196: Closure, No Contact, And How To Get Over Someone

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 megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Ugh, I hate Mondays.

• 0:01Speaker 01

  King's Hawaiian Cinnamon Swirl Bite?

• 0:03Speaker 00

  Uh, Taylor Hansen? Sure, I'll try one. Mmm.

• 0:09Speaker 02

  Hey, let's get back to work, please.

• 0:10Speaker 00

  But Taylor Hansen's making my day way better with these new soft and swirly King's Hawaiian Cinnamon Bites.

• 0:15Speaker 02

  Taylor Hansen? Nice.

• 0:17Speaker 01

  Try one.

• 0:18Speaker 02

  Mmm.

• 0:22Speaker 03

  King's Hawaiian Cinnamon Bites. There's nothing like it.

• 0:30Sabrina Zohar?

  You're waiting for them to explain why they left. You're waiting for the apology, the conversation, the text that finally makes it all make 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.

• 1:14Sabrina Zohar?

  I love this series. I love series in general, so pop 'em in into the comments. What series do you want next? Don't worry, we're gonna do the nervous system one. I heard, my baby, as you asked for it, you shall receive. But I am so excited because this one is a biggie. At first, I was gonna talk about how you have to learn to grieve, and I said, "Bitch, anybody gonna 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 rate 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, market is finished. Help me rig the system. But guys, everything you need, all the courses, working one-on-one,

• 1:58Sabrina Zohar?

  if you want to ask a question, everything is linked in the show notes. And I'm just so stoked, guys, because episode 1 through 3 were 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.

• 2:40Sabrina Zohar?

  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.

• 3:25Sabrina Zohar?

  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 make sense, but understanding why someone left doesn't undo the leaving. These are the audience questions that you guys asked. 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.

• 4:08Sabrina Zohar?

  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 with that in my career right now. Like, I am not gonna 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 gonna 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, ah bitch, really?

• 4:50Sabrina Zohar?

  You're gonna 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,

• 5:34Sabrina Zohar?

  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 ye- he moved on? Well, because he's not carrying 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 has 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

• 6:18Sabrina Zohar?

  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 gonna 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

• 7:03Sabrina Zohar?

  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.

• 7:48Sabrina Zohar?

  And they put them in a brain scan. They showed them photos of their ex while they thought about being rejected. It 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 similar, the same. The secondary somatosensory cortex, that's a tongue twister. The dorsal posterior insula. These are the areas that process the sensory experience of physical pain. So they compared against a database of over 500 brain imaging studies. Those regions almost never show up in the emotional studies.

• 8:32Sabrina Zohar?

  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 sov. 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 dad, 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.

• 9:17Sabrina Zohar?

  You're emotional, yikes, everybody else has just moved on. Until I realized 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 gotta 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.

• 10:02Sabrina Zohar?

  Hey 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. And what I love so much is incorporating Mudwater into my mornings every single morning. So they have an amazing coffee alternative made with cacao, chai, turmeric, and functional mushrooms like lion's mane and reishi. It is so delicious. They also have matcha, you know your girl loves matcha. And every single ingredient in Mudwater's products are 100% USDA certified organic, non-GMO, gluten-free, vegan, and kosher. There's also zero sugar and no sweeteners added. Guys, if you are ready to make the switch to cleaner energy,

• 10:45Sabrina Zohar?

  then I need you to head to mudwtr.com, that's M U D W T R dot com, and grab your starter kit today. This will be the best decision for your morning right now. And right now, our listeners get an exclusive deal, up to 43% off your entire order, plus free shipping and a free rechargeable frother when you use code SabrinaZohar. You do not want to miss this. That's right, up to 43% off with code SabrinaZohar at M U D W T R dot com. After your purchase, they'll ask you how you found them. Please support our show and let them know we sent you.

• 11:20Speaker 00

  Ugh, I hate Mondays.

• 11:22Speaker 01

  King's Hawaiian Cinnamon Swirl Bite?

• 11:23Speaker 00

  Uh, Taylor Hansen? Sure, I'll try one. Mmm.

• 11:29Speaker 02

  Hey, let's get back to work, please.

• 11:31Speaker 00

  But Taylor Hansen's making my day way better with these new soft and swirly King's Hawaiian Cinnamon Bites.

• 11:35Speaker 02

  Taylor Hansen? Nice.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  Try one.

• 11:38Speaker 02

  Mmm.

• 11:42Speaker 03

  King's Hawaiian Cinnamon Bites. There's nothing like it.

• 11:50Sabrina Zohar?

  All right, let's see, we had another audience question. 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 has, that is not fucking love, baby. That's your brain processing an 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?

• 12:34Sabrina Zohar?

  I had a relationship with them, we shared experiences. 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 Sparra and his team took 90 recently separated adults, three groups.

• 13:17Sabrina Zohar?

  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 he 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 Sparra 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, you're choosing to live instead of choosing to loop.

• 14:00Sabrina Zohar?

  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 here's funny, one of the hardest things for me was acknowledging that that person wasn't right for me.

• 14:45Sabrina Zohar?

  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, it'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. Why is it that they're the ones that are gonna tell you when to move on with your life? Don't you make that determination? And I think about this all the time. They always come back. No, they don't. They don't always come back.

• 15:30Sabrina Zohar?

  And the more we hold on to that of like, I know they're gonna come back for me and they're gonna 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've 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.

• 16:12Sabrina Zohar?

  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 partner's. 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 drops. 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-concept clarity. The "I don't know who I am without them feeling",

• 16:57Sabrina Zohar?

  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, babe, I'm just, I don't want this life or I'm not feeling it. Okay, what am I going to fucking argue? I wouldn't be like, oh, I just need closure.

• 17:41Sabrina Zohar?

  Because I have a really full sense of self. I have my things. I love, 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 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, 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?

• 18:26Sabrina Zohar?

  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 their breakups. And they'll say 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.

• 18:59Sabrina Zohar?

  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, then no wonder this is gonna 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. Guilt. Shame is, "I am bad." Guilt is, "I have done something bad."

• 19:44Sabrina Zohar?

  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 in 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 if perhaps, like, behavior that you exhibited was the reason that it ended. Again, that other person isn't gonna offer you closure. You create that on 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 gonna guilt myself into that."

• 20:28Sabrina Zohar?

  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 wanna take full accountability, or make it all about them, you're gonna be waiting a long fucking time, because that's not how that works, baby. That's just not how it works. This episode is sponsored by iRestor. Guys, it's a new season. This is the perfect time to give your skin the attention it deserves and refresh your routine. And with iRestor's Spring Bundle Savenings happening right now, actually, it's an ideal moment to upgrade your skincare. Enter the Illumina Face Mask, baby. This is going to change the game for you. I use this every single solitary night.

• 21:12Sabrina Zohar?

  It is a dermatologist recommended at-home treatment with 360 medical-grade LEDs. So it uses red, infrared, and blue light to target fine lines, breakouts, sun damage, and inflammation with no complicated routine required. Oh, guys, I love it. I just have my tea at night. I use my mask. I do it for about 10 minutes. Take it off, relax, enjoy. I know I'm doing something for my skin. I know I'm doing something for my mental health. And it's something that I'm trying to age gracefully. And so with that, I get to use my mask. And it's one of the first masks on the market that allows you to use all three modes at the same time. So, baby, give your skin the love it deserves this season. Right now, iRestor is running their Spring Bundle Savings.

• 21:53Sabrina Zohar?

  And with code Sabrina at irestore.com, you can unlock an exclusive discount on the Illumina Face Mask. Again, the code is Sabrina at irestore.com. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. Start the year feeling refreshed, confident, and glowing, baby.

• 22:09Speaker 00

  Ugh, I hate Mondays.

• 22:10Speaker 01

  King's Hawaiian Cinnamon Swirl Bite?

• 22:12Speaker 00

  Uh, Taylor Hansen? Sure, I'll try one. Mmm.

• 22:18Speaker 02

  Hey, let's get back to work, please.

• 22:19Speaker 00

  But Taylor Hansen's making my day way better with these new soft and swirly King's Hawaiian Cinnamon Bites.

• 22:24Speaker 02

  Taylor Hansen? Nice.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  Try one.

• 22:27Speaker 02

  Mmm.

• 22:31Speaker 03

  King's Hawaiian Cinnamon Bites. There's nothing like it.

• 22:39Sabrina Zohar?

  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. It 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.

• 23:21Sabrina Zohar?

  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 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 carry two griefs, that the relationship and the time you lost. The version of you who said wasn't stupid. That person was just scared. They were hopeful. Grieve 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,

• 24:06Sabrina Zohar?

  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

• 24:51Sabrina Zohar?

  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 all? 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 see, see, no, they came back for me. They came back, or they want me, or I got closure. Well, 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 too. I need grief." Grief work 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.

• 25:37Sabrina Zohar?

  I'm grieving what came after it. I'm grieving that I lost myself because, 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 and 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 gonna 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 you want. It's the same thing, like, anytime somebody fucking tries to come after me with grieving Clem, this is what I have to say. Go fuck yourself. You're gonna fucking judge me and tell me that I'm not allowed to grieve, I'm not allowed to mourn, and I'm, that's a me job. I'm not fucking putting that onto anybody else.

• 26:22Sabrina Zohar?

  And I'm sorry that your inability to sit in that doesn't mean that I have to feel bad about doing it. But now we wanna 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 this 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?

• 27:05Sabrina Zohar?

  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 gonna ask me another, but why couldn't they work on it? Why wasn't I enough? What did I do wrong? Right, 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.

• 27:50Sabrina Zohar?

  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 two years later of like, oh, well, this person's moved on and they have the boyfriend and they've duh, duh, duh, duh, duh. 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.

• 28:35Sabrina Zohar?

  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. We're 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. That means I move on and I learn 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 it in your Facebook groups, comment, rate, review. Engage with the ads.

• 29:18Sabrina Zohar?

  Like, I, 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. But 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.

• 30:01Sabrina Zohar?

  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 babes, whatever you need, if you want ad free, everything will be in the link in show notes, and if not, that's cool too, thank you for fucking being here. Alright 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, cuz you guys gotta earn it, haha, I say this with love, but seriously though, I can't just give, you can't just give it all away. So this comes from the slaughter research, if you are 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 can do this later, write down everything you're actually grieving,

• 30:46Sabrina Zohar?

  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 imagined, 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, cuz you're not getting over one loss, you're getting over fucking thirty, and I get it, I understand, but I now want you to now, next to each one, write K or R, K is for keep, something you

• 31:29Sabrina Zohar?

  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 PEMF mat, like mama is all about her self-care, because that's the only way I can keep myself sane, whether I had Ryan in my life or not, I'm gonna keep doing that, future with their family, that's a release, you're not gonna have that, confidence, baby, 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,

• 32:13Sabrina Zohar?

  let me know, what do you wanna get rid of, and what do you wanna keep, keeping isn't the way that they saw me, the way that they made me feel, it's like, no, no, no, the way that I'd wanna keep is, I wanna feel seen, heard, and understood from somebody, that I'm gonna 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 too hard to love. You're 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

• 32:55Sabrina Zohar?

  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.

• 33:19Sabrina Zohar?

  Oh, babes. Thank you, guys, as always. Don't forget to 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.

• 34:08Speaker 00

  Ugh, I hate Mondays.

• 34:10Speaker 01

  King's Hawaiian cinnamon swirl bite?

• 34:11Speaker 00

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  Hey, let's get back to work, please.

• 34:19Speaker 00

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• 34:23Speaker 02

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• 34:25Speaker 01

  Try one.

• 34:27Speaker 02

  Mmm.

• 34:30Speaker 00

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