Episode 561: Thais Gibson: The Four-Attachment Styles Explained + Why "Self Sabotage" Is A Myth

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Habits and Hustle – Episode 561

Guest: Thais Gibson
Host: Jennifer Cohen
Title: The Four Attachment Styles Explained + Why “Self Sabotage” Is A Myth
Date: June 9, 2026

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Overview

In this in-depth and practical episode, host Jen Cohen interviews Thais Gibson, a PhD in pastoral counseling and expert in over 13 therapy modalities. The conversation focuses on the science and practice of attachment styles, the myth of self-sabotage, and how to rewrite our subconscious conditioning to achieve fulfillment in relationships and personal growth. Thais unpacks how attachment patterns form, what they look like in adult life, and delivers actionable strategies for real change—dispelling common myths along the way.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Background and Philosophy

• Thais Gibson's Approach: Blends neuroscience, psychology, and spiritual/philosophical teachings such as Zen Buddhism to understand the subconscious wiring behind human behavior.
  • “My thing, for sure, has always been where neuroscience overlaps with psychology and different spiritual teachings… especially our subconscious mind and how we get wired and how that changes.” — Thais (00:38)
• Emphasis on Rewiring: Our attachment and behavioral patterns are not fixed; through neuroplasticity, we can recondition our minds for healthier outcomes.

2. The Subconscious Mind & The Myth of Self-Sabotage (02:08, 03:06)

• How We Make Decisions:
  • “95 to 97% of all of our beliefs, our thoughts, our emotions, and our actions or choices, decisions are made at a subconscious level. That’s a part of us. It’s our habituated self.” — Thais (02:08)
  • The conscious mind (3-5%) cannot overpower the subconscious.
• Self-Sabotage Debunked:
  • “There’s no such actual thing as self-sabotage. What we experience as self-sabotage is our conscious mind intending one thing … and our subconscious mind having different conditions that go against it.” — Thais (03:06)
  • Example: New Year’s resolutions fail because the subconscious is not on board, not because of willpower failure.

3. Needs and Limiting Beliefs Drive Behavior (04:59)

• Core Subconscious Drivers:
  • Two main forces: unmet needs and limiting beliefs.
  • Real-life example: a woman unable to stick to healthy habits until she addressed her need for social connection and comfort by integrating community into fitness.
• Childhood Programming:
  • Early associations (such as food with comfort/safety from breastfeeding) continue to drive adult behavior.

4. How to Uncover Your Own Blocks (09:55, 11:34)

• Needs Assessment:
  • Personality needs (e.g., freedom, autonomy, connection) often conflict with conscious goals.
  • Explore “why” you self-sabotage by looking at needs and beliefs, not just surface behavior.
  • Key Insight: Restrictions can trigger rebellion if freedom is a core value; discipline can be reframed as a path to freedom.

5. Attachment Styles Defined and Differentiated (13:27)

• The Four Main Styles:
  1. Secure: Comfortable with closeness and independence; communicate and honor boundaries.
  2. Anxious (Preoccupied): Fear of abandonment, people-pleasing, rumination, seeks external validation.
  3. Dismissive Avoidant: Values autonomy, suppresses emotions, fears vulnerability, often self-soothes with hobbies.
  4. Fearful Avoidant (Anxious-Avoidant/Disorganized): Craves intimacy but fears it, experiences internal chaos, often came from unpredictable or traumatic childhood environments.
• Deep Dive into Avoidants (13:43, 18:34):
  • Fearful Avoidant: "They really want love and closeness, but they're also scared of it... they're very hot and cold." (16:51)
  • Dismissive Avoidant: "Their overarching theme in childhood is more childhood emotional neglect... their adaptation is to become hyper independent." (17:41)
• Notable Quote:
  • “Fearful avoidants are kind of the human lie detectors… they just notice every little shift.” — Thais (16:51)

6. Social Media, Trends, and the Dangers of Labeling (22:08, 22:30)

• Attachment Styles as Excuses:
  • Over-identification or using styles as excuses leads to stagnation and avoidance of growth.
  • “The only reason you should ever be interested in learning your attachment style should be that you go understand your underlying patterns and start to rewire them and help.” — Thais (22:50)
• Trends: Narcissism, ADHD, attachment styles — often misused as blame/avoidance for personal responsibility.

7. Why “Date a Secure Person” Often Doesn’t Work (24:48)

• Subconscious familiarity trumps conscious intention:
  • “As an anxious person, you end up being in a position where you dismiss yourself... you’re most attracted to people who will dismiss you as well.” — Thais (24:48)
  • People are drawn to experiences and people that feel “familiar” to their subconscious, even if it’s unhealthy.

8. The Fluidity and Changeability of Attachment Styles (28:52)

• Attachment styles can and do change throughout life with new experiences and intentional work.
• “Whatever we’re exposed to our entire life through repetition and emotion rewires us.” (29:42)
• Only about 50% of people are “secure” (childhood data), and that number may be inflated due to self-report bias.

9. The Five Pillars of Rewiring Attachment (35:56, 56:17)

To become securely attached:

1. Rewire Core Wounds: Identify and update deep limiting beliefs (e.g., “I am not good enough” → “I am good enough”).
2. Rewire Relationship to Needs: Understand and effectively meet your own needs.
3. Regulate Nervous System: Learn techniques to stay balanced and out of fight/flight/fawn.
4. Healthy Communication: Develop and practice effective, open communication.
5. Boundaries: Learn and uphold personal boundaries at the subconscious level.

• “All of them are designed to rewire these patterns we’re carrying at a subconscious level.” — Thais (61:37)

10. Practical Tools for Healing Limiting Beliefs (57:26)

• Affirmations Don't Work: Subconscious speaks in imagery and emotion, not words.
• The 3-Step Rewiring Process:
  1. Identify core wound and its opposite.
  2. Recall 10 memories when the opposite was true (using visuals and emotion).
  3. Listen/visualize these in a suggestible state (first thing in morning or before bed) for 21 days.
  • “If you found yourself feeling the feelings in your body and visualizing ... we got a 99.7% NPS score. And trust me, it really, really works.” — Thais (60:47)

11. Other Notable Topics Explored

• Chemistry vs. Compatibility:
  • The subconscious craves the familiar, even if it’s chaotic or unhealthy.
• Social Media’s Impact:
  • Trends can drive real behavioral expectations; conditioning is happening through repetition and exposure.
• AI as Therapist - Potential Pitfalls:
  • “The AI loves to validate you... it may stop you from having the awareness of what’s going on inside you.” — Thais (64:23)
  • AI may source from dubious “basket” of the internet, reinforcing unhelpful patterns.

12. Addressing Codependency (79:09)

• Root Cause: Lack of sense of self, inability to self-soothe, belief that one is responsible for others’ feelings.
• Solution: Rewire beliefs, practice meeting your own needs, build identity in seven life areas, actionable steps.
  • “Healing codependency… is rewiring the beliefs that are keeping you codependent” — Thais (80:25)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Social Media and Labels:
  • “If I never hear the word narcissist again, attachment style, ADHD… what mental health issue you may have or what psychological, you know, issue you may have to then just ... treat people badly. And to me ... own it, accept it, either, you know, fix it.” — Jen (23:00)
• On Familiarity and Attraction:
  • “What’s actually most familiar to all of us is the way we treat ourselves.” — Thais (24:48)
• On Self-Awareness vs. Change:
  • “You can be very self aware and still make the same mistake over and over again... but unless you’re rewiring them at a subconscious level, 95% of you is still going to keep running the show.” — Thais (69:35)
• On Real Love vs. Limerence:
  • “Limerence is intense infatuation to the point of like extreme self-abandonment... if you look at limerence, a lot of it is about fantasies of a future.” — Thais (69:56)
• On Action over Intellect:
  • “That’s where... 99% is execution. 1% is what? Inspiration. And no. Yeah, 1% inspiration. 99% perspiration.” — Jen (81:51)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

| Topic | Timestamp | |------------------------------------------------|--------------------| | Introduction, Thais' background | 00:07 – 01:55 | | Subconscious mind & self-sabotage | 02:08 – 04:59 | | Needs & limiting beliefs explained | 04:59 – 08:39 | | Personalizing core wounds | 09:40 – 11:34 | | Attachment style deep dive | 13:27 – 32:59 | | Labeling & social trends | 22:08 – 24:03 | | “Date a secure person” myth | 24:48 – 28:34 | | Fluid/re-wirable nature of attachment | 28:52 – 32:59 | | Five Pillars of Rewiring | 35:56 – 38:31 | | Rewiring limiting beliefs (Practical exercise) | 56:17 – 61:27 | | Limerence vs. love | 69:56 – 74:25 | | Codependency & actionable advice | 79:09 – 81:13 |

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Actionable Takeaways

• To change your relationship patterns, work at the subconscious level—not just with willpower or surface insight.
• Identify your unmet core needs and limiting beliefs; align your goals with your needs to avoid internal resistance.
• Challenge the way you frame attachment styles; use knowledge for growth, not as an excuse or label.
• Healing is available to anyone—neuroplasticity and actionable tools make change possible.
• Use memory-based emotional rehearsal (not affirmations) to reprogram deep beliefs.

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Where to Find More

• Free Attachment Style Assessment: personaldevelopmentschool.com
• Thais Gibson on Social: IG, YouTube, Podcast
• Action-oriented online programs from the Personal Development School (group sessions, $67/month).

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Host Jen’s Wrap-up:
“99% of it is execution. 1% is inspiration ... I like things that are actionable, that people can apply to their life as opposed to just, you know, talking and learning.” (81:51)

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For anyone seeking deeper understanding and actionable tools for self-regulation and authentic relationships, this episode provides a masterclass in the intersection of neuroscience, subconscious programming, and everyday connection.

Transcript

[A]

Hi, guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it.

[B]

Wow. Okay. What a morning today. Okay, today, you guys, you don't even want to know my morning. But the good news is we have a very, very cool guest joining us today on the show. Her name is Thais. I said that right. Tyeese Gibson, who is certified in over 30, 13 therapy. Oh, my God. 13 modalities.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Wow. And you also are a PhD in

[A]

pastoral studies, Pastoral counseling. So I'm a.

[B]

Tell me what that is.

[A]

Okay, so I. My thing, for sure, has always been where neuroscience overlaps with psychology and different spiritual teachings. So pastoral counseling links back to Christianity and Christian studies. And then I've been a huge fan for years of like, studying Zen Buddhism and mindfulness and all these different things. And they played such a huge role in my own life that I really sought to understand, okay, if I started on that path and that was so big for me, what was happening from like a neuroscience psychology standpoint that they were so impactful. So that's where I went into all these different certifications in cognitive behavioral therapy and neuro, linguistic programming and hypnotherapy and trying to just bridge understanding, especially our subconscious mind and how we get wired and how that changes and how a lot of these different teachings have an impact on our neuroplasticity and impact our brain and the way that we show up and move in our lives. Lives.

[B]

No, I know a lot of the lot of the things that I. I always kind of think. When I think, when I think about you, I think about the attachment styles. Because so much of your content and what you speak about is about all of our. Our programmed. Right. Attachment styles. And you're a big believer that we can. We can. We can reprogram ourselves to change our attachment styles to have better relationships. Not just personally in terms of man, woman. It could be friends, it can be husband, wife. It could be. It could be on every level, right?

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

My first question to you is, when we make a decision, in your opinion, are we basing the decision on our subconscious mind or our conscious mind?

[A]

It's a great question. So 95 to 97% of all of our beliefs, our thoughts, our emotions and our actions or choices, decisions are made at a subconscious level. That's. That's a part of us. It's our habituated self. So it's sort of the warehouse of all of our conditioning and programming. And it's interesting because you hear about it in spiritual teachings, kind of almost referred to as like the ego. Right? It's like the warehouse of all of your conditioning. And it's so interesting how we get wired with these different patterns. But then your conscious mind is only 3 to 5%. And what's really crazy is that your conscious mind, that 3 to 5% of you cannot outwill or overpower the subconscious mind.

[B]

Isn't that crazy? So if, if most of what we do is based on that and that number, but yet like the. We have no idea what we're even. What, what's even in our subconscious. Right? So it's kind of we have. Is it. Do we. Do we go by our intuition? Like how do we know when and when we're being controlled by our subconscious? And then how do we like stop it in its tracks to take us on a trajectory that would be bad for us?

[A]

Great question. So it's very context specific. So that's why I got into attachment styles. Cause it's sort of the warehouse of our deepest conditioning from our childhood. And you can find it based on your patterns and themes according to how you learn to attach. It's such a foundation of like what your conditioning will become. And so we can come back and explore that. But one of the easiest things to do is to recognize that there's no such actual thing as self sabotage. What we experience as self sabotage is our conscious mind intending one thing with that 3 to 5% of us and our subconscious mind having different conditions that go against it. So nobody's waking up and saying, oh, today I'm gonna sabotage my life, like there's no such actual thing. But if we say, okay, I'm gonna quit eating chocolate or I'm gonna go to the gym every day, or I'm going to set these New Year's resolutions for myself. Well, why do we think that roughly 88% of people fail their New Year's resolutions in the first seven days? Because when we set goals, it's only with our conscious level of mind.

[B]

You know, it's interesting. I want to, I want to interject there because I know what I do a lot. And this is. It's always been very. It's nerve wracking when I know I have to do a particular thing. Like, like a shoot of some kind, like a fitness shoot. I've been in fitness. I was really heavily a fitness person many years ago. I've kind of morphed and evolved since. However, when I knew I had to do something that was really, really time sensitive. Like I had six weeks to get ready for this eight weeks or something like that, without fail, I would, what you call it? There's no such thing as self sabotage. But I would self sabotage purposefully. Like I would overeat intentionally. I'd eat the wrong things. I would not want to do the thing. Like I would go against my, my conscious want for that thing.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Why would I, why do I do that? If there is a goal in mind that I really want to achieve, why am I self, I say it. Self sabotaging. Even if I think I know that's not what I want to happen. Like I know I would. I know what I want to happen. I do the opposite.

[A]

Okay, so I'll give you a rabbit hole answer, but it'll come full circle and be super interesting. Okay. We have two major things that are driving us at a subconscious level all the time. Our limiting beliefs that we've acquired and then our needs. Okay, so let's start with our needs because the limiting leases is a little more obvious. Everybody has subconscious drivers that are driving their behavior all the time. And we have six basic human needs. And then how we get used to meeting those needs become our personality needs. They're sort of like our personal needs. So I was working with a woman once and she came into to meet with me and she said, hey, like I am here to actually do the psychological work. She's pre diabetic. She just got told by her doctor she's pre diabetic. And she's like, every year for the last 12 years I've told myself I'm going to eat healthy, I'm going to go to the gym. And I don't. And I've tried meeting with dietitians, nutritionists, all these things. I don't, I just, I go through the same patterns, what's going on. So we did her needs assessment and what we found is her biggest needs at a subconscious level. These drivers were for family, social connection, emotional connection, comfort and safety. And so what happens is your conscious mind says, I want to eat healthy, I want to go to the gym every day. And her subconscious mind says, no, that's going to take time away from family. Social connection, emotional connection, safety and comfort. We don't feel these things. And so these drivers, it's like your conscious mind intends someone with that 3 to 5% and your subconscious programming says something else. Second to that. What's also really interesting is that our earliest wired conditioning around food, it happens when we're being breastfed and when a mother is breastfeeding their child. Well, what happens? Well, There's a tremendous amount of oxytocin produced, the bonding neurochemical. So all of our wiring deeply about food is that food equals safety and comfort and being held and being protected and cradled and connection. So our wired associations to food are that it gives us safety, connection, comfort. And so what ends up happening for a lot of people, as they say, I want to quit eating chocolate or quit, you know, or go to the gym every day. And this woman, what we had to do is we had to find a way to link her subconscious needs with her conscious mind's goals. So we had her, you know, social connection, family. We had her start there. We got her to go to group spinning classes with her friends, group yoga classes in our social community. We got her to sit down and then start doing hiking classes with her or going to hiking groups with her husband, going to the park on weekends with her, her family, all these things that were more active. So instead of her conscious and subconscious assuming that these things are separate, they were now working together, and right there, that diminished so much of what the resistance was, because now those conscious desires or goals with the subconscious needs were in alignment and in resonance instead of dissonance, instead of against each other. Right. She no longer sits there thinking. Going to the gym and doing all these things takes time away from social connection, takes time away from family. Now she's lined them up together. Right.

[B]

How do you figure that out, though? There's a lot of people.

[A]

There's a needs assessment.

[B]

Okay, is there a needs assessment?

[A]

And I can take you through how to find them in a second. There's. There's a few. Your needs are always gonna be in your behaviors, but we can come back to that. The second part of it is that we have these limiting beliefs. So a lot of times, if we acquired because of our childhood things like I'm deserving, undeserving, or unworthy, then sometimes when we get really close to a goal that we have, we sabotage because we just don't believe that we're worthy of it. Or if we think we're not good enough, then we sabotage because we just don't think that we're deserving of having that thing. So there's ways to find, both through a needs assessment and through a questionnaire to find your core wounds or limiting beliefs, what those things are. And then you rewire these limiting beliefs through neuroplasticity and changing. There's an exercise that we do, and I'm happy to share that. And then you align your conscious mind's goals with your subconscious needs. And all those things that were causing resistance at a subconscious level are out of the way. So if you want to go back to that for a second and say yours, like, when you think of that time period where you would sabotage as you were getting closer, a good way to find your limiting beliefs on this side is as you were going to go up and I'm assuming it was like a competition that you were preparing for.

[B]

No, it was like a cover of a magazine. It's happened also in all sorts of times. Like, I guess I've never been like a bodybuilder by any stretch, but I do a lot of. I did a lot of work in like, the. I still do health and wellness, but on the. More on the business side. So when people were profiling me or I had to do a cover for. I was getting ready for like a fitness magazine. A couple times they put me on the COVID I. I never thought of it though, as me feeling unworthy of it. But if I would maybe go dig deeper, I would. Like you have, like, maybe that was why. I mean, can I ask you and

[A]

we can try to find it.

[B]

Sure, if you want.

[A]

So you're gonna go think of a specific time in your mind.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Do you have a specific time that you remember doing this?

[B]

Oh, all the time. I do it all the time.

[A]

It work success. If you do a specific one.

[B]

But I was going to say that. The thing that I was going to point to was that I really believe it's because I don't like having restrictions. Like, I'm a. I don't like when people. I. I feel like. When I feel like I'm a caged animal or when I cannot do something that makes me want to do it more.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

So like with anything, like, if I say I'm only going to have this for dinner tonight, those are the nights I'll eat 97 more, you know, 100 calories, and I'll have the bad thing because I don't like to feel deprived or restricted.

[A]

Perfect. Okay. So you didn't even have to go.

[B]

I know. I didn't have to answer my own question.

[A]

So big need for freedom. Big need for freedom is probably the one of the needs. So one of our. One of our needs that's in our personality needs is freedom. Free freedom, autonomy, independence. Those can be big ones. So probably your conscious mind says restrict. Your subconscious mind says, no, we're prioritizing freedom. It's a big need. So then that's what we sabotage. But it's not actual sabotage. You're not choosing sabotage. Your subconscious programming is just winning out. And on the flip side, sometimes we can have core wounds or these limiting beliefs. And some of the big ones, and, you know, you can see how these line up for you is one is fear of being trapped. So sometimes, if there's a history of ever feeling, like, controlled in childhood, trapped, really strict parents, some kind of instance or dynamic where you felt like you couldn't really be yourself, then that becomes a trigger as an adult, and that causes more rebellious behaviors. And then the other one can be this fear of being helpless or powerless. So those things, if there was ever times where you had to rely on somebody and you didn't feel like they were really helping empower you, they were kind of unpredictable or unsafe, then there can be this dynamic of, like, oh, if I have to. Trapped, helpless, and powerless just often go together. And so having to restrict, having to be in a container, having to be in a cage in any way or anything you would associate with that, there's this intense need to rebel. And so that would be these core wounds on this side are limiting beliefs. Like, if I have to restrict, that means I am trapped.

[B]

Yeah, I love that. That's actually very. I like that. That's true. You know what? I guess with anything, right, you can go down. Like, that's what you said, going down the rabbit hole, right? Like, you can get to a certain level and think that's the answer. But then if you keep on going, it's like, actually, maybe there's something deeper to that. Yeah, no, I like that.

[A]

And so what's cool is that once you discover it, you can find ways to restrict. You can actually rewire that discipline equals freedom. Because discipline does equal freedom in a lot of ways. You can wire. And that's what I talk about.

[B]

That's the interest. That's the irony, Right? Like, I do believe that discipline does equal freedom and that you can't rely on motivation. It's all about discipline. You have to do the hard things and things you don't like to get to the other side of doing the thing to get to what you actually want in life.

[A]

And you can make it so that it doesn't feel so hard to be disciplined by rewiring, because consciously we can understand. But until your subconscious mind feels fully invested and believes in that, then discipline will still feel like there's a little bit of willpower or forcefulness.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And then the other part of it is that if there's this trapped core wound, then you'll still feel this like inkling to rebel. Like there will be this part of you that when somebody. And you'll probably see it in different areas of your life. If that shows up for you where somebody kind of tries to push something on you or force something on you, it'll be external too, that you may kind of sabotage. When people are trying to ask you to do things and it feels like they're trapping you. Like you might want to push back just instinctively.

[B]

So what kind of attachment style would that be?

[A]

I'd have to ask more questions.

[B]

Oh, no. Okay. Well, that's okay.

[A]

But generally it's not anxious. Okay. So I mean, there's a lot that goes into it. Like you could have been some attachment styles and done a lot of work and become. Have you been married for a long time?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So you're mostly. You're probably mostly secure. Are you happy in your marriage? Put you on the spot on a podcast.

[B]

What am I supposed to say? Yes, very. No, I hate him. Like, what am I gonna say here we talk after the show. I'll leave that one.

[A]

Yeah, no, but. And do you find in your history of relationships because you're probably mostly secure now if you've been in a long standing relationship.

[B]

I'm a. I don't think I'm an. Maybe I am. I don't think I am anxious.

[A]

I'm definitely not Attract people. Yeah, definitely not an. We rule that one out. You're probably mostly secure, but you may have had a history of being either fearful avoidant or dismissive avoidance. The ones that are more.

[B]

Okay, well. And what's the difference? Because I think a lot of people would be curious for themselves because that's, that's what I see a lot on social media. Like every second TikTok video is about an avoidant, a fearful one or a dismissive avoidant. What's the difference between those two? And is it the most popular?

[A]

No.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

Interesting, right? It's just that people are. What happens is you get the anxious who are interested in the avoidance. So the anxious ones, because they're anxious and they're people pleasing, they're very externally focused. So right away, instead of them focusing on themselves or focusing on others and then fearful avoidance, like to learn about other people too, but they also like to learn about themselves. But then you get the skew towards dismissive avoidance. So you get everybody wanting to learn about the avoidance because of the sort of polarization. So I can take you through the differences. Okay. So fearful avoidance grow up generally with A lot more chaos, bigger t trauma. So you'll usually see dynamics where there could be things like, mom's an alcoholic, dad has narcissistic personality disorder. These things that basically the overarching theme are that you never know what version of somebody you're gonna get. So as an analogy, if mom's a drinker and one day she comes home and she's in a few. She's had a few drinks, she's in a good mood, and she comes home and she's. She's happy, she's nice. And you're like. As a child, you're like, oh, I want closeness. I like mom. I want to be closer. She. It feels good to be around her today, but then a few hours later, she keeps drinking, or a couple days later she's drinking a lot more and now she's passed out, and you don't know if she's okay and you're so scared or she's mean and she's angry drunk, and she's cruel. And so you're like, I don't know what version I'm going to get. Same thing if you have a parent who's a narcissist. Like, one day they love bomb and you're the golden child. Another day they're tearing you apart because they're taking their anger out on you. And so fearful avoidance grow up not knowing what version they're going to get. And so they have this really interesting conditioning where they really want love and closeness, but they're also scared of it. They feel threatened by it. And so as adults, they have a lot of these kind of anxious, leaning wounds where they're afraid of being abandoned and alone. And they feel like everything's always on them. And they carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. And they're usually like the caretakers in all their relationships. And people always go to them to solve the problem because they usually. That's their condition. Growing up, they had to be that way. And then they're usually really tough and strong individuals, and they're great under pressure, but they feel a lot of internal emotional distress because one day they feel anxious, and another day they're avoidant. Another day they're like, oh, you're gonna trap me. Or you're. If I lean on you, I'm gonna be helpless. I can't rely on other people. And they're scared of being powerless. And they usually have a big wound of betrayal. And we found this from a lot of our research. And the betrayal wound isn't necessarily Just that they think somebody's gonna cheat or lie. It could be that, but it's also like, geez, I like you now and you like me now, but how could I possibly trust the future? Because if you grow up in an environment where if your parents are so unpredictable and they're crazy and you don't know how to really deal with that, it's like, well, geez, if my own parents couldn't be trustworthy, how am I gonna trust somebody who came into my life as a stranger? Like, people are just. We can't really put into a clear box how they're gonna behave. And so fearful avoidants are very hypervigilant. They really read into microexpressions and body language. They clock everything. I joke that the fearful ones are kind of the human lie detectors. Like, they just notice every little shift. And if you tell a story one day and you tell it differently three days later or three months later, they're like, wait. And they notice everything. And so they're kind of a little bit suspicious. They're kind of on edge. They're usually. If they do enough regulation, they're usually quite highly successful because they're very much, like, good at reading people and figuring things out. And they're great under pressure and they're resilient. They often end up being entrepreneurs if they're regulated enough to.

[B]

Wow. Yeah.

[A]

To get there. So those are a fearful avoidance. They're very warm, they're very deep, they're very present. But then when you get close to them, they're like, ooh, too much. So they end up as adults being very hot and cold because they have the anxious and the avoidant side to them. And so they'll be like, come get close. Come get close. And you get closer. Get back. You're too close. And then somebody moves away, and they're like, oh, you're so far. Like, come back close. And so they. They sort of pinball a little bit in their relationships, especially the relationships where they feel the most vulnerable. So they tend to be quite ambivalent. So that's a fearful avoidant. And then I'll go into dismissive avoidant. Unless you have anything you want to add.

[B]

Well, no, I want to ask. So what type of relationship do they have? Good relationships. Typically a fearful avoidant.

[A]

They struggle a little bit until they do the work. Yeah, I was a fearful avoidant.

[B]

You were?

[A]

That's what I was. That's part of how I got into this.

[B]

Oh, this is how you got into it?

[A]

Part of it, yeah. Yeah.

[B]

Because, okay, and what is the other kind of avoidant?

[A]

So dismissive. Avoidant.

[B]

A dismissive avoidant.

[A]

Dismissive. Avoidants are very different. So they are, number one, their overarching theme in childhood is more childhood emotional neglect. And sometimes you hear that and you think it's gonna be really like overt. Like, parents are never home. Child walks home from school, parents get home at midnight. Like, it can be that. But the vast majority of cases it's more subtle. So a lot of times instead it's like, you know, parents are both home, but they're both emotionally shut down and unavailable. Cause they're busy or preoccupied or not present. And then when children try to try to make emotional bids for connection, the parents are like, they just don't have time. They deflect, they diminish. If the child cries or expresses distress, the parents end up being like, oh, don't be a crybaby. Get it together. And because children are wired for attunement and for that emotional closeness, if it constantly gets rejected at a young age, they're like, well, I just. I constantly get rejected. What's the point of trying to need somebody? And so they suppress their emotions. They actually come to believe that their own emotions are shameful or make them weak.

[B]

Oh yeah.

[A]

And so then they really suppress down their own emotions. And their adaptation to growing up in an environment like that is like, I just have to become hyper independent. I have to not need people. And if I don't need people, then I feel in control again. Because if I'm in this environment where I'm trying to emotionally lean on people and I feel like I need, but I can't get access, then I just feel out of control and shameful. And so as adults, they become really hyper independent. Sometimes they can. They tend to sue through creature comforts. They never got to sue through people. So they sue through things that can be food, television, work, can be workaholics. A lot of the time can be people who, you know, take up a ton of hobbies like fishing, hunting, all these things, right? So they can have a lot of these things where they're soothing through external things because they never learn to co regulate with other people. And they end up thinking that this part of themselves that's emotional is so wrong and defective, that as adults they never want to get seen. They don't want their emotions to be heard and seen. They don't want to be vulnerable to people. So they usually end up in relationships where as soon as things get real, like four or six Months in, they start shutting down. And if they stay in a relationship, they're quite unavailable to people a lot of the time unless they do the work. And sometimes they don't stay in relationships. Sometimes they're like, they go through series of patterns in relationship where they get close to people and then as soon as things feel too real, their nervous system can't handle it. They're like, oh, every time I felt vulnerable as a child, I was just rejected and my needs weren't met. Why would I want to put myself back in that position? So they sabotage. But what's happening is consciously they're like, I should stay in this relationship. Maybe I want a family or a marriage. And subconsciously their, their subconscious mind and nervous system are saying, no connection makes you feel like you're shameful and defective and like you're trapped and helpless and powerless.

[B]

So this is when your, your subconscious takes over because those are the core wounds or the core versus the core needs or. Right, that's a whole other area.

[A]

Exactly. And. Or a lot of their needs are freedom, independence, autonomy. And so they sabotage relationships. But it's just their conscious mind saying I should be in a relationship. And their subconscious and nervous system responding to the rest of their, their subconscious mind going, well, relationships don't meet your needs and they actually cause you to feel these wounds.

[B]

Well, what I find so interesting is there's always trends in, you know, social media. Right. I find there's. Right now. Well, in the last, I don't know, a while, a big trend are talking about people's attachment styles.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

To. To kind of explain away why somebody broke up, why someone ghosted you, why this? Like, there's a few things I constantly see. No contact. What attachment style are you now? Is it because people are having a harder time than ever before staying in relationships, being in relationships because of the sheer volume of what people are like seeing. Because of social media, because of dating apps, because now you can just keep on swiping and there's no true connection anymore. You have to literally fight to get an emotional connection with people because of the noise around.

[A]

Yeah. It's such an excellent question. And I think there's three major factors. Number one, exactly. Social media is like dating apps, just short term gratification. We're getting conditioned for that. And I think that's terrible. Yeah. And one of the casualties in that became like, a good relationship requires mutual effort, mutual investment, and being able to work through hard things. Like that's the only way a relationship really lasts and is actually Fulfilling and successful. And because we have this outlet where we can hit the eject button because of dating apps and social media, you could feel uncomfortable three months and have some of your attachment stuff come up and go, oh, I feel uncomfortable. Sabotage. It's easy to sabotage and go find somebody else.

[B]

And then you say, oh, because I'm a blah, blah, blah avoidant, or I'm a blah blah blah. This, like, we all have these, like, taglines and, like, titles that we can say and use those as the excuse for just behaving badly.

[A]

And this is like, my biggest bone to pick in the entire world right now is exactly what you just said, which is when you learn your attachment style.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

For you to sit there and then just label yourself as it. Identify with the label, and then just go around. God bless everybody. But making excuses for your own behavior.

[B]

People do that all the time.

[A]

You're hurting yourself. Yeah. And people hurt themselves when they do that. The only reason you should ever be interested in learning your attachment style should be that you go understand your underlying patterns and start to rewire them and help.

[B]

I totally agree.

[A]

That's the only reason. And unfortunately, this whole trend of, like, I'm this. They're that. Okay. That's why. And then you put up with it or label yourself or excuse your behavior, excuse somebody else's behavior. It's actually really dishonest.

[B]

Well, there's a bunch of them, right. Like, if I. If I never hear the word narcissist again, attachment style, adhd. I can go on and on about what that person is. And that's. That's the excuse of the. Of the year. Of why they behave terribly.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And to me, I don't want anymore. I don't want to hear any more titles or things that you are. What mental health issue you may have or what psychological, you know, issue you may have to then just, like, treat people badly. And to be a bad person or to do bad things, like own it, accept it, either, you know, fix it or be. Acknowledge it. And then like, kind of like figure out how you can best, you know, be in society as a functioning human.

[A]

Exactly. And so, like. So for us, that's like the exact body of work that we produce right now. Our main thing is who's us. No, myself and our whole team at school. And. Yeah. We have something called the personal development. All these, like, a program and things. Yeah. And so. So what we do is it's like you identify your attachments, all you take an assessment. And then the whole point, from that point Forward is not to be like, I am this.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Good for too bad. Like the whole point is then, then you lock yourself into that, that pattern of behavior and it's hard to be insecurely attached. I was, you know, and I've worked with tens of thousands of people who are. It's very difficult. And so finding your attachment style should be the very tip of the iceberg. And then it should be now how do I change it?

[B]

Right? Or what do I do about it to be a best. Like, who's a good match for me in this way? Like. Or like noticing, okay, that person has this and this and this. Maybe they would. Maybe it's not the right, you know, chemistry together or like long term relationship together or how do I, how do I increase the odds of it working, knowing what I know?

[A]

Yeah. I'll be honest, I still have a bone to pick with that too, a little bit.

[B]

Oh, I do too. But I was just trying to be nice what you do for a living.

[A]

Because people do this thing too. And this is like a big trending body of work too. They say if you're insecurely attached, just date a secure person. And the data actually shows us that that only works a very small percentage of people really. Because here's why. Our subconscious mind running the show at the 95% it literally wants so badly to. It equates familiarity to safety, to survival. So it's like what's familiar is safe because we've been surviving this long, so it's working. And what's actually most familiar to all of us is the way we treat ourselves. So what's really interesting is if you pick that apart, you can look at somebody who's like anxiously attached, for example, and they say, I should date a secure person. That's what I consciously learned. Their subconscious mind will often meet the perfect person and go, they're boring. Because at a subconscious level, what actually feels familiar is somebody who makes you feel like you make yourself feel. Which is what? Well, if you're anxious, you're people pleasing and you're looking outwardly and you're trying to bend over backwards for everybody else. So as an anxious person, you end up being in a position where you dismiss yourself, you avoid yourself, you don't set boundaries, you don't take up for your own feelings, you don't share your needs. So guess who you're most attracted to? Often dismissive avoidance. Who also will dismiss you and avoid your feelings and not look out for your boundaries or your needs in a relationship. And so Then we tell people, oh, just date a secure person if you're insecurely attached. And then they can go find the perfect person on paper. This happened to me. I see this, like, with literally tens of thousands of people. And I remember meeting somebody. I'll be. I'll use myself as the example. And this is a long time ago. I've been doing this work for a long time, but first year university and.

[B]

Are you from Canada?

[A]

I'm Canadian, but I go back and forth only.

[B]

Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. You said university. I'm Canadian. That's why. Okay.

[A]

Oh, are you Canadian?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I did not know Toronto. I originally. Mississauga is where I was, where I grew up.

[B]

That makes sense.

[A]

That's why you said.

[B]

That makes a lot more sense to me now. You're Canadian. That's the title I'm giving you. You're nice.

[A]

There you go.

[B]

You're friendly and nice.

[A]

Where are you from?

[B]

I'm from Winnipeg originally. I lived in Toronto for many years. I went to school in Toronto.

[A]

Oh, crazy.

[B]

And I've lived there for, like, most of my life. Yeah, I'm Canadian. But when you say university, you seem very. This makes perfect sense now. So maybe titles do matter. Okay. Where'd you go to college?

[A]

I actually got a soccer scholarship for university, so I went to Kennesaw State University in Georgia.

[B]

Oh, okay. Sorry. We're like.

[A]

So I moved out of Canada, and then I went back there for a few years, and now I kind of live between Canada and Austin.

[B]

Oh, Austin, too. Okay. Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, but I had to say something about the.

[A]

I see that you clocked that.

[B]

Of course. Okay, sorry. So let's go back to that. What? You said something. I didn't mean to interrupt you, but I had to. You were saying.

[A]

We were talking about how anxiously attached people. You get told to date a secure person.

[B]

Oh, no, I was gonna tell. Well, yeah.

[A]

Oh, I remember at first year university, I was telling you.

[B]

Okay. You were giving a story about yourself.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Okay, go. Go ahead.

[A]

So I remember I was dating somebody, and they were like, probably the perfect person on paper. Tried so hard in the relationship, showed up and all these wonderful things going for them. Just excellent all around. And I remember being like, oh, like, this is boring. Like, worry's like the spark. And this happens to people all the time, where you sit there and you. And so you sabotage the relationship. But it's just your subconscious mind wanting to go back to its needs and its comfort zone of what it's used to, which for me was chaos at the time, before doing a lot of work, right. And so we do these things where consciously we say, oh, date the secure person, find the healthy person. A lot of people say, date the emotionally available person finding or date the person who respects my need for freedom. And you can say these things, but ultimately we usually don't end up doing that. So really, if you're insecurely attached, the idea that date a secure person, it doesn't really work like that. Instead, what we should do is kill your attachment style, rewire your maladaptive patterns, and then you become secure, and then you're going to end up actually being attracted to those people.

[B]

Also, though, I'm going to like take it one step further. If you're a securely attached person, wouldn't you want to date someone who's securely attached?

[A]

And that's exactly what happens, right?

[B]

Because if you're securely attached, why would I want an anxious attached person or an avoidant dismissal or why? Because if I. Because I would imagine the majority of people though, are not securely attached, I would say that's the smallest percentage. Am I right?

[A]

So the data shows roughly 50% of people are securely attached. There's two ways that we get the data, okay? One is through childhood research. So research of people's attachment cell in childhood. There's a few things happening here. One, you could make the argument that like, you know, securely attached people date securely attached people, which is absolutely what happens because that's both of their comfort zone of familiarity. That's what feels safe. When somebody's really irregular or erratic, they don't like it. They're like, this isn't healthy for me. And they have good boundaries, so they'll walk. So part of them go off the market, right? A lot of portions of secure attached people go off the market. But we sometimes look at childhood conditioning and we think that because this data shows that this amount of people are securely attached, that like as if conditioning doesn't keep happening. And. And so they say, okay, this is the amount of people securely attached. But a lot of times, whatever we're exposed to our entire life through repetition and emotion rewires us. So somebody. We talk about attachments developing in childhood, but the reality is that your attachment sounds always changing. If you are growing or going through massive life changes in your experiences. For example, if somebody's securely attached until the age of 12 and then, God forbid, one of their parents passes away, then they're gonna come out of that and probably be anxious or if somebody is anxiously attached, they get into a narcissist narcissistic relationship with somebody who has full blown narcissistic personality disorder. Not the throwaround term but the actual pathology. And now we see, okay, they're in this relationship with a narcissist, they're probably gonna leave that a fearful avoidant because they went through that extreme chaos of back and forth with the person. So it's not like our attachment style is just fixed. And there's a lot of things happening in life and a lot of now things happening because of social media and dating apps that are shifting things. So the way that people obtain that data is incomplete in its own sense. And then another big way that people are obtaining data is self reporting. And self reporting is generally quite inaccurate. Like we have a, an attachment style assessment and people often will will answer through the way that they feel. And when we people come into our programs, sometimes people be like oh, I'm secure because they're answering questions maybe in front of their partner or the way that they would like to answer the

[B]

question or how they, how they want to be, how they want to be perceived or how they want to perceive themselves.

[A]

And then I take them through like a little more in depth questions and then I'm like oh, you're not securely attached. And it's quite obvious. So a lot of times where it starts like the so 50% of the population securely attached, give or take, it's questionable. However, the one thing that is very interesting is that the secure attachment reported rate does move quite in lockstep with the divorce rate. So as the rate of securely attached individuals goes up, the divorce rate goes down and vice versa. So that is interesting and I think

[B]

that that more about that. That's interesting.

[A]

Well, a couple of things. So securely attached people report being in the longest lasting relationships but I think more important than that or equally important is that they always they also report being the most fulfilled in those long lasting relationships. And as somebody who's b been both insecurely attached, very insecurely attached, and then done a lot of deep work and neuroplasticity work and be become very secure for quite a long time now. I used to never think that like having fulfillment in a long term relationship was possible. I used to be like oh it's, that's not possible. You just stick it out. And I used to really believe that. And then learning healthy patterns of communication and connection and knowing each other's needs and rewiring my wounds like I'm very fulfilled in my marriage. And I don't say that to say like, look at me, but just the reality of both sides is very different. And so when you see that, like I get it, like I'm like I get why securely attached people report being happy in their relationships because they have really good subconscious patterns that make relationships fulfilling that they both bring to the table. I get it. Like I, I, I see that. So that's one thing, okay, is that they report the longest lasting relationships and the most fulfillment in them and for good reason. The second thing is that when you look at the divorce rate, the divorce rate sits around 50%. It ranges a little up, a little down, and so does secure attachment rate. And so as we see the divorce rate increase, it's correlated with an inverse relationship to the rate of securely attached people. And so in other words, what it's indicating is that the more securely attached people exist, the less likely they're going to get divorced and the lower the divorce rate is. So you can see that in, in that relationship, which I do find to be really interesting.

[B]

That is super interesting. I think all of this is actually very interesting though. I love like all of this, like all, all the neuro science and how act like what, what, how one thing leads to another thing and like the ripple effect of all the things. We're taking a quick break so I can tell you about this episode's incredible partner, Air Doctor. If you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you've heard me talk about them. I really love this brand and what they do. See, I had a blind spot and it was actually the air I was breathing every single day. I kept waking up congested and foggy and kept blaming everything but the obvious thing. And that's when I started to use Air Doctor and it's made a massive difference. I have fewer allergy symptoms, less congestion, and the air just feels different, cleaner. And I also have kids at home. So clean air isn't just a nice thing to have for me, it's a non negotiable. And here's why Air Doctor is so different from anything out there. It uses a powerful three stage filtration system that captures particles a hundred times smaller than the typical air purifier can actually handle. We're talking dust, pollen, mold, spores, bacteria, viruses, odors. It's a full list. And all of this stuff you can't see and you're actually breathing it in, it runs on auto mode. So it's handling your air around the clock without you even thinking about it. And the results really speak for themselves. 98% of air Dr. Customers say their homes feel super clean, safer, healthier, and over 93% notice fewer allergy symptoms. And it actually just won Newsweek's reader's choice award for best air purifier. So head to airdoctorpro.com and use the promo code HUSTLE to get $250 off select Air Doctor air purifiers, including the 3500, the 40005500 models. Plus you'll receive a free three year warranty, an $84 value, and Air Doctor's 30 day money back guarantee. This is an exclusive podcast only offer available now at airdoctorpro.com that's a I R-O C T O R P R O dot com. Use the promo code Hustle. How does someone then reprogram their attachment style?

[A]

Yeah, I love that. Okay, so. Because that's the only reason you should even want to learn about it, right?

[B]

Like, how do you. I mean, for the. I mean, and I would imagine everyone's trying to reprogram their attachment style to be securely attached.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

Yeah. Okay.

[A]

And you can think of your attachment style too, as being the relationship to yourself. Like, every person has one, but it's ultimately like, who you are to you first. And so it makes you a lot more fulfilled as a person. So the first, there's five pillars of rewiring. The first pillar is you have to rewire those core wounds. Okay, so core wounds are these limiting beliefs. So I'll just list them off by attachment style. Anxious attachment style. Their big ones are, I'll be abandoned. Alone, Excluded, disliked, rejected. Not good enough. Unloved, unsafe. If people leave me. Okay, so those are their biggest triggers in relationships. Triggers literally affect our behavior. So if you imagine, for example, that you are believing that you're gonna be abandoned, well, what do you do? Well, neuroscience has proven every action we take is based on our emotional state. So when you believe you're gonna be abandoned, you feel distressed. And then people are anxious. They do things like cling or call a lot. So. So we have to be able to recognize that the root cause is that we believe these things first. And I always give people the analogy that if you go into the woods tomorrow and you see a bear and you run from the bear and you're safe, thank goodness, but you have to go back into the woods the next day. Well, what does your brain do? Well, as soon as you hear the trees moving, you're like, the bear's coming and you brace and your nervous system activates because we've stored that perceived threat and we project it back out. That's how we're wired. And so that's great if it's a bear and we're protecting ourselves, but it's not great when you felt abandoned as a child and now you see abandonment everywhere. So those are the big anxious ones. The big dismissive avoidant ones are the fear of being trapped, helpless, powerless. Biggest ones are around feeling shameful if they're too vulnerable, weak if they're too vulnerable, feeling unsafe in a conflict or in vulnerability as well. And this deep belief that they're not good enough and often don't belong. Fearful avoidance, they're the trickier ones. They have a little bit of both. They have the abandoned alone wounds that are pretty big for them. They have the trapped, helpless, powerless wounds because they have both that kind of anxious and avoidant side. And then they also have the betrayal core wound. It's a big one that we found in our research. All of these we've, we've pulled from, from all of these different discussions and case studies over like the last 14 years. And then betrayed and then unworthy. Fearful avoidants always try to over deliver and overachieve just to feel acceptable at a baseline. They're very like, I'll do them both just to feel like, okay, I'm acceptable at all. And then they have a big core wound of feeling unsafe. Now if you ask if you're a full avoidant, do you feel unsafe? They'll say, no, I can handle myself. I'm tough, I'm strong. But if you pay close attention at a nervous system level, they spend a lot more time than the average person in fight, flight, freeze or fawn mode. They people please in fawn mode until they get frustrated with people pleasing and feel taken advantage of. And then they fight and they get mad. And then they have moments of kind of freezing or fleeing. They push things away and kind of run off or you know, in a lot of different situations?

[B]

Yes. You know, it's so funny. You're describing an ex boyfriend of mine to a T. It's interesting. Is it possible to be a combination of anxiously attached and fearful and a sprinkle of dismissive that's usually just a

[A]

fearful of one who leans a little more anxious. So it's on a continuum. And because fearful avoidance on both sides, they lean usually a little bit more

[B]

case and a half, I'll tell you. Oh my God, that one was like a disaster.

[A]

So were you a Little more avoidant, a little more dismissive? Or are you secure mostly at the time?

[B]

I mean, the funny thing is I think I'm, I don't know, I feel like I'm a secure, securely attached. Until someone makes me feel insecure, then I maybe will get in, like, anxious a little bit anxious, like, because typically I would imagine I, you know, have you ever heard. And I'm sure you have, but I'm a big believer that people like who like them. So if you feel, if you feel that you're really liked by someone, it makes you like them back more. Right. So especially for women, I feel like women want to feel pursued and chosen and cherished and loved. So when someone makes you feel that way. When someone makes me feel that way, I, like, want to be with them more until I don't. But that's a whole other story altogether for a different podcast.

[A]

And I think it's really important to note one thing that you said which really stood out to me, which is that secure people are not robots like you are going to. There's a difference between you can make

[B]

someone feel to me, I think a lot of your attachment style can tweak based on who you're, who you are with and how someone makes you feel. So if someone makes you feel secure and chosen and just loved, it will make you feel more confident in the relationship and more secure. So it makes you feel like you are an afterthought or that you are easily replaceable or that you are just kind of not a priority that will make you feel more anxious.

[A]

So here's a really interesting nuance to that.

[B]

Okay, go ahead.

[A]

So if you're secure and somebody makes you feel not a priority, not chosen, doesn't show up, not good to you, first thing securely attached people do is they communicate about it. They'll say, like, I don't like this. I need more consistency. That's what I'm looking for. And then they'll vet how somebody responds. And if the person keeps doing that, they will honor themselves. They'll honor their own boundaries, they'll step back, they'll move away. So they may have this anxious feeling because you're not a robot. You'll feel, ooh, uncomfortable. You'll dress it head on, communicate openly, leave if it's not working for you. Honor your truth anxiously attached individuals, they will. When somebody makes them feel insecure, they'll generally feel anxious no matter what, no matter who they're dating. But if they're with a really secure person, they'll feel A little less anxious for sure, but they'll still have those wounds showing up. But if they're with somebody insecure, insecurely attached, especially somebody more avoidant, they're called anxious preoccupied. And anxious preoccupied means, like, they will ruminate nonstop. They'll try harder. They'll people please more. If somebody's being, you know, avoidant, not really choosing them, not making them a priority, they'll be like, oh my gosh, I have to do whatever I can to be what they want me to be. They'll think about the person on stop. They'll have a hard time focusing at work. They'll text a lot. They'll try to cling. They'll try to look at the person's social media on top, see what they're doing. Like, they literally make that person the center of their universe and it just magnifies what's already existing in them. Those anxious wounds versus a secure person. Like, I feel anxious, but I'm going to honor myself and eventually walk. So those are the big differences.

[B]

Oh, that's a really good point. So you can feel anxious but not act anxious.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

Yes. Okay, so.

[A]

And not abandon yourself.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So acting anxious to me though, again, because I don't. I. I'm not that person. By. And people can attest to that. But I will say that that's really interesting about the anxious attachment because what that exact behavior does is actually make that avoidant. Avoid. Try to avoid you more. It's actually turns them off more when you are smothering them.

[A]

100.

[B]

Right. Like if you're constantly like, it's like it's. It's like kind of like not. It's like you're doing the antithesis of what you should be doing if you're trying to like reel in an avoidance.

[A]

Exactly. And so what's so interesting is I establish this thing called trigger patterns in relationships. Every relationship has them until you work through them, even to secure people.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And I think after talking, I'm like, okay, you're definitely secure. Just. No, no, for sure. Like, and from the things you said, if that's helpful. So. So when you look at it so interesting. So every person has trigger patterns in relationship. And what this means usually one or two. But what this means is exactly your biggest core wound that you haven't worked through yet. How you behave to cope with your own wound happens to trigger your partner's biggest core wound. And how they behave happens to re. Trigger yours. So you go in a vicious cycle. So for example, anxious, dismissive, Avoidant, dismissive, avoidant. They like their space, they need space. They. They do their own thing. They. They kind of pull away. They're not as present and available as the anxious would like. Anxious person interprets it through the language of their subconscious mind. I am being abandoned. That's their bear in the woods that they're projecting out how they cope with when they feel abandoned. Exactly to your point is to cling dismissive, avoidant. One of their biggest core wounds. I am trapped. You're now clinging to me. Okay, you're trapping me. I need to push you away further because I feel more trapped. So their behavioral response is to push away further.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Making the person feel more cling more person feels more trapped.

[B]

So that. So to me that's a bad combination right there. Right. That's a bad combination. Unless you really like what would make that person those people want to stay and work at it. If that is that vicious cycle of like oh my God, you're smothering me. Like go away for a bit. Like I said, I had this one boyfriend. He was like so much. It was like. It felt like he was a girl in a lot of ways. And, and as my. That was my next question. Do women tend to be more anxious and men seem to be more avoidant or. And now in the last maybe 20 years when now there's much more of a. Women have, have more masculine energy or they're much more career oriented or whatever the thing has there been like a shift where now men are more anxious, women are more avoidant. Have you seen any of this in terms of. Yeah, you nailed it.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, you nailed it. That's exactly what it is. So historically, I mean like if you look at culturally over the decades, men are told more stiff upper lip, don't be a crybaby, be tough. That's more their messaging they get. How we get conditioned is through repetition and emotion over time. And so keep in mind too like if people hear these core wounds, you can rewire them. Like you're not stuck with them your whole life either. But absolutely, men get a lot more conditioning about repress your emotions, stuff them down. So dismissive wouldn't skew very male based for decades anxiously attached women. I mean you look at not just in terms of society's messaging but even like hormonally, even historically, women tend to be more in groups like the gatherers. Right. So. So there's a lot more of that inconsistency and which is a big part of what causes anxious attachments also Anxious women lean more anxious. Historically, men lean more, dismissive, avoidant. And that gap is closing. It's closing slowly, but it's starting to close a little bit, which is interesting, probably because of part of what we're seeing in society.

[B]

Yeah, there are more women who are educated, going to school, working more, making more money. Now there's a whole big trend with, like, friendships versus, like, women don't want to even, like, be in relationships. Like, the whole. The whole idea of relationships has now shifted to such a place that that's even interesting.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

But so, like, I. I find all of this, and I think a lot of it is also kind of rooted in what you see in social media, which I think is also very toxic and very terrible.

[A]

100. Right.

[B]

I. I'm kind of a traditional person. I mean, I, like I said, I think no matter how successful I am or how much of a boss, you know, air quotes, you know, people will say you are, or I think I am, or whatever, you still want to feel like a woman. You still want to feel, like, taken care of. You still want to feel like, you know, you're. You're being protected. I mean, some things never change, no matter what, in life. I mean, do you know what I mean?

[A]

Like, I wholeheartedly agree with you.

[B]

What girl? I mean, and any woman who sits here and says, oh, I don't need a man, or I don't need this,

[A]

like, you're lying, and I'll be really honest. I'll be the first person to tell you that when I. I was like that, probably almost 20 years ago now, I was like that. I was very like, I'm never getting married. I'm never having kids because I was wounded, and I was wounded by my father. I had my most fears from men, around things I was carrying, from what I saw growing up that were difficult, that I didn't have proper understanding for at the time. And I internalized a lot of that. And I was scared. And so I had all these wounds that I can't trust anybody. I'm going to be abandoned anyways. I'm going to be rejected, I'm all alone, I'm going to be helpless or trapped in the wrong relationship. So I had all that internalized. And then that showed up as, I don't need anybody, I don't want to need anybody. And as I healed, that distinctly changed for me. And then I stepped a lot more into this space of like, oh, my gosh, what was I thinking?

[B]

Right?

[A]

And then entered into a marriage where I'm actually very, very happy and so grateful. And I. I thank my own, like, inner child for, like, for being able to withstand that. But I'm so grateful to myself, like, not to put myself on some kind of, like, pedestal, but I'm so grateful that I did the work because I would have really, really missed out.

[B]

And by the way, the fact that you have to even say, putting yourself on a pedestal. Why. Why do people even have to say that? Like, you should put yourself on a pedestal, in my opinion. No, seriously, like, you did the work. You're accomplished. You're this, this, this, like, you know, good on you. You should be on a pedestal. I'm putting you on a pedestal.

[A]

Thank you. I'm just sensing people always say that.

[B]

Women always do that, though. They always, like, stop themselves from giving themselves, like, a pat on the back.

[A]

Yeah, and I hear you, and I agree with that so much, and I should work on that in a lot of ways still. I agree. But I also am sensitive to that. There may be people listening who feel like I did feel at one point who, like, didn't understand. And if I heard somebody say, oh, marriage is so great. It's so wonderful, I'm so glad.

[B]

No, it's not.

[A]

I might. I might have been like, you're. You know, I just worry that it's sad for people to hear that if they're not in that headspace. And it's so worth working through your stuff because on the other side of it, life gets so much easier.

[B]

Right. So you just kind of trying to be cognizant of people who are in a different space.

[A]

Yeah, I guess.

[B]

Yeah. Okay, that. That's fair. I can appreciate that.

[A]

I do have to work on, like, owning and building a few times, though.

[B]

Yeah, I do it too. All women do it. You know what I mean? Like, that's the other thing. Right. Like, no matter how far we come, how far we've come, we're. We still are back in these places where in general, like, we feel guilty by, like, saying we've accomplished something or did something good, did something nice or whatever. Like when someone compliments me or you or whoever, where I was like, ah, you know, like, it's like we're always, like, kind of, like, shrinking ourselves.

[A]

Yeah, agreed.

[B]

I don't know. It's like, a very strange thing to do.

[A]

I actually looked into this one time really on my own self, because I was used to be really like this, and I'm like, come a long way, but I have a little work to do maybe, but I Made it mean that if I do that, then it's a threat to emotional connection. And I, I. So I had stored in my mind that, oh, if I own fully and I take up space. Because a lot of my conditioning in my own childhood was that when people took up space, they took up a little too much space and they didn't consider others. And so it was mean or harsh. And so then I wired it in that way, and that's what I was playing out of my own conditioning at a subconscious level.

[B]

No, but I think. I think that that's a really good point. I think that because we all want to be accepted and, and we don't, and we feel that's alienating for people. Right. Like, if we think too highly of ourselves, then it comes across as arrogant or conceited. Right. And I think that you. The way we were conditioned to think is that. Oh, yeah. Like, if we do think highly of ourselves, and that's a bad thing. But isn't that what we're all preaching now? Like, isn't there, like, it's so counterintuitive. Every second Instagram account is about empowerment, personal development, self worth, you know, feeling. Feeling good about yourself. And then when we actually, like, say we feel good about ourselves, then we get, like, trash that we're. That we feel too good about ourselves.

[A]

Wrong. Right.

[B]

Like, so where do you win? You know, if you're too. If you're too pretty, you know, that's a problem. You're too ugly, that's a problem. If you're too smart, that's a problem. You know, everything's a problem to someone. Right?

[A]

Yeah, I agree so much, and that's the world of social media, but I think if. So, two things. If you pull it back down to core wounds and needs. So for me, my core wound was like, oh, if I take up too much space, I'll be bad or I'll be rejected. So I had to work on that.

[B]

Totally.

[A]

But I also believe that taking up too much space was a threat to emotional connection, which I really care about as a big need. So it's like me protecting that need, even though I've worked through the wound. You know what I mean?

[B]

I feel that.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. So that's one thing. But then the other thing, which is interesting is I do believe, and I'm curious, your thoughts. I do believe that when people take up so much space, a lot of times it's from its own insecurity.

[B]

Totally agree.

[A]

I think true confidence is more quiet and subtle anyways, and it's not. Confidence is arrogance. It's confidence is the absence of all that inner dialogue and inner critic and. And somebody living in alignment with their needs while being able to honor and be mindful of other people simultaneously.

[B]

I think it's a really delicate balance. Yeah, it really is a really delicate balance because I totally agree. Because it's one thing to be, you know, abrasive in that. In that. And, and, but you're right, like, I think that there is a delicate balance because it's also about who you're talking to. It's like there's also like an EQ piece. Right. If you're speaking to someone who's hard done by or feels really badly about themselves, you're going to be. You got to be more conscientious of that, right?

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

But then, then you have to then still shrink yourself. It's a very delicate balance. But I just find everything, you know, with social media, how it's like kind of like it's. What do you call it? It's making. What do you call art imitating life now. Like, it's. We are like. Life is imitating social media based on what, trends for a week. Right. How we date, how we talk to ourselves, how we, how we respond in relationships. Everything is now becoming like it's a microcosm for what we see on social.

[A]

It's so crazy that you said that. Like, I actually have never thought of it that way. And it's such a. I love that insight. And it's also scary.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because the reality is when you look at like the neuroscience of conditioning, how we get conditioned is repetition and emotion, and especially repetition and emotion when we're in a suggestible state. So when our brain's producing more alpha brain waves, and that actually happens in the first hour that we wake up, in the last hour that we go to bed a lot. So you think of most people right now, what do they do? They wake up, shut off their alarm, look at social media before bed, last hour, before they go to sleep, scrolling through social media, a lot of people,

[B]

that's how they begin and end their day.

[A]

So we're getting conditioned. And honestly, a lot of stuff that's on social media is kind of bs. Like a lot of stuff on social media, these trends or these things, they're not actually healthy. And so now to think that I got a little jarred by that.

[B]

No, it's true. It's become like. Well, social media has become like the. Like a real Truman Show. Remember the show? The Truman Show.

[A]

Yep. Definitely.

[B]

And also nothing is what it seems in real life. I really believe that to be like. It's, it's like everyone is. Most people are charlatans and they're figuring out a way to hook you in. Like what's the best hook to get you to watch this video? So they'll just say whatever is necessary and then they'll just, and they'll just keep on going down that hole. Like so I think that we're, we are all being programmed in a way that's not necessarily in our best interest for our own mental health. I was going to say earlier you said something about limiting beliefs, right? I mean I did it. I did it. My first TED talk ever. I was taught, I talked about this and it went viral. It was like millions and millions of people. I wasn't the first. I mean this was my first one was like seven years ago or whatever. And this whole idea of limiting beliefs and now everyone's. Of course not everyone talks about it. And it's about this idea of self doubt. You just talked about it again and that's what kind of triggered me is even saying this is because time has passed but we're still exactly where we are. Right? Like we're all preaching how to get over self doubt, how to kind of get yourself to a new place. And yet when we eliminate self doubt, we get, we get kind of pounced on. That's why that's where that's going to happen.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I want to take a quick break from this episode to thank our sponsor Therassage. Their Trilite panel has become my favorite biohacking thing for healing my body. It's a portable red light panel that I simply cannot live without. I literally bring it with me everywhere I go. And I personally use their red light therapy to help reduce inflammations in places in my body where honestly I have pain. You can use it on a sore back, stomach, cramps, shoulder, ankle. Red light therapy is my go to. Plus it also has amazing anti aging benefits including reducing signs of fine lines and wrinkles on your face, which I also use it for. I personally use Therassage Trilite everywhere and all the time. It's small, it's affordable, it's portable and it's really effective. Head over to therassage.com right now and use code be bold for 15% off. This code will work site wide again. Head over to Theraso T H E R A S a g e.com and use code be bold for 15% off any of their Products. But I wanted to talk now. That was a whole different tangent. I've got other questions, and I know you're super, super. We're super, like, tight for time. Can you please tell me how we do reprogram ourselves? Because I still don't know.

[A]

Yeah, 100%.

[B]

Okay, so there's different. What's the first step?

[A]

Yeah, the. So there's different tools for the. So there's five pillars. So one is we have to rewire those core wounds. Second is we have to rewire a relationship to our needs. Third is regulate our nervous system. Fourth is learn to communicate effectively, because most people have really poor communication strategies and just never learned. And last is boundaries. And we have to do it at a subconscious level. So I'll start with just the. The rewiring our core wounds. I do not believe in affirmations. I'll tell you why. Affirmations are language. Okay, so if we have a core wound, and let's just say, for example, that the core wound is I am not good enough. Okay, well, your core wound is of your conscious or is of your subconscious mind. So nobody wakes up and consciously chooses to tell themselves, oh, today I'm gonna tell myself 64 times that I'm not good enough. Right. That's. That's not conscious. No one's choosing that. So the core wound has been imprinted at a subconscious level. Like the bear in the woods. We stored the threat, and now we project it onto things on autopilot. It's. It's not by conscious choice. So when we do affirmations, we are using our conscious mind to speak to our conscious mind. It doesn't even reach our subconscious mind because the conscious speaks in language and your subconscious speaks in emotions and imagery. For example, if I were to say to you, okay, whatever you do, do not think of the pink elephant.

[B]

Yes, so true. Yes.

[A]

Subconscious is like pink elephant. And conscious is like, do not. But it was too late. And so what happens is, is people do all these affirmations, and they're just using their conscious mind to speak to their conscious mind, and it's not even getting picked up by their subconscious. So there's three steps to do this properly, to actually rewire. Step one, find the core wound in its opposite. I am not good enough. I am good enough. I will be betrayed. I deserve loyalty. I'll be abandoned. I'll have connection. So you find the opposite. Okay, step two is now we have to take that information and drive it to our subconscious. The subconscious mind speaks in emotions and imagery. So how do we elicit emotions and imagery so it reaches our subconscious mind? Well, every memory we ever have is a container of emotions and images. If I were to say, tell me your favorite childhood memory, and let's say you said I was playing at the beach with my family, you would see the images of the ocean and the sand and maybe the red sand bucket as you're building a sandcastle. And we've all seen people when they recall old memories or old stories. You get together with your friends from decades ago and you tell old stories and you laugh and you smile because all memory contains emotion. So now we know that we can leverage memory to reach our subconscious mind. So step two, after we go, I am not good enough. I am good enough. Step two is we come up with 10 pieces of memory of times we actually did feel good enough. And there's a third step, but this allows us. There's a little bit of repetition, repetition, emotion and imagery fire and wire neural networks in our brain. So now we've got 10 times we felt good enough. And we can pull from the different areas of life, career, family, or friendships or romantic relationships or money. You know, we can pull from different areas. Okay, when did we actually feel good enough? We don't need big things, just enough to elicit a little emotional response. So it might be, I was good enough last week when I had a hard conversation with somebody at work that I was nervous to do and did anyways. And you feel that little bit of emotion in your body and you get that little. That imagery of you sitting at your computer having that hard conversation, for example. So now we record that down. We record ourselves after we've written those down, saying it out loud. And in step three, what we now do is we listen back in a Suggestible state for 21 days. Suggestible state means when our brain is producing more alpha or theta brain waves and we are super suggestible, meaning our subconscious mind really picks up information and sponges it up more effectively. And so what we're doing is, first thing in the morning, you snooze your alarm and you're producing these alpha brain waves. Instead of scrolling on social media and conditioning yourself with social media, right, you're now thinking back and feeling in your body about times you did feel good enough and visualizing the imagery, and you've got 10 of them. So it's repeated across 21 days. And research shows that it takes roughly 21 days to build entirely new neural networks in our brain to believe new things about ourselves. If it's laced with high emotion. And we're doing it in a suggestible state. So when we're rewiring behaviors, it can take up to 63 days if it's just behavioral. But doing this fast tracks the process and what you'll see. And we actually had people. We took all these people who came through our program. 60,000 people have come through our program. And we took them. And we said. Not everybody answered, but we took everybody. We sent it to everybody. Hey, tell us if you didn't miss a day. You were highly present and focused for that two to five minutes, and you found yourself feeling the feelings in your body and visualizing the times you felt good enough or whatever the opposite of the core wound was. How effective was this at getting rid of core wounds? And we use a satisfaction score, like an NPS score, and we got a 99.7% NPS score.

[B]

Really?

[A]

On just that exercise alone? Yeah. So what's happening? And trust me, it, like, really, really works. I did this like crazy on myself firsthand. And. And. And it. It really, really works. And people will go through these decades of carrying these crazy wounds, like these really hard things, like the fear of abandonment. And look at how that blows up your life. You accidentally push people away. Cause you're clinging. Or if you're avoidant, you sabotage by pushing people away and stonewalling. Like these things that really hurt us. And they can even be core wounds that show up in our workplace. Like, you believe you're unworthy. You don't ask for raises the way that you should. You don't take up space in a healthy way. So all for us. You can literally rewire them. You're not born with these wounds. They get wired into you, and you can change them.

[B]

No, I think that's a gap. That's a. That's why I like. I like things that are actionable, that people can apply to their life as opposed to just, you know, talking and learning.

[A]

Yeah, because then you just. It's just intellectualized information. It's just more info instead of actually changing things. So we have different tools for each pillar. There's the needs pillar, the nervous system pillar, the boundaries pillar, the communication pillar. But all of them are designed to rewire these patterns we're carrying at a subconscious level. And when you look securely attached people, what do they have? Less core wounds. They know their needs and how to meet them themselves. They have a regulated nervous system. They know how to communicate their needs in healthy ways to others, and they have healthy boundaries. So we're just reverse Engineering that by rewiring these five pillars at a subconscious level to ensure that people become securely attached.

[B]

I love that. Now I'm going to read you one question I have here.

[A]

Love it.

[B]

Okay, so what is the one belief about love or relationships that most people are holding onto that is quietly destroying their ability to connect?

[A]

It's a really great question. It honestly goes by attachment style. Because if there's one belief for everybody, I mean the one belief everybody shares is insecurely attached is the belief that they're unsafe and manifests in different ways. Anxious are afraid that they'll be unsafe if people leave them, so they cling. Fearful avoidance are just unsafe because they don't trust the environment or the world and they're on high alert and dismissive Avoidance feel unsafe in a conflict, so they push people away in stonewall and avoid things. But I would say the biggest ones per attachment style are the fear of abandonment if you're anxious. The fear that you're shameful deep down and need to create space if you're defective or if you're a dismissive, avoidant, defective core wound. And the big fear of betrayal for fearful avoidance. And when you look at what happens in your life when you believe this narrative that everybody's gonna betray you, how do you show up? Right? It's chaos. Or if you believe that everybody is gonna see that you're shameful deep down when they see you, what do you do? You make sure nobody sees you. You keep distance all the time. Or if you believe everybody's going to abandon you, you try to cling so hard and so fast so that that never happens. And so these things have this massive impact. And I think what's really sad is that it's an injustice that we acquire these core wounds in its own sense in childhood. It means you went through something hard and we're getting conditioned all the time. So it can also be in your adult relationships that you get a core wound if you go through something difficult. But it's a greater injustice that we are replaying these stories in the relationship to ourselves all the time. And then driving, they drive these behaviors that then cause those things to become self fulfilling prophecies. Because when you think that everybody's gonna abandon you, you cling. And then people are like whoa. And they pull away. So these things drive the exact thing that we're so afraid of until we learn to actually rewire them.

[B]

What do you think of AI being someone's now new therapist? Because people are like going into ChatGPT or Claude. And they're saying, you know, so and so did this to me. And then it's spewing out. Well, they are somewhat blah, blah, blah, attachment, avoidant or avoidment, whatever, attachment style. And people are using this as their main reference point. What do you think of this whole.

[A]

I think it's scary. I mean, there's three reasons. Number one is that the AI loves to validate you. Like that's.

[B]

I was gonna say, by the way, that to me is the most scary.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Unless you say I learned a trick.

[A]

Be straight up with me. Tell me the truth. Yeah.

[B]

Like basically if I don't say, don't sugarcoat this. Tell me exactly the truth. As someone would see it, it would come back and say how wonderful I am, how marvelous I am. Like, you have to be so careful with ChatGPT or else you're like, it basically just blows you up to be the best thing since sliced bread. It's so unrealistic.

[A]

And it's unhonest dishonest. Exactly. And so then, so then you end up in a situation where it's validating. If you're in a difficult position in a relationship enough to where you have to go to AI to type it out, you may have some of your own part to contribute. And if you're only seeing it through the other person's side, it's deflecting, it's blaming, it's validating you. And it may stop you from number two, having the awareness of what's going on inside of you.

[B]

That's the problem. But if you do say something to AI, like, give me the hard truth, don't hold back. No sugarcoating. Is it helpful?

[A]

Here's the third thing. Here's the third thing. Where is AI getting all this information? I mean, the Internet, all the crazy stuff we're seeing on the Internet, from a lot of it being. It's almost like capturing the basket of the entire Internet.

[B]

And we were consolidating everybody's problems and,

[A]

and so there's some degree of truth on the Internet, but there's also a lot of people like we were talking about who just call everybody the narcissist, who just throw around things. And so now you're taking this basket. It's almost like an etf, right? You take this basket of, of all the information on the Internet and now it's giving you the sample of all the information. Well, like, do you want. Do you think that for anybody doing this, do you think that the entirety of the Internet is something that you think is a healthy resource for advice right now because that's the consolidated version you're getting through ChatGPT. And so to me it's gonna validate you, it's gonna cause a lot of shifting of blame and not allow you to really look at your own part.

[B]

But if you do say, don't sugarcoat it, tell me the hard truth, then

[A]

the third thing is that you get the basket of advice from whoever's out there doing whatever.

[B]

Well, you know what, I always, I think that no matter how good AI gets it will never take the place of human connection and self awareness. Right. Like to me that's the most fundamental skill someone could have to be successful in any area of your life. Right. If you don't have the ability to like self regulate and self control and like know yourself, know thyself. All these tools are, you might are just going to be running rampant on you like they're controlling you. You're not controlling it 100%.

[A]

I could not agree more and I love that you said that. I really agree that like the knowing of self and self awareness and the ability like there's. One of my favorite quotes is criticism is an immense gift for those who are interested in self realization. And I think that there's a beauty like if you get criticized, it doesn't mean that everybody's criticisms are correct. Somebody could say something because they're projecting. But there's a beauty to being able to sit in people's criticism and say well is that true? And to actively consider it because it can give self awareness. And so if we get a tool that's just taking that away from us, if people are not saying don't sugarcoat, then you miss out on this like massive part of life that allows you to grow as a person because there's a mirror into you and you can become self aware.

[B]

Also I think when a lot of the like to know someone else's attachment style is very helpful. To a point, yes, but to a point, right? Because you, at the end of the day you can never change somebody else unless they want to be changed. You can only change yourself. So focusing yourself, focusing that time and attention on you and why you do something and how you can be better is way more productive in the long run than going and trying to figure out with ChatGPT if this person is a, you know, an avoidant, if this person is a fearful how that's gonna like what's the attributes like it's. I find it to be interesting just to know overall. So you know what you're dealing with kind of. But at the end of the day, you know, like, there's other variables also that you can't like account for.100.

[A]

And also I always say to people, look, it's great to know that your partner might be a dismissive avoidant because you don't personalize their behavior.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But if you keep ending up with dismissive avoidance, what is that thing about your condition?

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

Or what is that? Or if you're putting up with somebody and you know it's unhealthy, consciously you know that this is not, okay, I'm not happy, I'm not fulfilled. But subconsciously you keep saying, what do you need to be rewiring within you so that you give yourself permission to leave?

[B]

Right. Like, what are your patterns?

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

What's like, because. But you know what also I find so weird is that you can be very self aware and still make the same mistake over and over again. Because a lot of times you are mistaking chemistry for chemistry and connection for love. Like, there's a lot of things that you think are one thing, but it's actually another thing. Like lust and love are very different. Like chemistry and love, very different.

[A]

100%. And to your point, the reason we can become self aware and keep choosing the wrong thing is because the difference between your conscious and subconscious mind. So conscious mind can say, I know this is wrong, I know I should leave, I know this person's treating me unfairly, I know what my patterns are. But unless you're rewiring them at a subconscious level, 95% of you, it's gonna keep running the show.

[B]

Yeah, 100%. So how do we know when we. When do we know? Can you give people some indications of when one thing is not what they. When something's not what they think it is? Like, there's something here I wrote down in my notes, or someone gave me something and I looked at it. What is limerence versus love?

[A]

Great question. So limerence is intense infatuation to the point of like extreme self abandonment. So limerence actually exists. If we're getting really real about limerence, it exists along a continuum with, at the len. Far end of the continuum being like stalking. Yeah. So not to get really, really down the rabbit hole there, but a lot of people experience limerence. But if you look at it this way, our needs are driving us in a lot of ways. And our subconscious mind, when it can't get its needs met in the present, breaks off into fantasies of the future or memories. Of the past as a means to get its needs met. So, for example, if you see somebody feeling lonely, they might reminisce a lot about all the times that these nice things happened in the past. Because when you reminisce, then your subconscious mind is. It has a hard time telling the difference between what's visualized versus real. And so. And if you think of times you reminisce, it solicits feelings in your body, and it creates this neurochemical cocktail of, like, you feeling like those needs are kind of indirectly met. And if you look at limerence, a lot of it is about fantasies of a future. So somebody in limerence, they might meet somebody after a first date and say, oh, my gosh, we're going to travel here. We're going to do this thing. We're going to get married, we're going to have a family. And when they think those things and visualize those things, that creates all these. These feelings that create neurochemical reactions throughout their physiology. And now they're in that space. So limerence. A lot of what's happening is people fall into limerence. They're very prone to limerence when they have profoundly unmet needs from childhood. And what happens is when somebody comes along and meets the need, it's like fireworks go off in our brain. And now all of a sudden, somebody's like, they keep thinking and feeling and trying to simulate that need being met in their brain again. And it can lead them to doing sometimes irrational things. So, for example, I had a client come in years ago when I worked in private practice, and she was supposed to get engaged, and she came in to meet with me, and she said, or, sorry, she was engaged, supposed to get married. And she came in to meet with me, and she said, hey, I'm thinking of calling off my wedding because I met a man in the coffee shop and I spilled my coffee everywhere. And he came and he sat and he helped me mop it up, and he checked in with me and he picked everything up, and he could tell I was stressed. And he said, are you okay? And he asked about my day. And she was like, I think it was love at first sight. And I have kind of like, I'm a little skeptical of things like that, where it's like, okay, love at first sight. That's usually limerence. Okay? And so I asked her, I said, okay, what was your childhood like? What did. What did this man make you feel? And we landed on. She felt deeply seen. And when we looked at her childhood, she felt deeply Unseen by both of her parents, so felt like her parents were always unavailable. We looked at her fiance, and her fiance had all these wonderful qualities, but wasn't the best at being present and made her. Making her feel seen. So I said, okay, why don't we try this before you call off your. Your engagement, why don't we sit down for the next four weeks and I want you to work on telling your partner, your fiance, all the information you need to feel seen. So sharing more vulnerably, talking about what your needs are, asking him to be more present, sitting down, having these dinners together where, like, phones are off and you say that this is extremely important to you and it's something you're missing. And at the end of four weeks, if that need is filled in your fiance relationship. And because what you'll see, and this happens over and over again, is exactly what happened. So we sat down there and at the end of the experience, at the end of four weeks, by like week three, she was like, oh, I can't believe I thought I was thinking of calling off my wedding. Because we have a void of this need being met. We're trying to simulate it and meet it by fantasizing with the guy in the coffee shop. Gets the need met in the marriage instead. And actually, one of the biggest reasons people cheat, out of a hundred percent, 10% of people cheat for pathological reasons. Narcissistic personality disorder, sex addiction, these things. 90% of people cheat because they have deeply unmet needs in their relationship. They don't know how to communicate them and bridge the gap. They then feel resentful of their partner because the partner's supposed to meet their needs. Somebody comes into their life externally, happens to meet this deeply unmet need, causes some degree of limerence in their brain fireworks going off. Oh my gosh. Then they fantasize about that person constantly, because they're actually fantasizing about the need and trying to gain proximity to it at a subconscious level. Because your subconscious is a needs meeting machine. And now they're chasing after somebody outside of the relationship and they're highly likely to cheat. And what we get people to do. I spend a lot of time with people doing this who are thinking about cheating or having marital issues. What are they in, in the fantasy of cheating, what needs are being met? Sometimes it's to feel more seen, more protected, more wanted, more prioritized, to feel special again. And when we start implementing those needs in the marriage itself with people, through healthy communication and consistency, people don't cheat anymore or they don't think about cheating and that comes out of the relationship because that's the subconscious root of why those things happen.

[B]

That is so like spot on. What I think happens. Yeah. That's amazing. You just described it though, perfectly.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

Like that whole pattern.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. So who Is there a particular attachment style that does it all?

[A]

Insecurely attached styles are slightly more likely to cheat than secure people because secure people communicate their needs openly and consistently. Anxiously attached individuals are more likely to emotionally cheat in marriages because they have deeply unmet emotional needs. A lot of the time. Dismissive avoidance and fearful avoidance may. Dismissive avoidants are more likely to cheat without emotional connection. So for, for physical reasons, usually because they want to feel a sense of something outside of their relationship, but yet they don't like to be too vulnerable and fearful. Avoidants are the ones most likely to cheat for both reasons. But again, cheating is a symptom. It's just a symptom of deeply unmet needs and a lack of communication when you bridge those gaps as long as the person's willing to work with you in that relationship. Sometimes people who think about cheating or even in certain cases, and this is a touchy subject for like, we could do a whole podcast about this one, but I spent a lot of time working with people who had cheated in relationships. And I'll be the first person to say, like, if I was cheated on, I would probably just exit like I, I. And I dearly love my husband, but that's always been kind of a non negotiable for me since a young age. But I also respect very much that people want to plug in and do the work. And I also respect that people's situations are different. It's easy to say that, but what if you have three kids and you have, you know, a marriage or a mortgage and you can't afford to leave, you know, so everyone's situation is different. I spend a lot of time working with people on addressing the root causes of cheating. And there's a very long process to go through. It's not easy, but sometimes I would work with people on this cause they get to the roots of these deeply unmet needs and sometimes they rebuild an entirely new relationship that was much better off than it was before. Because if there's this cheating symptom, generally there's multiple parties. Both parties have completely unmet needs in the relationship for usually a long standing period of time, have never figured out how to bridge the gap in communication. They're carrying this chronic resentment and then by getting to the roots of things and doing that underlying work, they rebuild from an entirely new place and they actually see and connect to each other for the first time.

[B]

That's incredible. I mean, so you work with people like, do you have a private practice and still.

[A]

So I did for years. And then I moved everything to online programs because we had a really big wait list and I couldn't get to enough people. So now I take people through online programs and we do group practice. So people come through courses, they get these processes and exactly what to do. And then after that, I'm in there three days a week with people so they can come ask me questions, all that kind of stuff.

[B]

How much is it?

[A]

$67 a month.

[B]

That's it?

[A]

Yep. We make it for accessible for people. That was my number one goal, doing all of this.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I was gonna ask you something that's also a big, you know, social media highlight. Love bombing. Who love bombs? What type of attachment style love bombs? The most.

[A]

Great question. So anxiously attached individuals love bomb the most, but for reasons that are very innocent. It's because they naturally see themselves as having to win and earn approval. So they're in the pit. They put other people on a pedestal more easily. So their love bombing isn't with the intent to manipulate. It's with the intent to get close to somebody because they think they're so amazing. Okay. So that's natural for them. Fearful avoidants often do the same thing. They also see people as being on a pedestal compared to themselves. Dismissive avoidants are the least likely to love bomb because they don't really engage in that kind of behavior. It doesn't feel comfortable or safe for them. But the one that's malicious is narcissists, because narcissists love bomb with a different intent. It's. Let me get to know. And they're so good at getting people into limerence because they're so good at finding people's deepest childhood unmet needs, building into those. And then when they've love bombed and got you hooked, now the devaluation phase begins. So they love bomb with the intent to manipulate you because they're conditioning how you see them, and then they have a lot of control over you long term.

[B]

Okay. So when an anxious attachment or a fearful avoidant does the love bombing, what happens next?

[A]

So when the anxious and fearful avoidance love bomb, anxious attachment cells, they'll basically keep love bombing through a lot of the relationship because they always put this person on a pedestal and they're trying to People please and gain proximity. Fearful avoidance frequently love bomb. Then they, when somebody gets too close to them, it triggers their avoidance side and then they feel like, oh my gosh. And fearful avoidance are also very much enmeshed and they feel like they lose themselves in relationships and they can only do that for so long before they set a big wall and deactivate. And so a lot of times fearful avoidance will get into these dynamics and then they will love bomb at the beginning and then they will eventually get burnt out and feel overwhelmed and then completely fall off or really retreat.

[B]

This is so interesting. I love all this. It's so interesting.

[A]

I love this stuff too.

[B]

Oh my God. I had one other question that was so like, oh, codependence. I wanted to ask you about codependence. When is like I would imagine anxiously attached. People are very codependent.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And that's when the problems start with the avoidance. How does, how can someone fix some, how do I say this in a nice way? How does someone who's codependent stop being so codependent to make the like to actually stop being so codependent so they don't destroy the relationship?

[A]

Great question. So number one thing that happens is that we get into codependent dynamics because we've never learned a healthy sense of self. So people who are codependent are trying to find their identity through others. And so they usually have a couple of things happening. They don't know their own needs and they don't know how to meet their own needs. So they don't know how to actually self sue. That's a huge part of self soothing self sustainability. So they sue it externally through others. And then they usually have also been conditioned with these beliefs that say you literally are responsible for other people's feelings. If you don't take care of them, you're a bad person. If you're not sacrificing all the time and being selfless, you're also a bad person. So you get conditioned beliefs that are actually moving them towards being more codependent. And they also don't know how to source their needs outside of relationships. So now they have a perfect storm. And so what ends up happening is anxious attachment cells are highly codependent. Dismissive avoidance are highly counter dependent. They're actually trying to constantly create distance. And fearful avoidance oscillate between the two extremes going back and forth and healing codependency and overcoming it is rewiring the beliefs that are keeping you codependent. Things like if I'm not with somebody 24 7, I'll be abandoned if I'm not taking care of everybody's feelings. I'm not good enough or a bad person. We have to rewire those ideas that we've been conditioned with, that we're not born with, that got conditioned into us solvable problems. And on the flip side, we have to learn who we are, start to meet our own needs halfway so that we have a healthy sense of identity and self and decide what we want in the different areas of our lives, discover who we are in the career area around money, mentally, our hobbies, the things we learn about emotionally, how we regulate or grow and introspect, spiritually, physically, in all relationships, that's a part of it. Like keep friends, keep family. So we have to learn who we are across those seven areas of life. And then we need to learn to build good habits so we have a strong sense of self. And then we rewire those wounds. We're meeting our needs and we know who we are. And that's the antithesis to codependency.

[B]

Wow. So there's an action plan.

[A]

Yes. 100. I am such. I love that you said earlier that you like actionable things. That's like my thing.

[B]

Yeah. I'm so not a person or interested in just like, woo, woo. Like, you know, manifestation without an action plan or like just like thinking something into existence doesn't really happen.

[A]

Or intellectualizing information. Oh, here's here's codependency. Here's what is. Here's how it affects.

[B]

Or just keep on reading another. Yeah, like just keep on reading another blog, but then don't do anything about it.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

Right. Because that's what we're doing. Just. We're just consumption or just consuming information without having any like. Like execution.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

You know, and that's where. And that's where. That's the 90% of it. 99 is execution. 1% is what? Inspiration. And no. Yeah, 1% inspiration. 99. Perspiration. Oh my gosh. Okay. I like, love this podcast. I know. I gotta. I gotta wrap it with you. You are. This was really interesting.

[A]

This was so fun.

[B]

It was so. It was so interesting. Taze. It's okay. Ties. Her program is called the Personal Development School. Check her out on Instagram, on YouTube. She has a podcast, the Tase. Oh, God. What is wrong with me? It's okay.

[A]

I get this all the time.

[B]

Oh my gosh. Yeah, this was really fun. And what. Anything else you want to add before we wrap it?

[A]

The only thing I'll say is if people want to go to personaldevelopmentschool.com they can get a free attachment test. It goes through their assessment, gives all their wounds, their needs, all that good stuff, too.

[B]

I'm going to do that. I didn't even know you had one. I'm going to do that. That's.

[A]

That's.

[B]

That's a great test to have. Just so you have your own knowledge. I appreciate the like. Again, action.

[A]

Thank you so much. And this was so fun. I. I really enjoyed being here and chatting with you.

[B]

Thank you. Me, too. You can come back next time.

[A]

I would love to. We could talk about cheating and all the rooms.

[B]

I mean, there's so many. We could do, like, a whole series on this stuff. I love this stuff. All right. Thank you.

[A]

Thank you so much.

[B]

Bye.