Beyond the Honeymoon: The 6 Stages of Love and How to Build Real Connection with Thais Gibson (The Velvet)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Tyie Gibson is back. She has become one of the
leading voices in attachment theory and subconscious healing. You guys
might remember her from her last appearance on Velvet's Edge,
where we broke down shadow work. I didn't remember tyis
what we had talked about, and I went back and looked,
and I thought that was a really good topic. But
we talked about how everyone identifying your shadow in relationships

(00:33):
is so helpful and that can really change your relationship.
So we're gonna do a little more relationship deep dives
today and we're talking about the six stages every relationship
moves through, what can make or break them, and how
to move through each one with more awareness and love. Hello,
I'm so glad to have you back.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 3 (00:52):
I remember leaving our last conversation just thinking like what
a great talk it was, and just what a great
host you were and what great questions you asked. So
I'm excited to hang out and join you today.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
Well, I just had to start pressing record because we
started talking about the topic and I felt like we
were doing the podcast, and what I was saying to
you was I feel like in the conversations with my friends.
We're having all these conversations about relationship, but nobody is
really identifying any of these stages. And we're going to
get to that in just a second. But instead of
identifying that, oh, maybe we're in this stage, people just

(01:23):
leave their relationship or think this isn't going to work,
just to go repeat the pattern in the next one.
So I think this is really important to talk about,
and it's not something that I've seen widely discussed at all.
So maybe let's just start and give the listeners what
are the six stages of the relationship of relationships?

Speaker 3 (01:42):
I love that you said that too, because you're exactly right,
and that's actually why I created this content, is that
people often get stuck in a stage and they don't
realize that they just need to learn a couple of
different ways of approaching that stage of the relationship in
order to make it through to the preceding stages, and instead,
because they feel stuck and going to learn helplessness, then
blame the relationship or themselves and then they're like, Okay,

(02:03):
this isn't working, and then they leave.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
When a lot of.

Speaker 3 (02:05):
Those things are actually very solvable problems. But when people
feel stuck, they don't recognize it.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
So the six.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
Stages really boil down into you know what stage our
relationship is in if we are in one, and how
to make sure that if we're feeling stuck, or even
if we're not feeling stuck, we just have the rights
of passage and the lessons we need to learn to
move to the next stage ahead of time so we.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Can kind of glide through easily.

Speaker 3 (02:27):
But also if you're single, exactly like you said, often
people will go through the same cycles, keep getting stuck
at the exact same stage and then and relationships feeling
like that was such a disappointment or that was a heartbreak,
and even have trepidation going into potential future relationships thinking,
oh my gosh, am I gonna get my heart broken again.
I don't want to go through that again. And oftentimes

(02:48):
it's just one or two small lessons that they really
need to learn in a certain stage that can make
relationships so much more fulfilling and effortless. So to go
into it the sixth stages, the first stage is the
dating stage, and we'll break you to these down and
like so much detail, but the intent here is to
vet properly, and if you don't do the dating stage properly,
you set yourself up for kind of disaster quite honestly

(03:08):
in the later stages, especially the ones that get trickier.
So we'll get into that. But then we have the
honeymoon stage, which nobody really brings up. In the honeymoon stage,
it's the rose colored glasses, you're the best, strange. Yeah,
a great stage, and then everybody's usually really happy in
that stage. But then you go into the power struggle stage.
And in the power struggle stage specifically, people end up.

(03:31):
You know, statistically it's where most relationships end and people
break up. But also in the power struggle stage, what
people don't realize is that, yes, there's a crisis of yes.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
We've dropped the mask.

Speaker 3 (03:43):
We were more comfortable, so now we let each other
know our real triggers and fears and we're not on
our best behavior anymore.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
In the power struggle stage, right, and it's it's.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
Elevating conflicts and people think, oh, no, there's more conflicts,
But there's something beautiful about not being on your best behavior,
like when you're really letting someone in. And if we
do the power struggle stage, right, it's actually an invitation
to move from more conditionally based love, which is rooted
in infatuation and like excitement, which is beautiful, but into

(04:10):
really building deeper roots. Like you can almost imagine if
we nourish the relationship and the power struggle stage properly
and we learn the right lessons that is essentially unlock
the future stages.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
Then one ends up taking.

Speaker 3 (04:20):
Place is we suddenly feel like, oh, this person loves
and accepts me as I am without my mask on,
and I feel more connected and I feel more supported
with this person from this perspective. So then we have
the power struggle, and then we move into if we
get out of the power struggle in a healthy way,
we have what I've now renamed the rhythm stage of relationships.

(04:42):
So we find our rhythm with somebody, we're in our
flow with one another, and we're in a place where
we're going okay. We actually understand each other each other's
fears and flaws and wounds, and we know how to
be mindful of those things. And it's really interesting because
we'll get into a lot of this in much more detail,
but you find generally that if you could almost graph

(05:03):
conflict Conflok's great, it's easy. There's nothing going on in
the dating and honeymoon stage, you're very minimal. Then the
power struggle stage really like you know, hits this peak
pivotal point. But if we make it out of the
power struggle stage, the conflict goes way down. And so
a lot of people in the power struggle stage will
be like, oh my gosh, we have to talk about
stuff all the time. It's so tiring, and it's like, well,
if you talk about things correctly, then you won't end

(05:26):
up having to continuously talk about them. And so just
as an example, like you know, I had two clients
back when I was running my practice, and it was
a husband and wife, and the wife really wanted her
husband to be more present. He was a little bit restless.
He was dismissive, avoidant in relationships, so he was a
little restless, struggle to be present, and he really wanted
her to be more sensitive. She was anxiously attached, but

(05:48):
sometimes she was a little bit critical, and he wanted
her to be more sensitive to how she was speaking
to him and delivering her criticism or feedback. And of course,
if you don't work through these things, properly. It's always
a pro but if you do the power struggle stage correctly.
Then the wife actually ended up going to her husband saying, Hey,
you know, I really need more presents from you and
attune minute times. Can we have these habits so we

(06:11):
have like a fifteen minute coffee time in the morning
where we sit together, we have half an hour before
bed where we really chat with each other unpack our day,
and if we're going on a date or spending time together,
just the two of us, phones are away. And because
he was willing to do that, he was like, Okay,
I'll work towards that.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
I'll do that.

Speaker 3 (06:27):
So then they establish that in the relationship. In turn,
she was practicing being much more mindful with how she
delivered her feedback or shared her needs. Instead of through criticism,
she would say instead of saying, hey, you're not doing enough.
I don't you know you don't care about me, instead
she would say, hey, I need you to practice being.

Speaker 1 (06:43):
Present right now. This is important for me.

Speaker 3 (06:45):
And as they mapped that problem out and solved for it,
then it got habituated into the relationship. It became their
new baseline, their new normal. And that's precisely how you
know you're moving out of the power struggle stage and
into the rhythm because when you're in this position of
you've fallen into naturally doing these things. Now you naturally
are more present, you're naturally more mindful of of how

(07:07):
you deliver feedback to your spouse or to your partner.
Then all of a sudden, you found your footing in
the relationship and there's a much deeper connection, and you've
really move the needle from more conditionally based love to
more unconditionally based love. Because now you're sitting here going, okay,
you know you really understand me, You love me as
I am. I've shared my interfers and concerns with you

(07:28):
and my needs. Then you're meeting them and so you know, yes,
you'll have to have those conversations in the power struggle stage,
but if you do it correctly, it's actually something that
deepens the connection in a really powerful way. And that's
when you're in that rhythm stage where you get to
sort of catch your breath. So we'll go into them
in more detail, but then at a higher level after that,
we have the growth stage that comes next. So we

(07:49):
have this rhythm stage, we find a rhythm. Then we
go into growth or what I like to call devotion,
where we really devote to the future of the relationship
and to future commitments. And then after that growth stage,
which we'll get into, we get into the everlasting stage.
And the everlasting stage is truly where relationships I feel
like the honeymoon stage, but this time around you know
each other so much more deeply, and you fostered such

(08:11):
a deeper connection. And at that point too, I think
that people who go through these cycles of always going
you know, dating, honeymoon, power, struggle, break up, they think
that love should always be infatuation based love, and they
haven't necessarily had a taste or a deep experience of
like the everlasting stage, where love is rooted in deep

(08:32):
fulfillment and deep knowing, deep understanding of one another, deep
protection for your bond because you've built something together that's
so meaningful and enriching. I see this so often with
people in our programs. They come in they go, yeah,
but like, how do I know my partner won't cheat,
or how do I know my partner won't you know,
be interested in somebody else in five years? You know,
how can I really know I can connect and commit,

(08:53):
and they get scared of being abandoned or betrayed. But like,
once you get into the everlasting stage of relationship.

Speaker 2 (08:59):
That doesn't happen.

Speaker 3 (09:00):
Be statistically, it's almost it's almost a zero percent chance
once you get to that stage that that really happens.
Because when people really deeply build something, it's almost like
if somebody's going to build a business and they're gonna
put their blood, sweat and tears into it and care
about it and build it and it's on their terms
and what they love, you're not going to turn around
and then sabotage it way some other business opportunity comes along.

(09:20):
That's teeny tiny, right, You're not going to turn around
and be like, oh, I've built a business for ten years,
let me just turn around and I know there's a
business opportunity over here. Who cares about what I'm building?

Speaker 2 (09:28):
Let me walk away later? Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (09:31):
And so people get to this point where they built that,
they've created it, they've done the work, and the problem
is that people think, oh, no, my partner could be
interested in somebody else or leave the relationship either when
they've been in the power struggle stage their entire marriage
which can happen people can get stuck in there for
decades and they've never made their way out, or when
people have never lived beyond the power struggle stage in

(09:52):
any relationship, and so they think that literally relationships are
either infatuation based love and then power struggle, or then
they assume, well, then what if my partner just gets
infatoriated with somebody else, or what if they change their mind?
Or what happens when the infatuation changes into something else?
What happens when we get settled in after a decade
of being together and there's this fear around it because

(10:13):
there isn't this understanding that wait, there's nothing to fear.
It's actually very a really beautiful and riching experience if
you do it correctly. So exactly to your point. Your
conscious mind speaks in language, but your subconscious mind speaks
in emotions and images. So if you say, if I say, okay,
whatever you do, do not think of a chocolate chip cookie. Yeah,
like you think of a chocolatep cookie and you see

(10:34):
the image before you can hear the not because your
subconscious immediately spits out the imagery and oftentimes the emotion.
And so what happens is your conscious mind when we're
trying to rewire things. If we're just wiring things in
with affirmations like I am good enough, I am good enough,
it doesn't make it to your subconscious mind because it's
just language. And so we really need to be able
to leverage the emotions the imagery, and that's how we

(10:57):
actually imprint our subconscious mind, which is where the hosts
of all of our problems really Yeah, all of our
painful habits or beliefs.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
So what I was gonna ask you is when we
quit the relationship too fast, Like if we keep getting
to the power struggle stage and we quit, we don't
get to actually feel what it would feel like to
be in that not conditional love place, or that infatuation place,
all the things that you're talking about. So, is that
one of the big inhibitors of us continuing on into

(11:24):
these six stages is that we have not felt it
in our body yet? And it's like we could talk
about it all day, but it doesn't matter until you
actually feel it. Does that make sense.

Speaker 2 (11:36):
Question?

Speaker 3 (11:36):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (11:36):
One hundred percent. I think there's this. I think there's
two parts to it.

Speaker 3 (11:39):
I think one part is for sure that unless we
feel it and we've ever been there, or unless we
had modeling for it in our own childhood that was
really clear.

Speaker 1 (11:46):
Which most people probably didn't, would.

Speaker 3 (11:48):
Be no, Yeah, exactly, most people do not, and it
does happen right like I think.

Speaker 2 (11:54):
We've all seen.

Speaker 3 (11:55):
I remember being a kid and seeing you, my my
dear friend growing up, and her parents were so happy,
and I remember thinking like, wow, they're so happy and
having you know, And I think growing up we have
models on the periphery if we don't have them directly,
but they're usually quite far and few between, because you
see a lot of people who are still together, but
they're not necessarily fulfilled and happy, naccid, And really, when

(12:18):
you make it to the everlasting stage properly, it is
both you're still together, but you're actually truly grateful and
happy and fulfilled by the relationship. So, for sure, if
we don't have any idea of what that looks like
or modeling for it, we can't feel it in our body,
we can't conceive of what it looks like. But also
I just think most people have no idea that that
even exists, like even just to know to then give

(12:40):
us some sort of reference point, you know, sometimes we
don't have conditioning for something, but we're like, Okay, at
least I know this is where I can I'm trying
to get to, so let me try to recondition my
own inner patterns to help me arrive there. At least
if we know something is there and the future, we
can move towards it. But so many people just don't
even know that there is a life cycle of relationship,
that there are six stages, and so when things are rocky,

(13:01):
they just assume like, oh gosh, this isn't it kind
of like, wait, I'm not necessarily learning the right lessons
and sort of passing these sort of tests or rites
of passage that will propel me into the future stages.

Speaker 1 (13:13):
I think what's so tricky about relationship, especially just in
the way that our culture models them, is we're fed
all of these things, like even shows. I was watching
Love Is Blind last night, and I mean, I hate
that I get so hooked on shows like that because
they're absolutely ridiculous as well. You can't fall in love
with someone in a week, you know, but it's they
hook us in, and then I think our brains start

(13:34):
to equate the infatuation stage, the idea of this like
fairy tale relationship or wedding or marriage or whatever with love,
and then we get into an actual relationship and it's
actually so unrealistic to assume that you would just stay
there all the time because there's these six stages, right,
but we don't talk about the six stages. We only

(13:56):
think about the one. So I think this is really
really important to talk about because it doesn't necessarily mean
you're in a bad relationship if you get into the
power struggle stage. But I know I in the past
would have definitely thought that, you know, you hear like
people saying things like relationships are work and they're supposed
to be hard, so I think it can go both ways.
But like I would either stay in a relationship thinking, well,

(14:18):
relationships are supposed to be hard, so I need to
like struggle through this or it would get hard. And
you go, well, this isn't the fairy tale I thought
it would be. And so are you seeing that a
lot where people do not understand that there's all these
phases that relationships go through to get to the actual
love that we probably all want.

Speaker 2 (14:36):
One hundred percent.

Speaker 3 (14:37):
And it's like, literally, why I'm trying to spread that
to support people because all the time, like I would say,
it's one of the biggest things that causes people to
and I love the way that you said that, because
it's exactly what people are feeling. It's like people think,
number one, it's this infatuation based love. It should always
be there, and the moment we're not there, oh my gosh,
it's a huge problem. And then we kind of compare

(14:58):
our expectation or fa and to see how it should
be according to a lot of the cultural conditioning we
get from shows like that or even just from like
romantic comedies growing up. Yeah, it's everywhere exactly, and so
we think, okay, it should be like this, and then
when it's not, where we get frustrated and even resentful,
and then we justify. That's honestly, like when people feel

(15:19):
like their needs are on me and then they justify,
you know, the and they feel resentful, that's when they
justify like acting against the relationship. And that's when it's like, oh, well,
they don't care anyway. So it's fine if I kind
of flirt with my coworker. It's fine if I but
you won't see those behaviors at later stages like devotion
ever lasting, you won't really see them because in that
space people are sitting there going, well, I feel really connected.

Speaker 2 (15:41):
I don't want to.

Speaker 3 (15:42):
Threaten my relationship. I want to protect it all the time.
And so people for sure get caught there. And then
people in the power struggle go exactly like you said, Okay,
relationships are just supposed to be hard, and the power
struggle will be tricky at times. But for anybody listening,
if the relationship feels very, very very hard for too long,

(16:02):
it's actually a sign that, like, you know, we're not
learning exactly quite the lessons we need to progress because
it should be tricky. We'll have these, you know, we
have a period of time where we have to hash
things out, we have to move through things. And I
think it's important to note that even securely attach people,
like every person under the sun, goes through the six stages.
But what you'll see in people with really healthy modeling

(16:22):
for relationships is that they go dating honeymoon, they set
themselves properly up in the dating and honeymoon for the
power struggle and move through the rights of passage necessary
earlier on and by the time the power struggles there,
it's like three to six months of a little more
elevated conflict, a little more having to hash out different conversations.
But it's it's like a sort of small roadbump rather

(16:43):
than the cliff, and they'll end up being in a
position where they move through that, they navigate it, and
they keep moving into the preceding stages quite quickly. And
so people often too, to your point, they'll they'll say,
I just want to stay in the honeymoon stage forever.
And also we try to hold on to this infatuation
based love. It's like we still try to water the
plant superficially, and we're trying to nurture the things that

(17:05):
are still at the surface level, Like infatuation's beautiful, and
it won't it's not like you're gonna lose attraction by
the time you get to future stages and suddenly it's
just your friend that you love, not at all. But
if we try to root the entire tree in infatuation,
the moment like a windstorm comes along, it's just gonna
rip it out of the ground because the roots aren't
taking And so it's important to nurture the proceeding stages

(17:30):
to really deepen that connection.

Speaker 1 (17:32):
It's so interesting about power struggle because I think so
many of us are so conflict averse, right we just
are thinking, oh, like stay out of it, just stay
away from it. The older I've gotten, the more I've
understood that two people not having any conflict is not
also honest because you're just two people, right Like you
and I could sit here all day and talk and

(17:54):
talk and talk, but then like if you put us
in the same house, we would have different ways we
do things, and so it would you need to just
discuss and negotiate and compromise and all the things and
being in a healthy relationship. Now, I find that those
conversations sometimes, yeah, we can get a little spicy with
each other, but ultimately the goal is always to like
hear each other, compromise where we can and work together

(18:16):
to get to something that works for both people. And
that has changed the way I feel about this like
power struggle stage, because it just feels honest, and it
just feels like, hey, we're both communicating about what our
needs might be, and then you can move into this
deeper love. I've also been in the situations where there's
no way to even have healthy conflict or conversation to

(18:40):
get to these next stages. Do you see this happening
a lot?

Speaker 3 (18:44):
So I love the way you share that because that's
exactly how the power struggle should feel in like a
healthy relationship. Is that because really what's happening, to your point,
is in the power struggle, it's emerging of two people's
inner worlds. Yeah, so we go from okay, where we're
we each have our own conditioning for a decade. It's
not like, you know, small amounts of conditioning. It's years
of conditioning of how we expect things to look and

(19:06):
what priorities we shouldn't have, and how how our needs
are going to be met, how we're going to communicate,
how you know, we're going to validate each other's feelings
or not.

Speaker 2 (19:14):
And it's so funny.

Speaker 3 (19:15):
It made me laugh when you first said when people
don't communicate at all or they say we never have
conflict truly, because you know, I worked in private practice
and had clients for years and years before getting into
our personal development school, and when clients would come in
on the first day and they would say, you know, oh,
you know, we don't really ever fight.

Speaker 1 (19:34):
We're just we're just here to work through things.

Speaker 3 (19:36):
We never really have arguments that would actually I'd be like,
oh gosh, these people are even these are going to
be the harder ones.

Speaker 2 (19:41):
Yeah, these are going to be the trickier ones.

Speaker 3 (19:43):
I actually had a much easier time helping people navigate
who are a little more explosive in their arguments. Not
that I'm saying it's great to be explosive in arguments,
but but I actually would see more progress faster from
people from that perspective than people who had just created
this distance by not talking about things. And you can
get stuck in this power struggle and there's a bitterness
and the you know, undertone of bitterness, undertone of resentment, distance,

(20:06):
this feeling of growing apart, and I think it's a
very insidious place to be in the power struggle. And
what we're really aiming for and truly the right of passage,
and we can go through maybe the there's so many
rights of passage for each stage, but in the in
the power struggle stage. Not to jump ahead, but one
of the biggest rights of passage is that you have
to learn each other's in our worlds and help each

(20:26):
other feel seen and accepted in those inner worlds and
to your point, and I love the way you said it.
You know, the point of an argument or a disagreement
is not to have a winner and a loser or
somebody right. That's how we're going to stay second the
power struggle stage forever. But ultimately, it's to hear each other.
You just said that so so eloquently. It's to hear

(20:49):
each other. It's to make each other feel seen, and
then to find this compromise of like, okay, so you
want to spend four nights a week together and I
want to spend two nights a week. Okay, land on three,
you know, and be able to share and communicate and
connect and make these compromises that are healthy that are not.
You know, sacrifice is not one person meeting the other

(21:10):
person all the way on their side, but both people
truly putting their cards out on the table and saying
this is truly what I'm feeling, this is truly what
I'm needing. And even if we disagree, you know, I'm
going to validate your your feelings and your needs and
then share mine, and we're gonna have the sense of
openness to each other, and we're gonna have the sense
of like, let's let's find a middle ground, and when
we're able to do that as human beings with one another,

(21:32):
that's how we navigate through these hard situations. And that,
of course, this is especially important in romantic relationships. And
so from this perspective, those are two of the rights
of passage. It's learning how to do conflict properly, learning
to share your feelings and your inner world, learning to
communicate your needs. And then another really important right of
passages is learning to be vulnerable. I'll share a story

(22:02):
quickly if it's okay. I had a client years ago,
and she was lovely. She was like just everything you
could put on paper for like the perfect person. She was.
She had the perfect job, she had the perfect you
know set up and home, and she was so well
put together and she was so just you know, kind
and thoughtful and sweet and you know, had everything together.

Speaker 2 (22:23):
And I remember when we first started working together.

Speaker 3 (22:25):
Her challenge was, she was like, I never really can
find a lasting relationship and I want to have kids,
and I'm worried that I'm running out of time and
I don't know what it is about me, but I just,
you know, I keep either choosing the wrong people, or
I keep getting stuck in this particular dynamic. And when
we dug into it very quickly, like in the first
couple of sessions of getting to Know where, I recognize

(22:46):
that she grew up with a father who was a narcissist,
and she was terrified of being vulnerable and thought she
always had to be perfect. And so when I asked
her about, well, what's happening when you know relationships are ending,
the common theme was that people would leave her. And
they would say it in different ways, but they would
say like, I don't feel like I really know who

(23:06):
you are. And she had these walls up through trying
to be perfect all the time and present this sort
of image, and she was so busy trying to keep
the relationship in that the infatuation based stages, in that
honeymoon stage, that she was always on her best behavior.
She would never share her feelings, she would never share
her needs, and so people felt like they couldn't connect
more deeply. And ultimately, once the infatuation had sort of

(23:29):
quelled a little bit in the relationship, because that's normal
for every relationship, and they entered into the power struggle stage,
there would just be this distance and people would feel like,
I don't know what's going on, And when we dug
into it, she realized, like, I'm never ever sharing my
inner world with people, like I'm never sharing what I
actually feel her need. And so she ended up having
to do that and practice that, and it was hard
and scary for her, but ultimately the next relationship she

(23:51):
was in because she was able to do that, they
made it out into the power struggle stage and really
had this beautiful connection and kept progressing. So for that right,
you're seeing a dynamic where vulnerability is key because if
we're always pretending, where we're always not showing our true selves,
there's this an authenticity and that also actually inhibits connection.

Speaker 1 (24:11):
I know so much of your work is around attachment styles,
but how does that play into the stages of relationship
that we kind of get stuck in the First.

Speaker 3 (24:19):
One is if you look at the dating stage, so
there's sort of writes a passage or like these lessons
in each stage, and you'll see each attachment style approach
it differently. So in the dating stage of relationships, what
we'll see as a general rule is that anxiously attach
individuals they undervet in relationships. So the entire intention of
the dating stage is to pick the right partner. And

(24:41):
I often give the analogy that people go into this
dating stage and they who are anxiously attached. It's almost like,
if you can imagine as an analogy, somebody is like, oh,
I want to get a new job, and they go
and they just apply to the first twenty jobs on indeed,
and one's an engineer, and one's a welder, and one's
you know, a gardener or you know. It's like, okay,

(25:02):
there's all these jobs, and then you're just gonna throw
your fuelers out there, fun one that you're kind of
feeling okay about and go into it. Well, you just
have less of a likelihood of success tracking on that path,
Like if you're just applying, you're just gonna have a
harder time. Yeah, And so many anxiously attached individuals they
get into dating, and the dating stage should typically last

(25:23):
about zero to six months. And in this stage, they
get into dating and they go, oh, I'm attracted to
this person.

Speaker 2 (25:30):
I like them. There's a spark, and.

Speaker 3 (25:33):
They feel that on date one or two, and then
they turn the dating stage into Okay, how do I
win this person over and there's a really profound self
abandonment in there. And every anxiously attached person I've ever
spoken to says says things to me like, oh, well,
you know, I just thought that once they fell in love,
or once we progress things, they would change their mind

(25:55):
about things like marriage or kids, or you know, I
just thought that things would get easier when we connected
more deeply. And so instead of actually trying to choose
with intention, instead of going and prepared. And how we
do the dating stage correctly is we should know our needs,
we should know our standards and what we're willing to accept,
and we should absolutely know our non negotiables. That I
always tell people, Hey, when we're trying to date intentionally,

(26:18):
you start your dating experience, you first should be looking
in the right places because it's going to increase your
chances of finding what you're looking for. So, if you're
looking for somebody emotionally available who's working on themselves, you
probably want to be going to like personal growth meetups
or things in your area rather than the nightclub you know,
every weekend. And not that the nightclub will never have
emotionally available people, but you're just you're less likely to

(26:39):
find those people in those places, right, just statistically, and
so you know you should be looking with intention. And
once you find somebody that you're interested in, your first date, yes,
should be about just going in and just having an
open mind and seeing if there's a spark, seeing if
there's chemistry. But after the first date, because you go
in equipped to dating knowing your needs, you're not negotiable

(27:00):
your standards. You should be asking one really meaningful question
per date, and you should be sharing one meaningful thing
about yourself per date and seeing how somebody responds. And
this is how we'vet so for example, if you're somebody
who needs consistency.

Speaker 2 (27:13):
You know you should be sharing that early on.

Speaker 3 (27:14):
Consistency is really important to me, and then you can see, hey,
this person now knows this about me.

Speaker 2 (27:19):
Do they try to offer that to me?

Speaker 3 (27:20):
Right, So we're seeing how the person shows up based
on us sharing our needs early. We're not sitting there
telling somebody, hello, it's date two. I now expect you
to be consistent and text me every single day. We're not,
you know, being really intense about it, but we're just
dropping in our needs from time to time, letting somebody know.
One meaningful thing that we care about, that we value,
that we're looking for, and that gives somebody, you know,

(27:41):
this broad map of how to navigate a relationship with us.
By the same token, you should be asking something about
your non negotiable. So, for example, if I were to
you know, I've been with my husband for ten years,
but if I were ever to be in a dating situation,
right I would you know, for me, a non negotiable
would be the ability to move through conflict, like to
hash things out in a respect actual way, because that's
just so life changing, it's so important to me. And

(28:03):
so you know, I might on date too, bring up
you know, an hour or so into the date. Maybe
one of my questions would be, hey, how do you
tend to navigate conflict? You know, what do you do
when you have a hard time with people in your life?
Like how do you approach it? And just you know,
to ask that, because if somebody says, oh, I don't
have conflict or oh you know, I I don't. I
don't like to talk about things. It's not my way

(28:24):
of doing things, I might say, oh, would that be
something you're like open to trying to do? And if
they're like no, I wouldn't go on another date. I
wouldn't be wasting my own time. And so you know,
we have to go in knowing our non negotiables and
being able to ask for those things and get to
the bottom of some of some of those things before we,
you know, fall in love with somebody before the connection
really blinds us because this is how we're dating with

(28:45):
intentions so anxious to.

Speaker 1 (28:47):
Tasticize something about what you just said. Though you said
before we fall in love with someone, I don't know
that you can actually fall in love with people truly
if you're operating from where you just discussed, Like if
you're moving into day and you're just going, Okay, I'm
gonna just date, and then this is I mean, not
to go back to love's mind, but this is what's
so fascinating to me about that show. It's like such

(29:08):
an interesting case study in people's brains because I'll watch
certain parts, like it's always one side of the relationship,
so I'm assuming it's like an anxious and avoid and
get together, and the anxious person is all like all
in on the relationship, and it's like, but do you
even like that person? Do you even align with that person,
there's all these things missing, but they're so focused on

(29:31):
just being in the relationship to get to the goal
of marriage that they miss all the things that the
person is actually saying about themselves, you know that doesn't
align with them and they're saying I love you, I
love you, I love you. I'm like, no, you don't, No,
you don't. So there's that. But then the other piece
is when you gave the example of the job, like
throwing all the things up again, you know, like on

(29:52):
LinkedIn to get all these different jobs, you're asking someone
else to tell you who you are, like by doing
like applying for a plumber, electrician, like all these things.
You're like, well, what do you think I should do?
And so it's the not knowing yourself And this is
obviously spot that you got it, like from from my
past experiences, but the not knowing yourself. If you don't
know who you are and you're going into dating, dating

(30:14):
all these different people, just like whatever, how could you
have a real relationship that's going to be able to
move through these six stages because you don't even know
You're not negotiables your needs or whatever. You're waiting for
someone else to tell you. I love that.

Speaker 3 (30:29):
I love how you said you you want your waiting
for people to tell you who you are. I think
that's exactly the the It encompasses the anxious attachment style
in the dating experience one hundred percent.

Speaker 1 (30:41):
And you know what I find.

Speaker 3 (30:42):
And I try to sort of use the terms like
infatuation based love versus deeper love. People can get into
like this infatuation based love. But to your point, I
don't think it's like real meaningful love because you have
to fall in love with a person, not the fantasy.
And and to some degree, if you only know somebody,
like I think on love is blind. I read somewhere
one time that they have like ten days or something.

Speaker 1 (31:04):
It's actually it's like, how are we pumping this into
our culture? I don't know. I'm sitting here as an
active participant, and the problem because I can't stop watching,
so I don't know.

Speaker 3 (31:17):
But for sure, there's this part of it where you
fall in love with a fantasy, you fill in the
blanks and you know. And I think that that can
be an exciting and beautiful experience for people. But I
will also say, to be perfectly honest, securely attached people
don't really do that they're mindful and they're a little
slower moving. But I find that we infatuator fall into
limerens much more when we have a lot of unhealed parts,

(31:41):
because when we're in a place where we're you know,
so much of this deeply infractuing based infatuation based love
where people just fallen so quickly, is that A lot
of it's based on like your childhood. So if you
had really deeply unmet needs in your childhood, like maybe
somebody made you feel really unseen your whole childhood, you
didn't feel like your parents were present with you, and
maybe you end up in the love is Blind pod

(32:02):
and somebody makes you feel really seen. They're not physically
seeing you, but they see your character and your personality
because you're in this environment that's conducive to that. First
of all, you don't know if that person's gonna be
the same way out of that environment, when like there's
all the distractions of the outer world. But secondly, secondly,
there's this point of it where it's like, well that
person might make you feel seen, and that's really powerful,
and your brain's going to light up like fireworks if

(32:23):
it's been in a deeply unmet need your whole life.
But love is a lot more than just that, and
one need or a couple needs being really met. Well,
how does this person navigate conflict? How does this person
show up through hard times?

Speaker 2 (32:35):
Who? What is the character of this person? Do your
morals and values?

Speaker 3 (32:38):
You know, they're just so motal age. Yeah, oh yeah,
I very much agree with with your point there. Yeah,
and so you'll see, like that's sort of the anxious
dynamic and then dismiss the avoidance. They tend to unless
they fall in deliverance, which they can, but less less likely.
They tend to move through the dating stage through over vetting,

(32:58):
so through flaw finding. Oh and they sort of yeah,
so they'll move into it going oh, well, what are
all the things that could go wrong?

Speaker 2 (33:06):
And where are all the things that all the reasons
it could not work? And they do this dismissible.

Speaker 3 (33:11):
Waiting's flaw find is a strategy to self soothe, because
when they feel too vulnerable and too open, their way
of self soothing in relationships is to minimize their attachment needs.
So what they do is they go, oh, okay, so
you know, I'm not sure this. I see a red
flag and Honestly, a lot of times dismissive winds make
really small red flags into really big ones, like, oh,

(33:33):
this person left their space a little bit messy after
you know what, I was at their house, like, oh
my gosh, they're never going to be tidy and I
care and oh my gosh, it's never gonna work. And
you're like, wait, could you just talk about it? Could
you just address it? I have a conversation, And they
often don't go to have those conversations or work those
things out. They just make assumptions, project them into the future,

(33:53):
and then pull away accordingly. So you sort of get
these polarities and how the attachment cells deal with these stages.
And that's why the day stage generally last zero to
six months, because people who are more avoidant trend towards
the six month mark before making a commitment, and people
who are more anxious trend towards trying to date it
a lot earlier, depending on who their partner is and
commit And what actually moves you from the dating stage

(34:15):
into the honeymoon stage is the right of passage that
unlocks the next stage is literally making a commitment, having
an open conversation, deciding Okay, we're going to focus on
each other.

Speaker 2 (34:24):
It's just going to be us.

Speaker 3 (34:25):
And when you get into that space of making that
commitment or taking the relationship to the next level, that's
the honeymoon stage. But if we didn't do it properly,
if we you know, we we picked whatever the job
was on indeed, and we didn't like that and we
didn't have the conversations, then when things get a little
harder later on in the power struggle, once you leave
the honeymoon, that's where like conflict gets so much harder

(34:46):
to solve for there could be actual, real incompatibilities that
you're not willing to bridge the gaps on. And that's
where if we didn't let people know who we were
in the dating stage and we didn't ask the right questions,
we're going to find out the hard way in the
power struggle stage. And then people are a little a
little bit less forgiving in the power struggle stage, they're
you know, the emotions are higher, they're a little bit

(35:07):
more frustrated, and so it tends to be something that
if we didn't figure out, for example, that you know,
we want to we're not ready to commit for ten
years or have kids for a long time, and the
anxious person says, okay, well you're going to change your
mind in two years, and we fall in love. In
the power struggle stage, we get more comfortable, and the
anxious then maybe says, hey, I don't want to wait

(35:28):
ten years. Let's you know, start sooner to commit. Well,
that's when the dismissive avoidance might say something like we
talked about this, like why would you expect me to change?
And then we see these things that are going to
create more ruptures in the relationship in a bigger way.

Speaker 1 (35:43):
So the power struggle stage doesn't necessarily have to be terrible,
I mean, because to me, it's like it can be
workable because if you if you respect the person, like
you said, you value the relationship. You want to meet
each other's needs, so you're like, we'll work together, it
could be kind of a workable situation. If you did
not do your vetting properly, it might feel like the

(36:05):
rug being ripped out from under you, feeling where you're like, wait,
who were you wait? You said what like that kind
of thing, even though maybe they even said it, did
you listen? Did you accept it? Like all of those
kind of things.

Speaker 3 (36:16):
One hundred percent. So this is a stage where there's
like the biggest gap in how it's approached. So okay,
people who are securely attached and did their vetting and
had the conversations earlier on, and people who know how
to fight right and have healthy conflict. What you'll see
is that the power struggle station can be like a
three to six month process. It's like you're ironing out
the merging of your inner worlds and it can be difficult,
but it's almost bonding. And I'm sure you've had this experience,

(36:39):
and for listeners, they hopefully have had this experience too.
But you know, if you're actually in the power struggle stage,
you should leave conflicts feeling.

Speaker 1 (36:47):
Closer, especially if you can make repair well, like if
you're in a couple where you can do that. To me,
it's always bonding. It does bring you closer, you understand
the other person better, that you feel more understood, like
it can be a good thing, absolutely, And so that's
like how the power struggle stage should go in a
perfect world, is that yes, there's this disagreement or friction,

(37:07):
but then you realize, hey, there's distance or there's friction
or frustration let's hash it out. You sit down, you're
present with each other, and really, if there's a sort
of high level sort of process to move through conflict,
as we both share what we're feeling, we validate each
other's emotions because people think they're arguing about being right
and wrong, but they actually just want their emotions seen
and heard by the person they love. And so when

(37:29):
you're like, Okay, I see that this would be hurtful
for you. I get that.

Speaker 3 (37:32):
And this is hurtful for me too because ABC. And
when we hear each other out and validate each other's
perspectives and feelings around it, and then we talk about, okay,
well what do you need to feel better? What do
we need to come back to center here? And both
people share their needs and then try to figure out
a strategy to get their needs met. Then you'll actually
feel like, oh, we had this invisible wall between us
where we didn't understand each other. Now we actually see

(37:54):
and hear each other around it. We get it, and
now we've made a process to get closer based on
each other needs. So now both people feel loved for
who they are, connected to their inner world with the
person that they're in the relationship with and they feel
seen and heard and understood, and so we're actually like
merging more with this person in a deeper way, and
that's how conflict should go in the power struggle stage.
And what you should see is generally there's three to

(38:15):
six months of ironing out some of these kings, because
it does take time to like actually merge all of
your conditioning and your inner world with another person. And
once that happens, you should see that that becomes your
natural baseline.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
So your new set point.

Speaker 3 (38:28):
It's like, oh, we just naturally know to do these
things for one another because we've talked about it enough
and we've practiced them, and now they're a new normal
in our relationship. And that's actually where we exit the
power struggle stage. So that's sort of the secure approach,
and that's the healthy approach, and that's when we know
we're doing it right. But people on the other side
of the continuum or the spectrum here is like people

(38:48):
can be in a marriage and they'll spend their whole
marriage and the power struggle stage live and die there.
And this is where you see, you know, people who
they're living together, but they sleep in separate rooms or
they're living together, but they're always bitter and resentful and
there's this emotional distance, and you know, I would make
a really strong argument that you know, if you're staying
in a relationship for your whole life, I wouldn't necessarily
call that success if you're not happy, Like I think

(39:10):
true success of a relationship should be measured by two things.
A the longevity, of course, but be more importantly, are
you fulfilled? Do you feel connected? Do you feel like
there's this love alive in the relationship, Because if you're
just staying for comfort and stability and there's this bitterness
and resentment, then that's a really painful thing to be
spending time living in.

Speaker 1 (39:32):
So you said when we exit the power struggle, but
I was just thinking it can't just be one time.
Like to me, relationships evolve and you would hope that
you find a partner that you can evolve with, and
like life is just going to happen, and so it's
like as life happens and ebbs and flows, you might
go through some of these stages. Again, I would assume

(39:53):
is that right? Or it's like, like, is there just
this one time thing where we go through all these stages?
And then poof, we're in the enlightened place and operate
together well or is it kind of through the stage
or the life of a relationship. You might enter into
some of these stages again, but you know how to
navigate them better.

Speaker 3 (40:11):
So I guess there's three things here. So first thing
is you want to differentiate between a hard time and
a conflict versus being locked in the power struggle stage. Okay,
So if you did the power struggle stage really well,
you mapped out so much of your inner conflict and
you know how to have conflicts really well, to the
point where you'll you know, so like, obviously, I've been
in my marriage and with my husband for ten years,
and if we have a hard thing that's going to come,

(40:33):
we've had so many hashing outs of things that I
just have full faith and trust that like, oh, whatever
heart thing comes will just carry out, even if it's
really hard, we'll hash it out, because I've seen us
do that so many times. Right, So it doesn't mean
that you won't have conflict. It's not like this enlightened
place where you never have a hard thing or have
a conflict. It's just that there's so much faith it's
almost like, once you really learn to ride a bicycle,
you're not going to wake up and forget one day. Okay,

(40:55):
It's like, you know, you might take a harder trail
one time, you know, on the bicycle, but you're you're going.

Speaker 2 (41:00):
To know how to ride the bicycle.

Speaker 3 (41:01):
So you'll still get through it, right, And so we
can still have conflict for sure, and challenges, but it
won't necessarily relegate us right back into the whole power
struggle stage where we're like starting fresh. So we will
usually really move out of those stages. However, if we
go through something difficult enough, so there's two other things here.

(41:23):
If it's difficult enough then where it actually creates an
identity crisis. Identity crises where we lose who we are,
all of our needs seem to profoundly change. We don't
know how to really process or regulate ourselves at all.
We go through something really painful or difficult, then you're
kind of starting fresh, because if your needs change so dramatically,
everything about you change is so dramatically, then you do

(41:45):
kind of have to move back through the power struggle
stage again. So for example, for that one, I remember
having a client and this poor individual they lost both
their parents in one year. And they had moved out
to the power struggle stage by a couple of years
in their marriage. But they lost both of their parents.
It kind of fell into the steep depression. It sort
of triggered off this almost like midlife crisis where they

(42:05):
were like what am I doing with my life? I
want to change jobs, you know, And then they sort
of got relegated back into the power strugle stage with
their partner because their needs changed so profound. The personalities shifted,
and so they had to relearn each other through that phase.
And that's really what the power struggle stage is actually about.
It's about learning each other at a deep way to
learn how to navigate things. So you can, in certain
conditions be relegated back.

Speaker 2 (42:26):
And then you have to move through it.

Speaker 3 (42:29):
But also we can go back if we don't learn
how to navigate the proceeding stages either, so we can
still get stuck on later stages. So the rhythm stage
right after the power struggle stage, we have to learn
to keep the spark alive. That's actually like the right
of passage in that stage. And we can kind of
come back and talk about that. But if we don't
have good habits or tools for that. Then we'll feel

(42:49):
this sort of staleness after the power struggle stage. And
then people will often go back into trying to fight
or pick fights on a regular basis as a means
of trying to sort of feel the spark or their connect.

Speaker 1 (43:00):
Because they didn't more exciting.

Speaker 3 (43:02):
Yeah, and so that can be something that moves us
backwards when we're trying to leave that stage as well.
So those are sort of the three frames.

Speaker 2 (43:09):
That it fits into.

Speaker 1 (43:10):
If that makes sense, That makes total sense. So the
rhythm stage, that makes sense to me too, that people
often might leave during that stage because you just get stagnant.
And I know that there's I've learned this in my journey,
and I think you've talked about this too, But if
you've grown up in a play, a house that's chaotic
or whatever, normal you know, normalcy and security and all

(43:34):
of those things can feel boring almost and so maybe
if you're a person that identifies with those stories, getting
to the rhythm stage could feel kind of like bland,
so truly, And that's.

Speaker 3 (43:53):
Usually who actually gets stuck there at the house is
people who grow up in chaos because their nervous system
is like, yeah, familiar with chaos.

Speaker 2 (43:58):
It's your comfort zone. And so you're like, wait, where's
the chaos?

Speaker 3 (44:02):
And then we sort of feel this restlessness in that stage,
and so what the goal is of that stage, because
you'll see people sort of settle in differently. So you'll see,
for example, like dismissive avoidans love the rhythm stage. They
love the comfort and stability because they're comfort and stability seekers.
Anxious attachment cells usually feel the security of the commitment
and the certainty. So even they tend to navigate it

(44:22):
quite well, it's usually more than anybody or fearful avoidance.
Anxious can struggle a little bit, but fearful avoidant attachment
cells who they're like, wait.

Speaker 2 (44:30):
Where's the roller coaster? Where are they ups and downs?
I'm not used to this.

Speaker 3 (44:33):
And so it breeds two important questions, one being well,
what in you needs healing to be comfortable and comfort
and safe and safety rather than feeling so restless and
almost untrusting of comfort and safety. And a lot of
times that's actually a call for nervous system regulation work
and somatic processing and get your body comfortable to feel safe,

(44:55):
because what's actually sponsoring it at The route for people
who might being but more likely fearful avoided is if
they are uncomfortable in comfort. It's that they're like, no, no, no,
I need to be on high alert because I'm waiting
for the other shoe to drop right. And so there's
this like deep core wound if I am unsafe and
I can't trust, whether it's the person or even just

(45:16):
the world the future, right, And so actually rewiring those
core wounds is such a profound part of healing, and
then in turn your nervous system, and then practicing nervous
system regulation at the same time helps you feel safe
in your body, feel connected, comfortable in that space, but
also you don't have these subconsciously stored beliefs that are
driving this idea of like, wait, but I can't trust

(45:38):
what if I do? You know, settle in here and
then something bad happens, you know, so being able to
come out of being on high alert. So there's very
much an individual lesson in each of these stages. There's
actually an individual healing lesson for people who find themselves
stuck there as well. Doesn't always go back to that though, yeah,
exactly life, I feel one percent, and then the secondary

(45:59):
part in the relationship is that we don't just do
the individual healing, but also in the relationship you have
to find you know, often the people who also are restless,
they still have a need for novelty, they still have
a need for passion, for a spark, for chemistry, and
those are not unhealthy needs. But if we try to
get them met by looking outside of the relationship because

(46:20):
we feel restless, then it became really unhealthy. But if
we instead say, Okay, well, I'm somebody who likes the
spice of life a little bit more. Let me like
do fun things with my partner more. Let's try to
go to new places, Let's do new things together. Let's
take on new hobbies. Let's figure out what helps us
feel really connected and excited in the relationship. Let's have
a weekly date night no matter what, Let's do things
that keep the romance and the spark alive, and we

(46:42):
really feed that into the relationship. Then you're nourishing that
in that rhythm stage, and then that allows you to
feel safe. If you've done that inner work to settle in,
that restlessness sort of dissolves, and then by also you know,
caring and nurturing that novelty and the things that drive
excitement in the relationship. You also get to really keep
that spark. And honestly, it's especially important for fearful avoidance

(47:05):
and anxiously attach individuals, but it's important for everybody.

Speaker 2 (47:09):
If you're in the.

Speaker 3 (47:09):
Rhythm stage, it's still important to have things that are
rituals for connection, rituals where you're feeding. You know, we
have four pillars in connection. We have an intellectual pillar
of connection, which our thoughts, opinions, philosophy's ideas. We have
a romantic pillar of connection. We have an emotional pillar,
and we have a physical or sexual pillar. And we
want to be able to nurture all of those pillars properly.

(47:30):
And that's again part of the right of passage in
the rhythm stage is like, let's find a rhythm and
let's infuse the relationship with habits that are going to
keep this connection fed on a regular basis in all
the ways that we each need. And in doing that,
that then propels people into the next stage, being the
devotion stage.

Speaker 1 (47:47):
What's devotion?

Speaker 3 (47:49):
So devotion is about making those long term commitments and
you know, if you do, the stage is right. And
I know so many people usually get and it's totally okay,
there's no it's not like you have to do it
in a certain way. But so many people usually will
get married like in the honeymoon stage, right, and then
they'll be you know, they're married, they're just about two

(48:10):
years in and then they enter into the power struggle stage.
And the amount of people who have said to me, like,
oh my gosh, like after I married my wife, she
totally changed her.

Speaker 2 (48:17):
Oh my god, after I married my husband, he turned
into a monster.

Speaker 3 (48:20):
And they think that they like got tricks or something,
and know it's just that they hadn't seen each other
in the power struggle yet. But ideally, in the perfect world, right,
you have two securely attached people. They date for three
or four months, they make a commitment. They're in the
honeymoon for another year, year and a half. They moved
through the power struggle stage in three to six months,
the stabilities another three months, and now they're around like

(48:41):
two and a half or three years into the relationship
and now they're making a commitment and this is the
devotion stage. And you know, that would be the ideal
sort of roadmap that we don't really make a long
term commitment until we've really navigated all the other stages,
because now we're much more likely to have sort of
guaranteed that we've truly chosen. If you get married much earlier,
it's totally okay. You still just navigate the natural life

(49:04):
cycle and still move through the stages. But what we'll
see in the devotion stage is that because you have
these infused habits in your relationship where you feel deeply connected,
you're nurturing the relationship in the right way or keeping
the chemistry and spark alive based on what you need.
You know each other's needs, you learn to navigate the
power struggle, you've learned to really share your inner worlds
and fuse them together. Well, now in the devotion stage,

(49:27):
we deeply know each other, We really love in this space,
and there's this mutual devotion, there's this mutual commitment, and
this is the place that we want to start planning
for the future. How do we want to raise a family,
how do we want to move into the next season
or stage of life?

Speaker 2 (49:41):
What does that look like?

Speaker 3 (49:43):
And even if you're already married from way earlier, it
can be like, well, what do we want next for
the next chapter? For the next five years, the next
ten years, maybe we start a business together, maybe we
invest in new hobbies together, or a charity, but you
actually start devoting to talking about those longer term plans.
And something that's so interest to me is how often
people try to sort of jump ahead into the devotion

(50:05):
stage and their behaviors when they're not actually in the
devotion stage. So we have people all the time, We
have people all the time who will be pushing for
the devotion stage when they're in the commitments or when
they're in excuse me, the power struggle stage, and so
they'll be like, Okay, let's plan for it, let's do this,
let's do this, and this is how we'll raise gets.
And it doesn't mean that it's negative to talk about

(50:26):
those things at all. It just means that you when
we're in the devotion stage, both parties will really be there.
Because sometimes we'll have, especially when you sort of rope
attachment styles into it, sometimes we'll have somebody a little
more anxious, with a little more avoidant. And if somebody's
a little more anxious, they'll be trying to talk about
those things and plan for those things in the power
struggle and sometimes they'll think that because they're more avoidant,

(50:47):
partner isn't in there so excited talking about it, hashing
it out, initiating those plans, to initiating conversations about these things.
They'll think, Oh, then they may not be devoted to me,
they may not care. But actually, deep down, for a
lot of those individuals, what's actually happening is the more
avoidant people are just they're quite acutely aware that they're
still a little bit in the power struggle stage, and

(51:08):
they actually are trying to more subconsciously. Like the way
it would come out when I would talk to people
about this is more avoidant people would say, I want
those things with this person. I think this person is
my person. I love them, but I just think there's
things to work through first. And it's almost like they
have this awareness that they're still a little bit to
map out through the power struggle, and once they find
their rhythm, then they catch their breath, and then they're

(51:30):
more excited to then be devoted to the future and
talk about those things with such an open heart and
really map those things out. And so I think sometimes
people will take it a little bit to heart, like, wait,
you're not in this space yet, but sometimes it's because
they're actually both not quite in that space even though
they're moving in that direction.

Speaker 1 (51:48):
Really well, I think that's so interesting about attachment styles
because you see it. I see it happen all the time.
But it's like, the anxious person needs the relationship to progress,
to feel safe enough to work through all this stuff.
The avoidant person it feels like, no, we need to
work through all this stuff. Then progress, and then you
see the like the anxious person's feeling not chosen, the

(52:08):
avoidant person's feeling anxious because they're being pressured. Like just
all of those dynamics are so fascinating, but I see
them happening all the time, And the way out of it.

Speaker 3 (52:18):
Is that anxious people to feel chosen instead of it
being that were suddenly like truly anxious people will think
that they need to like have the marriage and they
had their wedding today and feel chosen and safe, and
they're kind of pushing for this outcome. But actually it's
just about needs. So once the anxiously attached individual has
the need met for certainty and reassurance enough in the relationship,

(52:40):
they feel reassured. Regularly, they feel like they're the person's committing,
you know, their time to be present with them. So
really presence reassurance and then certainty, so the certainty that like, hey,
we have plans this weekend, Hey, I love you, Hey
I care about you. You know, even just plans for
the three months from now that we're making, you know,
just it can be these things that are within reason

(53:01):
without having to be fully in this sort of devotion stage.
If there's certainty about how the person feels, if there's
certainty that the person is reassuring them, cares about them,
as investing in the relationship, then they actually don't need
the ring on their finger to feel safe in the relationship.
They can actually feel safe in the relationship as it's stands.
And of course they'll always want that sort of fantasy
outcome and then having things move in that direction. But

(53:23):
I find that that's just the way to navigate those
things is to move through the stages and then to
have a lot of certainty and reassurance within there, and
that will often then cause the anxious person to settle
in a little bit more, feel more safe, feel more connected,
and in turn take the pressure off a little bit,
and the moment the pressure's off, you'll usually see the
more avoidant leaning person step into the relationship with the

(53:44):
person and be more present rather than dragging their feet
as a response to pressure, which is the trigger, rather
than the person and wanting to be with the person
that's the trigger. And so as soon as you have
that set up, the momentum builds in a much better way.

Speaker 1 (53:57):
That whole piece is so fascinating to me just to
watch happened, because again, I think that's a societal thing
that we have attached. Okay, if we get married, then
I'll feel like this or like you know, like you
think if you get to this commitment stage, it's going
to soothe all of the feelings you have. But we
never actually talk about the way to actually sue them.

(54:17):
We're just talking about these programmed things of like the
fairy tale again, And I think people get into relationships
start going through these actual stages and think, way, I'm
doing this wrong or this isn't the right relationship, just
like we were talking about at the beginning of this podcast.

Speaker 3 (54:33):
And you'll never be able to fix an internal problem
with an external thing. Yeah, And so we think, oh, yeah,
I feel settled. Once after the day after the wedding,
but then the problem just changed its forms. Well, how
do I know they want to stay married to me?
How do I know that they won't find somebody outside
of the marriage?

Speaker 1 (54:50):
How do I know?

Speaker 3 (54:50):
So those programs will still stay there. And really the
solution is to learn to meet each other's needs really
well and navigate the power struggle stage, and also to
rewire the wounds that you have. Fear of abandonment can
be rewired, the fear of being trapped if you're more avoidant,
can be rewired, like and And that's why addressing the
subconscious mind and really getting into the neuroplasticity aspect of

(55:11):
it and being able to rewire those triggers also speeds
up our ability to navigate the stages so much more effectively.

Speaker 1 (55:18):
Did we miss one? Is there one more at the end?

Speaker 2 (55:20):
Last stage? Yes, the last age.

Speaker 3 (55:22):
The last stage is the everlasting stage. So this is
a stage, it's honestly like the honeymoon stage. But you've
you know each other, Yeah, it's.

Speaker 1 (55:30):
The real version.

Speaker 2 (55:31):
You really know each other. Yeah, you've lived through things
at that point.

Speaker 3 (55:35):
And and and this is a stage where people are
statistically highly highly likely almost nat zero likely to break
up and people are at the stage that are acting
out on their commitments. So the commitment stage is the
commitment devotion part is all about like us diving in
there and devoting to the relationship and really, you know,
which is stage five, really planning and talking about it

(55:58):
and seeing what we want to do. And then the
ever last stages, we're now doing it. We're now in it,
we're now enacting these things. They're taking shape in our lives.
And that's the place from which people are like, well,
we know how to navigate conflict. If hard things come
our way, we know how to address them. There's a
sense of certainty, there's a sense of fulfillment because your
needs are deeply met, Like to actually make it to
that stage, your needs have to be really, really met.

(56:20):
And that's when I think of that idea of a business, Like,
if you build a business and you love it and
you've built it for a decade, you're not going to
be like, oh, a business opportunity over here, let me
leave this one behind, you know. And I think people
have this fear that oh, and the fear is a
reflection of them only ever knowing infatuation based love, so
they fear that, Okay, my partner is going to infatuate

(56:42):
with somebody else one day and leave me. And you know,
when you've built something so much deeper than infatuation, it's
not there's no threat to.

Speaker 2 (56:52):
Exactly.

Speaker 3 (56:53):
So there's a sense of safety, there's a sense of
really building and creating together and enacting different things, and
there's a sense of you know how to navigate conflict.
And those really are the couples where you'll see them
and they are not just together, they're happy together.

Speaker 2 (57:09):
And I think that that makes a huge difference.

Speaker 1 (57:11):
Again, it's that thing of I think that's the love
everyone wants. We just don't necessarily know how to get
there or know that there's a road to get there,
Like we always just want this instant gratification, right, And
I think that goes across the board with everything, but
this being an example of another way we do that
is that we want to just get to the last
stage and we're not talking about all the different steps

(57:32):
that we need to take to get there, truly get
there exactly.

Speaker 3 (57:37):
And I think that short term gratification leads to short
term think, like it will give you these sort of
superficial things, you know, and short term gratification.

Speaker 1 (57:45):
Yeah, you're so right.

Speaker 3 (57:47):
Like our whole culture conditions us. Everything conditions us, like movies, television,
social media, everything is like conditioning us to live for
short term gratification. But whenever we're getting short term gratification,
you get superficial results. And the same thing applies to
our relationships, Like, if you keep seeking out short term gratification,
you're going to keep having these superficial relationships and infatuation

(58:08):
based connections. And sure they'll feel fun and they'll feel
maybe exciting. You get the little dopamine hit, but you'll
quickly fall off the cliff and be like, Okay, now
the dopamine h's gone. Now you know what's next. And
so I think it's so important to your point to
sort of share the message of like if you really
look at the six stages, if you really look to
navigate these things properly and do a little bit of

(58:30):
the work, you're going to get results way beyond this
sort of initial dopamine hit or excitement. You're going to
actually feel it's really really deep connection. But of course
it will require a little bit of that work, that
vulnerability learning to navigate conflict, but that will benefit you
in so many ways across all areas of life, like
to know how to communicate properly, to know how to
be more vulnerable.

Speaker 2 (58:51):
It will really spill into everything.

Speaker 1 (58:53):
I feel like I was thinking short term gratification probably
equals a lot of short term relationships, like just in general.
And the price of admission is these steps. So it's like,
if you want the real thing, you got to go
through the steps. Like it just makes sense to me.
I know that the Personal Development School is now going
to be offering a program around these six stages. Can
you talk to the listeners a little bit about what

(59:14):
that program will look like?

Speaker 2 (59:16):
Yes, for sure, thank you.

Speaker 3 (59:17):
So basically have a whole program so people can come in,
they can take an assessment, even whether they're single or
in a relationship. If you're single, you'll see what stage
you always get stuck at and what that basically says
about you and your patterns and your themes. So people
really be able to dig in there and be like, oh, Okay,
I get stuck at this stage because I haven't learned
these rites of passage yet. I haven't learned these lessons yet.

(59:39):
But maybe how to be vulnerable or how to date
properly or how to keep the spark alive. So you'll
get that report. And then on the flip side, if
you're in a relationship and you're just feeling kind of
stuck or like things are on the rocks, or you're
not sure what to do next, you'll get really clear
about where you currently are in a relationship and then
what you need to be able to move through it.
And then from there we take you through a whole

(01:00:00):
program to define your stage, learn about all of the stages,
and it takes you through exactly the inner healing you
need to do, whether it's rewiring your triggers, or learning
your needs, or learning to regulate your nervous system, or
learning boundaries, like we have a program that will help
you do the inner work plus the outer relationship work
that will then help you to navigate the relationship if
you're in one currently, or really set yourself up for

(01:00:22):
success if you're single and hoping to be in a
relationship where you thrive later on. So you get sort
of the inner work the outer tools, and it sort
of will come together to create this full circle healing
and just ability.

Speaker 2 (01:00:34):
To really navigate things going forward.

Speaker 1 (01:00:36):
Well. I love that you're doing this. I think that
it's so important for us to talk about the realities
of how to get the relationships we want, and so
I really I just really appreciate this conversation. I'm going
to put all of the links to the Personal Development
School to where you guys can follow Tai's and then
also all your books. How many do you have? Two

(01:00:56):
different books? I think these books, yeah, and it's all
about attachment styles. So if you guys, she really breaks
it down in such a digestible way that is helpful
to actually making it tangible, like you have the tangible
tools to make it successful in your life. So you
guys will go love those go check those out again.
It will all be in the description of this podcast. Tys.

(01:01:17):
Thank you so much for being here again with us.

Speaker 3 (01:01:20):
Thank you so much for having me. I love chatting
with yours with me too. I done like we could
give it all day exactly. Thank you so much, of course,
and thank you guys for listening.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Host

Kelly Henderson

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Medal of Honor: Stories of Courage

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Beyond the Honeymoon: The 6 Stages of Love and How to Build Real Connection with Thais Gibson (The Velvet)