EP 585: The Truth About Secure Love (Taylor Swift & The Courage to Be Disliked)

Interactive Transcript

spk_0 Welcome to the Let's Get Vulnerable Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Morgan Anderson,

spk_0 psychologist, relationship coach, attachment theory expert, creator of the ESL

spk_0 relationship method, author of Love Magnet in Athletic Wear, ConnoSour. My mission is

spk_0 to help you raise yourself worth, have great relationships, and step confidently

spk_0 into the next level of your life. Each week, two episodes will air featuring

spk_0 expert advice, live coaching, and tips showing you exactly how to improve your

spk_0 life and attract a healthy relationship. You deserve to feel empowered, secure,

spk_0 and love. Buckle up and let's get vulnerable.

spk_0 Welcome to the Let's Get Vulnerable Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Morgan. We have a

spk_0 lot to talk about today. I want to talk about Taylor Swift's new album, but

spk_0 specifically why I think she is singing about secure attachment. And I will

spk_0 tell you my top three favorite songs and why they are my favorite off of the

spk_0 album. And we're even going to look at some of the lyrics. So this will be a fun

spk_0 episode. I've never done one like this before. I'm really excited to share this

spk_0 with you. If you are a Swiftie, great. If you are not, I promise you, there's

spk_0 still some value you'll get out of this. And who knows? Maybe you'll go

spk_0 listening to one of these songs after this episode. But I'm really excited to

spk_0 dive into that. And then after we cover T Swift's new album, I want to jump

spk_0 into a wonderful book that I read recently. And it's all about Adlerian

spk_0 psychology. What's awesome is I'm going to take things from the book, five primary

spk_0 foundational truths that I extracted. So I'm saving you the work of having to

spk_0 read this book. And then we will also connect it to attachment theory and

spk_0 having healthy relationships. So this is going to be a great episode. I know

spk_0 you will love this one. The book that we're reviewing is called The

spk_0 Courage to Be Disliked. I finished it this weekend and I just knew I needed to

spk_0 review it on the pod. So let's jump in. I can't wait to share this episode with

spk_0 you. All right, let's review the life of a showgirl. This is T Swift's latest

spk_0 album. And here's the truth, y'all. Am I a Swiftie? Not necessarily, however, I

spk_0 go through phases where I do really, really love her music. We're the same age.

spk_0 I feel like we have grown up together. And it's been really, really cool to see

spk_0 her enter into a healthy relationship around the same time that I'm got married

spk_0 and I'm in this era of healthy, secure love. So yes, I love Taylor. I think she's

spk_0 amazing. Do I consider myself a Swiftie? Probably depends on the day. But I will

spk_0 say this. Her latest album is very different from the other albums that she has

spk_0 put out. And one of the main things that I'm realizing is she is writing about

spk_0 love that feels safe and steady and calm and predictable. And it's not the, you

spk_0 know, I mean, gosh, one of her last albums, the tortured poet society, right? Like it

spk_0 is, it is not the tortured painful lyrics that we're used to. And I think this is

spk_0 because our girl is in her secure love era. And I really, really, really love this because

spk_0 it's the example of it doesn't matter how many past relationships you've had that have

spk_0 been toxic or crazy or failed, quote, unquote, you can always heal. You can always create

spk_0 that healthy, secure, loving relationship, no matter what your past has been. And obviously,

spk_0 she has done that in a very public public sense. And of course, I don't know the behind

spk_0 the scenes of what her and Travis's relationship is like. But from what we can tell, it's secure,

spk_0 it's healthy. They support one another. They cheer each other on. They seem to be each other's

spk_0 biggest fans. So I am loving this new era for Taylor Swift. And to review the album, I will say,

spk_0 I have three favorite songs. And I want to tell you which ones they are. And I want to talk about

spk_0 each song. So coming in at number three, we're going to go with Opal Light. And this is a special

spk_0 song because Opal is Travis Kelsey's birthstone. He's an October baby. So Opal Light is about her

spk_0 love with Travis. And what I love about this song is it's all about your past relationships.

spk_0 Don't matter. You know, she talks about you were dancing through the lightning strikes in an

spk_0 onyx night and onyx sky, something like that. And I think the beauty of this is, is that

spk_0 realization that yeah, when you're going through difficult relationships or unhealthy relationships

spk_0 or dating the people who turn out not to be the one, it can feel so painful, so sad like you're

spk_0 going through a dark night of the soul, right? But then when you do get to that place where you

spk_0 have found your person and you're creating the love that you so deserve, everything changes.

spk_0 The color of the sky can change. And in her case, it changed to Opal Light.

spk_0 Looking at the lyrics, I thought this was so I have to share this with you because this is

spk_0 interesting. She says, you couldn't understand it. Why you felt alone. You were in it for real.

spk_0 She was in her phone and you were just opposed. And don't we try to love love. We give it all we

spk_0 got. And you finally left the table. What a simple thought. You're starving, tell, you're not.

spk_0 What a simple thought. You're starving, tell, you're not. This was these lyrics really had me

spk_0 thinking about, okay, she's talking about Travis Kelsey, she's talking about his ex-girlfriend.

spk_0 She was in it apparently for the fame. But even more so, what really hit me is when she talks about

spk_0 you finally left the table and how many of us realize that we were in relationships, we were sitting

spk_0 at the table, we were begging for crumbs, we were begging for the relationship to be different. When

spk_0 we could have left the table, we could have left the table. What a simple thought, right? You can

spk_0 leave the table. And this piece about your starving, tell, you're not. It makes me think about when

spk_0 you're in a unhealthy relationship. It feels like you can get love, attention, reassurance from that

spk_0 person. But it's like eating junk food, no matter how much you get, you don't actually feel good.

spk_0 You're always starving, no matter what, right? When you're in that healthy, secure relationship,

spk_0 it's like that food that you internalize it, it feels good. You're no longer starving, you're no

spk_0 longer starving for love. And so many of us, here's the, here's the deal. It's not about changing

spk_0 the partner as much as it is, changing ourselves so that we can be attracted to that good kind of

spk_0 relationship, right? To where we can be attracted to relationships that are like a whole meal and not

spk_0 just the crumbs. There's a lot of us that we're sitting at the table, we're begging for crumbs,

spk_0 we're always starving, but we don't realize that we can get up from the table. And in this metaphor,

spk_0 getting up from the table is about rewiring your brain, becoming securely attached, letting go of

spk_0 your past relational trauma. You can get up from the table. A lot of us, you're, you're acting like

spk_0 you are handcuffed to that table. When in reality, it's like a little string, it's a little string

spk_0 that has you connected there. And in your brain, you feel so, so, so stuck and like it'll never change.

spk_0 But all you have to do is get up from the table. So I love that song because of those lyrics,

spk_0 and there were other parts too in that song that I just really liked the lyrics. I think she

spk_0 talked about like, oh my gosh, here's the other lyrics I liked. She said, I had a bad habit of missing

spk_0 lovers past. My brother used to call it eating out of the trash. It's never going to last.

spk_0 I thought my house was haunted. I used to live with ghosts. And all the perfect couples said,

spk_0 when you know, you know, all my God, how many of us relate to these lyrics, right? Eating out of the

spk_0 trash when you're missing your lover's past. Oh my gosh. And that feeling of living with ghosts.

spk_0 This is so, this is like, oh, insecure attachment styles. Any of you listening who have anxious,

spk_0 avoided or disorganized style, those lyrics are going to hit you, right? Eating out of the trash.

spk_0 That's what we're doing when we're going back to those past relationships when we're missing

spk_0 those past people, you know, for the most part, there are exceptions. But for the most part,

spk_0 especially in an unhealthy dynamic, right? When a relationship ends, it was meant to end. It ended

spk_0 for a reason, right? We have to get to that point where we are no longer living with those ghosts.

spk_0 We're no longer eating out of the trash because that's taking up space. That is blocking the people

spk_0 who are meant to come in your life. So Taylor, the lyrics on Opal Light, there was, there was some

spk_0 really good descriptions there of what it's like to live with insecure attachment. Okay, I have to

spk_0 move on. Otherwise, this episode will be three hours. Let's move on to my second favorite, the song that

spk_0 came in number two. This one is a little bit juicy, you guys would, would W O O D, the explicit

spk_0 version, okay, if you're not around children, go listen to it. This is about finally having a

spk_0 healthy sex life. And what I loved, loved, loved, loved about this song. Just her ability to talk about

spk_0 and honestly, you guys can DM me if you think that I'm spot on with this. But I think she was

spk_0 talking about how in the past, she had issues in her sex life, you know, there's, there's some hints

spk_0 there about things being difficult. And where is it? I want to find this for you.

spk_0 His love, so here's alerts, his love was the key that opened my thighs. Girls, I don't need to

spk_0 catch the bouquet to know a hard rock is on the way. And baby, I'll admit, I've been a little

spk_0 superstitious. The curse on me was broken by your magic wand. Seems to me that you and me make our

spk_0 own look. So it could be just me, but I feel like she's pointing out that in this relationship with

spk_0 Travis, she doesn't have to knock on wood, which take that to mean what you will. But I'm interpreting

spk_0 it that she's having good, securely attached sex. And I know this to be true. How many of you know

spk_0 this to be true when you are in an unhealthy relationship? When there's the ups and downs, when it's

spk_0 unpredictable, that anxious, avoidant dynamic, or maybe you have two people who are avoidant. So

spk_0 you're really not connecting that much emotionally. Any kind of insecure attachment dynamic,

spk_0 the sex is really challenging. It's really challenging. And especially being able to orgasm,

spk_0 okay? So when when she talks about his love was the key that opened my thighs, to me, I'm going,

spk_0 yes, Taylor is talking about having this secure, stable love. And it's allowing her to step

spk_0 into her power and enjoy her sex life, aka open her thighs, right? What a great, what a great song

spk_0 talking about sex and how it can be different when you're in the right relationship. Honestly,

spk_0 so yay Taylor. I loved that song was my number two. And then of course, this song number one

spk_0 means so much to me. And I think it's interesting. I definitely want to hear from you all, send me a

spk_0 DM what you thought of it. My number one favorite song on the album is probably the most popular song

spk_0 on the album, Wishlist. And why do I love Wishlist? Because it is so so wonderful to see someone who

spk_0 is the probably, I mean, the most successful pop star on the planet worth billions of dollars.

spk_0 And she's singing about all I want is you. I love these lines. Here's the lyrics. She says,

spk_0 please God, bring me a best friend who I think is hot. I thought I had it right once, twice,

spk_0 but I did not. You caught me off my guard. I hope I get what I want because I know what I want. I

spk_0 just want you have a couple of kids got the whole block looking like you. We tell the world to leave

spk_0 us the fuck alone and they do. So this song, this song, it's all about that we could be the most

spk_0 successful people, but ultimately we want love. We want partnership. And I love how in the song,

spk_0 she's naming all these things that I feel like we're taught to want in our society, whether it's

spk_0 material success, location freedom. I forget. I mean, she's naming all these things in this song,

spk_0 right? And it's all this material stuff. And then at the end of the day, she's talking about how

spk_0 love and partnership, how that's really, really what she wants. And I think so many of us get caught up

spk_0 in distracting ourselves with the chase of looking a certain way. Oh, if I just get

spk_0 this surgery done or if I just make sure I look as good as possible at all times and kill myself

spk_0 in the gym for two hours a day and da da da da da da, right? If I just focus on my looks,

spk_0 then I'll be happy. And then some of us get caught up in the lie of, oh, if I just work really hard,

spk_0 and I focus on my career, then I'll be happy, right? But the reality is is even someone as successful

spk_0 as Taylor Swift knows that success without fulfillment, success without healthy loving connected

spk_0 relationships actually feels like a failure. Success without a healthy relationship feels like

spk_0 a failure because you're sitting there and you have all this success, you've done all this and

spk_0 you're going, but who do I share it with? When I come home at night, who's the person that I'm

spk_0 winding down with and making dinner and, you know, giggling with under the covers? Like, who's that

spk_0 person that's by my side? And I feel like in wish list is that realization of, yeah, be a boss,

spk_0 go after what you want. You guys know I 100% support you living your best life and going after

spk_0 things. That's part of you healing and being securely attached and having high self-worth,

spk_0 go after all the things, but do not tell yourself the lie that as long as I'm successful,

spk_0 I won't care if I'm not in a relationship. Don't tell yourself the lie that material success

spk_0 is more important than a relationship. They both matter and at the end of the day, I really

spk_0 truly believe this with my whole heart. The quality of your life is the quality of your relationships.

spk_0 Going after healthy relationships really truly makes everything else in your life better.

spk_0 So those are my top three songs off the T-Swift album and my interpretation of them.

spk_0 Once again, those top three, number three was Opal Light, number two, wood, and number one wish list.

spk_0 I know that by husband Robert is sick of hearing these songs, but little secret, he definitely

spk_0 enjoys them. He pretends not to and then I'll be like, you know, in the kitchen and he's like

spk_0 cooking and he'll start humming the songs. I'm like, oh, what are you? What are you humming, babe?

spk_0 And then he'll be like, nothing. You guys, he's into it. He's into it. He pretends not to be.

spk_0 Let me know. Send me a DM on Instagram. Are you as swifty? What were your favorite songs?

spk_0 What did you think of the album? Let me know. I want to move on to talking about the courage to be

spk_0 disliked. This book was a wonderful book. I took a lot of time reading it. I took a lot of notes.

spk_0 So I wanted to take my learning that I had from this book. I want to take that and give it to you

spk_0 so that you don't have to read the book or if you do read it, you can hopefully even understand it

spk_0 on a deeper level and get even more value out of it. So let's jump into this. This will be a really,

spk_0 really, really fun episode. The idea of theology, okay, this is the belief that your life is

spk_0 directed by the meaning and the purpose that you give it moving forward. I absolutely believe in

spk_0 the value of revisiting our past of understanding where things came from. You know, talking about that

spk_0 a lot today, the roots, the relational trauma roots. I believe in unearthing those. And I don't believe

spk_0 in staying with them. And I certainly don't believe in clinging to them and using them to define

spk_0 your life and to define and justify why you are where you are. I believe in unearthing those

spk_0 looking at them, processing them and then letting them go and deciding that we're going to replant.

spk_0 And this truth is very controversial because it goes against traditional

spk_0 clinical psychotherapy from a Freudian standpoint of that, hey, the past is determining everything.

spk_0 What happened to you in the past is always going to be there and you need to spend decades in

spk_0 psychotherapy to work through it, right? I don't believe in that. Once again, I believe in the value

spk_0 of understanding our past, processing our past. And then I believe that we can intentionally

spk_0 let them go and we can decide moving forward the meaning we're going to give our life.

spk_0 And this is honestly the root of this idea is why I created the empowered, secure,

spk_0 loved program because as a psychologist, I saw that therapy was so good at giving people awareness,

spk_0 not so great at what do we do with the awareness, right? So this is all about this reframe of,

spk_0 okay, believing my past is proof of my limits. My past defines me and taking it to

spk_0 my future is created by the beliefs that I choose today. I can intentionally build my life and

spk_0 build my future by the new reality and the new belief systems that I choose today.

spk_0 So I want you to think about this one because once again, our past are important. We have to

spk_0 understand the relational trauma, etc. But also realizing that you can decide to focus on the future.

spk_0 Once you've processed the past, once you've let it go, you don't actually have to keep focusing

spk_0 on it or revisiting it. You can just decide to practice that self forgiveness and forgiveness of

spk_0 others and to decide that you're moving forward and you want to intentionally build your life

spk_0 from a set of beliefs based in reality, a set of beliefs that is no longer based in past relational

spk_0 trauma. And you get to intentionally create the life that you want, right? When we are securely

spk_0 attached, this is what we believe. We believe that what has happened to us has shaped us.

spk_0 But it does not define who we are. We can choose the kind of partner and human and member of society.

spk_0 We get to choose what kind of person we want to be. So this is all the identity work that I love to

spk_0 do, right? Where I talk about who is the securely attached version of you. What is that identity of you?

spk_0 We have to let go of the past. We have to revisit it. We can't let go of it until we revisit it.

spk_0 The only way forward is through it. We have to do that. I'm a firm believer. I see people who promote

spk_0 work that's all about just creating a new identity. And I'm telling you, if it was not easy,

spk_0 man, would that be nice? It does not work. It's simply not effective. We do have to revisit the past.

spk_0 But we don't have to stay there. And we certainly don't have to stay there for a decade and therapy,

spk_0 talking about it over and over and over again and living in those problems. We can revisit it in a

spk_0 very intentional way, process what we need to, let it go. And then we get to have the blank slate

spk_0 and intentionally build the new identity. And obviously that's what I help people do.

spk_0 I'm so passionate about this because it works. It works. I want to review these truths. We

spk_0 thought we went really deep on this today. And I just want to review these. Okay. Let's look at all

spk_0 five of these truths. All problems are interpersonal relationship problems. How is the first one?

spk_0 The second thing that we looked at was make sure that you're living in horizontal relationships,

spk_0 not vertical, where you know that you matter and the other person matters, right? Where you have

spk_0 high self-worth and the other person has worth as well, right? We are talking about equal dynamics,

spk_0 not vertical, aka securely attached relationships. Number three, we talked about separation of tasks,

spk_0 what's mine is mine, what's yours is yours. Number four was the freedom, Rahe, talking about what

spk_0 is true freedom. It means that we're willing to be disliked. We have high self-worth. We know who we

spk_0 are. We're authentic. And we know that as part of that, not everyone will like us. And that doesn't

spk_0 matter because we value our true selves above trying to please other people. And then number five,

spk_0 we talked about that the past is important. And life is determined by the meaning that we give it,

spk_0 and that we get to decide to focus on our future and the identity that we're creating instead of

spk_0 living in the past, right? We get to decide to intentionally create our new identities.

spk_0 I hope you enjoyed this episode. We did a little t-swift. We did a little book review.

spk_0 If you want to read the book, I think you could probably get a lot of value out of it.

spk_0 I'm a little biased. I think these points I shared with you today are probably the most important

spk_0 pieces. But honestly, if you're a reader and you love to read, highly recommend it. I'll even

spk_0 put the link in the show notes. If you want to go read the book, I hope you enjoyed this episode.

spk_0 Shoot me a DM at Dr. Morgan coaching. I have so many amazing things coming up for you guys this

spk_0 month. And I have a little L.A. trip. I'm going to be doing some incredible content with some

spk_0 wonderful people I know. So I can't wait to share those collaborations with you. And I'm just so

spk_0 grateful for this community, this podcast over 580 plus episodes. My goodness, this has been

spk_0 such a journey. And I adore you. Thank you for being part of this community and tuning in. And

spk_0 I really hope that if there's someone who needs this show, please share it with them. That's why I

spk_0 do what I do to help as many people as possible. So maybe there's somebody in your life that needs

spk_0 to hear some of what we talked about today. Take two seconds, send in this episode, and hopefully

spk_0 they'll get some value out of it. I want you to know I appreciate you. I am rooting for you. You've

spk_0 got this. Okay, you're already here listening to the show. So that tells me that you are committed

spk_0 to your healing journey. And of course, as always, I am wishing you high self-worth and great

spk_0 relationships. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for tuning in. I really appreciate each and every

spk_0 one of you. The best way you can thank me is by sharing this episode on Instagram or Facebook.

spk_0 Make sure you tag me. It would mean the world to me if you took just a moment to leave me a written

spk_0 review on Apple podcasts. This podcast is not free to produce. And the more that you help this show

spk_0 grow, the more people will be able to help. Until next time, I'm wishing you high self-worth

spk_0 and great relationships. Thank you for being part of this community.

EP 585: The Truth About Secure Love (Taylor Swift & The Courage to Be Disliked)

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