Episode: 130

Why Do I Love the Way That I Love: The 4 Attachment Styles Explained

with Thais Gibson

Transform all your relationships - including the one with yourself.

Attachment theory expert Thais Gibson is here to explain the framework to improve any relationship in your life.

Her work on the subconscious mind and personal transformation will empower you to set better goals and have happier, healthier relationships.

Listen on:

You're not born with an attachment style. It happens through conditioning. And we can recondition our attachment style patterns.

Thais Gibson

Featured Clips

Transcript

Mel Robbins (00:00:03):

I walked into this conversation thinking that my attachment style was one thing, and it turns out it's something completely different. You can change your attachment style, you can become more secure. In addition, this episode has a bonus and it's going to help you transform not only your attachment style, but also your subconscious mind. Hey, it's your friend Mel, and I just want to start out by saying thank you, thank you, thank you for being here with me. I know that when you are here with me and you're listening to this podcast, you do it as a way to invest in yourself, and I think that's super cool and that is why I am really excited for the conversation that you're about to hear because this one is a really, really good one. What are we talking about? We're talking about something called attachment theory. And the reason why I wanted you to learn about attachment theory is because this framework has helped me profoundly in my marriage.

(00:01:05):

It's helped me in my relationship with my kids. Frankly, it's helped me in every relationship that I have because understanding my attachment style has allowed me to really show up in a different way, in a more powerful and secure way, and I think it's going to help you too. Now, if you've never heard about attachment style, there are four different attachment styles you're going to learn in detail about all four attachment styles, and I love the expert that I have for you today. Her name is Thais Gibson. She has a brand new book out called Learning Love, and one of the reasons why I like the way that she explains attachment theory is she gets into the nitty gritty. You're not only going to understand the four different attachment styles, she will explain things like, okay, if you text someone and they don't text back for three hours, this is how you will act based on your attachment style. She's also going to give you scripts. She's going to give you strategies, and she's going to teach you that you can change your attachment style. You can become more secure. Now, when I told our team that Thais Gibson was coming into our new studios in Boston, Shay Washington, who is our senior manager of the video team, fell out of her chair because TA's work has changed Shay's life. Check this out.

Shay Washington (00:02:30):

Around this time last year, I was going through a huge, huge healing journey, and I realized that I was so emotionally stunted. So therapy didn't work, antidepressants didn't work. And so I stumbled upon Thais Gibson and the personal development school. But one thing that really stood out to me was when Thais Gibson specifically spoke about your core wounds, they still sort of manifest in my current life, like my current day, and I just don't know how to navigate through any of those things. And I just never heard it broken down in that way that she broke it down before and things started coming together really smoothly. I had a much bigger understanding and it changed my life for the better, and I hope to one day become securely attached.

Mel Robbins (00:03:21):

Shay, I love you and thank you for sharing that. And I had a very similar reaction to Thais Gibson's work, and I know you are too because you're going to leave this conversation having a much better understanding of yourself, core wounds, attachment theory. There is no doubt in my mind that that's going to happen. In fact, it happened for me. I walked into this conversation thinking that my attachment style was one thing, and it turns out it's something completely different, and it was Thais that pointed it out to me, and I think you're going to have that revelation too. And there's one more thing that I'm really excited to share with you before we jump into the conversation. In addition to all of the amazing tactical information that you're about to learn that is going to help you improve your life, this episode has a bonus.

(00:04:16):

It is followed by a very short bonus episode because Thais recorded a meditation for you that's right for you, and it's a meditation that you can listen to that will put everything that you're about to learn into action, and it's going to help you transform not only your attachment style, but also your subconscious mind. And it is there for you right in this podcast queue for free. The episode is entitled Daily Meditation. Listen for 21 Days to reprogram your subconscious mind, and you're going to want to listen to it right after this episode. Alright, are you ready to learn why you love the way that you do? Me too. Thais Gibson, welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast.

Thais Gibson (00:05:02):

Thank you. Excited to be here with you.

Mel Robbins (00:05:03):

So Thais, you have this incredible new book called Learning Love, build the Best Relationships of Your Life using Integrated Attachment Theory. And one of the things that I love about your work is how empowering it is. You teach how every single one of us can break free from patterns that are holding us back using the science of attachment theory. So I want to start with the basics. What is an attachment style?

Thais Gibson (00:05:30):

The subconscious set of rules you have for love and connection, and those rules can be in the form of the different beliefs you have, the different needs you have what you expect in relationships and how you communicate and set boundaries with others. They're not born with an attachment. Style happens through conditioning and the way that that neuroplastically affects your subconscious mind, and we can recondition our attachment style patterns. If we grew up in an unhealthy environment, we didn't get good learnings about attachment styles and about relationships, we can actually heal that and change that to become secure and have really successful thriving relationships, whether that's romantic family or friendships.

Mel Robbins (00:06:06):

This is an episode that we're going to release at a time of year where almost everybody is thinking about goals for next year and resolutions and all the changes that you want to make. And how does

Mel Robbins (00:06:22):

Going to work on your attachment style and your beliefs about love and relationships, how the heck does that help you with goals or with making positive change?

Thais Gibson (00:06:32):

Because exactly the biggest limiting beliefs that we pick up from childhood about who we are and what relationships look like also form primarily the relationship we have to ourselves, which will color everything else in our world.

Mel Robbins (00:06:45):

Whoa. When does this start in childhood? Exactly What age are you talking about?

Thais Gibson (00:06:51):

It gets conditioned into us actually between the ages of zero to two years old. That early. That early. Yes.

Mel Robbins (00:06:57):

Zero to two.

Thais Gibson (00:06:57):

Zero to two.

Mel Robbins (00:06:58):

So the stuff that goes down before you even remember zero to two is what's stored in your subconscious.

Thais Gibson (00:07:04):

Yes.

Mel Robbins (00:07:04):

And is what drives you as an adult unless you do the work to change it.

Thais Gibson (00:07:07):

Exactly. Are you kidding me? Yes. So as an example, if somebody grows up in a household where they have a really critical parent and maybe that parent has the best intentions, they want to prepare their child for the world, it's really easy for a child because a child personalizes everything. They can't say, oh, my parent is communicating in a suboptimal way. So instead what happens is the child goes, oh, this is about me. I must not be good enough, or I must not be worthy, or I must be bad. And so what happens is the meaning we give to things when we perceive our environment and our experiences programs, our subconscious mind through repetition plus emotion, so anything we're repeatedly exposed to that creates an emotional response, basically fires and wires, neural pathways. And so then what will happen is we form these deep beliefs about who we are in relationships, but unfortunately, these same beliefs associated with our different attachment styles will also be what we believe about ourselves in the workplace, in our friendships, in terms of how we operate financially. It can really spread into multiple areas of life. And a lot of the roots of these things actually exist from how we attach and what we experience in our environment as young children.

Mel Robbins (00:08:13):

Wow. I love that you just put this thing that every one of us struggles with. Every single day I wake up and I'm like, okay, today I'm not going to be bitchy to anybody Today. I am going to exercise tonight. I'm not going to pour myself a glass of wine. I have all of these conscious intentions, but then things happen throughout the day and I find myself dropping into the same behavior and it is incredibly frustrating. And so if I'm tracking with what you're saying, your theory and what you do out in the world, you now have 31,000 people that you are working with through your company on the stuff that you're about to teach us, you are saying that we can identify those rules and behaviors that run in the background that drive our entire life and we can change them

Thais Gibson (00:09:12):

100%.

Mel Robbins (00:09:13):

That is amazing because we've talked about attachment style and attachment theory on this podcast before, and I find that a lot of the material on attachment theory is very interesting and empowering when you understand what your attachment style is. But I've always felt when I learn about my attachment style, it's sort of like, okay, that's your attachment style, but I've never felt like there's a way to change it.

Thais Gibson (00:09:40):

Absolutely.

Mel Robbins (00:09:40):

And you can change it.

Thais Gibson (00:09:41):

Yes. It's actually created a whole body of work called integrated attachment theory. And the whole purpose of it is not to just discover your attachment style and really see who you are and what your patterns are, but then to be able to use that because just knowing something doesn't give you a whole lot of context until you're able to say, okay, here's what I don't like about this and here's how I can recondition what's not working for me. And if you're not born with something like an attachment style, if it gets conditioned into you over time, we're just reconditioning to move into a space that works better for us. And so it's quite simple to do. There's a lot of different tools I'm sure we'll get into and talk about, but that is the whole purpose of this work.

Mel Robbins (00:10:16):

Wow. Okay. So

Mel Robbins (00:10:19):

Let's just start with the basics. How many attachment styles are they and what are they?

Thais Gibson (00:10:23):

Okay, so there's four major attachments styles. We'll talk a little bit about how they come about as well. So the first one is the securely attached child growing into the securely attached adult and the secure attachment individuals in their childhood. They get a lot of approach oriented behavior. So if

Mel Robbins (00:10:37):

They wait approach oriented, yes. What does that mean?

Thais Gibson (00:10:40):

Explain this. Yeah. So essentially if they cry as a child, their parents will come towards them, try to figure out what's going on and what's wrong and try to meet their needs. And so the repetition and emotion, the conditioning or programming to the subconscious at this age is okay, if I express my emotions, I get my needs met. It's safe to express my needs, it's safe to rely on other people, and I get loved when I'm in hard times. So I'm worthy of connection and I'm worthy of love just for who I am, not for what I do. And so this person as an adult grows up to have much easier experiences around relationships, of course, and they trust and they rely and they communicate and they feel safe expressing their emotions and feeling their emotions. And so statistically they have the biggest success rate in relationships by far and away.

(00:11:23):

Then we have three insecure attachment styles on one end of the continuum, we have an anxious preoccupied attachment style. And this individual essentially grows up with a lot of warmth and a lot of care from their caregivers, but a lot of inconsistency. So a really common example would be that mom and dad are very loving. They are approach oriented, they do care, but they both have really long jobs. They're gone for 12 hours a day and the child's often at daycare or with the grandparents who might be more cold and withdrawn. And so what happens is the repetition and emotion, the programming becomes, okay, I really want love and I really feel good when my caregivers are here. But it keeps getting taken away. And so this child learns to really fear abandonment and fear being left alone or excluded. And so they grow up really having a lot of abandonment wounds and they're very sensitive to rejection, exclusion, and they become very panicked if they see partners in their relationships start to pull away. And so they really struggle. Unfortunately, they want love, they want connection so much, but because of this deeply conditioned fear of abandonment, it's almost like they hold on so tight that the sand sort of constantly slipping through their fingers, it accidentally pushes people away.

(00:12:31):

And so that's our anxious, preoccupied, and they tend to struggle in relationships big time, especially when it comes to getting people to kind of commit and stick around on the basically opposite end of the continuum. There's a dismissive avoidant attachment style. This individual grows up with childhood emotional neglect, and sometimes it's really overt food's not on the table, nothing's organized. Sometimes it's very covert where instead it's like mom and dad are there, but if you cry or express emotion, they're like toughen up. They don't check in. If the child comes home from school, they're never going, oh, are you okay? I see that you're off.

(00:13:06):

So this neglect happens and this child grows up in this environment and they can't understand that my parents are emotionally unavailable. So instead they go, there must be something wrong with me that I'm not getting my needs met. And so they build this deep wound of I'm defective, and they feel shame and then they grow up and they don't want to be that vulnerable again to anybody and rely on anybody. So they become hyper independent and in relationships as a result. As soon as things get real or as soon as people get too close, they sabotage, they push away and they tend to fear commitment. And of course, the anxious and dismissive often end up in relationships together.

Mel Robbins (00:13:40):

Are you talking about my marriage? You just summarize three years of marriage therapy with Chris Robbins and Mel Robbins, and then what's the other third insecure attachment style?

Thais Gibson (00:13:52):

So the last one is fearful avoidance, sometimes referred to as disorganized attachment, and essentially they grow up in an environment where there's chronic chaos. So a really easy example or analogy would be if there's a parent who's an alcoholic, so let's say it's mom as an example. One day the child comes home from school and mom is drinking and she's in a really good mood and she's really loving. Another day mom comes home or child comes home and she's drinking a lot, but now she's angry. She's an angry drunk another day she's so brewing up, she's in a good mood, she feels guilty, another, she's sobering up, she's going through withdrawal, she's in chaos. So it's like you never know what you're going to get. It can be a bad divorce. Parents fighting all the time, having a parent with narcissistic personality disorder, all these sorts of things where there's chaos and fighting and you never know what you're going to get.

(00:14:35):

So this child grows up having some positive experiences with love, but some terrifying experiences with love. And so they feel conflicted. This is what I was. And so what the person will experience is this feeling of I want closeness. And then people get close and they're like, get back. And so they'll really be in this push-pull pattern. But more than anything, they struggle to trust. They feel like they can't rely on people, they can't really connect. They don't want to open up too much similar to the dismissive avoidant, but they also have the anxious side. And so they become as adults, the hot and cold partner in relationships who's constantly going back and forth. But again, these patterns get conditioned into us. So the things we don't like or don't serve us, we can absolutely recondition to become secure and have thriving relationships.

Mel Robbins (00:15:18):

You know what I love about listening to you is that I find it personally reassuring that anyone can become more secure. And before we discuss the specifics of each of the four attachment styles and how we can use this entire framework to heal yourself and create better relationships, I really want to back up for just a second. I keep hearing you use the word subconscious, and it's a word that can be confusing to a lot of us. It's confusing to me, for example. So can you tell me and everyone listening, what exactly is your subconscious mind?

Thais Gibson (00:15:56):

So your conscious mind, if you were looking at your mind from sort of the top down as an analogy of your conscious mind, which is like the tip of the iceberg floating above the surface, your subconscious mind is what is just out of your conscious mind's awareness. And you can imagine it's sort of the part of the iceberg that's just beneath the water level. We actually then have the unconscious mind, which is the very bottom of the iceberg, but our unconscious mind, it's very difficult to retrieve information from. So I put a lot of focus on the subconscious mind because your subconscious mind, you can actually, it's this warehouse of information, but you can actually dig into it and be like, oh, how did I feel 15 minutes ago when that happened? And

Thais Gibson (00:16:35):

You can retrieve information even though it's out of your peripheral awareness. So in summary, your subconscious mind is essentially the part of your mind that stores all information and it's just out of your conscious mind's awareness, but it is retrievable.

Mel Robbins (00:16:49):

Okay.

Thais Gibson (00:16:49):

So I think that one of the most important things to recognize is that we have a subconscious mind that's really running the show, and our subconscious mind gets all these patterns and ideas about what love looks like, and then we take those with us and that forms the lens we basically see and interact with the world through. So if we grew up in an environment where we learn that we don't communicate about things or we learn, okay, we should just expect people to know what we need or we learn to violate our own boundaries and people please if we learn these patterns at a subconscious level, your attachment style is the subconscious set of rules you have for what love and closeness and relationships are supposed to look like. And for some people that works in their favor. And for some people, unfortunately, if they didn't learn healthy patterns, it's really working against them and it can make relationships feel very difficult, very hard, and very confusing.

Mel Robbins (00:17:40):

Wow, there was so much I want to dig into in what you just said, and one of the things that caught my attention is when you said that the rules and the beliefs that we have about what love is and how relationship work, that that is all stored in your subconscious.

Thais Gibson (00:17:59):

Yes.

Mel Robbins (00:18:00):

And why is it important to know that?

Thais Gibson (00:18:02):

Because our subconscious mind, first of all is responsible for roughly 95 to 97% of our beliefs, our thoughts, our emotions, and our actions and our conscious mind is three to 5%. And so the other thing we have to understand is that our conscious mind cannot out will or overpower our subconscious mind, which means we can have the experience of going, I don't want to get angry at my partner. I don't want to raise my voice, or I want to stop drinking. Or we can have all these goals or New year's resolutions or ideas for how we want to change our behaviors. But unfortunately, it just being a conscious goal until it's actually ingrained at the subconscious level, we are going to experience this friction between what we say we want to do and what we actually do. And this has a huge impact on our relationships where if we say I want to show up better or I want to have a relationship that lasts, but if we have subconscious patterns working against us, we will constantly feel like we're putting the gas and the brakes on at the same time. And that can be a very frustrating process.

Mel Robbins (00:19:02):

Are you saying that it's possible though to change?

Thais Gibson (00:19:05):

Yes.

Mel Robbins (00:19:06):

What's in your subconscious mind?

Thais Gibson (00:19:07):

Absolutely. Of course.

Mel Robbins (00:19:09):

How did you figure all this out?

Thais Gibson (00:19:12):

I figured this out because I had a lot of work to do on myself. I had a tough upbringing and I was kind of a mess. And to be honest, the actual PR was that I was addicted to opiates at 15. So I went through from 15 to about 20 years old. It was actually, I think it was just before I turned 15, I had a knee surgery, got addicted to painkillers. And actually my biggest experience was every day being like, I'm going to get clean. I'm going to delete people's numbers from my phone and every day repeating the same pattern for me, going through that over and over again, I was high functioning enough. I made it to school. I was in a psychology class one day and somebody said to me, the conscious mind can't out will or overpower the subconscious mind. And I was like, you described all of my suffering that I experienced every day because going through that and being like, I'm going to do this, and then every day losing that battle to myself, it was tormenting. And so when somebody said that to me, I was like, I'm going to learn everything I can on God's green earth about the subconscious mind. And then it really opened up to all these different, what is the subconscious? How does it affect us? Oh, it's our core wounds, it's our unmet needs, it's our beliefs about ourself that really extend from those core wounds and our patterns in terms of boundaries. So I actually started there, did all that work, actually went into practice and then revisited attachment theory.

Mel Robbins (00:20:34):

And by practice you mean therapeutic practice?

Thais Gibson (00:20:36):

Yes. Working with counseling.

Mel Robbins (00:20:38):

Yeah, counseling, exactly. Okay.

Thais Gibson (00:20:39):

And so then I was doing a lot of subconscious work with people, and then I realized, oh, all of the attachment cells actually have very specific wounds. All these generalized core wounds I was working on with people. There's about 18 or so. They actually fit in these perfect little packages to each attachment style as well as the needs fit perfectly into these little packages as well as the boundary issues. So what I ended up doing is, okay, once I know somebody's attachment style, I don't know have to find all these core wounds all over the place. I just know they're kind of blueprint. And then I had done so much work on the subconscious for how to heal. And so that's sort of how everything became born.

Mel Robbins (00:21:13):

Well, that makes a lot of sense because when you are working with someone who is a client of yours, you're dealing with the pain and by figuring out all of the pain that someone is talking about, whether it's I'm unworthy of love or I'm ashamed of what I did, or I regret this, or I don't trust somebody, whatever it is that the pain may be, you're only ever talking about the pain level. So you're not going deep enough to change fundamentally. And so realizing that you weren't going deep enough, you dug in and it's when you discovered attachment theory and the fact that when you locate yourself in one of the four different attachment styles, you now have this simple framework to be able to heal the insecure attachment style that you may have or may be dealing with and become more secure with yourself and more secure in relationship with other people. I am getting this, thank you for kind of sharing the background on this because when we come back, I want to dive into exactly how to figure out your attachment styles. So don't go anywhere. Thais Gibson and I are going to be waiting for you right after the break. Welcome back, it's your friend Mel Robbins, and you are here with me and Thais Gibson, and we are digging into attachment styles and Thais, I have a question for you. How exactly can you figure out your attachment style now that you're an adult?

Thais Gibson (00:22:42):

Great question. So part of it is definitely understanding some of the childhood context, but then it really goes into the biggest body of work that we developed on top of traditional attachment theory was about our core wounds. So each attachment style has very specific core wounds. They also have very specific needs and they have very specific issues with boundaries and how they communicate. So we can kind of unpack those things. Let's do it so

Thais Gibson (00:23:04):

Securely attached people, I mean they tend to communicate healthily. They don't really have many core wounds that are specific to relationships. They can have insecurities, they're human beings, but we won't see too much of that as a whole. They tend to have healthy boundaries. They want to resolve things right away.

Mel Robbins (00:23:16):

Is anybody securely attached? I was laughing as I was kind of preparing to talk to you because as I was looking at the definition of secure attachment, I thought, oh, is this sort of like you thinking you're a good driver? 90% of us think we're great drivers, but we're really not great drivers. Do most people think they're securely attached?

Thais Gibson (00:23:35):

It's actually very interesting. So traditional research will show about 50% of people are securely attached. That many 51% is the actual number. Yes. How is

Mel Robbins (00:23:44):

That

Thais Gibson (00:23:44):

Possible? Disagree? In my practice, what I saw over and over again is people would come in first session, I would take them through some of this stuff and they'd be like, oh, I'm the secure one. And then by session two, I was like, there's no way that they're secure. And I think that people, we, when we self-report things are skewed and those numbers, that 51% is based on self-reporting. Obviously I have a bias sample size of people, people who are going through struggles and are reaching out for help and support. But I just found so many times that more than half the time people would say, I'm secure. And I definitely not secure.

Mel Robbins (00:24:17):

I'm making a joke about it. But as a parent and having three kids, 24, 23 and 18, as I'm listening to you describe the four different attachment styles, I was listening both as a parent thinking, oh shit, I really probably created the anxious preoccupied attachment style by working a lot. The second you said daycare, I thought, oh gosh, that explains it. Our two daughters were in daycare. There you go. You really blew it. And then of course, I'm listening for myself. And what was interesting is that I always presumed that I was probably anxious, preoccupied,

Thais Gibson (00:25:04):

Interesting.

Mel Robbins (00:25:05):

But as we have this conversation and I am listening in real time, I'm wondering if I'm going to see that I'm more in the fearful probably. I can't even say it. I'm so nervous,

Thais Gibson (00:25:19):

Fearful avoidant

Mel Robbins (00:25:20):

Fearful avoidant. When you said a chaotic environment including narcissistic behavior, I was like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. And when I go, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. You know what means I'm leaning in. And I know that you as you're listening are leaning in too.

Mel Robbins (00:25:38):

And so let's go even deeper into this concept of core wounds. What are the core wounds of the three insecure attachment styles?

Thais Gibson (00:25:48):

When we get into the insecure attachment styles, this is where we can really see the nuances that haven't been developed before. So anxious attachment styles. Their biggest core wounds are, I'll be abandoned, I'll be alone, I'll be excluded, disliked, rejected, not good enough and unsafe. And what we'll see is they tend to feel this big trigger of unsafety when people pull away. Because in childhood we're very reliant on our caregivers. We can't literally cannot survive without them. And so what happens is as children, the anxious attachment style, when their caregivers pull away, they actually have a trauma response like, will I survive without them as they're gone? And so we really easily confuse and intertwine survival with approval as anxious attachment styles. And that becomes really prevalent in childhood. And as adults, the anxious attachment cell, they'll have a full nervous system reaction when somebody pulls away that abandonment will really trigger also this deep feeling of being unsafe.

Mel Robbins (00:26:42):

I'm just sitting here selfishly processing and thinking about my family and my relationships. As I'm sure as you're listening, you're doing the exact same thing. There's no doubt in my mind that our daughter, Kendall has anxious attachment style because I often say I feel like your human blankie.

(00:27:02):

And if she has a situation that is anything that would make her nervous or anything that would make her slightly uncertain, there's a phone call and you know that the attachment style is kicked in because then there's a second one and then there might be a third one. Yes. And is that sort of a classic indication that you feel this sense when you can't get ahold of somebody, this alarm bell goes off inside you and you're firing off the text or you're calling them again or you're checking their location? Is that a good example of the type of behavior that somebody with anxious attachment?

Thais Gibson (00:27:49):

Absolutely. And so what you'll see is that these core wounds, if you sort of were to trail them across, you'd see that core wounds, when we feel like I'm abandoned, we start thinking thoughts about they're never going to come back, or what if I can't get my needs met? And then this sparks emotions and then we'll feel those emotions. And neuroscience has actually proven that every single decision we make is based on our emotions. So then these actions happen at a subconscious level where the anxious preoccupied will cling, and part of what's happening is they're terrified of losing proximity to people. And they also as children didn't ever learn to self-soothe consistently enough.

(00:28:23):

So they really rely on other people to soothe. And when they can't soothe through other people, it'll create problems in terms of their ability to regulate. And so some other things you'll see beyond core wounds is the needs anxious preoccupied tend to have is they need a lot of validation, reassurance, consistency, certainty is a huge one, especially in their romantic relationships. And one of their big love languages is around physical touch. They want to be close, they want to be nearby. You'll see a lot of those sorts of patterns. Anxious, preoccupied, attachment cells are the sweetest. They're so kind, they're so thoughtful, they really think about people. They really spend a lot of time focused on the people around them. And so some of the superpowers of the anxious attachment cell is that they're very loving, they're very warm, they're very kind. They're thoughtful, they're supportive, they really go out of their way to think about the people in their lives. So they have all these beautiful characteristics they bring to relationships. But because they're subconscious comfort zone is to be so focused on other people, the primary casualty in that relationship becomes the relationship to themselves.

(00:29:19):

And so they will constantly deprioritize themselves, put their needs last, not speak up for their needs, they get into people policing behaviors. And actually all of those things that they're doing are the crux of why it's so difficult to self-soothe. Because if you don't know your needs, you can't meet your own needs and you have all these core wounds, it becomes so difficult to self-soothe. And they'll constantly try to maintain that closeness and soothe through others. But when other people are not available, that's where it becomes really tricky

Mel Robbins (00:29:44):

When it comes to trying to change your behavior or trying to achieve something or trying to achieve a goal.

Mel Robbins (00:29:52):

How does having this anxious attachment style and the core wound of abandonment show up in terms of sabotaging your ability to either be consistent or to do the work to change yourself?

Thais Gibson (00:30:06):

In so many ways. So one of the biggest things is, let's say it's something in your workplace, anxious attachment cells in the workplace. They'll often put themselves last, they'll put themselves on the back burner, they'll take on other people's work and not set healthy boundaries, and all of a sudden they're behind on their things, people pleasing others.

(00:30:22):

And also if they have this huge fear of abandonment, what happens is we abandon ourselves. Whatever our core wounds are also become the biggest things we reenact in the relationship to self, because the subconscious mind wants to maintain its comfort zone. So if you see somebody with an abandonment core wound, they're so worried about getting abandoned by others that they will abandon themselves to please others. And that's actually how the wound stays alive. If we ask ourselves, Hey, those wounds came from childhood 30 years ago, how are they still alive in me now? Oh, because I am reenacting them in relationship to self through repetition and emotion on a daily basis. And if I wasn't doing that, they actually wouldn't still be here. It's not possible. So that's how the subconscious keeps these things. And so what the anxious preoccupied has to do is learn to meet their own needs, reprogram their subconscious core wounds, and then be able to actually consider themselves equally to others, take their own boundaries into consideration as much as they do with others. And those things become a huge part of the healing process. And we can talk about subconscious reprogramming in a little bit perhaps, but those tend to be some really important things to recognize in terms of the patterning. And then the very last thing I'll say is just anxious attachment styles as well. If they have a goal

Mel Robbins (00:31:30):

And

Thais Gibson (00:31:30):

Then it's not even in the workplace, it's a personal goal, and then their friends say, but I need you. Or then they want to make social plans or commitments, they'll be so preoccupied with that that they struggle to actually balance the other areas of their life. They'll be so focused on relationships, career can be on the back burner, finances, mental growth, emotional growth, spirituality, all those things can kind of take less precedence, which of course they'll feel later over time. They're always deprioritizing the self.

Mel Robbins (00:31:58):

That makes so much sense. Yeah. If you look at the anxious attachment style from a standpoint of needs, what are their core needs?

Thais Gibson (00:32:08):

Yes, the biggest needs that they have, and interestingly enough, these have to be the needs that they give to themselves. This is part of how they heal through repetition and emotion of giving these needs. So the big needs are reassurance, validation, encouragement, support to be seen, to be heard are really, really big people who being present with them and then really that certainty and consistency. Those are the big ones. And I think once we discover that the real discussion has to become, well, if for any number of reasons I didn't get access to as a child, part of healing is to repetitively give that to myself now because I'm leveraging principles of neuroplasticity, same thing, repetition and emotion, that fire and wire neural pathways. And if I'm leveraging those principles, then by giving those things to myself, not only do I learn to self-soothe, but also because if I have those needs met, the bucket's halfway full, so I'm not panicked without somebody else meeting them, I'm actually soothing myself. I'm able to get there. And then it also heals and undoes the past because we're changing the programming at the subconscious level.

Mel Robbins (00:33:12):

I want to ask you one scenario. So let's go back to the example of somebody who's anxiously attached and they say to themselves, alright, I'm not going to bother my significant other at work today. And then they find themselves getting that wave of emotion and wanting to send 15 texts. What do you do in that moment? If the solution to reprogramming your subconscious is to give yourself what you need, what would you do as you're standing there with the phone?

Thais Gibson (00:33:45):

Yes. Amazing question. So there's ways to reprogram that are proactive so that we can actually recondition those wounds to begin with so they stop coming back. That's the real crux of everything. But in the moment until we've done the reprogramming, which takes about 21 days, what we want to be able to do is make sure that we are in a position where whatever it is that we are needing from that person, we want to isolate. So if you're needing from your significant other, what are you reaching out for? What are you hoping to get as the result? Are you needing encouragement? Are you needing certainty? And if you can look at that and realize, Hey, I as a human being have the capacity to give that to myself, you can literally think of, if I could paint a picture of what that encouragement would look like from my spouse or from my friend or whoever it is, how can I give that to myself inwardly?

(00:34:30):

And what's really interesting is the subconscious mind really wants a comfort zone. So it doesn't like unfamiliarity because ultimately the subconscious is survival wired, which means anything unfamiliar, it tends to reject. It's part of why we end up in the same types of relationship patterns or the same types of situations so often. So what happens is originally when an anxious preoccupied tries to give the need that they would want from others to themselves, instead, if I want to encourage myself, let me write out three of my wins or let me journal about why I will be okay, or if I need certainty, let me schedule out what I'm needing or create structure in my life. At first it feels a little bit foreign. This is always like the thing for anxious, preoccupied. They have the hardest time meeting the needs themselves more so than the other insecure attachment styles. But as we start doing it repetitively, we start creating these neural pathways where it becomes more comfortable. So basically what happens is over time, through the repetition and emotion of building that into our comfort zone, we usually have to essentially use our conscious mind to recondition our subconscious mind. So at first, it's more mechanical for the first little bit. It definitely helps to soothe in that moment, but it won't feel as soothing what an anxious preoccupied is seeking from somebody else.

(00:35:40):

But by about day seven of doing this behavior repetitively, we start to build a subconscious comfort zone around it. And by day 21, I mean I have seen at this point thousands of people who are anxious, preoccupied, really afraid to even be alone and spend time alone who now come and say, oh, I actually love spending time alone. I feel comfortable with myself. I've built this relationship to myself. I don't panic anymore when my partner's not available. So this is something that's very feasible. It just takes that really first seven days of commitment to start feeling comfortable within it. And by day 21, we see a tremendous difference.

Mel Robbins (00:36:14):

That's incredible. So one other question before we move on to the other attachment styles. If you're in a relationship with somebody who has that anxious attachment style, what is the best thing for you to say or the best way for you to show up to, I guess create more security for the person? Can you change somebody else's attachment style in how you show up? So

Thais Gibson (00:36:44):

In theory, yes, because anything we're exposed to through repetition plus emotion has the impact to reprogram. So

Mel Robbins (00:36:50):

Yes,

Thais Gibson (00:36:50):

And if you're dating somebody who's securely attached, there can be a benefit. However, there's a big caveat to this, which is that our subconscious mind, because it wants to maintain its comfort zone, tends to not be attracted to people who are very secure. If you're insecurely attached, I have heard countless fearful avoid an attachment cells, just as an example, say things like I started dating somebody and there wasn't chaos and it felt boring and anxious, preoccupied as well. If somebody is too present or too kind or too sweet or too loving, often they will sabotage it because again, at the end of the day, the subconscious mind is like, I want what's familiar. Familiarity equals safety, which equals survival. And so if they grew up with a lot of push pull, a lot of hot and cold and inconsistency, the anxious preoccupied will often reject somebody who's really secure.

(00:37:35):

It's quite rare that they'll actually invest. And so I don't want to take away from the idea that yes, in theory and in principle that happens. Rarely have I seen that actually be the case in the years and years of client practice, I've been focused on this. But what I have seen is that when we do that work in the relationship to ourselves, we get this two-pronged benefit, which is on one side of the equation. When we build a secure attachment in the relationship to ourselves, because we start to meet our own needs because we reprogram our core wounds, all of a sudden now we are securely attached to self. And so now we are actually attracted to securely attached people who will show up for us in a way that feels safe and familiar to our subconscious mind. And the second part is that there's tremendous benefit. I mean, doing the work helps you feel healed, helps you feel more confident, and because it's really about the relationship to ourselves at the end of the day that will spill out into all other areas of life, be it career, financial, friendships, family relationships, et cetera.

Mel Robbins (00:38:33):

Thais, that was a masterclass, anxious, preoccupied, I can't even say it. My head is spinning so much. And I know as you've been listening to Thais, you've now basically put half of your family into that category. But I want to hit pause. Let us hear a word from our sponsors. They allow me to bring this to you for zero cost, but when we come back, don't you be anxious. I want you to stay attached. I know I'm making stupid jokes, but we're going to go in depth into the two other insecure attachment styles. One is the dismissive avoidance and the second one is the fearful avoidant. Stay with us. Welcome back. It's your friend, Mel. I am so happy you are still here because we are just scratching the surface on what you're about to learn about attachment styles. We've already covered everything you need to know about the anxious attachment style. We've got two more to cover. First up, dismissive avoidant attachment. That's a mouthful, Thais. So how about you tell us who is that person?

Thais Gibson (00:39:37):

So because this person grows up with that childhood emotional neglect, they tend to really not want to emotionally attach to people. They tend to want to keep their space. They basically as children adapt to the discomfort of emotional neglect because we're all wired and attuned for deep connection. So they adapt by going, well, I don't need that. I am just going to not need it. So I stop feeling this pain and shame of rejection from it because if you grew up as a child yearning for that connection, yearning to be seen, and we're literally biologically wired for that, just yearning for it all the time becomes counterproductive. Eventually that yearning is so pervasive that the person adapts by going, I'm going to reject the connection that's rejecting me and that's how I'm going to feel safe. So their big core wounds, because of that become I'm defective.

(00:40:21):

They definitely have this core wound of like, I am shameful. That's why I couldn't get my needs met. They're very sensitive to criticism, although they will not show it. They're too stoic to show it very sensitive to criticism though, and they'll really withdraw and they self-soothe by literally pushing everybody away and icing everybody out because they really go inwards and they usually rely on different creature comforts for soothing, like binge watching television or eating a lot of food or video games or these sort of things that they can through smoking, pot drinking. Yes, exactly. Exactly. All of those things, a hundred

Mel Robbins (00:40:51):

Percent. What are the core wounds for somebody with a dismissive avoidant attachment style?

Thais Gibson (00:40:57):

So dismissive avoidance. Their big core wounds are, I'm defective, I'll be unsafe. They really tend to not like conflict. They'll try to sort of retreat from conflict a lot of the time until it reaches sort of a threshold. Then they may get involved. They tend to feel trapped, helpless, powerless, afraid of being weak if they rely on others. And they actually tend to,

Thais Gibson (00:41:17):

Especially people who grew up in a more severely neglecting environment, tend to have this deep wound and kind of fear that I do not belong. Kind of like I'm an outsider. Because as a child, if you grow up in that environment, you're not getting to deeply connect with other people. It will really foster that kind of wounding. So this individual as an adult becomes the person who can be very charming, charismatic, wonderful early on, but when things get real, they often get afraid. And so they will push people away and they tend to

Mel Robbins (00:41:43):

Or withdraw. Is that the other? Exactly. When you say push people away, it sounds very active and purposeful.

Thais Gibson (00:41:49):

Yes.

Mel Robbins (00:41:50):

But is withdrawing and isolating.

Thais Gibson (00:41:53):

Yes. That's actually a really beautiful nuance that you pointed out. So essentially there's this nuance that I think is an amazing nuance, which is the pushing people away versus pulling away. For sure. The dominant pattern with dismissive avoidance is to pull away and to withdraw and to really retreat kind of like a turtle going into their shell. But we will definitely see dismissive avoidance, especially in the earlier dating stages of relationships, actively push people away by sabotaging the relationship, by leaving early. If they feel like their feelings are too real or it feels too raw for them, they'll often say, okay, I have to get out of here. That's it. We're done. And there can be that push away dynamic, but when they're actually in a committed relationship, you'll see a lot more of the pulling away, the withdrawing, the retreating.

Mel Robbins (00:42:36):

So what are their needs? Because I'm married to somebody who is always in his head,

Thais Gibson (00:42:43):

Yes,

Mel Robbins (00:42:43):

He's very, very kindhearted and yet isolates so quickly and is absolutely checking the box on absolutely everything that you just said.

Thais Gibson (00:42:57):

Yes.

Mel Robbins (00:42:58):

And he has often said, I really am not sure what I need.

Thais Gibson (00:43:02):

Yes, that is the dismissible wooden slogan,

Mel Robbins (00:43:05):

But then what do they need if they don't know what they need?

Thais Gibson (00:43:08):

It's an amazing question. And so what you'll see is the big needs that they have are number one, they really need to feel safe in their relationships. This element of feeling, that sense of safety and consistency is really important because as children, they didn't feel safe when they had that neglect going on. And so they tried to develop that sense of safety just within themselves,

Thais Gibson (00:43:29):

But they often don't feel too safe relying on other people. Beyond that they really need, even though they will never show it, they really need acknowledgement and appreciation. Now, they don't want like, oh, you're the best partner in the world. They don't want these grandiose forms of it. They want the little things they want. Hey, I see that you're really trying here. Thank you. Dismissive avoidance respond extremely poorly to negative reinforcement. They respond extremely positively to positive reinforcement. And what you'll see is if you ask a dismissive avoidant for a need to be met and then they do it and you say, Hey, thank you. I see that you really showed up for that. They get this sense. You have to remember, right? If you grow up as a dismissive avoidant, then you don't get modeling for healthy exchange and relationships. You get modeling for neglect for everybody being ships passing in the night. And so they often feel really disempowered and incapable of doing relationships in this way.

Mel Robbins (00:44:21):

You are literally describing my husband. I know. I wish I had known this year one in our marriage. I mean, we're at year 27 and are finally unpacking the fact that, and what you just said is incapable, that he was so conditioned to be on his own ships passing in the night, fend for yourself is the word that he used about his childhood

Thais Gibson (00:44:46):

Fend

Mel Robbins (00:44:46):

For yourself.

Thais Gibson (00:44:47):

Totally.

Mel Robbins (00:44:48):

And also this sense because it's been very frustrating at times to go, you're so capable in every other area. Why the hell can't you just exactly think ahead about us or about the family? Absolutely. A lot of things have changed, but this makes so much sense.

Thais Gibson (00:45:07):

And dismissive avoidants often, like you said, they're so capable. They're very capable because they had to mentally and intellectually develop to fend for themselves, but they didn't really emotionally develop the exchange in relationships because that wasn't there. So they're almost stunted in their growth emotionally there. That's part of when we go to needs that appreciation and acknowledgement gives them this idea that, oh, I can do this. I am doing this. Right. And they respond so positively when they get that acknowledgement and appreciation. Now, beyond that, some other needs that they really have is they really tend to need empathy. They really tend to fall into infatuation or limerence. If somebody is really empathetic and supportive of them, it goes a very long way because again, these are deeply unmet needs from childhood. And so that sense of supportiveness, that sense of empathy, that sense of appreciation, acknowledgement, safety, all of those things, harmony tends to be another huge need in relationships. But I would say those encompass their biggest needs. The really interesting thing, the dismissive avoidant has the subconscious comfort zone. So because of this, what you'll see is they grow up, they get neglected who is the biggest neglect of the dismissive avoidance emotions

Mel Robbins (00:46:14):

Themselves.

Thais Gibson (00:46:14):

Themselves. And so part of their healing, just like for the anxious preoccupied, is to learn to give to themselves what they didn't get access to in childhood repetitively. So when they can actually start tuning into their feelings, doing some work to be in their body, practicing meditation or breath work or things that are going to anchor them into parasympathetic or rest and repair nervous system mode, what you'll see is doing that and getting their feelings back online, actually being okay with their emotions, not being afraid of them, realizing that their feelings are just feedback. They're just guidance mechanisms. Building that relationship back to their feelings is actually the very thing that gives them emotional bandwidth in their relationships to others. So that becomes a huge part along with giving themselves appreciation, giving themselves a sense of support. All the needs that they had that we mentioned are going to be really important for

Mel Robbins (00:47:06):

That. Well, what's interesting is that if you're in a relationship with somebody who has this dismissive avoidant attachment style, you tend to get very frustrated.

Thais Gibson (00:47:19):

Absolutely.

Mel Robbins (00:47:20):

And so you in your frustration are giving a lot of negative reinforcement, which makes them only pull away more and act more confused and more ashamed and more avoidant of you. And it makes sense that the small, specific, consistent positive, thank you for this. I see that you're doing this. I appreciate that. Thank you for remembering this. You're creating this reciprocal exchange that they never got in childhood.

Thais Gibson (00:47:53):

Yes.

Mel Robbins (00:47:54):

In the context of goals, so you have somebody who is dismissive, avoidant, and they have personal goals. How do they sabotage their ability to take new actions, to be consistent, to put themselves first?

Thais Gibson (00:48:16):

Great question. So often what you'll see is their subconscious comfort zone because there's a lot of this wounding of shame.

(00:48:23):

They often don't want to be seen, so they can avoid putting themselves in the spotlight. They can absolutely avoid asking for help. It's such a big dynamic where they will think they have to do it all on their own all the time. And I'm sure you've probably noticed this in your life as I have, is it's sometimes comfortable to do it all on your own, but you get so much further ahead in life when you're working with other people. When you have people you can learn from and learn with and support each other. And I think one of the biggest pain points is that they will literally get into a place where they won't be open to that and they can struggle to work in teams. Sometimes they can silo themselves out a lot, so that would be a big saboteur in regards to work.

(00:49:00):

But then personal goals can be that because they have such a subconscious comfort zone of needing safety, needing comfort, sometimes they can be ones to avoid stretching themselves as much as other attachment styles because they kind of want to just retreat into that safety and comfort zone in their spare time. And part of what's happening is they're actually dealing with a fairly dysregulated nervous system throughout the day. They're kind of in low level fight or flight a lot of the time. And so when they finish work or these commitments that they have to do or have to show up for, they will often retreat and go into just soothing by themselves doing their own thing at the end of the day, which of course, then you're not putting that time into stretching into growing yourself in other areas.

Mel Robbins (00:49:39):

That makes so much sense because you're right, if anxious attachment is high levels of that fight or flight energy, which I think we all know somebody who's anxiously attached, who is a friend or somebody that we're dating or somebody in our family, you can feel that vibrational energy.

Thais Gibson (00:49:54):

Absolutely.

Mel Robbins (00:49:55):

I also very much relate to the description of a low level of that

Thais Gibson (00:50:03):

Fight or flight,

Mel Robbins (00:50:04):

Fight or flight. They may not show it on the surface, but they're up in their heads withdrawing, dealing with it.

Thais Gibson (00:50:11):

Absolutely.

Mel Robbins (00:50:12):

Now, one more scenario for the dismissive avoidant. Can you give us one with regard to texting and reaching out to somebody you're dating and what is the conflict that a avoidant would have if the anxious attachment person is, okay, I'm not going to text him today, I'm not going to be clingy today, and then they're texting. What does a dismissive do?

Thais Gibson (00:50:36):

Dismissive avoidant is almost the exact opposite. So they tend to get afraid of people relying on them to various degrees because they feel like, okay, I'm just here to take care of myself. They feel like it's a big commitment and they also feel like it's a bit of an injustice in that commitment. I shouldn't have to do things I don't want to do. The really interesting thing is that exactly what each attachment style needs to do to become secure is essentially, if we could sort of summarize it in a very high level umbrella term. It's like we are striving for interdependency anxious attachment cells are super codependent. I should meet all of your needs. You should meet all of mine. We never meet our own dismissive avoidance are very counterdependent. I should meet all my own needs. You should meet all your own needs. And we'll just sometimes come together.

(00:51:21):

What they each need to do is to come to sender. I can meet my needs and I can rely on myself to meet my needs and feel empowered to do so, and I feel safe and comfortable expressing and receiving from you and vice versa. And the dismissive avoidant when it comes to texting, they sort of have this idea that I shouldn't have to text you if I don't feel like it, but part of their growth is to allow people to rely on them. And they will actually do better at that when they learn that, Hey, I can rely on other people too. There is an exchange and there's something beautiful about the exchange. And what we'll see is on the path of dismissal, avoidance becoming more secure, they'll start to rely on other people a little more first, and then they'll actually feel good about it. And then they'll realize that they want to do that with others and allow others to rely on them. And then when they get that positive reinforcement like, Hey, I see you showing up, thank you. And they feel capable and they feel encouraged, that's where they start to really move into interdependency. And they won't feel like texting if they don't feel like it is a chore. And they'll be more mindful and more consistent.

Mel Robbins (00:52:19):

This is so amazing, and you're right, it is an incredibly helpful framework to really understand why some people are the way that they are. And we've covered a lot. So let me just recap where we are. We've covered what people with a secure attachment style are like. You have described anxious preoccupied attachment. We've now just covered dismissive avoidant attachment styles, and we got one left. And that is fearful avoidant Thais. Who are these fearful avoidant attachment style people and what do they show up in life? And can you tell us about their core wounds?

Thais Gibson (00:52:59):

Okay, so fearful avoidance because of growing up in that chaos, usually their primary wound is actually to struggle with trust, and it may not be trust in this really overt way the way you would think, but fearful avoidance are the most hypervigilant. They notice everything reading between the lines on everything, little tiny micro expression change they saw at first little tiny change in a pattern of behavior. They noticed it and fearful actually have the most core wounds. They tend to have the core wounds of the anxious. They can fear abandonment, but what we'll see a lot for fearful avoidance is they can want this connection. They can feel afraid of being abandoned or not good enough or disliked or alone, but if people get too close too fast, they can also go into their very avoidance side, feel very afraid of being trapped, helpless, powerless. And then that's sort of combined with this struggle to trust and to feel safe opening up and relying on other people. So they really have both sides. What's interesting as well is that as you date somebody more avoidant because if your full avoidant kind of has shared attributes of both sides, it will polarize you more into your opposite side. So

Mel Robbins (00:54:03):

Make you more anxious.

Thais Gibson (00:54:04):

Exactly. They tend to have a little bit more intensity, a little bit more fire and spice. So we will generally see that fearful avoidance, they tend to be fairly high achievers, hard workers. They tend to be a little bit of over overcompensate sometimes. Sometimes this idea of if you grew up in a childhood where nothing was kind of ever good enough, you can actually struggle with a deep unworthiness core wound as well. And so really struggle to kind of overcome that by showing up in all these different ways. Obviously there can be superpowers to that, that can be super beneficial. But again, the sort of casualty in it can be the relationship to self because it can be so much about the outside world, how you have to show up for others. Fearful wouldn't show up incredibly well for people in crisis, but they're so focused on other people, concerned with other people that again, they kind of lose that relationship to self. And the funny thing as well, is it with a fearful avoidant, dismissive, avoidant? This is something I noticed so much with my own husband, is I in the early stages realized I was much better at communicating my needs because I had done a lot of work on that. But I realized that I still had this element of expecting him to know my needs

(00:55:16):

When I would become critical or negatively reinforced like you were mentioning. It was because I would hold in my needs, not make space for myself, put myself last, prioritize everybody else, and then I would hold it in, hold it in anxious. Preoccupied can do that forever. Fear, full avoidance, cannot they hold it in, they hold it in, and then they kind of become the volcano erupting eventually, and they will say something harsh with their words or they'll cut a little bit with how they speak and what happened.

Thais Gibson (00:55:41):

And what the learning for me was, was, okay, I have to be so good at communicating my needs proactively. And that was actually part of my healing as a fearful avoidant, was to learn to consider myself as much of those I was considering everybody else. And so fearful avoidance have this dynamic of being very on, very intense personalities. They've had to struggle through chaos. So sometimes that subconscious comfort zone is chaos. They make very good entrepreneurs because they tend to do well outside of their comfort zone in the chaos. But part of the healing is learning to be balanced and centered, learning to keep the relationship to self. And of course we have to do the healing on the abandonment wounds and the trapped wounds, both the anxious and avoidant side. But the real dynamic is to learn to trust.

Mel Robbins (00:56:24):

Could you say more about the trust? Yes, because I think when you say the word trust to me, I just think of, oh, do I trust you? Do I not trust you? And I think on the surface, I think I trust people, but as you're talking, I am feeling like when I don't know what my needs are, I get very overwhelmed and chaotic internally. And how does that relate to trust?

Thais Gibson (00:56:55):

Because there's this element of not trusting your environment to be okay. There's this element at a deep level of the trust isn't just, and it can be of course, that I don't trust somebody won't lie or betray me. The thing that's really important to remember too is that our attachment wounds become the loudest and the most real for us when we actually attach. So we may, what

Mel Robbins (00:57:16):

Does that mean?

Thais Gibson (00:57:17):

It means when we actually build an emotional bond and start developing feelings or open up or developing real closeness. So you may feel like, oh, I trust the stranger on the street or the person I just met. But when we really let somebody in, that's when we'll feel afraid that they might leave us or they might betray us by lying or through infidelity or through not showing up in a pinch when we really need them to be there. And so you'll see that those elements can really represent trust, but at a deeper level because it really is the relationship to ourselves first. We'll also see that trust shows up in the way of us not trusting the outcome, trusting the environment. Sometimes we'll try to hyper control things or be five steps ahead of everything to make sure. And so the real healing for that trust wound actually becomes to look at all the places we betray ourselves.

(00:58:04):

And a lot of that can be that we don't show up for our own boundaries sometimes or we say it's fine when it's not actually okay. Or we agree to things and we say yes when it's really a no and we don't protect our space, or there can be ways that we betray or lie to ourselves even like this is completely an okay situation. Meanwhile you're just floundering. So there can be these dynamics where we do that. And part of the healing around trust is to understand it in that context and then as a result of that, to be able to be better in the relationship to ourselves around those things. And as we do that better, we'll learn to trust other people because we'll also learn that people are not perfect. They're never going to be perfect. People will hurt us, but the real building of relationships doesn't come from people being perfect. It comes from when somebody does hurt us, we can be vulnerable and say, ouch, that hurt, that didn't feel good for me. Can we work on this together? And allowing people that chance to build that trust with you by working on it. And that's where we really build those deep roots around trust.

Mel Robbins (00:59:05):

As I'm sitting here listening, it almost sounds as if the anxious and the dismissive avoidant attachment styles, it's typical for somebody to be trapped in it and not really know their needs and to be completely hijacked their emotions. And if I'm reading between the lines based on what you just said about the fearful avoidant that you do know when your boundary's being violated, you just don't do anything about it.

Thais Gibson (00:59:36):

It's a really nuanced thing, but it's really a powerful question. What tends to happen is that fearful avoidance can be a little bit dissociated from themselves. They can be a little bit so focused on the external world and their commitments and their things they have to do that they can be a little bit disconnected. And generally what happens is fearful avoidance will feel their emotions very strongly when they feel them, and it will usually look like holding things in. But you may sort of have to reach this pivotal threshold where the emotions become strong enough because the frustrations and the experiences are big enough that now you reach this threshold. And it's almost like the fearful of when will go, oh, this person's violated my boundaries. Wait a minute, they did this three weeks ago and four weeks ago and five weeks ago. And then that frustration will really come to a head. And so yes, there can be a pushing down and a repressing, but it's almost so subconscious that it's not even in the periphery. And when it does come to the threshold, then the emotions can be a little bit stronger.

Mel Robbins (01:00:33):

So when it comes to personal goals, how does a fearful avoidance sabotage their ability to change?

Thais Gibson (01:02:35):

It is called autosuggestion. So basically how autosuggestion works is the first thing, and I'll give a sort of a background story here first or context for it. But the first thing is we want to put ourselves in what we call a suggestible state as somebody with a background in hypnosis, this is where this comes from. Suggestible state basically means that your brain is producing mostly alpha brainwaves. And when you're in alpha brainwave state, you're a lot more suggestible. AKA, your subconscious mind is much more open to suggestion or to being reprogrammed. If you've ever seen somebody in an alpha state, it's often after a deep meditation. It's the first hour that they wake up in the morning, the last hour before they go to sleep. Or if you've ever seen somebody when they're watching television and you're like, Bob, Bob and Bob's just in the television, he's in this sort of trance-like state. When we watch television, we actually produce a lot of alpha brainwaves. So we get into a relaxed state. Easiest way is first thing in the morning when you

Mel Robbins (01:03:27):

Wake up. Okay, but can I just make sure I understand?

Thais Gibson (01:03:31):

Yes.

Mel Robbins (01:03:32):

That when you first wake up, you are in the alpha state. Yes. But if you look at your phone, I'm assuming you'll

Thais Gibson (01:03:38):

Not be in your office state. You can take yourself out of it very quickly. Yes.

Mel Robbins (01:03:40):

Okay, so you're talking roll out of bed.

Thais Gibson (01:03:43):

Absolutely, yes.

Mel Robbins (01:03:44):

And immediately the first thing you do so that you can take advantage of this alpha state in your brain where you're highly suggestible, which means highly programmable, everybody, what are we doing?

Thais Gibson (01:03:57):

So then what we do is we take our first core wound. So let's just use a really simple one for argument's sake. So let's say it's I'm not good enough.

Mel Robbins (01:04:04):

Okay, now how the hell do we figure out our core wound?

Thais Gibson (01:04:07):

So remember, the anxious preve was like abandoned, alone, excluded, disliked not good enough. So we me 'em all before. So hopefully people recognize themselves in that attachment cell so

Mel Robbins (01:04:16):

Far. Okay, so the process is first, locate yourself in the attachment

Thais Gibson (01:04:20):

Cell. Yes.

Mel Robbins (01:04:21):

Second, really dig into what does the wound and what is the wound for you and how is it showing up?

Thais Gibson (01:04:28):

Yes. And I mean, if you're not sure, you can ask yourself, when I get triggered, what am I afraid? The worst case scenario will be, you can think of times you were triggered and be like, what am I really afraid will happen next? And that's a way of isolating it. But as a general rule, vast majority of people are like, I have the abandonment core wound, and they feel it and they know. And so you can pick the one that's really bothering you the most. If we started with one for each, it would be abandonment for anxious attachment style. It would be betrayed for fearful avoidant, but also very strong secondary abandoned or trapped. Those also show up quite strongly. And dismissive avoidant would be, I am defective, so I am shameful, essentially.

Mel Robbins (01:05:07):

Gotcha. Okay.

Thais Gibson (01:05:07):

And so we pick the core wound that's bothering us the most, then we oppose it. Okay, so what's the opposite of the core wound? Let's just use I'm not good enough. I am good enough. Now here's the really interesting part, but what if

Mel Robbins (01:05:18):

You don't believe it? You, you know what I mean? Here's the thing. Okay, well, if my core wound that's been in my subconscious for 50 years that runs on repeat, where I literally look in the mirror and go, that's a loser.

Thais Gibson (01:05:29):

That's the point, right? Is that your subconscious doesn't believe it. And so we have to address, a lot of people will do affirmations. Affirmations are extremely limiting. I'm a big not believer in affirmations. Here's why. Your conscious mind speaks language. Your subconscious does not speak in language. If I say, do not, whatever you do, think of the pink elephant, you can't help it. You think of the pink elephant. Your conscious mind hears, do not. Your subconscious mind do not is irrelevant. It just hears and sees pink elephant, right? So what we have to do is we have to understand the language our subconscious mind speaks, which is emotion and imagery. So we need to leverage emotion and imagery for reprogramming, and we need to do it repetitively because the repetition is what fires and wires. So if you think of subconscious reprogramming, three simple ingredients, repetition, emotion, imagery, the more you have of all of it, the better and the faster it will work.

Mel Robbins (01:06:22):

Okay?

Thais Gibson (01:06:22):

So if we have, I'm not good enough. We have to find emotion and imagery for I am good enough. So if you were to look for memories, if I were to say, okay, tell me your favorite childhood experience and close your eyes for it, you would close your eyes and you would start talking about it and you would smile and you would actually see the memory in your mind's eye. And the emotion is actually the container or the memory is the container for emotion there. So you would actually feel the emotion still in that memory, and you would see the images. So what we do for Autosuggestion, we get in that suggestible state, we get in that relaxed space. Then we say, okay, what's the opposite of my wound? I'm not good enough. I am good enough. And then we find 10 pieces of evidence or memory for why we are good enough. So for example, it could be I graduated from this school and we want to feel about it and see ourselves walking across the podium or getting our certificate. And as we do that or diploma, and as we do that, we are actually using our conscious mind to speak to our subconscious mind,

(01:07:20):

And we are doing it repetitively. So we are firing and wiring new paradigms of how this works. And then we ideally want to divest, not feed into those old stories, those old narratives in the same way. But if we literally just do that 10 pieces of evidence in a suggestible state to oppose our core wound for 21 days, there are tremendous, tremendous results people will have. And they can actually drop these big core wounds that they've been carrying forever that are causing them in the first place to feel all that panic around abandonment or fearing to really rely on people or open up or fearing being trapped. We can let those things go once and for all.

Mel Robbins (01:07:54):

So given that you've done this with more than 31,000 people, what is the coaching that you have for somebody who is new to this and they're sitting there saying to themselves, well, I don't even know what an image would be of me being loved. I'm sure this is the most common objection you hear, which is I can't think of one.

Thais Gibson (01:08:15):

Yes.

Mel Robbins (01:08:15):

So what advice or coaching do you have for the person listening that's like, okay, I get it. I'm going to bathe in this emotion and these visual images, but I can't even come up with one for I'm good enough or I'm lovable. How do you do

Thais Gibson (01:08:29):

This? It's a great question, and this is for sure. You said one of the biggest sort of points that people hit where they will feel stuck. So what we do is we start general and then get specific. So if somebody's not open to seeing that I am loved or I'm worthy of love, we start with things like it is possible to be worthy of love. And then we can even start as general as looking for other people who are similar to us or other people we know and how we may share characteristics. So we're just trying to, the really interesting part is that repetition and emotion will build momentum. So if we start with something that just feels like a little stretch outside of that subconscious comfort zone, because part of why we are also I have no idea, is because we have a comfort zone that's like, no, I am unloved and I'm scared to even believe that I could be loved because every time I've hoped for that, it doesn't work.

(01:09:12):

So our subconscious will try to give us that pushback, and that's normal for some people. They don't have much of it at all because they're open to the work and they're excited for other people. There will be a specific wound they get really stuck on. And so we start really general. So we would say something like, it is possible to be loved. And if you still don't feel resonance with that, we can say it is possible for all people to be loved and look for other evidence of other people you've seen with similar characteristics. Build love, connect with people, create that loving relationship. And we can start there. And what we'll see is generally around day seven, people will start to have a little bit of that resonance and feel good about it. And when we start feeling like, oh, okay, this is believable for me.

(01:09:53):

Now I can see myself coming into resonance. That's where we stretch again. We say, okay, it is possible for me to be loved, not just all people to be loved. And then we stretch again. And the other thing too is people don't have to come up with 10 new things every day. We can hack this system, we can record it in our phone, and we can just listen to it back and feel about it for 21 days if we want to shortcut and streamline the process. But it's just the repetition and emotion that we really need there. With that imagery,

Mel Robbins (01:10:18):

I want to go a step deeper and make it even more tactical because I want you listening to try this. So if you're in the camp where you cannot come up with any emotion or imagery around I am lovable, or I am loved, or I'm capable of love, or what was it that you said,

Thais Gibson (01:10:41):

I'm worthy of love. All people are worthy of love.

Mel Robbins (01:10:43):

So if you're in that camp of I'm worthy of love, you can't even get that for yourself. And you go, okay, I'll do the statement. It is possible that other people are capable of loving.

(01:10:57):

Do you then find eight sort of images could even be memes of people that are hugging or of people that are greeting their dog or of people that are buying somebody the coffee behind them in line, these kind of acts of love that you have seen other people do. And if you take those 10 and you either write them down every day and kind of visualize that moment, or you make a recording of yourself saying, here are 10 examples that love is possible, that people are capable of love or worthy of love, and then you describe them and you do that over and over and over, when you start to feel the momentum, then you say, you know what? It's possible that I'm worthy of love.

Thais Gibson (01:11:41):

Yes, absolutely. Actually, it's really interesting because there's three ways the subconscious mind gets programmed. What we see repetitively or what's modeled to us, what we hear repetitively and what our firsthand experiences are. So if we can't find firsthand experiences, if we can't find times we heard something,

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Key takeaways

You can recondition your subconscious beliefs about love because your attachment style was programmed before age two and it still drives your adult life today.
If you rely on others to soothe you but never learn to meet your own needs, you’ll always feel insecure and your relationships will never feel truly safe.
A dismissive avoidant may look calm, but they carry shame, self-soothe by withdrawing, and need consistent acknowledgment to build emotional safety.
Fearful avoidants crave closeness yet push it away, struggling to trust, holding everything in until they erupt, which sabotages their own connection.
Your conscious mind controls just 5%, while your subconscious patterns run 95% of your life, which is why affirmations fail without emotional reprogramming.

Guests Appearing in this Episode

Thais Gibson

Thais Gibson is a psychotherapist, author, and personal development expert specializing in attachment styles and emotional healing.

Book: Learning Love
Have you ever been in a relationship with someone and felt like you’re not on the same page? You say one thing, but your partner hears another? Or, after a big fight, you yearn for closeness but they want to withdraw? Or maybe it’s the other way around?

In Learning Love, you will learn the process of building fulfilling and fail-proof relationships that have you on the same page with the people you care most about. There is a better way to love―and be loved.

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2 Million Readers. 1 Life-Changing Newsletter

Related Episodes

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Most Popular

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2 Million Readers.
1 Life-Changing Newsletter