Why are we attracted to the people we’re attracted to? Why him? Why her? How does dysfunction and trauma effect our natural attractions and can we shift our attractions? Find out here.

<p>Why are we attracted to the people we’re attracted to? Why him? Why her? How does dysfunction and trauma effect our natural attractions and can we shift our attractions? Find out here.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Freedom Health Ministries

Attraction

Gabriel Arruda

01 Why You’re Attracted to Who You’re Attracted to

All right, I wanna talk about something I've been thinking about a lot lately, and that's the idea of attraction.

When it comes to the topic of dating and marriage and finding a potential life partner, You know that we have these principles and perhaps you've been to these conferences where, you know, it talks about these are the features you should look for in a guy, these are the features you should look for in a woman.

You know, with women they go to Proverbs 31, with men they look at the qualifications for like a deacon or elder in the books of Timothy and Titus.

But you know, none of that really matters if you don't address who you're attracted to.

Because I guarantee you're not gonna marry the person who's theologically correct for you to be with.

You're going to marry who you're attracted to.

You're not going to marry someone who you're not attracted to, right?

It's all wonderful advice, but you're going to magnetize with the person who you share attraction with.

And so, if we don't address that, it's really, it's kind of a mute point.

And so we have to deal with the topic of Attraction.

Why am I attracted to the people I'm attracted to?

Because the fact is all of these godly principles will melt in the face of Attraction.

You're gonna hook up with who you're attracted to.

There's a lot of aspects to this, but have you heard of the topic or the concept of trauma bonding?

Who has heard that terminology, trauma bonding?

Can anyone give me what your understanding of that is?

Okay, yeah, yeah, that's a good, that was a good, succinct definition right there.

So the classic definition of trauma bonding was coined by this counselor, Patrick Carnes, and it's the misuse of fear, excitement, sexual feelings, and sexual physiology to entangle another person.

Another working definition is a strong emotional attachment between an abused person and their abuser.

So very similar to gaslighting, Stockholm syndrome typically has 3 cycles that it goes through.

And my point though is that although there's this classical definition that pertains to physical and sexual abuse, there are clinicians and mental health articles that use it more loosely to apply to emotional abuse also, which really makes sense to me.

I mean, I think you could experience a low-level version of trauma bonding where the abuse is just verbal or emotional, someone who's just bad for you and dysfunctional and a lot of the characteristics of classic trauma bonding have a lot of crossover with non-abusive Dysfunctional relationships like being drawn to the dysfunctional characteristics in another person the inability to leave a dysfunctional partner, healthier relationships feeling boring to you, people around you saying you should leave the relationship.

These are all classic trauma bonding things, but they also apply to, I guess what you could say, average standard dysfunctional relationships.

And you guys touched on another concept, which was attachment styles.

Has any of you heard of attachment styles?

Are you aware of like the 3 main attachment styles out there?

So 3 main attachment styles are avoidant, avoidant, which you brought up, anxious, and secure.

And there's sub ones within those, but those are the 3 main attachment styles, avoidant, anxious, and secure.

And what it relates to is what happened in your formative years, how the people, the guardians, the sources of love in your life, how they interacted with you when you had deep needs as a child.

And so, and that kind of sets you up with how you attach or don't attach to people.

So some people, when they feel emotionally close, they're starting to feel like they're getting emotionally close with someone, they will actually run.

Because the last time I got, was really emotionally close to mom and dad, dad took off and so emotionally close equals danger and so they they avoid they have a difficulty and that's the avoidant attachment.

Then there's the anxious and they kind of do the opposite.

The further the parent was away, the more they're like, no, no, no, I need it, I need it.

The more angst and desire they felt for that thing that was not within their grasp.

And then there's secure and there's people who, it's essentially what it sounds like, They received a pretty healthy childhood.

You know, the parents responded to their cues for affection and love.

There are a lot of their needs were met as children.

And they don't have a lot of the insecurities.

It's not like they're insecure free, because we can, the way we live our life, we can add insecurities to ourself as we go on.

But generally speaking, as a foundation, they don't have those same insecurities.

The real challenge and what ends up happening is when an avoidant and a anxious get together.

Can you see how that's a recipe for disaster?

We have a runner who's with a pursuer and a chaser.

And so you get this whole thing where this 1 person's constantly trying to pursue this other person.

And the more they pursued them, the more the avoidant wants to back off, and the more the anxious wants to grab.

And this creates a recipe for disaster, but when you understand attachment styles, you can be a little bit more intentional about the person that you choose as a life partner.

There is this, I don't know if any of you have heard of the Brain People podcast by the clinicians at Beautiful Minds.

You would know about that if you're in the area.

1 of them said something that is, they didn't coin it, but they repeated it and it's just such a true statement.

They say, we marry our unfinished business.

That's, that's a, That's such a true statement.

If you didn't get something from a parent that you should have, a certain validation, you will seek to finish that in a marriage.

And so you will be attracted to a person that has those same type of dysfunctional qualities that were in your parents so you can try to complete that mission that you never were able to complete as a child.

This is just a way our our minds work and it explains why let's take women for example who were raised in a home where the man was a raging violent alcoholic, what kind of guy did they get together with?

You saw how destructive that was to your mom, You saw how destructive that was to your mom.

You saw how destructive that was to your home.

Why did you marry into the very hell that you were raised in?

It's this idea of they're trying to finish, complete their unfinished business.

There's this relationship Researcher who I really like I mean, New York Times bestseller.

You might have heard of him John Gottman He's 7 principles for making marriage work Excellent work get this he recounts the stories of women and abusive relationships in which they were habitual targets of violence.

So they were either their boyfriend or their husband was a violent man and they were the targets of that violence regularly.

He was astonished, him and his researchers were astonished when they told them that some of the best sex they had followed immediately after acts of violence.

And we're adults here, I'm gonna speak in adult language.

There's such a thing as makeup sex and breakup sex.

Why would the best sex a couple has be like right after a make-up or a break-up?

There's reasons for why that stuff, it's renowned.

In a book called What Do Women Want, The author recounts this lady, her name was Isabel, and she noticed that she would get excited or attracted to, She would not be attracted or excited by her boyfriend who was very respectable, very gentle, very nice, but she was magnetically drawn to the jerks who she knew would not be there for her, who she knew would never commit to her, who would encourage her to dress trashy.

02 The 4 Parts of Attraction and Personality Types

All right, this is Attraction, presentation 2.

And in our last talk, we talked about trauma and dysfunction and how they affect attraction.

We talked about trauma bonding, bad boy syndrome.

We addressed Do opposites attract or do similars attract?

These are some of the questions that we covered.

But I really should have had this in the last talk, but I'm going to bring it up here.

We wanna ask the question, why is it even important for you to understand who you're naturally attracted to?

Well, from our last talk, remember, we found that you're going to get together with whoever you're attracted to, not the theologically correct person.

And so why is it important to understand who you're naturally attracted to?

Number 1, to catch bad things that you're attracted to.

I mean here's the problem, you can be naturally attracted to qualities that are unhealthy.

I mean, if all of our natural attractions were good, I wouldn't need to give this talk.

I would just say, I would just sound like a Disney character and I would just tell you, go follow your heart, you'll be fine.

But the fact is we're attracted to things that are not always healthy for us.

And the bottom line is you're attracted to what's familiar more than what's healthy.

You're attracted to what's familiar more than what's healthy.

And if what's familiar is not healthy, you'll be attracted to it.

So that's number 1, catch bad things you're attracted to.

Number 2, to avoid people who cannot meet your heart needs.

So everyone, based on who they are, has fundamental things that they need to be happy in a relationship.

I've always been very affectionate with the women in my life.

I mean from the time I was a little boy with my mom and my grandma, you know, my mom she was a short Salvadorian woman and remember in the morning as a teenager, I would come and give her a hug and her head would come up to about midway up my chest and I would just grab her head and hug her head and kiss the top of her head.

Hugs, holding hands, random affection, it just fills my tank.

And so if a girl's not interested in physical affection and she's not interested in learning how to be, you know, that's fine for her, but she's just not for me.

I could never truly be happy in that relationship.

Do you know it's okay to look for someone who will bring happiness into your life?

Let me quote the book, Avenus Home, page 45.

It says, let a young man seek 1 to stand by his side, who is fitted to bear her share of life's burdens.

1 whose influence will ennoble and refine him, listen, and who will make him happy in her love." Yeah, it's okay to look for people who will make you happy in their love.

Now, you don't want someone to, you know, try to take the place of God, but overall you want someone who's going to make you happy.

Of course everyone has pros and cons, but generally speaking, that person should make you happy.

We will compromise these heart needs if the person is hot enough.

Just to be really blunt, we will compromise those heart needs if they're hot enough, or if we don't know what those needs are, or if that person scratches some dysfunctional itch in us, you will compromise the things that you really, truly need to be happy in a relationship.

So understanding who you're attracted to and catching bad things that you're attracted to prevents you from compromising those key heart needs that you need to be happy in a relationship.

And I just wanna say, don't compromise with your heart needs because your heart won't compromise with you.

Do not compromise with your heart needs because your heart will not compromise with you.

No matter how much you try to force yourself, the rules of the heart will not bend.

If you're wired a certain way, you're wired a certain way.

And sure, you can make accommodations, you can make it work, but deep down you will not truly feel fulfilled.

Let's say you realize, you know, I really need someone who's a good listener, but I married someone who only wants to talk about themselves.

I mean, no matter how much you tell yourself they're a great person, they provide, you know, they, whatever, they're just not going to fulfill you in that area.

And that's just a fact that the heart has rules.

You know, you're in that marriage, you made your vows, make it work.

I mean, speaking to those of us here and on the single end to prevent getting in that situation to begin with?

Absolutely, let me give you another example.

We talked about those attachment types the last period, the last talk.

Those people with anxious attachment types cannot thrive with people who are emotionally distant.

Or you could say avoidance, people who are indecisive, an uncommitted partner.

People with anxious attachment types can never feel truly fulfilled and at peace with an avoidant person.

And you could tell yourself, you know, hey, they're a great person, they're attractive, whatever, does not matter.

Your heart will not compromise with you, so don't compromise with your heart.

This one's kind of touchy, but I'm just gonna go for it.

There is such a thing as sexless marriages.

There are women who cannot have sex with their husbands.

I've listened to a few counseling sessions of several couples in this situation, and 1 thing you see over and over is this poor wife, she's frustrated because she knows she should want to have sex with her husband, and it makes her so sad to see her husband feeling so rejected and so down, but she simply cannot bring herself to engage in that act of intimacy with him.

Well there's many reasons, but the ones that I've seen regularly are at her core she feels rejected by him.

And you know, the act of sex and intimacy, it's letting someone in, especially from the female perspective.

And if you feel rejected by that person or unsafe with that person, it's hard to let them in.

So, and 1 thing I see a consistent theme with the cases of this that I have seen, and that is a husband who is constantly critical, a man who is just always critical.

Just for some women, someone can tolerate it, some women it just drives them up and they cannot be intimate with that man.

And here's the thing, if the heart says no, the body will follow.

And you know, because they didn't sort this out beforehand, because they didn't think about, hey, what are my heart needs?

They found themselves in this terrible situation.

And here's the thing, people marry people who don't have the capacity to truly make them happy.

03 What Makes People Attractive and Why Attractive People Can Be Dangerous

Okay, this is our third presentation on attraction, attraction part 3.

And I'm gonna start with some review of what we went over in the last 2 presentations.

The first point is kind of like the motto or the hallmark of this whole attraction series.

And that's a really key concept that I'm trying to drive home here in these talks.

This happens all the time, you know, like people in their 20s are attracted to different types of people than when they're in their 40s because they grow, they mature.

And so a good way to understand this, a good saying to capture this, is you have to change yourself in order to change them.

Meaning, until you change yourself, you'll always be attracted to the same type of person.

If you want to change the kind of girls or guys that you're attracted to, change yourself.

That's how you shift your attraction, by changing you.

So a motto that we came out of with the first presentation You're not going to marry who's theologically right?

You're gonna marry who's it who you're attracted to and again, you're not attracted to what's healthy You're attracted to what's familiar Hopefully those are the same things but not always not always the case And what I find is it could be a mixture.

You could be attracted to, 80% of the things you're attracted to could be healthy, but there could be a maybe 10 or 20% that things you're attracted to that are not healthy.

You can have a mixture in there and you wanna identify those things that you're attracted to that are not healthy.

All right, we also talked about the 4 different parts of attraction.

This was this golden principle brought forth by Matthew Hussey And that is admiration or respect, compatibility, which is similar beliefs, values, goals, chemistry, which would involve physical attraction, which would involve just personality types meshing well together.

And we found that all 4 of those have to be there.

So if you've ever been in a situation where, you know, you were kind of attracted to someone, or on paper, it looks like you should be attracted to the person, but you're not, and you're confused why, And you're asking yourself, am I too picky?

It could be because you have 3, only 3 out of the 4 of these.

And for instance, there are situations where the respect is there, the compatibility, shared values and beliefs is there, the commitment is there, you're both thinking marriage long term, but there's not the chemistry.

You're just not maybe very physically attracted to the person or your personalities just don't match up very well.

They just, just not really what you're looking for.

So this whole 4 parts of attraction framework explains so much, it's a beautiful principle.

Then we talked about the 4 different personality types.

Remember, negotiator, explorer, director, builder.

So these are helpful as well in understanding who you might or might not mesh with more naturally.

And then there is the whole idea of knowing yourself.

That really you can't even begin to select a mate wisely until you know yourself.

Spend your single time knowing yourself, asking the Lord to reveal you to you.

And the more you know you, the more you're gonna know what will and will not work for you in a relationship and what your heart needs are.

0, and just to follow up from the last talk, this is something, an idea that came up.

In the last talk, we talked about sexless marriages and we talked about women closing up to men.

And the idea came up, well, can't men also close off to women?

Can't it go the other way around where the woman is the 1 who wants more intimacy and the guy doesn't?

And we don't have hard statistics on how much it's 1 gender or the other, But I've seen several cases where it was the man who closed up and the woman wanted to be more physically involved and the man didn't.

In my opinion, it's more typical, the woman closing up.

So now we want to talk about, In this session, we're going to get into the physiology of attraction and we're also going to talk about the danger of attraction.

And kind of the bottom line or the premise of this presentation is that attractive people are dangerous.

You heard me, attractive people are dangerous.

Of course, everyone wants an attractive mate, right?

No 1 says, hey, God, please give me someone super ugly.

And the idea is, is that we can be so affected by the feelings of attraction that you may not be able to see straight.

And what I want to show you here is that attractive people have a lot of power on us.

Perhaps you even heard the phrase, oh, he's wrapped around her finger, or, you know, phrases like this shows the manipulative power of attraction.

And to illustrate this, I wanna start with a story of Jeremy Meeks.

Jeremy Meeks was a Bay Area felon who he got pulled over, they found firearms in his vehicle, had also a previous record, took a mugshot, he had a very long rap sheet of weapons and violence and gangs and According to him to an interview that I saw that was done on him been locked up about half of his life.

And so he got arrested for possession of weapons, took a mugshot.

The police posted it on Facebook to kind of show their great progress in curbing violence, gun violence.

And I believe it was at Vallejo where this took place.

And a friend who was visiting him at the jail told him, hey, that mugshot that they took of you, they posted it on Facebook, it's gone viral.

And from his jail cell, he could see a TV in the hallway and he would look at the TV and on every news station he was seeing his mugshot and it was incredible.

The the Facebook page that the police posted the mugshot on, The image of his mugshot got 100, 000 likes.

I bet the police department never had that many likes even in the last 10 years.

And all these funny memes, I don't know if they're so funny, but all these memes came out like hot con and prison babe, and memes like breaks into your house and steals your heart and takes your breath away along with your car, big-screen TV and credit cards.

So it was it was kind of like this ironic situation but it really was a thing.

Within 72 hours of his mugshot going viral, he was getting 3 to 400 letters every day being delivered to his jail cell.

All love letters mixed in there were a bunch of inappropriate pictures, lots of women declaring their love to him and His life completely changed during his stay in county jail he received according to him 45 different contract offers modeling contracts Management contracts movie and acting contracts And he said it was super stressful for him.

He said he'd never even seen a contract before.

And it was like reading French or something.

And when he got released, life got really crazy.

He actually shot in 5 different movies, only in 10 months.

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Series

Attraction

01 Why You’re Attracted to Who You’re Attracted to

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

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Recorded

Parts

01 Why You’re Attracted to Who You’re Attracted to

38m

02 The 4 Parts of Attraction and Personality Types

33m

03 What Makes People Attractive and Why Attractive People Can Be Dangerous

35m

Sound Doctrine