S2-E4- What Judges Want- Robert Cordoba

7.02. We can breakfast. Psychological wellness. Welcome. Dr. Gorsi Gianni. So this morning we're having a look at a conversation about are we really attracted to types? People will tell you they have a type. My type is X, whatever it is and it can be pretty standard. Sometimes it's random like people who are attracted to, to people or short people or people who are lawyers, right? But are you actually attracted to a person or are you attracted to a pattern? And what is the difference? How do you know you're attracted to a person versus being attracted to a pattern? Maybe you have some thoughts on whether humans are attracted to people. So we have a type or you're attracted to a pattern. How has it worked out for you? Do you think it's been people you're attracted to or patterns you're attracted to or have you been attracted to both at different times in your life? And that's a message on 07-2-7-021-7-022. Send us an SMS on 317-02. Okay, what's the ring? Join the conversation on 011-883-07-02. Joining us as always is our resident clinical psychologist. Dr. Gorsi Gianni. Dr. Gianni, good morning. Hey, very good morning to you, good. And are you back from Nairobi? You were in Nairobi. Yes, I was. I flew back. I landed around one this morning and I was just saying, I can't leave you guys for a moment and you can't close the freezer. I mean, what is this? It is so pretty and cold. Yeah, we are all inside words this week. We are talking about. So this morning we are talking about, I guess the things we tell ourselves, the ways in which we navigate, attraction, love, relationships, and whether in fact those things are true. So often people will say, I have a type or we've all at some point said to another person, you have a type because we've seen that they date or get into a relationship with people that have similar characteristics, traits. There's something that ties them together. There's a similarity. But is that a thing? Are we attracted to people? Are we attracted to patterns? What I think is very interesting. Yeah, so it's a very interesting question because I think it's not one or the other. Aha. So I think it's more a spectrum, firstly, but also that the types are more than what we socially would look at. So the types are more the symptoms that if we use the iceberg, the types are more the tip of the iceberg, what we can socially identify and say they are this type. Whereas the patterns are the fundamentals. They are what sits below the waterline. You know, if we take that iceberg analogy, because it is the patterns that sit below the waterline that are likely to drive us to the types of people that we would see. So the types are the most available. Everybody can say this very commonly, but not everybody has access to what's driving the types, which is the patterns and this is much deeper. This is where now the psychology sits where we go now to the attachment theories, right, around what will draw us to these patterns. So there's fundamentals that sit there that will be will manifest as the types of people that we tend to be attracted to if that makes sense. Right. So it isn't either or it's kind of it's kind of both. So what do our types, what do they indicate to us, what do they point to that suggests the pattern. So if I am attracted to people who are generally emotionally unavailable, that could be my type. I could say, you know, yeah, you know, I want to casual thing. I like a casual thing. But in there is a pattern of behavior both mine and the other person. Yeah. So when we speak about pattern, it's not just about the pattern of behavior of the other person, but yours as well, how do you behave in relation to this type? Right. It's the dance that we enter into, the contracts that we enter into with each other. So the choices in people are very conscious, like you consciously choose this person, but the drives beneath that are more the unconscious. What we often don't know about ourselves until we kind of have to pause for a moment and say, okay, and generally, you know, this is not the common language that people have everyday access to. These are things we have to learn about ourselves as human beings around what drives us. The attachment, our needs, basic fundamental relational needs, as we always say, we are social relational beings. And then in intimacy, what are we seeking to do? They're all looking for connection. They're longing to belong. Right. And it is. And it is then that which will drive us to certain people. And that is informed by what happened in our formative years. That's why we always go there. Because as we always say, we learn who we are by how the significant others in our formative years treat us. And so when our parental figures, depending on the relationship that they form with us, we will then end up in those types of relational drives where we talk about attachment styles of avoidance, of neediness and so on. These are ways in which we seek closeness and protection. And these are subconscious, mostly unconscious drives. And they happen mostly. We realize that they can be sources of conflict in the relationship or when there is conflict. How do we make sense of it? And what does it say to us about us in terms of our relational needs? So for example, the enthusiastly attached person says there's a neediness, whereas an avoidance attached person needs space. And so that's the dance that we enter into. As you were saying, if I'm attracted to people who are more likely to be avoided, attachment style wise. But at the surface of things, they will be different people. But there's a common principle between all of them. And that's what we want to look at from a pattern point of view, which is more about your attachment fundamentals, which take us back to your formative years. Yeah. And so, you know, someone I think, well, I mean my 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, I find it hard to believe that things that happened in my childhood could still be shaping my behavior. It could still have such a big impact because while that was 2013, 40 years ago. But what happens in those kind of foundational moments that then becomes so impactful that it can continue to impact your relationships and not just romantic relationships. Our attachment styles, manifest, friendships, etc. But what is it that happens? Why is it so the things that happen when we are very, very young? Why are they so impactful? Because we are born into vulnerability, right? If we, an infant is helpless, we are lying on our backs, we can't do anything for ourselves. We are dependent on others. And birth is our first experience of separation. And that is our first existential crisis, so to speak. Because now suddenly, you know, you are out of the nirvana of the womb. And there is a sense of separation. And as an infant, you need to attach. And this is where, because at that age, where our brains are formative, we are more like a, a shemi. We absorb everything, become so fundamental because that then lays the fundamental infrastructure and template of how we become in our formative years. And whether the adults in our lives, those that we depend on, our caregivers are sufficiently available to meet our needs or the opposite. They may be, we may feel smothered by them because perhaps out of their own needs. You know, vicariously, they end up smothering you as a child. And therefore, those are the people that will become more likely to become avoidant, where too much closeness they feel engulfed. I think a couple of weeks ago, we spoke about limmerance. Yes. And this is the similar space that we are in in this type of conversation. And therefore, it becomes so important because that lays the template. It sets the infrastructure upon which, you know, the scaffolding, our relational scaffolding. And it kind of becomes the template or reference point for our closeness, our need for closeness and our need for independence. And it is that stance that we enter into in our relationships with others because we are seeking at that stage, at deeply at that unconscious level to arrive at a sense of feeling safe, psychological and emotional safety. These are the fundamentals that drive how we interact, the ebb and flow, how we dance with each other. And importantly, because generally our intimate partners are the people that we are going to feel most vulnerable to. Right. By virtue of, yes, so that's where we are most likely to feel and feel that sense of either being nurtured or feeling abandoned or feeling engulfed or smothered. So those are the dynamics that we are navigating there. A couple of weeks ago, although this year has gone so far, it may have been a couple of months ago, you and I had a conversation about the interesting way in which your brain sometimes resists a thing that is different for something that is familiar. Even if that which is different is good for you or better for you or objectively positive, and you said your brain doesn't work on ideas or concepts. Your brain seeks out what is concrete, what it can prove, and sometimes what it can prove is what is familiar. So we've done a thing a particular way, we've lived in a particular place, we've lived in that kind of routine or things that are not new. And so even if it becomes a circuitry. Yes, that this is how we do things. This is where we are safe. And it feels that even with as we seek out this longing to belong, we want people to love us and that we can love back. Even there is a part of which our brains again kind of seek out what we know. If my father was emotionally avoidant or abusive, I am likely to seek that out because that is familiar. My brain says, we know this, we recognize this. This is our normal. There is that shit, there is that shit, there is that magnetic resonance. It's like, yes, I know this. And therefore I am likely to go there in the hope that this time with this one, this doesn't happen. But I am likely to go there because this is what I know. Where is what I don't know. My brain says, I hear you, but I don't know that. I hear you. Conceptually, I hear you. I understand that this is what you want. I hear, I understand that. And yet, it responds more to what it knows than what it knows from lived experience. Let me put it that way because then there is resonance, there is that entrainment. It has a place. It's like a jigsaw puzzle. We recognize each other. We know this. We know this and therefore we are likely to gravitate to that. Whereas it takes effort to go to an unfamiliar place, hence the brain goes to what it knows. Because that gives it safety even if actually it's not in its best interest. But survival says this is where you're going to go. And in the hope that you can find a way to make this work rather than risk doing something that you don't know. And so it sounds as though part of what is happening here is something not bigger, but a little bit sort of a little more complex than we realize. So if someone keeps dating the same person or getting into relationships with the same people and they follow the same kind of script, it almost sounds as if sometimes they're not conscious of that. It's almost, I don't want to call it autopilot, but it's, you know, this is how I've always done things. Yes, this is how I've always done things. This is the way it feels right and normal. So I'm going to keep doing it. And even if someone were to say to you, I think you have a type or you're dating the same person, even that isn't enough to kind of interrupts that subconscious that you call it a magnetic pull. Yeah, even that sometimes isn't enough. Yes, we have to enter into conscious relationships with ourselves and other people. And so I mean, I've said this before, relationships are not about making us happy. They're about making us conscious. They're about awakening us to our fundamental calibration in terms of our relational calibration. And so when we are away, we can then relate consciously or differently. But otherwise we keep repeating because there is that wound that wants, that is asking for healing. And we enter into cycles of unconscious relationship until we pause for a moment. And this generally, you know, as I say, this is the kind of stuff that you need someone with a professional eye and understanding and lens, who can, you know, take you to that. And as I would call it back to revisiting the crime scene and connecting the dots for us. And helping us work with the childhood wounds that we are asking others to heal for us. And then we don't do the work ourselves. That is why we will always point at someone else. So we will point at my father to me. My boyfriend did this, my next boyfriend did this and this one and this one. I don't know what's wrong with me. These people do this, this, this, this, this. And that's because we are unconscious. We keep repeating the script, you know, as Caroline Maze. Life will get you until you get it. Right. And so then how do we, I guess if you're thinking, okay, I do you have a type? I do keep repeating a particular pattern or relationship. And I would like to interrupt that pattern or choose a different pattern. It feels as though it's not going to be easy because it requires you to go to places that you probably don't want to go. No, no, no, no, we don't want to go there. It's easier to change the person and go through another honeymoon and hope that this one is the one. Until of course we get through the honeymoon and then the real fundamentals come to the surface. And what happens then is that we get trapped in the same vicious cycle. We try it this time. We try and hope that this time it's going to work out differently. But if we don't do the work necessary for ourselves and each other. And this is where, you know, couples therapy, this is this is the time when it's ideal. That we can recognize ways in which we press each other's buttons. Because you press their buttons as much as they press yours. So if you are an anxiously attached person, you're more likely to sleep out and avoidant person. And by your anxiety, you need more of them and they feel engulfed and they withdraw. And so we enter into this, a tormented, kind of relationship, you know, the cartoon characters chasing each other. And you want more and they feel when you want more, you're too needy and they, you know, they retreat. And that then drives so we enter into this kind of a vicious cycle with each other. And it is when we can enter into a healing journey with each other of sitting with each other and seeing what in my childhood, what wounding in my childhood, you represent. And therefore, how do I heal? How do I heal the child that was, you know, wounded by an avoidant and unavailable disengaged father, you know, child relationship, so to speak. And equally so, how does the other person also recognize their own fear of engulfment so that they don't just run, but we can sit in this fire, you know, with each other. And we can learn to self-sue, then we can learn to be conscious in our relationship with each other and can enter into healthy engagement around. I feel I start to feel abandoned when this and this and this happens and the other person I start to feel entarved when this and this happens. And how do we enter into a conscious relationship with each other? How do I as an anxiously avoidant person, anxiously attached person, how do I learn to self-sue rather than project my needs and my wounding on another person to do the work for me that I need to do with myself, for myself, to learn to self-sue, to learn to sit with my fear of being abandoned or rejected and so on. And that's the conscious relationship that we want to work towards. This also reminds me I'm going to forget the author, but I think it was earlier this year last year I read a quote which I thought was so interesting and it said, we heal in community. So just in the sense that you can do all of the work, I guess, in isolation by yourself, but the extent to which you feel will become obvious when there is another person, they will then as you kind of rush up against each other, that kind of will bring up. Okay, these are the bits that I feel these are the bits that are not so even as you try to figure out like what are the things that I'm going to do. the birds I need to hear, some of them may only become obvious in relation to another person because we are the social relational beings. Yes, it helps when we do that. But unfortunately, the irony is that if we don't do the healing work, that's when we are most likely to not be in relationship or we are going to do the serial relationships, you know, we move from one to the next in blind faith or blind hope that things will work out differently this time, but we don't do the work necessary, which then means we are less likely to heal. And therefore, we are more likely to repeat the wounding cycles rather than the opposite that we want, ideally that's what we want to achieve, but we may not be going about the right way and therefore we are more likely to end up in exactly what we are not wanting to end up in, which is out of relationship. And ideally, yes, we would like to heal in community that is not always possible. But if we think about how you can see yourself as a system and we have sufficient relational experience to be able to work with, you know, so I often say, you know, it would be ideal if you came to therapy with your partner, but that's not always possible. Right. So you yourself represent a system and you can work with that system so that you are a better person to be in relationship with someone else. And when your wounding comes up and shows up, you're able to recognize it and own what is your stuff rather than what we tend to do, which is to project on another person. They are abandoning me as opposed to me recognizing this is my wound. And this is my fear that's being, you know, triggered by this and how do I learn the more healthier ways of dealing with that and how do I learn to sit with this and know that this is not there. You know, it's not always there responsibility to do for me the work that I need to do for myself. Whoever wants a voice note, that's come through on 07272172. Good morning, Dr. Kosi. It's Titi here. Dr. K, I just wanted to ask you this question. Now that the brain gravitates to what is familiar, to what is known, to eat. How then do we rewire ourselves to say this is not what I know and things can be different? How do we come to that space? Thank you, Dr. K. Dr. Jiane? Yes. Good question, Titi, as always. So this is what we're talking about. I was alluding to just now to say where ideally relationships are what will show us where our wounds are. And this is where we need to learn to identify where our wounding comes from and understand that these are the people that I just there to remind us or to press the buttons so that we can see where the wound is and work with that wound. And one of the things I was saying now is our feelings, for example, if you then learn that you are anxiously attached or an avoidantly attached person, these are the patterns that you want to look at and your healing journey is about honoring and this is the difference between cure and healing. As I say, our colleagues in medicine will talk about cure because they know that it takes 500 milligrams of this antibiotic taking three times a day for five days. It will eliminate a particular bacteria or whatever. In our, in the psychologist phase, healing is more an ongoing journey, right? It's about coming to wholeness. Unfortunately, we don't talk about cure, we talk about healing and healing is about knowing that, okay, so for example, I'm feeling abandoned. What is this about? And how do I sit with this with myself and be able to know that I am loved enough. I am enough on my own. This too shall pass. This is where it comes from and I am good enough. It doesn't, it doesn't mean that there's something fundamentally wrong with me. It is simply that it is a reminder of where I come from, how I have been written into by the experiences that I've had and it is about creating what we would then call your corrective emotional experiences that would help you so that even though you may not forget the wound, you are aware of it and therefore you are in charge of what happens as opposed to you being controlled subconsciously by that wounding in a manner that erodes the very qualities and relationships that you are wanting to build if I make sense. Being human is such a full-time job. Talk about. It requires all of the things both inside, outside, mentally, spiritually, most, it just is what a thing. We need to be doing all of this and still wake up and go to work and still be looking after the children and so on. It's been time and nature. Don't look at the phones. It's been time with your family. Eat well. Sleep well. Yeah. Manage your stress. Yeah. And each of those things is asking for its time in you and if you don't, we will then pay the price. Right. Sure. Dr. Gianni, always a great pleasure chatting to you. Thank you so much for your time. Especially after your very late flight in from, we appreciate it. Talk about landing on, what do they say? Crash landing into, back into S.A. Thank you so much, good. Thank you. That's our resident's clinical psychologist Dr. Kosi, Gianni.