What Are YOUR Core Wounds & How To Stop Them From Ruining Your Relationships - The Thais Gibson Podcast

Summary4 min read

The Thais Gibson Podcast
Episode: What Are YOUR Core Wounds & How To Stop Them From Ruining Your Relationships
Host: Thais Gibson
Date: July 15, 2026

Episode Overview

In this insightful episode, Thais Gibson explores the concept of core wounds: the deep-seated beliefs formed during childhood that profoundly shape our emotional responses and relationships. She explains what core wounds are, how they’re created, and how they impact our lives and attachment styles. The episode is both educational and practical, guiding listeners to identify their own core wounds and consider the tangible benefits of healing them.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Definition and Origin of Core Wounds

Timestamp: 00:00 – 03:30

Core wounds are the foundational meanings we assign to painful, emotionally unprocessed experiences, especially from childhood.
The mind craves certainty as a survival mechanism, so when a child faces pain (e.g., criticism from a parent), the mind creates a story to make sense of it: "I must not be good enough."
As children, we strongly personalize negative experiences, integrating them into our subconscious identity.

“Core wounds are essentially this, like, baseline level of meaning that we give to situations when we cannot properly emotionally process them.”
— Thais Gibson [00:20]

2. Examples of Core Wounds and Their Formation

Timestamp: 03:30 – 05:00

Common core wounds include:
- I will be abandoned
- I will be alone
- I am unloved
- I am unsafe
- I am helpless
- I am trapped
- I am not good enough
- I am bad
- I am unseen/unheard
- I don’t matter
These beliefs form as protective mechanisms: the subconscious ‘remembers’ dangers to avoid future pain, much like remembering a bear’s teeth rather than the nice tree next to it.

“Your mind really hangs on to negative things more than positive because it thinks that you have a better chance of protecting yourself from these things.”
— Thais Gibson [04:45]

3. Attachment Styles and Core Wounds

Timestamp: 05:00 – 07:00

Different attachment styles tend to have specific core wounds:
- Anxious-Preoccupied: Not good enough, I’ll be abandoned, I am unloved/unsafe (especially if lacking connection).
- Integrated Attachment Theory: Highlights overlap between core wounds and attachment styles.
- Anxious-Preoccupied specifics: I will be disliked, rejected, excluded.
- Fearful-Avoidant: I will be trapped, helpless, powerless, unsafe, bad, abandoned, betrayed.
- Dismissive-Avoidant: Core fear of being defective, incapable, or feeling trapped/helpless.
Core wounds act like triggers—when poked, they unleash intense emotional responses due to stored subconscious history.

“Think of a core wound as being like a trigger. Like we store these events and then when they get poked or catalyzed or re-triggered, it’s really painful, it's super uncomfortable because we have a lot of stored subconscious history with this emotion or with this wound.”
— Thais Gibson [06:30]

4. Conditioning and the Power of Reprogramming

Timestamp: 07:00 – 08:30

Core wounds aren’t innate—they’re learned.
By using the principles that created these wounds (repetition, emotion, and imagery), you can recondition the subconscious and create new neural pathways.
With repeated new experiences and beliefs, old patterns neurologically atrophy over time, making healing possible.

“We were not born with these, they got conditioned into you. And by the same principles…we can capitalize on this and we can get rid of these core wounds once and for all.”
— Thais Gibson [07:20]

5. Practical Reflection Exercise

Timestamp: 08:30 – 10:00

Thais encourages listeners to:
1. Pick a core wound that resonates with them (e.g., “I don’t matter,” “I’ll be betrayed,” “I am unloved”).
2. Reflect on how it feels and impacts various life areas.
3. Consider how life would feel if they let go of this wound.
4. Write down insights to make the process concrete and actionable.

“Try to notice when these core wounds come up for you, what it feels like and how it affects your life in multiple areas. And then try to think of…what would the benefits be of letting these things go?”
— Thais Gibson [09:10]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On the subconscious mind’s intent:
“Our subconscious mind means well by storing these things, but they usually have a lot of really profound downsides or negative impacts.”
— Thais Gibson [05:10]
On opportunities for growth:
“What would your life look like instead? And it’s a really powerful exercise to tap into.”
— Thais Gibson [09:30]

Important Timestamps

00:00: Introduction to core wounds
04:00: Examples and evolutionary logic of negative memory retention
05:15: Core wounds mapped to attachment styles
07:00: How core wounds are conditioned and how to recondition them
08:45: Guided personal reflection exercise for listeners

Tone & Language

Thais Gibson's style is compassionate, empowering, and practical. She speaks directly to the listener, encouraging real-time reflection and positive change, using accessible language while grounding the content in psychological principles.

Summary

Thais Gibson’s episode provides a clear blueprint for identifying and healing core wounds. With a balance of theory, real-life examples, and actionable exercises, listeners are empowered to recognize their own deep-seated beliefs, understand how these patterns affect their relationships, and envision life after healing. The episode is essential listening for anyone seeking to break free from repetitive emotional patterns and create healthier, more fulfilling relationships.

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Transcript1 lines

[00:00]
A
So let's talk about the topic of what are core wounds and how to identify them, and really what some different examples of core wounds might be. And what I would love for you to be able to do is during this video, really take a look at some of these different core wounds and see which ones you really think apply to you and how they trigger you, how they affect your life, what the cost is of really carrying these core wounds around, and what some of the benefits might be, or how your life might look different if you were able to really recondition them and then let them go once and for all foreign. So, first and foremost, core wounds are essentially this, like, baseline level of meaning that we give to situations when we cannot properly emotionally process them. Now, what does that actually mean? Well, you get conditioned, and when you grow up and throughout your upbringing, your mind constantly seeks certainty. It wants certainty as a baseline need for survival. It's like, okay, if I can know what's going on, then I'm more likely to survive. So when you have painful experiences in upbringing that you can't properly wrap your head around or emotionally process, your mind makes an inference about it in order to get its need met for certainty. In other words, if you grow up in a home with a really critical parent who's constantly criticizing, your mind might give that situation meaning and say, well, I must not be good enough. And that's why this is happening Now. Another thing you need to understand is that as a child, that the mind tends to personalize. Personalize things way more than it would as an adult. So when you can't understand something, you give it meaning, you take it personally, and this meaning then becomes part of your assumption you make about yourself. And at a deeper level, it becomes part of your subconscious identity. Now, we have a whole bunch of different versions of core wounds we have. I will be abandoned. I will be alone. I am unloved. I am unsafe. I am helpless. I am trapped. I am not good enough. I am bad. I am. I am unseen. I am unheard. I don't matter. Like, there's so many different variations of this, but it basically comes from us growing up, being exposed to things that feel beyond our control. Our mind makes meaning out of it to try to get its need met for certain certainty. It says, oh, this happened because I don't matter. And then, okay, so I don't matter. I have to remember that. And your mind really hangs on to this over time. Why? Because if you imagine that you go into a forest and you see a bear and let's say you escape from the bear, but the next day you have to cross back through the forest to get to where you need to be going. Your mind doesn't think, oh yeah, yesterday that, that beautiful tree that I saw right next to the bear. You don't remember the tree next to the bear. You remember the bear's teeth. And so your mind really hangs on to negative things more than positive because it thinks that you have a better chance of protecting yourself from these things. In other words, when we have painful experiences in our upbringing, our mind makes really painful, really intense meaning out of it. And in doing so it's, it thinks that, hey, I can remember these things and then not expose myself to them. If I think I'm not good enough, I won't stretch myself outside of my comfort zone because I know I'm not good enough and it's not going to work. So it means. Well, our subconscious mind means well by storing these things, but they usually have a lot of really profound downsides or negative impacts. And so if you look at some of these different ones, you can really hear them with different attachment styles. Right? I'm not good enough, I'll be abandoned. I'm unloved, I am unsafe. Especially if I don't have connection. Like you hear a lot of these in the anxious, preoccupied attachment style and in integrated attachment theory, which is our new cutting edge attachment theory. You know, what we have is we've overlapped core wounds with each attachment style and we can see how they tend to really affect different attachment styles in different ways. We have also for aps, I will be disliked, I will be rejected, I will be excluded. When these things happen, like when an AP has an exclusion core wound active and think of a core wound as being like a trigger. Like we store these events and then when they get poked or catalyzed or re triggered, it's really painful, it's super uncomfortable because we have a lot of stored subconscious history with this emotion or with this wound. So it elicits a lot of that emotion. You can see for fearful avoidance. I will be trapped. I'll be helpless, I will be powerless. I am unsafe, I am bad, I am abandoned. Will be in there too. I could be betrayed. Betrayed. I am or will be betrayed. So you'll see a lot of these different dynamics come up. Dismissive avoidance tend to have this big core wound of fearing being defective or not capable or also trapped in situations or helpless. Right. So you see a lot of how different attachment styles have these. Now what's really important to recognize is that these core wounds you were not born with, they got conditioned into you. And by the same principles, specifically using repetition and emotion and imagery, because these are the languages and the way that the subconscious mind gets fired and wired to create new outputs or new outcomes. Essentially, what happens is the more we fire and wire new patterns, we actually have these old patterns or beliefs about ourselves atrophy at the neuroplastic level over time. And so we can capitalize on this and we can get rid of these core wounds once and for all. So I want you now to think about the costs. How have these core wounds cost you? Pick one. Pick one that you're like, I know I definitely struggle with that. I really easily feel like I don't matter, or I feel like I can't trust or I'll be betrayed, or I feel unloved or unsubscribe safe easily. Try to notice when these core wounds come up for you, what it feels like and how it affects your life in multiple areas. And then try to think of. And you can even pause the video and you can, like, write this stuff down. What would the benefits be of letting these things go? And, like, what would your life look like instead? And it's a really powerful exercise to tap into. I hope this makes a whole lot of sense. Thank you so much for watching. Please, like, share and subscribe if you enjoy this content. Enjoy this channel. And I put daily content on here so you can hit the notification bell and you get free daily content. Content as well. So thank you so much for watching and I will see you in future videos.