The Sabrina Zohar Show - 122: Are You Attached or Actually Connected? How To Avoid the Dating Trap You Don’t See Coming

Episode Date: February 7, 2025

Ever found yourself obsessing over someone who’s hot and cold, questioning every text, and feeling anxious when they pull away? That’s not connection—it’s attachment. In this episode Sabrina breaks down the key differences between attachment and genuine connection in dating. You’ll learn why attachment is rooted in fear and the need for validation, while real connection thrives on authenticity and emotional safety. Discover how inconsistent communication triggers dopamine-driven obsession, and why the people who leave you spiraling aren’t the ones you’re truly connected to. Sabrina shares actionable strategies to shift from anxious attachment to grounded self-trust. Instead of overanalyzing or chasing closure, you’ll learn how to self-soothe, focus on your own needs, and build connections based on consistency—not intensity. Press play to reclaim your peace, recognize the red flags of attachment, and start dating from a place of self-worth. This episode is your guide to breaking free from the cycle of obsession and finding real, lasting connection. Stuck After the Podcast? Master Implementation in 8 Weeks with Sabrina's Foundation Course HERE! Do you feel like your emotions run the show and react in ways you can’t control? Join the Nervous System 101: Navigating the Unknowns In Early Dating from Sabrina and Masha Kay HERE! Struggling with a breakup? Join the Make It Make Sense: Getting Through a Breakup course from Sabrina and Britt Frank HERE! Get Ad free HERE! Want to work with Sabrina? HERE! Don't forget to follow Sabrina and The Sabrina Zohar Show on Instagram and Sabrina on TikTok! Video now available on YOUTUBE! Disclaimer: The Sabrina Zohar Show, formally known as Do The Work, is not affiliated with A.Z & associates LLC in any capacity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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That's gofundme.com. Gofundme.com. Hello, hello. Hello, welcome to another episode of the Sabrina Zohar show. My name is Sabrina Zohar and I am your host. Happy Fed, babes. Oh, is it me or is time just going a lot quicker than I'd like it to? And the years start coming and they don't stop coming in the fucking great words of smash mouth. I'm so stoked to be here with you guys. Today, we have a really, really interesting topic and one that I'm really passionate about. And that is, how do I stop attaching and how do I start connecting? Right. Like, how do I stop just attaching to anybody that I date? And I hear this every fucking.

day. Like I attach to people after one day. I'm my anxious attachment or I'm super avoidant, whatever the fuck it is. We're going to talk about it today. I'm going to give you a lot of tools and some stuff that you guys can utilize. And listen through the whole episode. You'll get stuff throughout the entirety of it. I have audience questions. I got your back, babies. And today, we're going to have a really good conversation. So I'm super excited. Guys, as always, please don't forget to rate and review the show. I get it. If you guys don't like the ads, no worries. You can get ad free. You can subscribe for four bucks a month and you get all episodes ad free. not please support our sponsors and they are the reason that we can keep the show going and I'm

beyond grateful for all of them. So thank you guys for consistently showing up. Thank you for being part of this family and thank you for showing up as yourself and allowing me to show up as myself. You guys know if you need anything, as you guys know, I'm not taking any more clients for right now, which is really crazy to say just because I've been the book writing process. We have a while to go until that's out. But if you guys need anything, there are the courses. Everything you guys need is in the show note to join the foundation course, the breakup course, the nervous system course. and we have some new ones coming out this year on self-love and just some other nervous system things. So I'm super fucking excited.

So babies, without further ado, let's get right on into it, shall we? All right. Hi, friends. I love our solo time. I get to just talk to myself for 45 minutes. It's great. We'll see how long we go for today. But I just, I wanted to talk about a sticky subject, right?

And it was so interesting. I did the question box on Insta. If any of you guys don't follow, feel free, follow along on the Sabrina Zohar Show on Instagram. I do question boxes for every episode because I want to make sure that like when I create an episode that I'm keeping you guys in mind and really ensuring that this is material that's going to fucking help you. And I'm always looking for different studies, things that we could go deeper in. So it's not just like, anxious avoid it every fucking time. Because after a while, you're like, let's level up and progress. And the reason I really wanted to talk about this is because one, I think a lot of people were really confused when I had even asked.

They're like, I don't understand. What do you mean? Connect instead of attach. Like, huh? And it's like, that's valid, right? Who the fuck taught us any of this? Whoever clarified that like we want to connect with people. Think about it.

Attachment is really rooted in like fear, safety, right? I need you. I need you. Whereas to me, I see connection as I want you, right? Two completely different experiences. And attachment is from a need of safety. It's not that anybody's doing anything right or wrong. It's not me poo-pooing anything.

But it's more about how can we show up differently so that we can start to have really beautiful connections and stop having these attachments to people. I'm saying that in this term. Of course, you talk to some other people in the school of Sought and they'll say, well, everybody attaches. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about in the dating process and the relationship process where we attach to them and then we end up dating narcissists or get codependent or date somebody that's not really healthy for us because we're so eager and desperate for safety. We're not actually looking at the people for who they are and we're not really genuinely connecting with who they are. We're just hoping that they're going to choose us and create the safety in our lives. And maybe that really starts internally. So I'm super fucking stoked. And so there was a study done. We're going to just dive right on end because there was a study done by Dr. Bruce Perry. And his research was on stress responses. And he did the study and found that people with early relational trauma develop hypervigilance

as a survival coping mechanism. So what does that look like, right? That is like over-analyzing the text, clinging to the relationship, losing sleep, imagining these different outcomes, right? When we think about that hypervigilance and like for anybody who is new here, welcome, I'll explain the terms. And if you know it and you're like, bitch, I know this. It's like, great.

Buckle up. Let's go on it again. But hypervigilus is when you're constantly scanning for safety. Right? And it's like, think about, well, you know, my partner didn't put a period at the end of. They didn't put a smiley face. And they always put a smiley face. Oh, my God, are they mad at me?

There must be something that I did because we perceive that, right? It's a trigger to our nervous system like, oh, my God, you're not safe. There's something up. And that hypervigilance, as a child, it did keep me safe. It allowed me to look and go, oh, my God, my dad's browser, fuck. He's in a bad mood or a shit. and like just sit in the corner. But as an adult, I don't want to have to read my partner's facial expressions to know what they're going through. I don't want to have to read their mind. I don't want to have

to be so worried and scared at all times that I need to be cognizant of what my partner is experiencing if they don't communicate that with me. Then I'm just walking on eggshells and like this isn't an experience that I personally want to live in my adult life, right? I want to connect with my partner. I want to feel a connection. And we've had it where times where I'll tell my partner, I don't feel connected to you right now. And it's like either we haven't had intimacy in a minute or we haven't communicated or we spent the whole day not talking or he'll tell me and he's like, I don't know, I haven't felt that connection. That doesn't mean that we're not connected as a relationship. It just meant in that moment we need to reconnect with each other and find time together to get back to why

we fell in love with each other. That's why it's so important to always consistently date your partner. And so for everyone that's listening of like, well, I'm in a relationship. This doesn't apply to me. It's like, oh, but it does. It does. Whether you're single, whether you're dating, whether you're with somebody right now, don't ever lose sight of the fact that you always want to consistently connect with the person that you're with and you want to continue dating them. And that's why Ryan and I go to like these ridiculous day nights of like fucking go-karting or we'll always try a new restaurant because it really is an opportunity for us to come back together. Because otherwise, if I'm just attached to him, I'm just always wondering when he's

going to leave me and what's going to happen as opposed to, no, we are really building something beautiful together. Let's go in already. We had an audience question. How do I stop obsessing over someone who isn't showing? up for me. Well, do you want to know what that actually means? So we only obsess over people that don't make us feel safe. And why is that? That's because when you're having an obsession, your brain is craving the dopamine that their attention gives you. And so let's think about it. Your cortisol spikes.

You go through a high stress period. I don't know what's going on with them. They're inconsistent. Are they going to choose me? Are they not? Where are they going to show up? Where do that da, we go into this narrative. So if we actually start to look, would you be obsessed over somebody who was really safe and secure? Who was consistent and reliable? Who was communicative with you? No, right? Why would you obsess over this person? They are incredibly healthy and they're showing up for you. Healthy equals boring. And that is the Valentine's Day episode, My Babies. So it's coming out next week. We'll go more into that. But what we really want to look at here is like, if I'm chasing them or if I'm constantly seeking that high, here's a couple of questions that you can ask. What need am I trying to fill? It's a really,

really beautiful question and how can I meet that myself? Something you guys know I'm so obsessed with Britt Frank. She is my brilliant neuropsychotherapist, like one of my best trends. And go order her pre-order her book, by the way. Her new book, Align is phenomenal. And she really goes into inner child, the parts work, all of that stuff. And same with her book, The Science of Stock. It's like she's just one of the most brilliant authors I've ever seen. And I'm linking her book in the show notes because it's a must read. And we were talking the other day and she was explaining, I said something about that I was going through and I was getting really anxious about like the book process and feeling insecure within myself because I'm a fucking human. And she stopped me and she goes, who has the mic?

And I was like, what do you mean who has the mic? And she's like, what part of you? How old do you feel? Who has the mic? And that's what I want you to try to look at here. Right? If we're saying, but why, but why? And when we start to get into this, why, why, why, why aren't they choosing me? Why aren't they showing up for me? As Britt always says, why questions are actually keeping you more in a stuck loop because your brain is trying to intellectualize. We can actually reframe why to I don't like or this makes me uncomfortable. I don't like that this person's not consistent. Okay, what don't I like about that? Well, them not being consistent means I'm not a priority. Okay, so I don't like that I'm not a priority. No, how old do I feel? Who has the mic right now? Oh, if I don't have an exact age, that's okay, God, but maybe she sounds like a teenager,

right? Or a child. And we'll get more into this a little bit later. But okay, well, how can I support that child, right? What are the needs that I can meet myself? And maybe it's, I should need a cup of water. I need some food. I'm a human and I haven't been outside all day. A lot of the tools and the things that you guys need are actually really simple. It's just that we don't sit and actually utilize them because I've gotten this. Like if I work with someone one on one and we do this, they feel so much better after. But when they're doing it themselves, they're like, they're just constantly going back and I think and I think in the loop and it's like, no, no, no, tell that part of you. We'll get to it. Thank you. The thinking part of you, we'll get to it.

But who is that real inner voice that needs you right now? And what do they need from you? Do they need you to choose them? Do they need you to stead a boundary and say, this doesn't work for me? No, thank you. It's okay. Whatever they need from you, how can you supply that to yourself? Because when we can figure out how to, of course, there's needs other people can supply,

but when we can learn how to satisfy self-sooth and sit in that discomfort, especially when someone's inconsistent and they're not showing up for you, that right there is that attachment. I'm attached to this person. I need them to provide safety when it's. It's like, so you're not connecting with them. Because if you were connecting with them, would this person be super inconsistent if it was a really beautiful connection? I would fucking hope not.

So it's just starting to understand really what's under the hood here. Here we're not going to go now kind of into the science of the overattachment. So the big question I have of this kind of section is, why does it feel so impossible to let go of someone even when I know that they're wrong for me? You guys are so fucking normal and human, right? And so Helen Fisher, she has the neuroscience of love, and she did a study, and it was romantic obsessions, activate the brain's ventral tegmental area, the VTA, that releases the dopamine reward, right? So when someone pulls away, your brain experiences a withdrawal effect similar to addiction.

That's why we always bring it back, right, when Nicole Neuroscience, Nicole Vonnegola was on the podcast, when Britt has been on the podcast, we've always revolved it around. This is an addiction. The love addict, their biggest fear, isn't actually a... abandonment, it's intimacy. That's why they're so addicted to the chase of going towards people that won't satisfy that because it's too intimate if they do. And the love avoidance biggest fear isn't anything rejection, all that. It's actually abandonment. And that's why they remove themselves because it's just safer than risking that this person could leave them. So think about it.

If you're somebody, and that's okay, right, there's no shame or judgment. But if you're somebody that you're like, oh, fuck, I like obsess over people. I attach to them instantly. It's like, okay, so then this is just a, it's a dopamine addiction loop, right? Again, cortisol starts to spike when you get stressed out of like, when are they going to know what's happening? And then the dopamine and all of your other neurotransmitters get depleted. So knowing that it activates a specific part of the brain will allow you to understand. Wait a minute. This is just my brain braining.

This is just my brain doing its fucking thing. I'm okay and I'm a human. Dr. Siegel always says, name it to tame it, right? Can I name the emotion? Can I say, yikes, I'm feeling really anxious right now. Okay, right. I turn my prefrontal cortex on. So if we can start to get into a way of like this person's pulling away, I think I'm on an addiction looper.

Wow, I feel like I'm getting caught up on them. All of these, I need them. And it's like, do I need them or do I need to show up for myself? Because them choosing me is less important if I don't choose me. So then we have Mary Anzworth's attachment theory. So anxiously attached into Vig, overfocus on a connection because distance feels threatening. And so they overfocus on this, I need, I need, I need. need because distance feels like you're going to leave me. And we have to remember who's leaving you,

right? This person that you met on the internet, this schmo that you have no fucking clue even their last name or what they're allergic to. I get it. It can activate the same parts of the brain. And so what we're trying to do here is we're trying to work with our nervous system and our brain. Your brain is not designed to help you grow. It's trying to keep you safe. But it's on your side. Just that we need to allow it to process things correctly. We need to let the right parts come out so that we feel a little bit clearer and more confident to handle things. And again, who has the mic? Who has the mic when you start to obsess over somebody? And it's like, does that sound like the capable adult that's sitting here working their job, paying their mortgage, having friends and family, driving their car? Or does it sound like a six-year-old,

a temper tantrum, a toddler? There's nothing wrong with you. It's so fucking human. But we're not going to actually heal through and get any better if we don't understand what's actually coming up for us. So someone asked, why do I cling to someone even when I know they're clearly not a good fit. Well, because your brain is tying their presence to safety and worthiness. And so it's like, the reality is though, who is the source of safety? You are. You are the only person. It starts and stops with you. My mama always said, you come into this world with you, you leave it this world with you. I am going to be the longest relationship I ever have. So I need to show up for myself. And I think it was Flidd-skin warm when he was on the podcast. And he was like, when you put someone on a pedestal,

you're letting your nervous system know, I'm only safe if I have them. So when we attached them, it's their safety, similar to our caregivers. We attach to our parents because that is safety. That's all we fucking know. But our brain isn't designed to help you grow. So it's staying in those places of, well, this is what I've always done. So now we get to create new neural pathways. Our brain is absolutely plastic.

And our brain can absolutely change. But it's a matter of what are we doing with that? How are we actually like now we're going to get into some tools and we're going to start to really talk about shifting from attachment to connection. And again, attachment. I need connection. I want. I want you in my life, but I don't need you in my life. And that is even conversations Ryan and I've had, not in a negative way, but I've broken it down to him saying, if we broke up, I'd be really sad. I'd be devastated because I think you're an amazing person. But if we broke up,

there would be a reason we broke up. And if we broke up, I wouldn't sit up like, you're the love of my life. You're the one that got away. It's like, no. Again, I don't need you in my life because my life will go on. It has to go on. I'm not going to stay stuck on somebody for years, but I do want you there. And so even just starting to get curious about, like, is this a want or a need? Might not be something you want to go in, but here we are. Here's a tool. It's called the safety audit.

So what is it? It's a way to differentiate real emotional needs from survival patterns. So how do you use it? One, I want you to ask yourself, what am I feeling right now? I'm feeling really anxious. I'm feeling overwhelmed. I'm feeling really sad. I'm feeling, insert blank here.

when else have I felt this before? It's another way of I say it was like, you know, how old do I feel? Right. And so if I'm saying, what am I feeling right now? I'm feeling really anxious. Okay, where is it in my body? God, it's like in my chest. I feel like there's this like gutted, just hit right now. Okay, can I describe it more? For me, I always had the black spiky ball. But now it's become this like weight. And it feels like it's anchoring in the middle of my chest. Can I look at that anchor? Is it metal? Is it right? I'm making it a real thing because you have anxiety. Anxiety. So it's just another. emotion and bodily feeling in my body, right? And so if I ask, when have I felt this before, how old do I feel right now? When have I felt this before? Once the first time I remember, oh, God, this is how I feel around my dad. Okay. Interesting, right? Data points, or this is how I felt when I was in middle school and I got bullied? This is how I felt when I was in college and this person broke my heart? Okay. Is this person, now the next question, is this person really unsafe or is my brain responding

to past wounds? And maybe it's a mutual, maybe it's a mutual response, right? They're not mutually exclusive. Maybe they are unsafe and my brain is responding to old patterns. Maybe they are safe and my brain is responding to old patterns, right? We can look, maybe they are, maybe they're not safe and my brain's not right. My brain's being normal and is just like helping me kind of like along. And when I say normal, I don't mean that there's anything wrong with anyone. I mean like thought patterns in our adult life. So really just starting to ask yourself like, audit this. Oh, yeah, actually, I don't actually think it has anything to do with them because I've gone on one date with this person. So how could it be about them? And when we also see, right, y'all need to remember,

if every time something happens when you're dating, it always revolves around your core belief. See, I knew I wasn't good enough. They were always going to find someone else. See, I knew they weren't going to choose me. I knew I was too much. I knew I fucked up. I knew I spoke too much on the date. When we start to go into that, that's anxiety. Anxiety is trying to reaffirm your core belief. And so it becomes about us versus when somebody's unsafe, you'd be like, wow, that person, yeah, No thanks. I don't appreciate the way that they spoke to me. Notice how that didn't have anything to do with my worth or my value. Or I really liked this person. They didn't reciprocate that. It might suck and feel shitty and it might hit a core belief, but that doesn't necessarily mean that that

core belief has to be factual information. Feelings are completely valid, all of them. But that doesn't mean that it's actually the situation at hand and what's actually playing out. So someone said, how do I stop spiraling when someone doesn't text me back? Well, of course, we have the nervous system course with me and Masha. And that is an entire course. you way more tools and meditations and questions to ask, yada, yada. So if you guys need that, as you know, it's all the link in show notes and you can join that at any time. But you can use the 333 grounding technique. That's even, right, it's about regulate your nervous system. Do something to bring yourself back to the present moment. And again, what is regulating mean? It just means you

have agency and choice. It doesn't mean that all of a sudden the feelings go away and you're like, ah, I feel great. I'm totally fine now. It's like, no, you might still be bummed out and sad that this person didn't reach out or this person didn't text you. But I want you to name three things that you can see, right? Just off the bat of like, I can see my pink chair in my room. I can see my camera. I can see my plant. Oh, I love that plant. It's so pretty. Right. You bring yourself back into the present moment. Then three things either you could hear, maybe that you could touch, right? Ooh, this is velvet. Oh, that's a fun texture. Oh, that's my jute rug. I love it. It brings you back into the present moment. And then can you take three deep breaths and remind yourself, I am safe in this moment

because I am okay without their validation. Then we can start to do the deeper work, right? of like, what is this representing to me? What's coming up for me? Right? Like, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, it's even the same thing. Like, I'll get a troll comment. That's just really fucking hurtful.

Like, people will, I had somebody yesterday be like, you are avoiding with capital A. And just ripping me a new one. And I was like, you sound like a fucking idiot. I'm sorry. You sound really silly when you attack people on the internet without knowing them. I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm the avoid.

Sure. Whatever you want to believe. I'm not here to change your mind. I don't have to defend myself. You could believe whatever you want about me. But that didn't mean I didn't get disregulated. You know what I mean? was so disregulated. I was like, oh, God, I feel like, oh my God. And I just started to, I first

grounded myself and I was like, Sabrina, you're in the house. This person's not your parent. This person's not taking anything away from you. And then I started, what's my, what was my narrative? I was like, they're not going to take this away from me. Okay, who have I said that to? I think that's going towards dad. And then I started to just explore, like, what does that me need? And what she needed was me to validate her and say, there's nothing wrong with you. You didn't do anything wrong. This person's allowed to have their opinion and that's okay. And it's not my job to try to change their mind, right? Someone else's opinion of you is none of your business, right? I could think all of these things. Think about even looking at reviews, right? You go to a restaurant, like,

we have a restaurant by us. We fucking love this restaurant. And it got such bad reviews. Like, we had one or two stars and we're like, I don't get how. That doesn't mean I'm not still going to go. That just means that for those people, right? They're allowed to do that. But what I get curious about is like, what's coming up for me? And this kind of leads us into Britt, right? So when she was here, she did some, we did some inner child work together, it was some heart's work and it was phenomenal. I just love her so much. And her book is brilliant. Her book is incredible. And so in her new book, Align, she was talking about this new tool that she has. And so we were talking about like, okay, if you come home from a date, right? And you're like,

oh my God, are they the one? Da, da, da, do. Right? And she was like, cool. Picture yourself younger, right? Like, how old do I sound? Doesn't that sound like a teenager who's like, oh my God, I met the one? They're the love of my life. And as an adult, you're like, no, they were it. Right? Like, how often have we had that? Guilty. And so she was like, okay, how, right, I love him. He's perfect. He's amazing. She's everything I've ever thought.

But they, they are incredible, right? Ishi, they. I don't care. Insert what works for you. So I want you to reframe it as the adult self, right? I hear you. But let's maybe take a pause to really see what this is, right? We don't really know this person.

We've had one date with them. Sure, they're great and they sound really good on paper, but I want to see if this person's going to show up for me consistently over time. And that's another thing. People were like, oh, well, they showed up consistently for the first month. It's like, that's not going. consistency then. Consistency doesn't mean that for a week or two this person was the same and then they change. That would be inconsistent. Consistency means that the person you go to bed to is the person

you wake up to. Their words and actions align. So for two, three, four, five, six months and thereon after the person you get is the person you get. And so that's what we really want to look at here is kind of pulling ourselves up and saying, wait, wait, wait, I need to be the adult in the room and come back to say, maybe I don't know him. And it's the same with like a break of like, I'm a mess. Like one of my friends text. me and she was like, I'm such a fucking mess, dude. I'm all this. And I was like, okay, let's talk about it. Right. Did you know this person? No. And then when she started to explain the story, I was like, it makes sense as to why you're anxious from this because that person played a game. And what did we do?

We played into it. Right. There were no boundary settings. There was nothing like, like, like she went to fucking France with him after three weeks. And I remember, I remember when she text me and she was like, oh my God, he's taking me to go and do this whole thing. And I was like, this just seems like love bombing. I was like, this seems really intense. And then after two months, She was like, oh my God, now he told me he's not ready. And now he tells me that he wants to do this. And now he said that maybe he wants to move and maybe he wants to do this. And I told her, I was like, yeah, that doesn't surprise me.

I was like, because you guys were incessant. You were, you text morning, noon, night. You were together all the time. You were doing it. You went to fucking France with this guy after three weeks. Like, that doesn't surprise me because the people that come on really strong are usually the ones that are going to bounce because they're chasing a feeling in it. They enjoy what they're getting.

They are attaching, not connecting. Because a real connection means that you could say, hey, this doesn't work for me. me it's going a little too fast. I need to slow it down. And that person's going to respect you and go, okay, that makes total sense. You're right. Because where are we going? Right? And I get the people, no, no, no, I want to do all this. Well, I want to make sure that I'm not wasting my time. It's like, you're wasting more your fucking time. The more that we go really head on and go 100% is actually how much more time you're wasting. Because then look at and go, I did that with three guys this month or three women this year. I'm not getting that time back. The more you text and do all this,

it's like getting yourself on these dopamine loops and the high highs, low, lows up and down and up and down. It's like the people that argue with me on the internet when I talk about the texting stuff. And it's like, you can believe whatever you want. You want to believe that if a person doesn't text you every day, that shows you what they mean about you. Let me know how your dating life is. Let me know how your relationships are if everything is based off of one action like texting. Because what we want to look at is consistency and patterns, not a one-off that this person, like somebody had even commented them. And they were like, thank God the person I knew and dated was way more understanding than this girl who had done the stitch I made to.

He was like, I had a really bad day. And I had just gotten terrible news. I was really off. And I shut my phone off. And I didn't text her. And he was like, thank God she was an adult and understood that. Because other people, your lived experience isn't everybody else's. Just because you, the one thing Britt even said last night, she goes, I want you to make sure you let everybody know this. And I will second it and third. And I've said this before. If you have this much time to worry about the fact that this person didn't text you and you're checking your phone 24-7, you have to fill your life with more things about you. tell you that at a certainty. Before I did my whole career, when I was just running software and I was just focused on dating and who could, was choosing me. All I had was time because all I was doing was focusing on, who's going to show up, what dates, I didn't. I wasn't filling my life up. I wasn't showing up for me in different ways. That's why when I met Ryan, I was like, I don't really care if this works out or not. I'm pursuing my own goals in career. I was just excited about what I was doing. And so I allowed things to naturally happen. Let's stop focusing

on really low effort shit that's causing an attachment and let's start focusing on how you actually can connect with somebody. Attachment, fear-driven, connection, rooted in curiosity and mutual respect. Don't forget that. Attachment is fear-based. I have to have you. I need you. I need you.

So Brunay Brown's work on vulnerability is really beautiful. And she always says, true connection happens when you show up authentically. Not when you show up for validation. So let's talk about a tool here. It's called the ladder of connection. So it's a framework to assess emotional investments. So on the bottom ring, I want you to put, I need them to feel okay. then the middle ring, I'm curious about who they are, and then the top ring, are we aligned in values,

needs, and goals? And then I want you to start to chip away at which one you actually feel. So I need them to feel okay, right? Is that where that anxiety is coming from? I want to make sure that they're still choosing me. I want to make sure that they still like me. I want to make sure that I'm still the girl or the guy that they want to keep dating. Then we move up. I'm curious about who they are, right? This is where we go into the connection part of like, what do I know about them? What do I actually know. And then we go up. Are we aligned in our values, needs, ethics, morals, goals? Right? That's your value. High value is it. I went out for dinner instead of coffee. That doesn't make you a valuable person. You could still be a fucking asshole just because you do that one. It makes you a high value

woman or man, which by the way, if you think about as a little grim, but if you think about your tombstone when you're dead or your eulogy, no one's going to say they were a high value woman. That's just not a word that anyone's probably going to use. And if they do, I'd probably raise an eyebrow because your morals, your values, your ethos and your value as a person coming from those aspects, not from the money that you have and the flexes that you give when you're on dates. So just don't forget that. So someone said, how do I know if I'm connecting or just attaching? So am I curious about them or am I afraid to lose them?

Are there actions aligned with what I need in a partner? Do I feel fulfilled when I'm with this person? Here's a big trap that comes into, am I connecting or am I attaching. And we look at when I'm with them, oh my God, everything's amazing. I feel so incredible. I'm so da-da-da. Oh, my God, I'm on a high. And then when I'm not, I'm a fucking train wreck, I'm a mess.

I am heart palpitations. I can't sleep. I can't eat. I'm going. What that shows us is you're attaching because the grave discrepancy between when I'm with them and when I'm not really just shows that we're not actually seeing the situation clearly. Because when you connect with somebody, when you're not with them, you still trust the connection that this person's not going to fucking leave you just because you have a day or two that you didn't see or speak to each other. Now we're kind of going and finalizing, right? I want to go into how do we rewrite.

How do we rewire over attaching? So I want you to have a thought-feeling action tracker. So what is it? It's a journal to reframe automatic responses, kind of like that trigger journal that we talked about. So how to use it? One, the thought they're pulling away. Two, the feeling, anxiety.

Three, the action. Pause instead of over-texting. I want you to really get used to this. What's the thought? What's the feeling? What's the action? Because the thought and the feeling, if they're pulling away anxiety, I'll text them more. Okay?

Does that really come? One, how is that going to serve me? Right? Because again, anxious folk, fear, space and distance. And that's why I'm like really tired of this narrative of like, well, the avoidance the bad person, but the anxious person. It's like, no, no, no. Anxiety is not fucking a roadmap to being okay. Like, I've had that. I've done these videos where I'll say, like, if someone hearts a message, please stop trying to reengage them. And I've had people that they'll DM me and like, I'll just heart the message because I'm like, hey, I don't answer DMs. Like, I'm just acknowledging that I got this. Or I'll be like, so proud of you, like, keep it up and I'll heart it. And then they'll be the thank you.

so much and I'll heart that and then all of a sudden I'll get another and another and another and then I'll heart that and I'll get another and another and then I get a voice note and then I get a video and all I keep explaining is I'm like hey hearting the message was my way of saying I can't continue to engage. Do I have to tell every single person that I text every single day? Sorry, about to hop into a meeting right now. It's like I would be setting that out to 100 people. We have to also be okay with everyone's going to work differently. If that doesn't work for you and you're like, I don't want to date someone that just hurts my message and doesn't say that. Okay, you can make that choice. But then I would say, what else are you giving up on? Are we going to look? Okay, think about in two years from now,

two years from now and you're living together. Is it going to still bother you that this person hearted a message? But yet they still show up and they take you on dates and they're super consistent and they're lovely. They just maybe operate differently. So I'm just, I'm giving you guys a different perspective as well as somebody on the other end of it. Who was that girl? Who would text follow? Hello, I made that video of I text someone 173 times because he didn't want to be with me in a row to now being on their side significantly more secure. I can feel the anxiety of like, okay, you want to keep this going, keep it going, keep it going, when it's like sometimes it's okay to just have some distance in space and be like, okay,

it doesn't mean that that person doesn't like me, but maybe they just don't have the man wants to respond right now. And maybe I'll just talk to them later. So when we're doing this, I want you to really look at what is the action that I can interject as a secure person, as opposed to what's the action I can do coming from a fear-based response. So the audience question I got here is how do I stop overthinking everything in dating? Well, because overthinking is just a lack of self-trust. When we overthink and we go and we go and we spiral, it's like, that's not just being thorough. That's your brain because it doesn't trust the decisions that you're going to make.

So we come up with every single thing because we don't actually trust the one that we're going to land on. So I want you to replace overthinking with intentional action, right? What's one small thing I can do for myself right now? So you're spiraling and you're in your mu, duh, and the end of this and then that. And it's like, again, you're a human. This isn't about shame or blame, but I'm calling behavior out. I overthink and I'll stop and I'll say, what's one small thing I can do for myself? I'm like, I'm going for a walk.

I need to get the fuck out of these four walls. Or I'm like, I'm going to call my mama or I'm going to meditate for 10 minutes or I'm going to go stretch. I'll go red light. I'll go do something. I'll go do something for me. I'll take a hot bath. I'll just, like I said, I'll go and maybe even just stretch, move my body.

You're allowed to interject things for yourself. And if you're at work, right? Like I say you're at work and you're like, I'm overthinking. It's like, so then maybe just go outside and do a couple of shakes. maybe just like feel the sunshine on your skin and bring yourself back to the present moment because when we're spiraling and we're noodling and we're here and we're here, all you're telling your brain is I don't trust myself. All you're telling yourself is I don't trust myself. And so again, when it comes to the dating stuff, do you trust yourself that no matter what you'll be okay? Because

that's ultimately what matters. It doesn't matter. I don't know that you're going to make every decision, right? I don't. Every single day, I'll post a video. I don't know if that's the right decision, but I trust myself. I know that I trust what I'm creating and what I'm doing. I wasn't always like that. I gained it. I learned it, it was a muscle that I actually had to work. And so it's more so about here, understanding like you're not too much. You're just giving too much to the wrong people. Detaching is not about pushing someone away. It's about pulling yourself back to the center. Because remember, you can't connect deeply if you're disconnected from yourself. None of this is going to be possible if you're always waiting for someone else to choose you and come back into the room. And so when it

comes to I want to connect with this person. I want to get deeper with them. I want to ask questions of depth. I want to get to know them and see, but I also need to understand that it's going to take time for that. Because if in a month you know everything about somebody, what's left to go? That's also why I hate the texting stuff. It's like you're not leaving distance creates desire. Allow someone to miss you. Allow get excited for the date because you didn't talk to somebody for two days. Have something to talk about versus guys. I remember I have done this where I was text, text, text, text, text, text, chatty fucking Kathy. And then on the day, we had nothing to fucking talk about because it was like, oh, right, yeah, we text about that. So it's just about remembering that

attaching versus connecting means that I'm pacing myself. I'm not coming from a fear-based decision. I can rewire. We've got some tools now to be able to implement to stop, right? It's like when you're on fire, right? Stop, drop and roll. Take a second. Always remind yourself, I'm going to give myself a minute. So here's a challenge I have for you guys. I want you to leave a comment, whether it be on Spotify or YouTube or wherever, right? Even if it's a podcast clip that comes up on Insta. I want you to set one boundary this week and let me know what that boundary is. And that could be, I won't chase someone who doesn't reciprocate. Look at how a boundary is set. It's not about I, they have to do this and no, I will not do that. That's my boundary. I don't chase,

I attract. And it's the same with my content. It's the same with dating. All of these things are very similar. It's a new software. I didn't like go above and be. I'm not going to force somebody to come and be part of this. But if you want to, everybody is welcome, but it is not. my job to keep everybody comfortable here because I can't. I physically can't. I can't make everybody happy. Speak faster, speak slower. Curse, don't curse. Give stories, don't. Talk about this, don't. I can't be responsible for that. And I want you to take that into dating as well. I don't need to be what they want me to be. I need to be who I am. And that way I can allow the right person to connect with me versus me attach and need the wrong people in my life. I love you guys. Thank you for

sitting with me. Thank you for spending some time. And thank you guys, as always, for rating with the video in the show, sharing it with your friends, talking to your therapist about it. I love it. Thank you for even being part of this community. And we're only going to be creating an even bigger one because none of you guys are alone. We're all in this together. And that's why I'm like, whether you're dating in a relationship, it doesn't matter. A lot of this stuff I might talk about is for the early daters, but we're all welcomed here. And we can all utilize this information at some point in our life. So guys, have the best fucking week. And until next time,