Mind Jardin’s Ever-Growing Glossary
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Mind Jardin's Integrated Attachment Theory™ Glossary
Welcome to Mind Jardin’s Integrated Attachment Theory™ Glossary—a growing collection of insights to illuminate your healing journey. This glossary isn’t just about terms; it’s a guide to the subconscious landscape that shapes how we relate to ourselves and others. Each entry dives into the core of relational dynamics and equips you with language and tools that can bring clarity and purpose to your healing process. Whether you’re navigating boundaries, working through old patterns, or building healthier relationships, these terms are here to support your journey toward awareness and self-connection.
Behavioral Coping Mechanisms
Automatic responses our mind uses to meet needs when we’re feeling stressed or emotionally uncomfortable. Often shaped by core wounds or limiting beliefs, these strategies are our mind’s quick fix for meeting needs while bypassing deeper, unresolved feelings and wounds. Updating these strategies involves understanding our true needs, adopting healthier actions, and forming new emotional associations—seeing the benefits of new approaches and the limitations of old patterns.
BTEA
Equation = Beliefs —> Thoughts —> Emotions —> Actions
Acronym to remember that our belief patterns (B) lead to our thought patterns (T), and beliefs / thoughts (B/T) lead to emotions (E), which neuroscience has proven drive our actions (A) / behaviors.
How each influences the others:
Beliefs —> Thoughts
Beliefs —> Emotions
Thoughts —> Emotions
Emotions —> Actions
Actions can influence emotions, beliefs, and thoughts yet are best paired with other forms of subconscious reprogramming (utilizing emotions, repetition, and visualization). Actions alone cannot communicate directly with the subconscious mind, which operates on an emotional level.
Pairing subconscious thought and belief reprogramming with comfortable and consistent actions creates positive changes.
Boundaries
Boundaries are the lines that define where we end and others begin. They help us convey our needs, protect our sense of self, and show others how we wish to be treated. Healthy boundaries are not only about limiting external influences but also about setting limits with ourselves to avoid unhealthy patterns. To set a boundary, consider how much time and energy you feel comfortable investing without sacrificing your well-being. Healthy boundary-setting is the art of self-consideration in decision-making.
Types of boundaries:
Material (e.g., belongings, finances)
Mental (e.g., thoughts, values, opinions)
Emotional (e.g., managing your emotions separately from others)
Physical (including sexual boundaries, e.g., personal space, physical contact)
Time (e.g., time management, prioritizing)
Conflict
Conflict arises from a perceived imbalance, such as in time, space, or energy. In relationships, conflict can trigger fears tied to early childhood experiences (ages 0-8), where unresolved conflict may have felt unsafe, punishing, or associated with shame and helplessness. However, conflict itself isn’t negative—it’s how we approach it that determines its impact. By communicating openly during conflicts, we honor both ourselves and give others the chance to understand us better. Knowing our own relationship expectations and expectations for our loved ones and close connections can help us to co-create healthy interdepedance that leaves both parties fulfilled and bonded.
Core wound:
The deepest level of negative/ limiting beliefs and fears we formed during our past experiences (early childhood and beyond) that shaped our worldview and sense of self. These stem from the meanings we give to situations that we could not properly emotionally process. We tend to personalize these situations, assuming they mean something about us. We begin to self-identify with these meanings at a subconscious level of mind and project them onto the present.
The majority of core wounds are formed from the ages of 0-2 years old because we operated in a highly suggestible state (our brains were pumping alpha and theta brainwaves so we could learn from our environment and survive in the world). It is possible to pick up core wounds throughout life, especially when we are exposed to stimulus through repetition and emotion.
• Ex. If I am late to work, I will get fired —> I will not be able to pay my bills —> I am unsafe
Emotions:
Emotions are the sensations we feel in our bodies that help us understand how we react to our outside world. Think about embracing a friend in a long bear hug or anxiety at the thought of public speaking. Whether we are happy, sad, scared, angry, or excited, feelings can make us smile, cry, or feel warm inside.
Painful emotions serve as powerful feedback about unresolved issues or unmet needs, guiding us to address problems. Neuroscience has shown that all actions are driven by emotions. Our actions can both influence and be influenced by emotions since there is a strong link between our beliefs, thoughts, and actions.
Emotions are complex processes that involve the brain, the body, and the interactions between the two. They originate and are regulated in various brain regions including the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex. The mind and body connection is linked through the nervous system, neurotransmitters and hormones, and daily bodily functions, all working together to help us respond to our environment and internal states.
Emotions also play a significant role in the formation, storage, and recall of memories. Emotions are intricately linked to the subconscious mind and influence our daily actions, reactions, behavioral patterns, and automatic decision-making.
Emotional Processing Tool
A method for transforming core beliefs through repetition and emotional engagement. This tool involves identifying a triggering situation or emotional challenge, pinpointing the core wounds involved, and finding 2-3 pieces of evidence that challenge those wounds in the moment. Accessing specific memories that elicit positive emotions reinforces the new beliefs, and repeating this exercise when triggered or at the end of the day helps to integrate and process emotional experiences more fully. See this post for the Thought Upgrading and Emotional Processing tool.
Emotional regulation:
The ability to effectively manage and respond to one's own emotions in a way that promotes well-being, adaptive behavior, and healthy relationships. It involves being aware of emotions, understanding their triggers, and employing strategies to process through their intensity and expression.
Personality Needs:
Valued feelings, experiences, and conditions that allow us to thrive.
Our highest needs are driven by both the:
1.) Biggest voids in childhood
2.) Strategies with the most positive associations for meeting those needs
Examples of personality needs:
Approval, Comfort, Emotional Connection, Freedom, Personal Growth, etc…
Reparenting
A practice of fulfilling the unmet needs from our childhood by giving ourselves what we may not have received from our parents or caregivers. Reparenting might involve speaking kindly to ourselves, responding with patience and acceptance, or creating an environment that validates and respects our emotions. It’s about learning to be the caregiver we needed as children.
Self-awareness
The ability to consciously observe and understand our own thoughts, emotions, and behaviors in real time. Self-awareness enables us to recognize the patterns and beliefs shaping our reactions, empowering us to make intentional choices and align our actions with our true needs and values.
Growing self-awareness is possible by monitoring our thoughts, identifying and reframing negative thinking, and using intentional practices to check in with ourselves regularly. Tools like the "How We Feel" app, habits like body scans, and noticing how we feel emotionally and physically in different environments and around others can all build self-awareness. One major benefit of self-awareness is that it helps us sense feelings and thoughts as they arise, allowing us to respond in ways that feel authentic, balanced, and true to who we are.
Self-Love:
The act of showing kindness to ourselves, not just when we excel but always; regarding ourselves as deserving of nurturing and value regardless of circumstances.
Also known as self-compassion or self-care, self-love involves treating yourself with acceptance and understanding, much like one would treat a close friend, a loved one, or a child. Self-love encompasses various actions and attitudes that prioritize one's physical, emotional, and mental well-being. This may include setting healthy boundaries, practicing self-care activities, cultivating positive self-talk, recognizing and honoring one's needs and desires, and embracing one's strengths and imperfections. Ultimately, self-love involves developing a deep sense of worthiness and self-respect, allowing individuals to foster a more positive and fulfilling relationship with themselves.
Somatic Processing
A method for calming the nervous system during intense emotional moments.
It involves:
1.) Noticing and being present with bodily sensations.
2.) Describing the sensations (e.g., a cold feeling in the hands or tightness/heaviness in the chest).
3.) Labeling the emotions associated with the sensations.
As an added step, you can balance these sensations by imagining the opposite (e.g., warmth in the hands, lightness in the chest). Somatic processing addresses the body’s response, and pairing it with emotional processing and subconscious re-conditioning later on can help address deeper beliefs.
Subconscious Comfort Zone
The conditioning from our past environments, typically from ages zero through eight, that form the patterns of beliefs, thoughts, auto-piolet actions, and treatment from others that we find safe because it is familiar and comfortable. In adulthood, we can travel to new cities, go to new restaurants, and form relationships with new people that mirror what was familiar to us in childhood at a behavioral level. We adopt the patterns of beliefs and actions from our childhood that had the greatest amount of emotion and repetition and we end up treating ourselves in these ways within the relationship to ourselves.
This comfort zone is the biggest driving factor in terms of being attracted to and attracting relationships in our lives. It reflects what we feel the most comfortable with, the most quickly, which may not be healthy in terms of relationship dynamics. For example: If we were treated with hot and cold behavior in childhood, we will be drawn to this behavior at a subconscious level because it represent what we are familiar with. Consciously, we might long for unconditional love but if it is outside of our subconscious comfort zone, we will reject it because it will feel unsafe at a deep level.
The beautiful news is that we are able to overwrite our old programs and change our comfort zone to accept the love we deserve.
Subconscious Mind
Just beneath the surface of our conscious awareness, our subconscious mind is a powerful part of the brain with the number one goal to keep us surviving through recreating the past, even if it is not healthy for us.
Our subconscious is most comfortable with what is familiar (aka the environments we were exposed to before age eight along with the feelings and coping mechanisms we developed). Though we are not fully aware of it on a daily basis, it directs up to 97% of our actions, often as automatic processes.
Through reflection, our conscious (thinking) mind is able to determine the patterns, beliefs, and actions that our subconscious operates with.
Subconscious Mind, Key Takeaways:
1.) Repetition + emotional experiences = causes subconscious programs
2.) A strong emotional experience (even one-time) = causes subconscious programs
3.) Whenever there is a strong emotional output attached to an event, it will have a deeper impact than something repetitive, especially through language.
4.) A repeated affirmation will take way longer to program the subconscious mind than something with emotion attached to it. Emotion is one of the key ingredients for successful subconscious change.
5.) You cannot consciously outwill or overpower the subconscious mind. This is why setting a New Year’s resolution rarely works for long. The 95-97% processing power of the subconscious mind can easily outwill the 3-5% processing power of the conscious almost mind every time but there are beautiful hacks we can use to heal, reprogram, and change the course of our lives for the better.
Subconscious Programs
Patterns and beliefs shaped in early life by what we observed, repeatedly heard, or directly experienced. These subconscious programs are like scripts, guiding our responses and behaviors—especially in relationships. By bringing these patterns into conscious awareness, we can begin to rewrite them, creating healthier, more intentional ways of being.
Closing Words
🌿🌿🌿 Thank you for exploring Mind Jardin’s Integrated Attachment Theory™ Glossary! This glossary is here to grow with you—each term is a stepping stone toward deeper understanding and self-connection. As you continue to explore these ideas, remember that healing is an ongoing journey of discovery, courage, and compassion for yourself and those around you. Revisit these definitions whenever you need a reminder or fresh insight, and let each new layer of understanding nourish your journey toward richer, more fulfilling relationships. 🌿🌿🌿
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Sources:
Copyright 2022 @Personal Development School. Concepts from coursework on attachment theory.
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