Secure-ish: The Real Goal of Self-Worth with Dr. Marisa G. Franco 

Description:
Dr. Marisa G. Franco is back — and this time, she's turning the lens inward. Marisa is the New York Times bestselling author of Platonic and a psychologist at the University of Maryland, and her brand new book, Worth: The New Science of Self-Esteem and Secure Attachment, might just be the most important thing she's ever written. It is tender, personal, and research-backed in equal measure — and friend, it will find you.

In this conversation, Marisa and Jen dig into the central argument of the book: that trying to become a "secure" person — calm, confident, regulated, healed — is one of the most efficient ways to stay stuck. The goal, Marisa says, is not security. It's being secure-ish. That means making room for the anxious parts and the avoidant parts, the shame and the neediness and the grief, and offering those parts the care they never got instead of running from them one more time.

In this discussion, you’ll also hear:

• Why the goal was never to be fully "secure" — and what it means to be secure-ish instead
• Why your insecurities are messengers, not enemies — and how to stop whack-a-moleing them into silence
• The memories that are keeping you stuck — and the science that proves you can actually change how they live in you
• The messages installed in us by the wider world — faith, bodies, marriage, worth — and what it looks like to do this work when those messages came from somewhere we once considered holy
• And Marisa shares her own story, the one that cracked her open: a hike, a relationship unraveling, and the moment she finally stopped performing calm long enough to say the true thing out loud.

This is a conversation for anyone who has been trying to be better than they are instead of being who they are. Which is to say — it's for all of us.

Thought-provoking Quotes:

• “The struggle of not feeling worthy is that you're stuck in the same sense of reality. You're trapped and you don't know how to get out. People are loving you but you don't feel loved. The beauties of life slide off of you. I just want people to get free of that.” - Dr. Marisa G. Franco
• “We have to start with allowing what is, with the truth. So many of us don’t think we can because we have to be something different than we are. But being where you are, that's where the healing happens.” - Dr. Marisa G. Franco
• “I'm still learning for my first reaction to no longer be, what am I allowed to feel according to other people? What am I allowed to look like according to other people? And for my first question to be what expresses who I am and how I actually feel, even if that violates all of the rules as to how I should feel or how I should present myself? That's where I need to begin, in the truth.” - Dr. Marisa G. Franco

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Worth: The New Science of Self-Esteem and Secure Attachment by Dr. Marisa Franco - https://amzn.to/42N2MyE
• Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make--and Keep--Friends by Dr. Marisa Franco - https://amzn.to/4dph3rm
• Friendship MeCourse - https://shop.jenhatmaker.com/products/friendship-for-the-rest-of-us