212: Why You Can't Let Go (Even When You Know You Should)

Why can't you let it go? You typed the text, deleted it three times, and sent it anyway just to get the last word. In part one of a three-part series, Sabrina Zohar breaks down the fight response: keeping score, replaying old arguments, the silent treatment, test texts, and why anger rumination keeps you stuck instead of setting you free. Whether you're single, dating, or years into a relationship, this one is for anyone who can't stop fighting to be right. Sabrina gets honest about how needing the last word costs you sleep, connection, and the chance to actually be known, how triggers resurface after an abusive relationship, and why your reactions reveal more about your history than the person in front of you. You'll leave with one research-backed tool, the 20-minute rule, to calm down before you say or send something you'll regret. Expect real, warm, no-bullshit guidance on attachment, dating, and putting the armor down. Pre-order Sabrina's book coming out October 2026,⁠ "Why Am I Like This?"⁠ Get your free workbook and access to the companion course after pre-ordering 'Why Am I Like This?' by filling out the form at the bottom of the page at http://sabrinazohar.com/book Take the new and improved dating quiz! sabrinazohar.com/quiz If you’re ready to slow down, trust your instincts, and break your old dating patterns, the Healthy Relationship Foundations Course walks you through it step-by-step ⁠HERE!⁠ If you’re serious about changing your dating patterns instead of repeating them, the Art of Going Slow course helps you unlearn urgency, regulate your nervous system, and build real connection without rushing, chasing, or abandoning yourself ⁠HERE!⁠ Get Ad free ⁠HERE!⁠ Watch on Spotify. Spotify subscribers get fewer ads on my video. Want to work with Sabrina? ⁠HERE!⁠ Get merch for The Sabrina Zohar Show ⁠HERE!⁠ Don't forget to follow ⁠Sabrina⁠ and ⁠The Sabrina Zohar Show⁠ on Instagram and ⁠Sabrina ⁠on TikTok! Video now available on ⁠YOUTUBE!⁠ Chapters: 00:00 Why you can't let it go 02:35 What being triggered really means 04:50 Needing the last word 08:41 Keeping score in relationships 10:58 Test texts and silent treatment 13:53 Fight as a survival response 16:43 Why we match the energy 20:25 Testing for reassurance 24:41 Anger rumination explained 27:41 The 20 minute rule 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.

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 0:30Speaker 01

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• 0:59Sabrina Zohar?

  You just sent it, didn't you? The text? The one you swore you weren't gonna send? The one you typed out three fucking times and deleted and then sent anyways because something in you needed the last word? And now you're sitting here, waiting for the three dots, knowing this is gonna make it worse and you can't believe you did it again. Yeah, we're talking about that today. Why you can't let it go, even when you know you should. Hello, hello, hello! And welcome to another episode of The Sabrina Zohar Show. My name is Sabrina Zohar and I am your host. Hi friends! Happy Friday! Welcome to another series, because you know I can't get enough of them. I love series because we could build off something. And today, we're gonna talk about why you have to have the last word, why you always go outwards and it's a fight and it's an argument or it's an explosion

• 1:44Sabrina Zohar?

  or it's a "no, no, no, I have to be heard, I have to be seen." We're gonna talk about all that today, because today is part one of a four-part series for, what did you think? The nervous system. And no, I didn't wanna lead with the nervous system because so many people hop off with that. This is not just anger issues. This is not what we're talking about today. Fight is not the outward of just always being angry. It manifests in different ways. And we're gonna talk about it, whether you're single, whether you're dating, whether you're in a relationship, every aspect. Because I want to support you guys along your journey and not just from one part of it. Guys, don't forget to book, to book! Why Am I Like This is available on preorder. I'm gonna not shut up about it for the next few months. Please, please don't forget to preorder. You get freebies.

• 2:25Sabrina Zohar?

  If you go to sabrina zohar.com backslash book and you upload your receipt there, please do not DM me the receipt. I cannot help you. I mean, I can't give you the link, but that's it. Upload your receipt there. You get some freebies. You get a free course and a workbook as a thank you. And please, if you can, order the hardcover. That's how we get the New York Times Bestseller. But if you order audiobook or ebook, please don't worry about it. We're just grateful that you're reading the fucking thing. All of it applies worldwide. If your country doesn't show up when you're on Amazon, it might not be available yet. But it's definitely in the UK, Australia, America, Canada, all the places. Guys, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for being on my team. As always, please don't forget to rate and review the show, share it with a friend, speak with kindness. That's the only fucking thing I ask. If this is your first time, welcome. And if it's your last time, that's okay, too. I do not take offense to that, but we just want to create a community of safety here, so please use your words with kindness.

• 3:10Sabrina Zohar?

  All right, babes. Without further ado, let's get right on into it, shall we? Hi, friends. I was a little hesitant to do this series, not because I don't think it's necessary, but because I know people are fickle with the titles. And I really wanted this to be something that you guys actually understand the true definition of being triggered and dysregulated and not the pop psychology. I'm seeing a lot of dangerous misinformation about a lot of things. I'm on threads and I'll be threading all day, girl. And I'm sitting through and I'm seeing things of like avoidance or abusive and they're disgusting. And I'm like, whoa, this is really dangerous rhetoric. Because what we're looking at is fight is fine, but flight is not. I don't know that either one of those is necessarily healthy, so we're gonna really understand all of this.

• 3:55Sabrina Zohar?

  And guys, as always, if you need anything, everything will be at sabrina zohar.com. You can join one of the courses, work one-on-one. You can ask a question. We have our quiz on there. Don't forget to take the quiz. We updated it. What Kind of Lover Are You quiz? You get some emails after and some dating advice via email, so go ahead and join that. If you want ad free, sure, or you can support the advertisers that keep the show free for you guys. And don't forget again to rate and review it, share it with a friend and just be here. Thank you. For being here and being by my side. So let's get the fuck on into it, shall we? Alright, so here's the first thing I have to say, because if I don't say it now, half you guys are probably gonna be like, I don't have anger issues. Fight mode isn't just yelling. Fight mode is not just the loud version. It's not just the person that slams the door and raises their voices. That's one version of it. And if that's you, cool, stay with me. We're gonna get to it. That was me.

• 4:41Sabrina Zohar?

  I, it's so funny, I was talking to my brother yesterday and we were talking about like shutting down or going outwards. And he was like, you know, I mean, I think every person has variables of that. And I was like, absolutely. But then we have to say, but what are the patterns? Like, my pattern used to be, I would, it was with my dad. It was this cycle where like I would say something, he would say something that hurt my feelings. And instead of me just being like, okay, Sabrina, water off a duck's back. No. I would start screaming. I would cry. I remember being on like the, on a ball on the floor, like hyperventilating in the bathroom, begging someone to come in, praying someone would come. No one came. No one came. I would be in there sad and miserable and screaming and protest behavior and all of these things.

• 5:21Sabrina Zohar?

  And I remember just feeling so sad, so miserable, so stuck in this like, glass cage, blah, box of emotion, right? This like cage that I felt like I couldn't get out of. And I just, I didn't understand what that meant. I didn't understand that when I get dysregulated, I was going towards fight. I was going very outward. But there is a quiet version of fight mode that is responsible for more wrecked relationships and ending relationships than the loud one. And almost no one fucking talks about it. So let me name it for you because I want you to find yourself somewhere on the list. If this is what pertains, otherwise, we've got flight, freeze, fawn, coming up. Don't worry. So fight mode is meeting the last word, right? The conversation is over. And I'm gonna give you like a few examples as to what fight is, so bear with me.

• 6:05Sabrina Zohar?

  Start to take stock. And I'd be curious if you leave a comment after of like, where do you fall in the list? Like, what version of fight feels like, oh, that choose your fighter, like that's the one I go towards. So the meeting the last word, the conversation is over, they've said their thing, you've said your thing, and you just, you can't let it fucking land. You can't let it land on their point. You have to circle back. You have to add in one more line. You have to make sure your version is the one that closes the conversation. And I'll give you an example. I posted a video the other day of three dating questions to ask. Now, again, here's the beautiful thing about free will. You could just go, I don't want to ask those and move on, right? But I had said, if you are scared to ask these, maybe we could look at your emotional availability. And one of the questions was, who do you share something really exciting?

• 6:50Sabrina Zohar?

  Like, who do you go to? Who's your person? For me, I'd be like, my mom, my best friend, right? Like, I have, I have people now, I'd be like, oh, Julian Turecki. Like, she's one of my closest friends. We talk, we could talk every single day. Like, she's somebody I would turn to. Ryan, my mom, right? And the reason that we ask that is because you want to understand, like, where, who does this person have people in their life? And this isn't about, like, I never once said it's a red flag if they don't or run. All I said was, like, just get curious and start to understand them. And there was one person who commented so many times, like, literally creating things that I never said. I had to transcribe the video because I literally was like, wait, wait, did I say that? I kept watching it back and I was like, I never once said they're a red flag, they're not worthy and deserving of love. And I was like, that person was projecting. Because he was like, well, I don't have anybody close in my life and you're telling me I'm not deserving?

• 7:35Sabrina Zohar?

  I was like, no one said that. I was like, what I'm saying is that if there's no one close in your life, then maybe dating's not the priority. Maybe building a community, maybe having other people that you can share things with and having safe spaces. Maybe that's more the priority than looking for a partner because that partner can become very codependent. Like, I want someone that has a life outside of me. And if somebody tells me I have no one I can turn to, I don't talk to anybody. It's like, that might be a concern. That doesn't mean they're not worthy of love, right? Two conflicting thoughts. That can still be a red flag of like, oh, okay, well, then who do you go to? Right? Do you just bottle everything in? Like, how is this going to manifest in our relationship? Are you going to have your own life, right? Like, again, it's about getting curious. And this person refused to accept anything I said. It was dozens of comments of like, just, no, but you didn't say that, you said this.

• 8:18Sabrina Zohar?

  And I finally got to a point and I was like, what do you want from me? Do you want me to say, you're right, I'm a piece of shit and I'm a fucking asshole and everything's my fault? And I was like, and that was the prime example of this fight of you have to have the last word. It has to be, no, what I say is the end all be all. And that is incredibly dangerous because here's the thing. People love to fucking diagnose as they're avoidant and they shut down and they can't have a conversation. But you know what they forget? That sometimes some people are so fucking overbearing that the other person, no matter how secure they are, will shut down. Because if you're constantly trying to prove your point, have the last word, it's not about the other person not being able to receive it. It's about the fact that you're so fucking dysregulated. You're also not reading the room that the other person is feeling overwhelmed and doesn't know what to do with it.

• 9:02Sabrina Zohar?

  Now, can that happen if you've been in a relationship for a few years? Sure, but if you're on a first, second, or third date and someone just says something that you don't like and you're fucking pouncing on them and sending a hundred text messages until they say you're right, then baby, I need you to fucking stop for a second, regulate your nervous system and start to be realistic. Is it that they're avoidant? Or is it that you have to have the last word? It's just about self-awareness. I am so exhausted of this toxic bullshit on Instagram and TikTok of like the avoidant is the worst person and when they shut down, it's not. But yet, idealizing that somebody goes into fight and somebody that's outward and screaming and yelling and protesting. Well, they're communicating. Constantly talking doesn't necessarily mean communicating. And you going outward doesn't make it any better than that person going inward. Both people have a reaction. Both people have an activation and deactivation strategy.

• 9:46Sabrina Zohar?

  And both people are letting their nervous system take over and not their prefrontal cortex. So instead of projecting and making everybody else the fucking villain, maybe we can look at ourselves. Fight mode is also keeping score, right? That mental file you have on them, the list of every disappointment, every dropped ball, every time they show up late, every flaky fucking text from a person you've known for two fucking weeks, that you can pull up and present like a closing argument the second you need ammo. Most people don't even realize they're doing it until you hear yourself bringing up something from a month ago. If you even notice that came from the file. That file has been open the whole fucking time. The conversation you're avoiding having is actually the conversation that's probably going to change the relationship. If you're scared of speaking up, if you're scared of telling somebody how you feel, then let them fucking go if that's what it's gonna take.

• 10:27Sabrina Zohar?

  Because if I can't be honest and I can't take up space, then what the fuck am I trying so hard to keep that person in my life for? Fight mode is being right. Choosing being right over being close. Choosing being right over a good night. Choosing being right over the second date. You might not even know you're doing it and realistically letting it go feels like you're losing. Losing feels like you're being erased. That's why I'll see this all the time where somebody tells you, you know, I'm not feeling it and you're like, but you didn't even give me a chance. And you're like trying to explain to them why you should be given another opportunity. If you have to remind somebody that you exist, if you have to remind somebody of your worth because they don't see it, then is it actually about them or is it about convincing yourself that you are worthy of being chosen? Because at the end of the day, if you're trying to get them to see you, I need you to ask yourself if you even fucking see yourself.

• 11:10Sabrina Zohar?

  Fight mode is the cold version, the icy silence, the clipped one word text. It's not yelling, baby. It's the opposite. Withdrawing all the warmth and weaponizing it, making them work for your attention back. And some of us don't even realize we're doing it because there's no fight. But the goal is the same. You're protecting yourself by attacking. You're just doing it with the absence instead of the presence. Fight mode is replaying the argument in your head three hours later. We all do this. You're in the shower, you're driving home, 2am where you're writing the perfect comeback you never got to say. I do that all the time. I like snap back at somebody on Instagram and then two hours later I'm like, oh, fuck, why didn't you say this? I was such a better reaction. And I'm like, eh, whatever. I don't even remember their name. I don't know what I said. Right? That's your nervous system still in fight hours after your body left the room.

• 11:54Sabrina Zohar?

  Fight mode is the test text, the one you said, not because you want to talk to them, but because you want to see what happens. You leave it open ended. You make it ambiguous and then you wait. And the second they respond in a way that you don't love, that's it. You have your answer. See, I knew it. I knew they would. I did. No, you didn't. You set up an experiment to confirm something before your body already decided. I see that all the time of like, well, I said something and then they didn't ask me on a second date. And it's like, so why are you testing this person? Instead, why don't you take up space and just fucking tell them what it is that you want? Fight mode is bringing up old shit, that thing from the trip, the way they talked to you in front of their friends six months ago. The texts that didn't answer fast enough in March. Maybe you don't even notice you're doing it, but that's really when you get on that loop and you might not be able to stop.

• 12:35Sabrina Zohar?

  Fight mode is also the preemptive strike, the pushing away of someone amazing because you don't think you're deserving of it. So you have to find the catch before they do. You sabotage, right? That's that self-protection. I've even had to do that where if I like right now, again, not dating. So I'll give you a personal example. I want my own TV show more than anything. And so I'll find myself auditioning and then all everybody around me is super excited. And I'm like, don't get too excited. Don't get too excited because I try to measure my own disappointment. And I used to do that in dating. You'd meet somebody and then all of a sudden, this is why I'll always say like, "Oh, is it that your gut just knew or is it that you set this person up for failure?" Because you're dating somebody that's emotionally unavailable and then you hide parts of yourself. And then when you finally express yourself, you'd see, "I knew it, they were gonna walk away."

• 13:20Sabrina Zohar?

  Well, that's not because your body just knew. That's not because you're just so perceptive. That's because you set this up, that you weren't actually seeing them for who they were. Then you create this whole narrative. Then when you prove your own self right, then all of a sudden it's, "See, I told you I knew it." That's also called confirmation bias. And so is it really that you were right? Or is it that maybe you weren't looking at things earlier? And I see that all the time too of like, maybe you'll ghost the nice person, but then you go back to the one that feels familiar. Your body would rather wreck it on purpose than wait to be wrecked. And fight mode is wanting them to feel what they made you feel. Not wanting an apology, not wanting a conversation, wanting them to hurt the way you hurt. Wanting them to lie awake at night the way you lie. That impulse, right? That little flash of vengeance.

• 14:03Sabrina Zohar?

  You do not love admitting you have it, and I get that. But that is fight mode. And that is really that like scoreboard. So if you hurt yourself in any of that, you're in fight mode probably more than you realize. And it doesn't matter if you're single, if you're dating, you're in a situationship, you're married. The body does the same thing. The flight response doesn't care what stage of love that you're in. It wants to win the fight, has never been able to win when you were small. So the question isn't, "Am I an angry person?" The question is, "Why does my body keep doing this?" Right? If, I mean, you can also not answer why, but what comes up for me? What can I not let go of even when I know I should? What does the argument keep going in my head for? White, when it's over, what am I trying to prove? What am I trying to understand? What am I trying to win from? This is what we're about to get into, baby.

• 14:46Speaker 03

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• 15:16Speaker 04

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• 15:43Sabrina Zohar?

  All right, let's get back to it. So let's talk about the why, because everything I just listed is not a personality. This isn't just, "I'm a passionate person," or "I'm just direct." It's not, "I just have a temper and that's who I am." It's your nervous system. And fight mode is one of the four survival responses your body runs when it perceives a threat. The body can't tell the difference between a threat to your life and a threat to your sense of being loved, being respected, being chosen. So when someone you're dating texts back two hours later than you expected, or your partner sighs in the wrong fucking tone, or someone says something that lands like criticism, your nervous system doesn't consult your prefrontal cortex. It doesn't pause and be like, "Hmm, this is actually a problem." Like, we don't challenge the thought. It floods. Your heart rate goes up, your stress hormones are online, survival math is running, and the survival math is asking one question: How do I make this stop?

• 16:27Sabrina Zohar?

  Every day, you guys ask me, every single day, "How can I get rid of this quick? How can I stop feeling like this?" And the problem is, you want a quick answer. Life isn't fucking Amazon. You're not gonna be able to get rid of something because you wave a magic wand. You have to go through it. You have to feel it. You have to understand what's coming up for you. And you have to start to connect your mind to your body. And fight mode answers that question with attack. Get bigger. Get sharper. Get the upper hand. Get them to back down. Win. It's what I described in that story earlier. That person had to win. Because if I'm right and he's wrong... No, no, no, no, no. He has to be right. I have to be wrong. Because he can't hold two conflicting thoughts to go, "Oh, I can understand. You're right, there could be a red flag in that question, and maybe there is something I should get curious about within myself." Doesn't mean I'm a red flag. Doesn't mean I'm worthy and deserving.

• 17:10Sabrina Zohar?

  But when we go to that black-and-white thinking, all or nothing, yay, nay, good, bad... You're just going right back into that fight. And here's the thing, your body is not even trying to win the actual fight in front of you. It's trying to win a fight that happened long ago when you were small and someone made you feel powerless. And the only thing that ever worked was getting bigger than the thing that scared you. So your body learned, get bigger, get louder, get colder, get cutting. Never let anyone see you flinch. So when I said earlier, your body is still in the fight hours after the fight ended. That is literally what is happening physiologically. Once your nervous system is fully activated into fight mode, it can't just turn off because of the words, right? The chemicals are in your bloodstream, the vigilance is up, the 11 p.m. replay in your head is your body still scanning, still looking for the neck attacks, still running the mouth on how to win.

• 17:54Sabrina Zohar?

  Now, I want to talk about a study that came out in 2024 because this one specifically explains the part of you who cannot let go. The keeping score part, the bringing up old things. So research at the University of St. Andrews ran a series of experiments where they had romantic couples compete face to face. So they could play loud uncomfortable noises into each other's headphones at whatever volume they wanted. Oh, I'd be nervous to do this with mine. Over 6,000 trials across two studies, what they were measuring was when and how real couples actually retaliate against each other in real time. And what they found was couples retaliate, not all at once, not in a giant explosion, but consistently. When one partner expressed a negative emotion on their face, their partner behavior changed measurably. They blasted them back, not just once, it was a pattern.

• 18:37Sabrina Zohar?

  The technical term in the paper is reactive aggression. The human term, right, is you hurt me, I hurt you back. And both partners faces were data the other partner's nervous system was using to make the call. So what the fuck does that mean for you? It means your nervous system is doing exactly what it evolved to do, which is track every fucking micro injury and respond with a matched micro injury. So the scales stay even. Match that energy is a waste of your fucking time. Why are you watering yourself down to match where somebody else is? Why are you changing who the fuck you are to make somebody else feel like you're matching that? Instead of matching their energy, stay on your fucking energy, stay with what feels authentic to you and let people leave if that's what they're meant to fucking do. Instead of trying to match them, maybe you can stay where you are and let them fucking walk.

• 19:22Sabrina Zohar?

  And that's why I'm not into like the match the energy thing because the Scorekeeping, it doesn't mean you're dramatic, but your body is running a survival algorithm. That's why I hate the match the energy thing because what ends up happening is that is something that we're evolved to do. And I want us to try to get out of that, to not have to match the energy, to not have to be like everybody else, to be authentically your fucking self. That if I hurt my partner, that I take ownership of that. If my partner hurt me, I'm not trying to then make him feel like shit. Which I've, I've caught myself, I will be a hundred percent honest with you, where Ryan shuts down. And then I, or like he'll say something and I feel rejected. So then in my head, I'm like, fine, I'm not gonna answer. Fine, then let him feel what it feels like to be rejected. And I catch myself and I'm like, you dumb bitch. And I don't say that. Sometimes I do.

• 20:08Sabrina Zohar?

  Uh, and I'll just be like, whoa, it was so hard. So you're playing the same game. You want him to hurt in the way that he hurt you. And instead I'll say, hey, that, I didn't appreciate that. I didn't, I don't really like the way you said that to me. That actually really hurt. So that he understands, he's like, oh shit, okay, sorry. Like didn't mean to, or like, oh wow, didn't even notice that I said anything that like hurt you. Instead of stooping to the level, you stay where you're at. And the same study found that introducing a, this is the fascinating part. That introducing a forced break, even a short one, five to 15 seconds between when someone got hit and when they could hit back, reduced the aggression. Just the pause, just the gap, just the space between the trigger and the response. That's what I've been saying for fucking millennia. Put a space between stimulus and response.

• 20:50Sabrina Zohar?

  Because otherwise we go stimulus, reaction. And when you react, you're not actually giving yourself any time. The science is telling us, baby. That the one thing standing between your fight mode and a different outcome is not insight. It's not knowing yourself better. It's a fucking pause, a real one. And we're gonna come back to that because I'm gonna give you a tool for that. So how does this show up in dating and in real relationships? I want to take this into your actual life because fight mode shows up differently depending on where you are. If you're single, fight mode is the energy you bring to the first date. It's that interview vibe, like the test, you see how they handle pressure. The not too eager calibration, you're not flirting, you're screening. And underneath that screening, your body. Is trying to prove that you're not the one who's going to hurt me. Show me you could pass. And some of us are scaring off perfectly good people in one week because your fight mode

• 21:35Sabrina Zohar?

  has its gloves on before the dates have even started. You're not asking, is this person good for me? You're asking, are they about to wreck me? And you can't tell the difference between the two questions until you slow your body the fuck down enough to ask the first one. And a situationship, it's a worse version. A situationship is already ambiguous. You don't have a label. You don't have a status. You don't have clarity, which means your fight mode has nothing to push against and everywhere to go. So you keep score of the texts. You analyze the timestamps. You catch yourself drafting the speech you would give them if they finally crossed the fucking line. You're at war with someone you didn't even officially fucking have. And the worst part is the longer the situationship goes, the more your nervous system convinces you that the war is the relationship. And if you're in a relationship, fight mode is the picking. You pick at the small things. You test what happens if they don't text first. Guilty? I used to do that. Judge, juror, executioner.

• 22:20Sabrina Zohar?

  If a guy didn't text me within fucking 10 minutes when I text him, or if I woke up and I didn't have my good morning test, that was it. That was a test I was putting this person under. It had nothing to fucking do with our connection. What's a good morning text doing besides reaffirming my core beliefs that, see, I am worthy and deserving, making me feel wanted, validating and reassuring that they're not going to leave me? But that had nothing to do with them and everything to do with what it was bringing up in me. So if you're so focused on testing them and seeing when they're doing this and when they're doing that, I need you to start asking, is this about the connection or is this about me saying that I'm not going to be abandoned? You're looking for a version that you've been waiting to defend your whole fucking life. And the calmer they are, the more activated some of you get because their calm reads to your body like a trick. Where's the catch? When does the bad version show up? And I get it, some of us can't tolerate a kind partner because your nervous system

• 23:04Sabrina Zohar?

  is convinced kind people don't exist, so the calm must be lying. And there is a specific version of this that I want to call out because I get a question about it that broke my heart a little bit. So one of you guys asked, again, so it's the Sabrina Zohar Show on Instagram. I have a question box that comes up, so don't forget to follow along and I'm always asking you guys what you want for episodes. And one of you guys asked, how do I approach a healthy relationship after an abusive one? And how do I handle it when the trigger happens? If that's you, I want you to hear. The fight mode you bring into your new relationship is not about you being a bad fucking partner. It's about your body still trying to protect you from the last one. The trigger is real, the activation is real, the thing that changes the person in front of you. So your work, and it's really fucking hard work, is teaching your body over time with repetition. And that's why we say corrective experiences is that the new person is not the old person. You can't do that by force.

• 23:48Sabrina Zohar?

  You can only do that by giving your body new evidence over and over that this person is safe. That could take time. Not because there's something wrong with you, but your body has learned a lesson under threat and is learning now a new one under safety. And that's going to take time.

• 24:03Speaker 03

  Low energy, unfocused, foggy? You might be dehydrated. Gatorade Zero powders have been scientifically designed to help improve hydration balance in the body. With a clinically proven electrolyte blend and no artificial colors or flavors. Great tasting hydration, no matter where you're going. Shop now online or at retailers nationwide. Gatorade: Hydrates Better Than Water. Is it in you? Symptoms noted are signs of mild to moderate dehydration. Consult a healthcare professional if symptoms persist.

• 24:33Speaker 01

  Whenever fall comes back around, it always feels like a fresh start. This year, I've been layering in some styles from the new Lululemon Fall Drop because the weather is shifting and I find I have to be ready for the entire day and not just one part of it. Lululemon's Fall line has some really versatile transitional pieces, so I can just wake up, throw on a matching set, add a jacket or a fleece, and head out, knowing that I'll feel comfortable enough to go wherever the day takes me. Check out the new fall arrivals in store and online now at lululemon.com.

• 25:03Sabrina Zohar?

  And the thing with the trigger is, you gotta remember, a trigger doesn't mean that you have to do anything about it. A trigger means that you can get curious about it and start to understand yourself. And if you're in a long-term relationship, fight mode is the recurring fight. The one you have had 30 fucking times is the same words, right? It's not actually about the dishes, it's not actually about the in-laws or whatever fucking bullshit surface thing is about the fight. The fight is your two nervous systems doing a dance that they've been doing since probably month four. Every time you have it, you both walk away, convince the other partner there's the problem. There are not, the pattern is the problem. And the thing I want the partnered people to hear is, because this is like what kind of genuinely breaks long-term love. When you're in fight mode and you can't let it go, you're not just hurting the relationship in the moment, you're training your partner's nervous system. Every time you guys fight and you have, and you're keeping score, you're bringing up the old thing,

• 25:48Sabrina Zohar?

  you have to win, you're teaching them over years that you're not safe to be honest with. So they stop being honest. They start managing you. They start choosing their words. They start hiding the small things because they don't know what sets you off. And one day you wake up next to a stranger who's being very, very careful around you and you think, when did we lose the connection? You trained it out of them, one fight at a fucking time. And I'm not saying that to make you feel horrible. I'm saying that this is fixable, right? Your nervous system can learn a different pattern, but you can't fix it if you won't name it. That's exactly why I say, if you want to villainize the avoidant, but say that the anxious person is doing nothing wrong, then that's just playing victim. Because no one's right or wrong. Everybody has their shit. There are a lot of anxious folk that I frankly speak and can't be around. It's way too destabilizing for me

• 26:32Sabrina Zohar?

  because they have no stability. They are, it's the same with someone super avoidant. Every fucking three seconds, they're shutting down and removing themselves. You're like, ugh, I can't, I don't want to deal with this. That to me is being secure, saying, that doesn't work for me. Here's the thing. Love is not unconditional. Adult relationships are not unconditional. It is conditional. Because if you start treating me like shit, I don't need to fucking stay. I don't have to take your bullshit if you're not doing any work on yourself. You're treating me like shit. Love is not enough. You need comprehension. You need true compatibility, which is morals, ethos, ethics, values aligning. It's not just about love. And if you think that it's just unconditional love and that anybody should, baby, they are not your fucking parents. They do not have to stick around if you don't fucking show up for them as well and the relationship. So, what does this cost you?

• 27:16Sabrina Zohar?

  I told you, we're not gonna stay on the surface. Underneath fight is almost always a fear that doesn't match the size of the fight. The fear of being dismissed, the fear of being controlled, the fear of being made small the way you were made small a long time ago, the fear of being abandoned the second you stop performing for someone. Anger is rarely the first emotion, baby. It's usually the second one. Underneath every flare up is a softer feeling that didn't feel safe to have. So your body reached for the one that has more armor to it. And this is where the second piece of research comes in. And this one kind of explains a lot. Well-established finding in the psychology literature Something called anger rumination. Anger rumination is exactly what it sounds like. Replaying the thing. Mentally rehearsing the same fucking argument. Constructing the perfect comeback you never got to deliver. Holding the grudge so it stays warm. And what the research consistently shows is this.

• 28:00Sabrina Zohar?

  Ruminating on anger does not release it, it feeds it. This is the opposite of what most of us were told. We were told, get it out, vent, talk about it, don't bottle it up. But the studies show that venting and rehearsing actually increase the aggression. The rumination is not processing the anger. The rumination is keeping the anger emotionally alive in your body. So every time you go back in the shower to like rehearse it. Every time you like script the speech you give them. Or you let the imaginary argument play out. One more round in your head. You're dosing yourself with the chemicals of the original fight. You're not getting over it, you're re-upping. So when you say, I can't let it go. What is actually happening is that your body keeps picking it up. Your body didn't get stuck in the fight. You're returning to it over and over. Because your nervous system has decided that letting it go feels like surrender and surrender isn't safe. So what does it cost you? Let me name the cost out loud because it's a part nobody does. It costs you your sleep.

• 28:45Sabrina Zohar?

  The hours you spent rehearsing instead of resting. The nights you went to bed angry at someone who was already sleeping. Or the, the missleep because you're up all night trying to understand them. It costs you the next person. Because if you're still emotionally in the fight with the last one, you can't show up for the new one as the actual person. You show up as the bodyguard. The body doesn't, card doesn't fall in love, baby. Only the person. Costs you Tuesday nights, the good ones, the ordinary ones. The ones where you could have been close to your person. Or just in peace with yourself and you spent stewing and trying to figure out and blocking and unblocking. Look at all the fucking mental energy. It costs you the version of you that gets to be soft. The version that gets to be tender. It doesn't have to have to be on arms. Some of you have even fucking met that version. You've been so armored up. Yeah, and put the armor down. And to me, the deepest cost?

• 29:30Sabrina Zohar?

  It costs you being known. Because of the version of you that fights is not the real you, Angel. That's the bodyguard. And when the people in your life only meet the bodyguard, they never actually meet the person underneath it. The one who's scared. The one who's tired. The one who wants to just be held without having to earn it. And I know that because I used to say that to my mom. I would meet people and they would think I'm so strong and I don't need anything. And I would say, I look like a lioness on the outside, but I'm like a steady bear on the inside. I'm hurt and I feel sad, but I was so focused on, I don't want anyone to think I ever hurt. So I have to show up as this. I didn't really let anybody in to see the vulnerable side of me. The side of me that gets hurt when someone says something mean. One of my girlfriends the other day, she was like, yeah, you're really sensitive. You get really hurt when you get a negative comment. And I was like, I don't, one, why is that a bad thing?

• 30:15Sabrina Zohar?

  And two, I was like, how often, the average person who doesn't have millions of followers, how often do you have people telling you that they don't like you? How often do you have people telling you that they don't like your speech? Or they don't like how you show up? Or they don't want to listen to you? Or because you said something they don't like, they are done with you? How often does that happen? For me, that's why I show those parts of myself to you guys. Because I don't want to hide it. I don't want you to think that, ah, ah, ah, oh, she just roses on daisies. It's like, no, that's part of being a human. And so let's get into the tool. You know, I always give you a tool of the week, baby. So this one is straight out of the research. Next time you feel the heat rising, the next time you feel like you're about to launch a fucking missile, you're going to do one thing and you're going to give yourself 20 minutes. So if you're in a fight with the person, your partner, whatever, leave the room.

• 30:58Sabrina Zohar?

  Right? If you're spiraling alone at 11:00 PM with someone you went on two dates with, put the phone down and walk into another room. So the reason it's 20 is biological. Once your nervous system is fully activated into fight mode, it takes 20 minutes roughly of no further activation for the stress hormones to clear your bloodstream and for your body to come back to baseline. So any conversation you try to have before that is not a conversation. Any text that you draft before that is not just a text, it's your activated nervous system. So if you're with someone, say it out loud. I'm not walking away from this. I am too activated to talk right now and I don't want to say something I can't take back. I'll come back in 20 minutes, let me finish. Or I'm going to go for a walk right now. I don't want to say something I'm going to regret. Can we talk in 25 minutes? Right? You don't need to slam the door. You don't punish them by leaving. You leave because your body needs to come down before you can have a real conversation.

• 31:43Sabrina Zohar?

  If you're alone, the rule is the same. 20 fucking minutes before you send the text. 20 minutes before you check their profile. 20 minutes before you reread the conversation. In the 20 minutes, you don't rehearse your case. You don't script the comeback. You don't text your friend the play by play because remember, rumination keeps the fight emotionally there. You breathe, you walk, you wash your hands in cold water. You do anything except feed the fire. If you guys want more, in the link in bio at sabrina Zohar dot com, there's a free guide on regulating. You can just take some techniques in there. Again, regulating doesn't mean it all goes away. Regulating just means you're coming back to the present moment. And then you come back. And you will be shocked at what your nervous system can do with 20 fucking minutes of space that it absolutely cannot do without. So here is the question I want you to carry this week, baby. When I cannot let go of it, what am I actually trying to protect? Not why is my partner wrong?

• 32:28Sabrina Zohar?

  Not why does this person keep doing this to me? Not the woe is me? The question is internal. When my body refuses to put the fight down, when it's guarded, what is the soft thing underneath the armor that I'm not letting myself feel? And I want to be honest with you. I'm not going to sit here as if I have this fucking transcended, right? I still catch myself wanting the last word. I still catch myself rehearsing the argument in my head three fucking hours later. I still keep a little file on people, sometimes when I shouldn't, right? I did this and they didn't do that. The work is not arriving to a place where the fight response goes away. The fight response plays a part because if somebody is doing something that's an appropriate the fight comes out, right? And then you're like, fuck you, I'm standing up for myself. What did you just say to me? That's not that this is the reality. We don't want just always regulated. That's not real life because if a tiger comes in, yeah, I need you to be dysregulated.

• 33:12Sabrina Zohar?

  I need you to figure out what you're going to do. The work is catching it faster, choosing differently more often, putting the armor down on purpose because you know the person across me is not the actual threat your body thinks they are. This is the first of four, baby. Next week, we're going to talk about flight, the one about disappearing into work, into distance, into the phone, into anywhere but the conversation is asking for you. So can that be avoidant? Sure. Can that also be anxious? You betcha. You betcha. So we're going to talk about what it means to shut down, what happens when you shut down, or the person that you're with does, and then how do you handle that? And come back for next week, baby. We're going to find the next and the next and the next. And I'm so fucking grateful for you guys. Don't forget to preorder my book, Why Am I Like This? If you guys really want to dive in deeper, it is different than the podcast.

• 33:57Sabrina Zohar?

  It has different stories. It has modalities. It is an actual framework and a rubric. And as always, at sabrina zohar.com backslash book, you could type, go down, it says, "Claim your freebies, enter your receipt." Yes, we're checking receipts. And you get your freebies until the book is out. Please order a hard copy if you can, so we get New York Times bestseller. But honestly, order anything. Like I said, I'm just grateful you guys are listening to it. If you need anything, everything's at sabrina zohar.com. Don't forget to rate and review the show, share it with a friend, leave us five stars if you think it's worth it on Spotify or Apple or wherever you're listening. And thank you. Thank you guys for being here and thank you for creating a safe space with me. All right, friends, until next week. I love you guys.

• 34:42Speaker 03

  Low energy, unfocused, foggy? You might be dehydrated. Gatorade Zero powders have been scientifically designed to help improve hydration balance in the body. With a clinically proven electrolyte blend and no artificial colors or flavors, great tasting hydration no matter where you're going. Shop now online or at retailers nationwide. Gatorade: Hydrates Better Than Water. Is it in you? Symptoms noted are signs of mild to moderate dehydration. Consult a healthcare professional if symptoms persist.

• 35:12Speaker 04

  When fall comes back around, there's a sense of a reset. And new pieces from Lululemon's Fall Drop are an inspiration to push your goals and elevate your routines. As your calendar fills, easy-to-layer styles meet the demands of your day. And as you challenge yourself to try even more, versatile sets transition with you. The Lululemon Fall lineup brings new levels of comfort and confidence, whether you're starting something fresh or starting something over. Check out the latest arrivals in-store and on lululemon.com now.

• 35:41Speaker 05

  Ugh, I hate Mondays. King's Hawaiian Cinnamon Swirl Bite? Uh, Taylor Hansen? Sure, I'll try one. Mmm.

• 35:50Speaker 06

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

• 35:52Speaker 05

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

• 35:56Speaker 06

  Taylor Hansen? Nice. Try one. Mmm.

• 36:03Speaker 06

  King's Hawaiian Cinnamon Bites.

• 36:06Speaker 01

  There's nothing like it.

• 36:12Speaker 04

  Whenever fall comes back around, it always feels like a fresh start. This year, I've been layering in some styles from the new Lululemon Fall Drop because the weather is shifting and I find I have to be ready for the entire day and not just one part of it. Lululemon's Fall line has some really versatile, transitional pieces, so I can just wake up, throw on a matching set, add a jacket or a fleece, and head out, knowing that I'll feel comfortable enough to go wherever the day takes me. Check out the new fall arrivals in-store and online now at lululemon.com.