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“In relationships, [people are] not reacting to who you TELL them you are. They are reacting to who you ACTUALLY are, and the way you are actually showing up.” Simply brilliant.
This is why communication is impossible in many relationships. You cna say all you want, but the person's impression of you based on your behavior is already in their head and that's what they're responding to. For me, I can talk things out with words because that's how therapy works. You talk it out. For my wife this is impossible. Talking it out is excruciating for her. So communication is impossible.
This is the second video of yours that has made me say "whoa" - "You are not the final authority on who you are and how you're showing up. Other people hold pieces of that puzzle that you do not have in your own hands." I get so freaked out when people point out things I've done (or failed to do) that I didn't see. I'm getting better at validating my partner's observations and complaints, but this idea about blind spots is huge. I'll take this with me. Your ability to communicate complex ideas clearly is a gift - Thanks!!
What’s the other video?? 😮 this is the first video I’ve ever watched that has actually morphed my environment as I watched and my brain slightly exploded🤯❤️
My girlfriend and I have been together for nearly three years now. She is very DA, and I am very AP. I started seeking therapy and speaking with a coach a couple years ago when I discovered attachment theory during one of our moments where our attachment styles became so discordant that it caused a breakup. I never really knew how to approach her and ask her to look into this until about six months ago when we ultimately triggered each other into another breakup and I kind of spouted it at her all in a fit of protest behaviors. During that period of separation, she, unbeknownst to me at the time, had taken what I said seriously and started looking into it. We mended things, and we have been communicating on a whole different level, with empathy and patience, and listening and asking that we are understanding each other completely. It feels to me like things are going very well. Then she sent me this video last night stating that she was "scared" to share this one with me (we have shared videos and ideas with each other before, including other videos of yours). I am not sure what to take away from why she sent it to me and why it made her scared. I asked her, she said she would explain later (face to face, likely, as we do NOT communicate effectively at all over text). So begins the anxiety. lol. But I trust her, in that her intentions are good, and for our betterment and vulnerable intimacy and helping our relationship flourish.
I think what makes this so difficult is that people don't tell you what they're experiencing with you, even if you ask them (avoidant). Or they do tell you, but it's hypercritical and blown way out of proportion (anxious). So if they don't give you this information, you can't meaningfully integrate it and use it to change your behavior, and if they give it to you in a way that shuts you down, you also can't meaningfully integrate it because it's too disparate. It leaves you either guessing what went wrong and not knowing, or feeling bad about yourself/not able to process effectively.
My ex husband asked me for 15 years what I was doing wrong in the relationship and I literally had no idea and so would ask him to tell me and he couldn't or wouldn't. This conversation would happen after I would catch him cheating or lying and I felt was a way to turn it around on me. Now I wonder if maybe he just didn't know how to explain what I was doing, because I couldn't even see it. 6 years after divorce and my eyes are finally opened.
@@cornwallismorgan874 I never knew how to regulate my own emotions and I had no idea I was expecting others to regulate them for me. If not my partner, I can now see how I expected it from my children. I was trying to be parented emotionally in all my relationships. I always feel my issues are way bigger than anyone else's because of the intensity I felt. Low self esteem kept me from seeing how I was hurting others. I couldn't hear anyone else's emotional needs or ways I hurt them because I felt like I was struggling to hard to even deal with my own and everyone should just understand that. Lol. I fear deep intimacy and expressing my true needs. It is embarrassing to me to express that I need anything and I didn't even really know what my needs are. I could go on and on and on. Lol. Many realizations lately.
I hope people realize what level of expertise and compassion Heidi brings to this video. It is a rare combination of informed advice and judgement free compassionate input to navigating complex human relationships.
This inspired me to revisit an argument with a formerly close friend of mine. I realize now that I was trying to protect my own self image, and I completely invalidated my friend during the situation. I messaged them to apologize, because they at least deserve a real apology. Not the half-hearted one I originally sent to them. Thank you so much for this video; it's inspired some really deep reflection.
This requires both parties to have self awareness first, and then decency. What I witnessed so far whenever you share a feedback even in the kindest and honest way, usually people take it as an offence and start fighting back by saying bad things about you irrelevantly. This is crazy!
This is not a simple process. You need a healthy conneceted internal guidance system (relationship with yourself) in order to know what feedback is worth considering. If you were raised in an abusive environment then you will have internalized things that damage you through the process of accepting feedback. You just wont know which is which until after you smash against the proverbial wall. Accepting "feedback" in a codependent dynamic is terrifyingly destructive and life threatening. A society can have pathologies, not just individuals which makes this very hard at times.
Read novels. I'm serious. If you've been deprived in your life, read stories about others. It will help balance you out and see things you wouldn't have been able to see otherwise. Through participating in other people's stories (true stories work this way, too, not just novels), we gain those experiences, in a way. Also, the world talks to us, too, and is often a better mirror than people we know well. Chance meetings with strangers can mirror us, too. We all are mirrors for one another. Peace.
@@robincrowflies I appreciate you taking the time to respond, I want to say that your statement is an iteration of Heidi's video that we both just enjoyed.
Society, the workplace, others in general all have dysfunction built into their dynamics. That’s why self reflection and self love and internal understanding and acceptance of yourself are so important.
Ms. Heidi Priebe, I don’t know what you’ve been doing recently BUT CONTINUE because these recent videos you’ve dropped over the past several weeks have BEEN SHAKING UP THANGS!!!! All your videos are amazing but these recent ones have SLAPPED TF outta me BACK TO BACK 🤣
Wow, I’m securely attached after years of being fearful avoidant. I dated an avoidant attachment style guy and I kept having to tell him not to project onto me. I feel a lot better after watching this video. I was pretty far in my healing journey and introduced him to a few books and he started learning a lot and i truly think him having to see himself in a new light was probably a lot. I left and got over him pretty fast because the cons were higher than the pros. he’s a nice guy wish him more healing to come. thanks heidi for giving me that closure on my situation and why it ended.
What's interesting is that a lot of this applies even coming from the opposite direction of most of the examples- growing up the family and community scapegoat, I internalized extremely negative things about myself. Hearing positive feedback is uncomfortable and painful to me, because it doesn't match the ego-image (if it even counts as "ego", a tool of self-defense, at that point).
I'm going to offer what happened to me, and how I've gotten healed in large part. Despite being a generally positive person, I would sometimes get to a point of feeling resentful and unappreciated. One day, I was inspired to realize how I habitually ignored any kind of complimentary language from anybody. In one ear, out the other. So, I started writing them down, including all that I could remember. To review these has helped me elevate my sense of worth, accomplishment, and overall ability.
Very insightful video! Sometimes you have to be careful about this though. If the other person is a toxic/narcissistic individual, they might hold up a very broken mirror to you and you begin to belief very bad things about yourself, which are not true. Because what you see in this mirror is not yourself, but the negative projection of that toxic individual. And thanks to the trauma bond you actually belive this person is a much better than they are.
This is so true! I can definitely relate as I'm climbing my way out of that crapshow 🙈 this is so crazy how long it took me to see and understand! My intuition was trying to tell me all along but I kept shooing it away... Thank goodness we learn at some point in life how do we wanna feel loved. In the most positive ways!
Very true. And not just narcissists. Many good and well meaning people bring a fun house mirror to relationships. Presently involved with a wonderful girl with CPTSD and avoidant issues who mirrors some wonderful truths to me but I have to be careful with what is a reflection of me and what is a projection of her past onto me.
The issue with just accepting someone's reflections (or projections) comes when you're dealing with egocentric, deeply wounded and self-righteous people who you know won't reciprocate.
Thank you so much, Heidi! I've consumed lots of content on shadow work before, but your content offers something practical and makes things click in a way others don't. So, thank you! I want to share how this video helped me in a practical sense by sharing an example in case it helps people that are in a similar boat as me (FYI, I'm a healing fearful avoidant with a ways to go). Anyway, I watched this video last night and then this morning I was rambling about my business to my boyfriend even though he's asked me MANY times to not talk at him when he is clearly preoccupied (which I noticed he was). Usually, I'd brush it off, attributing it to him being unwilling to listen and think thoughts like "I bet someone ELSE would listen", rather than reflecting on my behavior. However, after watching your video, when he expressed his frustration this morning, I allowed myself to absorb the critique. It was UNCOMFORTABLE, and I even cried realizing the truth about myself. I apologized to him and acknowledged his perspective. This is all to say, THANK YOU for helping me not blame the mirror and instead use it to help me grow and to slowly build a healthier, happier, more fair relationship.
I'm in the middle of this situation now, and it's so refreshing to hear someone speak to the reality and difficulty of it all. Thanks for the info and encouragement!
When I see a new Heidi Priebe video, I watch the new Heidi Priebe video 🙏😁🙏 Thank you for your words. You actually make me consider doing the bell thing.
Heidi gets it, superior understandings of the nuances of attachment theory are the only way someone can explain stuff like this (where other people can't). Wish you the best and thank you
Hi Heidi, I'm 28 going on 29 and I've been struggling with short term relashionship since I was 16 years old. My longest relationship was from 2019 to 2021 (on and off as he broke up with me 4 or 5 times during this "cycle") through your videos, I discovered that I am having issues with the "pull away process" as when someone starts to pull away a bit, it always results in me being dumped.. I am currently seeing someone since early November, we went on vacation together and he has seen the worst part of my anxiety. But he's still there.. (I'll admit it, I'm still surprised he is 😅) but I realise I am not so sure what to expect from an healthy relationship.. I've fallen hard for this man and I swore to do anything to become better when it comes to relashionship and communication.. so I started going through ALL of your videos and let me say, thank you. I cannot express how much you've opened my eyes and I cannot wait to see more of what you have to share ❤️
The art of being wrong, soooo well described by Heidi!!!! A therapist once said to me “ you know Terri, I’ve never seen god but I don’t think he looks like you”. I actually effin loved him saying that to me and I guess I’m weird cuz I really do like ppls feed back!! They never like mine tho but Heidi just gave me resources to help with that … ima read about, nonviolent, communication, authentic relating, radical honesty. Thanks a mil Heidi.
Heidi, this is the best definition of love i have heard..i have always felt like that but could never articulate like the way you did. You are my guru in the truest sense of the word. RU-vid algorithm suggestion of your videos to me during one of my lowest points was the single most significant thing that happend to me last year. Thank you for every single video.
When I was younger, I was in a relationship with a person who had degrees in Psychology and Psychiatry, so i believed he knows a lot and trusted everything he said about me and my feelings. Ended up being manipulated to do some things I never wanted to do, which deeply traumatized me and took few years of therapy to heal.
These videos have been life changing to me. Being able to have language and understanding about avoidant attachment style has felt like being handed keys to unlocking myself that I have been searching for over a lifetime! My struggle now is the amount of damage my behaviors and responses in my insecure attachment style have caused to my marriage, and trying to rebuild trust with my husband (who errs anxious avoidant I think). One step at a time I think is all I can do.
You're therapist business is going to be overbooked like crazy😂. The videos I've watched about self esteem and avoidance attachments is absolute pure GOLD.
So very timely. I was about ready to kick my mirror to the curb, but this has given me the awareness to approach the wounds I’m feeling from a new perspective, and continue to seek growth.
Thank you so much. I'm not in a romantic relationship, but I have annoying friends and annoying children and siblings and... well, the list goes on. This really reset my perpsective on just why they may be so annoying!! I've withdrawn a lot in recent years. I know it isn't good for me, but it takes energy to be in genuine communication with people. Thanks for helping me realize it's hard not because there is something wrong with me (and all those annoying people) but because that's the nature of genuine relationships. Gives me strength and hope for myself and my connections.
excellent teaching. I am finally able to get beyond “survival” mode because through therapy and very hard work, I have brought to light enough of the learned behaviours to expose the blind spots - and am experiencing true healing.
I can't thank you enough, Heidi. I've just started a relationship as a fearful avoidant in my healing journey and this video couldn't come in a better time! Thank you ❤
Discovering your channel about a month ago has kickstarted my healing journey. 💜 I have barely started, but I already notice my perspective on myself and others starting to change (thanks to books, videos like yours, therapy, honest conversations, and a lot of self-reflection). Thank you, Heidi.
Wow! This latest batch of info has been your best work yet. I will never be able to thank you enough. For someone who struggles, like many of us, you have come a long way. God bless you for putting yourself out here to help others make sense of our lives.❤
You are helping me to heal as I’m on my truth seeking journey! You are bringing so much light onto things I was unaware of due to childhood trauma. But the cycle ends with me. I am considering starting a family soon and I want to make sure I’m securely attached first. Thank you for sharing truth, and over the past few weeks, I can discern that your intentions are pure as well as who is and who isn’t in my life. I appreciate your hard work to help people become healthy and the best versions of themselves
Long time viewer/listener here. My god. This video is beautiful, deep, and so helpful. As always, you have nailed the balance between providing the relational/psychological background to the issues while bringing this beautiful, messy, “we’re complex humans trying to show love to each other” understanding to it too. Your videos are deeply affirming for me and have been an incredible resource in my own healing. Thank you.
What a clear process you have outlined! Your example from when your own mind was blown by your friend's ownership communication was powerful, too. You dropped the bomb when you explained that this is called love. My soul is starved for this kind of love and intimacy! I am sure I am not alone. Thank you for this content.
The amount of Life-Changing Videos of Heidi are just over the charts. Truly, truly amazing. Thank you once again for communicating this so clearly and empathetically.
This 22:24 - 23:10 is where you read my mind (and made me delete the half-written comment in my head :) ) Thanks Heidi. This video was hard to listen to, as with almost all your videos. Which means something's working. Thank you.
I just hope I could know this 7 years ago. As an FA, I had to learn it in a hard way. Your clear explanations and instructions really help my healing journey. The most challenging relationship for me now is with my soon-to-be-teen boy. I am with infinite patience and determination to pause, rethink from his perspective, and communicate, all because of love. This is a true definition of love. It gives us strength to face our fears and improve ourselves.
That is what could have saved my partner and me from intense drama. I did not understand this thing at all and got to learn it the hard way. And it is a very important lesson out there that you are spreading, free of pain. Thank you for your work
She’s on a roll with each lesson, and as she is speaking, she then expresses the thoughts that are occurring in my brain- and answering the questions in my mind, with her next sentence. It’s uncanny. 😅 what a blessed individual. Thank you Heidi
Thank you so much Heidi for this incredibly lucid and compassionate explanation of how valuable and how difficult this process is. I had not thought of intimacy as a mirror - it resonates. You are very generous.
I had to watch this one twice back to back. Im currently going through a breakup and through this process I've been made aware of some definite blindspots that have shaken my self-perception and helped me to realize that I am not just who I think I am or how I see myself. Thank you so much for helping me piece all of this together and continue to grow on my journey
It's so true that when you have intimacy with someone, that person becomes your mirror, and they'll show the true you to you, and it's a power that no other people possesses over you. The more intimate you become, the more they'll show the true you to you, and you would have to adapt and you would have to change. My boyfriend can tell me things that no other people ever told me, and I would have to consider it and adapt to change.
This is such food for thought, I'm very glad to see your video on intimacy in the context of attachment theory. Some personal thoughts I had: It's mindblowing to reflect on intimacy, when my experience as a neurodivergent person (autistic in particular) is that people very often get me wrong without it being me putting ego defenses, but a genuinely wrong assessment of me as a person (this has been coined as the Double Empathy Problem). This created in me a self-fulfilling prophecy of eventually getting defensive over being perceived on principle. So, hearing the "you're not the final authority on who you are, others hold pieces of that puzzle that you don't have in your hands" quote felt more ominous than it should be for this exact reason, even so I get what you actually meant! 🙏 It's hard to realize that most people's blind spots on the self exist for attachment reasons, rather than historical inaccuracy in perceiving people like me, which is fortunately changing over time. Validating others' perceptions of myself (and the other way around) came easier to do, once I could have clarity of what my autism entailed, first and foremost; authentic knowledge that I lacked for many years, was what helped me not get as overly defensive as in my youth. _Then,_ I could get access to a more prismatic view or both myself and others, and I still mess up but not in the same way. Integration between one's view of self and others' view to get to the truth, it's such a difficult, messy thing at times... I love the specificity angle in how to share one's experiences of the other. I have a lot to learn about about intimacy, thank you for the wake up call. 🤍
Wow, 24:15 ownership language and bypassing ego language 🤯 such an amazing way to break down barriers to mutually recognize each others’ perspectives and perception to address blind spots in a productive manner
Exactly what I need: Feeling more uncomfortable with a partner than I usually do anyway. Letting that person pick me apart. Because they're not even supposed to come with positive feelings 👍👍👍 I was absolutely right to quit having relationships. Thank God I can start to hoard dogs now! That was the final push it took.
Love your videos, Heidi! You change my life with each and every one. One piece of feedback: I noticed in your most recent videos you really slowed down the speech tempo. I’ve had to start watching the videos at 1.25 the speed. Hoping you can go back to a faster clip 🙏🏼
People sometimes project their stuff onto you, negativity, then you speak to a positive person who uplifts people and you get a different story about who you are! I know who i am but mood plays a big part in how i see myself, i think i am a pretty good person but i have been gaslit for a lifetime by sisters who want to pull me down, I am at a point now where i am ready to let em go, although its hard, its harder to keep being gas-lit, if you can't trust them to not hurt you, you are in trouble, i think it has contributed to my lack of self esteem and started with my rotten mother and sick mentally dad schizophrenic, he was very fond of little girls, he didn't seem able to add 2 and 2, his thinking was so distorted!❤
You are incredibly amazing at describing everything you're teaching. Once you can understand what's going on concerning this insecure attachment Style , you can realize that having a relationship is just not possible. The only way I can live like a healthy person, is to not have any emotions at all. Although the ego can relent far enough to allow the individual to see that they're not perfect . It's still punishes you emotionally for not being perfect. And this is something that is taking a very long time to release or reprogram, but I am still trying of course❤
I love the mirror analogy - very intuitive! There is maybe one thing missing - when you take the mirror to be the truth and discount your own perception of events because you lack self-confidence. I think thay can also lead to defensiveness but not because you disagree with what the oher person is saying, but the opposite - you dread seeing people "find out" the parts of yourself you are trying to hide.
I am just astounded by how your insights both correspond to my own lived healing journey and give me added clarity as I slowly start to experience more intimacy in my life... your wisdom and communication skills are just phenomenal and your RU-vid channel is such a gift. I wish more people knew about it. Thank you.
Wow! This was a real eye-opener. I like to think of myself as pretty self-aware. I have two degrees in psychology and 6 years of Jungian analysis under my belt. HOWEVER, I’ve had a series of devastating relationship experiences that just now make some sense. I only recently realized that I have a fearful-avoidant attachment style. Now that I think about it, I can imagine that other people see me very differently from the way I see myself. But, the people with whom I’ve had difficulties are highly narcissistic, so there’s never going to be an honest exchange like you describe. In fact, they wouldn’t even tell me what I supposedly did wrong. But now I can see that maybe they thought it should have been obvious to me.
Hi Heidi. Thanks so much for this video! It's 4am and I couldn't sleep because I might be meeting somebody I want to develop an intimate relationship with and I feel scared. I also felt unprepared even with all the books I read and it was hard acknowledging that my feeling were actually leading me to something real (avoidant tendencies here 😅). Your video is explaining why I'm feeling so triggered and I feel reassured knowing it's normal. It's the first time I want to get close to a woman since my divorce and I don't want to mess it up. Your guidelines were exactly what I needed. Showing up knowing my flaws will be seen makes me very uncomfortable even though I'm aware that's the only way to build true intimacy. I believe it's somebody I can trust as a mirror. Now I just need to be brave and make sure to communicate kindly, properly and accurately. I love you. Your videos are guiding me toward the light.
I am thinking about my past relationship - and I think that's the issue. He's unwilling to open his heart and unwilling to change himself, certainly not as much as what I was willing to do, and therefore at some point I didn't feel loved, appreciated or cherished. Now, for sure I had issues too, but that's what happened on his end. Thank you for your great content, Heidi. Your information has been tremendously helpful to me.
Thank you so much for this wisdom. The stories we tell ourselves about others are often not the reality we are facing. I’ve had two relationships go sour due to the combined issues of myself and the women I am entering relationships with. Again thanks Heidi this has given me so much perspective! ❤ this channel
Wow!!! I am SO glad I found your page. This is what I’m going through now. Whenever something happens I always remind myself that I’m a good person lol.
8:01 defensive exclusion; psychologically threatening behavior 8:44 dynamic maturation model; omissions, distortions, denial. Information transformations = blind spots. 10:31 if intimacy is like a mirror, we have to pick. 15:13 require willingness to take other seriously AND partner having willingness to hear you. 15:55 tools: I plan to come back & edit. 27:36 opportunity to 27:48 resources. Nonviolent communication + two more. Listen again
Cheers. Could it have been these three? - Non Violent Communication, Authentic Relating, Radical Honesty @lauraw.7008 1 month ago 23:37 dafney - mutual trust for true intimacy to happen, listens all way through, & use self-perception language. 24:48 @PeterZeeke 2 months ago 5:00 The Real, The Imaginary The Symbolic. 19:27 problem; mirrors see a truth the partners are both missing about themselves @dukethecolors 2 months ago What do you do when you say something like you did at 16:25 (“Hey, you have not been acting very sensitively towards me. You said something the other day that really hurt my feelings….”) and the other person dismisses you, invalidates you, stonewalls or becomes defensive? How should we then respond?
Was looking for how to describe what was missing for me to know she’s in it finally, and why I’ve stopped trusting each and every restart after so, so many attempts. You state things so clearly and succinctly. I was thinking and had even said several times „lack of openness to change“, „trust of me“, and in ways „arrogance“ or „overconfidence“ in rough, rough descriptions. Though I’m exhausted, the desire to just attempt to get her to just watch one more video with me is strong, as it has been for so many others. I guess I know more clearly now exactly what non-negotiable I mean and have meant before I should just give up hope entirely and finally move on. Which is where I’ve been lately. A real mess, but ultimately also good for myself and kids, ?hopefully?. Thank you.
Spot on!!! I’m in a new relationship and I’m starting to notice I get really tense and irritated by hearing my partner talk about his past life because it’s so similar to mine. A life that I no longer want to relive due to the amount of shame I have for it. I noticed that I’m starting to judge him for his past because I was that same person. It’s like looking at my reflection and it bothers me so much 😩
This one really blew me away and resonated with me so profoundly and the way you so clearly articulate everything. I’m so impressed and so thankful that I came across your channel. Thank you🧡
This video has compiled years of therapy in 30 minutes content. For the first time I felt how flawed my understanding of intimacy was. It’s not the story we share about ourselves, whilst being scared of the actual truth about ourselves that we hear from the world. Gold. I have started doing some shadow work and it’s a cathartic experience to accept the rejected parts of ourselves and see the flaws
I grew up being mirrored by my BPD mother who always projected her negative feelings onto me. This information is very eye-opening to me about being mirrored correctly, even if it's difficult to hear. Blindspots can trip up a person because you can't see them. Relationships are supposed to help and heal us. Unfortunately many times they make us sick and destroy us. The closer a person is to you, the more beneficial or destructive they will be to your life.
Wow. Thank you so much for this wonderful video. Truly one of the most helpful channels on youtube. You have a gift for explaining these concepts and a lovely, gentle way of presenting the data and encouraging reflection and growth. Again, thank you so very much. Your videos mean a great deal to many confused humans all over this silly rock.
Hell heidi I never heared someone who explains some dynamics like limerence or the subject in this video so extremly precise snd on point snd very clear understandable....
I am just going through the process of understanding that my perception of myself and my actions is not exactly how I thought it was in the eyes of the significant other. It is taking a lot of effort and a lot of support but it is so worth it. I super appreciate your videos. They make me feel like all the process I am going through, regardless of pain, is so worth it.
Thank you so much for this. I had a fight with a "situationship" recently, and he made me see some of my blind spots. We were both wrong on the argument to be honest, but I'm the only one admitting my mistakes and apologising. It is tricky. Trying to figure out how this will work, if it will at all. But I'm alredt glad this situation brought me to a self reflection I journey. In watching a lof of your videos, this one is definitely a favourite. Thank you for your work.
Thank you for your every single words that you speak so clearly and authentically and passionately to help the whole community and collective, I really don’t know how to thank you. I have been listening to lots of podcasts from lots of experts and Doctors but the way to talk so slow and specific, I am so hocked I don’t know this is my mental issues or you are absolutely amazing. All I have to say I am so honoured to find you and be able after many years to learn from you but at this stage I am learning I really hope I can be connected with the right therapist to get a real help that is effector my growth and maybe hopefully one they I can give unconditional y to the world and the people who needs much needed help. 🙏🙏🙏
