Learning to Love Yourself with Thais Gibson

In this episode, we're diving deep into the world of emotional healing and attachment styles to uncover the secrets of self-love and personal transformation. Thais Gibson, a renowned expert on attachment theory and the author of "Learning Love," joins me to share profound insights and actionable strategies to help you truly understand and love yourself. You’ll also learn: The transformative power of understanding your attachment style and how it affects your relationships. Practical techniques for reprogramming negative core beliefs and building unshakable self-esteem. How to identify and meet your unmet emotional needs to break free from the cycle of dependency on others. The importance of self-awareness and how it can elevate every aspect of your life. Powerful tools to help you heal from past pain and find your true purpose. This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to enhance their emotional health, build stronger relationships, and cultivate a deep sense of self-worth. Join Thais and me as we explore the path to loving yourself fully and living a life filled with joy and connection. Get ready to transform your approach to self-love and unleash your potential, right here on today’s show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Ed Mylett?

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• 2:03Speaker 01

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• 2:36Ed Mylett?

  This is the Ed Mileage Show.

• 2:40Ed Mylett?

  Welcome back to the show, everybody. I was just telling this lady that off camera that her work's really made a profound impact on me, even in the last few days of my life. Her name is Thais Gibson, number one. I gotta tell you that today's conversation will be different than most anyone we've ever had on the show before. She is the co-founder of the Personal Development School. But the reason she's here today is she's got a book out called Learning Love. And we're going to talk about attachment styles, the theory behind that, and a bunch of other stuff that I think is going to be new groundbreaking information for so many of you. So Thais, welcome to the show.

• 3:12Thais Gibson?

  Thank you so much, Ed, for having me. I'm really grateful to be here with you.

• 3:15Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, I'm grateful too. And Learning Love is an awesome book, everybody. Let's, let's step back just for a second and because there's, tell us what attachment style is. We'll get into the four types in a minute. And then also where it comes from. I was really struck about this one parent thing that you talk about. So what is an attachment style in general and where's it come from? And then we'll talk about what the ones are.

• 3:37Thais Gibson?

  Perfect. So, so our attachment style is basically the subconscious set of rules that we've learned about how to give and receive love and really what to expect in relationships. And I often give people the analogy that if you have a different attachment style than somebody else, it's like sitting down to play a board game and you have the rules for Monopoly and I have the rules for Scrabble. Like even if we want to have fun and play the game, we're just going to have unnecessary friction and confusion because we have different rules. So our attachment style, which first of all, every single person has one, is the set of rules that we've had for love. So when we have different rules, it creates a lot of problems and challenges. But also, three of the four styles are insecurely attached. And that makes for some difficult strategies and points of communication.

• 4:22Thais Gibson?

  So there's a lot that we can really improve there and become securely attached. And that will help create a lot of transformation.

• 4:29Ed Mylett?

  Isn't there the theory or your theory is that it comes from some sort of dynamic with one of your parents primarily? Am I right about that?

• 4:36Thais Gibson?

  That's exactly correct. So, so basically you learn how to give and receive love through your parents as a whole. Like those are our first subconscious programs we develop in regards to what love looks like, how our needs are met, how our emotions should be treated, how we should be spoken to in relationships. All of that is modeled to us at a very young age. And the three ways we really pick up programming from a very young age are what we see repetitively or what's modeled to us, what we hear repeatedly and what our firsthand experiences are. So those relationships we have with our caregivers as children really form that strong foundation for exactly how we expect love and relationships to go in our adult life.

• 5:16Ed Mylett?

  See, I, I told you off camera, I think the reason your work is so profound and this conversation today will be everybody is self-awareness is such a powerful tool to have in your life. And by the way, my favorite people that I like to have around me, I think have a heightened self-awareness. They've done some work on that. But the reason this works contextually, what we're about to cover everybody is you're really going to begin to understand yourself so well and why you feel or don't feel loved when you're in a relationship and it could be an intimate relationship or a friendship. And, and then also how to give it to the right person at the same time. So that they can feel it. I've often said on the show, not often, I've said a couple of times, that I think I'm, and this is a confession that

• 6:00Ed Mylett?

  was, I don't know, painful to admit, but in my case, I think I'm pretty good at giving love to other people. You know, I, I think in my life, I've been pretty good to my friends and family, but I have struggled to allow myself the gift of feeling it. And I want to more. And I think the last few years, that's improved to some extent, but you nodded when I said that. Do you hear that often? Or do you relate to that?

• 6:25Thais Gibson?

  I knew the moment you shared about your childhood. So, so as I had mentioned to you off camera, I'd seen some of your videos before doing speaker training. And actually one day I listened to was a beautiful story about having a parent who was an alcoholic. Basically, that's most likely to create a fearful avoidant attachment style. And fearful avoidants are renowned, this is actually what I was as well before doing the work. Fearful avoidants are renowned for being very loving, very giving. Showing up 10 out of 10 for people in times of crisis, emergency. Really good at rolling with the punches, very resilient. But also actually have a hard time truly being vulnerable about the things that are deeply vulnerable to them. Specifically relying on people, letting people in deeply. Um, feeling like they can really trust that somebody will always be there for them.

• 7:10Thais Gibson?

  And so it's like you over give and under receive, and that's very fearful avoidant. So as soon as you said that, I was like, that probably would be par for the course. So that's why I nodded.

• 7:19Ed Mylett?

  Dawn, you're right. I started to read your work like, yep, that one's me. And by the way, one thing she says, we're going to go through it now too, that I love is this isn't necessarily a static thing either. And so just, it's so great. So let's, let's take our time on this because I think just this right here, if someone could understand themselves or others is an invaluable lesson that will actually could alter the direction of your life and the bliss that you feel in your life, the joy, the love that you feel. So what are the four attachment styles and take your time on each one? And if you want to um, describe the behaviors that go with them, because that's what helped me. The style and then the behaviors. I think is uh, I think everybody right now, if you're driving, you're going to want to probably go back and listen to this again because you're gonna, you're gonna want to write this down.

• 8:04Thais Gibson?

  Okay, perfect. So the first of four is our securely attached style. And this is the one that we ideally want to become. Because as you've just mentioned, our attachment style, it's not like a personality disorder or a diagnosis. It's basically just a set of programs that you have about love. So this is something we can change. Now, the securely attached style gets a lot of what we call approach oriented behaviors in childhood. And approach oriented behaviors psychologically means that when a child cries or expresses emotion, caregivers go towards that child and they are very attuned, very present. They are able to try to soothe the child. I know that sounds like it might be a small thing, but it actually has a massive impact because what a child learns growing up in this kind of environment is

• 8:48Thais Gibson?

  It's safe to express emotion. It's safe to rely on other people. My needs are worthy of being met and listened to. And I can really trust other individuals to look out for me, to take care of me. So securely attached individuals grow up to essentially have really healthy modeling and skills for relationships. And as a result, statistically, they report being in the longest lasting relationships. But I'm sure we can both agree that that's not what we would call a thriving relationship per se. Securely attached individuals also report being happiest in their relationships. They report actually feeling really happy and fulfilled by their romantic partner. So that's our securely attached style. There are three insecurely attached styles.

• 9:34Thais Gibson?

  At one end of the continuum, in a sense, there's the anxious attachment style. Now, the anxious individual grows up with a lot of inconsistency in childhood, but often loving and fairly present caregivers when they are with that parent.

• 9:48Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 9:49Thais Gibson?

  So generally, what you'll see is an anxious attachment style may have love and and very caring parents, but perhaps they work a lot. So it's like love is there, love is taken away. Love is there, love is taken away. Now, neuroplastically, we get conditioned through repetition and emotion. So this will fire and wire these deep rooted fears of, okay, love keeps getting taken away. Am I going to be abandoned?

• 10:11Ed Mylett?

  Does this happen with divorced parents too, where you go to one loving parent to another loving parent, or would that be different?

• 10:16Thais Gibson?

  That would be an exact example. So I'm just giving one example, but that could be one. It could also be that we have a very loving parent, but another parent who's much more inconsistent or a little bit withdrawn. So the juxtaposition of love there, love not really there in the same way. All of those things would create the consistency of inconsistency, which is that overarching theme that will create an anxious attachment style.

• 10:41Thais Gibson?

  So anxious attachment cells then grow up to have these big core wounds in relationships. They fear being abandoned, alone, rejected, disliked, excluded. And they basically cope with these fears by trying to maintain proximity. So your anxious attacher is often the person who will call repeatedly, text many, many times, move very fast in relationships. Really derive a lot of their sense of self-esteem and self-confidence through their relationships rather than through a relationship with self. And they often will get caught people pleasing a lot, sometimes be boundaryless in relationships. And of course, unfortunately, a lot of these things become self fulfilling prophecies. So because they hold on so tightly, they often accidentally push people away.

• 11:26Thais Gibson?

  And exactly what they're afraid of usually comes to fruition.

• 11:31Ed Mylett?

  I can hear millions of people nodding their heads right now. Thinking about themselves, starting to explain yourself to you, didn't if you're in that category, everybody. Okay, please keep going. I just think this is just so good.

• 11:44Thais Gibson?

  Thank you. And at the other end of the continuum is the dismissive avoidant attachment style. So they're very much the opposite of the anxious in many different ways. The dismissive avoidance overarching theme from childhood is childhood emotional neglect. Now, I think when a lot of us think of neglect, we think of like the child's left in the corner, there's no food on the table. Oftentimes, I would say ninety five percent plus of the time, it's very covert neglect. It's things like having, you know, parents in the household, there's structure, there's stability, food's on the table, kids are at school on time. But if you express an emotion, go in the other room, come back when you're done crying. Or don't be a crybaby, or that's embarrassing, don't cry in front of other people, hold it together.

• 12:28Thais Gibson?

  And the constant messaging, which creates that programming, that repetition and emotion that fires and wires those narrow pathways. That constant programming or messaging the child receives is your emotions. They're dysfunctional, they're defective, we don't really want them here. Because a child is wired for attunement, all of us biologically are wired for attunement and closeness. A child doesn't know how to make sense of that experience and they don't go, oh, my parents emotionally unavailable because they can't conceive of that yet. So they go, there must be something wrong with me. This part of me must be defective and shameful and wrong at the core because it just constantly gets rejected. So they

• 13:08Thais Gibson?

  cope or adapt to that kind of experience by going, okay, I am literally going to just keep myself very distant from people emotionally, never open up, never allow myself to get seen, or feel too much, or feel anything too real. Now, as adults, the dismissive avoidant ends up often being in a relationship, things are good early on, and as things, as soon as things feel too serious, they often drop out. We very abruptly, sometimes, you know, blindside somebody. And their big core fears in relationships are, I'm defective, something's wrong with me at my core. So they're very sensitive to criticism, even though they're very stoic and most people would never know. And they also feel afraid

• 13:49Thais Gibson?

  of being unsafe emotionally, if they're too open, afraid of being weak, disrespected, um, not capable, if they're, they're vulnerable. They have a lot of these deep wounds. And so they often are individuals who struggle a lot with commitment, with settling into relationships, and with wanting to really let people in and allow themselves to be seen much at all.

• 14:10Ed Mylett?

  So hey, guys, I want to jump in here for a second and talk about change and growth. And you know, by the way, it's no secret how people get ahead in life or how they grow. And also taking a look at the future. If you want to change your future, you got to change the things you're doing. If you continue to do the same things, you're probably going to produce the same results. But if you get into a new environment where you're learning new things and you're around other people that are growth oriented, you're much more likely to do that yourself. And that's why I love Growth Day. Write this down for a second, growthday.com/ed. My friend Brendon Burchard has created the most incredible personal development and business app that I've ever seen in my life. Everything from goal setting software to personal accountability, journaling, courses, thousands of dollars worth of courses in there as well. I create content in there on Mondays where I contribute,

• 14:53Ed Mylett?

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• 15:11Ed Mylett?

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• 17:16Ed Mylett?

  So good. I'm just thinking of somebody that I know very well right now. What's great about the way you described the attachment styles is that everybody right now is either so far thought of themselves or a very close friend they know that fit one of these attachment styles. I just want to say one thing too, before we get to the last one or the next one. I I know that the nature of your work, everybody listening to this is sort of romantic relationships, but I have to tell you all, when I read this, I actually have thought about friendships that I've had. I actually think about business and leading people and understanding the way in which they respond or won't respond. I think the application of her work is is very, very broad in understanding human beings and how to affect them and how

• 17:59Ed Mylett?

  to connect with them, or understanding why you're not connecting with somebody. So, but anyway, continue, please.

• 18:06Thais Gibson?

  And to your point, I couldn't agree more. This is because our relationships, it's a primarily first a relationship to ourselves. So that goes with us everywhere, but you'll see these patterns popping up absolutely in the workplace with friendships, family, everything. So, so the last attachment style, this is what I was, and and I'm sure this is probably what you are from the sound of it, or were. But basically, the last attachment style is called fearful avoidant. And sometimes it's referred to as disorganized attachment style. And basically, often the example I actually give for what will form a disorganized attachment style would be an example of somebody having a parent who's who's an addict or an alcoholic. It can also be things like having a really bad divorce and being parentified. That was a lot of my experience. Parents went through this 15 year divorce. I was always

• 18:51Thais Gibson?

  in the middle of it at a young age, lots of chaos, lots of really big fights happening my my whole childhood. But basically, what this is creating in terms of programming is I never know what I'm gonna get. Sometimes I have these positive experiences with love, where sometimes love is safe and it's okay, and I yearn for it. And and so I care about love and I want to connect. But other times, love is scary, unpredictable, has moments of cruelty, perhaps. And so what happens with a fearful avoidant in their childhood is they learn to have these basically extreme competing associations about love that are on opposite ends of the spectrum. I want love, and it can be really scary. Love can be beautiful sometimes, terrifying others. And so what happens for a fearful avoidant

• 19:35Thais Gibson?

  attachment style is growing up in an environment that's really unstable, unpredictable, chaotic. They basically learn. I have this anxious side and they share in the feelings of the anxious attachment style. They can fear abandonment. They can fear being rejected or not good enough. But they also share in the avoidance side. They fear being too close, being trapped, helpless, powerless in the wrong situation. And so fearful avoidance basically are very hot and cold in relationships. They're kind of pinballing back and forth. And for me, as an example, I grew up feeling like I wanted to be close to people. I would be very loving and generous and giving. And then when people would get too close, I would be like, get back.

• 20:14Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 20:15Thais Gibson?

  And oftentimes the fearful avoidant flip flops back and forth. And a lot of this is because of those deep inner wired programs from childhood of, okay, love is good, but love is also scary. And it can create a lot of that sort of internal push, pull and confusion, which of course often shows up in external relationships as a result.

• 20:33Ed Mylett?

  It's so great. I have, you know, everybody, we're talking a lot about childhood here. And the more and more I've been doing the work I do the last 25 or 30 years, the more I realize like the vast majority of the work we're all doing is connected to our childhood. Like just the vast majority of our work is those, I don't know, those years were, you know, are from infancy to 10, 12, 15 years old and beyond even to teenage years. And I think the more you dive into that work, the more you are going to be an effective parent, an effective human, an effective friend, effective business person. You say in the book, um, 95% of your thoughts and behaviors originate in your subconscious mind. And so basically our lives are sort of on this auto kind of pilot program.

• 21:18Ed Mylett?

  And then you also talk about the subconscious reality lens. I'm just curious as to what that term, I think I know, but I, not everyone's read the book. So what does that mean? And why does it matter that we have an appreciation and understanding of that?

• 21:33Thais Gibson?

  Yeah, it's a great question. So we all see reality through a filter of our past, right? So I often give the example that somebody could have the exact same external experience. We could take, for example, an anxious attachment style and a dismissive, who's the more avoidant one, and they could both be dating, let's say, somebody who doesn't call them back. Well, the anxious attachment style, because we see through the filter of our past programming, it's really the lens that we see and interact with the world through. They're probably gonna make it mean I'm about to be abandoned because that's their past experience. Those are the conclusions the mind will jump to. Whereas a dismissive avoidant attachment style, they're probably gonna make it mean I'm free. I don't have to talk on the phone because they often fear too much vulnerability, too much closeness.

• 22:18Thais Gibson?

  So, you know, we never really have these objective points of view. We're all living through this subjective worldview that's first being conditioned by and wired in by our pre-existing programs from childhood. Now, one thing that's really important to recognize is that our mind is also wired from a survivalistic perspective to hang on to negative things much more than positive things. If you are walking through a forest tomorrow and you see a bear and you run away and you you're safe, but tomorrow, the the following day, you have to go back through the same path. You don't think, oh, yesterday I saw such a pretty tree next to the bear and there was such a pretty flower on the floor. You remember the bear and its teeth.

• 22:59Thais Gibson?

  So we're wired to hang on to more negative experiences, especially when they impact us emotionally because we think that by holding on, we then have a better chance to protect ourselves from them. Which is why we hold on to our negative experiences from childhood. And then to keep ourselves safe, although it doesn't happen emotionally, we constantly re-project them back out onto our external world. We'll jump to those conclusions, we'll assume those same patterns will happen with other people in relationships. And that's often the actual place that we end up sabotaging relationships from if we have unresolved childhood attachment challenges from a younger age.

• 23:38Ed Mylett?

  I think you also um repeat those patterns to stay consistent with yourself. In other words, if I don't consistently do this, I'm somehow not being the me that I'm familiar with and that's a scary change in and of itself. Do you agree with that?

• 23:52Thais Gibson?

  There's a lot of research to back this. I actually talk about this all the time. I couldn't agree more. Our subconscious mind works very hard to maintain its comfort zone because to your, to your point, it says, well, what's familiar is safe and thus I'm more likely to survive. And in, in something that's so interesting is you'll see when people meet each other. So our conscious mind takes up to about forty to sixty bits per second of data. And our subconscious and unconscious collectively take up to a billion bits per second of data. So we may meet somebody and be like, you know, we're, we're picking up all this web of information about their micro expressions, their body language, their tone of voice, how long they maintain, maintain eye contact for. And people are often choosing people who will mirror back to them their childhood as well because that's what's most familiar.

• 24:36Thais Gibson?

  So if you look at anxious attachment style, they're so externally focused, they're so people pleasing everybody else. They're dismissing and avoiding themselves. So guess who we often choose? People who mirror back to us the relationship to self first because that's what's most familiar and thus most safe. And so anxious attachment styles will often choose emotionally unavailable people. Hence that cycle will continue for their likelihood of being abandoned.

• 25:01Ed Mylett?

  Outstanding. I'm thinking of one of the other applications I want to ask you about. So I, I, obviously you're in a, a romantic or intimate relationship with somebody. One of the things, I was thinking about this, reading this yesterday. One of the main questions I get, and I bet you get to, is people that are in relationships together.

• 25:21Ed Mylett?

  Try it. They'll say, how do I get my spouse, my boyfriend or my girlfriend to support my dream? Or this change I want to make? And I started reading these different attachment styles and I'm like, well, if you could really have an understanding of the attachment style of your partner, that would certainly help you understand how to help them support your dream, help them support this business you want to start. Do you agree with that? Like if you've got an abandonment issue and somebody says, I'm going to start a business or start to pursue a dream. I have to think part of their thinking is if you, if you're successful, you're going to leave me. If we just stay the way that we are, you'll never leave me. And so one of their, their real fears is, well, if you start to win and change and grow, you're, you're gonna leave me.

• 26:04Ed Mylett?

  And so if I knew that, I would think if I was in a relationship with that person, I would wanna be overly reassuring that I'm gonna stay, that I'm gonna be here, that we're gonna build this dream together, that I'm doing this for us. Do you, do you see what I'm saying? Do you agree with that?

• 26:18Thais Gibson?

  100%. So a big part of what we focus on actually in this work, and, and people hear it in the book too, is, is again, to your point, it's that each attachment style not only has these core fears, but they also have these core needs. And if you imagine, you know, if you've ever heard of the, the work of Dr. Gary Chapman, Dr. Gary Chapman talks about the five love languages. And he says, okay, they are words of affirmation, physical touch, quality time, acts of service, and gifts. Now, I would make a very strong argument that our needs are much more impactful than love languages. Because for me, I, for example, have a huge quality time need or love language. But if I sit down and I watch Netflix with somebody for an hour, that's gonna be way different than having like a deep conversation with somebody,

• 27:03Thais Gibson?

  because that meets the need for emotional connection, for authenticity. And so, you know, our needs, in my opinion, have a much greater impact on the ways that we give and receive love in relationships. And what happens is each unique attachment style has different needs. So, you know, anxious attachment styles, they need, exactly like you said, they need more reassurance, they need more validation, encouragement, certainty, consistency, dismissive avoidance, they need more freedom, autonomy, independence, but they also actually really need empathy, support, and acceptance, as well as appreciation about small things. And fearful avoidance tend to need a lot of depth, they need novelty exploration, they need growth. They also want, you know, this, this intimate connection and closeness, but they also want their freedom and independence,

• 27:48Thais Gibson?

  because they sort of share in both sides of that attachment continuum. So I always tell people, like, if if we had like a prescription for relationships, it would be know each other's needs and relationships. And then when we go through these big life changes or transformation, like you're building something, you're creating something, rather than somebody having to be like, oh, no, I want to stay familiar and safe and accidentally sabotaging the relationship as a result, or having these protest behaviors or ways of acting out. It's like, well, if you know your partner's needs, when we go through a big change, just pour into each other's needs during those times, and it will strengthen the relationship and also ensure that you're growing together, rather than growing apart.

• 28:25Ed Mylett?

  So good. I was thinking, I'm thinking about a lot of different things, but one of them is, you know, when you're understanding these attachment styles, your own and that of your partner, helps you understand where resistance can be coming from. So sometimes what's what's the resistance that I'm getting from them? Why don't they want me to start this business? Why are, why is it they don't want me to go do this? And now you might have a deeper understanding of, of the reasoning behind, you know, not only their behaviors, but if you understand their behaviors and their needs, you understand where this resistance is coming from. I wrote a term down just because I didn't understand if it was different than what I was reading. So I, this is just for my edification. What is integrated attachment theory?

• 29:09Ed Mylett?

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• 29:51Ed Mylett?

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• 30:34Ed Mylett?

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• 31:10Thais Gibson?

  So integrated attachment theory is the science of how we can actually change to become securely attached. We're not stuck with our attachment style. So it's actually the study of these, these five major places that we can do the work at a subconscious level so that we can become secure and have like the, the strengths that came out of having an insecure attachment style. Cause there are strengths. We become resilient, resourceful, more empathetic, more compassionate in a lot of ways, but also have wired in those healthy patterns of secure attachment.

• 31:38Ed Mylett?

  Can you elaborate on what some of those places are?

• 31:41Thais Gibson?

  Yes. So the first one is we have to reprogram core fears. So we all have these core fears, like we talk, we've talked about the abandonment or the fear of being trapped or defective or criticized. And so we can actually, we're not born with those fears. We can recondition them through leveraging the science of neuroplasticity. So repetition and emotion fires and wires new ideas. And it's not through something like affirmations. I'll sort of go down a rabbit hole here just briefly.

• 32:06Ed Mylett?

  Please.

• 32:07Thais Gibson?

  But a lot of people will try to do affirmations. So let's say somebody, for example, has a core fear, I'm not good enough. You're not gonna really help yourself by saying, I'm good enough, I'm good enough, I'm good enough. I think it's a little bit futile. And the reason is because your conscious mind speaks language. If I say to you, Ed, whatever you do, do not think of a chocolate chip cookie.

• 32:27Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 32:28Thais Gibson?

  How did that go? So, so what happens is your conscious mind hears do not, but your subconscious actually speaks in emotion and in images. So, nobody's waking up intentionally having these core fears. Nobody's saying, oh, I'm gonna tell myself I'm not good enough forty seven times today and hope that I feel good. What's actually happening is these are subconscious pre-existing programs. So we have to speak to the subconscious mind to solve for that. So what I give people as an original tool to recondition these core fears that really are the big saboteurs of our relationships. I'll be abandoned, I'm not good enough, I'll be alone forever. These huge things that wreak havoc on our life and relationships is we start by number one. Identifying the core fear and its opposite. Very simple. I'm not good enough, I am good enough.

• 33:13Thais Gibson?

  Number two, we need ten pieces of memory of times we did feel good enough. And the reason we have memory and the reason we pick ten is because we need repetition for firing and wiring. And memory is just container for emotions and images. If somebody recounts their favorite childhood memory, maybe it's them playing on the playground, what do you see? The images of the slide. As you tell the story, you smile, your body language shifts and changes. So now we're using our conscious mind to speak to our subconscious mind. Step three, we record it for twenty and listen back to it for twenty one days, because it takes about twenty one days to fire and wire these new strong neural pathways.

• 33:53Thais Gibson?

  And as long as we have like ten pieces of proof for how we feel good enough, or why we're worthy of connection instead of abandonment, or we're lovable instead of unlovable, or whatever the core wound is that we're targeting. Ten pieces of evidence, listen back for twenty one days. We will actually rewire these ideas that we've carried about ourselves and relationships for very long periods of time. So that's the first one. So is reprogramming these core fears. And I'm sure anybody listening, if they're like, oh, twenty one days, it feels like a lot. I would really encourage anybody listening to think of how many times that core fear has actually sabotaged your relationships. And it will always be more work not to do the work. It's it's a lot to have to live like that.

• 34:32Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, you built those neural pathways probably doing it for twenty one years. You can spend twenty one days trying to undo it.

• 34:37Thais Gibson?

  Exactly, exactly.

• 34:39Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 34:39Thais Gibson?

  And it only takes like five minutes of the morning routine or something. It's very simple. So, so the second one is we need to learn our own needs. And so, you know, I mentioned those earlier, you know, for some people, they need the reassurance, the validation, the certainty. For other people, they need the autonomy, the acknowledgement, the independence. So when we can go back and, and actually see what our, our needs are according to our attachment style, we actually first have to learn to meet them ourselves. There's, there's a great quote from Dr. Gabor Maté, and he says, "Trauma are the things that happen that shouldn't have happened." Okay, so let's say verbal abuse, for example, which would maybe cause somebody to feel, "I am not good enough," and we have those core fears. But it's also the things that didn't happen that should have happened.

• 35:21Thais Gibson?

  So this could be if somebody gets neglected growing up, we're wired for attunement. So we will have these deeply unmet needs that come from trauma, whether it's small T-trauma or big T-trauma. And because of the subconscious comfort zone, because we want to keep that subconscious comfort zone alive in the relationship to self, we keep those needs unmet in our own lives first.

• 35:43Ed Mylett?

  Wow, that's good.

• 35:45Thais Gibson?

  So you'll see, like dismissive avoidance, they're neglected, and what do they do? They grow up and they neglect their own emotions. And so, you know, we see this time and time again for each person. So our step two is after we reprogram core fears. Number two, we learn to meet our own needs. In doing this, if we can show up and meet a need that's deeply unmet every day for 21 days, we actually will change that within ourselves. And then what will happen is we will be attracted to the right people who will mirror that back to us. Because our point of familiarity, our own subconscious comfort zone has now shifted. So we're, we don't keep attracting that, those old patterns, those old people who will keep, you know, that self fulfilling prophecy alive. So that's really step two. Identify your deeply unmet needs, meet them in relationship to self for 21 days.

• 36:30Thais Gibson?

  Step three, very simple, a little nervous system regulation, because every insecure attachment style is often sitting too much in fight or flight or parasympathetic nervous system mode. So a little breath work in the evening or a little meditation on a daily basis, just something for 20 minutes a day to help recondition our body so it follows our, our subconscious mind into feeling like it is safe to be in our body, it's safe to be more present with ourselves. And again, it tends to come full circle in giving to ourselves those deeply unmet needs. Now, those first three steps, I like to think of as being in relationship to self. Okay, I'm doing the work on me first. I'm removing my core fears.

• 37:10Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 37:10Thais Gibson?

  I'm meeting my own needs. I'm regulating my nervous system. The second ones are out into relationship with others. Because healthy interdependency means I'm a master of the relationship to myself. And I'm a master at being able to relate to, rely on, and be vulnerable with others. It's not one or the other.

• 37:30Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 37:30Thais Gibson?

  And so our second two steps are communicating our needs to others and allowing ourselves to receive them. And having healthy boundaries so we can show and share our true selves with other people. I often say to people when it comes to boundaries, you know, when people don't set boundaries, they're like, no, boundaries are off. They're, they're gonna, they're like a separation instead of a joining. But a boundary is you sharing the no's in your life. You know, if you're not connecting fully or truthfully by just sha- sharing all the things you do like or that are great. You also have to say, hey, I don't like when this happens. Hey, I don't like these things. Because that's you sharing without your mask. And so if we can do these five major things and really connect in a real honest way with ourselves first and then with others.

• 38:14Thais Gibson?

  That's how we move the needle from insecure to securely attached in a fairly short period of time. And it will transform the relationship we have to ourselves and the relationships in all aspects of our lives.

• 38:24Ed Mylett?

  This is so good. Um, a, a basic question, you cover it in the book. By the way, thank you for this. It's just.

• 38:30Thais Gibson?

  Thank you.

• 38:30Ed Mylett?

  I love real work that really makes a difference and really changes people. How do um, our emotions affect our actions? I know that's a general question, but it's actually part of the book as well. And I don't think most people step back and look at that, that not only the state you're in. But the emotional state you're in and how it's impacting the action. And I know that's a broad question compared to the very specific place we just went. But I think when we get really granular like we just did. It's time to kind of go to concept for a second as well to understand why that matters. So how do emotions affect behavior?

• 39:05Thais Gibson?

  Amazing question. So a neuroscientist named Antonio Damasio, I believe it was in two thousand eight, actually discovered conclusively that every single action we take or decision we make is based on our emotional state. So some people are very quick to rationalize or justify through logic. They're like, I'm a logical thinker. I only make logical decisions. But the reality is at the tipping point, you're making an emotionally based decision and then you're just quick to then rationalize it through logic. And so we are not in control of how we feel. Then we are not in control of the decisions that we're making. And I would make a really strong argument that we that when we go back to this topic of core fears, I often give people this acronym of BTEA,

• 39:45Thais Gibson?

  which is our belief patterns will create patterns of thought, which will create emotions and then actions. We'll follow. So so if I, for example, let's pretend have this core wound, I'm not good enough. Well, that may I might start thinking thoughts like I'm not interesting enough. I'm not smart enough. I'm not pretty enough, whatever it is, fill in the blanks enough. And then what will happen is how will I feel or emote according to that? Well, I'll feel insecure or afraid or sad. And then we all go into our actions or coping mechanisms. Right? We're not even in charge. When somebody's feeling that way, what do they do? Do they go to their fridge and eat a whole bunch of junk food? Do they withdraw from the world and go into their shell?

• 40:25Thais Gibson?

  Do they become really big and tell everybody how amazing they are to try to overcompensate, but it feel arrogant? So really, if we're not being able to reprogram and identify these core beliefs or these old fears or wounds, then we're gonna have havoc wreaked on our thought patterns throughout the day. Our emotional state, we're not in charge of, and then our actions, we're not even in charge of either. And when we go and change and recondition these old stories or belief patterns, everything else will follow how we think, how we feel about ourselves, and even our actions and behaviors will become healthier.

• 40:59Ed Mylett?

  So good. You're um. I think of energy when you say that and you talk about, I never heard this before. Black cat versus golden retriever energy.

• 41:11Ed Mylett?

  Right? What, what I know what that is now, but just share what that means for everybody. Cause I think also how we feel is our ability to sense and give energy and the energy that we put out as well.

• 41:22Thais Gibson?

  Yeah. So this was like a trending, I actually spoke about this because it was trending all over TikTok and the internet. And, and my take on it honestly was neither is right. You know, people were saying, don't be the golden retriever. The golden retriever is sort of the one that's like always open, always trying, always giving, making the effort, sort of the anxious couter, right? The people pleaser and the black cat is like the avoidance, stay away, kind of mysterious, withdrawn. And, and the whole internet's going, don't be the golden retriever, be the black cat. And I was saying, well, this is just reinforcing telling people they should be a dismissive avoidant attachment style. You know, what we actually want to do is be interdependent, which means I can show up for myself in relationship to myself.

• 42:03Thais Gibson?

  And I can be there for other people too. And when we master both sides of it, that's secure attachment and secure connection. And that's when we have thriving relationships. There's also a lot of information out there in the world too, which I respect where it's coming from. But it's like, you know, people, women should only ever have their full feminine energy. Men should only be fully in their masculine energy. Polarity in dating is really meaningful. Okay? There's three things that drive attraction at the subconscious level. These are like actually how we become attracted to people besides like physical features and biology, right? So we have number one, somebody who meets, meets your deeply unmet needs from childhood. Let's say that somebody felt very unseen as a child and then somebody is like, you know, really present with them.

• 42:48Thais Gibson?

  That's going to cause us to feel like, wow, I really want to be connected to this person. The second is somebody who expresses your repressed trait. Okay. If somebody's really assertive. And I'm not assertive, that might be really attractive, for example, right? So, so that's a big part of, of what creates attraction. The third is your subconscious comfort zone in relationship to self. That's what you'll invest in the most. So we have this idea that like, okay, polarity of the traction. But have you ever noticed this before? Let's say, and this happened to me, I'll share a personal example. So my husband, super assertive, very, and, and I was kind of like over giving and, and not as assertive when I first met him. And I thought it was so attractive in the dating stage of relationships.

• 43:29Thais Gibson?

  We have multiple stages of relationships, dating, honeymoon, power struggle, stability, commitment, bliss. What we're attracted to in terms of polarity in the dating stage, when we get to the power struggle stage will be the exact thing that often ruins or disrupts the relationship. So dating stage is like, oh, he's so assertive, that's so attractive. Power struggle stage, it's like he never makes compromises, this is so frustrating. And so what we're supposed to be doing, and, and you'll see this all the time, somebody's like, oh, they're so easygoing, that's so attractive. The power struggle stage comes along and they're like, they never make plans, this is so frustrating. So, so what we're supposed to be doing is actually integrating those traits and being whole.

• 44:10Thais Gibson?

  It's not supposed to be that that person's one way and I'm the exact opposite, that's attractive at the beginning. But as progress for a relationship to work, we're actually supposed to take on sides of one another to become whole. And so this idea that like masculine energy only and feminine energy only, no, men need to also have that emotional side, be able to express, have that sort of connection in, in relationship to their own emotions. And women also need to have that ability to be assertive sometimes and set boundaries and have some of those masculine energy traits in the wholeness relationships last.

• 44:44Ed Mylett?

  Can you go through those six stages again, just quickly, because you went through that really, really quickly, the six stages again? No, I think everybody heard it and they're like, ask her that again.

• 44:53Thais Gibson?

  I got excited for a moment to share.

• 44:56Thais Gibson?

  So there's the dating stage, um, which is sort of the bedding stage of relationships. It's the first zero to four months. It's like, you know, we're getting to know if we're a fit for each other, asking the right questions. Um, if we make a commitment to each other after that first few months, we move into the honeymoon stage where there's some sort of, there's the rite of passage into commitment. And then in the honeymoon stage, we have the elevated neurochemistry of oxytocin and serotonin and dopamine and attraction neurochemicals that last for about a year to two years after the dating stage ends. Then, as we start to get comfortable and we adapt to each other, the mask comes off. And it's the rite of passage going into the power struggle stage. Unfortunately, people often don't know that this exists.

• 45:41Thais Gibson?

  So the mask comes off and we start sharing our fears, our flaws, our frustrations more easily with our partner. And often, this is where relationships break down. This is statistically where most relationships end. The rite of passage of the power struggle stage is to be more vulnerable and to share our fears and flaws with people and to accept and work through them together. And when we do this, we have the capacity to move the needle from more conditionally based love to more unconditionally based love, because we're showing ourselves finally without condition. Dating and honeymoon, we usually are like on our back behavior a little bit still. Power struggle, it's like this is the real me. These are the the innermost things that are going on.

• 46:25Thais Gibson?

  When we learn to navigate those with each other and take each other's fears or or challenges into consideration, we move out of the power struggle into the stability stage, eventually the commitment stage and the bliss stage, which is like the honeymoon stage, but we know each other much more deeply. And in that power struggle stage, you know, for example, I know in in the power struggle stage, just as an analogy with my husband, you know, he shared a lot about how he was sensitive to criticism. He was more dismissive avoidant when when we first started dating. And I was able to just be mindful and considerate of that, right? It's not like, oh, I have to be perfect all the time, but I would phrase things differently. Instead of saying, hey, you didn't do this, I'd be like, oh, hey, do you mind doing this?

• 47:07Thais Gibson?

  And these little tiny things, we can consider each other more, support each other in that. And those are the ways that we deepen that connection. But unfortunately, most people constantly go through dating honeymoon, power struggle, breakup, dating honeymoon, power struggle, breakup. And so they think that relationships are either in this intoxicating love space or in this space of like, oh, everything's fighting and it's terrible and we'll break up and it just wasn't meant to be. But relationships in their life cycle are far beyond that. And when we deepen that connection and know each other more, we can really move the needle ahead.

• 47:44Speaker 01

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• 48:14Ed Mylett?

  What's a perceptual shift?

• 48:17Thais Gibson?

  A perceptual shift is when we are able to really look outside of our own perspective, to really challenge and question things that we've been believing or attaching to as concepts for a long time. I used to personally, for example, think that everybody's going to betray you eventually. So relationships, just, you know, what's the point of investing in them? But what I try to get people to do is be like, can I really know that that's true? Like, can I 100% know that? And to question these longstanding ideas and to poke at them, right? So, so I learned, well, actually, people may make mistakes, but real trust isn't earned through people being perfect. Real trust is earned through me when there's a mistake made, advocating for myself, letting somebody know that they hurt me and what I need for reparation,

• 49:02Thais Gibson?

  and that's strengthening the connection as a result. So our perceptual shift is really when we go from attaching to one original idea to being able to poke at it, try and do something differently, and really see a lot of that progress as a result.

• 49:15Ed Mylett?

  I'm just listening to you. I got two more questions, by the way. I I'm enjoying this thoroughly. And I, and I, when I say that I have two more questions, please, like, take your time on both these because I'm interested. I want to step out of your work for a minute and talk about you. So I learned a little bit about you as we were getting ready, that you started doing some of this work at like 21 years old, and you're still a very young woman. And clearly, you know, the, the depth of your work is, it's really extraordinary. What, what caused you to do this? I, because the reason I ask it is that. I think anytime you observe somebody who's great at something and you want to be great in your life, I think success leaves clues. Like, how is it that she became so great at this so young?

• 49:58Ed Mylett?

  What caused you to start doing this in the first place?

• 50:02Thais Gibson?

  Yeah, thank you. Um, I was an addict. Um, I was addicted to opioids after a knee surgery at just before I turned 15. Um, I was a soccer player, played D1 in university, but really just hung on by a thread there. But that soccer was my coping mechanism from a really chaotic childhood. And when that got taken away, I just really went down a terrible rabbit hole. Um, and I did inpatient rehab, outpatient rehab, AA meetings, NA meetings, nothing really worked for me. And I was like hanging on by a thread. I was still somewhat in school. I would go to rehab during the summers and, and um, I was in a psych class and somebody said to me, your conscious mind can't out well or overpower your subconscious

• 50:43Thais Gibson?

  mind. And as somebody, if anybody's had this experience, like when you're trying to get clean, you tell yourself every day, I'm gonna not do this again. This is gonna be the last time. This is gonna be the last day. And then you go back and you repeat the same patterns over and over. And it's, it's horrible. It's, it's, that to me was like one of the hardest things that I ever went through. And it wasn't even like the thing, the traumas that caused the, the addiction to begin with. And so, um, for me, I became obsessed with learning about the subconscious mind and the mind in general, because I knew when somebody said the conscious mind can't out well the subconscious mind, I was like, this explains this daily fight that I have with myself. So I got really into, when I turned

• 51:25Thais Gibson?

  about 20, um, I got really into, I think it might've been right before I turned 20, obsessing over the subconscious mind. That led me to sobriety after a lot of other things hadn't worked. Um, and I did a lot of work on my core wounds, my, my big core fears that were causing me to have really negative and often really cruel thoughts towards myself and to feel badly. And then I would numb, right? With opioids. That was like, and I realized, oh my gosh, I'm running for myself the whole time. That's what this is. So I did a ton of reconditioning of my subconscious wounds, learned my needs, learned to emotionally regulate, um, and just did a whole bunch of work deeply in myself. And then, this is what, like 13 years ago? And

• 52:06Thais Gibson?

  Nobody was talking about this stuff then, right? At least in my experience, it was very rare. So I started giving workshops for free and started, you know, sharing and opening up and just telling people like, "Look, you can change your subconscious mind." And then eventually revisited relationships and attachment theory. Um, and learned, okay, these things are very much interconnected in a very real way.

• 52:27Ed Mylett?

  I'm fascinated, you know, on my show, not everybody, I can't say that this is everybody, but a lot of people struggle with finding their purpose. And I've been talking about this a lot on like on my stage speaking as well. And it's not everyone. But the vast majority of people that I've had on my show or that I know personally in my private life that have extraordinary work they do, comes from some form of pain. Their purpose came through something painful. And I think that's just, the reason I asked you this was, I didn't know why. And I think if you're listening to this or watching it today and you're saying, "I haven't found my purpose yet." You might want to take a peek at painful parts of your life. You might want to take a peek there.

• 53:07Ed Mylett?

  Because somewhere in there, there was a lesson, a gift, a relationship, an emotion, or maybe a purpose that has come through that. You know, I say all the time that, and it wasn't my saying, but oftentimes you're most qualified in life to help the person you used to be. And you're, you were a bit broken and you appear to me to be so extraordinary at helping people that are a little bit feel broken at least, or broken relationships. And so just really fascinated by that. So everybody just hearing her story, I hope you all, you know, relate to that. If you don't have your purpose yet, look somewhere, maybe where there's been pain in your life. Okay, having said all that, last question. It kind of steps a little bit out of the work, but you do talk about it in your work. And that is that I think most people in our culture today are struggling with their self-esteem.

• 53:51Ed Mylett?

  Overall, just their self-worth. And they bring that into these relationships in addition to their attachment styles. And it affects every area of their life, lack of self-esteem, or even the reverse. An increase in self-esteem changes your external life, changes your emotions so often. And your work is so good. So I thought, I don't want to finish today by not asking you, do you have a hack, a strategy? I know you have multiple ones, but that you would share with us today to help somebody who says, I need to feel better about myself. I need to have more esteem.

• 54:22Thais Gibson?

  Absolutely. I think it really boils down to these first two things is always where I would start. I don't think that true self-esteem is like arrogance. I think it's the absence of all of these core wounds, the absence of all of this negative internal dialogue that beats ourselves up. I don't think, I think when we have the absence of those things, we are naturally more present. We're naturally able to feel confident and believe in ourselves for what we're gonna do. And so I find that there's really two things that have a massive impact on our self-esteem as a whole. Number one, and this was big time, my experience is reprogramming those, those core fears. Using that tool, we talked about that, that auto suggestion to speak to your subconscious. Because I was somebody who went through life and had all these really mean thought patterns towards myself, beat myself up for everything. So of course I don't feel confident in my life during that time.

• 55:08Thais Gibson?

  And so reprogramming those core ideas, I'm not good enough, I'm unworthy, I'm unlovable, I'll be disliked, rejected, all these things. That goes an extremely long way in terms of our self-confidence. And the second one is when we learn to meet our unmet needs. Because when we have these deeply unmet needs, and the subconscious mind is in a state of learned helplessness, because we don't realize what they are consciously or how to meet them. What we do from learned helplessness is we outsource them. So let's say, for example, that, you know, somebody's anxiously attached and they need validation and reassurance, but they don't know how to validate or reassure themselves. Well, what do they do? They make that exclusively their partner's major responsibility. And when that happens, somebody's not always gonna be there.

• 55:52Thais Gibson?

  And so then we ride the roller coaster. Then when somebody does fill the bucket of reassurance, we're like, oh, I feel good. And then when they don't or they withdraw, we then feel terrible. And we're on this self-esteem roller coaster with all the ups and downs because we have no focal point of control. And so when we can actually learn what our needs are, start meeting them in ourselves, we fill our own cup halfway every day and we go out into the world from a more rooted, grounded, centered, centered space. And if in combination of that, we also recondition these painful old fears that we have and negative beliefs about ourselves, it's like we clear the sledge out. And from that space, I feel like our light can really shine as individuals where we're grounded and present and available for what the world has before us.

• 56:35Ed Mylett?

  This was so good. This was so extraordinary. This is Tyce Gibson, everybody, number one. Her book is Learning Love. And I am really grateful that we did this today. I am really grateful. I, I just think your work's awesome. I think it's unique and I think it's needed. So very, very grateful for today. Thank you so much.

• 56:56Thais Gibson?

  Thank you so much for having me. I'm so grateful to be here with you. You're an absolute legend, so I'm so grateful that we got to have this conversation.

• 57:04Ed Mylett?

  We're gonna, we're gonna do your stage speaking. We're gonna work on that together. So I'm excited. All right, everybody. Hey, share today's episode. This is one that I know was gonna reverberate through the internet today. All right, God bless you, everybody. Max out.