Life Uncut - Breaking Patterns and Holding Yourself Accountable in Relationships. Uncut with Sabrina Zohar

Episode Date: November 12, 2024

Do you have a ‘type’? No, not a physical type. What do the people you’ve been in relationships all have in common? It’s time for us to fully unpack why we tend to go for the same types of people over and over again, and how to break the cycle.  Sabrina Zohar is a relationship expert, entrepreneur and podcast host. Sabrina breaks down a lot of the ‘therapy terms’ and neuroscience to focus on doing the internal work and recognising patterns to chase the right kinds of connections and build healthy relationships. She’s known for her no bullshit relationship advice and telling you what you need to hear, rather than what you want to hear!   We chat: Identifying the patterns and taking accountability for what we are doing to contribute to them Bullshit blueprint - the core beliefs and things that were ingrained as you as a kid Becoming better ‘buyers’ in the dating world Can you trust ‘the spark?’ Looking at ‘what is’ rather than ‘what if’ You can find more from Sabrina’s website  And Sabrina’s instagram  You can watch us on Youtube Find us on Instagram Join us on tiktok Or join the Facebook Discussion Group Tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friend and share the love because WE LOVE LOVE! xx  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This episode was recorded on Camaragal land. Hi guys and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Brittany and I'm Laura. Today we have a relationship expert on the podcast but she's not just any relationship expert. Her name is Sabrina Zohar and she's very well known and very well loved for the way she delivers her advice. She's very no bullshit. She's very cut to the chase, say the things that you need to hear, not the things that you want to hear. And that's what I love about her. The thing about this ep that I found truly fascinating and I really like for anybody who is kind of in the throes of dating, we all know it's very, very hard, but the conversation we have

is more around the relationship you have with yourself. It's more around how you show up in relationships, how relationships don't just happen to you. You have agency, you have choice, and recognizing the patterns that maybe you are playing a part of in the decisions that you're making and the relationships that you're choosing to be in. Sabrina, welcome to the podcast. Girls, thank you so much for having me. Sabrina, we never start an episode without an accidentally unfiltered, you're embarrassing story. So please tell us what you've got. Okay. So let's see my most embarrassing story. I'm just going to go ahead and share. I think it was actually, this would be probably more embarrassing for them than it would be me,

but I will never forget I was dating this guy many moons ago and I was like boasting to all of my friends about like how amazing this guy is and how great he is and how we've been dating each other for a long time and to my surprise he used a photo that I had taken of him and my dog as the main photo for his dating app and had connected with a friend of mine and the only way I found out about this was because she recognized the dog and needless to say that was the last time I ever went out with this guy I was just so pissed off and embarrassed I was like are you out of all the things for me to do that's the one photo you use for your dating profile sweet at least you helped him on his journey right you're like here it is go forth and be better all while sleeping with me

still so I was like I didn't realize it the whole time I was helping this person go on and prosper but also still date me at the same time can take a good photo what you've built through Instagram and through your community is truly remarkable. And I guess I always find it interesting to figure out how you become someone who is the advice giver. Like what have you been through in your life that kind of gets you to a point where you're like, okay, I have the answers now because I've lived the life and had the realizations. What made you get into relationship advice in the first place? So I kind of fell into this truthfully. I had, my past life was like, I went to school for fashion and I have a clothing line. So I just kind of was like, okay, I'll just be an

entrepreneur. And I started doing podcasts and panels and people just reached out to me about coaching for business of like, hey, how do you bootstrap? How do you start something from nothing? How do you figure this all out? And so I was just kind of coaching. And then that ended up turning into like life coaching, which turned into like relationship stuff. And truthfully, it was when I met my partner and I had started creating content around then. And most of the content I started creating was just kind of commiserating with like, hey, this stuff's really fucking tough and no one's talking about how tough it is. We're all just either shaming each other or we're seeing these unrealistic relationships, but there really wasn't anything in between. And so then when I

met my partner and I started to implement behavior that was different for me that I'd learned in therapy or learned along the way that was completely contrary to the advice that I was receiving online, that was just kind of the first indication for me of like, no, fuck this. Like I, there's something better out there. There's a voice that needs to be heard. And I think that's me now at the time, did I like believe in myself fully? Nah, I, I, to me, I was like, oh, come on, who gives a about me. I'm just some girl. And you get the trolls that'll remind you of that. But what I started to realize was as I was implementing a lot of this stuff, I started to see my life change and I started to see my relationships change. And then as I started working with more people

tailoring it to this, I started to see like, holy shit, there is a method to the madness that I just don't think anybody's necessarily articulating in a way that's digestible for us to understand like therapy terms, neuroscience, all of these really interesting different aspects. And that was kind of the hole I wanted to fill was I know I don't know everything but I know what I know really really well and I understand human psychology and if we actually started to realize how many people like project on us and put their shit onto us then you start to realize like oh that's why a lot of this dating advice doesn't actually resonate and lead you to the relationships that you want you speak a lot about self-awareness and you know your journey did start a lot with

self-awareness was there a particular moment or relationship where you were like oh I'm the problem right now and i'm chasing the wrong thing oh yeah i married my father i mean that's called incest and it's illegal yeah so talk about that old fun compliment like i married a man that was almost identical to my dad in every single way and it was a relationship that literally almost broke me and by the end of it i was like yo dude you have to be the common denominator and it was also my sister who sat me down one day and was like when will you understand you and your anxiety of the fucking problem. And I was like, oh, okay. And like, of course, at the time, I was like, you're such a bitch. I can't believe you'd say that now. I'm like, you were right. I understand.

But it was really, I think, you know, Freud has the term repetition compulsion, right? You're going to keep dating the parts of you that are not healed. You're going to keep dating people that mimic the closest mimic to your caregivers, hoping if you can work on that, then you're going to be able to move on from all the pain in the past. And so that was me. I was just kind of continuously living in my trauma and that was the relationship that I started therapy after started doing my ketamine treatments my inner child journey all of those variables that I started to realize like you're the common denominator in this whole entire thing and until you start to understand how you show up is also going to impact how other people show up

then you're just constantly living in this life of like everything keeps happening to me without realizing like it's actually happening for you we just have to be aware enough to see how these things all play together it's interesting you say this because something that we talk about a lot on this podcast is like patent behavior and patent dating in relationships it's something that I have been guilty of myself it's something that I think Brit has also been guilty of but I think we all do this right we all have like a and it when we think of like a type often people think of like a physical type and then they go I don't have a type I date heaps of different types of guys that look different but when you actually start to unpack the personality qualities of

the person that it is that you're choosing often there is a pattern and we have this repeated behavior and this repeated cycle of relationships over and over. Oh, 100%. You know, there's that old saying, like the definition of insanity is doing the same thing, expecting a different result. And it's like, no, that's trauma, right? And so when we go after a pattern, like I was textbook, like I said, when I said I married my father, it was eerily creepy how similar they were, and not just physically, but more so how they treated me. And what we have to look at is, typically speaking, when we start to see like, I'm not going to call you guys out, but I'm going to call you out because if we're dating long distance,

right? If you have a pattern where you're like, I always go for these emotionally unavailable people or I date these people that are out of reach. It's like, well, then a part of us is also emotionally unavailable because if we're not showing those parts of ourself, well, then we're going to continue to mirror what feels uncomfortable, what feels comfortable, right? So if I grew up in a household with an emotionally unavailable parent and I don't feel like I can safely express myself, then that is now how I'm going to manifest in my adult relationships. I like to call it the bullshit blueprint and the bullshit blueprint is essentially all of those core beliefs and things that were ingrained in you as a child things that you didn't have a choice over you did not get to

learn who taught you how to love yourself who taught you how to communicate school didn't fucking teach that yeah i know my pythagorean theorem but i don't know how to do my taxes so it's like when we stop and kind of strip it back and say where did i learn this behavior from okay well then that's where we create these patterns because the patterns are going to keep you safe. Your brain loves familiarity. So it's not trying to learn new things. It's trying to just get you through your day as safely as you possibly can, which is means it's going to rely on old conditioning. Just to be clear, my fiance is emotionally available. He's just not physically here, but I am very interested in why, and I don't want to blanket statement, but women do tend to be

hyper-attracted to people that are emotionally unavailable. It's like it is the biggest green flag for us even though we obviously know it's a red flag why do you reckon like as a whole that is such a sexy attribute for someone to have like oh fuck yeah he's gonna give me nothing it's like i want to be the exception is what it is i want this relationship to be the one that he like i'm gonna change him i'm gonna turn him yeah precisely it's like we want to be chosen right especially typically see what we see is if you actually trail it back there is some core wound there of not feeling chosen not feeling like a priority feeling like love has to be earned because i remember seeing this one quote and it was like a girl told her friend uh the guy stopped dating me and she

said what would your response be as a secure person and the girl said well here's the issue between the secure versus the insecure the secure person would look and say i know that this person's not for me that's okay there's going to be other people out there and it's not about me and she said the insecure person the first thing that they think about is what's wrong with me what was i not good enough and so usually what happens when we go after somebody that is going to reinstate they're confirming those core beliefs see i'm not good enough i'm not worthy i want to be chosen because if they choose me, hello, repetition, compulsion. If they choose me, then everything from the past will no longer feel pain because I could get them. I might not have been able to get my mom or dad,

but I could get them to choose me. And that's the perception of control. Oh, all I have to do is act like this and then I can get them. But then what ends up happening is your needs aren't met. And we're so used to self-abandoning. We're not in our own bodies. And we're so concerned with what do they think of me and what do they want? What do they like about me that we haven't stopped to say, like, well, what is it that I need? And are my needs satisfied and met here? Because growing up, that could actually mean that you would lose connection to your caregiver if you stopped to ask how you were doing, because it wasn't about you, it was more so often about them. A lot of people, when they're going through dating, and they've had like, you know,

a terrible relationship after terrible relationship, often there becomes this lightbulb moment where you realize, oh, okay, the self-awareness hits where you're like, I am a common denominator in the choices that I'm making. That happens for some people. it absolutely doesn't happen for others like age and timing is not a guarantee that you're going to have this light bulb moment where you realize that you're not just a victim in all of your relationships how can people be more self-aware or get to that place of nirvana where they go oh i see that there's a pattern here and this pattern is affecting my life rather than just being passive within relationships and feel as though they're happening to them and they don't

have control over it oh it's a great question and it's loaded and what i mean by that is there's a couple of there's a little bit of nuance because the reality is somebody lacking self-awareness that is actually serving them a purpose right because if I don't need to well I'm the victim I get to just perpetually stay in this life I don't have to take accountability and ownership because taking accountability and ownership means that you actually have agency and choice over your life and for a lot of people it's easier to feel I just don't have any and oftentimes like those are the people that's like that's where therapy really starts to come in of working with somebody that can actually help you rewire your brain.

You know, my friend Nicole is a neuroscientist. I don't know if you guys know Nicole's neuroscience. And she was always telling me like, it takes 300 repetitions for your body to remember something, but it takes 3000 repetitions for your brain to start a new neural pathway. So if that takes 3000 times for me to say something or remind myself or go towards this,

the amount of people that are like, I don't want to do that. And I see it every day. I'll create content, let's say, about like, instead of ghosting, say this, like, let's stop this bullshit culture. let's become better versions of ourselves. The amount of people that are like, ghosting is easier. And I said, well, so is this about being easy? And so her response was, well, listen,

I'm out there. I need to make money and I'm running the show and I have to take care of everything and I don't want to deal with it. And then when I said, okay, so you think you're the only person that goes out and has to make money? Like there's not, we don't need to have any self-awareness to understand how you're impacting other people. And her response was, well, I would be heartbroken to receive this. So why would I need to have somebody else be heartbroken? I don't want to deal with this i don't want to hear something that i don't want to hear and i was like oh okay so you're entitled right so i'll you can't speak can't say anything because you don't want to hear it and what we see is like we have to remember for people to take accountability and

ownership of their life which means they would have to take control of their life which means they have to take accountability and ownership radical accountability and ownership of their life and it's easier to stay in the victim mode because in the victim mode everything is poor woe is me see i don't have control over this just as my bad luck but that then one you discredit yourself two you self-abandon and three you completely take any power away from yourself that you even remotely have because it's easier i'm just gonna say it it's hard to do the work it's really hard to look at yourself and say your fucking part in things but it's also really hard to kind of undo the conditioning that we have like we live in a world of dating now and i mean it's

widely spoken about the disposability of it how easy it is with online dating to find a new match and kind of like move on from something and i guess like ghosting now is far easier than ghosting back in the day. Well, actually, maybe not. Maybe ghosting back in the day was like, I'm not going to call them on the landline. Just don't answer the phone for a while. Well, no, you don't show up at the pub at 5pm on Friday when you were supposed to. Yeah, it was like a real legitimate ghosting. Whereas now we do things like the soft fade, send a really half-assed text and just like leave people in this purgatory of relationships for such a long time. But do you think that this kind of like ease of dating has increased almost like our ease of everything, our conflict avoidance?

I guess like the best way maybe describing it is like not feel discomfort in relationships so that we just can kind of move on to the next thing so the reality is right now it's like anything the casino always wins right so like dating apps they're they're made it's a double edged sword for everything that we have the internet for all of its positives we have a shit ton of negatives so me personally I met my partner in a dating app so I understand yes absolutely there is a lot of really really shitty and toxic aspects to dating right now but really where I think it goes back is like it's kind of back to that it's easier for me to not have to take accountability and do work and I can just bop to the next bop to the next now

when we actually strip things back because I hear this every time every day of like it was easier to date back in the day and it's like it was different I don't know about easier because here's the reality back in the day we didn't have the influx of information we have to learn about narcissism and avoidance and attachment styles you just had to marry who was in your proximity and timing right? I'm 22, you're 22, let's do this. Okay, we went on a few dates, we can get married. And then we wonder why we are so many generations of divorce, divorce, divorce, not happy, this person's doing this. Now, I would hope that we would have more flexibility to learn about ourselves and to implement this growth, to not have a societal clock on us as women that we

have to get married at 22 and have a child. But with that freedom, the pendulum with all the good comes the bad as well. And I think a lot of people, they do see it as, well, this is just easier. People are commodities. They're disposable to them. I deal with the misogyny every day, the red pill ideology, this like manosphere that's starting to become a thing now of just this entitlement, frankly speaking, going around that like people are, what do I owe you? And it's like what you owe somebody is your common fucking decency. And I think we've lost the art of just basic respect when it comes to how we treat other people. And all I can say is if you're out there dating and experiencing this, we can't control other people. I try every day to create content to help. But what we can control is how we show up. And what we can control is our reaction to these emotions and to these situations. so yeah if somebody goes to you feel it mourn it process it but also recognize that that's on them and that is not a representation of you easier said than done sure choose your heart but when it comes to the dating landscape we have to become better buyers we have to be more cognizant and aware there are a plethora of people we have to understand how we're coming off when i met my

partner i understood that he was an attractive guy who probably had a million girls and i had five other guys that i was talking to but i showed up so unapologetically because in my mind i was like what the fuck do I have to lose and by that authenticity and real transparency I allowed someone else to show up like that as well and build a solid foundation it took me I'm 34 I met him at 32 so it took me 18 years of my adult life to meet someone like that but ultimately it took me 18 years of my adult life to meet myself like that and that's the issue is it's a bunch of people running around saying I don't know I just can't find the right person yeah no that's it I just can't find the right person and it's like no you haven't become the right fucking person that's

the problem. I love the way that you speak about this in such a like, okay, because it is easier to sit being the victim, right? It is easier to be like, I keep dating these people. Relationships never work out. Dating is so hard. Woe is me. But it is, it's very cutting. And let me tell you, if I was where I was six years ago, having this conversation with you right now, I would find the truths very hard to digest because when you're in the thick of a very bad relationship where that person has done wrong by you and you are a victim by what's going on in your circumstances it's so hard to hear someone else tell you well actually you kind of brought this point yourself a little bit but now with like the beauty of hindsight looking back on those moments I'm like holy

shit I am the problem and I am the common denominator for people who are and maybe they're having this moment of realizing that they've got some sort of repetition within their relationship. So there might be some sort of like patterns. How do people really identify what those patterns look like and go, okay, no, no, I really do have this sort of like blueprint that I'm following, even though it's a different guy or a different person. It's the same type of relationship. How do we recognize that? Oh, good old fashioned paper and a pen. That's what I did was like journaling activates a different part of your brain. So if we can start to literally write out like, okay, what are the experiences I've had in dating? So for me, prior to all of this,

I was meeting a bunch of people who only wanted to sleep with me. I wasn't being taken seriously. These guys weren't ready for commitment. I kept going. Okay, what was their commonalities? Well, they were all, I was going after super successful guys. I was going after the 6'4 tattooed guys. Okay, so off the bat, I'm going, they're all emotionally unavailable.

They all have the same patterns. And what's my common denominator? Well, what do I keep allowing? And that's a good place to start. What do I keep allowing? I keep allowing this person to tell me one thing, but then do another. I keep allowing this person to disrespect my boundaries. What are my non-negotiables?

Are my relationships matching my non-negotiables? It's really about zooming out and being able to collectively look. And this is where self-awareness comes in because somebody could zoom out and say, I don't know, choosing these people, I just keep meeting them. And it's like, right, how are you showing up? None of this is about shame or blame. It's about taking ownership of your life. And I would never blame anybody for the situations that they're in.

But what I will say is I will hold you accountable for your part in this so that you can grow and heal and move forward. That's the only way. So starting to understand, look at the commonalities, look at the last five people that you've dated and tell me what they all share and then start to see the common words that you start to see. It is so true. It's how many times you say, oh, he keeps doing this to me.

He's treating me like this. It's more like, well, you are actually letting him. The fact that you're still there, you're allowing him to go and do that behavior, whatever it is, and coming back, you've set those boundaries, whether your boundaries have changed and lapsed or are a bit bendy, like maybe they're a bit malleable, a bit too malleable, because you don't want to lose that person. At the end of the day, it is up to you as an individual to say what you are and aren't okay with. But I want to go back to sort of talking about when we meet someone. It might be wrong, but I sort of love the idea of limerence and that feeling of like,

when you initially meet someone, the deep fascination, the obsession, that incredible desire that takes over how do you differentiate between the feeling of limerence being negative or love bombing or can it turn into a beautiful positive relationship because I feel like when I look back to when I met my fiance I think I was in that state like we think we both were but it worked out really well but I think a lot of people get confused with this toxicity and love bombing totally and I think there's an aspect it's like it's like looking at alcohol right it's not a bad if you have one drink it's bad if you have the if you have three bottles right so it's like I think we have to also understand ourselves. If you go into something and your thought process and you

have a mindset of, Hey, if this works out, it works out. And if it doesn't, that's okay. Right? Like if you're walking in saying I can handle this, Oh my God, daydream all day. I don't really care where it becomes a problem is when I can't eat. I can't sleep. I'm dysregulated. Why haven't they called me? I'm staring at my phone. What's going on? Where are they? That's when it becomes obsessive and you're ruminating and spiraling. That's when we have to say, this is no longer healthy it's the same with the butterflies and the sparks does it work out if you met your partner and you're like i felt sparks on the first date and we're in a really healthy relationship it's like yeah hindsight's 2020 that sounds like a great about us story but more often than not

the spark has been studied by harvard and by a million plate people to show that it's really just a rush of blood to your extremity so that you could run for safety it's actually i know it's crazy if you're like somebody that says oh it's fine i could feel the spark but if it doesn't work out, that's okay. It's like, then enjoy yourself. But what happens is there are people that don't understand moderation, right? Oh, if I don't feel the spark, I won't give this person an opportunity. And you're like, yeah, but you don't really know this person. You're not giving them a chance. So I think a certain element of excitement and vulnerability and transparency is always, of course, that's dating, right? We want, it's unknown, it's confusing, it's fun,

it's sexy, it's all of these things. But at the end of the day, do you trust yourself that no matter what, you'll be okay? Do you trust yourself that you will make the best decision for yourself no matter what that's what i care about we've spoken a lot about this idea that chemistry can lie because i absolutely do i think people confuse they confuse chemistry with being an identifier of a great relationship and i think often or more sometimes more often than not like really overwhelming chemistry can be an identifier that maybe you'll hang on for dear life when a relationship actually is really shit and should have let go of it because you're like but we have all this chemistry we're supposed to be together do you think that often people fall in love with

or they are clinging on to the potential of a relationship where they see it could be if only we fix this if i give them one more chance if i forgive this one thing the potential of what a relationship could be rather than who the person is and how they're showing up in that relationship 100 i think the pendulum swings between that avoidance and that anxious scale between either i leave too quick or i stay way too long right and it's like we have kind of those polarities between the two and i think at the end of the day i hear it every day i hear i hear a lot what i what really makes what breaks my heart is when anybody writes and it's like a very clear paragraph that this person is treating you like trash like this is someone who is below breadcrumbing and

then i'll see all of this and i but i love him and he's amazing and this person's there and so what i first see is this grave disconnect between reality and fantasy and what i see is okay no you're projecting what you'd like him to be i'd love to know my first thing i'll ask is i'm like name me five things that make him these three qualities that you just listed and more often than not i'll get uh uh well in the beginning it's like that doesn't count no no no i didn't ask you in the beginning how they were who they are today what makes them thoughtful what makes them compassionate what makes them empathetic what makes them feel like that's your the love of your life it's a feeling but i need facts to back that up that their behavior is actually what

we say it is and so i see that kind of either like i said the pendulum will swing either the minute there's a trigger it's i can't handle this i'm leaving or this like people pleasing martyr i'll stay as long as i need because let's be honest we got fucked as children when you think about like backstreet boys and in sync and all of this stuff that they told us i'm like you lied to me we're blaming and think all my problems are in sync but no i so agree with this idea of like the fear of leaving too soon. I think a lot of people who are stayers, and there's obviously many different types of how people show up in relationships, but there are people who are stayers who will stay far longer for the fear of checking out too early, for the fear of,

but it could have gotten better. So I'm going to just stick it out and stay. And I guess like, it's really hard for some people to differentiate, okay, when is it time to leave? And we get this question that comes in across us, we do Ask Uncut. And it's like exactly what you said, this person is ideally the person I want to be with. But when you actually write it all down and you unpack it, you're like, oh, they're actually a terrible person. But I think what you need to think about is like, let's make this really simple. Somebody's potential in a relationship is fiction. It's a story. It's not real. It doesn't exist yet. It's a story you have made up in your head of what it could potentially look like. It's like a finish your own ending on

a storybook. You do have to sit in the moment and be like, well, if they're not showing up now and they haven't shown up in the past i'm spoiler probably not going to show up in the future oh yeah i always like to look at what is not what if right like what are you actually dealing with not what if this i hear that all but what if this and what if this it's like here's the thing if it was what if then you wouldn't have the issues i used to say that to my mom all the time i'd be like but what if he did this my mom would say if he did that we wouldn't be having this conversation sabrina and it's just about having that reality of like oh shit yeah because then what i also like to look at is a couple of things when we were talking about relationships. One, do you see

progress, right? Do you actually see progress in your relationship? Does this person make me feel seen, heard, and understood? If I go to them and express myself, hey, this really bothered me. Do they say, hey, thank you for letting me know. Can we talk about this? Or do they dismiss me, discredit me, bring me down? What's happening in my body? How do I feel in my physical body when I'm with this person? Am I always feeling dysregulated? Do I feel like I never know if they're going to leave me, right? We see, especially with like that limerence and attachment, the grave difference between when you're with them and when you're not when you're with them oh my god everything's amazing and then when they're not it's like the end of the world it's

defcon one and then kind of the last thing that we look at here is do you have conflict but more importantly do you have repair right because conflict is normal right like brit you know you're engaged you're gonna have issues with your partner you're gonna have times where you're like i'm gonna fucking kill you but what's the repair like that is how we start to see that's intimacy it's sexy so fucking hot oh my god it's like you pissed me off i pissed you off i'm so sorry thank you for listening to me now we rectify because then but like you know kind of laura what you were saying is like when you have those relationships where you're like oh we get break up get back together break up get back together it's like we consistently have conflict

but we don't have repair because you don't actually feel safe and i would beg to ask anybody if they're thinking about their relationship i ask myself this question how old do i feel right so if i'm with this person i'm like god i always feel like i'm a fucking child i always feel like i'm seven around this person it's like great what happened then oh that's how my dad was he would be really discrediting of me it's like great so then you are just going back into your amygdala brain and you're acting like a child now and you're coming from that space as opposed to understanding that you're an adult you're no longer having to choose just your parents or nothing you're not dating mom or dad you get to

now choose from a plethora of people and if this doesn't work you're not going to be abandoned this is fear of being alone and that's why a lot of people monkey branch to relationships they stay in a relationship they don't want because they don't want to be alone maybe that's subconsciously or maybe it's conscious what do you think is the best advice for someone that knows they're in that space they know they don't know how to be in their own company oh start to ask yourself the questions what am i so scared of what am i afraid of happening if i spend time alone what am i afraid happening if i if i leave this relationship what am i afraid of happening if i don't meet somebody else, right? Then we can start to understand, oh, I'm scared no one is ever going to choose me.

Okay, so your core belief is that you're not good enough to be chosen, right? Okay, so that's where we're operating from. Now, is this person adding to or exacerbating that, right? Are they helping you to heal through this or are they adding to your bullshit and to your narrative? And we kind of really have to look at, are you healing through this or are you hurting yourself more? Because again, when we see that of, you know, oftentimes of like, oh, I love them so much I can't leave, what I usually ask is, I'm like, where'd you learn that behavior from? Did you see your mother martyr herself and never set a boundary because everything was about the love of your family? Did you learn at a young age that if you set a boundary with someone or expressed a need,

that that would potentially mean you lost your caregiver or they would leave or walk out or dismiss you? Whatever the case might be, what we really want to look at is what's happening in my body? What are the sensations? What does this remind me of? Because far too often, especially if it's the, I love them, I just don't know, and all that, when there's that uncertainty, what we're doing is if we focus on them, it's easier for us to focus on them than it is to focus on ourselves. If I can focus on why they didn't choose me, I don't have to look at what about me feels that I need this person to choose me. Speaking of feelings though, I mean, I think that that's what so many people make their relationship decisions around, right? It's how

I feel about this person. It's how I feel about the relationship. It's not about the facts of the relationship. How do you marry that? And I guess like how much of it might be hard to kind of put this in a percentage, but like how many of our relationship decisions should be based on the way we feel about our relationship like intuitively feel versus the facts of what is happening within the relationship because it kind of still has to be a bit of both totally and that that would be contingent upon a person that trusts their intuition because oftentimes i get but that's how i feel like i'll give you an example one of my clients was on this trip with this guy and he made a comment and like when i heard the comment it it didn't impact me i was just like okay it

triggered her she completely shut down and she was just messaging me i'm fucking done i'm done i I don't want to feel this way. And I had to stop her and I said, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like what is happening here? The pinch doesn't match the ouch. This person made one comment and you are ready to walk out. So then what we have to look at is like, that's not your intuition. You know, that's, that's your anxiety. That's not intuition. That's trying to protect you. Oh, I'm so hurt. Fuck this person. So then we have to look and go, okay, you're running away. You're not actually facing it versus if I face it head on and go, oh shit, that person actually didn't say anything inappropriate. That really just triggered me and felt like a six-year-old. You know what? I need

to communicate with this person and have a conversation so i can show up and talk to them so one we need to be able to understand our own intuition then if i say something then my next question is okay if i have this feeling what are the facts to back that feeling up so it's a dbt practice is challenge your thoughts right give me the facts if i'm a judge and i am the jury i'm going to give you a million dollars but you got to prove this so if i prove he didn't text me today because he doesn't like me okay where are the facts to back that up i don't have any that's not your intuition. That is your anxiety versus I, he told me he was going to call me at six o'clock and it's been three days since I heard him. Those are the facts to back up that there

is a shift in by dynamic. And this person hasn't contacted me that way. We can then start to blend the worlds between is my intuition guiding me? Because typically what comes with intuition is it's a positive thought process because it's trying to help and serve you. So for instance, Hey, I deserve better than this. That felt disrespectful versus anxiety comes with a body sensation. So your body starts to manifest, you sweat, you start to, your neck, your neck starts to crumble, you get a stomach ache, your heart starts to race. And typically speaking, an anxiety thought is a negative thought. What am I not good enough? Am I not worthy? It's an attack against yourself. So that right there is where we can stop and go, wait a minute, am I attacking

myself? Then this isn't my intuition. This is more of my anxiety trying to protect me from something. And then we can start to understand what are the facts of the relationship? Because at the end of the day. I could feel all of the feelings about my partner, but if I don't have facts to back up these feelings, then I'm fucking delusional is what I am. Break the cycle of seeking validation from relationships. Like that is where you are getting your self-worth from. And we're speaking about self-awareness a lot, but for a lot of people, it's this like sense of worthiness that they're getting from their relationships. How do we acknowledge that, recognize it and move focus from something that is like more meaningful to get our own self-validation from?

So when it comes from, I mean, listen, I was the poster child for seeking external validation and it was the when this, then this, right? Oh, when I lose 20 pounds, then I'm going to be happy. When I get the partner, then I'll be good. And what you start to realize, it's like, it's an endless pit of needs because nobody is ever going to be able to satisfy that. Now, the seeking of external validation, really, where does it, how do you actually stop it? Welcome to doing the work, right? We have to start to understand what part of me, like I'm big on, it's called parts work. if anyone's familiar with internal family systems and it's like a type of therapy and so we look at we have a million parts of us and so what part of me is seeking that external validation the little girl in me I feel like I'm 17 again man she's this emo teenager and you're like fuck okay at that time I really felt really dismissed by a lot of people I didn't feel like I belonged anywhere and then it's like okay well how can I like what is that little version of me need right now she needs me to validate her and let her know like I accept you and I love you as you are and I choose you. And then by doing that, that's how you build that confidence of like, yes, I can validate my

own emotions. I do actually need that. But when you're so caught up in external, external, you're not actually internally validating shit. You're just waiting for other people to let you know it's okay for you to live your life. You speak a lot about doing the inner work before you get into a relationship and maybe that being like a foundation of having a healthy relationship. For someone that's stuck right now, literally what does doing the inner work look like? oh if you're stuck right now what it means is a micro yes and so my friend brit frank she's a brilliant neuropsychotherapist and her book is called the science of stuck and her whole thing is like when you're stuck because typically that's torn between like i'm scared to make a move i

don't trust myself i don't know what to do nothing feels like it's working right we get into this like loop loop loop the best way is to one understand that it's not going to happen overnight it's going to take you a minute for these processes and these steps to take place so off the bat it's like a breakup. You got to know it's going to fucking suck. Right. But then the second part of here is make micro yeses so insultingly small that you almost feel like I, you want to hit me because they're so ridiculous. And so if that means that you're like, I don't do shit, I don't have many mindfulness. Okay. Well, I wouldn't expect you to go from nothing to meditating for 30 minutes. So if you feel stuck, it's like, okay, envision the version of you that you want to be.

She's all of these amazing things for today. What's in my control that I could do one thing to get to that point. So if the future me is super communicative and the now me is super emotionally and available, then maybe what I would look at here is like, I'd like to get curious about where did I learn this from? Okay. So I'm going to journal on it. That's it for today. And then tomorrow I put the journal on my table. And then the next day I put the pen next to it. And then the next day I write a sentence, make it small because what you're doing is you're allowing your nervous system to become comfortable with this, but you're also showing yourself when I make a, when I say I'm going to do something, I show up and I do it because it's like new year's

resolutions. When we go from zero to 100 and all of a sudden you're like, oh, fuck, I couldn't maintain that. But we have to make them so small that if you know my goal is this, I know it's going to take me a minute. But for today, what can I do? I could go on a walk for two minutes. I'll do that. We have to start somewhere. Rome wasn't built in a day. How should a healthy relationship feel? And for someone who has been attracted to that toxicity and that sort of like rollercoaster high, will it be boring? Is that the expectation that should be had? Comparatively, of course it will be because that's your nervous system.

So what these people are saying is when I want the high highs and low lows, it's like, so you like dysregulation. You like always knowing when am I going to be safe? When am I going to have it next, right? When's the tiger going to come back into my room and kill me this time? So your body is used to that. I was so used to that because I grew up in that household. I grew up in that environment where you never knew what safety meant.

You never knew who was going to hit you or you leave or yell or whatever. So for me, that was normal. The nice guy, you know, we also have to remember too, not only is it your nervous system, it's also your core beliefs. Because if the nice guy comes to you, not only do I have to say, wait a minute, you actually like me. So you accept me from who I am. You think I'm amazing because then that goes against my core beliefs of, so I'm, there's

nothing wrong with me. I am worthy and deserving of love. No, no thanks. And so oftentimes we'll push that away. Like when I met my partner, yeah, I was bored because I was like, he's super predictable. He would call me every other day or he'd send, make a plan, but it wasn't bored in a negative way. It felt for the first time, I felt calm.

I felt safe. I didn't have to question where I was going because when you're so used to the toxicity, when you really start to do the work and you heal those parts of you that enjoy dysregulation, then all of a sudden you want nothing more than calm and peace because it feels like such a big dichotomy so it's okay if you're still out there saying but i want the spark and i want the high highs and low lows all i would have to say is start doing some nervous system work understand your nervous system befriend it understand how you feel when you're with these people how do you feel when you're not what happens the narrative what are the core beliefs

that you're reaffirming by dating these people because then we can start to say this is what i want this is what i deserve but you actually have to fucking believe that this is what you deserve and my mama has been saying that to me for years be careful what you wish for because when you get it? What are you going to do with it? Sabrina, a really common question we get here at Life Uncut is the age old question. How do you know when you should leave a relationship? How do you know when it's run its course and it is no longer worthy of your time and worthy of your energy to continue? So the age old question, when should you leave a relationship? And I think what it really comes down to is when you no longer feel that you're growing personally and as a couple, right? So

if you start to look and say, I don't feel seen, heard and understood. I don't feel like my partner validates me. They're not willing to put the work in. Julie Menino is one of my favorite marriage family therapists. And she and I were talking about this and she said, the one thing that you need to look for in a partner is someone that is willing to grow with you and is willing to put the work in no matter what. Because if you have a partner that says, no matter what, we'll get through this, both people invested in that, you can actually make this work. But when one person is checked out or when you start to see, wait a minute, I'm not being validated. I'm not being heard. My needs aren't being met. That is the clearest indication of, fine, maybe have a

conversation. But if you don't see progress, then we have to call it a day. Again, conflict and repair. Are we building? Are we progressing? Are we growing? Are we co-creating a life together? Or have I completely gone on my own journey and just not grown with this person and grown outside of them? It's something that, it's a hard decision, right? And it's one of those things too, that when we look and say, okay, if I were to look, and also I would ask, if this was your friend's relationship? Would you be telling them to stay with this and fight no matter what? Or would you be telling them, yo, dude, when the fuck are you going to realize that this person's not healthy for you? Because is this what you want and deserve? Is this what you need? But also,

do you feel fulfilled? Sabrina, thank you so much for coming and being a part of the pod. I appreciate the hard truth so much. And like I said earlier, I think when you are in it, it is very hard to digest the realities of the way that you may be showing up in a relationship. Like it takes time. And for anyone who's listening to this, who's like, Oh, maybe I am the problem. But I didn't want to fucking hear that. Give yourself grace that that takes time, have compassion for yourself, have grace for yourself. This is a journey, it is never going to be that's why listen, we choose our heart, right? Every day waking up and going through the world is really fucking tough. But we choose where we put that energy. And there's nothing different here for

anybody wherever you're at on your journey. These are just some roadmaps and some tools to be able to interject into your life. But at the end of the day, coming home to yourself is the most beautiful exploration you'll ever do. And I could not encourage everybody more than to do that. Whether it's because you're going to meet a partner or not, it doesn't really matter. You are the longest relationship you'll ever have. So thank you guys for allowing me and having me on. And thanks for letting me share some random wisdom, if you will. You're a legend. Thank you so much. Thanks, Brina. We'll be right back.