#125 Thais Gibson - How Your Attachment Style is Impacting Your Life

0 (0s): What are the main insecure attachment styles and then how does that differ from a secure attachment style? 1 (7s): This child grows up to feel terrified of being abandoned and they cope with that fear by trying to hang on really tight call a lot text, a lot clinging to people or situations sometimes. Where is 0 (17s): The line between acknowledging 1 (20s): And validating 0 (21s): Emotions versus authoritarian? None of that's valid. 1 (26s): And if you have a parent who's too permissive who just constantly says, oh you're sad. Yep, here's the candy. Let me just give you everything you need, then that's going to be something that actually teaches more codependency and fosters that in a relationship. 0 (39s): Do you think when it comes to like narcissism specifically, like there is this massive uptick in it or do you think that it's kind of a misuse of the label? 1 (47s): Sometimes what happens is that people will say, this person's selfish because they're selfish. Now they're a narcissist. And narcissism is so much more than that. It's grandiosity, it's manipulation, it's a lack of empathy, which is a huge deal. 0 (1m 1s): Hello everybody. You are listening or watching chatting with Candace. I'm your host Candice Horbacz. Before we go into the episode, if you wanna support the podcast, you can click those links below chatting with candace.com or you can join our Patreon. If you go to Chatting with Candice dot com, you can hit that little button that says Buy me a coffee. All of the funds go directly back into the podcast flying out some guests and it is very much appreciated. And if you decide to join Patreon, you get early access to episodes, sneak peak, sneak peaks at upcoming guests and you get to even submit questions that we might read on our podcast this week. We have Thais Gibson joining the podcast and we are gonna learn how you might be sabotaging all of your relationships and getting in your own way of finding and receiving love. 0 (1m 50s): Please help me welcome Thais Gibson Tais, welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited to have you on and I know that we were just saying you're in the middle of this move, so I really appreciate all of your time today. 1 (2m 2s): Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here and to chat with you today. 0 (2m 7s): So I wanna I guess just jump into attachment theory and I love that it's taking off. I feel like a lot of the parenting books I'm reading are based off of attachment, a lot of the podcasts that I'm seeing. And I guess why do you think that this is now the more popular theory when it comes to relationships and how we behave and like our mental framework that we experience the world through? 1 (2m 32s): I just think that there's so much in the relationship world that affects us, like our feelings and our wounds and our fears and what we're looking for. And I think that there's really not that much historically that provides a framework of how to better understand ourselves and other people. And what I often say about our attachment style is our attachment styles are subconscious set of rules that we've learned about love, like how we should give and receive love, what we should need from each other, what our expectations are, what we should fear. And so what often happens is when we have people with different attachment styles and they get into a relationship together, it's almost like you're trying to play a board game and you have a different set of rules for how the game goes. Like we sit down, we're gonna play a board game, you have Scrabble, I have monopoly. 1 (3m 13s): Like even if you wanna have a good time, there's just gonna be all this unnecessary friction. 'cause you have different rules for how the game is supposed to operate. And so when we have different rules for love and for connection, there's all of these pain points of of confusion and and poor communication. And so what I love about attachment styles and why I think it's trending so much is that suddenly we're in a situation where we're learning, oh, some of the things people are doing a are not so personal to me. It's because of their own needs or their own expectations. And B, when we understand that we give and receive love in different ways, we can start to understand what we're looking for in needing and what somebody else is and then find powerful ways to overlap those two. 1 (3m 58s): And so I think it really provides this framework in a world that's kind of been missing a lot of that stuff historically, at least in a mainstream way that people can understand themselves better, understand each other better and bridge those gaps where there's challenges. 0 (4m 11s): So let's figure out, 'cause I think the way that everyone talks about them is a little bit different. Everyone has their own definitions and then I've seen different combinations of the attachment styles. So what are the main insecure attachment styles and then how does that differ from a secure attachment style? 1 (4m 30s): Okay, great question. So the first, there's four attachment style in total and three are insecure and one is the secure. So the secure attachment style grows up and they get a lot of what we call approach oriented behaviors in psychology and, and it sounds like such a small thing but has such a massive impact. So approach oriented behaviors basically mean that when you are seeing your child cry for example, that child in their experience, they have a lot of consistency of being approached. The caregiver goes towards the child, tries to understand why they're crying, what's upsetting them, they're attuned to the child, they're present. And what the child then learns because of all of that is it's safe to express my emotions. 1 (5m 9s): I'm worthy of being heard. I'm loved even in my hard moments when I'm crying or having a tough time, I can trust other people, I can rely on other people. And they build a sense of self-confidence because they feel loved for just who they are in all sorts of moments. And so they grow up and they end up modeling those behaviors to other people as well. And our three insecure attachment styles basically get a whole lot of different things. So on one hand we have our anxious attachment style. The anxious attachment style grows up in a household where there tends to be a lot of inconsistency and they have what we call either real abandonment or perceived abandonment, meaning that an anxious attachment cell could have a parent like literally leave or pass away or you know the, there's a divorce and one parent leaves the home and doesn't come back. 1 (5m 54s): These types of situations, right? And that's a real abandonment for that child. But also the vast majority of anxiously attached adults had perceived abandonment as a child instead. And so perceived abandonment is like there's inconsistency maybe parents are both very loving but they work all the time. So they're love is there, love is taken away, love is there, love is taken away. And because the way that we actually get conditioned, the way we adopt programs are through repetition and emotion. Sometimes a lot of small T trauma like feeling like love is taken away and it's just an uncomfortable experience. If it's repetitive enough, it has a very similar impact on a neuroplasticity and subconscious mind that big T trauma would. 1 (6m 36s): And so as an adult this, this child grows up to feel terrified of being abandoned and they cope with that fear by trying to hang on really tight call a lot text, a lot cling to people or situations sometimes even if they know it's not the right person for them. And so that's the anxious attachment style. They also tend to have a lot of wounds and sensitivities around things like not being good enough, being unloved, being disliked, rejected, excluded. Those are like their big triggering experiences. On the very flip side of the attachment continuum in a sense we have the dismissive avoidant. The dismissive avoidant grows up in a household where the overarching theme is childhood emotional neglect. 1 (7m 16s): Now this of course can be very overt like parents are literally never around. Maybe they're struggling with their own drug issues or challenges. Food not on the table, kids not in school. But that is the extreme minority of cases. The vast majority of cases is actually that we have dismissive avoidance who grow up and parents are have them in school on time that you know, food's on the table, everything's structured and normal, but there's just no attunement to the emotions. So when a child expresses emotion, they may be shamed for it. Like don't be a crybaby, get it together, come back when you're, when you figured it out or emotions are deflect, dismissed, ignored, shamed, all of these different things. 1 (7m 56s): And because of that, the child grows up to basically go, okay, well you know, there must be something wrong with me that I can't get my needs met because we're actually wired for that attunement and that closeness And as children it makes us feel safe in the world to know that we have that. And when it's missing, it feels very uncomfortable. So this adult grows up and they say, okay, that part of me is wrong and I'm gonna keep that part really deeply tucked away. So anything that makes them feel too much, they'll push away as a result. Examples could be too much closeness when the feelings get too real in relationships when they have to be vulnerable or open up or when they're going through something personal and they have these big core wounds just like the anxious attachment has theirs, the dismissive avoidance core wounds are, I'm defective or something's wrong with me. 1 (8m 44s): It's this big internal shame wound. They often feel unsafe in conflict and they'll really avoid conflict at all costs. And they also have big wounds of feeling weak if they're vulnerable or, or you know, diminished in some sort of way if they're vulnerable. And they often feel not capable of really connecting and figuring out how to do relationships in a, in a reciprocal manner. And so they cope by keeping people at arm's length and when people get too close they push away or they jet or they leave all of a sudden. And so you know, interestingly enough, anxious and dismissive often get together in relationships and it becomes this like really challenging situation. So the very last attachment style is disorganized or fearful avoidant. They're the same thing, often referred to as two different things. 1 (9m 26s): So the fearful avoidant attachment style grows up with the overarching theme being extreme chaos. Okay. It can be things like seeing a really bad divorce and the children are really put in the middle, you know, mom's saying negative things about dad, dad's saying terrible things about mom, et cetera. It can be extreme fighting in the home, you know, where there can be abuse in different forms. It can also be having a parent who's an alcoholic or an addict and because of the chaos, the major theme becomes the child is like, I never know what I'm gonna get. If you look at the example of an alcoholic parent, let's pretend it's the mother maybe one day, you know, child comes home from school, mom's drinking, she's in a great mood, she's extra loving and nice. 1 (10m 7s): And so sometimes connection is good another day moms drank way too much and she's cruel and she's critical and she's mean or she's passed out and that's unsafe and scary. And so on those days, connection is a scary thing. So the disorganized or fearful avoid an attachment cell grows up to have extreme polarizing ideas about connection. They want it so much they've had really loving experiences, really good ones, but also they've had really scary ones, really uncomfortable ones. So this person grows up as, as an adult to be like, come get close, come get close, somebody's closer. Like get back, stay away. And so they're constantly swinging and flip-flopping between their anxious side and their avoidance side and they really share in both polarities of the attachment continuum. 1 (10m 52s): And part of it's because they've, they've experienced such polarizing ideas about what love and connection is. It's a beautiful thing and it's a terrifying thing all at the same time. 0 (11m 3s): So can we, can you be a combination of all of the insecure attachments or do you tend to be in one bucket? 1 (11m 10s): Yeah, you're in one bucket generally. I mean you can have like a side where you lean, like you can be fearful avoidant that spends more time on your anxious side or fearful avoid that spends more time in your dismissive side. But if somebody's like I really relate to a combination, they're probably just a fearful avoidant one. 0 (11m 24s): Oh interesting. So part of what you were describing with the dismissive avoidant I thought was interesting 'cause you used the word perceived and I think that that is scary too because it's like if you feel like you're checking off all of these boxes as a parent potentially you're totally missing the mark and the emotional needs that this child has and then you're developing an insecure attachment with them. So when it comes to parents that are both working outside of the home and let's say that there's a nanny or let's say that there's daycare or grandparents or something like that, is there a sweet spot for how many hours that that kid can kind of be with another adult and I like stress like an adult and not just 'cause there is a difference. 0 (12m 6s): I, there's absolutely a difference between a drop off daycare where there are like 50 kids running amok and the adults are overwhelmed and they're not getting individ individualized care versus dropping them off at grandma and grandpa's house. Like those are two totally different scenarios. So I guess knowing that, is there a sweet spot for either of those things? Is one thing just if you can avoid it, avoid it to develop a healthy child. It's 1 (12m 27s): Such a great question. So the answer to this is that there's not really an hour amount, it's so much more about quality time over quantity. So like let's look at the example of anybody listening who, who you look at a romantic relationship as an adult. Okay, so let's say that you are a single parent, the person you're dating is also a single parent, you know, does that mean that if we're both working full time and we're single parents that like we can't even have a functioning relationship. And in a lot of cases back when I ran a practice for a long time, I would get clients to focus on quality over quantity because you can have two people together working a normal nine to five no kids, pretty easy life and they can spend all this time together watching Netflix. But if you have people who are having, you know, two 15 minute blocks of time where they're really present, they're really connecting, they're asking deep questions, you know, first thing in the morning, a quick 15 minute call on the way to work, lasting before bed, a nice 15 minute phone chat then and one or maybe two evenings a week where they can be, you know, quality time together for an hour or two. 1 (13m 27s): Like when you have that you can have a thriving relationship. And the same principle applies to children. So number one, if you have two parents working outside of the home, you know the grandparents that you're leaving them with, are the grandparents present? Are they attuned? Are they validating the child's feelings? Are they able to try to soothe the child? There will never be a time that any parent or situation does this perfectly, but we're really looking at ratio because it's a repetition and emotion that program. So if a parent's getting it right between themselves and the grandparents and they have a pretty healthy person who's running the daycare and like you said, there's not this overwhelm if they're there and we're getting like 85% of the time, 90% of the time there's a degree of presence and attunement and care expressed, you're gonna have a secure child despite having these different dynamics that are at play. 1 (14m 19s): But it's when we have the inconsistencies, like let's say parents are very loving and attuned, but let's say grandparents are really not, they're emotionally unavailable, they're shut down, they're not present and maybe that was just because of their generation or the time that they grew up or things like that and they're doing their best, it's really going to be that part that matters the most. Now if you have parents who really offset that E every evening 'cause they pick up the child from daycare or the the grandparents' house and then they're really present in the evening and things like that, that will create a lot of those secure tendencies. But you're really looking at the ratio of time that you will see parents being able to be present with their children or other loving healthy adults be able to express that attunement and those approach oriented behaviors. 0 (15m 4s): That makes a lot more sense when I see advice and it's like this is the exact number or they'll really harp on parent there, I forget what podcast it was, but it was this young woman who doesn't have children yet and those are always the best people to give parenting advice. But so she's giving this advice and she's like the average mom or the average parent only spends, I think it was 20 something minutes with their kid a day and but then she goes and she has this little caveat and she's like that it's not feeding them clothing, them bathing them, getting them ready. I'm like, well first of all, why do those things not count? Because you can do those things in a really rushed manner and then you can also do those as a means of connection. Like bath time is that absolutely counts if you're doing it f like in a fun connected way that is play for them. 0 (15m 50s): So it was weird that she was discounting all of these moments that absolutely count and then you're also just like ticking it and you're like, okay, well if I hit this number then I'm good. And I'm like that's not parenting, that's just not how it works. 1 (16m 1s): Exactly, exactly. And there has to be that part of it. Like I love what you said that how you're showing up and those things matter if you're addressing your child or feeding your child and you're present and you're connected, those are all extremely meaningful moments and that's part of building that secure attachment and attunement. But like you said, if somebody's rushing around and they're dismissive or they're in a grumpy mood or they're, you know, not there in the experience or they're on the phone at the same time, like that will obviously have an impact. And yeah, there's no time 27 minutes a day. There you go, you checked it off. It's about the relationship you have to all the things that you're doing. 0 (16m 33s): So obviously dismissing a child's emotions or dismissing anyone's emotions suck. That's not how we should handle relationships when it comes to parenting styles. Like do you have any that you're, you see and you just gasp as a professional, you're like don't do that or like the whole boys don't cry. Those kinds of dismissive things. Where is the line between acknowledging and validating emotions versus like authoritarian, none of that's valid And then like the happy middle, which is teaching them to self-regulate 1 (17m 10s): Such a great question as well. So I find that the best thing to do is validate the child but also encourage them to solve for the underlying problems. So if we look at emotions, emotions are always feedback, right? And there are feedback about two things. I often say that we have pain which is unmet needs and just as an obvious, very sort of disconnected example, if somebody gets dropped in a new country and they don't speak the language and they have a big need for love and connection and they don't know anybody there and they can't connect through language with anybody, they're gonna feel a little pain and, and that's not a bad thing. They're gonna feel a little bit of loneliness because that emotional pain is actually feedback to prompt them to say, hey go pay attention, go get some connection needs met. And so emotional pain helps us evolve, it helps us understand our needs. 1 (17m 51s): Then there's suffering, which is the meaning we give to the needs not being met. So then if somebody sits down in this new country alone and says, nobody likes me, I'm not interesting enough, I'm a bother to everybody and that's why I can't make friends. You know, now we're just storytelling about the unmet need and that will feel like suffering and that tends to be a pretty excruciating experience. It's not fun when we're in that. So there tends to be a good path that we can take sort of understanding that difference between emotional pain and suffering around children's emotions. And I find the best thing to do is start by validating the child's emotions, being present honey, what's going on, but then also saying, okay well what can we do to change this? And obviously it's gonna depend on their age, but trying to encourage them to think about what they need. 1 (18m 36s): What do you need to feel better right now? What would, would it be this, would it be that even giving suggestions to help them start building an understanding of the relationship between their emotions and their needs and then being able to, 'cause what we're looking for as well, right? Is if we look at codependent relationships, and I think this is sort of what you're getting at with your question too. Codependent relationships are like, I'm gonna meet all of your needs, you're gonna meet all of my needs. We're not gonna have a sense of self and meet our own or try to understand ourselves at all. We're just fully responsible for each other. And if you have a parent who's too permissive who just constantly says, oh you're sad. Yep, here's the candy, let me just give you everything you need, then that's going to be something that actually teaches more codependency and fosters that in a relationship. 1 (19m 18s): Counterdependency is like, you're gonna meet all your own needs, I'm gonna meet all my own and we'll just kind of come together for some small talk here and there. And, and so for a child if you're like figure it out, figure it out and you're trying to teach too much self-reliance at such a young age, then that also creates more dismissive avoidant adults and teaches counterdependency in relationships. What we're looking for is interdependency, which actually fosters both attachment and self-identity. And a big part of how this happens is, let's say we have a child who's crying at 11 at 11:00 PM and it's like geez, they should have been in bed, you know way earlier. And they're crying and they're crying and they're saying like, I want candy, I want candy. You are not gonna be a good parent by by. 1 (19m 60s): And it's not that somebody's a bad parent if they do this, but it's not the best parenting strategy in that case to go to the child and to say, Hey honey, here's the candy and yep, let's just stay up late. But what you can do is say, Hey honey, I know you're upset. I know you want candy and the candy's not gonna make your stomach feel good and not gonna help you get a good night's sleep. So why don't we do this? You're gonna go to bed 'cause it's past your bedtime and tomorrow if you eat a healthy dinner you can have a little bit of candy after dinner tomorrow. So what you're doing is you're, you're able to validate the emotions of the child but also communicate about the needs and negotiate which is actually one of the best things you can teach for somebody to become securely attached as an adult because that's what interdependence is. 1 (20m 44s): It's about communicating about needs but still having your emotions validated within that same process. 0 (20m 51s): So is there, is there a model that you can look at someone or yourself and say like, I'm secure, I'm not, I'm one of these ones like I forget what I think it was the book attached and they were saying the way that you can kind of identify if your child has a secure attachment is if like they get really scared or you drop them off in a situation and you return, do they come back to you to look for like their home base and to reconnect or are they basically pushing you away and icing you out or are they really angry at you and it's like this really big tantrum and they never actually calm, calm down? Is that still kind of accurate? Yeah, 1 (21m 29s): So, so here is, so it's actually called the strange situation experiment. It was the original big test to understand what a child's attachment style was. So this was done out of I believe Cambridge University with John Bowlby and and this woman Mary Ainsworth later on. And what they would do is they would have children go with their parent into what basically was like a doctor's office waiting room and there would be this little sort of area where the child could play. So they would, they would go into the waiting room with the child, they would have a stranger come into the room, they would leave the room with a child in the room with a stranger just for a minute or so, not for a very long period of time. And when they reentered into the room you could basically observe what a child's attachment style was based on how they responded. 1 (22m 11s): So the dismissive avoidant child, when the parent came back, they would work to diminish their attachment needs with the parent because on some level they felt rejected and hurt and they were trying to go inward. And so you would actually see the child when the parent was there, you would see the child look away and the parent would try to come to the child and the child would look away and like literally try to ignore the parent, the anxious attachment cell child would clinging and cling and clinging and hold on tight and really be like scared of the parent leaving again. And the disorganized or fearful avoidant child would go towards the caregiver a little bit like sort of crawl towards them, crawl away, cry fuss. If the caregiver came towards them they might sort of go towards them and then try to push the caregiver away and, and you would see this push pull interaction between them and the caregiver after being left with the stranger. 1 (22m 57s): And so that would be the like easiest framework at a younger age to start to identify what a child's attachment style is. 0 (23m 3s): And then what about an adult? Because I was, I've, do you know who attachment Adam is? 1 (23m 9s): I don't think so, no. 0 (23m 11s): So he's a psychologist and his, all of his body of work is around relationships and attachment styles and we've actually done a couple shows together, I think it was him that was saying it's something like 30% of people are secure, that's it. And you're like, well no wonder all these relationships are failing and people are deciding to be single and divorce rates are in like the high thirties, forties percent. So if like only 30% of adults are secure, I'm assuming that that 30% has all coupled up so that leaves everyone who's insecure to try to pair up and figure out 1 (23m 45s): How to make it work or I guess not work. And it's so true. So, so originally the research was like 50% but it's showing it's on the decline somewhere around closer to 30%. There aren't like super in-depth studies, they're more like Gallup polls or things like that. We also have a, an attachment quiz that we have and we've had a lot of people take that quiz well over a million people and we're looking at the S skew being like much less than, and that's a good sample size of people, much less than 50% sort of sitting around 35%. So, so, so yes. And you're also right that what ends up happening is securely attached. People are actually more drawn to other securely attached people because we tend to want to invest in people who remind us of the subconscious comfort zone in the relationship we have to ourselves. 1 (24m 28s): So if somebody, it's really interesting if you see somebody really anxiously attached because they people please so much and they're so externally focused, they're often dismissing and avoiding their own feelings needs and boundaries 'cause they're people pleasing everyone else. So their subconscious comfort zone in the way they treat themselves is they dismiss themselves all the time. So they're particularly drawn to people who will also dismiss them. Mm. And so you'll actually see that like all the insecure attachment styles do very much end up pairing up together in various forms and a lot of secure people because they're very secure in relationship to self, they're drawn to other secure individuals. So they do tend to couple up and then there tends to be insecurely attached individuals that are sort of in the rest of that space. 1 (25m 8s): Now what you're looking for, if somebody's not sure about what attachment style they are, we've developed a framework called integrated attachment theory and we've published this body of work and and it's all about basically how to identify your attachment style by your core wounds, your needs and your behaviors and relationships And so anxious attachment style. You'll see like they're big core wounds, they fear abandonment, being alone, unloved, disliked, rejected, excluded, emotionally unsafe if somebody pulls away, like those are their big wounds and they really need a lot more like validation in relationships and acknowledgement and reassurance and certainty and they wanna feel important and prioritized. And usually people can start to really hear themselves in this and they'll clinging almost exclusively when they feel somebody pulling away dismissive avoidance. 1 (25m 55s): Their big core wounds are I'll be unsafe if I'm in a conflict, I'm defective, they're very stoic so you won't see it. But they really feel ashamed around criticism or negative feedback. I don't belong, I'll be trapped, helpless or powerless in the wrong relationship. I'm weak if I'm vulnerable or even stupid if I'm vulnerable. And so those are their wounds and their big needs in relationships are like freedom, independence, autonomy. And they also tend to need appreciation and acknowledgement for things and they actually do really well with people who provide understanding and acceptance and support to them as well as empathy then are fearful avoidance and dismissal wins almost exclusively deactivate. 1 (26m 37s): So if they're triggered, even if they're feeling like anxious 'cause dismissal wins can still feel like, oh I asked this person out and I I like her and I sent her a text and I'm waiting to hear back and they'll feel a little bit of anxiety. But how they will cope with their own anxiety is to continuously try to diminish their attachment needs. So they'll go, I feel anxious, well it might not work out anyways. I probably don't really need this person. So they'll do the opposite in their mind of the anxious attachment style who will keep trying to get closer even if they feel vulnerable they'll try to push away further dismissive avoidance. And lastly fearful avoidance. And this is where you can really start to see some of the differences, fearful avoidance, big wounds 'cause they share in both sides. They fear being abandoned, they fear being betrayed, they tend to really struggle to trust. 1 (27m 21s): It's a huge foundational part of their, their personality. They fear being unloved but they also fear very much being trapped or helpless or powerless. And so they, they will have these wounds that flip flop them back and forth and they actually, in relationships they need a lot of depth, they need a lot of growth, they need a lot of novelty and discovery. They need freedom and independence but they also wanna feel like they're a a priority to their partners. So they kind of share in both sides there. And what you'll see is that fearful avoidance, if you're not sure listening, if you're a fearful avoidant, they pretty equally activate and deactivate. So they will have times where they feel vulnerable and that will cause them to cling. But they'll also have times where they feel vulnerable and that will cause 'em to push away. 1 (28m 2s): They're just like the dismissive, they're like wait, I don't wanna feel this vulnerable. I don't know if this is the right thing. So in those three buckets you'll start to really see what your attachment style is and how it takes shape. 0 (28m 14s): That is so fascinating. I wish this should be a course like everyone should have to take this in high school or middle school and just like work on personal development because like going out into the, it just has given me such a useful framework and it explains so much of my, my life up until very, very, very recently and the work that I've done to like try to navigate this and it's so funny 'cause I would say even like two years ago I would kind of dismiss some of this and be like, no, all of these choices were very conscious on my, my part. Like I, I want wanted a relationship like this. I wanted to be this independent and I'm not scared of intimacy or vulnerability or like all of these things. 0 (28m 55s): I'm like holy cow, I've been lying to myself for so long and a lot of these go back to childhood traumas and core wounds. And I recently did integrated psychedelic therapy to work on some of this and it just like shattered my belief systems in such a profound way. I was like holy cow, I have made it so hard for people to love me like I have gotten in my own way and I didn't have that clarity until that experience and it was truly like a reality shift for me. And obviously there's like a probably a million different ways to get to a secure attachment, but with this information it gives you so much power because you're like okay well if this is a program and this program is beca is creating these behaviors and these thought patterns, then I should be able to reinstall a different program. 0 (29m 44s): Like kind of like factory reset and do the one that is gonna be more beneficial to like my long my mental health and like my longevity of relationships and the quality of those relationships. So how do you and like your program approach the rest of the 75% ish of people that are trying to get to a secure attachment? 1 (30m 4s): Yeah, it's such a great question And that's like the body of work that we focus on that's like the main, so I'll tell you about that. I just have a quick question. So you were fearful of why didn't that it sounds like, 0 (30m 13s): I don't know, I feel like I'm leaning to Yeah, the fearful of what like the disorganized one. I think that's the one that I was so lots of, lots of abuse, lots of emotional neglect, a lot of like a lot of responsibility thrown on like a very little, 'cause I was the oldest of three to like, like I was the parent. It was, it was just utter chaos. And then also I had a parent that had borderline personality disorder. So when you're talking about swings, it's so loving and love bombing and I'll buy you anything and take you anywhere to like you are the most inconvenient part of my life. And like that it was chaotic, you know what I mean? So it's like I don't know what, I had no idea what love was and all my examples were the definition of toxic. 1 (30m 57s): Yeah, 100%. And that's exactly, and and one of the other big factors is like addiction or alcoholism or having parents like that. One of the other ones is having a parent with a cluster B personality disorder, BPD, narcissistic personality disorder. The 0 (31m 10s): Other one had narcissism, actual narcissism, not this thing that we throw around. Which I would love to talk to you about too because it's, you do such a disservice when you just throw out these terms and diagnosis to every behavior that you don't like or every personality that you don't like because it takes the actual meaning away from the people that need to have those labels as like a warning sign. So do you think when it comes to like narcissism specifically, like there is this massive uptick in it or do you think that it's kind of a misuse of the label? 1 (31m 41s): I think a lot of times it's the misuse of the label. I, I'm not gonna take away from the fact that like culturally there's things that are more likely to create that programming. You know there's things that are happening on our, in our world like social media, like you know, things like that that may create this outlet for people to develop more in that direction. But the vast majority of narcissistic personality disorders probably developing way before people have, they say it really showcases itself in like the behavioral development years like around like 13 to 16. But like so you're probably seeing complex trauma at a very young age for people developing NPD and and honestly sometimes what happens is that people will say this person's selfish because they're selfish now they're a narcissist. 1 (32m 21s): And narcissism is so much more than that. It's grandiosity, it's manipulation, it's a lack of empathy, which is a huge deal exploiting entitlement. Like there's so many things that just being selfish is not, and unfortunately I do think that it's being thrown around a lot. Yeah. And yeah, so going back to what you were saying too, like you have two parents narcissist and borderline like absolutely are gonna have a disorganized attachment cell. Like there's almost no way that that wouldn't be the case. And generally as well the child who's most affected by having cluster B personality disordered parents, not to say that the other ones aren't, but it's often the oldest child that takes on the brunt of a lot of it. And so yeah, so you would definitely see that kind of output as as an adult to have fearful. 1 (33m 3s): And I was a fearful avoidant attachment style. So I relate, I understand safe and and yeah there's moments of like really wanting love and really wanting closeness and also thinking like I'm choosing in my own independent way. But that sometimes it takes a lot to really realize all of the ways that we're trying to not allow ourselves to be vulnerable and all the walls that are put up and all these sort of quiet forms and ways that we're so, they're so close to us we don't even realize that we're doing it. And so going back to what you had asked like how do you change your attachment style? So that's what we focus on. Like it's all about, so my background originally was in like hypnotherapy and, and a lot of like NLP, the subconscious mind and actually how we get our conditioned programs and what we focus on is we put it into different buckets. 1 (33m 48s): So the first thing is we reprogram core wounds because you're not born with them. And so we can recondition them. I'm happy to share like a tool about that later as well. The second bucket is we have to learn our own needs because so much of how we give and receive love and relationships is through our needs. And there's this amazing body of work by Dr. Gary Chapman and he talks about the five love languages and he's like, you know, physical touch and acts of service and quality time and words of affirmation and gifts and that's great but like we will never love as deeply as we do through our needs. Like I have a big emotional connection need and if I spend quality time with somebody watching a TV show, it's not the same as having a deep conversation. Like the need for emotional connection will always supersede the love language of of just quality time. 1 (34m 31s): So we have to learn what we need for love and and that's the biggest expression of how we give and receive to other people. And so our second bucket is we learn our own needs so that we can then third bucket communicate them to others and we can actually share how we receive love and also understand how other people receive love through their unique set of needs. And then we learn communication or then we learn boundaries and we learn to upgrade into healthier behaviors like not to cling or push away. And we can recondition those things too. Leveraging principles of neuroplasticity and and understanding the subconscious mind. And so when we can basically reverse engineer so that we get rid of the core wounds, we learn our own needs, we can communicate them to others and meet them ourselves really and have better boundaries and and healthier behaviors. 1 (35m 18s): Now we're in a situation where it's like okay we can actually emotionally regulate better, we can express better, we can give and receive love and healthier ways. And that actually puts us exactly into alignment with what securely attached people naturally do. They have less core wounds, they know their needs, they know how to communicate, they have healthy boundaries and they have healthier behaviors when they feel stressed. Like to be vulnerable and hash things out instead of to ice out or clinging or do all those different things that insecure attachment styles do. So those five pillars allow a framework for people to take the action steps necessary to re-implement in their sort of reset all the patterns that would be there had we had secure parents to begin with. 0 (36m 1s): Now this might sound a little woo so bear with me if it's like not your thing. I like 1 (36m 6s): Woo, I'm probably pretty good with the woo. Yeah, yeah. Okay, 0 (36m 8s): Okay good. My audience is used to it 'cause I like I'm out there but my oldest, his birth story was like almost as bad as it could be. Like he was ba he was born still and they had to resuscitate him and he was in like a hypothermic coma for three days and they had to warm him up and like NICU for a week, which I know is not as long as a lot of babies but like a week is still a lot. And I firmly believe that if he has an attachment style, which I'm still kind of trying to figure it out, if it's secure, it seems like it might be a little bit anxious. I basically am a stay at home mom and kind of have always been like I do the podcast and that's pretty much it. 0 (36m 52s): And then my husband also works from home. So like tons of quality, quality time with both of us separately and together I'm like the, my ver my version of why he might be anxious is his birth story. And I really believe birth stories affect us and I think even like in utero what happens and I'll even go as far as saying epigenetics and your ancestry line. So I think all of these things can have an effect on our behavior and our relationships and just how we interface with the world. So I'm like the only thing that this child has kind of gone through at this point because I try, I try to be as secure with him as possible and like affirm and all of those things is his birth story. 0 (37m 34s): 'cause he, he used to say all the time when he was little he'd say, I need you, I want you, I need, when he would get in this loop, I'm like where is he getting that? I'd have other people say like where is he getting that from? And I'm like, I think that was him in the incubator. And he was like, I just like need to be held by somebody. I need like I want and need this person. So you can't really do alpha brain training with a little if they're, you know, they're four for example or under seven or eight I think is what some people would say for biofeedback where how can we develop like a secure attachment with littles. 1 (38m 9s): Okay, so I just wanna start by saying that like everything you said isn't woo at all. So just so you know there is a ton of research to support the fact that actually, and this may be like a little hard to hear first, but it's also very solvable problem. So the, the way we get the deepest imprints, we sort of have like subconscious programming which is a lot of the stuff that we can retrieve information. Like we can look back, you and I could both sit down and share stories of when we were in second grade and have like one-off memories and say, oh yeah, I felt not good enough or I felt excluded or whatever it might be. So you're subconscious, you can retrieve that information from well then we have the unconscious mind which is slightly different and it's different in the fact that like a lot of that information we won't be able to retrieve from, especially 'cause it happens at such a young age. 1 (38m 52s): But actually our unconscious imprints can affect us the most. And actually the first three years of our development are actually the most impactful, particularly our first experiences after birth. So that is correct. It doesn't make any, it's not woo it's actually perfectly, you know, makes so much sense and because he had such a severe event, it it also makes sense that he's got that like, I want you, I need you felt not held, not like he could get those deep needs met and those things would've imprinted him on probably a, an unconscious level. So, you know, how do you start actually moving through that? Well how we get programmed is through repetition and emotion. So when we look at how neural pathways are fired and wired, we get repetition and emotion of different experiences. 1 (39m 39s): Just because he has an imprint doesn't mean that it can't be reconditioned. And so you'd wanna try to take a guess trajectory wise about what types of core wounds he'd probably have from that experience. Probably the biggest ones would be I'm abandoned, I'm alone, I am unsafe. And then what you would do is you would want to as a parent, fire and wire as much as possible conversations about how you're always here for him. You know, he's never alone 'cause he always has you if he reaches out to you and, and what you would do is you would be working to offset and, and so it takes roughly 21 days to create new neural pathways that are strong enough that other ones can atrophy over time. 1 (40m 22s): When it comes to the unconscious mind research shows it takes more like 63 days. So what you would want is across a 63 day period, repetitive emotional experiences that you can help him see how he's connected instead of abandoned. How he has a deep sense of togetherness and safety instead of feeling alone or unsafe and how you're there for him. People are there for him. And the more you can let him know consistently and the more you can give him examples because the subconscious and unconscious mind, they don't speak language, right? If I say to you like, hey don't think of the pink elephant. Like you probably didn't really hear the, don't you probably flash like an image of a pink elephant. 1 (41m 4s): So your conscious mind speaks language. So we can't just do like affirmations 'cause affirmations are the conscious mind speaking to the conscious mind. If I just say I'm connected, I'm connected or we just tell, you know, you just tell your son you are connected, you're connected. It's really reaching the conscious level of mind. How the subconscious speaks is through emotions and images. So actual examples of how you're connected and a lot of emotions and images are contained within memories. So if you look back and, and look, if you're trying to reprogram yourself, you're looking for memories that oppose the original core wound repetitively. So you're generally looking for 10 memories per day of how you have togetherness instead of aloneness. If you have an I am alone core wound as an adult. 1 (41m 46s): So what you would be doing to replicate that out for your son is you would be looking to tell him 10 pieces of feedback that he specifically had experiences of to show that he's not alone. So for example, remember when you had a hard time the other day and I came and I was there and I supported you. I remember when you cried and, and, and mommy will always show up for you. Like the more that you can give actual visual examples that exist within his memory, it's a good bit of work. But you can pick one wound at a time and repetitively tell him 10 different things. It can be in one sitting, it can be scattered throughout the day. Like you could do three at one point in the day, five at another, three at another. 1 (42m 27s): And the more you can give that repetition and emotion in a way that speaks to the subconscious mind, so it's in actual images that he can see in language and rather than just language across a 63 day period, you'll be able to reprogram the wounds that were left from that experience. 0 (42m 44s): Oh, beautiful. I have a lot of homework, I'm excited for it. Yeah, I can't wait to share with my husband because I'm like, we're the beautiful thing is that he's only four. Yeah, since we've got time, we've got nothing but time. But it, it does feel, it does feel overwhelming because it's like I know what it's like not having a secure attachment and how hard that can make everything, friendships, relationships, work, you name it affects every single dynamic. And then the closer you get to secure, you kind of start to see all of these areas where you were allowing other attachments to form in your life because like, like attracts like, so you realize that certain relationships no longer fit into your life if you want to be in a healthier, higher, higher vibrational place. 0 (43m 28s): And that's a really tricky one too because it's like if you've spent 30 years in some kind of anxious or avoidant or the disorganized and then all of your friends and colleagues are kind of replicating that, well now you have to kind of clean house and then that's awkward and then you become this villain. So is it possible or is it, is it advised if you get to secure or on your journey to secure that you can maintain other relationships that may not be secure or healthy? 1 (43m 59s): Absolutely. So I'll I I'll tell you about like sort of a little system there. I just wanna say one thing if it's okay. Yeah. So just going back to maybe for you or just for anybody who's listening who's like, oh my child also had a birth trauma or some kind of wound and they're like, oh my gosh 63 days. Like what is it? What do I do? All I would do to just streamline a process is morning, afternoon, evening, set an alarm on your phone and each of those times you're just gonna say four things about things that counter rock, that core wound. So four times that you were there when he was going through a hard time and just give little tangible memories. It's okay if some of them are repeated, it's, it's okay if some of them like recycle themselves. But just giving that information ongoing and then just having that as a habit for the 63 days, just a little over two months, that's where you're gonna see that huge dynamic shift and you'll actually see it in your child's behavior. 1 (44m 49s): So that, I just wanted to make it like a little system for people thank you who are listening in ca this I overwhelmed them with all the, the information and then when it comes to friends, yes, it's such a great question. Friends, family, romantic relationships when we move towards secure, you know, one of the most common examples would just be something as simple as like you are maybe boundaryless a lot of your life if you were anxious or disorganized. Sometimes disorganized individuals will, will set extreme strong boundaries from a place of anger after they're sick of being boundaryless for so long. That's me. Yeah, yeah. And iron 0 (45m 22s): Wall. Yeah. 1 (45m 24s): And so that can be that variation of it, but you know, suddenly when it's really hard for people if like you're setting boundaries out of nowhere after knowing you for a really long time. Because people often personalize it through their own wounds, right? They'll be like, oh, are you abandoning me or are you, you think I'm not good enough? Or you know, so, so the first thing I always recommend for people is step one, don't just ice everybody out, you know, instead, 'cause that's a hard thing. Instead let people know ahead of time that you're working on the things that you're working on, like communicating or taking up more space or having better boundaries or asking for your own needs. Like let people know that that's a process. Step two, practice it and set deadlines of times that you're basically gonna vet out how people are responding to you. 1 (46m 8s): If you have somebody who, let's say you have two dear friends that you're doing this with and one friend, like almost a hundred percent of the time that you do that, they punish you for it or they get angry or they personalize it or there's a negative response. Like, okay, at the end of that deadline period of time, at the end of that like 30 days of practicing this or 60 days of doing it, you, you're gonna take a step back in that relationship inevitably 'cause all the proof's in the pudding of where it's going and what it's gonna look like long term. But a lot of the time we'll see that people actually do work with us on things, especially when we adopt a state of vulnerability. Like when we're just genuine about it. Like, hey, this is hard for me to talk about but I have a need here or I need to set a boundary 'cause I'm going through this thing. And, and so a lot of times we'll see that our relationships don't have to completely change. 1 (46m 52s): We don't have to just like clean everybody out and clean house. It's actually a great practice to practice with the people that are pre-existing in your life. Setting boundaries, communicating needs, talking about wounds or fears that are coming up. And it's it at the end of it, you'll know very clearly who actually still belongs in your life in the same way or who you'll need to take a big step back from or potentially really clean house around if it's a really unhealthy experience. 0 (47m 19s): Yeah, that's helpful. It's, it's interesting because for me I have that pattern and I'm trying to figure out like, is this my attachment wound or is this actually healthy practice? 'cause loyalty to me, loyalty to me is one of my pillars. It's like a, if a family pillar, it is like, it's that important. And I feel like yes, there's probably an extreme example where if someone does a slight infraction, you're like, you are gone. See you later. Well that's probably not gonna why you're not gonna wind up with like a cir a circle of friends doing that. But also it's when people show you who they are, believe them and you know, then like there's different stratospheres of proximity to you and intimacy to you and like that should be earned and valued and respected and you do something and you go out and you go out and you're out and sometimes you just, you're not let back in. 1 (48m 10s): Can I share something with you? Yeah. So I, I was really fearful, avoidant. I was like a good fearful avoidant. Like not just like a little bit like definitely very, and it's very par for the course to say loyalty is like one of your biggest pillars. I kind of laugh when you said it because that's like, just like a true fearful avoidant. And I spent a lot of time on my own healing journey and you may have already worked through this, but this might be helpful at least for somebody listening. I spent a lot of time on my own healing journey where if somebody like did something wrong or har hurt me in some way, I would be like, that's it. That that's just not what I'm looking for. I'm not looking for this thing at this period of time in my life. And I found that I never really, at that time of my life got rid of trust wounds. 1 (48m 53s): Like I would still be like pretty hypervigilant and hypersensitive to things and like if somebody like betrayed me in some small way, I would take it to heart, take a big step back really immediately. And it kind of felt like the pattern kept going. And eventually I reflected on it and I realized that I actually still had growth to do around being more vulnerable. And then this shift happened. And this shift was that I realized that trust will never be truly built and loyalty, never truly built by people being perfect or always doing things right, which may not be your perception, but was definitely mine at the time. And what it actually was is that when people did make a mistake like that, they forgot to call me on an important day or support me when they said they would, or they told a white lie about something. 1 (49m 38s): It trust was actually built by me being able to go to them and tell them, Hey, this hurt me. This is what I would need instead next time. And then giving people the opportunity to work on it and show up differently the next time or see those efforts change. And it was through that, that actual deep roots were built in trust for me in, in multiple relationships in my life was the ability to work through things and give people the information necessary to actually know how to treat me. And that ultimately got rid of this hypervigilance and this kind of scanning I had for, for trust or who was gonna betray me or this kind of like concern about it in the background of always reading between the lines. 1 (50m 19s): Hmm. And that was when I dropped my trust wounds once and for all. And of course like I'm still cautious or I vet people or I, I'm making a concerted effort not to just, just like, I'm not gonna go give some guy late at night my bank account information that I see on the street, but like, you know, it it, it stopped that like overwhelming piece. And so the reason I think it's so important to communicate first to people is that a lot of the time people will surprise you. A lot of the time people will be like, oh, I didn't know that that hurt you so much or that that mattered so much to you. And then that you see their behavior change and it's such a beautiful blessing. And then of course there's times where it's not gonna happen and you're like, okay, now we're really clear about what to do next. But I just, for anybody who like is or was fearful avoidant listening, if you haven't overcome that one piece, it's such a beautiful experience to do that and it forces you into like more harmony with your own vulnerability. 1 (51m 11s): And I think it's the only thing that allows us to feel like we can build that true loyalty with people in our lives. 0 (51m 17s): Yeah, I think a lot of it too is how it's received and the feed, like how the is, do you know what I mean? Like is there actual remorse for this thing? Are you trying to make it up? Like are you actively trying to repair your end of it or is it exactly like this thing that was just like, you're brushing me off or not validating the situation or you're continuing to lie and like, you know, so there's so much nuance that goes with it. I mean obviously I've been with my husband for 15 years now, so like there has obviously been a boatload of examples of things that you have to like work through and work past and build together in order to like maintain a relationship for that long. But then there's also ones where you're like, you've just done this too many times. 0 (51m 57s): You know what I mean? Or like, or if it's a new friendship, for me that's also a big one because it's like you're supposed, you're just courting each other. Everyone's on their best behavior and if you're doing this out the gate, like you, I don't wanna see what it's gonna be like once you get comfortable. One person maybe that's me, I don't know. No, 1 (52m 13s): I fully, fully agree with that. Fully agree with that. I thought I sort of misread that. Maybe you were saying like, should we just not, you know, communicate first or not, you know, talk things through with somebody. And I would say for sure if you're in the vetting stage with somebody and you're just getting to know them, right? Oh my gosh. Like yes, if you're seeing a lot of red flags, you are, you're red to green flag imbalance. If it's way off, probably not the right friendship. And it's really about like that's the opportunity. It's like if people show up when you do communicate, then it's like you can build really deep roots. And if people do the opposite and keep repeating the behavior, then you have such a clear answer that the person just doesn't belong in your life. 0 (52m 50s): No, 100%. I, especially when you have small kids, for me it's like to protect that space and that influence is so important. So if you are a shitty person and like you don't understand that lying is not like my 4-year-old knows lying is not okay. Like if you don't know lying is not okay as as an adult or that manipulation is not okay as an adult. Like you can go learn, we can, you take TA's course 1 (53m 14s): And 0 (53m 14s): You can and you can learn how to get into a better, you know what I mean? So for me, I'm like, I, I'm not the person to help you on your healing journey. I'll send you somewhere else, but best of luck, you know, I'm protect, I'm protecting my space. 1 (53m 26s): And that's a beautiful thing. That's like having really good boundaries at the end of the day. 0 (53m 30s): Yeah. That's the one thing I've excelled at with all of, with everything that's ever happened. That is one thing that I was always solid on is like just again, iron wall boundaries. So now I'm trying to like do a little bit more of vulnerability and find like more of a happy medium. 1 (53m 43s): That's beautiful. Yeah. That's really 0 (53m 45s): Nice. This was amazing. I am signing up for your course. I'm just gonna let you know like 100% 'cause I, I know I'm definitely not, I'm not sealed, sign, sealed, delivered with Secure I'm, I am on the path but I'm not there yet. So I would love to see how taking, oh it's like you said 21 days is your course. 1 (54m 4s): It's a 90 day sort of 90 days. It's kind of like a bootcamp 90 day experience to go through different areas. But the first area is core wounds and that's 21 days of reprogramming. 0 (54m 13s): Oh, beautiful. Yeah. I will report back to everyone, but do you wanna tell the listeners where they can follow you, how they can support you, where they can sign up, all that good stuff? Yeah, 1 (54m 22s): Absolutely. So the courses are all in personal development school.com and you can learn like the information and everything that's there. We also have a free attachment style quiz on there if people want a report and it tells you like what your core wounds are and your needs and that kind of goes in depth. And then I put daily content on on YouTube, which is our main channel. So it's personal development school, Tais Gibson. And then on Instagram we are at personal development school 0 (54m 48s): And I will link that below for everyone. Tais, thank you so much. This was so fun. And again like I can't wait to do the homework with my son and I can't wait to start your course. 1 (54m 57s): Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. I really enjoyed being here with you. 0 (55m 1s): That's it for this week's episode of Chatting with Candace. Before you go, please take two seconds to give us that five star review, share the episode with a friend or on social and we will repost you and we have something new coming your way. So if you go to chatting with candace.com and enter your email list. No, we are not going to spam you, but I do have a really cool, do I tell you now or do I wait? Ah, okay. We're gonna tell you we are planning a launch of a couple of products as well as in person retreats that are coming your way. We are going to have an all women's retreat as well as a couple's retreat. This is gonna be really exclusive, only a few seats available. 0 (55m 42s): So if you want to be the first to find out when we are publishing the website and when you can sign up, just go to chatting with candace.com and enter your email address and we will keep you up to date on all of our hard launches. And that was it for this week's episode. All the housekeeping. Thank you so much for watching and we'll see you next week. Bye everybody.