Beyond polarity & projection: How to heal your attachment wounds (transcript)

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Episode Transcript:

Lian (00:00)

Are we really healing our relationship wounds or learning to perform what we believe will make us more attractive and lovable? Hello, my beautiful mythical old souls and a huge warm welcome back. In this conversation, I'm joined by Serdar Harerovich.

Serdar is a relationship and secure attachment specialist offering attachment based coaching and healing. He supports both men and women to heal early attachment wounds, establish inner security, reclaim their deepest self and cultivate the emotional skills required for deep, soulful and secure love. Together we explore the roots of how we relate, starting with the early wounds that quietly shape our adult connections. Serdar shares his own story of growing up with emotional neglect, the ways he coped through drinking and disconnection and the healing work that helped him form real lasting intimacy.

We speak about the role of corrective experiences in healing attachment wounds and why both inner work and skill building are essential for healthy love.

We also explore how gender dynamics show up in healing, including how working with male or female facilitators can bring up different layers of projection or repair. From there, we journey into the world of polarity teachings, looking at how these approaches can support healing, but also where they can distort it.

Throughout we keep returning to the question of what it means to heal and relate as ourselves rather than through a persona. This is a rich, honest, and at times challenging conversation and one I hope brings insight for wherever you are on your path.

And before we jump into all of that good stuff, if you're struggling with the challenges of walking your soul path in this crazy modern world and would benefit from guidance, support and kinship, come join our Academy of the Soul, UNIO. You can find out more and join us by hopping on over to bemythical.com slash UNIO or click the link in the description.

And now back to this week's episode, let's dive in.

Lian (02:07)

Hello, Serdar, welcome to the show.

Serdar (02:11)

Hey, Lian nice to be here.

Lian (02:13)

Oh my goodness. We've already had so much hilarity just getting to the point of recording. And ⁓ it's been a really lovely way to get to know you before we dive in to, I'm guessing what's going to be a much more serious topic than the joy that we've just been journeying through. So let's begin with a bit of a sense as to where you've come from, what brought you to doing the work that you do today.

Serdar (02:47)

Sure, so I'll give you a little summary, maybe a couple of minutes of that. ⁓ So my background is someone who experienced quite a lot of emotional neglect in childhood, including trauma. And for most of my adult life, I was not grappling with the effects of that. And I was drinking a lot. My relationships… were not fulfilling or deep or nourishing for me at all. ⁓ at a certain point, it felt like I hit rock bottom with my drinking and I knew something needed to change, but I didn't know how to change it. And it took me quite a long time to actually be able to ⁓ change ⁓ my drinking habits.

It was around the time that I started getting involved in healing work and starting to grapple with my past and doing the work around healing the trauma. And it was around that time that I started developing a greater understanding of psychology and how my childhood had impacted me, including my drinking problem, which I, you know, I wasn't a daily drinker, but I had a binge drinking problem where I would go out on weekends and, ⁓ yeah, just drink a lot. And it just took me a while to actually be able to understand what was happening for me, understand how to move forward with my life. And, ⁓ as part of that journey, I was also grappling with the issues in my relationships, you know, the, the lack of connection that I had with my deeper authentic self was also playing out in my relationships. didn't have healthy boundaries. I didn't know how to communicate about my deeper needs and desires. ⁓ And over time, having enough new experiences, know, plant medicine, different kinds of therapies.

I started to slowly develop some boundaries and some communication skills, grappling with my deeper authentic self. I was eventually able to understand why I was drinking and stop drinking for about four years. But that was where things started to shift for me, where I started to grapple with my past. basically, for me, yeah.

All the skills of healthy relating, of communicating with working through conflict, working through issues in relationships, all these things were missing skills for me. Nobody taught these to me. I didn't learn them anywhere. They weren't modeled to me in my ⁓ early life experiences. So I had to learn them as an adult. And so ⁓ that was a really pivotal experience for me. So I kind of just… put aside other things in my life and focused very single-mindedly on developing this skill set and becoming securely attached as an adult. And ⁓ so that was a really ⁓ profound experience for me to actually become secure as an adult. And it gave me the perspective of someone, you know, what is it like to not have any of these skills and the impact that it's having on or it was having on me in terms of my ability to process my emotions, ⁓ denying or repressing certain emotions and drinking to kind of mask the feelings that I was experiencing in relationships, to move from that to someone who is actually very connected with those emotions, feeling safe enough to connect with those feelings and to also translate them into things I can communicate to other people.

So having that contrast and seeing how beneficial it was for me and how much it gave to me was something that inspired me to be able to help other people with being able to develop those missing skills as well.

Lian (07:18)

⁓ thank you for sharing that.

it was really just striking me how actually apart from a rare few of us who have been raised where we've been modeled those ways of relating that are healthy and we've also experienced secure attachment. It's actually a rare thing. know, very few people are either modeled or directly taught, those kinds of skills. And I think it's worth recognising that because we can assume these things to just be like, we should know, but how would we? And I think there's something really honest in recognising like, huh, okay, no, I'm missing, I'm missing this stuff. there is, I think there's also, what I was hearing in what you were saying, there's there's kind of two parts to that. There's the healing work, like all the skills in the world won't do the work of healing the attachment wounds. But there are perhaps skills that can be learned, like ways of expressing ways of relating that perhaps are also something that we can learn. So it really stood out to me that there's something that we often miss culturally, that, you know, how would we know these things if that hasn't been our experience? So you talked about the healing work you've personally done, but then also the work you now do to help others. What forms does that take? What forms has that taken? What forms does it take now?

Serdar (08:59)

So you mean for myself personally or what I do with other people?

Lian (09:05)

Both.

Serdar (09:06)

Yeah, so for myself personally, I tried out many different modalities and healing approaches. And a ⁓ lot of it was helpful in different ways. ⁓ What I found the most helpful was what's called having corrective experiences, which is basically new experiences that help to imprint a new way of relating. And this can happen in a variety of ways. For me, it started with one of the processes that I now do with people, it's called the ideal parent figure process. It's basically where you imagine instead of the parents that you grew up with, you imagine yourself as a young child with ideal parents who have all the qualities that your actual parents didn't have. So if you missed out on parents who were really attuned to you and really curious about your inner experience, you imagine yourself with parents who are really curious about you, they want to know about your inner world and that becomes a new corrective experience. So the part of you or the part of me that was always needing that experience starts to receive what it always needed. ⁓ So that was a big component in me becoming secure. So there were lots of other things that were helpful, but this was the thing that really helped to fill in the gaps of my healing process and actually ⁓ shift from insecure to securely attached.

Lian (10:35)

Mmm. hmm. You used, I've been familiar with similar work. The word experiences stood out to me there. I'd love to hear your sense of this where in, I've done lots of different kinds of healing work, again, personally. ranging from kind of more traditional therapy, Jungian analysis, ⁓ shamanic healing, you all the, you name it pretty much. And what ⁓ really has struck me over the years is the importance of that relationship with the, you know, let's say therapist, it could be any other kind of facilitator.

where there is something in the experience with them that kind of gives us that, ⁓ that modelling, that re-patterning of what we perhaps didn't receive. I'd love to hear your sense of that.

Serdar (11:42)

Yeah, it's considered ⁓ one of, if not the most important, ⁓ healing ⁓ processes of a therapeutic relationship, whether it's a coach or a shamanic practitioner or a therapist, which is the relationship that we have with that person is the corrective experience. and yeah, it is the ideal version of that is that it is a corrective experience. instead of, for example, If a person grew up with emotional neglect, parents who didn't fully see them or who they weren't emotionally safe with, this practitioner or the coach, the therapist is someone who ⁓ is relating to them in a different way, in a way that feels healing and nourishing. So ideally, they're someone who is very emotionally safe. They welcome all the different parts of a person.

They not only welcome it, but they delight in the new ⁓ revelations and insights that the person's experiencing. So they ⁓ model the kind of healthy attachment figure that we all needed. ⁓ So yeah, that's a really profound experience for a lot of people to have this corrective experience in the relationship that they have with the person who's helping them.

Lian (13:09)

There's two things that just occurred to me that kind of take us in the direction of the topic we wanted to explore today. I'm going to share both of the thoughts I had and then you do what you want with them. We might take them one at a time, but it might be that they weave together. So there is...

If we recognise that for the vast majority of us, those initial experiences, those initial wounds, initial conditioning happened primarily through our primary caregivers. And for most of us, that would be a mother and a father. And whether or not there is a present, you're almost like regardless as to whether either those figures were, or both those figures were actually around.

Like for me, I was raised by a single father. I did have a mother, but I was raised by a single father. But of course, that's still an experience of a mother, regardless as to whether I was raised by her. And so what was occurring to me as we were just talking about that kind of re-patterning that we can have with a therapist or facilitator,

I know personally there's been something about the experience with a male versus female facilitator. And again, also personally in the work that I do with others, there's something different that can be experienced and unlocked, healed, because of the kind of way that we might be projecting kind of mother or father on those different figures, depending on their sex.

The other thing that occurred to me, this is kind of interwoven, but again, feel free to kind of go for one or the other, see where this takes you. The other thing that was occurring to me is the way that we, because of those wounds, because of the projections, we can inadvertently choose facilitators who ⁓ are going to kind of give us the same experience, like the same wounding experience as we had.

And so we think, you know, innocently, we believe what we're doing is choosing something that's going to be healing, but it's actually a kind of aversion of the same wound. And it's drawn us into that kind of same dynamic, even though we believe it's going to be helpful. So again, please do without what you will.

Serdar (15:47)

Right. I mean, you you're speaking to something that is an ⁓ existential issue, which is, know, discernment when it comes to when we do have attachment wounding and the kinds of people that it can draw us to, often people that are going to reinforce the attachment wounding. And so how do you help someone if that's something that's playing out? So it's a difficult issue.

And it is true a lot of people do have that experience where they will be drawn to people who reinforce the experiences that they already have had. One can only hope that the facilitator has some experience and ability to maybe not just repeat what that person has experienced in the past and maybe add some positives and some improvements. But yeah, it is unfortunately the case that a lot of people get drawn to the kinds of people who are not that helpful. And that plays out not just with finding a facilitator to support them, but also in romantic relationships, you people getting drawn to exactly the person who is ⁓ most likely to reinforce the negative blueprint that they experienced.

Lian (16:58)

Hmm. Hmm. Yeah, it occurs to me that even becoming aware of this is helpful in making that discernment because it's a challenge that ultimately we are seeing the world through those projections and to even become aware of those is a challenge. But recognising how that can sway us towards people including facilitators that are going to kind of bring us back into that dynamic I think is helpful. So what do you feel about the first part of what I said in terms of the way the people we work with, know, the fact that for example, a female facilitator, healer, therapist might be the one to kind of like help us to repattern the wounds with our mothers and vice versa with a male. What's your sense of that?

Serdar (17:59)

⁓ Yeah, I think there's a lot of ⁓ truth in that and that's many people have that experience where you know they might have wounding on more so on one side of that ⁓ you know whether it's the ⁓ male attachment figure or the female attachment figure and ⁓ having a new corrective experience. So for example ⁓ you know if I had a mother who was emotionally neglectful and then I find a female facilitator who is the opposite of that, someone who ⁓ creates a space where all of me is welcome and someone who is very emotionally safe, that's going to become a corrective experience and it's going to really support the new imprint ⁓ even deeper ⁓ through that process. So I think there's a lot of truth in that.

Lian (18:55)

Okay, that feels like it's like taking us nicely even deeper into this potential sort of juxtaposition kind of dichotomy that I've witnessed in the years of kind of being in the work personally that I'm in, but also doing the work that I do with others where what I've witnessed is how, and again, I'm going to talk about this in a bit of a kind of overly simplistic extreme way just to make the point, but this course, know, nuance between these, where we can either be very devoted to that healing work that we've just been talking about and, ⁓ you know, again, really important, vital work actually, and dismiss any sort of potential and again, this isn't what I'm about to say here is also not for everyone. But if one is at all interested in, for example, understanding that particular life path and experiences one could have as a woman versus a man, but just kind of dismissing that and go like, well, you know, ultimately all I want to do is heal these attachment wounds and it's kind of almost irrelevant.

that I'm a man or a woman or the kind of person that I might then be in a relationship with. And at the other end of the spectrum, there can be people drawn into the polarity world, which can be very kind of intoxicating and sort of seductive. And think that's going to kind of like, because of the way that can be quite prescriptive or very prescriptive actually, in terms of like, you know, here's how to do relationship. it then dismisses the need for the healing work. And so it can be this kind of like just all you need to do is get good at being, say for example, a woman and your relationships will magically transform. And it struck me over the years how in some ways, and again, there's certainly times where this isn't the case, but in some ways, The deeper we go in either, the more we can sort of look at the other and go like, that's not where the answer lies. I humans are like this anyway, you we like to think the thing we're doing is the thing and like, you know, it's the only way. But I've certainly, again, from my own experience, but also in the work that I do with others, have seen there can be real beauty in both and looking at kind of what might personally be of use in both, but...

That's the thing that I would really like to look at because in some ways, I think we can become very like, again, dismissive of one or the other. And I would really like to have a conversation about how might we be able to kind of navigate both paths.

Serdar (22:00)

⁓ So, yeah, I feel curious to hear a little bit more about the benefits or the beauty that you spoke to in the polarity work.

Lian (22:13)

Hmm, okay. So what I will say first of all is I, some of what I'm about to say, I've more witnessed either kind of just out there, you know, in the world of social media or via students who have kind of been deep in those worlds rather than personally, but I have also been involved in some forms of polarity work personally as well. So speaking personally, ⁓ my most… I guess potent and beneficial work that I wouldn't necessarily call polarity work, but it's kind of in the same realms, I suppose, has been through the lens of Kabbalah. I'm a student of Kabbalah, which, you know, like other forms, you could be Tantra or something else, where it's a much more kind of metaphysical way of looking at these principles, let's say, of masculine feminine, and less about this idea of kind of you're a man, therefore you're like this, you're a woman, and it is much more about looking at the metaphysics, which we might want to explore through the lens of this incarnation in this particular body. And looking also at our own wounding and our own path to, you know, the places I'll just give an example. My own attachment wounds had me be more avoidant. And it's been really interesting for me to look at the ways that I would kind of distance myself, kind of close, harden in relationship and having this...

archetype, let's say, of the feminine was a really interesting way of kind of almost like this is the vessel that I'm then going to kind of do my work around to see the places that I'm not open and receptive because of the wounding. Not that this is sort of ideal of, you know, this for me to be a proper woman, I need to be like this, but a way like a mirror for me to see, this is where my wounding lies. And so for my own personal work, it's been much more about kind of using it as this kind of like, this isn't a rigid model. This is very much a kind of a way in which I can see myself and see what's actually true for me versus this kind of distortion that's been created via the wounding. However, there's, and then there's also work like, and I think this can be quite a nice, like breadcrumb.

work of people like Alison Armstrong, which could be criticized again for reinforcing ⁓ gender norms and roles. And in some ways it can be oversimplified, but I also think ⁓ I've interviewed her a couple of times on the show and I think she has got a genuine desire to just make relationships better. easier between men and women and you can you know again personally I can feel that in her feel that in her heart I feel that in her work and so like anything can it be misunderstood misused yes but I do feel there is ⁓ can be real good in what she's speaking about and opening us up to after years of kind of like almost the opposite of that and then on the kind of far end of the spectrum there are these like very rigid

Serdar (26:01)

Yeah.

Lian (26:08)

forms of polarity work, are kind of, ⁓ I won't name names, but ⁓ kind of, know, idea of that there is these are some of the direct quotes I've seen where women should never judge men, but men, you know, is part of their job to judge women. A woman should always submit to a man's leadership. So there's a kind of, you know, it's, there are much more extreme forms of polarity work, which have become increasingly popular over the last few years. So that hopefully gives you a sense as to my own experiences, but also kind of what I'm talking about more generally.

Serdar (26:50)

Sure, yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And so, yeah, when we're looking at how to integrate the benefits that can come from the metaphysical side of things like you were speaking to or Alison Armstrong's work, and I think she has a lot of valuable things to share, to me, that's the lens that I take. How do we integrate the benefits and the positives? ⁓ And for me, attachment-based work has to incorporate what is true in the world. And so for example, when you were speaking about openness, you know, and having that as a lens for you as a woman, that makes sense. You know, if there's been some avoidant ⁓ sides there ⁓ to, you know, to look at openness as a lens, ⁓ the way I think it's important ⁓ to bring in attachment stuff is the recognition that openness is a part of secure attachment and it's something that men also need to journey with. So men also struggle with that and where polarity stuff can get in the way of a healthy healing process is when it's ⁓ when some of these ideas are about you know women should be open and men should be this right. That's when it starts to move away from a healthy and integrated ⁓ healing process into a rigid and prescriptive way of doing things. So yes openness is part of secure attachment. So how do you be open with discernment? That's part of the journey of secure attachment. And that is also true for men. So that's how I kind of ⁓ approach these things. look at, know, what are the benefits people are experiencing? And how does that relate to ⁓ deeper and more integrated attachment work? And another example is Alison Armstrong's work, you know, she, for people who aren't aware of her, she's someone who you know, has a variety of books about men and how women can better understand men. And I think a lot of what she shares is helpful. A lot of women have talked, spoke about how helpful it is. So I do think it's helpful. And I don't see her work as much ⁓ in or I don't categorize it as polarity as much. To me, it seems more about like mutual understanding that yes, men and women do have differences, right? ⁓ Where Alison is different to the polarity world for me is in something like Alison's work, what I take is men and women can have these differences, let's understand each other better. Whereas in the polarity world, it's men and women ⁓ need to be different. And this is how you need to be in order to be a proper man and a proper woman. So it's kind of like a different approach to our differences to me. And I think that's important. From an attachment lens, we've got to acknowledge the differences that we do have as human beings. And one of the ways of integrating the work of someone like Alison Armstrong is part of the reason why she's so important and needed is because we are so missing in the skills of secure attachment. Because when we're more securely attached, we're curious about each other.

Lian (29:47)

Hmm

Serdar (30:16)

We ask questions, ⁓ but when we're not so securely attached, we make assumptions and we project our past wounds onto each other. And in the world that we live in, there's a lot of people projecting their wounds onto each other. And that means we don't really understand each other. We're not being curious with one another. So in a world where that's happening, we need someone like Alison Armstrong to help us understand each other. But in a healthy dynamic between two people, we're collaborating with each other to understand our differences. We're asking each other, like, what does it mean when you don't text me ⁓ in between the time that we don't see each other? Instead of assuming what that means, we're getting curious and we're collaborative. So these kinds of things to me, ⁓ they're making up for the missing experiences that most of us have missed out on. And when we engage in a deeper therapeutic process, when we're really doing the deeper secure attachment work, a lot of those benefits from those things that we're experiencing out there, it is incorporated into the work. There is a way of integrating it. So that's the lens that I take with this stuff. It's like, where it's helpful, let's integrate it and have a balanced approach.

Lian (31:40)

Mm. Yes, it, ⁓ I love what you said there about, ⁓ curiosity and it's often only when we feel, ⁓ safe that we can be open to be curious about another person's experience. Otherwise we're kind of so locked in our own projections of kind of this is how it is. And it was occurring to me listening to you, how those kind of more, and I take on board what you're saying, you know, in, in a way, Allison's work perhaps isn't strictly speaking polarity work, but I sort of feel like these things all exist along some sort of spectrum. But I think the more extreme forms of kind of modern polarity work are the antithesis of curiosity actually. They're very much kind of like, this is how a woman is. This is how a woman should be.

This is how man is, this is how it really closes us further and kind of ramps up those projections. But can be very alluring. Like I say, there is something and I often think, you know, if we're drawn to something, we can either kind of make that wrong and, you know, decide that we shouldn't be interested in that thing or drawn to that thing, or we can be curious about

What is it in this for me? Why is, you know, recognising that our energy is naturally going there anyway? Like, how can I harness this in a way that's actually beneficial? ⁓ So coming to looking at how we can perhaps use these sort of, I guess, two different ways of looking at ourselves and the world. So there's this kind of recognition that we do have these attachment wounds that require ⁓ tending. And on the other hand, and just for simplicity, let's go on the idea that we're talking about men and women in a heterosexual relationship, because otherwise we're never going to get through this show if we broaden it out any further. Of course, there's many other ways of being and relating. What do you feel? could be helpful in work like Alison's, where there is this acknowledgement of like, you know, there is obviously individual differences, but there are differences between men and women. And understanding those and being curious about those can help us relate going back to kind of when we first started, there's the healing work, and then there's the skills work, it feels like this, you know, to an extent lives in that skills workplace. ⁓

Serdar (34:23)

Okay.

Lian (34:25)

what occurs to you when I ask that, know, what particularly might be helpful to understand about each other?

Serdar (34:33)

I feel like understanding is the basis of genuine love and intimacy. To be able to understand why you do something versus my negative projections or assumptions about what that means is going to be the thing that actually allows for intimacy and love to flourish. So I think that's one way in which, you know, the work of people like that is so helpful. It's, and you know, we live in a world where a lot of men's behaviours are interpreted from a very negative lens. ⁓ And some of the oversimplifications of that has led to a situation where some women will ⁓ interpret a man's behaviour from a very negative lens. So one positive effect of this kind of ⁓

Lian (35:13)

Hmm.

Serdar (35:29)

you know, acknowledgement of the differences of men and women is to understand what might actually be going on for a man when he's, you know, taking space versus what some people might have said it means that he's, for example, you know, manipulating you with breadcrumbs of attention, which is how some people, you know, present these kinds of behaviours when actually they often have an attachment route. There's a reason for this and

Lian (35:46)

Mmm.

Serdar (35:58)

when we can understand something, it doesn't mean that we need to tolerate behaviours that don't work for us, but it does mean that we have a greater ability to work with it through an understanding of what might be going on. And therefore we have empathy, which is also part of a healthy, secure bond. And then we can collaborate if there's a difference there. if instead of, ⁓ for example, if instead of

Lian (36:23)

Mmm. ⁓

Serdar (36:27)

when we make an agreement and you don't follow through, instead of that meaning that you don't care about me, if I understand that maybe you just are the kind of person that needs to have things ⁓ set in your phone as reminders and otherwise you don't remember, then I know that next time we've set an agreement, I need to say, okay, well, can we make sure that you put this in your phone so that you remember? Rather than waiting to see if you'll actually remember and using that as a test of your care for me. So this is like one of those ways where like, yeah, mutual understanding is the basis of deeper intimacy and love. so understanding things first from that angle of like men can have these differences and they're not necessarily malicious, they can just be a difference in the way that a man's brain works is part of ⁓ taking back some of

Lian (37:01)

Mmm.

Serdar (37:25)

those negative assumptions or associations that women can have and then coming into a deeper intimacy with who a man really is. And vice versa, the same can also happen in reverse because a lot of men also receive negative ideas and views about women and interpret their behaviour from that lens as well.

Lian (37:34)

Mmm.

Yeah, I love how you said that. And it's, think this is the, an art in itself, isn't it? Recognising that there can be, there can be benefit in a starting point, which again, is going to be overly general with this kind of, ⁓ men are more likely to be like this, but then to be curious about that too.like you are not you as a man may not kind of be exactly like the image of let's just again, it's not just about Alison Armstrong's work. It's just that that's become the example. You may not, you know, fully fit this description of a man, according to Alison Armstrong's work, but it could be a place that If I'm getting to know you, I could kind of like begin with that and become curious. I'm like, ⁓ where are you like this? Were you not like this? Where are you? You know, what is your own individual soul? You know, what does that look like? That's kind of maybe potentially beyond any notion of being ⁓ any particular sex. But I think there is something, I think the more we are able to bring that curiosity. and actually get to know the person in front of us. But I think there can be help, helpful in kind of having a, at least sort of start of a ten in that way.

Serdar (39:10)

Right, for sure.

That's how I see the value of that kind of thing, which is a starting point to ⁓ counter some of the more negative ideas that we've absorbed about each other, which most of us have absorbed that stuff because it's everywhere. So that kind of ⁓ work helps to bring in a different energy, one of curiosity, understanding, empathy. ⁓ And then that, hopefully, will open up the gates for a deeper, more personalised curiosity because that's where I see the shadow side of that stuff. If you're only relying on those ideas about what men are like or what women are like or how we should be as men or as women, then we're not really relating as individuals. We're relating as ideas to our ideas of another person. So that's where the deeper attachment work comes in where, okay, let's take that as a launching pad into

Lian (40:07)

Mmm.

Serdar (40:13)

a deeper curiosity and understanding of each other and the kinds of skills, the practical skills that that requires. For example, being able to share your negative idea about ⁓ behaviour or a situation and checking with the person ⁓ whether that's true or not. You know, being able to identify and say, I have this, ⁓ you know, my mind is saying that when you do this, it means this, can you help me with that ⁓ by letting me know what is actually going on for you. So that's the work of genuine intimacy and we need to be able to do that and that's where some of those ideas helps an individual to start to get curious and open up to the possibility that might be more that's actually going on for someone beyond those past experiences that they might have had or beyond those ideas or assumptions about each other into this deeper relating with each other.

Lian (41:14)

Mm. It's was just occurring to me here and you say that is I've been ⁓ working with Jonathan, the co-founder of Be Mythical for 11 years now. And in those years, we've had, you know, many, many fallouts and difficult experiences conversations.

And the thing I can say is almost always the case is when it looks as though, you know, say for example, from my perspective, he is just being completely unreasonable. You know, I can't, I can't understand why he's doing this. And then it almost always turns out to be a misunderstanding of some kind, know, misunderstanding at the very kind of basic level, understand, misunderstand the communication or misunderstand the intention. And it's only by being willing to kind of stay in that conversation and bring that curiosity that you get to like, ⁓ so when you were coming from this place, that isn't actually, you know, what I thought was going on wasn't at all. It's been such a, such a teacher for me. And yeah, I fully agree. It's, it's, there is no, there's no substitute for that kind of like being willing to kind of be at the coal face of a relationship and, know, keep looking, keep looking, keep looking.

we are coming up on time. There's a, this is kind of might seem like a strange place to kind of almost send it, but it's just been occurring to me. whether you've seen that broadly speaking can be differences in terms of, attachment, attachment wounds. for men versus women. Like I've heard it said before, and I just love to hear your sense of this, that women tend to be more anxious, anxious attachment and men more avoidant. Is that your experience?

Serdar (43:18)

That's been my experience in terms of the people that I've worked with overall. It's tended towards those tendencies,

Lian (43:30)

Hmm, what's your sense as to why that's the case?

Serdar (43:33)

⁓ I think it's there's multiple reasons for that. say one ⁓ explanation for it is that men and women do receive different conditioning as children ⁓ and that conditioning results in different coping mechanisms and ⁓ for men that can mean that ⁓ having more of an avoidant attachment style is just a coping mechanism that works best for men.

You know, men are conditioned to repress their feelings. ⁓ Avoidant attachment is partially a repression of feelings and a repression of their attachment system. ⁓ And it's a more successful coping mechanism in that as a man, you're more likely to, you know, be able to focus on business, focus on work, ⁓ and get through life with an avoidant attachment style as compared to an anxious attachment style. So there's conditioning that plays into that. ⁓ So I think that's one side of it. And for women, the kinds of experiences that they can have, ⁓ you know, the different attachment styles. ⁓ I think statistically, I don't know if there is such a big difference between ⁓ whether men have anxious or avoidant attachment or women have more of one of the other.

Lian (44:39)

Hmm.

Serdar (45:08)

But in terms of the people who receive support from others, it just makes sense that people with an anxious attachment style are more likely to ask for help ⁓ because it's, you when you have an anxious attachment style, you care more about your relationships and you find them more distressing. So for that reason, people who actually ask for help are overrepresented.

Lian (45:30)

Mmm.

Serdar (45:37)

with people with anxious attachment styles and a lot of women are doing the work. ⁓ Women, and if you do have an anxious attachment style, yeah, you're going to be more interested in doing this type of work and being interested in improving your relationships as well.

Lian (45:55)

Yes, of course, that really makes sense. Is there anything that occurs to you that would be a useful thing to share before we close?

Serdar (46:06)

Yeah. One thing that I wanted to add is one of the other downsides of the extremes that you were speaking to when people go down the path of polarity before doing the deeper attachment work. ⁓ Because The idea behind polarity or some versions of it is that there's a certain version of yourself that you're supposed to be. And when a person has attachment wounding that they haven't yet confronted and healed, it's often the case that they missed out

Lian (46:28)

Mmm.

Serdar (46:35)

on consistent love ⁓ and unconditional love when they were child. This is the case for a lot of women and it's the case for a lot of men where they had to be a certain way to receive love. And even then it wasn't consistent. They needed to perform well at school. They needed to be a good boy or a good girl. Right. So that's an attachment, wounding experience for a lot of people. And they grow into adults who are holding that kind of

Lian (46:50)

Mm-hmm.

Serdar (47:04)

conditional self-worth. Now if a person like that hasn't been doing the work to heal that and have this new healing experience to have a more centered sense of their selves and their self-worth and instead they find these people that are saying ⁓ you're not enough, you're not feminine enough or you're not masculine enough, I'm gonna help you, here's what you need to do. What happens is people Then you'll be loved

Lian (47:31)

Then you'll be loved.

Serdar (47:34)

are finally and you'll be attractive to the opposite sex. What then happens is instead of doing the work that's actually required there, they're masking it with this persona and this performative way of being that just becomes a a new version of themselves that is just as disconnected from their authentic selves. because they haven't been guided there. They've been told this is the solution. This is who you can be.

Lian (47:38)

Mm.

Serdar (48:02)

Here's the answer. You can now be the man that you could be or the woman that you you've always wanted to be But what's driving it is this unhealed attachment wound that says I'm not lovable unless You know, I'm approved of by men or women unless women like me I'm not a real man or unless women or unless men like me I'm not a real woman. So this is the downside and the dark side of that world. when a person hasn't first done the healing work. And that's why I say to people, you know, all that other side of things, enjoy that, but first Do the work that allows you to engage with it from this place of being really centered and solid in yourself first, because otherwise you run the risk of, yeah, just developing a persona that's not rooted in who you really are.

Lian (48:56)

Oh, I love that you've said this. It was a kind of, in some ways actually, the reason I wanted to do this episode with you. And I think I was so, it was so clear to me, but I think actually speaking this out, I think is really helpful. So thank you so much. I think that's a really good place to close and where can listeners find out more about you and your wonderful work?

Serdar (49:22)

Sure, so I have a website. So I think it'll be in the show notes, SerdarHararovich.com. ⁓ So you can find out more about me and the work that I do with people there. There's a whole variety of testimonials from people who've done this kind of work with me. And I do focus on the practical skills of secure relating as well as the corrective experiences so that it's a full spectrum journey for people. And I also have a course that's coming up called Opening to Love. And this is for both men and women, which is about developing and mastering the 17 skills of secure relating and authentic attraction and emotional safety and all the things involved in you know, that deeper intimacy that we've been talking about.

Lian (50:15)

Wonderful. Thank you so much. This has been a delight and I must compliment us both on being very sensible throughout this after our struggling to stop laughing before we began to record. I think we've done well. Thank you.

Serdar (50:29)

Yes, we have.

Lian (50:32)

I very much hope you enjoyed watching that and if you did and you're not already subscribed then do hit that bell thingy and subscribe to automatically get each fresh new episode as it's released each week. If you'd like to find out more about the work we do at Be Mythical to guide and support old souls in this new world to live their own unique myth…

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Lots of love for now.

See you again next week.

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