What's Behind Your Jealous Mind w/ Thais Gibson EP 78

[00:00:00] I have been waiting for this week's episode to come out for so long. And I really excited to share today's guest with you. It's Thais Gibson. You've probably already heard about her, but just in case you haven't, she is the co-founder of the Personal Development School. 

[00:00:17] She's the leading expert in attachment theory and her research shows that you can actually change your attachment style to improve your romantic relationships, close family connections, friendships. She is an absolute powerhouse. She's been on Mel Robbins' podcast. She has over 230,000 subscribers on YouTube with like a million and a half monthly views. 

[00:00:41] She was the keynote speaker for Google's International Women's Day. And she's here. She's here on the Top Self podcast to talk to you, 

[00:00:51] and I mean, your mind is going to be blown. 

[00:00:55] You are going to want to listen to every single thing all the way to the end and then I recommend that you go back and you listen with a pen and paper because she's going to talk to you about your core wounds and how to do some subconscious reprogramming. 

[00:01:10] So you're definitely going to want to listen to the episode more than once. 

[00:01:14] And I feel so honored and I'm fortunate to be training under Ms. Thais Gibson so that's really exciting. And I can't wait to bring all of that goodness to you as well. So buckle up, this is going to be a great one. Thais Gibson coming up.

[00:01:34] 

[00:02:31] Shanenn Bryant: Thais Gibson I'm so excited you're here and I know, everyone listening is super excited to have you on Top Self Podcast. Welcome.

[00:02:40] Thais Gibson - PDS: Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to be here with you.

[00:02:44] Shanenn Bryant: Oh, I feel like I have so many questions for you and I'm sure people are always just like eating this up what you're talking about, which is attachment styles. So can you talk a little bit about how you got here because you've got a school, you've got, my gosh, the things that you're doing on Mel Robbins podcast , 200, 000 subscribers on YouTube. So you're doing a lot. How did you get here?

[00:03:10] Thais Gibson - PDS: Thank you so much. I got here because I'm really passionate about this stuff. I think it definitely came from a place of eat, live, breathe this myself. Growing up I definitely had a lot of curiosities about relationships, felt like a very volatile relationship in my home. Just a lot of, you know, two very loving people who were very good people bringing out the more difficult aspects of one another. and I think from a very young age, I was very curious. How come there's not like a better way of doing this stuff? How come things have to be this way? Like, why does there have to be so much arguing all the time and chaos? And I think as a very sensitive child, I internalized a lot of that and really sponged up all of the arguments and fighting and really was also a little bit parentified, quite honestly.

[00:03:55] So I was in a place where I was playing the emotional role of a parent sometimes, making sure I would check on one parent after an argument, go back and check on the other parent, try to soothe my parents as a young child, which is actually quite common for a lot of people in their upbringing.

[00:04:08] And so I think from a young age, I was already, being conditioned in a sense to be in this kind of space. And I've always loved people and really wondered what made people tick. So, um, definitely that was a starting point is being curious about relationships and people. And then honestly, having to do a lot of self work on my own healing journey. After going through some really big struggles, which is a very long story, but with actually, being addicted to opiates from about almost 15 years old to about 20 and a half years old, and doing a lot of healing and a lot of deep work around that to get into a space of sobriety.

[00:04:41] And then, just wanted to share with people and actually started putting out workshops for free. I would actually pay out of pocket, go into libraries, pay like $40 an hour to rent the space and just give free workshops to people because I had healed so much and I had done so much deep work and it was 

[00:05:02] oriented around the subconscious mind. And this is 14 years ago. Like I didn't, I'm like, where is everybody talking about the subconscious mind? This is how we need to be paying attention in order to see transformation. And so I just, I wasn't seeing enough of that out in the world. I started giving workshops and, at about 22 years old, I started a full time client based practice while I was still in school as a result of that.

[00:05:24] And, a lot of time has passed since and been in the field ever since then.

[00:05:29] Shanenn Bryant: Oh, so amazing. Isn't it... it's probably the greatest gifts, it's at least how I feel even about this podcast, but the greatest gift to yourself and to others, when you can take the things that you really struggled with and figure out a path to then be able to share it with other people. I think it's like just fascinating.

[00:05:50] Thais Gibson - PDS: I actually, after working with so many people one to one, so I was in client based practice for the better part of a decade. and I would see 40 people a week on average ongoing. And I literally think that is a part of our purpose. Like I actually, I rarely find exceptions to that as a rule.

[00:06:06] Like I almost feel like part of what happens is we go through struggles and challenges and sometimes part of the purpose within them is to learn to overcome those things ourselves and then be able to go and share and contribute those things to others. and it happens in a lot of different shapes and forms, but I find that to be par for the course for a lot of people, quite honestly.

[00:06:24] Shanenn Bryant: Yeah, I mean, even when I started this, there wasn't anybody, there were some, but just there's still not enough out there about jealousy in relationships. It's one of those sort of taboo topics no one wants to talk about and it's really hard to get people who are suffering from it to talk about it because It's embarrassing.

[00:06:45] There's shame around it. They don't want to admit. I always joke, we're not putting it on our dating profiles. I will look through your phone. I will track you down. So, you know, people weren't talking about it and it sounds like that was a similar situation with a subconscious mind that you just weren't finding it out there.

[00:07:02] So you did it yourself.

[00:07:03] Thais Gibson - PDS: Yes, exactly. Exactly. And it's so interesting because the way I came across this is going through this really regular struggle with opiates and being like, what is going on for me? Like, why am I? It was actually after a knee surgery that I got addicted and I didn't really realize at first I just knew, Oh, these, when I take these, they make my life feel easier.

[00:07:23] And so my prescription ran out and I refilled it and then it was running out and I started panicking and I didn't really know why I was panicking, but there was a girl a year older than me who said, Oh, if you take these are also performance enhancers. And I was trying to get a soccer scholarship at the time to go off to, to live in the United States from Canada.

[00:07:41] And, there was this whole sort of story behind it, but, I was like, oh wow, and she was also selling them. got them and it just unfolded into this. Yeah, I didn't realize that when I was 15 years old, but now I 

[00:07:52] know. And there's a sort of a whole story to how this unfolds.

[00:07:56] but I think what's so interesting is, I was in this space where I would constantly be like, I need to get sober. I need to stop doing this. What's wrong with me? Like, why do I keep going back to this same path? And I would find that I would go through these experiences of telling myself, I would like journal out, I'm going to avoid her in the hallway. I'm going to delete her number from my phone. I'm going to avoid these people and these situations. And I would find myself repeating the pattern of behavior over and over again, even though I was intending to will myself away from it. And so fast forward, like years later, I was in a psych class and I was not sober.

[00:08:29] And I was just barely holding on to my life, like by a thread in terms of being able to keep everything together. and somebody said to me in the class, Oh, your conscious mind can't out will or overpower your subconscious mind. And it was like, Oh, you're explaining to me everything that's happening.

[00:08:46] You're explaining to me that I'm intending to get sober and to stop using and Instead, my subconscious mind has a different set of motives that it's carrying out and it's really responsible for 95 to 97 percent of our beliefs or thoughts or emotions or decisions on a

[00:09:04] daily basis. The conscious mind is responsible for three to five percent and for people who don't know what that really is and the differences the conscious mind is like that

[00:09:11] I choose mind, right? It's like the logical analytical rational, think things through, reason about things. Your subconscious mind is your program self so, it meets your needs in a very autopiloted way fast as it can. It's very survival oriented. It tries to actually go back and reinvest in situations that remind it of its previous comfort zone, which is part of why you'll often see if you come from a chaotic household.

[00:09:35] Now I think that relationships are chaos. So now I will be the chaos in my relationships and, we do things where we have this big comfort zone and we are constantly trying to maintain it and we're constantly making decisions from that place of programming even if we like to think to ourselves

[00:09:53] "I'm going to choose something and I'm just going to make it happen." People can relate to this in so many different forms. We can have the experience of, saying, I'm not going to get jealous. And then we try to repress it. And then it comes out in a different way, two hours later, or we can say, I'm going to quit eating chocolate.

[00:10:07] And we quit for three days and we're back on day 40 we're eating chocolate. All these times where we set goals or we say, I'm going to follow through, but we procrastinate. All of those things are very obvious differences between the conscious mind saying, I'm going to do something and the subconscious mind instead playing by its programs.

[00:10:24] And so when we can learn how to address challenges or issues, things like jealousy, for example, at the subconscious level, we can actually see the needle move and we can actually create concrete changes and transformation.

[00:10:37] Shanenn Bryant: Wow, that's incredible. So they said that statement, that you can't outwill your subconscious mind.

[00:10:43] So then that became a new, Oh, let me go look at this a little bit?

[00:10:48] Thais Gibson - PDS: I became obsessed with the subconscious mind, honestly. I went into a year long program in hypnotherapy to really understand, did a whole bunch of certifications related to NLP, things that really teach about like principles of neuroplasticity, Neuro linguistic programming, really how to reprogram the subconscious and really learning about like suggestibility, how all of this works.

[00:11:09] And then as I started working with people, I actually just really didn't like the power dynamics of hypnosis. I thought it was strange. I thought it was weird that you have to have somebody come in and you put them in the state of trance and they go and they have this experience and they leave and they don't know how it happened or why they feel differently or how to replicate it or reuse that information.

[00:11:28] It was very much give the man a fish rather than teach a man to fish. And for me, I was like, Oh, that's really disempowering for people. And I felt like it fostered way too much like dependency in a sense. So I got really interested instead on like educating people, how they can reprogram their own subconscious mind and different steps they can take to understand in a very simplistic format, how it works, what you can do, how you can start immediately and get results in the shortest period of time and that became a

[00:11:53] big arena of how I started running my sort of future practice and, career.

[00:12:00] Shanenn Bryant: Wow. Yeah, because I know, just when I was at the height of my jealousy, that would be the thing. And I would say all the time, as much as it was a struggle for my partner, because, they get to the point where it's okay, enough. I can't handle it. We couldn't go to dinner. We couldn't go to a movie.

[00:12:15] We couldn't go to events because my jealousy would just, I'd have these, you meltdowns or explosions sometimes, just depending. But I would say, , I know that you are struggling with it, but I would give anything like me more than anyone would love to make this go away to not feel this way.

[00:12:36] And so I would just go, okay, the next time I'm just not going to say anything, or I'm going to do this, or we try all these tactics. And to your point goes back to, oh, I just did it again. I did the exact same thing. So how do we start to go, okay, I can't want it enough.

[00:12:53] Thais Gibson - PDS: Yep. 

[00:12:54] Shanenn Bryant: 

[00:12:54] What do I got to do instead?

[00:12:56] Thais Gibson - PDS: Exactly. So amazing question. So there's a few really important parts that I think we want to start by understanding. So there's a bit of a difference between jealousy and envy, but oftentimes when people report feeling jealousy, they're actually feeling a little bit of both.

[00:13:12] And so envy is when, envy tends to be an emotional piece of feedback. So all emotions are feedback, I think, is the first thing to talk about. It's really important to recognize or they're telling us something's out of alignment. The only things that we can feel negative emotions towards are unmet needs or core wounds.

[00:13:30] Okay, so I'll explain what that means in a little more detail. If I were to move to a new country, and as somebody who has a big need for emotional connection, if I were to move to a new country, and specifically one that doesn't speak the same language as myself, I don't know how to speak the language, and I leave my husband and my family and my friends all behind, I'm going to go to a new country and I'm going to feel negative emotion.

[00:13:51] I'm going to feel probably sad or lonely. and that's actually kind of a good thing because the emotion is trying to prod me to adapt, right? It's part of how we evolve and survive is we get this emotional feedback and eventually it causes us to want to adapt. So that's really emotional pain.

[00:14:07] Emotional pain is usually pretty high levels of discomfort and it tends to be, you know, maybe like a five or a ten. 6 out of 10 at most. It's very uncomfortable. It tends to feel more chronic you can see that there's an unmet need when we're carrying something for a long period of time on a more daily basis

[00:14:23] it's always in the background. That's usually communicating to us that we have unmet needs. Emotional suffering, not emotional pain and discomfort, emotional suffering comes from core wounds. So when we grow up and we go through different traumatic experiences, whether they're big T trauma or small T trauma, I like to think of trauma, big or small T, as basically being something that our nervous system and our body, we can't properly emotionally process.

[00:14:48] So, we instead, because the subconscious mind really wants certainty, it gives meaning to something instead as a means of achieving certainty. So as an example, if somebody grows up in a really critical household and their parents are constantly saying that they're not good enough, or constantly let's say criticizing them, Oh, you've got an A, you should have had an A plus, these types of households, they're going to make it mean something.

[00:15:08] They can't process it. Why am I always being told that I'm not doing a good job? Oh, I am not good enough. So we'll assign meaning to things as a way of achieving certainty. Okay, now I know I'm not good enough. And now I can try to prevent myself from feeling this way again in the future by maybe hiding or avoiding things or not sharing my grades.

[00:15:27] So we give meaning to find certainty. Now what happens is these pieces of meaning we give, are actually called core wounds and they end up being part of our identity at a subconscious level. These things that we carry everywhere about ourselves and we believe them. Now there's different core wounds depending on the types of trauma.

[00:15:43] There's generally 18 to 20 major core wounds. They include things like, I will be abandoned, I will be excluded. I will be disliked. I will be betrayed. I will be trapped. I will be helpless. I will be powerless or out of control in a situation. I will be seen as defective or shameful. So people can usually resonate pretty clearly.

[00:16:02] Ooh, I felt that one before. And when we carry these core wounds and something causes, basically catalyzes it, or triggers it, really our core wounds are our triggers, all of a sudden we experience emotional suffering. So let's say we go back to that example where I go to a new country, I don't speak the language, I feel the pain of my emotional connection needs not being met, but that may be a catalyst for me to say, oh, it's because I'm unlovable, which is a core wound, or everybody will dislike me, or I'm not good enough, that's why I don't have friends.

[00:16:33] As soon as I start storytelling about the unmet need, all of a sudden I experience emotional suffering. And usually when we're triggered and we have emotional suffering, it's higher than a 6 out of 10. Usually we're like really feeling it. It's a 7, sometimes a 10 for people. And so the first thing we want to know is that our emotions are feedback.

[00:16:52] So when you look at jealousy and the specific emotion, we sort of want to unpack what's the specific feedback that it's giving to us. And going back to that idea of differentiating jealousy from envy is lets us know that some part of ourselves has been left behind. Okay. So it's really about an unmet need.

[00:17:11] I had a client one time and I was working with her for like maybe six months. She was very successful in the corporate world. And she said, Thais, I, I was, I saw her on like a Monday and she said, yesterday, I was walking around downtown Toronto and she said, I saw this woman painting and trying to sell her paintings on the street

[00:17:32] and I felt so envious. Like I haven't shaken this feeling what's going on. And I didn't even know this about her after six months that her whole early childhood, she wanted to be an artist. And instead she was like, conditioned she had to be all about financial security and be successful and achieve.

[00:17:50] So she left her unmet needs behind of creativity and self expression. And what happens is when we experience envy, It's letting us know you've, it's representing this lost part of yourself, basically, and it's actually giving us feedback that, hey, we will let go of the envy when we start getting the needs met for creativity and self expression.

[00:18:14] So a huge part when we're starting to unpack is I like to separate out first the envy versus the jealousy. Is there a part of whatever you're feeling envious around? That is representing a lost need in the relationship to yourself. Do you mind sharing maybe for a moment a time that you might have felt envious?

[00:18:34] So specifically, not the possessiveness of jealousy, we'll go there in a moment, but just like envy in a sense.

[00:18:40] Shanenn Bryant: My gosh, when you were saying that I was like, Oh, she wanted to be an artist. And she was, so she was a bit envious of that person who was painting, but then I think about it and I'm like, I would get envious over like all kinds of different things. If somebody could sing, If somebody was a good dancer, if somebody had dark hair and blue eyes. Thais. But, so then I was like, oh my gosh, if I, had all these things, I would be a harmonica playing who knows what, all of these things, meaning like I'd play a guitar, I'd be able to sing, I'd be able to dance and nobody can do that. So I feel like it was just everything if I couldn't do that thing.

[00:19:22] Thais Gibson - PDS: And if I could do all of those things, if I could be, do, and have all of those things, play the harmonica, music, instruments, look whatever way I want to, all these things, what would then happen? I would finally be worthy of love. I would finally be good enough. What is it

[00:19:38] for 

[00:19:38] you? 

[00:19:38] Shanenn Bryant: Be good enough and worthy of, someone being like, Oh, I want to keep that. I want to have that. I want that to be my person.

[00:19:49] Thais Gibson - PDS: I finally would be worthy of love enough for 

[00:19:51] Shanenn Bryant: Yeah. Yeah, 

[00:19:53] Yeah. 

[00:19:54] Thais Gibson - PDS: Yeah. So you can hear in that, you know how we talked about the two parts. So the first part is the unmet needs. The second part is the core wounds. So you can hear in that like envious piece which is actually more related to jealousy, which is interesting.

[00:20:07] and the way you said it is more related to jealousy. Jealousy tends to be more about, it can, it, both of them are both, but jealousy would be more the possessiveness and it's usually about core wounds. You can feel the difference too. Envy is like a longing and it feels uncomfortable. Jealousy is like a big, we feel the triggering event.

[00:20:21] And usually what we're actually feeling jealous about is we are scared that somebody is going to take our needs away because they're going to find somebody better or they're going to change their mind and our core wounds are triggered. Oh my gosh, this person has this and I don't and that makes me not good enough or that makes me not good enough.

[00:20:41] I'm about to be abandoned or that makes me unworthy and so that part of it is where we experience so much of that discomfort because when core wounds are triggered it feels absolutely terrible.

[00:20:53] Shanenn Bryant: Yeah. Yeah. I hear it all the time too of people saying, gosh, I'm triggered now just watching TV because there'll be a female that looks great and, I don't have that body type, I don't look that way. Or my husband is working with this really smart, this new woman at work who's extremely smart and, has everything together.

[00:21:14] And we can't stop the world. And so it feels very, you know, almost suffocating to them of what am I supposed to do? I can't escape this. And then it's the sickening kind of anxious, worried, dooms feeling on a daily basis because they're constantly being hit with those triggers all day long.

[00:21:38] Thais Gibson - PDS: And so you know how we said like emotions are feedback? It's interesting because our emotions will let us know when we have an unmet need or when we have a core wound that's being activated. And if people go underneath, so it's interesting, usually the more core wounds that are being triggered at once, the more terribly awful we feel.

[00:21:55] So for some people, they feel jealous because. let's say their co worker did really well in the report and they didn't do as well in the report and they make it mean Oh, I'm not good enough. And so they feel this sense of jealousy around that for other people It's oh my gosh, there's this very attractive person talking to my partner who I love with my whole heart and soul and I'm really scared that they're gonna like this person and it feels like a threat to my need to not be abandoned, which is a core wound, to feel good enough for my partner, core wound,

[00:22:30] to not be betrayed by my partner, another core wound, and to feel worthy of love, core wound. So oftentimes with jealousy specifically what's happening is some experience, if we have a lot of core wounds that we haven't reprogrammed, some experience is causing us to give the situation very painful meaning and a way that individuals who are listening to this can actually bring up exactly what core wound it is for them is you can ask yourself the question, the moment that I'm feeling really jealous, if it's your partner talking to somebody at the bar or, or if it's your coworker doing better at work, the moment you feel really jealous, what do I make this mean about me and what is my worst fear will happen as a result?

[00:23:13] And you'll see, it's a very obvious, oh, I make this mean that I'm not good enough and I'm afraid of about to be abandoned. And now you know that those are those big core wounds and the cool part about like bringing the subconscious mind into the process is once we've identified those core wounds, we can get into a position where we reprogram them.

[00:23:30] So that's a really big part of what jealousy is, and we can talk about how to reprogram in a moment. I will say one other thing. You know how we said envy and jealousy are both unmet needs and core wounds? The unmet needs part is usually the thing that we are feeling the person that we're feeling jealous about.

[00:23:47] Usually we feel like it's a threat to us being able to keep our needs. So, a lot of times people who are struggling with chronic jealousy and really intense bouts of jealousy also haven't actually done a lot of individuation work. So, they tend to be a little bit codependent and they tend to derive their sense of self and identity from the outside in rather than the inside out.

[00:24:10] Meaning, if I, don't know how to soothe myself very well, but I really rely on my partner to soothe me by being supportive, being kind, helping me regulate. If I'm not very good at seeing and hearing myself by, you know, noticing my own emotions that are going on or journaling or doing introspective work, but my partner makes me feel seen and heard, then what's going to happen is when there's a threat to the object of jealousy, right?

[00:24:37] When there's a threat to it, oh, now somebody comes along and speaks to my partner in a flirtatious way, It's not just the core wounds. Oh, what if I'm not good enough? What if I'm unlovable? What if I get betrayed? But it's also what if this person coming and talking to my partner takes my partner away and thus takes these needs away that I'm in learned helplessness usually, if I'm feeling a lot of jealousy, with meeting in the relationship to myself.

[00:25:01] And those are really the two root causes as it stands.

[00:25:05] Shanenn Bryant: So good! and it makes sense because I relate it to, it almost feels almost like a drug addiction in a sense of oh, I have this need and I cannot stop until, it's just going to drive me crazy. I've got to do something about it. I can't stop until I get that assurance from my partner.

[00:25:23] They give it to me. I feel good for a little bit and then I need it again. it's just this, cycle. Yeah.

[00:25:33] Thais Gibson - PDS: That's so interesting that happens is when we go back to talking about the subconscious mind for a second, the subconscious mind has a comfort zone. So, we kind of touched on this really briefly in passing, but we have a comfort zone.

[00:25:42] It's what's familiar. And what's really interesting is that we actually have a very difficult time allowing things to really be received and to really stay with us and land with us if what it is that we're receiving, we are in learned helplessness with giving in the relationship to self. So, I'll give you a few examples for anybody listening who's like, what does that mean?

[00:26:02] Thais Gibson: So, if I am constantly self-critical, okay, so I'm not complimenting or encouraging myself in my internal dialogue, I'm doing the opposite. My subconscious comfort zone is criticism. So, when somebody comes along and compliments me, I might be like, Ooh, that feels so good for a moment. And then because my subconscious will, it's almost like there's a hole in the bucket, right?

[00:26:23] There's a leak. And so, because my subconscious will be like, wait, and it's not part of my comfort zone, it will actually work to reject it because your subconscious equates familiarity to safety and thus survival. So usually for people that will look like, oh my gosh, that person just said that really nice thing to me.

[00:26:38] That's so sweet. That's amazing. Oh, I can't believe they said that about me. Wait, nobody says that about me. They probably don't mean it. They're probably being nice. 

[00:26:49] Thais Gibson: They probably have alternative motives, alternate motives. So, what you'll see is we may receive it and it feels good for a snapshot in time, but as soon as it's really reaching the deeper levels of our subconscious mind, we'll actually reject, deflect, deny, question, doubt

[00:27:04] all of these things because we can't receive what is not a part of what we give to ourselves in our comfort zone for long periods of time.

[00:27:12] Shanenn Bryant: Yes, the comfort zone. Probably why I would stir up shit and cause chaos in my relationships. Because I remember that when I started dating my husband of okay, why is nothing, like nothing's happening. It's fine. Everything's fine. That's weird. 

[00:27:33] Thais Gibson - PDS: Yes, 

[00:27:33] Shanenn Bryant: in my life, like everything, you know, I just grew up in so much chaos.

[00:27:37] And seeing that relationship be in chaos. And so, then I would create it because as much as I didn't like it, but that's what was comfortable me.

[00:27:47] Thais Gibson - PDS: Exactly. 

[00:27:50] And it's so interesting because there's such a correlation between jealousy and insecure attachment and often what I would hear people say who have attachment trauma as well from childhood is they would say when people are too safe, I'm scared that there's no passion or no spark. So I pick a fight just to make sure that we're still on the roller-coaster and what's actually happening, which is absolutely wild is when you unpack it and you go back to that kind of framework of like unmet needs or core wounds, usually what's happening is somebody's like

[00:28:24] I'm not getting enough of the emotional high that I'm used to. And because highs and lows, like the roller coaster, give us that thrill and that sensation of things. And so we instead say, okay, well, I'm not getting the emotional high. I'm not able to get in a good way right now. So the subconscious mind, which will get your needs met in the fastest way possible.

[00:28:44] It's not concerned about the best way possible says, I'm going to pick a fight because when we bicker or I pick a fight, I'm engaging the other person emotionally and I'm getting my emotional connection needs met, maybe in a bad way, but the subconscious mind isn't concerned about good or bad way.

[00:28:59] That's the conscious mind that logic, if it's logical and reasons, the subconscious is like, go get the need met. Here's the need. And you see this in so many different forms. Like whenever somebody struggles with really intense anger, 

[00:29:11] often anger, it's just a subconscious strategy to get seen, heard, we get big and loud to take our power back and to set a boundary all at once. And sometimes also to tell people how we really feel if we've been holding it in. So, anger in an unhealthy expressed form actually meets all of these needs at the same time. And jealousy is a subconscious strategy when we express it in unhealthy ways. Okay. So you think of how we act out, we have these protest behaviors and we feel jealous.

[00:29:40] Guess what that's doing? Getting attention from our partner. It's getting, you know, the, the ability to get reassurance. Hopefully, that's what we're hoping for in some sense. So the expression of jealousy in unhealthy ways is also subconscious strategy to redirect attention back towards us, try to gain that reassurance, and all of this is happening without our conscious minds reasoning.

[00:30:00] It's happening from subconscious programming, just desperately trying to achieve a need. Yeah.

[00:30:05] Shanenn Bryant: We're good at getting stuff done really fast. 

[00:30:10] Thais Gibson - PDS: Yep.

[00:30:11] Shanenn Bryant: Jut not always the best way. Yes. And it makes so much sense because You know, it's like, just like, get this out of me or I'm going to be angry if I have to be angry and be loud and be mean or whatever to make this stop is what it feels like.

[00:30:29] It feels like I'm like, I'm trying to make it stop. But I think what you're saying is you're trying to get that need met and that's the way to do it.

[00:30:36] Thais Gibson - PDS: Totally. And sometimes, too, when we express emotions to somebody, it's like a hot potato. We're like, oh, I'm going to pass my emotions to you. I'm going to get them out. And sometimes that's a need as well for like self-expression. But again, when the subconscious meets its needs in this really fast way, rather than in the optimal way where we've thought about it, we've reasoned, we've decided the healthiest way to get the need met, instead of being vulnerable and saying, hey, I'm feeling a little bit uncomfortable right now.

[00:31:00] It could really use some reassurance and actually having that conversation. When it feels too scary to be vulnerable about those things, our subconscious is obviously just left to its own devices at that point. So, then we'll express through protest behavior, whether it's pushing somebody away, trying to make them jealous back perhaps, shutting down completely, acting anxious or needy in different cases.

[00:31:22] Or being demanding, there's all these different avenues that we'll use to try to get our need met in whatever way we've actually been conditioned to think works the best for us based on our history of past experiences.

[00:31:35] Shanenn Bryant: Check, check. Done all of that. I've tried them all.

[00:31:39] Thais Gibson: And I think something that's so important, honestly, that I actually can't stress enough for anybody listening is like, if this has been a part of your experience, jealousy, like actual jealousy. So, we've shifted gears from like envy to jealousy. Envy is like unmet needs based. We can have a little bit of core wounds triggered, but usually very little, not much.

[00:31:58] When you're experiencing intense jealousy, you're feeling like your needs are extremely threatened, like survival threatened. My needs will be taken away that I don't know how to meet out elsewhere. So if my partner, let's say, is taken away or threatened my relationship to this person is threatened, I don't know how I'm going to survive without my needs being met because at the end of the day, our subconscious sees its needs as its lifeline.

[00:32:20] And I have these core wounds triggered and now I'm feeling all this suffering. Oh my gosh, I'm not good enough. I'm unworthy. I'm going to be abandoned. And when all of these things are happening at once, just for anybody who's been through this, that is a trauma response. It's not somebody being silly or being dramatic.

[00:32:38] This is trauma stored in your subconscious mind and nervous system expressing it in this kind of way because you probably had some trauma from past experiences in early childhood or past relationships that caused you to have to constantly fear these things to begin with.

[00:32:56] Shanenn Bryant: Thank you for bringing it up because I think when, especially when it comes to jealousy, people are met with, Oh my gosh, the crazy girl. The, you know, the psycho crazy girl and that causes people to shut down and not want to talk about it and not, and they think, Oh, there's something really wrong with me. And then it's this other track versus getting them to the path of understanding that there's trauma there. And then it makes sense why they're feeling that way to get them the help they need.

[00:33:28] the help 

[00:33:29] Thais Gibson - PDS: 100%. 

[00:33:29] Shanenn Bryant: Interesting 

[00:33:31] Thais Gibson - PDS: what you said is you can see where the programming started for in your share, for example, where, okay, I felt like my dad was choosing alcohol over me. And something that's really interesting is when we're children, we are acutely aware on some level that we are dependent on our caregivers.

[00:33:47] If you look at human beings compared to other species, human beings have so much more dependency on their caregivers for longer periods of time. So we have this like deep wiring of that dependency and there's this acute awareness that like if my parents abandon me or leave me, I'm not going to survive.

[00:34:04] It's actually about survival. And so, what happens is the first thing is that we often get survival and approval confused and intertwined, because if I'm getting chronic disapproval from my caregivers, oh my gosh, are they about to abandon me and I'm not going to be going out at six years old, getting a job and paying the bills.

[00:34:22] So we get those wires crossed quite easily, which can cause us to be extremely approval seeking and that's more codependent as a byproduct. But the other thing that happens is, we have this dynamic of going, if I can't get my needs met from somebody, if somebody is ignoring me, dismissing me, choosing something else over me, not available to be present, then I am chronically going to be wired to be afraid of that because that's affected me so much at such a young age where I'm extra sensitive to those sorts of things because I can't in fact stand on my own.

[00:34:52] And so the more repetitive experiences we have like that, the more terrifying it's going to feel. And that was a really powerful share. And there's so many people who go through, a really bad divorce or people who go through, other forms of addiction in their household or family or domestic violence, or there's so many different variations of this.

[00:35:11] And it's like 

[00:35:12] Thais Gibson: when people are judging themselves or shaming themselves for being jealous. It's like you're taking something that was already traumatic and you're compounding it because now you're shaming yourself for having a trauma response based on programming that you didn't ask for, that was already hard enough the first time around.

[00:35:28] And it keeps it, what we keep repressed will stay in the dark, right? We won't be able to heal or solve for. 

[00:35:33] Thais Gibson - PDS: So, I love that you said that because I think it's really powerful for people to have that kind of like space to explore what they're feeling and it's beautiful that you're doing this.

[00:35:43] Shanenn Bryant: Yeah. just having a place where somebody can go, oh my gosh, okay, I can at least talk about this or I can hear people talk about it so that it, so I get it. Okay. It's not, I'm not crazy. I'm not, you know, there isn't something fundamentally wrong with me and I'm just going to be this way because I used to think that I used to think I'm just made this way.

[00:36:02] There's nothing I can do about it. This is just how I am, and I thought that for 30 something years of my life so I think that's great. Thank you so much. And I also, I wish that, we were friends when I was dating because I would have been like, Thais, what is their attachment style?

[00:36:18] Tell me, help me here. I'm sure. Do you get people all the time? Hey, 

[00:36:23] I'm seeing this person. Oh, I'm 

[00:36:25] Thais Gibson - PDS: Absolutely. I get friends that text me at 1am hey, I'm on this date. And what do you do?

[00:36:33] So 

[00:36:33] yes. 

[00:36:33] Shanenn Bryant: What does 

[00:36:34] Thais Gibson - PDS: Yeah. 

[00:36:34] Shanenn Bryant: Yeah. 

[00:36:36] Oh my gosh. I know, So two things I want to cover before I let you go and. they're two pretty major things, but I definitely wanted to get to the part of, okay, then, what do we do? Because people will strangle me if I do not ask you that.

[00:36:50] So can we go there and then could you run through the attachment style so people have a sense of, okay, and I know people start to try to fit themselves in the bucket. So can we do those two things before we

[00:37:01] Thais Gibson - PDS: Absolutely. Absolutely. So I was excited to get to the part of what do we do about all of this? So I think the first part is that once you understand that, that clear depiction of Hey, this painful emotion is feedback that I probably have unmet needs that I'm feeling are threatened. And they're usually around like, whatever I feel like is being threatened.

[00:37:20] My partner, my job, whatever it is. I probably feel like what needs that thing meets the job, the partner, whatever it is you're feeling jealous around. You probably don't have many good sources in other areas of life to get those needs met. You're probably feeling on some level disempowered because if you felt like your buckets were full, your needs buckets were full, they were overflowing, and then there was some sort of threat here, it just wouldn't be able to land in the same way.

[00:37:43] Okay, so we want to understand that part and we want to understand, I also have core wounds and I'm telling myself all these stories about how I'm going to be unloved. So now what do we do is we work on each of those two things. So the first thing is you actually want to ask yourself the thing that's threatened.

[00:37:58] So we'll use the example of a partner. What needs are they meeting that you're feeling really afraid will be taken away? And what's really interesting is usually those exact needs, I would do this with clients and client sessions back when I had my practice, and I would say, what are your needs? Tell me, and we'd say, Oh, they make me feel seen, protected, loved, supported.

[00:38:21] And I would literally write on a piece of paper, a column and I'd be like, okay, now we're going to rank how much you're getting those needs met either in relationship to self or with other healthy sources in your life. And they would always be like a zero, a one, a two, maybe a three. And so we are basically latching on and we're addicted in a way to these needs being met through this one person, because they seem to be our only major source.

[00:38:44] Shanenn Bryant: So what we do is we say, I gotta go practice getting these needs met in new forms. And I have to use this as feedback that something in me doesn't feel whole without this person, and in fact I will be more whole and I will be able to show up in a more secure and healthy way in the relationship and self soothe better and take things less personally, all of the above, when I'm able to go get those needs that I'm feeling will be taken away.

[00:39:07] Thais Gibson - PDS: If this relationship is threatened or the job is threatened or whatever it might be that you're feeling is threatened with that feeling of jealousy. So

[00:39:14] Shanenn Bryant: the relationship can be important, but it's to the point of don't make it, we can't make it our whole world and the only source that we're getting because then, yes, then it's like critical that we just chokehold that relationship and not let it go.

[00:39:31] Thais Gibson - PDS: Absolutely. So there's this old story. It was one of my favorite books for a long time. It's still right up there at top five or 10 and it's called the Mastery of Love. And it's a book by Don Miguel Ruiz. He also wrote The Four Agreements. He's like an amazing author and it's a beautiful, simply written book that's really easy to read.

[00:39:49] And, he talks about, he gives a story, and I'll probably butcher the story a little bit because I read this book like 12 years ago, but he gives this story, and he talks about this analogy of a magical kitchen. And he says, imagine you have a kitchen and all day long your kitchen cooks whatever you want.

[00:40:04] You want a pizza? Snap your fingers. There's a pizza. You want ice cream? Ice cream. There it is. And somebody comes and they knock on your door, and they say, Hey, I have a pizza for you. But in exchange, you have to do all these things for me. clean my house, do my laundry, be kind to me all the time, do all these things I want, and they're a stranger.

[00:40:22] You're going to look at them because you have your magical kitchen inside and be like, why would I do all these things with all these stipulations attached when I already have everything that I need right here. I have all the pizza. I can get everything I need instantly. I have sources for this, right?

[00:40:35] And then he goes on to share the story of, now imagine your magical kitchen breaks and you have never had to get food on your own. And it's been six days and you're so hungry. And this person comes to your door, and they say, I have a pizza, but you have to do all these things at the same time. what are you going to do?

[00:40:52] You're going to be like, of course I will. I'm starving. And the analogy and the whole book, The Mastery of Love is actually about self-love and the analogy is about representing this idea that we actually, 

[00:41:03] Thais Gibson: if we're starving for something, and we don't have the empowerment to meet these needs within ourselves, we will be in relationships where we know there's a lot of red flags and downsides.

[00:41:13] We won't leave situations that actually are really unhealthy for us. We'll put up with behaviors that are absolutely not okay and consciously we know better, but our subconscious mind will keep going there if we continue starving for those needs. So, making one person your source not only increases the chances that you're not going to have, healthy relationships because you're willing to settle with things that are not okay.

[00:41:33] But on top of that, it's going to create dysfunction because as soon as we can, we're so triggered by things, it creates more fighting. We can't actually be prepared and ready for a healthy, balanced, secure relationship if we don't have access to those things that the relationship. 

[00:41:47] Shanenn Bryant: Hmm.

[00:41:49] Oh, I've eaten some horrible pizzas in my past. 

[00:41:54] Thais Gibson - PDS: I understand. for some really bad pizza

[00:42:00] And it's beautiful feedback. It's a, it's, there are hard lessons, but it's beautiful feedback for anybody who might be in that space, not in the past, but in the now. And if you had steps for just that needs part, it would be step one. Write out what are the needs that my partner really needs or that the job really meets.

[00:42:14] Whatever I'm feeling jealous over, like what are the needs? And step two would be rank them. From one to 10, how good of a job are you doing at getting these needs met through other sources? The ones that are ranked really low, we want to start doing the work. So then we want to be like, how can I get these needs met from other people in my life in healthy ways through honest self expression?

[00:42:33] Hey, I want to feel more seen in our relationship. I'm going to communicate more vulnerably. I need, to have more time. To, have quality time together. Okay, maybe I need to have quality time with friends and family members and multiple people in life. And then arguably the most important is how can I meet those in relationship to self?

[00:42:51] And usually the most common ones I'll see are things like feeling seen. We see ourselves when we meditate and we witness our thoughts and our emotions and our, and the sensations in our body. Or we see ourselves when we journal or do personal growth courses, or we read books and see how these things relate to our lives.

[00:43:07] These are elements of us being able to gift these things to ourselves that we're otherwise starving for and then seeking a little too much externally from others. Sometimes people will feel really, kind of limerent or like really infatuated with being protected. they're afraid of losing the protectiveness of their partner.

[00:43:23] Almost always those are the exact same people who really struggle to set boundaries so they can't protect themselves very well. So they, over attached to that externally as a means of serving that purpose. Again, not consciously. These are subconscious kind of autopilot things. Sometimes we'll get really attached to people who make us feel supported, or who are a safe space to express our emotions because we won't with ourselves and we don't support ourselves very well.

[00:43:45] So, you know, we can look at how can I show up and get those things to myself? And that resolves when we actually do that work and we show up consistently. Research shows it takes roughly 21 days to like actually reprogram to create new neural networks and neural pathways. So at first it might be like, Oh, this is weird.

[00:44:01] I'm seeing myself, I'm meditating. I'm journaling. Doesn't feel that great for the first 21 days. Once it's patterned in, it will be a part of your comfort zone. And now what's really interesting is your subconscious actually starts to feel good about receiving from self. and so we'll actually feel like we're building a relationship to ourselves.

[00:44:17] We'll start enjoying our own time alone more frequently and enjoying being with ourselves and we'll be able to self soothe way more effectively, which means less jealousy, less feeling threatened, less having to deal with those things to begin with. And that's really that big part one. And then we get into the core wounds part afterwards.

[00:44:34] Shanenn Bryant: Oh my gosh. So good. And what a simple question, too, to ask yourself. what is my partner giving me? You know, what are those, what needs are they meeting? And then being able to go, oh, okay, let me go figure out how I get them

[00:44:48] somewhere else. That's 

[00:44:49] awesome. 

[00:44:50] Thais Gibson - PDS: Exactly. 

[00:44:52] Shanenn Bryant: Go ahead.

[00:44:53] Thais Gibson - PDS: Do you want to do the part two? We'll do the core wounds part.

[00:44:55] Shanenn Bryant: Yes. Yeah. I'm trying to keep you on time.

[00:44:57] So I'm being,

[00:44:59] I'm 

[00:44:59] Thais Gibson - PDS: okay. If you're good, I'm good. So, so, so the second part is the core wounds. So I'll give a really simple tool for reprogramming. First of all, our core wounds are basically our baggage. They're the things that we've carried with us for a long time that honestly are they suck to carry, let's be honest.

[00:45:13] Like they are not fun. Nobody likes to feel not good enough or unloved or like they're always going to be betrayed. Like these are the worst things. So when you're trying to actually reprogram, there's a really simple tool called auto suggestion. There's basically three steps, but I'll just give a little bit of context.

[00:45:26] So your subconscious mind speaks through emotion and imagery. It does not speak language. I'm not really a big fan of affirmations. If I say whatever you do not think of the chocolate chip cookie. You probably thought of the chocolate chip cookie and it's because your conscious mind hears do not, but your subconscious just hears emotion and imagery.

[00:45:43] So it just goes, chocolate chip cookie feels the good emotions associated with it. Thinks of the chocolate chip cookie, sees it as an image, right? And so what happens is when we're trying to say, let's say we're trying to get rid of a core wound. I'm not good enough. we can't just say I'm good enough.

[00:45:56] I'm good enough. I'm good enough because we're just speaking to conscious mind, subconscious mind. We want to speak in emotion and imagery. So what is the container of all emotions and images? It's actually our memories. So if I were to say to somebody, okay, tell me your favorite childhood memory, and they close their eyes and they're like, Oh, I was playing on the playground and I was with my friends.

[00:46:15] They would see the images of the playground and they would smile because all the emotions would be intact from that original experience. So what we want to be able to do is go, okay, how do I leverage this? Well, I need repetition, emotion, and imagery to reprogram. And nobody wakes up every day saying, today, I'm going to tell myself I'm not good enough.

[00:46:33] a hundred times. these are not conscious, intentional things. These are autopilot. These are patterned programs that we're not trying to do this. They are

[00:46:40] happening.

[00:46:41] So what we want to do is we say, Okay, I have to use my conscious mind to speak to my subconscious because that's where the wounding is, right?

[00:46:47] It's not up here in my rational reasoning. So what I do is I go, I need 10 memories of how I felt good enough because memories give me the 10 gives me the repetition. The memory gives me the emotion and the images. Now, research shows we need 21 days. So I get 10 memories of how I feel good enough. I record them into my phone

[00:47:07] so I can hear them. And every day for 21 days, I have to listen back and I have to see it and feel about it as I'm going through it. I have to be present for that three minute recording where I'm talking about the memories. And what I'm doing is I'm feeding my subconscious emotion and imagery in a repetitive way across time, which research into neuroplasticity shows 21 days, we get new neural networks.

[00:47:29] If we can really do that around our big core wound, so we take the opposite of the core wound, if it's I'm abandoned, I'm worthy of connection, I'm unlovable, I'm lovable, I'm not good enough, I'm good enough. 10 pieces of memory, 21 days, we listen back to it. It actually reprograms our core wounds and it's actually extremely effective as long as we stick to it for that 21 days.

[00:47:48] Shanenn Bryant: Wow. So it's 10 different pieces you're saying like. Okay, now, so people are going to have to go, okay, I've got to come up with 10 things and you can come up with 10 things. If you really, you might have to think about it, but you've got them there but I think it's interesting.

[00:48:04] And obviously a very important part of that is. finding out what is that core wound. Like it's this one, it's this one, it's this one, so that you can go back and find those things that are opposite of that, right?

[00:48:17] Thais Gibson - PDS: Exactly. And so, you know, when we go into those things, each of those, sometimes people are like, how do I come up with the 10 pieces? Which is a very valid question. And because usually when we haven't been looking or thinking this way, it's actually hard to almost we almost have to like go in reverse, like kind of backtrack thinking the way we think about ourselves.

[00:48:34] But it's very beautiful, beneficial work to leave the core wounds behind. So it's worthwhile. What you can do as a hack is you can scan the different seven areas of life. So in my career, How have I shown up in ways that are good enough? What characteristics or qualities have I shown up with that make me good enough?

[00:48:49] Not because I'm pretending, but who I truly am in my career. I'm truly a contributing person, or a caring person of my coworkers, or whatever it might be. Who you truly are. Okay? Career. Financial. What are things I do in my financial area of life that are good enough? Do I budget in a good way? Do I make an effort to develop more streams of income?

[00:49:07] If somebody's like, I don't have anything in that area, skip to the next one. It doesn't have to, you don't have to have good ones for all areas. They're just helpful prompts. So career, financial, mental is like your learning areas of life. So hobbies, philosophies, political views, natural habits that you learn about, things you read about.

[00:49:24] Where are you strong there? Emotional, how you regulate, how you show up, how you personally grow and develop any work that you're doing. spiritual, that can be meditation, Buddhism, religion of some sort, you know, anything there where you show up in ways that you're proud of. Physical, can be your physical health, body appearance, any of those things.

[00:49:43] And then relationships, how you show up as a good friend, family member, romantic partner, whatever it might be. So you can scan those different areas of life if you need those extra prompts. But honestly, if somebody is determined it's quite easy to come up with those pieces of evidence and then it's just patterning them in.

[00:49:57] You just need that 21 days. Listen back, feel about it, see the images of those pieces of memory, and you're really able to rewire those things. And so when we rewire those core wounds and when we meet those deeply unmet needs, we're actually dealing with the root cause of what's creating that trauma response of jealousy to begin with.

[00:50:15] We can actually shift and change so that we are not experiencing jealousy like that any longer. Yes.

[00:50:21] Shanenn Bryant: goodness. So good. So good. And I don't want, like, no feedback on not, you know, having to hear your voice for 21 days. We're gonna, we're gonna hang in there and listen to our own voice for 21 days. It's worth it, right?

[00:50:37] Thais Gibson - PDS: Absolutely.

[00:50:39] Shanenn Bryant: Thank you so much for that. okay, can we just run through the four attachment styles very quickly?

[00:50:44] Because, and I was so impressed by this, you have a quiz, that people can 

[00:50:48] Thais Gibson - PDS: Yes. 

[00:50:49] Shanenn Bryant: out which they are?

[00:50:51] Thais Gibson - PDS: Absolutely. Yep. And it gives you a free report on your attachment style, what your core wounds will be, what your needs are, like all of that good stuff.

[00:50:57] Shanenn Bryant: Where do they go to find the quiz before we jump into them?

[00:51:01] Thais Gibson - PDS: Yeah. So personaldevelopmentschool.com and you just click attachment quiz at the top and you'll get a full, it's maybe it takes three to five minutes to fill out. Yep. There's about 30 questions and it helps you really discover exactly what your attachment style is and then give you some tips and tools and feedback about what you can do to make some shifts and changes. So there's four attachment styles. This is where a lot of our small T or big T trauma comes from. because our biggest imprints are usually in childhood and we're actually extra suggestible until the age of eight. so we're really like getting a lot of programs in a really deep way until that age.

[00:51:32] Of course, programming can change through repetition and emotion over time, but those are our big ones. So the securely attached style usually grows up in a home where there's a lot of, secure modeling in terms of dealing with thoughts, emotions, behavior. So they get a lot of what's called approach oriented activities from their caregivers.

[00:51:49] Let's say it's young children, they cry, The parents will go towards them, try to soothe them. The messaging that a child's actually getting through that is it's safe to express myself. It's safe to rely on people. Emotions are okay to share with other people. I can be vulnerable and it's safe. And so when there's a lot of that, plus as a child continues to grow up and they start communicating about their needs, there's a lot of healthy negotiation of needs.

[00:52:11] So let's say a child, it's like 11 p. m. The child should have been sleeping and they're crying and they're like, I want candy. And let's say they're like six years old, The parents not going to shame them for the need. They're not going to say, What's wrong with you? Be quiet and go to bed. They're going to say, Honey, I know you want candy.

[00:52:28] I understand you want candy. But if you eat candy, you're going to be up even later and you're not going to sleep well and you're going to be tired tomorrow. So why don't we do this? Let's go to bed now. It's past your bedtime. And tomorrow, if you eat a good breakfast, lunch, and dinner, you can have a little bit of candy after dinner.

[00:52:42] So there's this honoring of the child's needs, honoring of the child's perspective, validating that I see you, I understand what you want. And so it makes this child basically grow up to feel worthy of love. Worthy of expressing their needs, like it's safe to rely, to emote, to express, to trust other people.

[00:52:59] And so that's their modeling. So that's how they show up in relationships. And that's also how they are modeled to show up as a person in a relationship themselves, to give that and be able to be that for others. So that's the securely attached style. Research shows roughly 50 percent of people were historically secure.

[00:53:17] More recent research is like, Oh, it's closer to maybe 30%. Okay.

[00:53:21] Shanenn Bryant: and that was, I think that's a big thing though for people to realize because I did not expect it to be that high.

[00:53:29] And it because I hear it a lot, doesn't everybody have these things?

[00:53:32] Aren't everybody, doesn't everybody struggle? It's no, not everybody does.

[00:53:36] Thais Gibson - PDS: I think everybody has little struggles in life for sure, but I actually think that the framework and like the, spectrum to which people are struggling with things is actually quite unique. It's very different for people based on a lot of these things. so yeah, it's super, super interesting topic of discussion.

[00:53:52] So there's, there's three insecurely attached styles. One, you can think of them as being on a continuum. One is the anxiously attached style. It's one that a lot of people relate to, but people in an anxious household usually have a lot of love and actually quite healthy and supportive parents, but that love is often taken away.

[00:54:10] So what I mean by this is there can be a real abandonment, it's less often this, where there's a divorce, one parent maybe moves away, maybe they're kind, but there's more, inconsistency. It's a little bit more complicated than that. And it will condition somebody to deeply fear abandonment and create a core wound as a result.

[00:54:47] So anxiously attached individuals grow up to feel really scared of being abandoned, excluded, disliked, alone, not good enough, those are the big sort of core wounds there. Now, on the other end, and by the way, you'll see as an adult that this person becomes anxious. So they become chronically afraid and hypervigilant around people leaving them.

[00:55:05] They worry about it a lot and they tend to, very much exhibit clingy behaviors and relationships as a result. Then the opposite, in a sense, is our dismissive avoidant. Dismissive avoidants grew up with childhood emotional neglect. So they basically grew up in a household where it feels to them like they, because biologically we were wired for And when you have two, I don't, you know, avoiding parents who are unavailable, a child doesn't go, Oh, my parents are emotionally unavailable.

[00:55:33] That's too bad. The child goes, I'm yearning for a connection. They feel this yearning and they can't make sense of it. And children hyper personalize everything. It's how we're wired as kids. So children go, Oh, it must be something wrong with me. I must be defective. 

[00:55:48] And so they often also, get either emotions ignored or even actively shamed. So they think, oh, my emotional side of myself is shameful and will be seen as weak, defective, unworthy, not good enough. If I express it, so they have a lot of core wounds around that and generally they feel a sense of like emotional unsafety in relationships because they've never had really safe emotional exchanges.

[00:56:09] And so they grow up and they tend to be the people who when they start to attach, they panic. They don't want to feel that vulnerability again. They associate it with all these negative things like being weak or shamed or defective and so they tend to be the ones that are afraid of commitment, may suddenly pull away from somebody in a relationship the moment things get really real.

[00:56:28] And they tend to get the bad rap, honestly, out of the attachment styles, but the reality is it's trauma, right? They're going through their own version of a trauma response when they get close to people. And, yeah, and it comes from pain. That's our dismissive avoidant. Of course, they often end up in relationships together.

[00:56:42] The anxious and the dismissive.

[00:56:44] Shanenn Bryant: It makes it worse, right? oh, now I'm more anxious

[00:56:47] Thais Gibson - PDS: Yes, 

[00:56:47] exactly. Exactly. And it goes back to the subconscious comfort zone, which is so interesting. Like anxious attachments, they are constantly dismissing and avoiding themselves. So their zone of familiarity is to attract people who also dismiss and avoid them because it's what's familiar. And dismiss avoids are very preoccupied with the relationship to themselves, their own time, their own space, because that's how they regulate themselves.

[00:57:10] And they often attract people who are very also preoccupied with their time and space. So it's very interesting, but, last but not least, there's a fearful avoidant. Fearful avoidance is sometimes also called disorganized attachment style. They tend to have the most, both big T and large T trauma, statistically, in all the attachment styles.

[00:57:28] And basically, what is formed through the fearful avoidant, is they tend to have conflicting experiences about love and connection. Some really good ones, some really awful ones. And the range tends to be much greater. So, Basically, you can imagine, and actually the example I often use all the time, on podcasts is if there's a parent who's an alcoholic.

[00:57:47] and so you, the parent comes home one day and they're in a great mood, they've had a few drinks, they're in a good mood, they're really loving, they're extra nice, and that's great. And another day they've had a few too many drinks and they're angry and mean and cruel. Another day they're sobering up and they are going through withdrawals and detox and they are in a terrible place and they can't really extend anything to anybody.

[00:58:09] And maybe then at some points or, sporadic periods in time they have these, periods of sobriety and they're really trying to make up for lost time and they are showing up kindly and they're doing their best. And so it's like you never know what you're going to get. You've got these really nice experiences sometimes and really terrifying or confusing experiences other times.

[00:58:29] And what happens is sometimes why fearful words are referred to as disorganized is because they can never form a proper attachment strategy. Anxious preoccupied. It's like love is safe. As soon as I can get people near me, let me just get close to them. That's my attachment strategy. Dismissive avoidance are like people won't show up for me.

[00:58:44] I'm just going to like totally stay away from people and just meet my own needs. Fearful avoidance are like, I don't know what's going on. Like I,

[00:58:51] I, 

[00:58:52] Shanenn Bryant: what to do.

[00:58:53] Thais Gibson - PDS: and so actually what their attachment strategy becomes is to be extremely hypervigilant. They notice everything. They notice any shift in pattern, behavior, and they actually share in the core wounds of both the anxious and the avoidant attachment style.

[00:59:07] They have the fears of abandonment. They have the fears of being alone or excluded and they really feel that and that's really big for them because they have wounds there. They get core wounds there but they also have the fears of the dismissal boy, which are like, what if I'm weak, if I'm vulnerable or share too much or say too much?

[00:59:22] What if something's really wrong with me at my core? I am defective core wound. and they also get scared of feeling trapped, helpless and powerless in the wrong relationships. And so they basically can become like a bit of a pendulum swing where sometimes they'll really feel their anxious side and other times they really strongly deactivate, shut people out, leave relationships quickly, push people away.

[00:59:42] And so basically they really have both parts to their attachment style as a whole. And the biggest wound that they tend to carry is, I can't trust. Because if you never know what you're gonna get, you're always waiting for the other shoe to drop. And so this sense of not trusting that the person will be loyal or faithful or that they won't abandon them eventually in the future or they won't get bored or change their mind or you know all the things that could happen are there.

[01:00:06] And so obviously that tends to be a place from which people often experience a lot of jealousy as well.

[01:00:12] Shanenn Bryant: Yeah. Ding, ding. Jealousy. . Like jealousy. Not trusting all of those things. that's what we were talking about. And you're, you were fear, you were fearful. Avoidant as

[01:00:21] Thais Gibson - PDS: I was fearful of avoidant. Yeah, I was fearful of avoidant. I definitely like, so I definitely have experienced a lot of jealousy. Funnily enough, I was definitely more, if I felt jealous, I would just deactivate. I'd be like, oh, okay. I wouldn't even share it, express it. I'd be like, okay, I don't want to be in this relationship because this person's not making me feel good.

[01:00:39] and, and so that was there for me for sure. More of it was just like totally debilitating fears of trusting, like in general. Like, it would be less like, oh no, what if they like someone else or things like that. Although that was there, I definitely had a relationship in particular.

[01:00:53] I like looked through this person's phone, all kinds of stuff. Did the whole jealousy dance for sure. been there. but more I would tend to pull away from situations like that. if I felt like that, it was such a bad feeling for me, such an uncomfortable feeling that I would like. Sabotage the relationship as a whole rather than even try to get reassurance from the person But you can really see it from a fearful avoidance because they have the anxious and avoidance side. You can see it go either way. You can see that they become anxious and clingier over those experiences or they go get out of here and really push away over those experiences and it can actually change depending on the relationship or depending on just the situation that's happening on a daily basis.

[01:01:29] Shanenn Bryant: Yeah, and I've seen people just leave really I'm just gonna break up

[01:01:32] Thais Gibson - PDS: Yep. 

[01:01:33] Shanenn Bryant: I can't handle feeling this way, so I'm just gonna break up. It's gonna be there again unfortunately. 

[01:01:38] Thais Gibson - PDS: Exactly. 

[01:01:39] Shanenn Bryant: You're gonna be breaking up a lot.

[01:01:41] Thais Gibson - PDS: Exactly. This is absolutely true. 

[01:01:44] Shanenn Bryant: Yeah. Thais Gibson, thank you so much for spending time here and really going through it. I appreciate you being here.

[01:01:52] Thais Gibson - PDS: Thank you so much for having me. This was a blast. I had so much fun and really appreciate you having me.

[01:01:56] Shanenn Bryant: Thanks.

[01:01:58] ​