Developing Emotional Intelligence with Eli Harwood

So was that experience secure? Meaning the caregivers that you were in proximity to, were they people who could be emotionally attuned and warm and well regulated? Were they grounded in themselves? Were they calm and secure within their own body, within their own mind? And therefore you experienced this deep relational sense of peace? I'm going to get what I need in my relationships.

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Eli, thanks for joining us today.

Thank you so much for having me.

It is our pleasure.

So how would you get us started? By telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

So I am a therapist, and I've been practicing for almost 17 years. And two years ago in my process, I hit this point where I was like, I have to share some of the information that I have out in the wild because I was a little bit weary. I was weary of sitting with folks, whether they were adults or families, and recognizing that they didn't have they needed to build secure relationships. And so they were healing from all of these repeated interactions that were wounding. And I thought, like, if I could get these people this information ahead of time, a lot of this can be prevented. So I decided to start Attachment Nerd. And Attachment Nerd is basically just me on the Internet running my mouth about all of the data and research about secure relationships and how we can practically apply that data into our lives with the people who matter most to us. So with our sweethearts, with our besties, and with our children. And then I wrote some books. So I wrote a book about how to cultivate that systemic and romantic relationships, which is where most of us tend to have our strongest attachments in adulthood. And it's a workbook. And then I just recently wrote a book about raising securely attached kids. So I'm out here doing therapy, running my mouth. I'm just excited about every single person that I make contact with leaving with more empowerment on what they can do in order to cultivate secure dynamics with the people that matter the most.

I love this. It's such an important piece of information. I shouldn't even call this a piece of information. It's more of a lifestyle and mentality shift that can change everything for you. And now, before we get into this, to the meat of this podcast, I think we should just start off with operational definitions. So when we're talking about secure attachments in any kind of relationship, what does that mean?

So let's start with just defining attachment. So human beings are wired for relationship, so we Are socially oriented. No baby is born and crawls out of the uterus and goes, you know what? I'm going to do this thing solo. That's not a thing. Rely on caregivers for our development, our brain development, our social development, our sense of self. So when we think about how someone is oriented in the world, we think about, were those experiences like, so when you were young and you were experiencing that caregiver attachment? Every child has an attach. But was it like, so was that experience secure? Meaning the caregivers that you were in proximity to, were they people who could be emotionally attuned and warm and well regulated? Were they grounded in themselves? Were they calm and secure within their own body, within their own mind? And therefore you experienced this deep relational sense of peace, I'm gonna get what I need in my relationships. Or did you have. Caregivers had their own unresolved trauma and their own insecure inheritance of patterns, and in that process, they were not able to offer you that sense of security, and so you adapted based on what they could offer because you had to remain attached because you need them. But so you adapted your relational patterns in order to stay attached to somebody with an insecure mindset, pattern, way of relating, et cetera. And so when we're thinking about the trajectory of attachment in someone's life, there's a couple of things to note. One, it's not set in stone. It's not like, oh, well, this is. My parents were insecure, so I'm insecure. And that's my legacy. And forevermore my line of genetics will be insecure. It's something that can flex and change is very nuanced and complex. You don't learn your attachment pattern in only one relationship. So you generally have, you know, you can have relationships with multiple parents, aunties, grandparents, teachers, neighbors, cousins. Right? There's. We have a multi system in attachment. And so you can go back into your story and reflect on what did I experience and how was my sense of self and my sense of relationships and my sense of need formed? But you can also go, wow, that, that was really hard early on, because I know maybe, maybe I know that I had a caregiver with serious postpartum depression and maybe they had postpartum psychosis, you know, something really intense. But then they got treatment and then they got better, and then our relationship shifted, right? Or if we had serious trauma in our early attachment years, meaning we had a sense of being scared of our caregivers. And I don't mean like, ooh, she's pissed I messed up. I mean, like, I'm genuinely afraid of my caregiver. If I had a disorganized experience like that, then when I come into these situations in adulthood, I will have a primal reaction. My, my fight, flight, freeze, fawn. Faint responses will come up. I will want to shut down, not just avoid, dissociate, or I will want to blow up, enter into a sense of reactivity or attack because I am primed to believe that conflict in close relationships is dangerous. And so that's what's happening in my nervous system. So we, we have these sort of four categories to go by. To go, okay, what happened to you? How did it either get healed or get exacerbated as your life journey went on? And where are you now with it? And what is it you need to heal or resolve or understand in order to begin to get to this place where you learn that secure pattern of being simultaneously connected and calm? Ish. I mean, calm doesn't mean you're Zen in a conflict or in a tender moment, but you can, man, you don't feel highly activated or overreactive to those moments. It's like, I'm scared, I feel misunderstood, I'm frustrated. But I can, I can stay sort of here in the moment, and my brain doesn't go to catastrophic or numbing responses to that situation.

Ooh, Eli, this was so good. I've taken so many notes. So let me recap on the main takeaways for the folks listening to this podcast. Because we want to focus on how we can have positive and constructive difficult conversations to improve relationships and solve problems. And there is a lot in here that speaks directly to that. And so let's first focus on just emotional intelligence. Great negotiators, people who can have these difficult conversations. They're great at managing their emotions. Emotions, but also managing the emotions of others. And when it comes to emotional intelligence, it starts with self awareness, starting to recognize where you sit, where your emotions are coming from. This gives us a tool for deeper self awareness because now we can understand where some of these emotions may be coming from naturally for us. And then it also gives us a deeper ability to connect and empathize with others. Because now we can say, oh, wait a second, that was a very harsh response. And it didn't seem like the response matched the gravitude of the stimulus. That response was not about me. And so it helps you to depersonalize that interaction so it can help you to stay a little bit more together during that situation because you're not taking that behavior personally. And so because you can stay in the moment a little bit more, it puts you in a better position to empathize and help them to regulate their emotions. And then lastly, when we're talking about the fact that these are hardwired in, in our childhood, I really appreciate the fact that you talked about the fact that it can be rew fired because now we're talking about the growth mindset, we can recognize that there is something that we can do. So once we identify that maybe there are certain things that we are missing when it comes to our ability to securely attach with other people and have more securely attached relationships in general, now we can say, even though that was my origin story, it doesn't need to be the story for the rest of my life. And this speaks to neuroplasticity. So the brain changes with repeat interactions. And so once we recognize these thought patterns, when we recognize what the challenge actually is, then we can allocate more emotional and mental effort to fighting against some of those hardwired responses to try to create more meaningful relationships that are securely attached.

Preach. That's exactly right. You know, so what's interesting about emotional intelligence is going back to being social creatures. We develop it in relationship. So when you think about potty train a child, let's say that, you know, what you do is you essentially say you watch the child, you attune to the child is that the pee pee dance, you know, and you, you know that look on their face when they're going to get ready to poop and you're like, oh, oh, o that's the one. And you're helping your child recognize the sensations in their body that are related to the need to go to the bathroom, right? So that sensation starts getting linked over and over with language as well. So, oh, this is p right? I need to urinate. We probably don't use that word with our children. I didn't pee pee, pee pee. We got a pee pee. So then the kid learns, oh, I have to pee pee. This is pee pee, right? Oh, I have to poop. This is poop. And as their brain is able to make the connection between the sensation, the word and the action, they potty train. Okay, so this feeling is I need to pee. The word is pee pee means go to the potty. And so over time, that child learns how to interact effectively with that sensation in their body. The same is true for emotion training. So when you are little, if your caregivers respond in the same way that they do to Your need to go to the bathroom. Then what they do is they say, oh, you look sad, you're feeling sad about that. Let me hold you, let me hug you, let me help you feel heard, seen, understood. Oh, you feel scared, let's look at the thing you're scared about. Let's make sure that we take the time to identify what this thing is and how you can process it and what we can do to make you feel safer.

Right.

And so when a child has a secure experience, they naturally become emotionally intelligent because what was happening inside of them was being connected to their caregiver in such a way that they could learn it and study it without shame and also without fear. There was no meta emotion. So if I feel sad and my caregiver responds in a caring way and in a co regulating way, well, I don't have to have another feeling about sadness. But what if I feel sad and my caregiver says, okay, that's enough of that, we're not going to be all, you know, wussy about blah blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, now I feel shame at the same time I feel sadness. That's a lot harder to be intelligent about sorrow when I'm now also navigating shame and maybe also fear because I don't want my caregiver to think I'm weak. So now I've got this multi layered thing and instead of being able to study it and learn it, I'm trying to flee from it. And so therefore I'm going to ignore the sensations in my body related to emotions. And my brain and my nervous system are going to develop around that ignoring and I'm actually going to become less adept at recognizing not only those sensations in my body, but in other people's bodies because I'm going to have this neural pathway that says get to numb, you know, get away from this. And so I don't have that sense of what an empathetic response is or what a, a way of resonating with others is because I don't know how to resonate with myself because no one was resonating with my actual emotional state in that moment. And so now I come into adult relationships and the only thing I really know how to do is flee. And then I look like a jackass because someone's feeling something and I look checked out. And if I'm not checked out because I don't care, I'm checked out because my nervous system has been adapted for that. And actually there's interesting neuroscience research that says if you had an Avoidant experience like I just described, that you have less cell density in your hippocampus. And your hippocampus is responsible for emotional memory and paying attention to emotions and other people. So your brain structure is affected. It's not just you not trying or not caring. It's literally like your brain adapted for an environment in which nobody could handle emotions. And so the shutting down and the moving away from feelings, that was adaptive. That was the right adaptation for that environment. But now you're a grownup and you are in situations that require your capacity to handle and hold emotions and other people's emotions. And so you have to rewire that process. You have to learn to move towards feelings instead of away from feelings in order to help increase that cell density in your hippocampus so that your brain is no longer instinctively shutting down and moving away from your feelings and other people's feelings.

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There is so much here, Eli. Now let me let's chart a path for the listeners. So before we talk about how we can identify these patterns in relationships and make them better, I want to take a brief detour. For the parents out there who are freaking out, who are saying, oh my goodness, I've got some work to do. So let's talk about how we can start to as parents, even if we may not have been doing the things that lead to a secure attachment, how there is still always time to recalibrate a relationship and get it back on track.

Well, what I want everyone to do is I want you to imagine in your own experience of being parented. So I want you to imagine your parents and I want you to imagine something that intuitively felt painful in that relationship with them. Maybe they Dismissed what you felt. Maybe they were, they mocked, mocked you in those moments. Or maybe they did the opposite. They went too far. They were too intense about what you were feeling. Are you okay? Are you okay now? Are you okay now? But the experience with your parent was a moment where they weren't able to offer you that type of attuned connection. We all know this. Every single human being knows this in our body system because there is no perfect parent. So think about that moment. Now imagine that your parent reflects on that moment and they come to you and they say, hey, I want to talk to you about something. I've been thinking about when you were little or when you were a teenager or when you were going through X, Y or Z. I didn't know what to do with your emotions and I moved away from them or I hovered over them or I and they were to offer you some validation around what they weren't able to do. Imagine how powerful that would be at 80 years old, at 70 year old. There is no point in our journey as human beings where a repair from our parents isn't magical. There is magic in the parent child relationship. And so I would say we're not going to be perfect. This research is also really beautiful. It tells us that secure parents and children are in sync 30% of the time. So you got a wow, 3%, you know, which is super helpful because we have laundry to do, we have work to attend to, we have other relationships. Like it's not about being perfectly in sync. It's about really focusing in on those high moments. So we want to show up for our kids during those moments when they are experiencing pride, joy, milestones and those low, low moments when they're tender and distress. So I'm going to break this down into four very simple things to remember. We're going to show up. We're going to show up in those moments when they're tender as much as we can. If we haven't done that in the past, we're going to acknowledge it and we're going to do better. That's it. It doesn't have to be a big, huge, complicated thing. It's like, hey, I have not known how to handle your feelings. I'm going to work on learning how to handle mine and I'm going to try and handle yours better. Let's go. And it's going to be a process and I'm going to mess up and I'm going to apologize. So we're going to show up in those tender moments and those triumphant Moments, we're looking for those two things. Then we're going to light up when we see our children. When our children wake up in the morning, we are going to light up. Toni Morrison said this. I just learned recently. It's something I've been saying for a while, and I didn't know she'd said it, but she said, you know, when your children walk in the room, does your face light up? Okay. Yes. I think that children raise parents as much as parents raise children. If we are healthy and secure, that's happening. So we're going to be the kind of people that hear our children because we also want them to know they have a voice. We want them to go out into the world and believe they are worthy of being listened to. So we're going to. We're going to go through this again. Show up, light up, listen up. And then, because we are human, we are going to get out of sync. We're going to mess up. We're going to be tired. Our shit's going to get activated. So when all of those things are happening and we're out of sync, and maybe. Maybe it's their stuff happening that's making us out of sync. Doesn't matter. We're going to make up. So we're going to become the leaders of repair. So in those relationships, when things are off course, rather than trying to be right or in charge or dominant in some way, we're going to pause. We're going to look for maturity in our nervous system. We're going to remember that we have the more mature brain, and that's an advantage that our children don't have. And we're going to go back to our children and we're going to say, hey, I'm so sorry I responded so harshly. I really just didn't know how to handle that situation. Can I have a redo? Let's do a redo together. I really want to hear what you're trying to get me to hear. I know I couldn't hear it right. We're going to try and model for them the process of moving from rupture to repair. And we're going to do that in such a way that they're going to learn how to do it in their other relationships. Instead of having a whole world of people that are so determined to win a conversation that they can't get to the end of the negotiation, we want a world of people that can pol. Pause in those moments, regulate their bodies, and return to connection in order to find the solution. So that's what we're working on. We're, we're lighting up, we're showing up now. I've got it out of order and I can't do it. Out of order. We're making up. What are we doing? What's the other one? What I missed?

Listening up.

Thank you. You are listening good.

No, this is great. And I think the most powerful thing for me listening to this is that it is doable. This is all doable. And I love that you brought in that neuroscience research about just 30%, I think that's so impressive.

And yeah, that's from a longitudinal study from Edtronics work, by the way. So he did some incredible work that over, you know, the last probably like 50 years now. But there's a 30 year study connected to that data. So we're really looking not just at like one little tiny study. It's like, okay, this is what we know. It's not a 247 thing.

Incredible.

And that repair is huge. In fact, he has a book called the Power of Discord where he talks about exactly what you're talking about, which is it is in these conflictual moments in our relationships that we grow and we learn and we deepen our intimacy if it's handled in a secure way.

I like that because it's showing that conflict really is an opportunity. And a lot of times when we're shying away from that and avoiding these conversations, we are avoiding the very thing that actually strengthens our relationships.

Yes. I say conflict is discovery. So when you are in a moment of tension in a relationship, there is something that has not been uncovered. It might be something about your history, your nervous system, your body, your current context. It might be something about their history, their nervous system, their current context. It might be something about the dynamic between you. But there are uncovered needs. Right. And the job of conflict is to dig around to figure out what they are. Though they might be needs of understanding, they might be physical needs. Right. And you know, conflict with adults is different than conflict with children. Obviously, I'm not, you know, when my husband and I are in a conflict, it's not my job to figure out if he needs a snack or a nap or whether or not, you know, he's feeling something from his childhood. That's his job. Right. And my job is to be open enough and receptive enough and curious enough that we can go through that discovery process together that we can say to each other, oh, here we are, here's some tension. I wonder what this is about. And we can co discover together what's my stuff, what's his stuff, what's our stuff? You know, what's. Maybe just the moment I, I don't know, raising kids. Sometimes our conflicts are just like, yeah, it, this isn't a real fight. We're just overstimulated and we just need to like get all the children to bed. And then we're like, I like you, I like you. We're fine, everything's fine. That wasn't a thing. It was just too much screaming, pulling and touching from the others. But we're helping them discover the needs underneath the conflict and the behavior they're using to try to communicate about the conflict so that as grownups, hopefully they aren't hitting anybody when they feel left out.

This is so good. I am immediately already a better parent. So thank you. This is great because it gives us layers. Right. Because I'm thinking about last night. Dominic was hitting Kai. He's always a little one causing problems, you know, and I'm like, Dominic, please stop hitting Kai. But now it allows me to go a little bit deeper. Hey Dominic, let's move you away from Kai so you can stop hitting Kai. Because you're just lucky your 8 year old brother is so nice.

Totally. And has so much more prefrontal cortex than you do.

Exactly.

Because the two year old lacks impulse control on a brain level and maybe in moments when they're very well regulated, they appear to have to know better. They appear to have impulse control, but in high stress, exhaustion, et cetera, that's going to go way down. And their ability to self restraining is extremely low. Whereas the eight year old has some of those skill sets.

Exactly. No, that's, that's good too. That's really important to keep in mind. And it's when we can have those conversations we can say, all right, cool, there was the bad behavior, let's address that bad behavior. But it is important to figure out what caused this bad behavior. Where did this come from? And I think sometimes in our adult relationships we are almost afraid to figure out what led to bad behavior in others because it's almost like I don't want to provide them with an excuse, a justification. And that often holds people back from exploring. So can you talk a little bit about that?

Oh, this is so good. This could be a 12 hour conversation between you and I. Because there's complexity around here. We don't want to enable violence. And in America we have a very terrible history of violence. Right. And so there's an activation, there's A trigger around those moments when we see adults acting poorly in conflict, then that's going to make us go into a place where we don't want to explore the why behind the what because we're so traumatized by how much what there has been. Right. And I mean, I can speak to that as a white woman, and I'm sure you have thoughts about that as a black man that are probably a lot deeper and more complex than my own lived experience of that. Right. So we're always sitting in a historical context. Right. Whether that's our personal history, our corporate history, we're all sitting in that. And the fear is if we allow. I'm putting this in quotation marks. If we allow bad behavior by being curious about what's behind it. The fear is that now we've enabled it and we've justified it and we've excused it. And I would argue that being curious about the why behind the what doesn't mean we're allowing the what. It doesn't mean that we've said the what. Make it. That's okay. Oh, you hit me because you learned how to hit in your family system growing up, it's okay that you hit me? Nah. No, no, no. I am still going to be curious about where did you learn that your fists were more powerful than your voice? Tell me the story of where you learned that, because we want you to unlearn it, because it doesn't actually feel good for you or for me. We are not excusing behavior when we're trying to understand it. We're cultivating the path of out of that behavior. I think there's a fear that if we respond to someone with some level of humanity in that moment, that we lose our own humanity. And I just don't think that's true.

Yes. And I would say, too, it requires a lot of personal strength and resilience to even be able to do something like this. And I think somebody might be listening and saying, it's not fair for me to have to do this. And I would agree it is not fair. Fair. And fairness is not what we're talking about. What we're doing is we're talking about giving yourself the permission to do what's best for you, to solve the problems that are in front of you and build the relationships that you want to build. And a lot of that requires us to do things that might not seem fair, but they are required in order to take that step. Right. Because I think about times where just in life, I mean, outside of difficult Conversations or whatever, we've all found ourselves in tough situations that, that we are in through no fault, on our own. But that does not change the fact that it is our responsibility to do what's best for ourselves and take action. And so I think just taking the time to appreciate that and recognize that people might say, that's not fair, that I have to do this. It certainly isn't. And that is a very valid emotion. But when it comes to actually having these conversations and making positive change, a lot of times it requires. Requires us to do things that might not feel fair or might not feel comfortable. But like we said, the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. And that is not always comfortable.

Well, and fair is an illusion. It actually doesn't exist. There is no fairness in the world. And so I don't use fair with my children. I'm not trying to tell them that things are fair because they aren't. And, you know, this is a longer discussion about the difference between equality and equity. Right. But what I say to my kids is, I'm going to do what I can to get everybody what they need, and what everybody needs is going to be different. Right. And so when we come into a situation where it's clearly unfair, maybe we have more of an oppressed identity or lived experience, and we're dealing with someone that doesn't have those things, but they are more dysregulated than we are, or they are less adept at these conversations. Is it unfair that we might have to help that person get to a more regulated place in order to do the thing that we need? No, it's not fair, but it's real. And so the question is, can we move into serenity? Can we focus on what we can control? We can't control the fact that they have had privileges we haven't had, but we can control how we respond to them and what we do and who we are in that situation. And focusing on what's in my power, and there's a lot of stuff that's not in our power. And again, I don't think that's doled out equally. I know it's not doled out equally. I mean, I watch myself as a white woman in the world, I'm like, there is so much advantage on my side of the. The page. It's insane. It's not doled out equally. But that isn't something we can control. We can control how we dole things out. We can control the way in which, you know, we use our particular influence in the world, but we cannot change the systemic dynamics. So rather than getting stuck in that kind of. I think there's a grief process. We have to have a grief process around that where it's like, this isn't fair. And I'm going to let myself have a moment and I'm going to let myself stamp my feet about it and I'm going to have some tears about it and whatever, but then I'm going to move through that so that I don't lose influence and power over the things I do have at my behest, over the things I don't have. Right.

Yes. I love that. And really what it comes down to is moving from feeling powerless to being empowered. And I think it speaks directly to self efficacy. Essentially what we're doing is we are starting to create these patterns of performance where we're saying, hey, my behavior, my words and action can have a positive impact on the outcome. And then we build in confidence and then it makes it more likely for us to take action. And then what you start to see is that not just these individual relationships start to improve, but all of our relationships start to improve because it just takes one person to improve the quality of the relationship. And if you can see yourself as a leader in the relationship, starting these conversations, willing to be brave and vulnerable and courageous and having these conversations, then you're going to start to see things change. And it has to start with you.

Amen. And again, there's going to be, for some people, some grief around that. Like, why does it have to start with me? Oh, I don't know. There's no good. Why for that. It just. I don't know why. And here we are. And so what does it look like to take a hold of the things you can control and make some change, knowing that it's not fair, but it's also, I don't know, it's not fair. And when I've walked with clients over the years, I would say the majority of people I work with have been in deeply unfair situations. And when they take a hold of the things that they can change, I don't know, they come out of it with an advantage that far outweighs some of the disadvantages that they went through. Right. Because now not only have you gone through hard stuff, you came out the other side and you learned these skills, and now you're building relationships in a way that is so hopeful that it doesn't matter so much anymore that you had to go first.

You know, that's powerful. That is powerful. I really do feel like it is a, you know, a bit of a superpower to be able to see a bad situation or find yourself in a bad situation and say to yourself with confidence and truth and say, I have survived far worse than this and I have the skills and tools to make this better. It might not be fair, but it doesn't need to be. I can still step up and make the situation better. So this is incredibly empowering. Eli, I appreciate you coming on the show so much. Before you go, please remind the listeners about the book you've already written, the book that's coming up, the podcast, and how they could work with you.

Okay, so the first book, if you were listening to this and you were thinking like, oof, I got some stuff, I got like, for sure. There's family dynamics living in my nervous system that I haven't resolved and they're coming out in my present day relationships. The first book is called Securely Attached. Transform your attachment patterns into loving, lasting, romantic relationships. My publisher made me put the word romance in there, but it's not just for romance. So if you are single, not single, if your problems are with friends, it doesn't matter. This book will walk you through your story. So I basically have taken it so that you're going to walk through what happened to you and how did it impact you? How did that create an attachment pattern which then affected your mindsets, which also affected your patterns of need and relationship. It's not like everybody's favorite thing to do a workbook like that, but I tell you with certainty it will make a difference in your life. And then the second book comes out September 3rd and that raising securely attached kids. So that's really for parents, teachers, therapists, you know, all those who are guiding children in the world to really walk you through the science and the art of helping kids feel seen, known and guided securely. And then I have a website. There's stuff there. I have a little membership, I have a lot of classes and I do like live virtuals and stuff like that. And you can find me all over social media at the Attachment Nerd.

We love this. Eli, thank you so much for coming on the show. Really appreciate it.

Thank you much. So thank you so much for having me. I absolutely love this conversation and I love your energy and what you're doing in the world.

Thank you so much.

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I'll catch you later.