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Fix Your Love Life Now: Discover Your Attachment Style | Clutterbug Podcast #324
01:08:32
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- [00:00]
Host
I just had my entire life changed. Like I am going to be a happier, healthier human because of this one insane interview. And I. I'm not just saying this like it sounds dramatic, but seriously, I feel like my life has been changed. Today I am talking to Thais Gibson. She's a counselor, a speaker, a leader in the personal development world. She has a PhD and is certified in therapy. Thirteen modalities, including cognitive behavioral therapy. And she is going to explain all the different attachment styles. I will let you know that I might hijack this conversation temporarily and talk a lot about my attachment style, but then we will also cover all of them so you can recognize yours. She is a person who has put into simple words some of our life's biggest struggles and she has real solutions to help us heal. And this is incredible. And while you listen to this, just like always, you are not allowed to just watch or listen. I want you to take action and make yourself proud. But this one is special, you guys. I want you to also be able to pay attention and really soak in the words. So do something that doesn't require thought. I don't want you decluttering today. I don't want you organizing. I want you to mindlessly clean. We can vacuum and dust. We can do dishes with our. Like a zombie. We're going to zombie land. We're just turning our. Our brain is going to be tuned into these incredible words and you're just gonna have your body do things. Okay. And at the end of the podcast, your house will be sparkly. But more importantly, you are going to have tools. You are going to have self awareness and you are going to have real steps to change your life. Hello, Tyce.
- [01:53]
Thais Gibson
Welcome.
- [01:55]
Co-host or Interviewer
So much for having me. How are you?
- [01:57]
Host
I'm really good. I'm excited to talk to you because I just recently learned about the attachment styles. I'm not sure how I feel. On one hand to have the self awareness and it was like so enlightening. On the other hand, it was kind of a bummer for me.
- [02:14]
Co-host or Interviewer
And why is that? Which one were you?
- [02:16]
Host
I. Fearful Avoidant.
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Thais Gibson
Okay, interesting.
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Host
I think that's the worst.
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Co-host or Interviewer
No, no, there's not the worst. That's what I was too, if it makes you feel any better.
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Thais Gibson
And it's a super sol problem. It's just conditioning, right? It's just different patterns that we pick up because of our experiences. So can I tell you a few
- [02:36]
Co-host or Interviewer
things about yourself and you can tell
- [02:37]
Thais Gibson
me if they line up with you?
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Host
Oh, man. Yes.
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Co-host or Interviewer
Okay.
- [02:42]
Thais Gibson
So fearful avoidance usually Grow up with a lot more kind of big T trauma in childhood. You know, the other ones have a little more small T trauma. And big T trauma can be things like parents fighting all the time and always being put in the middle, going through a bad divorce and kind of being caught in the midst of that as a child being parentified sometimes like having to be the caretaker of younger siblings or your parents themselves. But it can also be extreme things. So, you know, trauma in the sense of maybe you're in a dynamic, for example, where you have a parent who's an alcoholic in more extreme cases, and one day they're in a loving mood and another day they are in a really mean mood because they're now angry drunk. Or parents who struggle with addiction or drug abuse. And it can be basically, you know, no matter which one of those themes it was, a child grows up not really knowing what version of a parent they're ever going to get. And so they learn to attach by basically reading between the lines. They're like, okay, let me become really hyper vigilant. I am going to read your micro expressions and your body language and your tone of voice, and I'm going to predict your patterns of behavior. And so I often joke that fearful avoidance are sort of our human lie detectors. Like, they notice everything and they clock everything, and it makes them really good at reading people. But they also have both an anxious and an avoidant side. So on one hand they, they don't want to lose connection and they, they become very afraid and can feel afraid of abandonment. But on the flip side, they're afraid of being trapped and controlled. So they need a lot of freedom. And their other big core wounds are the fears of being betrayed. So they're kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop. They struggle to trust sometimes. And sometimes it's not just trusting the person, it's trusting like, well, we're good now. How can I Trust that in 10 years you won't change? Right? It can be sort of this fear of the other shoe eventually dropping and this fear of being unworthy. So a lot of fearful avoidance. Feel like they have to overachieve, over, deliver, over, perform just to be, like, worthy of love at a baseline. And there's a lot of pressure they put on themselves. And they tend to be very loyal, very fiercely protective people over people they love. And they tend to be excellent under pressure. They're excellent at, like, figuring things out on the fly and being adaptable and super resilient and determined. But they will often people please until they get frustrated enough that they push
- [05:05]
Co-host or Interviewer
people away quite suddenly.
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Thais Gibson
And they can sort of be hot and cold in relationships and back and forth. Like they often don't know if they should stay or leave. And they have a lot of these push pull patterns because they're fearing their childhood. So those are some of those overarching themes. And if you want to share any that line up with you, I'd love
- [05:19]
Host
to hear every single one. I'm feeling so exposed. And also, I never heard you, like, you describing the childhood was like, you hit everything. And yet I'd never thought of that as like big T trauma. Isn't that strange? Because to me, it was not like physical abuse and there was no like, trauma in the way I always thought. So I'm always like, what's wrong with me? My childhood wasn't that bad. And yet it was unstable in that I never knew which version of the adults in my life were going to show up. And it was also like with divorced parents, it was very much like this cat and mouse. And like I was the dingle dangly thing. And so, yeah, there. I'm messed up, man. I'm messed up. But that's okay for, for my viewers. So they're not thinking, they're watching a therapy session here. And they've never, maybe they've never heard of the attachment theory. Can you explain it to them in like, the simplest?
- [06:23]
Thais Gibson
Absolutely, and thank you for sharing that. And these are very solvable problems. These are just ways we've learned to relate. So when you look at what an attachment style is, it's basically your subconscious set of rules that you've learned about love. So what your needs should be like when they're met, what expectations you carry into relationships, what fears or triggers you're likely to have, but also things like what boundaries you should have or if you've learned a lack thereof, and how to communicate. We learn through our attachment style. So it's really our subconscious conditioning about love and connection. And every person has an attachment style, and it is the single biggest predictor of relationship success. So if you actually look at divorce rates, for example, I mean, insecurely attached rates are statistically affecting about 50% of the population. And our divorce rate is about the same and you actually see it move in lockstep. So, for example, if the divorce rate goes down, usually the securely attachment rate, secure attachment rate went up.
- [07:21]
Co-host or Interviewer
And if the divorce rate goes up,
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Thais Gibson
usually the amount of secure people out there has gone down historically. So they do tend to move in parallel or not Quite in parallel, but in lockstep, sort of an inverse of one another. And you'll also see, which is quite interesting, that securely attached individuals, they report having the longest lasting relationships, but even more importantly being the most fulfilled in those long lasting relationships. And so a lot of people don't realize that like, oh, this is something that's really impacting me in all my relationships, but that it's also a very solvable problem because at the end of the day it's just conditioning and we can recondition, we can change some of these habits and patterns and we can end up having really successful relationships as a result. So as we go through the other attachment styles, just for anybody listening to your point, you know, if you hear yourself in them, it's not a bad thing. It's just, hey, these are your patterns that you've learned and there may be a little bit of growth that can happen in terms of growing through them, but super solvable. And I see it every day. Like, it's not some really hard thing or really tricky, it's very easy and simple, but it just requires a little bit of consistency.
- [08:20]
Host
Consistency, okay, this is exciting. Can you break down the different attachment styles and like, give examples? So my listeners might be able to be like, ooh, I think that's me.
- [08:30]
Thais Gibson
We talked about the fearful avoidant. We went through a lot of that. Fearful avoidance. Just a few other examples there. They're often hot and cold in relationships. They go all in quite early and feel strongly, but then when there's a big commitment around things, they'll often want to run. So they become very afraid. And they tend to be individuals who are, are very giving, very generous, very, you know, caring about other people, very present with people, really good at drawing information out of others. They're usually people that everyone goes to to share their stuff or to get
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Co-host or Interviewer
some advice or feedback or support.
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Thais Gibson
Like, it's something that generally comes quite naturally for fearful avoidance. But fearful avoidance, interestingly, are really good at getting other people to be vulnerable, but they're not actually that vulnerable to other people. And I always joke that fearful avoidance are. They seem vulnerable because they're open and they're insightful and they'll share, but they won't really share things they truly feel vulnerable about. So, you know, they might say, oh yeah, seven years ago this thing happened. And yeah, and I can relate. And you think, oh, they're so open, they're so vulnerable. But really, if they're going through something personally that's vulnerable at a moment in time, like in this moment, they're not going to come out and share that. Like, even with close people, they tend to kind of go through bigger struggles a little bit more alone. And, you know, they put a lot of that fear of, oh, what if I'm a burden to other people on themselves. And they, you know, fear taking up too much space or being too much. And part of their work in the world is to learn to have boundaries, learn to treat themselves equally to everybody else in their life instead of putting everybody so first and themselves so last. And of course actually being able to rewire and work through those different core wounds, learn what their needs are and actually learn to communicate them in relationships. And, and that's, those are some really important pillars that help them become more stable. But we'll talk about what to do and how to heal and actually work through those pillars after.
- [10:16]
Host
So, and, and before you go on, how much of the population, like percentage wise, do you think are actually fearful, avoidant? Do you know?
- [10:25]
Thais Gibson
Yeah, great question. So the data says roughly 50% of people are secure. Then we have another 20% who are anxious, 20% who are dismissive, avoidant, sometimes 22 and a half percent each there, and then roughly 5 to 10%, give or take, that we're looking at who are fearful, avoidant, attached and fearful avoidance.
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Co-host or Interviewer
So they're, they're the most rare.
- [10:46]
Thais Gibson
The way that the data is obtained is through a lot of childhood experiments, so a lot of research into children. And so you can actually view a child's attachment cell at a very young age. There was something called strange situation experiment where they took children and they put them with their parent into what looks like a doctor's office waiting room. And then they would have the parent leave the waiting room and they would have a stranger come in and sit in the doctor's office waiting room with the child. So now the child is there with a stranger. And they could actually observe as toddlers, so between the ages of 0 to 2 years old, how the child would respond both when their parent left, but more importantly when the parent returned. And that would show what the attachment style was. So you would see that when the parent left, the child would be a little stressed, and then when the parent returned, the child would be a little stressed again. But re engage with the parent quite quickly if they were secure, if they were anxious, the child be really stressed that the parent left. And when the parent returned, they would not let that parent out of their sight. They stopped playing with the toys, they stopped interacting in the environment. They would Just like latch onto the parent. If they were dismissive, avoidant, the most avoidant, and we'll obviously get into these. They would actually reject bids for connection from the parent. So the parent would come back into the room and try to say, oh, honey, come here, or make a bid to connect with the child. And the child would literally look away, like try to ignore and ice up the parent. And the fearful avoidant would be very ambivalent. So they would get quite distressed when the parent left. And when the parent returned, they would sort of move towards the parent. But then when the parent would engage in that bed for connection, they would then reject the parent.
- [12:20]
Co-host or Interviewer
Then when the parent would go, okay, I'm rejected, and step back, then the child would become anxious again and want to get closer to the parent. And they were in this hot and cold dynamic.
- [12:31]
Thais Gibson
You'll see these patterns at a very young age. And that's where a lot of the research comes, as well as from large scale Gallup polls and people self reporting. But self reporting is historically quite inaccurate in terms of percent of population. And conditioning is always happening. What we see in terms of data from childhood research, I mean, somebody could be fully securely attached and then, God forbid, lose a parent at 8 years old and become completely anxious. Right. Conditioning evolves over time. So the data is interesting. Like it's not very loud and clear that those are quite exact numbers necessarily, but they're good directional things to be looking at, if that makes sense.
- [13:08]
Host
Well, now I have so many questions because if someone that age, if they're seeing this, do you think there is a component perhaps of like a hereditary predisposition for a type of attachment style? Or is it literally like to be two or three and to already have this kind of solidified? Seems so young.
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Thais Gibson
Yeah, so. So one thing that happens is we have something called CO regulation that starts at a really young age. And yes, I believe in a genetic predisposition. Predisposition, of course. But I mean, we have the field of epigenetics now, which almost like discounts that a little bit. But more importantly, conditioning is the single greatest impact or when it comes to attachment cell by far so massive amounts. And so you're probably wondering, well, how does conditioning come about? Well, if you look, when we look at CO regulation and we go into the other attachment cells, you'll really see it. So anxiously attached individuals, they grow up in an environment where they tend to have more inconsistency. So it could be like they have one really loving parent and one really kind of cold, withdrawn Parent, or they could have very loving parents, but the parents are always traveling for work, they're gone all the time. So a child learns like love is a good safe thing, but it's constantly taken away from me. And this causes this massive fear of love being taken away. In other words, the fear of abandonment. And so they go through either that type of perceived abandonment where there's that inconsistency, or fully real abandonment, like loss of a parent, fatherless home. These types of things would create these big abandonment wounds. And at a very young age we actually obtain our deepest programming. The first three years of our lives, we develop our deepest conditioning. And so when they, when a child grows up in an environment where parents are warm and fuzzy and they're there and they're kind, but they're constantly touch and go, then those wounds can actually develop all the way back in their childhood. And you'll see it when we get into the other one. So, so anxious attachment cells, they grow up with these huge core wounds. Their big triggers are the fear of being abandoned, alone, excluded, rejected, disliked and loved. Like, they have these very interpersonal oriented wounds very much about, like, am I not loved or included or accepted and seen. And so they have these huge wounds there. And then they cope with these wounds by going into chronic and pervasive people pleasing habits. So they as adults go into their relationships going, well, I'm just going to win approval, I'm just going to not let anybody out of my sight. I'm just going to hold on really tight and try so hard. But the problem is that they abandon themselves in that process. And so by constantly people pleasing, constantly putting people first, above themselves, it's sort of this one track path of like, well, if you're out here minding everybody else's business, who's here for you? Who's here showing up for your needs and honoring your feelings and your boundaries. And they really struggle with that. And so anxiously attached individuals often grow up and they become very resentful in their relationships a lot of the time because they feel so much like they're trying and nobody's really trying back, they often choose very avoidant partners and relationships, which obviously becomes quite problematic. And it's actually because we choose from what's most familiar to us. And what's most familiar to us is ultimately the way we treat ourselves. So anxiously attached individuals are always dismissing themselves and avoiding themselves. So even though consciously they may say, oh, I want an available partner subconsciously, which runs the show, we choose what's
- [16:35]
Co-host or Interviewer
most familiar to Us and so anxious
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Thais Gibson
partners, they, people please, they, they cling, they call frequently, they text a lot. They really don't, don't do well with space. They always jump to the conclusion that somebody's leaving. And those are the major, major patterns. You can see how they start to begin at a very young age through that inconsistency that can occur.
- [16:55]
Host
So I have a question about anxiously attached. Now that we're talking about this. I know someone in my life who is quite obviously anxiously attached to. But I always thought it came from relationships. Like as a teen there was a lot of rejection. There was a lot of like their relationships, they had been cheated on, people had ghosted them. So then now it's like tracking locations and being like obsessed and why aren't you paying attention to me 24 7? Like there's this anxiousness that this person isn't going to love them. Is that just stuff that had been reinforced and they were always that attachment style or do you think later in life your attachment style can change if you have traumas, either big T or little T later in your life?
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Thais Gibson
Yeah, great question. So that's a really important thing that I want people to notice is like, yes, our attachment style develops and we often reference it in childhood because our deepest conditioning exists between 0 to 3 and then 3 to 8 because our brain is producing more alpha brainwaves. And so we're sort of like sponges. We're soaking up all of our conditioning very rapidly. But conditioning is always happening. You know, it's why you hear things like, oh, you're the sum of the five people you spend the most time around. Or it's why you can be in a long term relationship with somebody and take on their expressions or their mannerisms
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Co-host or Interviewer
at times or these things.
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Thais Gibson
Because whatever we're exposed to repeatedly through repetition and emotion fires and wires new neural networks in our brain. So absolutely, somebody could be secure or somewhat secure, go through a lot of painful relationship dynamics as a teenager, and then through that rejection, through that abandonment, you know, that creates these big core wounds. And what core wounds are and how they impact our attachment cells so much is that they're kind of the lens that we see and interact with the world through. So, for example, if you imagine that you go into the woods tomorrow and you see a bear and you run away from the bear and you're safe, thank goodness, but you have to go back into the woods the next day. Well, what do you do? You're like bracing for the bear.
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Host
There's going to be a Bear.
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Co-host or Interviewer
And so what ends up happening is that's great if that's a bear situation
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Thais Gibson
and it's a survival situation, but it's not great when it's that we had a past experience. Our subconscious mind stores it and then it reprojects it onto everything to try to keep us safe. And if it's a bear chasing you, you're safe. If it's you being abandoned as a teenager and now every relationship you project that you're being abandoned, it arguably causes a little bit more harm than good in the long run.
- [19:28]
Host
Yeah, this person's looking crazy sometimes. This person's looking like a stalker. You know, like, it's like. But it's. It really is coming from fear and anxiety. Oh, that's so good. Okay, so tell me about the secure attachment style, which you said 50%. That's half the population.
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Thais Gibson
Yeah, that.
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Host
That's not fair. That seems like a lot of people who are just doing good.
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Co-host or Interviewer
Yeah.
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Thais Gibson
I mean, to be honest, I always struggle with it because, you know, the self reporting and the fact that you get these studies in childhood and conditioning happens over time. Right. So early childhood studies are not necessarily accurate for long, long periods. But. But my sample size of people, I
- [20:09]
Co-host or Interviewer
work with all insecurely attached people every day. So I'm always like, is it really 50%? But. But I could be biased because of the sample of people that I constantly work with.
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Thais Gibson
But securely attached people. So the third of four attachment cells, they're the only secure one. So they basically grow up with what we call a lot of approach oriented behaviors in childhood. And what this means is that they have a lot of attunement in childhood. And if their parents notice that they're distressed, they go and they try to approach them and they try to see what's wrong and soothe them. And it may sound like a very small thing, but if there's a lot of consistency of that, it creates a massive impact. Number one, it teaches a child they're safe to be seen. They're safe to express their emotions, they're worthy of love. When they're having a nice time or a hard time, they can rely on other people. They can trust that other people will be there for them, and they're worthy of love, really, irrespective of what's going on in their lives. And so when you grow up with that kind of conditioning, and then you see a lot of modeling growing up where people work through conflict, you hear them communicate. Parents are kind of honoring your boundaries, talking about your needs, learning to Communicate about emotions. Well, when that's all your condition, you go in with this amazing toolkit of how to do relationships well. And so that's precisely why you hear so many securely attached people being very fulfilled in their relationships. They get together, they both have these really adaptive tools for how to communicate, how to share. They have a lot less core wounds because they have a lot less big or small t trauma. So relationships flow and ebb very naturally for them. And so that's really that secure person in a nutshell. And they, they have really healthy coping mechanisms when they're stressed. They communicate or they know how to self soothe and meet their own needs and they get triggered less and they jump to conclusions less. And so those are some of the major themes that you'll see.
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Host
Does that sound so nice for them?
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Thais Gibson
Good for you.
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Host
But okay, before we go, we, we loop back because I'm going to ask this question. We can all get there, right? Like, this isn't like you are who you are and you're stuck with it forever. We, we can graduate, we can move up.
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Thais Gibson
Yes.
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Co-host or Interviewer
So there's a fourth. I'll go to the fourth attachment cell in a moment.
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Thais Gibson
But just so you know, like, this
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Co-host or Interviewer
is what I do for a living and have been for 13, 14 years now. I was a fearful avoidant, really did a lot of deep inner work, been
- [22:25]
Thais Gibson
happily married for a very long time with my husband now for 11 years or something. And also really importantly, like, we take people through 90 day programs and the vast majority of people, like, we have a 99.7% NPS score in our programs because people go in, they do the rewiring work and it really moves the needle. So I say that not to like, oh, look at how great everything is, but to really look at like that, it's not that hard. I think people hear this and think, oh my gosh, decades of conditioning, you're just rewiring really specific things. Your core wounds, you're learning your needs, you're learning healthy boundaries, you're regulating your nervous system and you're learning some communication tools. So there's five pillars of becoming secure.
- [23:05]
Host
I'm excited. I'm going to be fixed by the end of this podcast. This is going to be right. It's that quick, right?
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Co-host or Interviewer
You need a little bit of repetition for the rewiring part. Over, over about 90 days in total.
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Thais Gibson
But, but honestly, it's not, it's two to five minutes a day for stuff. It's not really, really hard work. And so for anybody who's Hearing themselves in this, and they're, like, intimidated or worried or they're like, oh, my gosh, all these years of conditioning, it doesn't mean that because you had a lot of repetition of it, that. That it's going to take that long to come out the other side. Because when you're really precise about what the challenge is, you can work through those precise things that are blocking you from really healthy, secure love.
- [23:41]
Host
Oh, this is so good. Okay, so we've covered fearful avoidant, which is me very sad. We've covered anxious and secure, but now there's avoidant.
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Thais Gibson
What does this look like?
- [23:53]
Host
And where does this come from? Like, can you do, you know, kind of these triggers in childhood that can cause avoidant?
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Thais Gibson
Yeah, great question. So. So the dismissive avoidant is the one who basically grows up with the most childhood emotional neglect. So what that theme is is that there's this total and very consistent lack of attunement happening. So while the anxious attachment style learns, okay, love is good, but it's inconsistent, and the fearful avoidant learns, sometimes love is good, but sometimes it's really scary and unpredictable and confusing, the dismissive avoidant learns, well, love just never really meets my needs because they grow up in this environment. And they, you know, all children are biologically wired for attunement, and there they are, and they're trying to get this attunement and trying to get this connection, and yet it's constantly not being met in the way that they need. So neglect doesn't always look really overt. It's not like, oh, food's never on the table. Parents are never home. It can be that, of course, in more extreme cases, but the majority of the time, it's that parents are just kind of in their own world, not really attuned. You know, in current days, we'd see parents being constantly on their phone all the time, not present with the children, you know, always avoiding the. The emotions of their child, maybe dismissing or getting frustrated or even shaming of their child's emotions or distress, and, oh, don't be a crybaby, Grow up, get it together, you know, these types of things. And when children hear that consistently with no attunement or connection on the other end, the only thing that a child can do, because children navigate through their behavioral stages of life by trying to make meaning out of everything, to understand it, they make that dynamic mean. Okay, this emotional part of me, this vulnerable part of me, it's fundamentally flawed, it's defective, it's broken, because I Never
- [25:39]
Co-host or Interviewer
get anything good from it.
- [25:40]
Thais Gibson
It doesn't get me accepted, it just gets me shamed or criticized or dismissed. So this entire part of me needs to be shut away. And so they cope or adapt to that kind of environment by completely repressing their feelings, their needs, their vulnerability. And that gives them a sense of relief and control. And so now we have a person who's grown up like this and as an adult, they go to enormous lengths to not be vulnerable and to not feel too many of their feelings. And so what you'll usually see as a manifestation of that is they get into relationships, they date you for a few months and as things start to actually get real, oh my goodness, things are getting real. I'm feeling vulnerable.
- [26:23]
Co-host or Interviewer
I'm feeling a little bit worried about this vulnerability, vulnerability here.
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Thais Gibson
This doesn't end well for me.
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Co-host or Interviewer
It never feels good.
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Thais Gibson
Exactly.
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Co-host or Interviewer
And they start dismissing, they start pushing away, they may exit and run and
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Thais Gibson
you know, really do things that leave people feeling confused because they're there in self protection mode when they start feeling vulnerable. And they often have these core wounds of being trapped or being defective or shameful if they're deeply seen. So of course they're avoiding even being known deeply. It's part of why they're so private. And they have a hard time sharing openly. And they often believe that they're weak if they're vulnerable or that they're unhealthy, safe emotionally if they're vulnerable. And they usually didn't get any modeling growing up for, oh, here's how people work through a conflict, here's how people hash it out or talk through things. So they just avoid conflict altogether as much as they can. They struggle to communicate openly, they struggle to solve problems in relationships. And their way of trying to cope with relationships is to do something called, called flaw finding where when something isn't going well and they start to feel vulnerable, they convince themselves of all the reasons that their partner's not going to work out for them anyway and that, oh, their partner has all these flaws. And so not only do they tend to leave things suddenly or at least shut down deeply if they stay in a longer term marriage or relationship, but they'll also look for all the reasons that it wouldn't go go well and
- [27:42]
Co-host or Interviewer
the things that could go wrong.
- [27:43]
Thais Gibson
And that's their way of trying to gain some sense of control. Okay, if you hurt me, I'd be fine anyways, I don't need you. And so you'll see them be very confusing people in relationships and you know they get a bit of a bad rap, honestly, on the Internet. But, but I've worked with a lot of people of all different attachment styles and everybody just has maladaptive patterns if they're insecurely attached and it's really just if somebody's willing to do the work or not, that makes them an appropriate potential partner or not. Because if somebody's never going to work on their things, well then yeah, you're going to see these things in the long term and they aren't going to hurt. It is going to hurt to have somebody constantly closed down and never really opening up that you're in a relationship with. But if somebody's doing the work, then they end up being, you know, as a. As long term partners who heal and become secure, dismissive avoidants, become very stable, predictable, reliable partners who when they become emotionally available and consistent. They're very grounding, they're very supportive, they love a lot through acts of service, they're very kind, they're very strong. And so everybody has these really beautiful superpowers. You know, fearful avoidance, are very generous, they're super present. They're really good at getting people to open up and truly being there. And they're fiercely loyal and very loving, very deep and insightful. They don't like surface stuff very much that anxious attachment cells are generous and friendly and, and you know, very good at including people and making people feel special and they're very thoughtful and you know, there's all these beautiful traits of each insecure attachment style. But it's really a question of you get to keep those really beautiful traits and then heal through the pain points and challenges by doing the work so that now we have these beautiful parts of your personality, but they're not being pulled back or obscured at times by the wounds and the triggers and the fears.
- [29:24]
Host
Listen, so I'm pretty sure I know what my husband is. So this leads me to another question. Is there usually like, are people attracted, you know, you touched on this with the, the anxious, I think you said. But is there like certain attachment styles tend to be attracted to other attachment styles?
- [29:44]
Thais Gibson
Yes.
- [29:46]
Co-host or Interviewer
So the number one thing that we
- [29:47]
Thais Gibson
do is we tend to be attracted to people the most in the long term who treat us the way that we treat ourselves. Because your subconscious mind is running the show. It's responsible for 95% of all of our choices and all of our emotions and all of our beliefs and all of our patterns. And so our conscious mind can say everything under the sun, but our subconscious mind is ultimately running the show and picking for us. And so that means your conditioning is picking for you. Your subconscious mind is the warehouse of your conditioning. And so the subconscious mind is survival wired. It equates familiarity to safety and thus survival. So what truly is most familiar is how we treat ourselves. So anxious attachment cells, they avoid and dismiss themselves. So they're much more attracted to more avoidant people. They can both be attracted to fearful avoidance or dismissive avoidance. People who are a little more hot and cold or people who are kind of withdrawn altogether dismissive avoidance are very preoccupied with their own time to themselves. So they often are attracted to people who are kind of in their business and leaning on them and trying to get in there as well, just like they do with themselves. Right. It's like the mirror into self. And fearful avoidance, very interestingly, are unique in that they can lean anxious or lean avoidant. So fearful avoidance can be more in their anxious side sometimes or more in their avoidance side. And depending on which way they lean, they'll often attract that oppositional partner. So, for example, if a fearful avoidance kind of feeling their fears of abandonment more than they're afraid of being trapped or controlled, then they'll usually feel a little more anxious more often, and they'll be quite attracted to people who are more dismissive avoidance. And especially if there's been a lot of chaos in a fearful avoidance childhood, they often see fearful avoidance as at least being safe. You know, they might be a little avoidant, but like, oh, there's this sense of safety. They're not trying to have these big emotions. They're not really angry all the time or yelling. And so there's this sort of sense of safety and fearful avoidance when they date a dismissible way. And it does meet a needle for acceptance. You know, dismissive wins aren't really out there trying to change people. So sometimes fearful avoidance feel like they can kind of be themselves more with a dismissive avoidant that's not putting extra pressure on them or trying to make them achieve or perform. They're kind of just neutral to what
- [31:53]
Co-host or Interviewer
the fearful avoidance doing. And it's kind of refreshing for fearful avoidance.
- [31:57]
Thais Gibson
So that's that one side. But then fearful avoidance who lean a lot more dismissive. And they're more in that avoidant side of themselves. At times, they will tend to be attracted to individuals who are a little more anxious, who come in quite strong, who are preoccupied with them, who are really trying to invest and get them to commit. And it's generally more of a reflection of how much that fearful avoidance Putting incessant pressure on themselves, constantly fearing being
- [32:23]
Co-host or Interviewer
trapped and having all these wounds come
- [32:25]
Thais Gibson
up, but actually trapping themselves in their own commitments and the amount of pressure
- [32:28]
Co-host or Interviewer
that they put on and the expectations they have of themselves. And so they.
- [32:31]
Thais Gibson
You'll just generally see which way they lean has an impact. But fearful avoidance can also just be very attracted to other fearful avoidance, where there tends to be a lot of depth, a lot of emotional intensity, a lot of passion, a lot of novelty, a lot of, like, really deep care, but a lot more volatility because they pinball each other and there's ups and
- [32:49]
Co-host or Interviewer
downs and everybody's hot and cold and bouncing around.
- [32:52]
Thais Gibson
And so it can be a trickier relationship for sure.
- [32:54]
Host
And secure is out there, just like being with other secures. They're like you. You seem emotionally stable. Sames, let's date.
- [33:04]
Co-host or Interviewer
That's pretty much it.
- [33:06]
Host
That sounds so nice. Okay, so, yeah, my. My husband is a dismissive avoidant. I mean, I don't know if he'd agree with that, but I'm diagnosing him. He is. And he had actually a wonderful childhood, but his parents worked a lot, they traveled a lot, they really weren't around. And plus, he grew up in the 80s and he is a sensitive person. Deep down inside I know this. He will never let it out, but I know. And you know, in the 80s, it was like, boys, don't cry, suck it up, be a man, don't show emotion. And he. It really. I. I'm going to assume, I'm making an assumption here that there's a lot more men perhaps, that are dismissive, avoidant because of that.
- [33:46]
Thais Gibson
Exactly.
- [33:47]
Co-host or Interviewer
So.
- [33:47]
Thais Gibson
So when somebody. People ask this a lot. And when somebody is an attachment style, their gender won't influence their behavior. So, for example, if a male is anxious and a female is anxious, they're going to look pretty much the same. They're both going to cling. They're both going to jump to conclusions of being abandoned. They're both going to come on really strong and move very fast. Like, the behaviors are similar, but in reverse. You just generally see more anxiously attached women and more dismissive, avoidant men because of the way that that cultural conditioning happens. Exactly to your point, more men are sitting there going, oh, yeah, you know,
- [34:20]
Co-host or Interviewer
don't be a crybaby. All these things, which is, you know,
- [34:23]
Thais Gibson
I get that, and I believe in the importance of, like, grit and being able to push through things and be determined. I think that that's strong. But you want to look at it through the lens of this idea that optimal growth occurs at the border between support and challenge. So if you are, you know, given only support and it's like, oh, we're going to treat you like you're a snowflake all the time and all these things, obviously that also is negative as well, because then you put that child out into the world as an adult and they don't know how to move through challenges. Right. They haven't really built a sense of self. But on the flip side, if they only have challenge and no support in the emotional area of life, then that actually creates its own trauma. And there's a wonderful quote that says, that says trauma are the things that did happen that shouldn't have happened. Okay, the obvious, like abuse, things like that. But it's also the things that didn't happen that needed to happen. And so these are the things like, well, children need attunement. Children need to feel like there's emotional and emotional interaction with their parents, parents or caregivers. And so when that's missing, there definitely is a cost. Yeah.
- [35:24]
Host
Okay, so we know, and I know you have a quiz and I'm going to put a link to this in the description. But we know our style.
- [35:29]
Thais Gibson
Hopefully my listeners, they're like, they're like, yeah, it's picking.
- [35:33]
Host
I'm, I'm, I'm seeing one or the other, but I am. Would love you to do this, like, thought experiment with me. How would these kind of show up in everyday lives that maybe someone who's not, not even in a relationship necessarily might be able to be like, oh, yeah, or notice it with friends, coworkers, or in your everyday life. Or there's these little things that kind of, these different attachment styles do that might make it a little more obvious in every day.
- [36:00]
Thais Gibson
Yeah, great question. So first things first.
- [36:02]
Co-host or Interviewer
Anxiously attached individuals, they are the co
- [36:04]
Thais Gibson
workers or friends who, they move very fast. They might. You know, I used to work with clients and I remember this one woman, she said, she said I, she had moved to a new city and she was like, I met this woman after yoga class and I'm trying to make new friends in the city and I asked her for coffee and she didn't really ever try to move the needle. Like, she didn't really try to do anything. And she was so hurt. And I had to explain to her, like, hey, people are going to move at different paces with friendships. Like generally anxiously attached individuals. They like you and they get along with you and they're like, oh, I just met you. But we had a Great conversation. We are now friends. We're going to hang out this week.
- [36:41]
Co-host or Interviewer
Whereas fearful avoidance are like, I need
- [36:43]
Thais Gibson
to have at least 12 interactions.
- [36:45]
Host
I was feeling that of like as soon as somebody's like, oh my God, let's be best friends, I'm like, you're a weirdo. And I run if someone's like, hey, I really like you, I think you're cool. I'm like, bye. There must be something wrong with you. Run the other direction.
- [37:04]
Thais Gibson
Sorry.
- [37:04]
Co-host or Interviewer
Fearful points need, oh, you're great. You need more touch points. They need to have like I said 12.
- [37:09]
Thais Gibson
But they actually generally need about six to eight interactions before they're open to making plans. Which means you would sit after yoga
- [37:15]
Co-host or Interviewer
class six to eight times or have,
- [37:17]
Thais Gibson
you know, maybe some text interactions back and forth. Like they're just not quick to move that way. Dismissive woins are even longer.
- [37:22]
Co-host or Interviewer
Okay.
- [37:23]
Thais Gibson
So they are very slow to warm up. And when it comes to dating, dismissive avoidants are the ones that when you meet them they're a little bit standoffish. And you'll probably be more perceptive to this as a fearful avoidant because fearful avoidants really notice these things. But you can feel a wall up when you meet a dismissive avoidant. There's a certain degree of them not really opening and sharing and they will talk a lot more about their facts than their feelings. So rather than a balance of the two, they swing very into, you know, honestly dismissive avoidance. You'll see they often have these very long standing friends and they get together with friends. And it's so funny because my, my husband, I also married a dismissive avoidant
- [38:02]
Co-host or Interviewer
and he's in a lot of the work to be secure. But he has these same three friends. He's such a good example from his
- [38:07]
Thais Gibson
childhood, like way back in childhood said and they'll all hang out. And I would say things to him earlier on into our relationship before he did a little more work and I would say, oh, you know, how is so and so's you know, new relationship, how are they doing? And you know, after he'd hung out with his friends, oh, how's this? Oh, we didn't talk about it. And you know, they'll sit together and
- [38:26]
Co-host or Interviewer
they'll talk about like facts and history
- [38:30]
Thais Gibson
and all these things and talk about all these and it's like, but not that like personal interaction as much I know it's because they divorced that part
- [38:41]
Co-host or Interviewer
of themselves in their childhood, right?
- [38:43]
Thais Gibson
So they learned, okay, this emotional part of me isn't acceptable. So they lean so heavy into the intellectual pillar of connection. Like, let's talk about facts or politics or philosophy or ideas or our business or these things. But then they don't really share. That's their way of connecting.
- [38:56]
Host
Right.
- [38:56]
Thais Gibson
They don't really share like, oh, I'm experiencing this, or this is what's happening in my relationships, or these are my feelings about work. They're very about, like, the fact that acts of things. So those are some big identifiers. And then, of course, the obvious. You know, anxious attachments all tend to commit really fast in relationships. They're like, let's go. They could go on a few dates and they're ready to, like, jump into a serious commitment. Dismissive wins are so much longer. They can be like four to six months generally, if they even stay. Sometimes they'll kind of jet at that period of time. Fearful of wins, around three to four months. But their way of getting there is, you know, the first month, they're like, this is the person we're all in. And then, you know, as soon as
- [39:33]
Co-host or Interviewer
things get a little more real, they're like, never mind.
- [39:34]
Thais Gibson
This isn't them at all.
- [39:35]
Co-host or Interviewer
I think I should leave.
- [39:37]
Thais Gibson
And then they pull away and they're
- [39:38]
Co-host or Interviewer
like, wait, I actually think it is the person.
- [39:39]
Thais Gibson
And so they arrive by kind of being like, forward really fast back really fast forward really fast. But they're incrementally moving forward. And so they actually tend to want to commit around 3, 4 months to something more serious, which is actually the same period of time that securely attached people tend to want to be together, but their way of arriving there is very different. Right. Securely attached people vet people, they take
- [40:02]
Co-host or Interviewer
their time, they ask the right questions. Yeah, they consider them and fearful avoidance
- [40:06]
Thais Gibson
are kind of like, you know, all in and all out and kind of
- [40:08]
Co-host or Interviewer
move back and forth on their way there.
- [40:10]
Thais Gibson
So those are definitely some obvious things. I mean, fearful avoidance are usually the most affected by conflict. They can. They'll hold everything in, and then people, please. And then eventually they'll get sick and tired of holding things in and they'll say, last Saturday you did this, and
- [40:26]
Co-host or Interviewer
three Saturdays ago you did the same thing. And then four years ago, this one thing happened. And then, you know, they really track everything and they're really good at letting you know all at once after a long time of not saying much at all.
- [40:38]
Thais Gibson
Whereas anxious attachment cells, they can do a little bit of that too. But they are so scared of losing somebody that they often don't share how they really feel, like they'll Be in a conflict, but they'll be kind of light in conflict and still not really say that they're hurt because they just are prioritizing proximity all the time. And dismissive avoidance tend to avoid conflict like no other. They love to keep distance. They try to just shove things under the rug. So those are those like very obvious everyday relationship things. And actually I'll give you one last one. I used to see this with clients
- [41:09]
Co-host or Interviewer
all the time and it's so like just archetypical of people.
- [41:13]
Thais Gibson
But you know, if there's a conflict, like usually between an anxious and dismissive avoidant, the dismissive avoidance, like, I don't know what I'm feeling, I just need space. And they'll go into the other room and they'll close the door. And the anxious attachment's like, I'm gonna
- [41:26]
Co-host or Interviewer
follow you into that room and I'm gonna open the door and we're gonna talk about it right now. And you know, fearful avoidance are a
- [41:34]
Thais Gibson
little bit like that where they'll wanna resolve it a lot faster than a dismissive avoidant, for example. But if they're with an anxious person, then they'll be the one kind of running away a little bit more. So depending on who they're with, it'll sort of bring out either side of them. And fearful avoidance will often push away very harshly. In a conflict, they'll actually try to push somebody away. Whereas dismissive avoidance pull away. And there's actually a really important difference. Like dismissive ones kind of retreat. Dismissive ones are like get back. And they push you with their words. They'll say kind of harsh things. They'll really try to do those things because they're hurt deeply and then they're self protecting.
- [42:12]
Host
Gosh, this feels like a therapy session. And it also makes me realize how I was so attracted to my husband in the be just all of it, you know, because he was very stoic and he never, he ignored me and he didn't talk about emotions. And I'm like throwing, I'm like, you don't want me? That makes me want you for sure. It all worked out. We're working on it. 20 years. It was just our 20 year anniversary and things are lovely.
- [42:39]
Co-host or Interviewer
That's so nice.
- [42:39]
Host
Thank you. And I actually think we found this like really cool way of working together. But we are also still carrying these attachment styles. So what can someone do? Like for my listeners and for me, mostly me. How can we start healing? Like what is something we can do to start becoming secure?
- [43:04]
Thais Gibson
Yeah, great question. So the first thing is that information's a really great place to start. But the information only reaches your conscious mind. And all of our patterns, they're subconscious. So there are all of these things that we're storing in our conditioning and playing out kind of on autopilot. And when I say autopilot, I'm really referring to those moments where we're like, you know, an anxious attachment cell might say, don't cling, don't call them again, don't call them again. But they do it anyways. Like they know better, but they do it. Those things that we kind of feel helpless to in our own actions, that's really a conditioning dynamic. And so to really heal, we have to address the subconscious level of mind. And there's five pillars. So pillar number one is we have to rewire these big triggers. Okay? So the fear of abandonment, the fear of being trapped, the fear of being betrayed. And I'll go through a tool for at least one of the pillars. Pillar number two is we have to learn what our needs are and we actually have to learn how to meet them ourselves. So this is a really important part of co regulating. For example, you'll see everywhere we struggle to meet our own needs, we heavily outsource and over rely on other people to meet them for us. Anxiously attached people, they struggle to self soothe. So they go, somebody should always be there for me when I need them, right?
- [44:13]
Co-host or Interviewer
They should.
- [44:13]
Thais Gibson
My partner should always soothe me. Fearful avoidance, they struggle to trust. So they kind of have an unreasonably high expectation for perfection. When things are related to trust, it's
- [44:23]
Co-host or Interviewer
like if you ever tell a white lie, you're cut immediately. You know, there's these kind of stronger dynamics there and. And so they're gonna be a little bit of that. Yeah, it's just protection, right?
- [44:35]
Thais Gibson
It's like trying to not go back into the, the painful experiences of childhood. Your subconscious is like trying to protect you like the bear in the woods. And then dismissive avoidance. Interestingly, they really struggle to understand themselves emotionally and communicate it. So they, they do this thing a lot where they're like, like, my partner should just understand me, I shouldn't have to explain myself. And they communicate a lot more through their actions, thinking like, my actions tell it all rather than their words. But it's actually because they don't really know how to understand themselves first. So on the second pillar, we actually have to learn to meet our own needs first. It actually enriches our EQ very strongly to be able to do that. You know, anxious people learn to self soothe. Fearful avoidance, learn to trust themselves better, to set boundaries, to vet for people to not betray themselves and their boundaries all the time through people pleasing or putting themselves last and dismissive ones learn to understand their own emotions and actually understand what's happening in their inner world. So now we've grown as individuals and it's a really important pillar. And that brings us to the third pillar, which is now we can still communicate that we need these things. It's not one or the other. So it doesn't become, oh, the anxious person learns to self soothe, and now they never need to soothing again. It means that we are not trying to pull into our gas station every day with our gas tank fully on empty. We're not just panicked that this gas
- [45:55]
Co-host or Interviewer
station better be open.
- [45:56]
Thais Gibson
You know, we're in a place where we can go into needing our needs, but where our tank is half full. And now we have this healthy, secure balance to our own needs. And when our needs are really running on empty and the relationship to self, we are willing to put up with breadcrumbs because we're starving. So our standards lower, right? Part of why you see anxious people who struggle to give to themselves a lot and then they're willing to kind of put up with anybody and anything and lower their standards because they're starving for these needs. So in such a big way. So pillar two and three, they become, learn your own needs and meet them. Then learn to communicate them very healthily with others. And then our last two pillars are just regulating your nervous system and learning to set healthy boundaries. Now, these are all things done by tools that specifically address the subconscious level of mind. So that these are not things that we're just thinking about. You know, from my own experience, when I built this body of work, I remember as a fearful avoidant trying to learn to set boundaries. And I was like, I read every boundary book and I read all these, you know, publications on boundaries and did the research, and I understood boundaries intimately. But in the moment that I would go to set a boundary, I would clam up a lot of the time. And I was like, what the heck is going on? And what I realized is that, well, when I set a boundary as a child, I was then sometimes punished quite intensely. And so I had come to believe subconsciously, if I set a boundary, I become unsafe. So my conscious mind understood boundaries. But then in real time, when it was time to set one, my subconscious mind would sabotage it because it was prioritizing, staying safe. So all of the work we do in the five Pillars, and I'm definitely happy to. To share a tool for reprogramming a core wound, for example. But all the work we do in the five Pillars has to be addressed at the conditioning level of mind, not just the reading about it and understanding how it works level of mind. And that's where real transformation takes place.
- [47:47]
Host
This is so good. I feel like you've seen into my soul, and you know me better than anyone has ever known me before, which is scary, but also really amazing, because, first of all, I'm gonna follow you, and I'm gonna read your book, and I'm just gonna absorb everything that you have, because this is really something. I've had so many therapists, so many therapists, and one stood out to me, and I love him, but I will say he said, I think you have incompetency syndrome or something. So I get irrationally upset, especially when Joe. But anyone around me that I really. I put my trust in them to lead if they make a mistake. So if Joe's driving somewhere and he's taken care of and he gets lost, I feel a level of panic, and I never really. But now it makes sense, man. It makes so much sense.
- [48:46]
Thais Gibson
You want to find together and put into words exactly what it is. So it's.
- [48:50]
Co-host or Interviewer
It's.
- [48:50]
Thais Gibson
There's going to be a specific core wound. So let's say Joe, you said, gets lost and is driving somewhere, and now he's made a mistake, and now he's lost. And in that moment, what do you feel emotionally? What emotions?
- [49:04]
Host
It feels like anger, but it could be fear.
- [49:08]
Thais Gibson
Good. Okay, so anger. Fear. And what do you make it mean about you? In that moment? I am. What?
- [49:18]
Host
I can't possibly be in charge, and I can't trust that he's in charge. So, like, I feel like every. I don't know, like it feels.
- [49:30]
Thais Gibson
And here are the big core wounds that are usually there. Okay. And. And you can hear them in what you said. Out of control, helpless. Helpless is a. Usually a massive core wound for fearful avoidance. And then a little bit of betrayal. So he betrayed me because I'm trusting him, and he made the mistake. And then the sense of being helpless and out of control because I'm not the one in the driver's seat, and now I can't do anything about it. And that can be like, physical driver's seat, or like, you know, symbolically the driver's seat. And so there probably. This is extremely. This is like a root of fearful avoidance. There's Probably a lot of times in earlier life where you felt helpless a lot, maybe you had to rely on people who were really unpredictable. And then you constantly feel helpless. And so what's happening is in real time. And that's how a trigger works. A trigger is that we've stored all these subconscious experiences with all the emotion attached. All memories that we have get consolidated and stored at a subconscious level with all their emotion intact. And you see this when you hear people recall old memories. They can cry if it's a sad memory or laugh if it's a happy memory. So all this memory is stored at a subconscious level. We store everything, and then a trigger happens, which means something in this moment, like you being in the driver's seat or the passenger seat of the car, your conscious mind kind of goes to your subconscious mind, oh, what do we know about feeling this way before? And now? Your subconscious mind says, we know all of this emotion. All of these times we felt helpless and out of control. And now your subconscious is flooding all those to the surface. And that's what a trigger is. A trigger is that you're experiencing all that stored emotion plus what's happening in real time, coming, combined together. And that's why we have a disproportionate reaction. So does helpless, out of control, betrayed. Do those ones resonate?
- [51:11]
Host
Yeah, that's it. That's totally it. And. And then just take that and copy and paste it everywhere. Anytime that I'm like, I'm going to let someone else do this because I've got too much on my plate, and then it isn't done how I perceived, I feel like, see, I can't trust anyone. No one's trusting, trustworthy, and everyone is unsafe.
- [51:33]
Co-host or Interviewer
There you go. Exactly.
- [51:36]
Host
They're supposed to protect me from bears. I trusted them. They all have the bear spray, and they dropped it. And now I'm gonna be eaten. See why I don't trust anyone to carry the bear spray?
- [51:49]
Co-host or Interviewer
And there you go. And then.
- [51:50]
Host
But also, I don't want to carry the bear spray.
- [51:52]
Co-host or Interviewer
I'm tired of always carrying the bear spray. That's why one of the. That's one of the big things, is
- [51:58]
Thais Gibson
that then it's like all this pressure to always do it because you don't want to trust people. And then there's usually an enormous burden on fearful avoidance, more than the average person. So I can share a tool. You know, we have all these tools in our programs that goes through the five pillars, but I'll just share a tool. So if you want to Rewire a core wound. You want to change that? It's not as hard as it might sound at face value. First thing, okay, is you find the core wound, and it's opposite. Okay, very easy. First step. There's three steps. Let's say it's, I'm betrayed, I have loyalty, or I can trust. If it's, I'm abandoned, I'm worthy of connection. If it's, I am not good enough, I'm good enough. Okay, so you find the core wound, and it's opposite. Step two. I do not believe in affirmations. Okay? So affirmations are your conscious mind speaking to your conscious mind. Your core wound does not exist at the conscious level of mind. Your conscious mind is your logical, rational, analytical mind. Nobody wakes up and says, today, all day long, I'm going to tell myself that I can't trust people and that
- [52:55]
Co-host or Interviewer
I'm out of control and helpless and. Or I'm going to tell myself all
- [52:59]
Thais Gibson
day long, I'm not good enough. Like, nobody's consciously choosing that the wounds exist at the subconscious level of mind. But if I were to say to you, okay, whatever you do, do not think of a pink elephant. You think of a pink elephant, right? Conscious mind hears, do not. Subconscious mind doesn't speak language. It speaks in emotions and images. So when people are doing affirmations, they say, I am good enough. I am good enough. I am good enough. You're just consciously talking to your conscious mind. Nothing's reaching where the wound is. Nothing's reaching the subconscious part. So in step two, what we do is after we found the opposite, I am not good enough. I am good enough. Now we have to speak in emotions and images so that it reaches our subconscious mind. How do we do that? Well, all memory ever is just a container of emotions and imagery. If you think of your favorite childhood memory, and let's say it's like you playing at the beach as a kid, you might see the images of the ocean and the sand. And, you know, we've all seen when people tell old memories, they laugh or they smile. So what we're doing is now we know memory speaks to our subconscious mind. So we're going to leverage memory in step two. So we're going to say, okay, I'm not good enough. I am good enough. Step one. Step two, what are 10 times I actually was good enough. I was a good enough friend. Last week, when I had a hard phone conversation with a friend of mine, I was a good enough, you know, boss, if I own a company, you know, Three days ago when I, you know, really looked at how people work together and fix those interactions. I was a good enough spouse 3 days ago when I did this. And we're coming up with specific memories that we can see in our mind's eye because it's the imagery for our subconscious. And things that we feel about. We feel that sense of pride when we feel good enough, or we feel that sense of connection when we think of how we're connected instead of abandoned. And people have been there for us and love us and show up for us. So now we're feeding information to our subconscious mind in a way it can be reached by and actually understand. And then our third step is now we're going to wire it in. So now we're actually going to build new neural networks, which requires repetition and emotion across time. It takes 21 days. And what we do is, now that we've said our 10 times, we feel good enough, or the 10 times we had connection instead of abandonment, we record ourselves saying it into our phone or somewhere we can listen back. And for 21 days, we're going to listen back to those 10 pieces of evidence, and we're going to visualize and feel about them when we are in a suggestible state, meaning when our brain is producing more alpha brainwaves. And that's usually in the first place, hour that we wake up or the last hour before we go to sleep. And suggestibility means that all this information is more easy, more easily reaching your subconscious mind. So now you have this thing you did. You said, okay, I'm not good enough, for example. And you've got your 10 things about times you were good enough that are images, that are emotion. You've recorded it down. Now it takes two to five minutes a day for you to snooze your alarm, turn on and actually listen back to these tangible pieces, pieces of evidence. Feel about them in your body as much as possible, visualize about them as much as possible. And now this information is reaching our subconscious mind. And through repetition over time, we're actually firing and wiring these entirely new neural networks that are changing how we perceive ourselves and our reality. Instead of constantly projecting this old bear, we're trying to teach ourselves, hey, you've been in the forest now many times,
- [56:15]
Co-host or Interviewer
and there hasn't been bears, so to speak.
- [56:18]
Thais Gibson
And so we're reconditioned. You're not born with these wounds. You can rewire them through doing that. And it's just a very easy first step for, for rewiring.
- [56:26]
Host
This is so Good. I'm going to think about all the ways I can actually trust people and how they actually have, you know, supported me and not let me down and not been wishy washy flippy floppy. I have to guess what's happening, because you're right. That doesn't actually exist in my life today, and yet I look for that everywhere.
- [56:46]
Thais Gibson
Yes, we want to return to what we call fair and balanced thinking. So there will be people who make mistakes, right? People will make mistakes sometimes. But when we're constantly looking for it, we put it on high, put ourselves on high alert, and then we, like you said, see it and everything, and often end up investing in what's familiar again. So we kind of choose people who do that. But more importantly, when we're so triggered, we don't have productive outcomes. So one of our second pillars is knowing your needs and how to communicate them. Pillar two and three. And so let's say you're no longer on high alert all the time. Well, then if somebody does make a mistake without the wound, you just kind of naturally move into, okay, here there's a mistake. I need you to go fix it. By doing this and this, you can give them clear directions, you can communicate, and we can solve for it together instead of sometimes when we feel betrayed. And I've spent a lot of time there, so I get it, we feel betrayed. And you're like, I'm never trusting anyone again. I'm never asking anyone for help again.
- [57:36]
Co-host or Interviewer
And then there you are on your own, and then you're trying to do it all by yourself.
- [57:41]
Thais Gibson
And then if somebody is actually trying to do anything to support you, you either discount their support in advance or don't even allow yourself to ask for it or struggle to delegate. But then we have these big overreactions when somebody does make a mistake, because we feel so deeply let down. Because it's not just about right now. It's about the core wound from the past. So we rewire the core wound, and then we can go into the needs and the communication, and then all those. Those three things together create really healthy, productive, balanced outcomes instead of these old, really painful, repeated patterns.
- [58:12]
Host
I think you may be a genius, and I also think you may be the most helpful person I've ever spoken with on this podcast. So that's incredible. Please. Okay, so let my listeners know where they can go and get help from you. And what do you suggest that they do first? Is it take your quiz? Is there a resource? You're like, they have to go get this.
- [58:37]
Thais Gibson
Yeah. If People are like, I hear myself in this. And if they're sick and tired of it because it's a painful and hard thing, honestly, for a lot of people. And I get that because I was also insecurely attached. Step one, you can go to personal developmentschool.com you can take the quiz. It gives you a breakdown of your attachment style. Step two, we have all of our programs on there and so there's a 90 day program to rewire. We try to make it extremely affordable. So it starts at $67 a month for 90 days. So it's like three months. And you know, my goal when, when I worked through this was like I want this to be instead of, you know, 100, if you do a three month for your 90 days, it's just $150. So instead of, you know, you pay one therapy session for that, you can go in and it goes through those five pillars. There's a course for each pillar. So how to rewire your core wounds. Of course you find your own. It guides you to do that. There's the rewiring techniques. Then how to find your needs and needs of your partner and loved ones. Because needs are a huge way we give and receive love. And we tend to always give from our own needs instead of seeing and understanding that we might have different ones from people. How to communicate. We go through pillars, boundaries and nervous system regulation. And each one's about an hour and a half course and it comes with a specific rewiring tool for each pillar and then with that membership to the program for the 90 days I'm in there teaching live webinars three days a week. So if you have questions, I'm there. I have colleagues the other six days of the week. So I'm there for three people are there for another three. So there's twice a day ongoing support for people. And yeah, my goal is to help
- [60:05]
Co-host or Interviewer
as many people as possible, not have to go through this any longer.
- [60:08]
Thais Gibson
So that is all available@personaldevelopmentschool.com if people want to dive in there. Or I'm on YouTube @ThaisGipson Personal Developmentschool or at the personal personal development school on Instagram.
- [60:18]
Host
This was so good. And I have to say $150 is what I pay an hour for my therapist for years. And I feel like I have more self awareness in this podcast. Sorry I hijacked it for all my listeners, but how absolutely amazing are you? I'm gonna fix myself and then I'm gonna fix Joe and then we're gonna be secure and I'll stop being insane. And you're amazing. Thank you so much for being here. On the Clutterbug podcast, we usually talk about clutter and homes, but let me tell you something. I'm gonna ask one final question. Do you think these secure attachments can also, like, have us attached to our physical belongings in these strange, like, insecure ways?
- [61:08]
Thais Gibson
Yeah, I think that, honestly, what happens is that I think a lot of our physical space sometimes reflector reflects our mental emotional clutter. And when there's always, like, a drama in our mind and stress and then we're coping, you're not like, oh, I feel good. Let me clean my house.
- [61:23]
Co-host or Interviewer
You're like, I feel stressed.
- [61:25]
Thais Gibson
Let me binge watch television or eat
- [61:26]
Co-host or Interviewer
a bunch of junk food or all these things that take us away from
- [61:28]
Thais Gibson
healthy habits that way. And it's interesting because I think one of the first things you see when you start rewiring core wounds is all of this mental emotional real estate comes back. All of this space. I used to personally, just speaking from my own experience, but spend so much time in, like, I'm being trapped or controlled, push somebody away, then feel badly and then have to apologize or then feel badly about myself and avoid myself
- [61:51]
Co-host or Interviewer
or avoid my life, you know, binge,
- [61:54]
Thais Gibson
watch television or whatever it is. Or then, you know, somebody's afraid of being abandoned and they cling and they're preoccupied and we get into all these dramas, and when you just pluck the wound out at the root and rewire it, you have so much mental emotional space that you're like, oh, I can focus on doing things that are productive,
- [62:09]
Co-host or Interviewer
of cleaning my environment, showing up for
- [62:11]
Thais Gibson
my life, organizing my. My goals, my dreams, all of those things. So I definitely think there's a massive connection between some of these things as a whole.
- [62:20]
Host
Yeah. And I'm seeing myself, I mean, as a fearful avoidant. There are, like, my objects, my belongings around me. Sometimes I'm like, oh, well, maybe I should. And I. And you're special. And then. So then I'm like, everything's going in the trash.
- [62:35]
Thais Gibson
Trash.
- [62:35]
Host
You know, and then I. I'm decluttering everything. Burn the whole house down. And I'm like, wait a minute, what about that hand drawn, crappy artwork? Do you know I'm hot and cold even with my belongings? And I know Joe is like, I care about nothing. And, you know, except the things that maybe are my identity, that possibly. But mostly I care about nothing. And then I have a very close friend who is this anxious and it's like everything is special. No, don't take my memories from me. I hoard every belonging I've ever had.
- [63:10]
Co-host or Interviewer
You're 100% right. Even the patterns. You're so funny. This is so funny, because I help
- [63:17]
Host
people declutter and organize and all of
- [63:19]
Thais Gibson
these things meet needs. So. So even people who are hoarders, usually it's a relationship between their core wounds and their needs. So they have these needs. Like, there's a sentimentality or emotional connection to their belongings, and there's a sense of comfort and safety through that. So those are their needs. Needs. And then their wounds are like, oh, my gosh, if I lose these things connected to people, then I feel abandoned, or then I feel alone, or then I feel unsafe. What if I would have needed that thing in a few years? And now without it, I'm unsafe.
- [63:45]
Host
I did talk about attachment styles in the past, specifically how it, like, correlated with clutter, but we use different words. It was like secure, avoidant, anxious, and disorganized, I think.
- [63:57]
Thais Gibson
Yeah. So disorganized attachment is the exact same thing as fearful avoidant. They're just different schools of thought. So we had John Bowlby and then Mary Ainsworth, and then, you know, different schools of thought that name them slightly different things, but they're the exact same thing. Fearful, avoidant, disorganized are the same thing. Anxious, preoccupied. And then sometimes you'll also hear fearful avoidance, referred to as anxious avoidance. Not to just add so many terms
- [64:19]
Co-host or Interviewer
in here, but secure has always been secure.
- [64:21]
Thais Gibson
Anxious is anxious, preoccupied, dismissive avoidance, the most dismissive avoidant. And then fearful avoidant is also sometimes heard or referred to as disorganized or anxious avoidant, which is actually a good
- [64:32]
Co-host or Interviewer
name because they have that anxious and avoidant side, but those are the ones
- [64:35]
Thais Gibson
in terms of the term.
- [64:36]
Host
This makes so much sense because I got disorganized when I was like other, so. Yeah, but you know what? Fearful avoidant really hit something in my core. You nailed it. You pinned me on the corkboard, and I'm there for life now. Now, wait a minute. I just realized, if people go and sign up for your personal development, then they're gonna be fixed, and then they're not gonna have clutter, and then I'm out of a job. We're gonna throw this whole podcast directly in the trash, because if they get help from you, they will no longer need me. No, but I'm joking. But this I'm not, because that's probably 100 true.
- [65:16]
Co-host or Interviewer
It's a great thing to go together. Then they have structure through what you're doing and support in that way.
- [65:21]
Thais Gibson
But they're not going to try to do things that are recommended and go back and forth with their own, you
- [65:26]
Co-host or Interviewer
know, dynamics and patterns showing up to prevent them from actually moving, moving the needle on things.
- [65:33]
Host
I just love this so much. Thank you so much for being here and it was incredibly insightful and for all of my listeners, I hope you had better get your, your butt to all the links in the description and go and take the quiz and you can with me.
- [65:48]
Co-host or Interviewer
I'm gonna go.
- [65:48]
Host
Personaldevelopment.com I'm. I'm doing it. I'm gonna be healed. Thank you so much for being here.
- [65:54]
Co-host or Interviewer
Thank you for having me. I had such a fun time with you.
- [65:57]
Host
I have to take a quick second to thank today's podcast sponsor, Cozy Earth. I switched to Cozy Earth bedding years ago and honestly, I'm so happy that I did. Especially the sheets. I've become a sheet snob because they're so soft and the more I wash them, the better they become. But they're also temperature regulating. I am full blown menopausal right now. Maybe it's perimenopausal. Whatever it is, it means I get hot, hot at night. My Cozy Earth sheets keep me cool and it just feels like luxury. I deserve my bedroom to feel like a five star hotel and so do you. If you want to give Cozy Earth bedding or pajamas, they have clothing, they have bath towels. It's all amazing. Go to cozyearth.com and use the code clutterbug to save 20%. That's cozyearth.com use that code clutterbug to save 20% off today. My mind is blown. I feel like maybe I took this over and made this a therapy session. I do that a lot. But what you guys. Oh my gosh. My hot coldness. My all my, my, my real struggles with relationships and trust. And I have, yeah, just all of it. All my problems come down to being a fearful avoidant. And now I have not only tools because, yeah, all the, all the. I'm like, I'm a big person. I'm like, ooh, positive affirmations. I'm going to say positive things. But to hear her talk about how that doesn't actually sink down. It's kind of a band aid on top of the wound, but it doesn't heal. The wound was really eye openening and it made so much sense. And yes, we do have to tie things back to memory. To really sink it down deeper into our subconscious and having these tools. I'm serious. I'm. I am excited for this because there's a better way for us. There is hope for us. And if you're a secure attachment, good for you. But for the rest of us out here just struggling with life, now we have a real path to get out of the struggle bus, to get off, to just. I'm gonna let you go now. All I can think about is logging onto this website. So I'm gonna stop yammering, and I'll see you guys next time.
- [68:18]
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