548: Attachment and Wellness: How Relationships Impact Your Mental and Physical Health with Adam Lane Smith

Podcast Transcription: Attachment and Wellness: How Relationships Impact Your Mental and Physical Health with Adam Lane Smith

Ted Ryce: Adam Smith. Thanks so much for coming on the show today. Big fan of what you do online, and it's going to be great to have this conversation about the relationship side of things and how it affects our health. So super excited to talk to you today. 

Adam Lane Smith: Thank you, man. I'm glad for this one. I love talking to people who are as passionate about good relationships as you are. So, let's do it. 

Ted Ryce: Yeah. And Adam, um, you know, I, in the intro, I talked a little bit about who you are, your qualifications, but I'd love to hear, you know, you had some attachment issues of your own. You started out as a therapist, but now you take a different approach. Can you talk a little bit about, you know, that journey that led you to what you do now? 

Adam Lane Smith: Yeah, I grew up in a rough part of California, and I had attachment issues myself, as did most of the people I knew growing up. And I didn't know what they were called. I just knew I was insecure. I just knew that I felt like I was lower than everybody else. I knew that no one was going to care about me. I felt like I had to earn approval from people. I had to make everyone happy. And man, that messed up my dating life back then, when I was a young man, it was a horrible experience.  

Eventually, when I was about 20 years old, I said, "I can't do this anymore. I have to live a better life or I'm just not going to live one. This is going to be too awful to contemplate." So, I said, "All right, I'm going to have to talk to people. I'm going to have to stop approval-seeking. I'm going to have to fix all of my problems that I have and the things I don't like about myself. I'm going to fix them." And it was hard. Oh, it was awful. And I did it on my own. And I said, "I want to make sure nobody else on earth ever has to do this alone." 

So I went to school, got my master's degree, became a therapist, did all that expertise, everything that you're supposed to do. And they didn't teach us much about attachment at all. I couldn't find the trigger that I hadn't fixed in me. I couldn't find it. They didn't want to talk about it. We covered a little bit about something called attachment in year five in a family course. And they said, "You don't need to know this unless you're going to work with little babies. And there's no real diagnosis for adults for this, except personality disorders. So, don't worry about this thing called attachment theory."  

And I said, "Oh, I guess that's not it." And I moved along and took years to come back to it and say, "No, this was that thing. This was it. They didn't teach us this. Why didn't they teach us this?" And I started talking to other healthcare providers, started talking to other therapists around the world, around the United States, Canada, Europe, and saying, "Did you guys learn about attachment theory?" And they said, "No, what's that? Is that that thing they said, 'Don't worry about'?" And I said, "Yeah." So, I started studying it and then writing books about it and then teaching and leading seminars and talking online. 

And eventually got to the point where I just couldn't hold it in anymore. I wanted, I needed to teach, I needed to coach, I needed to guide people and just let people know what this was. And unfortunately, my licensing board said, "Well, you can either do therapy or you can go coaching." And I said, "Can I do therapy outside of the state?" "Nope." "Can I do therapy outside of the United States?" "Nope." "Okay. Then I'm going to have to separate." Canceled my therapy license. Took nine years to get a total start-to-finish education and licensing. Nine years. Canceled it. 

Now I work. My whole job, my passion, is just helping people online, teaching them about attachment, so they can have those "aha" moments like I did, and so they don't have to go through it alone, so that they can stop being insecure and afraid, and they can build relationships that fulfill them. That's my story in a nutshell. 

Ted Ryce: Man, that was succinctly told and powerfully shared. With attachment, some people, as you said, it's not talked about by your normal therapist. I've been in therapy before multiple times. We're not going to get into that unless, you know, it comes up naturally, but the reason I bring it up now is that it's never been brought up to me.  

And the reason that I'm having you on the show is that one of the issues that I see with people who want to get in shape is they think it's all about, "Oh, I just need to know how to eat well, I know how to exercise, but I need some accountability, and probably I need some, you know, secret hacks and tricks that you probably know how to do."  

And my secret hacks and tricks are to get people to become aware of the real issues in their life that caused them to overeat or cause them to skip their workouts, cause them to put themselves last when it comes to their health because it's simply not sustainable to do so. Eventually, you run into a situation where, you know, your health becomes your number one priority. We all are going to get there. 

It's just how we get there, you know, whether it's reactive because you get your diabetes diagnosis, heart attack, etc., or whether it's because you know what, this is the thing. Yeah, my family is the most important. My business is also up there, but if I don't have my health, none of those other things work, and frequently relationships are an issue. I'll even turn people away if I feel like their relationship. They shouldn't be talking to me. They should be talking to you, Adam, and so hence you're on the show.  

But coming back to the attachment conversation, for someone who's thinking, "What is that?" Can you explain what it is and the different styles of attachment? 

Adam Lane Smith: I love it. Absolutely. Attachments are very simple. It's something most people have never heard of. If you ask a therapist, most of them have never heard of it either. When you say, "Hey, you know, all these mental health diagnoses, what causes all of them?" They go, "Well..." and they can't really tell you. Same thing if they say, "Well, what caused all these health problems and what caused them to overeat like this?" Well, and well, there's maybe a combination of things, financial problems, relationship problems, all of it ties together. This is the thing. 

This is the thing that causes all the other things. And here's what it means. When you're a little kid, your parents are supposed to teach you, are people going to take care of you and love you and meet your needs so that you can just tell them, "Hey, I have a problem, can you help me?" And they'll say, "Yeah," and they'll help you. And then when they have a problem, they say, "Hey, I have a problem, can you help me?" "Yeah," and you take care of each other. That's called secure attachment style. My needs will get met because people are genuinely good. 

And I can help them, and we will all cooperate, and there's no secrets needed, and we'll all just be honest with each other, and we'll build good relationships. And most people listening to this right now are thinking, "Adam is smoking crack. That never happens anywhere." Because the research shows that only about 35% of adults have secure attachment anymore here in the Western world, only 35%. The other 65% have what is called insecure attachment, which breaks down into two different ways, two different ways you can break: anxious attachment. 

Something is wrong with me. My parents left me at daycare. My parents argued and criticized me all the time. Something was wrong with me that was never right, and I never earned their love. Dad was gone; I never figured out why I wasn't good enough for his love. Something is wrong that no one wants to meet my needs, and it's my fault. There is something wrong with me on the inside that people, when they see it, they realize, "Wow, that person's a piece of crap." They don't deserve love, and they start just abandoning me. So, to stop people from abandoning me, I have to be perfect. I have to earn approval. 

I have to make people like me. If they have problems that I can fix for them, that's even better because I can earn their gratitude, and they'll never ever leave me. Codependency starts this way.  

The other side that you can break is something's wrong with other people. My parents screamed at each other all the time. People hid each other around me. People were just jerks. People were very distant. I just never bonded with any of them because they never gave me a chance. They didn't really care about meeting my needs, so they were just there, and I had to raise myself. 

Other people are not to be counted on because they could attack me, manipulate me, judge me, hurt me. I have to keep a wall between me and everybody else, avoidance style. I have to keep a wall between me and everybody else. Maybe I will, maybe I'll manipulate other people, or maybe I won't. Maybe I'm just going to leave them alone and stay isolated by myself.  

Maybe I'm going to struggle in my relationships because I don't know how to open up to other human beings because I don't think they want me to. But I am going to stay safe away from everybody else.  

Or you get really, really hurt, and you have a combination of both of those. 

That's from repeated injuries, and over time you just say, "I can't run away, and I can't be safe, and it's maybe me, but it's maybe other people too. I'm just going to be afraid all the time forever."  

And then you carry this forward into your adult relationships, carry it into your teenage years. You get depressed and anxious. This is where teenage depression comes from. You carry it forward from there. You get panic attacks, you get addictions, you get a craving for dopamine binging because you're not getting the other bonding hormones you need. 

You start experimenting with all kinds of drugs. You get a porn addiction. You jump into hookup culture where you just can't stop. Girls jump into hookup culture to get constant validation, hoping some guy somewhere will stop and love them because of the sex they're giving them. It just goes on from there until you start spending every dollar you have, or you hold on to every dollar you have obsessively so that it's the only thing keeping you safe. You overeat, you binge eat, you binge everything to feel something other than the fear that you live with. This is the pathway of anxiety and attachment issues all the way up through every problem that we see in our society right now. 

Ted Ryce: Yeah. And what I hear you saying is it starts in the home as children and the way that our parents operate with us or raise us or rear us, and depending on that relationship, and I think it's really important because I, people, I think, at least from the many conversations I have with clients, they don't get that. 

Oh, when you're younger, things happen to you, and you keep that perspective you have like you gave the example you gave is, oh, my dad isn't around, he doesn't love me, and therefore I'm not worthy of love. It's not, man, that guy has his own issues, he's a workaholic because he was raised in a family. 

So, we create stories as children because we just don't have much experience, much perspective to see it. And as you get older, someone can listen to this and say, intellectually, "Oh, I understand it. Oh, I just have these attachment issues." But at the same time, it's not about understanding it intellectually. It's about the triggers that come up emotionally cause us to respond in stress in our relationships with other people. And how do you, how do you help people with that, Adam? 

Adam Lane Smith: I have so many clients come in like this, and they say, "Adam, I've been doing self-improvement for 15 years, and I know everything, but I just can't." I say, "Yeah, of course you can't. You're intellectualizing a problem that started when you were two years old. You're two years old, you invented a story about the things that were happening to you. And then you said, 'I will never be this hurt or scared again. So here is what I'm going to do from now on. I'm going to never ever have a close relationship with any human being ever again for the rest of my life, but I'm going to crave it,' and you go forward in your adult relationships, and that's how you live. 'I'm going to never ever be closer exposed or vulnerable to anybody else ever again for the rest of my life,' and life will be great, and it's not great. 

So, you have to open up and have a couple of key experiences with good people who are worthy of your trust, who will love you, who will overwrite that, and then you make a new story. 'Okay, that wasn't the truth, what I believed when I was two years old. Here's the real truth, here's better data. Here's what's actually happening.' The experiences, that's what really change you. 

Ted Ryce: So, are those known as corrective emotional experiences? Is that what you would call it or? 

Adam Lane Smith: That's one great way to say it. Yes, it's experiential healing is another way of saying it. The experience itself is what gives you the healing effect and it corrects the problems that are there. 

Ted Ryce: Yeah. And what I love about this conversation is it also brings up the side conversation about reading versus experiencing. And we're, I love the idea of embodied learning. For example, you can, if you wanted to play golf or tennis, you could watch a lot of YouTube videos on golf technique and watch videos of tennis players who are doing their thing, and you can read books on it, but when it comes to getting on the court or the greens, you just get crushed. And people repeat this over and over again and just don't understand what's missing. And for me, it's the embodied learning part, the experiential learning. 

Adam Lane Smith: Yep, absolutely. 100%. It's the guy who has spent five years trying to improve himself and get better in relationships, and he still just collapses and tries to make girls happy, and then they lose interest in him, and they break up with him or he breaks up with them, and he can't maintain a relationship past seven months or past a year. It's that guy who thinks he knows everything about relationships and cannot do the reps and can't make it happen because he's got two different sides of the brain fighting each other is really what's going on. 

Ted Ryce: Can you talk a little bit about, obviously, you know, without giving away any important details, can you share a story about someone who came to you or maybe a couple that came to you and what they were struggling with and how you helped them? 

Adam Lane Smith: Oh yeah, I get so many young men, you know, I say young men, late 20s, early 30s, into my practice. A lot of them are engineers, a lot of them are web developers, software engineers, all kinds of stuff. They come in and they say, "Adam, I have done everything I physically and financially should to be a successful man with women. And I am terrified that I'm going to pick the wrong woman or that I'm not even going to be able to be in a relationship with a woman. So, I've had a few hookups. I have never had a girlfriend. And I don't know what I'm supposed to do”  

I remember, thinking of one guy very recently who did this on paper, the dude was amazing on paper. The dude jacked, right, ripped six-pack abs. He was buff. He was a pretty decent-looking guy. He took it. Hair was on point. He dressed sharp. Everything was right. His job was incredible. Like on paper, he was the best guy. 

And when he would go on dates, he would just turn into this terrified performance artist who just performed in his relationships. He could keep girls for two or three months and then would freak out and find a reason to end the relationship. He was usually the one who ended the relationships. Or the girls would just lose interest and they'd tell him, "Hey, I'm not interested." And they would just start ghosting him. If they didn't ghost him fast enough, then he was the one who ran away. And dude, dude would have been perfect on paper. It was that he was so terrified of getting hurt.  

He was terrified of being exposed as a fraud on the inside of being unlovable, of being garbage that if a woman ever got close enough, she would reject him and that would end his world. So, he was it was better to live in perpetual misery than to actually open up and show them who he was because they would they would just hate him so much.  

So doing this work, man, I don't I tell them not to start with women. Start with your friends, guys like that. They almost never open up to their friends either. Some of them don't even have male friends. I said open up to your male friends, one or two of them that you actually trust and respect. They have the good qualities that you respect and then Do you have a sister? Do you have a family member? Somebody you can open up to.  

The magic number seems to be three people. You open up to them and you say, "Hey man, I'm really insecure. You may know this about me or maybe you don't. I'm insecure, I'm struggling to connect with people, but I want to. I don't like living this life. I'm not proud of myself and I want to be. So, I'm going to be honest from now on. I'm going to live this way and here's who I'm going to be." And as they repair that, they stop believing that they are human garbage or that they're going to get ruined by being open with people. And it makes dating so much easier. Then they find the girl. 

And it's very quick at that point. They find a girl, they go on a date with her, and they just be themselves. They stop performing and they just be honest. And they say, "Hey, I'm so and so. I really just want a committed relationship."  

This guy that I'm talking to right now, he's on his pathway to that. But other guys just like him, they go on the date and they say, "Hey, here's who I am, here's what I want, is this what you want?" And the women just eat it up. They can't get enough of these guys. When they're honest and they're just who they are, it's being yourself, but it's being the best version of yourself. 

And then understanding that somebody somewhere actually loves you. So, you deserve love. It changes the game. It's like these guys, it's like ten times their income kind of thing. Like that's how they come across with their confidence. Finally, it's when you finally have a connection with the people in your life. You are so much better in dating. It is so much easier to get a girlfriend and then to turn that into a relationship. I love when those guys send me their wedding photos later. 

And they're like, "Adam, I did this because of you." And I'm like, "No, bro, this was you. You just finally are the best version of you instead of being the scared version of you. That's the game." 

Ted Ryce: I want to follow up with that because what you're saying is amazing. And also, one thing that we're learning in health and fitness is that we're too obsessed with nutrition, in particular. If you want to have a successful book in the health and fitness field, it better be about nutrition. Better not be about exercise. If you're listening right now, we know this. This is what the data shows from what people buy. 

There's this obsession about the food that goes in our face. And it's important to a degree, but there's this... So, you probably heard of this, the biopsychosocial model of health. So instead of the biomedical model or just thinking about biology in perhaps the, not just the nutrition and exercise and sleep, but maybe even the medication, that's what a doctor would do. 

There's the psychological and social side. So, we have psychological health. Well, that's now making its way into the country's narrative about health, right? The mental health moment we're all talking about, especially post-COVID, but we're still not talking about social health and how the effects of our relationships affect our ability to handle stress and affect our ability to not just that, but live a long time. People who are married, I believe it was men live something like seven years longer, I may be messing up the number.  

So, forgive me if you are listening right now and then you know the number or maybe look it up later and it's wrong. But the point is this, and I would argue it's not about the marriage per se, i+ 

Cause there's a lot of people who are married in a relationship that, you know, in, in what you might say, Adam has insecure attachment. Um, and so that's not so healthy, but, but this is important for longevity. So, whether you're interested in having a better relationship or more confidence, better dating, or if you want to live a long time, your relationships need to be addressed.  

Have you seen people who you've helped change not just their confidence with dating, but have they changed other behaviors? For example, how they take care of themselves. 

Adam Lane Smith: Absolutely. Oh, absolutely. So, there's a special magical hormone called oxytocin. It's called the love hormone or the snuggle hormone. When you have good attachment, you get great oxytocin from your parents. You grow up expecting it. It actually oxytocin in your brain. It does a number of things, but one thing it does is help you release GABA, gamma amino butyric acid. GABA is an inhibitory neurotransmitter that prevents the symptoms of depression and anxiety to a large extent. It improves your sleep quality through GABA and I believe with magnesium you're allowed you're able to produce melatonin for higher quality sleep.  

GABA is incredible and you cannot really generate much of it without oxytocin and you can't really generate much oxytocin without good relationships, and it all starts with that attachment as a child. If you grow up believing no one will ever really care for you or love you, you are alone in this world, not to meet your own needs or convince other people not to abandon you, then you start releasing a tremendous amount of cortisol all the time. Your relationships actually produce cortisol instead. So, when you try to bond with people, you are flooded with cortisol, which prevents the flow of oxytocin, which prevents the creation of GABA. So, your relationships, in fact, are driving you further into poor health, into craving dopamine to try to make up for it, into overeating, into drug use. Your relationships instead of becoming a source of health, like they should be, are a source of destruction for you. 

That is the massive health gap that we see that no one is talking about, the social model, like you're saying, the social health. That's it right there. We're biochemical creatures, that's the chemistry involved here with attachment. When you fix the attachment, it flips that, and your brain chemistry becomes healthy and then your body chemistry becomes healthy. It's amazing to watch. 

Ted Ryce: What I love about this conversation too is you're breaking it down in terms of the neurotransmitters and hormones that are involved because any conversation dealing with human health, habit change, stress, it needs to be around the neurophysiology involved. And I really appreciate this conversation because there's someone right now who might be maybe popping GABA as a supplement or taking, you know, some type of sleep aid and they don't understand why they have such issues sleeping.  

And it's because their relationships, you're not getting that oxytocin leading to the higher levels of GABA, turning off the anxiety in your brain and allowing you to sleep better. You just don't feel safe or maybe good. And, um, man, this is such a great conversation. 

What else do you feel is missing about the conversation about relationships, attachment? What are some mistakes that you feel some of the people come and work with you, what are they making in their relationships? Let's maybe focus on people in relationships because I think the majority, at least the majority of my clients who come from the podcast are in relationships. What are some things that they should know? 

Adam Lane Smith: The majority of people who come to me have never seen a functioning relationship or a functioning family system, so they don't even know what to aim for. So, when they come to me, the first thing we have to do is define what a loving, fulfilling relationship would even look like, and then give them permission to want that, and then build them the skills to get them there, and then help them have the experiences that will show them it's possible and generate those relationships. They don't even have a vision for it. 

Like I said, 35% of people have secure attachment, 65% do not. The generations have got worse and worse and worse. Most of us don't even remember what real love feels like, and most of us have never seen it in our families or in our grandparents or even great-grandparents. That's the biggest problem right now. We don't even have a vision for good. 

Ted Ryce: Yeah, that's so important because for health, I mean, this is, this is a bit, well, we have some ideas, right? People, we at least can see someone who's ripped or jacked or a woman who's very super fit and say, okay, well, that's something I can shoot for. 

Of course, I help my clients do it in a healthy way. They usually don't realize many of the, because I was, I had, I was looking great in my 20s and early 30s. I was a total mess emotionally. My finances, my business wasn't doing that well, but people thought I was living the best life because of my low body fat levels and muscle mass. But with this, I love what you're bringing up here. It's an important point. Who do we even look at?  

Because all of us, I think, this is the narrative, if you ask me, hey, What do you think's going through people's minds? Everybody's putting on a front, pretending like they have the perfect home life, when in reality everybody's like, oh yeah, let's all just pretend to be perfect, but we know it's a total shit show, like back at home.  

And so, then who are the people with these relationships? Do we even know one couple that has them? I mean, they're out there because 35% of people have them, but how would you even...know that they're not just putting on a front and sweeping all the dirt underneath the carpet when the guests come over. 

Adam Lane Smith: You know, so many of the dating coaches out there, they'll present themselves as having this wonderful relationship or fitness coaches. They'll present as, oh, I'm so happily married. And then behind closed doors, it's a horrendous nightmare. I'm thinking of, was that media figure Crowder recently, that their footage was released about that marriage and things going on behind closed doors and what it was like and the divorce proceedings and so many celebrities. 

Ted Ryce: Oh, it was bad. I know who he is, but I don't know the story.  

Adam Lane Smith: From what I was seeing, it was a very bad situation. So, a lot of celebrities, this is what we see, is they seem so happy, and then all of a sudden, they're so unhappy, and people are pooping on each other's beds with Amber Heard, Johnny Depp, or whatever it may be. And we get used to this idea that dysfunction is normal. So, when we see somebody who's even happy, we say, "Yeah, I bet they're cheating on each other. Yeah, I bet there's domestic abuse. Yeah, they're probably shooting heroin." We have the worst ideas in the world, and we think that that's normal, and it's not. 

This is why I try on my social media, I'm live streaming. I talk about my relationship with my wife, how wonderful it is, how we've had to grow that. It's been hard work. It is, relationships are hard work to maintain over the years. You be real about it and people are astounded to hear that real love can still exist in this world.  

Just, we need happier married couples actually speaking up about what a happy marriage looks like, the reality of it, not the fantasy version. 

Ted Ryce: Speaking of fantasy versions, I don't know if I fall into this trap too. I've had a very different life, but one thing that comes up for people a lot is this fantasy that when you find the right person, there is no, it feels effortless. Like there's, you don't have to work so hard. That's been, I've dated people, dated women and... She said, "No, this is a lot of work."  

It's like, well, relationships are work. We just need to figure out if this, if we're, if we feel like, not that we're worth it as people to work for, but if our relationship, if we feel there's enough, let's say, you know, if we feel good about what we can do together, is that worth working for? But there's no avoiding the work. Can you talk about that? 

Adam Lane Smith: Absolutely. Here's the thing that is different between a good relationship and a bad relationship. Both relationships are going to have conflict. In a bad relationship, the conflict will have very high friction as you are both battling against each other, as you're both defending, as you're both fighting over your ideals, as each one of you is trying to protect your interests without being overrun by the other person, because there's no trust. High friction during a conflict is a bad relationship. A good relationship still has plenty of conflict. 

It still has plenty of confrontations, my needs versus your needs. The difference is that there's very low friction because neither party is trying to win against the other side. Both of them are working cooperatively as a team. So, they say, "Let's solve this together." The conflict is a chance for them to show their love for each other. And they do through a low friction cooperation. And then they build a relationship together based on that. And that makes it a great relationship. It is still work, but it's low friction and it's high fulfillment.  

Ted Ryce: Hmm. Imagine that for those of you who've had some drama, uh, in fact, as I told you before we started recording, I had a client today, he's leaving my program and without accomplishing the goal he set out to, which is to transform his body. Of course, I did tell him, well, listen, now, you know, it's your relationship. Cause he told me, you know, I'm not going to share details, but it was the relationship and they've been together for years. 

And so, it's the relationship that is the thing that needs to get fixed. And that's the big lesson that he's taking away. It's not about carbs and the muscle-building properties of eating the right number of grams of protein. It's, it's this. And Adam, do you work with couples? 

Adam Lane Smith: I do. I work with, I will work with any human being who wants to get better. Yes. 

Ted Ryce: Love that. Yeah. So, if you're listening right now and you've been in a situation where maybe you're single and like the story that Adam shared with his client, you're having some struggles being single and getting into the type of relationship that you want. Or if you're in a relationship now and maybe there's a little bit more friction than there should be. 

Now you have a resource. Adam, I know you have a course. Do you have a, you obviously work with clients. You have a course. Do you also have a book? Can you talk a little bit about the ways people can work with you? 

Adam Lane Smith: Yeah. Oh yeah, thank you. So, I do one-on-one coaching, obviously. I also have a video course called the Attachment Bootcamp, which walks you through the 10 steps to go from completely insecure and lonely and isolated, not able to even share your needs or ask for help, up to fulfilling relationships where you can talk to people, be open, be trusting, and have those low-friction relationships, which can turn into a lifetime love and some of the best friends you will ever. 

That course is available on my website, adamlanesmith.com. I've also got a private community on there called the Attachment Circle, where I do group coaching events. You can meet other people who are on the same journey as you who take it seriously, so you don't have to do it alone like I did. I've also got a book called Slaying Your Fear, available on Amazon. I've got multiple books. Everything is on my website, adamlanesmith.com. I would love to help anybody who's ready at any point. 

Ted Ryce: AdamLanesmith.com. So, we'll have all those links in the show notes for this episode. And Adam, man, it's been a great conversation with you. I mean, I feel like we covered so much information in a very short amount of time. And I would ask you, is there anything else that we should talk about or cover that we didn't or some piece of advice that you feel... someone right now might need to hear about what they're going through in their relationship? 

Adam Lane Smith: The number one thing I can say is this, if you feel insecure, if you don't like yourself, if you think no one else will ever like you, if you do not respect yourself, if you think that you are a person who violates your own principles and your honor code and you just don't think you deserve to be loved, you can change that and change those beliefs for life and you can build good relationships. It starts with learning to respect yourself. 

It starts then with learning to bond to other people who share the same values that you do and earn that respect. But not earn love then you can be loved and then you can believe that you deserve love. It really comes down to that. There's a whole pathway for this. You can get so much better. Do not feel hopeless anybody out there. Please don't feel hopeless. 

Ted Ryce: So, you heard it. If you are struggling with this, there is a path forward. People have figured out the way. Adam's one of them. And if you resonate with them, you got to go check out his AdamLaneSmith.com website.  

Also make sure you hit them up. I love your videos, Adam. Uh, you not only do your own videos, but you take other people's videos and add your commentary. I've found that interesting to not just hear your perspective, but to hear your perspective about what someone else is saying, and so you can find him on TikTok at attachmentbro and Adam, uh, thanks so much for coming here today. Uh, I'm really super passionate about this conversation about relationships and how they fit into not just our health and long-term health and longevity but really about the health of our country, of our society. So, thanks so much. 

Adam Lane Smith: Thank you for having me here.