206: Avoidants: Did You Mean Anything To Them? What's Really Going On After A Breakup

Why does an avoidant ex look completely fine after the breakup while you're falling apart? In Part 2 of this 4-part breakup series, Sabrina breaks down avoidant attachment after a breakup using actual attachment research, not the recycled TikTok takes. She explains what deactivation really means in the nervous system, why avoidants register as less distressed in the acute post-breakup period, and what's actually happening when they seem to move on overnight or jump straight into a new relationship. You'll also learn the three types of avoidant reach-outs (suppression breakdown, the phantom ex phenomenon, and the rare real reach out), how to tell which one you're getting, whether avoidants can actually change, and why you keep responding even when you know better. Stay until the end for the Tool of the Week, the single most useful practice for anyone trying to heal from an avoidant discard, an anxious-avoidant dynamic, or a breakup where you can't stop wondering if you ever mattered to them. Pre-order Sabrina's book coming out October 2026,⁠ "Why Am I Like This?"⁠ Get your free workbook and access to the companion course after pre-ordering 'Why Am I Like This?' by filling out the form at the bottom of the page at http://sabrinazohar.com/book If you’re ready to slow down, trust your instincts, and break your old dating patterns, the Healthy Relationship Foundations Course walks you through it step-by-step ⁠HERE!⁠ If you’re serious about changing your dating patterns instead of repeating them, the Art of Going Slow course helps you unlearn urgency, regulate your nervous system, and build real connection without rushing, chasing, or abandoning yourself ⁠HERE!⁠ Get Ad free ⁠HERE!⁠ Watch on Spotify. Spotify subscribers get fewer ads on my video. Want to work with Sabrina? ⁠HERE!⁠ Get merch for The Sabrina Zohar Show ⁠HERE!⁠ Don't forget to follow ⁠Sabrina⁠ and ⁠The Sabrina Zohar Show⁠ on Instagram and ⁠Sabrina ⁠on TikTok! Video now available on ⁠YOUTUBE!⁠ Please support our sponsors! Take Cheers Restore after your last drink or before going to bed and wake up feeling at least 50% better — or your money back. For a limited time our listeners are getting 20% off their entire order at CheersHealth.com/SABRINA #Cheers #ad Get 20% off your first order, plus free shipping at Boll And Branch with code sabrina. Bollandbranch.com/sabrina Ready to upgrade your eyewear to something functional, fashionable, fun, and affordable? Head to goodr.com/SABRINAZOHAR to claim $10 off your first order. ============================= Chapters: 00:00 Inside the Avoidant Breakup 06:10 What Avoidant Attachment Really Is 10:45 Why Avoidants Don't Grieve at First 13:21 Avoidant Discard vs Breakup 17:08 The Suppression Study Explained 21:20 3 Types of Avoidant Reach Outs 25:37 Why You Keep Responding 28:21 Can Avoidants Actually Change 31:12 Healing Without Becoming Avoidant 33:40 Tool: Stop Predicting Their Feelings 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

  Coca-Cola. For the big, for the small, the short, and the tall. Peacemakers, risk takers. For the optimists, pessimists. For long distance love. For introverts and extroverts. The thinkers and the doers. For old friends and new. Coca-Cola. For everyone. Pick up some Coca-Cola at a store near you.

• 0:31Speaker 01

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• 1:00Sabrina Zohar?

  Six weeks after the breakup, you're in your car crying and they're at brunch. Three months out, you're still not sleeping and they have a new person. And a year later, you're finally coming up for air and that's the week they text you out of nowhere saying they miss you. Or maybe you just never fucking heard from them again. And every single one of you has asked some version of the same question. Are they actually fine? Do they ever feel it? Were they always going to leave? Avoidant discard is hard as shit. And this is part two of four in this breakup series. Last week was anxious, today is avoidant, and today is the episode that answers the question you have been asking yourself at 3 a.m. for months. What is actually happening inside this person? Are they okay? And did they ever love me? But baby, here's what I'm going to tell you, and I want you to hear it crystal fucking clear before we start. The research has an answer. It's not the answer you want. It's not the answer they'd give you.

• 1:45Sabrina Zohar?

  And it's not the answer most attachment content gives you because most content either makes avoidance out to be secretly suffering angels or cold sociopaths. And neither of those is true. The truth is more specific, more measurable, and honestly, more interesting than either of those. So let's fucking go. Hello, hello, hello. And welcome to another episode of the Sabrina Zohar Show. My name is Sabrina Zohar and I am your host. I'm sorry, I can't keep it in. Can you guys see what's next week? Did you see the book? It's my book! Oh my God! So my book came out. Ah, well, it's on pre-sale right now, but it's official. You guys can see it. I've been waiting for this day. I've been waiting, I've been waiting, and I'm so excited because you guys are my babes and I get to share it with you. Thank you, guys.

• 2:28Sabrina Zohar?

  Thank you for believing me to the point that we're here right now together. And I'm so fucking grateful. And today, we're gonna have a really great episode because I think, to me, baby, this is a biggie. I know you guys ask constantly, right? And I think, to me, this episode's for two people. If you were broken up with and avoidant, right? Or if you broke up with them and they seemed fine while you fell apart, this is for you. If you're avoidant and you're listening because something in you is starting to wake up and you don't know what to do with it, this is also for you. So today, we're gonna do four things. I'm gonna explain what deactivation actually is in the nervous system because the word gets thrown around and most people don't know what the fuck it means. I'm gonna tell you about a study that put this under experimental conditions and the result is exactly what every anxious ex has suspected but could never prove. I'm gonna explain why they come back, if they even, and why coming back is almost never what you think it means.

• 3:13Sabrina Zohar?

  And go back and listen to the episode from a couple of months ago of do they always come back? That'll help. And then I'm gonna answer the question everyone asks, which is can they change? And honestly, without the false hope and without the doom. And baby, as always, stay until the end because the tool of the week is one of the most important things I could give to anyone who has ever loved and avoided. It's not about changing them, it's about what you do with your own mind while you're trying to heal from loving one. And guys, please don't forget to rate and review the podcast, leave a comment, even if it's something as simple as a heart, share it with your friends. That's how we grow this community because the reality is there are people that are coming in and out every day. Some of you guys are finding the relationships that you deserve and saying, baby, I don't need this anymore, I'm moving on to greener pastures. And then some of you are going, hey, first day here, or somewhere, anywhere in between. And so, do I curse a lot? I sure do. Do I speak fast?

• 3:58Sabrina Zohar?

  You betcha, you could slow the speed down. You want ad free? Subscribe or fast forward through four ads or support our sponsors that help keep the show free. And ultimately, please don't forget to preorder. Why am I like this? You now, if you go to the website at supranazara.com, you will see where you can submit your receipt and you get a course as a thank you, only if you pre-sale. Once pre-sales are over, you do not get the course, my babes, but that is my way of saying thank you because it's the only way I could get the New York Times list. And really quick, before I move on- From the intro to the person that left me a comment saying that I spoke too much about my first book, right? The first motherfucking book I have ever written, that I spoke about it three times for a total of, I think it was 64 seconds in an entire 40 minute episode. My message to you is, get fucked.

• 4:40Sabrina Zohar?

  This is something I am not going to shut the fuck up about because I have never been prouder of anything that I have ever done in my entire life, besides what I wrote in that book. To the point where my father's probably going to fucking disown me when he reads that book, and that's okay. I did that for me, for you, for everybody, because we all deserve to be seen. We all deserve to be heard and understood. And I am so fucking tired of on my own show, having to apologize for taking up space and celebrating wins, sharing the reality of life. And I'm gonna stop doing that today because we're in this together. And if that works for you, fuck yeah, let's do this together. And if not, that's okay, too. But you get to make a choice. And that's one that you get to make. You don't need to leave a wake of destruction. It's not a fucking airport. You don't have to announce your departure. You can just make that choice for yourself. And I value and think that's really awesome. But no, I'm not going to stop talking about this because I've never been more proud

• 5:25Sabrina Zohar?

  of something I've done in my life. And I am so excited for you guys to get it. Please let me know if you preorder. Let me know what you think when you get it. And thank you as always for being here. Thank you for letting me take up the space and be on my ADHD loops and start to repeat myself and do the same stuff, because I'm a human. And like, I get to show up like that. So the fuck do you? And guys, if you want to work with me or join one of the courses, everything's at sabrina zohar.com. You can preorder the book. You could do anything that you want there, or you could just be here. We've got a couple of free guides and a quiz, got all that stuff. So just doing my due diligence, and soon enough, I'll be announcing my tour. So stay tuned. And if you're in the city, if I don't fucking get a hug from you, I will take it as a personal offense. All right, friends, without

• 6:06Sabrina Zohar?

  further ado, let's get right on into it, shall we? Hi, friends. Oh, I'm excited. I'm sorry, I'm still like not getting over the book. I still haven't processed that it's sitting right the buck next to me. And I'm just over the moon. I have personally been struggling with my own mental health and feeling like, am I enough? Can I do this, right? You are not the only person that has core beliefs. And I try to normalize that, not because I need anything from you. I genuinely am not asking for anything besides the space to be able to share. That frankly speaking, I'm terrified about this book coming out. I am so scared about my dad reading it. Well, please, he's not gonna fucking read it. I'm scared about him finding out about it. I'm scared about what the world is gonna think. I'm scared about the judgment, but I'm also excited for maybe,

• 6:48Sabrina Zohar?

  maybe for one person, if this changes their life, I did my job. If one person feels seen, heard, or understood, I've done my job. And if one of you can feel less alone, that's really all I've been asking for because for a long time, I felt really alone, especially with the topic that we're gonna hit today, which is the avoidant breakup. And I really wanted to do this series. I thought it would be fun. We're gonna have more series. I think series are just my favorite aspect because it lets us build off of things. And don't forget to listen to all of them. I know maybe not every episode pertains to you, but I hope that you guys at the very least will market us finished. But at the very least, just be here and even just like try to tune in when you can. But that's okay either way. But I think today, this is one we're gonna need. And so let me start here. Avoidant attachment is not the absence of feeling.

• 7:33Sabrina Zohar?

  And I think that to me is the single biggest misconception in all the attachment content. It's the one that keeps anxious exes spiraling for years after a breakup, trying to figure out what the fuck they were dealing with, what it actually is. And we have episodes on avoidant attachment, anxious attachment. If you guys want more on like what it actually is, today we're talking about the breakup component of it. Attachment researchers call it a term called deactivation. And so deactivation is a set of strategies the nervous system runs to keep attachment needs offline. Not because the needs aren't there, because the needs feel dangerous. You have to remember too, right? Your lived experience with anxiety doesn't mean that that's everybody else's. For me, it wasn't necessarily a safe space, but I took up space. My sister, on the other hand, she goes inwards.

• 8:16Sabrina Zohar?

  She's learning now how to become more expressive and share. But historically, she went inwards because it wasn't safe for her. So it was easier to shut her needs off, right? People please and just go down and fawn and do than it was to say, wait a minute, I need to take up space. That doesn't work for me. And if you're avoidantly attached somewhere early in your life, getting close to people registered as unsafe and maybe a parent was inconsistent, maybe emotional expression got punished or ignored. Again, it doesn't mean that we need the big Ts. This doesn't need to be that you had the piece of shit parent. I'm not saying that. But you learned this somewhere, right? Usually when I ask, we had Judith's episode and a couple of weeks ago, the live coaching. And we're gonna do more. I loved it. It was really fun. And when I asked her, like, where did you learn that from? Everything was to her dad. And then she realized, wait a minute, actually, my mom taught me a lot of that, too.

• 9:00Sabrina Zohar?

  Doesn't mean that they're bad people. You guys know, I will set myself on fire for my mom. I love that woman more than life itself. But she taught me that my needs don't matter and not to take up space and to play small and that you're a burden. And that's not the life I want to live. And I think what we have to hold on to is that your lived experience isn't everybody else's. And maybe closeness was suffocating, or it was unpredictable, or it came with strings, right? Whatever the specific origin, the nervous system learned that the safest move around attachment needs is to turn them down, way down. And that turning down has a shape. It's not just that I don't feel things, right? And that's what I mean by there's a lot of this misconception on the internet of like, avoidants are assholes and they feel nothing. It's like, no, no, no, no. Just in the same that anxious folk are avoidant, avoidant folks are also anxious. Avoidant folk shut down. They get really in their head.

• 9:45Sabrina Zohar?

  They start to hyperfixate. They can maybe go in their spirals and their loops. That doesn't mean that they're maybe just not feeling anything. They just don't know how to express that. And for others, they just suppress it so heavily, they deactivate so that they don't have to deal with it. Because dealing with why they hurt you means that they have to also deal with their own pain, and for some people, that's too much. And I don't want to hear this bullshit of like, look, they're assholes and they're dickheads. Then you just don't understand it. Because it's the same with my anxious folk that go outward, but you're not actually sitting with yourself. It's not actually about them anymore, that as much as it is about you. And what the research shows is it involves specific moves, suppressing attachment-related thoughts. So avoiding situations that would activate the system, which is why they remove themselves, dismissing the importance of the relationship so that they can downplay it, cognitively

• 10:27Sabrina Zohar?

  distilling from threats, focusing on self-reliance, defensively shifting attention when something emotional comes up. These are documented patterns. This doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with them, but those are the patterns. Now, here's the piece that matters for the breakup. When an avoidant person leaves a relationship, the deactivation system keeps running. That's why they look fine. The post-breakup period for the first weeks and sometimes months is actually less distressing for avoidance than anyone else on average. There was a 2019 study on bereaved adults by Chen and colleagues, where they measured both inflammation markers and self-reported grief symptoms in recently bereaved people.

• 11:03Sabrina Zohar?

  People higher in attachment avoidance reported less grief, better mental health, and better physical health in the acute period. I said, "The acute period, baby, it's measurable." They're not just performing like, "No, I'm fine." They register as fine on many, many measures in the early weeks. And the reason I want you to sit with that is because most of you have been told by a well-meaning friend or a piece of content that your ex is secretly devastated and that they're, "Oh, they're dealing with it." Statistically, they probably weren't at first. That is real. The feeling that you had that they didn't care as much as you did in the first weeks was accurate. It wasn't imagined. It's not you being paranoid. That was actually measurable. That's what I mean by like, "Okay, we can hold two conflicting thoughts. They can seem like this, and maybe they just haven't processed it."

• 11:47Sabrina Zohar?

  Like, there was a video I did many moons ago, and it was a girl saying, "Me, when I'm going through the breakup, while my avoidant four weeks later feels nothing." And I was like, "You might think they don't feel anything, and maybe in that moment, I'm like, they don't because they kick the can." Remember, if they're trained to avoid feeling, then after a breakup, the last thing they're gonna try to do is feel. But here's where it got interesting, and this is the part that almost no fucking content talks about. Deactivation is not free. It does cost something. It's a constant cognitive effort, even when the person doesn't feel it as effort. And there's research showing exactly what happens when the effort can no longer be sustained, which is where we're gonna go in the next part of this whole thing. But before I do that, and before we go there, if you're the anxious ex trying to make sense of what happened, or if you're the avoidant listening and starting to realize that you've

• 12:30Sabrina Zohar?

  been doing this for longer than you want to admit, the Healthy Dating Foundation is the course. It's where I teach the actual framework for recognizing these patterns in yourself and in your partner before you're three years into something that you have to rebuild. The link is in the show notes, especially if you're single right now. This is the season to do the work, baby. It's hard to do it while managing someone else's fucking nervous system. So check that out if you need it, or the Art of Going Slow course if you guys want something a little bit more to help you to understand pacing. So let's go into like the cognitive load, because I think this was the interesting part for me as I was doing my research on this episode, because I really want to normalize that like, you're allowed to be hurt. It's so funny. I was talking about, you know me, I talk about the avoidant discard, the avoidant discard. You're not a fucking Tamagotchi. Someone didn't discard you and just get rid of you. They broke up with you.

• 13:15Sabrina Zohar?

  Until this morning, I got discarded. I did, I did. I finally was able to use the term, but it was by an anxious person. A really, really, really, really, really, really anxious and insecure client that I've been working with for about two and a half years. And I'm no longer the shiny object. Found somebody new, didn't like that I said something. For the first time, I stood up and was just like, hey, no, I'm not going to hide this anymore. Like, this is not okay, especially after learning some other stuff and being like, oh, this isn't normal, this isn't healthy. Like, I'm now seeing too much, I can't just turn my head, I'm not a good coach if I don't say it. And this person ended up cancelling all their appointments with me, unfollowing me, all of this, all because I didn't tell them what they wanted to hear. And I got dropped like a bad habit. Literally, not even, didn't break up with me, didn't say, hey, by the way, I need a

• 13:59Sabrina Zohar?

  minute, or hey, you know what, something, nope, just, that's it. Onto the next, and already found their new shiny object. And I stopped and I was like, okay, this is the discard. It's not, like, if somebody breaks up with you and is like, hey, I think you're lovely, I'm not feeling it, right? Even to something as simple as, I can't do this, I'm sorry. At the very least, you're like, okay. But when you wake up and realize, wait, that person unfollowed me and they cancelled all my plans and I just never heard from this person, like essentially getting ghosted by this person, that to me is being discarded. Cause you're like, I meant nothing to you? You just, boop, don't want to deal with that anymore, especially after you've been in a relationship with somebody? So I completely, completely understand when you use the terminology, I got discarded.

• 14:40Sabrina Zohar?

  But I wanted to hold space because I think there's a difference in the avoidant discard. Avoidant discard to me is when you think everything's great, everything's fine, and all of a sudden, that's it. Like, they just start cancelling all their plans, they do the slow fade and you're like, oh, that's it, you're just done with me? You see them out with another person the next week and you're like, oh, were you gonna have the conversation with me? Were you even gonna tell me? Versus, a breakup is a breakup, right? Somebody comes to you and says, listen, I think you're amazing, I can't do this, or I'm sorry, I'm just, I'm not able to show up for you in that way. That's a breakup. That's somebody telling you at the very fucking least. And so I just like to be able to hold the space, because I hear a lot of you guys being like, they discarded me, and it's like, I need to understand how long you're with this person and what that actually means, because that's then taking up mental real estate that you're not worth anything.

• 15:25Sabrina Zohar?

  And I had to challenge that. I had to sit there and I was like, what, am I not worth something? Is there something wrong with me? And I was like, no, girl, you said something that pissed that person off and instead of them having a conversation, they just up and left. Because that's the other side of the coin. The avoidant person, yeah, you're right, they might, they might dip. You know what the anxious person is? They're impulsive. You're impulsive, right? Ah, fuck it, I'm blocking them. They didn't answer me in 20 minutes. I'm unfollowing. Hee hee, whoops, oh wait, he just texted me. Never mind, just kidding. She doesn't like me, I knew it. Oh whoops, they just texted me. There's that impulsivity. And so it's the same of that reaction of, I'm not safe, I have to do something immediately. In the same way that the avoidant says, I'm not safe, I need to remove myself. And I like to give you both sides of the coin so that you understand that your lived experience shows up differently.

• 16:10Sabrina Zohar?

  But if we take it personally about us, then that means that then we have to look at how we believe about ourselves.

• 16:15Speaker 00

  Coca-Cola. For the big, for the small, the short and the tall. Peacemakers, risk takers. For the optimists, pessimists. For long distance love. For introverts and extroverts. The thinkers and the doers. For old friends and new. Coca-Cola. For everyone. Pick up some Coca-Cola at a store near you.

• 16:45Sabrina Zohar?

  So here's the study I want every single person who is loved and avoidant to know about. So it's from McColinsir? McColinsir? I mean, it's a mouthload of that name. McColinsir, Doliv and Shaver. And it was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 2004. Here's what they did. They brought participants into the lab. They measured their attachment style. And then they had them think about a painful breakup. They asked them, some of them, to try to suppress the thoughts. Then they gave them a cognitive task, right? So some of the task was easy, meaning the brain had lots of available bandwidth. Some of the tasks were hard, meaning the brain was overloaded and another demand at the same time. Then they measured two things. The accessibility of the breakup thoughts and the accessibility of negative self-representations. That I'm not lovable, I'm broken, one of those types, things, types of beliefs. No one stays, yada, yada. Here's what they found.

• 17:29Sabrina Zohar?

  Under low cognitive load, meaning when the brain has plenty of resources, avoidant participants were excellent at suppressing the breakup thoughts. They did not show the rebound effect that the general population shows when trying to suppress. Their negative self-representation stayed inaccessible. They looked on the data exactly like you would expect an avoidant person to look. Completely fine. But under high cognitive load, meaning when the brain was tired, busy- taxed, running other programs, the suppression failed. So the breakup thoughts came flooding back, the negative self-representations came online. Everything they had been holding back, they could no longer hold back. And I want you to take that in. Because what the study is showing you is that the avoidance suppression is not automatic, is quite effortful. It requires ongoing cognitive resources.

• 18:14Sabrina Zohar?

  And when those resources are depleted, the suppression breaks down. The feelings they were not having were not actually there. They were being actively held offline by a process that can only be sustained while the person has the bandwidth to sustain it. This is why so many of you have seen the exact same pattern. They're fine for three months, six months, sometimes a year. And then something happens. Maybe they got sick, they lost their job, somebody passed away, they moved, they have too much going on, their life gets cognitively overloaded and suddenly, out of nowhere, they're reaching out. They're texting at 2 a.m. They're saying they think about you, they're saying they made a mistake and you cannot figure out what changed. Nothing changed. Their bandwidth changed. The suppression failed. The thing they were holding back for months came through the door and they did not know what to do with it. So they reached the person who used to be this object of these feelings, you.

• 18:59Sabrina Zohar?

  And this is the part that's going to save you months of confusion, baby. They're not coming back because they've healed, they're coming back because the defense broke. And those are not the same thing. And why doesn't avoiding come back weeks, months, fucking years later? You think it's because they've changed or realize they fucked up. But what it actually is, is a breakdown of suppression. It's not the same thing as processing grief, it's actually the fucking opposite. It's the grief that got stored, suddenly flooding a nervous system that doesn't know how to metabolize it. That's why you'll go right back in the cycle because nothing fucking changes if nothing changes. Stop accepting low effort bullshit. Which is why, if you respond to the reach out, you'll usually see the exact same cycle play out again. They'll close, then they come back. They'll get their suppression back online because that's what the system does when the cognitive load drops again. The moment they have resources to deactivate, they deactivate.

• 19:43Sabrina Zohar?

  The moment they feel safe enough with you that the anxiety drops and the bandwidth returns, the walls come back and you're devastated again. Because you can't figure out what you did. You didn't fucking do anything wrong. You gave them a regulated nervous system and a regulated nervous system is exactly what lets their defense system go back online. And the reason I say this isn't because I'm like, oh, you're an angel, you do nothing and it's all them. But it's about understanding the nervous system. In the same way that you're on the merry-go-round with them if you're having the anxiety. Wait, I need them to pick me, oh, they come back, I feel okay. Wait, wait, wait, I need them to pick me, oh, they came back, I'm okay. Both parties are using the other person to calm their nervous system. Or to that, because remember when the avoidant person feels like they're too much and they pull away, that activates, then they feel, okay, I can breathe. Which then activates the anxious person saying, I need to come closer.

• 20:27Sabrina Zohar?

  Then when they get the avoidant person back, phew, I can breathe. Then the avoidant person gets activated, is like, whoa, I need to remove myself. That's why both people have to do the work and maybe read, Why Am I Like This? I don't know, shameless plug, but maybe you could get the book for you and your friends. No, but really, go fucking preorder the book. Why Am I Like This? All right, baby, so let's talk about the reach out specifically. Because almost every anxious listener on this episode that is listening has received one at some point. And almost every one of you has misread what the fuck it means. So, the research here is pretty consistent. The 2024 meta-analysis by Russ and colleagues looking at attachment and complicated grief, confirmed what researchers have expected for a long time. Avoidant attachment is associated with what's called delayed grief. So suppression in the early period, resurfacing later, often months or sometimes years down the line,

• 21:10Sabrina Zohar?

  often when the person is finally still enough to feel what they've been avoiding. When an avoidant reaches out months after a breakup, it's usually one of these three things. And I want you to be able to tell which is why, because confusing them is what keeps you stuck in the fucking cycle. The first is what we just talked about, a suppression breakdown. Cognitive load got too high, defense broke, feelings came through the door. They don't know what to do with the feelings, so they're reaching out for the most recent object, those feelings. This one looks like the, I miss you, I've been thinking about you, nothing concrete planned, no accountability. It's just the feeling, right? In your inbox for you to metabolize for them. So if you respond with warmth, it feels good for them for a few days. Then their system re-regulates and they disappear yet again. The second is what researchers call the phantom X phenomenon. So an avoidant in a new relationship starts feeling the same closeness threat they felt in your relationship.

• 21:54Sabrina Zohar?

  Their deactivation turns on to the new partner. And while they're deactivating from the new partner, an old partner, who they can safely think about, because you're not physically in front of them, becomes idealized. The further away you are, the safer you are to feel warm about. So they text you, not because they want you back. Because thinking about you is how they're regulating their distance from the person they're currently with. You're a tool in their management of someone else's closeness. And the third, and this one is the rarest, is the real reach out. An avoidant who has actually done the fucking work, who is in therapy, who has specific... Specific grounded acknowledgement of what happened, who is not asking for anything. Not asking you for to forgive them, not asking for you to come back, just naming clearly what they now understand about what they did. Because they have finally understood it and feel responsible enough to say it. This is maybe 10%, maybe 10% of the reach outs, maybe less, but it exists and it's worth knowing the shape of.

• 22:40Sabrina Zohar?

  So how can you tell the difference? It's not something you'll find in most content. Look at what they're asking you to do. In the first two types, they're asking you to do something for them. Feel better for them, validate them, reassure them, receive their feelings so they don't have to hold it. In the third, they're not asking to do anything, they're just telling you. The ask is the tell. Now to me, the question underneath everything in this segment, why do you keep responding knowing all this? What do you think? Well, I know the answer, right? Because you were an anxious person bonded to a slot machine for months or years and your nervous system still reads their contact as a payout. This is the same pattern we talked about last week, the variable reinforcement schedule. You don't know which reach out will be the real one, so every reach out carries hope and hope is fucking addictive.

• 23:23Sabrina Zohar?

  Here's a reality of an avoidant breakup that you might not want to fucking face. Just because they moved on to someone else, doesn't mean that the next person got anything that you didn't. Maybe the next person is more compatible for them, maybe they're not as anxious and doesn't trigger their fucking avoidance as much. Maybe that next person just doesn't know them well enough. You know what doesn't matter? Any of that. Focus on you, focus on how this makes you feel, because every time you're trying to compare yourself to who they've moved on to, or who they are, or did I matter? Or did I care? It's not actually about the fucking relationship, it's about you making meaning that you actually mattered, because somewhere along the way, you were taught that you don't. And now I need you to fucking love yourself more than the need for this person to come back and validate your relationship. They ain't shit, baby. Now focus on you. So to recap, when an avoidant reaches out months after a breakup, it's one of these three things and knowing which one is what breaks the cycle. Number one, suppression breakdown.

• 24:08Sabrina Zohar?

  Cognitive load got too high and their defense cracked. So that could look like, I miss you, I've been thinking about you, there's no plan, there's no accountability, just the feeling dumped in your fucking inbox. And if you respond warmly, they regulate, then they disappear again. Welcome to the cycle. Two, phantom ex phenomena. They're in a new relationship, feeling the same closeness threat. So the further away you are, the safer you are to feel warm about. You're not the goal, you're a tool to manage distance from someone else. They're not coming back, they're fucking regulated. Through you. And the third, the real reach out, very rare, maybe 10%. It's specific, it's grounded, it's acknowledgement of what actually happened. They're not asking forgiveness, they're not asking you back, they're naming what they finally understood. And how to tell the difference? Type one and two, they're asking you to do something, feel better for them, validate, reassure. Type three, they're not asking you to do anything, they're just telling you.

• 24:52Sabrina Zohar?

  But at the end of the day, baby, I need you to sit with one question. Why do you keep fucking responding? You're an anxious person bonded to a slot machine, your nervous system reads their contact as payout. And variable reinforcement schedule, every reach out carries hope and hope is addictive. Now you get to decide, how much more of this are you gonna fucking allow? This episode is sponsored by Goodr. I love Goodr so much, I used to actually live by the one in Abbot Kinney in Venice. And I used to love going in and trying on all of their frames because Goodr sunglasses move with you. So they are the perfect sunny day companion. They have active eyewear, which is a game changer, especially for someone like me who's super active. I'm always out hiking or on walks or we're always doing something. So they're no slip, they're constructed with a special grip coated frame to eliminate slippage when sweating. No bounce, so they're snug, right?

• 25:37Sabrina Zohar?

  They're a lightweight frame with a comfortable fit that prevents bouncing while you crush your workout especially. By the beach, it's my favorite. They're all polarized, which is huge. So it's glare reducing, polarized lenses with UV 400 protection block, 100% of harmful UVA and UVB rays. And they're so much fun, they have the coolest colors and shapes, I love them, we've got like 10 pairs in the house, I'm not even kidding. Are you ready to upgrade your eyewear to something functional, fashionable, fun and affordable? Head to goodr.com/sabrina zohar to claim $10 off your first order. That's G-O-O-D-R dot com slash Sabrina Zohar. And baby, the work is not figuring out ways to respond to their reach outs. The work is getting to the point where your body doesn't treat their contact as life-saving news, which takes time and distance and not responding.

• 26:21Sabrina Zohar?

  It's funny, and one of my groups, one of my girls was saying, no, no, I respond to everybody, that's just not how I operate. And I said, but who taught you that? She said, well, that's just who I am, my nervous system can't handle that. And I was like, no, that's you who you're identifying yourself as. You want to know how your nervous system will handle it, you've got to try doing it. You've got to try not answering, you've got to try putting distance and space in it. And most of all, you have to love yourself more than the need to be. Loved by other people. You're so focused on what they think about you, but what the fuck do you think about you? When you're sitting there answering their text and then you feel like a fucking idiot? Cause you're like, my God, this person texts me for an entire day. They were bored, they were on a flight and they had nothing to do. They didn't actually care about me. Because when you start coming closer and then you're like, I don't get it. Why'd they do it again? They did it again because it was never about you. It was about how it made them feel.

• 27:05Sabrina Zohar?

  So stop giving them the accolades and start taking your fucking power back. You don't have to answer somebody. Spoiler alert, just because you have a fucking phone in your hand all the time, doesn't mean everyone should have fucking access to you. Just because I can text somebody, doesn't mean that within five goddamn minutes, they have to answer me. It's okay if they don't. It's also okay if that person that you broke up with and has not contacted you and someone randomly reaches it to you, you don't have to fucking answer. Have some goddamn dignity and have some boundaries around your fucking technology and stop giving your power away to everybody else. You don't get to determine someone's response time and somebody does not get to determine yours. All right, baby. Let's get to the most important question. Can they change? Real question. Yes, but with important qualifications. So, one of the most asked questions in the Q and A was some version of this.

• 27:50Sabrina Zohar?

  And guys, duh, don't forget to follow along at the Sabrina Zohar Show on Instagram because that's where I do my question box. So you guys can be part of the episodes and submit stuff. Same for In The Trenches. Which by the way, guys, In The Trenches is every, the second Tuesday of every month, you guys get a bonus episode. Don't forget, it's really fun. Sometimes we have guests, sometimes we have me, sometimes it's solos, it doesn't matter, right? But go and take a listen. And don't forget, there's multiple questions answered in each episode. It's not just one, but I have to title it something, so, anyways. Can an avoidant become secure? It's a forever thing. Is this a life sentence? The research is clear that attachment patterns can shift. So about 30 to 40% of adults who were classified as insecurely attached in childhood could become what researchers call insecure in adulthood. Hi, good to see you guys. And this has been documented repeatedly, I also talk about in the book, including in

• 28:34Sabrina Zohar?

  Royce Man and colleagues 2002 study, which is one of the cleanest looks at this phenomenon. So the category change is real, it's measurable, and it's replicable. But here's what the research does not say. It does not say that avoidant attachment shifts through being loved enough. It does not say that if you're the right person, if you're patient enough, if you prove that you will stay, they will eventually soften. That is a fantasy most anxious partners run on that does not match the data. The data shows that people who move from avoidant to secure typically do specific things. One, they seek therapy. They seek therapy. They make the choice. They. They. Okay, and it's usually attachment-based or somatic. They build their capacity to tolerate emotional closeness and small, repeated exposures. They stay present when their deactivation system tries to pull away.

• 29:19Sabrina Zohar?

  They get honest about the cost of the pattern, and they do this work themselves, not in response to someone else's pressure. I've even seen it with Ryan. He's done so much work on himself, and there are times where he'll even say, like, "I really want to leave right now," or, like, "I don't want to have this conversation, but I know we need to." He is working on it. All I can tell him is, "Oh, I'm not going to be in a relationship if somebody does it." That's not an ultimatum, that's a boundary. I don't date people that aren't working on themselves, that don't understand that what I bring to the table, I also want my partner to. And awareness, and growth, and trying, and all of these things. Don't need perfection, because I'm not perfect either, but I need a partner that's going to do it on themselves, that on their own, that they're going to go and do it. Not that you made the fucking appointment for them, or you found the therapist, or you convinced them. That's never going to get someone to change if it didn't work with your parents.

• 30:01Sabrina Zohar?

  And what almost never produces change is the one thing anxious partners keep banking on: their love, and their patience, and their loyalty, and their willingness to wait. Not because those things don't matter in relationships, because those things are not the mechanism of avoiding change. The mechanism is internal. The person has to want to feel what they've been suppressing, and not even just want, have the bandwidth. And most avoidants do not want that. And they design the suppression specifically to avoid feeling it. And they use want, not like, "Well, if he wanted to, he would." It's like, okay, yeah, right, you're going to use this to talk about the fucking nervous system? Now, here's the hard addendum. I had a question in the Q and A that I thought was really insightful, and someone said, "How do we become secure without becoming avoidant on the way?" That's the question anxious people need to ask, because most anxious people don't ask

• 30:45Sabrina Zohar?

  it, because they assume secure looks like not anxious, and not anxious looks like avoidant. Secure is not a muted version of anxious. Secure is a nervous system that can be deeply connected and also intact when connection is lost, not less connected. Intact through loss. You can feel the breakup fully, you grieve, you cry, and your self-concept stays in place, right? That's regulation. If you're anxious, and you're starting to try to heal by becoming unbothered, by suppressing your reapp... Like, I don't care, right? I'm the cool girl. By performing the not caring, you're not becoming secure, you're becoming more avoidant. Research shows avoidants do not actually have better outcomes. They look better in the short run. They do worse in the long run, especially around inflammation, physical health, relationship longevity, and later life bereavement. Do not aim for what hurt you.

• 31:29Sabrina Zohar?

  Aim for the thing neither of you fucking had. Your ex is not better than you because they look fine. You are not worse because you feel everything. The goal is not to trade your pattern for theirs. The goal is to build something neither of you have been able to access. Can an avoidant change and come back to you? Sure, if they do the fucking work and it's not you trying to get them to change. But the real question is, what about the situation feels familiar? You have to self abandon to get someone back or hope they see you and you think that's love? Baby, who taught you that? Stop calling them my avoidant and start calling them your fucking ex because they're an ex for a goddamn reason and I need you to remember that. You gotta stop idealizing these people. Stop putting them on a pedestal. They were an ex for a reason. You didn't like when they shut down. You didn't like how they made you feel like you weren't a priority. You didn't like that they weren't really putting you forward. You didn't like any of that, so take up space.

• 32:14Sabrina Zohar?

  If you hyper focus on why this person moved on so quickly, it has nothing to do with them. It has to do with the fact that you don't feel like you had any worth, that you feel like somebody could just move on quickly without you having mattered to them. So at the end of the day, are you actually stuck on this person? Or are you stuck on trying to prove that you are fucking worthy and deserving of this and you're waiting for them to tell you that instead of for you to fucking see it? So here's your tool, baby. It's something I've watched anxious people struggle with more than almost anything else and it's the single most useful practice for this specific kind of fucking breakup. You have to stop predicting what your ex is feeling. Specifically, you need to notice every single time you catch yourself doing it, right? Leave it in the comments. Let me know, where does your brain go? Is it that, did I never matter to them? Did they move on quickly? I'm never gonna find anybody and look, they did, right?

• 32:57Sabrina Zohar?

  Do you notice how all of these narratives have nothing to do with them and everything to do with how we see ourselves and the view, duh, duh, duh, duh, right? So I want you to notice every time you catch yourself doing it, when your mind says some version of, they must be feeling, or she's this, or he's this, they would definitely think about the avoidant next and I want you to then interrupt it with one specific phrase. I don't know what they're feeling, I know what I'm feeling. That's it. Out loud, written, if that helps in your head, if it's all that you got. Here's why it works. An enormous amount of the pain of an avoidant breakup is not the breakup itself. It's a story you keep Building about what is happening inside their head. Are they missing me? Are they regretful? Do they think about me? Do they feel nothing? Are they with someone else and happy? Are they with someone and secretly thinking about me? Every single one of those is a story your brain is generating to fill an unbearable information gap.

• 33:41Sabrina Zohar?

  And every story pulls your attention to them instead of you. The harsh fucking reality about breakups with an avoidant, most of the pain isn't about the breakup. It's about the story you created and what's happening in their head. Do they miss me? Do they regret leaving? Do they think about me? You're so consumed with meaning something to them, you forgot that you need to mean something to you, baby. And the actual truth? You will never know what they're feeling. You didn't know when you were together. You don't know now. You might never. Not because they're so uniquely unknowable, but because you don't live inside the other person's fucking nervous system. And trying to is a fantasy that consumes your life. So the practice is not to figure out what they're feeling. The practice is to notice every time you try, redirect that attention to what you are feeling. Not what you think you should be feeling, not what you think would be fair, what you actually feel in your body right now.

• 34:24Sabrina Zohar?

  Do this for a week and something happens that you might not expect. The obsession drops. It's not because you've suddenly just healed overnight, because you stopped feeding it. The mental act of predicting their insides is one of the primary fuels of anxious post-breakup suffering. And it's entirely optional. Once you notice you're doing it. I need you to understand something, baby. This is not about pretending you don't care. We're not suppressing. You're not becoming avoidant. You can still love them. You could still grieve. That's allowed. The practice is specifically about the mental act of trying to see inside their mind, which is the part of this that's not fucking helping you. And at the end of the day, did you matter? I think you matter to you. And if they are not going to be able to express that and to share that, then that doesn't mean that you need them. You don't need to villainize them for you to have worth.

• 35:08Sabrina Zohar?

  You don't have to villainize them, but you know what you can say? I'm not going to hold on to this any longer. I'm just every day I go on TikTok and it's like my avoidant and the dismissive avoidant did this and they did this. And it's like, man, where's the smallest violin? I'm not saying it doesn't hurt, but man, if is it everything in life is this much of a fucking song and dance? So the person that cut you off, are you also doing this? Every single time you got an email that pissed you off, you doing that? When someone fucking takes your parking spot, are you doing that? No. No. So then let's stop taking up so much space for people that haven't really earned that space in your life. Again, I'm not going to take away the pain. I'm not going to discredit that you get to feel all of these things. But I need you to also remind yourself that like you exist, other amazing people do. And this person just wasn't your person and you're allowed

• 35:51Sabrina Zohar?

  to be sad. I've had it where I've had to grieve things. I've had to grieve shows I didn't get, audience members that leave and you're like, okay, that sucks, right? I can hold two conflicting thoughts, but that doesn't mean I have to sit here and pine over that. Because then by doing that, I'm ignoring all the other opportunities that are opening up. And I want you to remember that. You're not guaranteed tomorrow. You're not guaranteed another fucking five minutes. Right now, there is a million people dying every second. So let's actually live life. Let's actually be there for ourselves and hold that space and not try so hard to understand what the avoidant person's going through and just accept that that's their journey. And that you matter to you. And that's really all that fucking matters. So next week, part three, baby, the disorganized breakup. If you've been listening to both of these epidols thinking like, I'm a little bit of both, right? Well, I have no idea what 2 AM. Let's talk about it.

• 36:35Sabrina Zohar?

  That's disorganized and nobody specific. Well, there's some people that make content, but not as much. So next week, we will. So until then, I really want you to practice that. I don't know what they're feeling, peas, especially at 2 AM. Don't forget to preorder the book. Why am I like this? Available on Amazon or any of your local bookstores. You can go in and be like, hey, get me this book. And they'll do it. And you guys don't know how much this means. You guys preordering the book is a signal to the New York Times and to all the retailers. Okay, people want this book. So if y'all want to see me on the shelf in bookstores, helping people and saving people, and baby, I need your help. Like I said, hold on to your screenshot, go to sabrina zohar.com. You will see under book, it says, submit my receipt. You can upload it and you will be accessed into a course. If you don't have a real receipt, your ass will be kicked out. Don't worry, we are actually

• 37:18Sabrina Zohar?

  checking. It's a nice try. But I'm so fucking excited. I'm so grateful for you guys. As always, if you need anything, you can join a course, work one on one, ask a question, download the free guides, do the quiz, whatever you guys want. sabrina zohar.com. And if not, thank you for being here, my babies. All I need is your ear balls every week for us to connect in a different way. All right, angels, I love you. And until next week.

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