Creating Secure Attachment Part 2 Consistency

Welcome, everybody. Today's presentation of Pacer Integrative Behavioral Health. We are continuing with our series on attachment and mental health. And today we are going to talk about consistency. Consistency communicates a lot of things to people. Consistency communicates that you, you as a person, that the world is trustworthy. So when we're consistent, we are demonstrating to ourselves, to others, that there is trustworthiness in the world. And there's a certain requirement, if you will, for having trustworthiness in order to feel safe. Another thing that consistency communicates is predictability. When we are consistent in the way we act, the way we react, what we do, what we expect, then that creates a environment that is relatively predictable. Now, it doesn't necessarily mean you like it, but it means it's predictable. So consistency allows you to use your schema or your memories, if you will, to anticipate what's going to happen. What does consistency in relationships look like, though? When you are consistent, it means keeping promises. If you say you're going to do something, you do something. That's good consistency. I mean, people who regularly break their promises, obviously they're consistent in that too. But we want to develop positive consistency here. So keeping your promises, doing what you say, clearly articulating and maintaining structure and routine, it's really important. You know, little children don't understand what's expected. And if you expect them to read your mind and quote, know how they're supposed to react or what they're supposed to do, they're probably not going to be really successful. Then they're going to get upset, or you're going to get upset, and they're going to get upset. Nobody's going to understand what's going on. So it's really important that we clear, really articulate. You know, what do we expect in the classroom? What do we expect at the dinner table? What do we expect your chores to look like? You know, you get the idea here. The same thing in adult relationships. We need to clearly articulate what we expect in a relationship in order to establish consistency. What is it that we want and what do we want this relationship to look like? Now, you don't have to get overly consistent. People who are more spontaneous might find that too much consistency can get oppressive at times. But it is important to be able to predict and understand a little bit about what your, what the other person wants and expects in a relationship, because that, that reduces a lot of stress between the two of you. If my husband comes home and he's had a bad day, I know how he's going to react. And after 24 years, you know, I know, you know, kind of what he needs in terms of space and responsiveness and all that kind of stuff. But when we first met and we first got together, I did not know that I had to learn that he had to clearly articulate and communicate to me what it was that he needed me to do to be consistent. Authenticity also improves consistency. When we are living authentically, we are, and we're not being a chameleon, then people know what to expect. We, most of us have had a friend or a family member who was regularly sort of chameleon. Like, you never knew exactly which version of that person was going to show up because it depended so much on the situation and where you, where you were and who you were with. When we live authentically, instead of trying to change our colors to fit in with whomever, wherever we are, living authentically helps us be more consistent. People know who we are. They know what to expect. You know, if Donnelly shows up, they know what to expect from me because I am pretty, pretty much an open book and I am pretty authentic in my presentation, no matter where I go. And that really helps in relationships because then there's no guessing about, well, what does this person really want? And, you know, what types of things can we expect? Open communication is the other issue. And I talked a little bit earlier about trying to make sure that we are not expecting mind reading. People cannot be consistently there for us and we don't appear consistent to them. If we are expecting them to read our mind and know what we want and when we want it, we need to openly communicate our thoughts, wants, and needs. Now, one of the caveats here before you can be consistent with other people, ideally, you're consistent with yourself. I know that's a radical idea here. When you make promises to yourself, you say, I am going to, you know, stop criticizing myself so much or I am going to allow myself to go to the spa on the weekend or whatever it is you do. You keep those promises. You are consistent with yourself. You don't deny your needs. You keep the promises that you make. You identify a structure and routine that works for you, and you're consistent with yourself. You are consistent in your mindfulness. You regularly check in with yourself and go, hey, what are my thoughts, wants and needs at this moment? Imagine that. Imagine what would happen if you regularly checked in with yourself like that in order to kind of keep a pulse on what was going on with you so you could respond. Drumroll, please, consistently, to meet get your needs met. So once you start recognizing what you need and you start being consistent with yourself, a lot of times you'll start expecting others to be similarly consistent. And it's important to think about who in your life right now is relatively consistent. You know, we're not always all good at being consistently consistent. I think a lot of us could improve in that area. But thinking about the significant others in your life who is consistent and it doesn't necessarily have to be, you know, intimate others, you know, best friends or spouses or something like that. My old boss, I worked for him for 14 years and he was as consistent as the sunrise. You know, I could expect. When he would come into work, he would be dressed in a three piece suit with matching shoes. And his presentation was the same whether we were at work or at a conference or I was doing some sort of community appearance with him. He was very consistent and authentic in his presentation. And that's one of the things that I sort of strived to model in, in learning how to be consistent myself and learning how to be more authentic. It was something that I admired in him. But you know, who else in your life is consistent, is predictable, you know that, you know, the person or the reaction that you're probably going to get, again, it, sometimes it's negatively consistent, you know, they're going to be critical, okay, you know, at least it's consistent. So you know what to expect and you can plan for it, you can figure out how to mitigate it. I had one person in my life who, and it came from a place of love, but it was just, I think the way she was raised, that she always had to have some constructive feedback that usually didn't come out so constructively every time she came to visit. And one day my husband kind of pulled me aside before she came to visit one time and he said, you know, she's going to have something snarky to say, so just let her get it out of your, out of her system and then it'll all be good. And he was right. You know, she just, that was just one thing she had to do. I, I don't know where, why or where it came from wasn't worth addressing, but it was very consistent and it was very predictable. So to respond to that, to help keep myself safe, to keep myself from feeling attacked or hurt or when that happened, you know, he had a very good suggestion. Just recognizing that it comes from a place of love and it, she's going to do it, but generally once she gets it out of her system, it's done, and then the pressure's off and you can go along having your good time. And that was so meaningful to me to really be able to reframe it that way. So consistency can also help you figure out how to mitigate stress with people who are, you know, sometimes challenging to be around. And then it's important to think about how you can improve the consistency in your relationships. You know, for example, for me, I am really good at keeping promises. If I tell somebody I'm going to do something, I do my darndest to do it. I mean, last week, for example, we had the, the snowstorm and we were snowed in. Well, I had told you guys I was going to be here at 3 o' clock starting last week, and since I had didn't have Internet, I couldn't do that. But I was in the chat room and so I was able to interact with some of you via chat. And for the members, I was able to interact with you via Snapchat and the Discord server. So although it wasn't the way I had ideally planned, it was important to me to keep that obligation. So consistency, for me, that's what I'm pretty good at. Same thing with articulating and maintaining structure and routine, because I'm a J. I love my structure, but sometimes I don't communicate as openly as I probably could. And when we get down to attention, we'll talk about some of that a little bit later too. But I don't always reach out to people and I'm not as consistent at, you know, it's not like I, my, my husband calls his mother every week, you know, kind of like clockwork. And I'm not that consistent with following up with my friends. And I could, I could do better at that. I could do better at consistently touching base. It's not something that really takes that much time and it goes a long way to, you know, just kind of reaching out and virtually tapping them on the shoulder and going, hey, how you doing? Just letting you know I'm still here and I'm thinking about you. How awesome is that? For increasing trustworthiness, predictability, and nurturing that relationship. So remember, in effective attachments, we have six characteristics. Consistency, responsiveness, attention, validation, encouragement, and support. And we're going to talk about each one of those throughout the week. Today we talked about consistency and I would encourage you to think about ways. Well, think about why consistency could, in your relationships, could help reduce stress and improve the communication and improve the quality of your relationships. Then start thinking about how you can be more consistent with yourself, with your own self care and how you can be more consistent in your relationships with other people. So good afternoon to those of you who have logged in. In terms of coping with a parent with borderline or narcissistic personality disorder. I do have a video on the YouTube channel on Surviving the borderline parent. And that is the really long version of the answer that I would give. And you know, one of the main things is depending on the age of the child, making sure that the interventions are age appropriate. Younger children who are still egocentric are going to have a really hard time understanding the the boundaries that are on roller skates. So helping them figure out a way to stay safe, helping them figure out a way to feel empowered and protect themselves, you know, again with the safety from the chaos that is existing in their household. In terms of people with ADHD, again, there's a video on the YouTube channel on strategies for dealing with ADHD. And you know, it really depends on the symptoms that are presenting in that particular child and what's causing those symptoms. For some re. For some children, their blood sugar levels, you know, if they're not get if their blood sugar dips during the day, it may cause more acting out behaviors. Other children that doesn't bother them. So in terms of addressing any mental health issue, it's really important to examine what are the triggers for the unwanted behavior and what are alternate behaviors that are amenable to the child that can help them, you know, for example, organization. If disorganization is one of their problems, younger children, you're going to need to be more directive. Older children, it's really important to empower them to brainstorm ways that they can be more organized in or and help them set small micro goals so they can have those successes. In term for you. For y' all who are asking all these questions, they're great questions. Please remember to you can email me at wellness underscore1@yahoo.com that's wellness underscore1yahoo.com and I will go through these questions and have more detailed answers for you on Monday's shows. But. Are there other mental health related questions? Welcome jane, I'm glad you were here. Hi morgan, kim, adele. So remember the email is wellness oneahoo.com and I check that. I generally just check it once a week on either Saturday or Sunday. That way I can prepare for Monday's show. And for those of you who are members, it's you can join me in my discord chat room by downloading Discord and clicking on the link. Or if you go into the community section on the YouTube channel you can click on that and if you are a member you will be able to access the members only messages that have my Snapchat handle. Alrighty everybody, have a wonderful day. I have got a 3:30 meeting so I am going to have to run but I will see you tomorrow same time, same station.