Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's Ask Steff episode,

I'm answering the listener question of how do you balance accepting someone as they are

and supporting or even encouraging them to grow, to do their work? So this is going to be a

tension that a lot of people have grappled with, or maybe you're grappling with

it at the moment. I know I've certainly grappled with it myself over the years, sometimes still do.

And it's challenging, right? Because a lot of the advice falls into one of two camps,

saying, you know, either completely accept someone as they are, don't be with someone for

their potential, or you should be with someone who you can grow with and who is invested in

growing. And so to the extent that there may be not prioritising growth, what is your proper

role in nudging them along or even setting clear boundaries for yourself around what they are willing

to invest in and what that looks like. And I know that a lot of people in my community here are

really self-aware and are trying to keep tabs on their own pattern. And for a lot of people with anxious attachment patterns,

who obviously are the bulk of my community here

and who tend to be the ones asking this kind of question,

we can be aware of our own tendency to want to overstep

to maybe fall into patterns of control,

of trying to change someone someone so that we feel better

about the relationship, but that obviously has its own shadow side and can veer into unhealthy

patterns for us. So finding what the healthy middle looks like in terms of accepting someone

as they are and supporting them to grow,

I think is a really important discussion to have and that is what we're going to be talking

about today. Before we get into today's episode, if you're not already subscribed to my YouTube

...