This episode is brought to you by Shopify and Brevo.
Do you want to level up your marketing fast?
Meet Brevo, an all in one marketing and CRM platform that helps you to run email and SMS campaigns, manage leads and automate follow ups.
Plus Aura, Brevo's AI assistant, helps you write smarter campaigns and optimize performance.
Start free or use code ANYTHING50 to save 50 on starter and standard plans for the first three months of an annual subscription at brevocom.
Slash anything.
Shopify makes it easy to sell online and in person with customizable templates, Built-in AI tools and built-in marketing to help you reach your customers faster.
The all-in-one commerce platform to start, run, and grow your business.
Start your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com slash kwame.
That's shopify.com slash kwame.
Most of your default decisions and identities formed years ago while you were in survival mode.
In this episode, Thais Gibson, bestselling author, counselor and founder of the Personal Development School, breaks it down with brutal clarity.
We talk about why you keep choosing the same dynamic with different people, how unmet needs shape your standards and how to rewrite the beliefs behind the pattern, so you stop reliving the same cycle with different faces.
Listen to this full episode because Thais is going to give you a clear exercise that you can use right away the questions that expose the belief you want to change, the new belief you want to install and the daily repetition that makes it your new default.
And let me speak personally because after we did this episode, I actually put this to the test and I will honestly say it changed my life.
This may be the most impactful episode of the podcast and I can't wait to share it with you.
Let's dive in.
I know a lot of the work that you do Yeah. what people get wrong about it and why it matters.
For anybody who's not familiar, your conscious mind is your logical thinking self.
It's your analytical reasoning self.
And it's responsible for three to 5 of all of your beliefs thoughts emotions actions, your subconscious and unconscious collectively are sort of your habituated self.
And they are responsible for your habits.
Obviously, your unconscious mind regulates your autonomic nervous system.
But generally your subconscious mind, more than anything, is this giant warehouse of all of your programming, all of your conditioning, all the things that you've learned and that you're naturally playing out on a regular basis.
You can think of almost an analogy of this as being when you first learn to drive a car and you have to consciously think about it.
You have to think about okay, steer the wheel, stay between the lanes, look in my rearview mirror, look in my side mirrors, put my signal and you're really having to consciously get used to doing something.
But when you practice something enough through repetition and emotion, it essentially gets hardwired into your subconscious mind.
And at some point you get in the car and you're like listening to your favorite podcast and you're listening to the radio and you're chatting with your friend on the phone perhaps.
You're doing things where you don't have to consciously think about it, because it's become habituated.
And so you can think of your subconscious mind as essentially being the warehouse or storehouse of all of that information.
And just the last thing I'll say is that Your subconscious mind actually technically stores everything, all information, across time.
Now, of course we do encode through memory in interesting ways, so we can sort of consolidate things over time.
We can slightly misremember things over time.
But in general we store memories, experiences and our subconscious mind we can retrieve information from, whereas our unconscious mind.
One of those major differentiators is that it's very difficult to retrieve information from.
Oh, I see.
You just dropped a bomb in the last thing that you said, because I think people's heads exploded.
When you said wait, did you say unconscious mind?
So there's a difference between the subconscious and the unconscious?
Yes.
And people tend to use them interchangeably.
And in a lot of ways, there's a lot of overlap.
You can in a way think of your unconscious mind as being the deeper recesses of your subconscious mind.
But our unconscious mind generally.
If you think of an analogy again, Let's say as an adult, this is the analogy I often use.
Let's say as an adult, you really have an aversion to peanut butter.
You just don't like peanut butter and you don't know why.
And you just always think of peanut butter makes you feel sick.
You've never really liked peanut butter.
And maybe you have an unconscious memory and experience where, At three years old, your older sibling tried to force you to eat a bunch of peanut butter and kept feeding it to you, or dared you to eat a bunch of it as a joke, and it made you sick to your stomach and you were really not in good shape for a little while there and you stored that.
You can't necessarily remember that.
You won't necessarily sit there and be like, oh, what was that experience?
What happened?
But that's stored there, and so you'll still have this unconscious aversion to something.
Whereas subconscious and the reason I like to work with and talk about the subconscious a lot is that subconscious can be like you feel insecure about something and you're sitting there and you're like wait, why do I feel insecure about this?
When's the last time I felt like this?
And you realize that.
Oh my goodness, as a child, when I was 12 years old, as a young kid, I was in a situation and I also felt this way.
And oh my gosh, I feel like I'm not good enough.
So we can actually retrieve information and gain insights into our subconscious mind in ways that are much more difficult to retrieve at an unconscious level.
That's fascinating.
And I think, just taking a step back, I think it's important for us to recognize that, even though all of us have brains, we have minds, that does not mean that we understand the depth of how it works.
And then, once we're able to get a better understanding, then we could say all right, now we can start to craft, sculpt our minds, our brains, in the way that actually is optimized for our success.
Because I want to make sure that everything we say and thus far it has been is super empowering, where we can learn the information, but then also we also know that we can do something about it.
Because it would be interesting to explore not only the unconscious and the subconscious, but related to neuroplasticity as well, and how we can, with intentionality, shape our brain.
Can you tell us about that?
Yes.
So the way I like to think of neuroplasticity in the most meaningful and practical context is that neuroplasticity means that we can actually create new neurons and over time, create new dendrites and actual pathways that create not just neural pathways but neural networks over time.
And when we think of the practical application of that, what's actually happening is is that if we want to change something, you know how earlier I said okay, your conscious mind is responsible for roughly three to 5 of all of our beliefs and thoughts and emotions and actions in our subconscious and unconscious.
Collectively are like 95 to 97.
Well, how that plays out in our regular life is that, let's say, somebody decides that they set a goal and they're like I want to start a business.
And maybe they've had that goal for 10 years and yet they haven't started the business.
You know, oftentimes what's happening is our logical reasoning mind wants something and is interested in something.
But until it's actually engaged and wired into our subconscious mind or linked there in various ways that we can link our conscious mind's goals with our subconscious programming.
Until that actually happens, we're going to experience a lot of what we perceive as self-sabotage.
So what self-sabotage truly is.
And I always say to people there's no real such thing as self-sabotage.
Nobody wakes up and is like, oh, I'm going to choose to sabotage my life today.
Nobody is consciously doing that.
But what we experience as self-sabotage, or perceive as self-sabotage, is when our conscious mind intends one thing and our subconscious mind has neural pathways, neural networks, in the form of often, belief systems fears, triggers that are actually blocking us.
And so When we experience self-sabotage, it's because our conscious mind wants to do something and our subconscious mind is basically going no no, thank you.
And because your subconscious mind runs the show, then we experience procrastination, resistance, you know, quote unquote self-sabotage, because it's really our three to five percent of us working against our 95 to 97 percent of us.
And it feels very frustrating.
And I think most people relate to that.
Like.
The stat is that 80 percent of people fail their New Year's resolutions in the first seven days.
And it's because so often we are engaging in our goals from a conscious mind perspective.
But if your subconscious mind, let's say, you know, is this warehouse, the storehouse of your conditioning, let's say it has a limiting belief.
Let's say that you know as a child, you tried to do this cool project in school and you failed and everybody laughed at you.
You made a mistake.
Everybody laughed at you.
Maybe it was the science fair.
And then you made this belief as a result of that, where you said, OK, I can't do things.
I can't do hard things. and I can't work on my own.
Well, if you're carrying that belief, that okay, I will fail if I try to do things on my own, or if I try to do things my own way, and then your conscious mind goes okay, but let's start a business.
Your subconscious mind is actually blocking you from starting a business by trying to protect you according to its earlier conditioning.
Now that conditioning gets wired in through repetition and emotion.
So repetition and emotion fires and wires neural pathways.
And over time, these neural networks, neural pathways are sort of like muscles.
So they atrophy over time if you're not using them, but they strengthen the more you reinforce them.
Just like if you work out your bicep muscle all the time, it will grow.
But if you stop, it will atrophy, right?
Neural pathways are quite similar in that way.
And so what's really interesting is that you know we can leverage that to the best of our own ability.
If we realize oh, I'm holding this belief Because if something that happened to me in earlier years and I've been naturally reinforcing this as a way of protecting myself this whole time but I'm ready to drop this, I'm ready to let this go we can actually rewire those limiting beliefs.
So I'm happy to go into in a little bit like how to actually source our own limiting beliefs and then how to actually rewire them, leveraging exercises that engage and create new neural pathways.
Yes.
Oh, this is so good.
I'm so excited because we've in what 10 minutes?
Unlocked so much, because we're recognizing just how much of our life is going to be determined by our subconscious and our unconscious.
But also we recognize that with the the reality of neuroplasticity, we can reshape our mind in a way that leads us to the outcomes that we want out of life.
Because somebody could listen to this and say, oh man well, I guess this dark matter of my brain is just going to keep on steering me into the iceberg every day.
Or we can say, okay, now I can recognize what is causing this consistent cognitive dissonance.
Where there are things that I want to do but I can't find myself doing it when it actually matters most.
And then as it relates to these tough conversations, people might listen to this podcast.
They might read a bunch of books and they might know exactly what it is that they should do, what it is that they should say.
But with consistency, they're finding out that they can't do it.
But now we're starting to get answers as to why that might be.
So let's talk about how we can dig deep into the subconscious, and perhaps the unconscious, and figure out what those beliefs are that are leading to those actions.
Yeah, absolutely.
So the first thing I always tell people is we want to use our subconscious mind to the best of our ability.
So we want to be able to like hack our lives a little bit.
And so the best thing to start by doing is to look at like what is this goal in your life that you really want to create?
And you can really look at it in any one of the areas of life.
You can look at it in your career, your financial area of life. mentally.
So you're learning emotionally, your emotional regulation.
So career?
There's seven areas of life career financial mental emotional spiritual, physical and relationships.
So pick an area of life first, get specific and decide what goal you want to create.
And for some people will be to make X amount more money.
For some people to start a business, get promoted in my career, have better relationships, have better physical health and wellbeing.
Whatever it is, pick something really specific.
The reason we start with getting specific is because your conscious mind speaks language, but your subconscious mind speaks in emotions and images.
So it doesn't really hear language.
And a really obvious example of this is if I say to you Kwame, whatever you do, do not think of a pink elephant.
You probably, even though I said do not, thought of a pink elephant.
And so what happens is your conscious mind hears do not, and it understands language, but your subconscious just flashes out images, right?
And if there's something emotional, you'll feel the emotion, even if your conscious mind is being told not to feel the emotion.
So we really want to leverage that understanding first.
So whenever we set a goal, the first step is it has to be clear enough where ideally, we can visualize it so our subconscious can actually pick up on it, and where we can feel something about it.
Like what would it feel like to achieve that goal?
And that's how we're actually engaging the subconscious mind in the process.
So we start there.
Were you going to say something about that?
Oh, no.
Keep going.
See, hold on a second.
Everybody, I just want you to understand what happened.
Brilliant.
You're brilliant because you recognize the shift in body language, picked up on the fact that I inhaled as if to speak, and then stopped and asked me to.
So just what you all perceived there just auditorily was a masterclass of body language reading.
So thank you.
I appreciate that.
But this is all about you.
You keep on flowing.
Thank you.
So, so, so we started there.
So we want it to be.
You know, I always say like we want it to be clear and like basically, linguistically relevant for your subconscious mind.
So, you know, what does it look like when you achieve the goal?
What does it feel like the more you can really visualize and feel something about it?
Like, do you feel pride when you achieve the goal?
Do you feel excitement?
Do you feel a sense of like satisfaction or peace?
What does that look like?
So now what we're doing in that first step is we're getting our conscious mind to really communicate to our subconscious mind.
We're like, here's my conscious goal.
Let me put it in a way that now my subconscious can understand.
I'm now picking up and engaging my subconscious mind in this process.
Then our next step is to ask ourselves, why have we not achieved this yet?
So if somebody's goal is to make an extra 2000 a month, or if somebody's goal is to start that business they've always wanted to start, or whatever it is, and you say, why haven't I achieved this yet?
And you sit on that and you write out the answers to that question.
If you sit with it for a few minutes and really dig for a moment, you'll see that those all of your answers to that question represent your subconscious limiting beliefs.
So people will say things like, I don't have enough time.
I might fail.
I'm not good enough.
I can't save money.
I can't earn money.
I don't gain muscle.
Well, my body doesn't lose weight.
Like we have all of whatever area of life the goal is coming from.
That's going to be like what your limiting beliefs end up being.
Okay.
So so just really allowing yourself to notice that is really meaningful and to sit with that and really explore that.
For you know, a couple of minutes is really meaningful.
So that helps us then surface our subconscious limiting beliefs to the conscious level of mind.
Now, our next piece is we want to actually rewire them.
Okay, so we don't want to just have those be there.
And I think there's a couple things.
In order to you know, we'll go through a three step rewiring activity.
Because I remember you saying you wanted to go through practical things.
And so we're going to dive in.
But you know, in order to do the three step rewiring activity, there's just a couple other features people want to understand about their subconscious mind.
First,
So We're going to plug this, as the next part, into three steps to actually rewire whatever those limiting beliefs were that people surfaced.
If they were like, I can't save more money.
I can't earn more money.
I'm not good enough to start that business.
I'll fail.
Whatever those limiting beliefs are, we're going to actually give an exercise to change them.
Here's how the exercise works.
Step one is you find that limiting belief and it's opposite.
So if it's, I will fail, I can succeed.
I'm not good enough.
I am good enough.
Okay.
So we're going to just start by reframing the belief to its opposite in step one.
Step two, what we have to do is we have to create new neural pathways.
Okay.
So we actually have to really rejig this whole experience for our subconscious mind.
As I mentioned earlier, subconscious mind speaks in emotions and images.
Okay.
So, when we're trying to create emotions and imagery, what's really interesting is is that every time we have a memory, a memory, an old memory or an old piece of evidence which is just a memory, is a container for emotions and images.
So if I were to say to you, okay, Kwame, tell me your favorite childhood memory.
And you said, oh, I was playing at the beach with my family.
And you might see the images of the ocean and the sand and the sandcastle you were building.
And then you would, as we're telling memories, you see people laugh or smile, or their body language changes.
And that's because memories are also containers for emotion.
And they're stored in your subconscious mind.
So what we're trying to do in step two is we want 10 pieces of memory to support the new idea.
10 gives us repetition for firing and wiring.
A memory gives us emotions and images to now speak to our subconscious mind.
So what we would do is say, let's say the limiting belief is I am not good enough.
Step one is we find I am good enough.
Step two is we come up with 10 memories of times that we actually did feel good enough where we were, like oh, I was a really good friend the other day.
I had that hard conversation with my boss two weeks ago.
I persevered through this really hard season of life a couple months back.
So we're coming up with specific pieces of memory because we're leveraging emotions, images and repetition for firing and wiring.
Now a lot of neuroscience research tells us.
We need then, at least 21 days of repetition, emotion and imagery those things together to actually build neural networks that are strong enough where they're likely to stick.
Specifically, If while we're listening back to that, we're in a suggestible state.
So step three becomes we have those 10 pieces of memory of times that we did feel good enough.
We record ourselves saying it into a phone.
OK, so that we can hear the audio back.
And, first thing, that we wait when we wake up, or the last minute, the last hour before we go to bed.
Our brain is producing more alpha and theta brainwaves.
Also, after a deep meditation, heavy-duty exercise, right after we finish exercising intensely, things that are putting us into this suggestible state.
Our brain is relaxed, we're producing alpha brainwaves and then we're listening back to those 10 pieces of evidence or memory of when we did feel good enough or where we did succeed, or where we did save money or where we did earn more money, things that are actually supporting the new idea that we are trying to create for ourselves at a subconscious level.
And when we do this for 21 days, we actually are imprinting our subconscious mind, creating new neural networks.
And we're also unplugging from that old idea because we're feeding our brain this new one.
And what ends up happening.
Which is also really interesting is that we have a mechanism in our brain called the reticular activating system, or RAS.
And it's your filtering system.
And it filters according to what we feed it.
So if you've ever thought of buying a new car and you're going to buy a white Jeep and suddenly you, you know, are driving, you see white Jeeps everywhere.
Because you're feeding this, you're looking at white Jeeps every day.
So now you start noticing these things.
What's really cool about this exercise is as we feed ourselves this new I am good enough, or I can succeed, or this new idea.
Through that repetition and emotion.
It also opens up our reticular activating system to focus on how yeah, I am good enough.
Look what I did just do.
And we start to see new possibilities for ourselves, which further strengthens the neural networks and further reinforces the paradigm that we're trying to create and keep them coming back with powerful automations.
Meet Ora, Brevo's AI assistant.
Ora helps you craft smarter campaigns by suggesting personalized content, optimizing send times and even analyzing performance data to help you improve your strategy in real time.
It's like having a marketing expert on your team 24-7.
And, of course, Brevo offers advanced analytics, seamless integrations and AI-driven personalization.
Everything you need to create multi-channel campaigns that hit the mark every time.
Get started for free today or use the code ANYTHING50 to save 50 on starter and standard plans for the first three months of an annual subscription.
Just head to www.brevo.com slash ANYTHING. and take your marketing further with Brevo and Aura.
The new year always reminds me of the moment that changed my life.
Growing up as a first generation Caribbean American in small town Ohio, I learned early what it felt like to be left out.
That fear of rejection pushed me to become a people pleaser, someone who avoided conflict and said yes when I should have said no.
But everything shifted when I discovered negotiation, because I realized that confidence isn't something you're born with.
It's a skill that you build.
And that belief is what eventually led me to start the American Negotiation Institute.
And here's why I'm telling you this.
A lot of people are walking into the new year with an idea that they've been sitting on for a while, something they know they could build but haven't acted on yet.
The new year isn't magic.
It just gives you permission to start.
If that's you, 2026 is a great year to stop overthinking and start building.
And the smartest move early on is removing friction.
That's why I recommend starting with Shopify.
Shopify gives you everything you need to sell online and in person.
Millions of entrepreneurs have already made the leap from first-time founders to global brands.
You get hundreds of clean, customizable templates to match your brand.
Shopify's built-in AI tools help you to write product descriptions, headlines and even edit product photos, so you're not stuck staring at a blank screen.
Marketing is built in too.
You can create an email and social campaigns that reach customers wherever they scroll.
And as you grow, Shopify grows with you.
More orders, new markets, all managed from one dashboard.
If confidence is a skill you build, execution is too.
And having the right platform makes that a lot easier.
In 2026, stop waiting and start selling with Shopify.
Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at Shopify.com slash Kwame.
Go to Shopify.com slash Kwame.
That's Shopify.com slash Kwame.
Hear your first this new year with Shopify by your side.
Oh my goodness.
This is so good.
So listeners, I think we have our five-star point.
So every episode, I want to shout out a point that I think is worth five stars.
So if you like this episode and this point, give Thais five stars for this.
This is a masterclass.
This is so good.
And I think what's great about this is everybody now knows exactly what they need to do.
But at the same time, I think there's a part of people that are feeling scared and uncomfortable because they're like damn, I have no excuses anymore.
I have no more excuses.
And so if you all have friends that have been sitting on that business idea or some change that they wanted to make and they can't figure out, why send this to them so they don't have any more excuses.
This is so good.
I love everything about this.
And I'm thinking too I want you to kind of analyze this, because this is a tip that I gave to some entrepreneurs a couple weeks ago where I have a process where I do metacognitive journaling.
So I just journal all of my thoughts, beliefs, feelings, any decision that I make.
I'm just constantly kind of being a life stenographer for my own life.
And then, if there's something that I realize I need to believe or a self-limiting belief I need to overcome, what I do is I take those journal entries, put it into ChatGPT, turn them into song lyrics, take those song lyrics, put it into an AI music generator and then I create a soundtrack for my life.
So I'm reprogramming in this type of way.
And now you've given me several really precise tools to get even better with analyzing what those beliefs are, how I can make it a little bit more vivid and tangible using the emotional language and using imagery.
And then also now doing it in a suggestible state.
I didn't think about that.
That's really, really good.
There's so many tools that you've given us that could be immediately applicable, that could get us to where we want to go.
I love that idea, though.
That's so cool.
Like I love that you take all of your thoughts and feelings, you put them into chat.
You're like tell me where I'm stuck.
And what's the opposite.
And then you create a soundtrack for that to feed your mind the opposite.
And that's still really meaningful, because music evokes emotion.
And then you've got the repetition, the emotion.
So the more you add like imagery in there, the more and when we can get really specific to the more sense perceptions you add in there.
So so the more you add, like feelings sense sites, like you know anything in there that's even kinesthetic, you know how it would feel if you're like, let's say, it's a goal where you sleep better and how you feel, just like waking up with your head on the pillow.
So refreshed.
You know like things like that.
The more that there's just all of that in there, the more Your subconscious mind picks up on it.
But I just I love that idea.
I think that's so cool.
Thank you.
No, that's great.
This is a perfect validation.
So I feel even better.
Great.
And let's, let's take a little bit of a philosophical detour for a moment, because I think, especially if you've been educated in the West, we focus on the conscious mind, conscious thoughts, things that are more tangible.
And I think a lot of times that can create a bit of a disconnect between our conscious and our subconscious, slash unconscious.
Because, like you said, in our conscious brain we think in words a lot of times, but on the deeper levels of our brain we're thinking in emotions and images.
And I talk a lot about the internal negotiations that we're having.
We have to have this conversation with ourselves, but I really want to dig into this discrepancy between the ways that the parts of ourselves communicate with each other.
If we don't fully understand that, what challenges could we run into when it comes to understanding ourselves?
Yeah, it's such a beautiful question.
You know, there's a few things.
One is that we can be blocked by things and then feel frustrated.
So one of the biggest things that happens is when we don't recognize our conscious and subconscious mind at work is that we'll often not do things and then we judge ourselves consciously for it.
So, for example, somebody might set a goal and they say, let's just go back to that really easy example.
Somebody says, I'm going to start a business, but then it's been like five years.
They've never really taken meaningful action towards it.
Well, then we make meaning out of it.
So when we feel distressed, we often are at a deeper level.
We very much seek certainty.
And so when we feel distressed, we need to find out why I'm not starting the business.
What's going on?
And so we're very privy to giving negative meaning to ourselves.
We don't actually understand what's happening.
So, rather than having the awareness to say oh, I probably have something in my subconscious that's blocking me or trying to protect me from starting a business.
Let me find that, explore it and rewire it.
Instead, we go, oh, I'm just not good enough.
And we create new limiting beliefs or new painful ideas out of the judgment of the fact that we are experiencing cognitive dissonance in a block to begin with.
And I think that just adds insult to injury.
And so that can be really painful and frustrating for people.
But the second thing that's really interesting is another massive driver for us, at both a subconscious and unconscious level is that we all have needs that we are wired for.
So there's really two roots that tend to affect us the most subconsciously.
Our belief systems that are wired in by emotional association and then our needs.
So I'll give an example.
If somebody goes through an experience, so let's say you take me, okay?
I love people.
I love connecting.
I love learning about people and human behavior.
I love meeting new people and getting to know people.
And so I have a big need for emotional connection.
It's something that very much drives me as a person.
And if you took me and you put me in a different country where I don't speak the same language as anybody else okay, over time, and let's say, in this theoretical world, i can't call my, my friends and family at home, or you know any of these things, over time i should feel sad.
And i would feel sad, i might feel homesick, because my, my huge need that i'm wired for, for emotional connection is being starved.
Okay, so at this point in in time, here i am, i'm in this position.
I feel sad.
That's actually a good thing.
That's actually very adaptive, because what's happening is at a subconscious level.
We're experiencing negative emotion from the lack of a need being met.
And that emotion is actually there to prod us awake, to be like, hey, time to do something.
Go make friends, learn the language, figure it out, you know to do something, so that we can adapt to that scenario.
So unmet needs create negative emotions in our lives.
That's positive if we understand what's happening because then we can adapt.
But what often happens, so I call this emotional pain, okay?
Unmet needs will create kind of this pervasive gnawing background pain like oh no, you feel lonely, you haven't made friends, you know things like this.
But then our limiting beliefs that we have, that are preconditioned usually from past experiences, then create emotional suffering.
So if, growing up, let's pretend that I had never rewired and had these beliefs, that I'm rejected, I'm not good enough, I'm disliked, Okay.
So let's pretend that I have these beliefs from childhood.
Let's pretend I grew up and had a hard time connecting with people.
Well then, when I'm in this new country, I have this emotional pain of not getting my need met for connection, but then I'm going to give it meaning.
And I'm going to say, it's because nobody likes me.
I'll always get rejected.
I'm going to be alone forever.
And now we have emotional suffering.
And so suffering is very much belief-based, and suffering keeps us very paralyzed because now we are just so busy creating meaning we can't even get underneath to explore what needs are unmet to solve for that.
And so these are two deep subconscious drivers that happen, that we have emotional pain, we have emotional suffering.
Okay.
Now, what's really interesting is if we take that the beliefs aside here we are also very much wired to take action based on our beliefs.
So Years and years ago, just as a story, to really paint the picture, I had a client come in and she came to me.
She said, Thais, I'm pre-diabetic.
And I'm coming to you to deal with this because I've been to dieticians.
I've been to doctors.
I know what I should be doing.
And I'm like psychologically stuck.
I'm not doing anything about it.
So we did an assessment on what her subconscious drivers are, the subconscious system of needs that we all have.
Um, that is driving us all the time.
And what we found was that her biggest needs were family, social connection, comfort, and security.
Okay.
These were really big needs that she had these big subconscious drivers.
And we can talk about how to find them for people and things like that, if you'd like, but these big subconscious drivers.
So consciously her mind is saying, go to the gym, eat healthier, change your habits.
Her subconscious mind is saying, no, no, thank you.
That's out of my comfort zone.
Going to the gym makes me feel unsafe because I don't know how to use the machines there or what to do.
And that's actually going to take time away from family and social connection, which are things I'd rather be doing.
So what we did?
Once we had her system of needs at a subconscious level, a form of how we created cognitive resonance, because she was in a form of cognitive dissonance.
Conscious wanted one thing to eat healthy.
Subconscious was like, nope, we want these things instead.
And subconscious mind runs.
The show is what we did.
Is we actually found a way to link these things together?
So we got her doing group fitness classes with her friends.
We got her taking hikes with her husband, enjoying this community hiking club, going to the park on weekends with her kids and walking around more, taking cooking classes with her husband as well.
So, all of a sudden, here she was, instead of her conscious being in so much, you know, out of alignment, and her subconscious being in so much essentially resistance to her conscious intentions and goals.
Instead, we linked these things together.
And it's a massive way to diminish resistance along the way to our goals the entire time.
So usually what I'm doing with people when they're in a position where they're trying to achieve something is we're just trying to find those two subconscious drivers.
Assess what their needs are at a subconscious level, assess what their limiting beliefs are, rewire those limiting beliefs with that exercise we used earlier and then link their conscious goals to their needs.
And it basically supercharges their momentum.
Oh, my gosh.
If there was anybody left who said like, hey, no, she hasn't hit me yet.
Now that last person feels uncomfortable, because now that person has no more excuses, because this is so good.
And when I think about this in terms of like negotiation parlance, the internal negotiation.
Our inability to understand that, our inability to understand what our needs and beliefs are, leads us to misdirect our negotiation skills.
Because in these conversations sometimes the worst outcome is a deal that never should have been made.
Sometimes we could go out and negotiate effectively and get exactly what we want, and it could be the worst thing that ever happened to us if we don't fully understand our key drivers.
And I want to go really deep in this too, because I think there's this kind of hardcore mentality that some people have.
It's like, oh, I feel sad.
Well, then we have that angry drill sergeant voice in our head that says, well, get over it.
That's how you get over it.
Just get toughen up and get over it.
But what you're showing us is that These emotions that we're feeling are not bad unless we don't understand them.
And this gives us a signal for further exploration, so we can understand what need is not being met, so we could actually solve the problem holistically.
And now, when it comes to this, what if somebody does this exercise and then it uncovers beliefs or needs that they are uncomfortable with?
So let's say, for instance, there's a person who truly deeply wants a relationship with a very specific person.
But that person.
Either they're not behaving in a way where it's conducive to a relationship or they're not interested in a relationship, and that's causing the pain.
Is there a way to kind of redirect these needs or eliminate them or change them?
Or is this kind of just who we are?
Such a good question.
So We just haven't boiled down enough what the need is.
So the need itself will not be, so the need itself is a neutral need, right?
So it won't be, I need connection with mom or with dad.
It'll be, I need connection, right?
So what we do first is we make it independent of being attached to a specific person or outcome.
And we look at the need objectively as it stands.
And then there's no such thing as a bad need.
There's only healthy or unhealthy strategies to meet the need.
So in that example, you know, the need for connection is not a bad need.
But sometimes, if we're trying to get it from mom or dad who is unfortunately really not equipped to have a healthy relationship, maybe they have narcissistic personality disorder and there's all these toxic themes that are happening.
Well then, what we'll do is we'll detach the need from the person and we'll come up with updated ways to find connection in those meaningful forms.
And we can actually explore it a little bit deeper.
We could say, well, what type of connection, what generally from people, we have multiple needs.
So what am I looking, let's pretend it's mom.
What am I looking for from mom?
Like, what am I actually looking for as needs to be met from mom specifically?
Maybe it's like validation.
Maybe it's a sense of comfort.
Maybe it's a sense of connection.
Maybe it's a sense of um to be seen or understood.
What we would do is we'd extract all of the needs that we're trying to get met from mom.
And then we'd be like, well, what are the healthiest sources I can go resource these needs from?
And one of the places that we often are best to start off with is actually the relationship to ourselves.
So how can I make myself feel seen and heard?
Well, I can honor my own emotions more.
I can explore myself more and ask myself introspective questions.
I can meditate.
I can do nervous system regulation work.
That's how I'm making myself feel seen and heard and comfortable through.
But then I can also try to get those needs from other healthy people that I know can actually support those needs in meaningful ways.
And actually when we do do that and we detach those needs from the wrong sources of trying to fulfill them and we instead create healthier or right sources for ourselves, it actually really fulfills us in our lives.
And it helps us get over trying to go to the wrong places.
Because once those buckets are filled, I think of needs as almost being these buckets at a subconscious level.
Once those buckets are filled, we feel a much greater sense of peace and fulfillment in our personal lives as well.
Yes, this is perfect because I'll share a personal example.
I was thinking about some arguments that I've had in the past.
And even though I'm a lawyer, like argumentation I feel is outside the courtroom is useless in most cases.
You know and I said what went wrong in these arguments.
And as a chronic journaler, I journaled about these arguments for years, Thais.
I became obsessive.
I'm like, what went wrong?
Why can't I figure out what went wrong?
And then I realized the problem.
The problem wasn't necessarily my communication strategy.
The problem wasn't even necessarily the other side.
The problem was my need for validation from this specific person in this specific way.
And I recognized that I had a deep need for validation and perfect understanding of myself, where it's like if I couldn't get the other person to understand me perfectly and then like say oh, and that's good.
I accept you for that.
Then I would feel bad and I would engage in arguments in order to try to get that validation.
But then, when I started to essentially acknowledge and respect my own personhood and recognize that I too am a person who can give me the validation that I need, then I found myself less frequently in these types of conversations because I realized oh, I don't need this specific person to validate me in this specific way anymore.
I can get that validation and now I'm at peace.
And now I want to kind of expand this concept as it relates again to the internal negotiation and the external negotiation.
Because, when you think about it, what you've given us is a tool to live our life with maximum leverage.
When you think about negotiation, the person who needs the deal most loses because they have more power and you're willing to concede more in order to get them to do what you want them to do right.
But now, if you can find a source of satisfaction that lies outside of a specific person or a, Now you can live your life with far more leverage because you have options.
Just like with negotiation, if you say you're only as strong as your best alternative, right?
But now you're giving yourself multiple alternatives to find different paths to satisfaction that are outside of specific people and circumstances.
I love that.
I love what you said, too.
So what you?
Just to summarize what you said, because it was so meaningful.
As you said, there's somebody in my life that I wanted to get validation from and understanding from, which are two very meaningful needs, and very much meaningful needs if they're to do with family members, especially if they're our parents.
And we're in a situation where it can be.
It's the need for validation and understanding is not wrong, right.
It's actually a very normal, good need to have.
And a lot of times it's actually a bonding need.
It helps us connect to others and feel connected.
But the problem can become exactly to your point, that we are unfortunately trying to get water from a stone.
That we're trying to get a need met from somebody who's unfortunately just not capable, because of their own conditioning, their own challenges and upbringing, of giving that.
And so then as a result, it can feel very painful and frustrating and confusing.
But you took your power back in that by saying well, let me just meet my own needs for understanding and validation by exploring myself, by maybe becoming a chronic journaler by You know all these things.
And in doing that, that helped you detach from trying to resource those needs from the wrong places and empowered you as a person to not feel.
And, by the way, what's so interesting about needs to this point too, is that the places that we struggle the most to give ourselves our needs are the places that we put the most pressure on other people and are most likely to fall into trying to resource needs from unhealthy sources.
So I always say to people like, hey, you're going to accept breadcrumbs if you're already starving.
And so, you know, we can try, let's say somebody's in a, let's say it's a romantic relationship.
And let's say you're dating somebody and you know that person's not healthy for you because they're really intermittently showing up.
They're not really you know, investing in the relationship the way that you would hope.
Well, if they give you validation, that's like a three out of 10, but you're giving yourself a one or a zero because you're actually really critical of yourself instead, then we're going to keep being chained to the wrong person because we're starving and they're actually able to give us slightly more than what we're giving ourselves.
And then to your point and how it ties into the negotiation piece, is that then we're reliant on the wrong people and then we're at the mercy and we're really giving our power away.
And so by understanding what our needs actually are as individuals and saying okay wait, what am I trying to get?
What are my needs here?
And even to know that we can diversify how we're getting our needs met.
We can say okay, I want this need for, let's say, it's abundance.
Okay, great.
What are other resources of abundance?
How else can I be good with my money?
What other ways can I show up here?
The more that we're diversifying, actually, the more stable we feel as people.
And then the more our needs are fulfilled, the more fulfilled we feel as individuals as well.
Oh, this is so...
I feel like we are unlocking the key to happiness here and fulfillment in this podcast.
It's so good.
It is so good.
And it's so empowering too, because I know there are people who have relationships where they're struggling.
They're just, if this person would just do this.
And I'm like.
Well, I mean, if that is what you need to feel well, you're putting yourself in a bad position.
Even if they end up doing that thing, you're still kind of reinforcing the fact that you are externalizing your path to wellness with even if you get what you needed.
That that's problematic too.
So I think this is something that could help a lot when it comes to relationships in general, but just understanding ourselves.
And again, we'll realize that Sometimes these conversations and this is going to sound antithetical to everything I've said in the last 1700 plus episodes that we've aired but sometimes the reason why these conversations go poorly is because you're having the wrong conversation with the wrong person.
100%, 100%.
And what's so interesting too, to your point is that when we do that, when we try to resource needs, especially when we have a lot, like when we're, you can almost imagine like with money, like when people invest their money, like.
What's the number one rule of investing like diversify where you invest your money.
The same thing happens with our needs as people.
Like if we end up in a situation, even if the person is relatively healthy if we end up trying to resource our needs from all one person and we don't have a good self resourcing process and we don't know what have other healthy sources outside of ourselves that we can rely on and have a diversification around, even if the person you're trying to get your needs met from is healthy, and you often become unhealthy in how you deal with them.
And we'll do things like if we rely on one person and they seem to be our only source of like, reassurance or love or connection and we're hyper reliant on that one person.
We end up compromising ourselves to be what we think they need us to be to try to make sure that we're getting those needs met.
Because our subconscious mind is like a needs meeting machine, we are driven to meet these needs In a very fundamental way.
And so it's so meaningful to be able to look at like, hey, what are we doing here?
Who are we?
You know, what are our needs as people?
How can we assess them?
And then how can we make sure that we have a really good habit?
I love how you shared your such a good story.
That represents.
It is how you were like I started journaling and showing up and validating myself and understanding myself and giving to myself what I couldn't get.
And in doing that, all of a sudden you could unplug from the wrong resources, from you know unfortunately, somebody who may not have been able to give that in the way that you needed.
And so that's like such a great exercise for everybody is to find out what their needs are, find out how to resource them first, and then how to really diversify how they resource them across multiple sources.
So we're not over reliant.
We're not over dependant.
And that's actually how you hold your power as a person and definitely will positively impact your ability to negotiate, because you're not willing to compromise yourself or your standards, because you're starving for needs.
Exactly.
And I think just putting a bow on this too is that it might seem like, oh Kwame, just like cut somebody off.
No, I still have a really great relationship and they probably have not even recognized that I made a meaningful shift in the way that I interact with them.
I just, if they say something that I disagree with, I just say, oh, okay.
And let them have that instead of trying to force them to think one way.
And if there's something that I believe or think or do that they have no conscious awareness of, that I don't need to share because I know they might not like it.
I just don't share it and share it with somebody else who would appreciate it.
And that's it.
And everything's good.
Exactly.
And that's exactly what to do.
And for people who are in exactly that, like coming up to a position like that in their lives Maybe it's with their boss.
Maybe it's with a parent.
Maybe it's with a friend that's longstanding in their life or a partner.
What I always tell people is, if you're not sure whether it's time to just take a step back and stop trying to resource a need from somebody, or try different ways to resource a need, or be patient, because some people get confused.
They're like well, when do I know when that cutoff should be, or when to do what Kwame did and just step back and not get those needs met from those individuals?
What I say to people is set a deadline.
So try for a period of time where you're like okay, You know, 30 days.
I'm going to try to get really specific about my needs, try to resource them, speak up for them, be consistent about them, try to tailor my communication approach, see if that person is able to move the needle.
If my new approaches, my ways of doing this are moving the needle.
There's some really great communication tactics you can use when trying to resource needs.
So one of them being it goes such a long way to do what we call positive framing.
So a lot of people, unfortunately, don't communicate very well.
Um, I used to see this too often when I'd work with people.
They come in and they'd be like Thais.
My husband never listens to me.
And I'd be like, Oh no.
And I'd, I'd worry about it.
And then I come to learn that the way they communicate to their husband is like you never care about me.
You never spent enough time with me.
And that's called negative framing behind every criticism is a neat.
And so what I tell people is, Hey, we want to positively frame.
We want to find what that need is extracted.
And instead of saying, you don't care about me, you never spent enough time with me.
Say something like, Hey, I'm feeling disconnected.
I'd love for us to spend more time together.
Let's plan a fun date this weekend because then you can actually get heard, right?
Somebody doesn't feel criticized.
They can actually hear you.
So there's a couple of communication tools that people can start off with for people who don't have as much experience in communication.
Probably most of your listeners are pretty good communicators, because they probably listen to you and you're teaching so much of this.
But for anybody who's not sure, it's really good to pause at a frame and to also be specific.
So sometimes people will say, oh, I want support.
And for one person, support is like encouragement.
And for another person, support is taking the trash out.
Right.
So getting specific into what that need looks like.
So I would say to people, start there.
Try to show up and decide how much time you're going to try to tailor your communication with the difficult person in your life.
Maybe it's 30 days.
Maybe it's two months.
See if the needle moves.
And if the needle moves and you know that you're like trying different approaches and clear about your needs, you're positively framing and the person's just not a healthy resource and they're simply not capable of showing up.
Because that is a very true thing that happens to people.
Then that's when we just set a boundary.
We do exactly what you just shared, which is we don't try to go to resource.
It's like, you're not going to keep squeezing water from the stone.
And and what's really interesting about what you said, which holds so true across, like just so many relationships I've seen over the years of all types and forms, is that The relationship quality usually improves when we actually realize hey, this person's not capable of doing that.
I'm just going to set a boundary around this part of the relationship.
I'm not going to go there.
And I'm going to try to, you know, resource other needs.
Maybe we just have fun and we have a few laughs and we have a high level relationship and we just catch up a little bit.
And I just keep it in that sort of domain.
And in doing that The relationship usually improves, other than when we're trying to go for something.
We can't get the need met.
We feel frustrated.
We become resentful.
The person picks up on our resentment.
Now there's all this friction.
Like it's actually usually going to improve the quality of a relationship.
If we realize, you know what, this person's not capable of meeting the need, and I'm going to take a step back in that specific area.
Oh, this is so good.
I could talk to you forever.
Pretty much about everything.
This is making me realize that we need to touch on another one of your many areas of expertise, which is attachment style.
Because a lot of what it is that we are talking about really makes me think that underneath a lot of this could be some challenges with attachment styles.
So can you tell the listeners just in general what attachment styles are and then how they manifest themselves or impact relationships?
Yes, definitely.
I'll try to give the short version, but it's a little long.
Basically, your attachment style is your subconscious set of rules that you've learned about love how to give love, receive love connect, communicate what expectations you share in relationships, and they're conditioned from your early childhood experiences.
The original body of work of attachment theory came out of Cambridge University and John Bowlby.
It's a really studied body of work, but It was always like hey, here's your attachment style and here's how it's going to affect you as an adult.
And a lot of the work that I do is like how to rewire it.
So if you have a maladaptive set of conditions that you learned because we don't all get perfect childhoods, you know we, a lot of us, get really challenging childhood experiences which sometimes serve us, sometimes can really grow us in beautiful ways.
But you're not stuck with an attachment style.
You can change it.
So there's four attachment styles.
Every single person has one.
50% of people are what we call securely attached.
They grew up with healthy modeling in childhood.
They grew up with a lot of what we call approach-oriented behaviors in childhood as well, which sounds like a small thing, but what it means is a child grows up in an environment where their parents or caregivers are attuned to them.
So when the child's distressed, the parent notices it.
They are able to go towards the child, approach the child and try to soothe them and make them feel better.
And what this teaches a child at a subconscious level is oh, My emotions are worthy of being seen and heard.
It's safe to rely on people.
I can trust that people will be there for me.
I'm given love when I feel good and when I feel bad.
It's not about, you know, only when I get approval or achievement.
And so they grow up with really healthy modeling and they learn to communicate openly.
They feel safe expressing their feelings.
They're comfortable being vulnerable.
They trust people.
So there's all these really beautiful things that show up because of that.
Roughly 50% of the population is securely attached.
Another 50% is insecurely attached and it spills into three styles.
And one end of that continuum, you have an anxious attachment style.
These are individuals that get either real or perceived abandonment growing up.
So real abandonment is like a parent leaves and they don't come back or a parent passes away.
Perceived abandonment is that parents are very loving. but they're gone all the time.
Or parents are very loving, but there's a huge family with many kids and there's sort of this war for attention from the children.
And so there's this conditioning, this repetition and emotion, this firing and wiring of neural pathways that says love is here, but then love is taken away.
Love is there.
You know my parents are loving, but then oh, there's all these other kids to take care of.
Or, oh, parents are loving, but oh, they're traveling all the time for work.
And so this conditions this deep fear of abandonment, being excluded, disliked, rejected.
They're very sensitive to being unloved.
And so as adults, anxious attachment styles are always trying to maintain proximity.
They're always trying to get closer to people.
And unfortunately sometimes that causes them to become a little bit clingy and needy in relationships.
And often, for reasons we could always get into, they often choose emotionally unavailable people.
So it kind of reinforces and salts the old wound.
And there's sort of the cyclical dynamic happening.
At the other end of the continuum, there's our next attachment style, the dismissive avoidant.
So dismissive avoidant individuals grow up with a lot of childhood emotional neglect.
And what this looks like is not always so overt.
Sometimes it can be like actually overt.
Parents are never around.
Kids are trying to figure out how to feed themselves at a young age because parents are out partying all night.
You know, there can be really extreme forms, of course. but a lot more frequently it's covert.
So parents are very loving and it's not necessarily very loving.
So parents are very structured and stable.
They may have, you know, food on the table.
Kids are at school on time, but parents are not attuned emotionally to their kids.
So if the child cries or evokes emotion that, the parents were like, hey, stop.
Children should be seen and not heard.
Don't be a crybaby.
Get it together.
They usually reject or dismiss the child when they're distressed.
And that causes a child who's actually all children are wired for attunement.
We need it.
It causes the child to feel like okay, something deep down in me, this emotional, vulnerable part of me, is dysfunctional and broken.
I have to reject and deny this part of myself.
And so they really repress their own emotions.
And they deal with connection by trying to always keep people at arm's length.
So these, these will be individuals who are a little bit slow to warm up, who are more standoffish, who are, you know, very disconnected emotionally in relationships and often who will run at the first sign of vulnerability.
They don't want to feel too much or be too vulnerable.
And they'll sort of reject situations that make them feel this way.
And our very last attachment, style and their big wounds and fears are the fear of being defective or weak.
If they're, they're too emotional and, the fear of being trapped or engulfed.
So they always kind of push people away.
And the fear of being not good enough or helpless in situations.
These are their big, like, you know, imprints.
And I'll tell one last, the last attachment style here, and hopefully people can kind of hear what they might be.
But it's also really interesting because, just on a sidebar here, when you know somebody's attachment style and you recognize some of these key features, you have so much like negotiating leverage, because you'll know like, what drives these people, what their needs are like, what things are going to show up and and.
So much of negotiating, in my opinion and I'm sure you're the expert on this but so much of negotiating is being able to figure out what people need on their side and tie into those things.
And there's very obvious signals, based on people's attachment styles, that will show what really drives these individuals the most.
The last attachment style is the fearful avoidant.
And the fearful avoidant grows up in chaos.
So this could be like parents are constantly fighting constant eruptions in the home A really bad divorce.
The child is stuck in the middle, with the parents divulging way too much personal information before the child should hear some of those things.
But often it can be things like parents are in active addiction or a parent is an alcoholic.
And the same themes of conditioning apply here where like, let's just use the example that mom's an alcoholic.
You never know what version of mom you're going to get.
So mom could come home one day.
She's had a few drinks.
She's in a good mood.
She's sweet.
And you're like, oh, love is good.
Love is safe.
But another day mom comes home and she's drank way too much and she's cruel and she's mean and she's an angry drunk and she's scary and she's she's terrifying.
Another day, mom's sobering up a little bit.
She feels guilty about her behavior.
She's kind.
Another day, mom's sobering up, but she's like in detox mode and she's really struggling.
So what a child learns in any of these environments?
Whether a parent is a narcissist, whether a parent is an active addiction, a child isn't.
They don't know what version of a parent they're going to get.
And so, While the anxious person's attachment strategy is to try to get closer all the time and maintain proximity, the dismissive avoidance strategy is to keep people at arm's length, to create a sense of self-reliance and control.
The fearful avoidance strategy is to become hypervigilant, to read between the lines, to notice every little thing, every little shape-shifting in the pattern.
I had somebody say to me a few weeks back oh, I could tell by the way my mom closed the door what kind of mood she was in when she would come home, even if I was upstairs in my room.
And I would know to close my own room door or to leave it open.
You know, it's like you notice all of these little signals.
And it makes you very adept at people work.
You know, it makes you like really read between the lines.
We'll notice body language very quickly, micro expressions.
It can be a bit of a superpower.
And usually fearful avoidance are extremely deep and thoughtful about things.
But in relationships they can struggle because they have kind of the anxious and the avoidance side to them.
And so, you know, sometimes they're feeling anxious and they want more closeness.
But other times they're like, oh, get back.
This is too vulnerable.
This feels like too much because they have competing programmed associations about connection.
Sometimes it's really good.
Sometimes it's been really scared, scary.
So they constantly pinball back and forth.
And so those are the four attachment styles.
And they very much when we can start pinpointing them in others.
We can always go into the needs of each one, because once you know somebody's attachment style, you'll start to know what drives them, because they each have unique needs according to their style.
This is so fascinating.
And yes, I'm sure, as people were listening to you, they're thinking to themselves about what their own style could be.
But they're also probably identifying people in their life and saying, OK, I'm starting to get it.
And so I know we're coming up on time, and we need to get Simone in here too.
But I want to ask one last question too, because you said if we could understand somebody's style, then we could have a little bit of leverage in terms of knowing what the person needs.
So let's say we recognize our partner is more on the fearful, avoidant style side.
And we say okay, now I'm understanding why sometimes they feel emotionally needy and need to feel very close, but then at the same time, why they push me away randomly, or seemingly randomly, to me.
So, now that I know that, how can I connect with them and use that knowledge to be a more compassionate partner and maybe navigate some of these tough conversations more effectively?
Yes, great question.
So Fearful avoidance are the paradoxical ones.
So they have this sort of because they have these two sort of parts of their personality.
They have what at face value seems like competing needs, but they're just it's both.
OK, so so they have needs for like intimacy, depth of connection.
They want to have meaningful conversations.
They don't do well with surface conversations.
So emotional connection is a big thing for them.
Depth.
They want to understand everything. um, transparency is massive for this individual.
So, um, they feel safe when they feel like they know everything.
So it doesn't mean they have to be like where were you at five o'clock and then five 15 and then five 30.
But usually it's if.
If there's a change in the pattern, if if somebody um said one thing but then did something else, broke a promise, forgot something meaningful, maybe hurt the person, a that happened.
Like the transparency as to yeah, I forgot to call you because I got so overwhelmed with work.
I'm so sorry just hearing the why I got so overwhelmed with work is the why?
Um, it just helps them like repair so quickly and it's very meaningful.
So transparency, feeling like their feelings are considered um, feeling like they can really trust somebody is huge because they they generally grew up in environments where they couldn't trust their environment and so they They're quick to kind of jump to painful conclusions like thinking the worst or waiting for the other shoe to drop.
So having stability consistency, transparency around things, consideration of their feelings, depth of connection, intimacy and closeness huge.
And, at the same time, the other side of their personality needs to have their freedom, their independence, their autonomy honored and kept safe.
They generally like novelty a lot.
They don't do well in the mundane and the routine of things.
They need like self-expression and freedom and novelty.
And those are sort of all of their needs that they're deeply driven for as a person and in relationships, that when those needs are really respected and seen, they'll feel like they're operating at the fullest expression of themselves.
Ooh.
That was great.
Free relationship advice.
I appreciate it.
This is great for whoever it is who's listening out there.
And I think this is a great opportunity to bring in Simone as well.
So Simone, I know you've been waiting patiently.
Sorry, I went longer because I'm just so enthralled with this conversation.
So Simone, what's coming along for you?
What should we do once we know our attachment style?
And what's the next step?
Okay.
So I love that you asked this because like, one of my bones to pick with the world is that when people are talking about attachment styles they like and this is the danger is that they then find their attachment style and then they just label themselves as that attachment style and it becomes almost this crutch or this like no, I'm this attachment style and almost thinking it kind of excuses their behaviors.
And And the reality is that we can rewire our attachment style.
I got into this work because I was a fearful avoidant and deeply rewired this.
And we'll see a lot of different people.
It's quite common to have an insecure attachment style if you grew up in difficult circumstances at times
And so first thing is to recognize your attachment.
Style is not really your fault because you didn't ask for these programs, but it is your responsibility because you're an adult now.
It's yours and only you can really do the work to change it.
And so we.
Actually, I don't want to go.
You know, I know I'd go way too far down the rabbit hole right now, but there's six pillars of how we rewire our attachment style.
Pillar one is to do that core wound reprogramming.
So actually that exercise we started off with today, where it was like what's your core wound and it's opposite,
Not good enough.
I am good enough.
10 pieces of evidence for how I'm good enough.
Listen back for 21 days.
That actually rewires our attachment wounds.
And each attachment cell has specific, unique core wounds.
So we want to rewire those, because you're not born with core wounds that get conditioned into you because of painful experiences.
And we want to work to really recondition them.
Second pillar is learning your needs and learning to meet your needs yourself, which is so interesting too, because it goes into the resourcing our needs part that we were talking about earlier.
It's actually a fundamental part of how we self-soothe.
So, you know, I take people through a roadmap like here are your needs as your attachment style.
And we have to learn to give them to ourselves the most.
So like we talked about fearful avoidant needs.
An example is anxious attachment styles needs.
They need a lot of validation, reassurance, consistency.
They need to feel prioritized, wanted.
Well, these are all things they very much struggle to give to themselves.
Right.
So.
So they end up healing through learning to actually show up for themselves, make themselves a priority, learn to spend time alone, learn to actually build themselves up and encourage themselves instead of criticize themselves.
And people please so much where they put themselves last.
You know, it's about taking themselves into consideration.
So we learn what our needs are and then how to meet our needs.
Then another major pillar is regulating our nervous system.
So we do some somatic experiencing work, some nervous system regulation work breathwork meditation, things that are actually helping us move into parasympathetic nervous system, because all three insecure attachment styles spend too much time in fight or flight.
So we help get into that space and that's very healing and very beneficial.
And then we have some high level things.
So those are really about healing within self.
Then we get into interdependent, interpersonal healing, which is learning how to set healthy boundaries and wiring that in.
So boundaries feel more natural, learning how to communicate more effectively, because a lot of insecure attachment styles have the kind of unhealthy communication tools dismissive avoidance, for example.
They'll communicate through actions.
They'll just go into the other room and shut the door.
And you're like, are you mad?
What's happening?
Or anxious attachment styles they'll.
They'll sometimes become critical and clingy and communicate all at once.
And you know fearful avoidance oscillate between saying everything and kind of being harsh and volatile in their communication, or saying nothing at all and retreating.
And so we learn to actually use healthy pillars of communication, like positive framing that we talked about earlier, like learning to be specific about what our needs are.
And so when we communicate better, we start to have better interpersonal relationships.
And then the last thing, is we can also rewire our behaviors.
So a lot of times and it's a very long topic of conversation.
But just like we talked about how you can rewire your beliefs, we can rewire our maladaptive behaviors the need to cling, the need to stonewall, the need to be spiteful or shut down.
All of the unhealthy things that we do behaviorally are actually meeting subconscious needs at a deeper level.
So, for example, if somebody's spiteful spitefulness is actually a subconscious strategy for emotional connection.
It's like, if I can make you feel how you're, how you're making me feel, then you'll understand me.
And then we're connected.
And so it's a maladaptive way that we get a need met.
All of our unhealthy behaviors are just maladaptive ways to get needs met.
And so we kind of extract what the need is, come up with upgraded forms to meet the need.
We practice wiring it in through exposure, work across 21 days and we can actually change and repattern the ways in which our behaviors are maybe affecting us quite negatively.
So those are sort of our six pillars.
I know it's a lot of fire hosing information there, but the whole point in my opinion.
What's the point of understanding anything if you can't change it right?
Then we're just intellectualizing.
So I love that question because our whole goal is to like, find our attachment style and then use that to understand.
Hey, here are patterns that we're likely to have across these six regions of our lives our wounds, those triggers and fears, our needs, our nervous system function, our boundaries, communication and behaviors.
And now let's actually plug them into rewiring exercises so we upgrade our internal functioning.
We keep the strengths of our personality and we rewire the things that have become maladaptive and painful for us.
Wow.
Wow.
Thais.
Hypothetically is there some kind of online platform with approximately 60 courses where people could learn more about such things.
So I am at the personal development school.
It's called personal development school.com.
And it's really personal development for your subconscious mind.
So every exercise whether it's about boundaries, communication triggers and wounds, relationship patterns goals um, every course is about how to actually pattern these things into your subconscious rewire.
What's blocking you, identify what it is personally for you.
Um, and so we get into all these things, all these things we talked about in there.
And um.
And then I'm on YouTube, which is at Thais Gibson Dash Personal Development School, or on Instagram, which is at the at the Personal Development School.
Amazing.
Thais, this is this has been so much fun.
Thank you for hanging out with us and sharing all of this.
And I really appreciate all the work that you do.
Thank you so much.
And thank you for just holding amazing space and both of you asking such thoughtful and insightful questions.
And I really, really enjoyed being here today.
So thank you.
