Podcast Summary:

The Thais Gibson Podcast
Episode: Find Your Biggest Attachment Triggers | Live Masterclass with Thais Gibson
Date: November 24, 2025

Episode Overview

In this live masterclass, Thais Gibson launches Season 2 of her podcast with a deep dive into attachment wounds and identifying personal triggers. The session combines educational content with interactive discussion, focusing on the origins of core attachment wounds, how they manifest across different attachment styles, and concludes with a practical in-the-moment exercise to help listeners pinpoint their own triggers. This episode is ideal for anyone interested in the psychology of attachment, personal growth, and actionable self-awareness tools.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Launch of Season 2 & Format Update

• New Format: Season 2 will be live-streamed.
  • Wednesdays: Thais leads interactive exercises on core themes.
  • Saturdays: Thais and Mike Dizio discuss the practical application of Wednesday’s topic, focusing on different attachment styles.

2. Understanding Core Wounds & Attachment Wounds

• What Are Core Wounds?
  • One of the six pillars of Integrated Attachment Theory.
  • Not innate—formed through repetition and emotional experiences, particularly in childhood or significant relationships.
  • “Our core wounds deeply, deeply impact us. They are not things that you’re born with. They get wired into you through repetition and emotion over time.” —Thais (05:30)
• Bear in the Woods Analogy:
  • Traumatic events (like seeing a bear) prime the brain for future threat detection.
  • Similarly, early relational wounds make us perpetually “brace for impact” in relationships.

3. How Core Wounds Shape Thoughts, Emotions, and Behavior

• When core wounds are activated, they dictate:
  • Thoughts: Rumination, catastrophic thinking, expecting abandonment or betrayal.
  • Emotions: Anxiety, panic, sadness, fear.
  • Actions: Clinging, withdrawing, people-pleasing, shutting down, stonewalling.
• Powerful Moment:
  • “Neuroscience has actually proven...all of our actions are based on our emotional state.” (15:20)
  • Reference to Dr. Antonio Damasio’s research.

4. Attachment Styles & Their Core Wounds

a. Fearful Avoidant (FA)

• Main Core Wounds:
  • Betrayal (“I will be betrayed”)
  • Unsafe (“I am unsafe”)
  • Unworthy (“I am unworthy”)
  • Bad (“I am bad”)
  • Abandonment
  • Trapped/Helpless
• Behaviors: Hypervigilance, over-giving, people-pleasing, chronic self-control.
• “If you’re always in this place of earning your worth, then of course you’re going to feel burnt out so frequently. It’s exhausting.” —Thais (38:18)
• Insight: These wounds often come from chaotic, invalidating, or neglectful childhood experiences.
• Tip: “Score your wounds from 1 to 10. That will help you know what to prioritize in your personal programming.” (41:25)

b. Dismissive Avoidant (DA)

• Main Core Wounds:
  • Defective (“I am defective/broken”)
  • Unsafe (especially emotional safety)
  • Trapped/Engulfed
  • Helpless (“I am not capable of change” / “Why bother?”)
  • Not Good Enough
  • Weakness in Vulnerability
  • Misunderstood
• Behaviors: Emotional numbing, shutdown around conflict, learned helplessness.
• Quote:
  • “A lot of dismissive avoidants, especially men, conflate emotional security with not feeling.” (57:12)
• Notable Moment:
  • Listeners often mistake DAs’ emotional numbing for security, but it’s actually avoidance of vulnerability.
  • “There’s a difference—a very drastic difference between self-soothing and self-numbing.” (1:00:40)

c. Anxious Preoccupied (AP)

• Main Core Wounds:
  • Abandonment (“I will be abandoned”)
  • Unsafe
  • Alone (“I will be alone forever”)
  • Not Good Enough
  • Rejected, Unloved, Unseen, Unheard, Excluded
• Behaviors: High sensitivity to perceived or real signs of abandonment, need for constant reassurance and validation.
• Quote:
  • “Real abandonment and perceived abandonment do the same thing to the brain.” (1:18:29)
  • Even repeated ‘subtle absences’ can build the same neural pathways as a single acute trauma.
• Insight:
  • Suffering often comes from the subconscious story (core wound) attached to external events, not the event itself.

5. The Subconscious Mind & Rewiring

• Key Takeaway:
  • Conscious knowledge of being safe isn’t enough; rewiring must happen at the subconscious level.
  • “Your conscious mind can’t outwill your subconscious mind… If we’re not leveraging neuroplasticity for rewiring, we’re going to get stuck.” (1:09:55)
• Recommendations for Healing:
  • Leverage neuroplasticity (repetition + emotion).
  • Identify and score core wounds to work on them systematically.
  • Use tools for nervous system regulation—but address the root cause, not just the symptoms.
• Quote:
  • “If you’re not rewiring the wounds and the stored perceptions and ideas...you’re going to get into this painful cycle.” (1:18:10)

6. Practical Exercise: How to Find Your Core Wounds

(Starts ~1:27:00)

• Step 1: Describe the specific triggering situation.
• Step 2: Identify the specific emotions you felt (“What did you feel in your body?”).
• Step 3: Ask: What did you make it mean about you? (Poke at this until you hit a core belief.)
• Step 4: Identify the core wound (using a list if helpful: abandoned, unloved, bad, etc.).
• Key Concept:
  • “A lot of the things that hurt us are subjective. The reason some things affect some people and other things affect other people so differently is because of the internal subconscious preexisting meaning we project onto it—like the bear in the woods.” (1:31:32)
• Repeat: This process helps bring subconscious wounds into awareness so they can be rewired.

7. Memorable Audience Interactions & Moments

• Vivid sharing from a participant: “I grew up in a war zone and needed to trust no one to literally survive. I felt all those core wounds that you’ve listed.” (11:37)
• Validation of burnout and codependency patterns with listeners: “It’s a great way to get burned out, quite honestly. If you’re always in this place of earning your worth, then of course you’re going to feel burnt out.” (38:18)
• Reassurance & Empowerment: “They are not your fault… but they are your responsibility to heal because only you can do it. And I want you to know too, by the way, they’re easy to heal. You do need consistency, but it’s not difficult.” (33:33)

Notable Quotes by Thais Gibson

• On Attachment Wounds Shaping Relationships
  • “Your wounds are creating your thought patterns, your emotional patterns, and then your actions.” (16:33)
• On Rewiring
  • “You can change them because you’re not born with them. You can rewire them by leveraging the same understanding of what got you there in the first place.” (08:14)
• On Subconscious vs. Conscious Mind
  • “Your conscious mind is only 3 to 5%... your subconscious is 95 to 97%. Your conscious mind can’t outwill your subconscious mind.” (1:09:55)
• On Healing Responsibility
  • “They are not your fault… but they are your responsibility to heal because only you can do it.” (33:33)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:02 – Season 2 kickoff, podcast format update
• 05:30 – Explanation of core wounds and Integrated Attachment Theory
• 10:15 – “Bear in the woods” analogy for trauma
• 16:33 – How wounds create thoughts, feelings, and actions
• 29:00–50:00 – Deep dive: Fearful Avoidant wounds and examples
• 57:12 – Dismissive Avoidant wounds and misunderstandings about DA security
• 1:18:29 – Anxious attachment wounds; impact of real and perceived abandonment
• 1:27:00 – Step-by-step exercise for identifying your core wounds
• 1:31:32 – Discussion: Why subjective meaning drives our pain
• Throughout – Audience questions, real-life shares, interactive participation

Additional Insights & Resources

• Resource Recommendation:
  • Emotional Mastery & Belief Reprogramming Course (available via PDS 14-day free trial), including worksheets and further rewiring tools.
• Upcoming Content:
  • Deeper explorations on nervous system regulation, needs, self-soothing, and practical strategies for healing.
  • Encouragement to subscribe and tune in for ongoing work on rewiring core wounds.

Conclusion

This opening episode of Season 2 delivers a comprehensive and actionable introduction to core attachment wounds, their impact on emotional life and relationships, and practical strategies to identify and eventually reprogram these patterns. Thais’s clear frameworks, relatable analogies, and compassionate delivery empower listeners to begin their journey of self-discovery and transformation.