How Attachment Wounds Create Toxic Relationships (and How to Break Free)
Interview By Brandi Fleck
This is a transcript of the conversation between myself, Brandi Fleck, Host of the Human Amplified podcast and Kirby Fling, founder of the Two Mind Method and relationship coach who applies attachment theory to real world relationships to make them healthier.
In this transformative conversation, trauma-informed relationship coach Kirby Fling breaks down how unresolved attachment wounds silently shape our most intimate connections—often pulling us into toxic relationship patterns without even realizing it. We explore how to spot those patterns, what’s really happening in your nervous system during emotional triggers, and how to begin healing through tools like the Five Pillars of Attachment, inner child work, and the Two Mind Method. If you’ve ever felt stuck in love, this episode will shift your perspective—and empower you to break free.
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What Does Being Human Really Mean?
Brandi
What does being human mean to you?
Kirby
Oh wow. That’s like a Sam Harris question—like he used to ask questions like that on his podcast. What is being human... oh man.
You know, honestly, what comes up is not so much fun. But like, being human—a big part of being human—is being lost in the delusion that we are more than a bunch of biological creatures wandering around, just like all the rest of them.
Brandi
Yeah, wow. I got full-body chills when you said that.
Kirby
Like, wow. Yeah. I mean, we’ll get into it more, but like, so many of the issues that—at least as I've come to see them—is because we're being taught and believe that we're something more than just a bunch of biological systems that are bouncing around, mashing into each other—inside and outside, really.
Brandi
Yeah.
Kirby
I don’t know. That’s a good answer for now.
Brandi
Okay, well, and real quick—I was curious about the "inside" part. So like, how does intuition or spirituality fit into that definition?
Kirby
Oh boy. Um, well you just cut right to where I'm itchy, huh?
Okay, let me start by saying I have had some profoundly spiritual experiences in my life. But I keep them separate from coaching and teaching because they're full of question marks. It’s just like—I don’t know what happened. Trying to explain it and codify it or whatever is just so ineffable.
Brandi
Right. Gotcha.
Kirby
So I always have space for that—that there's something out there that we just don’t understand. But if I'm going to be teaching and trying to help people improve their lives, I'm going to focus on what’s reproducible and what we know and some kind of evidence.
And you asked about intuition specifically. And there's this term called hypervigilance that they use in the attachment space. It's basically like when the child mind devises a strategy to achieve safety, which is to track more and more data points around them to try to deduce: What is the situation that led to this moment where I'm experiencing terror? Because if I can learn that, then I can prevent it. And the brain gets really, really good at that.
And in my world, that's what intuition is. Intuition is just the experience of hypervigilance at play. It's this subconscious system that's scanning through massive amounts of data and picking apart little tiny bits and pieces. And at some previous point in my life, that data and this data came together to make something that was important to me. And I'm going to draw a conclusion, I’m going to present that to the conscious mind, and we’re going to say, “Oh, I just know that this guy is sketchy,” or “I just know that this person is aligned with me,” or whatever.
To me, that's just the brain doing its amazing brain thing.
Now, there might be space for spiritual, ineffable, something beyond that. There's totally space for it. But I don’t understand it—if whatever that is—I don’t understand it.
Brandi
Okay. Yeah. I love your honesty.
Meet Kirby Fling: Relationship Coach and Attachment Theory Expert
Brandi
Everybody, I’d love to welcome to the show today, Kirby Fling. He is joining us from Bali in Indonesia.
Kirby
Yeah, yeah.
Brandi
How are you doing today?
Kirby
I'm doing great.
Brandi
Well, it’s night for you.
Kirby
Yeah, it is. It is. I just finished a little talent show at the orphanage, and then like rushed home and jumped on the camera. And I’m here with you. So it’s great.
Brandi
Okay, good. Kirby, can you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?
Kirby
Who I am? Just another person, really. That’s it. That spent a long time hurting and then spent just as much time trying to understand that hurting—and what led to that.
So I'm just a voracious researcher, I guess, into human psychology. And I’ve been doing it for about five years now. I started in computer science, and so I brought this kind of whole technical, meticulous attention to what I do now. And then I discovered adult attachment theory and really got going with that. And then that kind of continued on, and eventually I started seeing patterns that no one else was teaching.
So I started experimenting with that and teaching it in kind of an experimental way. And then when it had very good success rates and lives were being changed, I said, “This needs to be a thing.”
And so I have been officially creating what I now call The Two Mind Method. And uh, yeah. And so here I am.
Understanding the Impact of Attachment Trauma
Brandi
So your work is based in attachment theory. So is it safe to say you help people deal with attachment wounds?
Kirby
Yes. But once you understand the scope of what the attachment system is in human development, you realize that everything is a reflection of attachment wounds. It’s literally everything.
Like, every—almost—you could almost go as far as to say every preference you have, every fear, every time you get angry—all those things have to do with attachment trauma. And the scope is incredible.
Which is scary at first. But once you realize that there are predictable pathways, it starts actually becoming really liberating. Because you're saying, “Oh, this is all just related. I’ve got a lot of maladaptive expressions of a relatively small and simple core wound. And if I can deal with the core wound, all these maladaptive expressions just kind of evaporate.”
So yes. Okay. That’s the long answer to your question.
Brandi
No, that’s okay. And I’m making a few notes here so we can hit back on some of this stuff. But something that you were saying when you were telling me what being human means to you really piqued my interest.
You said that intuition, for you, is hypervigilance. And that’s so interesting, because in my experience, I got so detached from my intuition through being hypervigilant. And it took me a long time to trust it again. So it’s just really interesting to me that you’re coming from that perspective. Can you tell me a little bit more about it?
Hypervigilance vs Intuition: How Trauma Shapes Inner Knowing
Kirby
Yeah. So I operate a lot in the realm of the theoretical because—these are things we just don't know.
Again, coming from the IT side—you know, if you're dealing with a super complex system, sometimes you can understand it all. Many times you don’t have the time. And so you just kind of make something and then shove it into the system. And then you create watching bits on the other side to say: Did this impact the system?
I hope that made sense.
Brandi
Yeah.
Kirby
So I use a lot of that here on the psychology side. Like, okay—say we have this thing called intuition. Which, you know, we don’t have any brain cortical structure for. We don’t have any known biological element to it. It’s just something kind of, you know, supernatural, ineffable, whatever.
Okay. Let’s say that that happens. Well, let’s start from that assumption and look at the other side and say: If you follow your intuition—this thing we’re going to call intuition—now let’s look at the other side. Did you choose a good partner? Did you regulate at a time when it was important? How did your behavior affect a child? (Which is kind of my main priority.) Did it enrich your life?
And sometimes that answer will be yes. And other times it’ll be no.
So if it's sometimes yes, sometimes no, that leads me to the conclusion: it’s not universally good.
And so my stance on intuition is—yes, listen to it. Connect to it. Do all the things that, you know, feel good. But have some kind of rational, conscious—just a little bit of a challenge against it. Don’t give it free rein. Because giving it free rein is like giving a five-year-old the keys to the car.
But give it a chance to breathe. Also give it a little bit of pushback.
Because when the intuition sees that person across the room and says, “Oh my God, I feel this amazing connection with that person,” like—we’ve got loads of evidence that says that’s attachment trauma at play. And you’re literally picking the worst possible person in the room.
At least that was my story for a long time.
Brandi
Okay.
Kirby
So, you know, when that happened in my life, I was like, “Oh, that’s intuition. That’s just something magical, mystical, whatever.” And then once I learned about attachment trauma, I’m like, “Oh, that was not anything mystical. That was just my subconscious trying to find a person that could play out my wounds to a better solution.”
And it's just like... uh, okay.
And then when that happens, you literally have to choose to stand in the face of this compulsion to go that direction—which feels like intuition—you have to stand in the face of that and say, “No. I’m going to choose a different path.”
So, you know, I’m not saying intuition is bad. I’m just saying give it a little bit of pushback and check its results. And if its results are positive consistently, then you’ve got something good. Go with it.
But if it is leading to the same kind of—here, look at your last three relationships. For any person who’s listening, look at your last three relationships and say: Did they play out in similar patterns? Did you feel the same kind of pain? Did you have the same kind of arguments, whatever?
If that’s true, then your intuition is corrupted. It’s co-opted by unresolved attachment wounds.
Brandi
Co-opted.
Kirby
Yeah. That’s my opinion.
Identifying Core Wounds in Relationships
Brandi
That's a really unique perspective, and I love how you explain that. And it’s funny, I actually—I was a technical writer in the software industry for 15 years before coming over here, so hearing you talk about this is like, oh, that makes so much sense. But I never thought about it that way. So yeah, thank you for that.
You mentioned predictable pathways that lead to core wounds. What are some of these core wounds that people who are looking for relationships need to be aware of?
Kirby
Here's a moment where I’ll shout out one of my teachers, who’s Thais Gibson. She's kind of famous on YouTube for doing The Personal Development School. I’ve been in her program for years, and she kind of has this cool model—like 16 or 20 different core wounds.
And the core wounds sound like a statement that is:
I am unlovable.
I am unwanted.
I am bad.
I will be rejected, abandoned, abused, manipulated, whatever.
So these core wounds are core beliefs. And getting into the technical bits of attachment—it’s basically like the child brain comes out, and then there’s some sequence of events that happen around them. And then the way that the brain makes the conclusion at that developmental stage is:
The truth of my reality is someone I care about will leave me.
If this place feels safe, that person that I feel safe with is going to walk away, and I’m going to be alone.
And that's just the truth that kind of gets installed in the brain.
Now, it might be “The person's going to leave.” It might be “I’m unlovable.” It might be “I’m bad,” “I’ll be punished,” whatever. These are the wounds. And then they kind of get installed at a baseline, almost operating system layer. And then we move forward through the rest of our lives with this kind of just fundamental, like—that's baseline truth inside our brain. We just believe that's true.
And so we don’t ever question it, because it’s just like, well, that’s just what reality is.
And that's where the really tough part of attachment healing comes in. You have to figure out some mechanism to get underneath this thing that your subconscious believes is true, and then start showing it—teaching it—new lessons to say, “Well, actually, that's not true.”
And so it’s tricky when you first start. It’s tricky. Once you kind of get into it a little ways, it starts becoming more—you know, it's like any skill—you start getting better at it. And you're just like, “Oh, this is my wound. I'm feeling activated. I just got triggered because I fear something.”
What do I fear? It’s like, “I fear that this person’s going to leave.” And it’s like, well, okay, there's people that leave all the time. Why is this one important?
And then you realize, “Oh, it's because this is safety. Like, this is the place where I feel at ease. This is the place where I feel at home. This is the place where I feel that I can just relax and be myself and stop putting on a face and whatever. This is something special to me.”
And then the threat of that person walking away is this massive existential threat. And then our entire nervous system activates. And then we end up with something that we frequently call a trigger.
Brandi
Did that answer the question? I know you kind of looped—because to answer that question, you kind of got to go through a bunch of technical things around it.
Kirby
That answered?
Brandi
Yeah, I think you did. So basically, core wounds are beliefs that we form early on about how reality is going to go in relationship. Is that a good synopsis?
Kirby
Yeah. That’s a very good synopsis. And it’s like—understanding how that gets formed informs us on how to heal it.
How Attachment Affects Every Aspect of Human Relationships
Brandi
Earlier, you were—I can’t remember exactly how you said it—but you mentioned something like everything stems from attachment. Do you mean like, how we interact in the world, or how we need to heal? What does that mean?
Kirby
I know it’s a big claim, and it’s scary at first. But it seems to be true that it impacts every aspect of relating with another human being.
And then you realize that the term “attachment figure” is specifically called attachment figure because it doesn’t actually have to be a human. It could actually be a pet or a religion or a deity or anything that you’re going to form an attachment to. It will activate attachment beliefs. And if those beliefs are wounds, then those wounds are going to come alive.
And in official attachment assessment—this is really interesting—this isn’t the Daniel P. Brown stuff, but that was really just a summary of 50 years of attachment research—a lot of people go online and take these attachment tests, and those are not actually reliable.
A real attachment interview is looking for something called coherence of mind. And coherence of mind is basically like, how coherent are your thoughts when you're talking about the situation or this person?
Because what you’ll find with people that have attachment wounds is that they’ll be telling a story, and you’ll notice in the story that the person they’re talking about will shift. It’s like they’re talking about a partner, but then they’ll make this reference to Mom or Dad. Or they’ll be telling a story in one tense, like it was something that happened yesterday, and then as they’re telling the story, they’ll shift into present tense—and they’ll be reacting in the present as if the threat is right here in front of them.
These are signs that someone’s attachment or threat system is highly activated.
The Attachment System as a Master Index of Safety and Fear
Kirby
So one way of looking at the attachment system is like—you know the old encyclopedias from yesteryear that would have like, 23 volumes? And then there’s one special volume at the end—you open it up, and it says, “Look at alligators,” and then it says, “See: reptiles.” That kind of cross-reference thing?
The attachment system has an organizing effect—this is the psychological term—the attachment system has an organizing effect on the brain. And it seems to be that it creates the master index of what is scary and what is safe.
So if you have early childhood—this is the first 24 months—if you have early childhood wounds that create a moment of something being scary (as simple as, “I’m freaking out and I need you, Mom,” and then she picks up her cell phone and walks away talking on the phone), to the child mind, that could be terrifying.
Those moments—those lessons that are learned in that moment—go into the master index about what’s scary and what’s safe. And then everything else we do—literally everything else we do—will refer to this index about what is scary and what is safe.
And inside that index are malformed lessons or inaccurate assessments—inaccurate conclusions.
In that way, attachment affects everything.
Who Has Attachment Wounds? (Spoiler: Almost Everyone)
Brandi
So it almost sounds like anybody could have an attachment wound—whether they had a good childhood or not—because nobody’s... I mean, no parent is perfect, I would say. What are your thoughts on who gets attachment wounds?
Kirby
I've got some very specific ideas about trauma that I would love to talk about. And this feeds into that a lot.
So, there are people that specialize in the science of sleep and learning, and there are some very interesting conclusions that come out of that field. There were a couple guests on Huberman recently that really got into it—they were wonderful.
But think of it this way—at least, this is the way I think about it, and it has informed my approach a lot:
In the daylight, in the conscious waking hours, we experience all the stuff that happens in the world. And then something comes, and we refer to that little index and say, “Is this scary or is that safe?” And we do a little quick reference. And then we come back, and we basically do a surface-level reaction to that.
But we’re gathering data. Our brain is gathering data through this entire time period.
And then we sleep. And in the sleep phase is when the brain goes through all the information we gathered during the waking hours, and it begins reducing it down to core cause-and-effect pattern-association kind of things that get encoded into long-term memory—probably the cerebellum. And that’s what then shows up later in this little corrupted index.
So to answer your question—and again, I’m going around the circle—but to answer your question: someone can experience an attachment wound or attachment trauma, but where it really becomes an issue is if they take that lesson that they learned in that moment, and there’s no other information, no other lesson, no other reconciliation before they sleep.
Why Attunement Matters in Healing Trauma
Kirby
So the child is sitting here—it doesn’t even have to be a child. It could be an adult with a partner or whatever—and it’s like, I’m sitting here with you, and then you say something that just, you know, feels horrible to me. And I’m just like, ah.
And then I pull away because it seems threatening and uncomfortable. So I pull away, and I isolate. I’m just like, “Oh, there’s all this yucky stuff inside,” and “Oh, she hates me,” and “She’s never going to be there for me,” or whatever. I jump to all these conclusions.
And then I go to sleep. And now that lesson that I learned gets encoded.
And so in my world, I have traumatic event and then I have traumatic memory. And those are two different things.
Attunement is very important. Do you understand attunement?
Attunement is that I understand kind of what’s going on inside of you.
So if I’m attuned to you, and I notice that your nervous system just dysregulated—I'm attuned to you, and I understand that your nervous system just freaked out because it got triggered by some perceived threat—then it’s like, in my world, and what I try to teach people to do, is that in that moment:
What’s true or false does not matter.
The truth of the reality is that your nervous system is panicking because of some massively perceived threat. And I need to put everything else down. I need to prioritize you and this dynamic. And I need to flood your nervous system with positive affirmation—which, it’s the five pillars of attachment, which we can talk about later.
How to Prevent Long-Term Trauma Through Positive Attachment Repair
Kirby
I need to flood your nervous system with the five pillars of attachment so that your nervous system learns that whatever that horrific event was—it was a one-off. It was an exception. It was not the rule.
So you have a child that’s like, “I’m looking for Mom and I’m freaking out,” and then she takes the cell phone and disappears out of my sight. And it’s just like, “Oh, I’m alone in this world. No one will be there for me. I’m just going to be alone in my panic forever.” Like, that’s the lesson that is being learned in that moment.
Well, if the next six hours is one or both parents—or however many people are in my attachment constellation—flooding my system with:
“We care about you. We’re so sorry I had to step away. You mean so much to me…”
Again, the five pillars.
That brain, before it sleeps, now has lots of lessons. And it’s not going to encode the bad one as a truth of the universe. It’s going to encode the bad one as this little thing that happened, in proportion to these other good things that happened.
Brandi
Yeah.
Kirby
And then they go to sleep. And what we just did—if my theories are correct—what we just did is we prevented the formation of a long-term traumatic memory.
Brandi
That makes a lot of sense.
Kirby
Yeah, it does. It makes a lot of sense to me, which is why I teach it. I mean, I don’t think—I’m not aware of any long-term studies that back this up yet, but I fully believe that there will be in the next 10 to 20 years. Like, there's just too much—there’s too much that makes sense about this—for someone not to chase after that in a good scientific way.
Adrenaline, Neuroplasticity, and Attachment Healing
Kirby
So right now, we’re kind of at the edges of this. I think we’re kind of at the front end of understanding that that’s what’s going on.
There’s another thing—again, we’re technical—but there’s another thing that came up that is super amazing about this. Adrenaline is known to be one of the major stress hormones. Now, adrenaline, cortisol—they do other things—but they’re definitely present in high amounts when we’re stressed out, when we’re triggered, or in the middle of a traumatic event.
Our adrenaline, our stress hormones, go through the roof, right?
Adrenaline amplifies neuroplasticity—or enables more neuroplasticity.
Brandi
So again, this makes sense. In a moment that we’re extremely stressed, the brain is learning faster.
Kirby
Exactly. Yeah.
So we have this traumatic event, our adrenaline goes high, and our brain basically goes into super learning mode. Like, “What is everything that’s happening right now? I don’t know what the f is going on, but I’m going to gather all this information so that later I can parse it up and try to figure out what the patterns are.”
And so—you have this traumatic event. The adrenaline goes high. You learn all this stuff. You're still kind of elevated in stress hormones.
Then the attachment figures come in to say:
“No, we love you. You're amazing. Blah blah blah.”
You give all the positive stuff.
The brain is going to learn all that, too. And then it goes into bed and says:
“Oh, the pattern here is not that Mom hates me and I’m going to be alone forever.
The pattern is that sometimes they go away, and then they immediately come back.”
That’s the pattern. And it’s like, “Well, that’s not so scary.”
That brain just learned something that’s actually going to increase its resilience, increase its capacity for stress, and that brain is actually going to have fewer activations, less susceptibility to anxiety and depression, less susceptibility to toxic relationships, etc. etc. etc.
Brandi
Yeah. Wow. Okay.
What to Do When Both Partners Are Triggered
Brandi
So this is a really cool way to understand this.
Let’s say you have two partners, and one is highly activated. What if the other one is highly activated and can’t attune and help calm the other person down?
Kirby
Yeah. That’s what I call a tidal wave moment.
I mean, the first relationship is always with self, right? And like—one of the reasons I call my system The Two Mind Method is because it’s like, there’s a conscious mind and a subconscious mind. And they are different things. Different entities. Different strengths, weaknesses, motives—and different memory systems, which is hugely important.
So the first attunement I need to have is to myself and my inner child—or subconscious inner child—I use those terms the same.
So if I'm with a partner, and my partner is super triggered, and I’m like:
“Okay, I’ve been taking all these classes from Kirby. I know what to do here.”
Then I check in with myself and I’m like:
“I don’t have that capacity right now.”
What do I do?
I do the thing—like, in all cases, when you can’t figure it out—you go to one thing. And that is:
“What is the truth of my nervous system in this moment?”
Okay. Answer that question. And then do everything I can to vomit out a description of that situation into the space between me and this other person.
“Right now, I am super triggered. Obviously, my stress is flying. My hands are shaking. My heart is fluttering. This is the truth of my nervous system right now.
And I think I want to be there for you—that’s also true.
But I’m super tapped out, and I don’t have the capacity for it. Also true.”
Okay. If you can do that, you are winning.
The 45-Minute Rule for Stress Regulation
Kirby
Now the next bit is this:
“I need to take a break. I need to get to a place of felt safety.”
That’s it. When you’re super triggered, that’s your one and only goal—get to a place of felt safety.
So if I’ve been doing the work with myself, and I’m sitting with a partner that’s triggered, I would be like:
“I know the things that I need to get my inner child into a place of felt safety.
And this is not it. And I’m sorry, but I need to step away.”
And then you go do that.
Now, if you have two people who are doing the work in the same way—I’m super triggered, I hear my partner say that—I’m like:
“Oh, that’s a good reminder. That is what I need to do also.”
And now I’m going to step away and not take it personally. I’m going to be like:
“Okay, let’s check in in 45 minutes or an hour or whatever.”
It shouldn’t ever be less than 45 minutes, in general.
Brandi
Because?
Kirby
Because it takes 45 minutes for stress hormones—like, if your stress hormones peak out—it takes 45 minutes for them to be reabsorbed or break down or oxidize, whatever the thing is that makes a stress hormone stop activating the system. That takes about 45 minutes.
Brandi
Got it.
Kirby
And so, if you reach a level 8, 9, 10 event, then you're just like:
“Okay, there should be no attempt to do anything but seek felt safety for 45 minutes.”
Brandi
Okay.
Kirby
I shouldn't try to answer any questions. I shouldn’t try to resolve anything. I shouldn’t try to teach or guide or blah whatever.
Everything goes off the table. The only goal you have in that 45-minute window is to get yourself to felt safety so that your nervous system will begin to regulate. And then you can be like:
“Okay, I’m back on my feet. What the hell was that whole thing about?”
Then you can process that with a sober brain that’s not impaired. And then you can step back in.
And if both people are doing that—amazing.
How to Create Emotional Safety
Kirby
Because you can then add in some more positive experiences after your nervous system comes back down.
Brandi
Right. Okay.
Kirby
Well, I mean, I have a specific kind of formula. If I'm good and my partner is not—again, it’s the five pillars of attachment.
The reason my partner’s triggered is because some latent attachment trauma just got touched.
Something—some stimulus happened that they perceived as an existential threat. They perceived it in such a way that their core wound, their core belief, just got activated. And now they’re responding to a threat that is monstrously important to their nervous system.
Their nervous system is perceiving this threat as a threat to their very existence. And the reason that happened is because at some point in the first two years of their life, they did not get the five pillars of attachment in adequate measure.
So what I can do for that partner is I can give it to them now.
If I can give them these five experiences, then theoretically, you create a sense of safety. You cannot tell someone to be safe. But you can create an environment with a high likelihood that they’ll feel safe.
And if I can do that—if I can create a solid, strong container that creates a sense of safety—then they associate safety with me.
Now, inside their brain, they have an association. They say:
“Oh, I go up in...”
I mean, the third pillar of attachment is support while dysregulated—and that’s literally what I’m doing. I’m creating support while they’re dysregulated. That creates safety. Their brain now has safety associated with me. Our relationship goes up.
But if they freak out and they’re feeling terrified, and I do something that creates shame or blame or labels or whatever—now I’m less safe. And our relationship goes down.
Brandi
Yeah. So do you want to give us the five pillars of attachment real quick, since we’ve referred to them a couple times?
What Are the Five Pillars of Attachment?
Kirby
Yeah. So this is from a book by Dr. Daniel P. Brown et al. There’s more, but he’s kind of one of the main names on it.
Him and his team got the unfortunate job of—they found an orphanage where the children had been molested for many, many years. And so these children—the attachment systems of these children—were just a total mess.
They took these children to this team, and the team said:
“We have to devise a way to help these children heal and get back to themselves and become functioning human beings again.”
Some of them were almost feral in their reactivity.
They developed this theory of these five experiences. I’ll go quickly:
Felt Safety
Attunement
Support While Dysregulated
Expressed Delight
Support for Autonomy
And what it appears to be is—it appears that if you can create a situation where these five experiences are being felt by a child, it seems to be that child forms a secure attachment system.
And they’re interconnected. The way you create felt safety is by giving the other four. The way you create attunement is by giving the other four. And so on.
Like, at any point that you want to focus on one and it’s lacking, then you focus on the other four, and they begin to feel it.
So in my theory, all interactions that happen in an adult romantic relationship are reflections of childhood attachment trauma.
And so, the best way that I can be present and supportive for my partner is to recognize:
“This is a person who has latent attachment wounds.”
Because almost everybody does.
How to Build Inner Safety Using the Five Pillars of Attachment
Kirby
And so if I take my knowledge of attachment theory and apply it to this moment right now—where my partner's freaking out—good things happen.
That’s one of the things I’ve been testing over the last couple years, both in myself and in the clients that I work with. And it is very reliable. But you can’t do it unless you yourself are grounded.
Again, the first question I ask is:
“Do I have capacity for this right now?”
And if I have not done my own work, I usually don’t have capacity. So I have to go do my inner work with my inner child.
And guess how I build a relationship with my inner child?
By giving it the five pillars of attachment.
Brandi
Oh!
Kirby
I go to my inner child and I say,
“I want you to feel safe.”
Okay, how do I get you to feel safe?
I attune:
“Hey, what’s going on inside you? What are you really feeling about this? I’m interested in your opinion and your thoughts and feelings, and you will get no shame or blame from me.”
When my inner child is dysregulated, it’s like:
“That’s okay.”
Support while dysregulated is kind of this idea that:
“You get to be a dysregulated monster. That’s allowed. This is how humans process stuff.”
So I need support while dysregulated—for a child, for a partner, and for myself—it’s always the same. It’s like:
“Oh, you’re dysregulated now? That’s okay.”
I am going to use my energy to create a container of safety so that you get to do this whole process that you do—inside this container—and you will never get any shame or blame from me.
Brandi
Yeah.
Kirby
And if we can do that, good things happen. Consistently.
Regulating the Inner Child Creates Emotional Stability in Relationships
Kirby
So I do that with my inner child. And when I do that, my inner child begins to feel safer. Begins to be more expressive. Begins to be more calm. Stops reaching out into the outer world to come fill my void.
And now guess what?
I’m now more grounded and centered and regulated. And then my partner gets triggered. I’m like,
“Oh, I can do this. This is going to take 45 minutes, maybe an hour, and I’ll sit here with you for this 45 minutes as you go through this whole journey, and never once will you shake me.”
Because it turns out this is what a child needs.
What the child needs is:
“I need to not be alone. I need to know that you’re here with me, and that my big emotions and my chaos and my confusion will not scare you away.”
And what do most of us do when we’re in the face of someone who’s got big emotions?
We run.
We hide.
We divert.
We come up with jokes.
We try to do anything to soothe.
What lesson are we teaching here?
Their adrenaline is high. They’re learning massively. What are we teaching in that moment?
We’re teaching them:
“Your emotions are scary. And we don’t want them around.”
Brandi
Yeah. And that you're not allowed to be what your nature is.
Kirby
Yes. Yeah, exactly.
So it’s super, super powerful to do the opposite.
It’s like:
“You’re having big emotions? Bring it. None of this is going to scare me.”
Now, of course, if the person gets violent and blah blah blah—those are just ways of acting out from terror and all this other kind of stuff. So it’s like, you know, you’ve got to take some account for physical safety—make sure they’re not hurting themselves or hurting anybody else, of course.
But even that—there can never, ever be shame. Ever.
The Four Enemies of Healing: Shame, Blame, Numbing, and Self-Delusion
Kirby
I frequently talk about the enemies of healing.
The enemies of healing are:
Shame
Blame
Numbing
Self-delusion
And if these are online—if these are present—very little healing will happen.
So you have to build a practice, almost like yoga. You have to build a daily practice that says:
“Shame is not going to be something that I allow. It’s not going to be something that I broadcast out of my being toward someone who’s dysregulated—especially a child.”
And that’s hard.
Because we all live in cultures where shame is weaponized. And shame is encouraged.
And then we say,
“Okay, well now we end up with all this anxiety, depression, failed relationships, and general sense of dissatisfaction in life.”
And it’s like, “Why?”
It’s because we’re literally weaponizing shame and teaching everyone that it’s okay.
Brandi
I think shame comes from judging our nature—or like the aspects of our nature that are uncomfortable. What do you think?
The Link Between Shame and Feeling Wrong
Kirby
Well, I just had a big thought about this this morning—literally just this morning—and I’m still processing it.
But if I can kind of chew on that idea here in the live...
There seems to be a very, very strong connection between wrongness and shame.
And that is the part that really got me thinking about it. Because I’m like, okay—there are situations where we can be told that we’re wrong, and we have no emotional reaction to it.
Like, I’m playing chess, and I move the bishop wrong, and someone’s like,
“Oh, that’s not how the bishop works.”
I’m like,
“Oh, okay. Whatever.”
That doesn’t become a trauma 30 years later—“the bishop trauma.”
So there are lots of ways that we can be told we’re wrong and have no emotional reactivity.
But when it comes to our behavior—or how we interact with another person—it’s like:
“No, you can’t act like that.”
“No, you can’t say those things.”
“No, you can’t have that preference.”
“No, you can’t crave that thing.”
You’ve got loads of people that have sexual shame, right?
And sexual shame is this idea that:
“You can’t even desire that. Desiring that is somehow wrong.”
Again, I haven’t fully parsed through all these ideas. But there seems to be this really strong connection between someone telling us that something we did is wrong, and then we have a shame reaction. And then we move forward in life...
Is It Ever Okay to Feel Bad?
Kirby
This is where it gets really tricky.
I realized—I mean, I’m here in Bali, which is this massive spiritual hub, and a gazillion people here are teaching various forms of spiritual blah blah blah—whatever—they call it “the conscious community.”
And I realized that even in the conscious community, there are massive efforts to make sure that no one feels bad. That we don’t ever tell anyone that they’re wrong.
And I’m like... that’s something I’ve been struggling with a lot lately.
I’m just like, “Are there things that are just wrong?”
From a cultural perspective—absolutely yes.
Brandi
That’s a big question.
Kirby
Yeah.
We, as a culture, decide that beating a child is wrong. Okay. I happen to agree with that. Great.
Now we’re all going to agree that that’s wrong.
We’re also going to agree that driving like a maniac on the road is also wrong.
Right?
At some point, people who engage in those behaviors—we need them to feel bad. Because feeling bad is the internal neurological motivator to change behavior.
So it just seems to me that, like, if we have any kind of environment that says,
“We don’t want anybody to feel bad,”
What we’re actually saying is,
“We don’t want anyone to feel shame—because shame feels horrible.”
But at some point, we have to have some kind of line—I don’t know where the line is—but at some point we have to have a line that says:
“This behavior is bad, and it is worthy of feeling bad about. Internally. Feeling horrible about it. Because that’s going to be your motivator to change.”
When Is Shame Harmful, and When Is It a Signal to Grow?
Brandi
Oh, well—yeah, it’s really interesting to think about. And there’s a lot to unpack there.
And I actually want to take this minute to invite our listeners and our viewers—if they have any thoughts about where the line is—leave them in the comments. Tell us!
Kirby
Oh, yeah!
Brandi
Yeah. So maybe we’ll see some other opinions and we can sort of hash it out a little bit.
But, yeah. A couple of other things that have stood out—that I think are major takeaways—as you’ve been talking...
Holding Space and Creating Emotional Containers
Brandi
Well, I really liked how you talked about making a container of safety for your partner. And I think in healing communities, people might be familiar with the term holding space.
So I just want to point out there—I think that’s just another way to look at holding space. And so, that’s great.
Can Attachment Styles Change?
Brandi
And then... attachment styles can change? I think I’m getting that from what you’re saying.
Kirby
They can. 100%. Yeah. 100%.
Brandi
I think that’s great news. That’s really great news.
Kirby
So, I don’t even use attachment styles anymore.
Like, I totally started there. I was 100% into the four-quadrant model.
Because, you know, there are other models—I didn’t know that until I studied the Daniel Brown stuff. But there are many different models that will assess and evaluate people into some kind of scale.
There’s one that’s called DMM, which is really pretty amazing from a theoretical/clinical point of view. But it’s actually like on a circle—almost like a color wheel. You basically have “really good, solid, sociable, regulated” at the top, and it goes all the way down to “really, really bad—psychopathic” at the bottom.
But you can go either direction, and the frequency or proximity to the middle is also a judgment. So it’s like this plot on a big circle.
Okay. So on the DMM model, I might be a B6, which means nothing to someone who hasn’t studied the model.
But the normal model that people know is:
Anxious Preoccupied
Dismissive Avoidant
Fearful Avoidant (aka Disorganized)
Secure
It’s kind of this four-quadrant model. And that’s where I started. I studied all the insecure styles extensively.
Are Attachment Styles Just Survival Strategies?
Kirby
Eventually, I started finding these clinicians and researchers that were talking about these physiological reactions to different situations. And I was just like, “Well, that’s what they’re talking about there. That sounds just like DA behavior—dismissive avoidant behavior.”
And then, as I went further down that road, I realized:
“Wait a second. They’re all being avoidant.”
Like, everyone on the insecure spectrum is being avoidant.
What are they avoiding?
They’re avoiding fear. They’re avoiding perceived threat.
They’re all acting out of fear!
So I’m just like, “There’s actually not... you get down to that level, and there’s not really much difference.”
What we’re seeing as an “attachment style” is an expression of behaviors that that nervous system has concluded are effective strategies to achieve safety in the face of threat.
That’s what an attachment style is.
“This is how I get to safety. This is how I get to regulation.”
Now, different people will have different perceived threats. And to me, that’s much more juicy—much more interesting. Because instead of trying to group people into labels—because labels don’t help anything—we get into the minutiae of:
“What was the specific stimulus? The specific thing that you witnessed right before your nervous system freaked out?”
That will tell us where you think a threat is. Where your nervous system—or your subconscious—believes a threat is.
How Triggers and Trauma Responses Form: The Peanut Bag Metaphor
Kirby
And it’s like—you know, like a bag of peanuts being opened. Someone sees a bag of peanuts open—boom—their nervous system freaks out. And it’s like, “What?”
Yeah, in my childhood, and all the people I grew up around, they would’ve said that person’s crazy.
And now I’m just like, “That person has some prior association between—it’s either the bag, the sound, the smell of peanuts—and something that was actually threatening.”
And once you understand it like that, you’re just like, “Oh. Attachment labels—who cares?” This is where it gets interesting.
What was the thing that created the association with a bag of peanuts that is so terrifying?
And then we dig into that. We dig into that. And then we, you know, use visualizations—because the subconscious can’t tell the difference between a visualization and a real-life experience.
And so we basically start playing around. We create all these different visualizations that use peanuts in different ways until we find ways that it means nothing—and ways that it really, really activates.
Because the nervous system will tell you. You’ll feel it. You’ll just be like, “Ugh.” Like, “Okay. We’re getting close.”
And you keep poking around. And then—boom—whatever the source is, you may not uncover the original memory, but you’ll definitely uncover the emotional belief. You’ll say,
“Okay, this is the reality of your nervous system.”
How to Rewire Triggers in Relationships
Kirby
And then you take that information, and you go to your partner and say,
“Hey partner, I’ve got this reality inside my nervous system that reacts very strongly to peanut bags being opened. I know it seems insane, but that’s just who I am. So what?”
So I’m going to ask you—this is where we come at it from both ends.
“I’m going to ask your help. Just don’t open peanut bags in my presence—for a couple days, couple weeks, couple months.”
That allows my nervous system to have more capacity—to be less fight or flight.
“So I’m going to ask you to stop doing this—if you have capacity.”
And then while that’s happening, I’ve basically gotten a reprieve.
Then I go to my inner world, and I come at it from the other end and say,
“What is this terror that I have? And how can I rewire it?”
Now I’m jokingly talking—yeah, I’m jokingly referring to it as “bag of peanuts,” because what the bag of peanuts really is— I mean, it can be a bag of peanuts—but it’s usually something more like:
Raising your voice
Liking some bikini chick on Instagram
Or whatever—pick your poison
We see it all the time. Like, it’s just like,
“My partner just blah blah blah.” (Fill in the blank.)
They’ve got anger. You know, anger is just fear. So they’ve got anger and blah blah blah blah blah.
And you say,
“That’s your business. That’s your trigger activating.”
Radical Ownership: It's Never About the Other Person
Kirby
It’s never about the other person. This took me forever to get.
Yeah. It’s never about the other person.
And if there’s something there that is so chronically out of alignment with my nervous system and its triggers, then you’re out of alignment. It’s time to walk away.
And that can be done without any emotional payload.
You can be like,
“This is out of alignment with me. This is the reality of who I am.”
And if the partner says,
“I had no idea,” or “I did know, but I’ve been irresponsible,”
Or whatever, right? If the partner receives that with grace and says,
“I care about you. I want to help you with this,”
And they’re doing it on their initiative—I'm not asking them to change—then that’s green flags all over.
Brandi
Ooh, I’m glad you just told us what a green flag was.
What Makes a Relationship Green Flag or Red Flag
Kirby
Oh yeah. I mean, of course there’s subjectiveness to it. But the evaluation of a relationship is not where the relationship is—it’s the trajectory.
Like, we feel good when we go on pleasure cruises or go on dates or have sex or whatever. Like,
“Oh, we do this thing and it feels great.”
Okay, fantastic. Wonderful. You just got a peak experience. That’s yummy. But that has nothing to do with the stability or longevity of this relationship.
Stability and longevity are determined by what you do at the worst moments.
Like—what is it like when you’re completely tapped out? No energy left. Your capacity is past 11. You’re triggered in three different ways. You’ve got kids screaming for you. You feel this massive shame because you failed at something, whatever. Right?
That’s the moment.
And you step into dinner. What does your partner do?
Do they behave in a selfish way? Are they here to get something? Are they going to attack you because you’re not providing the thing they think you should be giving them—dinner, or sex, or attention, or love, or whatever?
If that happens—red flags all over.
But if I’m at my worst and my partner is just like,
“I see that you’re at your worst. Give me a second…”
They go do the logistical things they need to do to make sure they can budget out 90 minutes to create a container and hold space for you.
“Give me just a second.”
And then they come back and say,
“Alright. I am—keyword—prioritizing you over everything else in this world.”
Caveat—children. Children will always be first place, especially babies.
“I’m prioritizing you. I’m turning off the phone—not just putting it face down, turning it off. Away it goes.
You have my undivided attention right now. And I’m here with you as we face these huge emotions.”
And if you want me to leave—of course—the fifth one: support for autonomy—
“If you don’t want me here, then I’ll leave.”
But yeah, if you can do that—green flags all over. That relationship has a chance to really be everything.
Becoming the Green Flag: Self-Reflection in Relationships
Kirby
And then, the difficult work is: I have to take all these things and I have to put it in the mirror and look back at myself.
“Am I doing those things?
Am I showing up in this relationship wanting or demanding something?
Am I here to get love, attention, sex, validation, whatever?”
If I step into the relationship to get—I’m the red flag.
And that’s really uncomfortable for people to think about.
Brandi
Yeah. Yeah.
What Is the Two Mind Method?
Brandi
Okay, my next question is—when you were talking about the peanut bag—is that essentially the Two Mind Method? Or what is the Two Mind Method?
Kirby
Two Mind Method is... it kind of has these three cornerstones.
The first one is recognizing that the conscious and subconscious minds are different. And we have to study that. We have to get really in tune with what that means and what kind of impact that has on our life.
Then we begin to recognize:
“This moment where I’m having a big emotional activation—that’s coming from my subconscious.”
What can I do in those situations?
And it’s a whole skill set. So we get good at that skill set.
Then there’s the second cornerstone: the Five Pillars of Attachment.
“I need to understand all five pillars—what they mean, how to apply them, what’s the underlying reason attachment wounds form, and how they are healed.”
That’s a different skill set. And I have to get good at that skill set too.
Then the third cornerstone is:
“What is trauma, and how does it function?”
Which means:
“How do we heal it?”
That’s a whole thing. And I’ve got my model—that’s probably where I’m most outside the mainstream, because it’s a synthesis of many things I’ve studied. It’s kind of uniquely mine.
But it’s like:
“This is what trauma is, and this is how it works.”
That’s the third skill set. I have to study that in depth. I have to get skilled at that.
Then I step away from the study, and I apply these three skill sets to my relationship with my inner child.
Then, after doing that, I begin to apply those skill sets to my relationships with anyone who’s close to me—family, friends, job, whatever.
And eventually, we get it into our partner.
And then the end goal—which is my priority for everything—is I’m trying to prepare people now to basically be:
Masters of emotional regulation.
I call them emotional superheroes.
Changing the World by Breaking the Cycle of Early Attachment Trauma
Kirby
Because children passively absorb what they’re around. And the first 24 months are the most critical as far as attachment formation goes.
The first 24 months are the most critical. The most impactful—ever.
So my goal is to train people using these three skill sets and become competent practitioners of this Two Mind Method—in their relationship with themselves, in their outer relationships, and in their parental relationships.
And then what we’ve done—hopefully—is we’ve created one generation that escapes that two-year window without any lasting trauma.
And that will change the world.
I don’t know if you’ve ever met someone with a secure attachment style...
Brandi
People in the industry say the numbers are 50%. Nobody I know believes that.
Kirby
I’d be surprised if it’s 5%.
Brandi
Yeah.
Kirby
I mean, I meet people that contest secure—but they’re not. Like, now that I get it, I’m just like,
“You're... no.”
But when you meet someone who truly has a balanced, secure attachment style, it’s like—they are living a different life.
It’s mind-boggling.
Conflict is this smooth process. They move in and out of relationships without emotional drama. Boundaries emanate from them effortlessly. They have no fear in communication.
It’s like—they’re living in a different world. That’s not the world that I got.
Brandi
Yeah.
Kirby
And that’s my goal.
My goal is—this is how we change the world. This is how we prevent pain.
In my opinion, this is the answer to everything.
We make a better world by preparing... we get good at it, so we can help the people who went through the storm.
But where we really want to have it is—we want to prepare the people who are about to be parents. The people who will have children in the future.
If you can be a master of emotional regulation and attunement, and understand these principles, you can sit there with a child and be like:
“I know exactly what’s needed in this moment. And I know exactly what will cause damage.”
And so, we’re going to structure our lives to prevent the damaging moments.
And inevitably, they’re going to happen. Right? But then you say,
“Oh, this is one of those moments where they reached overwhelm. Now, in the next three to four hours, we need to bathe them with the Five Pillars—before they sleep.”
And it’s just like—yeah. Beautiful things happen.
Where to Find Kirby Fling and the Two Mind Method
Brandi
Okay. Well, where can people find you and your work?
Kirby
Ah, thank you.
I’m pretty much Two Mind Method, no spaces, on the major platforms—Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube.
YouTube’s the best one.
And I’ve got a website: twomindmethod.com. And that’s basically it.
I do one-on-one coaching. I teach a class every week here in Bali. I’ve got a retreat coming up in November.
Always happy to talk about this stuff. Always happy to teach—because I think it’s the most important thing in the world.
Brandi
Okay, Kirby. I have one more question for you.
Kirby
Sure.
Brandi
And that is—is there anything that I didn’t ask you that you think is important to share?
Kirby
Trauma is not what you think it is.
Let’s just say that.
Like—trauma is predictable and a known entity. And it’s not what everyone’s talking about.
Understanding what that is will change your world. Let’s just say that.
Brandi
Well, thank you so much for being here today—and the work you’re doing.
Kirby
Yeah. It was great. Thank you. I love it.
Join the conversation!
Feel free to share your own experience and let me know if you have any questions in the comments.
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Hi, I’m the founder of Human Amplified. I’m Brandi Fleck, a recognized communications and interviewing expert, a writer, an artist, and a private practice, certified trauma-informed life coach and Reiki healer. No matter how you interact with me, I help you tell and change your story so you can feel more like yourself. So welcome!
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