The Sabrina Zohar Show - 196: Closure, No Contact, And How To Get Over Someone

Episode Date: April 3, 2026

Closure is a lie, and waiting for it is keeping you stuck. In this episode of the Hard Truth Series, we get into why closure doesn't come from another person, what your brain is actually doing after a breakup, and why the conversation you keep replaying in your head would never be enough even if you got it. We cover the neuroscience of heartbreak, why searching for "why" makes things worse, and how identity loss after a relationship ends is what's really driving your distress. If you can't stop thinking about your ex, feel like you need one more explanation to move on, or keep putting your life on hold waiting for them to come back, this one is for you. We break down the difference between processing and rumination, why no contact feels impossible, and how to actually grieve a breakup so you can stop outsourcing your healing to someone who already walked away. Pre-order Sabrina's book coming out October 2026, "Why Am I Like This?" 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! If you’re serious about changing your dating patterns instead of repeating them, the Art of Going Slow course helps you unlearn urgency, regulate your nervous system, and build real connection without rushing, chasing, or abandoning yourself 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! Please support our sponsors! Start your new morning ritual & get up to 43% off your @MUDWTR with code SABRINAZOHAR at mudwtr.com/SABRINAZOHAR! #mudwtrpod Unlock your best skin with @iRestorelaser and unlock exclusive savings on the iRestore Illumina Face Mask, use code SABRINA at irestore.com/SABRINA! #irestorepod ============================= Chapters: 00:00 Closure Doesn't Come From Them 03:15 Why Your Brain Craves an Explanation 06:30 Audience Questions: Stuck After a Breakup 09:45 The Neuroscience of Heartbreak 13:00 How to Actually Stop Thinking About Your Ex 16:15 Why Journaling Can Make It Worse 19:30 Identity Loss After a Breakup 22:45 What Grief Actually Looks Like 26:00 Reframing Closure as Grief 29:15 Tool of the Week: The Grief Inventory 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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You're waiting for the apology, the conversation, the text that finally makes it all makes sense. You're rehearsing what you'd say. You're checking their socials for a sign. You're telling yourself you can't move on until you get closure. But here's the harsh truth. Closure doesn't come from them. It never did. That conversation that you keep rehearsing in your head, even if you got it, every single

fucking word exactly how you imagined it, it wouldn't be enough because closure isn't information, it's not an explanation. Closure's grief. And you've been avoiding grief by pretending you just need one more answer. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to another episode of the Sabrina Zohar Show. My name is Sabrina Zohar, and I am your host, my friends. We are Hard Truth Four. We made it. I love this series. I love series in general, so pop them in into the comments. What series do you want next? Don't worry. We're going to do the nervous system one. I heard my babies. You asked for it.

You shall receive. But I'm so excited because this one is a biggie. At first, I was going to talk about how you have to learn to grieve. And I said, bitch, anybody got to understand what the fuck you're talking about. We have to learn that closure doesn't come from another person. That's the hard truth. Closure is an inside job, and you've got to learn to grieve if you actually want to be able to move on. Guys, as always, please don't forget to read and review, leave a comment, share it with a friend. That is the most important thing. It helps us grow more than you would ever know. Even if you don't like an episode, Mark it is finished. Help me, rig the system. But guys, everything you need, all the courses working one-on-one. If you

want to ask a question. Everything is linked in the show notes. And I'm just so stoked, guys, because episode one through three, we're about what you do wrong while you're in it wrong, you know. Today is about what happens when it's over and what you're doing wrong on the after. And I asked you guys what you're struggling with when it comes to getting over someone and the responses, they broke my heart, but I think we need it. So let's get right on into it, shall we? This episode is special to me because honestly, I've lived it and I was in this place for a long fucking time. And I think a lot of you guys are in that. You think you need one more conversation, you need one more explanation, you need one more answer, and then you'll be able to

move on. But think about what you're really doing. You're outsourcing your healing to the person who hurt you, and you're handing the key to your freedom to someone who already walked away. I used to believe closure was the only way I was going to get over somebody. I needed you to tell me that I will be okay. And if you told me I'll be okay, if you gave me a reason, right? And we have to think of why? Why do we want closure so bad? Because your brain is trying to close a loop. When somebody ends something. If you're not making sense of it yourself, you're looking for the other person to validate your experience and to tell you it's okay, to let you know that maybe you didn't do anything wrong, that it wasn't about you, that this is their shortcoming. But all it does is it

prolongs the inevitable so that then you don't actually have to face reality. Because when we're waiting for closure, you're not actually accepting what is. You're hoping that the what if is going to set you free. So what does healthy closure look like when you don't get an apology or an explanation? Healthy closure doesn't require their participation at all. You're asking the person who hurt you to be the one that heals you. Healthy closure is you deciding that the chapter is over without their signature on the last fucking page. And the thing about the why, you think if you could just understand why you'd feel better, but you get the answer and it doesn't fit. Or it raises more questions. Or they lie. Or they give you a reason that makes no fucking sense. You're not actually

looking for information. You're looking for a feeling. You want the explanation to make the pain makes sense, but understanding why someone left doesn't undo the leaving. These are the audience questions that you guys ask. I wanted to jump right on into a few and then start to understand what's coming up for you? Because I get it, right? I used to, when I was dating, I would just say, like, I just need them to tell me why. I need to understand because it was really hard for me to fathom a couple of things. One, if it really is them, then what does that mean about me? Oh, that I didn't do anything wrong, that not everything is my fault. And I'll be honest with you guys, which you guys know, I'm always vulnerable with you. I'm experienced that in my career right now.

Like, I am not going to bullshit you of like, oh my God, yeah, once you do this work, like, You wake up every day and you're skipping on clouds and healing is nothing and you're just enjoying every single day. No. No. I still have fears of abandonment. I still worry that you guys are going to leave me. Even if you're like, stop, that makes no sense. Well, it's the same thing I say when you're dating, right? We don't have any proof. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong. That just makes me a human. And the more we try to avoid that, imagine if I was like, I just need closure from you guys. I just need to know why you stopped listening. You'd be like, wow, bitch, really? You're going to outsource what that person's going through to make it your problem. Then of course that's not like a direct correlation.

But the reason I bring this up is to show that like you're a human and what you're going through makes sense. But the longer you prolong it of like I just need closure, I just need to hear from them. I need them to tell me why. No contact is so hard. It's like the only reason no contact is hard for you is because you're going through a withdrawal. When you have somebody every single day, you're getting dopamine, you're getting the neurotransmitters and then they're gone, you get none of it.

So not only is your body not receiving what it was, now you have to baseline when you're losing everything and your dopaminergic system is firing and alerting saying we're not safe. But really what it is, it's now it's about you creating a life without this person that you're fucking excited about because if they were the center of your life, that's why you're struggling to get over them because you don't have one outside of them. Is it okay to never get closure from them and still move forward after nine years and he moved on already? Baby, after nine years, he moved on.

Well, because he's not caring this the way that you are, so what are you waiting for? Someone who already put it down, you're holding a door open for someone who's already left the fucking building. If you're still stuck on somebody months and years after the breakup and you just keep saying, I can't get over them and I need closure, then this has nothing to do with them anymore. This is to do with the narrative that you've created about this person. I say it all fucking day. Take the shine off of this person. What does that actually mean?

Make them a real person. They're not the end-all be-all. They're not the one. They're not the love of your life. This is a person that it didn't work out with. And the more you put them on a pedestal, you're putting your life on hold for someone who's already fucking moved on with theirs. At the end of the day, who's losing you? So if you actually want to make a change, you've got to decide for you when enough is enough and that you're finally going to let go

of somebody because they weren't that fucking amazing to begin with. Because if they were, you'd be with them. Can you move on without closure? You have to because most people will never give you that closure, not the kind you're imagining. I know we want this to be like a movie where they show up at your door and they have this whole grandiose moment and they're telling you how they can't live without you and you're the person and they're so sorry and they fucked up. Baby, if the person that hurt you had the capabilities and bandwidth to take acknowledgement, to take accountability, and to own up to what they did, then they probably wouldn't have hurt you in the way that they did. You want this person to be a different person than who they actually are. And if that were the

case, you wouldn't have had the issues that you have and the reason it's over. Stop romanticizing the relationship. You're allowed to say it didn't work out for you because when you do that, you're actually taking accountability and ownership because then you can say, what are the choices that I made that made me stay? If moving on requires that conversation, baby, you will be waiting forever. You're not healing. You're just holding yourself hostage to a situation that is long gone. And so now I want to talk about what's actually happening in your body right now, because if you're anything like me, hi. You thought something was wrong with you.

You thought you were being dramatic. You're too much. You're broken. And I found some research that changed everything. So let's talk about it. So researchers at the University of Michigan took 40 people who had been through an unwanted breakup, and they put them in a brain scan. They showed them photos of their ex while they thought about being rejected. And reminds me of Eternal Sunshine.

I don't know if you guys remember. Me and Ryan went to go see that. And, you know, when she's sitting there and they're showing her all the photos and their brain mapping. Okay, sorry, so I don't. Then in the same scan, they gave them actual physical pain, right? Like heat on their forearm. And what they found was the rejection activated the same brain regions as the physical burn, not since. similar, the same. The secondary somatocensory cortex, that's a tongue twister, the dorsal posterior

insula, these are the areas that process the sensory experience of physical pain. So they compare it against a database of over 500 brain imaging studies. These regions almost never show up in the emotional studies. They only show up in physical pain studies. So again, your heartbreak isn't metaphorical. Your brain is processing rejection through the same circuits it uses when you burn your hand on a sove. So when someone just tells you to get over it, when your chest actually aches, when you feel like something is physically wrong with you, you're not just being dramatic. Your brain has registered an injury and you don't heal a wound by understanding why you got hurt. You heal it by letting it close. And I know, I know. Maybe somebody told you that you're too

much or you're too emotional, you're too sensitive. And your brain was literally processing this as oh my God, there's something wrong with me. I remember my sister used to do that. As much as I love her, she would always just be like, oh my God, just get over it. Or that's my brain. out, right? Move on. Just move on. Get over it. And so I was taught the fact that you hold on to this means there's something wrong with you. You're emotional. Yikes. Everybody else has just moved on until I realize like, no, they haven't. I mean, I hear this all the time in dating. Like I'm so tired of dating people that aren't done with their ex. My number one non-negotiable when I dated was, you got to be done with your ex. I am not your fucking therapist. I am not your rebound center.

I am not your goddamn rehabilitation center. I want somebody that is ready to move on with me from the past relationship. What have you learned? What did it teach you about yourself? I want to see how growth-minded you are because if you're not ready to let go of the past and build a new future, then nothing I do will ever change that. And that's only going to impact my self-esteem and ruin the outcome because I want someone ready to be with me, not someone I have to fucking convince to be with me. This episode is sponsored by Mudwater. You guys, I was really struggling with brain fog and feeling super groggy in the mornings. And I was trying to create a new routine for myself falling in love with my mornings instead of feeling like I had to just get through them.

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Is it even possible to move on when you're so madly in love? Right. This is exactly what we were talking about. You're calling it love. That is not fucking love, baby. That's your brain processing and injury. It's going to hurt. It's supposed to hurt.

And the fact that it hurts this much doesn't mean that they were your person. It means your brain got bonded and now it's detaching. So that's biological. We have to think about that. And if a lot of you guys ask, like, I think about my ex all the time. Thinking about them doesn't mean you're not over it. Your brain is still healing. The best lesson I learned when I was moving on from an ex was don't try to get over them.

Don't try to stop thinking about them because what you're doing is you're telling your brain, this is something that's important. The more you avoid it, then that means it's something important. What we're actually saying is, okay, well, I'm thinking of them, right? I had a relationship with them. We shared experiences. It makes total sense that this person would still be in my head. That doesn't mean I need to do anything about it. You're validating your experience. You're allowing yourself to think about this person and you're making a choice to not do anything about it. What you're doing is you're closing the loop. That is how you'll actually get over somebody. It's not about pretending that they don't come into your mind. It's acknowledging that they do and gently reminding yourself that they're an ex for a reason and that you deserve better. So here's where it can kind of get a little counterintuitive. I did everything they tell you to do.

I journaled. I processed my feelings. I searched for meaning. I tried to understand the why. And it turns out that that might have made making things worse. So David Spara and his team took 90 recently separated adults, three groups. So the first one was expressive writing about deepest feelings. The second was narrative writing creating a story arc and a control group that just wrote about how they spent their time.

mundane shit, right? What they had for lunch, followed them, whatever. So we followed them for nine months. For people actively searching for meaning, trying to understand the why, the expressive writing made them worse. It didn't help. Worse. Up to nine months later. And here's the thing. The high ruminators, the people who go over it and over it in their heads, they did the best in the control group. The ones who stopped searching for why and just wrote about mundane life had the least distress of anybody. So Spara said it himself. For people who are totally in their heads going over what happened, the answer isn't more processing. It's re-engaging in life. You're not avoiding your choice. You're not avoiding your choice. choosing to live instead of choosing to loop. And that's where I figured out the difference between processing and ruminating. They feel very similar. Processing has a direction. It moves you through something. Rumination is a circle. It keeps you in it. So you've been asking yourself the same question for weeks, and then the answers aren't getting better. You are fucking stuck. And I know a lot of you guys are grieving and you're in this loop of what did I do wrong.

Every time you go around the loop, again, you're not processing. You're ruminating. And I don't want you to try to just get rid of this person. I don't want you to pretend as if this person doesn't exist because then what that does, that's actually just gaslighting you. Again, you're allowed to say this wasn't healthy for me. And it's funny, one of the hardest things for me was acknowledging that that person wasn't right for me. You want to know why? Because if I made that determination, if I said, you're right, they're not actually good for me. Then I had to hold myself accountable going, oh, okay, so then the narrative and the fantasy that you're holding is no longer going to happen. This isn't the love of your life. They're not the one.

And then what did I have to do? I had to sit with myself. I had to sit with myself and deal with the disappointment to deal with the stories, to deal with the fact that I allowed this. I had to sit with myself and be okay with where I am. And for a lot of us, that's really fucking tough. That's why we make it about them. Welcome to the anxious attacher.

It's all about them. They will tell me everything's okay. They will let me free. They will give me the closure. They, they, they, they. Why is it that they're the ones that are going to tell you when to move on with your life? Don't you make that determining? And I think about this all the time.

They always come back. No, they don't. They don't always come back. And the more we hold on to that of like, I know they're going to come back for me and they're going to realize what they lost, you're just putting your life on hold. And if I had done that, I would still be single four years later waiting for all these ethereal fucking people to realize what they lost and come back and give me the closure and the conversation.

I would have just been putting my life on hold. And the more I focused at all the doors that were closing, I wasn't realizing all the windows that were opening and all the new opportunities and people. because the more you're focused on them, the less you're giving attention to new incredible people that are trying to make their fucking way in your life. Okay, so your brain is processing an injury and searching for why it makes it worse. So there's a third piece, and this is the one that really broke me open when I found it out, because it explains why this grief feels so enormous, and it's not just about losing a person.

So there were three studies on what happens to your actual identity after a breakup. When you're in a relationship, your self-concept literally merges with your partners, shared friends, shared activities, shared plans. you start using we instead of I, right? You start absorbing the parts of their identity into yours, their taste in music, their group of friends, their Sunday routine, their version of the future. And if the relationship ends, and when it, you know, if it does,

all of those pieces don't neatly separate. They rip. So two things can happen. The content of yourself changes and you lose actual pieces of who you are. And second, your self-concept clarity drop. So you literally don't know who you are anymore. And here was the finding. It wasn't the rejection that predicted emotional distress.

It was, it wasn't loneliness. It was the reduced self-cons of clarity. That I don't know who I am without them feeling. That was what predicted how badly people suffered. And that's where we have to say fusion, right? The differentiation and fusion. That identity merge in action. So when you fuse with someone and they leave, of course you don't know who you are.

And this is why the self-abandonment work matters before the breakup, not just after. If you erased yourself to keep the relationship, now you're grieving someone who wasn't even fully you. And you know, you know what. And this is why I talk about choosing yourself so much, because the people who have the hardest time after breakups are the ones who lost themselves inside the relationship. That's why I say all the time, if Ryan and I ended tomorrow, I'd be like, okay, right? I'd be sad because I'm a human and I love this person. But if he came to me and said, bam, I just, I don't want this life or I'm not feeling it. Okay, we're going to fucking argue.

I wouldn't be like, oh, I just need closure. Because I have a really full sense of self. I have my things. I love the life that I'm building. And I want to build that with my partner. But I also know, right? like that was, I think, the biggest thing that we saw in love is blind. This is like, no, divorce can't happen.

And it's like, yes, I can. Divorce, breakups. This is all very possible, all very plausible. And if you don't believe that that's ever a possibility, you're already self-abandoning. You're already fused, right? If their mood was your mood and their life was their life, then when they leave, they take you with them. And now you're grieving the person and your entire identity. No wonder this feels like you can't survive, obviously.

And that's what I mean by, like, you make so much sense. Nobody here is crazy, but we have to look and say, was I maintaining my own life? What am I grieving? Right? It's not just the ending. I'm grieving the fantasy. I'm grieving the future. I'm grieving the version of myself.

I'm grieving the little girl for me that thought that this was it, that thought that this was Prince Charming, that thought and believed that I felt safe here and seen, heard, and understood. That's a lot of grief. So please show yourself some compassion. But you know what? We also need to hold it and keep it real. I can't tell you how many times I'll be in a session.

and I help a lot of people process through breakups, and they'll stay like, I loved this person, and they were the love of my life. I'm never going to meet anyone. And then when I say, quantify it. All of a sudden, it's like, oh, right, yeah, yeah, no. So the love of your life is somebody who discredits you. Well, yikes, okay, so that's what love is to you.

And no wonder this is going to feel really intense. So somebody asks, I feel like if I don't wait for his return, our love didn't mean anything at all. I feel bad moving on. I want you to hear what I just said. You believe that moving on means that love didn't matter. That's the lie that keeps you stuck because grieving something doesn't erase it.

Letting go doesn't mean it was meaningless. It means it mattered and it's over. That's two conflicting thoughts. You're not portraying this person by moving forward. You're honoring yourself by refusing to live in a house somebody already left. You don't have to be in this situation because you're now feeling. That's guilt. Gilt.

Shame is I am bad. Guilt is I have done something bad. You're allowed to take accountability without the shame. Yeah, I was unhealthy. Yes, I was reactive. I self-abandoned. That doesn't make me a bad person. It makes me someone who was operating with the tools I had. Because if it's always everybody else's fault, what's the common denominator, right? Eventually, we do have to look at ourselves. But you do that with compassion, not with a fucking bat. You don't do that and a way that is putting you down. And I hear that all

the time of like, I can't move on, especially when you're the one who did the breaking up, or perhaps like behavior that you exhibited was the reason that it ended. Again, that other person isn't going to offer you closure. You create that on your yourself. You create closure when you decide I deserve better. You create closure when you say, I did the best I could with the information I knew and I'm not going to guilt myself into that. And you create closure when you say, I'm no longer going to carry why this didn't work on myself because it takes two people for a relationship to work and it takes two people for a relationship not to work as well. And so if you want to take full accountability or make it all about them,

you're going to be waiting a long fucking time because it's not how that works, baby. just not how it works This episode is sponsored by I Restore Guys, it's a new season This is the perfect time To give your skin the attention it deserves And refresh your routine

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With code Sabrina at irrestore.com, you can unlock an exclusive discount on the Illumina face mask. Again, the code is Sabrina at irrestore.com. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. Start the year feeling refreshed, confident, and glowing, baby. Okay. When I sell my business, I want the best tax and investment advice. I want to help my kids, and I want to give back to the community. Ooh, then it's the vacation of a lifetime.

I wonder if my head of office has a forever setting. An IG Private Wealth Advisor creates the clarity you need with plans that harmonize your business, your family, and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your advisor at IGPrivatewealth.com. Somebody asks, how do I kill the hope that this person will come back someday? You don't kill it, you grieve it. Hope is the last thing to die because hope is what kept you in it.

Am I living my life or am I pausing my life waiting for someone who left? You can hold hope and still move forward. You just can't hold hope and stand still. So let's put it together. Your brain is processing an injury. It's searching for why makes it worse, right? And it feels enormous because you didn't just lose a person, you lost a piece of your identity. So what actually lets you move on is grief.

The one thing you're avoiding. And grief doesn't feel productive. In a world that tells you do the work and keep fucking going and don't stop, grief feels like the opposite of work. feels like sitting in the dark doing nothing, but grief is the work. That's the thing that nobody talks about. Nobody makes a carousel about the night you cried on the bathroom floor. But that night did more for your healing than six months of analyzing what went wrong. It's okay to hold space and say, I really wanted this to work. And remember what you're grieving, you're grieving, you're grieving a future and something you imagined, a life you thought you never would have existed without this person.

And we need to be able to hold that space and say, I'm allowed. I'm allowed to even care two griefs that the relationship and the time you lost. The version of you Hussade wasn't stupid. That person was just scared. They were hopeful. Grieved the time, but don't punish yourself for it. I hear that all the time, like, it was a mistake. I will tell you right now, nothing in my past was a mistake. Nothing in my past. Being with a narcissistic piece of shit that fucking drilled me into the ground. Not a mistake. For me, personally, I think, I wouldn't be, I think I know, I wouldn't be here sitting with you guys if I didn't go through all of those experiences. So instead of regretting what you did, maybe we can find meaning from it.

That's why I love ACT acceptance and compassion therapy. Can we make meaning of the experience? And so maybe the meaning is I'm never going to allow anyone to treat me like this. I'm never going to put my life on hold for someone else. And if I do, I'll compassionately bring myself back to what actually aligns with me. And maybe we can add for now. For now I'm grieving. For now it's hard.

That doesn't mean it will be forever. And baby, as long as you have another breath, you get to choose. You get to decide. And I know, I know that this feels like you're never going to find anybody. Well, then we need to look at that narrative because then I want to ask you this. Is it actually about them? Or is it about the fact that you're scared of being alone and you didn't want to keep doing this? Is it actually about them?

Or is this more about the fact that you have scarcity mindset, that this was the end-all-be-alt, that you self-abandoned and you have to acknowledge that. But if you could hold on to them and make it all worth it. But, C-C, no, they came back for me. They came back or they want me or I got closure. We'll see, then it all makes it worth it. What if you don't get that? I'll pose that question to you.

So you're just going to stay stuck forever. You're going to live your life waiting for somebody else to let you know it's okay to move on. So maybe we can reframe. I need closure to, I need grief. Grief where it doesn't require their participation. I'm even going through that right now. I am. Right?

I'm still grieving Clem and the name change and all of these things. I haven't talked about the name change in a minute, but I'm still grieving it. I'm grieving what came after it. I'm grieving that I lost myself because, hey, fuck, it's the same as a relationship. I put my identity into that fucking name. That I was, look, that name was giving me a life in a future and a career and success and all of these things. So I didn't just have to grieve what I had. I had to grieve the future that I thought I was going to have.

And then rebuilding that on my own felt fucking terrifying. And some of those fears, they came true, but not all of them. And so you're allowed to grieve and let that take as long as long as you're allowed to grieve. and let that take as long as you want. It's the same thing. Like, oh, anytime somebody fucking tries to come after me with grieving Clem, this is what I have to say, go fuck yourself. You're going to fucking judge me and tell me that I'm not allowed to grieve.

I'm not allowed to mourn. And that's a me job. I'm not fucking putting that on to anybody else. And I'm sorry that you're an ability to sit in that. It doesn't mean that I have to feel bad about doing it. But now we want to say, do you notice how, like, I'm allowed to grieve, but that doesn't mean I don't move forward with my life. That means that I hold the space.

and I acknowledge how important that was to me, how much that meant to me because it did. You don't have to gaslight yourself and as if you're fucking making this up, the relationship was real, the situation ship was real. But maybe the way that you're perceiving them might not be factual. And here's maybe a reframe. If I could just understand why, oh, maybe understanding why is rumination. That's not actually healing. So it's not that I need to understand why. I need to accept what it is.

So let's say you asked me, why did they end up? And I said, well, because they felt super overwhelmed and they got really into their avoidance and they couldn't sit with you and they don't have the bandwidth. Okay. So you're going to ask me another, but why couldn't they work on it? Why wasn't I enough? What did I do wrong? Do you notice how like there's always questions?

Because it's not actually about the question. That's your nervous system trying to find any kind of safety or answer in an external. And maybe we can reframe something is wrong with me to, my brain is healing from an injury and I lost pieces of my identity. there's nothing fucking wrong with me. And given everything I've been through, it makes total sense that I would feel like this. That's something I need you guys to start getting really used to saying.

Given everything I've been through, it makes total sense that this is how I'd feel. You're allowed to. I'll give you that permission. And if you grew up in a house like I did, you weren't allowed. That meant there was something wrong with you. You're being dramatic. You're being too much.

God, Jesus Christ, another fucking emotion? It's like, yeah, another fucking emotion. Because I'm a human and I'm allowed to do that. But that's where I would say, we have to look and that's why when you guys tell me nine years I haven't moved on from someone I'm like you just wasted nine years of your life

hoping especially like I have one of my clients and I even had to say like I was like listen if you're not willing to invest in yourself and do this work actually do this work I can't help you because it was it was a two years later of like oh well this person's moved on and they have the boyfriend and they did and I looked at the thing and the person's not even as attractive as me it's like

so you're trying to find meaning you're trying to find your validation and all you're doing is putting yourself down because that person moved on I wouldn't want someone to do that. I would never want any of my exes to compare themselves to Ryan. I don't think that's fair. I would tell them personally, like, this has nothing to do with your worth and who you are or just more compatible in what we want and how we handle each other.

And maybe timing was off, right? Maybe when we met, I was a different version of myself. That doesn't mean anything. And it, oh, well, why didn't you do the work then? It's like, because I didn't know. That doesn't mean I go back into the past and try to make something happen that didn't. It means I move on and I learned from it because that's growth. and you're allowed to do that.

So let's get into the tool of the week, shall we? We love the tool of the week. And guys, like I said, as always, thank you guys for being here. Don't forget to share this with a friend, especially one that's really struggling to move on, that feels like they just need the closure, that feels stuck, put in your Facebook groups, comment, rate, review, engage with the ads.

Like, people ask me all the time, like, oh, you guys get paid from all the platforms. We don't. Podcasters, we don't make any fucking money except from YouTube, and it's very, very small. Outside of that, no, the only way we stay, going is because we have you guys supporting and we have the amazing sponsors. I don't give, I don't do any sponsorships on a brand that I don't use myself. I've said no to more than I can

count. So I wanted to just share that. And it's the same when my book comes out October 13th. I need, not I want, I need you guys to help me with the pre-orders. That's the only way I'll get Target and Walmart and everybody to go, okay, this book is something that we need because if I don't grow it, nobody's going to do it for me. And sometimes that can feel really disheartening. Because you know what I get it. I understand how you feel when you're like, man, I would just love someone to just come and make my life a little bit easier. But unfortunately, that's not the way the cookie crumbles. And so please know there's a free guide.

There's a free quiz now. What kind of lover are you quiz? You get some free dating advice via email. We've got the courses. We're starting a membership soon. Like, I got you, babe. Whatever you need. If you want to add free, everything will be in the link in show notes.

And if not, that's cool too. Thank you for fucking being here. All right, babies, let's get into the grief inventory, which is our tool of the week. As always, I put the tool of the week at the end because you guys got to earn it. Ha-ha, I say this with love. But seriously, that I can't just give. You can't just give it all away.

So this comes from the slaughter research. If your self-concept shattered because you lost pieces of yourself, you need to know what you actually lost. You can't grieve what you haven't named. So I want you to get out a piece of paper. Get it out. I'm waiting. Well, you could do this later.

Write down everything you're actually grieving. Not the person, but what you lost around the person. So make it tangible. The apartment, the friend group, the Sunday mornings, the inside jokes, the holidays with their family. Then I want you to look at the identity, right? being someone's person, being chosen, the role you played in their life, who you were when you were with them. And then think about the future, the wedding you imagine, the kids, the house, the growing

older, all of those things. And then look at your list. That's what you're grieving. It's not one thing. It's dozens. So no wonder it feels like it's taking forever, because you're not getting over one loss. You're getting over fucking 30. And I get it. I understand. But I now want you to now, next to each one, right? K or R. K is for keep, something you rebuild on your own. R is for release, something that only existed in the context of the relationship, right, Sunday routine? Maybe that's a K. Maybe that's a K that you're like, I actually really loved that. I loved going for an early workout. I loved going for a walk or a hike. I loved doing my red light. I don't fucking know. That's me. I do red light. I'll have three, five times a week. I go on a hike. I do my P.MF, Matt.

Like, Mama is all about herself care because that's the only way I can keep myself sane. whether I had Ryan in my life or not, I'm going to keep doing that. Future with their family, that's a release. You're not going to have that. Confidence? Maybe you keep that. That you rebuild it from the inside out. You go item by item, keep what's yours and release what was theirs.

And I want you to write in the comments. Share your list. That's how we build the community. Let me know what do you want to get rid of and what do you want to keep? Keeping isn't the way that they saw me, the way that they made me feel. It's like, no, no, no, no. the way I'd want to keep is I want to feel seen hard and understood from somebody that I'm going to keep, but it's not about them. And I say this with love, but you're not stuck because you're broken and

you're not stuck because you're not stuck because you're waiting for permission to move on from somebody who already left. Grieve it. All of it. The person, the future, the version of yourself that existed in that relationship. Let it be sad. Let it be unfair. And then when you're ready, rebuild. Closure is a lie, baby. Grief is the truth and the truth is what sets you free. You don't need them. to tell you who you are. You don't need them to give you permission to live your life. And you're allowed to be sad, but that doesn't mean that we need to give them more importance than they actually deserve. This to me is how you actually get over a breakup. And I know a lot of you guys probably don't want to hear that. But let yourself grieve. Don't sit in it. Don't ruminate on it. But allow yourself to process it and say, yeah, this was really tough.

But I'll get through it. I always do. Oh, babes. Thank you guys, as always. Don't forget to write you. rate and review the show, share it with a friend, courses one-on-one, everything's at Sabrina Zohar.com, if you need me. And if not, thank you for being here. Thank you for helping us build this community. Let me know what series you want next. Feel free to pop them on into the comments. Wherever you're listening, I read all of them. You're Ryan, one of us. And we really want to know how we can meet you guys where you're at. So don't worry. The next series, not the next episode, but the next series will be on the nervous system. And I think I might

do breakups per attachment style and do kind of a series on that. So stay tuned. We've only just begun, my babies. And if you're new here, welcome. And if you're old, welcome back. I love you guys. I'm so fucking grateful for you. And until next time, my babies.