The Sabrina Zohar Show - 177: What's Actually Happening In An Avoidant's Brain When They Pull Away W/ Chris Lee

Episode Date: December 12, 2025

Neuroscientist Chris Lee joins me to break down what’s really happening in the brain when someone pulls away, shuts down, or spirals. We cover avoidance as a regulation strategy, why anxious activation hits so hard, and how state–story–strategy explains your patterns better than any TikTok soundbite. If you struggle with mixed signals, overthinking, or reacting fast in dating, this episode gives you clear, science-backed answers. We also get into emotional availability, communication during conflict, and how to create safety without overfunctioning. You’ll learn how to recognize your patterns, rebuild trust in yourself, and stop taking someone else’s regulation personally. Whether you’re dating or partnered, this conversation helps you understand connection with far more clarity. Learn more: https://www.drchrislee.com/ If you’re ready to slow down, trust your instincts, and break your old dating patterns, the Healthy Relationship Foundations Course walks you through it step-by-step  HERE!Get Ad free HERE!Want to work with Sabrina? HERE!Get merch for The Sabrina Zohar Show 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, formerly 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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and I am your host. Happy Friday, Babes. Welcome back. We have a very special guest today. One of my favorite humans on the planet. Chris Lee is here, and he is my favorite neuroscientist. Sorry, Nicole. Love all of them. But we're going to talk about what's actually happening in an avoidance brain when they pull away. What is emotionally unavailable? What are triggers in a relationship? How do they show up? And we're going to give you the science, which is very exciting. Guys, if you need anything, everything's on the link in show notes. You can join the Healthy Foundation course, work one-on-one, ask a question, or just be here with us in the community. Don't forget to rate and review the show, follow along and subscribe and share it with a friend.

All right, babes. Without further ado, let's get right on into it, shall we? What's up, Chris? So. Welcome to the show. Thank you. And thank you for hosting me. Like, I've had such a good time the past couple days. Okay.

Before we get into all the fun stuff, can you please introduce yourself for the audience? Give us your background, who the fuck you are. What do you do? What the fuck are? Yeah. So my name is Chris. And like so many people, I let my trauma inform my career. I didn't think I would be here.

I didn't think I would be doing things like this. And it all started about eight years ago. Eight years ago, I had a series of things completely changed the trajectory of my life. I thought that I was going to go into practice and do the doctor things and have, you know, the white picket fence and, you know, all the expectations of a young man. And that definitely wasn't what happened. And within six months, I got hit by a car in the midst of, yeah, my doctorate program, lost my dad to suicide about a month later. And then about two months later, I found out that I was going to be a dad. All of this in my early 20s, trying to figure some things out.

And I was left broken, hurt, traumatized, all the things, without any, like, tools or skills or coping mechanisms, and quickly realized that, how my dad had made a choice to leave was not something that I wanted to inherit. It wasn't something that I wanted to have in my own life. It wasn't something that I wanted to even pass along or start to consider the idea of passing generational trauma down to my daughter either. So I made a huge shift in my career. And I went back to school for neuroscience, trying to get answers for what happened and what's going on inside of my body? What the fuck are these emotions? What do you do with an emotion because like most men we got the three Hs happy hungry and horny and I'm like oh there's more emotions beyond that so I went into that entire world and started to get all of the answers and those

answers led to more questions and then that led to me understanding the brain in a totally different way and that's what's brought me here today is understanding the brain and self-regulation and how to process your feelings what that even means what that actually looks like and trying to bring some data and science so that people that are struggling with anxiety, like heartbreak, relationship challenges can have some more functional tools and tactical tools to make progress in a meaningful and intentional way in their life. Okay. So thanks so much.

We're done with the episode. Now I got everything you need it. See you next time. Well, it's fucking epic. And that's also why I love when we have our conversations because it's not just these platitudes. You're not just giving bullshit. Like, I can ask you a question and your responses.

I'm like, oh, tell me more. And that's why I'm stoked for what we're going to talk about today. We're not going to pigeonhole it and only talk about avoidance. But I think I want to share with the audience my favorite thing that you have taught me. And even if you didn't come up with it, I don't really give a shit. The state story strategy. I love it. I have been talking about it, even on past episodes, but I've been excited for you to be here.

And I think that maybe we can kick this off because I think understanding that nuance will then help us understand the avoidance, why they pull away of what is emotionally and available. And then we can evolve the conversation. Oh, 100%. So state story strategy is something that I've been using in my own life to help build tools and understand what's going on inside of me and like the sabotage patterns that I have like where are they stumbing from. So the state is like a neurological state. It's it's the state of how you are expressing. Are you dysregulated?

Are you regulated? And those are not like black and white either. Right. So being regulated is also like a spectrum. You can be more or less regulated the same way that you can be more or less stimulated. Right? you can be overstimulated and that can create its own stress, but the state for which you are determines how you process input. So if you're dysregulated, if you're stressed out, your nervous

system is also a meaning-making machine. And that's going to determine the story for which you tell yourself, the meaning that you give the circumstances and environment for which you're in. And that story starts to drive the emotional perspective for which you take action and thus the strategy. So the regulated state is determining the story and the narrative that you're telling yourself, about you, circumstances, state, all of that determining how you're taking action. So you can start to reverse engineer, oh, I took this action because I was telling myself this story, and then it was because of this state. And then you can really start to understand how to, I know the heel word is such a cliche,

but you can start to understand how to take a more intentional approach to, oh, I got overstimulated, triggered, activated, whatever language you need to do. And next time, I want to activate in this way. I want to go into that more regulated. And it just gives you a better buffer and a better strategy to take different action. So it's not just like, can't wait to heal. And then it's like, I keep getting re-triggered. And I'm like, okay, tell me what the strategy you've been using is.

I'm like, well, I did affirmations in the mirror. And I'm like, awesome. What if we try something different, right? Because those things might work for you. There just hasn't been a ton of science that supports it for me. And it hasn't been really effective. So that's why I like to go, all right, what's the state, what's the story? And how can we take new strategy?

One thing I wish somebody had taught me about healing and all of these nuances with the nervous system is that regulating your nervous system doesn't mean emotions go away. It doesn't mean that all of a sudden you feel amazing. It doesn't mean that next thing you know, you're skipping on clouds. What it means is that you can now access a place of choice. And once I get to that place of choice, I can determine what's the story and what is the strategy I'm going to use moving forward. And that is the one thing I wish I had been taught because I had been wasting fucking years of my life trying to make something happen when I wasn't in a state to make that happen. Yes. Oh my God, yes. People are like, oh, my gosh, when I get regulated, things are just going to make more sense. I'm going to be so much more just happy. And I'm like, you're going to be more you. Yeah. Which means you're going to have more emotions, right? And that's the thing that I think the internet is bad at doing is like, oh, my God, I'm living such a regulated life.

And it's somebody like walking through the beach and they're just flowing through. Like, I got more regulated and I had to process my anger and my frustration and then learn to not shame myself for having those feelings and then recognize that I was guilty of myself or like taking space. And then, oh, I'm being selfish because I'm self-caring. And I'm like, oh, I'm guilty myself again. All of that becomes available. Your bandwidth for emotional expression increases the more regulated you become, which means, like,

the availability of your, like, emotional palate expands. Can I ask you because it's something that you've talked about that I really love? And you had made a video and I've been notating them. The fact that when you get triggered, a common misconception I hear about triggers often is, like, I should have a partner that never triggers me. If you have anybody that triggers you, you should run. It's not healthy. All of these are red flags.

But really what it is is like a trigger is our responsibility. A trigger is a neutral action or inaction. So how is that somebody else's responsibility to regulate my nervous system and triggers? Yeah. But I wanted to ask, when we talk about being triggered, what actually happens in the brain? Like I know there's the amygdala, there is the prefrontal cortex. I know there is a time difference. Can you explain from an actual like science perspective so that we can get off the bullshit and the,

if he wanted to, he would. And all of these cliches and start to understand how the brain actually function. So you're not, to trigger is a word that we use. And this is going to kind of get into like the language of it. But your nervous system isn't triggered. It's predictive, right? That's what it is. That's what a trigger is.

It's a predictive mechanism where your nervous system doesn't care what the thing is, what the circumstances. It is asking the question, what does this look like? So it's taking in events, data, relationship, all the things that are going on all at one time, taking that in and it's comparing it to the past and it's going during the past that this look like a threat. Was this a dangerous circumstance? Was this a dangerous event? And if it was and you survived, it's going to take the state for which you survived that circumstance. It's going to deploy that in a predictive mechanism for you to manage the circumstance. This is how we get stuck in our patterns. So we take that familiar past and we impart it on an unfamiliar circumstance that looks similar to

that thing. So when we get into those patterns, it's not a matter of like, oh my gosh, like, I can't like, I shouldn't have a person that's like not going to trigger me. You want a person that you feel safe to be triggered with. And then you want somebody who can hold that space for you. Because oftentimes, like, if you get into a relationship, the very, the truth of the matter is, the more regulated that person is, the more the unprosted shit from your past relationships is going to come up. Oh, yeah. Right? Like, that's like the whole thing that I wish more people knew is that, like, the safer you are, the more regulated you and your partner are, the more you co-regulate, you're not going to be less triggered.

You're going to be probably more triggered. The big difference is. is what you give yourself permission to connect with. And what that really means is like, okay, this thing is coming up for me. Are you projecting that back onto your partner? Or are you able to go, oh, wait a second. Okay, I am activated. And it has nothing to do with you, but you're here with me.

I want to be vulnerable. I want to connect with this. And I'm trying to figure out what this thing. I'm frustrated right now. And I feel confused. I know that it doesn't anything do with you, but like I feel mad at you. Right. And one thing that I tell a lot of people is like,

Do you have somebody that you are safe to feel mad with, not at? Right? I love that. Which is a huge shift. It's a huge difference. And especially like, there's all this like bullshit like masculinity. I want a masculine man. Like so stupid.

I hate that shit. The masculine feminine polarities. Fuck me sideways. I cannot. I cannot with that. Because I'm just like, this is like a ridiculous thing. So we all have both. We all have both.

Right. So if you're using it as a tool to understand, that's awesome. The same thing with like tarot cards and stuff like that. If you're using it as a tool to understand your day, awesome. Is there data in like neuroscience and like studies and double blind placebos? Absolutely not. But if it's helping you better understand yourself, delightful. But this masculine feminine dynamic is it's not, I don't think it's helpful the way that we consume it

and then deploy it back into our relationships. Because oftentimes it's coming from that judgment. Amazon presents Jeff versus Taco Truck Salsa. Whether it's Verde. Roja or the orange one. For Jeff, trying any salsa is like playing Russian roulette with a flame thrower. Luckily, Jeff saved with Amazon and stocked up on antacids, ginger tea, and milk. Habaniero, more like habanier, yes. Save the everyday with Amazon. So to go back to what we were talking about previously, I think you want a partner where you can

recognize that you have frustrations. You have anger because anger is such an easily suppressed emotion because when you project that anger onto another person, it distances, right? There's not emotional vulnerability. There is attack and defend. When you get into these really beautiful dynamics where you can both co-regulate and then regulate or disregard and go, oh my gosh, I think we're both like, this is not a functional conversation. We need space. One thing that changed the game for me was being able to hold the two conflicting thoughts that my partner can trigger me. It can make me feel like my father, but that doesn't mean he is. And that has been a game changing. Like an example, last night, Ryan and I,

when about a time this comes out, it would be a month ago. But last night, Ryan and I were having a conversation and we were getting ready to go out. And I said, hey, can I share something with you? And I thought it was just going to be a quick conversation. And I then realized I had been actually really triggered. And it really reminded me of my father. And I made sure to say, I know you're not him, but the feeling I feel is very much the same. I feel X. I feel Y. I feel Z. What I'm asking from you is this. And we were able to talk about it. And I felt safe. enough to bring this to my partner to know this is a place where I can express myself. And it's not, that's what makes him not my fucking dad. That's what makes him different is I can have these

reconfirmation experiences because I'm not scared of being triggered. What do I do with that? What are my choices? That's why I regulate. That's why I come back to my body. Not because me regulating means I'm skipping on fucking clouds and everything is amazing. But it's because I can access that place to go subritor. What do you need right now? What does that look like? And then is it safe of what your partner is doing because I'm incredibly in touch with my body. And I think that has been a big fallacy. If I see a more fucking video from some 22 year old on TikTok saying that it should be easy and it should flow and my avoidant, first of all, they're not a goddamn Tamagachi. This is a human being with experiences. And so I wanted to segue into that. When we look at even like,

why do people pull away? I mean, I know both of us have had personal experience in our relationship world in life with people pulling away. Absolutely. What comes up, whether that be, I think, the anxious, the avoidant, don't really care. But what comes up when someone chooses to pull away? What's happening in their body? So before we go into that, I don't know if people are choosing to pull away as much as they are reacting to a circumstance, right? And I think that nuance is really important because they think oftentimes we villainize the avoidant. And we say like, well, that person, they just bailed. They just left. And it's like, okay, but if we just have like a moment of empathy, you have permission to have your feelings as well, just as well as they did.

But oftentimes we say, well, they're just a bad person. That pulling away strategy for them is a regulation strategy. They feel threatened by probably intimacy. So, like, classically, an avoidant attachment style didn't have their emotions validated, and they didn't have safety in those emotional expression periods when they were developing. Now, I want to mention this as, like, another caveat of, like, the scientific world. Attachment theory is still a theory. Correct.

Right. It's not hard data. It is a tool to help you interpret and understand what is going on in your relationship. For me, understanding that helps me look at how that person had their feelings validated or invalidated or if that was like being punished onto them for having those feelings. And then they just deploy that when they become an adult. So like your feelings were never validated when you were young. Nobody ever held space for you to process and have those feelings. So when there is a ton of intimacy or there is big feelings that.

come up. Their regulation strategy, they're recognizing that the intimacy, the depth, the vulnerability, it's conflict. And conflict is dangerous, right? I have to go. I have to bail because it is safer to leave than it is safer to stay. And if I may just add the flip side of the coin before you go on, same with my anxious folk, that when you have space, you perceive that is dangerous, so you want to close the gap, you want to reconnect, you protest behavior, you do anything you can to reconnect. Notice how no one's right or wrong. No one is good or bad. Right. We have to pull the judgment out of it. It really drives me in saying that's why I struggle with. That's why I try to normalize avoid it. Now here, let me tell the caveat. It doesn't mean you have to accept it.

100%. This is where the boundaries and like you can clearly describe this to a person and say, hey, we kind of had this thing. And yes, we like we rupture, regulate and repair. Right. And man, I don't want to tolerate that anymore. Like are you open to us working through to find a solution on this? Right. Like how can I help us the next time that this comes up shift and change it? Like, what does that actually look like? Because I struggle with an. avoid an attachment. Like, that's my shit. So when that happens, your brain creates this lack of predictability. And uncertainty drives a shit ton of dopamine in the brain. So, yeah. So uncertainty, and this has to do with like the limerence and things like that. So limerence and fantasizing about this

partner and like, oh my God, they're so amazing. It shuts down the frontal cortex. It increases oxytocin. And when we do that, we quite literally have this chemical cocktail telling us how amazing they are and how bad it's going to be and your system both has the anticipation that I need to close that loops. And we drive that much dopamine into our system mixed with the lack of like that bonding and the loss that comes with that, that physical pain that we feel like in the midst of a breakup, our nervous system creates that drive pattern. I need to reach out to them. I need to go do that thing. I need to go because the uncertainty is asking for a predictable outcome. So we try to control what's going on. We reach out. We send 50,000 text messages,

or we fantasize about them or we're just like, oh, yeah, I just sent you like a hundred dollar bouquet of flowers. I was just thinking about you. You're like, okay, but like that was a first date. Like, we got coffee, right? So we got to take responsibility and calibrate what those things are doing because you're not regulated when you're doing those things. Like, I am a romantic.

Don't get me wrong. I love sending some flowers. I'll write some handwritten notes. I'll wax stamp and press it and like do all the things. And I'm also extremely curious during those period of time. Like, am I doing this authentically? Right. Or am I doing this from like a scarcity?

I'm afraid to lose you. And really starting to understand myself through the process of that because that Fawn response, fight, flight, freeze, and Fawn, Fawn is a social stress response where we're trying to better control and manipulate the external environment

so that we have more predictable internal emotional expression. And that becomes a dangerous ploy because we externally validate through your actions. You validate who I am and then my worth is dependent upon how you receive or don't receive my emotions.

And this is how people lose themselves. Like, I don't know who I am without you. And it's like, whoa, hold on a second. Like, now we're in uncharted territories. So you become co-dependent on your identity being based upon how they validate you or don't validate you. How do you get out of that if you're in it? So only circumstance is going to outcompete old circumstance. You need new experience to counteract that old experience. So once we start to understand that, there's no amount of intention. There's no amount of affirmations that you can put down on a page. You need to take intentional action, right? So you need to recognize what that pattern is, and then you need to

look for incremental improvements over time, right? So I think most people go through like a big fight. And when they have those big fights, what your nervous system is under is stress. So you don't want to build strategy. You don't want to like repair in the midst of the rupture. So this is why like rupture and repair. I'm like rupture, regulate, give it asleep, and then come back to it in the morning and see if it's still elevated to that degree. So what you want is to have that frontal cortex back online. You want to be able to have safe conflict inside of relationships, which means you need to bring up what originally was going on, validate the emotion, and then talk about how the environment came up. So when you do that, you want to go back into old circumstances in new states,

state story strategy. So I'm going to go in a little bit more regulated to this thing that originally triggered me. I'm going to take some time and mention to you in a vulnerable way, we had this thing that popped up the other day. It was really hard for me. And this is like hard for me too. Like do you have time and space for me to like share what that experience was with you? And then you get that emotional validation and you say the next time that we go into that, I would really appreciate if we could do this instead. So then you're creating a new anticipatory pathway. So the next time that event comes up and you're starting to like get a little bit anxious, your system not only has one reactive pathway from the past, you've intentionally created

a new pathway, and that's what creates choice. So instead of living in that reactive pathway, we activate the frontal cortex, we use some intentionality. We start to ask questions. The power of question during conflict is that it turns on the frontal cortex, right? It's starting to work and twerk some of these other pathways that are giving us more permission to be ourselves and have intentional vulnerability instead of just consistent reaction. This episode is sponsored by Lola Blankets. I am not kidding when I say Lola has changed my life. First of all, I got their weighted blanket, and I have never felt anything so comfortable.

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just thinking like, I didn't really like him that much. I thought he was okay. He was kind of a he was attractive. He was a really good looking guy. But like, and I remember like, I took him home that night. I was like 24. Listen, we all got, we all got a pass. I'm about to say, I act as if I don't do that. I took Ryan on the first one. But whatever. Anyway, so I took him home that night. I remember we hooked up. And then in the, he like left because it was like, yeah, you can go home. You live down the street. In the morning, we went out for lunch. And I don't know what triggered it. But something hit me. And all of a sudden it was, oh, no, I have to have this. I think it was because he told me that like you'd recently got out of something and they had talked and I was like,

uh-uh, I want to win this. Oh, yeah, a competition. Oh, yeah. And so, and like, I remember playing the cool girl the whole fucking time. Smooth, casual. Just nothing bothers me. Resting heart rate 1.25. Yes.

And, like, I remember even, like, little moments. And I think the reality was I didn't really build this to be. Like, we spent a ton of time together. I think I dated him for, like, six months. And we were seeing each other. Like, I remember after we hung out and then, like, he texted me and I had gone to bed. He texts me being like, hey, we're going out. Are you still going to that thing tonight?

Do you want to meet up? And I remember waking up the morning being like, oh, he does like think of me. He just care about me. Like, this is not nothing. But then like something happened and all of a sudden I went into like, you need to earn this. And I was playing it really cool. I remember like, and to be fair, he really, he was the first sexual experience I had that opened me up until like, I like this. I like this.

Very exploratory. So I think I had him as like, you're this thing I need because you're creating this version of me. Novelty is another monstrous dopamine drop. So sexy. So creates that anticipation. Yeah. And so I remember we dated probably about like five or six months. And I remember even like my birthday.

I just, it was vague like my birthday's in May. And so this was like four months in, three or four months in. And I remember he like knew I loved lemons. And he had like prepared this really nice dinner. And he had like a Meyer lemon. And he's like, I just remember you saying you like this. And I bought it for you. You should try.

And I'd never had a Meyer lemon. And just that like, I remember being like, wow. And we really connected that night. And he was very vulnerable with me that he was scared to open up. But he really cared about me. I think he was like 12 years older than me. So that was also a cut. I was 24.

He was like 37. And so we were navigating like, his friends used to call me the teen. And I was like, get fucked. But now I understand it, right? 24, very young. But nonetheless, like, we actually really shared a really nice connection. Yeah. He ended up moving.

He got a job across the country. He went from New York to wherever is it at all over Washington's and too. And I remember I planned a trip to come out to see him. And I was like so obsessive with him that even before I went, I would buy him stuff. I would ship it to him. I knew his favorite chance. shampoo and conditioner, so I had it sent. And I was trying to overperform because in my head it was, look, if you see how easy

I make your life, you're going to want me. You're never going to leave me because look what I do for you. Look how I show up for you. I did anything he wanted sexually. You got it. I took his dog cross country with me to bring him back to his exes. I did anything. And I'll never forget sitting in bed like he broke up with me.

Like, after he came back from the trip being like, I don't want to do long distance. This isn't going to work. He met somebody else. and I still was performing and I was still going into that. And I remember because what you were talking about of like that co-dependent, my personality is dependent on what you tell me.

It took me like three years to shake that and be able to move on and not think of him. I would text him all the time. I would constantly be like, I'm in our neighborhood. Remember when this? And he was very polite like that side, I've moved on.

Like it's time for you to do the same. Right. And I just remember sitting there as you were talking being like, man, that's really human. And that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with anybody if you do that, but now that's really about my state was dysregulation. My state was you're going to leave me. You're going to abandon me. You're not going to choose me. The story was I have to

do anything I can. And then what was the strategy? I overperformed. And there's nothing wrong with anybody that does that. But for somebody like him who was significantly more avoidant and was pulling away, me doing more wasn't going to make him come closer to me. It was going to push him away further because I wasn't respecting his needs. Non-judgmental reciprocity, right? It's not one plus one. And if you start to tick and tally inside of those relationships, that's where things get a little fuzzy tuss. But at the same time, the thing that I wish I saw more, man, this is like such a controversial thing is like, how awesome was that for you, though? In your future relationships, how much did you learn from that? Oh, I will say this all day.

I never regret any of my relationships. I don't regret the relationship where I was a shell of a human. I don't regret any experiences. I would never be where I'm out today because how would I appreciate what I have if I didn't know what it meant to not have that? It stops being traumatizing when you take more from it than it takes from you. Oh, I love that. So, like, the fact that you are learning and you've integrated and you're taking that information and moving it forward, like, that's the thing that I wish, like, more people in their 20s. They're like, how do you find someone?

I struggle so much to go find someone. I'm like, are you going out? Like, listen, I think people struggle with alcohol. And I'm not, like, go on benders and stuff like that. But, like, go have, like, a glass or two, a wine. Go out and have a dance. Right? Like, why are people not going out and dancing anymore?

Like, regulate me. Don't be a little bit dumb and, like, get out, like, everything you want on the other side of cringe. Like, yeah, I'm a horrific dancer, but I'm sure as fuck tearing it up out there, right? Because, like, oh, I figured out that, like, that's just an unexplored emotion, right? There's somebody that I saw a video that, like, everything you want on the other side of cringe and every feeling that you're holding yourself back from in every circumstance, it's just an unexplored emotion. Like, oh, I want to expand my emotional palate as well inside of those things. but when people are always like, they get so intellectual. But like the people who are successful in dating are the ones who are out in dating.

They're the ones that go out and they try. And it's because they're collecting data, their nervous system is pulling in that data. They're saying, oh, I like that and I didn't like that. Right. Like I have asked everybody like, have you ever had like pickle ice cream? No, I have not. Do you think you'd like it? Oh, I probably would.

I love pickles. Right. Exactly. Like for me, pickle ice cream, I'm like, oh, my gosh. But it doesn't deter the fact that like you have. permission to like that thing and I do not. But we have to go out and collect that data in order to know. Now, I have tried pickled ice cream and I do not like it. But that is because I've collected that data. So many people are collecting data just from cognitive experiences. They're overthinking themselves

until like, oh, that must be a red flag. That must be this. That must be that. Like no person is a field of green flags. I wanted to ask you a question. And this is totally like you said overthinking. I saw this quote the other day and I was like, I'm sorry, this isn't like fucking bullshit. But maybe it's not. And someone said, overthinking is because you don't trust your gut and you're going against your core and you're, and you didn't listen to your gut. And I was like, wait, wait, these are videos that go viral because then people are like, oh my God, you're right. I'm not listening to my gut. Can you tell me what overthinking like clinically actually is? Like, what's happening? Is it, you don't trust yourself? Is it like, what is it actually? So overthinking is your

nervous system kind of taking this reactive perspective to information. So when this occurs, like the science of how it happens versus the science of what is happening are two different things. So you need to identify the circumstances, people, environments, and sensory input that is going to create an overstimulation environment that's going to lead to a state of stress creating a story and the story's overthinking. When you're overthinking, you are not the director of that story. You are purely an actor. So the default mode network gets turned on the ACC, the anterior cingal, it gets turned off. And those two things. play in a chord. So the ACC is located in the frontal cortex. This is where we have a lot of focus

mechanisms get turned on. So when we are in an overthinking mode, the default mode network is turned on, focus is turned off. And what's happening is our nervous system is practicing the problem. It's identifying threat. It's looking at oversimulation, and it's practicing that problem. Because if you really start to analyze, if you like take a moment when you're overthinking or you look back on all the things that you've overthought, all it's doing is just looking at the problem in different angles. It's not actually. addressing the cause or the source of that because that would require you to actually focus. It's just hitting it enough so that you can curb the appetite and then it's going and it's building

new anticipation pathways over and over and over and over again. The reason that we get stuck in it is because oftentimes when we get into it, we just like kind of like dissociate with head hard and feet like we're not feeling, thinking and acting in accordance. And when we do that, bringing that back together is not a strategy that we're taught. No. Right. It's a protective mechanism and it works really fucking well. This episode is sponsored by AG1. You guys know me. I'm not the best at getting my supplementation. Sometimes I'll wake up. I'll go right to clients. I'm not even taking a beat. And I really want to start taking care of myself more, which is why I started to drink AG1 every single morning. I have more energy. I have better digestive support. I love it.

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which is become a game changer for my nightly routine. Again, that's drinkag1.com slash Zohar for $126 and free gifts for new subscribers. So in order to turn those things off, like the very simple thing that you have to do is recognize that you're in that state and have the self-awareness. Now, that is where self-regulation becomes an issue because most people are like, well, I can't change it in them. I don't recognize it until after. And this is where I tell everybody. Like, at the end of the day, like, you need to take some stock in inventory. Like, all right, where did I get dysregulated?

Where did I get dissociated? Like, where was a conversation that I had that, like, really didn't stick out super well? Like, Ryan and I were jamming on coffee this morning talking about, like, journaling and, like, how I've been using it to help me process grief and trauma. And, like, I do it every night. I, like, religiously, like, the other night I got in, I've been up for, like, 17 hours straight. I am dog tired. And I sat down.

I'm like, it looks like a third grader's, like, journaling. of there, but my nervous system gets regulated because I'm intentionally making meaning out of that. So if we don't go do that, our nervous system is going to live in those reactive patterns. And what happens is the more you practice it, the more that it becomes automatic and unconscious. It doesn't mean that it's not happening. It's just automatic and unconscious. And this is what happens when you start to drift into relationships. And oftentimes, like, oh my gosh, if he wanted to, he would, is such bullshit because oftentimes they

don't know that it's even going on. And then even worse, we don't have enough communication skill to go, hey, so we need to talk about a thing. Right. So this thing popped up. And what it turned on for me is this. Are you open to seeing how we could change that in a different light? Because it's reminding me of this thing and I really care about you. I really want this relationship to work.

But man, did you know that you were doing this? And most of the time, like, they're distracted. They're dissociated. They don't know those patterns are going on. So when I see these like viral videos going on the internet, like if you wanted to, he would. I'm just like, oh my God. Stop. No.

When I see those, what I hear is like you don't actually understand how humans work. Because if you think that people are chalked up to a bumper sticker that we can just explain every behavior in 60 seconds or less 140 characters, then you are gravely mistaken on how complex and nuanced human beings are. We know about one percent of the brain. But yet you know so much about this person to identify their attachment style, how they deal with it, what they want. You're an narcissist. anticipating everything, using this terminology that doesn't actually have a place right now in our fucking culture. And then it divides more than it connects. Because we all think everybody is a fault.

Everyone's fucking TikTok University. Everybody knows. Everybody's a doctor. Everybody is a this. But for me, I find when I do overthink, especially when I was dating, it was because, like, yeah, I wasn't trusting myself. I wasn't really stopping and saying, you know what, Sabrina, you don't know what it is. And you're right. And that's okay.

You don't need to. So that lack of trust that we have in ourselves means that we collect information about who we are based on the validation and interpretation of other people. Right. So instead of us externally validating ourselves and saying like, oh, I get to have this feeling and I get to have this experience, we go out and we like kind of like test the waters. So trust definitely plays a factor into that. It's also just a risk analysis.

Right. So your brain is constantly like testing and like playing out to see how some of these things would go. Like the first couple times that like you and I are like having interactions and we're connecting, I dropped you a message because I was like, hey, that video that you put out like, it was really like meaningful and significant to me. But I think that's all I sent to you. I didn't say like, hey, I'm going through this thing

and my dad committed suicide and oh my God, it was the worst thing on the face of the planet. Like, thank you so much to help me blah, blah. I'm not like, but that's trauma bonding, right? If you're, and this is my thing, a regulated version of me in communication is seeing how much of me you can safely hold. Right?

And this like emotional unavailability is like another term that keeps getting like shoved and thrown around. Like they're not emotionally available. did you fucking create an environment where it was safe to be? That's always my biggest thing. Can we have this talk? Like, good God. Let's have this talk.

The conversation goes. Men are getting roasted out there. And this like, listen, this is not, has nothing to do with sex. It has nothing to do with men and women. It just has to do with the way that men are allowed or like culturally accepted to process emotions. Right. And I think this is such a huge challenge where we were watching that thing on the couch this morning. I'm fucking tearing up over here.

And I'm like, oh my God, that's such a beautiful thing. And, like, Ryan had this, like, amazing, like, emotional expression thing talking about, like, how the two you, like, had this experience together. And I'm like, oh, my God. Like, that's such an awesome thing. You and him curate an environment where emotional expression is available, but not constantly expected. I'm not constantly expecting us to put the scuba deer on and, like, go into the depths of consciousness and expand our knowledge. Like, it's not like that all the time. And if that's your standard, we got a little bit more.

work to do on something. What I think emotionally and available is a terminology that is quite misused. And the reason I say that is because we assume and assume the emotionally unavailable is only avoidance, right? Because they don't tap into their emotion. Here's my harsh reality for my anxious attaches that think emotionally and available is just the avoidant. You're equally as emotionally unavailable.

You're not understanding what's coming up for you. You're not tapping into your emotions and feelings. You're not saying here's what I need. Here's what doesn't work for me. This is what I'm feeling. Instead it's they, them, why? And so when we're emotionally unavailable, we can't be shocked when we also date emotionally unavailable people because that's fucking safer.

People that tell me that, oh my gosh, this person was emotionally unavailable, I just immediately go to my head of like, well, you probably have bad boundaries. It takes two. And that's what you have to say. It's not anyone's fault. And that's the thing is like. And this is not a blaming. No one's blaming and no one's shaming. And that's the thing is like a lot of, there's not a lot of people that listen to the show because the audience that we have is fucking epic and are amazing.

But the internet people, right? The people that hear a 20 second clip that don't understand the. nuance. Oh, yeah. They constantly take it as a personal attack of like, you don't get me. And it's like, you're not a fucking snowflake, babe. And when we get out of the victim mentality, then we can start to see things of what are my choices? Because the reality is, anything short of not consent, right? If it's not consensual, which we all know what I'm trying to say, there is, that's not part of the conversation. Right. But if you're too consenting at dark. Those are extremes. Like, so like, we're not talking about the 10% on each end of the spectrum. Exactly. Right. But if I see one more

video like here's five signs that your partner's a narcissist and it's like they don't validate your emotions every single day and I'm like, what the fuck stick? Yeah. What do you mean that that's a trait? Like where are you getting this information? Like two to three percent of the population are true and genuine narcissist. Right. And I have empathy for those people because if they had to turn into a narcissist, can you imagine how shitty their childhood was? Now, that doesn't mean that I am accepting of their behaviors. You're not excusing it. Yeah. Right. So like I tell my daughter, I love you unconditionally, but we're always going to break check your, like, actions, right? I love you no matter what. But if you're drawn with Sharpie on the walls, like, baby girl, like, that's not an acceptable

behavior. That's not a proper thing, right? And I'm not going to punish you because maybe you didn't know. But if we're going back and forth between that realm of understanding empathy and compassion, it's like you have to stop getting the data from the internet, right? At some point, you need to create your own ability to have experience. And that's what neuroscience has pointed me to over and over again, is like, we have some really awesome data that's coming out on the brain. This is what's going on. Here's what's happening. And if you want the most applicable neuroscience data-driven thing, it's you and you yesterday.

That's what my mom always says. Compare yourself to the version of you and nobody else. Am I? I had a client this morning. And she said, I wasted an entire year. And I said, could you please explain to me what you mean? And she said, well, we got back to it. It didn't work.

It didn't work. And I hope she hears me because she listens. And I hope she knows I say this with love. And I had to challenge her. And I said, so you think it's a waste, but if we look back at the woman that you were a year ago, you're going to tell me she's the same? She said, no. I said, so that's growth. We didn't waste anything.

Where it's a waste is when you don't learn from it. But now we can reframe and say, I didn't waste a year. I am now learning. I'm not going to spend more time on something that is not giving back to me. This episode is sponsored by Cash App. Sometimes my debit card can be a bit boring. And so that's why I love that the Cash App card has personalization features that I can customize. And here's the best part.

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code Cash App 10 in their profile at sign up and send $5 to a friend within 14 days. Terms apply. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App's Bank Partners. Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank Member, FD. This IC. Cash App Green, overdraft coverage, borrow, cashback offers and promotions provided by Cash App, a Block Inc brand. Visit cash.app slash legal slash podcast for full disclosures. This is the power of co-regulation. When you can't regulate and her story is telling herself that I wasted a year, she borrowed your regulation strategy, right, so that you could reframe that state for her. And then when you borrow that, and this is what relationships are, right, you're both not going to be regulated at all times, right?

like disregulated disconnected disjointed over-stimulated all of the shit it's about a dance sometimes you lead and sometimes you follow but i think so many times we get caught up and like well i want him to be masculine i just want him i just why is he not and it's like well did you hold space for him like what's that capacity and then there's also the very real biological regulation that comes into it of like okay how regulated are we to have this guy she knows how did you blab no the devil wears Prada 2. He's the movie event 20 years in the making. Honestly, can't with the secrets anymore, so I think we just

we should tell her. Will you two please spit it out already? This Friday, be the first to experience it only in theaters. In light of the recent scandal, I'm here to restore your credibility. Oh, because we're a team now? That's a nice story. The Devil wears Prada 2 in Theaters Friday.

Yeah. I am shit for brains if I don't get my proper eight hours. Do not have arguments confrontational discussions after 6 p.m. And not ever via text. Please, if I can scream this from the rooftops, don't get into the dissertations via text of like the paragraphs and the this. So here's the communication strategy.

Do not text conflict, period. What you want to do is create objective outcomes with a schedule, right? This thing popped up at this time. You don't want to send the messages that says, we need to talk. No, we never want to say that. Uncertainty. If you want to pull on everyone's shit all at one time, you say, hey, I would like to about this thing that happened at this time. I felt this way. Are you open to having coffee

tomorrow and talking about this with the hope of understanding how we can activate or how I can participate? This episode is brought to you by Tellus Online Security. Oh, tax season is the worst. You mean hack season? Sorry, what? Yeah, cybercriminals love tax forms. But I've got Tellus Online Security. It helps protect against identity theft and financial fraud so I can stress less during tax season. or any season. Plans start at just $12 a month. Learn more at tellus.com slash online security. No one can prevent all cybercrime or identity theft.

Conditions apply. Yes. 100%. That doesn't matter how you show up is for you. Because to that point, I was going to ask you, how do you gauge emotional available, like somebody being emotionally available or not, that right there? By having that type of conversation.

And if they don't reciprocate, no thank you. Okay. We can't even have a conversation about this. Then I don't think you're right for you. Yeah. So this is where, like, The more self-awareness that you have, self-awareness without action turns to anxiety. Your nervous system recognizes the ability to change, and then it creates the anticipatory pathway to change it.

And then if you don't close that loop or you're just using cognitive, you're thinking about your feelings and you're not artificial connection, right? Whether it's pornography, social media, loneliness is an essential drive to go out and connect. People, touch, have conversations, make dinner. Thank you, Ryan, for the dinner last night. It was amazing. Eye contact. Yeah, eye contact, God forbid, right? Like my daughter, who is now eight years old, we practice eye contact and handshakes. And we also practice the ability for her to go, oh, no, thank you.

I don't feel safe connecting to that person. I don't feel safe connecting to that man. And how I still have the responsibility to protect her as her father, when she says, oh, no, thank you. Or she'll put her hands behind her back or she'll place them over her lap. And then I will make sure that it is my responsibility based on the communication that we had, that she doesn't feel safe to connect with that person. And I protect that. That's, and it's like, unfortunately, when we're, you know, a lot of kids is go say hi to this person.

They forge them a hug. Yeah. Oh, Gam Gam, Gam, Watson. Like, no, no. She, she, I'm not comfortable with that. Yeah. And it's okay to say no. And I think, I mean, I know it wasn't a safe space for me to say no.

Stop taking nose emotionally. A lot of people take that very personally. I had somebody in my life, like, lose their fucking marbles on me. Called me a narcissist because she was demanding that I answer her question. And I said, no. I said, this is my live. And then she said, you know, you're mean. And I said, you're entitled.

And she said, you're a narcissist. And I was like, okay, delete. Like, we're done. Because when you, when you're so triggered, when you're so wounded that you want to everybody else is the problem, we can't be surprised when your life's not fucking changing. Can't teach a victim. No. So I wanted to go through some questions that we got.

And I want to get your thoughts on them. Now, we can answer individual or I will say that if you can say, say the next and I will. For sure. Okay. So mind you, if you guys want to write in, please don't forget that the Sabrina Zohar Show on Instagram, we have a question box for new episodes. You can write in and it's the best way for us to be able to talk on episodes. So here are three questions I think that will kind of all pertain,

and I want to hear your thoughts. So somebody asked, how to know when it is time to give up on an avoidant? Does couples therapy work for them? When they pull away, do they think or worry that their partner might leave because of that? How do I make him feel safe while also asking him to make some effort to reassure me? What's the common theme that you hear with these questions? people are projecting responsibility for how they want to participate in the relationship onto that other person. At some point during this relationship, you have to ask if your needs are being met. You're just asking if their needs or what they're doing and what they're thinking over and over again, if you are dating and avoided and they know that they're an avoidant or if they don't know when it's avoided and you are diagnosing them that they are an avoidant,

like what are you? Right. Like it always is back to you. take responsibility for what is going on. And if you're asking these questions and these are things that are like not something that you've deployed or discussed with your partner, like, ugh, like we really got to work on that. So like the theme of all of those questions is really like, why are you not taking responsibility

for how you feel about those patterns? 100%. So like the one with therapy, though, avoidance do not do well in therapy. That is a data point. That is a thing. And the reason that they don't do well in therapy is that therapy is to increase emotional vulnerability. It's an intimate relationship. And that's the thing that is causing them to avoid. And here's also the reality. Like Ryan's in therapy and I'm really fucking proud of him.

Do we know why? You want to know why? Because he chose that. Avoidance have to be empowered to make a choice. They cannot be forced into that. I never. What it was was me saying, hey, can I share something with you? And he was like, of course. And I said, I don't feel like we have depth. I don't feel like we have what I need. If that's not, that's okay if you don't want to provide that. And he said, what do you need for me. I said, I need more connection. He said, so I think it's time I find someone to talk to. I don't have the tools. Oh my God. Yeah. Puddle on the ground. Right. Like panties drop. And that's the reality. It's like, that's why we're together. I'm not together

with him because, oh, he's avoided and I make excuses for all of his bullshit. Fuck, no. It's the same as he doesn't make excuses for my anxiety. 100%. What we do is we're two growth-minded people saying this relationship means a lot. If we get to a point where it's just not going to happen, that's a decision we make. But a lot of the questions I see here are very much of how can I make them feel comfortable. How can I make them open up? How can I make them do it? And the reality is like, did that work with your parents? Well, okay, but before we go down that avenue, because that's a whole, that's a can of worms and a ball of wax, the genius of what you just described is that you created the opportunity for him to have a tolerance of vulnerability. You gave him a window of vulnerability.

And you opened to the door and you asked if you'd like to come in. And he said, Yes. That's how it works with a lot of avoidance. And I've done this in the past where men don't, where I will open the vulnerability. And it's no, I'm good. And that's okay. And then what I say is even this isn't for me. 100%.

And then that's okay, too. But then oftentimes they get emotional and then it's the reactive pathway. And it's like, okay. The thing is, I think what destroys a ton of relationships is the fact that they're disregulated, but we try to fix emotional problems. Emotional problems are not meant to be fixed. They're meant to be witnessed. Go on.

How do you do that? It's the same way that we've been having this entire conversation, right? Where if there's this emotion that's coming up and they are just like pouring their soul out, right? And you recognize that they are just having like this meltdown moment, but it is about you. It's not about you. I was insane. When I hear even I was reading more of the questions and people are asking, does it have to do with sex? Why is it going?

What is going on when they break up unexpectedly for BS? Do they regret it? He's disappointing me. How does that make them? feel. What I'm hearing here, and I say this with so much love and compassion, is that you're trying to find your worth through their actions. It's codependency. All of those questions are codependent. Do they feel this? Do they, them, them, them? Because then that makes me feel worthy. That makes me feel like I was important. Right. And I totally fucking get that. But here's a thing. If someone breaks up

with you for a bullshit reason, that's on them. Yeah. That's, you cannot convince them and get them back. It's a bullshit reason. And if you can identify that and say, oh, you're so. quick to walk away for that, we wouldn't have been able to make it in a relationship. 100%. Yeah. Thank you for exposing that version. Right. Now, is there room for forgiveness? Did they change? Right. And what did they do? And that's the, is that if they're like, oh, this is what I'm going to do, right? Like, I think if you're in a relationship and somebody makes a mistake, I think one of the greatest tools that you can have is to validate the fact that, hey, I'm really sorry that I hurt you. Right. I didn't intend to do that maliciously. And I don't want to,

you know, hide the fact that that definitely hurt you. Here's what I plan to do. do differently next time, right? There's just a lot of emotional monitoring. How do I ask them without them freaking out? How do I get them to open up without them feeling that they could shut down? It's like, like you were saying, what safe space are you creating? Are you sharing something vulnerable? Are you leading with vulnerability? Of like, hey, I wanted to share that this is something that like I experienced in childhood. Did you ever have that? Yeah. Because then they're like, oh, I'm not going to be. And then they share it. And you say, thank you so much. That actually makes me feel really close to you. I'm really grateful you shared that with you.

100%. And vulnerability is like, it's hard. It's very hard. Right. Because your whole system is rebelling against giving that person data that oftentimes the last time you did that, your nervous system was attacked. So you give somebody that data, right? And you're like, well, this is how I really feel about that. And then they take that information and they use it against you. They weaponize your vulnerability against you. And I unfortunately know that that has happened to pretty much every single person that breathes there. And it doesn't mean that just because that person attacked you and they used that vulnerability.

doesn't mean that all people will. But that's how your nervous system interprets. It doesn't care what it is. It looks at what it looks like. So if you can have that information in your pocket and recognize that your system is not wanting to be vulnerable because it's reminding you of this thing, you have to create new environment,

new circumstance to counteract and compete those old pathways. I remember once I was dating this guy, and at first he was so perfect, like to the point where I'll never forget. If you've listened along, you know, I called him the conventionally handsome guy because he was. He was, my mom adopt, she was like, he's very conventionally handsome. But as I started to get to know him, I was getting less and less turned on because I started to see.

And I'll never forget, he was so perfect at first, like, to the point where even I was like, it's enough. Like, you're, you're laying it on too thick. Yeah. And I remember he, like, came up to me my best friend. And she looked at me and she goes, either that's the love of your life or you're getting fucking played. And I was like, mm-hmm. And I remember he like came to, it was a whole thing. And long story medium is like, at the end of it, when he showed me, he just did not have the bandwidth.

He did not have the communication I desired. He was staying at my house. He came to, like, thinking he was going to talk, that we were going to talk about it. And he had, like, totally dick to me over the night before. Like, this, where there was no more conversation. It was too much. I was done. I was too.

Like, it wasn't a six year thing. Right. And he showed up at the house. And I didn't even let him in my house. That was my boundary. I was like, no, no, no. And he was like, I had his bag packed. And he was like, yeah.

I saw all of your stuff. And it is in this bag. And we talked for five minutes. And then he goes, but Sabrina, you know I'm emotionally unavailable. unavailable and I said yeah I get the fuck off my porch it's not for me thank you and I did I cry yeah I was sad I was bummed I checked my phone hoping he was gonna regret it

and come back to me and he didn't I didn't hear from him he moved on with his life and so did I and nine months later I reached out to him and I was like hey and I'll never forget I said like how are you and he goes oh I'm actually in LA you want to get dinner tonight at 830 and I called my mom and she goes you're fucking kidding me right and she said this motherfucker was in your city in your place And he's just fitting you into his schedule at 9 o'clock at night.

And she was like, you're going to really do this? And I text him back and I said, this doesn't work for me. Take care. And I met Ryan three months later. And the reason being and the reason I show that is because I had to make space. I had to look and go, that doesn't work for me. And that's what I'm seeing in a lot of the questions that we've been getting is that people don't think they have a choice. This is the power of no conflict, though, and grieving through the no conflict that goes on.

Because if you continue to maintain conflict, your brain is continuing to reward. the anticipation, right? So your brain running on that dopamine, dopamine is not a reward, right? It's anticipation. Right. So once you can start to understand that, no conflict, you have to essentially detox them from your nervous system. And yeah, like any addict, it's going to suck for a couple weeks. You just have to embrace the suck. You grieve. You eat ice cream. You go to the gym. You talk with your friends. You go have these types of conversations. But if you don't and you like kind of breadcrumb and you're kind of like going to do some of those strategies and they're kind of like doing that. All that's doing is building this like false sense of

hope. All right, Chris, I have one more question because I don't want to make it about everybody else. I want to bring it back in-house for how they're feeling. How do you move on from a breakup with an avoidant in a healthy way? All the energy and attention that you were giving to that relationship, it goes back to you. So you give yourself permission to grief. You close that loop because grieving is really changing the dynamic of the relationship and it's closing that loop on your terms. Closure is bullshit. What that's doing, is giving yourself permission to reinvest into yourself the way that you were investing into that relationship. So give yourself permission to let go and turn that energy back inward.

And what's really important about doing that is I think a lot of people get confused of like, how do I give myself the love that they didn't? It's like start to get really honest with yourself of what your needs weren't met, what they didn't satisfy, how you felt like shit, how you hated when they fucking walked out of the room, how it was terrible when they would leave you on the floor crying, take up that space because you're allowed. Instead of gaslighting yourself and putting them on this pedestal that they were the God's fucking gift, instead you can hold them accountable and say, I didn't like that. And instead of me projecting on what I wanted them to be, I'm going to hold space and grieve the fucking fantasy and start to face the reality.

Allow your feelings and trust the patterns. Chris, this was honestly like just a fucking epic conversation. I'm so grateful that you were here. Yeah. Like I said, the problem wasn't going to be like, are we going to have enough information to talk about? It's like getting us to shut up. That's going to be the problem. Oh yeah. For anyone listening, we were talking about this episode. We had no note. We literally

has been going. Yeah, we've been talking like this for 72 hours since I flew in. Yeah, it's been like this. We got Thai food. Yeah. I'm stoked. So, guys, this is the first of many. You will be back. And I mean, you don't talk in choice. I'll fly your ass out of here to come back. It's going to be amazing. We're going to do it. So tell everybody where can they work with you, reach you, find you, how in what capacity and how can they connect with you? Yeah, everything's at Dr. Chris. Lee. I help people work through dysregulation and build businesses that are built on lifestyle. instead of just money and all the other things. So if you guys are interested in having a more regulated nervous system, add Dr. Crisley. We'll tag everything, TikTok, Insta, all the fun shit.

Love that. And dude, I'm still. Thank you again for being here. Thanks for having me.