The Sabrina Zohar Show - 215: Why They're Always Busy When You Want To Get Close To Them

Episode Date: July 17, 2026

The disappearing. The suddenly busy. The phone that comes out the second eye contact gets real. In this episode of the nervous system series, Sabrina breaks down the flight response in dating and relationships: what's actually happening in the body when someone pulls back, why intimacy reads as danger, and why "I just need space" almost never has anything to do with space. Anxious and avoidant attachment both run this alarm, and we've spent years villainizing one and excusing the other instead of understanding either. Inside: why going cold after a great date isn't self-sabotage, how hyper independence and fear of vulnerability get wired in childhood, why situationships are often two flight responses agreeing not to scare each other, and the difference between an explanation and an excuse. Pre-order Sabrina's book coming out October 2026,⁠ "Why Am I Like This?"⁠ Get your free workbook and access to the companion course after pre-ordering 'Why Am I Like This?' by filling out the form at the bottom of the page at http://sabrinazohar.com/book Take the new and improved dating quiz! sabrinazohar.com/quiz 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!⁠  Watch on Spotify. Spotify subscribers get fewer ads on my video. 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!⁠ Chapters: 0:00 Why People Pull Away When It Gets Real 2:59 What The Flight Response Actually Is 6:06 Why We Villainize Avoidant Partners 9:38 The Anxious Avoidant Dance Explained 12:35 When Someone Says I Need Space 15:30 Why They Won't Let You In 18:17 Going Cold After A Good Date 21:10 How Flight Shows Up In Dating 24:50 What You Can't Control In Love 27:51 Tool Of The Week: Stay 10 Minutes 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 megaphone.fm/adchoices

You just opened your phone again, didn't you? Mid-conversation, mid-dinner. You did not even need to check anything. You just needed to leave the room without leaving the room. I get it. Eye contact started getting real. The air was getting soft. Your hands moving before you even knew it.

And maybe you saw them clock it. You saw the little flicker of disappointment and you couldn't stop. The disappearing, the always busy, the I just need space. This has nothing to do with space. I think we have gotten to a point now where we don't really understand why do people shut down. Why do people go inward? Why do people feel like they can't communicate with somebody else? And we have just deemed it that they just don't give a fuck, that this person just doesn't care.

I am so sick and tired of seeing the avoidant is a terrible person. They don't care. What you're telling me is that you don't understand how the nervous system works. Because if you genuinely did, that's like me saying the anxious person is crazy. I would never fucking say that because nobody is right or wrong for how their nervous system reacts. At this point, we have to see, what the fuck are you doing with it? Explanation or excuse. And when I see somebody in the same way, like last week when we spoke about going outwards,

and I just need the last moment, and I just have to say something, and I'm replaying the conversation. It's the same thing as when somebody goes inward. They don't know how to communicate. They're struggling to be honest and open and vulnerable. They're struggling to say anything. It's not because they don't care. That is the biggest fallacy that you have been taught. If you come and say that the avoidant just doesn't care, then you don't understand how the

nervous system actually works. You don't understand attachment styles. They avoidant people shut down in the same way. So do the anxious people. Anxious people are also avoidant. Anxious people shut down and don't know what to say. Anxious people go in their head and start to overthink. Anxious people can ruminate and spiral.

The same way that the avoidant does. It's just that eventually the anxious person comes outward because of protest behavior, whereas the avoidant person stays inward because of their discomfort with any kind of vulnerability. And I think realistically what we have to say is, is this person shutting down because they just don't give a fuck? Or is this person going through something because their nervous system is feeling overwhelmed? One explanation. One is an excuse. Now we get to decide which one we want to be able to allow and receive into our fuck.

in life. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to another episode of the Sabrina Zohar show. My name is Sabrina Zohar and I am your host. Friends, we're changing the way we do things. We're just going to go right the fuck on into it. We're going to just talk. I am tired of everything having to be planned out and this and this and this. You have to do the intro and you have, no. We're just going to be here together so that we can start to talk about the real fucking issues because my job is to be able to help you guys navigate life to get through the hard days. It's not always about does the relationship at the end of it. Am I going to get the avoidant at the end of this. Really what it's about is do I get to come home to myself and do I get to understand

myself more? And that is my promise to you because I'm just frankly speaking, tired of talking about the same fucking thing over and over again. And I want to start to evolve the conversation. So we get to do that today. We get to have different types of conversations. And I'm so excited. As always, don't forget to rate and review the show. Share it with a friend. Please leave a comment. It means the fucking world. And don't forget to pre-order my book. Why am I like this and get your freebies at Sabrina Zohara.com. Okay. Let's talk about flight. Because I didn't want to make this so nervous system central because most of us have no idea what the fuck that means. I see it all the time. Pull on your ear and hold it for three seconds and it regulates your nervous system. I don't know what

fucking pop psychology bullshit that is. Can that be a cue to your nervous system? Oh, I'm safe. But the biggest fallacy I see when it comes to the avoidant shutting down is that they don't feel anything and that this person doesn't give a shit. What's going on is that they feel overwhelmed and they're going inwards. And the same when an anxious person feels overwhelmed and they go outward. The difference is that one person is spraying and praying and just talking and screaming and trying to get anybody to listen to them and the other person is in their own head fucking doing the same trying to determine if it's safe to even come outward. Because oftentimes you might not like this one. But for my anxious folk, if you constantly have people in your surroundings that are shutting down, that can't handle conversation, that are going inwards, then eventually have to look and say, what are the people that you're allowing in your life? And how are we showing up?

Because not everything is everybody else. I used to be incredibly reactive. I used to scream and yell and get so frustrated and so big and so big until I realized, oh, wait, I was also triggering other people. I was causing other people to not feel safe with me, to not feel like they could be comfortable with me because I wasn't regulating my emotions. I was spraying and praying. I was constantly trying to get somebody to just answer and to listen instead of being

able to sit and be like, let me actually understand what's really coming up. And that's why we're going to talk about today understanding the differences between is this somebody who is going through a genuine experience or is this person just fucking not interested in you. Baby, there is nobody busier than somebody that is not interested. Somebody that consistently shuts down, that consistently deflects, that can't have any conversation. We can sit here all day and give them all these cute little names, but at the end of the day, that person just sounds like they're not that fucking into you. I see the same type of content you do.

I see all of this hyperfixation on the avoidant, the people that shut down, the people that go into flight, the people that leave, the people that can't sit in the conversations. And I'm with you. It is incredibly frustrating. is really fucking annoying. It makes you want to fucking scream and ring somebody's neck. But at the end of the day, what we also have to look at is what is our part? Who are we choosing? And does this person even have the emotional capacity to regulate their nervous system to be able to come back to the present moment? Because I'll be real with you. My partner is more avoidant leaning, right? He does flight more often. I'm more anxious. I go fight more often. But I will have moments where he'll say something that hurts me and I just shut down. Not because he is a bad person, but because my nervous system goes, oh, this doesn't feel safe, this reminds you of dad. That doesn't mean that it's actually my dad. That doesn't mean that he said anything like my dad does, but my nervous system and my amygdala, right? Remember, we have the right brain and the left brain. We have the right amygdala and the left amygdala.

But we always talk about that, for argument's sake, is just that kind of one space. That is the fear center. That stopped growing by the time you're about six. So think about it this way. You had a caregiver that every single time you said something to them, they had a big reaction. They started screaming. They started yelling. What did you learn? It's not safe for me to say anything. I even had a conversation with my sister the other day. And she goes, yeah, dad's so fucking delusional. I've realized at this point there's just no point in saying anything. So I just sit there.

And that right there, that in a nutshell, that is flight. That is somebody going, this isn't safe. There is no point in me communicating. There is no point in me saying anything. I'm just going to be internal. I'm not saying it's good or bad. But then we have to look and say, how conscious or subconscious is that? There have been moments where I've said something to Ryan and I'm like,

hello, are you still there? Are we on planet Earth together? and he might look and be like, I'm sorry, wait, what did you say? Because he's in his own fucking reality. And I used to, oh, baby, when I dated, I used to love villainizing the avoidant. I used to love saying they're the asshole and they just don't have space and I'm the emotionally available one and I'm the one doing the work until I realized I was just as guilty as they were in the dynamic because I kept allowing this bullshit in my life and I kept

making excuses for it. I kept pointing the finger at everybody else instead of looking at myself and saying, but what does that say about me? What does that say about how I show up? And again, this is not that you need to take accountability and ownership of their nervous system reaction. I'm not saying that. But I am saying I'm really tired of us focusing so heavily on everybody else and not looking at ourselves and not looking. I get the comments.

I think I told you guys this on the last episode where I'll get some comments where sometimes the only way to do it is to block these people because there's so much volatility that I end up shutting down going, what's the point? This doesn't make any sense. Why am I fighting this? When I come back online, I go, hey, what are your choices? My choices are, this isn't worth my time. And so sometimes, you know, you've had one date with somebody and they do that. Okay, let's start to look internally. You've been out with this person for six months.

You've been dating and all of a sudden they start shutting down. Okay, that's a different story. So let's talk about what is flight? When we hear this all the time, fight, flight freeze, fine, right? They leave, they leave, they leave. It doesn't always mean that this person's just like ignoring you. But I want to look and say, what is fight and flight? So flight could always mean that they're always so busy. The calendar is their moat. And so if you're never available, no one gets close enough to disappoint you. So that's why there is nobody busy and there's someone that's not interested. And what we have to really look at is, is this a pattern? That's why I wrote my fucking book on this. It's why I wrote it on patterns. Is it a pattern? Do you notice that, like, for instance, I will see my sister around multiple different people. And I'm like, oh, she does the same thing. She gets triggered in this way. She shuts down. She goes in where it's not just me. Verses, wow.

That person makes plans with their friends. They make plans with their family. They were really, really planning when we first started dating. And now I never hear from them. And they're always so busy. It's like, oh, that's a very obvious. Like, this person's just not that into it. Versus they're always, everything in their life is that they have to have everything scheduled and down to the wire.

Because why they get to control how much people see them. Another way that we can see flight, the phone grab. The second the connection deepens, your hand finds the screen, escaping the room that you're still in. I've learned this the hard way. There is no greater disconnection than when you're in the middle of being vulnerable with someone and they grab their fucking phone. Or all of a sudden they're making eye contact with you and suddenly now they're distracted. Suddenly now they're in another world and you feel alone on an island. The most beautiful thing you can do is to look somebody in the eyes, be part of the conversation, reflect back to them, ask questions and be present.

If you creep grabbing your phone, then baby, I need to say, what the fuck you're trying to escape from with this person's trying to have depth with you. They do a lot of the jokes and the deflection, right? making it light when it gets heavy. You might go, oh, how charming. No, it makes them unreachable to you. So that way you don't actually have to see what's really going on under it. Everything is, it's just kidding. I was just kidding. No, there's always some truth and kidding. This person could be a workaholic. I am providing. That means I'm not present. Maybe they grew up where love was conditional on achievement, so stillness might feel like danger. And I totally understand that too. That's also my point when I say that sometimes avoidant people and anxious people share more than they might realize. Anxious and avoidant are the opposite side of the coin. The anxious person goes outward trying to get the attention, flight or fight, right? I need it, I need it. The avoidant person goes, this is overwhelming and I remove myself. Then they regulate. They come back. The anxious person's like, oh my God, they came back from me. And then it's this dance that both people do time and time again that causes disconnection. This person might change the subjects. They bring up the future. You do. Then they redirect, right? Changing the subject,

another big one. Maybe the other person brings up the future and instead you'll redirect. A hundred ways to make the conversation drift. Or you're always in a situation ship. You're you keep it undefined, hey, they never have to claim you. So you never have to fully be there. That's the thing. If you find yourself consistently in situationships, you got to stop blaming everybody else and you got to start fucking taking ownership and accountability of your own motherfuckin' life. You are the one not bringing up conversations. You are the one allowing bullshit. You are the one excusing their behavior. So instead of blaming them and saying, but I don't understand why are they not picking me, try picking yourself first. Try choosing yourself and saying,

I fucking matter, that I don't want to be with somebody who can never sit with me. I remember telling that to Ryan when we first started dating. I said, man, and even to this day, I'm like, do you want to know what makes me feel seenhard and understood when you sit with me in the mess? When you don't try to get out of it, you don't try to deflect, you don't try to change the subject. You don't try to fix things. You don't try to leave, right? They're not the person that gets emotionally dysregulated and disappears. They just stop answering you. We've had that. I'm going through that now with a friend where I was like, huh, so I didn't do what you wanted. I didn't come to an event because I couldn't make it. It was something so innocent. I was

out of town. I told everybody I was out of town. There was no, and when they messaged me the day, I'll have like, see you later. And I was like, no, I'm out town. I had been saying that. Never heard from them. They just started to pull away. They ran because this person couldn't sit in the fact that I disappointed them, that I wasn't able to do what they wanted. And so instead, it's almost like punishment by indifference. They could be going through something. I don't know. But you know what I do know? That doesn't work for me. And I don't appreciate when somebody punishes me because I don't do what they want. This one, ah, This one surprises most people, perfectionism.

A lot of people that are perfectionists, I'll let them in when I'm ready and I'm healed. You're using the work as a hiding spot. You're never going to be ready. That's why that vowsy of like, I only want a date when I'm fully healed. I'm sorry, where's the end game? Who's telling you you're fully healed? Is there a fucking test that you take at the end of this? There is no such thing as being fully healed.

You hurt in relationships, you heal in relationships. You get triggered in relationships. It is an opportunity for you to find a deeper connection with the person that you're with. And if you're saying, when this, then this, then you're going to be single a lot longer than you like to fucking be because relationships are going to be where you hurt and I totally get that, but they're also where you heal. There are also an opportunity and invitation for you to get curious about yourself, for you to get real with what's coming up for you. The lie you keep telling yourself is, I'd rather be single. I don't want to date until I'm fully healed. What that is,

it's also called avoidance because what you're doing is you're putting in space between somebody actually getting to know you for who you are because I don't think that you actually trust yourself that no matter what you're going to be okay and you're using the work as a hiding spot. If you genuinely are ready for the relationship that you say, you're going to be hurt, you're going to be heartbroken, you're going to have people that are going to fuck you over. But it's not about the other people, it's about what you fucking do with it and how you show up for yourself. Stay single as long as you want. But don't forget that when you're single, you're not triggered like you are in a relationship and then you're not going to grow like you would in a relationship. I hear this one

too. I just need space. I got fucking ripped a new one for making a reel about that, saying like when someone just asks for space out of nowhere. Out of nowhere. This person was fine, fine, fine, all of a sudden it's, I just need space. Sometimes that's real. Sometimes that's fair. But oftentimes, that's your body saying, I'm scared and I don't know what I want to say and I don't know what I want to do, so I'm just going to remove myself. Here's the thing. There are a lot of avoidant people that when they remove themselves, they do feel better. And it's not because you did anything wrong. It's because you triggered something within them that didn't feel safe. So we have to stop owning their discomfort with connection and making that mean anything about your fucking worth.

The question is not, am I bad at relationships? The question is, why does my body keep running when nobody is chasing me, right? That's, I think, the meat and potatoes. So let's talk about what's actually happening. This is not a fucking personality type. It's not like, I'm just independent or I'm just bad at feelings. It's a survival response. This threat doesn't have to be a tiger. It could be, hey, I need to talk. Hey, I want to share something with you. Do you want to make this official in three weeks, right? It's a friend crying in front of you. Closeness once cost you something, so your body wants out. And a lot of you built this young, rather that be an unpredictable home or the only safe place was the one where no one could find you. Right? You found it maybe in books.

or your bedroom or a screen or a job, and now it keeps you alone. That's why I say, my heart goes out to anybody that is dealing with severe avoidance. This one's going to piss some people off, but I feel bad for people that have avoidant attachment style. I'm not using as an excuse. I feel bad that they get so scared that they can't come outwards and communicate with people because that feels scary. I feel bad that those people feel like they can't be authentically themselves because that means that they're going to be judge or left or abandoned for who they are. Because somewhere along the way, that's what they fucking learned. And again, I'm not excusing shitty behavior.

Some of you guys are just dating assholes. Some of you guys are just in relationships with people that don't have emotional intelligence, don't have an IQ. And there's a difference between that and somebody that when you look them in the eyes, you see that they're struggling. You see them crying. You see them alone in pain. They seclude themselves because they feel it's safer. And you know what? I've done that too.

I have. I have completely secluded myself because it felt safer. And then I've also met people, I've met men that are fucking assholes that are just dickheads, that every time you bring something like, oh, women, right? and you're like, uh, I was just sharing an emotion, but I guess you're going to villainize me for that. I'm not talking about those types of people. I'm not talking about the people that don't have patience for you, that deflect or discredit or put you down or make fun of you or mock you or tell you you're being too much. I'm not talking about those types of people. What I'm talking about are the people that are going through a real human experience that shut down because they feel overwhelmed

or they just sit there and they don't know what to do. It doesn't mean that they are bad and you are good, and it doesn't mean that you are bad and they are good. What it means is that this person's feeling overwhelmed. And so maybe we can understand that. So there was a research in 2024 done, study on limited and selective sharing, and people on high attachment avoidance tracking how they actually share day to day. They found that they don't just share less. They selectively withhold. Surface stuff and logistics go out, right?

The personal and the vulnerable stay back on purpose, even though it's rarely conscious. The research calls it protective, right? So when your partner says, I feel like I don't really know you, they're not making that up, right? you've been quietly editing the version of yourself that they get access to. I had that conversation with Ryan, and I know that because when we first started dating, and that's it too. I'm excited to share more stories, and we're going to go back to and start to do older episodes again. The new version of Sabrina, the 2.0 that has learned and grown a lot since all of these things. The girl that wrote a book, right? Duh, I have to plug it. Go pre-order it. Please, please, please. Share it with your friends. Tell everyone you know.

And don't forget to leave a review. When you get the book. Okay. When we first started dating, I told him, right? This was the, when people asked me all the time when I said, I wasn't ready to be in a relationship with him when we first met. They're like, that means you didn't like him. It's like, I didn't fucking say that. What I said was, I didn't know him well enough. I told him that. I said, you don't really know who you are. I don't really know who you are. I don't really know what you're going through. I don't understand it. Because you go in words a lot. And I'm a very communicative person. And I connect by intellect, right? I really, really want my brain fucked. And when I told him that, I gave him a very clear rubric of like, you have to let me in. And if you don't let me in, that's okay, baby. That's your life. Then I'm going to move on. I had men that I've dated that were wildly emotionally unavailable or super avoided or couldn't, right? Think about the guy that I dated before Ryan. He just was a, he just had no interest in doing any work on himself. And I think that's the link here. It's the same with the anxious people, right?

With my anxious girlies and boys. Think about it. How many of you have had a friend where like it feels like you're hitting your head up against a brick wall because you're like, oh my God, you don't fucking listen. Oh my God, you always defend. Jesus Christ, will you just let me fucking finish that? And then all of a sudden you just sit there and you're like, all right, whatever, man. Have at it. And it's like you just shut down because your nervous system is going, hey, I can't handle this.

That's how secure people feel when people are overly anxious. We have villainized avoidance as if they're just the worst people. But what we don't look at is the people that don't know how to give space, that don't respect somebody's wishes that they say they need a minute, that just constantly bombard other people because they're so uncomfortable being in their own silence and their own discomfort that they have to project and make other people the ones that are going to make them feel better. No one is right or wrong. There is no good avoidant, bad avoidant, good, anxious, bad anxious. at the end of the day, both fucking people need to do the work so that they can come home to themselves and stop projecting on other people, their own discomfort with vulnerability and emotions. And like, even when somebody grabs their phone constantly or they're trying to disconnect when you're in the middle of a conversation, it's because something feels uncomfortable.

The I need space, same protective mechanism. You get out before the unedited version of you comes into the room because a lot of people are like, I'm going to be left for that. And so I want to even start maybe answering some questions. Somebody had asked, every time a date actually goes, well, I go cold and stop texting back. Why do I sabotage the good ones? So the first thing, you're not sabotaging. Sabotaging would mean that you're intentionally trying to fuck something up and consciously go, hey, you don't want this, so let's fuck it up.

No. What it is is that the good ones are the threat. A good one could mean something. And meaning something is exactly what your body learned to run from. So going cold, you're not sabotaging. You're actually protecting it. Name it, right? Name what's coming up for you.

Is it that when I meet somebody, they're so lovely, I don't actually feel like I deserve it. I feel overwhelmed by the amount of love they're trying to give. Maybe, and maybe it's something real of, oh, yeah, this was too much too soon. That's valid. But I want us to reframe, you're not sabotaging it. You're trying to protect yourself from getting hurt. But that's where I look and go, but do you trust yourself that no matter what you'll be okay? Isn't that hilarious?

That's the fallacy that relationships, like I said earlier, relationships hurt you, but they also heal you. And we're so conditioned on, I don't want to show any vulnerability because I don't want to get hurt. I don't want that person to really know who the real it might me is. I don't want them to see that. But the reality is if you don't let somebody in, you're not actually going to be able to have a healthy and secure relationship. Yeah, you might fucking get hurt. Welcome to life. Yes, you might get abandoned or rejected or somebody might not want it or they shut you down.

Welcome to life. And if everything that you live is the Amazon that it comes right to your fucking door and it's cushy and it's comfortable, and you're going to be gravely disappointed when you start to realize that that's not how the world works. And part of going and putting ourselves out there and being able to say, I'm going to push through this, right? And really where it starts is by saying, who taught me that it's not safe to do that? Who taught me that it's not safe for me to be expressive in myself because that means I'm just going to get hurt. That's the part of you that comes up. Can I share something with you guys? So I had an incredible session the other day with Dr. Russ Kennedy. Love him. And he, we were talking to my little and

after I was processing and I was processing. And as the day went on, I saw my little and she was scared and I saw this. It was almost this cloak above her of like no one likes you. You're a fucking idiot. They're never going to pick you. You're a moron. And I literally had to stop and say, That's a mean monster voice because I'm talking to an eight-year-old. Do you think my eight-year-old understands all of this cognitive well, all of this and that and the neuroscience? She's just looking at me and she's like, I just learned out of spell. So can we maybe talk to me and not at me?

And I had to say, that's the big bad monster voice. So now when I hear it, I'm like, ooh, that's the monster voice. That's not me. Because I don't genuinely believe that there was anything wrong with me. And I have to sit in that as I say that. I don't. I don't think. And as somebody with ADHD, we were taught all of our lives.

You were too much. you're to this, you're to that small, get smaller, go win, go, that we just learn to self-abandon, that we learned that it's not safe to necessary. So either we go inwards and go, fuck this, there's no point in even coming out or we go outward. And it's all constantly of like, no, no, I'm going to get you to choose me, I'm going to get you, I'm going to get you. So maybe we can start to find that balance of somebody taught you that along the way, but that doesn't necessarily mean that that's who you are. And I want to talk about how this shows up in real life. So when you're single, you may be match, you talk for a week, or go cold the second

they suggest meeting or great first date and you might not text back or they don't text back to you, right? Keeping two others in rotation so that this one doesn't mean too much. We do that by going, ooh, one foot in, one foot out, right? Oh, no, no, no, no, I don't want you to really see who I am. No, no, no, I'm not going to really share who I am. That's the cool girl or guy. I'm just going to show parts of myself because I don't really want to go in. I don't really, because if I show who I am authentically, that means I get rejected for who I am authentically. And that is very similar to childhood. That if I would go to my dad and he would dismiss me, hit me or put me down, oh, then that means there's something wrong with me. When I went to my mom, like there's a story, I can't even

share it yet, but there's a story in the book that was so monumental in my growth that made me realize I can't trust myself, that made me realize that no one is safe for me to go to. And so now I created hyperindependence because I'm scared to ask other people for help because I'm scared of being disappointed. So I had to learn that asking for help is safe. And I had to work through that. That when I asked for help, I had to just sit there and be like, hey, you're okay. You're going to be fine. Even if they let you down, you'll figure this out. Maybe you're in a situation ship and the whole reason it exists, right? Two flight responses agreeing not to scare each other. So you call it casual. You don't say anything. Maybe you're early in the relationship.

We were past like the honeymoon disappearance around month two or three. The text start to get shorter. The dates are further apart. They're busier than they actually are. They felt it before you admitted it. Right. So maybe that other person's starting to notice within you like, hey, and again, I'm talking it from two sides of the coin. I'm talking about it. It's someone who's experiencing this. So if you're like, but that's not me, cool, then maybe you've dated people that have done this.

So I'm just trying to give different perspective shifts to understand both sides of the coin because I think that's what's really missing. We're not trying to understand each other enough. We are so fucking disconnected from getting curious, from trying to understand if it doesn't fit into my box, well, that doesn't pertain to me, so I don't need to fucking listen.

Instead, maybe we can say somebody else's experience can teach me more about the world and it gets me out of my own fucking head. your experience isn't the only one that other people are going through. And so what we want to start to do is get curious about other people and what they're going through

and what's happening so that we can understand that just because I'm going through it doesn't mean they are. Again, it doesn't mean it has to work for me. But that also means that it doesn't have to mean I villainize them. And if you're with somebody,

you parallel life. It's the same house, two phones, two existences, no fight, no contact. And I get it. Every time you train your body to walk away. What you're saying is

this is not safe. And I've had that in my own relationship. I get that. I'm not saying that this all just... Because this happened in dating. It can also happen in your relationship. I have had times where I'm crying hysterically on the couch because I feel scared.

I'm going to lose something. Or we don't have ads. Or what happened with this? Or where's this? And why is the audience not listening to this? Because I'm a fucking human in the same way that you're like, I don't get it, but this guy liked me.

But this girl was there, but it would happen. And sometimes my partner will come and hold me and I'm crying and it feels really lovely. feels safe. And then there's other times he just goes, sorry, or yeah, that sucks. Oh, yikes. And I sit there and I'm like, oh my God, I feel like I'm alone in an island. But then I have to stop and understand what's going on with him. Maybe he feels overwhelmed. Maybe my big emotions trigger something in him that he hasn't wanted to deal with. It doesn't make it okay. I'm not saying that you have to accept it, but I can understand it. And then I can say, what do we do with it? Are we going to work through this? Are you going to get any tools? Are we done here, right? That's the choice. that you have. And oftentimes we're focused so heavily. I'll give you example because I'm not dating. We focus so happily on the things that we can control and then we look at the things that we can't and they feel overwhelming. And so I started to even realize my content on TikTok wasn't being seen as much. And I'm like, okay, right? There could be algorithmic things, downringing.

What's the only thing I have in control? My content. So I started going frantic. I have to make this. I have to make this. Because I didn't want to accept that maybe it had nothing to do with my content and maybe it was things outside of my control. And that's the same with your work. You're doing all of these things, and then that person still ends up leaving or shutting down or all that. But maybe it has nothing to do with any of those variables, and it just has to do with the things that you can't control, which is their experience. Sometimes it really is that simple. And then there are other times you're like, man, that person's just a dickhead. They just don't give a fuck.

Yeah, I've seen that. But I've also seen that it may not be that they don't care. It might just mean that they don't know how to show you that they care. Or they don't even know how to care. And that's a reality. And for some people, especially when you go silent or you go inward or you're teaching. people to leave you alone and they're obeying it. This is, this is workable. Your body can learn that staying is safe, but you can't teach it unless you name it. What's underneath it? Fear, right?

Fear is the first thing. If someone sees the real messy scared you, they will leave, so you leave first by being unreachable. The second one, right? You learned early that other people's needs were dangerous. Though the second someone needs you, the alarm goes off and you move. The alarm is exhausting and it does not turn off, right? This doesn't make you lazy. It doesn't make you cold. running an emergency system that doesn't know that the emergency is over. And what it costs you is it costs you the friendship that need your presence and instead they got your fucking phone. Knowing that your partner like genuinely needs you and what they're thinking about anything that matters, right, getting curious. Your kids, if you have them, they do not need a provider. They need you there.

Providing was the cover, but they need you. That's why my dad always, oh, I had you a house. I got you a house and you had all of these things. It's like, you know what, I needed, I needed presents. I needed somebody that held me when I cried as a kid to know that that was safe. I needed somebody that could be with me that could have capacity. Growing up, all I needed was somebody that could be there and sit in the mess with me, that could allow me to feel my feelings that wouldn't just leave the minute I had an emotion that came up. And so what I learned was I was too much. And now the antidote to that is my adult life is that I look for partners that stay in the mess.

I look for partners that can honor my emotions and feelings without telling me I'm too much or deflecting or walking out. And the reason being is because I'm letting my little know that that, That is what I fucking deserve. And I'm not willing to accept any fucking less. The actual person, the one underneath all of this, the one who is scared and tired and wants to be held, never gets to come into the room. So that person never gets to be love. And that loneliness is trying to protect you from being lonely, but then it creates the loneliness, right?

It ends up being a self-fulfilling prophecy. If I can't let people in, then I don't let people see the real me. And then the minute that there is any kind of depth, I run. Look at that cycle. It's the same when we look at the flight or the fight, the anxious kind of cycle. Well, I feel like I'm too much. So then I go really overbearing with people. And then they feel like I'm too.

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy because that's what we believe. So let's talk about the tool of the week. I want to make it small on purpose. Flight does not respond to force. You cannot decide, I'm just going to be present. You practice it in small pieces, enough that your body doesn't panic. So the next time you feel the urge to leave the room without leaving, stay 10 minutes. 10 minutes.

Put your phone down. Face down. Don't change the subject. don't joke that breaks the tension, right? Stay where you are with who you are. Let the urge come. Your body registers it in real time that nothing bad happened. The person didn't, they didn't bite, they didn't hurt, they didn't scream, they didn't yell, and build from that, right?

Maybe 10 minutes becomes 20. 20 becomes the evening and evening becomes the habit. I did that with Ryan. At first, he would get really, really anxious if I didn't leave, and then I'd be like, can I stay an extra hour? And then an hour happened, and he was like, okay. And then can I stay an extra couple of hours? And he started to get to where. Then we would spend weekends together.

because I allowed his nervous system to open up and welcome me in instead of judging him for the fact that I couldn't. I could have walked away. I could have been like, I'm at. Fuck this guy. He's not doing what I want. But instead I was like, he really wants to and he's putting the work in. And he has the bandwidth for it. So let me see if he can actually hold the capacity.

You have to remember, you're giving your body evidence that staying is safe. That's what we're trying to do here. Because when somebody fight or flight, right, that's think about this way. Their nervous system, the alarm is going. off, there's a tiger, this is dangerous. That doesn't actually mean that there's a tiger and that this is dangerous. That's what their perception is subconsciously. So then what that means now, when we're dealing with somebody like that and you're like, oh, they remove themselves. They get overwhelmed. Their nervous system tells them, right? Think of a tiger. When you see a tiger,

you either fight the tiger off, you run away, you freeze or you faunt, right? And those are going to be the next couple of weeks. But you're teaching your body that safety means being in this present moment. Because even if that person starts to scream and yell, you'll make choices that align with who you want to be and who you get to be and who you deserve to be. And I want you to get curious. When your body says go, what are you actually trying to escape? I don't want you to look at what's wrong with the other person. No. What soft thing in you is about to come out that you've spent your entire life keeping away? You have not transcended this either. You still grab your phone. You still make the heavy thing light. The work is not killing the urge. It's catching it faster and staying in it maybe 10 minutes more, right? Really just being able to say, this is uncomfortable. And maybe you tell somebody that this is uncomfortable.

This doesn't mean you're a bad fucking person. Doesn't mean that you just don't care. You're a person carrying a body that learned to run a long time ago. And that body is allowed to learn that staying doesn't have to hurt. I know it can feel really uncomfortable. But I really wanted to dispel this bullshit narrative that avoidance and the people that flee and though they're such bad people and they just don't care and they blocked me because they don't give a fuck. Some people do.

But other people, they're fighting their own battle. And the more you try to understand theirs, the further way you are from your own. So instead of trying to figure out why this person is avoiding everything in their life, maybe you could say, but that doesn't work for me. And now I'm going to put them in the jar that they belong in, which is part of being in the jar of you're not that close to me, because I'm not going to let somebody come close to me that's going to constantly leave me on the island all alone. You got this, friends.

And I'm here along the way. Babes, don't forget to pre-order my book. Why am I like this? If you guys need anything, Sabrinazohar.com. You can, once you get the book, you get your free course and work because of Thank you. Please do not DM me your receipts. Sabrinazohar.com backslash book is the website. You can join a course, work one-on-one, ask a question, download some free guides, or just be here.

Thank you guys for allowing me to be me. And now we're going to start riffing more. We're going to have different kinds of conversations because your girl just wants to show up more authentically. And sometimes that means just talking about random shit for 30 minutes with my friends. So I love you, friends. And I'll see you guys next week for Freeze, where we get to understand a little bit more about the nervous system and what actually comes up for us. without it being that you just don't care or that you're lazy, but maybe there's more to it. All right, babes, until next week.