Breaking Free From Anxious Attachment Through Faith w/ Trevor Hanson

Your anxiety might not be “too much emotion” it might be an attachment alarm that learned to expect rejection, abandonment, or being overlooked. Dr. Landa sits down with therapist Trevor Hanson to name those fears clearly, separate anxious attachment from generalized anxiety, and get honest about why logic alone rarely changes the way we show up in love.

Trevor shares his own turning point: a corporate layoff at Tesla, a toxic engagement that finally collapsed, and even a broken jaw that left him “jobless, jawless, and without a relationship.” That rock-bottom season pushed him into therapy, then into becoming a licensed marriage and family therapist. Together we unpack why healing cannot be a purely cognitive project. Attachment lives in the emotional brain, which is why you can know you “shouldn’t” spiral and still spiral. What actually rewires the pattern is emotional safety through emotionally corrective experiences, built in real relationships with healthy community, mentors, coaches, and secure “pseudo-attachment figures,” while also doing inner work like self-compassion and meeting unmet needs.

We also clarify the styles people mix up: anxious and avoidant can share the same core fears but use different strategies, while disorganized attachment tends to be more chaotic and trauma-linked. From there, we go deeper into God attachment: surrender, trust, and praying “but if not” as a way to loosen the grip of outcomes and performance. Trevor closes with a direct challenge for anyone questioning their worth: look at the price already paid for you, and let that truth become embodied.

Subscribe for more conversations like this, share it with a friend who feels stuck in anxious attachment, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Follow Trevor on IG @theartofhealingbytrevor

Transcript

Welcome And Why Faith Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Alright everyone, welcome back to the God Attachment Healing Podcast. Very excited that you're here today. I have a very special guest, Mr. Trevor Hansen, and he goes by The Art of Healing by Trevor. Is that correct? On Instagram.

SPEAKER_02 0:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

And uh he is doing a lot of work with secure attachment. He talks a lot about anxious attachment, avoidant attachment. And uh I'm so excited to just have him here today. And Trevor, welcome to the show, man.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Hey, thanks for having me, Sam.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Yeah, yeah. I'm really excited about our topic today because I don't know how um often this gets asked here, Trevor, but um I think one of the things that came up in whether it be a conversation or I think maybe you mentioned it on one of your videos, but you have a faith Christian background. Is that right? Yeah. So I I don't know how many people know that, but if you don't, you know, that's a great thing to know. And I always love um talking with other believers, not just about our anxious attachment and relationships, but also even how that affects our relationship with the Lord. So um hopefully that today's topic is able to cover that. We talk about breaking free from anxious attachment through faith. Um, so we'll go ahead and jump into that here. But before we do, as always, guys, thank you for tuning in to the podcast. I really appreciate your support. And you can also find me on Instagram, Godattachment Healing, and also subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, uh, Apple Podcast, and Spotify. All right. Well, Trevor, thanks again for being on the show. I'm I'm really excited about our topic. Um, for those who don't know you, um, I just want to kind of give you the floor and just uh briefly introduce yourself and kind of your background and how you got into this topic.

Trevor’s Rock Bottom And Pivot

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Yeah, so I was actually pursuing a career in the kind of the corporate world for a long time. I well, not a long time, um, but I have always had an anxious attachment style. And that anxious attachment style led me to becoming really successful, honestly, in my career. Because you know, the anxious attacher, they kind of like prove their worth through performance. They do really well, they show others that they're good enough, they become valuable because maybe deep down they don't believe they're lovable. And I was right there in that camp and became successful in a corporate career working for Tesla uh in a few different management positions. And my world just got rocked by so many different things all at once. I lost my job in like a big corporate lot wide layoff, um, me and thousands of other people. And I also got uh broke off an engagement. I was engaged to be married. That relationship was horrible, toxic, but I wasn't leaving because I was so anxious about not finding somebody, not believing I was good enough to have something better that I stayed. And I stayed, and just to top it all off, I broke my jaw uh in like a skiing accident. So I was I like to say I was jobless, jawless, and without a relationship. And at that point, I was like, what am I gonna do? So I was like, Well, I guess I'll go to therapy. I think that's what helps people when they're like waking up from nightmares and having panic attacks and like things like that, which I was I never had before. Um, I dealt with a lot of insecurity and worries and other things, but I didn't deal with these this level of challenge. So I went to therapy and it's really it was really helpful. And in certain ways it was really not that helpful. And so I looked at the ways that it was helpful and I went, huh, I love this and I think I want to help people in the same way. And in the ways that it wasn't helpful, I went, huh, I think I could fix kind of the system a little bit. Because coming from the corporate world, especially from Tesla, it's all about like innovation, building systems, making things better. And that part of my brain started to kind of turn on, looking at how my therapy experience was and thinking, I think we could do something better here. So I went and got a master's of marriage and family therapy. I got licensed as a therapist, did all that stuff, and uh here we are today.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Yeah, yeah. Well, that's that's amazing. I mean, how old were you when all of that was happening? And how long, how long of a uh time span was that?

SPEAKER_01 4:31

Yeah, so I think I was like about 26 or 7 when I broke my jaw uh and the engagement fell apart. And I mean, over I would say over the next like three years, I had gone back to school, got the master's degree, I got married to my wife, um, which wouldn't have been possible, by the way, without first doing my own healing and becoming a lot more secure. Uh I met and married her while I was in my master's program um doing that work. And so it yeah, it was like maybe like around two or three year period of going from that really horrible place to finishing the master's degree and everything.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

Yeah, yeah. Well, it does provide a good insight into what led you into the work that you're currently doing.

Anxious Attachment Vs General Anxiety

SPEAKER_00 5:26

Um now, one big question I think that a lot of people have is well, how do I know if I'm anxiously attached? You know, some people are anxious and they feel that anxiety a lot of the time. So it could be generalized anxiety disorder, something like that. Um but what makes anxious attachment different than like generalized anxiety disorder or just other types of anxieties that people have?

SPEAKER_01 5:48

Yeah. Well, a lot of times you're probably gonna have like, I mean, not always, but um you if you have generalized anxiety disorder, like as like a clinical diagnosis, you most likely also are anxiously attached. Like usually you're gonna have both. You can be anxiously attacked without being generally anxious, though. I will say that's probably more um common than rare on that front. But I think the difference is that the attachment fears. I mean, for example, for me, I was really confident in my career. I was really not anxious about just like the little normal things in life. Like I didn't worry about being to places on time. I wasn't always catastroph, you know, thinking catastrophically about different outcomes when it came to um, you know, work or recreation or other areas of my life. They seemed to be like fine. And so the general anxiety really wasn't there. It was very specific to, and I will say, at the heart of an anxious attachment, it's specific to these core fears. Fears of rejection, fears of abandonment, fears of not being chosen, fears of not being good enough, or just a belief that you're not good enough. And usually those core fears and beliefs, uh, they're all you can hear, they're basically all the same. They're kind of different flavors of the same of the same treat, I guess you could say. And it's that's really what an anxious attachment is. I think people get way too committed to the label, too. Like, am I anxious, am I avoidant, am I this, am I that? Like, well, at the end of the day, insecurity is healed in pretty much the exact same way, whether it presents as more avoidant or it presents as anxious. It it doesn't matter. Quit beating your head around uh or beating your head up to trying to figure out the answer.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

Yeah, yeah.

Why Healing Must Be Emotional

SPEAKER_00 7:36

You know, Trevor, you mentioned something that's I think it's a really important note here is that um you mentioned that you had to do a lot of healing uh on your own before entering, I guess, the next relationship or even before getting married. And I think one common misconception that people have is that the attachment healing can happen outside of relationships. Now, what have you found? Because I think part of the healing is I need to be engaging people to navigate those feelings and those insecurities or those beliefs that that come up for me, then healing needs to happen in a certain relationship. So when you talk about anxious attachment, for example, for me, um, I grew up in a very um uh judgmental type of church growing up. So I was always anxious that I was being evaluated. And when I came to school, I had a professor who be who then became a mentor. And I remember I was worried about performance. And I did something wrong, and he just kind of had some grace on me, did something wrong again. He had grace on me. And I started to heal from hey, I don't have to impress or perform for my professor or mentor to continue to invest in me. So the healing came within that relationship. Um, what do you say to that? Because I I think some people want to try to heal on their own, like isolate it from people, and say if I learn myself enough, I'll be good. But it actually happens in the relationship. What what do you say to that?

SPEAKER_01 9:02

Well, I mean, there's there's one little word that was slipped in there very subtly there at the end that I think is an important part of this answer. You say, if if I learn on my own, then I'll be good. And attachment isn't something that you learn. Learning, when I think about learning, I think about it's a cognitive process. And if you look at and if you look at the brain and how it functions, the front part of the brain is where we do all of our rational, logical thinking. That's usually where quote unquote learning happens. Listening to this podcast and consuming information, it's lighting up the front part of the brain. Uh even sitting in therapy and talking about your patterns, front part of the brain, it's all just cognitive work. But what you're describing and what makes this different is that relationships are emotional work. It activates a whole different part of the brain. It's deeper. It's the around the amygdala, it's around the base brain, it's kind of more middle if you're looking at like a cross section of the brain. It's down there in the middle. That's where all of your subconscious processes happen, which is why a person can consciously know all the right answers. They know, for example, oh, I shouldn't double text, I'm getting so overwhelmed and I shouldn't do this. But then they do it anyway, because the emotion overrides the logic. And so to your point, and this is a bit of a nuanced answer, because yes and no when it comes to the relationship aspect. Um, no, you do not need to be in a romantic relationship, which is not what I think you're asking me, but I wanted to clarify that. You do not need to be in romantic partnership or anything like it in order to heal. You described a professorship, obviously not romantic. Uh, if it is, we've got trouble. We've got to call the call the view. Uh but uh but but in in and why is that though? The answer comes in this concept of the emotionally corrective experience. So when we were, if we think about an anxious or avoidance, any insecure attachment style, it came from negative emotional experiences where you felt unsafe, rejected, abandoned, hurt, uh, overlooked, uh, unseen, whatever you want to say. You can keep the list going. It's those moments that your deep brain lit up with fear signals. This is distressing, this is fearful. And so that kind of programmed into the subconscious this belief that maybe you can't trust others to be there, that you can't trust yourself. And so, what we need to do if we really want to rewire the attachment style, we have to use a method that lights up that same deeper part of the brain, the emotional part of the brain. And relationships is one of the things that will do it. And there's there's the diff there's different ways, and we could talk this about this for a while. I think there's also a relationship with yourself. It might sound really weird, but like between you and parts of you that are you have to have that relationship in order to heal, but you also do need outside relationships where you can be authentic, you can be vulnerable, you can be you, and you're not met with things that reinforce the negative beliefs like rejection, you're met with acceptance and love and validation and closeness and like all that good stuff. So yeah, you definitely have to have the relationships because it provides the emotionally corrective experience of safety.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Do you do you think that one needs to be done first before the other? So, for example, when you were saying the relationship to the self, um, I know there's a lot of research on the self-compassion piece, right? Can we have compassion towards ourselves, these different parts of ourselves? Do you think that work needs to be done first before going through, or is it both of them at the same time? Is it relationships first? Where where do you land on that?

SPEAKER_01 12:55

Yeah, I I do it, I do it both at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

Uh I think both at the same time is is important. Um so for example, we we have this thing called the secure self-club, where we literally just help people become secure. And from day one, they're doing deep internal work with themselves, where they're maybe nurturing like their inner child or they're learning how to fill their own emotional needs and they're doing things that provide safety that help the individual look inward and go, Wow, I'm a pretty dang safe person for myself. This feels good. But we're also from right from the beginning throwing, and it sounds like we're throwing them to the wolves, but we're throwing them right into the group work where you're there working with other people who are working on the same thing, focused on the same goal, a really warm, loving environment, and we're giving them an individual relationship with a coach who can, again, be another what we call pseudo-attachment figure. Your professor was a pseudo-attachment figure. He kind of subbed in. He gave you that acceptance, that uh kindness that maybe a deeper part of you was longing for, but didn't quite get in the way that you might have needed at earlier points in your life. And so, yes, it's like yes, and we want it all at the same time. Because if you do it all at the same time, you accelerate the speed in which you transform. I think too many people have this idea of like, oh, you can't rush your healing, it can't happen fast. Like, sure, parts of that are true, but with the right system, you can make radical transformation instantly, just as you can have radical destruction to your mental health instantly. You go through a really traumatic experience for 20 minutes of your life, 10 seconds of your life, and it can have an impact on the rest of your life. Why can't we run it in reverse? Why can't I give you a 20-minute experience that blows your mind and changes how you feel forever? I think we can if we do it right. And part of that is I guess the greater point, what we're saying, is yes, the individual relationship, yes, the community relationships, yes, pseudo-attachment figures all at once for the speed of transformation.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

I love that, man. That's that's that's really good. I never thought about that point of how a traumatic experience or a very difficult experience or whatever amount of time can't change our lives, why not the opposite? That's a great

Anxious, Avoidant, And Disorganized Explained

SPEAKER_00 15:22

point. Um, well, I know the audience has an idea of what anxious attachment is, uh, maybe avoidance. Um, but how do you describe it? And do you also talk about disorganized attachment as well?

SPEAKER_01 15:34

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think I think uh people misunderstand disorganized, and I'll I'll mention that in a second here. But uh anxious and this is the thing that most people, I don't think, get, especially the anxious attach. The anxiously attached are usually the ones who are a little bit more aware of their attachment style. Um, it's just in the name. They're anxious, they're pursuing things like research and the avoidant, they may not know. Um, some of them do, props to them. But and the anxious think they're like so different from the avoidant. Like, oh my gosh, the avoidant, they're just beasts. And it's like, no, they're not. They have the same core fears, which and I know this because they've interviewed thousands of them. Um before we had a team that would do this, I don't have the ability to now just because we're so busy. Um, I would interview every single person before they joined the program to see if they even wanted to do it, and if they wanted, then they would sign up. Now we have team members who do it. And I've done over 2,000 of those calls, hours of just those calls. And what I found is that the anxious and the avoidant, they fear the same things, and those fears are the things that create problems in their relationships. Number one, fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, fear of not being chosen, not being good enough. They'll usually resonate with one more than the other, but they'll usually always pick like two or three of those. Yeah. And then they just respond different. The avoidant, they protect themselves from rejection, abandonment, and not feeling good enough by withdrawing, shutting down, running. It's the fight, flight, freeze. They're gonna flight or run and freeze, which is kind of like wall up. Whereas the anxious, they just use a different strategy for the same problem. They fight, they pursue, they uh add fawn to the list, people pleasing, they they fawn and try to make everybody else happy. So they're much they just have a bit of a different response. And I I make this point, number one, to expand a person's view, an empathetic view of their partner, because maybe you're in a relationship where you're like kind of demonize each other because you just have a different style and you don't like the way that they do something, and it feels crazy for them to act that way, but in reality, you look crazy to them, and maybe you go, Oh my gosh, we're kind of the same. Like we've got the same exact fears, we're a lot the same. And by the way, if you've got the same exact fears, which is the root of the problem, then you can both heal in the same way too. It's not like a totally radical or different path, it's the same exact path.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

Really? Yeah, that I mean that that is interesting because um, yeah, you would think that you would have to approach and avoid it differently than an anxious, but to your point, if they have the same fears and you're addressing that fear with each of them, yeah, I guess it would follow the same same line of thinking.

SPEAKER_01 18:19

Yeah, I might kind of take a different tone or posture in a call with somebody who's a little bit more avoidant, uh, because they're maybe not quite as ready to like lean into the work and put their teeth in, like quite a simple thing.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

But that's very interesting too, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:33

Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. But the actual like methodology, the tools, the things that get them there, I've found is the same. To the point where sh my like my program is aimed for the anxious, but every once in a while we have an avoidant who like slips in and we just like let them know like everyone's gonna be anxious except for you, and they do amazing, they're right next to all the anxious doing the same thing, and they do awesome. I was like, Well, as far as I've seen, you y'all need the same stuff.

SPEAKER_00 19:04

Yeah. That's good, that's really good. And you mentioned uh, and what would the disorganized be? Typically, disorganized have some source of trauma. Um, obviously, there's a lot of it could be small T trauma or big T trauma, but they have levels of trauma that kind of contribute to that. What do they look like?

SPEAKER_01 19:24

So there's um people think that if you sometimes present anxious and sometimes you prevent present uh uh avoidant that you are disorganized. That is not true. Um disorganized is is much more chaotic than either of them. Um usually the disorganized they desperately want closeness, but they are terrified of closeness. And so they're much more likely to, and I don't want to paint like a negative picture around disorganized and like kind of villainize them, but they are much more likely to uh have really chaotic relationships, a lot more manipulation, right? Testing your partner. Do you really love me? Uh a lot of the um a lot of the like the borderline personality disorder type individuals probably fit under the disorganized. Or the narcissistic type often fit under the disorganized. It's I think disorganized is much more of a severe label than people tend to use. And I think a lot of a lot of uh people who are not as clinically informed will just say, like, oh, sometimes you act avoidant, but you're mainly anxious, so therefore you're disorganized. Like, no, disorganized is is is a lot deeper, and it's usually rooted in like pretty severe trauma.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

Yeah, yeah. And and just just because I'm curious, would you say that your first fiance or your fiance um that you had broken off the engagement, was she disorganized?

SPEAKER_01 20:59

Absolutely, 100%. Yeah, incredible amount of trust issues, right? Like uh like feeling like I had to record every word that I said because it was like, wait, did you say this? Did you say that? Uh you know, going out in public, needing to like look at the floor because there was fears of uh looking at other women or other things like that. It's it's um while at the same time having like intense bouts of like wanting closeness, almost an intense codependency, while at the same time any small thing could be seen as like a huge threat, and then there's a push away. Um if you're if a you're dating somebody and you feel like you are a hero one minute and then you are the absolute villain the next, and you keep getting thrown between these two roles, then the person you're with could be in that disorganized camp.

SPEAKER_02 21:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:54

Um and it's what's hard is that it's not cut and dry. Like you can't l like uh It's not like a virus. I can't swab the inside of your nose and be like, oh, you're disorganized. It doesn't just play out that way, right? It's not cut and dry. Where you got COVID, you don't. You have a cold, you don't. Um, it's really not like that here. We've just given these labels to help us better understand how people people operate so that we can better help them.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Why We Stay Despite Red Flags

SPEAKER_00 22:22

And Trevor, can you talk us through? Because I think a lot of people struggle with this when they have an anxious attachment. Because I think a question that comes up is well, Trevor, why did you stay in that relationship? I don't know how long you were in it for, but why did you stay in that relationship for so long? Like what were what red flags were you not seeing that kept you in there? Or is it just part of the anxious attachment that no, I can help them change, or you know, I I want to appease them, whatever the case is, right? What what do you think people miss in that? Because people will look at them and say, Well, what red flags did you miss, or what didn't you see?

SPEAKER_01 22:56

Yeah, well, I think part of it is that um if I were to be honest, I saw the red flags. It's not that I missed them. I saw them. Um you can miss them, like and in a way, I uh it's interesting. I say I say I saw I saw them, but I also miss them, but I miss them because I chose to miss them. I chose to look away, and there's a difference, right? There's like a lot of hypervigilance, a lot of control, a lot of things in the manip in the relationship that might look manipulative. And I, in my driven by two things, I don't want to fall on say that I stayed because I was just like problematic or that there was some sort of pathologized issue. Because there's also a part of me that's just like a loving person that wants to give people second chances, that wants love to work. I think that's good. I like that about myself. I want I want to keep that. But combine that with fears of abandonment, fears of not being chosen by somebody, fears of being alone for the rest of my life, then I find this person who, on one hand, showers me with love and makes me feel amazing. Ooh, that's what my soul has longed for forever. While at the same time has such chaotic and problematic patterns, well, I'm gonna look at all the positive and go, no, I can figure this out. No, everybody's been horrible to this person in the past. I'm gonna be the hero. I'm gonna rescue this person from all of their horror stories. By the way, if every single relationship anybody's ever been in is bad, uh and they're all end in the boyfriend being or the girlfriend being the bad guy or bad girl, then you're just gonna be the next, you're gonna be the next villain to join the rosters at the end of it. Like I'm an I'm a villain. If you were to talk to her, I'm sure there'd be a pretty nasty description of who I am. But I think it's that fear and that willingness to stay because you're afraid that you can't find something better. You're afraid that nobody's really gonna love you, that you're gonna be alone. Uh the deep desire to try and make it work, and that's where the anxiousness gets you stuck. And for me, it kept me so stuck that I didn't willingly leave until things just like hit the fan. And they already hit the fan, but they hit it in a worse way. Like the last time I saw her, and we were even married. I'm sitting in a courtroom with her. She's sitting there filing some sort of domestic violence dating thing against me. Um and the closest thing that came to violence is when I lost my mind and I punched a wall. I'm not a wall punching kind of guy. I'm a really nice guy. I think uh also I stayed way longer, and so I saw behavior out of myself, like punching a wall, that I'm not okay with. But it's because I pushed myself well beyond what I should have. And that's on me. It's not on her. I'm not sitting there blaming that, but it's a I guess I'm answering way more things uh than you're asking for. But what I am saying is that you will stay and you will stay and you will stay until the house burns down and you have to run out. I would rather leave the house before it burns down. You get you don't get hurt as bad when it happens that way.

SPEAKER_00 26:30

Yeah, yeah. No, I think it's part, I think it's gonna resonate with a lot of people because they think they get stuck there. It's this feeling of wanting to be uh wanting to be loved and wanting to earn that love by staying and hopefully loving them like no one's ever loved them before.

Surrender And Trust As Healing

SPEAKER_00 26:45

Um, but what was the realization then when you did move towards secure attachment after that? Because obviously you had to do a lot of work, and and we'll jump into the God attachment piece in a little bit. But yeah, what was that movement towards secure relationships look like for you?

SPEAKER_01 27:01

Yeah, well, I wish I would have had like an actual structure, an actual plan, a guide to help me get there. I kind of pieced things together on my own for a long time, and I think it took longer than I would have liked to have it. I mean, relatively, uh, I think I had more progress faster than a lot of the people that we help have had prior to finding what we do, um, because it only took me like you know a couple of years in that space. But um, but I will say the things that were helpful is in that season, I was so humbled, right? I was just like stripped of everything. I didn't have a job, I didn't have a relationship, I had nothing. And in that humility, I really just sought out God. And I sought, I think the theme was trust in God and surrender. Kind of the same concept, just like believing that I'm not driving the bus. Like quit trying to take the front seat and drive the bus. Like you're in the back of the bus, Trevor, and God is in charge of what happens here. And if God decides that we drive into a ditch, then we must need to find something in the ditch. Like get out of the bus and go look in the ditch because he probably took you there on purpose. It's not fun to be in the ditch, but it's for a reason. And so I learned just to believe that all things are working together for my good because I believe in a God who loves me and is pointing me ultimately towards my good and doesn't let me suffer arbitrarily just for the fun of it or just because that doesn't make any sense. Why would I do that to my son? Why would my father in heaven do that to me? And when I and this isn't a light switch, it was a constant practice of trying to learn how to surrender and trust and believe, and in addition to other helpful tools, um, you know, filling my unmet needs and inner child work and beliefs work and all sorts of stuff. But I think the piece that was most powerful is learning to surrender and trust. And fast forward, when I became more secure, I would go like on a date, you know. I went on a date with my wife, and I'm no longer anxious on that first date, worried about the outcome. I'm no longer trying to do my song and dance and like impress her at all costs. I was just being authentic because I knew that like if it wasn't supposed to work out, good. Like, I'm not the one who needs to make that call. Like, God is in charge of those details. And maybe that date, that opportunity was just for me to learn something. Yeah, or maybe I was on that date to avoid some horrible accident that I could have gotten in. I don't know. I'm there and I'm okay with whatever the outcome is. And so, my goodness, the peace and the confidence that comes from believing that God's got your back no matter what, and actually having it embodied. Oh, that's something that heals attachment way more than anyone's talking about that. You're not gonna find that in the secular research by any means. Uh, but I've seen it play out in the lives of hundreds of people who have been part of our work.

unknown 30:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:13

No, that's amazing, but I really appreciate you

Shame, The Golden Child, And Triggers

SPEAKER_00 30:15

sharing that. You know, because because attachment develops when we're young, and usually our parents are the ones who shape a lot of that. What would you say your attachment to God was growing up? Was it secure? Like I don't know how what your parents were like, but did your parents provide you with a lot of security that allowed you to see God in that way? Or was it more anxious? What was that for you?

SPEAKER_01 30:35

Yeah, I think um honestly, I think that relationship was pretty dang secure. Um the ways that it weren't is I think I had I think I wrestled a lot with shame. So my attachment story is really interesting. I didn't have like traumatic upbringing by any means. I didn't have like neglectful parents, or even parents who like um didn't give me the attention that I needed, or even like mild trauma. I really didn't have a lot of that. And so somebody like, how'd you wound up the way you are? And I think the thing that happened for me is probably amongst a few other things, is I kind of got propped up as like the golden child, the one who um we literally like the car break down on a family road trip, and everybody like Trevor better pray, like gotta listen to him. And it was like kind of like this role of being like, Oh man, like you are a bit on this pedestal. And I think it in my own mind, I kind of made it my role. I was like, okay, I've gotta be that guy. Yeah, and nobody ever made threats. Like, if I'm not that guy, then I'm not loved. But I I kind of embodied that or I felt that. It's like I gotta prove myself. Essentially, I had to become the perfect child, and it extended into all sorts of things. I think it's blessed me. I'm a very high-achieving individual now, but um, and the ways it didn't bless me is that then you fast forward, and you know, 12, 13 years old, something like that, um, neighborhood kid down the street exposes you to pornography. And you're like, whoa, of course that's gonna be really cool at 12 and 13. If it wasn't, my brain probably wouldn't be working the way a 13-year-old brain ought to be at that point. And because it seems cool, but it's also a clear violation of my beliefs and what I want to look at in my life, shame hits. But that shame has nowhere to go because I'm not telling anybody I'm the perfect kid. I can't be the one who does this. And so the more you hide, the more the shame adds on, and the more the shame adds on, the more I just feel like an imposter. Even for people who would never find out about the struggle that I was having, because it became a struggle. It wasn't the one time, it was many times after that. And so when I meet women, I would I would just feel like an imposter. I don't even know if I was consciously thinking about that, but I just I had a I'm a bad guy or I'm not a good guy type of syndrome. And I really want to be a good guy. And I know that even today, probably my biggest trigger is if I feel like my wife thinks that I'm not a good guy. Um, I'm pretty aware of it, so it doesn't like rock my world entirely. But if I feel like she's kind of being like, you're not a good dad or something, or you're not a good husband, oh man, I can feel I can feel it come up. And so I I don't know where I'm going with this. I'm answering way more than you asked for, but it's great, man.

SPEAKER_00 33:25

Keep sharing. Yeah. No, that's it. That's good. So so you said your relationship with God was pretty secure all through that because I think what stood out to me was when you had those experiences at 26-27, I mean pretty significant hits.

Prayer, Purpose, And The “But If Not”

SPEAKER_00 33:41

And uh it goes through what I call the a Peter moment. You know, there's this uh passage in scripture where um everyone's following Jesus, right? And they get to a place and the people don't see any more miracles and they start leaving, right? And Jesus turns over to his disciples and he says, Will you leave too? And uh Peter says, Lord, where will you go? You know, you have the words of eternal life. And it kind of hits that that point with a lot of us as Christians is that when we hit these hurdles or these very significant um hits in our lives, where do we go? You know, I I can't go out and just go drink and carry out my sorrows that way. So I turned to the Lord because He has the words of eternal life. So for you, when you went through those um experiences, very negative experiences, yeah, what did that conversation with God look like for you? I know you said you you wanted to submit everything to him. What were the conversations like during that time?

SPEAKER_01 34:41

You know, I think some of that shame did sometimes uh extend to God and feeling like like I nearly had to be perfect in order for him to look upon me favorably. I think emotionally I felt that way, but cognitively I also knew that wasn't true because of what I've read from the scriptures and what I've understood of the example of Jesus and like the mercy and you know, all of the like the woman caught in adultery and all the all of the stories, like I cognitively knew it wasn't true, and so I think that part of me that cognitively knew it wasn't true, and also emotionally, because I had experienced um, I think the beauty is that I had experienced loving connection with God at many times throughout my life, and so I knew I could kind of trust it, I could go back to it. Um and I also believed that God saw my goodness because I think there was a part of me that always knew that like I had a very good and loving heart, and I just really wanted other people to see that. Like I wish like girls would see that and that they would choose me because of it, and yet I knew that like God knew it. And so I think a real tangible thing that I did is that in prayer, I remember I would ask for the things that I longed for. You know, I'd I'd plead to God for relief, for finding someone, for healing, but I would always kind of end the prayer or that statement with, but if not. Kind of like, but if not. If you do not give that to me, and it usually followed with things like, help me to learn, help me to become, help me to catch the vision, give me the blessing of catching the vision of how this suffering is actually important for me to go through. Who might I one day serve because of my trial? And so it was you know, praying for the merciful guidance and clarity if I didn't get the rescuing that I was longing for. Because he doesn't always rescue us, right? There's um there's people who we read a lot about the people who Jesus healed, we don't read a ton about those who he didn't. And there are many who I'm sure did not uh receive that healing. And and there's something there's probably some greater design for them that requires them to not be in that place of rescue just yet. And for me, I will say this um I used to imagine like a big red button that I could press, and if I were press it, it would just like get rid of all the difficult things I was going through. And I would actually vividly imagine hitting it and like watching everything go away to the point where I'd find some relief. And maybe at the time uh it was okay. Uh probably not a good practice long term. Um but but um I would imagine all that. And I tell you what, if that button were real today, I would defend it with I would defend it with violence. Like, and I don't say that lightly because I do not condone violence ever, but my goodness, the precious nature of the things I learned and who I became in the moments when I wanted to be rescued and I was not are the most cherished you can't call them possessions, they're not physical, but I guess spiritual, mental heart possessions that I've ever received. And that also has helped me feel more secure now, even because I know that when there's trial, when there's suffering, well, there must be purpose as well. Because my God is not just one who arbitrarily punishes his children.

SPEAKER_00 38:31

Yeah, yeah. That's a great point. It reminded me of um a commentary I saw about the writings of Paul, and one of the things that the uh commentator said was you never see Paul pray away the circumstance of the other suffering believers. He prays for them, but he doesn't pray the circumstance away. And you see that throughout all his letters, you know, he talks about you know, one another's loving one another, carrying each other's burdens, and so on. So I thought that was really interesting because I want to be there for my friend who's going through something. It's part of being the body of Christ, right? Being there for each other, and that's part of ministering to each other. So maybe not taking away the suffering because we can't, but being there for them, I think that's the other part that brings that healing too, right? Makes our relationships more secure and also connects us even closer or makes our relationship with God also more secure, too. Um, so I really appre appreciate you sharing that sharing that that piece there. Um any final words, Trevor, that you have for for the audience about um moving from an anxious attachment to a secure attachment, being relationships or the relationship with God.

Your Worth And The Price Paid

SPEAKER_00 39:47

What would you say?

SPEAKER_01 39:48

Yeah. Well, I don't often get a talk about this point because not every podcast that I get on uh it talks about God and and our faith in Christ. But a lot of people with an anxious attachment style struggle to know their worth. They somehow have gotten convinced that their their worth is less than a hundred percent. And um how do we know the worth of a human being? And the beauty of this is that if we look at the worth of anything, we usually look at what has been paid for that thing in the past, right? You look at a vehicle. If you're trying to sell a car, you gotta look at what have people been buying and how much are they spending, and then you figure out what I can sell my car for. And there is no object, no business, no country that has been defeated, no anything on this planet that has an infinite price, except for one. And that is you. That is you. The jury is out. There's no more debate what your worth is. The evidence is there. Jesus Christ paid an infinite price, the infinite atoning sacrifice for you. And so if you are ever in question about your worth, um, just look to the evidence, look at the market rate for a soul like yours, for a person like you, and you will see that it is the only thing that the price tag says infinite on. And I I encourage people to to remember that and to pray to have that embodied to where you actually feel that that is true. Because you might hear my words and they sound cute and they sound good, uh, but it's hard to let them in because you haven't believed that you're good enough for a very long time. And so I always say seek the one who paid the price and he will give you the evidence of your worth.

Final Thanks And Goodbye

SPEAKER_00 41:46

That was great. That's a that's a perfect landing spot. But I was really encouraged by our conversation today. Um, obviously, you never know how these conversations go, but um very encouraged. Um, and I just want to thank you for your time. I know you're a busy man, uh, but I thank you for your time and for being a blessing to me and to the audience. Um I look forward to eventually connecting again, but uh for now, uh thanks again, Trevor.

SPEAKER_01 42:14

Thank you.