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[cake theory of attachment] 1. you have stacks. these are layers of habits built on top of each other https://t.co/cJQcnjtwV7
2. some stacks seem fine, because they built layers on top, that make the bottom look okay https://t.co/I443HoyazD
3. the most pernicious part of these stacks is that the top ones can learn to compensate for the bottom ones https://t.co/LtGCrVT2hL
4. many of the people trying to sell you stuff are trying to fix the top of your stack this can fail in strange, brittle ways; it also causes a lot of internal tension the top/middle layers are trying to do a lot of work to make the bottom look okay https://t.co/sER4Pz94HB
most dating advice is about improving your mask. this is a fundamentally brittle and inflexible strategy, directly antithetical to the sense of play and creativity that the best romantic experiences are made of, because there is not shared awareness that the mask is just a mask
5. you can have other possible stacks https://t.co/A3ykBROAOB
6. in the beginning, you can’t really just a. drop all your habits and start fresh and b. if you try, all the ugliness will spill through this can be a very cathartic therapy session, ok, but what do you do after? what actually gets you there? https://t.co/dJVymgicnQ
interlude https://t.co/5BaNDKqtEZ
11. if you’re compensating for feeling unlovable with flirting, you’re going to feel the weight of each interaction each interaction is determining your lovability https://t.co/9UnNrLGfXQ
12. light ≠ low stakes it just means it’s not impinging on your core self-esteem https://t.co/tMjbDI5Law
13. the truth is that you will reject even true friends if you feel you do not deserve them https://t.co/XmOjMXzdIs
15. the truth is you will reject even self-love if you feel you do not deserve it its called building a stack based on “i need to do things to be liked” “im not lovable” https://t.co/8YHD7lwIVp
16. you can drill down even further below self-love is just sort of a cosmic okayness. a kind of right to exist. a kind of sense of it would be right if you were loved, even if the universe hasn’t given it https://t.co/MDaVZKGK1k
17. basically, there is such a thing a receiving potential, and your efforts at the top layers will be frustrated if your bottom layer cannot accept it yet https://t.co/rZ2cMZovSP
18. in brief: existing: feeling into the ~rightness of being loved self-relating: finding a you for yourself that’s gonna stick around friendship: a friendship based on that more stable you flirting: a flirting born of easeful and secure friendships already existing
whenever you feel shaky, you can go as deep into the new stack as you need only really feeling cosmic okayness? that’s ok only really feeling self-love and being with yourself (not other)? that’s oky you can stay with that
20. cake theory of attachment is about finding stability, honesty, and less copey ways, of orienting towards a new stack, while not thinking you can revise all your habits in a day it’s just a little new stack you form, and it grows
3a. example of how it might feel https://t.co/0GlFXSOkGk