Jay Shetty & Thais Gibson ON Choosing an Emotionally Available Partner

Have you ever wondered why you keep choosing the same type of emotionally unavailable partner, or why you feel a sudden, overwhelming urge to pull away just as a relationship starts getting serious?

In this On Purpose episode, Jay Shetty welcomes Thais Gibson, a leading expert in relationship psychology and the founder of the Personal Development School. Gibson is the creator of Integrated Attachment Theory, a framework designed to help people move beyond merely labeling their behaviors to actually rewiring the subconscious patterns that dictate how they connect with others. In this interview, she shared with Jay Shetty a roadmap for building secure, lasting love by healing core wounds and regulating the nervous system.

Four Attachment Styles

Thais Gibson told Jay Shetty that attachment theory, initially developed by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, explains how early connections with caregivers shape a person's emotional security and relationships.¹ According to the theory, there are four main attachment styles:

1. The Securely Attached Style shows up in people who grew up with parents attuned to the child's distress and who proactively provided consistent soothing, conditioning the child to believe their emotions are worthy of being heard, that relying on others is safe, and that they are inherently lovable regardless of their performance.

2. The Anxious Attachment Style stems from real or perceived abandonment, in which a child experiences inconsistent love, leading them to become hypervigilant and prone to people-pleasing as an adult.

3. The Dismissive Attachment Style often results from childhood emotional neglect, where a child's physical needs were met, but their emotional ones were ignored, which caused them to repress and mask their vulnerability and turn self-reliance into a survival mechanism.

4. The Fearful Avoidant Attachment Style arises from significant trauma or loss, in which the child learns that love is bittersweet and can be both a source of comfort and pain, causing them to behave inconsistently as adults, displaying "hot and cold" behavior.

Why We Choose Familiar Pain

Gibson explained to Jay Shetty that our conscious mind is responsible for approximately 95% of our beliefs, thoughts, and actions, while the conscious, logical mind accounts for the rest 5%.² She explained that we keep falling for the same type of person because they are familiar, and we learned how to survive them. Even if we consciously desire a healthy, emotionally available partner, the subconscious may reject them as boring because they don't align with our internal conditioning.

Moreover, Thais Gibson told Jay Shetty that we often gravitate toward people who mirror how we treat ourselves, creating a familiar environment that, while objectively painful, feels safe due to its familiarity. It's difficult to reconcile the mind and conditioning, since there is a clear discrepancy in the extent to which each influences our choices. So, Gibson shared her 5-pillar framework for healing to help you enter a healthy relationship.

Pillar One: Rewiring Core Wounds Through Imagery

The first step in Gibson's five-pillar framework for healing is rewiring core wounds masked as deep-seated beliefs, such as not feeling good enough, abandoned, or trapped. She explained to Jay Shetty that emotions don't understand words and that affirmations won't rewire the brain in such circumstances. Instead, she suggests turning your thoughts into emotions and images.

You must first identify the opposite belief of your current one (e.g., from "I'm not good enough" to "I am good enough"). Then, find 10 specific memories when you actually felt the new, positive belief to be true. Gibson recommends recording yourself describing these memories and listening back when your mind is most susceptible, like the first hour after waking up, the last hour before sleep, or after meditation. She told Jay Shetty that during this time, our brain emits alpha waves, making the subconscious more receptive to new information. According to her, if you consistently perform this exercise for 21 days, you have almost absolute chances to rewire your target wound.

Pillar Two: Moving from Resourcing to Self-Sourcing

The second pillar involves identifying unmet needs from childhood and learning to meet them within the relationship to oneself. Gibson told Jay Shetty that trauma consists of both things that happened but shouldn't have and things that didn't happen, but should have, as described by Dr. Gabor Maté. When we can't meet our own needs, we often put immense pressure on our partners to do it for us.

When we expect others to meet our needs instead of doing it ourselves, it's called "sourcing," Gibson explained to Jay Shetty. While it may feel good momentarily, we may soon need them to meet that need again and again because, internally, we don't know how to care for it ourselves.

Instead of relying on others to fill your cup, you must learn to do it yourself. Gibson suggests recording daily wins and practicing self-validation exercises across seven areas of your life:

• Career
• Finances
• Mental health
• Emotions
• Spirituality
• Physical health
• Relationships

She explained that by acknowledging your needs and filling them yourself in all areas of your life, you train your brain to notice your value and stop settling for crumbs.

Pillar Three: Somatic Regulation

Gibson's third pillar focuses on the regulation of the nervous system. She explained to Jay Shetty that people with insecure attachment style spend a disproportionate amount of their time in survival mode (fight, flight, freeze, or fawn) because their core wounds are constantly being triggered. The healing consists of somatic processing, a technique that involves witnessing emotions as physical sensations in the body rather than telling a story in your mind.

Thais Gibson told Jay Shetty that research using fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) has found that when a person is triggered, brain activity shifts from the prefrontal cortex (the logical brain) to the reptilian brain (the survival brain).³ When you start labeling physical sensations instead of emotions – such as calling anxiety "butterflies in the stomach" – the logical part of the brain gets reactivated, and allows the person to regulate their feelings, as you come back into the moment and witness your thoughts and body, which you can now control.

Pillar Four: The Feelings and Needs Communication Framework

The fourth pillar that Gibson shared with Jay Shetty is communication. According to her, most conflicts arise because people fail to understand their own underlying needs. Instead of expressing your needs as complaints, she suggests a three-step framework to better communicate them:

1. Validate emotions.
2. State your need.
3. Explain what that need looks like in practice.

Gibson and Jay Shetty agree that the same word (such as "support") can mean a wide array of things to different people, and this is why it's essential to communicate what it means for you, so that your partner doesn't have to guess. However, she warns that we must do the core wound work first, because if we don't know how to meet our own needs, our requests will feel like demands or a burden to our partners.

Pillar Five: Setting Boundaries

The fifth pillar is learning healthy boundaries. Gibson told Jay Shetty that a boundary is often misunderstood as a separation, when, in reality, it’s an authentic expression of your dos and don'ts. She explained that people with different attachment styles struggle differently when setting boundaries, depending on their core wounds.

However, boundaries must be rewired at the subconscious level, Gibson told Jay Shetty. The process involves auditing limits across the seven areas of life mentioned above and identifying fears associated with setting them. Next, you'll need to do exposure work, which means starting with small, low-stakes boundaries to teach your subconscious that you are safe, before moving on to major ones with a boss or a partner.

The Power Struggle Phase of Relationships

Thais Gibson told Jay Shetty that a relationship consists of six stages:

1. Dating
2. Honeymoon
3. Power Struggle
4. Rhythm
5. Commitment
6. Bliss

She explained that most couples break up during the power-struggle stage, right after the 12-18 months of the honeymoon. Gibson told Jay Shetty that, during the honeymoon, we are often attracted to people who exhibit our repressed traits. However, during the power-struggle phase that follows, this behavior becomes uncomfortable.

Thais Gibson argues that real love is built at this stage of the relationship because it is when the mask drops and we are forced to integrate the traits we admire in our partners. She quoted Rumi, who once asked, "If I am irritated by every rub, how will I ever be polished?" A relationship is an opportunity to become whole, and she shared with Jay Shetty that successful long-term relationships occur when the best parts of each partner rub off on the other, so they grow together rather than resent each other.

Understand Who You're Dating

Love bombing is a manifestation of excessive attention and devotion at the beginning of the relationship. While it is a common tool for control used by narcissists, Gibson told Jay Shetty that it is even more often a manifestation of the Anxious or Fearful Avoidant's insecurity. To feel safe, they put their partner on a pedestal in an attempt to win them over.

However, it's crucial to distinguish if the love bombing comes from a place of control or unhealed wounds, and the easiest way to distinguish between the two is setting a boundary early on, Gibson told Jay Shetty. A narcissist will become angry or feel entitled, while an insecure person will usually honor it, even if it's unexpected.

Gibson strongly encouraged the audience to be like a detective for the first three months of a relationship. Instead of treating a date like a job interview, she recommends asking one or two meaningful questions, such as how the other person handles conflict. If they say they don't believe in conflict or refuse to talk through issues, that should be a red flag for you. Yet she doesn't always encourage running away at the first sign; instead, you should ask more questions to understand whether the other person is willing to put in the work.

Finding Closure Within

To Gibson, breakups are a form of grief because we have attached our needs to another person's non-physical traits. She explained to Jay Shetty that people often grieve the version of themselves in the presence of the former partner rather than the person themselves. Understand what needs your partner met, and learn how to do it yourself, so you can start healing, Gibson advised.

According to Thais Gibson, true closure comes from within. She told Jay Shetty that, after a breakup, it's easy to question your worth, but you need to challenge these beliefs. Recognize that the traits you loved in your partners are often things that you can incorporate into yourself, and, by doing that, you can move from suffering to a state of connection in your heart. By healing yourself, you will stop repeating past mistakes, learn to love and respect yourself, and start building a secure future for yourself and your relationship.

More From Jay Shetty

Listen to the entire On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast episode “Relationship Expert Thais Gibson: Do You Keep Attracting The Same Emotionally Unavailable Partner? (Use THIS Attachment Reset To Break The Cycle And Choose Better Partners)” now in the iTunes store or on Spotify. For more inspirational stories and messages like this, check out Jay’s website at jayshetty.me.

Disclaimer: The practices described are based on personal experiences and preliminary research. They are not medical advice, nor are results guaranteed. Individual outcomes vary, and some claims are still being studied. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before beginning any new health, wellness, or therapeutic practice.

¹Mary D. Salter Ainsworth, Mary C. Blehar, Everett Waters, and Sally Wall, Patterns of Attachment: A Psychological Study of the Strange Situation (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1978).

²Bargh JA, Morsella E. The Unconscious Mind. Perspect Psychol Sci. 2008 Jan;3(1):73-9. doi: 10.1111/j.1745-6916.2008.00064.x. PMID: 18584056; PMCID: PMC2440575.

³Frewen P, Thornley E, Rabellino D, Lanius R. Neuroimaging the traumatized self: fMRI reveals altered response in cortical midline structures and occipital cortex during visual and verbal self- and other-referential processing in women with PTSD. Eur J Psychotraumatol. 2017 May 16;8(1):1314164. doi: 10.1080/20008198.2017.1314164. PMID: 28649298; PMCID: PMC5475303.