233: Daddy Issues Are Real. Here’s What They Actually Look Like

Ever wonder why you keep dating the same type of person, people-please everyone around you, or never feel like enough no matter how much you achieve? It could be a father wound. Licensed psychotherapist Terri Cole, author of Father Wound, joins Sabrina to break down how an absent, emotionally unavailable, or abusive father shapes your self-worth, boundaries, attachment style, and relationships, and why calling it “daddy issues” misses the real worthiness wound underneath. You’ll learn the signs of an unhealed father wound (perfectionism, overgiving, hypervigilance, codependency, chasing avoidant partners and friends), how repetition compulsion keeps you stuck in the same painful relationship patterns, the role a mother plays in co-wounding, and 3 questions to tell when you’re reacting from childhood trauma instead of your adult self. Plus, real steps for healing the father wound, grieving the dad you didn’t get, and finally feeling worth protecting. Order Sabrina's book,⁠⁠⁠ "Why Am I Like This?"⁠⁠Take the new and improved dating quiz! ⁠⁠sabrinazohar.com/quiz⁠⁠Product of the week! ⁠https://amzn.to/4v1eHW⁠jGet Ad free ⁠⁠⁠HERE!⁠⁠⁠ Don't forget to follow ⁠⁠⁠Sabrina⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠The Sabrina Zohar Show⁠⁠⁠ on Instagram and ⁠⁠⁠Sabrina ⁠⁠⁠on TikTok! Video now available on ⁠⁠⁠YOUTUBE!⁠⁠⁠ Support the show by supporting our sponsors: Get 15% off OneSkin with the code SABRINA at https://www.oneskin.co/SABRINA #oneskinpod Chapters: 00:00 What Is a Father Wound? 04:48 Signs of an Unhealed Father Wound 10:39 How to Heal a Father Wound 16:37 Mother Wound and Co-Wounding 21:22 Overachieving to Prove Your Worth 26:29 Father Wound in Friendships and Dating 32:31 How Transference Shows Up in Your Life 37:39 Fear of Becoming Your Parent 42:57 Why Avoidants Deserve Empathy 48:09 Feeling Too Much and Not Enough 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.

• 0:02Speaker 00

  Fall never arrives all at once. First the air, then the light. And slowly, the things you love begin to find each other. A jacket meets a dress. A hoodie slips beneath a blazer. An old cap finds a new scarf. Because you don't simply step into the season. You create it, layer by layer, until it finally feels like fall. Find fall your way at Ross.

• 0:30Sabrina Zohar?

  What is the father wound?

• 0:31Speaker 02

  The father wound is a psychological and emotional injury that happens to daughters who do not have fathers who protect them, who have fathers who are not attuned to them, or who have fathers who ignore them, or who their father left them. So there's a lot of different scenarios that actually create father wounds. But it really is an invisible worthiness wound, which is why it's so insidious. Because a lot of women with unhealed father wounds are incredibly successful.

• 1:01Sabrina Zohar?

  Sorry, what? Is that, are you just looking at me while you say that? It's funny, I used to hear daddy issues, right? You used to hear, oh, daddy issues. And then I started to get a little resentful at that statement. Because I was like, well, it's very reductive, right? It's just, you're acting as if making it up, right? Oh, you just have daddy issues. When what it really is, is I think what a lot of people misunderstand when it comes to the wounding, especially early childhood, it's not about blaming our parents, but understanding, where did I learn this from? Right? It's, oh, Teri, you're gonna appreciate this. My brother just had a baby. And we were talking, we were sitting outside on the porch the other night. And he goes, you know, his wife, she is, I mean, talk about a different time. And you walk in the house and you can just feel the calm. You can see, he's so enamored with this little girl. Every time, it's just, my little nuggie. And he just can't stop kissing her and loving her. And she coos, and she's very playful.

• 1:46Sabrina Zohar?

  And I mean, his wife is on it. She is incredible mom, like really beautiful to see how calm she is and how patient. And you can see. And he looked at me and he goes, he doesn't know how to put the words. And he goes, I don't know how to say this. I've never experienced feeling like this. And I said, what, feeling safe in your home? And he was like, yeah. And I said, well, think about the childhood we had. We had volatility. My dad screaming and cursing and yelling and throwing plates and leaving and storming off and hitting us. I said, but how do you think that impacted you? And his response is, but I'm fine now. And I'm curious, when you hear that, right? The, but I'm fine now, what comes to mind for you?

• 2:25Speaker 02

  Well, don't we want to be more than fine? Is the first thing that comes to me. Don't we want to be great? Don't we want to be thriving and flourishing and joyful and expansive? Because that's what I want. So I want to raise the bar for your brother.

• 2:41Sabrina Zohar?

  No, I love that. I know I'm gonna cry this episode. Like, I already can tell you right now, because I love you and all of this. But before we get started, hello, hello, hello. Welcome to another episode of The Sabrina Zohar Show. My name is Sabrina Zohar, and I am your host. We are joined by one of my favorite people, the Miss Terri Cole. You've got a new book coming out, A Father Wound. Actually, by the time this comes out, it's already out. So we don't even need to say preorder anymore. Go fucking order your copy and let's get you a New York Times bestselling book.

• 3:08Speaker 02

  I know.

• 3:08Sabrina Zohar?

  But please tell us a little bit more about you, what you've done in the last 30-plus years of your career, and how this happened.

• 3:14Speaker 02

  Okay, I've been a licensed psychotherapist for 29 years in New York and LA and all over the place. I started writing books about five years ago. So I wrote a book called Boundary Boss, about women and boundaries. And then I wrote a book called Too Much, about women and high-functioning codependency, which is a, it's a term that I coined because my, the women in my practice, if I would say codependency, they'd be like, yeah, no, lady, not me. I'm, everyone's dependent on me. I'm making all the money, I'm making all the moves, what are you talking about? So I realized there really was a need to update codependent no more. We needed a modern definition of codependency. So those are the things, those are the books that I wrote before, Father Wound.

• 3:58Speaker 02

  But everything that I've done in my life has led to this book. Because this is, for me, this is my core wound. So I think it took a minute for me to decide to write about it, because it's painful. You gotta go back in time, you gotta talk about all the things that happened. But what I saw was that disordered boundaries and codependency, these were massive symptoms. But for many, many women, the actual core injury is an unhealed father wound. So that is how I got to writing this book.

• 4:30Sabrina Zohar?

  When I hear the unhealed father wound, how does that manifest? How have you seen it? I know it's, we're gonna run the gamut, right? You can have the me's, that like, I am so anxious about, am I gonna lose people? Are they gonna leave me? Do I have enough money? Because for my specific flavor of it, my father was in and out all the time, inconsistent. It's so, it's really creepy to say, and I hope people understand what I'm about to say, is I slept my way through Manhattan when I was in my twenties, because my father was a womanizer. And so I learned, oh, well, that's how you get his attention, is by giving you a physical, so I can get a man that way. And I know that sounds weird, because I dated, they all look like my dad. It's like, oh, that's creepy. But how else does it amalgamate? Because I think there's a lot of people listening that are like, but I loved my dad, and I had a great relationship.

• 5:12Sabrina Zohar?

  But then when we see the wounding, how do you start to like, really look at like, what's, what does that look like in behavior?

• 5:18Speaker 02

  Well, part of it is, look at your life, right? So do you suffer from perfectionism? Are you an over-functioner? Are you an over-giver? Do you have disordered boundaries? Do you have trouble trusting yourself? Is there a people-pleasing element to the way that you interact in your life? Because if you think about this very early and important relationship, if your father was there and was supposed to be protecting you, making you feel like you were someone who was worth protecting. And what happens when we didn't get that, we'll both probably cry at this, is that you are not sure that you are someone who is worth protecting. And we don't know how to do it. We literally don't know how.

• 6:01Speaker 02

  And so part of what we're doing, and what I'm doing in this book, is teaching you how to become this present and compassionate parent to yourself. But for those women who loved their dads, listen, you could have a disappointing dad, and we all loved our dads, no matter how much they sucked, no matter what they did, because kids need their parents, and daughters need their fathers. We really do. So I feel like in the, in the, you know, at the top of the book, I'm really clear to say, this is not an either or. You can love your dad, and you can be so disappointed. You can love your dad, and you can be so mad. Or just feel so gypped at like, what you didn't get in life.

• 6:45Speaker 02

  And ways that you can know, because a lot of people will ask me, well, like, how do I know? I, from such a young age, one of the stories in the book I talk about is being friends with someone down the street, and how her dad came home when I was playing at her house. So both of our fathers went to work. My father was like an executive, though, like a white-collar guy, you know? And her dad was a mechanic. But you know, when you're in fourth grade, you don't know, you're like, oh, dad's leaving in the morning, and they come home at night, and that's it. The second her father walked in, I was literally like, jumping, putting my shoes on, trying to run out of her house. And she's like, where are you going? And I was like, I gotta skedaddle, your dad just walked in, right? Like, my experience of my father, because we were all so terrified of him, was that

• 7:29Speaker 02

  he walked in a room, and we were like cockroaches in a New York apartment. When the light gets hit, you're like, bye-bye, I'm out of here. And that was the beginning, where, looking at someone else's father, I didn't know you could have a fun father, I didn't know you could have a warm father, I didn't know you could have a nice father. I literally didn't, I was afraid of everybody's dad up until that point. It also affects how we relate to authority figures, how we mate, how we date, as you were saying, right? This profoundly, our, having an unhealed father wound, for many women, it shows up in their romantic relationships the most. But not only there, friendships, work relationships, the bosses that you have, right? There's lots of places it shows up in our life.

• 8:12Sabrina Zohar?

  I got emotional when you were talking, both of us did. I could see it, we were both on that. Because it hits such a deep wound of like, am I worth protecting? And that was for me, when I started this whole journey, was realizing like, I have to be my own advocate. Even before we got on, we were talking about setting boundaries, and how we have to show up for ourselves, how we have to do it. And I've really learned that, because I grew up feeling like, it's similar to you, my dad, well, my dad just wasn't there. And so I used to think, I remember telling my friend, being like, yeah, my dad like, goes out in the middle of the night, he goes to like, bars and clubs and stuff. And she just looked at me, and I was like, your dad doesn't do that? I didn't understand it. I was like, well, what do you mean? And, you know, it's to the point of, well, I only know what's happening in my house. I don't know if I don't go to anybody else.

• 8:55Sabrina Zohar?

  But what gets me every time, is when I watch a documentary or a movie, and you see the dad show up, and be like, I would do anything for my daughter. And I have to stop and be like, what would that feel like? I don't know, I didn't tell you. So I did a podcast, January, in February, when I was on Jay Shetty. And I disclosed publicly that my father used to hit us. And my dad called my brother, and this was maybe two months ago, at this point. And almost my brother calls me, and he goes, so dad's coming. And I was like, when? He was like, tomorrow. And I was like, oh, wait, you guys have known about this? And he's like, oh, yeah, he's been planning with us for the last two weeks. And I lied, that's not where it started. Where it started was my birthday video. Ryan did a whole surprise, he contacted everybody and had a birthday video made for me.

• 9:39Sabrina Zohar?

  That's then led to this. And my, and so Ryan reached out to my brother and said, could you get your dad to send a video? I know this would mean the world to Sab, she needs to see her father. And the day of, I'm watching the video, and there's no, my dad's not there. And I looked at Ryan, and it's a surprise, and I said, did you not have his number?

• 9:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:56Sabrina Zohar?

  And he said, um, I wanted to wait until after your birthday to tell you. Your father refused to make one for you because he said, you said something inappropriate on Jay Shetty about him and made him sound bad. So why would he show up for you? And then when he was coming to visit, he had to drive by my house to go see my brother. And he never told me he was here and his response was, she can call me. She owes me an apology.

• 10:17Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 10:17Sabrina Zohar?

  And the funny thing is when my brother, he was like, but you did hit her dad. And he was like, I didn't. And Joe was like, dad, why are you lying? And he goes, well, I wasn't a drunk. I didn't get drunk and hit you guys. I was reprimanding you.

• 10:30Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 10:31Sabrina Zohar?

  And that's where even my brother, he was like, oh my God. And he even said, he was like, I have a daughter now. I would never touch her.

• 10:36Speaker 02

  Right.

• 10:37Sabrina Zohar?

  But to your point, all of that, like, I wish people understood, it doesn't matter how much you heal this father wound.

• 10:42Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 10:43Sabrina Zohar?

  It doesn't go away.

• 10:44Speaker 02

  Nope.

• 10:45Sabrina Zohar?

  You have it in you all, because I'm crying now, thinking of daddy's little girl, the little girl that wanted her father to come and pick her up, but he just wasn't there.

• 10:53Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 10:54Sabrina Zohar?

  And I think for anyone listening, whether your dad was or wasn't, it's not about blaming them. I can hold the two conflicting thought, you might be a piece of shit, but he did the best he could at the time.

• 11:03Speaker 02

  Right.

• 11:04Sabrina Zohar?

  And he continues to with the limited information that he has, but fuck if that didn't impact my adult life.

• 11:09Speaker 02

  Of course it did end. Let's talk about the healing process though, right? That you're talking about, that yes, an unhealed father wound continues to direct behavior. It becomes predictive in our lives. When we heal it, which is what I walk you through in the book, where we're literally going down into the basement of your mind. We're getting a bunch of unconscious stuff. We do it very gently and very slowly because it can be scary. But what happens is we deal with what really happened, the truth of what really happened. We allow the child within us, the little girl within us, to be as sad or mad as she actually is.

• 11:50Speaker 02

  It's like, we can't think about, well, my father did better than his father, right? We have all these ways that we make excuses for this bad behavior, but to really heal, there has to be a moment where we go, this sucked. This was really bad. This really hurt me as a little kid, right? And there's so many healing things that we can do, but just being honest and then being so committed to being that good and present presence in your life. So what starts happening is as we start having better boundaries, because doesn't it make sense that if you have an unhealed father wound, that you would have disordered boundaries?

• 12:31Speaker 02

  Because it requires all of this confidence and all of this belief that my time matters, what I think matters, how I feel matters. And a lot of times when you have a father wound, you are really questioning if that shit is true. We prioritize what other people think, how other people feel. We, we need approval. There's a certain amount of validation that we're looking for. So as you heal, instead of, you can talk out what happened, right? As a psychotherapist for all these years, I always think, we can either talk it out or act it out. That's it. These are the two things. So if we're not talking about what really happened. So you're going to really get into your, in, in the book and in, in the downloaded, uh, father wound blueprint.

• 13:14Speaker 02

  You're really understanding, like specifically, Sab, what happened to you? What happened for you? Because that's what creates. Now, to your point, I will always, even though I feel like I'm relatively healed from my father wound. I've read a whole frigging book about, trust me, that kicked up so much stuff writing this book.

• 13:32Sabrina Zohar?

  Same.

• 13:32Speaker 02

  But I will always be so sensitive when I see a TV commercial with a good dad. I'll always have that catch in my throat. I look at a good father, my friends who are great dads. And I'm like, oh, that lucky child. And thank God for them. And I'm so grateful that they have that, but there'll always be a little part of my little girl heart that would be like, wow, what would that have been like?

• 14:00Sabrina Zohar?

  Yeah.

• 14:01Speaker 02

  But it's different. Like where I'm not acting it out in my relationships with people who are treating me badly. It's different to know, ooh, this will always be, this will be a part of the integrated fabric of the tapestry of my unique life, which is different than having it be in the driver's seat of your life.

• 14:17Sabrina Zohar?

  A hundred percent. It's a grief, right? You're, I, I have to grieve all the time of like, I didn't get that dad. I didn't get what I deserved. As a generation, we're always trying to give our kids what we didn't have. And I think a lot of people confuse that by saying, I'll give them money and I'll give them toys and I'll give them a house. But really what we need is like, I need emotional safety. I need security. I need to know that I'm validated. I need someone to teach me how to say no. I need to see someone apologize. Giving your kid what you didn't have doesn't just mean monetary or fiscal. It also means the emotional state, the state to be authentically yourself without being judged. And to actually have somebody there that accepts you for who the fuck you are, which most of us maybe didn't have that.

• 14:51Speaker 02

  Yes. And I also think there's a lot of overcompensation with the financial stuff. And what happens is kids don't have the joy of learning how to work hard. The parent is centering themselves in the child's experience and being like, I'll be damned if my child will struggle. We want our kids to struggle.

• 15:12Sabrina Zohar?

  Yeah.

• 15:12Speaker 02

  We want them to be confident enough to problem solve. And you want to be the safe base. Like what did we need our fathers for, right? We needed them to be a safe base, a place where we could come back to, someone who's teaching us how to be in the world. Someone who thinks we're amazing, someone who wants to protect us. All of that stuff is what we need and you can grow up and create so much of that for yourself.

• 15:38Sabrina Zohar?

  How do you see it differ, men versus women, right? The father wound, well, fathers, right? And I, I know that with a girl, right? That's heterosexual norms. I'm just speaking as, if that's like the type of people I date, that's my first relationship. Because someone had asked that in the audience when I asked the questions. Is it true that, you know, that's the first male, that's the first relationship you have? To me, it was my first heartbreak. But how do you see that between the men versus women and how it impacts them? Doesn't matter your, whether you're heterosexual, homosexual, I don't give a fuck about that, but who you date. But how does it impact you?

• 16:07Speaker 02

  I think, because for me, I'm an expert at the female experience. And so that's what I really know. When you think about what is the role of father for daughters is one thing. Traditionally, the role of father for sons is something else.

• 16:22Sabrina Zohar?

  Mm hmm.

• 16:22Speaker 02

  They're not teaching them the same things. They're teaching them to be independent. They want them to be leaders. They, it's different. There might be more toxic masculinity action happening with a father to a son. So I, I feel like gay men and women have more, have more similar experiences with their father wound than heterosexual, straight boys and, and daughters, you know? Both need their fathers.

• 16:51Sabrina Zohar?

  Yeah.

• 16:52Speaker 02

  Need that experience. And again, it doesn't have to be biological, right? This is the father figure in your life. It could have been your grandfather. It could have been a foster dad. It could have been your uncle, but someone who was in that role. Another thing I wanted to talk about, and I wondered what your experience was, because I don't know. One of the concepts in the book that really isn't out there, but is now, because I wrote it, is about co, co-wounding.

• 17:14Sabrina Zohar?

  Yeah.

• 17:14Speaker 02

  With the mother. So when you think about it, there was not a lot of research done on this when I was writing this book. So I gathered 650, 50 women who self-identified as having father wounds and did a lot of surveying of them because I wanted to make sure I hit all the things they needed to heal in the book. Mother wounding, right? There's a lot of stuff on mothers. Mother wound, people talk about endlessly, right? We, we get all this. There's lots of books on this because researchers looked for problems where they expected to find it, which is in the mothering, because no one really expected dads to be attuned to kids. That wasn't what it was, especially if you were raised in like 60s, 70s, 80s. There was still more of that traditional provider protector vibe going on.

• 17:57Speaker 02

  So in your situation with your father being the way that he was, did your mother buffer or exacerbate?

• 18:05Sabrina Zohar?

  Yes. She, to give you an example, when I'm talking about, I'm like, we both wrote books. When I had mine, like same thing, it kicked up so many things. My dad used to, I'll never forget, I, I was maybe four, like it's ingrained in my memory. I heard my sister crying and I remember crawling out of my room, because we were right across, and seeing her on the floor, just crying hysterically. And my dad asked her a math problem. And every time she got it wrong, he slapped her. And she's crying, still like snot running. And we wonder why my, my sister ended up having a learning disorder, right? Like she didn't, she didn't have a disability, she was fucking trauma.

• 18:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 18:38Sabrina Zohar?

  And my mom walked by and went, I'm gonna go pick up your brother and just walked out.

• 18:42Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 18:43Sabrina Zohar?

  And I remember just sitting there being like, oh my God, we're so fucked. Like this is DEFCON one. My mom disassociated, talk about people, like there's a reason she was with him. She never, like to this day, my mother apologizes for breathing. My mother apologizes for apologizing. She genuinely believes you need, I have to earn my place here because I don't deserve to be here. And I'm like, well, look at who you had. You had the person that everything revolved, narcissist, everything revolved around him. And so if God forbid anybody else, she, they divorced when I was 14. They dated for four more years after that.

• 19:14Speaker 02

  Stop it.

• 19:15Sabrina Zohar?

  The worst.

• 19:15Speaker 02

  Trauma bonded.

• 19:16Sabrina Zohar?

  Four years I've ever, because my dad had played this game. So he would leave my mom. He divorced her when he lost all this money so that he didn't have to pay her anything. And he fucked her so hard, made money right after. Then he would, he left her. He said, you know what? I'm gonna move on with my life. You move on with yours. And he went to this woman, may I be stricken dead? She was a fucking cunt. I remember she showed up at dinner and I, like, my dad, he didn't pious anything, like he would not spend money on us. And she walks up with this designer bag and goes, oh, you didn't get one too? And I was like, what are you talking about? And she goes, your father just got this for me. You didn't get one?

• 19:48Speaker 02

  No.

• 19:48Sabrina Zohar?

  And I was like, um, no, he won't pay for my school trip, but he bought you a Fendi bag? But you can't say anything because you get fucking hit if the second you said anything. And so then he had her and he would break up with her and then go back to my mom. And he would be grandiose. My mom would move on. She met this guy and she actually liked him. And he was treating her well and they were dating and we were all so happy. My dad would come to the house. He would leave money in the, the envelope because he knew she was, she worked for him for 25 years. My mom gave up her life to be a mom and be a wife. And so then she would go right back in and then I would come home and I would see him and I'll never forget. I was 16 and my, I had got my period. I came home from a concert. I was seven, 16 or 17. I was so tired. It was my, I'm just becoming a woman. And I remember going in my room crying and I'm like, dad, please get out of my, like the computer was in my room.

• 20:31Sabrina Zohar?

  It's the one we had computer rooms for any of the Gen Z that don't understand it. And so it was in my room and I came in and I said, dad, please, please. I'm like hunched over. He starts screaming at me, fuck you, get the fuck out. And my mom comes in and she goes, get out. And I slept in my car that night. And she doesn't remember it. Like, if I talk to her now, she's like, I'm so sorry. I don't know what I was thinking. I'm so sorry. She was so beholden on, I need one father for all of my children, because she had two dads. And she was always told how she wasn't enough and they, the, the main, the real father was the first dad, but he died and you're the bastard child that came after. That she always was like, I have to keep my family unit together no matter what. But my God, if it didn't take me, I've, in years in therapy, I was like, it's my dad, it's my dad, it's my dad, until I had to look and go,

• 21:15Sabrina Zohar?

  oh, my God, my mom played a part too.

• 21:17Speaker 02

  Yep. The co-wounding part is a very painful part in the book. Because it's almost like we need, we need the good one, right? We need to feel like there's a good one in the process of this all. And yet, obviously, we're grown up and we do this. So we know that their people are flawed, parents are flawed. I, I look at how my father wound impacted my life. Another thing that we see is ambition. So proving, like, we are endlessly high, proving our worth. And my, since I made up a story, my father had four daughters. And I was the youngest, even though I was the designated oldest child, which really is a thankless motherfucking job, I'll have you know.

• 22:03Speaker 02

  Where you, you're, you're the youngest, but you're literally not first to go to college, the only one with an advanced degree, first to go to Europe, like all of the things, but taking care of the family, basically. I had a story that my father really wished he had sons because he was a very athletic guy. He went to college on a full ride for basketball. He was a big, like, you know, fancy, big man on campus type of guy. And that was my story. And when I got into my late twenties, my, and I started doing this work. My mother was like, you know, Terry, you, you have this story that you say that dad, my parents got divorced when I was 13 as well. You know, that dad wanted boys. And she's like, he never said anything like that. And she was like, I think he would have been equally uninterested in boys and in me, as he was, when, when it was all girls.

• 22:48Speaker 02

  And I realized and talked about this in therapy, how it was so much less painful to be like, oh, I'm the wrong gender. See, this makes sense. That's why.

• 22:58Sabrina Zohar?

  It's an answer.

• 22:58Speaker 02

  Give a shit, right? It's something. And to, then to admit, wow, your own father is just not that into you. Right? Just, you're just not that compelling. And so when you look at ambition, and for me, before I became a psychotherapist, I was a talent agent. And I was, I was leaping up the Hollywood ladder, leaping, right? I really was. I worked like a beast. I was on planes all the time. I was, you know, negotiating contracts for supermodels and celebrities. That was basically my job. I had a therapist who was so brilliant, Bev, and I talk about her on all.

• 23:30Sabrina Zohar?

  Bev.

• 23:31Speaker 02

  Exactly. Oh, she was so brutal, but so honest. And she was like, she was like, tell me about your ambition. I was like, you know, I've just always been, this is just my nature. So I've always been, it's just, it's just the way I am. And she said, but can you make the distinction? Do you think you're running towards something? Or, I was like, oh, fuck. She's like, or running away from something. And I was like, oh, my God, I do believe it is the latter. And this was a whole entire thing in therapy of really looking at, I was endlessly trying to prove my worth and why I talk about father wounds as worthiness wounds. And when you're very successful, these wounds can be very hard to spot.

• 24:13Speaker 02

  Because people look at you and go, obviously you have it together, duh. Like, not understanding what the internal, if I don't ever feel like what I do is enough because of the father wound that is unhealed, and in my life, thank God, you know, it's healed now. But that ambition becomes the same prison that anything else that you're doing compulsively becomes. It's not a choice. It's, it's a need to prove. And it's painful. It was exhausting. I mean, I ended up getting diagnosed with cancer in my early thirties and I'm fine.

• 24:47Sabrina Zohar?

  Fuck.

• 24:47Speaker 02

  I'm fine. And I'm fine now, but I really sincerely believe that the universe was like, oh, hey, bitch, slow down. Like, hey, babe, hey, I'm tapping, I'm giving a little shake. And then when I was like, I don't care. She was like, I'm gonna kick you down. Exactly. Kick you down a flight of cancer stairs. Because that will stop you. And that really was the beginning of me profoundly changing my life. Where I had to slow down long enough to be like, oh, hey, if this is going to cut my life short, am I living my best life? And the answer was, not at all.

• 25:21Sabrina Zohar?

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• 26:06Sabrina Zohar?

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• 26:51Sabrina Zohar?

  After you purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them. Please support our show, The Sabrina Zohar Show, and tell them we sent you.

• 26:59Speaker 00

  Fall never arrives all at once. First the air, then the light. And slowly, the things you love begin to find each other. A jacket meets a dress, a hoodie slips beneath a blazer, an old cap finds a new scarf. Because you don't simply step into the season. You create it layer by layer, until it finally feels like fall. Find fall your way at Ross.

• 27:27Sabrina Zohar?

  I have found the father wound, oh, God, friendships, forget it. Like, don't even.

• 27:31Speaker 02

  Let's talk about it.

• 27:32Sabrina Zohar?

  Have been, because I talk a lot about relationships in general, and the amount of people that write in are like, can we hit on friendships too?

• 27:38Speaker 02

  All the time.

• 27:39Sabrina Zohar?

  All the time. Except the content doesn't do well, but that's fine. That's for another day. Here we are. I found myself consistently going after people that were more avoidant, that didn't show emotion, that used me for anything I could give, because you'd say, how, jump, I say, how high and on who? Right? Like, I was giving, giving, giving, giving, giving. And it's funny because my brother met some of my friends recently and he was like, he told my mom, he goes, man, for the first time, I actually really like her friends. Like, she finally has a good group. What changed? My mom's like, she did. Because I really realized, I was like, wait a minute, this isn't just dating, right? If you think your wounding from childhood is only in your relationships, you are literally kidding yourself. You are fucking joking yourself. I dated my father. I had relationships with my father in work. I had colleagues that were my father. I had friends that were my father. I had all of it.

• 28:24Sabrina Zohar?

  And now I am in control of my career, right? Oh, I can do everything. And sometimes I've had to catch myself, I actually like, this is the first time I'm saying it, I owe my audience an apology. And the reason I say that is because I kept thinking I was losing them. And I was like, this is like my dad. And I was like, oh, my God, I'm projecting onto them. You're allowed to, because then someone, she wrote into me recently and goes, Sab, I'm gonna give you a reframe. Maybe you didn't lose us. Maybe you helped us so much, we moved on and didn't need it anymore. And I was like, my brain was like, cannot compute. You know, I was like, no, you left me.

• 28:54Speaker 02

  Abandonment.

• 28:54Sabrina Zohar?

  Right. And then we looked at analytics and I found out 80% of my core audience was still there. It was just all the other bullshit that we had lost of the name change and all the SEO and all those things. And so this is actually my apology to them. Because I was projecting on my wounding of, see, you're leaving me. You're all leaving me. When you find out who I am, I knew it, you're gonna go. So does it shock anybody that I chose a career or I have to perform and show up? And my sister called me the other day and she goes, man, you know what I think is so cool? You finally made a career being yourself. And I was like, you know what's even cooler? My dad disowned me for it. And I was like, because it came full circle. When you are yourself, you're going to lose people. It's inevitable. And the grieving, because we're trying so hard of, I don't want to lose them. And I remember the first time my dad, like, well, the first time, what am I talking about? I was like eight, 16 when he disowned me for the first time.

• 29:40Sabrina Zohar?

  But I remember when he disowned me a few years ago and I finally looked at my friend and I was like, that's the big bad wolf. The biggest thing I was scared of. So who gives a shit about all these guys? And it just became easier to go through and go, nah, next. Of course, I still hurt. But I'm curious, when we think about relations, right, relationships, like dating, and I know it's so creepy, but we say, like, you're dating your dad. What do you normally see when people come to you and you start to figure out the patterns? Like, what do you normally see that correlates? Because a lot of people were writing and going, how do I know if I am?

• 30:08Speaker 02

  Okay, so I call this repeating relationship realities.

• 30:12Sabrina Zohar?

  Right? Triple Rs.

• 30:13Speaker 02

  Freud would call it repetition compulsion. So what ends up happening? We don't, we don't know exactly why, but as human beings, we repeat what we do not repair, right? This is not my quote, that's an amazing quote by, what's her name? Colleen O'Baugh, I think is her name. But anyway, I love it because it's so accurate and true. So I have this, these three cues for clarity. If you want to understand these three questions, if you're in a situation and you're like, how am I in this situation again with this unavailable person or with this person who doesn't listen to me, or this person who says they're coming over but doesn't show up, or whatever it is that you're repeating, that is painful and that you're like, how am I here again? You're gonna ask yourself these three questions. Start with, who does this person remind me of?

• 30:59Speaker 02

  Simple and basic, but do it. Because when you're having a transference, it all feels so real. Right? And I'm not saying the relationship isn't real, but the way you're responding might be being amplified by this unresolved injury from the past. So who does this person remind me of? Where have I felt like this before? And how is this behavioral dynamic? The way I'm interacting, right? I'm going forward and they're stepping backwards. I'm feeling abandonment. They're feeling squished. How is that familiar to me? And a fourth way that you can ask this is, when I'm in this dynamic with this person, whether it's your best friend or whether it's someone you're dating. Who do I become metaphorically and who do they become? You may become your mother and they may become your father.

• 31:44Speaker 02

  I had a situation I talk about in Too Much, I think, in my second book, where I was working at a drug treatment clinic and I hated the guy who ran it. He was a very famous addiction. This is the beginning. This is, keep in mind, this is the 90s where you didn't have these celebrity type doctors that you do now. So he was really on the forefront of this about cocaine addiction. Anyway, every time I saw this guy, I would like literally dive into the bathroom to avoid him. If he was in a meeting, I would like just shut down and be in the back and be like, who the fuck out of here? Like, I hated his guts. So I would go in and talk to my therapist about what addict this guy was. And he was just standing in the way of my success and what was the deal? And she was like, okay, like, do you even know this guy? Like, what, why, why so much? Why so much heat is happening here?

• 32:28Speaker 02

  And then she finally was like, describe him. I was like, oh, you know, the type. Wall Street Journal reading, you know, Brooks Brothers suit, wearing, martini, swinging on the weekends, golfing, you know, the type. She was like, uh, who else would that describe? And I was like, oh, my God. This guy looked like my father, sounded like my father. Actually, everything about him, I was having a transference. It was so obvious and embarrassing. I was early, I was in my early 30s at this point. So I was like, hi. I was literally going to school to become a therapist and didn't see it. She said, do you know why it matters? And I was like, not really, actually. So tell me. She was like, Tara, you see Dr. Washington and you are literally turning into your 10 year old self. How is that good for your career?

• 33:11Speaker 02

  How is this guy gonna know how smart you are? He didn't do anything to you. This dude is not your father, you know? Like, even if he's quiet, you're, you're saying he's quiet and judging you. Like, he's likely not. So what is going on for you? Anyway, once I understood the transference, I never was afraid of him again. It was the weirdest thing. It was like magic happened. So why does it matter for us to understand when we're having a transference? Because it doesn't mean that maybe, maybe that boss could have been a jerk too. Right? This doesn't omit like that being true. But what we care about is how am I responding? And am I responding for my adult self? Or am I responding for my wounded child?

• 33:54Speaker 02

  And this whole process that I walk you through in Father Wound, the book, is healing this wound. Next right action, next right action. And I included in the book, celebrity stories of famous women who also have father wound, from Jane Fonda to Mariah Carey to Kate Hudson, who have been very, very vocal about their experiences and how their lives changed when they healed. Because part of it is I want women in particular to know that you're not alone. And that even if you had a decent dad, you, you, like you and like me, were raised in a patriarchy.

• 34:33Speaker 02

  And this internalized misogyny also impacts the way that we relate, how, how much we think we can take. Right? Like, what are we allowed to have?

• 34:44Sabrina Zohar?

  Be a good girl.

• 34:45Speaker 02

  In this life. Be a good girl. Turn that frown around. Hey, if you don't have anything nice to say, Sabrina, don't say anything at all.

• 34:51Sabrina Zohar?

  Yeah, come sit here. Sit on my, and you're like, I don't want to. Get over, I don't want to.

• 34:54Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 34:55Sabrina Zohar?

  You don't even have to say no. And the reason it's so important is I think a lot of people get this confused. Right? They see it as like, oh, therapy, I don't want to live in the past. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no. Well, here's the problem. You already are. You are living in the past because you're coming from like a fucking 10 year old. The story I'd shared about you, like when I lost the name and I remember, I'll never forget. I'm in there, I'm in, I'm in with my coach. And I, I just screamed, you're not gonna take this from me. And she stopped and went, who are you talking to? And I was like, oh, my God, that's my dad. And she was like, go on. And so I started to realize, I was like, oh, my God, I'm a seven year old. I'm seeing this big, because why? I felt out of control. It was something I couldn't do. I didn't do anything wrong. I just showed up. Why are you mad at me?

• 35:37Sabrina Zohar?

  Now, if I had lived in that transference, what kind of business owner would I have been? Right? Then I would have gone, well, fuck all of you and I'm mad. And I would have a temper tantrum and I went. And instead I like wiped my tears and I was like, okay, I saw it. Right? I processed it. I went through it. Now the adult me, because you know why in that moment I realized? It's the same as, insert dating here. Because when you go back to that point, what I've learned at least is, why would that seven year old know how to keep a business alive? Why would that seven year old know how to talk to my partner or how to have this conversation? She doesn't know. But yet, when I go back to her, I'm expecting her to figure this out.

• 36:09Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 36:09Sabrina Zohar?

  And so of course she's gonna go and be like, dad, dad, dad, is that you? Is that you? Is that you? Are you gonna leave me? But when we can come back on and be like, wait a minute, I could be there for her.

• 36:19Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 36:20Sabrina Zohar?

  And I think the misconception is that, oh, it just makes it go away. It's like, oh, no. Let me ruin this for you. It doesn't go away. You learn how to live with it.

• 36:28Speaker 02

  You do, but you learn how to honor and integrate it.

• 36:32Sabrina Zohar?

  Yeah.

• 36:32Speaker 02

  And those, that is the difference between living your authentic life, being able to say no when you need to say no, and telling the truth about how you feel and about what you want and what matters to you. And being this people pleaser where, you know, I would have women come into my therapy practice. You know, this is like sixth, seventh decade of life. Being like, uh, let's see, I've done all the things. I raised the kids, they went to other like schools. I'm, you know, I'm these board of, you know, I'm, I'm volunteering. I go to SoulCycle, we travel. And they're like, uh, is this all there is? That, why do I feel so empty? And I always think, well, you built an entire life on boxes that other people,

• 37:14Speaker 02

  you were checking boxes, but other people created those boxes. Like, be a good girl. Give the shirt off your back to anyone. Do all the right things. Be feminine in the way that society thinks that you should be. Meaning all giving, over giving. When people are like, you love Betty, she'll give anyone the shirt off her back. I wanna be like, can Betty keep her fucking shirt off, please?

• 37:35Sabrina Zohar?

  Betty, we don't need it.

• 37:35Speaker 02

  How about we should, um, not give our shirt to anybody? You know, people you love, sure, but anybody?

• 37:43Sabrina Zohar?

  No.

• 37:44Speaker 02

  Let's not.

• 37:45Sabrina Zohar?

  When I think about the father wound, I think about just feeling helpless at times. And now I think what I love about the book is like you said, you're reclaiming your power that you can say, yes, this happened to me. Right? I, I have friends, I have a friend that she was sexually abused by her father. The alt, I mean, Jesus, I cannot think about the ultimate betrayal. And then on top of it, he then passed her off to his friends. Like, it just got worse and worse. She's one of the strongest women I know because she doesn't victimize herself ever. She says, she's like, listen, it happened to me, but I'm not going to let that be. And I learned that as well because I grew up knowing you, man provide, right? I, like my father says, I, I give you a roof over your head, you had clothes. What are you complaining about? I don't need to give you anything else. So man provide, and he taught me, you make your own money, you don't take anything from anyone else,

• 38:30Sabrina Zohar?

  but you find a wealthy guy who's gonna take care of you and he's gonna do all these things. So then when I met Ryan, and now he works for my business, and I'm like, wait, wait, but, that's not. Right? Same with having kids. I have chosen to be child free. It is a personal choice that I've made. I'm 36, I have made that choice. Now, if you would ask me when I was 25, different life, right? If I had met the rich guy that had the nannies and the thing, and you're like, yeah, whatever, I don't have to think about it. But that's not the life I'm living. And I have made that choice. And I haven't had a lot of pushback, which is really lovely. But the reason I share it is because societally, my sister even called me and she was like, Sabrina, but you're a woman. You're meant to have kids. And I said, what did, when did this Bible bullshit? It was like, Jamie, where the fuck did you become religious? I was like, when did that happen? Because that's what my father taught. It's like, you have kids. Why aren't you having kids? And I was like, but you didn't want them.

• 39:13Sabrina Zohar?

  You didn't want them and you didn't make that choice for yourself. I get to. To me, that's healing that.

• 39:19Speaker 02

  I gotta say, Sabrina, this is not uncommon. So many of the women that I worked with, um, in this group, this survey group, many of them said, um, my relationship, my experience with my father, it was so bad that I was too afraid. I really wanted kids. I was too afraid to, what if I turned into him? What if that happened? Like, being so scared of that experience that they're like, he, he didn't just kill my dream. He literally killed a lineage. Like, I don't want to do that. Now, again, this is from free choice, but these are the experiences. Like, this affects our lives and the choices that we make.

• 40:00Speaker 02

  And another aspect of unhealed father wound is hypervigilance, where we are so dialed into every micro expression on anybody's face, the mood in every room.

• 40:14Sabrina Zohar?

  Intonation in your voice.

• 40:15Speaker 02

  Oh. I mean, we are experts at knowing exactly what's happening now. Those are skills, right? It was an adaptive skill in childhood because it probably kept you safer than you would have been for many people. But it also becomes maladapted because energetically and bandwidth wise, we can't do that forever, especially, listen, I'm 62, right? What I could do when I was 40, right, is a different experience than being 62. And I don't want to. But it's something that we need to protect our energy. And when you have an unhealed father wound, a lot of times you don't know how. It's almost like, I feel like before I really did the work on healing my wound, I was an open book. I was like a house without a door.

• 40:59Speaker 02

  So like, anybody could kind of come in to my life, whether it was friendships that really wanted something from me, people who were sort of more like users than really good friends. There was so much of this people pleasing that was so exhausting. And getting healthy, suddenly I'm curating the VIP section of my life, like a bunch of years ago, obviously, but it's so different to have relationships that are healthy, friendships that are healthy, romantic relationship that is healthy. You really truly feel like it's safe to be yourself in a way that, if you grew up in a way where it wasn't safe, it is so joyful and expansive

• 41:41Speaker 02

  to feel celebrated and loved for who you actually are. And it's funny, I see this in myself, that my need to be accurately known is so deep because my father didn't know me at all.

• 41:54Sabrina Zohar?

  Yeah.

• 41:54Speaker 02

  And it's like, my poor husband, you know, and we've been together almost 30 years. I mean, he's fine. But I can never be placated, right? He'll be like, yeah, I get it. I'm like, but do you?

• 42:03Sabrina Zohar?

  But do you?

• 42:03Speaker 02

  Like, actually get it?

• 42:04Sabrina Zohar?

  But you're hearing me?

• 42:05Speaker 02

  Do you know what I'm saying? He's like, babe, babe, babe, I know what you're saying. I'm like, I'm just checking.

• 42:13Speaker 00

  Fall never arrives all at once. First the air, then the light. And slowly the things you love begin to find each other. A jacket meets a dress, a hoodie slips beneath a blazer, an old cap finds a new scarf. Because you don't simply step into the season. You create it layer by layer until it finally feels like fall. Find fall your way at Ross.

• 42:40Sabrina Zohar?

  That's why I hate the like avoidance of bad people. And you're like, okay, you don't know what they experienced. I look at my sister, I look at Ryan, I'm like, both of them had like Ryan's real father is not a good person, but he had an incredible grandfather, like epic, like his grandfather is, you're like, thank God, no wonder your mom is like, so wonder where the family is great. It's like, look who the patriarch of the family was, just a great human. And his stepdad, great human, but you cannot take away from the fact that he didn't meet these people. I mean, he knew his grandfather, but like, I'm even talking about later in life, my sister, right, getting hit by my dad, she shuts down. My sister is so avoidant. Now she's becoming more, and we have, we should therapy, da, da, da, da, da, da. She's finally taking up space. But it's so funny, because I used to talk to my sister, and I'd be like, do you remember

• 43:24Sabrina Zohar?

  that one time, like, I'll never forget telling her, I was like, you remember that one time we went for your birthday? And there was this Chinese restaurant, Orient Palace in South Florida, that we'd always go to, and loved it. Don't get me wrong, I'm sad about it every day that it closed. But it was like, the only place my dad wanted to go. And it was my sister's like, eighth birthday, maybe? Like, she was a kid, and she said, I just remember, like, yesterday, her going, but Dad, I don't want to go there. He parked the car, and he turned around, and he hit her so hard, she fell back. And then we tried to protect her. And so he got out of the car, and we're running around, and but he got, when he grabbed her, he beat the shit out of her in the back of the seat.

• 43:55Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 43:56Sabrina Zohar?

  And I remember, then we had, what happened? We had to go into the restaurant, and smiles, smiles, don't you fucking dare tell anybody anything, everything's, and then you go, my love, come here, come here. And you're like, you literally just beat the shit out of her.

• 44:06Speaker 02

  Right.

• 44:07Sabrina Zohar?

  So we can't wonder why, then, then I remember telling my sister, being like, Jamie, do you remember that? And she goes, oh, yeah, I remember, Dad, beat the shit out of me. And just walked off, and I said, you know, Jamie, you say it so flippantly, that now she's starting to get, like, the anger's coming out, where I'm like, good girl, let it out. Where she's like, fuck him, and why would you do that? I'm like, let it out, let it out. I know, I need this. But she never felt safe to do so.

• 44:27Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 44:27Sabrina Zohar?

  And it's the same with the anxious girl. It doesn't, like, I'm so tired of this pop psychology bullshit on the fucking internet of like, avoidant just don't care. And it's like, dude, if you for five fucking seconds, tried to understand their experience and where they came from, maybe for an iota of a second, you'd have some empathy, because you want everyone to understand you and your anxiety, and I just feel, but yet you have no comprehension for somebody else's lived experience.

• 44:49Speaker 02

  Yes. And when people say, if they wanted to, they would, you're like, have you know anything about psychology? I'm just curious. That's not accurate.

• 44:58Sabrina Zohar?

  No.

• 44:59Speaker 02

  You can really want to, and not be healed enough to. Like, it can be so threatening to do the thing that you really want to. You gotta do your work to get over it. But I don't like, I'm with you, I don't like the simplistic, like, it's so reductive.

• 45:15Sabrina Zohar?

  Reductive.

• 45:15Speaker 02

  We're just boiling it down to, um, something that makes the person who has the limitation, like, wrong and evil, and it's so unfair. It's not accurate.

• 45:25Sabrina Zohar?

  It's funny, because I did a video about that, and then somebody even made a comment, they were like, the anxious people are telling themselves, unto themselves, because the video was me saying, I feel bad for people with avoidant attachment. I genuinely feel bad that you can't let love in, that that's scary, right? And the amount of people, I feel worse for the people they hurt. And it's like, ooh, so you matter more than they do. And it's like, do you see how even just there, it's like, you live in your victim land? And I get it, I get a lot of people that are like, fuck you, Zohar, and I've been hurt, and it's like, so have I. I have been hurt by it all.

• 45:54Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 45:54Sabrina Zohar?

  But I've also hurt.

• 45:55Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 45:56Sabrina Zohar?

  Oh, like I saw, okay, I want to play rapid fire with you.

• 45:59Speaker 02

  All right, let's go.

• 45:59Sabrina Zohar?

  Shall we? Okay. Finish the sentence, the father wound isn't about your dad, it's about?

• 46:03Speaker 02

  You. We've focused enough on them. They don't need, you don't need their permission, their participation, them to even know you're doing it. Because this is finally all about you, and only about you. So we're not protecting. It's okay to tell the truth about what happened. But for many of us with unhealed father wounds, we are focused on everyone else, including the father. But this book is all about you.

• 46:31Sabrina Zohar?

  What is the father wound actually protecting you from?

• 46:33Speaker 02

  I don't know that it is, right? I don't know that it is. I feel like it makes our lives small. It is an adaptive response. All the behaviors that were, if you're unhealed, all these behaviors were adaptive in childhood. They become maladaptive in adulthood. So what they're preventing you from doing is having real, deep, authentic relationships that are safe. Secure attachment, that's what it's getting in the way of. I don't know that it's protecting you from anything. I think it's protecting you from vulnerability, I guess.

• 47:05Sabrina Zohar?

  Right.

• 47:06Speaker 02

  Because then we can't really have closer relationships.

• 47:08Sabrina Zohar?

  You understand exactly what your dad did. Why doesn't that heal it?

• 47:11Speaker 02

  Hmm, because it's intellectual. And this wound is emotional, intellectual, and even physiological, when you have had traumatic experiences. So we can intellectualize it, but we have to go through the trenches of really feeling the feelings of what it was like to go through. There's literally, the only way around is through.

• 47:31Sabrina Zohar?

  What you resist persists.

• 47:32Speaker 02

  It showed us.

• 47:33Sabrina Zohar?

  Men almost never say father wound. What do you normally hear them say?

• 47:37Speaker 02

  Oh, they do not want to. They do not want to incriminate their fathers. They know, and most people don't talk about father wounds, because the patriarchal culture says it's mother's fault, it's women's fault. Very rarely, think about victim language. We, what was she wearing? She, she was raped, rather than talking about men being the rapers. Like, so this is very patriarchal, to have not a lot of language. Men and women don't say father wound often. They're going to now, after this book, but they didn't before.

• 48:08Sabrina Zohar?

  What are your top tips to actually healing through the father wound?

• 48:11Speaker 02

  Give yourself the time and space. Get committed to doing it. This is why I'd guide you to create a Zen den, where you're going to do the work that I give you in the book. This is a one stop shop. This isn't like, do this, and then you need 14 other steps. This is just this. So the first thing is, you have to be like, I am willing to look at what happened, honestly, with radical curiosity and compassion for the child that I was. That's the beginning. We have to be willing to go back, and it's very painful, especially if there was abuse, especially if there's trauma. So that's the first and foremost. But you won't be doing it alone, because I'm guiding you lovingly and protecting you the entire way.

• 48:52Sabrina Zohar?

  Which is truly, what changes it? It's not, because when you do it yourself, it is fucking daunting and scary, and you're like, I don't know, what do I do with all these emotions and feelings? But knowing that somebody has your back, you're like, okay, I got this, because they're guiding me somewhere. It's not just my guts sitting all over the floor.

• 49:05Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 49:06Sabrina Zohar?

  My dad did his best. What do you hear underneath that?

• 49:08Speaker 02

  But he was disappointing, or he caused me pain, or he abandoned me, or he did it badly, or he was self-absorbed, or he was a narcissist, or he was abusive, right? He did his best, but I still was left longing.

• 49:26Sabrina Zohar?

  Hmm, I love that. You gotta, you gotta honor your actual fucking experience, and stop trying to just make it about, well, they did their best. It's like, yeah, but the best wasn't enough.

• 49:34Speaker 02

  No, and we're not talking about them.

• 49:37Sabrina Zohar?

  No.

• 49:38Speaker 02

  Talking about you.

• 49:39Sabrina Zohar?

  If your dad couldn't love you, what did you decide that meant about you?

• 49:42Speaker 02

  Probably that you were really hard to love, or completely unlovable. It's so painful when the person who is supposed to love you the most has contempt for you, treats you badly, is abusive to you, or even just indifferent. Because what do we say? The opposite of love is in hate? The opposite of love is indifference. And that is so painful, if you had an indifferent father, like I did, that you just don't, you just don't get it. It really makes you feel like, wow, I'm literally not enough.

• 50:13Sabrina Zohar?

  You have the amalgamation of, I'm too much, but I'm not enough. I'm too much because they keep going and leaving me, but then I'm not enough to keep them.

• 50:19Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 50:19Sabrina Zohar?

  That's its own kind of hell. And until you actually fucking heal through that, you're always going to be too much or not enough, because then how do you think about yourself?

• 50:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're never just right.

• 50:27Sabrina Zohar?

  All right, last one. Staying angry at your dad keeps him close. How do you let the anger go?

• 50:32Speaker 02

  You honor it, because you realize that holding on to anger for your father is like swallowing poison and expecting the other person to die, right? It's, it's you, you live with the anger. It is fucking your nervous system. It is exhausting you, it is sucking away your bandwidth. And probably, he doesn't even know, or doesn't care. And maybe he does, we don't know. You know, I mean, listen, the end of the book, I give you an addendum at the end of the book, for anyone who's in a place where they're like, okay, so here I am now, my father's still alive, I think I want a better relationship with him. It's like, okay, go to page, whatever. My father is dead, but I feel like I didn't really honor it. I really feel like I want to do a ritual. Okay, I've got seven rituals for you on this page that you can do.

• 51:16Speaker 02

  Um, my father is intrusive, he wants more from me than I want to give him, I need better boundaries. Okay, go to this page, and I'm going to walk you through exactly the language and the boundary scripts to do that. Because I felt like, at the end of the book, some people will be done, at the end of the book, after chapter 10, and be like, I feel good, this was super helpful, I feel like I'm in a good place. Then you close the book and you're done. But for those who want something different, but don't know how to get it, it's almost like a, you know, choose your own adventure at the end. And I really hope that that's going to be helpful for people who are like, now what?

• 51:50Sabrina Zohar?

  If you find yourself dating the same type of person over and over again, and it's a pattern, eventually we'll have to say, how old do I feel, and where did I learn this from? And if that leads you back to, this is how my father treated me, this is how my mother was, this is how my caregiver were, this is how my uncle was, then we have to stop making excuses for it, and finally say, I get to fucking do something about that, and what I get to do now is stand up for that little in ways that no one ever stood up for me.

• 52:12Speaker 02

  Yes, indeed. And we also have to look at like, oh, who is, what is the common denominator in my life? It's me. I say to my therapy clients, and I, I had said to my therapist many, many years ago, like, ugh, if my boyfriend wasn't like this, my boss is a dick, if my friend didn't, and she's like, babe, babe, babe, it's you. And it is such powerful news, when we go, oh, I'm the common denominator, because we can do something to make it different, as you just said, rather than feeling like everyone else has the power, the way we felt when we were kids.

• 52:43Sabrina Zohar?

  As a kid, I didn't have choices, but I'm not a kid anymore. I do get to have choices. And the most freeing thing was me reminding myself, you will never have to be seven years old again. You will never have to cry in the attic alone. You will never have to do that. The only reason you will is if I don't do what I need to do to get you the fuck out of there.

• 53:01Speaker 02

  Yes. Yes, and having your little girl, your seven year old, being able to trust grown up you is so beautiful, that she gets to finally relax. You wonder why we have all these nervous system problems? Because the hypervigilance from birth is exhausting.

• 53:18Sabrina Zohar?

  Even utero, I'm like, my God, what my poor mother must have gone through while I was in her belly.

• 53:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:22Sabrina Zohar?

  Just all of those things that we don't understand, zero to 18, we're not even verbal yet.

• 53:25Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 53:26Sabrina Zohar?

  So imagine everything we're picking up on, and then imagine doing that now. We can't handle a discomfort of Amazon missing a fucking delivery, but you think you'll be okay with the fact that the person that's supposed to save you wasn't there for you?

• 53:37Speaker 02

  Right.

• 53:37Sabrina Zohar?

  Come on. Oh, Terry, I could talk to you for days, but, oh.

• 53:41Speaker 02

  Days and days.

• 53:41Sabrina Zohar?

  Please, go get your fucking book, it's going to be linked in the show notes, but can you share a little bit more, where can people work with you, or what can they get? Give, give it to me.

• 53:50Speaker 02

  Go to fatherwoundbook.com, and once you buy the book, and there's all kinds of bonuses, and I'm also running a course right now, where I will walk you through, so you really aren't alone. You're not alone when you're doing it by the book too, but the course is actually great as well. People can see, I'd have my, here on my podcast too, so The Terry Cole Show is a place that people can go. Um, I have a YouTube channel, Terry Cole, and I'm on Substack now, and on Instagram is where I hang out the most, like you.

• 54:18Sabrina Zohar?

  Yeah, I love it, Terry. Thank you for being here. You guys, thank you. Please share this with somebody that you think could benefit from it. We are here to help. Don't forget to rate and review the show, five stars if you think it's worth it, and if you don't, you don't have to share that.

• 54:30Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 54:30Sabrina Zohar?

  You could just keep it to yourself. And thank you guys for being here. I love you. If you guys need anything, everything will be linked in the show notes. Go get Terry's book. And babes, until next time, we'll see you soon.

• 54:49Speaker 00

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