326: The Hidden Mind Calling The Shots (with Kirby Fling)

AUDIO MMP 326 Kirby

Randi Rubenstein: [00:00:00] My name is Randi Rubenstein, and welcome to the Mastermind Parenting Podcast. At Mastermind Parenting, we’re on a mission to support strong-willed kids and the families that love them. 

Hi everyone. I am here with Kirby. Kirby. You’re like Madonna. You just go by Kirby.

Kirby: I apparently I do. Yeah, that is, That’s how I go right now. Yeah.

Randi Rubenstein: but I like it. You know what one of my clients say? ‘Cause of course when I start going down rabbit holes and there’s somebody that I’m learning from, I, you know, share it with many people.

And, um, and one of my clients who I’ve been sharing a lot of your videos with, she’s like, I like that. He goes by Kirby. I kind of feel like he’s my friend.

Kirby: That’s cool. That’s cool. Yeah, it was, it was a strange name growing up with like, for sure. That’s a strange name. And it was before the Nintendo thing happened, so like I was like, anyway, 

Randi Rubenstein: Let me tell you guys a little bit about Kirby. Kirby is the creator of the Two Mind Method, a practical, heart-centered approach to heart to healing attachment [00:01:00] wounds, and reshaping nervous system patterns. Two of my favorite topics lately. Drawing on years of deep personal research, lived experience and work with clients, Kirby specializes in helping people build healthier relationships with themselves and others. His work is grounded, accessible, and refreshingly real – 

that’s why I reached out to him. Most people who come on the podcast reach out to me, but I solicited Kirby. I wanted him to come on my podcast. 

– um, relationships with themselves and others, his work is grounded, accessible, and refreshingly real, offering tools that truly work in the messiness of real life. Kirby brings a unique blend of neurophysiology, trauma awareness, and emotional attunement to the table, empowering people to transform their inner world and their closest connections. 

Thank you for being here, and thank you for all of the videos that I’ve been watching on YouTube. Um, thank you YouTube algorithm for all of a sudden having you show up in my feed, um, so that I could learn from you because you have really been teaching me [00:02:00] a lot.

Kirby: Wow. Thank you. I like hearing that.

Randi Rubenstein: Yeah, yeah. It’s, it’s

Kirby: It’s really a passion project. I mean, it’s just like, this is something I’ve been working on for years and I mean in my own, you know, to figure out my own self. And then as I figure things out, I start talking to others, they like it. And then eventually I just said, oh, let’s just shoot videos and see what happens. And here we are.

Randi Rubenstein: Yeah, in your videos you just were saying, like I said, we’re just gonna have an organic conversation and you said that’s how I do all my videos.

Kirby: Yep. That’s it. I don’t plan or script anything. I mean, I’ll start a video and I’ll have the topic and I, topic is usually five or six words and then I’m just like, okay, let’s see what’s in there. Let’s see what erupts. And, um, I love the process. I’m a big fan of, of being very real, very raw, but if you wanna jump into it right away, one of the reasons for that is because I believe a lot of attachment wounds come from a, a pressure to be performative, to perform as expected.[00:03:00] 

And I, and kind of, this is the way that I’m kind of like living the answer to attachment wounds is to just be like, I’m not trying to perform, I’m not trying to impress anybody. It’s just like, be as real as possible. 

Randi Rubenstein: Well, I think that’s why I reached out to you because I can, from watching your videos like I. I recognized your breadth of knowledge. Like you’re, you know, there’s a lot of people that teach a lot of things and, um, you know, it’s like pop psychologists on social media or, you know, and they went to school for a long time and they got PhDs and maybe they’ve worked with clients.

Um, but it’s, that’s different than living what you’re teaching to my, to me. Like you can understand things conceptually and, and when I reach out, you’re like, just so you know, I’m not blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This is just, this is my own experience. And I said, me too. Like, this is [00:04:00] my own experience. 

I, I have, you know, Mastermind Parenting and what I teach and all the concepts that, you know, that I share with people. And then when I coach parents, um. Like, yes, I’ve gone through different trainings and I’ve learned a lot of things, but usually what I tell all my clients is I’m like two steps ahead of you. Like I, I’m teaching what has helped me and I’m sharing it, but I don’t have all the answers. Like, I love when you’re like, I’m just some guy on the internet, you know, like,

Kirby: True story. Yeah. Take what’s valuable, leave what’s not, and then, and it doesn’t need to be a big drama. Like if someone’s sitting there saying something you don’t agree with, it’s just like, okay, I don’t agree with that. That doesn’t work for me right now. It might work for you tomorrow, like surprisingly, but yeah, just take what’s valuable and leave what’s not.

Randi Rubenstein: You know, the reason I reached out to you is because I do everything [00:05:00] unfortunately in a non-linear way, that’s just been part of, you know, my path, my healing, my figuring myself out, my creating the family that I always secretly wished that I had had. And now I’m at a place where I’ve done it.

Kirby: Mm-hmm.

Randi Rubenstein: Like anything else that, yeah, I achieve in my life, I, I have to keep reminding myself because I still sometimes have those, thoughts in my mind that limit me. But I have to remember, like anything else that comes is, is gravy.

Kirby: Mm-hmm.

Randi Rubenstein: I’ve done it. You know, I, I honestly can say that I’ve done it. I have beautiful relationships with my three young adult kids and a healthy marriage. And, um, and so everything else is just like extra. Um, and so that feels really good to come from that place, which is helping other parents. And it’s not, I don’t have all the answers. I know what [00:06:00] I’ve lived, I know what resource I couldn’t find when I was in a situation that felt similar to you. Um, so let’s put our heads together and see if we can figure this out, right? Yeah.

Kirby: Absolutely. Yeah. there was one point a few, well, several years ago I was kind of getting started. I was at some weekend, I don’t know, thing, gathering of people meeting a bunch of people at dinner. And, um, people were asking me kind of about what I’m doing. And like, and then there’s this question going around the table. It’s like, what’s your goal in all this? And someone, and then it came to me and there’s a bunch of people at the end of the table asking. I’m just like, what is my goal? And I’m just like, like, my goal is to make sure another one of me is never created. 

And it, and it’s not that my parents were horrible. There, it not, I mean, there’s definitely, you know, the scales or whatever, but it’s like I know the journey that I went through and how many times it felt helpless. And it felt hopeless really. and it’s just like [00:07:00] lack of skills, lack of knowledge. And, across the board, you know, it’s not just in me, but unlike all the attachment figures around me, lack of skill, lack of knowledge, and it’s just like, okay, that’s solvable.

I come from engineering, right? I was a software developer and engineering and stuff. And then I come over to this and I’m just like, oh, well figure out what the parameters are. Find a pathway that is, works more than half the time. and then iterate. You know, try, fail, iterate, try, fail, improve. Do that many times, and then you end up having a system that makes a lot of sense and then helps people reliably. So that’s where I am.

Randi Rubenstein: What I was also gonna say is, is like, because I don’t do anything in a linear way, I feel like I just have come to, like uncovering all of the parts about myself, like learning about attachment. And, um, and I’m really working with a therapist now that, [00:08:00] um, she’s doing this really cool thing called brain mapping. Have you heard of that?

Kirby: Oh yeah, I’ve heard of that. I don’t have much experience with it yet, but it sounds promising.

Randi Rubenstein: Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s really interesting where she’s really helping me to like tap into feelings. And, um, I, like, I’ve had some, some sensations and some things that have hap. I think it’s from when I was in the crib. Um, it’s been a very interesting process to kind of, feel things that it was never safe to feel. Including sadness. 

Like and so like, I kind of feel like I’ve done everything out of order. I’m like, it would’ve been good to know what my attachment style was when I started having kids, or at least when they were little. And so that’s also part of my mission now, is that because I’m learning this so late, to me, it makes, it just is helping me make so much sense of my own story.

And now I can see it in my clients. [00:09:00] I can see it in other people, right? So when someone’s, um, and I want you to really kind of, because I feel like the way you describe attachment and when there is, I don’t know if you use the term insecure attachment, but when you don’t have that secure attachment, you know what that looks like in your life, what it looks like in your behavior. I feel like it makes, it just helps us to make so much sense of, oh, that’s why I do this thing. That’s why I feel this way. 

This is why maybe my partner, you know, behaves in this way, or my kids. Um, like it’s so helpful to like, have that knowledge base. So I really wanted you to come on and, and teach us a masterclass.

Kirby: Oh, okay. Okay. so yeah, attachment theory. Well, there’s the stuff we see all everyone’s seeing on the internet at the pup psychology approach, which is like, you know, dismissive, avoidant, anxious, preoccupied, disorganized, fearful avoidant, you know, [00:10:00] that’s kind of on the insecure spectrum. And then there’s the secure side, but that’s only one model. There’s other models that have different measuring things. There’s one that’s called DMM that has this like circle and a bunch of where you plot on the circle depends on a couple of things. 

Um, one of the things that happened with me, partly in figuring myself out, but also then doing field work and helping with more people. I began to move away from that a lot. I mean, I still use the terms because that is what helps communication happen, but inside my mind it’s different. And the way I see it is that, um, a good way to think about this is the attachment system is the master index of threat and safety. 

And so if you think about like an encyclopedia, and you’ve got that book at the end, I mean, who uses an encyclopedia anymore? But anyway, whatever. You go to this book at the end and you say, look up alligators, and it says alligators, you know, crocodiles or reptiles or whatever, right? You’ve got this index that basically says [00:11:00] everything experience that you ex that comes into my nervous system is gonna have some rating between threat and safety and the, and the attachment system is kind of that, right? So close ties to the amygdala and stuff. 

But A lot of people think it’s like, oh, I have an attachment style. And it’s like, yes, you’ve got a label that says attachment style, but like, let’s look at what that means. And so let’s think about like we’ve got this spectrum of behavior or, and on the spectrum of behavior, we have like, there’s these behaviors over here that are kind of like showing a lot of fear, anxiety. Um, and so we’re gonna say that these kind of behaviors are clustered as like anxious behaviors. 

Then there’s these ones over here where like, we’re gonna say avoidant, which means you move away from the stimulus, you move away from the situation or directly you move away from the emotions associated with the situation, right?

And so we’ve got these avoidant behaviors over here. We have anxious behaviors over [00:12:00] here, right? Anxious will be reaching out, clinging, trying to grab something from the outside world to come. Help me feel better. The avoidant one is like, get me away from the outside world. Let me go inward. 

Okay, so now we’ve got this spectrum. You pick any situation like, um, a door slamming, something simple like a door slamming. And then you say, what happens if you’re in a room watching a movie and somebody slams the door very hard. You know, most people will startle, but some people will startle and their entire nervous system will become inflamed. And they’ll be this like very hot fear response, trembling of the fingers, dilating into the pupils, like maybe their stomach gets upset or whatever. And then you’re like, okay, you have some kind of prior association between the door slamming and threat, right? 

And so now what happens? What’s your behavioral response? Do you sit there and freeze? Do you pull away from it? Okay, that’s [00:13:00] gonna be kind of more over here on the avoidance side. Or is it like you reach for someone and be like, come tell me that this is okay. What just happened? Honey, what just happened? Like, you know, and you’re immediately reaching for the outside. That’s gonna be more on the anxious side, right? So we can take any given stimulus that happens in our life and we can kind of see where it plots on this, this spectrum.

Randi Rubenstein: What if you get angry? What if, like with my, my husband’s like a very loud sneezer

Kirby: mm-hmm.

Randi Rubenstein: and I, I call it ear assault. And so,

Kirby: Oh, oh, yeah. Yeah.

Randi Rubenstein: So he does the he, he does, he does the super loud sneezes. And I’m like, he’s like, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I mean, we make a joke of it, but like, my go-to, if someone were to slam a door and startle me, I’d be like, what the,

Kirby: Mm-hmm.

Randi Rubenstein: I would get, I, I get annoyed. I get a little angry, like that’s my natural, I don’t really do that much anymore, but my natural go-to or younger me go-to would be [00:14:00] anger, annoyance, blame, um, yeah, like that.

Kirby: Okay, well, anger’s kind of a whole topic and um, we can jump there if you want. It’s, I,

Randi Rubenstein: I mean, I didn’t mean to interrupt you. I

Kirby: No, no, though we can come back to that one. Like, ’cause I’m really, I’m very happy with my assessment on anger at this point, and I’m happy to share it because this is what I think happens. 

There’s a lot of people that hypothesize that anger is a sec, they call it a secondary emotion. It covers sadness and fear. It’s like, take sadness and fear and mix them up in the blender. And then it’s like, okay. And this is one of the reasons why they hypothesize that men who are depressed are more likely to express it as anger because the expression of sadness and fear is so culturally, um, you know, forbidden or shunned or whatever. Okay, so if we take this idea that anger is a, a cover of story for sadness and fear, and every time I have explored that, it has [00:15:00] been true. So if there’s a case where that’s not true, I haven’t found it yet. 

So this is what I think happens. The subconscious will be looking at the situation and say, if I sink into sadness at the respo, at in reaction to the sneezing, what happens? Sadness is your nervous system deactivates. You turn inward, you start conserving metabolic resources, and it’s inaction. You don’t, right? Fear is retreating. I, you leave the situation, you move away from it, whatever. The way I think it works is the subconscious says in a situation, in this particular situation, I don’t like it, but if I engage in sadness, I’m not gonna, it’s gonna stay the same and I’m just gonna sink into hopelessness. And if I engage in fear, I’m just gonna run away from it. The situation will not change. 

So the way I look at this is that anger is a jolt of energy that comes from deep within because [00:16:00] it believes that you can change the situation. Anger is a, is a fueling of the nervous system and the energy so that you have the resources you need to take your power, put it onto the world, and change the situation.

So if we test this, what we see is that the person who rages out and, and all the anger management issues, which I had in my past, they rage out and they do all this crazy stuff. At some point in time, they’re gonna take irreversible action on their environment. And then it’s just like now, whatever that thing is, the sneezing, the slamming door, whatever, it’s gone. And then anger related to that eliminates. But the person who does not take any action and does not influence the external world, and that stimulus keeps happening, anger keeps cycling up. And you, you have the anger just arises again, arises again, arises again, arises again. So you either have to remove [00:17:00] yourself from the situation or you have to change the situation. Does that make sense?

Randi Rubenstein: Mm-hmm. So you’re saying the knee jerk reaction of being annoyed or getting a little angry, it’s actually energy that is going somewhere, versus holding it in until you become like the tea kettle that just eventually erupts in an even bigger way. If you’re just holding in and holding in, eventually it’s gonna come out.

Kirby: Kind, kind of. I mean, that’s a common analogy, which a lot of people will take stuff anyway. They’ll take a common analogy and they’ll kind of like expand it out. I’m talking about something slightly different, which is like, think about it, that I have a 5-year-old that lives inside me, and the 5-year-old says, I want this situation to be different. Right. And then he basically grabs the shock paddles from the paramedic unit and jolts my nervous system. So now I’m fueled like, just like my energy [00:18:00] level and my nervous system is up to a 10. And he says, now take this energy I’ve just given you and change the damn situation.

Randi Rubenstein: Mm

Kirby: And, and then you’re like, okay. And now if you change the situation, he’ll be happy. And he’ll be like, okay, that’s fine. He’ll reevaluate. Maybe he doesn’t like the new one. And so it happens again. But if you change the situation, he’s now satisfied. But if you don’t change the situation, he’s gonna keep jolting you, boop boop. And then if he jolts you enough times and your higher brain suppresses the impulse, well now he’s angry at two things. I don’t like the sneezing and I don’t like the fact that you’re not listening to me. And I don’t like the fact that you keep suppressing my, my impulse. 

Randi Rubenstein: So that’s the anger intensifies. Yeah. So, um, that’s interesting that like I think I’m understanding that. That it’s like the 5-year-old who is letting it out, like the inner 5-year-old that’s letting it out. [00:19:00] Um, it feels like you’re doing something, at least you’re doing something about it. Um, it, it seems like that’s maybe why, like people who tend to be explosive. There’s mo a lot of the time where they’re not explosive and they seem so with it and on the level, like how in their own mind are they justifying and maybe you, you could answer this since you used to be explosive.

Kirby: Hmm.

Randi Rubenstein: Like is this the reason that that explosive person who is not always that version of themselves, how they can kind of allow the explosiveness to continue to happen? ‘Cause it feels like they’re doing something?

Kirby: I sy call my system the two mind method. And the reason for that is that it’s like looking at a person as a single entity or single human or single mind, I think is a total fallacy. We have, we have a par portion of our brain that’s like, we call it the conscious, rational, whatever mind that, you know, it’s good at forward [00:20:00] thinking, reasoning, cause and effect, relationships, concepts, language. And then we’ve got the other mind which is down underneath. And that that’s the seed of the emotions and everything else. 

And so as someone who used to be explosive, the way that works is I am hyper, I’m trying to be hypervigilant about my state, um, because if that thing that is anger comes, starts percolating up, it will hijack my entire system and the part of my brain that has any control will be put to sleep.

And that’s exactly how it works physiologically. You, if you flood the brain with enough adrenaline, cortisol, the higher brain functions will literally be deactivated. There’s this thing called like chlomiterides or something that goes into the prefrontal cortex and actually inhibits neurological transmission, something like that. And so the higher brain functions are literally put to sleep when we are in a stress response.

And so the anger is arising up from underneath. The subconscious has every [00:21:00] tool it needs to turn off your higher brain functions, and will be like, boop, boop, boop. Push those buttons. You are now fully hijacked. You have no control. The inner five-year-old will lash out, be explosive, set your life on fire. And then once adequate change has been implemented, it will calm back down. And then the conscious mind will come back online and you’ll look around and you’ll be like, I hate myself. 

Randi Rubenstein: I had a mom tell me not too long ago that after, um, she really healed this part of herself. Um. But you know, and this happens a lot of times, you know, once people really trust you and they really don’t feel judged, it’s like, well, this is what’s really happening behind my curtains.

And um, and she said when she would have these explosive episodes where things got, and it wasn’t just her that was volatile, they were all kind of being volatile in the household. Um, she said, it’s so weird. I know it [00:22:00] happened, but I can’t remember the specifics or the details. Yeah.

Kirby: A hundred percent. That’s the other thing that happens when you flood the brain with, nor with adrenaline and cortisol, is it goes to the hippocampus, which is the part that’s responsible for kind of changing, working memory into deeper memory, and it alters the way the memory is stored. And so I, I meet people all the time, like all the time, that cannot remember their childhood at all. Like their first memory is like at 14, 15, 16. Yeah. And it’s like, to me that is, that is a clear indicator of prolonged trauma response. 

That it’s just like, trauma to me is a memory issue. It, it’s, I know a lot of people, I love Bessel Van der Kolk, and the, the idea that Body Keeps Score, I, I’m adjacent to that, but to me it’s like, a stressful event, an event of adequate stressfulness, will alter the way memories are stored. And [00:23:00] when memories get stored differently, the lower brain, the child brain, the unc, subconscious has a memory system that we can call the procedural memory system or implicit. There’s a couple different names for it, but that memory system is tracking all this information constantly. But the memory system that our conscious mind has access to, which is they call the narrative system, the narrative system, that memory system is impaired during moments of heightened stress. 

And so after the event, your body subconscious remembers it just fine and all the horrible things that happened or stressful, whatever. But our narrative system now has these voids. We have these blackout periods. And um, all the time it’s like, in fact, I li like of four common, there’s kind of four common experiences that I list as like, if you’re not sure if you’re having a trauma response, you look for these things and it’s like super angry, [00:24:00] super terrified, super confused, right? Brain fog, loss of memory, or super euphoric. And it’s like those are all, in my world, those are indicators that your, your body is having, is responding to a trauma memory. 

And that’s a key one. Like you go through this big rage episode, sure. And then afterwards you struggle to remember what the details, or you have a fight with your partner and you struggle to remember the details. Clear sign. Clear sign that a trauma memory just got accessed. It triggered the system, it flooded your system with all the stress hormones. And now as it calms back down, you’re coming back to your normal regulated self. And now you’re just like, you’ve got holes in your memory, you’ve got like, your system will be super amped. So those are things I look, yeah.

Randi Rubenstein: Well, good to going back to the attachment piece, um, can you explain a little bit more about, [00:25:00] these different classifications for insecure attachment. I, I think I interrupted you when you were really

Kirby: Mm. Yeah.

Randi Rubenstein: Um, so let’s go

Kirby: A little, little tangent on anger. Yeah, sure.

Randi Rubenstein: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Kirby: what I was going at there is that we’ve got the spectrum. We have a stimulus that comes in the spectrum. It could be a slamming door, it could be a loud sneeze, it could be someone lifting an arm, you know, lifting a hand, um, you know, threatening some kind of physical action, or, you know, or my partner is standing at the door with a backpack looking like they’re about to leave, right? And any of these things can be stimulus that can come into the system. 

And now the stimulus comes into the system, and then we react. And we’re, how do we react to it? I might be, no, don’t go. Don’t go. Tell me what’s wrong and let’s figure all this out right now. And the other person is just like, oh, you’re leaving. And it’s just like, and then they have this burst of anxiety that arises inside them and then it gets shut down. And they say, [00:26:00] I’m not gonna be vulnerable to this situation. And they bail. 

And so we’ve got behaviors that will be anxious and we’ve got behaviors that’ll be kind of avoidant. And in any given stimulus, you’re gonna have a behavioral response that’s somewhere on that spectrum. And so people that most of their behavioral responses to common stressors are on the anxious side, that’s we’re gonna basically give them a label of an anxious attachment style. And people that are on the avoidance side, we’re gonna give them an avoidant. 

But what happens when you have someone who’s like, well, on these two stressors, I’m over here on this side, and on that stress, I’m right in the middle. And this stress, you know, I’ve got 26 stresses over here on the anxious side, but then I got 12 that are in the secure pool. It’s like, how do we label that? 

And that was me. When I first took the attachment style test, I was 3% secure, like 35, 37% anxious, 33% dismissive or uh, yeah. And then the rest was [00:27:00] FA. So it’s basically evenly spread across the three insecure styles. And then I’m sitting there with this program that says, oh, if you’re ins, you know, if you’re anxious, take this program. If you’re dismissive, take that program, whatever. I’m like, which one do I take? Right? And, and I see people all the time that this is the way they kind of manifest is they’ve taken an online test and then they come back and they say, oh, I’m anxious, or I’m avoidant, or whatever.

Key thing to know here, that blew my mind when I read the book that I love so much. Attachment Disturbances in Adults Treatment for Comprehensive Repair by Daniel P. Brown and Mike Elliot. Um, in my experience, that’s been the bus book I’ve ever read on attachment. It’s a monster though. It’s like 780 pages or something. But one of the things it talks about in there is it covers the entire last 50 years of attachment research and it has a whole section on online assessment. Which [00:28:00] is, you know, you go to some website, you take 50 questions and it gives you an attachment style. They did, several studies have looked at the associations here and the mapping where it’s basically, it’s 9% accurate.

Randi Rubenstein: Mm.

Kirby: So if you take an online test and it says you’re secure, there’s a like a 9% chance that’s actually true.

Randi Rubenstein: Mm-hmm.

Kirby: And if it says you’re anxious, it’s a 9% chance that’s actually true. Because online test is unable to assess for your actual attachment style and your subconscious belief patterns. What it’s good at is it’s catching your current state of mind. And so in your current state of mind, in your current state of nervous system regulation, thinking about one particular relationship or whatever, in that moment, you were showing predominantly secure thought patterns, behavior patterns, whatever. Right? But it’s not an assessment of your attachment style across the board most of the time. [00:29:00] Right? So the statistical association is pretty low. 

but it’s still, I mean it’s interesting and it’s fun and all that kind of stuff, uh, you know, I don’t wanna be sitting here being like, all this stuff is useless. It’s not. What I’m trying to get at is that when I was focused on the labels and the attachment styles, I made less progress. I started making a lot more progress with myself and with others. When I let go of all the labels and I say, where are your fears? What situation do you have a reaction to that looks like a physiological threat response. Are your fingers shaking? Are your pupils dilating? Do you get that shortness of breath? That to me, is where the magic is. 

And you can, you can find that with any person in any situation. You can say, what is it you’re so damn afraid of? And they’ll be like, you know, and they’ll say, well, I’m afraid of abandonment. I’m like, that’s a concept. What’s the, what’s the [00:30:00] specific situation that is terrifying? And they’re like, well, most people will struggle to get there, but that’s why we have coaches and stuff. But they’ll eventually get to a point where they say, I’m terrified of being in a place where I’m alone. I. Or I walk into the house or apartment or whatever, and I’m alone.

Okay. That happens all the time. What’s so scary about that? And they’re like, because if I am standing in this house alone, it means that I’m not worthy. I’m not lovable, I’m not attractive. Like people don’t like me. I don’t have social value. Right? And you’re like, okay, now we’ve actually, we’re bumping into what the actual fear is. And once we understand what the fear is, then we can begin a process of kind of dissolving that fear with some techniques,

Randi Rubenstein: But if you went, if you like, drilled that down, do you think it’s, it’s helpful, like when we talk about attachment? I mean, I know for me it’s sort of, it helps me in my own understanding and, [00:31:00] and healing process to know, oh, this actually is, this was born at a very different time. And, um, and like, just to make sense of my own story and putting the puzzle pieces together, and I think it can feel really scary for people to do that because it, it’s like honor by mother and my father and it feels like you’re blaming, it’s like every parent’s worst fear is, oh, my kids are gonna end up on a therapist’s couch one day and, and they’re gonna blame all their problems on me.

And so, you know, I think if, um, you know, you have relationships with your parents and you love your parents, and if your parents weren’t monsters and they fed you and they took care of you, and in my case, they even paid for college and like and summer camp, like, like, you know, like I had good parents. So it, I think it can be really hard to, to even be willing to look at [00:32:00] that because there’s something about it for people that it feels disloyal in some way, you know?

Kirby: Shameful. It evokes a shame response often. Yeah. Shame and guilt very often. And it’s like, sure, yeah, that happens. I mean, I went through it. So many people I know have gone through it, but it’s like, what’s at stake here? What’s really at stake? And, and is the stake my future mental health, which will then enable me to have healthy relationships, which will then enable me to raise children in a healthy way. If that’s what’s at stake, then so be it. 

At least in my world, because for me, like again, I come from engineering, so we have to have a, a, a key goal that we’re evaluating our project against. And the key goal that I’m always, I evaluate everything against is, will this course of action likely prevent attachment wounds in the next generation of children? And that’s the thing I evaluate everything against. And if it comes, if it’s the [00:33:00] difference between preventing an attachment wound in a future child, versus feeling guilty about my parents or upsetting them or damaging their ego or whatever, then I choose one instead of the other. 

you know, not to say I’m heartless or anything, there’s a way of looking at this where we can avoid all that because it’s just like human psychology works in reliable ways. No parent is perfect. And if the parent was not, is under-skilled or uneducated about attachment dynamics, they’re gonna make mistakes. Sure. Right. so the way I see it is like, just start with the assumption that like, there’s gonna be attachment disruptions. Don’t try to design a perfect system where there’s no attachment disruptions. Try to design a, what they call an anti-fragile system, which is every attachment disruption turns into something that is actually, uh, strengthening both systems and the relationship in [00:34:00] general. 

And so instead of being like, I’m gonna try to be a parent that never creates attachment wounds in my child, no, I’m gonna be a parent that recognizes an attachment disruption as quickly as possible, and then I have the skills to repair it as quickly as possible. And then everybody, everybody will benefit. Because if I develop that skill, it works with my child, it works with my partner, it works with my family, it works with myself. 

And then we just need boundaries because we’re gonna run into people where my behavior will trigger them in difficult ways because they’re gonna feel like they ego is being challenged or whatever else. And I’m just gonna be like, I’m, you know, sorry. You know, I’m doing my best. That’s my opinion anyway.

Randi Rubenstein: I mean, also, this is your own work to do. Who’s, if you are, if you become good with boundaries, why do you even need to tell your parents you’re doing this work?

Kirby: You don’t really. I’m a big fan of something called IPF, which is Ideal Parent Figure [00:35:00] protocol. It’s this whole set of meditations. I just released ’em on my YouTube channel.

Randi Rubenstein: Oh, I loved, I, yes. Where I was on a walk and I did one of them where you walked us through going, you know, going back in time and it’s like my kindergarten classroom came up and,

Kirby: Kindergarten classroom.

Randi Rubenstein: and I was looking to the left and to the right, and to the left, and to the right, and it was unbelievable how it worked. I loved that meditation.

Kirby: Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. And then you bring in an ideal parent, an idealized version of the parent that you have the worst relationship with. And then this is one of those feedbacks I get from people. It’s like, I feel like I’m betraying my parents, and I’m just like, sorry. Like, like,

Randi Rubenstein: Why do they need to even know? They don’t even need to know.

Kirby: that to me says that your parents have ingrained within you thought patterns, basically a weaponized guilt. Weaponized shame.

Randi Rubenstein: They made you feel responsible for their emotions. And I mean, I say that Mastermind Parenting, [00:36:00] number one, truth, kids are not responsible for adult emotions. Period. End of story.

Kirby: End of story.

Randi Rubenstein: So that to me, like, if it feels so disloyal and they don’t, this is your own work, it’s too disloyal to even think it. Like nobody needs to know that. And also, like, if, you know you have a parent that you have a relationship with and they don’t have the capacity to know, really know you at this level, um, like, okay. I mean. Yeah.

Kirby: The thing where I was going with that is that once I really started getting into the IPF protocol on my own journey, like I started developing a relationship with this idolized father. And, and it was like, it was very strange at first. That was warned. You know, it takes a while where you just gotta discipline your way through it, kinda like you do with yoga or going to the gym. Then [00:37:00] eventually it starts paying off. And once it started paying off, I’m like, oh, this is really nice. And then my, my entire attachment space across the board began shifting more and more towards secure. Why? Because I had an internal sense of, of safety inside myself that I was building by reestablishing these attachment mappings.

Okay? Then what happens after that is I’m able to go back to my relationship with my real father, and I’m now able to be more present, more patient, more aware, more whatever, right? It’s just like, because I’m no longer in this situation with my actual father trying to get anything from him. Like, I’m not here to get your validation or approval or whatever else because I’ve got it over there from my idealized parent.

I have used, right. I’ve used a psychological hack to trick myself into a place of felt safety and security with an idealized parent. And that means I could be present with you and recognize that you are a wounded child. And you’re doing all the things that a wounded [00:38:00] child does. And now as he moves on in his later stages of life, it’s just like, I gotta be, like, I can be here with you and be more present and patient right. 

Now. That’s, in my opinion, that’s one of the things that happens when you really engage with this stuff deeply, is you, you, you’re taking accountability for your own healing process so that your fears are no longer dominating your system. You feel safe, deeply, abidingly safe across a wider spectrum of human experiences, which means you are, you have now way, way more capacity to what? To like face stress, to engage with people, to be fearless, to be super vulnerable, to hold, you know, be patient and hold space longer and whatever else. 

And it’s just like, I’ve never seen any, anything like it. That is as effective at improving your life across multiple domains [00:39:00] as, as these approaches, which is, rewrite the attachment system with IPF and then fear, rectification, dissolving, whatever. It’s basically exposure therapy. It’s just kind of regressive exposure therapy. Um, that’s what I do on the other side. And so it’s like these two things and in the middle, you find meaning and purpose.

Randi Rubenstein: Mm-hmm.

Kirby: And those, those three approaches, cornerstones are very, very effective at, helping someone basically establish a new life. And that person with a new life will be less likely, far, far less likely to create an attachment wound in the next generation of children.

Randi Rubenstein: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kirby: In my opinion.

Randi Rubenstein: Mm-hmm. Or if you’ve already, you know, I think there’s some people that are like, well, what if I’ve already accidentally, you know, I mean, you

Kirby: Then you’re modeling,

Randi Rubenstein: Yeah, you gave an example in one of your videos. Like, you know, it was something, and I would love for you to share it [00:40:00] if you can remember 

Kirby: Sure. 

Randi Rubenstein: Um, but it was like, the child who has a parent that, um, has been, you know, there and attuned, but then, all of a sudden they’re on their phone, their face is in their screen, like we’ve all been there, right? And, and, and they walk away from that child. Like, I would love for you to explain like what the child perceives that behavior to mean and what they sort of internalize after that.

Kirby: Okay. I know the one you’re talking about, and this is kind of like my just general explanation of the original attachment wound. Right. We’ll go back a bit, right? Because in my world, attachment theory begins in the womb. Right? In the womb. I’m held, I’m fed, I’m warm, basically every physiological trait stimulus that we have associated with safety and survival is being given to us in the womb.

Okay? Now I’m birthed out into the world and all that’s taken away, and now I have this cacophony of chaos coming into my [00:41:00] nervous system, and my little child brain has to figure out how, what’s important, what’s not? How do I survive? All of this is terrifying because the unknown is always terrifying. And then eventually, hopefully, that child comes into contact with a heartbeat of the mother, and that’s the same heartbeat they heard through the previous nine months.

And so they’re like, oh, this is safety. Because the way the human brain works is if two things happen at the same place in the same time, it draws a line between them and says, these are connected. So it says, while I’m being held, fed, nurtured, safe, warm, there’s this boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. So as soon as I hear the boom, boom, boom, boom, my brain draws the connection back to all these traits of safety.

Okay? So now I’m establishing, like my threat safety index, is establishing this heartbeat and the whole organism wrapped around this heartbeat is safe. That’s mom, right? And that becomes the initial attachment figure. Now, [00:42:00] eventually the father shows up and many other people that can kind of form an attachment constellation and all these people are safe, right?

But there’s, the baby mind is still sitting there being like, how the hell, what’s important? Right? And there will be these moments when there will be this feeling that arises of discomfort that will arise inside the body, right? It could be gas, it could be a medical ailment, it could be anything, right? 

Randi Rubenstein: Hunger.

Kirby: But there’s this, hunger, right? There’s this feeling arising inside my body that does not feel good and I don’t know what it is, right? And so that nervous system is saying, I am freaking out. I don’t know what this is person, thing, whatever that is the source of my safety that I’m literally co-regulate with, in, in limbic resonance probably, which is mom. It’s like, mom, please come help me. I’m facing this unknown thing. Please come tell me it’s gonna be [00:43:00] okay. Like, make it go away. ‘Cause in the past when she comes and holds me or whatever and feeds me, whatever else, that feeling goes away. 

So the baby begins to fidget and cry out and says, Hey, waaah, you know, because that worked in the past. Well, then mom comes around the corner, she’s on her cell phone, it’s some big work meeting, or there’s a fight with her partner, or maybe she’s got a substance problem, whatever it is. She’s not emotionally available in that moment, and she turns away. She prioritizes something else. And then in that moment the child brain says, oh, something else is more important than I am. Boom. Attachment wound. Maybe, likely that brain might conclude, oh, when I cry out the source of my safety will leave me. That down the road will very likely turn into an avoidant attachment style. 

The core craving, the, i, I see it as like, we’ve [00:44:00] got a gastrointestinal system, we’ve got a nervous system, we’ve got all these different kind of systems inside the body. This concept of an attachment system doesn’t really have an organ attached to it. So, so it’s kind of hard to like pick it out. It seems to be more of a brain, a conceptual brain, it’s probably a wide spanning neural network, whatever. 

But the, the attachment system, the way I see it, we come out of the womb, we have three, and then one instinctive craving for three experiences melded into one. Which is I want to feel the experience of being wanted, of being chosen and of being prioritized. Yes, I am. I want to feel the amalgamation of wanted, chosen, and prioritized. And so that is the core attachment craving because if I’m not wanted chosen and prioritized, I’m gonna die. Right? I’m gonna be left alone on the planes of the Serengeti and be eaten by a leopard. Right? So this is a core instinctive, evolutionary craving. I want to feel wanted [00:45:00] chosen and prioritized by someone important. And when you look at almost all attachment problems as an adult within the romantic relationships, it, it always boils down to this. It always boils down to like, I don’t feel wanted, I don’t feel chosen. I don’t feel prioritized. 

Okay, so that’s the core attachment craving. And then this same book I talked about earlier, the research of Dr. Daniel P. Brown, he presents this idea that there’s kind of like five key experiences that will usually generate this feeling of wanted, chosen, prioritized. And the key experiences are, these are the, what I call the five pillars of attachment, felt safety, attunement support while dysregulated, expressed delight, and support for autonomy. And it seems to be that if you can give a child these five experiences in adequate measure, they will emerge from the attachment window, which is [00:46:00] 24 to 36 months, they’ll emerge from the attachment window with a secure attachment style, which in my book is the greatest gift you can give another human being.

Randi Rubenstein: Mm-hmm.

Kirby: ‘Cause it literally benefits every aspect of their life from there forward.

Randi Rubenstein: Mm-hmm.

Kirby: So this is the five pillars of attachment. I’ve got videos posting on that in the next five days. and this is how you create a secure attachment style. But it, it’s like, it’s even more miraculous, almost like the universe designed it this way because when I get skilled at providing these five experiences to another human being like a child, it turns out that same skill I can use with my romantic partner. And then I can use that same skill with my relationship with my own inner child.

Randi Rubenstein: Mm.

Kirby: I’ve got these three main relationships in my life. And the same skillset of the five pillars of attachment are very applicable and very positive. They show very positive results with all three [00:47:00] relationships. And so I worked on becoming an expert at the five pillars of attachment, and all of my relationships improved. Every relationship moved towards healthiness. Relationships that were not healthy fell off naturally. Definitely my relationship was self improved and it’s just like, oh, this is what’s, this is the key thing. A key thing. A key thing, 

Randi Rubenstein: So those five pillars, um, you know, I keep thinking about, there’s a famous line for those of us who watched a gazillion seasons of Grey’s Anatomy,

Kirby: Oh yeah. Yeah.

Randi Rubenstein: There’s a famous line where Meredith says, you know, it’s like this love affair. And, and she wants him to choose her, but he’s like, you know, I think they’re having an affair at the beginning of their relationship, and he’s still married or something. And she says, choose me, pick me, love me. And, that whole show, was about her attachment wound. Um, her parents got divorced.

Kirby: Most shows are.

Randi Rubenstein: Her dad was [00:48:00] alcoholic. Her mom was, very focused on her career. Um, and it is a show about how she became a mom and created the family that she never had and healed her own attachment wound, I think created secure attachment by really becoming a very different mother and having different relationships with her kids than she ever experienced.

Like, that’s the thing. And I know you don’t have, you don’t have kids, right?

Kirby: Nope.

Randi Rubenstein: I mean, that is the thing that I wanna, um, say to people is, number one, there’s many of us who come into adulthood with insecure attachment. And just like Kirby, just like myself, you can create and heal that insecure attachment and create secure attachment for yourself by, you know, all

Kirby: Hundred percent.

Randi Rubenstein: I also think it’s incredibly healing. [00:49:00] Like if, if it didn’t happen or you didn’t, you know, cover the five things, um, the five pillars with your own kids, you know, by 24 or 36 months, um, just like we can heal this in ourselves, you can also create secure attachment with your kid. Like it’s not too late to repair. and so I wanna put that out there for anyone who’s like, oh shit, I think I’ve done it wrong. Or maybe it’s too late.

Kirby: Oh, no, no, no. Yeah. Everything is, everything is flexible. Neuroplasticity is amazing. There’s almost nothing that can’t be healed from. I mean like physical trauma to the brain is even that sometimes, but like most of the things that people think of as like one-way doors in psychology, I don’t know. It’s just, there seems to be enough. Seems to be enough evidence that things can change. It’s just that, like it’s efficacy. Um, again, from the engineering side, it’s like, how effective is this approach? And if that approach is not effective, then [00:50:00] use a different one. But when it comes to attachment, it’s very well researched and it’s very, very predictable and it’s very, the, the pathway to healing is very well known.

and that’s one of the things I do with people in one-on-one sessions and why I’m posting all the videos and everything else. But it’s like there are things that block it. That’s actually, healing is, healing is equally the skill of letting go of what you think you know, as it is adopting something new. Because if you are holding on to, like you, if you’re gripping shame, like, like there are mothers out there like mine where self shame and self blame is like a, a virtue. And so there’s people that hold onto shame and they hold onto blame and it’s like, okay, you gotta let that go before you can move.

There’s other people that will like hold onto a victim card and they’re like, oh, this horrible thing happened to me. And until they can put the victim card down, it’s very, very difficult to get movement [00:51:00] entitlement. I just did a whole series on like the enemies of healing and it’s like, it’s shame, blame numbing and self delusion.

Randi Rubenstein: Numbing was, the numbing one was good. I shared that with several people. Yeah.

Kirby: Yeah. Numbing is, numbing is a key indicator and it’s very, and it’s so many things are numbing, right? Watching Netflix, co making cookies, whatever.

Randi Rubenstein: Big number over

Kirby: Like making videos,

Randi Rubenstein: yes, yes. Like overworking. Even, even when it’s like then you live in a society that like, you know, it gives you pats on the back for a lot of the ways that you numb, that are productive, overwork being, you know. 

My go-to was numbing and is numbing, not like victimhood. It’s interesting like, the, when people come with the victim card. Um, I’ve gotten better, but it, it’s like not my go-to strategy and it’s [00:52:00] sometimes even hard for me to understand. Um, I think I’ve gotten better with it, but like, the story fondlers where it’s just like the same story and there’s never resolution. And sometimes the characters change, but it’s just like the same. 

And these are like people in your personal life. It’s like the same story and the same story and the same story. And it’s like at, and, and a lot of times these are people that I’ve known that have been going to therapy every single week for years and years and years. And I’m thinking, how is their therapist not, how is their therapist continuing to take money from them when nothing is changing? You know?

Kirby: I agree. I agree with that.

Randi Rubenstein: Yeah.

Kirby: There’s a lot of great therapists out there and, and, and I’m not really actually sure what their angle is. I mean, I know that there’s, they’ve got some very serious limitations about what they can do, say, suggest, and that’s one of the reasons why coaches are kind of have become their whole separate industry is ’cause the coach can make demands. The coach can like plant ideas and all that [00:53:00] kinda stuff, but a therapist can’t. And um, so in some ways they’re kind of handcuffed. 

But I totally agree with you and it’s like, to me, and again, this is just the opinion of some random guy on the internet, but it’s just like, if you’re not seeing meaningful progress in six months, that modality is not working.

Randi Rubenstein: Yeah.

Kirby: And it’s like time to try something different. And, but if you are engaging in talk therapy or whatever the modality is, and the main purpose of it is to just vent your pain, vitriol, whatever, then a lot of people will find that very satisfying and they’re gonna keep doing it. Right? Because turns out their goal is not actually healing or change or anything else. Their goal is it’s emotional validation and that’s important, but it’s like, if there’s no resolution, if there’s no, if there’s no change, then, Is that your goal? I guess I don’t want to

Randi Rubenstein: I mean, it might be, look, it might be a person, it might be a person that never felt heard. It was not you. No one was listening. And they, and they [00:54:00] never got to feel like their voice was heard. And it mattered. And maybe it does take years of being in a space where someone is, you know, it’s a safe space to, to let it out and let it out and let it out some more. Um, yeah, I mean, it’s not for me to judge, I guess I’m just

Kirby: Same?

Randi Rubenstein: At some point, I’m like, really? And that shit’s expensive. It’s like 250 bucks an hour. And,

Kirby: Yep.

Randi Rubenstein: but maybe it’s worth 250 bucks an hour to feel heard. I don’t know. I help a lot of people get into therapy, and I have many people who are therapists in my programs, um, who come to me. I have many listeners who are psychologists and therapists. My daughter’s about to go to grad school to become a therapist. Like I’m, you know, I am a big proponent of therapy. My kids go to therapy. Like I am a big proponent of therapy. Um, I’m like the opposite of the, oh God, I hope my kids don’t end up on a couch blaming me. I’m like, I hope my kids [00:55:00] have the worthiness to go to therapy and, and do all this self-exploration. 

Kirby: This is important. Because for a lot of people, they think of a positive relationship, they think that the marker of a positive relationship is that there isn’t difficulty. And hopefully your listeners aren’t in that camp, but there’s still many people that still believe that. And it’s like, no, how good you feel in a relationship is not a marker of how good the relationship is. The positive marker of a relationship is how, what happens in the worst moments and, and in the worst moments are, the things that happen help direct that relationship towards repair and reconciliation.

And so in this particular case, it’s like, okay, we’re talking earlier about you being a mother and being unprepared or whatever, and it’s like, sure, humans are imperfect, mothers are imperfect. Sure things happen. Now what, what happens next? Those kids find the confidence, the [00:56:00] courage, the vulnerability to go deep inside to understand where the wounds actually are, get a little bit of help to understand them and then loop back around and say, Hey, mom, let’s have a conversation. And then they initiate the repair process that is actually super green flag material. That’s what we want. 

We don’t want a situation where every child feels the pressure to be like, oh, I can’t ever blame mom. It’s like, no, figure out what the issue is and then initiate the repair process. Then your relationship will deepen, improve, become vulnerable, every marker.

Randi Rubenstein: People are so scared of that. People are, people are so scared. I’ve had so many people say their biggest fear is that decisions they’re making today are gonna come back to haunt them, and their kids are gonna end up blaming them for all their problems. And when I really drill it down, I’m like, do you think you’re doing it perfectly right now?[00:57:00] 

Kirby: Yeah,

Randi Rubenstein: And they always say no. And I’m like, so, you know, let’s play that out. Like, what does it look like? And like my daughter saying to me, remember that camp you sent to me to that time? I was homesick the whole time. It was the worst month of my life. That they, that girl stole my letter. She bullied me. She made fun of, you know, you writing me all those letters to try and, you know, help me get over my homesick all your love letters. She totally used them and bullied me. It was a miserable month. 

And I’m like, well, that was a terrible decision to send you to that camp. And she’s like, yeah, it was a ter, I’m like, I know. What was I thinking? You don’t like, I don’t even know whose advice I was taking, but yeah, that was an. And you really weren’t in love with summer camp, so to just like take a risk and send you to that ca that was a terrible decision. Then and it, it sucked.

Kirby: Yep. Yep.

Randi Rubenstein: And like that was the conversation.

Kirby: [00:58:00] Yep. Beautiful. So beautiful.

Randi Rubenstein: Why are we so scared of having that conversation? Which was, that was a ter, what was I even thinking? That was a terrible decision. Yeah, that was a terrible, that month really sucked for you. Yeah, it did suck. Yeah.

Kirby: Right? I run into people, not, not that often, but often enough to stick outta my mind that I run into people where it’s just like, they’re parents and they’re just say, there’s no way I could admit fault, or, or that I made a mistake. And it’s like, and I’m like, okay, good luck with that.

Right? Good luck with the consequences that that attitude or fear will have in your life, because if that’s happening with your child, it’s probably also happening with your spouse. It’s probably also happening with your boss and everything else. And then what you realize there is that there’s this whole big interactive, interconnected piece of behavioral responses and emotional responses that are basically, I’m trying to avoid ever taking blame for wrongness. 

Randi Rubenstein: [00:59:00] Because there was so much shame, there’s so much shame and it probably wasn’t safe to make a mistake. It was the opposite of growth mind, you know, it was fixed mindset growing up, and I, I, I mean, it’s like when I give that example, I’m like, could you handle a conversation like that? Like how many different ways could it go? Like maybe your kid’s, like, what were you thinking? And you’re like, what was I thinking? Like, like, why is that so hard? I mean, think about someone else that did that you feel did you wrong, and then you let them know, and then they’re like, I’m so sorry for that. You’re a hundred percent right. Like, are you still gonna torture them and hold onto it and beat a dead horse, or, or is that gonna be like a pattern disruption? You’re like, oh, well thank you for owning that.

Kirby: Right.

Randi Rubenstein: Totally different in my opinion, you know?

Kirby: Yeah, I agree. I I totally agree. There’s a [01:00:00] huge power that comes from becoming okay with being wrong, making mistakes. Tremendous power and freedom comes into a person’s life when you’re just like, I am doing my best in every moment and I’m gonna screw up sometimes. And then when you screw up, you’re just like, oh, there’s one of those times. You’re like, okay. And then you look around the people and you’re just like, okay, did this, did this action hurt you? I need, I wanna take accountability for it. I want to like initiate repair, like tell you what I was thinking in the moment and thinking, feeling whatever. That kind of like help put, put me in the mindset where I made that choice.

And sometimes the partner’s just like, I totally get it. I, oh, now I understand, that really did hurt. It’s like, oh, I’m sorry. And then you can just, all this goodwill happens. But then there’s other people where it’s just like, no, you hurt me, you wronged me. That’s the victim card again. And it’s like, and then they won’t let that lie. Well, that’s red flag of [01:01:00] epic proportions. And, and there there’s very, say low survivability of that relationship.

Randi Rubenstein: Yeah.

Kirby: something I say often is like, that person just told you everything you need to know about the future of that relationship. and sometimes that’s hard and it hurts, but again, I’m like, if you’re thinking about the entire future of your mental health and, how the impact of your mental health is gonna im impact others, especially your children, then it’s just like we need to be very vigilant right now in the here and now about what we accept and what we don’t. And if we have a person that’s gonna hold my feet to the flames and bring pain and misery about some mistake I made three years ago or whatever, it’s just like I need to have some hard discussions with myself about why am I still here? That’s my opinion anyway.

I’m reiterating that I’m evaluating everything against the attachment wounds of children. Either [01:02:00] coming or already in my life. And I see so many parents that are gripping, they’re just like gripping onto relationships that cause them stress and misery and, and just angst to the end of the time. And they will not let go of a romantic relationship. And then it impacts their nervous system, which is, makes them, is, has a direct one-to-one correlation about their, their ability to be present with their children. You know, of course, you know this, the number one indicator of a child’s wellbeing. You know this right? The quality of a mother’s happiness.

Randi Rubenstein: Mm-hmm.

Kirby: So it’s like everything, everything we do should like, and this is, this isn’t just like your kids, this is society in general. Like when we, if we can focus on building the infrastructure that prioritizes the quality of a mother’s happiness above almost [01:03:00] everything else, we are preventing crime. We’re helping create better electorate, we’re helping increase education. We, like every aspect of what we care about in society will be improved when we can help mothers raise secure children.

Randi Rubenstein: And I’ll, I think honestly, and from my own experience, and I see this with people all the time, when you start to really do, your home is moving and grooving and, um, you know, people come and it’s, you’ve never met my child. You never met a child.

Kirby: Yeah. Yeah.

Randi Rubenstein: okay. Right. And then within a couple of months. Things are so much better. like, I had a mom who’s just been in my initial program, maybe for six weeks or something, and, and she had a little, they, it was just a fractured relationship and he was so shut down. And she just shared the other night, she said, he called me back [01:04:00] into his room and she said he, he just needed more snuggles and he wanted to gimme one more kiss. And he said, I just need one more kiss because you’re the best mom in the whole world. 

And, and this is a kid, this, she was like, honestly, like, I don’t, like, I take care of him, but like, I don’t really have a relationship with him. We don’t enjoy each other. I mean, that’s six weeks ago. And now we have a little boy who’s feeling enjoyed and calling his mom back. He’s feeling chosen and prioritized, right? And loved. And he and I said, well, that was your report card. 

And, and I think what, what I’ve started to see is, is that when you really start to do things in a way where your family is in such a better place, you know, you feel proud of like when you put your head down at night, you feel proud of the mom you were that day. And especially when people get to the, [01:05:00] to the teenage years. ’cause most of us remember elements of the teenage years and when you’re going through hard things with your teenager because they’re going through how hard it is to be a teenager in this day and age.

Kirby: Yeah.

Randi Rubenstein: And you, and they confide in you and you’re their soft place to land and you’re showing up for them in a way that you never had an adult show up for you. There is something so cathartic and healing. Um, I feel like it’s like not only are we creating secure attachment, we’re also healing our own insecure attachment by showing up and being that for the next generation of kids.

Kirby: Yes. Yeah, totally. I mean, it’s, it’s, wow, what’s her name? Uh, I can’t remember her name now, but, um, she’s a, a champion of this idea that, like, somewhere along the way we began to, we began to prioritize this idea [01:06:00] that, like being out of the home, having your own job, you know, whatever. Like, it’s like the idea that priorities other than motherhood were important. More important, right? And she’s kind of this idea where she’s out there championing this idea that it’s like, bring the concept back that motherhood is, is a phenomenal job. And it, and it’s one of the most important jobs that there, there is really I mean, Who cares what the TPS reports say? Who cares how much profit the corporate makes in the next quarter? We’re talking about like,

Randi Rubenstein: Shaping human beings.

Kirby: Yeah. Shaping a human being that’s gonna last for the next 60 years of all the people they touch. All the activities, they engage in their own sense of happiness, satisfaction, joy, whatever. Right. And all of that goodness is gonna spread into all the people they touch. It’s like we’re literally, when we shape the nervous system of a human being, we are literally shaping our culture and shaping humanity as a whole. That to me, is far more [01:07:00] important than whatever status report is coming in from work. 

Randi Rubenstein: I love it. Well, that’s a great note to end on. yeah, I think it’s a great note to end on and, um, yeah, I think this was a fantastic conversation, masterclass, I mean, do you have any final thoughts that you wanna leave people with or,

Kirby: no, my brain’s a little bit like I’ve, I’ve talked about most of the things I really care about, right. But I mean, it’s just like. All my thoughts are on the YouTube channel and so it’s just go there if you want to hear more because you know there’ll be lots.

Randi Rubenstein: Well, we’re gonna share everything, all your links in the show notes. I really appreciate all of the videos.

Kirby: Thank you so much. Thank you so much. This is my report card. This is my report card. Getting it from someone like you to say this has been meaningful and impactful for you. That’s, uh, like I am so joyful right now. So

Randi Rubenstein: Good. Good, good, good. Okay. Well thanks for talking to me today and, um, [01:08:00] thanks for listening everyone. Have a great week. Bye.

Kirby: bye-Bye.

Randi Rubenstein: Thanks for listening today, guys. I hope you picked up some tips, tools, maybe some baby steps for creating more balance and boundaries in your life. And I just wanted to let you know, if you want to continue moving the needle forward in creating this for yourself, having a happier household, I want you to go to my website and check out mastermindparenting.com. We have three beginning programs, and if you need some accountability and more support then please look for the one that would be a good fit for you.

And, as always, we’re on all the social channels under Mastermind Parenting, on Instagram it’s mastermind_parenting. And, you know, periodically I do pop up on different Instagram lives, Facebook lives where I give you teaching and coaching and I love engaging with you live to [01:09:00] help you help your strong-willed kids so that they can feel better, because when they feel better they do better, and I love, love, love getting to know you guys. 

So thanks for listening. If you like this podcast, please don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review. Super, super appreciative.