00:00:10:18 - 00:00:23:15
Thais Gibson
Hello and welcome to the Personal Development School Podcast. I'm your host Thais Gibson, and I create regular podcast episodes to teach you about your relationships, attachment style and the subconscious mind.
My goal of this podcast is to give you tools and awareness you need to thrive in your relationships, feel deeply connected,
and find harmony fulfillment in your relationships and personal life.
So I hope you tune in here with me each and every week.

00:00:44:06 - 00:01:19:01
Thais
Are you finding yourself caught in an intricate web of uncertainty between somebody hot and cold behavior and that you're not really sure? Does this person actually want to invest the money and make an effort to see where this could go? Or are they simply just trying to connect from a place of convenience? If you are not sure by the end of this video, you are going to find out because we are going to cover today what breadcrumb ing is the signs and symptoms of bread crumbs so you can find out if you are in fact being bread crumbs and you stick around to the end.

00:01:19:01 - 00:01:36:19
Thais
I'll take you through an exercise that we can actually do together for how you can stop the bread coming from taking place and what you can do for certainty and clarity in your own journey. And this should help you be in a place where you can go more confident in your life and in your relationships going forward.

00:01:37:02 - 00:02:04:09
Thais
So breadcrumbs. What is it? And we're specifically going to talk about the fearful avoidant, who is basically one of four major attachment styles that tends to show up as an adult, is very hot and cold in their behaviors because they usually come from chaos in their background, which causes them to be wanting this connection vulnerability with others, but then also fearing it at the same time because they have polarizing experiences in their childhood with what

00:02:04:09 - 00:02:31:11
Thais
connection is like. And Republicans are one of the attachment styles who are most likely to breadcrumb in relationships. So what is actually breadcrumbs and what is this term I'm referring to? Well, according to actually the Cleveland Clinic, who has defined this definition, it is the practice of sporadically feeding interest in another person in order to keep them interested, despite a true lack of investment in the relationship.

00:02:31:13 - 00:03:04:21
Thais
So is becoming always intentional? Is somebody always consciously like, I'm going to just throw out a line and pretend I'm interested in order to keep somebody else interested? The answer is no. A lot of times breadcrumbs is something that actually takes place because of somebody's internal world and what they're currently available for in potential relationship dynamics. Now, of course, we can have people who literally intentionally breadcrumb in a premeditated way, and they're doing so perhaps just for attention or approval from somebody that they're not even in a relationship with.

00:03:04:23 - 00:03:26:08
Thais
But the vast majority of people that breadcrumb are coming from a totally different place. And we're going to find out why exactly that often takes place, particular to the fearful avoidant attachment style. Now, there's different signs that can indicate that Greg coming is taking place and you can actually score yourself as we go through some of these signs together.

00:03:26:10 - 00:03:57:04
Thais
My number one is intermittent reinforcement. When I say score yourself, give yourself a point. If you're seeing this show up in your current relationship, dynamic and intermittent reinforcement means that there's this big inconsistency. Things happen, you know, out of the blue, then you won't hear from somebody for a long time and then they'll happen again. And particularly you'll tend to see when it comes to intermittent reinforcement, it's what do you really shows up to meet needs, but then really goes off line and sort of goes underwater or seems to disappear for a period of time.

00:03:57:06 - 00:04:25:10
Thais
Number two is that the person may show interest as you actually start to pull away. That's a really big indicator light coming specifically. Number three, this person will likely initiate connection in small ways without actually following through a lot of the time to spend time together to really make an investment. Number four, if you show too much interest, they will pull away.

00:04:25:12 - 00:04:45:14
Thais
So you show a little bit of interest. You might be all right, but you should too much interest. You would actually find the other person pull away big time. Number five, they will tend to communicate at times where they can with little investment. So what I mean by this is they'll communicate at like 11 p.m., send you a text.

00:04:45:14 - 00:05:13:05
Thais
Hey, what are you up to? You know, changes are at 11 p.m.. That person's still looking for one specific thing, or they're comfortable talking at 11 p.m. because they know that they don't have to actually show up and make an effort. You're probably not going to make plans together. Another example of this could be they communicated a very last minute about the potential for making plans and it's like they're they're trying to invest the littlest amount possible without actually really following through and showing up.

00:05:13:07 - 00:05:41:05
Thais
And our next one is there tends to be a lot of inconsistency in the communication. This is not something where they're showing small amounts of interest every day. You know, it tends to be very sporadic and even quite sparse. And last but not least, it tends to be shallow communication. And I think it's really important to recognize this because shallow communication, again, indicates a lack of vulnerability, lack of depth, the lack of really trying to invest in a relationship.

00:05:43:06 - 00:06:14:11
Speaker 1
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00:06:14:12 - 00:06:35:17
Speaker 1
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00:06:35:22 - 00:06:59:05
Speaker 1
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00:06:59:07 - 00:07:09:24
Speaker 1
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00:07:13:09 - 00:07:35:23
Thais
Now, how does that apply in particular to a fearful avoidant attachment style? Why might they breadcrumbs? Well, the first reason is that they actually may not be that invested, and I think that's important to pay attention to. They may actually not be ready to make an investment, ready to make a commitment, ready to be vulnerable. It can be all these different reasons or they may not be that interested in the relationship.

00:07:35:23 - 00:07:57:18
Thais
So we are going to talk about in a few moments what you can do to really find out for sure if somebody is intending to breadcrumb and what you can do to stop it from happening. But those are all some really common reasons, some personal reasons that we may see a fearful avoidant attachment style breadcrumbs, just because they're burning out, they're burning out from having poor boundaries, and so they sort of disappear.

00:07:57:18 - 00:08:21:00
Thais
It's a very big characteristic of fearful avoidants to be all or nothing. They can be all in and then suddenly pull away and kind of go underwater because they're feeling overwhelmed. They can also be bright coming from a place of self-protection if they think that you're going to hurt them or they think that they can't trust you, they may be interested and throw it a little bit of breadcrumbs, but still be prioritize in protecting themselves.

00:08:21:02 - 00:08:41:10
Thais
We may also see that they're unwilling to be vulnerable or they're in a place where they're not looking for anything serious, causing them to, again, maybe be a little bit interested, but not really be ready to show up. So what do you actually do if this is happening to you, happening to you? How do you get out of this breadcrumb cycle?

00:08:41:12 - 00:09:13:05
Thais
Well, the first thing we want to do is we want to set a deadline. Okay? I can't stress enough how important it is to not get caught in a cycle of allowing yourself to be breadcrumbs for long periods of time. Back when I was running my client practice for years, I would often see that people would be in these situations where they're letting people break when they come in for a first session for, for example, with me and and you know, they'd be in a position where they were clearly getting breadcrumbs for three years and they hadn't done anything about it.

00:09:13:05 - 00:09:34:01
Thais
Right. So we have to set a deadline so we don't end up staying in this gray area that prevents us from truly healing and moving on from the breadcrumbs, or if they're not able to give us what we need now, what we set a deadline. And what that means is you're going to set a deadline for how long you're going to allow this to take place before making a final decision to move on.

00:09:34:01 - 00:09:54:02
Thais
And that could be two weeks. It could be two months, but you get to make that decision. Number two, and this is going to scare you, but it's really important to be able to do this. It's a form of not self abandoning and in fact, actually advocating for yourself. So what you're going to do in step number two is you're going to ask for a need.

00:09:54:04 - 00:10:21:21
Thais
It can be I want to actually spend more time together or, hey, you know, I'm happy to text with you and communicate, but it has to be before 9 p.m. or, you know, something that's very clear and specific where there's no room for miscommunication. But you're also asking for the person to up the investment. Okay. I don't mean that you're going to sit down with somebody who's been breadcrumb on you for six months and say we need to be in an actual relationship if you haven't even seen them in two months.

00:10:21:23 - 00:10:40:17
Thais
But I'm saying in particular, you're asking for an increase in the investment. You're asking for them to text you at a better time, make more plans with you, jump on a phone, call, for example, like you're just asking for a small step in that direction of the investment. Now, at that point, it's going to go one of two ways.

00:10:40:19 - 00:11:01:03
Thais
One way is the person retracts and doesn't show up. And this is a big strike against them. When it comes to setting the deadline, you have to know as uncomfortable as it can be, because sometimes we want to hang on to this fantasy that the bread plumber will turn around and eventually invest in a relationship they want us to get out of this cycle of, I'm just going to hang on to the fantasy.

00:11:01:03 - 00:11:21:12
Thais
And in doing so, abandon that. I'm a person with needs in a relationship. So instead I want you to really take a look. And when you ask for that investment, yes, it's vulnerable. It can be scary what you're getting out of the fantasy. You're getting into reality. You're a human being with needs that deserves for those needs to be met if you're going to consider investing in a relationship yourself.

00:11:21:14 - 00:11:39:19
Thais
And so we need to be seeing that somebody is willing to give that investment back. Now, the better way it goes is that the programmer actually makes an effort and they do increase that investment in the relationship. And then what you're going to do from that point forward is on a weekly basis, you're going to ask for a slightly bigger investment or biweekly basis.

00:11:39:19 - 00:11:58:05
Thais
Perhaps if you see the person moving a little bit more slowly until you don't see growth, until you're like, okay, the person's not really making an investment, your best case scenario is they invest all the way to the finish line of actually making a commitment in a relationship. And the relationship really builds momentum. This will happen more often than you think.

00:11:58:07 - 00:12:30:00
Thais
But the worst case scenario, which is also a good case scenario, is that you see that when you ask for tiny things clearly and specifically, that person can't even give you that. And clearly they're not the right person to be in a relationship with. Which in that particular case brings me to the last step, which is I want you to ask yourself, what are the costs of staying with somebody on a daily basis or regular basis who's only available to give me crumbs, and I want you to write out as many costs as possible.

00:12:30:02 - 00:12:49:17
Thais
I'm stunting my dating life. I'm not investing in people who could potentially be emotionally available. I feel anxious all the time in conversation with this person. I'm treating myself like I'm not good enough by continuously investing in somebody who's doing this. I won't get rid of all the costs and all of the benefits of giving yourself permission to actually walk away.

00:12:49:19 - 00:13:12:07
Thais
And this can be not answering texts or telling the person, Hey, you know, I appreciate that We've chatted back and forth for a little while here, but I'm actually looking for a little bit more and I don't want to continue on. And so what you're doing at this point is you're setting yourself free from the bread coming. And in doing that, you're setting yourself up for more secure relationships because you're honoring your needs and your truth.