Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - The Love Blocks Keeping You Stuck in the Same painful Relationship Patterns with Sanaiyah Gurnamal

Episode Date: July 29, 2026

Why do so many of us keep ending up in the same relationship with a different person? You tell yourself this time will be different. You've grown. You've healed. And yet somehow you find yourself having the same arguments, chasing the same unavailable partner, or feeling the same familiar heartbreak. The truth is, it's usually not about the relationship you're in. It's about the relationship patterns your nervous system learned long before you ever started dating. In this episode of Language of Love Sessions, I sit down with relationship reinvention coach, two-time TEDx speaker, and host of the Project Loving Myself podcast, Sanaiyah Gurnamal. She says that shes  helped more than 5,000 women uncover the unconscious patterns she calls "Love Blocks," and shares why we repeat the same relationship dynamics over and over and, more importantly, how to break free from them. Together we explore why chemistry isn't always a sign of compatibility, how childhood experiences quietly shape the partners we're drawn to, why emotionally unavailable people can feel so irresistible, and what it actually takes to create healthier, more secure love. If you've ever wondered why love keeps following the same script, this conversation may help you understand the story you've been living and show you how to begin writing a different one. The five most common relationship patterns and how to recognize yours Why familiarity is often mistaken for chemistry How childhood experiences shape your adult relationships Why emotionally unavailable partners can feel so compelling How to identify your unmet needs and begin healing them The difference between managing relationship problems and healing the patterns beneath them If this conversation helped you recognize patterns you've been carrying into your relationships, you don't have to figure them out on your own. Understanding where those patterns come from is the first step toward creating healthier, more secure, and more connected relationships. To explore your own relationship patterns, take Sanaiyah's free Love Blocks Quiz. You can also learn more through her book  Project Loving Myself podcast, coaching resources, and additional tools at her website. If you'd like to continue exploring the science of secure attachment, emotional intimacy, and lasting love, check out Quantum Love. And if you have a relationship question you'd like me to answer in a future Language of Love Session, email [e-mail] or leave a voice note here. We explore:Ready to understand your relationship patterns? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

But the commitment phobe is someone who goes for emotionally unavailable partners and they end up blaming the other person for why the relationship didn't work out, but they're the one with the commitment issue. When we love people, we have this kind of hidden loyalty to want to fix their problem and we do it often in our own relationships. We tend to hold on to the pain and we take that forward instead of what that situation was teaching us. And I find when we flip that perspective and we do a lot of the forgiveness, the inner child exists because at that point in their life, when they got created, their need was not met. And it was not met by someone around them, right? So our job as the adult self is to go back and complete that need.

Hey, I'm Dr. Laura Berman, and for more than 30 years, I've worked with individuals and couples to help them build deeper, healthier relationships with one another and with themselves. Welcome to Language of Love Sessions. This is where I work one-on-one with you, my listeners, in real time. These sessions are intimate, personal, and grounded in what's actually happening in your life and relationships. Let's get started and get fluent in the language of love. Sanaya, welcome to the language of love.

Thank you, Laura. It is so wonderful to be here with you today. So let's just dive in. I mean, there's a lot of topics that I feel like we could explore together that would be of service for my peeps here. um let's just start with this like you know you talk about these five kind of relationship dynamics what are some of the most common relationship patterns that you see women repeating yes absolutely so laura i've worked with over 5 000 women and the one thing i noticed is

that five different patterns tend to show up pretty commonly with the women i've worked with um the one that I would say is probably the one I see the most is the people pleaser and another one called the runaway bride so with the people pleaser some somewhere in childhood you learned that love had to be earned love had to be um you know something that you receive only if you got good grades, or only if you were obedient. So those kinds of influences in our childhood can raise us to be someone that thinks that we'll only be loved if we behave a certain way, if we do certain things, if we make ourselves useful to other people. And so in a relationship, you make the other person almost the center of your world. You try to keep the partner

by being a good partner, a good girlfriend. And with the people pleaser, because your focus is the other person in the relationship, you forget yourself. You neglect yourself. And in many cases, you get taken advantage of by the partner. The second one that I mentioned is the runaway bride. And this is, you know, the person who has been hurt so many times that they don't really trust people and they don't trust relationships. So they will get into a relationship, but they like it to be comfortable where they are if they have to take a step closer. Maybe they are, you know, taking the next step.

It's about moving in or even getting engaged. they start to get cold feet. And like a runaway bride, they start to sabotage the relationship, create conflict. They push the partner away and they don't even realize they're doing it. They're just validating that relationships can't be trusted. Their partner can't be trusted. So those are two of the most common ones that I see. And I fall into a different category. When I was single, it was the commitment phobe. Okay. Well, yeah, just run through the other types real quick. I mean, we don't have to go into deep detail because I understand these are the most common that you see people pleasers and runaways, which I would call sabotagers, right? We sabotage.

Absolutely. And all of them, all of these relationship patterns do end up sabotaging relationships, which is why it doesn't really, you know, it doesn't go to where they want it to go. But the commitment phobe is someone who goes for emotionally unavailable partners, and they end up blaming the other person for why the relationship didn't work out. But they're the one with the commitment issue. They just don't see it. Then you've got the caretaker. This is probably someone that was raised to take care of one or more parent. they might have had a single parent and they felt responsible to take care of the parent or they had to take care of siblings somewhere they grew up being needed and they became the caretaker so they take care of their partner instead they like the fixer uppers they like the fixer uppers so they like rescue mission the partner but once the partner you know doesn't need the rescuing, the partner leaves, like he walks out and, you know, the caretakers left picking up

the pieces. Right. And then, yeah. And guys, just so you know, like that is the, uh, you know, the, the script that's running in your mind as unconsciously usually is if you need me, you won't leave me. Right. So you, you attract these broken little birds or fix wrappers, And then either you fix them up and they leave, or they as much as they depend on you, and you imagine they'll never leave me because they depend on me so much they unconsciously, you know, resent it and end up leaving anyway, usually. Yeah. All right. So go ahead. What's the fifth type? The fifth type is the memory chaser. The memory chaser had a relationship in the past that they can't move on from something they've idealized. So it may not have been the best relationship, but in their head, there's no one like that one person, you know, and they'll never meet someone, they've missed the boat, you know, that ship has sailed. But what they're doing is they're comparing every new partner to the one from the past. And they don't move forward because of that they're stuck. And they keep finding something wrong with the person that they're dating or getting to know. And so it never gets, it never goes further than that. So in every case, the person, the individual wants to be in a happy, healthy relationship, but they keep getting in their own way because of these patterns that got created in other relationships in their childhood in most cases.

And they keep repeating it, even though they may have, you know, their best intentions not to. Yeah. And I think one of the things that I love talking about when we talk about these kind of relationship challenges is that it's not just like how we behave, which is what you're describing, how we behave in relationships that lead to problems and conflict. It's also about who we're attracted to, right? So the caretaker is going to be attracted to those broken little birds. The commitment phobe is probably going to be attracted to people who, even if they don't see it at first, aren't fully emotionally available or, you know, just going to kind of mirror our, you know, we're always sort of, unless until we do the work, right? That's so I think that's really interesting, too, is and maybe, you know, I don't know if anything you have to add to that idea, but this idea of how we tend to not only create it for ourselves in the relationship, but that we attract, you know, those similar dynamics. Therapists call it repetition compulsion, but that's basically what it is. Absolutely. The one thing I do want to add is, for example, you take the runaway bride. The runaway bride may be in a really good relationship with a good partner, but because they are anticipating getting their heart broken again, even someone who would normally

not break their heart will inadvertently do something to break their heart, to hurt them, to make them feel betrayed by love again. So not only do we attract that same kind of partner, but we end up in the same situation that that particular love block, as I call them, tends to create for themselves. So we almost even force their hand, you know, we put them in the position to do the very thing that we are programmed for. Or we'll get the ick, or whatever, yeah. We'll get the ick, exactly. We'll find some way. Some way to create the issue.

Yeah. Yeah, I see that a lot. I don't know. I mean, I guess many of these could have, you know, could be many different blocks that that act out in this kind of behavior. But I see a lot of, especially with women, where they have that repetitive habit of being in relationships with people who abandon them or hurt them or whatever. And they keep repeating the same pattern. And, you know, you're speaking, obviously, which I agree with, that a lot of this has to do with early childhood traumas and dramas and the way that we really learned to love. Why do you think, why do you think I have, you know, I talk about this a lot, so I'm curious what your story, what your theory is that some people feel instantly magnetic when they are really not good partners for us, right? And we'll keep repeating it in very, you know, it's not really like you maybe had several relationships with people who had issues with addiction. And so you say, okay, I'm not going to even date someone who isn't sober anymore. I'm only going to date people who don't drink and don't do drugs. And that's what you do. And you meet someone wonderful who doesn't also doesn't drink or do drugs. and then it turns out they're gambling addicts you know or a sex addict and you had no idea but i do think that when you feel that often when you feel that intense magnetic attraction

especially when there's those like butterflies that i think are the body's warning signal more than a good sign um but wouldn't it be better wouldn't it be better if we treated it as warning signals. And I think we would eliminate a lot of, you know, a lot of tears, but yeah. So what do you think that magnetic, that instant magnet, you know, that is that, is that always a warning sign? Is it something to take heed of what what's underneath it in your experience? Oh my God. I love that question, Laura, because it's such an important one. The thing is we like what's familiar, right? And we recognize familiarity. So a lot of times that instant magnetic connection is just something that feels really, really familiar to us. So a lot of times

I will ask my clients, you know, tell me about your dad. And then we talk about their partner and I'll be like, oh, so is there anything similar about them? And they'll be like, no, no, they're completely different. And then as we dig deeper into it, we realize that one of the most important characteristics about their father is shared by their partner. And so we end up dating people that are so much more familiar to us than we initially realize. And it takes sometimes someone who zooms out of the whole picture and looks at it and kind of like digs deeper into it to show that to you, that, you know, you've actually ended up with something you have grown up with. That is why you keep repeating a lot of these patterns. It's either

something you saw your parents do, or it is something that you experienced with men in your life or women in your life. And so essentially we don't really date independently of our past. Unfortunately, that's the case. So how would you advise people to kind of start to tell the difference between genuine compatibility and that emotional familiarity that we're talking about? Yeah, absolutely. And there are two ways I really stress. The first one is get to know yourself. Having a very strong sense of understanding of yourself and awareness of why you do certain things, why you behave in certain ways, and being very intentional and conscious of your choices definitely helps because you kind of watch what you're doing. you observe before you kind of react. And you make choices more out of alignment than your patterns. So that's one thing. And the second one that I think really, really helps is not focusing as much on the other person in the relationship, but really, you know, keeping your focus and

attention on yourself are my needs being met do I feel good in this relationship what am I bringing excuse me what am I bringing into this relationship I think we get really caught up and lost in the other person and in their story and what they did or did not do and what expectations were met or not and that distracts us from how we feel in the relationship and whether this is the right relationship for us. So it is really focusing on what your emotional needs are and whether they are being met as well as having the relationship and connection with yourself. So you're not so dependent on the other person to fulfill that for you. So I think this is something that requires women to really invest in that relationship with themselves, to really build self-love and

to go into a relationship really with their eyes wide open you know and not be like okay I found the one I'm going to jump into it but really you know make make conscious choices having said that Laura I met my partner and we got engaged he asked me to marry him in less than a month and we were married five months later so I don't don't necessarily mean the amount of time that you might need to get to know someone, but it is really how well you know yourself and how honest you are with your partner, how clear you are. And I think that makes a huge difference in a long-term healthy relationship. Yeah, I agree. I think also, you know, really doing, and you were, you're referring, you know, a lot to the childhood stuff and we'll talk more. I know you talk about these

six core childhood wounds. But really, I find adding to what you're saying, you know, part of the knowing yourself is in really recognizing your, you know, and connecting more deeply with your own inner child and kind of addressing some of those early childhood wounds that create patterns. You know, I was just talking to a girlfriend of mine who's been working, this is such a great example, but she's been working so deeply on her own. I mean, she has a lot of abandonment, rejection wounds. She was adopted as a child, but her adoptive mother was horrible to her, you know, and she had gotten to this point where she was really clear that she was repeatedly getting involved with partners who were basically, you know, different versions of

narcissist and, um, and really minimizing her needs and gaslighting her and all the usual behaviors. And then she meets this new, she gets out of all those relationships. She's clean the slate. She's doing all this work. She gets into this new relationship with this person, a new person. And she's telling me how amazing and kind, you know, she's a lesbian. So it's a hurt, like how amazing and kind this woman is and how different that is because she's so loving and she's so kind to everyone. And then very, very quickly, it started to become apparent that this woman was going through the motions of saying kind things, but her actions were really avoidant and not present. And she had all these rules about when they could see each other and she

would ignore her. There were all of these really toxic, very similar, but packaged in a very different package. So it can be really tricky guys to, you know, you can say, okay, this is my love block and I'm going to be aware of this and I'm going to do the work. And, and that's all really, really important. But back to that familiarity thing, like it's not in what people say, it's really giving time to attune to their actions. Cause they can come in those sneaky packages where it's not so they look very different from your last toxic relationships, but there are different, there are different issues. They're the same issue in a different package. Put it that way. I do. I do think though, Laura, because your friend had done some work,

right? She'd been doing the work before that. Um, for me that she is actually getting a lot closer yes to getting rid of the pattern because now it's harder to to see yeah right which tells me she's actually a lot closer to healing from it to getting rid of this pattern than she thinks it's almost like this might be the last one and this time she really needs to make the right choice a lot quicker with less hardships and less less heartbreak that's exactly what yeah yeah and if she gets it right then it's almost like she is free of this pattern forever and probably the next partner that comes into her life will be the the most compatible the one the most compatible one the one that you know will will love her completely so I have seen that happen quite a

few times but what I what I do see is you know the pattern is healed you know the pattern is done when you stop attracting the same familiar you know partner you know it's done at that point you're like okay now I can breathe now it's it's safe you know and um you're right it it is tricky because sometimes it may look like you found the one but um I believe that if you trust yourself don't focus on trusting the other person but you put yeah trust in yourself yeah and that i i think that's super important and also recognizing you were alluding to this earlier i was speaking recently with um the novelist jane green she wrote a beautiful memoir called memoir i can't say that word memoir called um rewilding about her journey you know getting out of similar toxic

relationship patterns, but it's really a beauty, you know, she kind of writes it like a novel. But one of the things that came up a lot for her, which I thought was such an important point, and you're referring to as well, is that so many of us, especially because the majority of us never really learned to truly love and value ourselves in the way we deserve. We focus more on being chosen than doing the choose. And we're so seduced by being chosen that if somebody comes on strong and is really into us or, you know, whatever, giving us attention. Yes. Right. And even not love bombing, love bombing, definitely. But even just like, oh, this person wants me and is so kind to me and is so loving to me. I haven't even really

discerned yet how I feel about it, but I'm so they're attractive and they're kind and they want me, so let's go, you know? And they haven't quite attuned to their own system, right? Like you were saying earlier, in terms of really focusing on what's going on for you, not just the fact that this other person wants to be with you. Yeah. And you know, this is something I'm sure everyone has heard, but instead of focusing on being chosen, it's like, choose yourself, you know, be the best partner to yourself first. That's something I really believe in. But there something else i wanted to bring up what i see a lot with people that i work with is often when they go for what's familiar when they end up in relationships that are just patterns that

keep repeating right they're trying to fix a problem from the past it might be a relationship or it might be their parents relationship but i often see them trying to subconsciously fix something that went wrong yeah and trying to make it right yeah they're trying to make it right and sometimes it's not even their story it's their mother's story or it's their father's story right or it might be at a client where she was trying to fix what happened to her sister in her sister's marriage so when we love people we have this kind of hidden loyalty to want to fix their problem and we do it often in our own relationships almost like it'll be okay if i can get this right almost for them yeah and so in in those kind of situations we don't see we're actually doing

that we're living somebody else's life we're fixing a problem right there or living their wound basically living their wound absolutely we're healing we're trying to heal their wound but we're actually digging it deeper for us and so it's very interesting to see why we choose certain partners certain types of relationships i find it absolutely fascinating yeah because that was my journey you know i did the very same thing and i had to live through all of that that today you know when i work with women who have very similar kinds of issues it really for me it's very clear i can see it clearly but the journey is to have my client the woman i'm working with understand her own patterns stop trying to correct or fix and that requires a

lot of healing and a lot of awareness so it is it is something that i think is a commitment to yourself but in the long run it pays off with a relationship where you actually feel safe and and secure and loved and something that usually lasts a pretty long time because you finally got that part of your life right. That's something I felt after doing all the work that I did. Yeah, it's worth it. So what you talk about these six core childhood wounds that become adult triggers, what are some of the most common? So the most common ones is, again, linked to the people pleaser, right? The I have to earn love. The I'm not enough comes up a lot. I've noticed that children that are raised in dysfunctional childhoods, which is something

like four out of five at this point. Yeah, it's most of us. Yeah, it's most of us. You know, WHO said that the number is four out of five, I think in the last report I looked at, but which is appalling. That's adverse events, adverse childhood events you're talking about. Adverse childhood events. Yeah, absolutely. I remember looking at it and being like, oh my God, you know, it is a lot more common than most people think because we don't necessarily talk about this and we don't share it with other people, right? And so when we are raised in dysfunctional childhoods and love becomes something that gets twisted, it's something that is connected to pain or it is connected to having to earn or prove or not feeling enough

or feeling neglected or abandoned. All of these wounds can show up in different ways in our relationships. I don't necessarily prescribe to just the six wounds. I know there are the most common ones, but I find that inner child work is one of the most powerful things that I do with my clients and it looks a little bit different for every child or for every client because the same thing can be a major traumatic event for one person and be completely okay for another person so there are a lot of different influences I find that that change the way we receive things or experience trauma in our childhood. I know that in my case, my parents had a very rocky marriage. And so I grew up believing that love was not only unfair, because that's what I

experienced between me and my brother, love was unfair, but it was also something that was painful and unreliable. And so that is exactly what I created in my relationships, that very same experience. So I do rely heavily on inner child work. But I take it as something very individual to a client, which I find is a little bit a little bit different from the love blocks, the love blocks, I feel, really show up the way they are our category. But don't you talk about six core childhood wounds that become adult triggers or am I making that up? Yeah, I don't. I don't actually talk about six. Oh, you don't. I thought you did. I'm sorry about that.

All right. So so let's talk about the healing piece, because, you know, inner child work means a lot of things to a lot of people. And a lot of people are like, what the hell are you talking about? I hear about it on tick tock every day. But, you know, so and there's different ways to to approach that kind of work. So how do you do inner child work with yourself or with clients? Yeah, absolutely. So what I do is I identify what is the wound as the adult, for example, self-worth comes up a lot. And we go back to the point where that self-worth was either reject, like there was a

rejection wound or there was abandonment or there was some situation where it started the whole breakdown in trust. And I go back to that incident and I focus on the lesson that my client learned instead of the pain. Because we tend to hold on to the pain and we take that forward instead of what that situation was teaching us. And I find when we flip that perspective, and we do a lot of the forgiveness, we do the healing, I focus a lot on healing wounds and forgiveness in that space. So and how do you do the healing? Like, what is that? I'm always curious what that means to people, because we say it a lot. I say it a lot. But like, I'm thinking something different in action than maybe you are. So how do you do that healing work? I use a process called theta

healing i also have a clinical hypnotherapist background so i use a combination of both with other energy techniques that i have also certified in over the last 20 years and i basically blend them to do a guided process and taking them back to the incident i always go back to the very first one the defining one um and actually it doesn't necessarily have to be the first one it could have been the defining moment it could have you know been a series but then there was one really big incident go back to that and help my client process from the adult perspective what they couldn't understand as a child yeah and so now they look at the whole event with completely different lens and understanding and often i have the adult be the one to help the the inner child

so we establish that relationship and the healing happens because there's a connection now between the adult and the inner child but also you've got this relationship between the two that can carry forward through other events in life i also do like an integration of the inner child back into the adult and help that inner child grow up and you know and become part of the the adult where it was missing or incomplete before that. So these are more, more or less the methods that I use for inner child work. Beautiful. Yeah. I love those. I don't do a lot. I don't do hypnotherapy, that piece, but the other stuff I do a lot of, and I also love and find it very powerful through the years for myself too, because by the way, I feel like we have many, many, many, many different

versions of inner children in us, you know, a whole, a whole school, a whole, yeah, a whole army. Right. Um, so it's not a one-time thing. Yeah. So you're constantly getting to know them and some new level of healing, you know, it's a, it's an onion that's kind of, there's, we're never done with it. Right. Any of us, no matter what happened. Um, so I also love to facilitate a, you know, I guess less about asking them to grow up, although they often do kind of integrate back in and get quiet. It's almost like multiple personalities because when that wounded child that when your mother left the family or when you were humiliated in front of the class or whatever those moments were, sometimes they grow up, sometimes they kind of

dissolve in, but they're almost like multiple personalities that take over the wheel when we're triggered. Like, so when a humiliation, when you have a moment, even a small one in a meeting at work where you feel humiliation, sometimes, you know, that child who, who was so wounded in that public humiliation kind of, and whatever they did, whatever strategies that little kid came up with, many of them not so functional to deal with it, kick into gear without us even realizing it. So it's also kind of recognizing, you know, how they play out in the triggers, which I know you do, but I love to build relationships with them. So not necessarily in the moment of your trigger, but at a different point, I feel like these little parts of ourselves

will get a lot quieter and try to take the wheel a lot less when they start to feel confident that you've got them and that you'll seen. Yes. And understood and played with. So sometimes I'll just let them, you know, there's one I'm working with. I'm like, okay, what do you want to do right now? All right, we'll jump on the bed and eat a chocolate sundae. That is totally like, I literally start making friends with them again, because they, the reason they're doing these dysfunctional things is because they haven't been heard. They don't feel safe. They don't feel like you've got it. You know, just like my friend I was talking about earlier, her inner child does not feel confident that she's going to hold the boundary and stand for them. So when she did and broke up

with this person who really, you know, was not treating her well, despite the veneer, you know, I said to her, your little girl is doing cartwheels right now. You are showing her that you've got this. She's not going to be as front and center now, and not have to revert to these dysfunctional behaviors. So anyway, I just thought, I don't know if you do the same thing, but I feel like that's important to say. So the way I look at it, Laura, is that the inner child exists because at that point in their life, when they got created, their need was not met and it was not met by someone around them right so our job as the adult self is to go back and complete that need and so for me I don't really work with the inner child further than that so for example once the

inner child is healed and integrated I find that with my clients that inner child is done it doesn't show up again so it's very quick I move through like the inner children quite quickly um and do you get longitudinal so because what i find is it may work in the short term but as soon as the rubber starts really meeting the road those old patterns resurface but maybe with the hypnotherapy piece with theta healing actually with yeah with theta healing because i work very deep into the subconscious and i bring in a little bit of that um you know uh belief work into it and um we we work with feelings um energy charging and and downloads and i find the results are instant with my clients when it comes to inner child work changing patterns and i know it sounds

crazy but my clients are like you know sanaya i've done work with with other people where it's taken you know session after session after session to break a pattern but it's very interesting how we can do it so quickly through Theta Healing. So I do find that that method does seem to have things. What is Theta Healing as you do it? What does that mean for people who don't understand or haven't heard of it? Yeah, absolutely. So Theta Healing is a process of understanding that every situation in our life is created because of a belief we hold. So if I'm experiencing a situation, I have a belief that corresponds to that. So we need to identify what that belief is, where it came from. And it might not be yours. It might be inherited. It might be something that is

from your mother's womb, right? We need to figure out where that belief comes from and then shift that belief into something that works for you instead of works against you. And it's a pretty instant process. But what are you doing? Are you hypnotizing them? Are you hooking them up to some theta wave thing are you putting them into a theta state what are you what is theta healing i'm going into a theta brain wave when i'm working with them i'm scanning i'm scanning them and then i'm seeing what's going on in their space so intuitively i can see you know who's the person that um may be the you know the the person who hurt this this adult client of mine where are we going so and then I work with my client through a guided process to go back to those events and

we try to understand why it happened what they were meant to learn so you're doing a version of what I would call and you know soul retrieval right what the shamanic it is similar yeah it is it is similar to soul work it is similar to any kind of work that you're going deeper into the subconscious um and you're blending uh healing work with with coaching frameworks so it is a blend of both i would say and um when it comes to shifting the beliefs what i do is energetically remove the program and replace it with the positive and what's amazing is you'll see the behavior change within the week with the client and people who've had you know patterns that they have not been able to break for like 20 years are, are showing up with completely different,

you know, narratives after that. So, yeah. So what is, what is the first thing that someone should do that you would recommend if they realize they, you know, they're listening and they're thinking, yeah, I really do have this pattern of abandoning myself or settling for less than I deserve or attracting people who don't serve, you know, they're just feeling exhausted by love. What's the first thing they should do? Yeah, absolutely. So I have a quiz that helps them fall into one of my love blocks categories. And why I do it that way, Laura, is because from knowing what your love block is, I then kind of walk you through the different behaviors and the different resources that I feel fit that love block because the healing

is very different for the different types of patterns that you repeat. So if you're a people pleaser, you know, I'm not going to work on your commitment with yourself. I would do that with a commitment phobe. So it's a different kind of healing path depending on where you are. So I need to have my client to understand their pattern and to be able to recognize how it's showing up in their life. And so I give some great resources for that, just if you want to kind of understand yourself better and do a little work with yourself. So that's the first thing that I think a person should do is to understand what is that pattern and try to figure out with my help or on their own where it's coming from. And so I give a lot of resources to help you understand that.

okay great so that's a great time to ask you how can people learn more about what you're up to and what you're offering yes so my website is sanayagurnamal.com and i'm also sanayagurnamal on all channels i'm very active on youtube and also on instagram you can you know take the quiz sanayagurnamal.com love dash blocks dash quiz that's a really fun one and it's definitely very revealing. Um, and I think that if you're anything like me, you always want to know more about yourself. Um, and I think, um, you know, just understanding yourself can help you make better choices, but at least, you know, you can see what, um, possibilities are there for you too. Okay. Beautiful. Well, I so appreciate you coming on and sharing. Is there anything I forgot to ask

you that is important before we end, important for you to share? You know, honestly, I think you asked the most amazing questions. I think we got the most out of this conversation together. So thank you, Laura. You are amazing. You're so welcome. It was great talking to you. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. So why do so many smart, successful, self-aware women still find themselves stuck in those same painful relationship patterns over and over again. It's a different person, but it's the same heartbreak, the same anxiety, the same overthinking, the same feeling of somehow losing yourself inside of love. Well, my guest on this episode of The Language of Love is Sanaya Gurnamal.

She's a relationship reinvention coach. She calls herself two-time TEDx speaker and the host of the popular podcast Project Loving Myself, which has reached more than a million downloads. She helps women understand the subconscious patterns that quietly shape the way they love, whether it's attaching too quickly, overgiving, settling for too little, self-abandonment in relationships. What I really like about this conversation is that it's not really about relationship advice, although there's some of that in there.

We're talking about why unhealthy relationships can feel magnetic and how childhood wounds become adult relationship triggers and why so many people intellectually understand our patterns, yet we can't seem to break them. So Sanaya is sharing her framework around love blocks, this subconscious conditioning and influences on who we choose, right, and what we'll tolerate and why emotionally familiar dynamics can feel very compelling. We also get into cycles of repetitive relationships that aren't serving us. I feel like this is a great, insightful, validating conversation for you that's going to give you a lot of ahas, like, oh, that's why I keep doing this. And I really appreciated the heart of this conversation and the invitation to look inward with more compassion and curiosity. I do want to say, though, if I'm being honest, you'll hear this toward the end from her.

I don't personally believe her claim that we can instantly heal all the wounds of our childhood or completely transform our inner child with one session. I don't care who you are. I think we can make huge leaps energetically and we can create huge shifts. But in my experience, real healing is usually a little deeper and messier and layered and takes more than one session. But all of that said, you make up your own mind. And I think you're going to really enjoy this conversation on the language of love. Thank you.