What if the way you connect with others was quietly shaping not only your relationships but also your career and finances? In today’s episode, I sat down with Thais Gibson, co-founder of The Personal Development School and a leading expert in attachment theory. We dive deep into how attachment theories impact not only our relationships but also our careers and finances. From understanding your subconscious comfort zone to practical strategies for rewiring those negative beliefs that hold you back, this conversation is packed with actionable insights. If you’ve ever wondered how your attachment style shapes your life, especially when it comes to money and relationships, this episode is for you.
Key takeaways:
- Attachment styles influence every aspect of our lives, from our romantic relationships to our financial decisions. Thais breaks down how each style — secure, anxious, dismissive avoidant, and fearful avoidant — can impact the way we handle money, approach our careers, and form relationships.
- You can reprogram your subconscious mind, which controls 95% of your emotions and decisions. Thais explains how limiting beliefs formed in childhood create “glass ceilings” in our lives and shares a step-by-step method for rewiring those beliefs in just 21 days.
- Understanding your partner’s attachment style can improve communication and deepen your connection. Thais shares how knowing what your loved ones need—whether it’s reassurance for the anxious or independence for the avoidant—can lead to healthier, happier relationships.
- Attachment theory extends beyond romantic relationships. Your attachment style affects your relationship with money, how you feel about career advancement, and even how you interact with coworkers.
- Trauma and attachment style are interconnected. Thais emphasizes how childhood experiences, such as emotional neglect or inconsistent parenting, shape our attachment styles and how those patterns continue to influence our adult lives unless actively reprogrammed.
Notable quotes
“Our conscious mind speaks in language, but our subconscious mind speaks in emotions and images.”
“The subconscious comfort zone is what your mind considers familiar—even if it’s not healthy, it equates familiarity with safety.”
“You’re not born with an attachment style; it’s conditioned over time, which means you can absolutely change it.”
Episode at-a-glance
≫ 06:51 Exploring Attachment Theory
≫ 11:42 Diving into Hypnosis and Subconscious Reprogramming
≫ 16:18 Attachment Styles and Their Impact on Relationships
≫ 25:11 Attachment Styles and Financial Behaviors
≫ 31:32 Fearful Avoidant Attachment in Careers
≫ 33:08 Dismissive Avoidant Attachment in Careers
≫ 34:17 Understanding the Subconscious Mind
≫ 37:04 Rewiring Limiting Beliefs
≫ 39:55 Attachment Styles and Core Wounds
≫ 41:39 Auto Suggestion Belief Reprogramming
≫ 49:59 Supporting Different Attachment Styles
≫ 55:16 Rewiring the Subconscious Comfort Zone
Thais’s Links:
Take the free Attachment Style Quiz
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Meet Thais
Thais Gibson is a counselor, best selling author and co-founder of The Personal Development School. She has a Ph.D. and over 13 certifications in modalities ranging from CBT, NLP, somatic experiencing, internal family systems, to shadow work and hypnosis. Thais had nearly a decade of experience running a successful private practice and founded The Personal Development School, an online learning platform, to provide a more accessible, authentic way for clients to transform their lives. Thais is a leading expert in attachment theory and her cutting-edge research is extending the frontier of psychology with her modern Gibson Integrated Attachment Theory™.
Through her academic training and client-based research, Thais has created renowned and inspiring courses for personal development, relationships and for all areas of life. These teachings have been distilled into the in-depth programs, courses, and modules inside of The Personal Development School.
Thais is on a mission to empower individuals to overcome their insecure attachment styles and reprogram any limiting thoughts and behaviors, creating long-lasting and enlightening changes. She is the bestselling author of Learning Love, and she and her husband split their time between Austin, TX and Toronto, Canada.
Transcript:
Thais Gibson:
What you’ll see is the unconscious mind is much more difficult to retrieve information from, but we can retrieve information from our subconscious mind so we can look back and say, “Oh, yeah, I do have these habits, I do have these patterns. Oh, yeah, when I was eight I did feel like this and I had this wound or this trauma.” Then we end up being able to actually access that information and rewire it.
Tori Dunlap:
You’re not going to be able to hear Kristen’s side of it, but Kristen, do you know Matchbox Twenty? Do you like Matchbox Twenty? She knows who they are. Okay. Her partner is the one who knows him better. I went to see Matchbox Twenty in concert, and this is the third time. I went at the Washington State Fair with my dad because he loves Matchbox Twenty, and it was great, it was fantastic. Yeah. It was Matchbox Twenty, and then it was supposed to be this other band that I had never heard of, and then last minute that band got COVID, so they’re opener. I will shamelessly plug them. They were fantastic.
They’re a local Seattle band, they have less than 3,000 followers on Instagram. If you like anything indie, they give me Two Door Cinema Club vibes and I love Two Door Cinema Club. They’re a local Seattle band, they’re called Lovely Colours. It’s with a U. They were fantastic. The lead singer is incredible. They are so good, and I was blown away. They had less than 24 hours notice and then they were like, “We’re opening for Matchbox Twenty in the biggest show that we’ve ever done.” They were fantastic, they were great. If you want an up and coming band, if you want new music, listen to Lovely Colours, but also Matchbox Twenty was fantastic. We were 10 rows back so we were really close. Rob Thomas and I had a fun little moment doing Real World where I just sang his lyrics at him and he sang them back to me and we made eye contact, and I was doing the talking with my hands to him and it was great. It was very fun. We can keep this.
Before they performed Push, Rob Thomas literally said, “This song is dedicated to Ryan Gosling.” Then I did it too late, I didn’t think about it, but I found a, “Hi Ken,” on my phone and I did hi Ken and showed it to them, but it was too late. It was with 45 seconds left in Push. I really wanted a moment where I could wave. This Ken’s job is alt rock. You know more Matchbox songs. No, we can keep this. You know more Matchbox songs than you think you do, dear listener. Unwell, 3AM. What other songs? Rob Thomas has some hits too by himself. Smooth, of course, the iconic song of the 2000s, it’s Rob Thomas. Lonely No More, Rob Thomas. I don’t want to be lonely no more, I don’t want to have to pay for the, oh. It’s so good. Then Ever The Same, which is one of his more muted, and then his song Her Diamonds, which was around for a while, it was about his wife getting cancer. She’s fine I think, but it’s a really sweet song about how he’s like, “I can’t help her and I just have to be here for her.” It’s very sweet.
Anyway, lots of hits. Go to more concerts. I have missed going to concerts. Two Door Cinema Club who is my favorite was here on Saturday and I was like, “I’m too tired. I can’t hang anymore. I can’t do two in a row.” Matchbox was on Friday and then it was Two Door Cinema Club rainy, pouring down rain here in Seattle on Saturday and I couldn’t bring myself to go and get out of my house, but that’s all right. Anyway, welcome to the show. Hi, we’re happy to see you. You’re great, very happy. Thank you for being here.
My name is Tori. I run Her First $100K which is a money and career platform for women. This show talks about how money affects women differently, and we teach you how to fight the patriarchy by getting rich, and we’re the number one money podcast for women in the world, which is pretty cool. You guys do this so great already, but if you haven’t shared this with someone in your life that you think would love it, please do. You sharing the show helps us a ton. This show is very expensive to produce, but free for you to listen, so you subscribing, you leaving a five star review, you sharing with your friends is always very, very, very helpful.
We got a fun episode today as we always do. We haven’t done this in a while, but we would love to read a five star review, which is very nice. If you leave one, you may just get read on the show. This is from Paulina Doodle. I have not read this, I’m reading this cold. “Truly actually life changing, 12 out of 10.” That’s nice. “My review is LONG overdue,” they capitalized long, all caps. “I’ve been listening since May 2023. I wish I found this sooner. Tori and her team have made an impact in my life with the free information provided in the Financial Feminist podcast. This podcast is not just for women.” Hell yeah. They’ve got five exclamation points after that, and I’ll echo that. “The basis of personal finance and investing that is outlined in Financial Feminist gave me the confidence to step up my investing game. Her book is also worth checking out, not to mention the countless guests she has had on her show will lead you to more financial resources. No wonder this is the top business/finance pod. She literally explained that just signing up for an investing account such as a Roth IRA is not the same as choosing your investments in that account. Read that again.” Sure, I’ll read it again.
She literally explained that just signing up for an investing account such as a Roth IRA is not the same as choosing your investments. That is true. This is sadly a common mistake that many people make, and highlighting these common pitfalls/explaining things in lay woman’s terms really puts things into perspective. “Super understandable and easy to digest. It prompted me to get a better grip on my retirement funds. She’ll also tell you that a high yield savings account is a game-changer because it is,” it’s true. Herfirst100k.com/hysa for the one we recommend. “I have made my money work for me thanks to the free information provided on this podcast. Thank you Tori and team at Her First $100K. You make an impact every day.” That’s so nice. Thank you, Paulina.
If you want more Financial Feminist, you can read the book, you can listen to the back catalog of the podcast, and we would love to hear from you. Leave us a review. All right, let’s talk about today’s guest. We got a good one. Thais Gibson is a counselor, bestselling author, and co-founder of The Personal Development School. She has a PhD and over 13 certifications and modalities ranging from CBT, NLP, somatic experiencing, internal family systems, [inaudible 00:06:03] work and hypnosis. Thais had nearly a decade of experience running a successful private practice and founded The Personal Development School, an online learning platform to provide a more accessible, authentic way for clients to transform their lives.
Thais is a leading expert in attachment theory, and her cutting-edge research is extending the frontier of psychology with her modern Gibson Integrated Attachment Theory. Through her academic training and client-based research, Thais has created renowned and inspiring courses for personal development, relationships, and for all areas of life. These teachings have been distilled into the in-depth programs, courses and modules inside The Personal Development School. Thais is on a mission to empower individuals to overcome their insecure attachment styles and reprogram any limiting thoughts or behaviors creating long-lasting and enlightening changes. She’s the best-selling author of Learning Love.
We’re talking today about attachment theory. It should be very obvious what attachment I am, but you can listen to find out. We’re going to talk about what it is, the difference between attachment styles, and how those play into our biggest relationships, including our relationship with money. I know that sounds like one topic, but we’re really diving deep into how to rewire our brains to learn more about how we can manage our money as well as how to get closer to secure attachment in our relationships, in love, in our careers, and with our money. Without further ado, let’s go ahead and get into it. First a word from our sponsors. You’re in Canada.
Thais Gibson:
I’m Canadian, yeah.
Tori Dunlap:
I’m turning 30 next week and I’m doing my 30th birthday this weekend, and I have friends from Canada, from Ottawa.
Thais Gibson:
In Canada?
Tori Dunlap:
No, but that’s the Canadian connection. I’m in Seattle, but I have friends who are coming in from Canada.
Thais Gibson:
Oh, that’s nice. Good for you. That’s so happy.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah.
Thais Gibson:
Yeah. Happy early 30th birthday. You’re a cancer then.
Tori Dunlap:
Thanks. I am, I’m very much a cancer. If you know me in real life, it’s very obvious. I think my online presence is more my rising, which is my Leo. A lot of people are shocked to discover I’m a Cancer and I’m like, “No, you’re around me for two seconds, and she’s a Cancer.”
Thais Gibson:
[inaudible 00:08:31].
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah.
Thais Gibson:
Yeah. I’m a Scorpio with a Libra rising.
Tori Dunlap:
Okay. I have a lot of Scorpios in my life as well. Yeah. It’s Scorpios and Tauruses. I have an abundance of both of those.
Thais Gibson:
Oh, wow. Yeah. That’s nice though because you get along with other water signs and earth signs. I literally had a conversation two days ago with my husband and I was like, “I feel like there’s not many cancers in our life and I love cancers.” I swear ever since I said that, I just had a conversation with someone earlier today who was like, “Yeah, I’m a cancer.” Actually, it was an hour ago, and I was like, “Wow, all the cancers are entering now.”
Tori Dunlap:
It’s like the red car theory where you see a red car and then you see red cars everywhere.
Thais Gibson:
Yeah. The reticular activating system, that’s what it is. Yeah.
Tori Dunlap:
My partner, his mom is a Cancer, his sister is a Cancer and I’m a Cancer. I’ve always wondered, I’m like, “How are you very good with understanding that I’m going to cry every day?”, and I’m like, “Oh, because you grew up around two Cancers, two female Cancers. Makes a lot of sense.”
Thais Gibson:
There you go.
Tori Dunlap:
We’re excited to have you on the show. Oh, this is just going to be a great episode. There’s so many good things here. You have a background in several different modalities, including internal family systems, hypnosis, and now attachment theory. What first drew you to the therapy space, and what has attachment theory done for you and your clients that other modalities may not have accomplished?
Thais Gibson:
Yeah. I would say the first thing is that because I grew up in a household where there was so much chaos, I had a very insecure attachment style. I was the fearful avoidant or sometimes commonly referenced as the disorganized attachment style, so for me, if I was on my own, I was pretty okay. The moment I was in a relationship, relationships were so hard for me and I just always was on the roller coaster, the very hot and cold partner.
When I was about 20 years old, it sounds funny because I know it’s so young, but I had enough trials and tribulations that I was like, “I have to actually show up and change whatever’s going on inside of me because this is not the way I want to spend the rest of my life living.” I just had lots of ups and downs and difficult things, so I got really into psychology. I wasn’t [inaudible 00:10:45], I was always interested in the mind, but eventually what ended up taking place is I learned that your conscious mind cannot outweigh or overpower your subconscious mind, it can only recondition it or reprogram it. I was like, “Okay,” and then I went on to learn that your subconscious mind is responsible for 95 to 97% of all of your beliefs, thoughts, emotions, and daily actions.
I was like, “Well, why is nobody talking about this?” I got really into hypnosis, that kind of space. I started my practice at a young age, and my big focus area is like, “Hey,” because this is what I really did in relationship to self first is recondition at a subconscious level the maladaptive patterns that you learn about connection, about what to expect in regards to your needs or how to communicate. If you can really do that reconditioning work at the subconscious level, you’ll actually see lasting change that really solidifies, so that’s a huge part of what I originally taught in my practice and then our online programs.
Tori Dunlap:
I’m excited to talk more about attachment theory, but I have to talk to you about hypnosis for a second because I feel like there’s one camp that’s like hypnosis is what you do at county fairs and graduation parties where you get people to cluck like chickens. That’s I think the common, more accessible maybe part of hypnosis or where somebody’s going to see hypnosis first. Then there might be this misconception, and I think I believed this for a while, that people who do practice it professionally, it’s kind of telling your fortune, or it just feels a little hacky. Tell me the science behind hypnosis and how it actually works.
Thais Gibson:
Okay. The theme that you’re referring to is actually called stage hypnosis. It’s basically that people will go and there’s an entertaining factor, and there’s a few key factors. The first thing is that you need somebody’s brain to be producing a certain type of brainwave to be in a suggestible state or a light state of trance, and this means that you really want somebody producing alpha and theta brainwaves. If you ever see somebody watching television and they’re staring at the television and you’re like, “Hey, Bob,” and Bob’s not answering and he’s just staring into television-
Tori Dunlap:
Zombie mode?
Thais Gibson:
Yeah.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah.
Thais Gibson:
You’re like, “Bob, Bob,” well, he’s actually producing alpha and theta brainwaves and he’s in a light state of trance, and we’re really suggestible when we’re in that state. It’s actually also part of why you see so many people pay so much money for Super Bowl commercials, for example, because they know, advertisers know people are in a trance-like state and the information we give is going to permeate the subconscious mind more. What suggestibility really means is exactly that, our subconscious mind is more open to being reconditioned or reprogrammed.
Going back to those ideas that we have 95 to 97% of our decisions and emotions all happening at that subconscious level and that our subconscious mind stores everything ever, it consolidates memories a little bit over time and sometimes misremembers them, but it actually stores everything. What ends up happening is when we live life, we are living through our autopiloted habits and programs that we’ve learned. What hypnosis actually does is it leverages suggestibility to know that we can communicate better with our subconscious mind in a sense, and then it leverages a form of imprinting.
I’ll give an analogy to explain this because it’s a funny concept. If you’ve ever seen somebody go through a habit like learning to ride a bicycle, we’ll need a lot of repetition, and with repetition over time, what it’s actually doing from a neuroplastic point of view is it’s leveraging neuroplasticity. We’re firing and wiring neural pathways through repetition that then create neural networks that then eventually allow us to feel very comfortable riding a bike. Then it becomes programmed. It’s not like we get in the car or get on the bicycle and think, “Okay, right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot, steer,” like you do when you’re first learning, or if you think of when you’re driving. You’re not like, “Oh, signal, and then move my car out of park.” It’s habitual, so that’s all subconscious.
What’s actually really interesting is that if we get something emotionally impactful enough, we get these immediate neural pathways that basically form, and they myelinate very effectively, which essentially means that you can get an immediate program. If you’ve ever seen somebody get in a car accident, for example, maybe that morning they felt safe driving in their car, but the experience is so impactful that after that accident, they get back in the car the next day and their hands are shaking. They have an immediate program that says, “I am unsafe.” Emotion actually imprints a subconscious mind in a really deep way, so if you can basically combine the ingredients of get somebody in a trance, leverage repetition as needed, but then also really create emotional imprinting with somebody by guiding them through a specific experience, our subconscious mind is suggestible and we can actually change painful ideas we’ve had about ourselves for a very long time.
We can change blockages in our lives where we think that, “Oh, I’m not good enough to do this,” or, “I’m not strong enough to do this,” or, “I’ll always fail.” We can help transform phobias that people have in really instantaneous ways. That’s sort of the backstory. It’s really about suggestibility and neuroplasticity that allows somebody to have their subconscious mind affected more profoundly, and we can leverage that for really powerful things.
Now, what I went on to do is I went on to teach people how to reprogram their own subconscious mind while in a conscious state. That’s a big part of the work that I do. It’s like give the man a fish versus teach the man to fish, right? People can actually come in and they can learn to do these things themselves, and that’s actually a big part of what my work transformed into over the past decade.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. We have a family friend who I believe had an alcohol addiction and a cigarette addiction and then went to hypnosis, and that was the thing that solved it for him, or at least got him to the other side of that addiction.
Thais Gibson:
Super interesting.
Tori Dunlap:
Okay. Attachment theory. We got to first talk about what are the attachment styles, what are the four, and how do they appear in the world and in relationships.
Thais Gibson:
Okay. There are four major attachment styles, just like you said, and the first one is the securely attached style. Now, secure attachment historically was about 50% of the population. It looks like that’s really trending downward in the past two decades, as you can imagine
Tori Dunlap:
I’m nodding.
Thais Gibson:
Yeah. When we look at secure attachment styles, they basically have a lot of what we call approach-oriented behaviors in psychology. In childhood, when they cry, when children are crying or they’re upset or they’re expressing emotion, their caregivers are attuned enough to them to go towards them and try to figure out what’s wrong. That may seem like a small thing, but it actually teaches a child, “My feelings are safe to express, my emotions are worthy of being heard. I can rely on people, I can trust them, I’m worthy of love even in my hard moments.” They basically trust and they know how to give and receive love because it’s modeled to them in healthy ways. They grow up and basically have a lot of really good subconscious programs about how to do relationships, those habits that they’ve built through that repetition over time.
Then we have three insecure attachment styles. By the way, secure attachment styles not only report having longer lasting relationships, which I think is an okay metric, but they also report being happier and more fulfilled in their relationships. It’s not just like, oh, yeah, relationships last, but you’re miserable. They’re actually really fulfilled by those relationships generally.
Then our three insecure styles, one is the anxious attachment style. They usually grow up with a lot of … That one’s you? They usually grow up with a lot of love in their home, but often it’s inconsistent. It can be that one parent’s much warmer than the other, or it could be that we have a child who their parents are very kind, but maybe they work really long hours, for example. There’s a lot of, love is here, love is taken away, love is here, love is taken away. What that does is it conditions a subconscious mind through repetition and emotion over time to fire and wire those neural pathways that come to fear abandonment. Anxious attachment styles as adults, they fear abandonment, they fear being alone, excluded, disliked, rejected, not good enough. Those are their big core fears in life generally, and they really need a lot of certainty and validation and encouragement and connection and all these different things, and oftentimes they also are attracted to more avoidant individuals, which makes for a really interesting dynamic.
Tori Dunlap:
We’re not going to release this whole video, but I wish you could see my face because the entire time you are saying this, I’m just like, “Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm,” and then you got to attracted to avoidant individuals, and I just burst out laughing. Let’s talk about avoidant individuals. I’m not attracted to them at all, I don’t know any of them, not any partner I’ve ever dated. What? Yeah, go ahead.
Thais Gibson:
We can talk about why too because there’s some really interesting reasons for this. Basically the anxious attachments, they’ll cope with these fears by trying to hold on tight, and that’s their main coping mechanism. Dismissive avoidance first, usually their overarching theme in their childhood is emotional neglect. Sometimes they can have loving parents from afar that care about them and that are at least stable, but those parents do not express love in good ways. Often what happens is if that child is emoting and they’re sad or they’re hurt or upset as a young child, let’s say they come home from school and they’ve had a hard day and they’re upset, the parent isn’t going to be like, “Honey, what’s wrong? Let’s talk about it.” The parent’s going to be like, “Hey, when you’re in a better mood, come back. Go away.” They’ll kind of deflect, dismiss, disregard any emotions, maybe even shame emotions.
Now, a child who grows up in this household doesn’t know how to be like, “Oh, my parents are emotionally unavailable,” because they can’t understand that yet. Children at that age internalize everything, so they go, “Oh, there must be something wrong with me that I can’t get these needs met.” They basically come up with these big shame wounds and they get really ashamed around feeling vulnerable, feeling emotional, being sensitive. They think that it’s going to make them weak or shameful, and they’re scared of being trapped or helpless or powerless in the wrong situations or relationships as an adult. That’s our dismissive avoidant. They often cope with relationships by being a little bit commitment-fearing. They’ll push people away when things get too real or get too close. They don’t like to let down their guard. They can be a little bit standoffish or slow to warm up.
Last but not least, we have a fearful avoidant or disorganized attachment style. They’re the same thing, but they often get referred to as both. Now, the fearful avoidant attachment style, they usually have a lot of chaos in childhood. There can be a lot of really big fights and arguments, a really bad divorce, and children are put in the middle at a young age. There could be a parent who’s an alcoholic or an addict, there could be a parent with a mental health issue or a cluster B personality disorder. Generally what you’re going to see is that the child growing up in this environment never knows what they’re going to get, so they constantly read between the lines, that’s how they cope.
Some days they fear abandonment because they’re fearing that closeness being taken away, and other days they fear being too close because sometimes love is really painful, sometimes there’s a lot of trust issues or lies or chaos or hurt, or sometimes abuse in different forms. This person grows up to actually sharing both the anxious and dismissive avoidant side, and they’re basically like the hot and cold partner. They’ll be like, “Come get close to me. Come get close.” Somebody gets close and they’re like, “Get back, stay away.” They pinball back and forth and they’re constantly extremely hypervigilant about everything, and they’re always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Those are the four attachment styles and also how they tend to form.
Tori Dunlap:
Cool. I am anxious. I mean, everybody’s anxious, but I am anxious attachment most definitely. I think that I often date people who have avoidant attachment. My partner had a very great childhood, my current partner had a very consistent childhood, but is avoidant. You mentioned that there were two little peas in a pod. Why do you think that is?
Thais Gibson:
Because your subconscious mind is running the show, right? Remember the 95 to 97%. What actually happens, which is so funny, is your subconscious is very survival-oriented, it really wants what it considers as the most familiar because it equates it to safety and thus survival. As an adaptation, when you’re anxiously attached, you end up people-pleasing, you end up putting yourself last, putting everybody else first, basically putting your feelings and needs on the back burner, and in doing that, you end up dismissing and avoiding yourself. What becomes the most familiar to you when your conscious mind [inaudible 00:22:59] and make sure people are available, and I want to watch out for red flags,” your subconscious is like, “No, we want to pick people who are the most familiar,” and what’s most familiar is somebody who treats us exactly the way that we treat ourselves.
Because anxious attachment styles are so dismissive and avoidant of self, they’re often very attracted to people who also dismiss and avoid them because that’s that subconscious comfort zone of familiarity. On the flip side, dismissive avoidants are often very attracted to people who are preoccupied with them because they’re very much preoccupied with their own time and space and keeping that distance, so there’s this match, even though consciously it’s like, “Wait, but we should be looking for people who are available to us,” really what ends up happening is we pick people who are most familiar to us instead.
Tori Dunlap:
Cool. [inaudible 00:23:42] for filth. That’s fine. How does someone’s class, race, sexuality, other factors, how do they influence someone’s attachment style? Imagine a lot of it you’re relating to childhood, so their childhood experiences of their certain identity I imagine affect this.
Thais Gibson:
Exactly. You really have to break it down in a few different ways. One thing that’s pretty congruent is based on someone’s sexuality, you won’t actually see any real change or differing in somebody’s attachment style. It’s still going to be those overarching themes, but of course what those overarching themes are are going to be more likely to create a specific output. For example, you’re not going to see anxious attachment style is different based on one person’s sexuality versus another’s, but what you may see, for example, is let’s say you said class, if somebody grows up in a very poor and difficult childhood where they don’t have access to things, maybe there’s a lot of survival, so maybe there’s going to be a greater likelihood of somebody being dismissive avoidant.
Or if we have culturally a situation where culturally we can have very avoidant cultures, we can also have very enmeshed cultures, and that is more likely to create somebody who’s more anxious, or very avoidant cultures will create a lot more of the avoidant attachment style. You’ll see those things play a crucial role, but you’d really have to break it down by the specific background to figure out exactly what the likelihood is going to be.
Tori Dunlap:
We obviously talk about money a lot on this show, so maybe can we talk about the four different attachment styles and how they might approach money or personal finance?
Thais Gibson:
Absolutely. What’s really interesting is that those core wounds or themes that we’ll have will really permeate across all aspects of life, financial area of life being one of our major seven. When you look at, for example, an anxious attachment style, some of the habits you’ll see around money, because we can really break it down to limiting beliefs and habits. A lot of limiting beliefs will be things like, oh, this fear of losing money can come up because this fear of losing people is something that’s pretty congruent. You’ll also generally see that anxious attachment style sometimes will feel like not good enough or unworthy, so they’ll have this set of lack beliefs that really runs the subconscious mind. Remember, if we have lack beliefs, as much as our conscious mind can analyze this and be like, “Oh, this is something we should change,” your subconscious mind will keep recreating these patterns over and over again because it goes back to that zone of familiarity, equal safety, equal survival. You’ll generally see those become a lot of the big glass ceilings until we learn to reprogram those imprints.
Then you’ll also see some of the bad habits with anxious attachment styles and money is that they’ll overspend on other people at the expense of self, they will struggle to put themselves first and to take themselves into consideration equally to others, and they’ll often get swayed by making financial decisions based on sometimes putting people as the authority in their lives instead of really taking into consideration their truth. It’s quite common for anxious attachment styles as soon as they see somebody who’s an authority figure, they go into a people pleasing mode instead of actually going into like, “Hey, what do I need? What am I feeling in this situation?”
I worked in practice, client practice for about 10 years, and sometimes one of the themes I would see with anxious attachments [inaudible 00:26:57] money would be that they put their financial advisor on this big pedestal and just did what they said without actually being like, “Hey, is this a fit for me?”, and even at times kind of self-betrayed what felt true or right for them as a result of that. That’s some of the anxious dynamic that you’ll see there.
Dismissive avoidant attachment styles really end up in a lot of lack. Generally you’ll see dismissive avoidants become a little bit, honestly for lack of a better word, stingy with money because if they grew up in this feeling of everybody’s out for themselves, I have to survive on my own, and they felt kind of alone in that at a young age, they’ll often just instead of thinking, “How can I focus on my earning potential?”, it’s very saving potential base, which is great, but ideally you want a blend of the two in my opinion.
Tori Dunlap:
Right. It’s about cutting, not about abundance. It’s not about increasing the amount of money you’re making, it’s about deprivation of what’s currently going on.
Thais Gibson:
100%. You’ll see them a lot of times really be in a lot of lack at a deep level, and they’ll be really rigid. Sometimes that’s great because of course you can get ahead with being rigid and very on top of things, but again, like you said, there’s not this abundance and focusing on how can I create more, it’s more how can I keep cutting everything down. You’ll see a lot of the lack beliefs there or this feeling of I am unsafe, this feeling of I won’t be able to get or have enough, and actually that mirrors back to their own childhood, not being able to get enough attunement, connection, love. Again, it’s just the subconscious comfort zone of what they assume because it’s what’s familiar. They sometimes have a hard time sharing, negotiating about things. They tend to not really deal with open conversations, so they’ll sometimes make unilateral decisions in their partnerships or relationships about money, and you’ll see this big fear that they have underneath of being trapped in a situation. They really work hard to make sure that they are preserving more than anything else.
Fearful avoidants, they are in a roller coaster, that’s their subconscious comfort zone. Generally you’ll see that they have highs and lows with money just like they have highs and lows with relationship and life. It’s so interesting because when you see that somebody has these deep subconscious programs, those things will permeate across all different areas. You’ll generally see fearful avoidants can earn a lot of money, but then spend a lot of money, they tend to be very impulsive and hence they’ll have a lot more impulsivity around money as a whole, and they struggle to trust. They even struggle to trust themselves with money and making sound financial decisions, which can leave them, I’m sure you see this, with making no real financial decisions because you’re not sure which way to go with things. Just that presents this massive opportunity cost as a result. You’ll see these things actually permeate all across somebody’s attachment style because they are that subconscious comfort zone that we will be recreating without sometimes realizing.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. Kind of what we’re talking about is trauma, right? It’s childhood trauma at different varying levels. I’ve talked so many times on the show and in my book about how trauma affects your money. Can we briefly talk about too, you said, what might attachment style affect? Obviously it’s relationships, it’s money. What other things in our life can be influenced by your attachment style?
Thais Gibson:
Your career, which obviously then goes hand in hand, not just with earning and spending patterns and habits like we talked about, but actually our ability to figure out where we belong in a career field that’s in alignment with us. You’ll see anxious attachment styles, for example, they’ll do really well in careers where they get to be around people, and they’ll do really well in careers where there’s collaboration, teamwork, connection, any of those sorts of things because that’s where they tend to thrive. They actually make really great leaders in a lot of ways because they’re great at considering everybody and how everybody’s feeling and checking in with people, and they’re very people aware and conscious, so they make for fantastic team leaders. They can really inspire people and bring people up.
They’ve got all these really amazing benefits, but where those struggle in their career and thus financially is if they’re isolated, if they’re in some kind of isolated space, they’ll often feel a lack of motivation or empowerment. You’ll see that show up if they’re forced to make decisions unilaterally, and also if they feel like for whatever reason their boss or coworkers don’t like them or exclude them, it can really be extraordinarily demotivating, and you’ll just see them crash and have a really hard time in that kind of space. Were you going to add anything to that?
Tori Dunlap:
No, I’m just shaking my head. My neck hurts from nodding. I’m just like, “Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. That sounds about right.” Sorry, go ahead. The other ones. We have fearful avoidants. Yeah.
Thais Gibson:
Yeah. So fearful avoidant attachment styles, funnily enough, because they struggle so much with trusting authority because they struggle to trust authority in their own childhood, they will have a very difficult time working for other people for prolonged periods of time.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah.
Thais Gibson:
They’ll often have trust issues. They also do this thing a lot where they’ll hold things in, hold things in, [inaudible 00:31:51] start off people pleasing, and then eventually they’ll reach this kind of critical threshold where they’re done with people pleasing, they get frustrated enough, they kind of explode like a volcano erupting. Sometimes you’ll see they struggle with staying power in their career and they struggle to get along with authority figures.
Now, there can be benefits, they could do well to work for themselves, things like that. They actually make quite good entrepreneurs because they’re used to operating outside of their comfort zone, and where things are not really making much sense, they’re good at making sense of things and finding a way and having to be resourceful and resilient. Of course, in a very micromanaged space, they’ll just struggle like crazy if they ever feel micromanaged, if they ever feel betrayed, there’s broken promises or people around them they can’t trust.
Tori Dunlap:
Or they don’t respect their boss maybe as well.
Thais Gibson:
Exactly.
Tori Dunlap:
I don’t respect my boss, so I don’t want to show up to work.
Thais Gibson:
Yeah, absolutely. A lot of that respect is usually based on is this person micromanaging me? Is this person betraying me in some way? Those are their big things that they’ll struggle with, and they tend to need a lot of depth, a lot of novelty, a lot of connection, and in a pretty deep way they don’t do well with superficial things and they have a very hard time doing things that they’re not extremely passionate about because they’re very hot and cold, they’re very all or nothing. Go all in if I love something, and totally not be able to show up if I don’t like something at all.
Then lastly, dismissive avoidants, they and their career, they can have a lot of staying power, which can be a benefit of course. It’s great to be able to stay in the same career for a long period of time and work your way up the ranks, but also it can be a limitation where they have staying power so much that they’re unwilling to leave things that are not working, they’re unwilling to keep trying to grow their career by going outside of their comfort zone. They may silo themselves out a lot, they may be in a position in their career where they don’t like to work with other people and they avoid collaboration and teamwork.
Of course, you can imagine an organization where you’ve got a lot of anxious attachment styles trying to connect with the dismissive avoidants and collaborate, and here are the DAs, the dismissive avoidants siloing themselves out and pushing them away, and you can actually see a lot of tension created in those types of situations where anxious are making that mean, “Oh, I’m disliked by this person.” Dismissive avoidants aren’t necessarily disliking anybody, they’re like, “Why do they keep trying to collaborate so much? I just need to do my own thing.” You can see how all these things will impact them, and thus impact how they succeed financially because how we grow in our career and what patterns we bring with us have a huge impact on our, of course, longevity and career and success, but also our financial area of life as a result.
Tori Dunlap:
You’ve mentioned a lot the subconscious versus the conscious mind, and I want to double click on that a little bit because I think for a listener, they might not know literally in their brain what is a subconscious thought or a belief versus a conscious thought. My example of this, and you can tell me if I’m wrong, if this is an example that is real or not, is my conscious brain knows that I love myself and I love my body and my weight doesn’t matter, and yet my subconscious brain because of diet culture and because of society and because of everything else is like, “You should be skinnier. Why aren’t you skinnier?” I constantly have to fight that for myself of no, I love myself and I know I shouldn’t be feeling this way, but sometimes I do. Is that an example?
Thais Gibson:
That’s a beautiful example.
Tori Dunlap:
Okay. Got it.
Thais Gibson:
I feel like it’s an example so many people can probably relate to it. You know how I said it’s our beliefs, thoughts, emotions and actions or decisions?
Tori Dunlap:
Right.
Thais Gibson:
That’s a really good example of emotions and thoughts. You’ll also see it a lot in our actions or habits. You’ll probably know this having been an anxious attachment style for a lot of time, you may have had moments, maybe not now, but maybe when you were much younger and you’re a teenager and you’re just starting to date and you’re going, “No, I know this person’s not good for me. Don’t continue on with them. Just stop texting or calling them,” and you’re telling yourself and your conscious mind knows better. You even may shut off your phone, put it in the other room, tell your friends to take your phone, and then half an hour later there you are texting or calling that person or reaching back out to them.
Tori Dunlap:
My version of it is slightly, I think, healthier, but not really, which was my first relationship. My partner was getting more and more distant. It was a long story. We dated for three years, we probably dated for two years too long, we were in a long distance relationship. He was in law school. It was a whole thing. I, as an anxious attachment person who couldn’t see him and touch him and know what he was feeling, would over communicate to a point where it was annoying because I was like, “Are we good? Is everything okay?” That felt like a daily occurrence for a while. That was my anxious attachment where my brain was like, “You’re fine, you’re fine, he’s fine, everything’s fine,” but my subconscious is like, “But we have to check.”
I still have that a little bit. I do that less than I used to, but I still do it quite a lot. I’m like, “Everybody okay? You okay? Are we okay? You’re fine?” Right, truly. Then I had a partner who literally told me, “Tori, it’s my responsibility to tell you if things aren’t okay. You don’t have to probe. It’s my responsibility.” The other thing too is my first partner would tell me everything was fine and then it wasn’t, so then I learned to I didn’t trust. That’s something that I have had to work on and continue to work on. Yeah. Let’s talk about what sort of thoughts, more examples, or what is the difference and how can we start rewiring some of the negativity in our subconscious mind?
Thais Gibson:
Yeah, it’s such a great question. I’ll give two other examples just so people can relate. If we’ve ever sabotaged something, our conscious mind isn’t like, “Yes, let’s wake up today and sabotage ourselves.”
Tori Dunlap:
Right, right.
Thais Gibson:
Our conscious mind is like, “Do the thing,” so maybe it’s to be in a position where we’re going, “You know what? I’m going to show up and finish this project today.” It can even be procrastination.
Tori Dunlap:
I’m going to go to the gym. Yeah.
Thais Gibson:
Yeah, exactly. We intend one thing and then our subconscious is like, “Oh, we’re going to go do this instead.” That’s a really obvious difference. Basically what happens is if you’ve ever seen the iceberg diagram, it’s a Freudian diagram. The conscious mind is the three to 5% that’s the iceberg you see above the surface, and then there’s this huge deep iceberg beneath the water line. Basically your subconscious mind is really your autopiloted programmed self. It is like the tape recorder, but not the information that you’re plugging into the tape recorder. We have that ability to take an information and it’s housed there, and it’s almost like this giant warehouse of all of our habits and our ideas and all the things we’ve come to think and believe and feel about ourselves over time, and it’s really replaying these things over and over again.
Our conscious mind is our logical thinking, analytical self. It’s the part of us that can rationalize, think through things, but most of our emotions come from a subconscious level, so you’ll generally see that we have exactly what we were talking about where our conscious mind says, “I know better.” Sometimes it’s even seeing red flags in a person and we’re like, “This isn’t good,” and yet we go down that path anyways. We go through that habitual part that’s really our subconscious.
There’s also people refer to the subconscious and unconscious interchangeably, but actually one of the big differences is the subconscious is a little higher up towards the conscious mind, and the unconscious is that bottom tip of the iceberg area in a sense. What you’ll see is the unconscious mind, it’s much more difficult to retrieve information from, but we can retrieve information from our subconscious mind so we can look back and say, “Oh, yeah, I do have these habits, I do have these patterns. Oh, yeah, when I was eight, I did feel like this and I had this wound or this trauma.” Then we end up being able to actually access that information and rewire it.
I know your next part of your question was, well, what do we do and what are the actual things that we can see? One of the first things is I give people a starter tool that I think is really powerful for anybody who has limiting beliefs, and really our limiting beliefs will tend to affect us in all aspects of our lives. What I’m actually going to do is just run through those limiting beliefs by attachment style so you can see these big core beliefs that are going to permeate your work environment, your money environment, your relationships, friendships, everything, and then I’ll share a tool for how to actually rewire these things that are no longer serving us and probably are creating the biggest glass ceilings in our lives.
Anxious attachment, as I mentioned briefly, the big core wounds and fears and those glass ceilings tend to be I’ll be abandoned, alone, disliked, excluded, not good enough, rejected, unloved, unsafe, especially around connection being pulled away from me. Those are things we want to plug into the tool that I’ll share in a moment because those will be the biggest barriers to really getting everything you want in life. You’ll see, anxious attachment styles, because they’re so preoccupied with those fears, sometimes they don’t focus on their own career or their own relationship to money because they’re so busy with these things over here. Dismissive avoidants, their big core fears are being shamed or seen as defective, being trapped, helpless, powerless, being not good enough or not capable, being weak if they’re vulnerable, and being unsafe is well as actually a shared wound amongst all insecure attachment styles.
Last but not least, the fearful avoidant, their major core wounds tend to be I’ll be trapped, helpless, powerless, they share on the dismissive avoidant side, I’ll be abandoned, alone, excluded or unloved, they share on the anxious side, and then they really have a big betrayal and unworthiness set of core wounds, and also the I am unsafe. Hopefully anybody listening can now hear, “Oh, yeah, I thought I was this attachment style. I really resonate with those core wounds.” What I would actually urge everybody to do is take a look at how those things have affected your relationships, how they’ve affected your relationship to money, because everything is a relationship, right? Relationship to money, relationship to career. Try to look at what have those core wounds cost you? How have they been a glass ceiling in your life?
Then when you’re ready to be like, “Okay, I’m sick of these wounds, I don’t want to feel like this anymore,” there’s really a three-step solution. The tool I’m going to share is called auto suggestion belief reprogramming. Okay? First step is you find the core wound and its opposite. If it’s I’m not good enough, I’m good enough. Okay, really simple. Second step is we can’t just affirm our way out of these things because your conscious mind speaks language and your subconscious mind does not speak language, it speaks in emotions and images. If I say, “Whatever you do, Tori, do not think of the pink elephant,” you’d probably think of a pink elephant.
Tori Dunlap:
Immediately, immediately.
Thais Gibson:
It’s the proof is in the pudding, right? You’re conscious mind, here’s do not, your subconscious doesn’t give a crap.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. That was a great example because my brain did not have enough time to go, “No, do not.” My brain just went like, “Pink elephant. There it is, there it is, really big.” I did not even have a second to squash it down to say, “No, we’re not going to do that.” It just happened. Yeah.
Thais Gibson:
Exactly. Sometimes we hear affirmations, and what’s happening is you’re using affirmations, your conscious is just speaking to your conscious mind. The problem when we have these core wounds is at the subconscious level, the problem. Nobody’s waking up and saying, “Oh, today I’m going to tell myself I’m not good enough 175 times and see how I feel.”
Tori Dunlap:
This is me with looking at my body in the mirror and I’m going to be like, “Okay.” At least body neutrality of this is my body, it’s okay, it is what it is, and my brain being like, “No, you need to lose weight though, you need to be skinnier. That little pooch in your belly is not cute, Tori. You need to get rid of it right now.” Yeah.
Thais Gibson:
All the programming you took off through repetition and emotion and through culture and society and all the ways we get it, exactly that. We get all this messaging, everything has to be so perfect or look a certain way. You see this in so many aspects and avenues of life. Step one, not good enough, and its opposite, good enough. If anybody’s like, “I don’t know the opposite,” you can literally just look up antonyms on the internet. I’ll be abandoned, I’ll be connected, I’ll be trapped, I’ll be free, I’ll be helpless, I’ll be empowered. You find the wound and its opposite.
Step two, we have to actually speak to our subconscious mind. We do this through emotions and images. Now, how do we find emotions and images as supporting evidence for this idea that’s the opposite of that wound? Whereas my evidence that I’m good enough, for example? Well, every memory we ever have is just emotions and images, so if I were to say, “Oh, tell me your favorite childhood memory,” and maybe it’s you playing on the playground with your friends, you would see the images of the slide. We all have seen when people tell an old story, they laugh while they’re telling the story or they smile because all of that emotion is contained. Emotion and images are the language of the subconscious mind.
Then from a neuroplastic point of view, we actually need to fire and wire using repetition because repetition is actually what solidifies those neural pathways. Now we bring these ingredients together. First step, core wound and its opposite. Second step, I want 10 for repetition, memories of times I felt good enough, and the memories are what are going to be the container of the emotions and images, so then I get repetition emotion, and imagery, which is speaking to my subconscious mind.
Now, research into neuroscience shows us conclusively that it takes about 21 days to fire and wire neural pathways that are strong enough that that becomes our new normal. What we do is we record those 10 pieces of evidence of times we felt good enough, for example, and we listen back to them across 21 days. Our goal is you can record it into your phone or your computer and listen back to it, and your goal is when you’re listening to it, those 10 memories, I felt good enough when I showed up this way as a friend, or when I got this award at work, or when my boss told me this, or I know that I worked hard for this thing, when we recount those memories back in the recording, we want to feel about them and see about them as much as possible because that’s really hard-wiring those things in there.
Now, funnily enough, you’ll usually see people by day seven or 14, they’re like, “Oh, I’m good. The wound’s gone. I can see how I’m good enough. My mind notices how I’m good enough all the time,” but you have to continue for 21 days. It can be three minutes a day to listen back to what you’ve recorded. It’s a very, very low hanging risk to take for such a huge reward where we for decades may have been carrying these huge fears, these huge wounds, these huge limiting beliefs about ourselves that are showing up as massive glass ceilings in our own lives, and we can actually let those things go and set them to rest once and for all, and you’ll see your whole world open up and expand as a result.
Tori Dunlap:
I fucking love that. We love actionable here. Okay, everybody needs to go back about seven minutes, you need to listen to that whole thing again, and then some homework, you’re going to pull out … Well, you’re probably listening on your phone. You’re going to go to the voice note app on your phone and you’re going to record your memories or maybe write them in a journal. Does that work as well, and then you read the journal?
Thais Gibson:
Either one. Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah.
Tori Dunlap:
In practice though, you’re listening to those two, is it also a redirect when we do have thoughts come up? That’s the other thing that I try to do is when I’m thinking a thought that I know isn’t true, I then try to reassure myself and redirect that thought. Would you also recommend that strategy?
Thais Gibson:
It’s a great thing to do. It’s called cognitive reframing, and it’s a great thing to do with the CBT technique, cognitive behavioral therapy technique, and it’s very great.
Tori Dunlap:
It’s like in the moment. Yeah.
Thais Gibson:
Exactly. It will work, and it’s just that because the emotional output … If you’re redirecting a thought or even questioning a thought, let’s say you’re like, “Oh, things are not okay with my partner. They’re not okay,” and then like you said, you’re working on questioning that and you’re going, “Well, do I really know that? How are things actually good? Why is everything okay?” That’s good because you’re reframing, and that’s going to create a small emotional output and a little bit of relief, but because you’re not doing it as deeply with those specific emotions and memories and you don’t have the 10, because that repetition is less and the emotion is less, it’ll still work, but it’s just going to take a lot longer than 21 days to start seeing a meaningful impact.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. Well, it almost sounds like it’s a band-aid, not a preventative solution.
Thais Gibson:
It’s still a good thing to do 100%, I don’t want to take away from that, but you can think of it as being a supporting role. That would be a great supporting role for the auto-suggestion tool because they can go together, and if you see yourself during that 21 days going down that rabbit hole, you can catch it and work on reframing. That will be really beneficial to just make sure that you are on the same page with what your conscious mind’s intending with the reprogramming process.
Tori Dunlap:
Can you graduate from any of the three attachment styles to … I’m not going to say the good one. Secure. Remind me the good one, the one that I’m trying to get to. Yeah. Can we graduate to that? I do feel like I am way less anxious, especially in my romantic relationships, I’m way less anxious than I used to be, but there’s still remnants of it, so I feel like I am getting there. Can we graduate to secure attachment?
Thais Gibson:
Of course. We’re not born with an attachment style, it’s conditioned into us over time, it’s part of our subconscious programming. I was extremely fearful avoidant or disorganized, and people are like, “That’s the hardest one to change.” I changed that years and years ago, about 10 years ago now, and we’ve had about 40,000 people come through our programs with an 88.7% success rate, these are self-paced programs, on people becoming securely attached.
It’s a very feasible thing to do. I think what happens is we sometimes don’t get enough information about how your subconscious mind plays a role and how to recondition at the subconscious level. What we really take people through is reprogramming those core fears or wounds using that tool and a few other tools that help to really recondition the subconscious learning to meet our own needs and learning what they are, learning to express those needs in healthy ways to other people so that we can also have that communication, learning to regulate our nervous system. You can think of those as being the major focus areas that will allow us to go from insecure to securely attached in the shortest period of time.
Tori Dunlap:
I’m asking a lot of questions for myself, but I imagine a lot of people are also thinking, “Oh, I’m this kind of attachment style. That’s pretty obvious.” But as we know with everything, especially romantic relationships around money, you’re managing money with somebody else, the coworkers you’re working with, your attachment styles are going to be different, so how can we best support each attachment style when we see it in people we care about?
Thais Gibson:
It’s such a great question and a very thoughtful, insightful question. Also as an anxious, prior anxious attachment style, you would ask that question.
Tori Dunlap:
I also appreciate you just validated me so hard and everything in me. I got bubbles inside of me. I was like, “Oh, I asked a good question. Okay, thank you.” That was everything that just happened in my brain and my body. I was light as a feather. I was like, “Oh, she thinks my question’s nice. That’s great.” That’s amazing.
Thais Gibson:
I really didn’t do that on purpose, I promise, but you’ll actually do kind of what just happened, which is you’ll learn the needs of the different attachment styles, and I’ll say what they are for each one, and each attachment style, when you meet them in those needs, that’s where they usually feel the most loved, confident, secure, and fulfilled by the relationship. Anxious attachment styles major needs are actually validation, encouragement, reassurance, certainty, they really like certainty. If you’re going to cancel plans, that’s okay, tell me when the next plans are.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. Oh, God. Yes. I hate it. Especially my partner, early on in our relationship he’s like, “Oh, yeah, that doesn’t really work for me,” and I was like, “Okay. I need something to look forward to so we got to plan something else. Tell me when we’re meeting up again.” Oh, yeah, yeah.
Thais Gibson:
Big one.
Tori Dunlap:
Sorry, I’m just having a whole crisis. I’m like, “Yeah, that’s exactly me, that’s exactly me.”
Thais Gibson:
Then you’ll also see encouragement, to be made to feel special, seen, important, especially in romantic relationships, all those things go a really, really long way. People talk about love languages, but our needs are so much more impactful than love languages. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard, there’s-
Tori Dunlap:
Oh, I agree.
Thais Gibson:
Yeah. The five love languages, physical touch, quality time, words of affirmation, gifts, and acts of service. I kind of blended two together there.
Tori Dunlap:
No, but that’s actually how I think because we’ve talked about love languages a lot. In a society, but also our team, we have blueprints for every team member of how do you want to be communicated with? What’s your Enneagram? What’s important to you? When are you having a bad day? What constitutes a bad day for you? One of the ones we have is love languages, which I do feel like is important, but what I’ve realized about myself is I’m very much a words of affirmation person, but when I go take the official test, that’s third. It’s quality time and acts of service, and I weirdly feel like those two are kind of the same. I’m wondering, I’m literally going to message our COO after and be like, “Should we do attachment styles in place of love languages instead?” I feel like that would actually be at least more helpful for me in terms of talking to our team.
Thais Gibson:
Love that you noticed that because it’s almost like the love language is the umbrella. For me, quality time is such a big one. If I watch television with somebody for three hours, it’s quality time, but I have a big need for emotional connection. If I have a deep conversation, you’ll see the need always supersedes and outweighs the love language, which is super interesting.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah.
Thais Gibson:
When we can really learn the needs of other attachment styles and then go into those needs and pour into those things in a healthy way, that’s where we feel the most connected. I’ll just go the other two major needs for DA and FA. Dismissive avoidant, their big needs as you can imagine are freedom, independence, autonomy, but the not so obvious ones and the things that actually make them really feel loved and connected in relationships are appreciation and acknowledgement, especially around small things, not like, “Oh, you’re the best partner ever,” but things like, “Hey, I really noticed you showed up yesterday to make an effort and remember ABC,” or, “Hey, I noticed you took out the trash earlier. Thank you. I appreciate that.”
Those little things go a really long way. Sometimes they fall in love with acceptance if they feel really accepted, support, if they feel like somebody’s really supportive of them, empathy, somebody really empathizes with them, even though they’ll be stoic and they won’t show it, that makes them feel really connected, and then understanding. When they feel really understood, somebody’s like, “Oh, I know you did this because of this,” or, “Hey, I know that you’re probably needing this because that’s how you are,” if they feel understood, it’s huge for them.
Then last but not least, fearful avoidants, they also need the freedom, independence and autonomy, but they need at the same time depth of connection, intimacy with somebody in terms of somebody being very present and attuned to them. They share on that more anxious side of things. Then they also need a lot of novelty, exploration, discovery. They do really well with change and ever-changing environments, and they need a little bit of challenge in relationships, and they really need trust. Even though they often don’t realize it they really need trust, which really looks like transparency, context, consideration, those things really build trust. If we look at, okay, what’s somebody’s attachment style, what are those big needs, and we pour into those needs, that’s absolutely the way that somebody’s going to feel the most connected, safe, and supported and loved in the relationships around them.
Tori Dunlap:
I can’t let you go without asking you about your subconscious comfort zone. You talk about this in your work, and it’s probably pretty obvious just from the name, but you survive this difficult experience, your subconscious has the tendency to say, “Oh, it must be working because we survived that or we got through that.” When we then have an experience that triggers a core wound, the subconscious finds comfort in believing, “Okay, again, whatever we did before worked.” How can we start rewiring that, or can you tell us more about what’s happening there?
Thais Gibson:
Yeah, it’s a great question. Basically what happens is we end up in what I call our relationship shadow, where often we will be attracted to people who basically just mirror back to us how we treat ourselves. What we actually do to rewire that … Again, everything is a relationship. We have a relationship to money, a relationship to a career, friend relationships, family, romantic. What we do is we first reprogram those wounds, using that auto-suggestion technique, that were causing us to feel like we were only worthy of that kind of relationship. We weren’t good enough for something better, or things that were standing in the way of us evolving out of that kind of dynamic, but secondly, we can actually make a list of the things that we keep bringing into our lives that we don’t like, and stop doing them to ourselves by literally implementing that new habit that opposes the original behavior for 21 days.
For example, if somebody’s like, “Why do I always attract emotionally unavailable people?”, you might be like, “Well, where am I emotionally unavailable to myself?”, and then, “Okay. How can I be emotionally available to myself and how can I implement a daily habit and structure for 21 days to change that?” That could be checking in with my feelings every morning, journaling about how I’m doing in the evening, or having better boundaries, or making myself and my own time a priority more. It can be any of those things. We need one thing that we can stick to for 21 days, and what we’re doing is we’re refiring and wiring a new subconscious comfort zone, which now will be our new point of attraction and what we’re interested in and attracted to in other people as a result.
Tori Dunlap:
Well, we were just talking about how we can support other people with certain attachment styles. Those same principles apply to ourselves. Everything you just said about how to deal, not deal, how to deal with anxious attachment, no, but how to navigate people who are anxiously attached, I am going to now take those things and be like, “Okay. That’s how I need to speak to myself.”
Thais Gibson:
Exactly. Even the needs we talked about for each style, if somebody wants to sit down and say, “Okay. If I need to be more loving to myself, I can actually meet these needs in the relationship to myself more often,” and just by being conscious and intentional about that repeatedly, you’ll see that that also shifts that subconscious comfort zone, and honestly the way you feel about yourself as a result.
Tori Dunlap:
This is so helpful. This is one that I will go back and listen to once it gets released, which is always a testament that the episode was really, really valuable. Thank you. Can you tell us more about your work, where people can find you? Plug away.
Thais Gibson:
Thank you so much. I just want to say one last thing, which is I am amazed at how good of a boss you are because you said for your whole team, you get them to do the, “Are you having a good day?”
Tori Dunlap:
I appreciate that. That is all my credit to Karina, who’s our COO, and I believe our admin assistants who set that up. I’m trying to remember who did it originally. That is all credit to them, that is something that they’re doing as doing operations internally, but it is something that I am really proud that we do as a company. I have to give credit where credit’s due.
Thais Gibson:
So cool. I love that. How nice it’d be if every company had more of that in the [inaudible 00:58:53].
Tori Dunlap:
I consult them all the time, especially giving feedback that’s potentially not going to be easy to hear or yeah, just this person seems to be a little off what might be going on. Okay, cool.
Thais Gibson:
Yeah. Good for you. I think that’s really cool that you’re implementing that kind of culture. Yeah. The places to find me, I put daily content out on YouTube. It’s Personal Development School-Thais Gibson. There’s a free attachment style quiz on our website, which is www.personaldevelopmentschool.com, and I am on Instagram, which is @personaldevelopment_school.
Tori Dunlap:
Amazing. Thank you for your work. This was so helpful. I’m so excited for people to listen.
Thais Gibson:
Thank you so much for having me. I had a blast chatting with you.
Tori Dunlap:
Thank you so much to Thais for joining us. You can get her book Learning Love, the complete guide to building the best relationships of your life wherever books are sold, and you can also check out her business, The Personal Development School. You can take the free quiz to learn your attachment style, and you can also follow her on Instagram at The Personal Development School, or at The Thais Gibson Podcast. Thank you so much for joining us as always. I hope you have a kick-ass day. Go make your dreams come true. Have a good one. Bye.
Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist, a Her First 100K podcast. Financial Feminist is hosted by me, Tori Dunlap, produced by Kristen Fields and Tamisha Grant, research by Sarah Sciortino, audio and video engineering by Alyssa Midcalf, marketing and operations by Karina Patel and Amanda Leffew. Special thanks to our team at Her First $100K, Kailyn Sprinkle, Masha Bakhmetyeva, Taylor Chou, Sasha Bonnar, Rae Wong, Elizabeth McCumber, Claire Kurronen, Daryl Ann Ingram, and Meghan Walker, promotional graphics by Mary Stratton, photography by Sarah Wolfe, and theme music by Jonah Cohen Sound.
A huge thanks to the entire Her First $100K community for supporting the show. For more information about Financial Feminist, Her First $100K, our guests and episode show notes, visit financialfeministpodcast.com. If you’re confused about your personal finances and you’re wondering where to start, go to herfirst100k.com/quiz for a free personalized money plan.
Tori Dunlap
Tori Dunlap is an internationally-recognized money and career expert. After saving $100,000 at age 25, Tori quit her corporate job in marketing and founded Her First $100K to fight financial inequality by giving women actionable resources to better their money. She has helped over five million women negotiate salaries, pay off debt, build savings, and invest.
Tori’s work has been featured on Good Morning America, the New York Times, BBC, TIME, PEOPLE, CNN, New York Magazine, Forbes, CNBC, BuzzFeed, and more.
With a dedicated following of over 2.1 million on Instagram and 2.4 million on TikTok —and multiple instances of her story going viral—Tori’s unique take on financial advice has made her the go-to voice for ambitious millennial women. CNBC called Tori “the voice of financial confidence for women.”
An honors graduate of the University of Portland, Tori currently lives in Seattle, where she enjoys eating fried chicken, going to barre classes, and attempting to naturally work John Mulaney bits into conversation.
