Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - Fix Your Love Life Now: Discover Your Attachment Style | Clutterbug Podcast #324

Episode Date: May 4, 2026

Hey Clutterbugs! We’re diving deep into the world of attachment styles! If you’ve ever felt stuck in relationships, struggled with setting boundaries, or wondered why therapy hasn’t been enough ...to heal your emotional wounds (hi, it’s me 🙋‍♀️), this episode is about to blow your mind. I’m joined by Thais Gibson, founder of the Personal Development School and a leading expert in attachment theory, subconscious reprogramming, and emotional healing. She’s here to help us understand how our childhood experiences shape the way we connect with others, and how we can rewire those patterns to feel more secure, confident, and connected in all areas of life. We talk about: 💡 What attachment styles are and how they impact your relationships, friendships, and even your career 😱 Why I’m a Fearful Avoidant (it’s the rarest attachment style!) and how it’s shaped my relationships 🛠️ Practical tools to heal attachment wounds and become securely attached in 90 days 💬 How attachment styles show up in everyday life—at work, in friendships, and even in your clutter habits ❤️ Why learning to communicate your needs, set boundaries, and trust others is the key to emotional freedom If you’ve ever thought: Why am I so anxious in relationships? Why do I push people away when they get too close? Why do I feel stuck in push-pull patterns? What’s my attachment style? This episode is for YOU! Thais offers a clear, compassionate, and actionable roadmap to help you heal your attachment wounds, overcome relationship anxiety, and reprogram your subconscious mind for healthier, more secure relationships. 💬 Let me know your attachment style! Did you resonate with Fearful Avoidant, Anxious Attachment, Dismissive Avoidant, or Secure Attachment? Share your thoughts with me on Instagram or in the comments. Resources Mentioned in This Episode: Take Thais’s Attachment Style Quiz and discover your attachment style: personaldevelopmentschool.com Learn more about Thais’s 90-Day Rewiring Program and access her courses: personaldevelopmentschool.com ✨ Don’t forget to follow the podcast and leave a review! If you loved this episode, share it with someone who needs to hear it—you might just change their life. Want to get organized? Learn 6-Step The Clutterbug Method: https://clutterbug.thinkific.com/courses/Clutterbug-Method You can find more Clutterbug content here: Main YouTube Channel: @Clutterbug Website: http://www.clutterbug.me TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clutterbug_me Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clutterbug_me/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Clutterbug.Me/ #AttachmentStyles #AttachmentTheory #FearfulAvoidant #AnxiousAttachment #DismissiveAvoidant #SecureAttachment #EmotionalHealing #SubconsciousReprogramming #RelationshipAnxiety #Boundaries #EmotionalHealth #SelfAwareness #PersonalDevelopment #HealingJourney #MentalHealthMatters #RelationshipAdvice #SelfGrowth #TraumaHealing #InnerWork #OvercomeBurnout #EmotionalWellness #AttachmentHealing #TherapyTools #PersonalGrowth #Podcast #Clutterbug #ClutterbugPodcast #ThaisGibson #HomeOrganization #PersonalDevelopmentSchool Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 I just had my entire life changed. Like, I am going to be a happier, healthier human because of this one insane interview. And I'm not just saying this like, it sounds dramatic, but seriously, I feel like my life has been changed. Today, I am talking to Taise Gibson. She's a counselor, a speaker, a leader in the personal development world. She has a PhD and is certified in 13 modality. including cognitive behavioral therapy, and she is going to explain all the different attachment styles. I will let you know that I might hijack this conversation temporarily and talk a lot about my attachment style, but then we will also cover all of them so you can recognize yours. She is a person who has put into simple words some of our life's biggest struggles,
Starting point is 00:00:55 and she has real solutions to help us heal. This is incredible. And while you listen to this, just like always, you are not allowed to just watch or listen. I want you to take action and make yourself proud. But this one is special. You guys, I want you to also be able to pay attention and really soak in the words. So do something that doesn't require thought. I don't want you decluttering today. I don't want you organizing. I want you to mindlessly clean. We can vacuum and dust. We can do dishes with our, like a zombie. We're going to zombie land. We're just turning. Our brain is going to be tuned into these incredible words, and you're just going to have your body do things. Okay. And at the end of the podcast, your house will be sparkly, but more importantly, you are going to have tools. You are going to have self-awareness.
Starting point is 00:01:46 And you are going to have real steps to change your life. Hello, Taiz. Welcome. Thanks so much for having me. How are you? I'm really good. I'm excited to talk to you. because I just recently learned about the attachment styles.
Starting point is 00:02:03 I'm not sure how I feel. On one hand, to have the self-awareness and it was like so enlightening. On the other hand, it was kind of a bummer for me. And why is that? Which one were you? I'm fearful avoidant. Okay. Interesting.
Starting point is 00:02:21 I think that's the worst. No, no. There's not the worst. That's what I was, too, if it makes you feel any better. and it's a super solvable problem. It's just conditioning, right? It's just different patterns that we pick up because of our experiences. So can I tell you a few things about yourself and you can tell me if they line up with you?
Starting point is 00:02:39 Oh, man, yes. Okay. So fearful avoidance usually grow up with a lot more kind of big T trauma in childhood. You know, the other ones have a little more small T trauma. And big T trauma can be things like parents fighting all the time and always being put in the middle, going through a bad divorce and kind of being caught in the midst of that as a child, being parentified sometimes, like having to be the caretaker of younger siblings or your parents themselves. But it can also be extreme things. So, you know, trauma in the sense of maybe you're
Starting point is 00:03:11 in a dynamic, for example, where you have a parent who's an alcoholic in more extreme cases. And one day they're in a loving mood and another day they are in a really mean mood because they're now angry drunk or parents who struggle with addiction or drug abuse. And, and, you know, can be basically, you know, no matter what which one of those themes it was, a child grows up not really knowing what version of a parent they're ever going to get. And so they learn to attach by basically reading between the lines. They're like, okay, let me become really hypervigilant. I am going to read your microexpressions and your body language and your tone of voice and I'm going to predict your patterns of behavior. And so I often joke that fearful avoidance are sort of
Starting point is 00:03:51 our human lie detectors. Like they notice everything and they clock up. everything. And it makes them really good at reading people, but they also have both an anxious and an avoidance side. So on one hand, they don't want to lose connection and they, they become very afraid and can feel afraid of abandonment. But on the flip side, they're afraid of being trapped and controlled. So they need a lot of freedom. And their other big core wounds are the fears of being betrayed. So they're kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop. They struggle to trust sometimes. And sometimes it's not just trusting the person. It's trusting like, well, good now. How can I trust it in 10 years? You won't change, right? It can be sort of this
Starting point is 00:04:29 fear of the other shoe eventually dropping. And this fear of being unworthy. So a lot of fearful avoidance feel like they have to overachieve, over deliver, overperform just to be like worthy of love at a baseline. And there's a lot of pressure they put on themselves. And they tend to be very loyal, very fiercely protective people over people they love. And they tend to be excellent under pressure. They're excellent at like figuring things out on the fly and being adaptable and super resilient and determined. But they will often people please until they get frustrated enough that they push people away quite suddenly and they can sort of be hot and cold in relationships and back and forth. They often don't know if they should stay or leave and they have a lot of
Starting point is 00:05:11 these push-pull patterns because they're fearing their childhood. So those are some of those overarching themes. And if you want to share any that line up with you, I'd love to hear. Every single one. I'm feeling so exposed. And also, I'd never heard you, like you describing the childhood was like you hit everything. And yet I'd never thought of that as like big T trauma. Isn't that strange? Because to me, it was not like physical abuse. And there was no like trauma in the way I always thought. So I'm always like, what's wrong with me? My childhood wasn't that bad. And yet it was unstable in that I never knew which version of the adults in my life were going to show up. And it was also like with divorced parents, it was very much like this cat and mouse and like I was
Starting point is 00:06:02 the dangle dangly thing. And so yeah, I'm messed up, man. I'm messed up. But that's okay. For my viewers, so they're not thinking they're watching a therapy session here. And they've never, maybe they've never heard of the attachment theory. Can you explain it to them in like the simplest way. Absolutely. Thank you for sharing that. And, and, um, and these are very solvable problems. These are just ways we've learned to relate. So, so when you look at what an attachment style is, it's basically your subconscious set of rules that you've learned about love. So what your need should be like when they're met, what expectations you carry into relationships, what fears or triggers you're likely to have, um, but also things like,
Starting point is 00:06:43 you know, what boundaries you should have or if you've learned a lack thereof and how to communicate we learn through our attachment style. So it's really our subconscious conditioning about love and connection. And every person has an attachment style. And it is the single biggest predictor of relationship success. So if you actually look at divorce rates, for example, I mean, insecurely attached rates are statistically affecting about 50% of the population. And our divorce rate is about the same. And you actually see it move in lockstep. So for example, if the divorce rate goes down, usually the securely attachment rate, secure attachment rate went up. And if the divorce rate goes up, usually the amount of secure people out there has gone down historically. So they do tend to
Starting point is 00:07:26 move in parallel, or not quite in parallel, but in lockstep, sort of an inverse of one another. And you'll also see, which is quite interesting, that securely attached individuals, they report having the longest lasting relationships, but even more importantly being the most fulfilled in those long lasting relationships. And so a lot of people don't realize that like, oh, this is something that's really impacting me in all my relationships, but that it's also a very solvable problem because at the end of the day, it's just conditioning. And we can recondition. We can change some of these habits and patterns and we can end up having really successful relationships as a result. So as we go through the other attachment styles, just for anybody listening to your point,
Starting point is 00:08:03 you know, if you hear yourself in them, it's not a bad thing. It's just, hey, these are your patterns that you've learned. And there may be a little bit of growth that can happen in terms of growing through them, but super solvable. And I see it every day. Like it's not. some really hard thing or really tricky. It's very easy and simple, but it just requires a little bit of consistency. Okay, this is exciting. Can you break down the different attachment styles and like give examples? So my listeners might be able to be like, ooh, I think that's me. We talked about the fearful avoidant. We went through a lot of that. Fearful avoidance just a few other examples there. They're often hot and cold in relationships. They go all in quite early and feel strongly,
Starting point is 00:08:37 but then when there's a big commitment around things, they'll often want to run. So they become I'm very afraid. And they tend to be individuals who are very giving, very generous, very, you know, caring about other people, very present with people, really good at drawing information out of others. They're usually people that everyone goes to, to share their stuff or to get some advice or feedback or support. Like it's something that generally comes quite naturally for fearful avoidance. But fearful avoidance, interestingly, are really good at getting other people to be
Starting point is 00:09:11 vulnerable, but they're not actually that vulnerable to other people. And I always joke the fearful avoidance are, they seem vulnerable because they're open and they're insightful and they'll share, but they won't ever really share things they truly feel vulnerable about. So, you know, they might say, oh, yeah, seven years ago, this thing happened. And yeah, and I can relate. And you think, oh, they're so open. They're so vulnerable. But really, if they're going through something personally that's vulnerable at a moment in time, like in this moment, they're not going to come out and share that. Like even with close people, they tend to kind of go through bigger struggles a little bit more alone. and, you know, they put a lot of that fear of, oh, what if I'm a burden to other people on themselves?
Starting point is 00:09:47 And they, you know, fear taking up too much space or being too much. And part of their work in the world is to learn to have boundaries, learn to treat themselves equally to everybody else in their life, instead of putting everybody so first and themselves so last. And, of course, actually being able to rewire and work through those different core wounds, learn what their needs are and actually learn to communicate them in relationships. And those are some really important pillars that help them become more stable. But we'll talk about what to do and how to heal and actually work through those pillars after. And before you go on, how much of the population percentage-wise do you think are actually fearful avoidant?
Starting point is 00:10:24 Do you know? Yeah, great question. So the data says roughly 50% of people are secure. Then we have another 20% who are anxious, 20% who are dismissive avoidant, sometimes 22.5% each there. And then roughly 5% to 10%, give or take. that we're looking at who are fearful avoidant attached. And fearful avoidance, so they're the most rare. The way that the data is obtained is through a lot of childhood experiments,
Starting point is 00:10:50 so a lot of research into children. And so you can actually view a child's attachment at a very young age. There was something called the strange situation experiment where they took children and they put them with their parent into what looks like a doctor's office waiting room. And then they would have the parent leave the waiting room. and they would have a stranger come in and sit in the doctor's office waiting room with the child. So now the child is there with a stranger. And they could actually observe as toddler, so between the ages of zero to two years old,
Starting point is 00:11:18 how the child would respond both when their parent left, but more importantly when the parent returned. And that would show what the attachment style was. So you would see that when the parent left, the child would be a little stress. And then when the parent returned, the child would be a little stress again, but reengaged with the parent quite quickly if they were secure. if they were anxious, the child would be really stressed that the parent left. And when the parent returned, they would not let that parent out of their sight. They stopped playing with the toys. They stopped interacting in the environment.
Starting point is 00:11:45 They would just like latch on to the parent. If they were dismissive avoidant, the most avoidant will obviously get into these, they would actually reject bids for connection from the parent. So the parent would come back into the room and try to say, oh, honey, come here or make a bid to connect with a child. And the child would literally look away, like try to ignore and ice up the parent. And the fearful avoidant would be very ambivalent. So they would get quite distressed when the parent left.
Starting point is 00:12:11 And when the parent returned, they would sort of move towards the parent, but then when the parent would engage in that bed for connection, they would then reject the parent. And then when the parent would go, okay, I'm rejected and step back, then the child would become anxious again and want to get closer to the parent. And they were sort of in this hot and cold dynamic. So you'll see these patterns at a very young age, and that's where a lot of the research comes as well as from, you know, large-scale gallopoles and people self-reporting, but self-reporting is historically quite inaccurate in terms of percent of population.
Starting point is 00:12:43 And conditioning is always happening. So what we see in terms of data from childhood research, I mean, somebody could be fully securely attached and then, God forbid, lose a parent at eight years old and become completely anxious, right? So conditioning evolves over time. So the data is interesting. Like, it's not very loud and clear that those are quite exact numbers necessarily. necessarily, but they're good directional things to be looking at if that makes sense.
Starting point is 00:13:07 Well, now I have so many questions because if someone that age, if they're seeing this, do you think there is a component perhaps of like a hereditary predisposition for a type of attachment style? Or is it literally like to be two or three and to already have this kind of solidified seems so young? Yeah. So one thing that happens is we have something called co-regulation. that starts at a really young age. And yes, I believe in a genetic predisposition, of course, but I mean, we have the field of epigenetics now, which almost like discounts that a little bit, but more importantly, conditioning is a single greatest impactor when it comes to attachment cell by far.
Starting point is 00:13:51 So just by massive amounts. And so you're probably wondering, well, how does conditioning come about? Well, if you look, when we look at co-regulation, and we go into the other attachment cells, you'll really see it. So anxiously attach individuals. They grow up in an environment where they tend to have more inconsistency. So it could be like they have one really loving parent and one really kind of cold withdrawn parent or they could have very loving parents, but the parents are always traveling for work. They're gone all the time.
Starting point is 00:14:17 So child learns like love is a good, safe thing, but it's constantly taken away from me. And this causes this massive fear of love being taken away. In other words, the fear of abandonment. And so they go through either that type of perceived abandonment where there's that inconsistency or fully real abandonment, like loss of a parent, fatherless home, these types of
Starting point is 00:14:37 things would create these big abandonment wounds. And at a very young age, we actually obtain our deepest programming, the first three years of our lives, we develop our deepest conditioning. And so when a child grows up in an environment where parents are warm and fuzzy and they're there and they're kind, but they're constantly touch and go, then those wounds can actually develop all the way back in their childhood. And you'll see it when we get into the other one. So, So anxious attachment cells, they grew up with these huge core wounds. They're big triggers or the fear of being abandoned, alone, excluded, rejected, disliked, and loved.
Starting point is 00:15:12 Like they have these very interpersonal oriented wounds, very much about, like, am I not loved or included or accepted and seen? And so they have these huge wounds there. And then they cope with these wounds by going into chronic and pervasive people-pleasing habits. So they as adults go into their relationships going, well, I'm just going to win approval. I'm just going to not let anybody out of my site. I'm just going to hold on really tight and try so hard. But the problem is that they abandon themselves in that process. And so like constantly people pleasing, constantly people and putting people
Starting point is 00:15:46 first above themselves, it's sort of this one track path of like, well, if you're out here minding everybody else's business, who's here for you, who's here showing up for your needs and honoring your feelings and your boundaries? And they really struggle with that. And so anxiously, attached individuals often grow up and they become very resentful in their relationships a lot of the time because they feel so much like they're trying and nobody's really trying back. They often choose very avoidant partners and relationships, which obviously becomes quite problematic. And it's actually because we choose from what's most familiar to us. And what's most familiar to us is ultimately the way we treat ourselves. So anxiously, attached individuals are always dismissing themselves and avoiding
Starting point is 00:16:27 themselves. So even though consciously they may say, oh, I want an available partner subconsciously, which runs the show, we choose what's most familiar to us. And so anxious partners, they people please, they cling, they call frequently, they text a lot, they really don't do well with space. They always jump to the conclusion that somebody's leaving. And those are the major, major patterns. You can see how they start to begin at a very young age through that inconsistency that can occur. So I have a question about anxious. Now that we're talking about this, I know someone in my life who is quite obviously anxiously attached. But I always thought it came from relationships like as a teen. There was a lot of
Starting point is 00:17:09 rejection. There was a lot of like their relationships they had been cheated on. People had ghosted them. So then now it's like tracking locations and being like obsessed and why aren't you paying attention to me 24 seven. Like there's this anxiousness that this person is. isn't going to love them. Is that just stuff that had been reinforced and they were always that attachment style? Or do you think later in life your attachment style can change if you have traumas, either big T or little T later in your life? Yeah, great question. So that's a really important thing that I want people to notice. It's like, yes, our attachments all develops and we often reference it in childhood because our deepest conditioning exists between zero to three and then three to eight
Starting point is 00:17:56 because our brain is producing more alpha brain waves. And so we're sort of like sponges. We're soaking up all of our conditioning very rapidly. But conditioning is always happening. You know, it's why you hear things like, oh, you're the sum of the five people you spend the most time around. Or it's why you can be in a long-term relationship with somebody and take on their expressions or their mannerisms at times or these things.
Starting point is 00:18:17 Because whatever we're exposed to repeatedly through repetition and emotion, fires and wires new neural networks in our brain. So absolutely somebody could be secure or somewhat secure. go through a lot of painful relationship dynamics as a teenager. And then through that rejection, through that abandonment, you know, that creates these big core wounds. And what core wounds are and how they impact our attachment cell so much is that they're kind of the lens that we see and interact with the world through.
Starting point is 00:18:43 So for example, if you imagine that you go into the woods tomorrow and you see a bear and you run away from the bear and you're safe, thank goodness, but you have to go back into the woods the next day. Well, what do you do? You're like racing for the bear. Yeah, there's going to be a bear. And so what ends up happening is that's great if that's a bear situation and it's a survival situation, but it's not great when it's that we had a past experience. Our subconscious mind stores it. And then it reprojects it on to everything to try to keep us safe. And if it's a bear chasing you, you're safe. If it's you being abandoned as a teenager, and now every relationship you project that you're being abandoned,
Starting point is 00:19:24 it arguably causes a little bit more harm than good in the long run. Yeah, this person's looking crazy sometimes. This person's looking like a stalker, you know? Like it's like, but it really is coming from fear and anxiety. Oh, that's so good. Okay, so tell me about the secure attachment style, which you said 50%, that's half the population. Yes.
Starting point is 00:19:48 That's not fair. That seems like a lot of people. who are just doing good. Yeah, I mean, to be honest, I always struggle with it because, you know, the self-reporting and the fact that you get these studies in childhood and conditioning happens over time, right? So early childhood studies are not necessarily accurate for for long, long periods. But my sample size of people, I work with all insecurely attached people every day. So I'm always like, is it really 50%? But I could be biased because of the sample of people that I constantly work with. But securely attached people, so the third of four attachment styles,
Starting point is 00:20:20 They're the only secure one. So they basically grow up with what we call a lot of approach-oriented behaviors in childhood. And what this means is that they have a lot of attunement in childhood. And if their parents notice that they're distressed, they go and they try to approach them and they try to see what's wrong and soothe them. And it may sound like a very small thing. But if there's a lot of consistency of that, it creates a massive impact. Number one, it teaches a child they're safe to be seen.
Starting point is 00:20:48 They're safe to express their emotions. they're worthy of love when they're having a nice time or a hard time. They can rely on other people. They can trust that other people will be there for them. And they're worthy of love really irrespective of what's going on in their lives. And so when you grow up with that kind of conditioning and then you see a lot of modeling growing up where people work through conflict, you hear them communicate. Parents are kind of honoring your boundaries, talking about your needs, learning to communicate
Starting point is 00:21:14 about emotions. Well, when that's all your conditioning, you go in with this amazing toolkit of how to do relationships well. And so that's precisely why you hear so many securely attached people being very fulfilled in their relationships. They get together. They both have these really adaptive tools for how to communicate, how to share. They have a lot less core wounds because they have a lot less big or small T trauma. So relationships flow and ab very naturally for them. And so that's really that secure person in a nutshell. And they have really healthy coping mechanisms. When they're stressed, they communicate. Or they know how to self-soothe and meet their own needs and they get triggered less. And they
Starting point is 00:21:49 jump to conclusions less. And so those are some of the major themes that you'll see that. Doesn't that sound so nice for them? Good for you. But okay, before we go, we loop back, because I'm going to ask this question, we can all get there, right? Like, this isn't like you are who you are and you're stuck with it forever. We can graduate. We can move up. Yes. So there's a fourth, I'll go to the fourth attachments on a moment, but just so you know, like this is what I do. for a living and happened for 13, 14 years now. I was a fearful of when really did a lot of deep in our work, been happily married for a very long time with my husband now for 11 years or something. And also, really importantly, like, we take people through 90-day programs and the vast
Starting point is 00:22:36 majority of people, like we have a 99.7% MPS score in our programs because people go in, they do the rewiring work, and it really moves the needle. So I say that, not to like, I'll look at how great everything is, but you really look at, like, that it's not that hard. I think people hear this and think, oh my gosh, decades of conditioning. You're just rewiring really specific things. Your core wounds. You're learning your needs. You're learning healthy boundaries. You're regulating your nervous system. And you're learning some communication tools. So there's five pillars of becoming secure. I'm excited. I'm going to be fixed by the end of this podcast. This is going to be, right? It's that quick, right? You need a little bit of repetition for the rewiring part over over about 90 days
Starting point is 00:23:16 in total, but honestly, it's not, it's two to five minutes a day for stuff. It's not really, really hard work. And so for anybody who's hearing themselves in this and they're like intimidated or worried or they're like, oh my gosh, all these years of conditioning, it doesn't mean that because you had a lot of repetition of it, that it's going to take that long to come out the other side. Because when you're really precise about what the challenge is, you can work through those precise things that are blocking you from really healthy, secure love. Oh, this is so good. Okay. So we've covered fearful avoidant, which is me, very sad. We've covered anxious and secure, but now there's avoidant. What does this look like? And where does this come from? Like, can you,
Starting point is 00:23:54 do you know kind of these triggers in childhood that can cause avoidant? Yeah, great question. So, so the dismissive avoidant is the one who basically grows up with the most childhood emotional neglect. So what that theme is, is that there's this total and very consistent lack of attunement happening. So well, the anxious attachment style learns, okay, love is good, but it's inconsistent. And the fearful avoidant learns, sometimes love is good, but sometimes it's really scary and unpredictable and confusing. The dismissive avoidant learns, well, love just never really meets my needs because they grow up in this environment and they, you know, all children are biologically wired for
Starting point is 00:24:32 attunement. And there they are and they're trying to get this attunement and trying to get this connection. And yet, it's constantly not being met in the way that they need. So neglect doesn't always look really overt. It's not like, oh, food's never on the table. Parents are never home. It can be that, of course, in more extreme cases. But the majority of the time, it's that parents are just kind of in their own world, not really attuned. You know, in current days, we'd see parents being constantly on their phone all the time, not present with the children, you know, always avoiding the emotions of their child, maybe dismissing or getting frustrated or even shaming of their child's emotions or distress. And oh, don't be a cry baby. Grow up. Get it together. You know, these types of things.
Starting point is 00:25:14 And when children hear that consistently with no attunement or connection on the other end, the only thing that a child can do because children navigate through their behavioral stages of life by trying to make meaning out of everything to understand it, they make that dynamic mean, okay, this emotional part of me, this vulnerable part of me, it's fundamentally flawed. It's defective. It's broken because I never get anything good from it. it doesn't get me accepted. It just gets me shamed or criticized or dismissed. So this entire
Starting point is 00:25:44 part of me needs to be shut away. And so they cope or adapt to that kind of environment by completely repressing their feelings, their needs, their vulnerability. And that gives them a sense of relief and control. And so now we have a person who's grown up like this. And as an adult, they go to enormous lengths to not be vulnerable and to not feel too many of their feelings. And so what you'll usually see as a manifestation of that is they get into relationships, they date you for a few months. And as things start to actually get real, oh my goodness, things are getting real. I'm feeling vulnerable. I'm feeling a little bit worried about this vulnerability here. This doesn't end well for me. It never feels good. Exactly. And they start
Starting point is 00:26:30 dismissing. They start pushing away. They may exit and run and, you know, really do things that leave people feeling confused because they're there in self-protection mode when they start. feel vulnerable. And they often have these core wounds of being trapped or being defective or shameful if they're deeply. So of course, they're avoiding even being known deeply. It's part of why they're so private and they have hard time sharing openly. And they often believe that they're weak if they're vulnerable or that they're unsafe emotionally if they're vulnerable. And they usually didn't get any modeling growing up for, oh, here's how people work through a conflict. Here's how people hash it out or talk through things. So they just avoid conflict altogether as much as they can.
Starting point is 00:27:09 They struggle to communicate openly. They struggle to solve problems in relationships. And their way of trying to cope with relationships is to do something called flaw finding, where when something isn't going well and they start to feel vulnerable, they convince themselves of all the reasons that their partner is not going to work out for them anyways. And that, oh, their partner has all these flaws. And so not only do they tend to leave things suddenly or at least shut down deeply if they stay in a longer term marriage or relationship, but they'll also look for all the reasons that it wouldn't go well and the things that could go wrong.
Starting point is 00:27:42 And that's their way of trying to gain some sense of control. Okay, if you hurt me, I'd be fine anyways. I don't need you. And so you'll see them be very confusing people in relationships. And, you know, they get a bit of a bad rap, honestly, on the internet. But I've worked with a lot of people of all different attachment styles. And everybody just has, you know, maladaptive patterns if they're insecurely attached. And it's really just if somebody's willing to do the work or not that makes them,
Starting point is 00:28:07 you know, an appropriate potential partner or not. Because if somebody's never going to work on their things, well, then yeah, you're going to see these things in the long term and they are going to hurt. It is going to hurt to have somebody constantly closed down and never really opening up that you're in a relationship with. But if somebody's doing the work, then they end up being, you know, as long-term partners who heal and become secure, dismissible wins become very stable, predictable, reliable partners who when they become emotionally available and consistent, they're very grounding, they're very supportive. They love a lot through acts of service. They're very kind. They're very strong. And so everybody has these really beautiful superpowers. You know,
Starting point is 00:28:44 fearful avoidance are very generous. They're super present. They're really good at getting people to open up and truly being there and they're fiercely loyal and very loving, very deep and insightful. They don't like surface stuff very much. That anxious attachments also are generous and friendly and, you know, very good at including people and making people feel special and they're very thoughtful. And, you know, there's all these beautiful traits of each insecure attachment style. But it's really a question of, you get to keep those really beautiful traits and then heal through the pain points and challenges by doing the work so that now we have these beautiful parts of your personality, but they're not being pulled back or obscure it at times by the wounds and the triggers and the fears.
Starting point is 00:29:24 Listen, so I'm pretty sure I know what my husband is. So this leads me to another question. Is there usually, like, are people attracted? I know you touched on this with the anxious, I think you said, but is there like certain attachment styles tend to be attracted to other attachment styles? Yes. So the number one thing that we do is we tend to be attracted to people the most in the long term who treat us the way that we treat ourselves.
Starting point is 00:29:53 Because your subconscious mind is running the show. It's responsible for 95% of all of our choices and all of our emotions. and all of our emotions and all of our beliefs and all of our patterns. And so our conscious mind can say everything under the sun, but our subconscious mind is ultimately running the show and picking for us. And so that means your conditioning is picking for you. Your subconscious mind is the warehouse of your conditioning. And so the subconscious mind is survival wired.
Starting point is 00:30:15 It equates familiarity to safety and thus survival. So what truly is most familiar is how we treat ourselves. So anxious attachment cells, they avoid and dismiss themselves so they're much more attracted to more avoidant people. they can both be attracted to fearful avoidance or dismissive avoidance, people who are a little more hot and cold or people who are kind of withdrawn altogether. Dismissive avoidance are very preoccupied with their own time to themselves. So they often are attracted to people who are kind of in their business and leaning on them and trying to get in there as well, just like they do with themselves, right? It's like the mirror into self.
Starting point is 00:30:47 And fearful avoidance, very interestingly, are unique in that they can lean anxious or lean avoidance. So fearful avoidance can be more in their anxious side sometimes or more in their avoidance side. and depending on which way they lean, they'll often attract that oppositional partner. So for example, if a fearful avoidance kind of feeling their fears of abandonment more than they're afraid of being trapped or controlled, then they'll usually feel a little more anxious more often and they'll be quite attracted to people who are more dismissive avoidance. And especially if there's been a lot of chaos in a fearful avoidance childhood, they often see fearful avoidance as at least being safe.
Starting point is 00:31:22 You know, they might be a little avoidant, but like, oh, there's a sense of safety. They're not trying to have these big emotions. They're not really angry all the time or yelling. And so there's this sort of sense of safety and fearful avoidance when they date a dismissible when it doesn't meet a need for acceptance. You know, dismissive avoidance aren't really out there trying to change people. So sometimes fearful avoidance feel like they can kind of be themselves more with a dismissive avoidance that's not putting extra pressure on them or trying to make them achieve or perform.
Starting point is 00:31:51 They're kind of just neutral to what the fearful avoidance is doing. and it's kind of refreshing for fearful avoidance, so that's that one side. But then fearful wouldn't to lean a lot more dismissive, and they're more on that avoidance side of themselves at times, they will tend to be attracted to individuals who are a little more anxious, who come on quite strong, who are preoccupied with them, we're really trying to invest and get them to commit. And it's generally more of a reflection of how much that fearful avoidness putting incessant pressure on themselves, constantly fearing, being trapped, and having all these. these wounds come up, but actually trapping themselves and their own commitments and the amount of
Starting point is 00:32:27 pressure that they put on and the expectations they have of themselves. And so you'll just generally see which way they lean has an impact, but fearful avoidance can also just be very attracted to other fearful avoidance, where there tends to be a lot of depth, a lot of emotional intensity, a lot of passion, a lot of novelty, a lot of like really deep care, but a lot more volatility because they pinball each other and there's ups and downs and everybody's hot and cold and bouncing around. And so it can be a trickier relationship for sure. And Secures out there just like being with other secures. They're like, you seem emotionally stable.
Starting point is 00:33:01 Same's. Let's date. That's pretty much it. That sounds so nice. Okay. So yeah, my husband is a dismissive avoidant. I mean, I don't know if he'd agree with that, but I'm diagnosing him. He is.
Starting point is 00:33:15 And he had actually a wonderful childhood, but his parents worked a lot. They traveled a lot. They really weren't around. And plus, he grew up in the 80s. And he is a sensitive person deep down inside. I know this. He will never let it out. But I know.
Starting point is 00:33:28 And you know, in the 80s, it was like, boys don't cry, suck it up, be a man, don't show emotion. And it really, I'm going to assume, I'm making an assumption here, that there's a lot more men perhaps that are dismissive avoidant because of that. Exactly. So when somebody, people ask this a lot. And when somebody is an attachment style, their gender won't influence their behaviors. So, for example, if a male is anxious and a female is anxious, they're going to look pretty much the same. They're both going to cling. They're both going to jump to conclusions of being abandoned.
Starting point is 00:34:01 They're both going to come on really strong and move very fast. Like, the behaviors are similar. But in reverse, you just generally see more anxiously attached women and more dismissive avoidant men because of the way that that cultural conditioning happened exactly to your point. More men are sitting there going, oh, yeah, you know, don't be a cry baby, all these things, which is, you know, I get that. And I believe in the importance of like grit and being able to push through things and be determined. I think that that's strong. But you want to look at it through the lens of this idea that optimal growth occurs at
Starting point is 00:34:34 the border between support and challenge. So if you are, you know, given only support and it's like, oh, we're going to treat you like you're a snowflake all the time and all these things. Obviously that also is negative as well because then you put that child out into the world as an adult and they don't know how to move through challenges, right? They haven't really built a sense of self. but on the flip side, if they only have challenge and no support in the emotional area of life, then that actually creates its own trauma.
Starting point is 00:34:58 And there's a wonderful quote that says, that says trauma are the things that did happen that shouldn't have happened. Okay, the obvious, like abuse, things like that. But it's also the things that didn't happen that needed to happen. And so these are the things like, well, children need attunement. Children need to feel like there's an emotional interaction with their parents or caregivers. And so when that's missing, there definitely is a cause. Yeah. Okay. So we know, I know you have a quiz and I'm going to put a link to this in the
Starting point is 00:35:27 description, but we know our style. Hopefully my listeners, they're like, they're like, yeah, it's picking. I'm seeing one or the other, but I am, would love you to do this like thought experiment with me. How would these kind of show up in everyday lives that may be someone who's not, not even in a relationship necessarily, might be able to be like, oh yeah, or notice it with friends or coworkers or in your everyday life? Are there's these little things that kind of these different attachment styles do that might make it a little more obvious in every day? Yeah, great question. So first things first, anxiously attached individuals. They are the co-workers or friends who they move very fast. They might, you know, I used to work with clients and I remember this one
Starting point is 00:36:10 woman. She said, she said, she did move to a new city and she was like, I met this woman after yoga class and I'm trying to make new friends in the city. And I asked her for coffee and she didn't really ever try to move the needle. Like she didn't really try to do anything. And she was so hurt. And I had to explain to her like, hey, people are going to move at different paces with friendships. Like generally anxiously attach individuals. They like you and they get along with you. And they're like, oh, I just met you. But we had a great conversation. We are now friends. We're going to hang out this week. Whereas fearful avoidance are like, I need to have at least 12 interactions. I was feeling that. I'm like, if soon as somebody's like, oh my God, let's be best friends. I'm like, you're a
Starting point is 00:36:49 weirdo and I run. If someone's like, hey, I really like you, I think you're cool. I'm like, bye. There must be something wrong with you. I run the other direction. Sorry. Fearful points need, oh, you're great. You need more touch points. They need to have, like I said 12, but they actually generally need about six to eight interactions before they're open to making plans, which means you would sit after yoga class six to eight times or have, you know, maybe some text and directions back and forth. Like they're just not quick to move that way. Dismissive avoidance are even longer. Okay. So they are very slow to warm up. And when it comes to dating, dismissive avoidance are the ones that when you meet them, they're a little bit standoffish.
Starting point is 00:37:30 And you'll probably be more perceptive to this as a fearful avoidant because fearful avoidance really notice these things. But you can feel a wall up when you need a dismissive avoidant. There's a certain degree of them not really opening and sharing. and they will talk a lot more about their facts than their feelings. So rather than a balance of the two, they swing very into, you know, honestly, dismissal avoidance you'll see. They often have these very longstanding friends and they get together with friends. And it's so many because my husband, I also married a dismissive avoidant and he's
Starting point is 00:38:02 in a lot of the work to be secure, but he has these same three friends. He's such a good example from his childhood, like way back in childhood. and they'll all hang out and I would say things to him earlier on into a relationship before he did a little more work and I would say oh you know how is so-and-so's you know new relationship how are they doing and you know after he'd hung up with his friends oh how was this we like oh we didn't talk about it and you know they'll sit together and they'll talk about like facts and history and all these things and talk about all these and it's like but not that like personal interaction as much I know it's because they divorced that part of themselves in their childhood, right? So they learned, okay, this emotional part of me isn't acceptable. So they lean so heavy into the intellectual pillar of connection. Like let's talk about facts or politics or philosophy or ideas or our business or these things.
Starting point is 00:38:54 But then they don't really share. That's their way of connecting. Right. They don't really share like, oh, I'm experiencing this or this is what's happening in my relationships or these are my feelings about work. They're very about like the facts of things. So those are some big identifiers. And then of course the obvious, you know, anxious attachments.
Starting point is 00:39:08 all tend to commit really fast in relationships. They're like, let's go. They could go on a few dates and they're ready to like jump into a serious commitment. Dismiss of winter is so much longer. They can be like four to six months generally. If they even stay, sometimes they'll kind of jet at that period of time. Fearful of winter around three to four months, but their way of getting there is, you know, the first month, they're like, this is the person.
Starting point is 00:39:30 We're all in. And then, you know, as soon as things get a little more real, they're like, never mind. This isn't them at all. I think I should leave. And then they pull away. And they're like, wait, I actually think it is the person. And so they arrive by kind of being like forward, really fast, back, really fast, forward, really fast, but they're incrementally moving forward.
Starting point is 00:39:47 And so they actually tend to want to commit around three, four months to something more serious, which is actually the same period of time that securely attach people tend to want to be together. But their way of arriving there is very different, right? Securely attached people, vet people. They take their time. They ask the right questions. Yeah, they consider them. And Fearful of Woodens are kind of like, you know, all in and all out and kind
Starting point is 00:40:07 move back and forth on their way there. So those are definitely some obvious things. I mean, fearful winds are usually the most affected by conflict. They can, they'll hold everything in. And then people please. And then eventually they'll get sick and tired of holding things in. And they'll say, last Saturday you did this. And three Saturdays ago, you did the same thing.
Starting point is 00:40:27 And then four years ago, this one thing happened. And then, you know, they really track everything. And they're really good at letting you know all at once after a long time of not saying much at all. Whereas anxious attachment cells, they can do a little bit of that too, but they are so scared of losing somebody that they often don't share how they really feel. Like they'll be in a conflict, but they'll be kind of light in conflict and still not really say that they're hurt because they just are prioritizing proximity all the time. And dismissal avoidance tend to avoid conflict, like no other. They love to keep distance. They try to just shove things under the rug.
Starting point is 00:41:00 So those are those like very obvious everyday relationship things. And actually give you one last one. I used to see those with clients all the time, and it's so, like, just archetypical of people. But, you know, if there's a conflict, like, usually if between an anxious and dismissive avoidant, the dismissive avoidance, like, I don't know what I'm feeling. I just need space. And they'll go into the other room and they'll close the door. And the anxious attachment's like, I'm going to follow you into that room. And I'm going to open the door.
Starting point is 00:41:29 And we're going to talk about it right now. And, you know, fearful avoidance are a little bit like that, where they'll, they'll want to resolve it a lot faster than a dismissive avoidant, for example, but if they're with an anxious person, then they'll be the one kind of running away a little bit more. So depending on who they're with, it'll sort of bring out either side of them. And fearful avoidance will often push away very harshly in a conflict. They'll actually try to push somebody away, whereas dismissive avoidance pull away. And there's actually a really important difference. Like dismissive avoidance kind of retreat. Dismissive avoidance are like, get back and they push you with their words. they'll say kind of harsh things. They'll really try to do those things because they're hurt
Starting point is 00:42:08 deeply and then they're self-protecting. Gosh, this feels like a therapy session. And it also makes me realize how I was so attracted to my husband and just all of it. You know, because he was very stoic and he ignored me and he didn't talk about emotions. And I'm like throwing. I'm like, you don't want me. That makes me want you. For sure. It all worked out. We're working on it. 20 years. It was just our 20 year anniversary and things are lovely. Congratulations. That's so nice. Thank you. And I actually think we found this like really cool way of working together, but we are also still carrying these attachment styles. So what can someone do like for my listeners and for me, mostly me? How can we start healing? Like what is something we can do to start becoming secure?
Starting point is 00:43:04 Yeah, great question. So the first thing is that information is a really great place to start, but the information only reaches your conscious mind. And all of our patterns, they're subconscious. So there are all of these things that we're storing and our conditioning and playing out kind of on autopilot. And when I say autopilot, I'm really referring to those moments where we're like, you know, an ancient attachment. Sal might say, don't cling. Don't call them again. Don't call them again, but they do it anyways. Like they know better, but they do it. Those things that we kind of feel helpless to in our own actions, that's really a conditioning dynamic. And so to really heal, we have to address the subconscious level of mind. And there's five pillars. So pillar number one
Starting point is 00:43:38 is we have to rewire these big triggers. Okay. So the fear of abandonment, the fear of being trapped, the fear of being betrayed. And I'll go through a tool for at least one of the pillars. Pillar number two is we have to learn what our needs are. And we actually have to learn how to meet them ourselves. So this is a really important part of co-regulating. For example, you'll see everywhere we struggle to meet our own needs. We heavily outsource an over. rely on other people to meet them for us. Anxiously attach people, they struggle to self-soothed. So they go, somebody should always be there for me when I need them, right?
Starting point is 00:44:13 My partner should always soothe me. Fearful avoidance, they struggle to trust. So they kind of have an unreasonably high expectation for perfection when things are related to trust. It's like if you ever tell a white lie, you're cut immediately. You know, there's these kind of stronger dynamics there. And so they're going to be a little bit of that. yeah, it's just protection, right? It's like trying to not go back into the painful experiences
Starting point is 00:44:38 of childhood. Your subconscious is like trying to protect you like the bear in the woods. And then dismissive avoidance, interestingly, they really struggle to understand themselves emotionally and communicate it. So they do this thing a lot where they're like, my partner should just understand me. I shouldn't have to explain myself. And they communicate a lot more through their actions, thinking like my actions tell it all rather than their words, but it's actually because they don't really know how to understand themselves first. So on the second pillar, we actually have to learn to meet our own needs first. It actually enriches our EQ very strongly to be able to do that.
Starting point is 00:45:13 You know, anxious people learn to self-soothe, fearful of women's learn to trust themselves better, to set boundaries, to vet for people, to not betray themselves in their boundaries all the time through people-pleasing or putting themselves last and dismissive wins learn to understand their own emotions and actually understand what's happening in their inner world. So now we've grown as individuals, and it's a really important pillar. And that brings us to the third pillar, which is now we can still communicate that we need these things. It's not one or the other. So it doesn't become, oh, the anxious person learns to self-soothe and now they never need soothing again.
Starting point is 00:45:46 It means that we are not trying to pull into our gas station every day with our gas tank fully on empty. We're not just panicked that this gas station better be open. You know, we're in a place where we can go into needing our needs, but our tank is half full. And now we have this healthy, secure balance to our own needs. And when our needs are really running on empty and the relationship to self, we are willing to put up with breadcrumbs because we're starving. So our standards lower, right? Part of why you see anxious people who struggle to give to themselves a lot.
Starting point is 00:46:17 And then they're willing to kind of put up with anybody and anything and lower their standards because they're starving for these needs in such a big way. So pillar two and three, they're become learn your own needs and meet them, then learn to communicate them very healthily with others. And then our last two pillars are just regulating your nervous system and learning to set healthy boundaries. Now, these are all things done by tools that specifically address the subconscious level of mind so that these are not things that we're just thinking about. You know, from my own experience, when I built this body of work, I remember as if you're a full of way, trying to learn to set boundaries. And I was like, I read every boundary book.
Starting point is 00:46:55 And I read all these, you know, publications on boundaries and did the research. And I understood boundaries intimately. But in the moment that I would go to set a boundary, I would clam up a lot of the time. And I was like, what the heck is going on? And what I realized is that, well, when I set a boundary as a child, I was then sometimes punished quite intensely. And so I had come to believe subconsciously if I set a boundary, I become unsafe. So my conscious mind understood boundaries.
Starting point is 00:47:21 But then in real time, when it was time to set one, my subconscious mind would sabotage it because it was prioritizing staying safe. So all of the work we do in the five pillars, and I'm definitely happy to share a tool for reprogram a core wound, for example, but all the work we do in the five pillars has to be addressed at the conditioning level of mind, not just the reading about it and understanding how it works level of mind. And that's where real transformation takes place. This is so good. I feel like you've seen into my soul and you know me better than anyone has ever known me before, which is scary, but also really amazing because, first of all, I'm going to follow you and I'm going to
Starting point is 00:48:03 read your book and I'm just going to absorb everything that you have because this is really something. I've had so many therapists, so many therapists. And one stood out to me and I love him, but I will say, he said, I think you have incompetency syndrome or something. So I get irrationally upset, especially when Joe, but anyone around me that I really, I put my trust in them to lead if they make a mistake. So if Joe's driving somewhere and he's taking care of and he gets lost, I feel a level of panic and I never really, but now it makes sense. Man, it makes so much sense. You want to find together and put into words exactly what it is.
Starting point is 00:48:48 So there's going to be a specific core wound. So let's say Joe, you said, gets lost and he's driving somewhere. And now he's made a mistake. And now he's lost. And in that moment, what do you feel emotionally? What emotions? It feels like anger, but it could be fear. Good.
Starting point is 00:49:08 Okay. So anger, fear. And what do you make it mean about you in that moment? I am what? I can't possibly be in charge. and I can't trust that he's in charge. So like I feel like every, I don't know, like it feels. And here are the big core wounds that are usually there.
Starting point is 00:49:33 Okay. And you can hear them in what you said. Out of control. Helpless. Helpless is usually a massive core wound for fearful avoidance and then a little bit of betrayal. So he betrayed me because I'm trusting him and he made the mistake. And then the sense of being helpless and out of control
Starting point is 00:49:48 because I'm not the one in the driver's seat. and now I can't do anything about it. And that can be like physical driver's seat or like, you know, symbolically the driver's seat. And so they're probably, this is extremely, this is like a root of fearful avoidance. There's probably a lot of times in earlier life where you felt help with a lot. Maybe you had to rely on people who are really unpredictable and then you constantly feel helpless. And so what's happening is in real time. And that's how a trigger works.
Starting point is 00:50:14 A trigger is that we've stored all these subconscious experiences with all the emotion attached, all memories that we have get consolidated and stored at a subconscious level with all their emotion intact. And you see this when you hear people recall old memories, they can cry if it's a sad memory or laugh if it's a happy memory. So all this memory is stored at a subconscious level. We store everything. And then a trigger happens, which means something in this moment, like you being in the driver seat or the passenger seat of the car, your conscious mind kind of goes to your subconscious mind. Oh, what do we know about feeling this way before? And now your subconscious mind says, we know all of this emotion, all of these times we feel helpless and out of
Starting point is 00:50:51 control. And now your subconscious is flooding all those to the surface. And that's what a trigger is. A trigger is that you're experiencing all that stored emotion plus what's happening in real time combined together. And that's why we have a disproportionate reaction. So does helpless out of control betrayed? Do those ones resonate? Yeah, that's it. That's totally it. And then just take that and copy and paste it everywhere. Anytime that I'm like, I'm going to let someone else do this because I've got too much on my plate and then it isn't done how I perceived. I feel like, see, I can't trust anyone. No one's trustworthy and everyone is unsafe. There you go. They're supposed to protect me from bears. I trusted them. They all have the bear spray and they dropped it and now I'm going to be
Starting point is 00:51:42 eaten. See why I don't trust anyone to carry the bear spray. And there you go. And then, but also I don't want to carry the bear spray. I'm tired of always carrying the bear spray. That's one of the that's one of the big things is that then it's like all the pressure to always do it because you don't want to, you trust people. And then there's usually an enormous burden on fearful avoidance more than the average person. So I can share a tool. You know, we have all these tools in our programs that goes to the five pillars, but I'll just share a tool. So if you want to rewire a core wound, you want to change that. It's not as hard as it might sound at face value.
Starting point is 00:52:19 First thing, okay, is you find the core wound and it's opposite. Okay, very easy for a step. There's three steps. Let's say it's, I am betrayed. I have loyalty or I can trust. If it's I'm abandoned, I'm worthy of connection. If it's I am not good enough, I'm good enough. Okay.
Starting point is 00:52:33 So you find the core wound and it's opposite. Step two, I do not believe in affirmations. Okay. So affirmations are your conscious mind speaking to your conscious mind. Your core wound does not exist at the conscious level of mind. Your conscious mind is your logical, rational, analytical mind. Nobody wakes up and says, today, all day long, I'm going to tell myself that I can't trust people and that I'm out of control and helpless and or, oh, I'm going to tell myself all day long I'm not good enough. Like, nobody's consciously
Starting point is 00:53:00 choosing that. The wounds exist at the subconscious level of mind. But if I were to say to you, okay, whatever you do, do not think of a pink elephant. You think of a pink elephant, right? conscious mind hears do not. Subconscious mind doesn't speak language. It speaks in emotions and images. So when people are doing affirmations, they say, I am good enough, I am good enough, I am good enough. You're just consciously talking to your conscious mind. Nothing's reaching where the wound is.
Starting point is 00:53:26 Nothing's reaching the subconscious part. So in step two, what we do is after we found the opposite, I am not good enough, I am good enough. Now we have to speak in emotions and images so that it reaches our subconscious mind. How do we do that? Well, all memory ever is just a container of emotions and imagery. If you think of your favorite childhood memory and let's say it's like you playing at the beach as a kid, you might see the images of the ocean and the sand. And, you know, we've all seen when people tell old memories, they laugh or they smile. So what we're doing is now we know memory speaks to our subconscious mind.
Starting point is 00:54:04 So we're going to leverage memory in step two. So we're going to say, okay, I'm not good enough. I am good enough. Step one. Step two, what are 10 times I actually was good enough? I was a good enough friend last week when I had a hard phone conversation with a friend of mine. I was a good enough boss if I own a company, you know, three days ago when I really looked at how people work together and fix those interactions. I was a good enough spouse three days ago when I did this.
Starting point is 00:54:29 And we're coming up with specific memories that we can see in our mind's eye because it's the imagery for our subconscious and things that we feel about. We feel that sense of pride when we feel good enough. Or we feel that sense of connection when we think of how we're connected instead of abandoned. And people have been there for us and love us and show up for us. So now we're feeding information to our subconscious mind in a way it can be reached by and actually understand. And then our third step is now we're going to wire it in. So now we're actually going to build new neural networks, which requires repetition and emotion across time. It takes 21 days.
Starting point is 00:55:03 And what we do is now that we've set our 10 times we feel good enough or the 10 times we had connection instead of abandonment. We record ourselves saying it into our phone or somewhere we can listen back. And for 21 days, we're going to listen back to those 10 pieces of evidence. And we're going to visualize and feel about them when we are in a suggestible state, meaning when our brain is producing more alpha brain waves. And that's usually in the first hour that we wake up or the last hour before we go to sleep. And suggestibility means that all this information is more easily reaching your subconscious mind.
Starting point is 00:55:36 So now you have this thing you did. You said, okay, I'm not good enough. For example, and you've got your 10 things about times you were good enough that are images, that are emotion. You've recorded it down. Now it takes two to five minutes a day for you to snooze your alarm, turn on and actually listen back to these tangible pieces of evidence, feel about them in your body as much as possible, visualize about them as much as possible.
Starting point is 00:55:59 And now this information is reaching our subconscious mind and through repetition over time, we're actually firing and wiring these entirely new neural networks that are changing how we perceive ourselves in our reality instead of constantly projecting this old bear we're trying to teach yourself hey you've been in the forest now many times and there hasn't been theirs so to speak and so we're reconditioned you're not born with these wounds you can rewire them through doing that and it's just a very easy first step for rewiring this is so good I'm going to think about all the ways I can actually trust people and how they actually have you know supported me and not let me down and not been wishy-washy, flippy, floppy.
Starting point is 00:56:36 I have to guess what's happening. Because you're right. That doesn't actually exist in my life today. And yet I look for that everywhere. Yes. We want to return to what we call fair and balanced thinking. So there will be people who make mistakes, right? People will make mistakes sometimes.
Starting point is 00:56:53 But when we're constantly looking for it, we put ourselves on high alert. And then we, like you said, see it and everything and often end up investing in what's familiar again. And so we kind of choose people who do that. But more importantly, when we're so triggered, we don't have productive outcomes. So one of our second pillars is knowing your needs and how to communicate them, pillar two and three. And so let's say, you know, you're no longer on high alert all the time.
Starting point is 00:57:14 Well, then if somebody does make a mistake, without the wound, you just kind of naturally move into, okay, here, there's a mistake. I need you to go fix it by doing this and this. You can give them clear directions. You can communicate. And we can solve for it together instead of sometimes when we feel betrayed and I've spent a lot of time there. So I get it.
Starting point is 00:57:31 we feel betrayed and you're like, I'm never trusting anyone again. I'm never asking anyone for help again. And then there you are on your own. And then you're trying to do it all by yourself. And then if somebody is actually trying to do anything to support you, you either discount their support in advance or don't even allow yourself to ask for it or struggle to delegate. But then we have these big overreactions when somebody does make a mistake because we feel
Starting point is 00:57:55 so deeply let down because it's not just about right now. It's about the core wound from the past. So we rewire the core wound. and then we can go into the needs and the communication. And then all those three things together create really healthy, productive, balanced outcomes instead of these old, really painful, repeated patterns. I think you may be a genius. And I also think you may be the most helpful person I've ever spoken with on this podcast.
Starting point is 00:58:19 So that's incredible, please. Okay, so let my listeners know where they can go and get help from you. Ann, what do you suggest that they do first? Is it take your quiz? Is there a resource? You're like, they have to go get this. Yeah, if people are like, I hear myself in this and if they're sick and tired of it, because it's a painful and hard thing, honestly, for a lot of people.
Starting point is 00:58:44 And I get that because I was also insecurely attached. Step one, you can go to personal development school.com. You can take the quiz. It gives you a breakdown of your attachment style. Step two, we have all of our programs on there. And so there's a 90-day program to rewire. We try to make it extremely afford. affordable. So it starts at $67 a month for 90 days. So it's like three months. And, you know,
Starting point is 00:59:07 my goal when I work through this was like, I want this to be instead of, you know, if you do a three month for your 90 days, it's just $150. So instead of, you know, you pay one therapy session for that, you can go in. And it goes through those five pillars. There's a course for each pillar. So how to rewire your core wounds, a course. You find your own. They guide you to do that. There's the rewiring techniques. Then how to find your needs and needs of your partner and loved ones because needs are a huge way we give and receive love. And we tend to always give from our own needs instead of seeing and understanding that we might have different ones from people. How to communicate, we go through pillars, boundaries, and nervous system regulation. And each one's
Starting point is 00:59:40 about an hour and a half course. And it comes with a specific rewiring tool for each pillar. And then with that membership to the program for the 90 days, I'm in there teaching live webinars three days a week. So if you have questions, I'm there. I have colleagues the other six days of the week. So I'm there for three. People are there for another three. So there's twice a day, ongoing support for people. And yeah, my goal is to help as many people as possible, not have to go through this any longer. So that is all available at personal development school.com. If people want to dive in there or I'm on YouTube at Taise Gibson-Person-Personal Development School or at the Personal Development School on Instagram. This was so good. And I have to say,
Starting point is 01:00:19 $150 is what I pay an hour for my therapist for years. And I feel like, I have more self-awareness in this podcast. Sorry, I hijacked it for all my listeners. But how absolutely amazing are you? I'm going to fix myself and then I'm going to fix Joe and then we're going to be secure. And I'll stop being insane. And you're amazing. Thank you so much for being here on the Clutterbug podcast. We usually talk about clutter and homes. But let me tell you something. I'm going to ask one final question. Do you think these secure attachments can also, like, have us attached to our physical belongings in these strange, like, insecure ways.
Starting point is 01:01:08 Yeah, I think that honestly what happens is that I think a lot of our physical space sometimes reflects our mental emotional clutter. And when there's always, like, a drama in our mind and stress and then we're coping, you're not like, oh, I feel good. Let me clean my house. You're like, I feel stressed. Let me binge watch television or eat a bunch of junk food or all. these things that take us away from healthy habits that way. And it's interesting because I think
Starting point is 01:01:31 one of the first things you see when you start rewiring core wounds is all of this mental, emotional real estate comes back. Like all of this space. I used to personally just speaking from my own experience, spend so much time in like I'm being trapped or controlled, push somebody away, then feel badly and then have to apologize or then feel badly about myself and avoid myself or avoid my life, you know, binge watch television or whatever it is. Or then, you know, somebody's afraid of being abandoned and they cling and they're preoccupied. And we get into all these dramas. And when you just pluck the wound out at the root and rewire it, you have so much mental, emotional space that you're like, oh, I can focus on doing things that are productive,
Starting point is 01:02:09 cleaning my environment, showing up for my life, organizing my goals, my dreams, all of those things. So I definitely think there's a massive connection between some of these things as a whole. Yeah. And I'm seeing myself, I mean, as a fearful avoidant, there are like my objects, my belongings around me. Sometimes I'm like, oh, well, maybe I should and I, and you're special. And then, so then I'm like, everything's going in the trash, you know, and then I'm decluttering everything. Burn the whole house down. Then I'm like, wait a minute. What about that hand-drawn crappy artwork? Do you know I'm hot and cold even with my belongings? And I know, Joe is like, I care about nothing. And, you know, except the things that maybe are my identity, that possibly
Starting point is 01:02:55 but mostly I care about nothing. And then I have a very close friend who is this anxious and it's like, everything is special. No, don't take my memories from me. I must hoard every belonging I've ever had. You're 100% right. Even the patterns, you're so funny. This is so funny.
Starting point is 01:03:16 Because I hope people to clutter and organize. And all of these things need needs. So even people who are hoarders, usually it's a relationship between their core wounds and their needs. So they have these needs, like there's a sentimentality or emotional connection to their belongings. And there's a sense of comfort and safety through that. So those are their needs. And then their wounds are like, oh, my gosh, if I lose these things connected to people, then I feel abandoned or then I feel alone or then I feel unsafe.
Starting point is 01:03:41 What if I would have needed that thing in a few years? And now without it, I'm unsafe. I did talk about attachment styles in the past, specifically how it like correlated with clutter. But we use different words. it was like secure, avoidant, anxious, and disorganized, I think. Yeah. So disorganized attachment cells is the exact same thing as fearful avoidant. They're just different schools of thoughts.
Starting point is 01:04:03 We had John Bolby and then Mary Ainsworth and then, you know, different schools of thought that named them slightly different things, but they're the exact same thing, fearful avoidant, disorganized are the same thing. Anxious preoccupied. And then sometimes you'll also hear fearful avoidance referred to as anxious avoidance, not to just add so many terms in here, but secure has always been secure. anxious is anxious preoccupied, dismissive avoidance, the most dismissive avoidant. And then fearful avoidance is also sometimes heard or referred to as disorganized or anxious avoidant,
Starting point is 01:04:31 which is actually a good name because they have that anxious and avoidance side, but those are the ones in terms of the terms. This makes so much sense because I got disorganized when I was like other so, yeah. But you know what? Fearful avoidant really hit something in my core. You nailed it. You pinned me on the cork board and I'm there for life now. Wait a minute. I just realized if people go and sign up for your personal development, then they're going to be fixed and then they're not going to have clutter and then I'm out of a job. We're going to throw this whole podcast directly in the trash because if they get help from you, they will no longer need me. No, I'm joking.
Starting point is 01:05:11 But this, I'm not because that's probably 100% true. It's a great thing to go together. Then they have structure through what you're doing and support in that way. but they're not going to try to do things that are recommended and go back and forth with their own, you know, dynamics and patterns showing up to prevent them from actually moving the needle on things. I just love this so much. Thank you so much for being here. And it was incredibly insightful. And for all of my listeners, I hope you had better get your butt to all the links in the description and go and take the quiz.
Starting point is 01:05:46 And you can with me, I'm going to go, personal development.com. I'm doing it. I'm going to be healed. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. It's such a fun time with you. I have to take a quick second to thank today's podcast sponsor, Cozy Earth. I switched to Cozy Earth betting years ago. And honestly, I'm so happy that I did, especially the sheets. I've become a sheet snob because they're so soft. And the more I wash them, the better they become. But they're also temperature regulating. I am full-blown metapausal right now. Maybe it's peri metaposal.
Starting point is 01:06:19 Whatever it is, it means I get hot, hot at night. My cozy earth sheets keep me cool. And it just feels like luxury. I deserve my bedroom to feel like a five-star hotel. And so do you. If you want to give Cozy Earth's bedding or pajamas, they have clothing, they have bath towels, it's all amazing. Go to cozyEarth.com and use the code clutterbug to save 20%. That's cozyEarth.com. Use that code clutterbug to save 20% off today. My mind is blown. I feel like maybe I took this over and made this a therapy session. I do that a lot. But you guys, oh my gosh, my hot, coldness, all my my real struggles with relationships and trust. And I have, yeah, just all of it, all my problems come down to being a fearful.
Starting point is 01:07:17 avoidant. And now I have not only tools, because yeah, all the, all the, I'm like, I'm a big person. I'm like, ooh, positive affirmations. I'm going to say positive things. But to hear her talk about how that doesn't actually sink down. It's kind of a band-aid on top of the wound, but it doesn't heal the wound, was really eye-opening. And it made so much sense. And yes, we do have to tie things back to memory to really sink it down deeper into our subconscious. And having these tools, I'm serious. I'm serious. I am excited for this because there's a better way for us. There is hope for us. And if you're a secure attachment, good for you. But for the rest of us out here, just struggling with life. Now we have a real path to get out of the struggle bus to get off.
Starting point is 01:08:10 I'm going to let you go now. All I can think about is logging onto this website. So I'm going to stop yammering and I'll see you guys next time. Thank you.

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