Episode 5 - The Four Pillars of Safety and Connection
Welcome back to Reconnection Moments, a space where we get real about intimacy disorders and healing from sexual compulsivity. Not through willpower or shame, but by gently rewiring the brain and body back into connection. I'm Dr. Michael Barta, creator of the Reconnection Model. In each episode, I'll be answering questions I hear most from clients and therapists, and I will also be sharing fresh insights from my ongoing work.
Host:Everyone, welcome back to the Reconnection podcast. I'm your host, and joining me is Dr. Michael Barta, creator of the Reconnection Model. In our last episode, we explored how addiction isn't the problem. It's the signal of a deeper disconnection. But today, we're gonna talk about the four pillars, authenticity, vulnerability, transparency, and presence, and how these essential qualities work together to restore safety and connection.
Host:So, Dr. Barta, welcome back to the podcast.
Dr. Barta:Thank you very much for having me.
Host:So four pillars. I know that's always a part of what you do, what you share in the book, what you do in your intensives. But tell me what the four pillars really mean to you.
Dr. Barta:Well, you know what? The four pillars actually is really the heart of this Reconnection Model that I built because they're what allow our nervous system to experience safety again and make real connection and intimacy possible.
Host:So before we explore the each pillar, why are these four pillars so central to healing?
Dr. Barta:Well, because they describe what our brain and nervous system need to feel safe in connection. When we're disconnected or living in survival mode, our system is protecting us from being seen or being heard again, but these four experiences, authenticity, vulnerability, transparency, and presence, signal safety that in the nervous system, they tell us, "It's okay to be here."
Host:So these aren't just emotional concepts. They're directly physiological responses.
Dr. Barta:Absolutely. They're what regulate us. They're the language of safety for our nervous system. When these are absent, we're going to protect ourselves. When they're present, we're gonna connect with other people.
Dr. Barta:When they're present, we're gonna connect with other people.
Host:Okay. So let's get down these four. Let's start with authenticity. What does it really mean to be authentic in recovery?
Dr. Barta:You know, I get this a lot. It's like, you know, I ask my men in the intensive every time I go, "Who's your authentic self?" And everybody's like, "I have no idea." I mean, literally, it's 100% "I have no idea." They don't even try to guess, right?
Dr. Barta:And what that means is their authenticity was never nurtured. Their authenticity was never mirrored to them, right? Authenticity means for us to allow ourselves to be who we really are and allow that to come forward even when we're afraid we might not be accepted. Most of us learn to hide parts of ourselves early on. So we start performing to please, or we stay small, right, so we don't make waves.
Dr. Barta:But healing begins when we stop managing perception and start living truthfully.
Host:You really lit the authenticity part up for me just now. If you didn't you know, when you you talk about men, clients, who've come through your programs and then your work, it's like they don't know. And I think that's a huge question out there. What does that really mean? Authentic self?
Dr. Barta:Yeah.
Host:And I think you just hit on something really profound when you said it wasn't naturally given or maybe in, you know, applauded, whatever the words are applauded or reinforced in maybe early life. Can you expand on that just a little bit more?
Dr. Barta:Yeah, because, I mean, think about it, right? And most people, you know, they may have children. You know, or they have seen a newborn baby. And I often question these people and say, when you looked at your son or daughter for the first time, or when you saw that little baby for the first time, was there anything wrong with it? And universally, the answer is no.
Dr. Barta:That there was nothing wrong with it. It was vulnerable. It expressed its needs. It couldn't be anything other than what it was. It couldn't pretend yet.
Dr. Barta:Right? It let you know everything it needed, so that was transparent. And it was 100% present. It was here now. Right?
Dr. Barta:It wasn't living in the future, "Oh my gosh. What am I going to eat in ten hours from now?" You know, "How am I going to control my life so I feel safe?"
Dr. Barta:It was just as it was. And this little creature, right, was innocent. It was perfect. It was whole. It was flawless.
Dr. Barta:It was full of potential. And it was like, you know, I tell the guys it was like a diamond. Right? And that diamond can never be changed. So we still are who we were when we were born, but we lived life.
Dr. Barta:We had people in our lives that placed expectations upon us or told us that who we were wasn't right or wasn't good enough. And this diamond starts getting covered up with mud. Right? And from that point on, you know, now we're having to live a pretend life because what we learned is who we are, who we are authentically, will not get what it needs if it stays authentic. So it was the environment that changed us, not us.
Dr. Barta:And a lot of people have a really hard time with this concept because they go, "Well, look what I've done." And I go, "I know. We've done a lot. We've hurt a lot of people." You know, "We hurt ourselves."
Dr. Barta:But the truth remains that that diamond never changed. So all recovery is for me is getting back to that diamond. It's clearing off the mud, the dirt, and the muck from who I really am and expressing who I really am. And that takes risks because, you know, some people aren't gonna like my authentic self, and that's okay. As long as I like my authentic self, then I'm in a pretty good spot because I can move through the world peacefully.
Host:That's awesome. It really rings a lot as a father of two. I remember seeing my children for the first time, and it's absolute shock. But I think you just ground zeroed it back for me there. And then it seems there's this part, being, just being worthy.
Host:Baby couldn't do anything, you know, productive in the world.
Dr. Barta:No.
Host:And there's the doing side that we kind of slant our self worth to, right, over time where in the last episode, you talked about adaptation, adaptive, adapting to that environment where then we start going, okay, to be seen or to be valued. Whatever the things we need, we didn't get, we adapt to those. Right?
Dr. Barta:Yeah. I have to be this. Right? In order to get love, I have to be this. And my own personal story, looking back I've done all my trauma work and everything.
Dr. Barta:And I was looking back, my mom was doing the best she knew how, right? But the only way that I could get acceptance and love from her, that internal sense of safety, was to be exactly what she wanted me to be, which what the little me made up was, "Well, then if I have to be this, who I really am is bad or broken." It's not good. Right? So when we start rejecting our authenticity is when things go wrong.
Dr. Barta:So the formula I often say is that, you know, our authenticity was rejected. Not maliciously, right? But it was rejected. And the only thing that little kid can do is then reject its own authenticity in order to survive. So that's the adaptation.
Host:And those things that you've, you know, worked with hundreds and hundreds of people over your career can have all kinds of, you know, adaptations. If I'm not feeling this, then I can do that to help equal that out. And then what I hear you saying is that return back to the diamond.
Dr. Barta:Well yeah. Because we're basically living life in a performance.
Host:Yep.
Dr. Barta:When we could be living from who we really are. And that's scary because it was rejected young.
Dr. Barta:And so the nervous system is gonna be like, "Well, I don't wanna do that again because it's gonna get rejected." But as adults now, we can see that the rejection isn't about the authentic self. Right? It's about other people not being okay with who we are. But it's like, wonder if I find out my authentic self is bad, and they get scared.
Dr. Barta:Well, that's like saying, wonder if the baby wakes up one day and understands that it's bad. It just can't happen, right? There's only original goodness inside of our authentic self. There's no bad. What we did later on that hurt ourselves and other people were a result of trying to kill the pain of living inauthentically.
Dr. Barta:That's what that is.
Host:That's powerful. Okay. So authenticity that leads naturally to your next pillar, your next practice, vulnerability.
Dr. Barta:Yep. And it kind of flows together. Right? It's like vulnerability is the risk of being seen. Okay?
Dr. Barta:It's how we let others into our inner world. And without vulnerability, we can't be authentic. But when we allow ourselves to be open, it creates the possibility for connection, because connection only happens between two revealed selves. So the other person needs to be in their authenticity while we're being authentic, right? Just think of times when you were really authentic with a person, and they were really authentic with a person, how comfortable that felt, right?
Dr. Barta:That vulnerability allowed other people to be vulnerability. Other people's vulnerability allows me to be vulnerable. I don't have to hide anymore. But because, again, my past experiences taught me, when I showed you what was really inside, it was shamed or told it was wrong. So the nervous system's going to go, "Well, I'm not going to do that anymore."
Dr. Barta:These are practices we have to do. They don't just automatically happen. We have to retrain the nervous system that being vulnerable is okay. And as an adult, I can take a lot of hits, okay? If I stay in my adult self and I'm being vulnerable and I get rebuffed, you know, at that point in time, I get to decide, wait a minute, am I being my true self, and is this other person able to handle my true self?
Dr. Barta:Right? Because we're working with people, we're meeting with other people, we're living with other people who are probably living the way we have. You know, they were afraid of vulnerability, or we made them afraid of vulnerability. It encases in a lot of our relationships. Right?
Dr. Barta:So it's when I take the risk to be vulnerable, others can be vulnerable.
Host:Okay. So that's vulnerability being seen. Now the next one is transparency. How is that different from vulnerability?
Dr. Barta:Well, vulnerability is emotional openness. Right? Transparency is behavioral openness. It's allowing other people to see my actions. There's a big one.
Dr. Barta:My motives and my intentions. I make these visible, right? I'm not walking around manipulating anymore. I'm letting people know what I really need and really want. I'm not trying to manipulate a person or a situation to give me what I need.
Dr. Barta:I'm expressing it, right, in my behaviors, in my actions, in my words. And transparency builds trust because then other people know where I'm coming from. They have my script, right, which is the foundation of safety. How many times have we been with someone and we didn't know what their script was? So we're constantly trying to guess what they need, and we would I like the term, I become a chameleon, to give them what they need so they accept me, right?
Dr. Barta:And it becomes this exchange. It's not honest. And when people can see me clearly, they don't have to guess who I am, and that's when the nervous system starts to be able to relax. They may not like what I am asking or need, but that's okay. I'm the one that needs to have the need met, so I have to ask for it, right?
Dr. Barta:And it's not about, you know, when this happened when we were young, it meant the end. It meant that our authentic self was being completely shut down. But as an adult, it doesn't mean that anymore. People get to be people. I get to be myself.
Dr. Barta:It doesn't have to be this emergency of, "Oh my god. They're rejecting me." Right? It's basically life on life's terms.
Host:I really like that differentiation you made between vulnerability and transparency. You talk about these being so pillar. And then vulnerable, the emotion, and those things that are going on, and transparency as the behaviors. Okay. I would guess it's like, okay, I'm going to do this clearly communicating to someone else.
Host:"Hey, I'm going to the corner store. I'm going to the supermarket." And then the vulnerability piece is more the "I'm feeling these things." Did I get that right?
Dr. Barta:A 100%. Yeah. Yeah. One's emotional. One's you know?
Dr. Barta:And I'm kinda stuck on the word behavioral because that always makes me kinda twitch a little bit, but it's our actions. Right? And so are my actions true with my intentions? Are my actions true with my needs? Are my actions true with who I really am?
Dr. Barta:Right? So that's the transparency piece. I'm expressing who I really am, and again, that's a risk because that need might not be met. But again, I want to bring us forward to our adult self instead of the wounded self in that as an adult, if I don't get a need met, it's not the end of the world. Right?
Dr. Barta:It means that person, for whatever reason, is not capable of meeting that need. And that's okay. Right? Because I'm okay inside. I don't live my life anymore depending upon what other people do in order for me to feel okay.
Dr. Barta:And I'm saying that, you know, like I do it all the time. I mean, that's a daily practice. Okay? Someone can do something that I wanted to have happened or didn't want to have happened or not do something I did want to have happened, and I get thrown off a little bit. Right?
Dr. Barta:But then I come back to, "Am I really okay right now? Did I really need to have that happened to be okay?" That's where I can, you know, really see the delusion that I often have that I would be okay if other people just behaved the way I wanted to. And maybe that would be true a couple times, but it's not true universally.
Host:I think there's something you really, you know, got down here that I just wanna camp out in for a second because you talk about trauma. You talk about early childhood you know, wounding in your work, and that is in a popular it it seems like it's getting more and more out there, the word trauma itself. But you just said something really profound to me, which is there's a difference. There was that wounded self, and then the one sitting here today.
Dr. Barta:Yeah.
Host:Been through a lot of experiences, knows a lot of things. And that separation, I think, was really clear for me right there.
Dr. Barta:That's great. Because you know, I see these people come in into the intensive. And these guys, you know, they've been in combat. There's been, special forces people, everything like that. And when their trauma is raising its head, they become a little boy.
Dr. Barta:And I remind them, "Dude, you were in the special forces. You're adult" can pretty much, you know, survive anything right now, and that helps us. That helps us remember, "I am not that wounded little boy or little girl anymore. I've come a long way. I've survived."
Dr. Barta:Right? And just getting back into, "Hey, I'm okay right now as an adult," can often help the little one inside of us get a sense of safety because it knows, "Hey, my mom or dad," which is us right now, right, "they're taking care of me. They're looking out for me. They're not gonna run away and go act out with sex or drugs or alcohol or whatever anymore. They're not gonna abandon me again. They're gonna be here for me."
Dr. Barta:And that's a really big change that people experience in this work.
Host:Well, I can see there too. You go, on one hand, the wounded self, that's going back to authentic self, being there with wounded self and accepting. But then going fast forward and you do this so profoundly, I think, with the special forces thing is like, "Hey, by the way, you're not stuck there. You're an elite, highly trained person." It's kinda like the memo. "Did you not get the memo? Thirty, forty years have gone by since these things, and you're pretty awesome. You understand how to handle yourself in the world."
Host:And I think that's just a good reminder to accept wounded self, accept that child inside of us while also going, by the way, very, very highly trained now.
Dr. Barta:Yeah. Not only that. I really love that you brought that up, and that was really well said. But it's now I can protect that child. I can go back and get them and help them heal and give them what they didn't get that they needed.
Dr. Barta:And when that occurs, then I start to feel safe within myself.
Host:Yes. All those experiences to formulate to go, "By the way, you got some good data here to rewire it." We're not stuck back then.
Dr. Barta:Yeah.
Host:That's fantastic. So authenticity goes to vulnerability, then transparency, and then we end with presence. And I kinda feel like it ties it all together, but if you started with presence, all this other that we've just talked through gets to be presence. Now share what how that all ties together.
Dr. Barta:Well, I think you're right. Right? But all four of these need to be present. Right? And I'm not talking about presence right now, but I'm saying all four of the pillars, we need to have them within us, right?
Dr. Barta:And I think the most important of them all is the authenticity. Because if I'm transparent, if I'm vulnerable, and if I'm present without being authentic, I'm acting, okay? So it all starts with being who I really am. But presence, when we're talking about it as a pillar itself, is the state of being fully here. Remember that baby.
Dr. Barta:Think of a baby in a crib right now, and you're looking at it. It can be nowhere else but where it is. Right? It is 100% going with the flow of the universe or whatever you want to call it, right? It is just being.
Dr. Barta:It's present. And then presence also means that we're connected to ourselves and attuned to those around us, right? And like I just said, without presence, authenticity, vulnerability, and transparency, we can't sustain connection in a life where we're thriving.
Dr. Barta:Present says, "I'm not in the past. I'm not in the future. I'm here with myself and with whomever I'm with right now."
Dr. Barta:And that's where healing happens, moment to moment through safe, attuned connection. So presence is really like attunement, okay? I can attune to my own body. I can feel my feelings.
Dr. Barta:I can allow them to be there. I don't need to shove them away. I can attune to other people, which means I'm at an emotional level with them. I'm understanding them on an emotional level, not just a surface level. That's attunement, right?
Dr. Barta:And my nervous system is regulating, and when we talk about coregulation, that's what it's all about, right? My nervous system is connecting with someone else's nervous system in a way that's helping us both regulate and feel safe.
Host:So all the four pillars, they aren't steps. They're a system.
Dr. Barta:They support each other like a framework. Authenticity lets us bring our true selves forward. Vulnerability allows us to be seen and heard. Transparency shows others we can be trusted, and presence keeps it all alive in real time. Together, they create the conditions where safety is restored and connection becomes possible again.
Host:Well, Dr. Barta, this has been a profound explanation diving into the four pillars, to what reconnection really looks like, and not just a concept, but an experience that rewires our nervous system.
Dr. Barta:Yes. You know, healing isn't about perfection. It's about practice. And every time we show up with these pillars, the authenticity, vulnerability, transparent, present, we tell our nervous system, "I'm safe. I'm ready to meet other people and really connect."
Host:Beautifully said, Dr. Barta. Thank you everybody for tuning in today. In our next episode, we'll explore what safety actually looks like inside the nervous system and how to recognize when we've shifted into protection instead of connection. Again, until then, thanks for listening to the reconnection podcast with Dr. Michael Barta.
Dr. Barta:Thanks for joining me today.
Dr. Barta:If you want to learn more about how this healing happens, visit drmichaelbarta.com. And if this episode spoke to you, share it with someone who might need to hear it.
Dr. Barta:Until next time, keep reconnecting.