The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #279 - Thais Gibson, PhD

TRANSCRIPT

(Note: This is generated by AI with 98% accuracy. However, any errors may cause unintended changes in meaning.)

Melanie Avalon 00:00

Welcome back to the show. I am so incredibly excited about the conversation I'm about to have. It is about a topic that I have been wanting to do an episode on for years, years and years and years. Interestingly, so I'll just, I'll just mention the topic, which is people's attachment styles.

Melanie Avalon 00:19

I've actually in the past been pitched, I think a few times different people wanting to come on the show for specific attachment styles. And each time I was like, I would love to do that and learn more.

Melanie Avalon 00:31

But then I had this fear that maybe if I focused on just one, people would listen and everybody would maybe think they were that one style. So I was like, I need to just have, I was like, I'm gonna wait.

Melanie Avalon 00:41

And I know like the perfect opportunity is going to come and it's going to be an overview of everything. And then that happened. So when I got an email from the team with Ties Gibson for her new book, Learning Love, Build the Best Relationships of Your Life with Integrated Attachment Theory.

Melanie Avalon 00:57

I was an immediate yes. She also has a book prior to that. It's a bestseller. It's called Attachment Theory, A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life. And so friends, I read this book and every now and then you read a book and you just realized that the entirety of humanity could read this book because I think it would help so many people.

Melanie Avalon 01:16

I learned so much about myself. I learned so much about what I see in other people and their relationships. I've been recommending this book to everybody. In fact, my assistant who helps me edit my notes, she was like, I have to read this book.

Melanie Avalon 01:28

And then she read the book just for reading my notes about it. It was just so mind blowing to learn how these attachment styles, how they're formed, where they come from, how you can address them and how they affect things like your core beliefs and your emotional patterns and your expectations and relationships and your boundaries and your needs and your coping mechanisms and communication and all the things.

Melanie Avalon 01:49

So I have been looking forward to this for so, so long. Thais, thank you so much for being here.

Thais Gibson 01:55

Thank you for such a lovely introduction. I appreciate that and it's always so fun to chat with people who are as excited and passionate about things as you are, so I appreciate that.

Melanie Avalon 02:05

Yeah, I'm just so excited about this. And so I mentioned your books. A quick question for listeners. Your personal development school that you have doing all of this work, what came first? The books or the school?

Melanie Avalon 02:17

What was the journey there?

Thais Gibson 02:19

Yeah, I worked in private practice for a while. And then I had about a two year wait list with clients. And I really care about people. And I wanted to really be there. And I just felt like not so great about telling people, Yeah, I'd love to help you in two years.

Thais Gibson 02:32

Like, it just wasn't a great sort of system. So I did start doing a whole bunch of like online workshops and teaching classes online and then wrote our first book right after that. So launched the personal development school about five years ago after being in private practice for seven, eight years before that and then wrote the second book just last year, which is sort of like the conglomeration about everything distilled down.

Thais Gibson 02:55

So personal development school helps we have a whole bunch of peer support groups and things like that and courses to really like it's almost like an attachment boot camp to heal your attachment style.

Thais Gibson 03:04

But then the book is like the summary of everything content wise.

Melanie Avalon 03:07

Awesome. And to that point, it's a really approachable, I don't want to say easy read, because that makes it sound like simple, but it's a really approachable read, like the perfect length. This is why like, I feel literally everybody should just read it.

Melanie Avalon 03:19

Thank you. So many questions here. The concept of attachment theory and you have your own, you know, approach to it. You talk about the history of it in the book. I'm super curious when it came across your radar.

Melanie Avalon 03:35

Did you slowly integrate it into your work? Did you have an epiphany surrounding it one day? Of course, I'm dying to know. And we have to talk about the attachment styles, but I can't wait for it to hear what yours is.

Melanie Avalon 03:44

And you're asking what mine was before this. When did you first, you know, zone in on this concept?

Thais Gibson 03:49

Yeah, so it's a great question. So I actually learned about it in first year university psych class. And I went to school for psychology and was interested always in the mind and all these things. But it was just such a brief introduction to it.

Thais Gibson 04:03

It's like, here's the attachment styles and here's how they can affect your relationship. So I came across it really briefly then. I had a lot of work to do on myself as a person. I had a lot of healing to do.

Thais Gibson 04:13

I came from a really turbulent childhood with a lot of extreme highs and lows and just ups and downs, saw a tremendous amount of fighting growing up between my parents, really nasty divorce. And I think I just grew up internalizing a lot of that as a sensitive person.

Thais Gibson 04:28

And with a lot of that chaos, I became a fearful avoidant attachment style, which is often referred to as disorganized attachment style. And so I saw a lot of those really big extremes growing up with how intense and heated things could get.

Thais Gibson 04:42

And I just, I was like, Oh, relationships are scary. They're, they're chaotic. You know, I, there's some really good moments around love and there's some really scary ones. And so I was in school, had a lot of self growth to do actually ended up by about third year university, having to just deeply work on myself and really go inwards struggling with a lot of like addictive habits that I was going through a lot of relationship problems in a big way.

Thais Gibson 05:07

And I eventually was like, okay, I'm the common denominator. And I should actually just figure out what's going on with me. And I got really, really passionate about learning, like about healing and really, in more tangible ways.

Thais Gibson 05:21

So did a whole bunch of work in hypnosis, the subconscious mind, I learned that your conscious mind can't outwell or overpower your subconscious mind. And your subconscious mind itself is responsible for 95 to 97% of your beliefs and your thoughts and your behaviors and emotions.

Thais Gibson 05:35

And so I was like, geez, what's in there? And that was something nobody was really talking about like 15, 16 years ago. Yeah, I just went really deep into this whole journey of learning and obsessively researching.

Thais Gibson 05:45

And I revisited attachment styles after doing a lot of other work on myself, revisited attachment styles. When I met my now husband, about 10 years ago, I had done a lot of other work, had come a long way in my own healing and journey.

Thais Gibson 06:00

And I was really single for a while and really focused on myself for a little bit. And then eventually got into a relationship with him and was like, wait, there's some patterns here that don't make sense.

Thais Gibson 06:11

And I went back and looked at my own patterns, looked at his patterns. He was a dismissive avoidant. When we met, I was so at least partially fearful, avoidant. And it was cool because I got to take all this deep work I had done on myself and apply it to outwardly, how to communicate in a relationship, not just how to work through my own stuff.

Thais Gibson 06:30

And yeah, I was already working in private practice with clients at that point. And that really led me to take a bit of a detour and start working with people more in relationships after that because it was so eye-opening.

Melanie Avalon 06:40

So many questions. I'm wondering if we should briefly define the four types just so we have a foundation so then I can dive into questions from there. And actually maybe one quick question because we're going to go through these four different types.

Melanie Avalon 06:55

And I guess it's probably a biased population because when you have clients, well, maybe not because I can tell you what my attachment style is. Are people pretty evenly the different types is one more than the other?

Melanie Avalon 07:06

And also, is everybody just one type? Can maybe blends of types? What's the population look like?

Thais Gibson 07:14

Yeah, so the most in-depth research shows about 50% of the population is securely attached. And there's about 20% to 22% of dismissive avoidant attachment style and anxious attachment style that make up the other part of that split, with around 5% to 8% as the fearful avoidant or disorganized attachment style.

Thais Gibson 07:35

So that's what a lot of the research shows. More recent research that's done on sort of like large scale Gallup polls, which obviously has its downsides because it's like a lot of self-reporting. A lot of that research shows that the securely attached population is trending downwards pretty rapidly, which is interesting too, because it does seem to correlate with some of the divorce rates.

Thais Gibson 07:55

Like divorce rates are sort of trending towards 60%, and securely attached individuals are seeming to trend towards 40%. And I'm not saying that if you're not securely attached, you can't have a marriage that lasts, but there's some interesting correlations there for sure.

Thais Gibson 08:08

And then when it comes to the actual, can we have a blend of attachment styles? Yeah, everybody has like a major attachment style that's gonna show up the most in your romantic relationships, but I don't like to think of attachment styles as being this like diagnosis, right?

Thais Gibson 08:24

It's not like a personality disorder. The way I like to think of it is the subconscious set of patterns that impact how you relate to other people in relationships. And often those things, those patterns come from your childhood, right?

Thais Gibson 08:36

Like however you learned how to love will create the way that you try to love other people as an adult, including how you try to love yourself, you know, your relationship to your own boundaries, how you treat your own needs, how you treat your own emotions, and of course how you treat that of others.

Thais Gibson 08:51

And so we'll often have what I call our primary attachment style, but we can kind of lean in a different direction. So for example, somebody could be secure, but they could have like a secondary anxious attachment style, where they do have some pretty relevant anxious patterns that they may wanna work through.

Thais Gibson 09:06

Somebody could be fearful avoidance, which is the very hot and cold attachment style in relationships, but they could trend more to their anxious rather than their avoidance side. So I like to think of us, we have a primary attachment style that impacts us the most by far, and then we have some secondary tendencies in a different direction.

Thais Gibson 09:23

Not everybody, but that is something that tends to be quite relevant for people.

Melanie Avalon 09:29

And actually one quick question there as well because in the book you talk about these strange situation experiments which helped or started I think the work in the beginning was that like the main the main experiment there.

Thais Gibson 09:41

Yeah, so do you want me to tell you about that for just a second?

Melanie Avalon 09:43

Yeah, because my question about it is, it sounds like, at least with kids, you can pretty quickly identify these attachment styles just based on how these kids act in these situations. I guess my question is, how quickly can you identify these based on behaviors?

Melanie Avalon 09:59

As children or as adults or both? The experiment was kids, right, infants, or what happened there?

Thais Gibson 10:05

Yeah, so so this is an experiment. So a traditional attachment theory came out of Cambridge University with John Bowlby, and then later, a psychologist named Mary Ainsworth. And basically, they had this experiment to be able to determine what somebody's attachment style was at a very young age.

Thais Gibson 10:19

And how they conducted this is they would have the parents and the child go into a room that sort of looked like a doctor's office waiting room. And they would then have the parent leave the room, just briefly and have a stranger come into the room and be there in the same room as a child.

Thais Gibson 10:36

And they would basically study and, you know, witness how the child would react to A, the parent leaving and B, the stranger coming in, and then C, how the child would react to their own parent when the parent returned to the room.

Thais Gibson 10:51

And what they found was really interesting. So they found that with securely attached individuals, they remained pretty emotionally stable, maybe expressed a little bit of discomfort when the parent left and when the stranger came in.

Thais Gibson 11:01

But when the parent returned, they would reapproach that parent in a healthy way, be excited to be around them. But, you know, go back to playing, doing their own thing. They were pretty emotionally stable throughout the reaction, throughout the situation, compared to the reactions of the other attachment styles.

Thais Gibson 11:18

Anxiously attached individuals, they became, or children, became very anxious when the parent left. And when the parent returned, they would just cling to the parent like crazy, really claying clearly like we're anxious, worried that the parent was going to leave again.

Thais Gibson 11:32

And dismissible avoidant attachment styles, what they would do as children is when the parent would come back into the room, they would avoid the parent. So when the parent would make a bid for connection and try to get close to the child or in drag with the child, the child would look away.

Thais Gibson 11:47

And so what you could actually visibly see is that this individual was minimizing, this child was minimizing their attachment needs with the parent as a strategy to protect themselves, to feel safe, because they felt, you know, obviously hurt that the parent had left them there.

Thais Gibson 12:01

Fearful avoidants are disorganized. They were extremely ambivalent. So they would be hot and cold. They would go towards the parent. And then when the parent would get close, they'd sort of pull away.

Thais Gibson 12:09

They were very colicky, very fussy. And they took a very long time to reemotionally stabilize. And it's interesting because the fearful avoidant attachment style, you know, all the anxious attachments, main way of meeting their attachment needs or attachment strategy is to try to cling and get close.

Thais Gibson 12:26

And the dismissible avoidant attachment styles mean strategy is to push people away and minimize their attachment needs to others to feel safe. The fearful avoidance major attachment strategy is hypervigilance.

Thais Gibson 12:37

They read between the lines, they go back and forth, they're hot and cold and in and out and they're testing and they're trying to sort of figure out what they can take away from a situation because there's a lot of chaos and they don't trust their caregivers fully.

Thais Gibson 12:51

So they want closeness, but they're scared of it at the same time. And that really manifests as a lot of ambivalence in their behavior. And so you could actually observe all of these things between the ages of zero to two years old, which is absolutely wild.

Thais Gibson 13:02

And then of course, because our attachment style affects our adult romantic relationships, but all relationships, friendships, family, co working relationships, because it affects all of those different facets of life.

Thais Gibson 13:13

Then you can also view a lot of these patterns all the way into somebody's adult life, just manifesting in slightly different forms.

Melanie Avalon 13:20

Wow. So if you can start observing it at zero, that means these patterns develop pretty rapidly once the baby is born. Very rapidly.

Thais Gibson 13:28

And a lot of it has to do with some crucial ingredients at the beginning. So early, early on, the thing that creates secure attachment more than anything else, and it's a small thing, but it has such a big impact is, is a caregiver approach oriented and are they attuned?

Thais Gibson 13:43

So, you know, what approach oriented means in psychology is, is, you know, when, when the parents around the child and the child is fussy or upset, you know, maybe they're hungry or maybe neither diaper changed.

Thais Gibson 13:56

If a parent is really attuned, then they're going to notice very quickly. And then they are going to be approach oriented, meaning they're going to actually go towards the child and make an attempt to co-regulate with them to suit them.

Thais Gibson 14:08

And it sounds small, but what that does is it teaches a child a whole bunch of things. It conditions them very early on, that it's safe to express negative emotion. My negative emotions are still worthy of love.

Thais Gibson 14:21

I can trust other people, I can rely on them to try to meet my needs and show up for me. And so there's a lot of safety that develops around connection and belief around connection and positive emotional associations conditioned into the subconscious mind about relying on others trusting.

Thais Gibson 14:35

I'm worthy of my needs being met by other people. It's okay to be vulnerable. But if those things are missing, you know, in the, the experience of the anxious attachment style, sometimes that's there, but a lot of times it's not there consistently, which leads to a feeling of perceived abandonment in a child.

Thais Gibson 14:52

Like you may have really loving caregivers, but if they're working a lot or if they travel for work for months at a time, one of the parents, you know, that can create this abandonment dynamic for a child and they feel like, okay, love is there, but love is taken away.

Thais Gibson 15:05

So it's unpredictable. Is it going to come? Is it going to go? And that inconsistency creates this deep need to attach very strongly to the, the parent as a means of trying to maintain proximity and prevent feeling like they're going to be abandoned again.

Thais Gibson 15:17

And so that's, you know, what forms that, that anxious attachment style with the dismissive avoidant, there's generally a huge lack of attunement with the parents or caregivers, which essentially causes them to feel like, okay, I can't get my needs met.

Thais Gibson 15:30

You know, maybe it's things like the diapers not being changed for very long periods of time on the right on a regular basis. Or when they cry, there's a lot of sleep training, just put the child in the other room.

Thais Gibson 15:40

There's now a lot of studies showing that that actually can lay some of the foundations for creating dismissive avoidant attachment style. And so anyways, there's all these different dynamics in here, but the fearful avoidant will have chaos at a young age.

Thais Gibson 15:52

So if their parent is extremely dysregulated all the time, if their parents using alcohol or substances, if they see a lot of fighting at a young age, they learn to associate the parent with a sense of comfort, but also with a sense of fear.

Thais Gibson 16:03

And it causes them to feel very split in what they are thinking and feeling and experiencing with that parent, which obviously causes a lot of that hypervigilance and walking on eggshells all the way later into adult life.

Melanie Avalon 16:15

I'm so glad you mentioned the sleep piece because I was going to ask that I personally don't have kids. And so I'm not like religiously following parenting information all the time. But I feel like the one argument I do hear discussed a lot is the sleep training thing and do you let the kids cry or not?

Melanie Avalon 16:31

And I was just thinking, you know, what are the effects of letting the kid cry while sleeping? And so you're saying it is showing now more that that might create an issue with attachment styles.

Thais Gibson 16:42

Yeah, absolutely. It's so interesting because a lot of the early research showed Oh, you know, it's important and you have to let the child learn to self soothe and all these different things. But a lot more of the more recent research over the past 1020 years, even is like, absolutely not.

Thais Gibson 16:57

That's not that creates dismissal avoidant attachment cells. It creates individuals that learn to repress their emotions. They go into their adult lives self numbing, not self soothing. And there's a big and crucial difference.

Thais Gibson 17:08

And it's sleep training has a lot more detrimental effects than it does up. And there's, you know, there's a whole discussion about what do you do instead, like, obviously, you don't let the child sleep in your bed for the rest of your life.

Thais Gibson 17:19

It's a lot of what we call exposure work. So instead, it's like, slowly, you know, for example, you don't just decide, okay, the child's turned a certain age, and I'm just going to put them in the other room all the way down the hallway in our house in a crib, and they just have to deal with it and try to sleep through the night.

Thais Gibson 17:34

No, instead, it's, you know, incremental exposure to letting that child learn to self soothe. So, for example, it's like, you know, for the first month, you may take the child out of the bed, if you were sleeping with the child in your bed, and put them in a crib two feet away from the bed, and let them get used to having their own kind of space and domain.

Thais Gibson 17:53

And then when they are stressed, if they do cry during the night, you know, giving them a little bit more time to try to self soothe, but coming there and also showing that you're there. And then, you know, when the child gets a little more comfortable in the crib after a month or so, okay, now we're going to put the crib further away in the bedroom at the other end of the bedroom, and then, you know,

Thais Gibson 18:11

still be there for the child get up, but also give the child more and more time to learn to soothe on their own. And so basically, the incrementalism allows that child to develop this sense of self and connection to their own emotions and ability to self regulate and self soothe, but it's not mutually exclusive to the parent also being there to support the child.

Thais Gibson 18:30

And so in that particular case, you know, if you just imagine the child's put down at the end of the hall, and for eight hours, they're left there to soothe on their own. I mean, that just creates a lot of negative downsides where it's not really about self soothing, it's that child's often traumatized by that experience, especially when it's so intense, so early.

Thais Gibson 18:49

And yeah, it's such an interesting topic, we could talk about that just on its own forever. But but that's some of the more recent research at a high level.

Melanie Avalon 18:57

sort of related to it because there's the role of presumably in the situation like the mom taking care of the baby. In families with multiple children, are there patterns with attachment styles and birth order?

Melanie Avalon 19:10

I'm just wondering if, you know, when the mom has the first kid, if they tend to be more stressed about being attuned to their child versus later down the line.

Thais Gibson 19:21

this question. I just I I love obviously you love to go deep on things. So I actually have researched so much about this because I was so interested in this as well and there's actually not really anything conclusive that shows that there's a huge impact on birth order and attachment style.

Thais Gibson 19:35

Now the reason is your attachment style is about the firing and wiring you get right. That's the thing of your attachment style is being the conditioning of patterns that you're exposed to repeatedly and I think it's so interesting about this because there's some research kind of indicating but there's a lot more that disproves that that's not there's not really a strong relationship there and so you know the everything's sort of up in the air on it and the reason being in my opinion is because you have so many different events that take place.

Thais Gibson 20:03

So for example you could have two parents who are securely attached and for their first you know child that comes along they're really present but then we could see you know six years later there's a second child and in between the first and second child you know one of the parents you know developed a substance disorder or substance use disorder or became an alcoholic or lost their own parents and when that second child was born they just happened to be in deep grieving.

Thais Gibson 20:30

Let's say there's infidelity in the relationship between two parents who showed up pretty securely with their first child well now there's a divorce and there's chaos for the second child so because there's so many like variables externally that will change and shift not only how the the parents respond to the child but how the child actually learns to respond to the parents there's so many pieces that play in there and it's often why you'll see that that individuals especially when the when there's a little bit of a gap in age they can come from the same family but have different attachment styles because in those early years the circumstances can be so different.

Thais Gibson 21:06

you

Melanie Avalon 21:06

So in my family, I have two siblings. There's a three year difference between me and my sister and then my brother and sister are like a year apart, I think. And the two of them are older? No, I'm the oldest.

Melanie Avalon 21:16

Okay, okay, yeah. The timing of reading this book was so amazing because my sister, whose listeners might know this, because I'm posting with her all the time, we're like best friends. She was going through some boy stuff.

Melanie Avalon 21:28

She's almost, I hope she doesn't mind me saying this on the air, she's almost like a caricature, I can't say the word. Like most extreme version of fearful avoidant, like in the way she acts in relationships, like it's really profound to watch.

Melanie Avalon 21:44

And at the same time, she's very much, kind of sounds like what your history was, where you, you know, identify these patterns in yourself and you really were, you know, trying to find answers and like change them.

Melanie Avalon 21:54

So she's very self-aware, really incredible, like wonderful human beings. So the timing of me reading this book, I was reading it and like watching things she was doing in this relationship she was in.

Melanie Avalon 22:04

And I was like, Danielle, you gotta read this book, it's gonna explain so much. Because she kept me like, I don't know why I'm doing this. Like what's interesting though, it's going back to the different types in the family.

Melanie Avalon 22:16

So I, to answer your question before the podcast, I am a secure attachment style. And what's funny is I didn't want, cause like I think most people would wanna be secure. I was so worried that I was maybe like lying to myself with the answers on the quizzes.

Melanie Avalon 22:30

So I took your quiz and then I went and found like four other quizzes online, like took all of them. I was like, I need to make sure that this is correct. But they all came back with secure. I think I'm secure with maybe, I can see a little bit of the anxious tendencies and some of the things they do.

Melanie Avalon 22:45

But I do think in general, I really identify with the secure. What's interesting though, is like my memory of my childhood is so rosy. Like I really, I don't really remember any trauma. It's funny, I interviewed Gabor Mate on the show, which was so amazing.

Melanie Avalon 22:59

And he thinks everybody has childhood trauma, which is probably true. But I remember at that point, I was like, I don't feel like I have childhood trauma. My brother and sister though, apparently they had a completely, even in those three years, and my parents are wonderful, but they had certain experiences that I think led to different attachment styles.

Melanie Avalon 23:17

And we've had this epiphany recently where like, we just feel like we had completely different childhoods and that it led to different, these different types in us. I don't even know if there was a question there.

Thais Gibson 23:27

No, but you're absolutely correct and and you know, it's just I wanted to if it's okay Just comment on something you said earlier because it was so interesting So you said dr Matt gavramati says oh, you know, like everybody has childhood trauma Everyone does have childhood trauma But there's a big difference between like small t trauma and big t trauma like you could make the argument that Conditioning is traumatic,

Thais Gibson 23:46

right when we get punished for doing things wrong and rewarded for doing things, right? Because we need to be socialized into society like all of those things have an impact but it's really about like what the ratio is of Healthy secure behaviors versus trauma because if you have a little bit of trauma here and there or you get into an argument with your parents Here and there and you can't properly emotionally process some things.

Thais Gibson 24:07

Everybody's got stuff they go through but if that's Really, you know drowned out by how much? Approach oriented behavior there is how much attunement there is from parents, you know parents teaching boundaries wanting to help work through You know you learning your needs and show up for you and support you then It's okay that there's imperfect moments in childhood In fact, those can grow us right those can give us opportunities to become more resilient or empathetic But it's really that like ratio if you're seeing that there's a pretty Intense split between good and bad things then you're going to see that that is creating that that Patterning right because we get programmed or conditioned through repetition and emotion So the more repetitive positive experiences we have that works in our favor the more repetitive painful or traumatic experiences we have That's obviously going to work in the direction of more insecure attachment

Melanie Avalon 24:53

that completely makes sense. And so it's so interesting to me that just I guess in those three years, environmentally and the social dynamics, things could have changed enough to where that repetitive experience was so different from my brother and sister compared to me.

Melanie Avalon 25:08

Like I said, I was reading the book, I was talking to her, and I was telling her, I was like, I don't know how to... Because she kept asking me how I was perceiving the world the way I was perceiving it and the way it...

Melanie Avalon 25:22

Because she was kind of looking up to the way I was approaching relationships. And I was like, I don't know how to tell you how to do this because it's literally just how I feel. Either feel this or you don't.

Melanie Avalon 25:33

So that's why I really love in your book, you actually have a program to actually make changes here. So that's one question to start with is if people don't do quote, work on themselves, do their attachment styles tend to change?

Melanie Avalon 25:49

Do they tend to stay the same? And also how much agency do we have in changing if we're an insecure attachment style becoming more secure?

Thais Gibson 25:58

Yeah, great questions. So, so the first thing is, yes, our attachment cell can change over time, but it's going to be according to our experiences themselves. So the subconscious mind is really like our habituated self, our programmed conditions patterned self.

Thais Gibson 26:13

And if we, you know, obtain a lot of our patterns from early childhood, where there's, let's say, for example, a complete lack of attunement, well, then a lot of what's going to happen is you're you're going to learn, okay, well, I can't trust that people are here and that they're that I can rely on them.

Thais Gibson 26:28

So I have to become hyper independent to meet my own needs. And then you're more likely to see somebody be a dismissive avoidant attachment style. Now, in theory, if you know, we've got all that programming and now somebody's wired this way, right, they're conditioned to cope in this way to try to love and relate to other people through this lens of I can't get too close, I have to be hyper independent.

Thais Gibson 26:48

If something was going to change someone's attachment style, it would have to be a lot in the other direction because as a bare minimum, the subconscious mind takes at least 21 days to fire and wire a new neural pathways that are strong enough that they'll stay solid.

Thais Gibson 27:01

And that they're actually going to create new sets of wiring new ways that we perceive things new patterns that we have new habits in terms of how we show up or behave. And so, you know, what you would have to see, for example, is maybe there's, you know, a child who's dismissive avoidant, but then around that child's, you know, fifth birthday, both of their parents embark on a deep healing journey towards more emotional literacy and self awareness.

Thais Gibson 27:24

And suddenly, from five years old, until 18 years old, that child grows up in a household where they have very attuned parents who are very emotionally literate, because what that would happen, what that would create is repetition and emotion of all these new interactions that would recondition that program, right, that that original program of dismissive avoidant attachment style.

Thais Gibson 27:44

Now, you can see it go in the extremely, you know, traumatic split, you know, all kinds of things go down. And that could create, you know, an anxious attachment style, or even if you're a full avoidant attachment cell.

Thais Gibson 28:00

So, so things can change that if we have enough repeated repetition and emotion, it can refire and wire new neural networks, new neural pathways, and create new patterns within an individual in terms of how they view connection and relationships and how they learn to love.

Thais Gibson 28:15

But it's less likely, because we've got a lot of that wiring that's already there. And once we have that original foundation of how we show up, a lot of times we're going to use those coping mechanisms to navigate painful events as well, right?

Thais Gibson 28:28

So if you see, for example, somebody's already a dismissive avoidant, then there's a bad divorce, they're probably going to keep more distance from that, right? So that's going to often those those pathways reinforce themselves.

Thais Gibson 28:39

So it can happen, it's less likely, in fact, the vast majority of time, our attachment cell does stay the same. But, you know, we could look at roughly 10% of the time, external factors can change our style for us.

Thais Gibson 28:52

But the cool part is that because we do have neuroplasticity, because we can actually change our attachment patterns, when we consciously understand how this works, the conscious mind can rewire the subconscious mind.

Thais Gibson 29:05

So we can reverse engineer what securely attached individuals have and their patterns to become secure within the relationship to ourselves. And, of course, that affects our relationships to everybody else around us.

Thais Gibson 29:16

This is the work that I've done on myself, very, very successfully, and have done with, you know, over 40,000 students who have been through our programs, 88.7% of people on self paced programs became securely attached.

Thais Gibson 29:28

And that's, you can't even determine if people showed up and did all the work or finish them. So it's a really, we're really happy with that stat versus the completion rate. So you know, there's a tremendous amount of replicatable evidence that shows we can absolutely change our attachment style quite easily.

Thais Gibson 29:44

But it does require consistency, it doesn't require rewiring. And it does require that we understand the tools and the main pillars of like what it takes to actually become securely attached.

Melanie Avalon 29:56

What is the role of repetition a lot in duration, but maybe not as intense emotion versus less duration, but high emotion? And what I'm thinking of is being raised in a situation, maybe not super horrible for insecure attachment style, but leaning towards that way, but being in that situation for a long time versus one thing happening.

Melanie Avalon 30:22

And I'm just thinking for me, so with this secure attachment style, I did have a relationship a few years ago now. The other person, he was definitely looking now that I think about it as dismissive, avoidant.

Melanie Avalon 30:34

Things happen that were really traumatic. I don't know if I'm using that work too casually, really impacted me. And I think created a tendency for some insecure attachment styles. That was just from basically a few things that he did in a very brief amount of time.

Melanie Avalon 30:49

But I was able to really recognize it as something that... Because I had gone so long not having that insecure attachment piece in me. And then when it popped up after that relationship, I was really able to see it and be like, oh, this is not...

Melanie Avalon 31:03

This is from that. We're not going to keep doing this. My question there is the difference between being in repetition and emotion, duration versus intensity.

Thais Gibson 31:15

You're asking such good questions, I'm so impressed. Okay, so to your point, and this is like really in the nuances of things and something I talk about when people are like deep into our programs, so it's cool that you're able to pull this out already.

Thais Gibson 31:27

So repetition and emotion is how we fire and wire, but if something is intensely emotional enough, it can create a media program. So we call this like immediate imprinting. And what happens is if you can imagine, for example, and some of these are really relatable, somebody could never have an I am unsafe core wound, they could grow up in a safe household, safe life, all these things, and then be in a traumatic event,

Thais Gibson 31:49

like an earthquake and the building collapses. And obviously this is like an extreme example, but they could walk away from that event, constantly going around wondering like, is something bad gonna happen?

Thais Gibson 32:00

And they could have this immediate I am unsafe core wound because the intensity of the emotion of how unsafe they felt in that one traumatic experience of the earthquake, and maybe they saw people pass away around them.

Thais Gibson 32:12

If something is intensely emotional enough, it can immediately imprint the subconscious mind.

Melanie Avalon 32:16

That's what happened to me first. I'm realizing this is so interesting. Okay.

Thais Gibson 32:20

Yeah, and it's such a good question. It's such an insightful question. And so, you know, there's ways to reverse engineer that. How can we have a lot of positive emotion, you know, on the other side of things to more rapidly imprint our subconscious mind with patterns we do want.

Thais Gibson 32:33

With programming, we do actually wanna see in our lives and I'm happy to sort of go more into that with some tools later on. But if something is repeated and emotional throughout our life, it's gonna create a lot of patterns.

Thais Gibson 32:46

So if somebody grows up in a household where their entire early childhood is all like them in a situation where they're always made to feel not good enough. Their parents are always inconsistent and they fear abandonment.

Thais Gibson 32:57

You know, somebody's really likely to have a strong anxious attachment style because that was repeated and made them feel emotional. But you could actually hold that next to a child who's fully in a secure household.

Thais Gibson 33:09

And then, you know, when they're 12 years old or 10 years old, the parent, one of their primary caregiver, the main parent who's around the most dies, right? And not to use such like, you know, painful, scary examples to people, but if that were to happen, there's gonna be such a strong abandonment wound there because that child is losing a caregiver they were so attached to that there's going to be some work to do later on in terms of,

Thais Gibson 33:33

you know, anxious attachment style, the abandonment core wound, feeling alone. And, you know, that's just the nature of something so profound happening to us and how it can actually imprint us more immediately.

Melanie Avalon 33:45

It's so interesting because, you know, just this abandonment concept, and you talk in the book about how we have three innate biologically wired fears, which I think if somebody had asked me that, like, what are the three innate biologically wired fears, I don't think I would have guessed, you know, but you said it was falling, loud noises, and abandonment.

Melanie Avalon 34:05

So interesting. And now I'm just thinking, like I mentioned with that relationship, it just really goes to show how powerful the abandonment thing is, because long story short, what happened, one of the things that happened was I just got abruptly abandoned by this romantic partner with no warning and didn't know.

Melanie Avalon 34:20

And what was interesting about it is after that, so like before that, if I were texting people, if they didn't answer for a little bit, I didn't think twice about it. And then that happened. And then I started over analyzing.

Melanie Avalon 34:33

If somebody didn't answer, I was like, oh, I said something to like offend them and they've abandoned me. And then the moment I realized that, like, this has got to stop, and this was definitely from that was when I remember I like texted my mom, who like, I would never think twice about if she answers or doesn't.

Melanie Avalon 34:47

And she like didn't answer like right away. And I was like, worried she was offended. And I was like, okay, this is, but this is all from this one event. And it just goes to show it's just fascinating how powerful that abandonment fear is in us humans.

Melanie Avalon 35:02

Another question related to the abandonment, because it's this idea of, you know, being alone, and you've mentioned a lot throughout this conversation, the word, you know, independence, I'm super fascinated and curious about the difference between wanting independence, being independent versus being, you know, a dismissive person versus being interdependent.

Melanie Avalon 35:26

I personally identify as being very independent, like I feel like I'm really good on my own. I don't really ever feel lonely, like I really don't. And I and my mom has always said that I don't know that I like marched to the beat of my own drummer drummer, like I really identify as an independent person, but I don't like so how does that compare to being a dismissive person who seeks independence?

Thais Gibson 35:49

Great question. Yeah, and sorry to hear about that with your past relationship. But to your point, too, when you mentioned that, because you were able to witness that, because you had such a clear picture of not feeling that before, and that not being a huge wound for you.

Thais Gibson 36:02

Because there's a difference between something being a fear and a wound, right? As a baby, we're wired, our species is particularly dependent on its caregivers for a long time as human beings, more so than most other species on the planet.

Thais Gibson 36:15

And so there's this fear of abandonment that if a caregiver goes away, you know, oh my gosh, will we survive without them? But that doesn't have to become a wound. The wound is when we have trauma around it.

Thais Gibson 36:24

And then we project it onto everything. I always tell people our core wounds are kind of like, if you can imagine, you know, walking into the woods, and you see a bear, and you run away, and you're chased by the bear, and you're safe.

Thais Gibson 36:36

But then the next day, you have to go back through the same path in the woods. Well, your mind stored the threat really strongly of the bear from the day before, and it reprojects it out onto everything.

Thais Gibson 36:45

So now it goes, where's the bear? Where's the bear? Where's the bear? And it looks for it everywhere. And that's really how our core wounds work. If we have a wound around abandonment, where we're actually abandoned, or there's a lot of like inconsistency that makes us feel kind of abandoned and alone growing up, then you're going to have wounds there, and you're going to project them onto everything all the time,

Thais Gibson 37:02

you're going to be like, oh my gosh, somebody didn't text me back, and that's going to come up. So for you, because you have such a secure background, you know, you had something to compare it to. But for a lot of people, they don't have something to compare it to.

Thais Gibson 37:14

That's all they know. And so it feels so confusing for people to reprogram because they're like, wait, what is it like to live without this? And also probably because you're on your journey and dig into things and research.

Thais Gibson 37:25

And so I think that probably is so helpful and supportive there too. So anyways, I just thought that was such an interesting thing that you raised. But to go back to interdependence versus dismissive avoidant, another fantastic question is, if you look at polarity, so let's say you look at it through like the lens of the extremes first, because I think it kind of paints a picture for people who are less familiar,

Thais Gibson 37:46

one under the extremity of codependency. And you can sort of think of codependency as being, we get into a relationship. I'm going to meet all of your needs. You're going to meet all of my needs. We're never really going to have to communicate what our needs are or really know ourselves.

Thais Gibson 37:58

We're just going to do everything for each other. And independence, too much independence when it becomes extreme is actually called counterdependence. And counterdependence is like, I'm just going to meet all my own needs.

Thais Gibson 38:11

You're just going to meet all your own needs. And we'll come together a little bit for a little bit of high-level interaction, but that's kind of it. Interdependence is I can meet my own needs and I can self-soothe and I can rely on myself and find who I truly am and what my hobbies and interests are.

Thais Gibson 38:30

And I know myself and I can show up for myself. And I am also not at all afraid to communicate to other people if I need something from them. If I had a bad day at work and I need advice or if I need some support from a family member as I have my first child or as I, you know, like those ways where we are unafraid to reach out, to connect, to lean on others, to ask for support.

Thais Gibson 38:53

So we have both sides to us and they're not mutually exclusive. And that's interdependence. And independence, you could be an independent person as sort of a characteristic or personality trait, but still have access to interdependence in the way that you relate to people.

Thais Gibson 39:07

They don't have to be like, because you could be, you know, independent, but you could also be somebody who can lean on people and isn't afraid to share your needs and make requests and also allow other people to lean on you because that's also an important part of interdependency.

Thais Gibson 39:21

But I would almost like differentiate if it makes sense. Independence from counterdependency being two different things. A dismissive avoidance is counterdependent. When people start leaning on them too much or making a request to them, they get really, you know, cold feet and they also have a really hard time ever trying to open up and lean on other people or connect to other people.

Thais Gibson 39:40

And so, you know, really share their emotions with other people and ask for support. And so that makes them counterdependent because they struggle there. And independence is like, oh, I know who I am and I can kind of do my own thing and I'm comfortable on my own.

Melanie Avalon 39:54

That also reminds me of the section on boundaries, because this idea of how we are relating to other people and putting up boundaries and how we relate to them. I'm super curious, how do we know if the boundaries we are implementing are healthy or not?

Melanie Avalon 40:10

I had a big epiphany in the section on the fearful avoidant where it was taught. I think it was the fearful avoidant where it was saying they can implement boundaries. Like they think they're being good at implementing boundaries, but they're actually like not, and they're like hot and cold in them.

Melanie Avalon 40:24

And I was, I don't know, I was thinking how this explains. Some mentioned my sister, some things with her. So this concept of boundaries, how can we know what, if we're being healthy and how we implement them?

Thais Gibson 40:37

Yeah, it's such a good question. So the point you're mentioning, and I laughed because it was like, it's such a common theme for fearful avoidance. What they do, and this is me, honestly, at one point, like I did a lot of work on this myself, where I, you know, if people were like, oh, you go to setting boundaries, I'd be like, yes, I know how to tell people what I feel about them and what I think when they're violating my boundaries.

Thais Gibson 41:00

But, you know, I would do it from anger. And, you know, in order to get angry, a lot of things have to go wrong first. And so, you know, what I realized is like, oh, if you're setting boundaries from anger, you're actually, you're just using anger as a boundary.

Thais Gibson 41:12

You're not actually like communicating what the boundary is in real time. And probably you had to have a lot of boundary violations that led you to get angry to the point where you then express in an unhealthy way.

Thais Gibson 41:22

And so, you know, what often happens is fearful avoidance will be boundary-less until they get, you know, upset enough, and then they'll become extreme with their boundaries from anger. And unfortunately, then people don't really hear your boundaries, they just hear that you're angry at them and they get defensive and then you're in an argument and then your boundary got lost in the mix.

Thais Gibson 41:41

Or, you know, anxious attachment cells, they're generally just profoundly boundary-less on an ongoing basis. And dismissive avoidance, because they're counterdependent, they don't really ever make healthy boundary compromises.

Thais Gibson 41:51

They're just always setting extreme boundaries and never being able to communicate nuanced boundaries. And so, when it comes to boundaries, you know they're healthy because A, you've had the ability to consider yourself equally to the other person.

Thais Gibson 42:06

So much of learning how to set healthy boundaries is to take yourself into consideration. If you see yourself operating in extremes, you probably weren't. So, you know, let's say as an example that my neighbor comes over and says, Tiese, I need you to help me clean my whole house all day Sunday.

Thais Gibson 42:21

And I know Sunday's my one day off each week. You know, I may really like my neighbor. I may really want to support them and help them. But I'm gonna take myself into consideration, right? I'm gonna look and sort of be able to attune to myself and think about my schedule for a moment and say, you know what, it's my only day off and I'm not gonna be able to come spend the whole day cleaning your house and helping you,

Thais Gibson 42:45

but I'll come by and bring some breakfast and help out for half an hour or 45 minutes in the morning and bring some breakfast so you don't have to cook. And, you know, there's the ability to like think about, is it a yes or a no for me?

Thais Gibson 42:58

Okay, their request for me was a no, I'm not gonna help all day. Well, what can I do? Is there something I can do that feels good for me? And what that allows is it allows somebody to actually take into consideration their own truth and still move from a place of contribution.

Thais Gibson 43:15

So a boundary in one sense is, you know, if somebody's asking you for something, it's your yeses and nos. A boundary also is if somebody does something, can we actually communicate, hey, that was a boundary violation.

Thais Gibson 43:26

Maybe you're in a work meeting with somebody and, you know, somebody communicates in a way that you find to be like disrespectful. You know, you may take that person or, you know, after the work meeting and say, hey, you may not have meant anything by it, but for me, you know, when that comment was made, it's not acceptable to speak to me that way.

Thais Gibson 43:43

It can't happen again, and I just wanna let you know. And, you know, the art of setting boundaries in a healthy way is A, we consider ourselves and we're able to check in with ourselves. B, we can recognize what we need to happen instead.

Thais Gibson 43:56

And C, we are able to use strong language in a very calm tone. So that's really the art of a healthy boundary, being able to say, hey, this is unacceptable, that can't happen again, but say it like how I'm saying it, not say, this is unacceptable, this can't happen ever again.

Thais Gibson 44:13

Cause then we just get into an argument and as soon as you're arguing, nobody's listening to what the boundary was. So those are some like sort of pointers for boundaries, but you'll know that a boundary is correct in your life if you're making it from truth instead of from fear.

Thais Gibson 44:28

And if you are in a place where you're like, I have to just say no to this person who asked me out on a date because I'm afraid of dating and being rejected. Well, you just set a boundary from fear. That was not just something that's benefiting your life.

Thais Gibson 44:41

You should work through the rejection fear and then go on, you know, different dates. But if you have somebody ask you on a date and somebody, you're like, you know what? I really only see them as a friend and I'm not interested in them and they keep texting me and reaching out.

Thais Gibson 44:54

What I may set a boundary and say, hey, I only see you as a friend and you know, I don't want this to proceed any further. And you would set a boundary from that place of truth, checking in with yourself, attuning to yourself, knowing what your true yeses and nos are and then being able to proceed from there.

Melanie Avalon 45:08

I love this so much. And like I think for me just analyzing how I interact with boundaries, I think I am, I don't use the word intense, but I consciously implement boundaries early. So when I'm not like in an emotional state, like I'm very scheduled and everything.

Melanie Avalon 45:25

And so that's so that I know I can always show up to what I'm showing up to, and that I won't and hopefully, get to the point of, you know, that anger or that emotional drain or something where I'm setting a boundary last minute, you know, in that other style.

Thais Gibson 45:38

from that reactive kind of space. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon 45:40

But I do notice, like I'll notice and me, I think I lean towards the anxious attachment style with setting boundaries because I will have that thought like, oh, by doing this, you know, are they not gonna like me?

Melanie Avalon 45:51

Or I typically can, you know, not follow through with that anxious style, with not implementing it. A related question actually with needs. So this is actually a huge question for me because you talk in the book about how so much of what we do, and you know, including these boundaries come from these needs that we have.

Melanie Avalon 46:11

Like everything is about meeting unmet needs. How much of needs relate to, how do I phrase this? Relate to a not getting something or a sense of lack. So kind of like what we were talking about with, honestly with the insecure attachment styles and abandonment and things like that.

Melanie Avalon 46:27

So how much of trying to meet needs is from not getting a need that you need compared to, like for me, I feel like some of my needs, because you have lists in the book, oh, I wanted to say for listeners really quickly, quick note about the boundaries.

Melanie Avalon 46:41

If listeners are really enjoying this, definitely get the book because there's literally like step-by-step processes to address all of this. So like with boundaries, Ties will show you how to identify them and there's like a boundary reframe chart and all the things.

Melanie Avalon 46:53

So just another plug for the book. So back to the needs, like you have all these lists of, you know, needs that people have and there's a lot of like I am statements and things like that. I feel like for me, some of my needs actually didn't come from lack, but they came from being rewarded for certain things in childhood.

Melanie Avalon 47:09

Is that also a possibility? So like, I am significant. Like I feel like that's a big need for me. And I think it's because I was always like the straight A student and like the high achiever and I was really awarded for that.

Melanie Avalon 47:22

And so now you like really need that. Yes, where do needs come from?

Thais Gibson 47:26

from? It's a great question. So needs, we have basic human needs, but when you look at our conditioning and how it works, it's either through positive or negative emotional association. So the brain is wired to avoid pain and to seek pleasure.

Thais Gibson 47:38

So absolutely, if you're in a situation where you get rewarded for things, then that's positively reinforcing. It's building in positive emotional association to things and then we'll hunger for more of that.

Thais Gibson 47:48

And that can absolutely be a way that we establish needs. And in fact, almost to everything that you're saying, there's like such a clear thread, like if you're securely attached, you're more likely to have needs that come from that space.

Thais Gibson 47:59

Then we have needs that come from a profound lack. And when there's a profound lack, we could make an argument that we have wounds around our needs. And you know, I almost like to think of it as an analogy, where there's a big lack for something, we kind of have a hole in our bucket, like if you imagine the need is like a bucket that needs to be filled.

Thais Gibson 48:17

Well, if we are absolutely lacking something, you know, it's really hard to kind of satiate later on in life. So for example, you said like significance, right? So let's say, for example, you grow up, you get a lot of, you know, positive reinforcement when you, you know, achieve your straight A's and, and these sorts of things.

Thais Gibson 48:34

Well, you're going to see as a result that when, you know, as you go through your life, you think, okay, well, I get love, I get connection when I do these things. So I'm going to do more of these things to get more of those positive feelings that I'm experiencing are positive moments I have with with people around me.

Thais Gibson 48:51

So that would be the healthy version. If somebody instead grew up in a dynamic where they were severely punished every time they didn't get a straight A, then you know, in that particular case, they may actually have this wound around the need that's like, if I don't get a straight A, if I don't achieve, then I'm unsafe, you know, because the punishment is really severe, or that I'm not good enough,

Thais Gibson 49:13

I'm unlovable if somebody instead just like withdraws from them and kind of gives them the silent treatment as a child. So we'll then when we have wounds around our needs, it becomes this very fear based relationship we have to these aspects of ourselves.

Thais Gibson 49:27

So you may see, for example, somebody struggle with like, almost OCD around perfectionism as an adult, if they were made to feel like I am unsafe, if I don't achieve straight A's, they may be the individual that's terrified to make mistakes on a work project terrified to take action, because they're just so perfectionistic and so stuck on these small details.

Thais Gibson 49:47

Because actually, what's happening is they've been conditioned to think if I make a mistake, I'm going to be severely punished, I'm going to be unsafe. And now their relationship to how they show up to take action around their needs or their commitments is going to be coming from a place of woundedness and fear, rather than from a place of Oh, this is meaningful to me.

Thais Gibson 50:02

And I like this. And so it's in my truth. And so you know, when we have this, these wounds around our needs, it creates unfortunately, a lot of dysfunction and how we take action. And sometimes even more so can take us away from our authenticity, you know, sometimes somebody can really want to do something.

Thais Gibson 50:19

But they're like, Oh, no, I'm going to fail, or I'm going to be punished, or I'm going to be unloved or judged or ridiculed. And then we don't move in the direction of our dreams or the things that are kind of calling us.

Thais Gibson 50:28

And so there can be a lot of painful parts when our conditioning and a lot of the actions we take on a daily basis are coming from a place of fear of needs not being met or needs being taken away rather than truth.

Melanie Avalon 50:42

And then one step further with meeting those needs, actually meeting them, it sounds so cliche. You say it a few times in the book and it sounds so cliche. And I also think it is so, so true. How can we not actually meet those needs from other people if we haven't met them ourselves?

Melanie Avalon 50:57

It sounds so cliche, but apparently.

Thais Gibson 50:59

it's true. So here's the most interesting. Well, there's a lot of interesting things about all the attachments and all stuff, but here's something that to me always just stuck out as being so mind blowing about our subconscious mind.

Thais Gibson 51:10

So at the end of the day, your subconscious mind, it's survival oriented. It's survival wired. It, it sees, you know, familiarity as safety and thus survival. So your subconscious mind will keep going back to its comfort zone.

Thais Gibson 51:22

It sees things as like familiar. And so then, you know, even if it's been painful, I'm surviving, so it's still working. So what ends up happening is if you look at the research into secure attachment cells, guess who secure attachment cells end up with?

Thais Gibson 51:36

Other secure attachment styles, the vast majority of the time, because their subconscious comfort zone is the relationship they have to themselves. How we treat ourselves is the biggest subconscious comfort zone we have.

Thais Gibson 51:48

So if you look at a secure person, they're generally quite good with their boundaries. They're generally quite good at communicating their needs. They're generally don't have a lot of core wounds. They're generally good at meeting their own needs.

Thais Gibson 51:59

So they will be attracted to people and end up investing in people long-term who also honor their boundaries, want to meet their needs, want to communicate around conflicts and solve problems. And if somebody isn't doing those things, the subconscious will be like, Ooh, this is unfamiliar.

Thais Gibson 52:13

This doesn't feel good and it will reject them or want to move away from that person. Whereas, and it's not always the case, like, but, but as long as somebody is dominantly securely attached, they most often end up in those long-term relationships with dominantly, securely attached people.

Thais Gibson 52:27

And what's so interesting is that if you look at like as an example, an anxious attachment style, they end up, you know, because they're so busy people pleasing to try to avoid abandonment, they often end up dismissing and avoiding their own feelings and needs.

Thais Gibson 52:40

Cause they're so preoccupied with other people's and you winning them over and getting approval. And so as a result, you know, anxiously attach individuals in their adult lives, often seek people who treat them the way they treat themselves, just like we all do.

Thais Gibson 52:53

And so they end up seeking people who will dismiss and avoid their, their needs just like they dismiss and avoid their own needs. And so we end up like keeping these patterns alive. And now Melanie, I totally forget your original question, but will you remind me of what it was?

Melanie Avalon 53:07

This cliche that we have to meet our own needs before other people can meet them.

Thais Gibson 53:12

Okay, so how this then ends up, you know, actually creating this subconscious pattern is like we, if we are in a position in our own lives where we don't meet our own needs, and we don't know how to self soothe by doing that, then the moment that somebody mirrors that back to us, not only will it be uncomfortable and our subconscious mind will reject it, because it's not a part of our comfort zone,

Thais Gibson 53:30

and then it won't be familiar, and then it won't feel safe as a result. But you can truly imagine it's like a hole in the bucket. So let's just keep on that same example of the anxious attachment style.

Thais Gibson 53:39

You know, they're so busy people pleasing other people and worrying that they're not good enough for others and putting everybody else on a pedestal that they put themselves down a lot. And so when somebody ends up in a relationship with an anxious attachment style, and they validate them, they say, Oh, you're, I'm so attracted to you, or I love spending time with you.

Thais Gibson 53:57

At first, if you can imagine like liquid going into the bucket to fill it up, like water getting poured into the bucket, wow, it feels so good. Like somebody's meeting this need the buckets getting filled up, but then there's a hole and very quickly soon after that water pours in, it leaks out.

Thais Gibson 54:15

And, you know, the anxious attachments also see this all the time, they'll end up in a situation where they have a conversation with somebody, somebody compliments them, and then they go back to, did they really mean it?

Thais Gibson 54:26

Is there an ulterior motive? Will they really stick around? Do they tell everybody this? And if we're in a place where we are not validating in the relationship to self when somebody is validating to us, we either constantly seek it and hunger for it, because we have a hole in our bucket.

Thais Gibson 54:41

And, you know, we're always taking it away from ourselves or our subconscious mind actively rejects it. It doesn't believe in it. It doesn't accept or receive the compliments or the needs being met, because it's so unfamiliar to the subconscious mind that it has to reject it as a means to keep itself safe.

Melanie Avalon 54:58

It's so fascinating because like we said, it sounds like such a cliche, but it's literally what happens. One major question about all of this, because you were mentioning that secure people often end up with secure attachment styles and the different attachment styles that might end up together.

Melanie Avalon 55:12

So can any of the attachment styles work together? I guess especially if they do self-work. I guess my question here is, so I'm like a secure attachment style, how much of like how much of should these things be red flags where you don't engage in a relationship with another attachment style like this versus, you know, working through it.

Thais Gibson 55:33

tell you something. And this is so true. And I say this a lot. And I think it's so important to vet for in a relationship is, you know, there's times, you know, there's obviously extremes where maybe somebody's like, trying to get sober, and they're just out of a five year relationship, and they aren't, you know, they don't know how to be on their own, they're not sober, they've got all these extraneous like circumstances in their lives.

Thais Gibson 55:54

There's a time and place where you're gonna vet somebody and say, you know what, that person's not a good fit right now, because they've got a lot going on. And that could also be extreme attachment trauma that they haven't worked on or worked through yet.

Thais Gibson 56:04

And there's, you know, those sort of outlying events where you can tell that person's not in a healthy place to be able to do a relationship and that person, you know, it's almost good for that person to have to focus on being on their own for a little bit and doing some, some healing and some inner work.

Thais Gibson 56:17

But when I worked with clients, and I worked a ton, I would work with 40 people a week for quite a long time, I, I would always see people come in. And in the very early days of working with people, I would be like, Oh, what's their attachment style?

Thais Gibson 56:30

And what are their wounds? And I would wonder these things. And then eventually, I just realized it doesn't actually matter what their attachment style is. It mattered, are they both here and willing to do the work.

Thais Gibson 56:41

And I think that that's the biggest thing to vet for unless there's really intense extremes, right, which are obvious. If somebody is just insecurely attached, you know, there can kind of be superpowers to that, right?

Thais Gibson 56:53

Somebody can be really resilient, or somebody can be deeply empathetic, or deeply caring, like there's some nice things. But for the maladaptive patterns, you know, the fears or the wounds or the codependency parts from the unmet needs, or, you know, the things that will come up and actually create problems in a relationship, really, it's okay, from that perspective, is the person working on them?

Thais Gibson 57:13

Are they taking active action? And when we vet for people in dating, we never want to vet for their words, we want to vet by their actions. So somebody could say, Oh, yeah, I'd like to in the future learn about those.

Thais Gibson 57:25

Oh, yeah, I'd like to do the work. Yeah, I'm open to doing the work on myself. But are they doing it? Is it in their behaviors? Is it showing up? And I find that to be like one of the most important places to really dig into.

Melanie Avalon 57:36

I've definitely had that experience where the other person says they're, they're working on it and, you know, going to make all these changes. And, but if it just keeps happening, I feel like actions, yeah, spank louder than words.

Thais Gibson 57:46

Isn't that the truth, though? It's so true.

Melanie Avalon 57:50

There's just so much here. Was there anything else you want to draw attention to for listeners?

Thais Gibson 57:53

The one thing I would say that's just so important is core wounds. So I would say like the biggest thing, you know, because we have our needs, like so much of healing our attachment style and becoming secure is, you know, number one, we talked about needs.

Thais Gibson 58:07

So learning your needs and how to meet them yourself, that helps you, you know, self-regulate and self-soothe and you ask some great questions about that. So I feel like that's like super covered. Having healthy boundaries.

Thais Gibson 58:18

Absolutely huge. We talked about that. Learning to actually communicate your needs to other people and like share them vulnerably. And then the other two pillars that I just think are so important are learning to regulate your nervous system.

Thais Gibson 58:30

So making sure you're not in like sympathetic nervous system mode all the time, like fight and flight mode, and then learning to reprogram your core wounds if you have them. So if you have all these core wounds that are like, I'm going to be abandoned or alone, or if you have these core wounds, I'm going to be trapped or helpless or powerless, or it's shameful to open up.

Thais Gibson 58:46

I'm weak if I, you know, lean on other people. A lot of those core wounds are associated per attachment style. Like you can hear that, like the dismiss of avoidant has a lot of the, you know, I'm going to be trapped in the wrong relationship or I'm weak if I open up and shameful, the anxious attachment styles of a lot of that will be abandoned, alone, rejected, excluded, disliked.

Thais Gibson 59:05

And those things end up as the biggest triggers in our relationships, biggest triggers in the relationship to ourself. And it shows up with everybody. You were kind of touching on this earlier with like, when you're asking me, do you feel like that?

Thais Gibson 59:17

And then you have that moment with your mom or you're like, wait, is she upset with me? What's going on? Is she pulling away? And you know, when we have painful experiences, they imprint the subconscious mind and they can be rewired.

Thais Gibson 59:30

That's, I guess, what I just wanted to stress is that they can be changed. And I'm happy to go into like a tool if you want to share with listeners or however you want to sort of move through it. That'd be great.

Thais Gibson 59:41

Yeah. Like, so I'll share a tool then. And so one of the things that's so important to recognize is like, when we have a core wound, and let's just use the example that like, the core wound is I am not good enough.

Thais Gibson 59:53

When we have a core wound, I am not good enough. Those are not conscious choices. Nobody's waking up and being like, I'm going to tell myself I'm not good enough all day and see how I feel. They're subconscious programs and they happen because of painful past events.

Thais Gibson 01:00:05

And we talked about this earlier, like the bear in the forest. If you see the bear in the forest, you store the threat and then you project it out into everything. You're like, is the bear coming? Where is it?

Thais Gibson 01:00:14

And your mind is just trying to protect you by doing that. But it creates a lot of dysfunction when it's like, I'm going to be abandoned, or I'm going to be betrayed, or I'm going to be trapped when we constantly then like, project that onto things.

Thais Gibson 01:00:25

And you can imagine like, so you're secure. So I can, you know, guess that you probably showed up really well in that relationship. Like, you probably wanted to work through challenges if they were there and be supportive of each other and like, have healthy behaviors.

Thais Gibson 01:00:37

And you probably showed up tremendously well. And, you know, God bless him, but he probably showed up where even though you were so amazing, he has these unresolved core wounds from childhood where he easily feels trapped, largely because he's not able to communicate his own needs or open up.

Thais Gibson 01:00:57

And then maybe he feels like opening up would be shameful or defective. These are a lot of the core wounds of the dismissive avoidance. And so you may not see it because he may not be talking about it because these are his inward programs and he's not choosing them.

Thais Gibson 01:01:08

He's not saying, I'm going to tell myself I'm trapped and see how I feel. But because he has these preexisting subconscious wounds, like the bear in the woods, he projects them out onto everything. And then he worries, well, what if my feelings change in 10 years and then I'm trapped or what if I, you know, can't explain and get my needs met and then it just becomes sabotage.

Thais Gibson 01:01:27

Then he can take an amazing connection and relationship and sabotage it because his subconscious mind is perceiving things and threats where there may not even be any. And then when we perceive there's a threat, we have to fight or flight or freeze or fawn.

Thais Gibson 01:01:42

And so then he goes into, you know, maybe pull away mode or sabotage mode. And of course, I'm like, just speaking into, you know, I don't know the details.

Melanie Avalon 01:01:49

Oh, you're nailing it. You're nailing it. Like, exactly. Yep.

Thais Gibson 01:01:53

So then all of a sudden, we have these wounds that are sabotaging our lives, and they don't just show up in our romantic relationships, they show up in our friendships, they show up in our familial relationships, they show up in our workplace relationships even, and we all have these behaviors for how we cope with when we feel those wounds.

Thais Gibson 01:02:09

And a lot of times the behaviors are to flee something or to fight back too strongly, or we have these maladaptive coping mechanisms. So the core wounds that we have, you're not born with them, you're not born thinking that you're going to be trapped or that it's shameful to emote, you're born emoting and thinking that that's normal.

Thais Gibson 01:02:26

And so we can rewire those things because we have the understanding of neuroplasticity. And I often give people a starting tool for rewiring a core wound because I just think it's one of the most important things we can do.

Thais Gibson 01:02:39

And there's three steps to the tool. The first step is to find the core wound and its opposite. So for example, if it's I am not good enough, I am good enough, pretty easy first step. The second step is we have to speak to our subconscious mind because as we establish like these are not conscious, we're not choosing these things or to think or feel this way.

Thais Gibson 01:02:59

The subconscious mind doesn't speak language. You know, it's part of the reason why I'm not a believer in affirmations. They're just language. You're just speaking, you're using your conscious mind to speak to your conscious mind.

Thais Gibson 01:03:10

And the way you'll know that your subconscious doesn't speak language is if I were to say to you, okay, Melanie, whatever you do, do not think of a pink elephant. Yeah, like there's the elephant. And so what happens is like your conscious mind understands do not, but your subconscious is like, whoop, image.

Thais Gibson 01:03:31

And so, you know, when we do affirmations, we're like, I am good enough, I'm good enough, I'm good enough. Well, it's not really doing anything. It's your conscious mind just speaking to your conscious, but it's a subconscious mind issue that we have a core wound.

Thais Gibson 01:03:42

So what language does the subconscious actually speak? Well, it speaks in emotions and images. So now we've established, okay, you know, for neuroplasticity, we need to fire and wire things to create new patterns.

Thais Gibson 01:03:57

We need to fire and wire what we need to fire and wire emotion and imagery, because that will speak to our subconscious. So now how do we do that? Well, every single memory we ever have is actually just a series, it's sort of a container for emotions and images.

Thais Gibson 01:04:11

If I were to say, okay, you know, what's your favorite childhood memory, and it was playing at the park with your friends, you would see the images when you tell that old story or rehash that memory, you'd see the images of the slide, and the playground, and maybe of your friends and you, you know, we've all seen when people tell old stories or old memories, they laugh, or they smile, or they cry,

Thais Gibson 01:04:32

you know, depending on what emotions are in that memory. So now we've established that to speak to our subconscious mind, we can use memory. We've also established that, okay, to rewire, we need repetition.

Thais Gibson 01:04:44

So we need repetitive memories, because then we get the three ingredients, we get repetition, emotion and imagery, and we get to repeatedly speak to our subconscious mind. So what we do in step two, so step one, what's your core wound, and it's opposite, I'm not good enough, I am good enough.

Thais Gibson 01:04:58

Step two is we need 10 memories of times we actually did feel good enough. And when we have 10 memories, what we can do is we can look for small things, they don't have to have tons of emotion, we can be like, you know, I was a good enough friend yesterday to somebody who was in need that gave me a call and I showed up for them.

Thais Gibson 01:05:16

I was a good enough partner two weeks ago, when my you know, my partner was going through a hard time and I was there, I was a good enough, you know, worker in my job when I had that hard conversation with, with a coworker or a colleague, and it went well, you know, so it can be small things.

Thais Gibson 01:05:33

But what we're doing is we're getting actual tangible events, because we can see them in our minds eye, we can feel about them because there's emotion attached to them, even if it's a small bit of emotion, like a little bit of pride or a little bit of accomplishment.

Thais Gibson 01:05:48

And then what we do is step three, after we come up with these 10 things to support the new idea, instead of that old wound, I am good enough, not I'm not good enough. Step three, is we record it somewhere, we record ourselves saying it into our phone, for example, or a computer or iPad.

Thais Gibson 01:06:05

And when our brain is producing alpha brainwaves, which happens in the first morning, or the first hour of the morning and last hour before you go to bed, when we're producing alpha brainwaves, it also happens after a meditation or intense exercise, we are more suggestible, meaning our subconscious mind is more open to being reprogrammed.

Thais Gibson 01:06:26

So now we pull these three steps together. Step one, what is your poor wound? And it's opposite. I'm not good enough. I am good enough. Step two, my 10 pieces of memory for when I actually did feel good enough about things that I did or how I showed up.

Thais Gibson 01:06:38

And step three, I record this and listen back to it. And that first hour that I wake up, so I'm more I'm most suggestible. And I do this for 21 days, because research into neuroplasticity shows, it takes 21 days of repetition to really deeply form neural pathways that are strong enough to stick.

Thais Gibson 01:06:55

And that's where we get those new habits from. And across 21 days, it only takes like two or three minutes to listen back to what you've recorded and feel about it and see the images in your mind of those memories.

Thais Gibson 01:07:08

And, you know, dropping a core wound letting go of like this constant fear of being alone or excluded or rejected or abandoned or trapped, or being seen as weak. I mean, these are things that like disrupt your life, they make you leave relationships too early, they make you push people away or hold on too close or sabotage your workplace project.

Thais Gibson 01:07:26

So like being able to let go of these core wounds is absolutely life changing. And it takes 21 days of like two or three minutes a day.

Melanie Avalon 01:07:33

That's so incredible and and so to clarify because you're talking about the conscious mind talking to the conscious mind So listening back is a catalyst to then envision it right to remember it. Yes Okay, that's where the work.

Melanie Avalon 01:07:46

That's where the the power is coming from and then while in that alpha state

Thais Gibson 01:07:50

Exactly. And it's listening back and really seeing the images and then really feeling the emotion as much as you can. And that way we've got like, I am good enough because I did this and I'm remembering it and I'm seeing it and I'm feeling about it.

Thais Gibson 01:08:04

And that's what's allowing us to really fire and wire at that subconscious level.

Melanie Avalon 01:08:09

I love it. This is so amazing. So I think listeners can understand now why I'm obsessed and I want everybody to read this major question for you. Well, you have a free attachment style quiz that we can put a link in the show notes to will put a link to your book.

Melanie Avalon 01:08:23

So can people enroll in your development school? Is it online?

Thais Gibson 01:08:27

Yeah, it's all online. It's definitely where I do all the work that I do now. I don't see clients one-to-one anymore. But what we do is basically people come into PDS and at the personal development school, by your attachment style, there's six major course recommendations.

Thais Gibson 01:08:43

They're all an hour and a half long. They're not too long. It's pretty easy. And it's your program to become securely attached. So we go through how to rewire your core wounds, how to learn what your needs are, how to communicate them healthily, how to reset your boundaries, how to meet your own needs for self soothing and how to regulate your nervous system.

Thais Gibson 01:08:59

And we go through these five major pillars for individuals, teach them how to do it, but specifically how to apply these tools at the subconscious levels that they get patterned in. So they become like a part of your, your patterning how you naturally show up.

Thais Gibson 01:09:12

So you get this program and then on top of that, we have a daily peer support group that people can jump into. We have a daily outside of the peer support group live webinar where you can come and ask personal questions.

Thais Gibson 01:09:23

Like you get your one-to-one time in a group setting. I'm in there like three days a week. We have other counselors and coaches in there. And so yeah, there's lots of support, but it's sort of like your attachment rewiring bootcamp.

Melanie Avalon 01:09:34

Oh my goodness and I just saw so we have a code for listeners. Thank you. Oh my goodness. Okay, so listeners can use the code Melanie 25 off so Melanie to five off for discounted rate on that program the personal development school.

Melanie Avalon 01:09:48

Oh my goodness. Thank you so much. Listeners sign up now. We will put links to all of this in the show notes. Oh, so how long, by the way, is the actual program.

Thais Gibson 01:09:56

It's a 90 day bootcamp, so you go through and the goal is to like move through it all within 90 days Some people are much quicker depending on like how long it's self-paced You can do it as quickly and or as slowly as you'd like But that's like the goal that we put for everybody

Melanie Avalon 01:10:09

The last question I promised, this is the last question that I ask every single guest on the show, and it's just because I realize more and more each day how important mindset is. So what is something that you're grateful for?

Thais Gibson 01:10:20

I am so grateful. I feel like it sounds so cheesy because we just talked about this on the podcast. I am actually so grateful that I've done this work myself because growing up, even my family relationships were just things I struggled with so much.

Thais Gibson 01:10:35

And when I think of what I'm grateful for, the first thing that comes to mind is my husband, my parents, my sister. And that happened through a lot of work. It wasn't an easy thing that was really putting the work in.

Thais Gibson 01:10:46

And yeah, I'm grateful that I've had the opportunity to build those relationships in a way that is really fulfilling and really authentic. So yeah, that's what I would say.

Melanie Avalon 01:10:55

attachment styles.

Thais Gibson 01:10:57

Oh, yeah, yeah. I've been together for like 10 years and he really showed up to do the work, honestly. And that was like a thing I was vetting for is like, I'm going to be doing this, is he and he did an amazing job and he is the frickin' best.

Thais Gibson 01:11:12

I think people get, you know, Dismissalwood in such a hard time. And they are really hard when they're not doing the work, for sure. But I've been lucky enough to see a lot of Dismissalwood show up and put that work in, my husband being one of them, of course.

Thais Gibson 01:11:24

But then like, you know, I saw lots of clients over the years and they show up beautifully in the end. So it just matters. Like are people doing the work or not?

Melanie Avalon 01:11:31

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Tiese. Literally, I enjoy this conversation so much. The work you're doing is profound, incredible. Listeners, sign up. Get the book. Sign up now for the Personal Development School.

Melanie Avalon 01:11:43

The coupon code Melanie25off will get you a discount. And thank you so much. Hopefully we can have you on the show again in the future just to explore this more. This was amazing.

Thais Gibson 01:11:51

Thank you so much. I love this chat and you are just so like, you know, in depth and thoughtful and insightful and just ask such great questions. So I'm honored to be there and have this conversation with you.

Melanie Avalon 01:12:01

Thank you so much. Have a good rest of your day and I will talk to you soon. Thank you so much.