Marriage and Intimacy Tips for Christian Couples: Secrets of Happily Ever After

Breaking Free from Attachment Wounds with Trevor Hanson

• Monica Tanner - Marriage and Intimacy Coach for Christian Couples • Season 4 • Episode 334

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Trevor Hanson shares powerful insights about how couples unknowingly trigger wounded parts in each other and explains how healing these attachment wounds transforms relationships. Through understanding negative cycles and inner child work, we discover how one person can significantly change relationship dynamics by healing their own insecurities.

• Couples get trapped in negative cycles when they trigger each other's core insecurities
• The "right" partner will hurt you in ways that allow you to heal your deepest wounds
• Communication skills are useless when we're too triggered to access them
• Healing your insecurities allows you to approach relationship challenges differently
• One person can significantly change relationship dynamics by changing themselves
• Recognizing when your prefrontal cortex has gone offline is key to breaking patterns
• Inner child work involves recognizing, validating, truth-telling, and giving yourself what you need
• Explaining your experience to your partner (when not triggered) builds understanding
• Through healing yourself, you increase your partner's capacity to support your healing
• Practice inner child work when calm before attempting it during triggering moments

Find Trevor on Instagram @theartofhealingbytrevor or search Trevor Hanson. Access his free training on the four reasons people stay stuck despite doing all the "right things."


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Monica Tanner:

Hello and welcome to the Secrets of Happily Ever After podcast. I'm your host, monica Tanner, and I'm really excited, if not giddy, for this episode. I have been following my friend, trevor for years and years and years, and then we ended up in a group together, and so I just got really excited for this opportunity to interview him and to talk about things that we don't normally talk about on this podcast but are super, super important and he happens to be the expert. So let me tell you a little bit about Trevor. He's an internationally recognized coach and therapist dedicated to helping individuals transform anxious attachment into secure, fulfilling relationships.

Monica Tanner:

After overcoming his own anxious attachment, breaking his jaw, ending a toxic relationship and leaving a corporate career at Tesla, he found his passion for healing and helping others. With a master's degree in marriage and family therapy and advanced training and some of the world's top attachment experts, trevor has helped thousands of clients around the globe. He's been featured by Gottman Institute and has spoken to audiences of over 10,000. As the founder of the Art of Healing, he teaches his unique the Secure Self journey to overcome attachment issues to people all over the world, creating lasting change and healthier relationships worldwide. Can you see why I'm so excited to talk to him today. Welcome.

Trevor Hansen:

Trevor. Thank you so much, Monica, for having me. I'm really excited to talk to you.

Monica Tanner:

Yeah, I think this is going to be a fun back and forth conversation. We talk about a lot of similar things, but in very different ways, so I'm excited for my audience to get to hear what you're passionate about.

Trevor Hansen:

Yeah, me too.

Monica Tanner:

So let's start by you talk to a lot of couples. What would you say is like the biggest challenge that couples face?

Trevor Hansen:

The biggest challenge that couples face is that they unknowingly trigger wounded parts in each other, or they trigger things like defensiveness or criticism or the shutting down and all the things that we hear about or that we see, and they have no idea why it's happening, how it's happening, and it's just kind of behind the scenes, and so I honestly think that that's it. It's just they trigger for a shorter, more brief way of saying that, they trigger insecurities in one another, and that's why they get stuck.

Monica Tanner:

Yeah, I talk a lot about the myth that. So I just wrote this book. It's called bad marriage advice, and one of the myths in there is that if you find the right partner, they're not going to hurt you. And so we can, we can. I think we can just riff off why that's such terrible advice, because the reality is is the right partner is going to hurt you in all the ways that allow you to heal.

Trevor Hansen:

Yeah, yeah, so you know, when I think about hurt you, there's kind of different versions of that right. There's like overt, like over, like abuse and kind of things. That's its own category, right, and I think the right person won't hurt you that way, obviously. But the right person can and most likely will bring up some sensitivities that maybe you carry right. Like, let's say that you know, a classic dynamic is usually and it can be reversed, but usually wife, who's like maybe a little bit more on the anxious attachment side of things, which means that she has an underlying fear of abandonment or a sense that she might not be good enough. Yeah, okay, cool me, like I'm in that camp.

Trevor Hansen:

So the the underlying fear of abandonment, rejection, maybe not feeling good enough, and her husband, um, is a little bit more on the avoidance side of things. So his core fears are pretty similar but they might take slightly different words and really it's not slightly different, it's not much of a difference, it's just how he copes with it. So she maybe tries to, you know, put out fires and and chase the problem and he's more like I'm just gonna duck and hide and put up a shield right, and his are more like fear of rejection, fear of not being enough or seeing is good enough, and, and you know, they will definitely trigger each other, hurt each other, poke into those wounds. When he goes quiet during a, during an argument, because he's defending himself from all the, all the things that she's saying and she's, he's so afraid all of a sudden that's hurting her and she's getting more upset, and so you know that's.

Trevor Hansen:

That has nothing to do with whether they're right or wrong for each other. It just has to do with the fact that they individually carry and I'll label it for a big old label to make it easier to keep track of it which is what I just call it. They carry insecurities, wounds, negative beliefs, whatever you want to call it. I kind of bundle it under the umbrella of insecurities and they carry them, and so they they're going to trigger them in each other. They might be great for each other. They just got to figure out how to manage those, those patterns that aren't so obvious.

Monica Tanner:

Yeah, I, I. We're talking about a serious topic, but I'm smiling so big because you literally just described the dynamic in my marriage for years and years and years.

Monica Tanner:

Right, I came in super anxious attachment, lots of abandonment, wounds you know all stemming from my childhood that I've done a lot of work on. And of course I married a man who is completely avoidant you know he doesn't have any of the same wounds that I have, but you know his way of coping is to just go quiet, completely disengaged. He cannot figure out why I'm so triggered and agitated, and so it took a lot of communication over a lot of years to really like understand this dynamic and what we both needed inside of it. And I'm so grateful actually for the opportunity to heal all of that, because of course it's our own responsibilities to heal ourselves. Like our partner isn't going to heal us, they're going to give us lots of opportunities to heal, but they also can be a huge support. But in order for them to be able to support us in our healing, we have to be able to communicate what's actually happening.

Trevor Hansen:

Yeah, absolutely. You know, and that's where I think we also get a little bit stuck is that we we may learn in theory how to do that in isolation and practice on our own. Like, okay, here's the I feel statement, I'm going to do a soft startup and vulnerability and all the things, and it's good and those are good, they're not to be thrown out the window. But then you get into the situation and it's like, oh, that crap is useless, you can't even access it. You're so triggered, your soul is just so triggered. So it's this combination of 100%, the communication. It's so deeply important because that's how we're going to transfer the information around what we need.

Trevor Hansen:

But I think the big shift that I've had, especially over the last few years, has been going okay. I want to help you heal the underlying insecurities, the fears, the wounds, so that the communication skills are then accessible. You can actually use them. You're like strong enough to bear the weight of the emotion in the moment when things are happening. Or maybe the emotion isn't heavy because you are calm and you're okay and you're secure, right. Like, let's say, your husband shuts down during a conversation. It used to be triggering like crazy, like oh my gosh, I got to go chase him around the room and get him to talk to me exactly right.

Trevor Hansen:

But once you've done your work, you've done your healing, it looks like oh, I'm noticing that he's shutting down. Okay, it's just something observable. I know I don't love this. It it feels uncomfortable, but it's not alarm bells and from that kind of a place you then have the capacity to do something else other than chase them around the room while still maybe continuing the conversation. Like we talked about this last night in the Secure Self Club, which is my like program that we run, and this one lady was talking about how her husband kind of didn't fully shut down but he kind of glazed over. He kind of got that like all of a sudden, something shifted. He's a little offline and she knew that something was up and we talked about and even role played, just saying, hey, I noticed that maybe something shifted for you. Just there I noticed is such a powerful phrase?

Monica Tanner:

Yeah.

Trevor Hansen:

Yeah, and I was like, wow, that's awesome. Yeah, just oh, I noticed. But she's not going to be able to do that if she's in her triggered woundedness, in her fearful place, where she's responding from her patterns rather than from a place of security.

Monica Tanner:

Yeah, so one of the most important skills that I work with my clients, like I noticed, for me changed everything is the ability to recognize when I, when my prefrontal cortex has gone offline and my amygdala has taken over, so that's that big fight flight freeze fawn flee like you know, thing, and it's just the knee-jerk reaction, and there's not really anything that we can do to change what our knee-jerk reaction is.

Monica Tanner:

It's just recognizing it, like there it is. Oh my gosh, like I'm triggered, I'm agitated, I'm upset, I feel the need to protect myself. And you know, there's no judgment on that, there's no judgment on what your go-to defense mechanism is. It's just recognizing it, like okay, here it is, here's my defense mechanism. Can I take some breaths? Can I, you know, kind of talk it down and bring my prefrontal cortex back online? So now I have access to all those skills, because the reality is is and we always say this as, as RLT trained practitioners, our job is to help you deal with the parts of yourself that isn't going to use any of the skills. So I've had clients who've been to years of therapy. They've gone to millions of workshops. They have tons of skills. They can't access those skills once their prefrontal cortex has gone offline. And so first we have to teach how do we come back down from that fight flight or free response so that we now can access all of those wonderful skills that we've learned.

Trevor Hansen:

Yeah, yeah, that's, that's it right there and that's. There's. Something powerful there too is I. I've done a lot of couples therapy like true blue in the grit, like you know, breaking down the hardest emotions, working with couples that have gone through affairs, addictions, blending families, like you name it and I started to notice that I and it's not to say one is more powerful than the other. But I think I preached for a long time like the only way to heal the relationship is to have the relationship in the room, like they have to all be present and we have to be doing this. But then I started to realize that, you know, a lot of people don't have that luxury of having both partners. Either the other one's not quite willing yet or just like I don't know long distance or logistics whatever, and so I started working a lot more with the individual. And in working with the individual I discovered that we individually have a significant ability to change our relationship for the better, even if our partner is not yet willing, which is so cool. Think about if they are willing like, oh man, that doesn't that. That double, double down on on the ability. And the reason I say that is because there's this concept drawn from emotionally focused therapy called the negative cycle, and the negative cycle is basically two people triggering one another, and we already started to describe it, um, but I'll I'll give you a little bit more here. So it illustrates the point of how we can influence our relationship solo, which is kind of going off of what we're saying here.

Trevor Hansen:

So back to our couple. She, let's say she grew up in a home where mom was really hard to please, mom was really critical, or well, yeah, we'll use that example. There's a million reasons why she could feel this way, but we'll just say it's that, right, mom was really critical. And so she feels like she has this underlying belief that love is scarce, that approval is scarce, that she needs to earn love in order to be enough. Okay, so she's carrying that around with her. And then he maybe had a home where he was like banished to his room anytime. He had emotions right, if you're going to cry, go to your room, come out. When you can start to act like a member of this family, oh, isolation, right, a lot of not good enough.

Trevor Hansen:

And so he learned to bury his feelings and duck and cover. And so when they get into this relationship and something is off, maybe she will most likely initiate the conversation. She will. He definitely is not going to initiate the conversation, but she will. Right, she's like I got to go out and I got to fix this right. Earn love, fix it, prove that I'm good enough.

Trevor Hansen:

And so she might engage in some sort of if she feels like there's a threat to feeling safe and connected in the relationship, it may come off critical because she's in a fight or flight panic place, and so she's going to point out what he's doing wrong. And in pointing out what he's doing wrong, he's going to hear the same message that he got as a child, which is you're not doing it right, you're not good enough, you need to be different in order to be enough. And so he goes to his default and he ducks and cover right, I'm out of here. The more he does that, the more she feels like Holy crap, he's running away from me, he's abandoning me. I got to double down and I'm now. I'm chasing, I'm saying you always do this, you never do that.

Trevor Hansen:

And he's digging himself deeper. He's like he's like in the garage at this point and she's like, you know, like we're out of the house almost, and he's like going to drive to a friend's. And what's wild here is that you know, we can see how his behavior is her trigger and her behavior is his trigger. Underneath the surface are all these fears of abandonment, rejection, trying to be good enough, longing for closeness, longing for connection, but neither of them are saying it. He's saying anything. He's just sending the message that she's crazy, she's too much, and he can't handle her so he needs to get away from her. And she's sending the message that you're not good enough and you're a horrible guy and that's me.

Trevor Hansen:

Yeah, that's not the message at all. And so what if just one of them interrupted the cycle and somebody might sit there and go? Well, trevor, that's not fair. I don't want to be the one to do all the work. It's like I don't really care what's fair, I care what's going to work for you. Like I want to help you accomplish your goals, whether it's fair or not. And I mean that extends to a point If you're the only one doing the work ever, then okay, we got to reassess that.

Trevor Hansen:

But this is kind of the approach that we take in my work. I help people heal, right. And so, let's say, I'm working with her. Healing her looks like healing that fearful part of her that is afraid of abandonment, the beliefs that she's not good enough and the beliefs that she has to perform in order to be loved, and it's replaced by a deep sense of connection with herself, security, that even if he's not giving you love, you're okay and I'm all right and I'm going to be all right with this. And so when something is off, she, naturally without any skills, just starts approaching him with more openness, curiosity. She's slower in the way she speaks. She brings in this energy that doesn't say you're in trouble. She brings in this energy that says I care about you and I care about us.

Monica Tanner:

And he Ooh this is cool, this is really important. She brings in this energy that says I'm hurting and it's not your fault.

Trevor Hansen:

Yeah, but you yeah. And even if it shifts a little where she says I'm hurting and you are partly responsible, here it's also like non-condemning, it's non-judgmental, and I know this is a long spiel, but it helps her out.

Monica Tanner:

It's a great scenario. I love it. I think it's relatable to a lot of people listening.

Trevor Hansen:

We'll tie a bow on it here. So she's approaching him that way and what will happen? Not immediately, because if you have years of the old pattern, he's going to brace himself, no matter what, no matter how you approach him. He's going to be like oh no, duck and cover, I'm out of here, she's coming at me, and so you can't expect it to change overnight. But this is the difference between manipulation and influence you are not manipulating his behavior into doing something different, but you will influence it.

Trevor Hansen:

So when you approach him with that non-blaming that connected. You approach him with that non-blaming that connected, that confident, secure energy and words. He will most likely feel more safe. He will most likely feel more open. He will be more curious himself and, like I said, not immediately, it may take some reps, but he will feel that way and from that natural state of being, he will most likely respond in kind with more safety. Again, without any skills, he will unconsciously do this. He will start to be more willing to talk to you about whatever's going on.

Trevor Hansen:

And you didn't even you didn't, you didn't tell him to. He didn't tell himself to. He didn't think about therapy or the workshop that you guys did together. Not at all. It's just because he feels safe and he feels connected. Right, you go to sleep when you're tired. It just happens. You don't think about it, you don't try. It's just the natural reaction to the internal state of tiredness, and so that's where I go. Oh, how cool is this. You, if you have problems in your relationship, for now, focus on healing your heart and most likely it will impact your relationship and their behavior in a massive way.

Monica Tanner:

Yeah, I mean, there's so many things that you said there that I would love to respond to, but I do think you can definitely spark change in the relationship on your own, but in order to sustain it, they both partners need to participate. But you know, I think one of the most impactful things that I've ever done for my own relationship I'm doing this stuff all the time. I'm doing this work, I'm learning about it and working with other couples. My husband is like learning about it and working with other couples. My husband is like I'm cool, I'm chill, right, but being able to explain to him the experience I have when I'm triggered, because he doesn't understand that experience, it's not his experience, right? So when you, when you were talking about the wife who you know, I don't think that my mom was critical, but I have that exact same wounding.

Trevor Hansen:

It's like the different source.

Monica Tanner:

Right, exactly, but. But my experience is there's not enough love here, and if I am not perfect, if you know I do something wrong, the love is going to be taken away from me. Right? My husband grew up in a very different scenario. Like, for him, there's enough love to go around. Like, what are you even freaking out about, right?

Monica Tanner:

And so for me to be able to, like, spend enough time with myself to kind of recognize, to just be able to journal it out, talk it out with coaches and counselors, to be able to understand. This is my experience. To be able to understand this is my experience. This is why I get so triggered. This is why, when you go to bed and I'm still freaking out about something, my brain, the story that happens in my brain is you're going to wake up and be like this is too much, I'm out of here. Right, that's, that's my biggest fear. And so to be able to explain it to him in a way when you know, not in the middle of conflict, not in a way that this is your fault, or you able to explain it to him in a way when you know, not in the middle of conflict, not in a way that this is your fault or you need to fix it or anything like that, but just like this is the experience I'm having. And once I could explain it to him in a way that he, you know, without having his guard up, without having to withdraw, without feeling like there's something he needed to do differently or better, you know we could come up with some solutions, like these little catchphrases that we use, like I'm not going anywhere, I choose you, we're in this together, right, so he's not healing me, but he is supporting my healing.

Monica Tanner:

But I had to do the work first. I had to like figure out, like, why this is so hard for me, why do? And now we really have gotten to the point where we've been married 23 years. But he can see it on my face. He can see when I'm like, oh my gosh, like I'm, you know something bad is about to happen, right, he can see it on my face and he's like whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm not going anywhere, let's work this out, right, and I can take a deep breath and you know, my nervous system can relax and I can go oh okay, we've got a lot of skills here.

Trevor Hansen:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you know, you say like he's not healing me and I, you know, I've done my own work and you know, in a way I've wrestled with that a little bit too, actually, because I feel like, on the one hand, we actually do deepen our healing when we have those like interactions, right, like he's not, he's not primarily responsible for it and he has no idea he's even doing it. But if we feel, let's take the fear of abandonment, fear of rejection kind of thing, right, if we carry that around, we're always afraid that we're not doing it right at work, we're always afraid that we're not good enough for our friends, or it comes up in our intimate relationships. That wasn't taught to us. Nobody sat down and was like, okay, you got to feel this way. It's because we had experiences on repeat like having a critical mom or having maybe just having like a ton of siblings and there wasn't enough attention and it's just like there's no, nobody did anything wrong, it's just I got like six other people to compete with here and there's not enough time in the day, let alone to clean the house and everything else. I don't even know how people do that, like I've got one kid and I'm like holy crap, like there's always so much to do, but anyway it's repetitive experiences where, in the care of someone else, you didn't feel seen, safe, loved or have your emotional needs met in one way or another, whether it was insidious and horrible and like abusive or just passive in life and life.

Trevor Hansen:

And how we heal that is by providing experiences where you feel safe, seen, safe and loved. The first person to do that has got to be yourself. It's an internal work, right. I'm addressing that part of me that feels so fearful, that feels like I'm not enough, and I'm doing work around that and providing that. Another layer of that is within community with others. That's why in what we do in my secure self club that's why it's the club, that's why it's the community we need you to come in and have an environment where you're like holy cow, I can bring my everything that I have, my anger, my shame, that weird thing about me that nobody knows and I'm just loved deeply for it.

Trevor Hansen:

And that experience. It's like we're kind of balancing the scales, right. We're taking all these experiences from our growing up and we're starting to add it to the other side of the scale and it's starting to tip over right. And it can be with self, it can be with other, and a really powerful one with other is when you do it with your spouse and this is as cool as bark when you're doing it with yourself, when you're providing those safe experiences, when you're doing that emotional healing you like we talked about in that last dynamic increase your partner's capacity to participate in your healing. They get a join, they get a hold. You and say I'm not going anywhere, I choose you. Your catchphrase is beautiful, beautiful. And in that moment the emotional experience is what heals you. They got to participate, but you got to create the environment in which they can, and it's like oh, dad is so cool.

Monica Tanner:

I'm getting so giddy about the direction of this is because, like what I'm so passionate about, what I love working with clients on is healing that inner child, because that's reparenting it, that inner child. Right? Because no matter how amazing our parents were and you know, some of us came our parents were amazing, and some of us our parents were amazing and some of us our parents were lacking right, yeah, but once we become an adult, it becomes our responsibility to repit. So what happened was we created adaptations don't to, in response to whatever we, whatever scenario we grew up in. And so now those adaptations are not so they're. They were adaptive, maladaptive, now, right.

Monica Tanner:

So we've got these adaptations that aren't necessarily working in our relationships now. They're kind of working against us, and so it becomes our job to now go in to see that little child inside of us, to thank them for keeping us alive and getting us the things that we needed all growing up. But now, guess what? It's time to reparent them, to put some guidelines on them, to remind them that we're an adult and we can take care of them and we're not going to leave them and they won't have to be alone anymore and we don't need them to take over in those, in those triggering moments, right, and so, yes, it's like it's about us doing that work, but I love doing that work in the presence of the partner because then, just as you described now, they get to participate in that really cool work.

Trevor Hansen:

Yeah, yeah, that's, it's really meaningful. Yeah, I, I, I see that as well, and it's it's when, and what empathy that brings, when you get to watch your partner like move through that and work through that and realizing, whoa, like that, when your partner can see that who they've been fighting against is actually a little six year old version-old version of you.

Trevor Hansen:

It's like, oh well, that changes the fight completely, changes it completely.

Trevor Hansen:

The empathy comes in.

Trevor Hansen:

It's just this realization, like holy cow, look at that and honestly, it's who you've been fighting against, like individually, right when I, when I because sometimes when we gain awareness of our patterns like you know, we read all the books, we do all the things we gain a ton of awareness Um, we then can add on a layer of shame because we're like well, now I know what I'm supposed to do, but I can't do it.

Trevor Hansen:

And now I think I'm the worst. I always fly off the handle, or I'm so clingy in relationships, or I'm this or that, like, whatever it is, and you can feel big old piles of shame for yourself. But what this does is it shifts that dynamic to where you're like oh, I feel so compassionate towards that part of me that feels like I have to prove that I'm enough. That's always people pleasing, that's hiding my own needs, or maybe getting critical when I don't feel like I'm getting what I want, and it's like, okay, I get why I do that, like I can love myself for that and it's not effective, but it makes a lot of sense.

Monica Tanner:

Right, yes, it always makes sense when you get down to the root of it. But it's so interesting because I grew up thinking my mom was so weird and woo and now I'm realizing that she's brilliant. But she always keeps pictures of her and her partner in her bedroom as little children and, you know, it's like almost like a little shrine to them, and so I mean that's how I, when I would go in, I'd be like mom, that is so weird. But now I realize the brilliance in it is that you know, their kind of work is learning how to love this little girl and this little boy, right? Can they love their own little boy and little girl and can they see each other's little boy and little girl in those high conflict moments, right? And so it's so cool now that I have been trained and I do this work and I it like. That is such an honor to me to get to help couples see the little boys and little girls inside of them and each other.

Trevor Hansen:

Yeah, no doubt, and it's. It's a very powerful, very powerful thing to do, and it does sound a little woo-woo and it feels a little silly sometimes when people first get into it.

Trevor Hansen:

I'll have them actually out loud, speak to that part of themselves and they're like oh man, I don't know. This feels a little weird, but what's crazy is you do it and it's wild, put there or create you. It feels like you're getting an answer back. You know, some people will have surprising answers. They're like my inner child is saying this. I don't even know what it means yet. And then we unpack it and all of a sudden we realize, oh wow, that message that they're sending connects back to this particular memory, when you were in like sixth grade and this happened or whatever else. And it's and it's, it's pretty, pretty cool what our minds are capable of storing subconsciously.

Trevor Hansen:

And then we get to access it through some conscious digging, which is hard Because the majority of our responses are driven from that subconscious part of our mind. We don't think about a lot of things we do. Rarely are we thinking about what we're doing.

Monica Tanner:

Right, inner child work is so powerful and it really is such a most people go through life just on autopilot, right? They're just doing what was modeled for them. You know they're, they're living from their adaptations that in a lot of times, those inner child adaptations are rewarded out in the world like they help you be really successful. However, they oftentimes make a hash of your personal life, of your interpersonal relationships and your relationships with your children, honestly. So it is so important to do that work, and so I I really want to extend an invitation to anyone who's listening to really take a moment to consider. You know, do I have a hard time in interpersonal relationships? Can I see that inner child coming out in moments that are difficult between my romantic partner and myself, you know? And would inner child work be beneficial Because there are people like Trevor and I who can help walk you through and kind of unpack some of the those adaptations that are messing with you?

Trevor Hansen:

Yeah, yeah, you know, if someone's listening to this for the first time, I could imagine that they'd be thinking, well, this sounds pretty cool. I have no idea, like, how. Like what do you mean when you mean that? And I have a little story that I feel like helps illustrate it pretty well. That might might be good take home and we could plug it in with a little bit of a framework on just like how to get going on your own kind of a thing. So if you're cool with that, I'd love that.

Trevor Hansen:

So one day I'm sitting in Chick-fil-A you've probably heard this story, maybe, I don't know if you have. I tell it on some podcasts. So I'm at Chick-fil-A and I'm sitting like across from this booth and there's a dad and his daughter, you know. They're sitting on the red chairs and they're having a good time. And she's doing this thing. She's four years old, I think. She's running back and forth from the playground to dad, getting that bite of chicken nugget and then running right, living her best life. Messy hair, she's like sweating, so it's kind of like clinging to her head. She's barefoot, her little feet just slapping on the floor Every time she comes, like she was coming from behind me. I knew every time she was coming, cause she could hear her little feet and she was having the best time ever.

Trevor Hansen:

But it came to the point where every in every four year old's day, that's the worst point at Chick-fil-A, which is go home time, right? Dad turns to her and says hey, sweetie, it's time to go home. And then all of a sudden as she should she responds from a place that was not very rational or grounded, because she's four, of course. That's exactly where she's supposed to be right, just as your inner child is responding exactly how they should. That part of you was built when you were a tiny little part of your brain was built when you were a tiny little human being and so of course, you can respond that way. And her rational responses sounded like this Dad, we're never going to come back. Dad, you're being so mean, and. But, dad, like I love the red chairs, she loved the red chairs and so which I think was a pretty rational part I do like the red chairs too. So she's sitting with him and crying and what dad does is not grab her by the hand or rip her out of the room and say let's go. We've seen that and it's very uncomfortable watching that kind of thing, right?

Trevor Hansen:

But he did something different and he models for us how we can interact with the irrational parts of ourselves, with the inner child, with the fearful part of us that says my partner's going to leave me, they hate me, I'm not enough, or whatever else it is. And he leans over and he first gains her trust. And we can do this internally for ourselves. But how he gains her trust is he just repeats back what he's hearing with a lot of softness and compassion. He says oh sweetie, you feel like we're never going to come back. That's really scary, because you love it here.

Trevor Hansen:

And she's like, yeah, and all of a sudden you can see her kind of like coming online, like she's gets that soft, like choked up yeah, that squeaks out of her throat as she's kind of agreeing with dad and he goes and you feel like dad's being really mean because he's pulling you out of here and she's going, yeah, and you can even see her starting to doubt that. She's like well, I kind of know that dad's not mean, but it feels like he's being mean and he goes. I get why you feel like I would be mean right now. That makes sense. You love it here and he and I know you love the red chairs Like they're so freaking cool. I totally get it.

Trevor Hansen:

And at this point she is softened and because he gained the trust he just saw her, he didn't agree with her, he just validated her experience and then he was able to provide her truth, truth that he was connected to because he was an adult, he had a greater vision, some rational thinking, and he says to her you know, we always come back for your cousin whenever they have the soccer game. And then we come back here after do you remember? We do that like every week, and she goes. Oh yeah, starting to realize that she goes. And you know what? Dad's not trying to be mean, mom's waiting for you. She's so excited to see you.

Trevor Hansen:

Are you excited to see mom? She's like, oh yeah, she's in your princess bed, she's at home, you know, with the new comforter on it and it's way more comfy than these red chairs. And she's like, oh yeah, she's starting to realize all this truth that something else just stoked out of her mind, like doesn't even think about Chick-fil-A again. And they get in the car and she's fine. You know, no arching back, trying to clip her into the car seat, kind of thing I do that a lot with. Knows it's okay, that knows our partner's not going to leave us, that knows we have infinite worth and value. And the part of us that is not always rational, the inner part that is fearful, and I just was like, oh, that is exactly the model that we can follow.

Monica Tanner:

That's so good, yeah, so wait, I want to. Just because you told it in the framework of a story was beautiful. But I want to like extract it. Yes, so step one you want to recognize and validate.

Trevor Hansen:

Yeah, I think that's the first thing, right, so you recognize what's going on. Oh, so if, if we take this and put it into like a real life example, uh, your partner is doing something that makes you feel like unseen. Right, they didn't put their dish in the dishwasher and you've asked a million times, and the meaning that you're making, or the inner child, is saying he doesn't love me. Okay, so it's pausing and going.

Trevor Hansen:

Hey, little part of me, I'm noticing where I feel in my body. I'm kind of speaking to it. I'm saying, oh, you're feeling like he doesn't love you because he didn't put the dish in the dishwasher. I get why you'd feel that way. Yeah, I know that growing up, people overlooked your needs and you never had people listen to you and you didn't have a voice, and so right now, it probably feels the same. Right, that dish is way bigger than just a dish. I get it. Oh, man, even saying it, I'm not even. That's not even a real scenario for me. I'm feeling good, even saying it out loud. So that would probably be step number one.

Monica Tanner:

So recognize and validate Number two. I'm thinking like, face that fear, like what is that fear? Is that the fear is that he doesn't love me, he doesn't care about my needs. He's doing the same thing that was done to me when I was young.

Trevor Hansen:

Yeah, yeah, and it kind of you know it. That can kind of be combined in a way in step one, because we're kind of acknowledging that fear, but it is helpful, if it's helpful, pulling out and extracting specific language around the fear, I think is a great idea. What you're saying is great Isolate the fear right, Know it and continue to recognize and validate that as well. And that opens up then the next phase, which is just truth telling right. Hey, are there other alternatives for why he left the dish in the sink?

Monica Tanner:

Do we?

Trevor Hansen:

really believe that he doesn't love us. Because of that, I want to reassure you the truth that he does love you. I'm going to reassure you the other truth, that he's super forgetful and he's being a little bit of a bozo right now and that's okay. Like that makes sense. Or I want to reassure you that he's been working double overtime this last week and he's his mind is everywhere else. And, like I want to reassure you of all these things and even truths that transcend the situation, which is, even if it meant that he didn't love you, it doesn't mean that you're unlovable.

Monica Tanner:

Right, I think that's kind. Of step four is give yourself what you need in that moment, right Like it's okay.

Trevor Hansen:

I love you, I'm here for you. I will always give you what you need in that moment, right Like it's okay, I love you, I'm here for you.

Monica Tanner:

I will always give you what you need.

Trevor Hansen:

Absolutely. That would be. Bringing it home is is fill that need for yourself and then, as you've done, some of that that brings up. You know we're talking about like in the moment situation. We're using this as a coping mechanism in this example, but where this would be most effective is don't try to do it when it's hot and hard, do it when it's easy.

Trevor Hansen:

Right, notice a trigger, think about a situation you know, in isolation, where it's controlled, speaking to that inner child, maybe visiting in your mind a visual representation of a moment in your life when you did feel like somebody didn't love you and like go and rescue that little version of you with some kind language and some reassurance. What would you say to them? What would you do? Right, journal it. You could write it down. This is what I would say Write it in a letter form, whatever it is, but interacting across this same pattern where we're recognizing fears and feelings and validating, showing them the truth behind whatever the scenario is, beyond the catastrophic thinking, and then providing for the need. So I guess, if we were to boil it down into like three little nuggets that's maybe how I would summarize that and it can be a coping mechanism in the moment. It can be solo and isolated.

Trevor Hansen:

I say you do it isolated first because it's way easier than trying to do it when you're all mad or triggered or whatever else. But you do this enough, and that's balancing those scales that we talked about. Right, the scale of childhood is weighed down through things like neglect, and then we balance it out by giving ourselves this love and attention and, yeah, you could do it. You could do it every day for a full week, you could. There's so many ways that you could do it. Um, but that that's kind of a good starter or introduction to the idea of, like, how do you tangibly do some inner child work?

Monica Tanner:

I love that because and I love that you brought up the letter because I do, when I'm doing inner child work with people, I do have them write a letter, but it's the letter is kind of taking control back. It's like, you know, I see you, I honor you and thank you for you know getting me here to this point, and now I, I I want to let you know that I can handle these things right, so you don't have to anymore. It's kind of like taking back this, this power from this inner child. So I love that in the moment, maybe take a break, take a moment, go in the other room and assure yourself, like, do that whole talking, exercise through it, but then also in a in a non-triggered moment, write that letter, like, go like I see you.

Monica Tanner:

Thank you for for doing all of this for me, like I so appreciate your service to me for all these years. But now you get to just hang out Like I'm just going to put you in my heart and I'm an adult and you know I can handle these big situations now with my big adult body and your little, you know, your little scared self or whatever can just rest peacefully in my heart and know that I love you. I'm not leaving you, you know.

Trevor Hansen:

leaving you, you know we're in this together now yeah, you know, and it's amazing we have the capacity to do that, because some people are like, well, I don't know if I can do that and I'm like, are you a mom?

Trevor Hansen:

like that's the question I always ask mothers and they're like, yeah, I'm like then you're a freaking pro. You know exactly how to love, lift, nurture, be kind to a child, and sure, there is might have been moments in your you know child raising years where you didn't do it quite the way you wanted to. You responded with harshness rather than softness and leadership, but now we are learning how to lean on the you know the part of you that knows that you can combine. You know it's as you're saying. What you're saying, I'm thinking of the word leadership. It's like a combination of like, gentle, compassion, but also strong, assertive leadership, and that, oh that creates such safety.

Trevor Hansen:

Can you think about like I don't know, I'm just like imagining if I had, like a tour guide somewhere, like I'm like going to the mountains or I'm going down a river or something that involves some danger, and they're like, so in tune with me, they know what I want, they're compassionate, but they're also a bit aggressive in a certain way in their leadership. They know exactly what they want to do and they're very assertive and they can move forward. It's like that is some safety. I want to be with that guy all day. That sounds awesome and you get to be that person for your inner child, and it's so cool.

Monica Tanner:

Trevor, this has been so fun. I feel like I could talk to you for hours, but I'm sure we should probably do this again sometime. But thank you so much for your time and for your wisdom and for sharing so openly what you do and how you help people. Can you give the listeners a sense of how they can find you learn more from you?

Trevor Hansen:

Great. So the first thing you can do if you're on Instagram, most of my stuff is there. That's kind of where a lot of the public community lives, which is Instagram. My handle is the art of healing by Trevor Um, or if you look up Trevor Hanson, I'll probably be the first one that pops up Hanson with an O, n and there. If you're like, hmm, I want to take like a one. Next step, what I would suggest doing is there's a free training or a little seminar that I got and and it teaches.

Trevor Hansen:

There's four reasons why people are stuck, even if they're reading the books, going to therapy, doing all the right things, feeling that anxious attachment or that fear of abandonment, feeling not good enough. Because most people that we work with are stuck even though they're doing all the right stuff. And so I was like well, what are the things that they're missing? And I just put them in a training teaching you so that you can kind of start to get unstuck. And I always tell people that's a great place to start with me, right? If you're like, oh, I need some, I want to continue to learn and I don't really know what to do and I don't want to just watch the you know the reels, cause they don't go deep enough. I think that would be a good, a good. Next one