing, and to think about our thinking is what led us to the top of the food chain. Self-talk is like our brain’s operating system, just like a computer’s operating system. Self-talk is constantly running in the background of our lives, managing our thoughts, our feelings, and our behaviors.

The Role of Self-Talk

Self-talk is our internal narrator. It helps us make sense of the world and filters our experiences through the lens of our values, beliefs, and memories. But just like a computer, self-talk in our operating system is prone to glitches and bugs. This happens all the time, and a lot of times we don’t even know that it’s happening when it’s happening.

And this is because our brain tries to be efficient, but in doing so, it often oversimplifies, catastrophizes, and creates rules of thumb that aren’t accurate, balanced, or complete. Self-talk can create self-defeating exchanges with others, sabotage our most important ambitions, and confirm pre-existing negative beliefs about ourselves that don’t serve us and aren’t even true, leading to unhealthy coping and poor resilience.

The Negative Impact of Self-Talk

Researchers at Penn State University asked chronic worriers to write down their worries every day for ten days.

Then they made these poor participants review their list of worries for another month, just to see if any of them had come true. The result, a whopping 91.4% of their fears never materialized. So what does this tell us about self-talk?

Self-talk at its worst can rob us of our best lives. It can wreak havoc on our minds, create a lower quality of life, and take us away from actions that are actually going to help us move our situations forward.

If you’ve ever been prone to the unproductive effects of negative self-talk, then I have great news for you. Just like we can update a computer’s operating system, we can shape and refine our self-talk at any age and stage with just a few key shifts. I’ll teach you to make today.

The Frequency of Our Thoughts

How many thoughts do you think we have in a day? Call it out. I want to hear your guesses. Uh, somebody said 3 million. That’s pretty good. You’re not that far off.

So researchers have been very interested in this phenomenon. And earlier studies have cited anywhere from 10,000 to 60,000 thoughts a day. More recently, researchers at Queen’s University in Canada considered thoughts that we have about a specific topic or theme. They called these thinking chains “thought worms.” And it turns out that on average, we have about 6,200 of these daily.

Try taking an inventory of your thoughts by writing down your thinking a few times a day. You might be surprised to find that most people report their negative thoughts outweighed their positive ones. Also, their negative thoughts tended to cascade into these thought worms, essentially playing this negative playlist on an unending loop day and day again.

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The Origins of Self-Talk

So why does our brain do this and where does our self-talk come from? Self-talk stems from early experiences in our childhood, primarily due to our attachment bonds. Attachment, at its most basic level, refers to those first emotional bonds we build with our primary caregivers. Our primary caregivers are people who were generally responsible for looking after us on a daily basis, in a consistent and ongoing way. Without their support, we simply cannot survive.

Mammalian babies are cute because we have to be. No one would stick around if we weren’t. Our baby cuteness involving large eyes, round cheeks, chubby cheeks. All of this is to entice our caregivers to stay near us. We need them to stay with us, to protect us. So this is why we put up with the stinky diapers, with all the crying, with the no sleep. This is why we need them or else we simply cannot survive.

From our very first days, we start to build connections and through a series of experiences and memories with our attachment figures and our primary caregivers, we develop ideas about our self. These first years are an important, crucial period for brain development and knowledge acquisition. And during this time, through our attachment experiences, we learn how to communicate our needs, how those closest to us respond, and whether we feel safe physically and emotionally.

Oftentimes, when we’re in the middle of these experiences, we don’t realize their impact, but experiences that are repeated and reinforced over time create important emotional imprints that go into the foundation of our core beliefs: what we believe about ourselves, how we interact with others, and how we tackle life’s challenges. And because of our brain’s favoring of shortcuts and rules, we come to believe that the way that we coped with something in the past is the way that we should cope in the future. We generalize these rules.

Attachment Styles and Self-Talk

So in other words, our attachment experiences develop our underlying operating systems and serve as the basis for the self-talk that governs our lives. And it turns out most of us identify with one of four attachment styles. If your primary caregivers were generally available, attentive, showed up in helpful ways, especially during stressful situations, you likely developed secure attachment.

People with secure attachment tend to hold themselves in relatively high esteem. They actualize towards their goals. They can be independent and stay connected with their loved ones, and they generally deserve good things in life in terms of their own self beliefs.

Conversely, if your parents were inconsistent, inattentive, showed up in unhelpful ways, or seemed stressed or overwhelmed when you communicated your needs, you likely developed insecure attachment. There are three forms of this, and in general, people with insecure attachment have difficulty self-actualizing in a consistent way. They’re a little bit more prone to self sabotage. They tend not to believe in their own self worth, and whether they deserve loving and symbiotic relationships in their life.

And a recent study by YouGov shows that approximately 70% of people in the US identify with one of these three insecure attachment styles. Your brain’s operating system may work well most of the time, but the bugs and glitches tend to come just like they do with computers when it is the most crucial, urgent, and necessary to work well.

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When you’re faced with a novel and challenging experience where you’re already emotionally and cognitively taxed, and even when our self-talk is clearly unhelpful, unproductive causes us stress and pain, it can still be hard to break free from these beliefs because it’s so much of what we’ve come to know.

Transforming Self-Talk through Reparenting

But here’s an important fact: secure attachment and its positive outcomes can be yours for the taking. We can flip the script on your brain’s operating system, and it all starts with learning what processes it’s running today. In my clinical experience with patients, and in my research, I found that each of the four attachment styles carries with it its own prototypical self-talk.

People with anxious attachment tend to crave reassurance and closeness with others, sometimes at the expense of their own needs. They’re more prone to codependent and rescuing behaviors. The self-talk of the anxiously attached typically contains one or more of these four self statements: “I’m not as worthy as others,” “I need to rescue everyone,” “I fear being on my own,” “I have to analyze everything.”

People with avoidant attachment are the quintessential lone wolves. They value extreme self-sufficiency. They tend to be uncomfortable with emotional intimacy, and tend also not to emphasize the importance of relationships in their lives. The self-talk of the avoidantly attached typically sounds something like this: “I’m only as good as my last achievement,” “I must be in control at all times,” “I keep others at arm’s length,” “When the going gets tough, I go it alone.”

People with disorganized attachment oftentimes find themselves in a perpetual state of fight or flight. They have difficulty regulating their emotions and sometimes unconsciously replicate the chaos they experienced as children. People with disorganized attachment typically have self statements that sound something like this: “I deserve to suffer,” “I hate you. Don’t leave me,” “I can’t control my emotions and my life is in constant chaos.”

If any of what I said above resonates with you, and if you’ve ever been prone to the damaging effects of these types of self statements, then what I’m about to share with you next will be the most important part. What would I say today? No matter what your past experiences have been, how long you’ve been operating with your default system, and how much disappointment you’ve experienced, it’s never too late to heal your insecure attachment wounds.

Maybe you’ve been after that elusive promise of your best life, chasing comfort, fulfillment, and joy in a variety of places, thinking to yourself, “If I just landed that dream job, just got that perfect partner, just stumbled into that ideal situation…” Yet time and again, that initial rush fades and you find that whatever fix you sought was only a temporary solution, and its positive effects simply didn’t last.

And that’s because you’ve been looking for healing and meaning in all the wrong places. The truth is, you only need one person with whom to form a secure attachment with to see all of your goals in life actualize and be what you always dreamed of. And here’s a secret: it all starts with a secure attachment to yourself.

Conclusion

Reparenting, or the conscious act of providing yourself with the care and understanding that you may have missed out on as children, is all about becoming the nurturing inner parent you need, but may not have had. While you can’t change the past, and this is not about blaming your parents for what they did or didn’t do, you can choose to meet the needs of your inner child today. That metaphorical little you whose hopes, aspirations and dreams are still alive within all of us.

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Reparenting works because simply you have what it takes to meet the needs of your inner child. This makes it the ideal situation for fostering a secure attachment relationship. Your adult self has much more agency, self-directedness and resources than your child self who had to learn to cope within the confines of depending on those around them to provide that safety and security.

No one knows you better than you and you have the wisdom of your unique lived experience. And this is why your inner parent is the most vital tool to creating healthier thoughts and behavior patterns. You can start reparenting today through a series of small, intentional acts that are designed to change your underlying programming. This is because thoughts, behaviors, and feelings are all connected. If you behave differently, you’ll think and feel differently through your behaviors will positively transform your self-talk and your rules for life.

So what does reparenting look like? Each time you establish healthy boundaries for your well-being, that’s reparenting. Each time you celebrate your accomplishments and the little small steps along the way, that’s reparenting. Each time you prioritize your needs without guilt, that’s reparenting. Each time you cultivate meaningful relationships and healthier connections with others, that’s reparenting. Each time you listen to your inner child and validate their emotions, no matter what, that’s reparenting.

Each time you consciously engage in self-care, that’s reparenting. Each time you forgive yourself of past mistakes and exercise self-compassion, that’s reparenting. Each time you make decisions according to your top values, no matter what anyone else thinks, that’s reparenting. Each time you remind yourself you are deserving of love and belonging, that’s reparenting. Each time you know in your heart that you are inherently worthy, that’s reparenting.

I hope our time today has inspired you and empowered you to make positive change in your life. The gifts of secure attachment, one that is based in a secure self concept that allows you to tackle life’s challenges with vigor, consistency and belongingness is yours for the taking. And I can’t wait to see what you’ll do with this information.

Now, as we close, I’d like us to practice one more activity to help to optimize your operating system. Let’s adopt the self statements of the securely attached by choosing one of these four statements as your affirmation for today. Write it down. Post it in a place you can see. Look in the mirror. Say it to yourself and visualize yourself embodying these qualities: “I believe in and like myself,” “I can handle what comes my way,” “I can affect positive outcomes in my life,” “I can be independent and rely on others too.”

Each of us has thousands of thought worms a day. How will you use your self-talk to spark positivity and healing in your life? Thank you.