I think the best thing I learned from studying attachment theory is that affirmations don't work. All those words? All those empty pep talks full of manifestation? Absolutely pointless for more than a few hours in the face of a traumatized subconscious.

You also recognize how many people are trying to disintermediate therapists and actual science: Various new-age hucksters, life coaches, advice-givers, what have you. They think that multiple thousand words of a pep talk is going to somehow change deeply ingrained programming.

It's nice, I suppose, that people get paid to bang on with absolutely no psychological qualifications when actual science is *right there*, but then you get the thing where people get exhausted bc affirmations don't work to turn around internal scripts that exist *for a reason.*

In short, get your therapy from therapists. Get your meditation from experts. This thing where unqualified people just tell you not to believe science (or history) and believe them? The Gwyneths and so on? A toxic play for dominance and power and profit off of others' pain.

What works is not affirmations, it is having a qualified guide to help you ask your own Qs about your own past and subconscious beliefs through active introspection. Attachment theory is a good start but you can go Freudian, whatever. Just get someone who knows something.

An addendum is that the people most resistant to considering attachment theory are usually the people who could really benefit from taking a second to examine why their unaddressed trauma is making them behave in unconstructive ways towards others

It is an extremely white-woman Karen thing of the past 15 years to believe that you can just "talk it out" over wine and...no. Therapy isn't talk. It takes work. And it takes a professional so you don't just entrench your own mistakes in words over and over.

This THING where white women just talk at you, over and over, for hours and hours, with words and words, so that they drown out your own thoughts and instincts with their own theories cobbled together from like 4 books everyone read in college and 20 SATC episodes...make it stop.

Basically it's the emotional equivalent of reality TV, all these GOOP advice columns and rando overconfident Karens with wine glasses cosplaying as Oprah. With no training! The YouTube-influencer model of evading real psychological work. Jesus.

Something you learn in/from therapy: Anyone who tells you "what's wrong with you" is absolutely a grifter looking for dominance and control of others' minds. Anyone who wants to help you will lead you to ask the Qs to find your own answers. Which they do not have.

And the *reason* that these grifters do not have the answers to why *you* feel the way you do is that when you work with a licensed therapist you realize how your patterns of behavior come down to incidents in your own past. Some harm you never really processed so you play it out

No matter how good some GOOP lady is, she's never going to be able to figure out why or how your fears are *very logically* rooted in something that happened in childhood or 7th grade or your first relationship. Healing is *never* one size fits all.

End of rant. I am just so sick of all forms of science denialism this year. Psychology is a science too. Healing is hard work and delicate at the same time and it is *specific*. You can't get the same results with a glass of Merlot and some girlfriend-type gab.

Consume whatever you want, but just recognize what's cotton-candy entertainment unsubstantial musing that melts the second you touch it, and what's actual psychological science or meditative practice (which has benefits backed up by science). It makes a difference for growth.

Anyway just don't think that affirmations and talk are doing anything for you at all for more than a few hours. The subconscious is way too stubborn and way too deep to be fooled by some auctioneer-speed snake-oil act. It knows what's up, it's been trained by *all* your hurt.

Something to consider, instead of wishful affirmations, is logic: All the times you showed up for yourself, and advocated for yourself.

And if you're *not* advocating for yourself, or you're replacing real advocacy with blowhard bragging, attachment theory can help there too.

Anyway stop empowering these Karen-style narcissists dispensing advice and life coaching they can't take themselves, it's a grift and the emptiness of it is holding a *lot* of women back from stepping into their true power+vulnerability, which comes from confronting yr own BS.

One last thought: Trauma isn't always something "big." It can be smaller incidents that you experience as harmful to your emotional or physical safety: Bullying, neglect, hostility, gaslighting, etc.

This is why therapy can help *everyone* be better.

Resources.

First: Like everything, you have to read a bit and decide if it's really for you.

Here are 4 great books on 1) attachment theory and 2) the way to start resolving emotional traumas, which are not accessible to talk because they *live in the body* and subconscious

Today is my birthday and all I want is for 103.2K people to think about taking care of their mental health, be compassionate to themselves, and consider the benefits of therapy (not talking -- therapy, with work!) to make everyone better.

Someone made a good point: Not all therapists are the right therapists for you.

So, some ways to find a good therapist:

1. Schedule a consultation. Lay out what you feel is holding you back/bothering you and ask them their methods and philosophy. It's ok to ask "how long?"

2. It's ok and even necessary to mention to potential therapists if you have previous negative experiences with therapy or deep skepticism of it. That resistance is part of what will determine your healing. Like everything: Some part of you must *want* to be there for it to work.

3. The best advice I got: Pick someone who looks and acts like someone you would confide in. If you are your most open talking to older women, pick that. If you feel comfortable with a peer, pick that. I initially had a male therapist and it ... felt like mansplaining.

3 (contd) Once I realized I would do better with a woman therapist, probably closer to my age, I started there. (I didn't want even implicit Boomer or elder Gen X programming about gender relations; remember therapists have baggage too!)

4. Referrals are a good way to start. Ask friends who have good therapists for an intro. Remember to talk to *several therapists* in consults before choosing. This is important work. Don't skimp. You need the best guide for you.

5. Sometimes it takes a few sessions to figure out if you click.

Here's how to spot a *bad* therapist: They will tell you what to do.

A good therapist will focus on leading *you* to ask yourself questions, guide you to recognition and stabilize you as you explore.

C'est tout. For anyone who starts on this work, or continues with it as it gets hard, I cheer you. It's the most worthwhile thing in the world to help yourself and be there for others

It's also important to add: It can be tempting, when exploring these topics, to start analyzing other people without consent. DON'T DO IT. Let everyone have their own journey and don't hold your breath that they will grow or change. Trust them to live and grow at their own pace

A bit of perspective as well: People spend hours every week on their physical health and choosing what food they eat, but almost no time on their mental health or what they're accepting into their minds. Mental health is crucial. I hope we can all balance that out

Start your questioning now. Often ppl wait until they have a crisis to consider therapy. Start before the crisis; with therapy, you'll handle crises better. And if you're from an upbringing that shames/rejects help, give that some thought too. Does it serve you to stay in pain?

I just saw this tweet going around and -- surprise! -- this is not accurate. If someone you're dating is making you anxious, you likely have an anxious attachment style of love, developed from how you related to your caregivers as a child. Love triggers old subconscious fears.

In fact, most intense experiences -- love, stress, etc -- will act as triggers for your subconscious. It's not usually about the other person. It's about you and how you learned to see the world. This is what attachment theory helps explain.

The point is, if you're feeling anxious and paranoid in *any* relationship, the answer is in your reaction. The answer is to ask: What is triggering me here? What emotions are coming up? When did I first feel exactly this way before? What lessons did I draw from that previously?

I don't know who needs to hear this, but: Get your advice from a professional instead of young people with very little life experience guessing wildly at blanket statements about human motivations on Twitter.

Rather than taking anxiety with a partner as a cue to run away, use it as a cue to understand that your subconscious is triggering you to understand that this situation looks like others in which your needs were not met and IMPORTANTLY, learn how to ask for what you need.

Can you be w/someone who makes you anxious? 100%. If you're anxious you will be anxious with *everyone.* That's ur attachment style until you change it. To change, the love has to be strong enough for *both* sides to adapt+communicate+change. If they won't respect that, then go.

It takes two, in the immortal words of Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock. If you're anxious and someone you're in a relationship with -- dating, marriage, work, family -- is telling you that your dynamic together is *your problem* and you have to fix it while they check out, forget it.

*Especially* forget it if they are insulting, dismissive of your concerns (or anything about you), are always trying to maintain the upper hand rather than be allies/co-conspirators, or in all other ways don't show up. You deserve support and warmth even if you're anxious.

be glad for all the agents of chaos and anxious-making people because they are *teachers*. They require you to learn yr needs, how to assert them, how to draw boundaries firmly w/o judgment+how to leave behind what harms you and live only for what makes you grow and thrive. Bless