← The Thais Gibson Podcast
The Thais Gibson Podcast
The Fear of Being Replaced (Fearful Avoidant & Anxious Attachment) - How to Heal
00:13:39
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:00]
A
What are the signs that you're holding on because you have a fear of being replaced? Where does the fear of easily being replaced actually come from? And why does comparison with an ex partner's new relationship feel so excruciatingly painful? Why do anxious attachment styles sometimes stay attached even after a relationship has ended? Have you ever noticed that your mind starts racing with these painful questions? Things like, were they happier with someone else? Did I ever mean anything to them to begin with? Or was there something wrong with me in this situation that caused the relationship to break apart, like it was all my fault? For people with anxious attachment styles, this feeling can feel like one of the most painful emotional triggers that exists. Because the breakup doesn't just feel like rejection. It feels like proof that somebody else could take your place and that you don't feel that meaningful because of that. And after working with tens of thousands of people who struggle with anxious attachment patterns, one thing becomes very clear. Sometimes we aren't holding on because we want the person. We're holding on because we don't want to feel replaceable. And that's what you're actually running from. So in this video, I'm going to talk to you about why the fear of being replaceable can feel so overwhelming with people who have an anxious attachment style, where that fear actually comes from and its origins, and how it can keep you emotionally tied to the wrong people. But most importantly, how to start building a sense of self worth that is not dependent on someone choosing you over someone else. There's four main things I want you to understand that will totally revolutionize the way that you're looking at this so you don't have to keep going back through that same problem. And here's the very first thing. It's that many people who have an anxious attachment style, the most painful part of the breakup is not just the absence of the person. It's the feeling that you had a role in this person's life that is suddenly filled by somebody else. And here's where this pain or uncomfortable situation becomes excruciating. Here's where you'll find yourself ruminating nonstop. It is based on what you then make that mean about you. So I actually want to ask you this. If your role is then filled by somebody else, let's say your ex moves on, what do you make that mean about you? Or what are you afraid then happens? And I want you to really sit in that question for a second. A lot of times people will say, well, then I never had any worth to begin with. Or then I'm only going to be conditionally loved, I'm unlovable, or I must not matter to anybody. And it's precisely the story that you tell yourself and project onto the situation that takes something painful like losing an ex and turns it into suffering. It takes it from pain and just exacerbates it dramatically. And I want you to ask yourself, because somebody moves on, does that actually mean that I'm not a worthy or lovable person? Does that person, some stranger to me now, some ex that I had, does that person's actions or behaviors really get to determine my worth as a human being? Could there be more to that story? Maybe your ex is in a place where they're rebounding because they don't know how to regulate their own emotions. Maybe they're moving on because they don't know how to sit with themselves, or they're also afraid to be alone. But at the end of the day, the moment you allow somebody else's behavior to define your character, to define who you are at your core, it's a tremendous form of self abandonment and honestly, self betrayal. Because if you keep defining who you are from the outside and you will always feel lost. So here's why your brain treats replacement like this deep, profound form of rejection. And this reminds me of this old story that I used to share with people, which is that if somebody comes in and let's say you're at work and somebody comes in and you turn in a report for work and somebody critiques it and says, you know what? Your report wasn't very good, not good enough in terms of your report, redo the whole report. Well, that might really hurt, especially if you have a not good enough wound. But if somebody comes to you and they say you're a purple monster, somebody in the workplace comes up to you, deadpan, fully serious, and says, you're a purple monster, how do you feel? Do you feel the same way that you would feel if somebody told you you weren't good enough? Of course not. Because there's no part of you that actually believes that you're a purple monster. You see, people don't really reject us in the way that we think. What we experience as rejection can only happen if we are already rejecting that part of ourselves. Because you don't believe you're a purple monster. No fiber of your being actually believes that somebody can say that to you, and you're going to turn around and be like, what's their problem? Are they okay? But if somebody tells you something like you're not good enough, and you've already been conditioned to deeply believe that, then it hurts. It really, really stings. So our concept that we have about rejection and being replaceable is actually showing you where you are already rejecting you and the thoughts and feelings that you may be harboring subconsciously about yourself. And so when this fear shows up or somebody moves on, your brain doesn't interpret it neutrally. Your brain takes it very, very personally because it is very personal to you. And instead you're literally sitting there interpreting it as something so much deeper about your inherent worth and value. And I want you to go back to this piece here again, which is can somebody else's behavior truly determine your worthiness or your value as a In fact, can somebody else's behavior like your ex, who probably had their own problems that they brought into a relationship, why are you letting them define your sense of self worth? It doesn't make any sense when we really think about it. I just wanted to pop in here and let you know we are doing a seven day free trial to the All Access Membership Pass at pds, which means you get access to literally everything inside of the school. And this includes the four live webinars I do with our students every single week. And on top of that, you get access to all of our different courses. We have over 55 different courses on relationships, Communication, Boundaries, Emotional Mastery, Guilt and Shame, Learning your needs. So many different facets that are really important to master our lives and feel really good about our lives going forward. And last but not least, there's a daily community event. We have trained facilitators and coaches who are in there doing that work, showing up to support you on your journey every single day. Please join me on the other side. Come, come check it out, see if it's a fit for you. I'd love to see you there. Go ahead and sign up by clicking the link in the description box below. Here's what I also want you to understand, which is that the fear of being replaceable rarely starts in adulthood. In many cases, it develops much earlier when love, attention, or emotional connection felt inconsistent or uncertain. So for example, if you grew up in an environment where you had a lot of inconsistency, you might have made that mean, okay, if I was worthy enough and somebody would want to be here consistently, or oh, if I was loved more, then love wouldn't feel like it's going away or being taken from me. People would be more present with me all the time. And so this part of you starts thinking, well, then I have to earn my worth. Love is a conditional thing. I have to keep earning. And when we actually look at our system of conditioning, the system that we all grow up in, it's called the system of classical conditioning where we're punished for doing things wrong, we are rewarded for doing things right. Well, what ends up happening is you become conditioned to fear punishment, but also fear not obtaining the reward. And we all get conditioned. We're told what's right or wrong or good or bad, or healthy or unhealthy. This all begins at such a young age for us that it's at a time in our lives where we are completely dependent on our parents, our caregivers, for survival. You can't go out into the world at three years old and pay your bills and get a job and put food on the table for yourself. So what ends up taking place is we confuse and intertwine survival and approval. Because there's this inherent knowing that you're literally dependent on people that you couldn't survive without, so you need them to approve of you. What if they don't? What would that mean? And so often we are basically circuited or wired in a way where survival and approval feel safe, so closely tied together because of the way that you grew up. But as an adult, this is the fear that keeps people emotionally stuck. Because when your mind believes that your value is dependent on being chosen, then letting go of people in the outside world, in your past relationships, it feels next to impossible. And oftentimes it's not even because you want the relationship back. It's because that you feel this need to prove your value, your worth, so that you can gain that approval, so that you can survive, or so that you can feel like you mattered, but you're just outsourcing your worth to the external world all over again, like you did as a child because you had no other options. So what is the remedy to this? How do you change this? Well, here's something that I want you to sit with and really think about one of the most important things. It's really a rite of passage for all of us as human beings that we are going to take part in as adults is the act of individuation. What does individuation mean? It means that you have to learn who you are and decide how you want to show up as an individual through intensive self consideration. This means if your parents wanted you to be a doctor or a lawyer, you have to decide, is that what I really want? Is that really my truth? Or if society tells you to spend all your money keeping up with the Joneses, you have to decide, is that actually what I want my relationship to money to look like or be? Or if you grew up in an environment where, where you think you have to behave a certain way to be worthy of acceptance or approval, I want you to sit down and be like, what traits as a human being do I actually want to express instead? How do I want to move in the world? According to what morals, to what values, according to what needs, what's really important to me as a person, what lights me up? And until you go through the individuation process of deeply considering who you are in the seven areas of life in your career around money, mentally, emotionally significant, spiritually, physically relationships, until you take the time to really decide who you are and what you're looking for, your external world and your fear of being rejected will decide for you, which is a sure way to end up in unfulfilling relationships because you are seeking the wrong things. You don't know how to behave in a relationship or who to vet for if you haven't taken the time to figure out who you are deep down and what you actually want. And I'll give you one example. I remember years ago I spent time around a group of people and they all were vegan. And at the time I told myself, oh, like they're all vegan. I looked up to them, they were a little bit older than me, and I decided I was going to do the same thing. And during the process of trying to be vegan, which for me at the time was 14 months, my gut health sort of got destroyed. I had brain fog, I wasn't sleeping well, I just wasn't feeling good. And I kept telling myself, oh, but look at all these people around me that I look up to. Look at, they're vegan. I should be vegan. Why isn't it working for me? And I ignored my own physiological self signals that my body was giving me in favor of thinking that I had to be something that people around me were. And I learned the hard way, although a very important lesson that wait. That my body isn't responding the same way that these people's bodies are because I'm an individual. And so I took the time to really study my body. What do I need to eat? How do I need to sleep? How many hours do I need to sleep? How do I want to move? How much rest do I need as a person? And by deeply studying those things, how I'm going to supplement, how I want to show up for myself by deeply studying those things. I finally learned over time a system that worked for me. And that is the process of individuation. That's just particular to the physical area of life. And that is something that we need to, as individuals go through and consider across all seven areas, what really lights you up in a career, what truly makes you feel fulfilled? What kind of goals do you want to set for yourself that feel authentic, that feel very close to home for you? We want to go through all seven areas of life and self. Consider and getting to know yourself makes it so that your identity is no longer dependent on the outside world, which is literally the most fragile place that you can try to source your sense of self. Because the outside world is forever changing and people's opinions of you will forever shift and change based on their mood or their state or whatever they believe. And here's what starts to change when you heal this pattern. When people begin healing anxious attachment and strengthening their sense of self, work through individuation, something very powerful begins to shift. The fear of being replaceable or rejected slowly loses its grip because you're no longer trying to define yourself through people's opinions outside of you. And if this pattern resonates with you, it's very likely connected to your attachment style. So understanding how your attachment system works can completely change the way that you approach relationships, emotional triggers, and your sense of confidence and self worth. Now, if you want to go deeper into understanding your attachment cell and actually learning tools that will help you shift these patterns in your relationships, that's exactly what we focus on inside the Personal Development school. And if this video helped you understand something about yourself today, make sure you subscribe because we release new videos every single day focused on attachment, healing, emotional mastery, and building healthier relationships. Thanks for watching.