Today I’m releasing Push & Pull, a love song about attachment theory. Listen on Spotify or Soundcloud or Apple Music.
Here’s the story of this track:
Sometimes I read a book and it seems like the author lives inside my head.
Reading “Attached” was one such experience.
Attached is about attachment theory - A field of study that concerns itself with how people behave in romantic and intimate relationships.
Specifically it deals with different patterns of attachment between parents and their children, and how these patterns of attachment tend to play out later in our romantic relationships.
I was fascinated by this book. It explained so much about how I tend to be in romantic relationships, and it explained the prevailing dynamic between Kati and I over the first 5 years of our relationship.
Attachment theory defines a few flavors of attachment: Avoidant, Anxious and Secure.
Avoidant people tend to want more space in relationship. They tend to feel smothered, and try to move away from their partner. (Often but not always this is due to early childhood enmeshment by their opposite sex parent if they are heterosexual, or the same sex parent if they are homosexual).
If you had an opposite sex parent who was in your business as a kid, it’s more likely you’ll end up avoidant in relationship later in life.
Conversely, Anxious people tend to want more closeness in relationship. They tend to feel abandoned and try to move closer to their partner. (Often this is due to early childhood abandonment by the opposite sex parent if heterosexual or same sex parent if homosexual)
If you had an opposite sex parent who was never around as a kid, it’s more likely you’ll end up anxious in relationship later in life.
And the last attachment flavor is Secure. Secure people tend to be able to withstand both closeness and distance. This of course is the healthy flavor of attachment. And Levine and Heller say about 50% of the population are secure.
And for those of us who identify as more anxious or avoidant, the way to become secure (according to the book) is to i) be available for your partner, ii) don’t interfere (ie. smother) your partner, and iii) support and encourage your partner.
Secure sounds nice, but in reading the book I definitely identified more with the avoidant attachment style. And Kati identified with the anxious attachment style.
I was surprised to read that avoidant and anxious people tend to gravitate towards each other, as a way to endlessly relive (in the worst case) or heal (in the best case) their childhood attachment injuries.
There’s even a diagram in the book that shows the drama circle that anxious and avoidant couples go around over and over again if they don’t become secure. I read Attached in 2016 and the book perfectly described Kati and my dynamic at that time.
Anyway, reading this book helped me to see that my avoidant tendencies weren’t actually part of ME, they were a result of my experiences growing up. And I saw how destructive they were in my life.
After I finished Attached I vowed to myself to become secure, and that kicked off a multi-year quest that continues to this day.
Push & Pull is a song I wrote for Kati before I left for Bali in 2016. I wanted to bring some peace and hope to our relationship by identifying our avoidant-anxious dynamic, and painting a picture of what it would be like on the other side if we were both able to become secure.
(Actually, Levine and Heller say only ONE partner needs to be secure to stamp out the drama cycle and I found that encouraging!)
So Push & Pull is a song about attachment theory. It’s a song about Kati and my relationship. And it’s a song about my relationship to relationships, and my desire to change.
And I imagine it’s a song that will resonate in any relationships where one person tends to feel more avoidant and one person tends to feel more anxious.
And at a deeper level it’s a song about preserving and honoring love. If avoidant people can heal themselves and enjoy closeness, and anxious people can heal themselves and enjoy distance, love has a greater chance to flourish.
I hope you like Push & Pull ❤️
P.S. Check out the awesome album art by Kati (@astraltranscription):
Song Credits:
Written, Performed and Produced by William Sage at Red Robin Studios (Boulder) & Soma Sound Studio (Bali). Engineer & Mixing Engineer: Stef Soma.
Note: You can find the chords and lyrics to this song here.
