← Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Attachment Styles: What’s Yours & Why It Matters | Thais Gibson
00:56:04
Loading summary
Transcript93 lines
- [00:00]
A
What is the healing process like when you're trying to fix your attachment? Like what's step one?
- [00:05]
B
Rewire our triggers, learn our needs, make sure that we can actually then communicate our needs, rewire our nervous system function, but we actually have to be able to change our boundaries, being able to properly change our behaviors. Foreign.
- [00:39]
A
What if the way you love, fight, text back, or shut down completely in relationships all traces back to how someone held you as a baby. Today's guest, Tyus Gibson says your earliest environment didn't just shape your childhood, it built your attachment style. And it's been running the show ever since. Whether you're anxious, avoidant or somewhere in between, this conversation will help you understand why you connect with people the way you do and how to rewire patterns that no longer serve you. Tyus is the founder of the Personal development school, a PhD in pastoral counseling, and has worked with tens of thousands of people to help them become securely attached. No matter how they started. We get into what actually shapes your attachment style and how early it begins, the truth about daycare and secure bonding and whether you're stuck with your patterns or can change them for good. Plus what what she thinks my attachment style is. Watch this episode on the real Alex Clark YouTube channel or culture Apothecary on Spotify. Pause though, before we get started right here, leave a five star review. Tell me how you found us. Please welcome attachment theory expert Tyus Gibson to Culture Apothecary. What is attachment theory and how does it show up in relationships?
- [01:52]
B
So attachment theory you can think of as essentially being the study of how your adult relationship patterns are affected by your childhood conditioning. So it was originally developed out of Cambridge University with John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. And there's a lot of research about how these four different attachment styles, which by the way, everybody has an attachment style, how they deeply affect the way that you've learned to connect. So the analogy I love to give to people is your attachment style is sort of like the subconscious set of rules. And if you imagine you sit down to play a board game with somebody and you have the rules for Monopoly and I have the rules for Scrabble because we have a different set of rules for how to play the game, there's going to be a lot of unnecessary friction and confusion. And so what essentially happens is we have different subconscious rule books for how to love, what our needs are, what our expectations should be in relationships, how to interact, how to communicate, how to address conflict, and because every single person has an attachment style can cause a Lot of havoc in our relationships. And I'm actually of the belief that the number one determinant of whether or not we're going to have longevity in our relationships is whether or not people are securely attached. And you can actually see this mapped out by divorce rates and relationships. So the divorce rate in relationships is roughly 50%. It's about 41%. And that mirrors exactly the amount of people that are securely attached reported in statistically across the United States of America.
- [03:11]
A
Okay, so what are the different attachment styles?
- [03:13]
B
Yeah, so there are four major attachment styles. So the first one is the securely attached style. So this is a little over 50% of people. Statistically, that number seems to sort of be on the decline actually, in the past generation. But securely attached individuals grew up in a household where they have a lot of what we call approach oriented behaviors in psychology. And so what this essentially means is that a parent or parents are very attuned to their child. So if the child cries, they notice that the child's under distress and they approach the child to try to soothe them. And this sounds like a funny thing, like, okay, just approach oriented behaviors. But it has a huge impact, namely in the fact that if a child grows up with attunement and then somebody actually showing up for them, they basically are conditioned to learn that, oh my gosh, you know, I can trust people, I can express my emotions safely to people, I can rely on other people. And it's healthy and safe to be vulnerable. And people are attuned to me. And so when they have that attunement, they also are able to mirror that back to give attunement, to give trust, to give reliability, and to feel safe in vulnerability. And so this is our securely attached individual. Then we have the rest of the population who's insecurely attached. And there's three major styles. One of them, and you can almost imagine, in a way it's on a continuum. So one of them is the anxious attachment style. Anxiously attached individuals grow up with a lot of inconsistency in childhood. So this could be that they have one really loving, warm parent, and then one who's sort of cold and distant and withdrawn. Or it could also be that you have two very loving parents, but they're always working, they're always on the go, they're not really there. And there could also be experiences where there's an actual abandonment that's severe in childhood. So the loss of a parent, a parent passes away, there's a tragedy. And so essentially this child is conditioned with either real or perceived abandonment. And so what this means is if you have loving parents, but they're working all the time, this child grows up in an environment where love is there, love is taken away, love is there, love is taken away. And it's actually repetition and emotion that fires and wires our neural pathways. And so research actually shows us that if somebody has a lot of inconsistency over time, that can actually impact the brain in ways very similar to somebody being actually abandoned, losing a parent to death, to loss, to divorce, or the parent leaves and doesn't come back. And so this young individual will grow up and they will have a lot of fears around abandonment, fears of love being taken away. And as a result of this, they and their relationships learn to cope by trying to hold on super tight, by trying to make sure they don't let anybody go. And they will be clingy, needy in relationships. They often have a lot of relationships where they try so hard they people please. They do everything they can to impress somebody to win them over. And it's almost like because they hold on so tightly and because they're often people pleasing, they're not very authentic. And it actually creates sabotage behaviors to the relationship. And anxiously attached individuals go through a lot of themes and patterns where they'll go on a few dates, try to win somebody over, then they cling or come on too strong and somebody leaves. And this tends to be a very strong theme throughout the course of their relationships. So that's our anxious, okay, okay. The opposite end of the continuum, in a sense, is a dismissive avoidance. So they grew up in a dynamic where in childhood they. It's sort of characterized by. By strong childhood emotional neglect. And I think when people hear this, they think, oh, my gosh, the parents are never home, the child's growing up, they're cooking at 2 years old, fending for themselves like it's not. Not all childhood emotional neglect is so overt. It's not so extreme because it's emotional neglect. So what often falls beneath the surface is just a lack of attunement. And this can be more covert emotional neglect. And so you can imagine a child growing up in a household where parents are just kind of busy, they're dismissive, they're not present with the kids. And so this child doesn't get a mirror when they're feeling distressed into being able to be present with their own emotions because nobody's present with their emotions. And so what they learn to do is stuff everything way down, keep huge walls up between themselves. And other people, and basically they cope. Their main attachment strategy, just like the anxious person's always trying to get closer and maintain proximity, they're the dismissive avoidance attachment strategy is literally to minimize their needs for attachment. That's how they feel safe. So the dismissive avoidant in their adult years, they've been conditioned to essentially grow up and go, oh, I don't need you. I want to convince myself, I don't need you. And they have a lot of themes and patterns in their relationship dynamics where as soon as somebody gets too close to them, they sabotage, they push away, they leave. All of a sudden, it's too much for them. And so they usually go through these. These dynamics where they'll date somebody for a few months, and as soon as things get real, they leave. Or we may see, once they're in a commitment, and then there's a push for, like, engagement or marriage or kids or that next sort of commitment again, they're often the ones to. To dart out of there. So those are anxious, dismissive.
- [07:44]
A
Okay.
- [07:44]
B
And then the third one you can almost imagine, in the middle of the continuum is the fearful avoidant, or also commonly referred to as the disorganized attachment style.
- [07:52]
A
Is this the most severe?
- [07:54]
B
Yes. Okay. So they. They tend to have the most childhood trauma. We could say. Okay. And so I was actually fearful of an attachment style. And part of why I love this work is, is we talk not just about traditional attachment theory, but the neuroscience of how you can rewire your attachment cell, because neuroplastic plasticity is a real thing, which I'm sure we'll get into today. But, you know, in traditional attachment theories, like, here's your attachment cell, but didn't necessarily talk about how to rewire these things. It just sort of gave a label. And that can be limiting over time. The. The fearful avoidant or disorganized usually grows up with a lot of childhood chaos. So you can imagine a whole series of potential events. But let's just say, as an example, parents are in active addiction, or parents an alcoholic or a parent has narcissistic personality disorder, or you have, you know, just tremendous fighting a really bad divorce. Kids are caught in the middle, really young. And essentially the overarching theme is that the child never knows what they are going to get. And so what they learn to do in terms of how to attach is to stay two steps ahead. So if you imagine, for example, that a parent is an alcoholic, let's say, mom's drinking one day, mom comes home, she's in A good mood. She's very loving, she's very kind, she's happy. And you have these good experiences with love and connection. So you're like, oh, love feels good, connection feels safe. Oh, my gosh, this is nice. Another day, mom comes home, she had a few more drinks, and she's cruel, she's angry, she's this mean drunk, and she's, you know, maybe even abusive. And so instead the child goes, oh, my gosh, love is terrifying. Love is so scary. And so this child grows up to be somebody who goes. They essentially have competing conditioned associations about the same thing. So on one hand they want love, on the other hand they're terrified of it. And so they pinball back and forth. And so what you'll see in their adult patterns is they're the individuals who are always trying to kind of predict, like two steps ahead and be on their toes. They're very hyper vigilant, just like the anxious attachment styles. They always want to get proximity and be close. And the dismissive avoidant always wants distance. The fearful avoidant, their way of attaching is like, I'm going to learn everything about you and get to know you so deeply. Yeah. And try to predict your behaviors essentially in order to feel safe. And they're really hyper attuned to people, so they're. I always joke that fearful avoidance are like human lie detectors because they notice like any little incongruency so quickly, but that's because that's how they've been wired to protect themselves. And so as adults, they enter into relationships, they often come on strong, they're really warm. But then as soon as people get close, they're like, wait, get back. So they're the hot and cold partner. As adults. They want love. They want love. When love is there, they're like, this is too much. And they often will sabotage, too. But then as soon as a person pulls away, they're like, wait, come back again. So they sort of pinball between those two extremes until somebody is able to really do the heat feeling.
- [10:28]
A
You ever see a hot girl during the day? Not like regular hot. I'm talking like cryptic Instagram caption, Right? Lives in a glass box house in Austin.
- [10:38]
B
Hot.
- [10:38]
A
They never have fewer than five drinks in their car at all times. She's got an iced coffee, she's got a green juice, she's got a sparkling adaptogenic, whatever those things are. Mushroom waters.
- [10:48]
B
Okay.
- [10:48]
A
Something beige in a mason jar. And then for balance, a hydro flask the size of a toddler. You know what I added up to my drink lineup because I'm trying to keep up with them. Taylor Duke's Wellness Bone Broth Protein Specifically the new cookies and cream or cinnamon roll flavor because I want hot girl energy but also functioning hormones and digestive piece. This stuff is elite. It is made with 100 grass fed bone broth so you're getting 20 grams of clean protein plus collagen and gut support. No gums, no fillers, no weird natural flavoring that tastes like burned plastic. Make a raw milk milkshake with this. Add chocolate and banana. It is divine and it will not give you dairy regret or existential dread. Go to taylordukeswellness.com use code Alex Clark for 10 off Taylor swellness.com code Alex Clark when I was a kid, my grandpa once thought toothpaste was a snack legitimately. Man sat down with a spoon and ate a full tube of Aqua Fresh like it was a yogurt parfait. We had to call poison control and he still blamed my grandma for buying that mint pudding. Well, that's what happens when you brush with mystery sludge. Unfortunately back then we didn't have Zebras toothpaste tablets. We wouldn't have been so scared if we did. Call me crazy, but I like knowing that I'm not brushing with something that could also be used to strip paint off a Buick. These Zebra tablets are genius. So great for kids too. No fluoride, no hydroxy appetite. If you're sensitive to that, no goopy mess. Just pop one in, chew it and suddenly your mouth is full of foamy minty freshness. Kids love them, which means they'll actually brush their teeth instead of just licking the toothbrush and lying to your face. And let's not forget the rest of Zebra's line. Their deodorant is clean, paraben free, fragrance free and it works in the heat. And the floss, Real silk, no microplastics, no pfas. Just actual dental care. Not floss made from recycled fishing nets in Bangkok. Go to yayzebra.com and use code ALEX for 10 off yayzebra.com code ALEX.
- [12:42]
B
How.
- [12:42]
A
Do you know what attachment style you have? Like, is there like a couple questions that you can see, say out loud and people can figure it out? Or is there a quiz they have to take online?
- [12:50]
B
Yeah, so I have a free quiz and it comes with a really in depth report and it goes through all of these things, but we can sort of dive into the the themes. So traditional attachment theory sort of talks about temperament and patterns, but what we go into is a lot more of the. The depths of things. So there's six major pillars that you can really dive into to see somebody's attachment style. And you'll be able to see first. And the first pillar, it's our triggers. So the things that trigger us in relationships and even trigger us in life. Because ultimately your attachment style is the relationship you have to yourself first. It's all of your own conditioning. So it's going to follow you into the workplace, it's going to follow you into your romantic relationships, your friendships, your relationship to money. At times your. Your glass ceiling in terms of what you believe about yourself and your career. Right. You'll see it really spread into all these different areas of life. But the first pillar is, is our triggers. So anxiously attached individuals and people listening can really listen to this and see, what are the things that trigger me most? They tend to be triggered the most by feeling abandoned. The fear of being alone, feeling excluded, disliked, not good enough, rejected. And they usually have this deep physical sensation in their body. Feeling unsafe when somebody pulls away. Okay, so unsafety. These are their big, big triggers. Dismissive avoidance, on the other hand, a lot of their biggest triggers, the things that really cause them to feel distress will be things like, too much vulnerability makes them feel like, I am weak. They often feel this sense of helplessness when it comes to relationships. Like, I don't know what to do. I don't know how I'm supposed to behave. Like, this is strange, this deep feeling of being not good. But even more than that, this massive wound around shame. Because when a child grows up with emotional neglect, as children, we personalize everything. And so what happens is a child can't sit there and go, oh, you know, my parents are emotionally unavailable. That's the problem. So instead, children really internalize neglect. And they say, oh, there must be something wrong with me at my core that I can't get connection, that I can't get my needs met here. So they harbor this deep sense of being terribly flawed, this deep sense of internal shame, which. Which is part of why they keep people at a distance all the time. So their wounds are a lot around shame, weakness, feeling stupid or not good enough. If they're vulnerable, they really are tough on themselves this way. And also this sense of being trapped or engulfed. Huge fears, you know, not wanting to have to commit too much too soon, a lot of these things. And they often feel quite emotionally unsafe in. In conflict. They don't like conflict. They'd rather just kind of walk away fearful Avoidance share in a lot of because they have that anxious and that avoidance side to them in a sense and they pinball back and forth. So they do fear abandonment. They do fear being, you know, rejected to some degree. They on the other hand have that dismissive side. Although they'll fear being trapped helpless if they have to rely on people often don't really like that. Powerless is a big fear for fearful avoidance. But then also big triggers will be the fear of betrayal. Fearful ones have a hard time trusting people really. But more so like the future with people like okay, you're my partner now and we're in a great space. How can I know you're not going to change your mind in five years, 10 years? How do I you know this fear of trusting the future because if you grew up in a childhood where everything was so chaotic all the time and you couldn't trust your caregivers, of course that conditioning gets projected onto your adult romantic relationships. So that's a huge thing. And then fearful avoidants often have this fear of being bad. They always want to over explain themselves, make sure they seem like a good person, prove their innocence in advance sometimes often because they are exposed to more extreme punishment in childhood. And the last but not least and when fearful wounds hear this, they're like I don't feel like this but you have to observe your behavior is unsafe. So they all share this unsafety core wound in different ways. You'll see it in fearful avoidance because they are spending a lot of time in fight, flight, freeze or fawn. So fearful of ones are often very defensive. They're very riled up. They'll really defend themselves quickly if they feel attacked and almost too strongly at times. They're often quite tough. But then they also spend a lot of time in flight. They'll flee pretty easily from situations freeze. You know that avoidance of looking at things or then fawn people pleasing and fearful. One tends to go through this cycle where they'll people please until they get frustrated, feel taken advantage of, act out, push somebody away, flee then feel badly about it, feel guilty. They're very empathetic. Come back to trying to draw people back in again and not be abandoned.
- [16:51]
A
See, my problem is I hear you describe all of these things and I'm like, I feel like I'm all of them. Like I don't know what I am. So I need to like do the in depth quiz I guess to be honest. Yeah.
- [17:01]
B
And that's just one pillar so we can go into some of the other patterns if you want to see more deeply for people as well. But usually when people say they're all of them, and I hope it's okay to ask you on. On air, but did you have a little bit of chaos growing up?
- [17:13]
A
I don't know what the heck you would call it. That's why it's, like, very confusing. I had two parents in the home. They were both very loving. They just had very strong personalities. And I don't think that from a super young age they tried to, like, emotionally bo with me. I don't think that, like, I always had all my needs met and everything like that. But even as I got older, I'm saying, like, there wasn't a transition from, like, childhood to adulthood. Like, let's bring in, like, more of a friendship element as you're getting older. Does that make any sense?
- [17:47]
B
Yes.
- [17:48]
A
It was like, I was all, I'm always a child.
- [17:50]
B
Interesting. Always treated like a child. Like, never really given respect for, like, your individual opinions or things like that. And do you tend to. When you go through something hard, do you tend to be more private rather than expressive? Yeah, yeah.
- [18:03]
A
I do not share anything.
- [18:04]
B
And are you okay with my parents?
- [18:06]
A
With my parents, Anyone else? I'm like, open book.
- [18:08]
B
Okay. Interesting. And, you know, in our attachment styles, you know, most often we feel the full expression of them and we actually attach to somebody. So, you know, friendships. We may not feel our attachment style quite as strongly, but in when we deeply attach and we feel vulnerable to somebody, that's where a lot of those patterns will come up. And when you do feel attached to romantic relationships. Cause it's often where we're most vulnerable. Do you tend to kind of feel like you need space more than. Than anything from people, or do you feel like you cling on?
- [18:33]
A
It's in between. I think the assumption about me is that I'm a clinger person in a relationship.
- [18:38]
B
I actually was thinking the other.
- [18:40]
A
I, like, don't mind being like, oh, you're gonna do your thing tonight? I'm gonna do my thing tonight. I don't mind that. But then I do, like, like moments together. I feel like I'm.
- [18:49]
B
Yeah.
- [18:49]
A
In between. So I don't know.
- [18:50]
B
I don't feel the need to feel. You're not constantly worrying about abandonment and things like that.
- [18:54]
A
I like reassurance. Like, I'm definitely the type of person to be like, you still like me, right?
- [18:59]
B
Like, I.
- [19:00]
A
That. But I. But I'm not, like, scared. Like, they're constantly cheating on me or, like, needing to, like, obsess over like, are they lying to me? Are they where they say they are? Like, I'm not like that.
- [19:08]
B
Yeah, yeah, you probably lean a little more dismissive avoidant than anything, honestly. Because it doesn't sound like when we have these fears of those things, those are like preoccupations. Yeah, right. And so I wouldn't be surprised if you're like, you know, and I think.
- [19:19]
A
There'S, I definitely always think in the back of my mind, like, when is it coming? Like, when are you breaking up with me? I always think that. So is that dismissive avoidance?
- [19:27]
B
A lot of dismissive avoidance have this deep rooted assumption that that's gonna happen anyways. And so they, but they deal with that assumption. There's this myth too in the attachment world that people who are dismissive would never feel anxious in relationships. Absolutely not the case. They're, they're not robots. They still feel anxious and they will. They have this deep rooted assumption that like, wait, you know, are you gonna. Eventually you're gonna come to see me and deeply know me and you're not gonna like me at my core. But their way of. And this is really what determines somebody's attachment cell almost as much as their wounds. That is how we behave when we have our fears. So dismissive avoidance, when they feel that or believe that they'll prevent themselves from getting closer or attaching more because they're like, well, when are you breaking up with me? You're gonna eventually hurt me anyways. So I don't wanna really open up more. I don't wanna keep getting closer. And so they can feel these moments of anxiety. They can still like reassurance, but deep down they're still trying to like almost keep the door open just in case so that they can prepare in advance.
- [20:18]
A
I definitely do that. And I always think that I'm sabotaging when I do that.
- [20:22]
B
Okay, so the idea of self sabotage is also like a fallacy because one of the things, and I'm sure we'll get into this in a lot of detail, but your conscious mind is Only responsible for 3 to 5% of all your beliefs, thoughts, emotions, actions. Your conscious mind is like your logical, analytical, thinking self. Your subconscious mind is your habitual, your wired self. It's 95 to 97% of all of your beliefs, thoughts, emotions and behaviors. So when you say like sabotaging, right, it's not sabotaging. It's your subconscious mind that's been wired this way, that's been habituated, just trying to keep you safe. You know, nobody wakes up and says, I'm gonna sabotage my relationship today, let's go. Like, nobody's consciously choosing that, but we have these pre existing conditions that are there to literally protect us from things. And so if there was a sense growing up and the, the, the textbook, you know, childhood dynamics where, where somebody would become dismissive, avoidant would be that parents are not very attuned and don't emotionally bond. Um, and so, you know, when that happens, then a child sort of going, okay, well, you know, in this dynamic as an adult, they're preparing. Right. Okay, I've been hurt in the past. I don't want to get too close. People can hurt me again. I don't want to be too vulnerable, too emotional. So that ability to sort of brace in advance is quite common for disability.
- [21:31]
A
But you know what's interesting about me is if I feel like somebody has hurt me, wronged me, has been disloyal to me, I cut them out of my life. Like, could literally never speak to them again. And I feel nothing.
- [21:43]
B
Yeah, like, I'm like, that's very dismissive.
- [21:46]
A
I always wonder that. I'm like, there's something wrong with me because I able to be like, I'm done with you. And I literally could like go 10 years and never speak to them. And I do. And people are like, does that. Are you still really upset about that? I'm like, no. I literally never think about it.
- [21:57]
B
That may not be all bad.
- [21:59]
A
But on the other hand, if it is not my choice and somebody breaks up with me or they don't want to be my friend anymore or some. Or they decide they don't like me or something, or they've ghosted me or not answering me. I absolutely obsess and spiral constantly. Think about it, like, why wasn't I good enough? You know what I mean?
- [22:16]
B
Interesting. In, in romantic relationships as well.
- [22:18]
A
Anything. Yeah, it could like employee. Like I've heard somebody's upset with me, you know, doesn't like me. Or it could be like coworker. I mean, or it could be. Yeah, it could be a ex boyfriend, it could be a family member, it could be a friend, like anything.
- [22:31]
B
Yeah.
- [22:31]
A
But if it's their choice, I'm like freaking out. But if it's my choice, I don't ever think about it.
- [22:35]
B
Yeah, yeah, you just sort of wipe your hands a bit. Yeah. That could also lean you a little bit into the fearful avoidance space. Definitely. You have a rootedness in like the avoidance side, I think more than anything. But that actually has like fearful avoidance one that sort of pinballs a little bit more back and forth. And so there could be a little bit of that portion of you that becomes anxious as well.
- [22:52]
A
What is the timeframe in a child's life where your attachment style is developed?
- [22:58]
B
So the original research into attachment theory talks about zero to two years old. So zero to two years old, you can actually recognize somebody's attachment style. Now this was done out of Mary Ainsworth's experiment of this. It's called the strain situation experiment. And there's so much to talk about in this. So, so this experiment basically had individuals and they had mothers come in with their child and they were in a waiting room that sort of looked like a doctor's office waiting room. And what they did is they had this child sitting with them, you know, hanging out between the ages of 0 to 2 years old. They would then have a stranger walk into the room and have the parent leave just briefly. So now the child's alone in this waiting room with a stranger and within a minute or two the parent would come back in. And what they would do is they could observe how the child would respond and it would determine what their attachment style was. And so this is originally done out of Cambridge University. And what they found is that anxiously attached individuals would be very distressed when their parent walked out of the room and cling on very tightly when the parent returned. Dismissive avoidance, would feel a little bit distressed, but quite quickly go into self soothing. And when the parent returned, so interesting, the parent would come to make a bid for connection to the child and the child would go and just turn their face away and try to like actually minimize their attachment. So they felt this degree of hurt from that person and they were trying to literally push away.
- [24:15]
A
Sounds like me.
- [24:18]
B
And so then you had this dynamic of the fearful, avoidant, disorganized. They would be very distressed again when the, the parent would leave. But when the parent came came back, they expressed a lot of ambivalence. So they would move towards the parent, kind of crawl towards the parent, but then the parent would get close and they'd be fussy and push the parent away. Or the parent would make a bid for connection. They push away, but then the parent would move over, you know, to another chair and the child would try to get closer to the parent. So you could tell they just couldn't figure out what they wanted or where they wanted to be. And they're very hot and cold with the parent. Whereas securely attached kids relatively well self soothed during that situation and had a very Stable response when the parent actually returned.
- [24:56]
A
When are you, like, at the point of no return when it comes to fixing your attachment style?
- [25:01]
B
Never. Never. There's no such thing. Here's something that's really important. So you have this. This attachment style developed at 0 to 2 years old. So what? How does it actually develop? So you're not born with it, okay? It gets conditioned into you through repetition and emotion. So repetition and emotion is firing and wiring our neural pathways all the time. And so whatever we're repeatedly exposed to that's eliciting an emotional response is conditioning us. Conditioning happens the most in the first eight years of our lives because our brain is actually producing mostly alpha and theta brain waves, which is really interesting. It's the brainwaves. You need to be hypnotized. So we're sort of in this, like, light state of trance. We're sponging everything up in the first eight years of our lives. But conditioning never stops. I mean, you even hear on a regular basis, people say things like, oh, you're the sum of the five people you spend the most time around, or these things. That's because people rub off on us. And if you've ever been, you know, I've been with my husband for 10 years, and. And, you know, when. When I think back to who I was before him, and now we've rubbed off on each other a lot over 10 years. You take on traits and characteristics. And so we are conditioning each other. And it also makes a big argument for how. Who are you spending your time with and. And what that does for you. But truly, can everybody's subconscious mind works the same way. And so when we look at this idea that, oh, people are going to be conditioned, and then. And then, you know, if you were extremely fearful, avoidant, you were extremely dismissive, avoidant, well, it might take a little bit more time. Somebody absolutely has to be willing to commit to doing the work. So there's some really powerful tools for rewiring rather than just putting everybody in this bucket of, like, prescribe people medication for their challenges. But instead, okay, let's actually look at how we can change these things and leverage neuroscience. And we form our attachment cell. 0 to 2, our attachment cell can change again throughout childhood. So we could have somebody who's securely attached as a young child, then at 8 years old, 10 years old, you know, they could have the loss of a parent. You know, a parent could pass away from an accident or whatever it might be, and then they're probably gonna become anxiously attached after that. You can also see in people's adult lives that they are, let's say, anxiously attached. They end up dating somebody with narcissistic personality disorder who can be very abusive in relationships, and they may leave that relationship a fearful avoidance. So conditioning is always changing and always happening. And that's something that I think is so important to stress and in this conversation because so often we hear these things and people say, okay, this is my label. This is who I am. And we put ourselves in this category and it's like, well, that actually does more of a disservice long term if we're not able to really go in and see what those themes are.
- [27:24]
A
Did you know your body has zombie cells? Yeah, tiny lazy cells just hanging around doing nothing. They don't work, they don't help. They're just there. Like unpaid interns who nap at their desk every night or on a flight, or when I need to prep my nervous system for reading comments about me on the Internet, I take this tiny little sip of calm beauty from Agent Nator. It's this tart cherry elixir that tastes like juice but works like a full body chill pill without making you drowsy or weird. Completely clean and natural and tastes insanely good. Not to be a downer, but I did have my mom take some of this this every single night with me the week after my dad died before bed. It really did help a lot. It is packed with good stuff like glycine, gaba, theanine, and spermidine. Yes, it sounds like something from a banned seventh grade health class video, but it's actually what clears out those zombie cells and tells your body, hey, let's get it together. You can take it day or night. No melatonin, no crash. Just calm focus and the smug satisfaction of knowing your cells are literally getting younger while everyone else is aging. Like dairy. Gen Z especially. Okay, I had to be funny. I just throw a couple of these little packets in my purse. I take one anytime I need to to feel a little calmer. Go to agentnotour.com use code Alex Clark for 15 off site wide. That's agentnotour.com code Alex Clark for 15 off. I met a guy at a wedding who told me his daughter needed an mri. One MRI insurance wouldn't cover it because they wanted her to try Tylenol and wait it out. She's got a mystery brain issue and big insurance of course is like, well, let's just circle back in Q4. So this dad tells me at the time he just paid out of pocket, 10 grand. Boom, gone. And now this dad is ubering part time and selling essential oils on Facebook. This is America, land of freedom. Unless you want to know what's inside your own head or your child's. That is why I love and speak the truth about crowd health and what they're doing. Because crowd health is not insurance. It's freedom from insurance. You join a community that helps each other out with actual medical costs, not bloated admin fees and yacht payments for some vice president. You get access to telemedicine, a database of cash, doctors, cheaper prescriptions. And when it's your turn and you need help, the crowd helps fund your bills. It is people helping people. It's a Christian owned company. No networks, no piles of paperwork, no one saying, we regret to inform you dot dot, dot. Unless you know it's about your attitude, which I get that email a lot from my boss, Marcus. Let crowd health help with your health care needs. Get started today for just 99 per month for your first three months by using code culture@joincrowdhealth.com Crowd health is not insurance. Learn more at joincrowdhealth.com that's joincrowdhealth.com Code culture. Have you always been securely attached or did you fix yourself?
- [30:18]
B
That was the fearful avoidance. So, okay, yeah, I grew up in a very chaotic household, for sure. Lots of really, really extreme, like, ups and downs, things like that. I struggled in relationships. I was very. I was probably like the crazy girl in relationships when I was younger. And I think, you know, by the time I was like 20 years old, I sort of was like evaluating my life. You know, I grew up fast too. So I was kind of at a point where I left home at 17, got a soccer scholarship to play soccer in Georgia from Canada, and was sort of like trying to escape my home, get out of there, you know, do my own thing. And by the age of 20, I was not doing good in my life. And I sort of looked at things. I was in school for psychology and I looked at things and I was like, okay, like, I'm the common denominator here. Like, it's me. And I was willing to be curious about that. And I wanted help and I wanted to figure things out. I was actually in a psychology class one day and somebody told me they were like, your conscious mind cannot outwill or overpower your subconscious mind. It wasn't even the teacher in the class. It was a student who was reading. And. And I remember thinking, that is the craziest Thing I've ever heard Because I had spent so much time telling myself I was gonna change, I was gonna do things differently. And I was starting to really introspect. But then I would go and repeat the same patterns all the time. And I was like, wait, so you're telling me that my conscious mind, my logical thinking self, is the one saying, oh, I wanna change. But because I'm not able to habituate these things into my subconscious, it's not that I'm weak or not good enough or not capable of change. It's that I don't have the right tools. And so I became obsessed with studying the subconscious mind and neuroplasticity and how we can actually change, Change our brains so that we can produce new outcomes in our behaviors. And that's part of where attachment styles later came into the picture.
- [31:55]
A
Do people have just one style for everything, or can it shift depending on the type of relationship? Like a work, family versus romantic?
- [32:03]
B
The data shows that we basically have a primary attachment style. So we have an attachment style that's like the vast majority of our sort of personality, but we can be slightly different. So, for example, you know, I was a fearful avoidant growing up. A lot of my conditioning around friendships. I was an only child until seven years old, so a lot of my conditioning around friendships. I was kind of independent. So I sort of leaned more in the avoidant way. When I was in friends, you know, friendship, relationships, I kind of was more independent. Didn't want people to, like, ask too much of me right away or rely on me too much, because that was sort of my condition. I grew up very independent in that area. So you can be influenced by, like, the types of relationships and the way they were conditioned, but you're not usually going to see somebody who is extremely anxious and then suddenly is extremely dismissive avoidant in another relationship. If anything, you might see that somebody's anxious, maybe as this bit of a. What we call a secondary, fearful avoidant attachment cell. Some patterns or themes in there. Dismissive avoidant. Like, to me, you strike me as dismissive, maybe a secondary. Little bits of fearful avoidant in there because you have moments of anxiety. So you may see things like that, but. And that. That's actually quite common to see that. But at the end of the day, you sort of have, like, your primary base of where you tend to operate from.
- [33:12]
A
What is the healing process? Like when you're trying to fix your attachment? Like, what's step one?
- [33:17]
B
So we have six pillars, okay? So we have our triggers. Pillar number One, and this is actually the neuroscience of how we change these things. We have to rewire our triggers, okay? So there is absolutely no point when we look at how our triggers affect us. And, and this is its own really big conversation. But when we look at how our triggers affect us, I often use the analogy that our triggers are like tree trunks, okay? So if you have a belief, for example, that says, I'm not good enough, and maybe you acquire that belief because you were constantly being criticized by your parents as kid. As a kid, and your parents probably meant the best possible. Maybe they're trying to prepare you to be better and improve yourself. But maybe it was the parents that were always like, oh, you got an A minus. Why wasn't it an A plus? And. And you're getting that kind of messaging through repetition that's going to wire into you this idea. Okay, well, then I must not be good enough as an adult. If you are carrying that belief through your life at a subconscious level, then let's say you go into a networking event, okay, and you're trying to meet people and you're trying to connect with people. Well, often then that belief is going to come up for you, right? It's going to be catalyzed. You already believe you're not good enough, so we have to watch what happens in our mind. So we have this belief, I am not good enough. Okay? And then from that belief, that tree trunk, we have all of these. These thoughts, these tree branches. So we may think thoughts going into the networking event. Like. Like, I'm not smart enough, I'm not interesting enough, I'm not funny enough, I'm not attractive enough. Like, we're gonna have all these ideas that spring from this core belief, I'm not good enough. So we have beliefs lead to thoughts, okay? Thoughts lead to emotions. How do you feel when you're thinking those things? Okay, you feel insecure, nervous, anxious, whatever it might be. So your beliefs are actually creating your thoughts and emotions. Emotions are made up of neurochemicals, okay? So you look at, like, SSRIs, people get prescribed on all these antidepressants, anti anxiety medications to stabilize your neurochemistry. Well, your thoughts and belief patterns are actually producing neurochemical responses. So it's wild to me because we treat symptoms by doing that, and we don't actually get to the root. And we can maybe talk about some studies there in a second. But, but we have beliefs lead to thoughts, thoughts lead to emotions. And neuroscience has actually proven conclusively that every action we take is based on our emotional state. So a neuroscientist named Antonio Damasio in 2008 proved this without a shred of doubt. So literally, some people will be like, I'm a logical, rational thinker. Well, no, you're making emotionally based decisions at the tipping point, and then you're just quick to rationalize or justify through logic. If we're not in charge of our conditioning, if we're not in charge of our triggers, let's say we have all these beliefs that I'm not good enough, I'm unlovable, unworthy, all these different fears, then that's gonna affect how we think about ourselves, about what we perceive other people thinking about us or imagine they are, how we then emote and feel how our neurochemistry is impacted and how our actions. You know, maybe you go into that networking event and you're, you're feeling defensive in advance or you shut down or whatever it might be because you're believing that idea first. So first path is we have to rewire our triggers. It's life changing to be able to do that, because when you do that, all of a sudden the world opens up. Like you have all of this. And as somebody who started doing this work first and then has worked with like over 40,000 people through our programs over the last like more than a decade, I'll speak for myself. Like you're, you get all this mental, emotional, real estate back. Like when you're constantly triggered by something every day and you constantly have these beliefs and you're feeling distressed and you're not feeling great, and so then to be able to rewire those things is really life changing. So that's first pillar. Okay, rewire our triggers. Second pillar is we need to learn our needs. Everybody has needs in relationships. If you don't consciously know what they are, can't communicate about them, you can't get them met from your partner, you're going to feel less fulfilled. And our needs are the root of how we self soothe. So when we know our needs, we can meet them ourselves. Let's say you have a need for encouragement and you validate your wins on a daily basis. And you're doing that, you know, as a habit. So it gets habituated into your subconscious mind. All of a sudden you start becoming somebody who's more encouraging to yourself. And then we're able to receive encouragement better from other people. We're able to interact with that in healthier ways.
- [36:59]
A
Is that kind of like learning your love language or different.
- [37:02]
B
More important, Honestly, So when we look at love languages, there's five love languages for anybody who's not familiar. It's the work of Dr. Gary Chapman. So we have, for example, one of the most quality time. You wanna have somebody who's a quality time person. And for me, that's my biggest love language. But if I look my biggest need, one of my biggest needs is emotional connection. I don't like surface conversation, surface connection. I like depth with people.
- [37:26]
A
Same.
- [37:26]
B
Yeah. So if I spend a whole bunch of time and I'm sitting there and let's say we're watching Netflix for five hours, that's quality time. But I would take one hour of emotional connection, having a really deep, meaningful conversation, then five hours of just, just quality time. They're both quality time. But when we get to our needs, they're much more specific. And so we can be much more empowered when we understand the language of our needs, to know what truly makes us feel loved and connected in relationships, rather than these sort of more broad categories, if that makes sense. So we've got our wounds or triggers, we've got to rewire them. We have our needs. We need to learn what they actually are, the roadmap to what they are, so we can share and communicate about them. That's really our third pillar, is to learn how to communicate healthily. A lot of people learn and get conditioned growing up with very unhealthy ways of communicating. You know, you might say to somebody, you don't care about me. You never spend enough time with me. Research shows that the moment we're communicating from negative framing, we are Significantly, we're like 92% less likely to actually be heard. And so, you know, well, that just.
- [38:29]
A
Opened a lot of doors for me.
- [38:32]
B
And so you can say to somebody, hey, you don't care about me, you don't spend enough time with me. Or you can say to somebody, hey, I'm feeling disconnected this week. I'd love to do something fun together. Why don't we plan a fun date night on Saturday? And positive framing actually gets us heard, actually gets our needs met so much more substantially.
- [38:50]
A
That's game changing.
- [38:51]
B
And it's such an easy shift. Yeah, it makes a huge difference. And there's other things in communication. There's lots of different pillars, but one other important one that's easy is we often don't communicate how we want the need to be met. And I originally was working with couples in private practice and. And, you know, I remember this one day that I had a couple come in and the Wife said to her husband, she said, you know, I really don't feel supported. I need more support in the relationship. So at the end of the session, they left. And the husband committed to being more supportive this week. And they came back the next week. And before he even sat down, she was like, he didn't support me at all this week. And I looked at the husband and he looked shocked and very offended. And he said, what do you mean? He's like, I did all these chores around the house. I took out the trash every day. I like, tried to make sure that you weren't the only one doing the dishes. And he's listing off all these things. And she's like, I wanted you to tell me that you loved me. I wanted you to like. So for her, support meant actually communicating and being encouraging and words of validating. Yeah, and really specifically reassurance. Because then words of affirmation, sort of a love language, but dismissive avoidance might like words of affirmation around small, sincere things. She was anxious, anxiously attached individuals like words of affirmation around more like, like, you're the best partner ever. I love you so much. Like, they want those, like, bigger sort of compliments. And so, you know, reassurance, validation. And so, you know, I always say to people also when we're communicating, don't just positively frame, but then paint a picture for what that looks like so that there's no miscommunications. And just those two things create a massive impact in the communication pillar. So we can start changing and rewiring through a lot of repetition. We habituate these new systems of how we communicate into the subconscious mind. Rewire our triggers, learn our needs, make sure that we can actually then communicate our needs, rewire our nervous system function. Every insecure attachment style spends far too much time in sympathetic nervous system. So fight, flight, freeze, fawn mode, rather than parasympathetic rest, digest mode. We can do this very easily through things like meditation, breath work. I can get into tools for how to rewire some of the other things too. But meditation, breath work, just a daily nervous system practice. So we feel, you know, body scans comfortable being safe in our body, being regulated. And there's a tremendous amount of research that shows when we're chronically in sympathetic nervous system, we have much more cortisol, much more chronic inflammation. It affects the gut brain access. Like truly, it's not just a mental emotional health and relationship conversation. It's actually a physical health conversation. A lot of people have more histamine when they're constantly in sympathetic nervous system. So we see a lot of those things really pairing together. But, but actually practicing feeling what it's like to be safe in your body through engaging in those activities in a habitual basis for at least 21 days helps us actually rewire how our nervous system is functioning across time. And then our last two are we actually have to be able to change our boundaries. Everybody has. Who's insecurely attached is a pretty dysfunctional relationship to boundaries. Fearful winds are very hot and cold. No boundaries at all. Then they get frustrated, then they hyper fixate on boundaries. Anxious attachment styles are pretty boundaryless all the time. Dismissive avoidants have extreme boundaries more often, but there can be some variation in that. And then our last pillar is being able to properly change our behaviors. So a lot of fearful avoidance and dismiss avoidance engage in a lot of like creature comforts. Numbing out, binge watching television, binging on social media, binge eating food, using drugs, alcohol. They're just much more likely to sort of fall into that category. And so we can actually rewire these things. Even the things where we will cling in relationships or you know, stonewall people, those are actually things that can again be behaviorally changed through neuroscience.
- [42:27]
A
I wore new high heels because apparently I hate myself. And 20 minutes in it felt like I was walking on razor blades taped to my feet. I took one shoe off and saw a blister so bad it looked like it had a LinkedIn profile. This is precisely why actual of skin repair is always on me. I keep that thing on me. It's this genius skin health spray that uses hypochlorous acid. Sounds scary, but it's literally what your immune system already makes to heal stuff. It cleans, it soothes, reduces inflammation and makes your skin go h thank God somebody finally did something. It's non toxic, natural, and unlike the emotional damage from those heels, this actually heals you. It's like having a tiny er in a bottle. For blisters, scrapes, scrapes, burns, rashes, and whatever other drama your skin decides to throw at you. Active skin repair has over 500000 happy customers and ingredients so clean you could use it on a baby or a dog. Go to activeskinrepair.com use code Alex for 20 off, that's activeskinrepair.com promo code Alex. And maybe skip the stilettos next time. You ever wake up, look in the mirror and think, why does my face look like it lost a custody battle and my feet are stinky? Well, I can't help you with the second part, but last week I caught my own reflection and I thought, did somebody throw a grilled cheese at a window? And then I realized that's just my face. Anyway, if any of that sounds like you. Probably doesn't. Because nobody lives inside the dark crevices of my brain. You should try Adele Natural Cosmetics. It's a family run toxin free makeup company that doesn't put liquid death and chemical warfare in their products. That's right. No petrol byproducts, no nanoparticles, no ingredients that sound like failed Russian satellites. Just clean, holistic, handcrafted ingredients made right here in the USA by people who believe in God and good skin. Adele's non toxic cream blush is a favorite amongst my audience. If you've not tried it, you really need to. It's one of the best cream blushes I've ever used. If gold jewelry looks good on you, you might like the shade Peach. If silver jewelry like me looks good on you, try the shade Raspberry. I love it. Their foundation brush, by the way, random, but that brush, if you wear any cream or liquid foundation is my most favorite brush I have ever used. For foundation, go to ad adele natural cosmetics.com use code ALEX for 25 off your first order. That's adele natural cosmetics.com code ALEX for 25 off your 1st order. Which attachment style has the best sex?
- [44:49]
B
It depends how you're defining great sex. Okay, so securely attached people report the most fulfillment and consistency across their sex life over time. Makes sense.
- [44:59]
A
Yeah.
- [44:59]
B
And you could make a really great argument for the fact that that is because they have really healthy patterns in terms of emotions and, and you know, intimacy that's sort of preceding sex where they actually feel connected to each other and comfortable being vulnerable. So there's that. Fearful avoidance are often the most passionate in relationships. They are known for being sort of the novelty passion sort of seekers. And so they may have that kind of dynamic but fearful avoidance also will very much shut down sex or feel very hot and cold with sex like they do with everything else in their lives when they're fearful, avoidant, um, dismissive avoidance tend to sort of polarize into one of two categories where they may be actually very reserved and not really even interested in sex until they have a much deeper connection with somebody. Um, but they can also move in the direction of sort of leading with sex as a way to connect. Okay, so they kind of go 5050 either way. There's not really a gray area for them. Anxiously attached individuals actually report the least amount of orgasms around sex because they spend a lot of time, people pleasing in sex and trying to make sex all about the other person. And they're not really like authentic or being themselves or sort of letting somebody in that.
- [46:03]
A
What impact does daycare have on a child's attachment style?
- [46:07]
B
It depends so much on the environment that they're in. So if you grow up and you're a young child and you are in a daycare system where the individuals, like, let's say there's 12 other kids there and there's one person running the daycare or two people running the daycare, I mean, those kids are just not really going to get the degree of attunement that's actually healthy and necessary to develop into a secure attachment style. And more than anything, when we're looking at our attachment style and the conditioning, you want to look at where you spend the most time. So I had a client once and she was an Olympic gymnast and she had very secure parents, very, very secure upbringing. But you know, she would spend three hours in the gym in the morning, go to school, three hours in the gym in the evening. And her coach, one of her primary coaches was very unhealthy. Right. So she become, she became insecurely attached because she was exposed to a lot of repetition, which is what's firing those neural pathways of more time in her waking life there than at home with her very secure parents. So, you know, it depends as well. Like if kids go into daycare and they're there for the day, but then they have a really secure home, they're spending much more time at home, maybe they're just in daycare for half the day, then you're gonna make a pretty good argument for the fact that somebody could, could still be securely attached. But if we go from daycare to after school programs to parents also sort of being dismissive in the home, and if that, that proportion of where the child is spending that time is in a place where they're not getting the attunement that they need. If the people running the daycare are unhealthy, volatile, shaming of emotions, hot and cold, I mean, all of those things, it's really going to depend on like the, the situation more specifically. But those are really important things for parents to be vetting for their kids. Like who's running the daycare, what's the, the ratio of adults to children, what's the, you know, all those types of things are really important questions.
- [47:49]
A
What is the relationship between attachment styles and mental health?
- [47:53]
B
Issues. Yeah. So this is a really important one. I think that, you know, when we look at the mental health issues in the world, I think that a lot of them, I mean, they start in our home, right? They start in like how we are conditioned. We talked about how our triggers affect our thoughts, our emotions, our actions, how we've learned to soothe ourselves. And I think one of the biggest issues happening right now in the, in the healthcare field, in the mental health space is we sort of have this like medical industrial complex that we talk about in regards to Big Pharma. And that's playing a huge role in like the physical health space. But we're not looking at enough in the mental health space. So if you look at individuals who, let's say, grow up with unhealthy patterns, unhealthy programming, they may have a lot more triggers, a lot more negative emotions, a lot more unhealthy actions. Rather than actually addressing those things and learning about neuroplasticity and the fact that it's a miracle, miracle we can rewire our brains and it's not even that hard. And so what you see a lot of times is we have 30 million Americans in the US who are prescribed SSRIs, so selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors that are literally for depression and anxiety in cases, certain cases, and another 10 million young Americans between the ages of 10 to 18 years old, also prescribed. And the craziest part about all of this is that only one third of individuals who are prescribed those medications are actually formally diagnosed with depression or anxiety. So we have this onslaught of overprescription. And then when you actually dig a little bit deeper, you probably think, well, geez, these must be like the best drugs ever, because everybody's taking them, they must be doing a great job. But when you actually look at the safety and efficacy profile, you'll see that that's not necessarily the picture that gets painted. And instead we see Big Pharma around. Prescription medication specifically since the early 2000s, has paid out over $62 billion in damages. And obviously a large portion of that is due to the opioid crisis. Right, That's a huge piece. But then there's actually another really big bucket that's not being talked about enough. And it's the fact that so many people are being prescribed SSRIs, and there's a lot of damages being paid out for those things. And so when you dig a little bit deeper into that and what those damages are actually being paid out for, it sort of falls into These three major buckets. Bucket number one, sadly, is actually about mothers who are taking antidepressants while pregnant and then having their children be born with birth defects. A lot of damages being paid out to that. Then you have two other buckets where the actual safety and efficacy profile. So to give an example, the European Medical Agency did an analysis of over 70 different clinical trials of people being prescribed SSRIs. And what they actually found was that across these 70 trials, there was a 279% increase in chances that somebody taking the SSRIs. We're going to be more violent, more aggressive, and we're actually reporting higher degrees by 279% of suicidal ideation, suicidal thoughts, and attempts at suicide itself. And so we have this dynamic of going like, well, then what the heck is happening? We have all these drugs. There's a lot of conflicting data out there. Are they even working? Are they even safe? And so when you sort of follow the money a little bit around that, the next thing that you see is that psychiatrists who are very much a part of the medical system that's treating symptoms, not roots. And I'm not saying there's not a place for them or that there's not a time. And I'm definitely not saying that people should just stop taking antidepressants if they're taking them, because there's a lot of withdrawals that are actually also under reported. That has to be a very like between somebody and their psychiatrist relationship. But psychiatrists, since between 2014 and 2020, just psychiatrists collect over $340 million from pharmaceutical companies direct, directly paying them due to prescription medication. In the vast majority of those cases, psychiatrists are. It's almost like a membership. Like a lot of them are being paid. Every time the person renews their prescription, they're getting a cut of that. And wow. And so we have a system that's incentivized to treat symptoms rather than roots. And like, like I was saying, we have the miracle of neuroplasticity. We can change our brains. And I really like to look at like, well, what are our attachment patterns? What are our attachment styles? Where did we develop unhealthy patterns? How can we see those different pillars and how they're interacting in our lives and start actually rewiring them. And so we do this thing, it's called the subconscious rewiring system. We go through those six pillars and help people actually change those themes. Because once you know how to do that and the tools for that, it's free you get to keep it for life. You get to, you know, how your brain works instead of going into this sort of system where, okay, I'm feeling depressed or I'm feeling upset or I'm triggered frequently, and like, okay, great, now I'm gonna take these drugs for the rest of my life. And when we treat the symptoms, the. The roots of these problems often fester, and it even become worse over time.
- [52:26]
A
What are some of your favorite books on attachment styles?
- [52:29]
B
Some of my favorite books, I would say more than anything. Like, the. One of the. The first early books that are great. That was great. Was the book Attached. Okay. And it gives a great framework in terms of, like, what are attachment styles? Things like that. But. But one of the things that stood out to me in that book, and I don't want to say anything too negative, but just, it says, if you're fearful, avoidant, or disorganized, it's like, good luck. Oh, you're screwed. And so, you know, I actually wrote a book about attachment styles and how we can rewire them. And it's for everybody, because everybody's subconscious mind works in the same way. So if you don't like the patterns and themes that are in your life in regards to your mental health, your relationships, like, one of the biggest things is be an advocate for yourself. Don't just go to a doctor or psychiatrist and just say, okay, let me just take something for this. It's fine if people feel the need to do that for a period of time, but you have to make sure you're working on the roots of these things first. You're not born with these patterns. They get conditioned into you over time. So we can leverage the understanding of conditioning to actually rewire these things. And I think it's a bit of a tragedy that there's such a huge uptick. You know, since COVID there's a 30% increase in young adults, literally preteens and adolescents taking antidepressants, going. Reporting higher rates of depression and anxiety. And it's like a lot of the system, unfortunately, is going, okay, take your medicine. You know, take your medications. Rather than, hey, we actually have neuroplasticity. We can change these things. And so I think people really need to learn about that and learn how to advocate for themselves in their relationship with their doctor so that they're questioning things. They're looking at the studies of the drugs that they may be taking. I mean, I think there's a lot there to explore.
- [53:59]
A
And what is the name of your book?
- [54:01]
B
It is called Learning lap five. And it's the, the. So we have a process called integrated attachment Theory. Gibson Integrated Attachment theory. And it's a theory of how we can actually rewire our attachment style.
- [54:11]
A
What is the best place for people to connect with you if they want to work with you directly on their attachment style?
- [54:16]
B
So at the personal development school. So if you go to personal developmentschool.com we have all these programs for sort of like boot camps and it teaches people the neuroscience of their mind. They go into their six pillars, they get this really in depth profile of those six pillars and then we go in depth in terms of how to rewire these things and people get to keep those tools for life.
- [54:34]
A
If you could offer one remedy to heal a sick culture, physically, emotionally or spiritually, what would it be?
- [54:40]
B
I would 100% say to learn about neuroplasticity and the fact that we can rewire these things and to take your mental health into your own hands that way where you research and learn how your brain works. Like we have to learn how our body works a lot of the time. And so learning how our brain works too, and setting ourselves up for success that way is, is. Is really valuable.
- [54:57]
A
You are like whip smart. I mean, you are incredible. You know your stuff, which is always so fun when I have a guest on like that. Where can people follow you on social media?
- [55:07]
B
Um, so I am at Thais Gibson. So t h a I s Gibson Dash Personal Development School on YouTube and then Personal development underscore school on Instagram.
- [55:16]
A
Perfect. Thank you so much for coming on Culture Apothecary.
- [55:19]
B
Thank you so much for having. I'm honored to be here with you.
- [55:25]
A
What do you think your attachment style is? Let's have a discussion in the Cute servitors Facebook group. I'd like to see what the majority of cute servatives identify as not gender, but attachment. Leave a five star review for us. If you enjoyed this episode and you learned something new. We post new episodes on Culture Apothecary every Monday and Thursday. We're trying to heal a sick culture physically, emotionally and spiritually. Those come out 6pm Pacific, 9pm Eastern. Also, subscribe to the Real Alex Clark YouTube channel. You'll find vlogs and all kinds of extra content as well as being able to watch the episodes. Merch is@tpusamerch.com code Alex Clark will get you 10 off. I'm Alex Clark and this is Culture Apothecary.