Attachment to Self: The Cornerstone of Healing with Mili Shoemaker

Lisa Dion:

Hi everyone. Welcome to the next episode from the Lessons from the Playroom podcast. And I have with me another very special person in my life. For many, many reasons, this individual is incredibly special and meaningful to me. One is, I’ve known her since the beginning of my journey. When I first started to talk about Synergetic Play Therapy, she and I have also co-taught before. She has been one of my main consultants in our programming for many, many years, and she’s also one of my supervisor trainers, so she plays many roles in my life. Also, a friend of mine.

So I want to introduce you to Mili Samantha Shoemaker. If you don’t know Mili—Mili and I are going to have a—I’m actually gonna let Mili introduce what we’re gonna talk about because Mili is the one that was sort of nudging me to do a podcast on what we are going to talk about.

So Mili, I’m just gonna let you say hi and jump in here, and we can start talking.

Mili Shoemaker:

Yeah. So hi, everyone! I am so excited we are having this conversation. I think all of you are going to love it. And—yes, I know that. So, should I say the title of our podcast?

Lisa Dion:

Yeah! Where you do you want to go.

Mili Shoemaker:

We’re going to talk about attachment to self.

Lisa Dion:

Beautiful. Beautiful. Keep—keep going. Keep going.

Mili Shoemaker:

Okay. So, and—and kind of like the idea of this conversation is, I’m gonna ask a lot of questions to Lisa. So then, those that are curious about attachment to self, they get to hear from her, okay? It’s gonna be a conversation, but I already have so many questions in my mind for you.

Lisa Dion:

Beautiful. Well, Mili, do you wanna start with why you wanted us to have this conversation, or how this has impacted you—this topic?

Mili Shoemaker:

Yes. So, let me—just to the audience—let me give you some context of this concept, right? Like, back in 2010, when I did my first training with Lisa—Lisa was already teaching SPT, even though it wasn’t called SPT then. But she was teaching for at least, what, three years?

Lisa Dion:

More than that, yeah.

Mili Shoemaker:

Or like—I don’t know, was it? Anyway, I was very lucky that Lisa used to live near where I am in Colorado, and she was teaching an intensive—a six-day training in play therapy. And one of the first concepts that I learned with her was attachment.

I was very new as a therapist. I wasn’t even—In Argentina, I studied social work, and I wasn’t even a therapist. For me, when Lisa presented that concept, it made total sense, right? And then I went to school, and I heard a lot of the theories around attachment—the attachment theory, which is not necessarily what—Not that it’s not necessarily what we’re going to talk about, because it is about attachment, but Lisa is going to show you a different angle of this idea of attachment.

So, for 15 years I’ve been a therapist, and this has been the core of my work—attachment to self—not only as a therapist but also as a mother. And I also supervise a lot of therapists, and I realized that many therapists don’t know much about this concept.

So I went texting Lisa—”Lisa! The world needs to know about this. You need to tell them!” Because you’ve been teaching about attachment to self for many, many years.

Lisa, what is attachment to self? Tell us.

Lisa Dion:

Yeah, in one—What is attachment to self? So let’s talk about this from a couple of different angles. And I’ll provide some—I love what you just said, that we are talking about attachment, but I’m going to talk about it from maybe a slightly different angle than how people tend to think about attachment.

Let’s even just start there. When we think about attachment, we tend to think about a process that happens between two people. Usually, we think about it in terms of a caregiver and their child, and we think about it from the perspective of, What does the child need to do or not do in order to get their needs met from their caregiver? And in doing so, we develop these styles of attaching—these styles of connecting, or not attaching, or not connecting.

And so, the world of attachment has really looked at it as this process, right, that happens between two people. And in a lot of attachment conversations, there’s also a lot of emphasis on what the adult or the caregiver does or doesn’t do that influences that.

So we’re sort of set—I think that’s, like, familiar, you know, for everyone.

And what I’m about to say does not deny any of that. It is yes, and, right? So this conversation is the and part of this conversation.

Where I started to get curious about this, Mili, was way back in, gosh, like 1999. And at the time, I was immersing myself in various contemplative practices. And in these contemplative practices, one of the things that we would look at is the nature of the mind, right? Like, the mind itself. What does the mind do? Like, What is the mind?

And one of the things that became very interesting to me was the understanding that, really, the mind has more than just capacity, but its primary capacity to understand the world is projection.

And that really, when we understand the nature of the mind, we recognize—well, actually, it kind of puts into question, Is there an ‘other’ outside of what we think is out there?

I’m starting to get weird in my language here, but this is really what we started to get curious about with the mind, you know?

For example, Mili, you know, I’m—for those of you that are audio listening, right? I’m holding what many would call a pen up. But if I—Mili, you know—Where is this pen? Well, Mili, your instinct might be, “Lisa, it’s in your hand. You’re holding it.” You know, if I said to you, “Mili, where am I relative to you right now?” You’d be like, “Lisa, you know, you’re across the—I’m, you know, I’m staring at you.” 

But we need to back that up and actually break that down and recognize that the way that our mind works is that, as you are looking at me, Mili, or as we’re both looking at this pen, what we’re really bringing in is sensory information, right?

There’s information. It’s not that something doesn’t exist. You do exist, Mili. I do exist, right? There’s this thing we call a pen—it does exist, right? But as we take in information about other, it’s filtered through our—what I like to call—our historical filing cabinet. And so when we ask the question, Where is the pen? What’s actually a more accurate answer would be, It’s in my mind.

Because I—there is something there, but I can’t experience it without it being filtered through my own inner experiences, my own past conditioning, my own history. And so I pull all that together, and up pops in my mind this construct that—I go, “Well, that’s a pen.” And “It’s there.”

Or you’re doing that with me, Mili, and you’re like, “Well, you’re Lisa, over there.”

And so it’s a—it’s a weird—it’s a weird thing to think about if we haven’t thought about the mind in this way. But to put it very simply, we actually can’t experience something outside of ourselves unless it is through ourselves, right?

So when we experience something, we’re really experiencing it within our own minds. I’m going to pause here, Mili, to see if you have any questions before I keep going with this.

Mili Shoemaker:

Something that is coming up for me—I am following you, and I’m so enjoying this conversation. But—so, for those that don’t know what a pen is, right? Like, you and I, we assume that—you assume that we and the audience know what a pen is, right? But what if—there is a previous step, which is, What is a pen? Right? Like, so, What is a person? If, let’s say, maybe a community that hasn’t been in civilization comes into contact with you and I don’t—I think, like, they cannot make sense of us because they don’t have these preconceived concepts of what someone like us looks like, feels like, and all of that.

Lisa Dion:

Exactly.

Mili Shoemaker:

You agree with that?

Lisa Dion:

Yeah, beautiful. Because it adds to the point that I’m trying to make—that I’m only referencing it as a pen, or if I show that to you and I said, “Mili, what do I call this?” you said—because of your prior conditioning around it.

But if I took this thing that we’re labeling as pen and—you’re right—I took it and I handed it to a little kid who has grown up in a village somewhere who’s never seen a pen, they might use it as a utensil to eat. They might figure out that it makes a mark and might use it to paint their—Or they might use it as something else that has nothing to do with a pen.

So I think this is another layer of understanding about the nature of the mind—that when we experience things, our conditioning is what allows us to label the thing.

So it’s almost like we experience something, and then we make it concrete. We label it, we define it, we say what it is—because of our history and our conditioning and prior experiences with it. All of that.

But it’s still in my mind.

Mili Shoemaker:

Right.

Lisa Dion:

My experience of it is within my own mind. So the listeners might be going, OK, that’s nice, Lisa, but what does this have to do with attachment?

Well, in this place of curiosity—of really looking at the nature of my own mind and really recognizing that I’m experiencing the world through my own internal constructs—it put a question in my mind. And the question was this: What am I actually attaching to in relationships?

Mili Shoemaker:

The question.

Lisa Dion:

That was the question, right? Am I actually attaching to another person? Or am I attaching to my perception of another person? And that started to form in my mind about 20 years ago. And the more I looked at that, the more I began to appreciate that actually—yes, others influence perceptions. As I’m saying this, listeners, it’s really important—I’m just going to say this again: If an infant is not being fed, right? If an infant or a child is being interacted with in a way where it doesn’t feel safe, does that influence the child’s perception? 100%. But the question we need to ask is, What exactly are they attaching or not attaching to? Is it actually to the adult? Or is it to their perception of the adult?

I’m going to keep breaking this down, Mili, but I think there’s another piece here that I think I can overlay to help make this make sense. We know from the attachment world now that you can have a different attachment style with every single person in your family. Well, now that’s interesting. Twenty years ago, that field would not have said that. They would have said, You have one single attachment style. But we now know that, at any given point, you can have multiple attachment styles. Well, that’s fascinating. We also know that your attachment style can change with the same person. Well, now that’s also super interesting, right? We also know from lots of research that you can have children that grow up in a seemingly very similar environment, with similar care, but they walk away with very different attachment styles. So it sort of makes you step back and go, OK, what’s the variable? Because clearly, attachment style isn’t static as we once thought it was.

So what’s the variable? So, Mili, when we take that and we overlay what we just said, what we can recognize is—the variable is perception. Right? My perception of different individuals impacts my attachment style. My perception can also change over time with an individual, which affects my attachment style. People in a single family don’t experience their caregivers in the exact same way—so that’s different attachment styles. I’m on a roll—can I just keep going?

Mili Shoemaker:

I just want to ask you a question before you go on.

Lisa Dion:

Yeah, yeah.

Mili Shoemaker:

Any of us—we’ve been with you and worked with you for so long—we know what you mean when you speak about perception. Not everyone knows what perception really means, or we can interpret it in different ways. Can you just speak a little bit about what you’re referring to when you say perception?

Lisa Dion:

Yeah, beautiful. You just asked a really simple question there, Mili.

Mili Shoemaker:

We need another episode.

Lisa Dion:

So, we know that all parts of us sense, feel, and perceive. Perception is part of that. So some of us are familiar, for example, with how Stephen Porges introduced this idea of neuroception of safety. Well, what he’s really referring to there is that there are certain things that we perceive—we pick up on in the environment—certain clues and cues that let us know, Are we safe in this moment or not? So really, it’s about sensing and feeling.

I think the most fascinating part of that is to really recognize that all parts of us sense and feel and perceive, down even to the cellular level. For example, if you were to take a cell and introduce a toxin next to it, you would actually see the cell wall that was closest to the toxin—you would actually see the cell wall shift and move, almost like building a barricade close to where that toxin is. So we can actually step back and go, Well, how cool is that? 

A cell somehow feels or senses or perceives—that’s what we’re going to throw that word in here—that there is something potentially dangerous in the environment, and therefore it moves to build and strengthen for protection. So our cells do this. And then you think about how many cells we have in our body that are doing this.

Our mind is doing this as we are filtering sensory data as we move through the world. Some listeners—if this is not the first time you’ve listened to an episode with me—you’re probably familiar with how I talk about the four perceived challenges that our mind is scanning for in the environment to determine whether there’s safety.

So, there’s a lot of feeling, sensing, filtering that’s going on through our mind and our body that is providing information to help us ultimately survive. Really, that’s what it boils down to. So, we will keep perception at that in our definition for now.

Mili Shoemaker:

Beautiful.

Lisa Dion:

Yeah. So I want to link this over, because this is about attachment to self, right? So what does that mean? Well, we’ve established so far a place of curiosity around What are we actually attaching to? If this other is actually an experience we have within—so we’ll kind of hold that. This idea that even in current conversations about attachment, you can have different attachment styles—so what’s the variable? Well, there’s something about perception.

Where I want to link this into—and I’m already having goosebumps as we’re about to talk about this—is that what has landed for me and makes a lot of sense for me—and I see this with kids, I see this with therapists—is that really, the attachment style has more to do with the self than with another human being. So when I am perceiving what I’m perceiving, do I stay connected to myself or not? Right?

When I am perceiving what I’m perceiving—with my caregiver, with my partner, with my kid, with whoever it is that I would theoretically have an attachment style to—it’s an interesting sort of flip to go: Maybe the attachment style is about what happens relationally within me while I have the perception of the other person. I’m going to say that again, because I’m sure some people just heard that and were like, Wait, what? Rewind, back up, what did you just say?

What happens inside of myself—how I disconnect from myself, do I go into an anxious type of relationship with myself? Do I shut down with myself? Do I get disorganized within myself? Or am I able to stay connected to myself and have a moment of what we would then call a secure attachment style or a secure attachment moment—as I am in the perception of other. OK, so I’m going to pause there and see where you want to go with that, Mili.

Mili Shoemaker:

So many questions in my mind. One is—can you be attached to yourself 24/7?

Lisa Dion:

No.

Mili Shoemaker:

Hmm.

Lisa Dion:

No. We go in and out of it. It would be like saying, Does somebody have a secure attachment 24 hours a day? No. Think of it like this: As I move through the world, I am perceiving, I am experiencing, I am filtering. I am designed to hyper-focus on challenges in my environment—external environment, internal environment. As I focus on those, I am also designed to take those challenges on and do something about them, right? I am designed to take care of myself. Right?

In the Introduction to Synergetic Play Therapy course, we go deeper into this and connect it with nervous system states and how attachment style and nervous system states connect and all of that.

But I’m not going to go into that in this conversation, because the piece that I want to focus on is that when we are able to have a moment of attachment to ourselves—which I like to think of as coming home—it’s a moment when I am aware of myself. It’s a moment when I’m able to feel what I’m feeling but not get swept up in what I’m feeling.

Mili, you know that this is where I also talk about regulation in a way that’s a little different than how regulation is typically talked about. Regulation, for me, is really about a moment of mindful awareness—a moment of mindful connection—which allows me then to understand what might be useful for my body to modulate whatever it is I’m experiencing in that moment.

And as I just described this in terms of regulation—that’s attachment to self. It’s also a moment of having a secure attachment. Every moment that I become aware, every moment I engage in reflective awareness and I become aware of:

Oh, my heart’s racing.
I feel jittery.
I feel like I want to go hide.
I don’t know what to do.
I feel confused.
I feel overwhelmed.
Oh my gosh, my tummy’s in a knot, like I’m going to vomit.

All these moments of mindful awareness—the simple act of becoming aware—there is a moment where I am tuning inward, and I am coming home.

I’m moving from:
→ I disconnected from myself
→ I detached from myself

We could say I’m moving from an anxious attachment moment or moving from an avoidant attachment moment or moving from a disorganized attachment moment into a moment of secure attachment. And what I love about that is—secure attachment from this perspective also doesn’t mean that I can’t also be having other types of activation in my body. I think sometimes when people talk about secure attachment, they think of it as, Oh, I’m happy, I’m just happy and calm and there’s not a challenge in sight. No, no.

Secure attachment—attachment to self within—is about my own ability to connect to myself in the midst of whatever challenge is going on. And I know that—I don’t say that lightly—I am able to be with myself.

I don’t need to run away from it.
I don’t need to shut it down.
I don’t need to avoid it.

You know, in SPT, we talk about this as having one foot in the activation in me and one foot in my ventral state—where I’m able to attach to self. These are significant moments. In SPT, we go so far as to say that attachment to self is the cornerstone of all healing. Mili, if I asked you to name a trauma protocol that did not require you to have moments of mindful awareness for integration, you’d have a hard time thinking of one.

Mili Shoemaker:

Absolutely.

Lisa Dion:

Right?

These moments of being able to be attached to ourselves—these moments of being able to sense that there is an okayness in the midst of all the turmoil—the ability to have a bit of an observer online while we are processing something… I mean, these are significant moments for integration. And just to keep tying this all together—19 years ago, when I was in this really contemplative place of looking at the nature of the mind—it really helped me understand that the work ultimately isn’t about changing the other person. The work is actually about redoing the relational ruptures that happened within.

So let me put this in context. When we are born into this world, we have different experiences. The people in our life influence these different experiences. And from those experiences, we learn to detach from ourselves—or we develop higher abilities to attach to ourselves. Right? We detach because it doesn’t feel safe. We attach because there are moments where it can feel safe. We can go into a whole other question about What is the self? I mean, that’s a whole other piece.

Mili Shoemaker:

Yes. And before you get going—

Lisa Dion:

Yeah.

Mili Shoemaker:

Would you say that we are born with this ability to attach to ourselves, or is that something that we develop over time? How do we—like, you are 40, I am 40-something—so we are in a place in our lives where we know what this feels like in our bodies. But take me back to when we were born, right? Like—

Lisa Dion:

Well, I think we need to go before we were born.

Mili Shoemaker:

Before? Don’t take me there! That’s too much drama, right? Too much information. But what would you say about the self?

Lisa Dion:

Exactly.

Mili Shoemaker:

At which point do we become aware that we have that in us?

Lisa Dion:

Yeah, I think it’s a—it’s a complex question. Because the answer is, I don’t know. I think that at some point, we are designed to catch a glimpse of ourselves. The way that it seems to work is—we catch a glimpse of ourselves through the other, right? We need that—the mirror, right? We need to filter ourselves through the other initially, as we begin to develop an internal sense of self. So, you know, they talk about—

Mili Shoemaker:

Which brings us to the role of the parents. Because many times, people hear this and think, Oh, so parents aren’t needed as much. What is the role? Like, if a parent is listening to this conversation, what is their role? And what is the impact they can have?

Lisa Dion:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Mili Shoemaker:

For the kid.

Lisa Dion:

Obviously, there are the basic needs and all of that. But if we’re talking from this particular topic, it is—to help the child catch a glimpse of themselves. Right? To help the child recognize that there is an internal self to attach to. That’s what I think is one of the most significant roles a parent plays. It’s huge. That’s a—that’s a whole other topic, right?

Mili Shoemaker:

You know what is coming up for me? Like, as a parent, there are all these shoulds. Like, so many times as parents— (which, I know, we’re opening a can of worms here, right?)— but so many times as parents, we have all these ideas about how we should be as parents. And many times, we miss who we have in front of us. Like, Who is that self in front of us? So, yeah. I don’t even know what my question is with this—it’s just a sensation that I’m having in my body as we’re talking about this.

Lisa Dion:

Well, I do think that’s its own separate podcast. Like— How can a parent promote this or develop this in a child? But I think what’s important to name is that there are many influences on a child’s perception that then support the child in learning internal attachment patterns that they then continue to myelinate over and over and over again. That from an observer within, we might call, Oh, that’s your attachment style. Again, the reframe here is—yes, it’s an attachment style, but it’s less about attaching to another person and more about what’s happening relationally inside of the individual as they hold the perception of another individual.

Mili Shoemaker:

Hmm.

Lisa Dion:

It’s complex.

Mili Shoemaker:

So complex.

Lisa Dion:

But important, right? Important conversation. But I think it’s important that we recognize that there are many, many variables. So, for example—a caregiver might be doing an extraordinary job at helping the child catch a glimpse of themselves. But you know what? The child had some medical trauma. And it’s really painful for that six-month-old to feel their own body because of the residue of the trauma from the medical trauma. And it doesn’t matter how well that parent is supporting the reflection in that way—the child’s own internal struggle to attach to themselves is very real. Or maybe there’s a shock that happens in life. And the shock creates a disruption. Or there’s a loss. 

Or there’s—I mean, there are so many other reasons. Mili, I feel like I’ve got to say this on behalf of all parents—because I’ve been to a lot of trauma conferences. And I’ve been to a lot of trauma conferences that focus on attachment, and I tell you—sometimes I walk out of those conferences, and I feel like it was multiple days of people just taking a baseball bat to parents. Really. I mean, I’m always sitting there like—Parent fault, parent fault, parent fault, parent fault…And it’s like—

Mili Shoemaker:

Whoa.

Lisa Dion:

Hold on a second. Like—Let’s not fault anybody in this equation. We’re all on a journey to learn how to attach to ourselves. I mean, Mili, let’s put this in context—If I’m a parent, and I don’t know how to attach to myself, how am I going to mirror that capacity to my child? Actually, what I’m going to mirror to them is my attachment style. Meaning—what happens within me when I’m in challenge, or when I’m in my perception of challenge. And my child is going to learn that strategy. So let’s even put that layer on. What if we looked at attachment style as a coping strategy?

Mili Shoemaker:

Like a protective strategy? Because it’s about safety.

Lisa Dion:

Exactly. What happens within me? So—to answer your question—I don’t know. I don’t know at what age kids catch a glimpse of themselves. I’ve met kids who catch a glimpse way earlier than I think the literature would say is possible. And then I’ve also worked with clients who walk into my office, and they have no idea that there’s a self. They haven’t caught a glimpse yet. And that’s my starting point—to just begin helping them catch a glimpse so that we can redo their internal attachment style from within.

Right? So that we can help them develop that internal attachment style—so that as they go through the world, perceiving challenges, etc.—they know how to connect. They know how to regulate, to modulate, to come home—time and time and time and time and time again. Which, I really and truly believe is the cornerstone of all healing. And I believe it is one of the most extraordinary internal processes that we all have the ability to redo—at any point in our lives. At any point in our lives.

Mili Shoemaker:

Yes.

Lisa Dion:

Yeah, and Mili, you and I see this with SPT therapists. You know, it’s one of my favorite things about watching therapists on the SPT journey—when they first start the program and then by the time they complete certification, there is a shift in their attachment style. There just is.

And for therapists that have been at it for years and years and years and years and years—I mean, there just is. There’s an internal shift in their own felt sense of feeling securely attached to themselves as they move through the world. And then the extension of that is that they are then able to be securely attached to themselves in relationship with others. And so that secure attachment is then extended outward into that relationship. Does that make sense as I’m saying that, Mili?

Mili Shoemaker:

It does to me, but I’m an expert here! So I’m really curious to see how this is landing, you know, for other therapists that are not SPT-ers. But what’s coming up for me—

Lisa Dion:

Yeah.

Mili Shoemaker:

Yeah. I think of—all of us have experienced trauma, right? And I’m thinking—when we experience trauma, we lose ourselves. Because in the moment, so much is happening. The sense of unsafety—the four threats to the brain, right?—are so online that you need to leave yourself in order to survive. That’s it. So, I’m kind of connecting this—When we are experiencing trauma, we are surviving. If we are to integrate that trauma, we continue to survive. But when we are able to come back to ourselves and attach to ourselves, we are living.

Lisa Dion:

Yes! And it’s the—Yeah, we’re living life. And it’s the moment of integration. It’s an integration point, exactly.

Mili Shoemaker:

A moment of inertia—A moment where I feel safe. And what I really want the audience to hear is that attachment to self is not only for those who haven’t had traumas, right? Like, not just for people who are free of trauma—which, I mean, have you met a human being like that?

Lisa Dion:

I haven’t met anybody yet, but OK. We’ll keep it open as a possibility.

Mili Shoemaker:

So that attachment to self is and can be the result of a trauma that you experience—that you are able to integrate.

Lisa Dion:

Oh! Let’s even name that—A fully integrated trauma—a moment of integration—that is one of the signs that a trauma has integrated. That is one of the signs! I can think about it, and I don’t lose myself.

Mili Shoemaker:

Yes.

Lisa Dion:

I can recall the experience of it, and I don’t get swept up in the activation of it. If I do get swept up in the activation, all of a sudden, I am detaching, and I’m moving into one of those attachment styles within myself. But when I can be with myself—as I recall my own life experience—when I can be with the sensations in my body—as I relive, and recall the experiences of my life—I think we could argue that when we’re at that point, it is now integrated into our narrative, our personal narrative, in a way where we now have created new meaning. 

You know, a lot of trauma work now is talking about resiliency coming out of trauma. Well, I would link those two things together, too. You’re not going to get resiliency—or new meaning—or that internal shift that creates strength within the system and then influences things moving forward—you’re not going to get that without this attachment moment. This secure attachment moment from within. And what I’m saying is, we can actually have many of these moments.

Where our system becomes well-versed in having securely attached moments with ourselves. We can get to the place where we do rupture and repair within ourselves. But no—we are not going to live in a state of secure attachment all the time. Because we are moving through the world, and because we are designed to look for challenge. And because our experience is being filtered through our history, and I don’t have everything in my history integrated. Nobody does. And so—Great! Next moment of activation. Next moment of attachment style emerging. Next opportunity to redo that. And so we go—on this amazing journey of recollecting ourselves. Right? Recollecting parts of ourselves. And integrating. Over and over and over.

Mili Shoemaker:

I don’t know if this is too much to ask because I don’t know if we have time—but you’re such a good storyteller. Do you have a story of yourself that puts all of these concepts together? Like, when you tell a story, you give us an image, and we can connect with that. So—do you have a story for us?

Lisa Dion:

I can actually give you one directly related to the playroom. And how attachment to self has influenced me personally in the playroom.

Mili Shoemaker:

Yes!

Lisa Dion:

So—Growing up, one of the feelings that emerged in my home was a feeling of unpredictability. A feeling of uncertainty. Like, something’s going on, and I don’t quite know what it is. Right? That was a feeling in my home. And as a result of that, when that feeling of—we’ll call it hypervigilance, let’s say—would come in, I would notice that in those moments, I would then move into an anxious attachment style with myself. Right? I could overlay that on one of my caregivers.

Mili Shoemaker:

I was going to ask you—was this also a relationship with your parents?

Lisa Dion:

Exactly. I could overlay that there. And someone would look at our interaction and go, “Wow, you have an anxious attachment style with your mom.” And—

Mili Shoemaker:

I love you, Mom!

Lisa Dion:

I love you, Mom! Right? That’s what they would say. But actually—it wasn’t with my mom. It was around my perception of my mom. It was when my system would move into an anxious type of response. I would detach from myself. Well, I’m human. Fast forward—That’s in my history. I’m in a play therapy session early on. And I noticed that I had a lot of trauma cases very early on in my work. Hypervigilance is a very common feeling that emerges when we’re working with high levels of trauma. And what I began to notice is—when that feeling would emerge in the room, I would disconnect from myself. And my own internal attachment style would kick in in those moments. Right? I think that’s also really—maybe we can highlight this—It wasn’t about my mom. Because it was still being reenacted, and my mom wasn’t even in the room. But the felt sense was still there. That makes sense?

Mili Shoemaker:

And then you regress, right?

Lisa Dion:

Yes, exactly. So what I found was that as I learned to become aware of myself in those moments, and as I began to learn this journey of attaching to myself in this process, that when that feeling comes up in the playroom, I don’t have the same attachment style anymore. I can feel it—it’s not like my body doesn’t get activated—but I don’t detach. I can stay connected. I can have a secure attachment with myself within the feeling of hypervigilance and the uncertainty of something’s going on, but I’m not sure what it is. That’s huge as a clinician.

Mili Shoemaker:

And I wonder how that impacts your client, you being able to do that?

Lisa Dion:

Well, exactly. And my ability to hold that in a new way or different way for my client, right? And then we can connect that even further—because as a parent, my ability to hold that feeling when it comes up means my daughter is observing my attachment style in hypervigilance. And she then gets to see me work with my own internal state when that feeling arises. And because I’m modeling that for her, she gets to notice what’s happening inside of her. She doesn’t have to take care of me. She doesn’t have to avoid what’s going on for her, because I’m able to hold what’s happening. Right? And she then starts to get curious about, Whoa, what happens in my body? She starts to catch a glimpse into her own relationship with those kinds of states. That’s the piece that I see happen so often with SPT therapists—the internal attachment shifts. It just changes, and it changes, and it changes, and it changes, and it changes.

Mili Shoemaker:

And I wonder, since this has been your journey—coming back to you, attaching to yourself—I wonder if there was a change in your relationship with your mom?

Lisa Dion:

Yes! Oh! You’re bringing it all together, yes.

Mili Shoemaker:

I don’t know why, but your mom is in my heart today, and I wanted to ask about her.

Lisa Dion:

Yes, yes, yes. Beautiful. Yes. Thank you. So in 1999—oh my gosh, how old was I? I was in my early 20s. And this is when I started to understand the nature of my own mind. This is where I got to be curious about my mother and my relationship with my mother. And when I started to learn this piece, to observe this piece within me, and then do the work—well, my mom didn’t change. But my perception of my mom did.

Mili Shoemaker:

Your mom didn’t change, but your relationship probably changed a little bit too.

Lisa Dion:

Well, I think people would look at our relationship over time and say, Wow, she’s got a different attachment style with the same person at two different points in her life. Did she change? Not really. Did my internal relationship with myself—as I was relating to my mom—change? 100%. So, there we go, Mili. There’s your talk on attachment to self.

Mili Shoemaker:

There you go! I think this is such a gift to those that listen to your podcast and to those that want to learn more about this. Of course, they should go into the Intro to SPT course. But I really believe that this is something the whole world needs to hear about. Like, things would be so different if everyone knew about this concept. I think about how we relate to kids in general. Like, as an adult, right? I don’t know—I just feel like… Yeah, world, wake up! Listen to Lisa!

Lisa Dion:

Why don’t we leave listeners with a homework assignment?

Mili Shoemaker:

Yes!

Lisa Dion:

A point of curiosity for this next week. I want you to observe when you detach from yourself. What are those perceptions that you’re having? And then also—are there moments when you remember what’s going on for you? When you sense what’s happening? And see if you can orient to that feeling of coming back and attaching to yourself. So, it’s literally just a place of curiosity. Where do you detach? What’s going on in those moments when you detach from yourself? Can you remember? Can you sense what’s going on inside of you in those moments? And can you then invite yourself back? Just play around with that. Just observe. That’s it. That’s the homework assignment.

Mili Shoemaker:

Yes. So if the audience wants to learn more about attachment to self, what do they do?

Lisa Dion:

Oh! Come take the Intro to SPT training.

Mili Shoemaker:

Yeah.

Lisa Dion:

Yeah, that’s the place to start.

Mili Shoemaker:

But there’s more, right? There’s so much more.

Lisa Dion:

Oh, so much more! Like I said, we overlay this with how it works in the autonomic nervous system and what this feels like from that perspective. Yes, there’s definitely more to unpack in this conversation, for sure. Well, Mili, thank you for being an important person in my world. I appreciate you so much. And listeners, thank you for being important individuals in my world as well. This conversation wouldn’t be happening today if you didn’t exist. So, thank you for providing a reason and inspiration for us to even take the time to get together and have this conversation.

And you know what I’m going to say next, everyone—Wherever you are in the world, take care of yourself. Which, essentially, what I’m really saying is…Attach to yourself. Because you are the most important toy in the playroom. Until next time, everyone—see you later.