The Dismissing - Avoidant Attachment Style

Yesterday was both a good day and a very bad day for me.

It was a very bad day because we had to put our dear old gentle dog to sleep. Her body was riddled with cancer and we were told it would be the most humane thing to do for her.

I dug the hole and helped to bury her in our garden. And the tears rolled down my cheeks. This, perhaps strangely, was the good part of the day because it was the first time in a long time that I have managed to cry with others present. I often find it hard to allow myself to be vulnerable in this way.

And so I viewed my tears as another step in the journey that I have been taking over the years towards releasing those elements of my personality that are a part of the insecure pattern of attachment, termed a “dismissing - avoidant attachment style”.

But what does this pattern of attachment have to do with relationship difficulties?

Well, people with traits of, or the “full-blown”, dismissing-avoidant attachment style are often unsure how to go about allowing relationships to grow. If you are someone like this or are in a relationship with someone like this, then read on.

In my most recent newsletters, I indicated that relationship difficulties and conflict, especially within the household relationships, are very often related to the patterns of attachment, or attachment styles, of the individuals involved.

And, as with all attachment styles, a dismissing- avoidant attachment style simply involves a set of automatic relationship processes that an adult formed when they were a child to help them cope with the particular relationship challenges they faced within their primary relationship with one or both of their parents.

In this newsletter, I will again be drawing on the writings of well known US psychologist Hal Shorey to help you to identify the common dismissing - avoidant attachment style, and to start to learn how to cope with this attachment style in yourself and/or others.

Four key questions for you to consider that relate to your relationships with your important people (such as your partner, close friends, etc):

Do you find that you are somewhat uncomfortable being close to others?

Do you find it difficult to trust others completely, and to allow yourself to depend on them?

Do you feel nervous when anyone gets too close, and that others often want you to be more intimate than you feel comfortable being?

Does it seem easier to avoid the dangers of intimacy through solitary activities and emotional withdrawal?

If your answer is “Yes (most of the time)” to these questions, then it is likely that you have some, or many, of the traits of a “dismissing - avoidant attachment style.”

These individuals can initially come across as warm and charismatic. If your partner has dismissing traits friends may have said how lucky you are to have such a warm and personable person in your life. And you wonder to yourself: “What is wrong with me that this wonderful person pulls away and becomes distant once the socialising is over?”

If you are in a relationship with a dismissing person, then you probably enjoyed all of the positive attention in the early stages of the relationship and so did not notice that they rarely spoke much about their childhood, personal struggles, or feelings.

So what might it feel like to be a person with a dismissing - avoidant attachment style, or some elements thereof, spending your life wanting love and connection?

For many of these individuals they keep meeting people who seem to meet their high standards for being a good partner. But once they get involved, they often begin to feel irritated by their partner’s many “flaws”, including their need for time and affection.

Dismissing - avoidant individuals often feel that they just cannot do anything right in the other person’s eyes. At the same time, their partner repeatedly tells them how much they love them. They may have a feeling that the relationship is never going to work out, but not wanting to hurt their partner, they often decide to stay in the relationship but are careful not to show too much affection.

This isn’t that difficult, because their partner’s tender touches often make them feel anxious and uneasy anyway.

This is no fun for the dismissing person or his partner. The dismissing person often realises that something is wrong, and may really crave love. He wants “normal” and he often knows that he doesn’t want to repeat this pattern, but he is unsure of what to do.

The problem is that the dismissing person’s conscious mind tells him that his partner is attractive and that he should build the relationship. But simultaneously, his emotional system reads her love and affection as a threat and triggers an anxiety response.

Thinking of himself as weak or anxious is antithetical to a dismissing person, so he has to make an attribution for his emotional experience to understand his own behavior.

So he labels the anxiety as irritation or annoyance. And he feels this way whenever she shows him real affection. So his rational mind determines that she must be the cause of his irritation. This allows him to find her “faults and imperfections” which he now finds intolerable and forces him to pull away.

Rationally the dismissing person knows that he is doing this and knows that it is a problem. He wants to stop.

The reason that love and affection are so threatening to someone with a dismissing attachment style is that these basic emotional needs were typically not met by one or both parents in childhood.

In such a situation, a child will deny the need for love and affection rather than stay in a state of sadness and yearning. After years of pushing this lack of love out of awareness, the dismissing adult feels strong, self-sufficient and independent.

But then someone comes along who says, “I love you.” And all of that suppressed yearning is “re-awakened” and threatens to rush back from the suppressed past. But a dismissing individual cannot tolerate being so vulnerable and needy, so he feels angry at that reaction which threatens his hard-fought sense of independence, and he needs to push it away (and the one who offers him love).

If this description approximates how you feel in your close relationships, here are some things to consider doing:

• Recognise the pattern you are enacting, and that your emotional system is playing tricks on your conscious mind.

• Focus in on the physical sensation that you feel when your partner gets close. See if you can give it, usually anxiety, a name. The sensation is not you, it is only a sensation. See if you can separate out the love feelings from the anxiety.

• Realize that the grass really isn’t greener elsewhere. Often the love you want is not far away, if not right in front of you.

• Learn to embrace the more tender, softer parts of your being and nurture them like you would a young child who needs your care. If you learn to do this for yourself, you will find it easier to do for others.

If you are in a relationship with a dismissing partner:

• Realize that he is trying to push away his own need for love, to keep closed the old wound that has never fully healed.

• If he starts to run away, tell him how much you care, but don’t run after him because he will invariably cause you more pain and suffering.

• Make a choice: If it hurts too much, tell him that you are not interested in being loved from a distance, and end it. Or, tell him that you aren’t going anywhere and that if he cannot tolerate love, he should find the courage to end it himself.

• Learn to be a little dismissing yourself as this might feel more comfortable for him. And it is a way that you can keep from giving your power away in the relationship.

And as I have personally found, taking a mindfulness course can be of huge benefit in helping one to identify one’s habitual way of relating to others. Mindfulness will enable you to gradually make the changes that will allow your relationships to flourish.

In this regard, my new live and online mindfulness-based stress reduction course kicks off next week on the 18th August, Tuesday evening, at 6pm. Send me an email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for more course information.

I look forward to hearing from you.

With warm regards,
Alistair Mork-Chadwick (Psychologist)

'We are so excited to share our happy news. We finally have our own branded vehicle. This has been a long time dream of ours and it is now finally a reality. We are now able to reach more families, especially those who live in the more rural parts of Mpophomeni. We would like to thank those who contributed towards this vehicle and in particular, to Sign Solutions for the brilliant job they did on the branding and to Mahindra Pmb for their excellent service.' shared Funda Nenja.

Our Autism Awareness Run/Walk event is in it’s 4th year. We host it in April each year as April is Autism Awareness month worldwide. This year we had to cancel due to COVID-19 which meant we received no income for the therapy sponsorship we do. We decided to host a virtual event instead which meant we could invite the whole country and even the whole world as the run /walk will take place in each participant’s neighbourhood. So far we have 7 countries participating including South Africa, U.K. USA, Germany, Sweden, Australia and Seychelles.

Our event started in 2015 with myself and 7 of my staff from Breakthrough Interventions (We are a therapy centre for children on the Autism Spectrum) when we joined a local 5km women’s race and had T-shirts made promoting Autism Awareness. The following year we had 50 people join us at a local fun run event to promote Autism awareness and the following year in 2017 I had formed a committee with 2 other parents of children with Autism and we hosted our own event: The Blue and you Autism awareness run, which was later registered as a non-profit organisation. We had 300 people that first year and the event has grown each year. 2019 we had 1056 participants and were preparing for 1500 in 2020 when our event was cancelled.

Our event attracts different types of participants: people with Autism, their families and friends, professionals who work with people on the Autism Spectrum, members of the community and general public as well as athletes. Everyone who enters receives a banner to attach to their shirts which reads “I am running for ________” where they can fill in the name of the person or Autism organisation they are dedicating their run to. We have been sponsored by Musgrave centre mall since our very first event and our other sponsors include Hollywood bets and The Department of Sports and Recreation, KZN.

Autism is a developmental condition affecting the following areas: 
Social /communication
Behaviour
Sensory

Autism affects 1 in 54 children and sadly in South Africa, services and appropriate schooling for those affected with the condition are in short supply. Our event our goal each year is to raise awareness about the condition as well as funds to sponsor therapy for children with Autism from low-income families.

When: Saturday 1 August 2020
Time: between 8 am and 3 pm

Welcome and the start of the event live on our Facebook page at 8 am

Prizegiving also live on our Facebook page at 4:30 pm.

Winners will be announced and arrangements made to get prizes to winners.
https://www.facebook.com/blueandyouautismawareness/

How much? R30pp

Where to enter? eventtiming https://www.eventtiming.info/entryonline.php?id=233

Prizes for:
best dressed in Blue
best homemade banner
1st place men 8km
1st place women 8km
1st place men 5km
1st place women 5km

We are also accepting donations for those who are unable to take part, also through the eventtiming link.

We can be contacted via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or via our Facebook page link above or phone 0837038891.

Pictured above the Collins family, left to right: Ethan (back), Jachin and Malachi (middle) then James and Caz.

Pictured here RHS L-R: The committee; Momeen Omar, Caz Collins, James Collins, back Sheldon Randall, Joy Randall, Gareth DeBroize, Robyn DeBroize and their daughter Kenzie (not committee of course).

News submitted by Caz Collins.

Congratulations to Brenda Kerr, from the KZN Midlands, for having won last week’s competition and the prize of free access to my new 8-week online Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction course for herself and her friends!

As ever-growing numbers of individuals and couples visit my office for therapy the common difficulty that is being voiced, perhaps more than ever before, relates to relationship conflict and dissatisfaction within the household environment.

These relationship difficulties are almost always related to the attachment styles of the individuals in the struggling relationship.

An attachment style is a set of over-learned relationship processes that each of us developed to help us cope with our specific family/parental environment in childhood.

And because these patterns of perceiving, understanding, and coping with the interpersonal environment are practiced so many times across our childhood and adolescent years, they become automatic processes that are ingrained, not only in our thoughts and behaviors but in the structures of our brains and emotional systems.

It is because of this that your attachment style continues to strongly influence how you behave and respond within your adult relationships.

In this newsletter I will again be drawing on the writings of well known US psychologist Hal Shorey to help you to identify the healthiest of all attachment styles, termed the secure attachment style, and to start to learn the processes needed to build the associated relationship behaviours”.

Three key questions for you to consider in terms of how you relate to other people:

Do you find it relatively easy to get close to important others and depend on them and have them depend on you?

Do you very rarely worry about being abandoned and about others getting too close to you?

Do love and trust come relatively easily to you?

If your answer is “Yes” to each of these questions, then it is likely that you have a “secure attachment style.”

Whether you do or do not have a secure attachment style, however, this newsletter will help you understand yourself and the people you interact with. Understanding how and why people behave as they do will help to make it easier for you to engage in new behaviors that will support positive interpersonal interactions within your home environment and elsewhere.

And because attachment styles never stop developing, you can also learn to choose and shape your present-day social environments in a way that works for you.

So, how do some adults come to have a secure attachment style?

Well, it starts with how parents respond to their child’s needs and soothe (or don't soothe) the child when they are distressed. When parents are consistently available, warm, and responsive when the child feels distressed, the child develops a secure attachment style.

One way that parents respond consistently is by being sensitively attuned to their child’s emotional cues. This means that parents accurately gauge the level and type of distress that their child is feeling. When parents show that they perceive their child’s feelings accurately they teach their child that their emotions are valid and deserving of recognition.

Parents who recognize and validate their child’s emotions provide the “mirrors” through which the child learns that what they are feeling inside corresponds to events in the real external world.

Responsive parents do not just mirror and reflect back their child’s emotional experiences however. They take it a step further to soothe and calm the child when upset or distressed.

For example, a toddler who falls and hurts her knee will typically look at her mother’s or father’s face for a non-verbal signal as to how serious the injury is. If the child sees a pained expression that says “Ouch, that hurt!” the crying starts immediately.

The child learns that what she sees expressed on the parent’s face is what she is feeling inside. Once the parent accurately mirrors the child’s feeling, the astute parent will then alter her facial expression into a subtle smile, hug, and expression of compassion that says, “That hurt. But, now you are going to get better and be OK.” And thus the child learns that he/she can get hurt, but that it will pass and he/she will feel better again.

In other words, our parents help us organize our emotions until we develop the ability to do this for ourselves.

Because the child learns that he/she can feel distressed and then get comforted in order to feel better, they learn that difficult emotions can be tolerated and managed effectively.

And so once the person grows into adulthood, they don’t worry too much about getting hurt in relationships. They know that they can tolerate such pain, so they are free to be themselves and not behave in a needy, aggressive, or demanding fashion.

As they mature into adulthood, secure children become increasingly efficacious individuals who believe that; (a) they are lovable and worthy of support, (b) others are available and responsive, and (c) the world is a safe and predictable place.

Secure adults can tolerate frustration and ambiguity in relationships, and can deal effectively with others (without being over or under responsive).

In the next newsletter, I will describe what happens when parents do not respond to their children in ways that foster secure attachment.

If you have one of the “insecure” attachment styles, you will learn how you can capitalize on your specific strengths and use the processes of secure attachment to override the problematic emotions or behaviors that get in the way of having satisfying relationships.

And as has been my personal experience, taking a mindfulness course can help you to begin to identify your habitual way of relating to others especially during difficult and/or stressful situations. This will enable you to gradually make the changes that will allow your relationships to flourish within the home environment and elsewhere.

With warm regards,
Alistair Mork-Chadwick (Psychologist)

P.S. If you are experiencing emotional stress at present then click the button below and take a look at my new 8-week online mindfulness-based stress reduction course. And send me an email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for the discount that I am offering readers of my newsletter until the end of July 2020

If you need a kitchen repair or pretty much any other fix around your home or business, request a quote from Garry Barlow at Finely Fixed. Pictured here is a 'Before...' and 'After...' image to illustrate what you can expect. More about the services available from Finely Fixed.

In order to protect our staff and interns as the COVID-19 Virus reaches its peak in RSA, we have decided to close our reception until further notice. We have also closed the booking options for onsite accommodation.

Visitors are still allowed to book online through
KZN Trail Running:
https://kzntrailrunning.co.za/…/wessa-umngeni-trail-run-ju…/

or the MCSA:
https://www.quicket.co.za/…/106560-umgeni-valley-nature-r…/…

Season Ticket holders can use their access codes, but the front gate will not be accessible unless you have a time slot or a gate code.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused in this regard.

The WESSA uMngeni Valley Management Team.

COVID-19 POLICY-MAKING — FROM OUR POO

GreenHill Laboratories becomes the first contract laboratory in South Africa to detect SARS-CoV-2 RNA in sewage as part of a commercial virus risk forensic service

[Hilton, KwaZulu-Natal, July 2020] GreenHill Laboratories was part of history when it became the first contract laboratory in Africa to extract and detect SARS-CoV-2 RNA from sewage early in June 2020 as part of a full-service virus risk forensic programme. The process involves taking bulk, composite samples through to a laboratory capable of meeting the needs of clients in both the public and private sectors.

The Proof of Concept was the culmination of a team effort spearheaded by Prof. Anthony Turton of the University of the Free State and Amanzi-4-All, coordinated by Mr. Neil Madgwick of Praecautio, with sampling undertaken by Mr. Kevin Lindsay of Instru-Serve. The Impuma Group, through Amanzi-4-All, was instrumental in the sponsorship of the trial.

The pilot trial took sewage samples from five wastewater treatment works (WWTW) based in Gauteng that were transported to GreenHill Laboratories in Hilton, KZN (the town where the first South African case of COVID-19 was identified).

The samples were collected using automatic samplers over a period of 24 hours to optimise statistical rigour in the results.

Under the leadership of GreenHill Laboratories’ director, Dr. Shaun Groenink, the samples were processed and analysed by principal molecular biologist, Dr. Cara-Lesley Bartlett. The viral RNA was extracted and identified based on protocols published by the Dutch KWR Water Research Institute and the USA’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The detection by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is identical to the method being used in many medical pathology laboratories around the world. It is based on the N1 and N2 regions of the nucleocapsid gene of the virus. PCR is the amplification of small amounts of specific RNA (after transcription to DNA) to detectable levels that are then visualised by fluorescence.

Three of the five samples yielded detectable levels of viral RNA, with the laboratory working on procedures to increase the sensitivity of the test. The same five WWTWs were resampled and analysed with results consistent with expectations.

The Proof of Concept delivered by GreenHill Laboratories demonstrates that:
1. COVID-19 can be detected in wastewater
2. South Africa has the capability for this testing – samples do not have to be sent to other countries for testing
3. Statistically relevant sampling and timeous delivery to the laboratory are possible
4. Existing protocols and kits have been used – there is no need to develop specific kits

The establishment of a Proof of Concept facilitates the development of additional parameters, such as the quantification of viral load. This additional data can be used to monitor community-wide viral load, and assess whether various mitigation strategies are working or not.

Through collaborative partnerships, the logistical supply chain from point of sample to the laboratory can now handle national-level upscaling, and Amanzi-4-All can offer this service to any client immediately, including both the public and private sectors. There has been interest in this technology from a range of role players in North America, Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia and the South African government.

Transforming the approach to managing COVID-19 in South Africa and across the continent
The capacity of this South African laboratory to detect SARS-CoV-2 in sewage expedites its application by epidemiologists, public health scientists and those charged with looking after the health and safety of students, visitors and employees. This includes predicting and monitoring potential COVID-19 hotspots to focus intervention by decision-makers and public health officials in these areas, as well as assessing the true extent of SARS-CoV-2 infections.

These new sampling and testing capabilities can provide robust information to both government and private sector decision-makers in their efforts to contain the spread of the coronavirus while reopening the economy.

Rapid deployment across all sectors of society is key to limiting the pandemic’s effects
The team is currently expanding and optimising the value chain to include individual buildings, schools, mines and businesses.

Greenhill Laboratories’ Chairman Mr. Austin Hlongwane says: “I would personally like to commend the GreenHill Laboratories team for all the diligent effort that they have put into this project. Their dedication, desire to experiment, out-of-the-box thinking and personal passion is unparalleled. As a result, I am hopeful for positive outcomes in the fight against COVID-19.”

GreenHill Laboratories is honoured to be a part of this project and looks forward to participating in the management of COVID-19 in South Africa. The laboratory will continue to develop and refine these protocols and expand on their scope and application.

Pictured here: Dr Dr. Cara-Lesley Bartlett (Above LHS) with Dr. Shaun Groenink (RHS).

News supplied.

Thanks to Chris Slater, this is valuable knowledge!

Protect your gate motor from lightning protection

Protect your gate motor against lightning strikes and power surges with our exceptionally user-friendly and reliable plug ‘n play surge protector.

Protect your motor from pests

With the days heating up in the coming summer lizards, mice, snakes, rats, spiders, and ants will be seeking shelter from the sun. Rain also disturbs insects and rodent nests. The cool interior and shelter of a gate motor is the perfect solution for creepy crawlies. Unfortunately, creepy crawlies will destroy your gate motor electronics. Ants are the biggest problem! Ensure you regularly clean out your gate motor’s housing to prevent the summer invasion of insects and other pests.

Protect your gate motor from water
When your gate motor is installed, ensure that there is proper drainage so as to prevent the inside of the unit from becoming flooded or waterlogged.

Keep the tracks of your gate clean
It is just as important to maintain the gate itself, and not just the engine. You must keep the gate wheels clear of debris, sweep the tracking, and make sure that there is no chance of debris, leaves or sand falling onto the track and causing an obstruction. If the ground is raised, build a retaining wall to keep the ground back. Make sure that the wheels aren’t seizing and are running smoothly at all times. It’s a good idea – especially after a storm – to take a broom to the gate track and give it a good sweep to ensure that the gate moves unimpeded.

Contact Chris at Fenceworks for any information on gate motors and installation.

We are so excited to announce that our Hilton branch has moved back into the vibrant space of The Quarry Shopping Centre. We first opened our Hilton office at The Quarry back in 1994 in the first shop on the Spar side of the centre. We fondly remember having Pam Golding there to celebrate our opening with us. Sadly we couldn’t celebrate our new opening in the same style under the current circumstances, but we do look forward to seeing our clients in the hustle and bustle of the centre and we welcome all visitors to pop in for a quick visit on your way past. You can find us in our new home at Shop 45 (next to Clicks), from 1st July onwards.

Our contact details remain the same: 033 343 1233 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. More about Pam Golding Properties.

Live in a manor overlooking Midmar Dam 🌅

- Only 2kms from the N3
- Set in a large garden on a working cattle farm
- 7 Bedrooms + a spacious attic with 4 comfortable 3/4 beds, so the house can sleep 20 people when necessary!
- Beds are all new, linen is percale, beautiful antique furniture

Ideal as:
💼 Corporate 'COVID - 19' retreat
👩‍👩‍👧‍👦 Joint family home for regular Midlands visits
🏖 A city family who needs some space, sunshine & outdoor activities

Fully furnished with 2 housekeepers, 1 is a trained chef who can provide 3 meals a day.

R30 000.00 per month includes the housekeepers & gardeners & excludes electricity & security.

Tenants will be thoroughly screened.
Pets are welcome.

FICA DOCS AND CREDIT CHECK ARE A PREREQUISITE.
👤: Pippa Griffin
☎️: 0834678140
🖥: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Relationship conflicts within the household relationships are very often related to the attachment styles of the individuals involved.

An attachment style is a set of automatic relationship processes that each of us as children developed to help us cope with our particular family environment.

And because these patterns of coping with the interpersonal environment were practiced so many times during our childhood and adolescent years, they become entrenched in our thoughts, behaviors and emotional systems… and so powerfully influence how you behave and respond within your adult relationships today.

In this newsletter, I will again be drawing on the writings of well known US psychologist Hal Shorey to help you to identify one of the common styles of insecure attachment, termed the anxious attachment style, and to start to learn how to cope with this attachment style in yourself and/or others.

Three key questions for you to consider that relate to your relationships with your important people (such as your partner, close friends, etc):

Do you find that others are reluctant to get as close to you as you would like?

Do you often worry that your important people don’t really love you or won’t want to stay or spend time with you?

Do you often want to get very close to your important others and this sometimes scares people away and/or leaves you feeling scared that you will be let down?

If your answer is “Yes (most of the time)” to these questions, then it is likely that you have what is termed an “insecure attachment style” and, more specifically, an “anxious attachment style.”

Scientific research suggests that many of us are likely to have an anxious attachment style. So, if you don’t have this personality style then you are most likely in relationships with people who do. Understanding this personality style and how it impacts emotions and interpersonal behaviours can help to relieve distress and conflict, avoid damage, and promote healthy and mutually satisfying relationships.

Imagine the following situation involving you and a close friend or significant other:
After an interaction with this person they seem rather distant and dismissing of you. The person leaves without providing an explanation, and you feel a slight surge of anxiety as you try to work out why the person behaved towards you in this way.
As the day progresses, you think about all of the other interactions you have had with this person. You recall other times that you have felt rejected and “less than.” You wonder if that person really likes you. You might begin to feel angry or misunderstood. And it is not long before your discomfort causes you to give them a call.

You ask the person if anything is wrong and it is very difficult to hide the upset in your voice. The other person tells you that you are over-reacting, and sounds irritated. After the call, you feel even worse.

At the end of the day, you call the person again and it turns into an unpleasant argument with accusatory statements flying between the two of you, and you end up feeling angry and betrayed.

Similar situations might unfold in relation to your boss and/or certain colleagues. You often perceive these individuals to be rather distant with you and, as a result, you spend a lot of time ruminating over your recent interactions with them.

And when you confront any one of these individuals you often leave the interaction feeling as though they look down on you.

When trying to determine what happened in any one of these difficult interactions, the truth is often that you will have experienced an emotional hijacking because of an “anxious attachment style” that became wired within your personality and emotional system during your childhood years.

If you do have an anxious attachment style, you can learn to recognize and understand it, capitalise on the strengths that it gives you, and override the parts that cause you problems. If you don’t have an anxious attachment style, then this may help you understand those who do.

There are more than 40 years of research on attachment styles, which indicates that if you have an anxious style (called “preoccupied” in adults), you were probably raised by one or more parents who were inconsistent in how they responded to you when you were young, especially when you were upset and needed reassurance.

Sometimes the parent is warm and accepting and at other times cold and rejecting. The key is that their child never knows what s/he is going to get. Because children need to feel safe and secure in their relationships with their parents, these children will learn to closely monitor their parents so that they can tell how their parents will respond to them.

This monitoring enables the child to shift his or her behaviour in order to head off painful rejection. This coping strategy works well during childhood but becomes the automatic relationship mode in adulthood.

Over the course of childhood, the anxiously attached person becomes “hypervigilant” for threat cues and “preoccupied” with his/her close relationships. This style reflects a “hyper-activation” of the attachment system wherein the person’s social-threat-detection apparatus is permanently stuck in the “on position.”

Brain imaging research shows that those brain structures that identify threat cues in the environment are actually larger in people with anxious attachment styles.

So, if you have this style, you are likely to pick up readily on subtle emotional cues from others, experience strong emotional reactions, take a long time to calm yourself down, and ruminate while you are activated.

Your thoughts ‘force’ you to fix the situation and you enact behaviours to do just that, such as confronting the person who you feel is rejecting you. The problem is that what you do to fix things often results in just making them worse.

The good news is that having an overly sensitive threat detector can make you very empathetic and compassionate to the emotional experiences of others. You can also take some of the following steps to control the negative aspects of this pattern:

• Realize that your threat detector will often give you false positive readings.

• Be aware that it will be hard to think clearly when you are emotionally activated.

• Give yourself 30 minutes or more to calm down before responding.

• If the other person tries to distance him/herself, leave it and try again later.

• Tell yourself there is nothing to fix, and that it can wait until tomorrow.

• Distract yourself or do something else to take your mind off of it.

• Acknowledge that rehashing the problem with your friends might keep you activated instead of making you feel better.

Crucially, the brains of people with anxious attachment styles will interpret neutral facial expressions from others as a threat cue and as an indicator that they may reject you. So, your friend or partner who is trying to calm you down by not reacting or remaining calm while you are upset might just be having the opposite effect.

If you can accept that it was your childhood home environment that shaped your emotional system and relationship patterns, you may be able to stop blaming yourself.

And taking a mindfulness course can help you to begin to identify your habitual way of relating to others especially during difficult and/or stressful situations. This will enable you to gradually make the changes that will allow your relationships to flourish within the home environment and elsewhere.

With warm regards,
Alistair Mork-Chadwick (Psychologist)

Ten minutes from Howick on the Curry’s Post road, you will find Groundcover Leather Company, an early Midlands Meander member and one of its most popular stops. Established on a farm in 1990, Groundcover started out with two leatherworkers producing four pairs of shoes a day and selling at local craft markets. It now employs over twenty people and caters to a growing base of regular customers, who travel from as far as Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town especially to renew or repair their old favourite pair of shoes.

Despite this considerable growth, Groundcover remains small in its approach to manufacturing and in its business orientation. According to the owners, “being small allows us to cultivate the many relationships that are behind our success as an enterprise — with our customers, our suppliers and, above all, with our employees and our Curry’s Post community, where most of them come from. It also lets us concentrate on maintaining the superior, handcrafted quality our products have come to be known for.”

In these days of mass-produced, cheap imports — which can now be found right on their doorstep — it is this ability to produce high quality yet affordable products and to provide personalized service, that helps Groundcover remain reasonably unaffected.

Set on beautiful surroundings, Groundcover’s unique settler’s cottage showroom has become an almost compulsory stop on the Meander, stocking an extensive range of leather shoes, boots and sandals; handbags, briefcases, rucksacks and travel bags; and belts, purses and other accessories. A growing selection of Nguni hide products is also available

There is much more than a fine shopping experience on offer, though. An exquisite bronze sculpture of Grimm’s The Elves and the Shoemaker, by Midlands artist Abbo Hall, is on permanent exhibition on the shop’s front lawn. Visitors are also welcome to view Groundcover shoes in the making, to have a picnic on the grounds, or even spend the afternoon hiking around the 160-hectare farm, spotting reedbuck, hares, a variety of birds and, with any luck, a colourful herd of Nguni cattle. And Now…..The Barn Owl coffee café has opened, serving artisan coffee and a wonderfully healthy and tasty lunch menu.

Pictured here: What do you think of our Holly boot? Now in Navy and Yellow.

* Did you know we choose to focus our corporate responsibility efforts on our community. Your purchase goes towards our efforts to subsidise the cost of school fees, books and extramural activities of our staff’s children.

More about Groundcover Leather Company.

Lythwood Lodge has spacious, self-catering cottages which are open for business travellers. They each boast twp ensuite bedrooms, lounge, dining area, kitchen, outside patio, and braai facilities.

Lythwood Lodge, near Howick, KZN, recently received the following review which says so much about their community spirit.

'Hi Alison,

Looking at your latest mini-conference advert, I was reminded of my 70th birthday function at Lythwood three years ago. It certainly was a memorable occasion for all of us.

We are living in difficult times and all our businesses are taking the strain. Your industry has certainly had a rough deal. However, I wish you well with your mini-conferences and look forward to seeing you again when we have another function at your beautiful establishment.

I wish you and your wonderful staff good health until we meet again.

Regards,
Colin Hansen'

Photo credit: Darryn Sykes Photography

News supplied.

The past two weeks have seen a huge increase in the number of people who have contacted me and requested marital therapy or couples counselling. I imagine that there are many more individuals who are finding that the stress of lockdown has exacerbated the difficulties in their most significant relationship/s.

In this newsletter and the next few newsletters to follow, I will be drawing on the writings of well known US psychologist Hal Shorey to explain how most of us will unknowingly draw on our childhood relationship experiences in navigating our adult relationships ... often with fairly disastrous consequences.

Have you ever been in a serious frame of mind when those around you just wanted to joke around and interact socially? There is nothing wrong with this, and there is also nothing wrong with you, irrespective of whether you are feeling like a serious adult (or a playful child).

But the mismatch between how you are feeling, thinking and acting and the current social interaction may cause friction and/or conflict. What you need to do is learn to “Switch Set”, which is to learn how to change from one set of relationship behaviours to another, without remaining stuck in the original (set) way of doing things.

The same is true for one’s “default relationship mode”. This is your over-learned, automatic set of relationship processes, termed your attachment style.

An attachment style is a combination of certain relationship behaviours and personality traits that we each developed to help us cope with our specific family/parental environment in childhood. This is the most important set of automatic relationship processes because it can powerfully influence how you behave and respond within your adult relationships.

As children and adolescents, we get accustomed to working with ourselves and our family members in a certain way. When we are at school or when, as young adults, we move away from the family home the social situation changes and we then need to respond to the social world in a different way.

Your particular attachment style often doesn’t cause many problems until you start applying it, generally without any forethought or awareness, in your relationships with romantic partners, friends, and people at work.

In these other contexts, your attachment style may cause you to experience relationship problems. This is because your attachment style developed in the relationship/s that you had with your mother, father and/or other important caregiver/s so it cannot be expected to work well in relationships that are substantially different from these relationships in which it originally developed.

As an example, an adult who is largely task-oriented and less invested in close social interactions often has what is termed a dismissing/avoidant attachment style. If a dismissing person is talking to a spouse with a preoccupied/anxious attachment style and is trying to solve a problem he (or she) will go back and forth with a few sentences and think that the conversation is done.

But the preoccupied spouse keeps talking and does not disengage. The dismissing person then starts to feel aggravated and impatient at how much talking is occurring and wants to end the conversation. If the dismissing person does that, however, he may be accused of not caring and being a bad listener…so he stays and half-heartedly converses until an opportunity to escape presents itself.

This interaction is rife with opportunities for misunderstanding and conflict. Neither person is doing anything wrong; they just don’t understand each other’s contexts and/or the task that the other person is performing.

So, what is a person to do in these difficult interpersonal situations? Well, the first step is to determine what the immediate context is and what the task is, and be ready to switch set. In other words, see if you can pull yourself out of your default way of doing things (based on your attachment style) and switch to a way of thinking and behaving that will work better in that context.

You don’t have to completely change your attachment style in order to step out of it and walk in someone else’s shoes for a few minutes.

Ask the other person what their context or task is: “Are you just trying to get a quick answer and solve a problem or do you want to spend some time together talking about this and other things?”

If you have a more relationally-oriented preoccupied style you can challenge yourself to skip the relationship part and just be in problem-solving mode. If you have a more task-oriented dismissing style, you might be able to slow down and spend some time with your partner having a conversation and engaging in relationship building.

In order to be able to switch set when it comes to your attachment style:

1. Remember that you are not your attachment style. It is simply a set of over-learned ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving that has become automatic over time.

2. In order to gain control over an automatic process, you have to become conscious of it. So, be sure to read my descriptions of the different attachment styles in future newsletters and learn how your attachment style works.

3. Be aware that your emotions in many situations are simply outcomes of your attachment style processing social information. Strong emotions will keep you stuck in your set. So, learning how to calm yourself efficiently will help you to switch set.

4. Let go of being right and focus on what is going to work for both of you. If you are rigid in your thinking you will not be able to switch set.

Learning to switch set is critical for anyone wanting to build and sustain a healthy relationship. And cognitive flexibility, tolerance of negative emotions, and viewing the world in shades of colour instead of absolutes, are all important relationship skills.

As has been my personal experience, taking a mindfulness course and engaging regularly in mindfulness practice will help you to begin to identify your habitual way of relating to others especially during difficult and/or stressful situations. This will allow you to slowly but surely change the way you perceive and respond to significant others both within the home environment and elsewhere.

WIN! An online Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction course for you and five friends. (Valued at over R8 200.) Simply forward this newsletter to at least 3 of your friends and “cc” me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Click below to check out the prize (my 8-week online mindfulness course):

https://midlands-assessment-and-therapy-centre.learnworlds.com/course?courseid=mindfulness-training

With warm regards,
Alistair Mork-Chadwick (Psychologist) 

Karkloof Conservancy is opening up a 10.6km walk and a 4km walk.

R30per adult and R15per child.

Booking in advance is compulsory.

Contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

BOOKING PROCEDURES FOR WALKS:
Booking in advance via email is compulsory, as the walks are on working farms, on private land. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The office is open on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday 8 am - 4 pm. So please be patient with response time.

Walkers welcome 6 am - 2 pm

When booking please indicate: How many people, which day and what time you wish walk and give us your telephone number.

Cost: R30 per adult, Children under 12 R15, Children under 5 Free

Your booking will be confirmed with a reference number. You will need this number as proof of the booking. Please use the reference number and your name when paying via eft or paying cash/using the honesty box situated outside the office door. Please ensure you sign the indemnity form and register on your way in and out so we know you have returned safely.

Banking details: Preferred method of payment: EFT
Karkloof Conservation Centre
FNB Howick 220725
Account No: 62045693860
Reference no: this will be given to you when you make a booking

Please note: You are on private property. This is a working farm.
Please stay on the path and or road, do not wander off. Do not drink from the river.
Let us respect the birds and animals in their natural habitat. This is their home and you are a guest. Do not approach the Cranes or any other bird or animal.
Let's keep our noise levels down and not litter.
Also, no fires are permitted. Be careful of cars, trucks and tractors etc on the road.
No walkers after 2 pm. So please adhere to the booking guidelines outlined, to avoid disappointment.
Wear suitable clothing, take your own hat and water. Follow the arrows.
Visitors are asked to take personal responsibility for social distancing and for following hygiene protocols
Your support helps us maintain the facilities we love to share with others. Thank you.

If you haven't been here before. We are 15km up the Karkloof road, on the right-hand side. At the entrance to Gartmore Farm

In case of Emergency phone Charlie: 082 809 2590 or Jacquie: 083 4093 278

YOUR VISIT WILL BE ENTIRELY AT YOUR OWN HEALTH RISK AND WE TRUST YOU UNDERSTAND THIS CAUTION.
MASKS ARE TO BE WORN AT ALL TIMES

Hiking Trail Info
Yarrow Falls Walk - Long Version Approx 10.6km | Cost: R30pp Adult. R15 for children under 12 years

Directions:
Park your vehicle at the Karkloof Conservation Centre and sign in. Follow the markers.
Walk down the grass path, parallel to the Avenue of Liquid Amber trees.
When this path comes to an end wander onto the dirt road that leads you down towards the river. Cross over the bridge and walk towards the first homestead. About 2.9km from the Gartmore farm gate. Stay on the road.
Just past the first house on your left, you will see a paddock gate with a small sign that says F8.
Go into this paddock (if the gate is open please leave it open and if closed, please leave it closed) and follow the dirt road/track down to the small stream, through the glade of trees. Stay on this road and when it forks keep right.
Follow the dirt road through the field, down to the river.
Walk along the brush cut path parallel to the river, until you get to the Yarrow falls.
Careful here it is very rocky, there may be hidden rocks in the grass.
This is where you can enjoy the river and your picnic.
Walk back the same way.

Route Description: Predominately flat, meandering farm roads, dirt tracks and grass paths. There are a few rocks to look out for around the river/falls area. This is a working farm so the shale road can get quite busy with trucks and tractors. Take care. Do not drink from the river.

Difficulty rating: Farm/field road uneven ground (bring a walking stick if need be), little to no shade. Easy to moderate, no hiking experience needed. But you need to be fit enough to do 10km.

No water to drink - take your own, bring a hat.

Yarrow Falls Walk - Short Version Approx 4km | Cost: R30pp R15 for children under 12 years
Route Description:
Difficulty rating: Farm/field road uneven ground (so bring a walking stick if need be), little to no shade. Easy, no hiking experience needed. Bring your own water and a hat. Do not drink from the river.

Directions:
Drive down the Ave of Liquid Amber trees, towards the river. Cross over the bridge and look for the first homestead on your left. Approx 2.9km from the Farm Gate. Just past the first house, you will see a paddock gate with a small sign that says F8. Before the main house entrance (second house on left). Park your car here (not in front of the gate).
Follow the road down to the small stream, through the glade of trees. Stay on this road and when it forks keep right. Keep right. Follow the road through the field, down to the river.
Walk along the brush cut path parallel to the river until you get to the Yarrow falls. Careful here it is very rocky. There may be hidden rocks in the grass. This is where you can enjoy the river and your picnic. Walk back the same way.

Midmar House, Howick High School's weekly boarding establishment, had a bright and cheerful revamp during the lockdown as Superintendent, Mr Mark Taylor and his family kept themselves busy by redecorating.

We also give our grateful thanks to Mrs Vorster for her donation of masks for our grade 12 boarders and to Mr Eggar for his donation if two sanitiser stands with foot pumps.

More about Howick High School.

Cultivate Calm - Enhance Health - Learn calming habits for stressful situations through a Mindfulness Course with Alistair Mork-Chadwick.

Mindfulness training completely transformed how I deal with stress. If you are often drowning in anxiety and stress then my new online mindfulness course will help you.

Click below to view a short video in which I describe how mindfulness training helped me to deal effectively with stressful situations and the difficult emotions that were often triggered within me.

Watch video

Sign up now for my online mindfulness course & gain access to the discounted price that I am offering during this coronavirus lockdown period. There is no set starting date for the course so you can begin when you are ready.

Once you have decided to enrol please send an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with “Course coupon requested” in the subject line and I will send you a coupon code that will enable you to obtain the discounted price. I will also send you simple instructions to ensure a smooth enrollment process (in case you have not enrolled for an online course before).

Learn more about this course before signing up

Enrol in Cultivate Calm, Enhance Health to learn how to:
• Manage stress through building a resilient mind
• Learn new ways of working with unpleasant emotions
• Build more supportive relationships at home and at work
• Limit the risk of chronic health problems
• Take control of your health, happiness and well-being

This course includes:
• Clear talks on various topics, including defining stress, ways of dealing with difficult situations, and guidance on how to cultivate calm amidst the uncertainty and stress of modern life
• Short audio recordings to help with focus and relaxation
• Supporting handouts that you can print out if you wish
• Lifetime access so you can come back again and again

Click here to be taken to the course webpage

With warm regards,
Alistair Mork-Chadwick

Visit www.alistairmork-chadwick.co.za

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And don’t hesitate to send me your questions to my email address: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.