The Sabrina Zohar Show - 3: What does 'do the work' mean?

Episode Date: February 10, 2023

On this week's episode Sabrina dives into what it means to 'do the work' on yourself. Finding your core wounds and traumas, reparenting the littler you and how to date differently once you've healed. Want to work with Sabrina? HERE! Stuck After the Podcast? Master Implementation in 8 Weeks with Sabrina's Foundation Course Join the Make It Make Sense: Getting Through a Breakup course HERE! Get Ad-free episodes and 2 Bonus episodes a month HERE! Dont forget to follow Sabrina and The Sabrina Zohar Show on instagram and Sabrina on Tik tok! Video now available on YOUTUBE!  Disclaimer: The Sabrina Zohar Show, formally known as Do The Work, is not affiliated with A.Z & associates LLC in any capacity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello, hello. My name is Sabrina Zohar and welcome to another episode of Do the Work podcast, where we talk about dating, anxiety, and healing, the anxious attachment style and doing the work. This week, we're going to actually be talking about what does do the work mean and look like. So join me while we dive right in. Oftentimes, anybody that follows me or listens along hears me say all the time, you got to do the work. You got to do the work. And I thought, why don't we talk about what does do the work look like? And what does that mean? Because I think so many people often ask me that. Like, I don't understand. I'm going to go over a lot of things.

And the thing to remember is, like, I layman's term this. You know, at the end of the day, that's like asking me, how are you going to get a six-pack? How are you going to grow your butt? It's like, could I give you the quick answer of you can go get this machine that's going to do it. and you could go put this band-aid on it, or I'm going to give you the long answer of like, well, you know what you need to do. You need to go to the gym.

You need to change your eating habits. You need to do this type of lifting. So when it comes to inner child work and all that, it's a process. So it's progress, not perfection. And that's something we always have to remember when we're talking about any kind of healing is that it's not linear.

You're going to have slip-ups. You're going to have relapses like any addict, anybody that's dealing with something that's hard to break that you've been dealing with for a while. And it's also being compassionate with yourself about the journey that you're on. So what does do the work mean? What I mean by that is it really comes down to like,

it's time to go back to the really uncomfortable traumas, the childhood shit that you dealt with, and figure out what is so triggering for you, what is causing you to constantly respond versus react versus respond? And my therapist put it in an interesting way because I was having some family shit explaining it to her. And she said, it sounds like your family is coming from that 12-year-old emotional age.

And I was like, what is she talking about? What is this sorcery, emotional age? And she said, yeah, you know, that's how it works. And that's what I always by saying, it's like you're reacting from like the 10-year-old. You know, you have a temper tantrum, your anxiety starts to flare up. And if you don't do the work,

you just consistently, you keep coming from that space because that is one, comfortable. It's easy. It's familiar. And doing something contrary to what you've been doing all your life sounds really tiring and hard. Again, it's the same comparison. of like when we talk about going to the gym, if you have, if you're complete, like, you sit on your

ass all day, you're 100 pounds overweight, you eat like shit and you're not doing anything. It's going to be really jarring to go to the gym and make all those differences. But you know if you start to think about future me, which comes into play when we start talking about healing the inner child, that by doing that, you're going to live a more fulfilled life and you're going to live a more healthy life. So it's really about like doing the things that make you uncomfortable. For me, it was 2019. I was with somebody 2018, he was a textbook narcissist. He was my father. It was this typical thing. I met him on an app and we went on our first date and I text my mom within two minutes saying, I've met the one, this is it. I had that feeling and the flare up and I was like, that's it.

I'm going to marry this guy. And it was because all of my old traumas were being activated. He was incredibly avoidant and narcissistic. He was reminiscent of my father. So it made me feel really, you know, it was normal to have somebody not take accountability or ownership of any of their stuff and treat me like absolute shit. And I always kept thinking, well, I, you know, I just want a boyfriend. I just want a boyfriend. But I wasn't emotionally available in the sense where I didn't have my emotions under control. How was I going to be with somebody else and deal with somebody else's shit when I couldn't even truly deal with my own? And oftentimes it's why, you know, I did a video on TikTok today while I'm recording this, it will say, about emotionally and

available, seeking emotionally unavailable. Because it's like, if you haven't done the work, if you haven't done what you need to do to heal those childhood traumas, you're going to be the definition of insanity doing the same thing, expecting a different result over and over and over again. So when I start to talk about what is doing the work, doing the work means going back to that child and doing some very, very uncomfortable and hard truths and digging through it. How I started that was I started with therapy first and foremost. It's really, really important to work with a licensed professional that can help you through that because going back to those places can be incredibly triggering and really difficult and really emotional and taxing and things like

like that and without the right person to be able to help you process it. Because oftentimes what I get a lot is like, I didn't have any trauma in my childhood. My parents were really great. And it's like, once you start peeling back the layers of like, okay, really, were they that great? Like, let's talk about what made them so great. And then you start to hear, well, I mean, yeah, my parents were always there, but my dad was never paying attention to me. And I was always trying to scream for his attention. It's like, well, there you go. You weren't consistently given love. It was give and take. It doesn't have to be an outward, like, my parents beat me as a child or hurt me or did anything that caused trauma. And I even see it with my own nephew.

Like he's going through his own shit. He's eight. He's got two of the best parents in the world. And I can already start to see some of those things where I'm like, that's going to be a point of contention for him when he gets older. Because you are not taught at that age how to handle those emotions. Thus, it continues into your adult life. So when you're talking, especially between anxious and avoidant, that really comes down to insecurity. You're scared.

It's fear-based. So when you're coming from a place of anxiety or avoidance, you are so scared that someone's going to leave you, someone's going to abandon you. you don't have, your emotions aren't safe. Like for me growing up, my dad couldn't handle our emotions. Like, if you would cry, he'd hit you. If you would cry, he'd walk out. It was too much. So then I was bred all my life, you're too much, you're not worthy.

Nobody's going to stick around. Nobody actually wants to be with you. Like, you can see the rhetoric that started to develop in my mindset for literally no reason besides the fact that that's what I was taught. Thus, when I started getting older and I started dating, I didn't get, why did I always date the narcissist? or the hot and cold or the up and down. And I would text incessantly in the beginning

because I needed to have the guarantee that that person wasn't going to leave me because I couldn't sit through the abandonment. I couldn't sit through having another guy do this and me getting so into this person after one or two dates because really what it was was once I started to do the work and started exploring my inner child and really starting to see where the synapses connect,

what it was was like, I didn't want to be abandoned. I didn't want to be another person leave me and make me feel yet again, oh, you're too much, you're not worthy. Say, of course, no one's going to handle you for all of you. And what was that? That was the 10-year-old in me responding. That was the 10-year-old in me screaming out for help and attention.

Thus, what I would do is I would act from that. And that's why a lot of the times you'll see you're like, why is that person acting so immature with the way that they are emotionally? Because they're emotionally stunted. And so they're still back in that place. Thus, they're not answering from a secure adult. They're answering from the child. So doing the work means that you go back.

For me, it was ketamine treatments. that was like a serious game changer really helped me, you know, and this is not for everybody. I'm just sharing my experiences, but academy treatments helped me get to a place where I kept saying, where am I stuck? Where am I stuck? And it brought me back to this attic that I used to stay in when I was six or seven, no, like eight or nine, a little older. And it literally, like I went back in it and when you're doing a ketamine treatment, you're kind of like a spectator. You're just walking around, looking at things like a museum. So you're not feeling the same things that, you know, you felt as the child. So you're able to process it differently.

And I remember going in and seeing myself and just breaking down and being like, wait, what are you doing in here? And just letting the child speak and giving her the platform. What's going on? Why are you stuck here? And I had to literally take her out and I said, talk to me. And she ran into the back. It was like I would hide in the attic or in the backyard. And she ran in the back and said, I just don't feel safe.

I feel like nobody wants me. Dad always leaves me. I'm not good enough. And that's when I had to learn to re-parent and say, oh, my God, no. Just because an adult when you were a kid made you believe that doesn't mean that. That's where we are now. And I had to say, I'm here to save you. No one's going to do this for you.

I'm here. I'm here to help. I'm here to bring you out of this and remind myself, you're fucking amazing. You deserve all of those things. You deserve love. And just because he was inadequate and couldn't see it doesn't mean that that is what you have to believe growing up. And that is what I mean by doing reparenting.

It's constant. Like I said, you don't go to the gym to get a six pack and do three crunches and walk out and be like, there it is. You have to do it every same. solitary time and it builds over time. At first, you might be pretty shit at it. And then it gets better. And then it gets better. And then it gets better. And so some things that helped me, serious game changers, therapy, first and foremost. So I use better help. I like it. I've linked in my bio on TikTok so that you can find it and get a free week. It was my savior just because I couldn't

afford traditional therapy. I didn't have, I didn't have insurance. And at the time, I was a broke business owner trying to fucking navigate the world and do what I was trying to do. So better help was amazing because you can just bop through different therapists and find somebody that resonates with you. Meditation was one of the best tools for me because the reason I always promote to meditate or to do yoga isn't because, oh, try something that's, you know, everybody tells you about or try something that everyone talks about. What it comes down to is meditation forces you to sit with your uncomfortable thoughts. It forces you to sit in the discomfort. And meditation forces you to learn how to distance yourself between thoughts and feelings because you're sitting there. It also helps with visualization so you can start going

to that inner child more often as you meditate. That's what I do. Anytime I'm now feeling shit, I go and meditate. And it just helps me distance myself and break a bit from that. Journaling is also really great because by journaling, you're getting those thoughts out. A lot of the times it's just ruminating in your head and you're just repeating the same stuff. My brother calls them the screw tapes. And it's just playing over and over and over. And it's that voice that's playing in your head that's telling you, I'm not enough. I'm not good enough. See, there it is. There's the validation that I knew I wasn't good enough. That person left me. That person doesn't want me. See, oh, here's another guy that doesn't

like me. And that is the perpetual victim state that you stay in when you are especially are anxious. And then it is an avoidant. See, love is too much. I knew I couldn't handle this. I got to go. Safety means distancing myself because I was never taught how to handle my emotions. Jirling will help you do that. The biggest thing is challenging your thoughts as well. When you get those thoughts, the number one thing to do is, where's the validity to this? Where are the facts to back this up? So, to give you, for instance, you're texting somebody. They don't text you back in 15 minutes, 20 minutes, whatever. And you're sitting there and all of a sudden you start spiraling.

I fucking knew it. I knew it. I knew it. This guy doesn't like me. I knew he didn't want me. I knew I was being played. See, I knew it. Oh, you're not good.

If you started attacking yourself, oh, my God, what did I do? You start playing it over. But wait, did I text him too many times? I see something when I was on the date. And then he text you and you're, oh, okay, I'm fine. Until the next one. Until the next one. Until the next one.

You're a fucking pit of needs because you're not getting. down to the root cause of why the pit is endless. And so having those challenging thoughts is going to be huge in those moments. Anytime I get like that, I stop myself and go, wait a minute, where's the proof for this? Okay, so they didn't text you. Maybe they're fucking busy. Maybe they're working. Maybe they're on the phone. Maybe they're doing something else. I don't have proof to challenge this. So there it goes. At that point, you go, there's nothing to validate this. I got to walk away from this thought. And it's constantly challenging your thoughts. Inevitably, you'll get a lot. You'll get better and better at it, the more that you do it. It's going to take you some time. But it takes

time. So just because if you just started therapy or you just started meditating or whatever and you're reading a book and you're a weekend, well, it's just not working and I still feel anxious. It's like, well, congratulations. Welcome to being a human. And on that flip token, I had somebody who had tapped me because I had said something to say, well, I've been doing this for 20 years and I've been doing all this and I still feel it. And I said, babe, that's what I got to call you out. What are you been doing for 20 years? Have you really been calling yourself on your shit? Have you really been owning your shit? Have you really been keeping yourself accountable?

Or are you just going through the motions? Because therapy is only as good. And so all of these methods that I'm giving you are only as good as the work you're going to be putting into it. So it's the same as I have a trainer. Yeah, but when you're with that trainer, you tell them to give you fives and you don't even want to lift them. Well, then what's the point? You go home and then you eat like shit. Just because you go to your trainer and you do what they say that you want them to do.

Same with your therapist. It doesn't mean that you're working the program and you're doing what you need to do in order to like actually see results. So that is quickly in a nutshell, ways that you can cope with this anxiety and ways that you can work on that inner child. So now that we've talked about, what does do the work mean? So it's holding yourself accountable, challenging your thoughts, and really figuring out where are those triggers, where are those traumas coming from? What does a day-to-day management look like? So I'm going to burst any bubble that you have going on right now. If you think by doing this work that you're all of a sudden just going to wake up and feel 100% and be healthy and happy every single day and smiling and floating on

bubbles, let's manage expectations right now. What this is going to do is once you start doing the work, it's really hard to stop. Once you open the awareness, it's really hard to stop. But once you really go through it and not around it, man, is that a liberating fucking feeling or what? And that's so funny because I've had a lot of people ask me, how do I get over this quickly? How do I move on from this quickly? And my number one response is like, why are you asking me that? Because I'm not going to give you any answers. This is not about getting through something quick. That's not what it should be about. What it's about is moving through it. Going through it is the only way on the other side. Managing day to day for me looks like building a life outside of a relationship, reconnecting

with myself and learning how to sit in solitude with myself, not sit in solitude alone at home on my iPhone, scrolling through Instagram and TikTok and having a good old time and, you know, ignoring everybody and walking around my apartment music blasting. No, that's just disassociating and trying to distract yourself, truly sitting alone, meditating. Can you meditate for 10 minutes a day and just sit with your thoughts? If the answer is no, you've got a lot of work to do. I had somebody else asked me, how do I be single? It's like, I can't tell you how to be alone. Only you can figure out. But what it means is like once you start to do the work, healing yourself, over time, you start acting differently. Like I remember my best friend, every time I had a shitty situation happen with a guy,

her response was always, all right, well, what lessons and yada yada? And we talk. about the lessons. And then the last time she saw me, she was like, you've been dating differently. And I was like, yeah, because I started to actually heal. Thus, I look at things differently. Now I look at it as I see what's unhealthy in the dating world. I see a lot clearer. I can catch myself because this is self-awareness. That's what I mean by calling yourself out on your shit and being able to stop and go, what's going on? Question yourself nonstop. That's what living with this anxiety is going to look like. It's not going to look like you just all of a sudden are secure and everything's great because you're undoing wherever however old you are right now you're undoing

all the years prior to that of trauma and hurt and pain and shit and this and all of that. So to expect that to be better in a day would be incredibly naive, if you will. But now that you start doing the work and now that you start challenging the thoughts, now that you really start to get into it, living with it is identifying it a lot more quickly and setting boundaries. Boundaries aren't to prove a point and keep them out. It's to protect what's in. And so you set a boundary because you want people to respect it.

Like tech guy, every time when we would be together, he would set a boundary. He would say, hey, I'd love to see you. I can't wait to see you. And I hope you understand that this is a boundary for me to maximize my potential and has nothing to do with my interest in you. But I need you to leave by 9 o'clock tonight because I have to get to bed early and I don't want to be distracted. You got it.

And even his best friend when we were talking the other day and he was like, the reason you guys are doing so well, he's like, you really respect his boundaries and his need for his own independence. And it's like, yeah, because I have my own need. And what I'm doing is I'm building a life outside of a relationship. It's in addition to not instead of. So, you know, I speak to mostly people with anxiety. Most people with anxiety, you want the relationship to come and save you.

You want the relationship to do the work for you. You think, well, if I just get a boyfriend, then everything's going to be fine. I'm going to be fine. Everything's going to be good. But that's what I mean by, no, it's not. Because it has nothing to do with the person that you're with. It's the inside. No one can do it for you.

No one's going to come and save you. It's the work that you need to do in order to heal. Then once you get to that level, it's the maintenance, and it's finding shit to do outside of a relationship. Like, I moved to a brand new city. I have been here a month and a half and I hit the ground running. I'm trying new studios. I'm meeting my friends out.

I'm trying. I'm meeting new people out. I'm telling all of my friends in different places that I'm alone and da-da. I'm like, how can I meet people? And I've created now an entire life outside of my relationship with tech guy because I'm excited about doing that. I'm excited about every single day, the stuff that I get to work on for me and the exploration of my life.

And so I guess, you know, I see those cheesy-ass things of like date yourself. And I don't want to put that. I don't want to say that type of stuff because I think that's kind of lame. No one's saying that like, you know, go take yourself to a romantic dinner alone. Like, you don't have to do that if you don't want to. Not everybody wants to do that. And that's totally valid. But can you sit with yourself?

Can you just accept the fact that if you don't have anyone, you're going to be okay? And learn some new mantras as well. I was good before them. I'll be good after. Because nobody can fill the voids. Only you can. And that's why you continuously go for people over and over again, and then you get super enamored by them and you project all this stuff onto them because you so badly even think about it as a kid, especially with anxious attachment. All you did was look at your parents and probably wish that they were different people, wish that they were giving you love differently.

That's what you do as a kid. You want to get the love from your caregiver if you can't. You start daydreaming. So then you become an adult. You start into relationships. And the second somebody gives you attention, it's, oh, my God, that's it. Okay, this is it because scarcity mindset sets in. well, because of all those, the skewer tapes,

I'm not going to find anybody, and this is the last one, and he's so handsome, and he's so funny, and he's so witty, and it's all shallow superficial shit. You don't know somebody. You do not know somebody after a month. I hate to break it, do you? You don't know somebody, even some people that are married to people don't know that their husbands or wives.

I mean, times you hear those stories of, like, they had a secret life. I had no idea. So imagine just dating. Dating is where you are putting your best foot forward. So if you really want to date effectively and you really want to know what do the work means in order to have a healthy dating life,

It's about controlling your shit, getting a grip of your own shit, and taking accountability of your own dating life. Stop putting it onto other people. It's the victim mode, perpetual victim. Oh, but I don't know and I don't understand. And it's like, I did everything I thought. And he just like never called me. Yeah, welcome to dating.

I get that so often of like, I had a great date and I never heard from him again. What's with that? Yeah, that's called dating. That's somebody realizing that they don't want to build a future with you. It's not personal. It's not as personal as you think it is, is my point. It's not personal where they're like, man, she sucks. God, that girl is terrible.

They might say, I just don't think we're compatible. I don't know. Our personalities mesh. I don't think we have the same future goals. I don't know. And then there's also that thing of like some people might say they want a relationship. They go out with somebody and they go, oh, shit, this means I have to show up. I don't want to show up right now.

I don't want to have to do the work on myself in order to show up as a better version of myself. So I'm just going to bow out and I'm not going to do it. So I think if you really want to be able to live with this and get through this, there's some steps that need to be taken. And that is figuring out the root cause. Once you figure out the root cause, it's undoing all of that. It's undoing the braid that you created and then rebraiding it into the way that you want, reparenting yourself.

And then holding yourself accountable along the way. If you want the relationship you so seek, then you need to show up as the person that you also want to bring into your life. Because the person that you want to bring into your life isn't going to come in just to fix everything for you. The person that you want to bring into your life is going to come in so that it can better your life again. It's in addition to not instead of. Remember that every single time. And again, you were good before them. You'll be good after them. But it doesn't mean that, oh, well, doing the work is hard. Okay, so I'm not going to do it. Then, hey, enjoy it.

I don't work with people that don't actually want to put in some effort. It's the same as when my friends come to the gym and they're like, I don't feel like this. I just want to go on the treadmill. I'm like, it's the last time you're coming with me. Go ahead. Go ahead. You want to walk super slow. do the same stuff you've been doing expecting a different result and then complain to me after that it's not doing what you wanted it to do? Or do you want to put the work in with me, talk about the stuff, get vulnerable, get uncomfortable, get to those really nitty-gritty places that feel really scary to get to. But once you face your fear, oh, fuck how much stronger you are. Another thing actually that I learned today from Mel Robbins

was when you're sitting in those moments of anxiety, I get this a lot of like, what do I do when I'm in those moments of anxiety? What do I do when I'm feeling it? I'm heightened and all that. Mel Robbins had suggested that you count backwards because pretty much what you're trying to do, even if you do the fucking alphabet, I don't really care. You're trying to do is you're trying to break the loop. When you go through an anxious spell, you're on loop.

It's the same thing over and over and over and over and over again. The point of doing something to kind of go right in the middle is you're trying to lodge in between and shift the perspective and the minds. There's only really one way you could do that and that is by just going head on into the thought and breaking it. So if you're sitting in those moments, here's what I want you to do. I want you to stop and take three deep breaths. You're feeling super anxious. It feels like it's so overwhelming that you're going to fucking explode. Stop. Take three deep breaths. Sit first. Count backwards. Do what the fuck you have to do to start breaking this up. Then the next thing I

want you to do is start asking some goddamn questions. Why am I so anxious right now? Where is this anxiety coming from? What's the narrative that I've created? Whatever gets you an answer. So if it's that person hasn't text you and you don't know what's going on. Because essentially, what is anxiety? It's a fear of the unknown. You don't know what's going to happen. And again, you project so much onto somebody. Like, if you've only been dating somebody for a couple of days or dates or whatever,

you've only had two or three days and you're sitting here being like, I'm so anxious and I haven't heard from him. If they don't text me, you're over analyzing and psychoanalyzing every step of the relationship as opposed to just fucking living. Because, again, nobody should earn that much mental space and real estate in your life that hasn't earned it. So if you're giving it away to every single person, meet because it's, I felt something again. You need to learn to fucking love yourself and give yourself

that care and stop giving it to everybody else, hoping that it's going to fill a void and start filling your own cup. And not self-love and go take a bubble bath and like, you know, treat yourself and have a sweet dessert. No, what I mean by that is get your shit together in yourself and start coming back to yourself and figuring out why am I doing this? Because I guarantee you, once you start asking the questions, you'll get right down to the root. When they don't text me, what does? that make me, what's the narrative that's created? They don't like me. They don't want to be with me. They've gotten over me. I knew I'm not good enough. Okay, where are the facts to back that up? They haven't text me. Not enough of a fact. That's not enough of a fact. So they haven't text

you. Congratulations. Welcome to living a life. What else is there? Nothing. That's true. I mean, they've been showing up. They've been taking me on dates. Okay, where is it stemming from? While growing up, but my dad used to leave all the time. Bing, ding, ding, ding. And there we go. it starts, pull the string, let it go deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper. And next thing you know, you go, oh, fuck, there it is. It's not going to happen overnight. You're not going to be really good at this quickly. I'll tell you that. It's a muscle that needs to be worked. But it's constantly questioning yourself and constantly holding yourself accountable. So when you start to get answers, oh man, yeah, I guess I am anxious. I don't want to be abandoned again. Okay, well, who abandoned you? Who taught you that?

Who taught you those lessons? Okay. Then you go back to that little, version of you and you say, by the way, I'm here now. Our parents, you're right. They didn't do the job that they were supposed to do. I'm going to protect you now. No one's going to fuck with you ever again, including myself. That's what I mean by reparent. And it's just super important to start calling yourself out on that stuff. Otherwise, I'm telling you, right now, nothing's going to change if you don't start doing this. You think what, are you just going to meet somebody that's going to all of a sudden make the shit go away? It doesn't. It's only going to keep being heightened because it has nothing to do with the person. And the more you just try to put a

band-aid on it, that's like going to need fucking surgery and just putting a band-aid and being like, it's all right. I don't need to get the stitches. Oh, yeah, you do. Eventually, it's going to mushroom, mushroom until you can't and you have to get an amputated. This doesn't just go away on its own. If you're too scared to go back into that place, then don't date. Don't date right now.

If you're scared to start going back into that place and doing what you need to do and starting to see those things, because you are just going to keep coming from that place. And you wonder why it's not working. After a while, you can't keep blaming everybody else. You have to take ownership of your dating life. You can't keep going around saying, well, I just keep meeting. I keep attracting emotionally avoidance men. No, you keep allowing it is what you do. is you're going to meet all kinds of walks of life,

but when you meet somebody healthy that's actually wanting to give it to you, you say, no, it's boring, it's easy. No, I don't like that. This doesn't feel right. So then you keep finding yourself in situationships or enamored by somebody after two dates because you are not controlling your thoughts.

I know it sounds easy. I'm not making it like it is easy, but that's what you have to do. No one said this was going to be easy. No one said healing is easy. But if you actually want to do it versus living this life of pain and suffering and hurting and wounds,

I mean, you pick your poison. You will be so much freer when you really start to do what you need to do. And that's why I'm here to give you some tough love and to share my experiences. I've done all of this shit many times over. So that's why I can also...

I'm not a therapist that read this in a book and is like, well, textbook says, this is how you have to do it. No, I'm somebody that went through it. So whenever people try to come at me, you don't understand, oh, don't I? I don't understand? I'm in the trenches with you.

I know every fucking bodily reaction you're feeling right now because I have felt it all times a thousand. I've dated in New York, L.A., Miami over the last 15 years as being an adult. You don't think I fucking know this? Anything that's my first rodeo? It's not. So I'm trying to just give you a little bit of insight and advice and tips on how to actually do this. How you choose to handle it? I can't control that. But what do you want to do? You want to do the work? Let's start, let's get in there. Let's roll up our sleeves and get a little dirty and start figuring out where the fuck did this stem from where were you taught those negative thoughts that's that's it in a nutshell where were you taught along the way that you

weren't worthy that love has to be earned that is conditional that emotionally unavailable is the norm or that you should run away and hide your feelings where were you taught go back find that little version of you and start rewriting the fucking narrative i know i wish i wish i had i wish i could snap my fingers and just say well if you just do this, or if you repeat this mantra in the mirror 300 times, it's going to make you feel better. But it's not. Doing the work is holding yourself accountable, facing your fears and your traumas and working through it. And then the other side of it is constantly flexing that muscle. Let me tell you, do you think people that go through AA or all those programs that it's just easy

when they're done? The work starts after. The work starts when you're done figuring out all that shit. The work starts on when you get back in the real world, back in the trenches, in the dating, that's like saying in school, like, oh, I learned everything and then you got in the real world and you don't know shit. It's because now you have to implement it. Now you have to put it to work. Now you have to put it to use. So now next time you go dating somebody, you'll start to go, he's already showing me signs of emotional and availability. No, I don't really like the

flip-flopping. Trust me. Very rarely, very rarely when people start to tell me stories of, I don't understand. He's doing, he was amazing. And then he changed. It's like, I can see all the shit within the first sentence. I'm like, oh, really? This, this, this and this. You didn't see any of that because you are not attuned to seeing it. You are, it's, no, I don't see it, rose-colored glasses, uh, what? And then you see it at the end because they start to treat you like shit. And then you're like, but they were so amazing and they changed. No, there are a lot of cues along the way.

And you'll get better at identifying them. You'll get, because your boundaries will become firmer. You'll start to not accept any less than you deserve once you believe that you deserve it. You'll start to see it when you believe it. It's one of my favorite things. So, y'all, I wish I had a quicker fix, but I don't. So you want to do the work? Do the fucking work. Start getting in there.

And I'm here to support you on that. And I hope that this has helped. And I hope that this gives a little bit of guidance. I hope that we can continue this journey together. Just a big quick announcement. I did start a Patreon. I know I get hundreds of DMs a day of people asking for advice. And unfortunately, I don't get paid for that.

So a way to monetize for me to continue to help you guys do this because I do own a clothing business and I do run a full-time operation on the side is if you join the Patreon, you can ask me one, two, or unlimited questions a month for a small fee. And that way I can at least give you guys the advice that you need. I can continue to help and support you. But I can also keep my lights on and keep doing this. Because as much as I'd love to do it for free, that just ain't going to pay the bills. So I appreciate all of the support.

Even just listening to this means the fucking world. And we will reconvene next week on another episode of Do the Work podcast. Again, my name is Sabrina Zohar. And thank you so much for sitting with me.