Attachment Theory:  A theory created by John Bowlby that explains how early relationships with caregivers shape our ability to form emotional bonds throughout life. It identifies four main attachment styles—secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganized—based on how we learned to seek safety, connection, and regulation in relationships. These patterns influence how we relate to romantic partners, friends, and even ourselves.

Secure Attachment: Someone with SECURE attachment feels safe to depend on their partner and for their partner to depend on them. They do not feel like they are “too much” or that their emotions and needs are a burden. They feel lovable, good enough, and secure in their commitment. They can take accountability without feeling shame and can ask their partner to be accountable without shaming them. They are growth minded about relationships and are always striving to learn and grow. They believe everyone deserves both compassion and accountability when mistakes are made. They feel safe and seen with their partner and offer the same in return. They believe their partner behaves with good intentions and are willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that hurt caused is not intentional.

Insecure Attachment:  Someone with INSECURE attachment feels unsafe and uncomfortable depending on their partner and/or having their partner depend on them. They have doubts about being fully lovable and good enough. They are fearful of rejection, betrayal and abandonment. To protect themselves, they try to keep their “benefits high” and their “costs low”, meaning they work hard to perform for love, put their own needs aside and not cause any trouble. They worry they are a burden and that at their core, they are not truly lovable. This leads to them being fearful of the “other shoe dropping” at any time. They struggle to take accountability for mistakes without feeling shame. When they have needs, they struggle to bring them up at all or will voice them in an attacking way. They believe someone is the “bad guy” in arguments and unhealthy patterns.

Growth Mindset: The belief that talents, skills and abilities are not fixed, but instead can change and improve with resources; the embrace of challenges and obstacles; a conviction that ignorance is not bliss; a desire so intense for achieving goals that they seek out awareness, information and guidance from experts; the motto “if others can do it, so can I.”

Neuroplasticity:  The brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life. It allows us to adapt, learn, and recover from injuries by rewiring neural pathways in response to experiences, behaviors, and environment. Our brains are continually able to create new neuropathways with repetition and practice.

Confirmation Bias: The tendency to look for information that confirms a belief. This can be unconscious / unintentional, and it results in a person ignoring information that is inconsistent with their beliefs. People are especially likely to process information to support their own beliefs when an issue is highly important or self-relevant.

The Stories We Tell Ourselves: Narratives we create based on our experiences; a perspective of the world around us; an interpretation of facts as we see them. There are stories we tell ourselves that were developed throughout childhood create deep neuropathways in our brains, but can be re-written / rewired, and new neuropathways can be created resulting in very different beliefs.

Learned Helplessness: The behavior exhibited by a subject after enduring repeated aversive stimuli beyond their control. It was initially thought to be caused by the subject's acceptance of their powerlessness, by way of their discontinuing attempts to escape or avoid the aversive stimulus, even when such alternatives are unambiguously presented. Upon exhibiting such behavior, the subject was said to have acquired learned helplessness.

Over the past few decades, neuroscience has provided insight into learned helplessness and shown that the original theory was the wrong way about—the brain's default state is to assume that control is not present. The presence of control is therefore learned. However, it is unlearned when a subject is faced with prolonged aversive stimulation.  Learned helplessness theory is the view that clinical depression and related mental illnesses may result from a real or perceived absence of control over the outcome of a situation.

Vulnerability: The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines vulnerability as capable of being physically or emotionally wounded; open to attach or damage. In relationships, the meaning is a little different, though can feel the same. Brene Brown define the word as uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure; that unstable feeling we get when we step out of our comfort zone.