The Sabrina Zohar Show - 135: 4 Brutal Truths About Dating & Relationships (That No One Wants to Admit)

Episode Date: April 18, 2025

Think you're ready for a healthy relationship? Think again. In this raw solo episode, Sabrina breaks down the four uncomfortable but necessary truths about dating and relationships that most people avoid. From why you might not actually be ready for the love you say you want, to how your nervous system may be confusing chaos with chemistry, this episode is a call-out and a wake-up. With research-backed insights (yes, we’re talking the salience network and the Dunning-Kruger effect), you'll learn why timing, emotional maturity, and attraction blindness play a bigger role than you think—and why doing “everything right” still won’t guarantee you don’t get hurt. Whether you're stuck in situationships, questioning your dating patterns, or struggling to let go of potential, this one’s for you. Sabrina gives you the science, the tools, and the truth—with zero sugarcoating. Get ready to rewrite the narrative, rewire your brain, and reclaim your standards. MERCH IS NOW AVAILABLE! 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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My name is Sabrina Zohar and I am your host. Hello babies. Welcome back. We're here. We're doing it. We've got another week. And truthfully, y'all, I think we're going to go for more solos moving forward. I've been jiving on them.

I love connecting with you guys. You guys seem to like them more. So I'm fucking excited. And this week, so we had our emotional intelligence series go and you guys really loved it and I'm so fucking excited. But I'm going to try some different types of episodes. It's not always just going to be like, I'm going to teach you all of the psychology, because I think sometimes that can get a little dull. So this week, we're going to talk about four hard truths and dating and relationships that we all need to fucking hear. So I'm really excited.

We're going to get into all of them. And guys, as always, please, please, do not forget, rate and review the show, follow along on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, wherever you're listening. We are trying to get the show back and growing. Please, please. You know, after the name change, I'm essentially starting over on a new show. So please help in any ways that you can. Please remember the language that we speak when we leave comments or, reviews. I'm grateful for all of them and I do read them all. And guys, as always, if you need anything, everything in the Lincoln show notes, you can work one-on-one. I'm taking clients as I write my book, so we're going to do this as we go along because I miss you guys. I miss talking to you guys. It's getting a little lonely staring at my screen. If you guys, there's the courses. The courses all now include free group coaching every single month with Sheila, who is my personal coach. She's really big on IFS and parts work. If you guys need anything, everything is in the Lincoln Show notes. Merch, all that fun shit. And guys, as always, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for showing up as you. And I'll

allowing me to show up as me, a fast-talk and cursing girl from New York who's just here to fucking help and create a community with you guys. That's safe. So without further ado, let's get right on into it, shall we? Hi, babies. Oohie. I love my time with you guys. It's a little daunting at first because I don't get to talk to anybody. But nonetheless, I really enjoy connecting with you guys in a different way. And, you know, I might not be able to answer all the DMs and talk to you guys, but it's fun when you guys write in a question. It's fun when you guys send in something for in the trenches or you just even let me know that like these episodes speak to you and you guys leave these comments and these reviews and like they mean the fucking world. And so I just

wanted to take a quick second to say thank you and thank you for being by my side and thank you for being here so that we can keep expanding and growing and we're going to expand the topics. We're going to talk about different things. And this week we're going to talk about some hard truths that I think we need to face. I think for a long time, at least for me, I can speak personally when I was in the dating world. Even in a relationship now, there are so many things that were kind of, we were lied to, if you will, right? Sold a false bill of goods, especially when we think about like Disney. It was a fun fact, right? I'd heard about this the other day that the Disney princesses are based on mental health issues. So what was it? Like, Beauty and the Beast is

Stockholm syndrome. And I was like, oh, oh yeah, no, that adds up. It does kind of make sense. And I just kind of fell as like, I feel like we've been lied to about a lot. We've been told, you know, If you wanted to, he would. We all know that. But we've been told that like, relationships should be easy and there is no stress. And oh, couples that fight or bat. And it's like none of that is actually real. And based on the studies and the research that's been done, whether it be the Gottman Institute or wherever, right, Harvard, all these different places. What we're seeing is that the norms and the conditions that we've been sold are not actually leading to fulfillment and happiness. And well, then what the fuck are we here for otherwise, right? Unless we can come back home to ourselves and really have the relationships, whether it be romantic or professional or personal doesn't really matter. The relationship, even with yourself, that you fucking deserve. And that kind of brings me into the first hard truth. I used to be the girl. And I'm not going to lie. That would always just be like, I don't understand. I'm so ready for a relationship. And I just can't meet the right one. No, that's just it. Like, I just haven't met the right person. And I really had sold myself on, I'm doing all this work and I'm doing everything. I just can't

find anybody who's also doing this. All the while not realizing that I was not as ready for a relationship, especially a healthy relationship as much as I thought that I was, right? And I think we see this often. We see this a lot when we think about the anxious avoidant dynamic. And we see a lot of people say, well, it's my avoidance not willing to do any of this work. And here I am trying to do everything. And then my question would be, are you actually doing it? You're doing everything for them, but are you doing everything that you need to do for yourself? Because if you are, somebody who is healthy and secure also acknowledges and knows that I can't change other people, that I can't force my partner to do something that they're not ready to do, don't worry, these are all coming later, that I can't make anybody

do something that they're not. So I can only focus on myself. And when I self-abandoned and I don't come back home to myself and really sit with what does this work for me or not, well, then I'm not actually as ready as I think I am. Because if you were actually ready for that, then it wouldn't be that every person you date is the contrary. And you guys write in, I'm never going to share the questions that you guys write in personally. Like, you pay for a question and I give you an answer back. That stays private. But what I will say is there's a common theme that a lot of you guys think you don't have any kind of power or autonomy or choices. Or if the choices that you make, you'll guilt yourself for them. Or like, I can't tell you how many guys, I'm so proud of you guys for

walking away from, if you'll, you'll see something that you guys write in. And I'm like, oh, there's nothing redeeming about this person. Like, you have not convinced me by a long shot as to why you were even in the relationship. But then you'll say, you know, oh, but did I make the right choice? And now I feel bad. I feel guilty. And it's like, I totally get that. I understand that sometimes in the moment we might feel really empowered. And then when that person doesn't chase us, doesn't come after us, then we start to feel that there's something wrong with me and blah, blah. And that right there is where I would say, well, then are you ready? Are you genuinely ready for what you keep saying that you are ready for?

Or are we maybe still kind of healing from some shit? But the biggest thing I see is when real emotional intimacy shows up, you freeze, you push it away, you find reasons to leave. And more often than not, like if you still crave the chase and you get bored instability or feel anxious, you sit on that one, feel anxious without constant reassurance, then your nervous system is probably still wired for chaos and not for safety. Right? We had an episode on that, why healthy equals boring that came out over Valentine's Day.

But I wanted to go a little bit deeper and give you a few other psychological insights and studies. So there's one called the Dunning Krueger effect on emotional maturity. And so this cognitive bias explains why people overestimate their emotional intelligence. Uh-huh. Yeah, that's actually. Why do you think I always say when you guys will be like, I put it on my dating profile? like I want somebody that's emotionally intelligent. It's like, do you really, do you think people are that apt and in tune with themselves to be able to identify that?

Right. Do you think someone's like, well, I'm super emotionally intelligent? Yeah. Because more often than not, it's like you're going to get people that think that they are like this. So the study was done in 1999 and it found that people who lack skills in a certain area tend to overestimate their competence. So what does that actually mean in fucking layman's terms? it means that you might think you're emotionally mature when you're not. And that's just the clearest way.

And that's why so many people say they're ready for a healthy relationship and I'm ready and I'm ready and I'm ready and I want all this. But yet they struggle in real emotions and emotional intimacy requires accountability, vulnerability, self-awareness, right? Like we see this so often, especially like I said, when you guys will come to me and say, no, no, no, but I'm ready and I'm ready, but they can. They, they, they, they, they, they, and it's like, okay, but are you talking to this person about it? Are you being vulnerable? Are you being self-aware to say, well, I actually don't think this works for me, man. As much as I like you, right, I can hold two conflicting thoughts. I can think you're fucking the bees knees. But if you don't have the things that I need, well, then what are we doing here? Right? That's like, I've used this example before, but I'll just make a new one. All right, I'm trying to sell my clothing line right now.

I'm trying to sell software. I love it. So the moon and back, but I love my career doing this so much. And so we're in the process right now and I'm really, really excited that somebody else would be able to like make this something different, right? And that's like me going and saying, okay, you'd be the perfect buyer, but you're only, I'm just throwing a number, you're only offering me $10,000. And I'm going to need like $100K. And it's like, okay, so if they come to me and I see very clearly they don't have the money, they don't have the structure, they don't have the resources, they don't have anything that they need. What makes me think that even if they somehow could find the funds that this would be a transaction that would make sense for me. Because then what's going to happen, I'm probably going to be resentful. I'm going to be frustrated. I'm not going to have my needs met. The math ain't math in. And if I don't speak up and say something, like, hey, this doesn't work. I'm okay to walk away because you're not the only buyer. And if you are the only buyer, well, I'd rather be by myself with this company and grow it at least the way I can than be fucking annoyed and frustrated and saying, Jesus Christ, you don't understand how to run a business. That's the only example that I could really think of right now. That just came to mind. But I want you guys to really hold on to that and say, right, if you're saying to me, well, you know, I can see this every day.

Like everybody I like that doesn't like me, but then the ones that like me, I'm not really interested in. It's like, yeah, because your brain isn't wired for safety. and the people that are being real and vulnerable and honest, and on the flip side, right, right. So this isn't just for anybody that says I resonate with that. On the flip side of that, when you're the healthy one, yeah, I dated quite a few men that could not handle it. Again, I'm just talking in my heterosexual norm as a men that I date.

And there were a lot of them that couldn't do it. They were not bad people. These were really, really lovely humans that didn't have the bandwidth. And instead of me saying, oh, is it me? Is it me? I'm too much. And I get it. I totally fucking understand, especially when you're in the healing journey.

Sometimes it's easier to be like, you know what, I kind of just, maybe I'll just go back to how I was, right? Once you've seen it, you can't unsee it. But I get that and I hear you and I see you and I'll hold space for that. But what I'll also say is, this bullshit. Stop trying to go back to being who you were when you know that who you were wasn't satisfying you. You know that who you were wasn't fulfilling you and you know that who you were wasn't fucking working for you because that wasn't actually who you are. Allow yourself to grow and change. But with that comes, knowing that if you're going to be the healthy person to show up, that that person might not be able to receive you. And that's

fucking okay. I'd rather find out that I'm too expensive for you than show up at the wrong address and praying that you're going to treat me right when you don't know how to. Just saying. Okay. So there was another study, Dr. Alexandra Solomon's relational self-awareness. So Solomon is a clinical psychologist and also the author of Loving Bravely, which is a new book I actually haven't heard of. And they argue that the success of your relationship doesn't just depend on who you choose, right? It's not just who you choose, but how well you understand. understand yourself, which makes total fucking sense. If you haven't confronted your core wounds, then you'll subconsciously recreate them in relationships, even if you think that you're picking

differently, right? And I remember I had this once. I said a video of like, oh, we always go after what's familiar. And someone's like, no, I'm trying very hard to like not pick my father. I specifically date people that aren't like him, but that still ends up the same. And it's like, Yeah, because they might not look like your caregiver. They might not talk like your caregiver exactly. But what is remaining is how you feel with this person. Right? It doesn't have to mean that like, I married my father.

It doesn't mean that they looked alike or they talked alike, but how I felt with this person. The way that they were treating me, the behavior, the lack of accountability, that is what felt familiar. And if we're not okay within ourselves and really saying, I'm ready because of who I am, I'm ready because I really genuinely know what it is that I want to need. Well, then maybe you're just going to be picking the same thing in different patterns, right?

Especially like if you're in a relationship right now or you're single, it doesn't really matter. Your brain is going to mistake familiarity for compatibility. So you'll end up dating the same kind of person over and over and over, even when it doesn't fucking work. Let that sink in. Because of your past relationships, if they were chaotic, if they were emotionally unavailable, they were inconsistent, then what's going to happen? What's going to happen? Your brain will trick you into seeing those patterns again because remember your brain is designed to help you keep you safe, not designed to keep you grow. So it's going to go back to what it knows. You guys know I love like brain stuff. I do. And I was

on with Nicole. You guys know I love Nicole Vignola. She's my neuroscience mama and she was teaching me more about this. And so we have something called the salience network. And it's called it's a salience network and attraction blindness. So your salience network decides what's important. But it doesn't filter for healthy, it filters for familiar. And that's why we go after what's not safe. So if your last relationships, they were hot and cold, they were dramatic, they were unpredictable, they were all of that chaos,

then your brain's like, oh, love equals instability. So when someone secure and stable shows up and you're like, I don't know what to do with this, your brain dismisses them and it's like, nah, nah, it's not exciting. Even though they might be the right choice, even though this person might actually be the one that you're like, I fuck with that.

But your brain's like, no, no, not because of the salience network. Right? So if you always choose emotionally and available partners and say, well, I just have a type, right? I don't know. I just, I keep going that. It's like, meanwhile, you're friend zoning the good people. You're not actually going after the people that are communicative, they're available because you're like, no, I just, I'm not that into them. It's like, no, what's happening is your brain is fucking lying to you. Your brain isn't telling you the truth. It's clinging onto what it knows. And so we have to be able to have our own cognition to rewire that and to acknowledge it and to be able to see it. Right. So let's talk some

tools. I want you to try something. Go for the opposite type. I want you to break your brain's attraction bias. So what I mean by this is, I don't mean that I want you to do charity work. I'm not saying just pick everybody, but I want you to pick someone who doesn't trigger your normal pattern. So if you're always drawn to these like mysterious, hot and cold, emotionally distant people, like go for someone who's a little bit more expressive and consistent and secure. And I'm not saying that you have to date this person for like eight months. But what I am saying is it forces your brain to adjust to a new relationship pattern instead of just defaulting to the old ones. Right? We've all had that where there's somebody that asks you out and you're like, I don't know. Like, I'll be honest,

that's what was me with Ryan. I was like, he was very cute. It wasn't that. But I was like, I wasn't like, fucking my panties weren't dropping every conversation we had. But I was like, you know what? Let me try. This guy was being like super persistent. He was being really great. He was consistent. He made the plan. And I was like, you know what? It felt new to me. And I was like, I'm going to at least give it a try. I'm not going to like say no to this person. And that's why online dating is fun. It has its uniqueness because you could have FaceTime. I've had FaceTime with plenty of guys where I'm like, oh, actually you're super cool. Like, you're way cooler than I thought you were going to be. Like, I just wasn't that into your initial photo or the opposite. Once you're like, can I get the last

20 minutes of my life back? Right. We have to be able to separate chemistry from chaos. So I want you to start to ask yourself some stuff. Do I actually like them or do they just make me feel anxious or familiar, right? Is this attraction or is it just my nervous system craving emotional familiarity and unpredictability? Yeah, I'm just going to leave you that. I want you to write down your answers. And I want you to see it sitting the fuck in front of you. It will expose the difference between what you need and what you're used to. Start to look that side by side.

Give yourself. And remember, as always, write, right, don't just sit on your phone. Write it down or speak it out loud. It activates a different part of your brain. We have the default mode network. And we'll get into that later. But essentially, that's in charge of your narrative and the same loops that you go on. And so if we can write, we can activate a different part of the brain, we break those loops.

We break the default mode that we're in. Which brings us to hard truth number two. And this I kind of alluded to in the beginning of the episode, but you can't fucking change your partner, so please stop trying. And what I mean by that is that most people enter relationships hoping that their partner will change. It could be that they'll become more emotionally available. They'll become more ambitious. They'll become more affectionate. But change has to be self-led.

Change comes from you. You can't convince someone. You can't beg someone, and you can't love someone into being the version of themselves. You wish they were. People don't change because they love you. I'm leaving these things here. They don't change because they love you. They change because they decide to.

When I met Ryan, I wasn't expecting him to change. What I kept saying was, I need to see more. I didn't say I need you to be different than who you are, but I was like, I need to see more. I was very clear about that. But it was not like when I dated him. And he was like, had no fucking emotional bandwidth. And I was like, you know what? But I hope that by the time I'm done with him, he'll become this.

And every time, like, oh, we've talked about this in past episodes. And if you're new here, welcome. But when we are so focused on will they change, will they change? I can get them to change. I can fix them. I could do it. I could do it. You're distracting from yourself of what you need to fucking work on, what you need to do and

where you're not showing up for yourself. Because if it's so much about them changing, well, then what about you accepting who they also are. I'll never forget that when my ex and I were together and I was with my friend. He'd been married for like 15 or 20 years. And I was there and he said, do you accept him as he is? And I said, yeah, but. And he was like, he just stopped me and he goes, I'm done. And I said, why? And he goes, but he goes, let me hear it. What were the butts? I said, but he doesn't like show up for me. And he was like, dude, those are major fucking issues. Right. It's not just, oh, this person's not as romantic as I'd like them to be. Right. Like one of my really good friends are going to her wedding in

Italy later this year. And she, this bitch held out. She held the fuck out. And I'm going to do an episode later. She's going to write into me what it was like when I was dating because she was there with me in L.A. for the two years that I was there. And she held out. She was like, I'm not, she just wasn't really to settle. And she wasn't unrealistic with her expectations, but she was just like not fucking having it. And she came from a really beautiful family, really secure. Like, it was really lovely to see. And now, oh my God. Her fiancee is like super romantic. He took her, like they live in Europe now. He took her this beautiful night. And though, and the flowers and it's what she wanted. That works for her, but she wasn't trying to change anybody.

She was very clear what she wanted. She was very clear. And so she just went for it. And that works for her. I probably wouldn't, I wouldn't be into that person necessarily. And that's okay. She wouldn't be into Ryan. Yeah, yeah, that's good. But we have to remember that, like, who your partner is is who your partner is. And so let's talk science. So there's something called the false hope bias and confirmation bias. So the false hope bias is, but it's something that we all do. Our brains overestimate how much we can influence someone else's behavior because we want to believe love conquers all, because we have been sold a false bill of goods, right?

And then we have the confirmation bias, because once we invest in a relationship, our brains seeking out proof that things are improving while ignoring all the red flags that show nothing is changing because our brain's like, hey, bitch, I invested time, I invested money. I'm not letting this go. I have to see this one through. So think about it. You're dating someone who is very clearly and like pretty up front emotionally

unavailable. And you see those small moments of vulnerability. And you hold on to them as if that that's proof, right? That, there they are. They're changing. I see it. And it's like, but then here's the reality. Months past, their actions have remained the same. Ain't shit fucking changing. And you're just filtering information to fit your hopes of no but see. But look, that one time, that one time when he didn't scream at me and yell at me or that one time when she wasn't shutting down and being, no. So how do we actually let go of control and accept reality? We need to give people 90-day pattern to test to break the illusion of change. So stop fucking listening to words. Track their actions to align with their words over 90 days. That's why we say three months, because if the core issues

haven't changed, they're not going to. And that's again why they say, you know, it's not about wait 90 days to hook up with something. You wait, right? You do whatever the fuck you want. But wait 90 days. That's why I waited almost four months to get into a relationship with Ryan, because I was like, I'm not just going to get into a relationship because you say you really like me. I wanted to make sure that there was consistency over time. And that's one thing my anxious baby is we don't like, which is space. And I was actually, as I was researching this episode earlier, I have to look into it more. But there is actually studies that show that our brain overtakes these moments. Like we get hijacked because we don't want to be in the discomfort and we don't want to allow. But what we need is time.

For a real healthy and secure relationship to grow, you need time. You do. I'm sorry. I'm a bad news. But we can also do something called the future fantasy detox. So we need to separate who they are versus who we want them to be. And that's when I always say take the shine off of people. Right. So ask yourself, like if I accepted, they'll never change what I still want to be with this person. If the answer is no, then you're in love with potential. You're not actually seeing them for who they are. And again, I'm not saying that they can't improve and become a better version, right? Like Ryan became a really, really amazing version of himself. But I'm saying like, I knew that he was growth minded and driven. So that also counted for who he. was as a person and me accepting who he was. We can evolve, but it's like the same with me. Yeah, stop trying to fucking tell me that I'm, not you guys, but the people that do like that DM me and say like, you need to speak slower. It's like what do you think fucking telling me that you don't like it is suddenly going to make me change? And it's like, oh, yeah, yeah, how's your dating fucking, how's your relationship and your dating life going? Or you think that you have control over other people by saying you need to change this. I don't

like it. And it's like, okay, or you could just choose for yourself and move on. I don't know. That's okay. I don't take it personally. You might suck. But here we are. Okay, hard for truth. Number three. So here's a hard truth that took me a minute. Timing matters a lot more than you want to admit. Baby, it's not just love.

It's timing and fucking proximity. Because you can meet the most amazing person. You could meet the Queen of Sheba, the king of Shiba, but if they're emotionally unavailable, it won't work. I don't care how much potential you see in this motherfucking person.

Because love isn't just about finding the right person. It's about two people being available. available at the same time, having the bandwidth, having the resources, having what they need, right? So someone tells to you, I can't do a relationship right now. Please believe them. If that's annoying, we'll say it again. When someone tells you they're not ready for a relationship, please fucking believe them. Because this is where we get into that sunk cost fallacy. Your prefrontal cortex, which you guys have heard me talk about it at enough, it's the one that makes decisions and common sense, is bad at cutting losses. It doesn't like that,

because it's logic, no, no, no, but I invested time, right? That sunk cost fallacy. So it keeps you investing into something just because you already have. You've put time and energy, effort into it, even when it's no longer viable, it's no longer fruitful, it's no longer serving you. And this is why people stay in relationships that aren't working. They stay in them for a little bit too long. They're waiting for timing to improve instead of accepting reality and saying this person is who they motherfuckin are. And timing and proximity matter. I did that video. It got mega viral. And we've all have that. I've had this. I've met somebody who is so fucking amazing. They're great. They're communicative. We have this crazy chemistry. It's everything I want. And just foaming at the mouth. But if they're still

healing from a breakup or they're working through personal things, like the guy I had been dating who like was dealing with his brother's death, they're emotionally unavailable. And he was honest about that. It didn't matter how perfect he seemed to be on paper, all of those. He couldn't give me what I needed. He couldn't show up for me in the ways that I needed. He didn't even fucking respect me at the time when he spoke to me. He wasn't like rude, but he was dismissive. He was flippant. It was very like, uh, God, again. It's like, yeah, again. Sorry. Knock knock. Knock. It's emotions again. It's me. And I could have tried, right? That's why the cool girl doesn't work. Who is the cool girl? She's the one that doesn't have any needs. It's like the nice guy. No, no, no, whatever you want to do. I'm here for you, babe. It's you, it's your running the show. I'm just fucking here

It's why those people don't get the relationships that they want need or deserve because they're trying so hard to have no needs. It's probably a learn from childhood. If I just can be cool and be that person, then this person's, they're just going to want me. And what we see is we conflate that with somebody that releases control of the outcome and isn't trying to control things. By being the cool girl or the nice guy, you are inadvertently trying to control the outcome. And then you're selling a false bill of goods because now this person thinks, oh, oh, well, but where is this person? And if you're somebody who's emotionally unavailable, then you're going to love somebody else who's like that because they're not saying anything. They're not taking up space. They're not making anything. Versus when I met Ryan, I was very clear that like I was emotionally available. This is what I wanted. This is how I want to be treated. This is what I'm looking for. And if you can't have that, that's okay, that's okay. I'm not scared to walk away because I met you. I'll meet other people. And that's the sexy part. That's what makes somebody come back and go, oh, that's fucking hot. Okay, cool. Even one of my friends, he's dating this girl, and it's been like a month and a half, and I think they've only seen each other three times. It's about an hour distance. And every time I talk to him, I'm like, how are you feeling? He's like, I'm definitely starting to like her more. And I'm like, oh, yeah, why? She's not like, she's not stressing me out. He's like, she's not pressuring me. And I don't mean that to like, for a lot of people, they'd be constantly like, why haven't I seen you? What am I seeing you? And he was like, no, she's like, no, she's seeing you. And he was like, yeah, I'm going out of town. She knows that. And when he came back, he made play play. lands with her. It's like she's just allowing it to happen. And that's where proximity and timing work. Whereas if she was super, let's say she was in her journey and she was super anxious, and it would never have worked. And it's like, that's just not her person. Because it's not about right person wrong time. What makes somebody right is that they're in your life at the right fucking time.

And I've had this. I have had amazing people I've met that just weren't right. So I want you to try the timing check rule so you can stop fucking chasing potential. Before you invest, I want you to ask yourself, Is this person emotionally available today? Or am I hoping that they're going to get there? Right? Because if they told me that they weren't ready, why the fuck am I still here? And if they're not ready now, I don't need to wait for them to change because that's me waiting on a little fucking star hoping that what?

If I just keep hanging out with them, if I just keep being amazing, if I just keep being myself, they're going to choose me. No, bitch. Choose yourself. Choose your fucking self. Show up for you and stop waiting for other people to do that. When you're waiting for the external validation, God, you're going to be waiting for a long time. And I know it. I did it for a minute. I did. I'm just on the other side of the shit.

And we need to stop waiting for timing to improve. I'm going to give you the one month test. Not like literally a test. Give them one month to show you with their actions, not just their motherfucking words, that they're available, like fully available. No excuses, right? No, just like, you know, I just need time or like this is moving really fast. None of that bullshit. Watch what they actually fucking do. And if you're still unsure, and if they're still unsure, listen, specifically, if they're still unsure, I need you to walk the fuck away. Because this prevents you from investing in long-term situationships or half-baked, half-assed commitments that aren't fucking leading you anywhere. Give yourself the time. You don't have to know everything immediately, but if somebody is telling me off the bat, I'm just going with the flow, or I'm recently out of something, or I'm just trying to figure my stuff out.

No, right? And again, that's why we have. There's a one month to make sure that this person's emotionally available. And then there's three months, right? You see that one month and you're like, okay, they're showing me with their words and actions. They're been showing up. Like, so far, it's been all good. This isn't to like, okay, that's it. Let's get married. No, this is just okay. Now let's get to the three month mark. Let's see at three months that this has been consistent. At three months, we can have another conversation. Because the reality is, this leads us into hard truth, numero four. I'm good, I'm good. And that. And that's, is that you could do everything right and still fucking get hurt. I know. Even if you do all the self-work, you communicate perfectly, you choose wisely, you are doing everything on paper. Love is still a risk. There's no strategy. There's no guarantees that you won't experience heartbreak. And the goal when we start to heal and do all this isn't to avoid pain. It's that we're building resilience so that you can handle it without it breaking you into a million motherfucking pieces.

And that's like the first thing I say to anybody I'm working with. First thing I say is if you think that us doing the work together, even in my courses, everything, like that's, again, nervous system, foundation, breakup course, especially the breakup course for my babes. First thing we say is like if you're here thinking that these are going to go away and that these emotions are just not going to happen anymore, you are setting yourself up for failure. We are not doing this healing work so that it doesn't happen again. We're doing it so that when it does, you have the tools and the bandwidth. You're expanding your window of tolerance. You're expanding how much you can handle.

how much you can take. And I want us to make sure that you're not trying to be perfect. There is no such thing as perfection. I could literally be everything someone says that they want, but maybe not what they need at that time. We also have something called the prediction error and emotional pain. So, you know, our brain is pretty fucking wild. But your brain is wired to predict outcomes based on past experiences. That's how it keeps you safe. And this is part of its survival function. So it just goes into that auto. So when things don't go as expected, right? you get a break up, someone betrays you, you have rejection. Your brain experiences a prediction error because it's like, well, wait, but that wasn't supposed to happen. And this is why heartbreak feels like a physical fucking pain because your brain is trying to reconcile an emotional reality that doesn't quite match. And it wasn't what you expected it to be, which is why we say, like, let's manage expectations. It's not that we go into this being like, I'm never going to find anybody. But like, if you date someone with intention and you build a really healthy solid foundation and feel like you finally did everything right?

I know we've been there. I have. Then out of nowhere, that's it. They end it. They say, like, I need space, or they admit that they don't feel the same way, or, you know, I thought maybe, or I'm not feeling the spark.

That da, da, da, all of the this, da. Even though you didn't do anything wrong, which is for another day, you're still going to fucking get hurt. You're going to get hurt because, again, that goes against the predictive model that your brain was like, okay, well, one plus one is going to equal two.

And then when one plus one equals three, your brain's like, What the fuck? How did we not figure this out? And then we start going into like, how did I not see it? What's wrong with me? Oh my God. And we need to cut all that bullshit. Stop. Shaming and blaming yourself because you didn't fucking see it. It'd be one thing if it's like glaring and you're like, oh, whoops, just didn't want to see it. But if you're saying I showed up the best I could, that's all you could do. I have dated plenty of guys. At first, they were amazing. And then time goes on. And you start to realize maybe they're not as amazing. Or they don't know where I've had that. I remember this one guy. I was so fucking into him. And we had a couple of dates. And he would call me all the time and he was super consistent. And he, I think I've told you guys about him. He was the widow. And we had this like amazing magical night out. Like talk about predictive model. We had this amazing night out. We finally hooked up. I was so excited. And he was like the type of thing where I woke up and you just felt the energy was off. Like I remember being like, it was like, it was like a Wednesday. And I was like, you know, so. Because he had said he was like, it was freeze this weekend. I'm like, so Saturday. Did you want to do something? And he was like, oh, I'm going to have to let you know. And instantly I was like, okay. All right. Sure. Whatever. trying to play cool and he left and I just all day I was like I hadn't heard from him he didn't text me and I was like I know something's going on and I remember he called me and he said I'm sorry I just I can't do it I feel guilty I don't feel like I'm ready I just like I can't grapple with the fact that he was like I thought I was ready and like I've known him ever since like this guy is like a very genuine person and that's the thing is like I never thought it was malice and he's still single and sad it's a bummer I've spoken to him recently just some dating coaching advice it's always awkward when that happens but I cried and I cried because that went against the predicament model. And I remember saying, what is wrong with me? What did I do wrong? And it was like, I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't. That was life. That was just, we weren't right for each other. Talk about timing. See how this is all playing back? Right? Timing really matters. And so if we want to actually build

resilience, we have to do something called the emotional durability reframe. So instead of thinking, I wasted my fucking time, I want you to shift that and reframe it to this experience made me emotionally stronger. And I had to shift that, right? I didn't fail. I didn't. I didn't fail. I just learned more about what I need. And the reason this works is because, well, I mean, the obvious stop being an asshole to yourself, but your brain learns from exposure. So the more you normalize setbacks, the less devastating they feel, right? Like, if I have something where you're like, eh, it happens, well, then your brain's like, oh, okay. And then you have the breakup nervous system reset. So this is one aspect of regulating the pain response because your nervous system is going to

treat heartbreak like a survival threat, right? So that's why, like, you can't eat, you can't sleep, you can't do anything. So you'll need to physically interrupt the pain. loop. This is one of so many things we talk about on the breakup course. But some tangible steps, right? Cold therapy. Fucking ice bath? Cold showers. Ice packs. I don't care. You can put your hand in ice to regulate your stress response because what's going to happen. It'll shock your system. You can do box breathing. Inhale for four. Hold for four. Exhale for four. That calms your brain. Or you can just fucking force yourself to do some movement. Go for a walk, do some push-ups. Anytime you feel emotionally overwhelmed. And the reason bringing is because it stops your brain from forming reinforcing

beliefs and reinforcing that heartbreak is permanent pain. All right, I hear this all the motherfucking time. You guys will say like, I can't move on. It's like, that's like, that's why. The reason you can't move on is because you are telling yourself you can't move on and your brain's like, okay, well, I guess we can't move on. And it's creating this and it's permanent pain instead of realizing that part of dating relationships life, everything, you're going to fucking feel pain and it's going to suck. Okay, we just, let's it. Let's normalize that. And the quicker we understand that and the quicker we say, fine, let's fucking do this. Let's show up. I'm diving on in. That's why, like, I created the foundation course and the nervous system

course is I wanted you guys to have the tools that you needed, building a solid foundation, coming back home to yourself, identifying your patterns, or the nervous system, like really, really understanding. God, why do I get so anxious when they don't text me? What is the story I'm creating? Get curious. Hold space for yourself. And tell me, tell me, what were your out of this episode? Leave me a comment, whether it be on YouTube or Spotify, it doesn't matter. Leave me a comment and let me know what was the hardest truth for you to hear. I want to know. I want to celebrate. Or maybe you're like, baby, I used to be like this and the bitch ain't no more. Let's celebrate. Let's do this together. Guys, as always, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for letting me live my goddamn dream every day and show up here. We've been through a lot, babes. And I'll be honest, I've been struggling. And the podcast has been doing this, like business, like everything else. And my goal, when I started all of this was I want to be able to welcome the flow and handle the ebb. And right now, I think a lot of us, everyone I speak to, we're in some ebbs.

Oh, don't worry, baby. The flow is coming. And I'm going to be by your goddamn side through it all. Don't forget, follow along on the social. Subscribe if you're listening on YouTube. And don't forget every Friday, we have a new episode and one bonus episode a month. So send in in the trenches at Sabrinazohar.com. Screenshots, stories, all of that. Send us everything, your dating profile. Any questions you guys have, let us help you. Babies, as always, thank you, thank you. And until next week, I love you.