304: Attachment Theory & Relationships with Dr. Thais Gibson

Welcome back to The Couples Therapist Couch! This podcast is about the practice of Couples Therapy. Each week, Shane Birkel interviews an expert in the field of Couples Therapy to explore all about the world of relationships and how to be an amazing therapist.

In this episode, Shane talks with Dr. Thais Gibson about attachment theory & relationships. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your other favorite podcast spots, and watch it on YouTube – follow and leave a 5-star review.

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The Couples Therapist Couch 304: Attachment Theory & Relationships with Dr. Thais Gibson

This episode is brought to you by Alma. Visit https://helloalma.com/dg/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign=privatepractice to learn more

Sign up for Shane’s free live training “What Do You Actually Do in a Couples Intensive? The 4 Cs in Action” on October 16, 2026 at Noon ET here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_lCoPXtPfTxaP_s2ATDr98Q 

Sign up for Shane’s 6-week live training program, Couples Therapy Intensives: The Blueprint, before it starts on October 27, 2026 here: https://cit.shanebirkel.com/blueprint

Get the Couples Therapy 101 course: https://www.couplestherapistcouch.com/

Join the Couples Therapist Inner Circle: https://www.couplestherapistcouch.com/inner-circle-new 

In this episode, Shane talks with Dr. Thais Gibson about attachment theory & relationships. Thais is a Relationship Expert, Co-Founder of The Personal Development School, and Author of 3 books on attachment theory. Hear why it helps to understand why we feel stuck, how influential attachment theory is on our lives, how to explore core wounds with your clients, how to set up goals with your clients, and how to help your clients find their truth. Here's a small sample of what you'll hear in this episode:

• How the six pillars of integrated attachment theory work together
• How growing up as a fearful avoidant led Thais into this work
• Negativity bias and predictive processing
• Roughly 95% of our daily beliefs and actions come from our conditioning
• Why affirmations don’t work

To learn more about Dr. Thais Gibson, visit:

PersonalDevelopmentSchool.com

YouTube @ThePersonalDevelopmentSchool

Instagram @ThePersonalDevelopmentSchool

 

Show Notes

• 304: Attachment Theory & Relationships with Dr. Thais Gibson
• This episode is brought to you by Alma. Visit https://helloalma.com/dg/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign=privatepractice to learn more
• [0:23] Welcome to The Couples Therapist Couch 
• [0:55] Free webinar this Friday, October 16th — what do you actually do in a couples intensive?
• [1:50] Welcome to the show Dr. Thais Gibson!
• [2:46] How growing up as a fearful avoidant led Thais into this work
• [3:37] Why the conscious mind can’t outwill the subconscious 
• [5:00] Why people feel stuck even when they understand their patterns intellectually
• [5:53] Analysis isn’t transformation, plus the gap Thais is trying to fill
• [6:53] Roughly 95% of our daily beliefs and actions come from our conditioning, not conscious choice
• [8:39] The cognitive dissonance between the analytical mind and the subconscious
• [10:02] The 18 major core fears, and how they map onto each attachment style
• [10:31] Negativity bias and predictive processing
• [13:22] This episode is brought to you by Alma. Visit https://helloalma.com/dg/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign=privatepractice to learn more
• [13:51] How the six pillars of integrated attachment theory work together
• [15:13] Why regulating your nervous system alone isn’t enough 
• [19:32] Two partners fighting about clothes when they’re really fighting about disrespect and feeling unloved
• [22:51] We don’t live in objective reality, we live in the subjective interpretation of it
• [24:15] The three-step rewiring exercise for core wounds
• [26:01] Why affirmations don’t work
• [27:31] Step 2: finding 10 real memories as evidence against the core wound
• [28:00] Step 3:recording and listening back for 21 days in a suggestible state
• [29:30] Moving into the truth and how this parallels learning a new language
• [30:27] The reticular activating system and how rewiring tunes what you notice about yourself
• [31:24] How a single core wound cascades into thoughts, emotions, and nervous system response
• [34:44] You can’t solve an inside problem with an outside solution
• [36:01] People’s lives are on repeat internally 
• [37:26] How Thais worked with the laundry couple
• [44:25] The difference between objective and subjective needs 
• [45:50] Shane reveals he leans avoidant and why the word “needs” bothers him
• [47:15] The continuum from codependency to counterdependency 
• [49:03] All of us are on the spectrum somewhere 
• [51:52] The two sources of emotional pain 
• [54:46] Carried emotions vs. present day emotions
• [56:29] How to work with the carried emotions keeping you up at night
• [57:27] Find Thais at personaldevelopmentschool.com and the free attachment assessment is included
• [57:55] Couples Therapy Intensives Blueprint training starts October 27th!
• This episode is brought to you by Alma. Visit https://helloalma.com/dg/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign=privatepractice to learn more

 

What is The Couples Therapist Couch?

This podcast is about the practice of Couples Therapy. Many of the episodes are interviews with leaders in the field of Relationships. The show is meant to help Therapists and Coaches learn how to help people to deepen their connection, but in the process it explores what is most needed for each of us to love, heal, and grow. Each week, Shane Birkel interviews an expert in the field of Couples Therapy to explore all about the world of relationships and how to be an amazing therapist.

Learn more about the Couples Therapy 101 course: https://www.couplestherapistcouch.com/

Find out more about the Couples Therapist Inner Circle: https://www.couplestherapistcouch.com/inner-circle-new

Transcript

Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

00:00

People's lives are on repeat internally and they just don't recognize it because the external characters change.

 

00:10

to the Couples Therapist Couch, the podcast for couples therapists,  marriage counselors, and relationship coaches to explore the practice of couples therapy. And now, your host, Shane Burkle.

 

00:26

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Couples Therapist's Couch. This is Shane Burkle and this is the podcast that's all about the practice of couples therapy.  Thank you so much for tuning in. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist and the goal of this podcast is to help you learn how to more effectively work with couples and possibly even learn how to have a better relationship. The episode this week is brought to you by Alma. They make it easy to get credentialed with major insurance plans at enhanced reimbursement rates.

 

00:55

Alma handles all of the paperwork and guarantees payment within two weeks. Visit helloalma.com or click on the link in the show notes to learn more. And I'm really excited to share with you an interview that I did with Dr. Thais Gibson.  She's an author of three books on attachment theory and she and I talk all about attachment styles. But before I get to that, I wanted to let you know about a free live training I'm hosting this Friday, October 16th.

 

01:23

called what do you actually do in a couple's intensive, the four C's in action. One of the questions I hear from therapists who are interested in offering intensives is what do you actually do with a couple for four hours or six hours or however long? And I think that's a really important question. And that's what a lot of my trainings are all about because having more time doesn't automatically mean we're going to do better therapy.

 

01:50

We need to have a way of understanding what's happening with the couple and knowing where to go next. So this Friday, I'm going to walk through the Four Seas framework that guides my work, consciousness,  curiosity, compassion, and connection. And we'll talk about how to use that framework when things get activated, how an intensive unfolds, how you might begin incorporating longer sessions into your own practice. This is also a little preview of some of the clinical work.

 

02:18

we'll be exploring in my upcoming six week couples intensive blueprint training, which starts October 27th. So the webinar this Friday is completely free and I'd love to have you join us. You can find the registration link in the show notes below, but let's get right into the episode here. Everyone welcome back to the couples therapist couch. This is Shane Burkle and today I'm speaking with Dr. Tyese Gibson,  relationship expert.

 

02:46

co-founder of the Personal Development School and author of three books on attachment theory. Hi, Thais. Welcome to the show. Hi, Shane. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, absolutely.  Why don't you tell everyone a little bit more about yourself to start with? Yeah. So my name is Thais. I have been working in this field originally in client practice and then through our online programs for the past almost 14 years.

 

03:10

I absolutely love this work. I definitely got into this work because I was a fearful avoidant attachment style, the disorganized attachment style. So I grew up with a pretty turbulent background and household and really had to unlearn and relearn new healthier ways of being and communicating in the world and in relationships. And it was such a rewarding experience for me to really do that in our work that I just, I don't think there's anything I really love more than to teach, than to share and to...

 

03:37

really talk about a lot of these different materials. So I became really obsessed with like the neuroscience of change. So a huge part of my original background was that I was in a psychology class one day and I had a friend in the class say, I was reading this book and I learned that your conscious mind can't out will or overpower your subconscious mind.  And it sort of answered a lot of these questions I had for a long period of time where I'm going, okay, consciously I say I want to change these patterns.

 

04:03

or I wanna stop repeating these same themes in relationships or in my life, but then I keep on doing the same things repeatedly instead.  So how do we change that? And when he said, your conscious mind can't outwill your subconscious mind, I was like obsessed with learning about the subconscious mind and the differences between the subconscious versus unconscious and the neuroscience of change. So I ended up doing a PhD in pastoral counseling eventually, and then 13 certifications in like hypnotherapy and neuro-linguistic programming and CBT and you name it, like sort of the whole gamut.

 

04:33

and really spent the early part of my career just working with people on how we actually reconditioned patterns.  And then had a two-year wait list in my client practice and was like, oh, I guess I'll put some little workshops online so people can watch while they're on the wait list.  And that just kind of accidentally grew our YouTube channel and social media following. And then from there, it was like, okay, I guess I'll put a school together and have spent the last seven, eight years just leading programs through a personal development school since then.

 

05:00

Wow, that's amazing. And I love the way you're saying that. I feel like so many people feel kind of stuck or they feel like they're a passenger in their own life. And it feels like, you know, they're just not able to break through on certain things. And I think what, you know, what you're talking about is really helpful when people begin to realize there are reasons why we feel stuck in certain ways. And if we can become more conscious of what's going on beneath the surface,

 

05:28

Maybe we can feel a lot more successful or fulfilled in our life.  Absolutely. And that's the same theme that I've seen so many times is people want more for themselves. They want more for their relationships. They can even like dream it and think about it and analyze what's missing.  But analysis isn't what creates transformation. Like the intellectualization of more material isn't what actually creates transformation and change. And so that's sort of the

 

05:53

The gap that I'm always trying to fill for people is teach them the neuroscience of how we change, how we rebuild neural networks in our brain and create new outcomes. And of course, so much of what our early patterning is and what our early conditioning comes from is our attachment patterns in relationship. You know, the different things we learned growing up in terms of how to give and receive love and what our needs should be like and what fears or wounds we have and what to expect. And so those are usually the things that, in my opinion, are the biggest roots of what we're playing out over and over.

 

06:24

Great. Can you say a little bit more about, so I think you said something like understanding it intellectually isn't what creates change necessarily or something like that. Can you keep going with that?  I know attachment theory is a big part of how you approach that as well. Yeah. So exactly what you just said is that when we take an information, it's really our conscious mind, our logical analytical thinking mind is our conscious mind. And so that part of us is ingesting information.

 

06:53

But a lot of the neuroscience research suggests that roughly three to 5 % of all of our daily beliefs, thoughts, emotions, and actions are of the conscious mind, like conscious choices that we're making.  And roughly 95 to 97 % are of our conditioning. And so our subconscious and unconscious collectively. And so we can say a lot of things like, oh, I can learn about myself and say, you know, at least for me, I'll use myself as the example.  Back in the day when I was fearful avoidant,

 

07:19

I knew that I would sabotage in relationships. I knew that I would love deeply and feel deeply and then get scared and push people away all of a sudden. And I knew I was doing that. And so consciously my mind is aware of these patterns and I can even logically analyze them and say, this isn't healthy, this isn't normal. I wanna change this, I would like to change these things. And I can read all the books about them or learn about boundaries and communicating them earlier or learn about these things.

 

07:47

But until I actually build new neural networks through repetition and emotion over time, because it's part of how we fire and wire new neural pathways,  until we actually shift and change these things through repetition and practice over time. And we can talk about that in a lot more detail here today, like specific tools for how to do this and over what period of time and in what kind of state of mind we can get into all that. until we do that work.

 

08:10

then we just end up analyzing things, being aware of our patterns, but then repeating them again, because literally 95 % of them are driven by our subconscious or unconscious mind. And so that's where those places of feeling stuck really come from, because we're going, we know this, we know not to do this. And you see this really mapped out by different individuals, like people who are a little more anxious in relationships.  They can be in the wrong relationships, they can keep dating or choosing emotionally unavailable people. They can know better and yet keep repeating.

 

08:39

or somebody who's more avoidant in relationships. They can shut down and stonewall and avoid vulnerability and they can know that they're icing people out and that they're unapproachable or not willing to have the harder, vulnerable conversations, but they keep repeating. And so those times where we know and yet we repeat, that is the conscious and subconscious mind being in a form of cognitive dissonance where our analytical mind wants one thing, but our subconscious mind, the pattern habituated itself is driving us in a different direction.

 

09:07

I don't want to box you into attachment stuff, but I do want, I do hope we can talk a lot about that today.  But, um, but I feel like my mind is going to understanding the attachment part of it in order to understand some of those unconscious things that are playing out. But I don't know if that's like all of the, or a big part of the way you talk about it, or if that's just one small part of the way that you think about these things.

 

09:35

Yeah, it's a big part.  basically what I ended up doing, which was really interesting.  in the early part of my career, the first two or three years, I actually wasn't working with people on attachment related stuff. It was just root cause stuff, like how to heal from your childhood stuff. And so that really looked like me helping people subconsciously, like understand their subconscious and even unconscious, but more so subconscious patterns around things like what big...

 

10:02

triggers or core wounds are you carrying from your past into your present?  So, you know, there's 18 major core fears that people have and I'll break them down by attachment style in a little bit, but the idea that you're always going to be abandoned or that people are going to betray you or you're going to be seen as a bad person. You have to over explain yourself or that people are going to trap or control you. These big core fears, because in childhood,  we are obviously our whole lives, we have a negativity bias. So we're wired to hang on to negative things more than positive so that we can remember.

 

10:31

to avoid them and protect ourselves from them. And then number two, we have this mechanism called predictive processing. So if you imagine the analogy of like a bear in the woods,  if somebody goes into the woods and sees a bear and they run away from the bear and they get home to their house, well, two things happen.  Number one, predictive processing stops you from going back into the woods the next day. You're like, don't go back into the woods. You re-project back out that you might see the bear again in the woods.

 

10:57

And number two, when you get home from being chased by the bear, you don't go home and tell your friends and family how beautiful the sunset was while you were running for your life. Like you remember the big scary bears teeth and its claws. So we're wired to hang on to negative things more than positive. So we remember them and can protect ourselves. And then we have predictive processing, which means we essentially reproject back out onto our world, the likelihood of those things recurring. So if you go into the woods the next day, you're preparing to see the bear.

 

11:26

And so that works really well if we're being chased by bears and if we're in predator prey society, but really functionally in today's world for most of us, what that actually is is that if you felt a negative experience in childhood or even in an adult relationship, you were betrayed, somebody cheated,  well, you go into your relationship the next time around and you don't remember the 99 % of times you weren't betrayed.  You remember the 1 % of times you were. And then predictive processing works in such a way where...

 

11:54

Then if somebody's even really healthy and normal, you're like, they're gonna betray me. Oh, the story changed, something bad's gonna happen, and you're waiting for that same experience to recur.  So what's really interesting is I spent the early part of my career just literally helping people find their core wounds, these big fears, and then actually leverage neuroplasticity to rewire them so that we're not just constantly projecting our past onto our present, because that's really how our relationship baggage works.  And then I help people learn their needs in childhood.

 

12:23

the things they didn't get met that they really needed access to, and how to self-soothe by meeting their own needs, and then how to do somatic work to regulate their nervous system. And that was like the first three big pillars that I worked with people on. And I used to develop these sort of personalized programs and get them to find their core wounds and their unmet needs and how to regulate their nervous system.  And then I revisited attachment theory a couple of years later and realized like, oh yeah, people have to also learn healthy communication and boundaries and co-regulation and...

 

12:52

and these really important things. And when I revisited attachment theory, I was like, oh, this is really interesting. As soon as I know somebody's attachment style, I'm gonna know those six pillars. I'm gonna know what core wounds they have, because they're very nicely mapped per attachment style.  I'm gonna know what kind of needs they have in relationships. I'm gonna know how their nervous system is functioning, because anxious attachment styles are in this like sympathetic fawn response, whereas dismissive avoidance are in this dorsal vagal shutdown,  or functional freeze a lot more.

 

13:22

And I'm gonna know how they tend to communicate, because you see anxious attachment cells over communicate, over explain themselves to avoid punishment. And you see dismissive avoidance under communicate. They communicate through their actions instead of their words. They'll just go in the other room and shut the door, you know? That's their way of communicating.  And then each attachment cell had a unique relationship to boundaries and to coping behaviors. And so I developed this sort of mechanism of, okay, well, as soon as I know somebody's attachment style, I can reverse engineer.

 

13:51

how they map across these six steps, what core wounds we have to rewire, what needs we have to meet, how their nervous system has to be somatically regulated, and then how we have to improve their communication, their boundaries, and their behaviors.  And because my background originally was in the neuroscience of change and the subconscious mind,  I would just help people leverage neuroplasticity to rewire those things and as a result become securely attached. So that was what I sort of built from about 2013 to 2019.

 

14:18

and then launched online and trademarked as a system in 2020. And then I've been working for the last seven years or so, I guess, because we really launched it in 2019 to help people rewire their attachments out to become secure. Wow, that's incredible. I I feel like it's so important as far as understanding, you know, when we're showing up in the present, whether it's in a relationship or just showing up in our life.

 

14:45

there's some reason why it makes sense that we're showing up in the way that we are positive and negative or the things that we like about ourselves or the things that we're struggling with. And so I think that's so helpful when you're talking about the core wounds and the needs and how they communicate and how they set boundaries. mean, there's some reason about like what you went through growing up in your family. There's some reason why it makes sense that you're probably

 

15:13

stuck in the way that you feel like you're stuck in the present. Is that right?  Exactly.  And what's happening is like, let's say, so if you look at the three attachment styles and we just look at the first pillar, so the core wounds pillar,  if you look at anxiously attached individuals,  their big core wounds, and I joke that these are kind of their version of the bear in the woods, right? Like the painful imprint that we held onto and we reproject,  their big core wounds are the fear of being abandoned,  alone,  excluded.

 

15:41

rejected, disliked, unloved. Those are like their big fears.  And those are things they feel as children. They imprint their subconscious mind. And we have to ask ourselves a really interesting question. Like if somebody is in their, let's say, 40s, and they had these painful experiences around feeling abandoned in childhood, let's say it's decades ago for somebody, well, how is the past still affecting you in the present if the past is 40 years gone?

 

16:09

And the answer to that question is that the past imprints your subconscious mind.  The subconscious mind is still carrying those neural networks because you've been literally firing and wiring them for decades through your predictive processing, right? Like constantly re-projecting that you're going to be abandoned.  And so the past is living in your subconscious mind.  And so that's how we end up going through these same themes going forward where we're playing out these patterns. And these are exactly the things that anxious attachment cells jump to.

 

16:37

The moment somebody doesn't call them back when they said they would, they're like, oh my gosh, they're abandoning me. They're leaving, they're pulling away. And so that predictive processing is at work literally projecting out that fear,  reliving those feelings,  refiring and wiring those belief patterns and thoughts, and re-causing all of that stress at a nervous system level because of that core wound living at a subconscious level.  And if you look at the dismissive avoidance, dismissive avoidance, they have totally different core wounds. Their wounds and fears are around the fear of being trapped.

 

17:06

or helpless or powerless if they rely too much on people, which is part of why they're so independent. They're trying to avoid those wounds.  Or the fear of being seen as weak or shameful or defective if they're too vulnerable, which is why they constantly are creating distance and space.  And so they have totally different core wounds that have imprinted their subconscious mind that are driving their behaviors and relationships. And then last but not least, if you see a fearful avoidant, fearful avoidants have sort of the anxious wounds and the avoidant wounds. So they have this fear of being abandoned, but they also have this fear

 

17:36

of being trapped or helpless or powerless. And they have a huge core wound around being betrayed.  So that's part of why they shift from hot to cold. They're like, oh, you're gonna abandon me. So they wanna cling on tight.  And then somebody gets too close and they're like, oh, get back, you're too close, you're gonna hurt me. And so that's where they get the pinballing from and the hot and cold and back and forth behaviors.  And so my sort of idea behind this, and we've seen like incredible results of people. Like we've tested this out in case studies and collected all this data and there's really cool stuff that we've seen.

 

18:06

But what ends up happening is a lot of people out in the world right now are like, Oh, if you want to change your relationship patterns,  regulate your nervous system. And it's like, well, regulating your nervous system is good. It helps you soothe when you're in those, those peak triggering moments. But if you regulate your nervous system, every time you're afraid of being abandoned, you feel better after regulating your nervous system. And then an hour later,  somebody triggers the abandonment wound again and you're back into the same spiral. And so we have to actually rewire those core wounds.

 

18:36

as we're regulating the nervous system so that we're dealing with the roots of the problem as well as the surface symptoms simultaneously.  Well, yeah. And the other thing that happens is help a client become conscious of something like that. And I'll say, Oh, you just need to calm your nervous system next time this happens. And they get really upset because they're like, what do you mean? Like if I could do that, of course I would. Like it's not, it's not like I can just flip a switch and call my nervous system. So true. So true. Exactly. Yeah.

 

19:05

So I appreciate what you're saying about rewiring.  I'm thinking of this skit that I just saw recently.  It's Key and Peele. They're like comedians, but one of them was texting the other and one was just was like, Hey, I'll see you soon. Like he was like just totally neutral, if not a little positive. And the other one was like misinterpreting the texts and like taking it super offensively. And I feel like that's so true. Like what, that's what we do.

 

19:32

whatever the other person is bringing into the situation, we're sort of making up our own meaning about what's happening and trying to create safety in the way that, you know, depending on what our attachment style is in a certain, you know, in a certain way.  exactly. love that so much. And I always tell this old story that, that I had a couple come into my office years and years ago, like 14 years ago or so.  And, um, and they sat down and it was a husband and wife and she was fearful of voiding and he was anxious.

 

20:02

and they sat down and they were talking about how the husband always leaves his clothes on the floor and how he always forgets to pick up after himself and they're sitting there talking and I'm writing a note and I look up and I see the wife's hands are shaking and I'm sort of like, oh, why are her hands shaking?  And I look closer and I realize that they're shaking with rage. She is like miffed, like absolutely so upset.  And I look over at him.

 

20:31

And he starts kind of like shrinking. Like he looks like a little kid who looks like he's in trouble and he's really sad.  And I'm sitting there looking at them and I'm thinking like, there's no way that she's this angry and he's this sad about clothes on the floor, like laundry on the floor.  And so I asked the wife in the situation, I'm like, okay, so what do you make it mean about you when the clothes are on the floor? And she's like, well, I ask him all the time and he doesn't respect me. My own husband doesn't respect me.

 

20:56

And sure enough, she had these big, her version of the bear in the woods. She had a father who was an alcoholic and he was very disrespectful when he would drink. So she's got this huge core wound around, am disrespected.  And then I go to the husband and I'm like, oh, and what do you make it mean when your wife is getting upset about this? And he's like, well, I just feel like she doesn't see how hard I try and she doesn't love me. Like I work full time, I come home, I try to help around the house. I'm trying to do all these things and I just feel unloved. And he had this.

 

21:23

this painful experience with his mother growing up where he felt really unloved. And so what's happened is it's our personal version of the bear in the woods. The core wounds imprint you, we store them, and exactly to your point with like Key and Peele, I think that's their name, right? Key and Yeah.  And so exactly to your point in that skit, you know, people see the message and it's not, we don't live in the objective reality. We live in the subjective interpretation of reality, which is based on our own subconscious conditioning, which is exactly how

 

21:52

our subconscious mind is responsible for 95 % of all of our beliefs and thoughts and emotions is it's running the show because it's this filter that we're seeing and interacting with the world through. And so until we rewire that filter, we're going to keep jumping to the same conclusions, having the same frustrating moments,  taking things personally, because even if somebody didn't even intend anything personal or anything negative, you know, maybe somebody's caught up at work and they forget to text their partner back and their partner's spiraling like, oh my gosh.

 

22:20

You're abandoning me. I didn't hear from you two hours after you normally text me." And they're panicking because they've had abandonment, wounding in the past. And then that person, they're sitting there going, it's just a text message. What's the problem? Because unless they have the same subjective conditioning, they're not feeling or relating to that objective situation of the text message in any kind of similar way. And that's exactly where we get into these really big pain points and problems in relationship. You think back to that husband and wife.

 

22:51

and they're literally having an argument about being disrespected and unloved by each other. And they're trying to solve the problem by talking about the laundry on the floor. And it really limits us in our ability to work through things.  Building a private practice can be challenging. Filing all of the right paperwork is time consuming and tedious. And even after you're done, it can take months to get credentialed and start seeing clients. That's why Alma makes it easy and financially rewarding to accept insurance.

 

23:19

When you join ALMA, you can get credentialed within 45 days and access enhanced reimbursement rates with major payers. They also handle all of the paperwork from eligibility checks to claim submissions and guarantee payment within two weeks of each appointment.  Plus when you join ALMA, you'll get access to time-saving tools for intakes, scheduling, treatment plans,  progress notes, and more in their included platform. ALMA helps you spend less time on administrative work

 

23:47

and more time offering great care to your clients. Visit helloalma.com or click the link in the show notes to learn more. But I'm wondering if you could say more about what does that mean when you say rewiring or,  know, let's say they begin to understand a little bit on a conscious level, their attachment style, but how do you take it a step deeper? Yeah, really good question. So for each of those six pillars, I get them to focus on

 

24:15

rewiring for each pillar. So there's an exercise for each pillar, but we can start with the core wounds one.  And basically, if you look at core wounds, right, if we go back to that idea that core wounds are like the predictive processing and negativity bias that imprint us,  so something negative happens,  like as the analogy, the bear in the woods, right, you get chased by a bear, then you hold onto that for dear life.  The relational version of this is that,

 

24:40

If you feel abandoned growing up, then you hold on to that, right? So that's the negativity bias that imprints our subconscious mind. And then we have the predictive processing. So we accidentally keep firing and wiring that core wound. Neural pathways in our brain, they work like muscles.  You stop working out your bicep muscle, it atrophies. Neural networks in our brain are similar. They atrophy over time. So when we're trying to rewire a core wound, there's a three-step exercise I take people through.

 

25:07

And the goal here is that we're building new neural networks over here and we are letting these ones atrophy out because we're not refeeding them. Okay. So the step one is you find the core wound and it's opposite. So for example, if we use a really simple one,  anxious attachment cells have this a lot. I am not good enough. Okay. So I'm not good enough. What's its opposite? I am good enough.  Now the next two steps are the really important steps because I don't be, I'm not a big believer in affirmations.

 

25:36

The reason being that affirmations speak to your conscious mind because the conscious mind speaks language and the subconscious mind speaks in emotions and imagery.  So when you think of that, you your conscious mind speaks language.  Well, your conscious mind speaks language.  And the way you can see this is like if I say to you whatever you do, do not think of the pink elephant.  Right?

 

26:01

Your conscious mind hears, do not, but it's too late. Your subconscious flashes an image of a pink elephant.  And nobody,  nobody in the world has a conscious core wound.  Nobody's like, oh, today I'm going to wake up and consciously choose to tell myself 35 times that I'm not good enough. Right? Like nobody would ever consciously choose that. So the wound exists at the subconscious level as this belief about yourself.  So we have to use our conscious mind to speak to our subconscious mind.  So step one, I am not good enough. What's its opposite? I am good enough.

 

26:31

Step two is we have to speak to the subconscious mind, which we do through emotions and imagery.  So how do we do this? Well, every single memory we ever have is just a series of emotions and images.  A memory is a container of emotions and imagery. So if you think of your favorite childhood memory and it's you playing at the beach with your family,  you would see the images of the sand and the ocean. And we've all seen people when they tell an old story or an old memory, maybe they tell an old story and they laugh.

 

27:01

because the emotions contained within that memory. If it's a funny high school story that you have with your old friends, or if it's a sad memory, somebody might cry in that experience because that's the emotion contained within that memory. So now we know we can speak to our subconscious mind with memories, and we really want it to be evidence-based. So we go step one, I am not good enough, I am good enough. Step two, we want to come up with 10 memories of times, real life times, that we were actually good enough.

 

27:31

So we might say,  okay, was three days ago, I had a hard conversation with my boss at work.  And the person would think of, they would see the images of them having that hard conversation and maybe feel a little bit of that pride that like I did that. And so now we're using our conscious mind to speak an emotion and imagery to reach our subconscious mind. And step three is we record ourselves saying it out loud or we write it down. And our job is to listen back or reread it for 21 days.

 

28:00

doing the absolute best we can as we reread it to feel about it in our bodies, that's what anchors it in, and to really see the images in our mind.  And neuroscience tells us that if we're doing this specifically in a suggestible state, so the first hour that we wake up or last hour before we go to sleep when our brains are producing more alpha brain waves,  then we're in the suggestible state where information can permeate our subconscious more effectively, and it takes about 21 days of repeatedly firing and wiring.

 

28:30

and imagery to build these new neural networks that are strong enough where they're likely to stick.  So to summarize really quick, step one, find the core wound and it's opposite. I am not good enough, I am good enough. Step two, write out 10 times a time, you actually felt good enough and you might have to sit with that for 15 minutes and really think through things. They don't have to be huge. Step three, ideally you record yourself reading them out loud so you can listen back in for 21 days in the first hour that you wake up when you're more suggestible, when your brain is...

 

28:59

producing more alpha brainwaves, and you're going to listen back to yourself saying these things out loud so that you can focus on seeing the images, feeling the emotion in your body, anchoring it in, and that's now using your conscious mind to speak to your subconscious mind to shift out of constantly replaying that old core wound, building new neural networks around its opposite, and that's how we actually rewire. I love that. mean, sometimes I'll say something like it's about moving into the truth.

 

29:30

Right? The truth is that you are a wonderful, amazing,  worthy person, deserving of love. You know, I love that idea that you're coming up with examples that show that that is true for people to see the evidence of that.  another thing I think is like in a relational sense, when people are working on communication or something like that,

 

29:58

I'll say like, it's like learning a new language because we have our,  sort of subconscious nervous system responses that, that are kind of like naturally like play out if we let them. And I think part of it is when you're talking about this, to me, this is another way to sort of like the process of learning a new language. When you have those messages that you play for yourself again and again, it's like reminding you of the truth.

 

30:27

but also helping you learn to see things in a different way or create meaning in a different way in the present.  Exactly. And when you're doing that and you're really creating, you're seeing yourself differently across time,  we have this mechanism in our brain called the reticular activating system or RAS, and it's basically like a filtering system. And so when you start feeding in first thing in the morning,  real life things that you're doing differently and you see the images, you feel the emotion in your body, you're also sort of retuning your reticular activating system dial to

 

30:56

focus in on the things that, oh, wait, I am good enough because look at the things I am doing. And so when we constantly feed that to ourselves, we start to see ourselves through a new lens. And then the rest of our nervous system is responding to our subconscious mind.  if you follow,  like, let's say we take that core belief,  I am not good enough, and you follow this thread. When that core belief is triggered, like, let's say somebody has this core wound from childhood, I'm not good enough, and now they're heading to a job interview.

 

31:24

and they're sitting outside of the job interview, they're waiting to go in, well, when that core belief is triggered, they're gonna start thinking thoughts like, I'm not prepared enough, I'm not qualified enough, I'm not good at interviewing enough, they're gonna start thinking all these stressful thoughts because when somebody pushes on your core wound or you're in an environment or situation that is likely to do so,  it creates a series, like a sort of spring of thoughts, almost like tree branches springing off of a tree trunk, like the tree trunks the core belief or core wound.

 

31:52

Then we think these series of thoughts and everybody's experienced when a core belief is triggered that your mind starts racing, right? Your thoughts speed up when you're triggered.  And then when we are believing and thinking we're not good enough, we're not prepared enough, we're not qualified enough for the job interview, well, how do you start to feel?  Well, you start feeling stress and maybe a little bit of anxiety. Well, stress and anxiety are made up of neurochemical reactions like cortisol and norepinephrine. And those are the chemical messengers

 

32:21

that then tell the rest of our physiology that it's time to jump into sympathetic nervous system response.  And so then all of sudden you're sitting there in fight or flight and the neuroscience has actually proven that every action we take is based on our emotional state. So when you're feeling all the stress, even people who think they're super logical, rational thinkers are making emotionally based decisions at the tipping point. And then they're just quick to rationalize through logic after the fact.  So here's somebody sitting in the job interview and

 

32:50

they're having this core belief triggered, I'm not good enough. They're thinking all the ways that they're not good enough and qualified enough. All this stress response is circulating through the rest of their nervous system or really these emotional responses that are then signaling for you, okay, time to brace for a threat, go into sympathetic nervous system mode.  And then you sit there and unless you're doing some like deep somatic work, you may not even come out of it. Now you're just in the job interview in full sympathetic nervous system mode or at best,

 

33:18

you regulate your nervous system through doing some completion cycle work or somatic processing, and that's helpful.  But then if you go into another job interview the next day, because you're interviewing for multiple jobs, that whole cascade can repeat itself. And that's where that emotional flooding really comes in for people.  So when we rewire the wound at the root, we actually do the 21 days of repetition, emotion, building new neural networks in our brain.  And we unplug from seeing ourselves through that same old lens.

 

33:45

Well, you're actually, it's like the real emotional immunity. You're, you're plucking the weed out at the root so that you can't, when you go into the next job interview, 21 days later,  have that same type of cascade that floods forth. that makes sense. Well, yeah, it makes me think, and you can tell me if I, maybe I got it wrong, but it makes me think about like a lot of people develop this belief that if I get the job, then I can feel worthy in the world and I can feel that peace in the world. Right. And it's this.

 

34:15

usually a moving goalpost for people,  like whatever the next thing is.  And it's never really getting to the heart of the matter, the core wound, because they're propping themselves up.  even do it with our partner. Even if you're married to someone, it's like, as long as my partner loves me, then I'll be okay. Right. And then that's why people becomes obviously so devastated if there's an affair or if your partner is questioning their relationship or whatever.

 

34:44

It just feels so overwhelming. And again, that's probably normal on some level, but there's this sort of like conditional way in which I'm okay as long as these conditions are in place that I think you're speaking to, which is like, the truth is there are ways we can kind of get to these core wounds that aren't conditional on anything else. I love that you said that so much. I say this to people. I'm like, okay.

 

35:10

you can't solve an inside problem with an outside solution.  And it's like so exactly what you just said, which is that you can't, like you can get that job and then literally you get the job and then you just feel not good enough at the job. When it was in the interview, then the job worked out magically, but then now you're feeling that way inside the job.  So no matter what, and that's where the moving goalpost comes from is because we constantly are trying to solve for the core wound externally.

 

35:37

by changing ourselves or changing our relationship or connecting more, getting a better job. And it actually becomes more than anything a self-fulfilling prophecy.  So we end up going through these things. And it's so interesting because your subconscious mind at the end of the day, it's very survival wired.  So your conscious mind says, I want to feel good enough. I want to feel confident. And your subconscious mind, basically, if it had a voice, would say like, well,

 

36:01

This has been working because we've been surviving this whole time. So let's keep choosing things that make us feel this way. And a lot of people and I'm sure you found this in your practice. This was one of the biggest things for me that I always felt like was so astounding when I worked in client practice.  I would sit there and I would think, geez,  like people's lives are on repeat internally and they just don't recognize it because the external characters change.  So maybe dad was emotionally unavailable for little Susie growing up.

 

36:30

and then it was her first boyfriend and then her best friend and now it's her spouse and her best friend and she's still struggling over feeling not good enough and unloved because she's around emotionally unavailable people.  And the same themes are just on rotation, like on repeat,  where she feels not good enough and she feels sad so she tries harder and she people pleases more and still feels rejected and we're just in this repeating cycle.

 

36:56

And we don't realize how repetitive that internal cycle is because first it was dad and then it was brothers and then it was, you know, first partner and then the next partner. And so people don't realize, my internal reality is on repeat. And that's why we can't change our internal reality with an outside solution, because it's actually the internal work that has to happen first. Yeah. Do you, do you feel like, let's say to go back to the example of the couple you were talking about, would you pretty quickly

 

37:26

try to figure out what the core wounds were from like,  based on the way you set up that conversation, you start to make them aware of the pattern a little bit or the way the communication or are you going to the heart of them? Are you going to the meaning or the core wounds or something pretty quickly? Yeah, great question.  Yeah. So I would always get them to see the core wounds and then I'd always get them to see each other's history in that moment.  where does this disrespect wound come from?  Oh,

 

37:53

dad and all these things. Okay, can you see how your wife,  the laundry is triggering this big cascade of events where there's a lot of pain and emotional storage here? Your subconscious stores every memory ever. It consolidates memories over time, but that's what a trigger is. It's like you see the laundry and your conscious mind says to your subconscious mind, what do we know about feeling a little disrespected?  And the subconscious mind's like flooding forward all the emotional memories of times you felt disrespected, or at least the emotion from those memories. And so,

 

38:22

I would explain that to them so they could empathize better with each other's experience.  So the husband could see, it's because he's sitting there thinking, who cares? It's some clothes on the floor. Like, we're busy. What's the, what's that in the grand scheme of life?  But when he sees, my wife has this huge disrespect core wound from her alcoholic father. And this is what's showing up in the relationship. Oh my gosh. Now I have more empathy. Now I see why the clothes matter. And so I'd get them to, to have that conversation first. And then she can see how, when she gets angry.

 

38:51

and she's blaming and critical,  that that's actually really triggering for him feeling this deep sense of being unloved and abandoned in the relationship with his mother growing up. And that's what's coming up for him. So now they have more empathy.  Then I would get them to actually do the 21 days of rewiring. But then we would go into the second pillar of integrated attachment theory, which is what do they need?  So then it's like, okay, what do you need to feel relief? And it's interesting because you think,

 

39:17

that the need is just the objective, but I would get them to do the objective and subjective needs.  So objective means I need us to be better about picking up the laundry on the floor. So how do we execute it?  He does a 5 p.m. quick look through the house, see if he left anything out, puts it back.  So very objective, easy strategy to meet the need. But then the subjective need is usually very much related to the core wound.  in that situation, I remember she said,

 

39:45

Well, I need to know that my husband actually respects me and I need some validation around that. And so he was able to say, of course I respect you. I respect this about you and this about you and actually meet the need.  And now her guard is lowered. She felt empathized with her core wound was seen and validated.  Her need was met. They have a strategy for dealing with the laundry. And then she turns around and goes to the husband and says,  and we're like, okay, what do you need?

 

40:11

And he's like, I need her to be a little more gentle with her words when she's frustrated and upset. I need her to work on that. I know she won't necessarily be perfect right away.  And I need her know right now that she loves me, that she cares about me, that she sees me as more than just somebody who has to do everything right on a checklist. And so she's able to turn around and really give that validation because they kind of got the core wound discussion out of the way. The subjective reality is seen and understood. There's more empathy and capacity for that.

 

40:40

Now we can go into like, do you need to solve for that problem and bring it full circle? Yeah, that's great. And it's moving from a right and wrong conversation into like,  it's perfectly valid for you to feel what you're feeling. You know, when you're seeing her shaking in the anger, it's going to be very, this is where couples get stuck a lot. I think if she's saying like, you leaving the clothes on the floor makes me this angry, it just doesn't add up or it's hard to connect to the truth of that.

 

41:10

And then she feels invalidated. But like, if we can say it makes perfect sense because what, you know, growing up with your dad, you weren't whatever, whatever. And that, of course you would be angry about that. Then she can get the validation, hopefully from her partner, mostly the validation of, course you're angry, but it doesn't have to be about necessarily the other person. And then moving it to the needs. It's like, what would be helpful to me is if you could do it this way.

 

41:39

And it's not about blaming or criticizing or judging the other person. It's about, you know, how do we share that information with each other because we both want to make it work better.  Exactly. Yeah, that's so beautifully summarized.  And I always break it down into like the subjective and objective need because so often people try to solve arguments by being like, well, pick up the clothes, just pick up the laundry. Right. And then, you know, and then they didn't hear the whole history and the core wound part.

 

42:06

And then they have like a subjective solve, which is, yeah, he's gonna kind of work better at picking up the laundry.  But like a lot of times when people are actually fighting, what I find time and time again,  is they're fighting more about the need they have to solve for the core wound than the actual practical situation.  So really for her,  he's gonna do a 5 p.m., I forget what time it was, this is so long ago, it like 5 p.m. or 10 p.m., something before bed maybe, sweep of the house and make sure he didn't leave anything out. And that was gonna be their habituated pattern.

 

42:35

And that was good. But what she actually needed, and when she actually came full circle, was when he turned to her and was like, and she was like, I need to know that he respects me. I need some validation that he respects me. That's what she actually needed. And so when he's like, of course I respect you. I like this about you and this about you and respect this. And I think you're so great here.  That actually helped her in the core wound moment. Then she's like, oh yeah, my husband does respect me. Like he's just forgetful. It's just the laundry.  And then he didn't need.

 

43:02

for his wife to like take back everything she just said, he needed to know that his wife like loved him and cared about him. And so it's so interesting because so many people, and I'm sure you see this all the time, they go through life and they're like sitting here talking about the laundry or the dishes or the gas not in the car or whatever it is. And it's kind of a waste of time. Like it's like you get maybe 2 % of the way to solving the argument by talking about the practical part. But so much of what's actually upsetting us is our subjective conditioning. And that's all being what's what's

 

43:32

being carried forth from our childhood at a subconscious level.  That's so good. So important. I feel like I talked to couples about that a lot, you know, because you don't want this, the solution or success shouldn't be measured by whether they follow through on doing the laundry that week because there's this sort of disappointment that can, that it can perpetuate the pattern almost in a way.  But like maybe we could set up a goal where

 

44:01

if we're talking about respect, then it's a whole different conversation or like,  how are they now, how are they being accountable if they forget to do the laundry in a way that feels respectful to you or something like that so that we're setting, we're setting up a goal in a way that feels like it's not attached to the, what did you call that? The objective. Yeah. Objective versus subjective reality.

 

44:25

The objective needs. It's like we have this need and it's like, OK, the objective thing is to just pick up the clothes. But like usually the argument is much deeper than the clothes. Yeah. The subjective need that's attached to the core wound. Yeah. And maybe this is a semantics thing. I mean, I wouldn't use the word need when we're talking about these things. But again, it's what would you use? Because I feel like that implies that my partner is responsible for my emotional well-being.

 

44:53

in a way that feels like I'm giving up a little bit of my own power. Like I need my partner to pick up the laundry in order for me to feel okay. And I'd rather use language like you're responsible for feeling happy and healthy in your life, despite what your partner does. I understand it's frustrating for you and you can make requests about what you want.  But, um, guess I'll ask you a question. Can I ask you a question? have to ask. You can totally like leave this part out if you want.

 

45:21

But when you look into attachments, do you lean a little bit more avoidant historically? Absolutely. can tell. Yeah,  totally.  Because it's like the literal, the number one thing I see is that more avoidant leaning people are like, I don't want to the word needs.  And then everyone else is like, but it's fine.  So I to ask because I see it all the time. just super imposing my clinical background onto my avoidant attachment style so I sound more official.

 

45:51

Yeah.  No, but I think it's a good point. And I think to your point, which is important, is that not everybody, it's a really important nuance, is that not everybody responds to the term needs in the same way. And so you might say a desire or something that's important or supportive for me is something that avoidants like to hear. Like, oh, that's a way you can make me feel supported as my partner. And that's nice. And that kind of feels a little bit lighter.  But needs often,  specifically in more dismissive avoidance, needs.

 

46:19

they usually don't, they kind of reject that term because they're like, Oh, that's putting pressure and expectation on me,  which then in turn triggers a core wound of, of feeling like, am I shameful if I don't meet all the expectations, it's pressure. And now they become afraid of being a little bit enmeshed in the situation. Yeah. And I think like if you or I were sitting with a couple, for example, and we really broke it down, we'd probably be saying the exact same thing. It's a, it's more of a, it's a way of describing the world, um, when to say needs, but

 

46:49

I think we would agree on the way, it would be helping the couple make meaning of it themselves in some way.  Absolutely.  And you'll like this.  So one of the things that I do in pillar number two, so there's those six pillars, right? The core wounds, the knees, the nervous system, and then the boundaries communication behaviors.  For pillar number two, because you'll see what different attachment cells are kind of on a continuum,  like our anxious are out here and they are...

 

47:15

very codependent, they're like, everybody should soothe me and meet my needs all the time. And dismissive avoidance on the other end of the continuum,  somebody who's like really dismissive avoidant, they are like, oh, I don't want any, I don't wanna ask for help with my needs, I don't wanna rely on people, I don't wanna open up. So they're counterdependent a little bit. And secure people are right in the middle. They're like masters of both. They're like, I can meet my own needs and I can self soothe.

 

47:38

And I can ask for people to do things that are supportive to me simultaneously. It can be one or the other. Like if I'm having a busy day, I can call my spouse and say, hey, can you pick up the kids? Instead, I'm stuck. You know, they're OK to ask for help, but they're also OK to show up and meet their own needs and show up for themselves. And so what I actually get people to do in pillar number two is we measure where they are in the continuum. And the goal is to move to the center of interdependence. Totally. And for some people, like people who lean really anxious,  people who are really anxiously attached,

 

48:08

they're like always putting their needs on everybody and they're not taking enough responsibility for their own needs. So I actually get them to practice 21 days of repetitively like meeting their own needs first before they ask for anything from anybody else because they're patterning in that opposite side of the continuum. And then we actually get 21 days of dismissal, when you do exposure work to ask for support sometimes to ask for help. If you have a question at work to ask for it, you know, to actually open up and do that work.

 

48:33

And then we get them to move on this continuum back to the center of interdependency so that there isn't this constant, you're responsible for my needs and I don't have to meet them myself for the more anxious leaning individuals.  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. And I think it's good for all of us. mean, at least this is the way I see it. Maybe you might see it differently is that all of us, it's not like whether, you know, cause some people say, well, I'm, I'm in the secure attachment category.  So like I'm fine.

 

49:03

And I would say like all of us have some sort of issues or problems or stuff,  our own history. And like we all fall in that spectrum somewhere. And it's more about figuring out where you fall rather than if you are even on the spectrum or not.  Exactly. Exactly. And being able to honor yourself in it. Like I always believe that the healthiest approach is to bring people into balance. And so

 

49:28

if somebody's too one-sided, it's not like anything wrong or bad, it's just that that's how you would have learned to cope or adapt to your environment.  And like, can you develop the other side of those mechanisms that you might not have had access to?  So for me, for example, when I started in this work, I started really doing a lot of this deep inner work like 17 years ago when I first learned about all these things and began my own journey, because I needed it. But I was a fearful avoidance. So I was kind of the interesting one where...

 

49:55

It's more rare statistically, it's the lowest percentage, but the fearful avoidant or disorganized attachment cell are the same thing. I pinballed back and forth. I would feel anxious and be like, oh, I want people to get close. I'm scared of losing them. And then they would get too close and I'd be like, oh my gosh,  you're too close to get back. And so I would be always giving these mixed messages and be hot and cold and back and forth.  And so what was interesting is I actually learned, needed to learn healthy actions on either side. I needed to learn to meet my own needs and ask for help.

 

50:25

because I was kind of doing neither. I wasn't asking for help, but then I wasn't able to self soothe. And so I had to actually do both on both sides of the continuum, which for anybody who is listening, who hears themselves in the fearful avoidant, that's that version of it. they know.  Yeah, that's great. Yeah. Thanks for opening up about that. I mean, again, like all of us have our own stuff. And I think that's just a way of moving for all of us to move into compassion for ourselves, to be able to talk about like, again, there's some reason why it makes sense that

 

50:54

we're experiencing the world in the way that we are. And like if you're, let's say you're anxious, someone's anxious attached, anxiously attached, you probably always will be on some level, no matter how much healing or growth or therapy or whatever, I would say, I mean, again, this is my perspective and that's okay, but you can feel much healthier in that. But, um, it's not like you're going to arrive at this end point someday and never experienced stress again.

 

51:24

Yeah, it's so interesting. So the way I get people to measure it is I get people to measure what specific discomfort is coming from core wounds versus needs.  So if you think of it this way,  every time, so if we're at like emotional pain and suffering, so you're looking at specifically like nothing physiological, right? So not like, you stubbed your toe and it hurt physiologically or, and not taking into consideration things like genetic predisposition or like,

 

51:52

your gut microbes and how that affects your serotonin uptake in your gut or things like that. Okay, so just purely emotional. The two reasons why we experience pain or suffering is the pain of unmet needs.  So I use the analogy that if you took me and I love people and I love talking to people and getting to know people and you took me and dropped me in a foreign country with no phone and no computer and for whatever reason I can't get a phone or computer, I can't call home to my friends and family and I don't speak the same language as anybody else.

 

52:22

I'm going to experience a little bit of emotional pain. I'm going to feel a little bit lonely. I can't get my needs met for emotional connection.  That's actually a good thing because that's how we've evolved as a species for so long. It's literally pain is emotions are a feedback mechanism.  emotional pain is unmet needs.  Emotional suffering is the core wound stuff. It's how we make meaning out of it. So if I sit there in that foreign country and I'm like, oh, I can't make friends here.

 

52:52

and I'm feeling lonely because I'm not good enough, because I always get abandoned, because I'm being rejected. If I start giving meaning and telling stories around my unmet needs,  well now that's a core wound based problem.  And so when somebody becomes securely attached,  it's not like they become a robot and they suddenly don't have any negative feelings. You should just feel that those negative feelings are so much more centered.

 

53:20

around unmet needs, not core wounds. So for me, as an example, if I just use myself as the analogy again, we see really cool data for people in our programs in terms of like massive reduction in frequency and intensity of their core wounds and massive improvement in people's ability to recognize and advocate for their needs.  But what you should see is that a lot of your problems,  right? Your day-to-day life problems should be a lot less about you giving meaning to things when you've rewired a lot of core wounds.

 

53:48

and a lot more about,  oh, somebody asked, they violated a boundary. I need to speak up about my boundary. Somebody took away from a need that I have. I should go get that need met or advocate for it. And so that's a lot less of an intense emotional experience. And it's a lot more of like, oh, this doesn't feel good. Let me go take action. And you're able to do so in a more regulated way rather than, oh my gosh, I'm highly triggered. I'm making this mean that somebody's trying to trap or control me or somebody's trying to abandon me.

 

54:18

rather than jumping to these really big conclusions that are so dysregulating to your nervous system, you rewire the core wounds, you increase your nervous system regulation on pillar three, and now you know your needs and they're much easier to identify and advocate for. So it's much more efficient to solve everyday problems that you're having in your personal life or relationships. Totally, totally.  Because, because we have way more agency than we, than we let, like when it's a real present day problem, we can deal with it.

 

54:46

And like people are much more capable of dealing with those things.  Like and I call it carried emotions versus present day emotions.  That's a language that I often use. Yeah, I like that. If I'm going if I'm with my child and I'm going and I see the bear in the woods, like it's very easy. My healthy adult present day emotions will move me.

 

55:13

to like pick up my child and run away and make sure that to keep them safe, right? But like my carried emotions are the ones that creep in at night when everyone's safe at home and my kids are sleeping in bed and I'm laying there and just, I can't stop thinking about all the bad things that could possibly happen to them. And I'm worrying, but I'm not actually doing anything to help the situation.

 

55:36

then that's where it's probably just a carried emotion that I'm hanging onto a feeling of not being safe for my kids, not being safe, something that I experienced growing up, right? So I love that terminology. It's really cool. Yeah. Anyway, I love the way you said that. I think that's so true and empowering for people.  Exactly. And for people to know, and that's sort of the thing that I think is so important is that you use the term carried emotions and it's like, well, where are they carried from?

 

56:05

And what do we actually do about that? Like how do we stop carrying them? And that's the importance of like, do that 21 days of rewiring,  you regulate your nervous system, or even in those moments, because it's such a good analogy that I think so many people relate to is like you're laying in bed and you're just stressing about all these things that haven't happened yet.  And, and those are the types of things too, where you can be like, well, what do I need to feel relief right now?

 

56:29

You know, maybe I need to stop telling myself all these stressful stories and see how I actually do have access to safety for my child in my life. Or maybe what I need is to do some sort of nervous system modulation work where I'm able to re-regulate and feel better. But there's a way to rewire the core wounds that are driving those carried emotions.  And there's a way to actually regulate your nervous system and meet your unmet needs. And that's so much like the internal work when somebody's carrying forward those painful events from the past. Yeah, that's so great.

 

56:58

Well, thank you so much, Taisa. I really appreciate your time. Can you tell everyone where can they find you? Where can they find more information about all of this stuff if they're interested? Yeah, so they can go to personaldevelopmentschool.com.  We have a free attachment assessment over there. People can go through, find their attachment style, which will come with your blueprint of your wounds, your needs, your nervous system patterns, all that good stuff,  how you tend to communicate and behave. It's all sort of mapped out for people.

 

57:27

And I'm also on YouTube, is Thais Gibson-Personal Development School and on Instagram at The Personal Development School. And thank you, Shane, for having me. This was such a fun conversation. I really enjoyed it.  Absolutely. I learned a ton. Thank you so much. Hopefully we can do this again at some point. Would love to. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. Before you go, I also wanted to mention that I'm starting a new six week training on October 27th called

 

57:55

Couples therapy intensives, the blueprint. I've been working with couples in longer sessions and intensives for years now, and I've become really passionate about helping other therapists incorporate this kind of work into their practices. One of the things I want therapists to understand is that you don't have to become a completely different therapist to offer intensives. You already have the clinical skills. What you need is a framework for how to use those skills when you have several hours with a couple instead of just 50 minutes.

 

58:26

And that's really what the blueprint is all about. Over the six weeks, we'll cover both the clinical side of facilitating intensives and the practical side of structuring, pricing,  offering them in your practice, some of the business considerations,  scheduling considerations. We'll meet live on Tuesdays, but all the sessions will be recorded so you can participate even if you can't make the live calls. And if you'd like to get a feel for how I approach this work before committing to the full training,

 

58:55

I'm hosting a free webinar this Friday, October 16th called, what do you actually do in a couples intensive? The four season action. I'll be walking you through the framework I use with couples talking about what happens when things get intense and answering your questions. You can find the registr, the registration link for the free webinar in the show notes along with more information about the blueprint. I'll share the link for the information page for the blueprint as well.

 

59:25

The episode this week is brought to you by Alma. They make it easy to get credentialed with major insurance plans at enhanced reimbursement rates.  Alma handles all of the paperwork and guarantees payment within two weeks.  Visit helloalma.com or click on the link in the show notes to learn more. And thank you again, everybody. This is Shane Burkle and this is the Couples Therapist Couch, the podcast. It's all about the practice of couples therapy.  I hope you have a great week and we'll see you next time. Bye everybody.