Chapter 63: Don't Get Too Attached

Published Oct 8, 2024, 4:18 AM

Dating isn't easy, but personal development coach Dr. Thais Gibson is here to help.

She guides Rachel in navigating finding love based on understanding her attachment style.

This is Rachel gos Rogue. Welcome to another episode of Rachel Goes Rogue with your host, Rachel Savannah Levis. Today I'm joined by personal development coach, author, and co founder of the Personal Development School, doctor Tyis Gibson. Doctor Tys is an expert on attachment theory, emotional healing, and transforming relationships. If you've ever wondered how your upbringing or past experiences affect your relationships, or if you're looking for tools to better understand yourself and your partners, this episode is for you. In this episode, we talk a lot about attachment styles, is it possible to change into a secure attachment style? And how to get over your ex? So I have Tice with me and she is a personal development trainer teacher. She is very educated on attachment styles and I wanted to just pick your brain a little bit. But before we get into that, I would love to know what drew you to focus on attachment theory in your work.

Yeah.

So for me, for sure, I am in this space and field as a whole is because I grew up with a really dysfunctional family and so I was a fearful, avoidant attachment style. So I basically went through a lot of ups and downs, a lot of chaos in childhood, a lot of like my parents are always fighting and arguing, and so I grew up being you know, wanting love and connection and relationships of being really afraid of it. So I was the attachment style that would constantly go through these dynamics of getting really close but then kind of sabotaging my relationships when people got too close to me. I went through that over and over again through my whole early adolescence, and I definitely just hit a breaking point of like, what's going on? Why do I want care and want love but find myself actively trying to push people away as soon as they really do get too close?

And why do I.

Feel like relationships are so hard and it's so heavy to be in a relationship and so difficult. And so I sought to really understand and explore what my own experience was. And I was a psychology undergrad at the time. I was like in first or second year university, and I actually had somebody say to me. They were like, oh, your conscious mind can't outwill or overpower your subconscious mind. And to me, this was so mind blowing because I was like, wait, what do you mean? And I went on to find that your conscious mind is responsible for roughly three to five percent of all of your beliefs, thoughts, emotions, and actions, and your subconscious is ninety five to ninety seven percent. So like all those times that I was growing up being like, I don't want to be so critical or harsh with my words when I'm triggered, I don't want to push people away or cancel things at the last minute because I'm sabotage in closeness and intimacy. And yet I would keep repeating the pattern. The reason we do that is because we can consciously intend something. But if we have these programs, if we have this conditioning that's just trying to protect us, we can just go right back down the same rabbit hole of those same patterns and themes, even though we quote unquote know better. Well, yeah, you know better because your conscious mind knows better. But until you actually habituate your behaviors at the subconscious level, you'll keep repeating the same pattern. So a big part of the work I ended up doing was in this space of how do we actually change the patterns, not just understand them.

Yes, Okay, so how do we change the patterns? And like, obviously we'll get into the specifics of the different attachment styles, but since we're talking about the development and the potential to change these patternings in a subconscious way, how does one achieve that?

Yeah, it's such a great topic. There's a few core things that we can talk about. So the first thing is I want people to understand how that works, how that functions. So if you've ever had the experience of like when you first learn to drive a car, do you remember when you first learn to drive and it's like really stressful. I don't know if you've helt stress, but I know I did. And you're like turn the steering wheel, oh my gosh, like check your rear, your mirror, look over your shoulder, like put on your signal, and you're trying to remember to do all these things at once and it's like exhausting and it takes a lot of your energy. Well that's because you're consciously thinking about everything. It takes more effort for a lot of those types of situations. Or maybe you go into like a new job or a new career and you have that initial learning curve for a few months because you have to consciously remember everything. But over time, through repetition and emotion and experiences, we suddenly get into a place where like you're driving your car and you're listening to a podcast, or you're playing the radio, or because you've habituated it. So through repetition and emotion, we actually fire and wire neural pathways. And when we do things repeatedly enough, especially when there's like emotion and imagery intact, that's where we can really rewire or any patterns of behavior, or even any painful or scary ideas we have about ourselves or relationships. So for me, I was a fearful avoidant. I was afraid of being abandoned in relationships because fearful wouldn't have this like anxious side where they want closeness. But I was also really afraid of being betrayed or trapped. And I assumed that all of the above would happen because in my own childhood I saw a lot of that between my own parents. So the repetition and emotion fires and wires these neural networks. These ideas like okay, relationships are about betrayal and abandonment, You're going to get trapped in the wrong one, and as an adult, I would constantly assume that. But when we want to change those things, our conscious mind can be like, Okay, look, just because that was my parents and their experience and what I fear, it doesn't mean that's all people. Doesn't mean that's everybody's experience. So I can understand that. But what I actually had to do was leverage repetition and emotion to change the way that I saw relationships. For example, I had to actually look for instead of going through dynamics of feeling like, Okay, I'm going to be abandoned, I actually had to be like, wait, hold on a second, why am I worthy of connection? What's some evidence of how I'm worthy of connection? And when of people actually stayed And so there's a tool called auto suggestion where we can start by looking at these big core fears we have in relationships and they're opposite. So I'll be abandoned, you know, I'll stay connected. I'm worthy of connection, and then we can look for times where people actually did show up and times where people really did follow through. And what we do here is when we pull out experiences of this every experience or memory we have is a container for emotions and images, Like if you think of your favorite childhood memory, you might think, oh, yeah, like I was playing on the playground and I was with my friends, and you might see the images of the slide and smile when you tell the story because the emotion is intact. So when we can leverage that those memories that when people did come out did far did show up for us, then what we do is we're actually firing and wiring repetition emotion and images for our own self to support the new idea that we have. And then research shows that if we keep that for twenty one days, so if we like, let's say we have the core wound, I'll be abandoned. What's the opposite, I'll be connected. What are ten times that people did actually show up and connect to me and how I saw I was worthy of connection? And then if I record that's the more like my phone and listen back for twenty one days. Research into neuroplasticity shows it takes about twenty one days to solidify these neural networks to be strong enough that we're like, oh wait, this actually sticks. I actually do feel worthy of connection. I do see how people will show up for me and I start to trust it. But until we do that work and really get the emotion and images, then we may be like, oh, I have an abandonment wound or I have a fear, but.

We don't actually see the needle move on those things. Yeah.

So I took your quiz. It was to test your attachment style, and I took it answering the questions as I am now, and it came back as secure attachment style. And I was like, Okay, that's interesting, but like I've done a lot of work on myself, and so I was like, I want to do the quiz again, but put myself in the position that I was at a year ago and a relationship that I wish was different in the type of mindset where I'm putting somebody on a pedestal. So I answered your questions from that mindset and it came back as an anxious, preoccupied attachment style, which is probably the opposite of your fearful avoidant attachment style.

Yeah, there's so there's four attachment styles in total, and one is securely attached, which is like you know, they report having the longest lasting relationships and actually being satisfied in the relationships, because I feel like you can have a long lasting relationship, but if you're miserable, it's not that successful per se. So that's our of secure are anxious attachment style exactly like you said. They put people on pedestals. They people please, They will self abandon all the time to please others. They struggle sometimes to feel like they have a true sense of self because so much of their sense of self feels like it's based on other people and how other people think and feel about them, rather than like, what are my needs? What do I want to do in the world, what's meaningful to me? And they tend to lack that attonement. The opposite of that is actually the dismissive avoidant, who is very slow to warm up, kind of stand offish. They keep people at arm's length. They really fear commitment, they won't really bond too closely. The fearful avoidant, which is what I was, sort of is like the hot and cold partner in relationships. They're kind of a blend between the two, and they're generally somebody who really wants love and wants connection and actually has an anxious side to their attachment style. So it can very much relate to like what you feel when you were anxiously attached, having had that side to my attachment style, but then when love gets too close or too real, that's where the sabotage happens. So then they also have this avoidance side. So you basically have that like that anxious side and the avoidant side, and you're constantly just oscillating between the two extremes, and it's exhausting.

It's not a fun way to feel.

But all of the insecure attachment styles that can be really taxing to feel like that. And I think one of the biggest things that stands out to me and why I think attachment theory work is so meaningful, is like if you imagine, for example, you're trying to sit down and you're gonna play a board game, and you go into the board game and you think that you have the rules for Scrabble, and I go into the board game and I think we have the rules for Monopoly, then no matter what happens, like how much fun we try to have or how will we try to connect, we're both just going to have like friction and confusion because we have different rules for how the board game works and what I like to think of is our attachment style is really our subconscious set of rules for how we're supposed to give and receive love. And so when people have different attachment styles, they pair up together. But one person thinks love is about distance and not getting too close and moving really slowly, and another person thinks, like, if you were anxiously attached in the past, you may have thought at the time, like move really quickly and people please each other, and You're going to meet all of my needs and I'm going to meet all of yours. We're never going to really meet any of our own and we're just always supposed to be there and sue each other. And somebody else might be like, no, no, no, We're only supposed to sue ourselves, and so there can just be all of this confusion when we don't realize that we.

Have different attachment styles.

Okay, I have a question for you, because I've had another psychotherapist on before who was specialized in dating, and she was talking about attachment styles and she said basically like at this day and age, I just turned thirty, and she was like, the people that are securely attached probably marry their high school sweetheart and they're in long term relationship and they find ways to make it work. And the only people It's kind of a generalization, but she basically said, the only people who are available on the market would be people who have been typically either avoidant or anxious, and that's probably why they haven't had a relationship work out thus far. Is that true? What's your perspective on that? So?

I think kurbews like maybe a little extreme, but I so the traditional research, like all the research into attachment theory, shows that roughly fifty percent of the population is securely attached, and that number is traditionally like on the decline. So the other fifty percent is a combination of majority anxious and dismissive avoidant, and then minority of that is fearful avoidant.

Now what's interesting is that.

Yes, securely attached people, they have better coping mechanisms to make relationships work. So me having done the work to also become securely attached, and I've been with my my husband now for almost ten years. You know, one of the things that I look back at when I was fearful avoidant is I had no idea how to solve an argument. I would just get angry. I would shut down. I would never communicate. I didn't know how to share my feelings or my needs. I didn't even know what that meant, and I definitely didn't want to be vulnerable enough to do so, you know, I would see the series of failed arguments, there's no resolutions, shove it under the rug, get resentful, and eventually my resentment tank would build enough where I was like, I don't want to be in this relationship. And you know, you can see that those patterns of behavior that each of the different attachment styles has just miss avoids, often won't even share that they have feelings about a situation or argument. Anxious attachment cells will people please their way through arguments and never actually feel seen and heard and loved and connected to because their opinions aren't getting across and their viewpoints aren't being considered. And so everybody has their own patterns who are insecurely attached. Whereas if you're securely attached, you're more likely to be able to make a relationship work. So you have that fifty percent, then that fifty percent is going to move into a space where of that fifty percent, around thirty years of age, the vast majority of that fifty percent is in a committed relationship at that point around those age ranges, give or take a few years, and so what you'll end up seeing is now the amount of people on the market who are securely attachedment available for a secure relationship, it's much less. But the silver lining of this is, like you just said you've done the work to become securely attached. You've been doing intensive work for the last year, and like that's something that's also trending more in the world. People are doing the work. And I'm a big believer that if you just grew up in a secure household and you just have a secure attachment style, I mean, that's beautiful and that's wonderful, but I think it's even more meaningful to be earned secure because you have the resilience, You have the depth of what it's like to go through challenges in relationships, and you have the deeper emotional awareness for how to solve those things and how to really move beyond them, and so it better prepares you to be a better version of yourself for future relationships to come.

Yeah, that's so true. Do you feel like since you've identified as the ye, fearful avoidant attachment style. Do you feel like you've been like disconnected with your emotions and it was like harder for you to feel your emotions.

And if you see somebody who's like, I don't know what I feel, they may be a dismissive avoidant attachment style. There could be more to it, and of course that can be situational. But if they have this chronic like if you're trying to spot different attachment styles early on in fading, if somebody is like, I don't really feel my emotions, if you can tell they're really slow moving, if they have a history of like being single for long long periods of.

Time or never really being in.

More serious committed relationships, if they fear commitment and have a reputation but not really ever settling down, like those would be things that that's probably a dismissive aboidant and that's the real like avoidant attachment style, fearful avoidance. I would say, we feel too much like when I was fearful avoidant, I felt all my emotions more in extremes. But if I've looked at it with like a magnifying glass, what's actually happening is I'm repressing my emotions for long enough, so I'm actually people pleasing, similar to the anxious attachment style, repressing my own feelings and needs. But then I hit this like critical threshold where now I'm like, ah, my own feelings and needs do matter. And then I'm experiencing resentment for the people around me because I think that they didn't include my feelings and emotions, and now I make it sharper with my words or a little more volatile in relationships and things like that. So it's almost like fearful avoidance go through these deep repressions and then they turn around and they get really frustrated and over express. Anxious attachment styles will be the ones that they just keep people pleasing a long way through really to their own detriment a lot of the time.

And if you're.

Trying to spot somebody who's a fearful avoidant, what you'll see is they're generally really present, they're really giving their they tend to be really charming, They really they're very generous people. They'll go above and beyond for people, and they'll do this and they'll make people feel really seen and known. They're really good about connecting to other people and making them feel special and good. But then when you ask them about themselves or try to get them to open up, they won't really be vulnerable about themselves, and so people will often be drawn to them and they sort of create these one way relationships where they let people rely on them and be there for them. But then when it comes to that person actually letting somebody in truly informing a deeper bond, a lot of the time when things get more serious, they suddenly get commitment fearing or suddenly sabotage things a little bit later.

Down the line.

Interesting, So how could you check in with that person? Do you recommend checking in with their emotions often? And like, how do you phrase that in a way that's not strange that is the case.

Yeah, it's a really good question. One of the biggest things is that it's great to express emotions. But one of the easiest things for fearful avoidance and dismissive avoidance is they do better when they learn to express their needs, so and need sort of allows them to then get into a certain space of comfort with their emotions. What I was fearful avoidant, here's what I would do all the time. I would never share when something hurt me. I would feel really hurt, and I'd be like, I can't share about that. That's too vulnerable. So let's say, for example, that somebody didn't text me back enough. I wouldn't be like texting them more. I wouldn't be like, oh, I want you to text me more. I would be like, oh, you're not going to text me. Okay, I'm just gonna shut down. I don't need you, and I would pull back and I would hold back. So I would be hurt, but it would never show it. And then what would happen is over time, I could only go so long without actually you know, because I would feel a lot and feel those those more intense emotions differently from a dismissible avoidant, for example. So I'd feel these emotions and then I would get like, you know, pick an argument or get upset about something so unrelated.

So it would be like, oh, the.

Gas you didn't refill the gas tank enough, and I get mad about that. And I would be too angry about that, because what I was actually doing was projecting and displacing other emotion and other pain about something unrelated that I didn't know how to talk about because I didn't feel like it was safe to be vulnerable. And so when you then go to a fear full one and you're like, tell me all your feelings, they may be like, WHOA, I already don't want to be vulnerable. You're asking me to be way too vulnerable. But if instead you tell them, hey, you know, what do you need in this situation or what upsets you, what tends to trigger you in arguments or in relationships, and you start to learn their triggers and their pain points, and then when you think that those things may be active, you ask them like, hey, did this upset you? And if so, that's normal, that's okay, and you start to sort of like move in the direction of talking about what do you need in these situations when you feel triggered? What do you need when you feel you know, let's say it's about me not being texted. If somebody came along and they were like, hey, I noticed I didn't text you earlier and you had mentioned before that was a thing that can trigger you in relationships, just so you know I really care about you and is there anything you need? You know, if that conversation is there way you can start talking about needs. Meeting needs is what it resolves comfortable feelings.

So when somebody.

Meets the need after they didn't text you to validate you or reassure you, they met the need for validation or reassurance, which made you not feel so insecure.

Anymore or triggered anymore.

So talking about needs first and making that kind of a normalizing in relationships where we talk about what makes us feel loved and connected and seen and heard, and having those discussions that empowers us to then be able to understand each other better and be more mindful about those things, especially if somebody has a different attachment style from ourselves.

And one of the things that I've learned through working on myself is that you can't change somebody else, and so, like I'm dating, to date that person as they are and not change them. The secure attachment style is one form of an attachment and style. But does that necessarily mean that anyone else who isn't a secure attachment style shouldn't be somebody that you date.

Yeah, that's such a good question.

So to your point, like anxious attachment styles, they are just known for being the fixers. They just want to heal everybody and be there for them and solve the problems for them and just give them benefit of the doubt over and over again. And there's like this beauty in that, but it's it really comes from a space of self abandonment. In all honesty, it comes from like, Okay, my feelings and needs don't matter, and so we should absolutely be dating when people show us who they are now, because you know, it's like, we don't want to date people's potential because often their potentials are the projected potential, but we think they may be in the future, and it can just.

Get really hairy.

But to your point, there's a lot of people who you know, if you're looking and you're like, wow, I'm meeting people, but I really like somebody, or I'm really interested in somebody, but I think they might be a fearful avoidant or dismissible avoidant, or they might still be anxiously attached to That mean that like, oh my gosh, there's no hope.

Does that mean that.

We can ever move the needle on those things? And the real truth about this is that attachment styles do change. They can change, They are changeable. I see it all the time every day. But when I was running my client practice. So I worked in client practice for about ten years. I always the very first session that people would come in. I didn't care what their attachment style was. I didn't care how much trauma they had. I cared because I worked with couples most exclusively. I cared are both people willing to do the work. And if both people are willing to do the work, I was like, okay, green lights, green flags all around, like this is great. If one person was willing to do the work and the other person was resistant, I was like, okay, I'm going to probably quite quickly try to convince the other person this may not be the relationship they want to stay in, because that's really the game changer is. You know, somebody can have an insecure attachment style, but are they working on communicating their needs. You know, there's things that we do to actually heal and become securely attached, and those things are like learning to recondition our relationship fears, this belief that you're always going to be abandoned or always going to be betrayed, or always going to be trapped.

Like we have to work through those things and you can recondition.

Those things are you learning what your needs are and are you actually able to meet your own needs? Because the relationship to ourselves is the most important relationship we'll ever have, and we have to be able to understand who we are and what we need and then meet those needs. And then we can go communicate those needs to other people and have them meet them as well. And so we have to do that work, and we have to learn to have healthy boundaries. And so if we can do those things where we're meeting our needs, we're communicating, we have healthy boundaries, we're working through our old fears and relationships. Anybody can become securely attached, but if one person doing it and the other isn't, that's what I would be vetting for. In dating, I would be vetting for are they in therapy or counseling or doing some sort of program or doing the work if they're insecurely attached. And I would also suggest that people set a deadline. So I don't know if you've ever had an experience where you were really interested in somebody and maybe you were like new to dating them, and all of a sudden you're like, wait, I'm seeing these unhealthy patterns And part of you is like I should pull back, but then you kind of just you're almost like an autopilot in a way, and you just kind of keep going and going. And in those types of experiences that I feel like so many people can probably relate to, it's because you didn't. You were an intentional instead a deadline like, hey, I see some unhealthy patterns. I'm going to do everything I can for the next two months to see if we can make this work. And if I don't see their behaviors change or the needle move from their end at the end of two months, I have to honor my deadline. I have to say, you know what, then this is who they are and I have to move in a different direction.

But what we don't want to do is.

The opposite, which is like, Okay, I see a red flag, I'm just going to run the other direction all the time because sometimes we don't get to work through things or have those conversations that can grow the connection or relationships.

Does that make.

Sense, Yeah, it makes total sense for sure.

Yeah.

Be the big piece with dating is like vet somebody take the time to know when you're dating too, what you are looking for, Like, have you ever thought just on your on your own terms. Have you ever taken the time to sit down and go like, what are the traits I'm looking for? What are my standards in relationships? What are my non negotiables? Have you ever done any of that sort of backwork?

Yeah? I have? Yeah? Good.

Yeah, So that's huge, Like you said, your thirties, So that's so important to be really intentional and then to also be able to like dig into once you have those intentions. That's only half of the equation. It's also now am I vetting for those things? Am I actively? I often say to people who are like, you know, in the dating space right now, don't sit down on your first date and have like a job interview with somebody.

And like, here's all my standards and non negotiables.

But if you can, you know, start off the dating process by going, Okay, I'm gonna get my really clear things. Like for example, if I were dating now, I would be like, I need to be in a relationship with somebody who's willing to resolve conflict and wants to talk things out because I used to not do that and it was really painful, and that's what I want going forward.

If that were the case.

So then what I would do is I would ask one meaningful question about my standards or non negotiables per day. So I'd go on the date, I'd be present and have fun. But you know, in the first couple months of getting to know somebody, I would you know, I might bring up the question one day at dinner. I'd be like, oh, you know, are you somebody who finds yourself working through things if you're in a conflict, or do you tend to avoid them? And that way, I'm getting the clear picture of who that person is when I'm dating and I'm batting them every step of the way to see is this person actually a good fit for what I'm looking for and vice versa.

I love that so much. That's so good. And what is the timeframe that you recommend for people to be kind of vetting this out.

That's a really great question.

So there's actually six stages of relationships, and what's interesting is that people and relationships.

Look different at each of the stages.

So I remember when I was working in private practice for a while, I would have people come in to me sometimes and they would be like on their first session, and they would tice, you know, I married my wife. I got engaged to her after six months. We got married at one year, and I'm starting to get nervous. She conned me because after we got married she turned into a totally different person.

She's like a monster now.

Or I would see, you know, another a wife say that's it, or whoever.

You know.

Spouses would say this about each other, and the one common theme is that this would happen right around the year and a half to tu mark of being in a relationship. And there's a reason for this. We start the dating stage. The dating stage is a vetting stage. It generally should last about two to four months of truly vetting before we make like a commitment into something more serious because we're.

Doing our due diligence.

We're talking about needs, we're seeing if somebody has our non negotiables, and we're being clear about who we're committing with. Once we move out of the dating stage, we move into the honeymoon stage, and it's characterized by, hey, we made an actual commitment to each other. And the honeymoon stage is like rose colored glasses, like, you know, we see the best traits in somebody were kind of filtering out, you know, any that's less than perfect about them, and it's a fun stage. It's a beautiful stage. And then once we get comfortable enough and enough time has gone on, we start to lower the mask. We're like, Okay, I don't have to be on my best behavior all the time. And when we do that, that's when, all of a sudden, we move into the power struggle stage. Power struggle is statistically where most people break up, and it's statistically the hardest stage. More fighting ensues, there's a lot more ups and downs. But you know what's really beautiful about it is that it's the stage that we get the opportunity to move towards more unconditionally based love. If we're just in the dating and honeymoon stage, we're showing ourselves with conditions.

We're always on.

Our best behavior, and you know, showing up as perfectly as we can. Well, you're not sharing your true fears or your true needs. You haven't had to work through many arguments yet, and that can actually strengthen you. And so the power struggle stage is like a crisis, but it's also an opportunity. And if we can do the work in that stage to be more open, to be more vulnerable to talk about our needs to really be mindful of each other's fears or triggers and wounds and work through strategies to move beyond those things. Then we move into the stability, commitment and eventually bliss stage. But in the bliss stage, it's like the honeymoon stage, but you truly deeply know somebody and so yeah, love, So there's this the work to be done, you know, And sometimes we think that in the power struggle stage. I don't know if you've ever experienced something like this or people you know have experienced something like this, but like there can be a dynamic of you you're in the power struggling and you're like everything's changing, it's falling apart. It's so hard. But sometimes it's because you know the relationship. It's almost like the universe is showing you the things you have to move through, the different conversations you have to have the things that need to change, and if you can do that, it really strengthens you for the future. But we have to take those lessons and actually use them.

Yes, I love that so much. And it is a process. It seems like it is like a long game type of process because you can't help yourself. You do get those rose colored lenses and you do, like really see the best in somebody else. And when someone is meeting your non negotiables and things are working out, it's like great, Like I found my person. But it does take time, and I'm sure eventually you get to that phase where you start really having those problems. But if you are someone who is willing to work through the problems and be a good communicator and like really commit to the other person, that is when that true deep love starts to form because you truly do know each other. And that's probably even more rewarding.

Absolutely, that's so beautifully summarized. That's exactly the case. And it's not easy work, but it's so meaningful. And then you naturally know, like what somebody's sensitivities are and you can be mindful of them. You don't have to talk everything out forever.

You do it.

Initially, adapt to it, and then those things naturally flow in a healthy way.

Yeah, So you have a personal development school. What has been the most rewarding part of that journey helping other people through your school.

Seeing people change. So I started off in private practice, and originally, like sort of specialize in a sense in hypnotherapy, and I would come in and I would hypnotize people and help them have these kind of like rapid breakthroughs, and then people keep coming back and coming back and coming back. And then I would see over the years that people would, you know, do really well for a few years, and then a few years later they'd come back and again. And I sort of had this idea that like, when you truly empower somebody, when you truly support them, it's almost like the analogy like give a man of fish instead of teaching them give instead of teaching them man to fish. I felt like hypnosis was like do it for them instead of like teach somebody the user manual of how their owned mind works, so that forever, once they're empowered and learn those basics, they can face any problems or difficulties that come to them. And of course you can always go and get some more support. But like, if you know how to regulate yourself and work through grief or breakups or trauma or anything like that, well, now your position to be able to have this deep sense of self trust that I can handle other whatever storms come in my path on the journey of life. And so a lot of what we did is really create course, material and support that empowers people to it's almost like teach them manefish they can actually do things themselves. And so one of the most rewarding parts of PDS, instead of being in private practice, was like I actually see people changing and coming into our support groups and sharing stories of like what they changed and what they did. And we had this one girl. She always comes to mind as like a success story. She's like this amazing student. She came in, she used a fake name and eventually she changed her name and she was like, hey, this is my real name. I was using this fake and because I, you know, I was uncomfortable with vulnerability, and she did so much work from going through the courses and materials that she actually healed so much. She would come into every webinar on camera share talk about things. She was so vulnerable. And then she actually went back to school to be a therapist herself, and she's now a therapist seeing clients, and so it's so beautiful to see some of those changes and just really, you know, see people understandings so deeply themselves that they don't need me. If that makes sense they actually have that empowerment personally.

Oh that's so beautiful. I had chills when you said, teach a man how to fish, don't give him a fish, because it's so true. Like I dedicated three months of my life to a recovery center. Their whole philosophy was giving you the tools that you need to be able to be in your recovery outside of the program. Yeah, I had chills when you said, teach a man how to fish and don't give him a fish, because it's so true. Like, if you you are trying to fix someone for them, it's basically enabling their behavior in a weird, roundabout way that doesn't make sense to the person who's like just trying to help. But if you take a step back and really recognize that pattern, then you start to realize that it needs to be something much deeper where they can help themselves.

Absolutely, that's so cool to hear that you, like did intensive work for three months, because I feel like when we're really in it too, it just it really helps so much more to have a big focus there when we're learning about relationships or attachment cells or any of it. And it reminds me of this idea. I remember when I had sort of my own patterns of like you know, being codependent or being you know, very anxious in relationships because you have that part as if you're full avoidant. And I remember like always wanting to like fix or save people and things like that. And I sat down one day and I realized, like, I'm just really afraid to see people in pain, because when they're in pain, I can't handle it. Like I'm like, oh my gosh, I feel your pain, and you better fix your pain so I don't have to feel this. And and you know, part of me was being in mesh and sort of code pendant in that way, and I was trying to change somebody else or control how they felt as a means to control how I felt. And what I realized this one day I sat down and I looked at like some of the hardest experiences of my life, and I sat down, like, what are the three or four like hardest things I ever went through? And I sat down and I just got really present, and I was like, as hard as it is to ask myself this question.

How did these really hard times serve me? What did I learn? How did I grow?

What was I forced to let go of that was no longer serving me at the time, and I sat with like really sat in those questions for a while, and after some time I realized, like, some of the hardest things I went through actually were some of the most powerful learning experiences for me, and things that changed me so deeply in a way that like actually did all of this amazing stuff for me in the future years to come. And pain is so hard and it's so uncomfortable, but it's a powerful teacher. And sometimes when we go through those really difficult experiences or painful things, we're like, we think, oh, no, it's so bad, and I don't want to see anybody else in pain because it's such an awful thing. But sometimes we're actually robbing them of those lessons and experiences at the same time. And so allowing people to really sit in that pain or have space to process things, as much as we want to fix or want to save, can actually be meaningful for not just us, but for the person going through that experience itself.

Yeah, that's so true.

I love that introspection. I hope you enjoyed listening to my conversation with doctor Tyise Gibson. She gave me so much good information that we decided to make a two part episode, so stay tuned for part two. Thank you so much for listening to Rachel Goes Rogue. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok for exclusive video content at Rachel Goes Rogue Podcast