The Sabrina Zohar Show Season 4, Episode 23: The Ick, Shadow Work, And Why You're Still Single

1

New Year, New Pattern

A new year doesn’t change your dating life. Your patterns do. In this episode, Sabrina breaks down why New Year’s dating resolutions fail, why manifestation without behavior change keeps you stuck, and why “this is my year for love” doesn’t work if you keep showing up the same way.

38 min

2

How To Get The Relationship You Deserve

Why do people who “try the hardest” in relationships often end up feeling unseen, resentful, or stuck in situationships? Sabrina breaks down how people-pleasing, conflict avoidance, and anxious attachment patterns quietly sabotage intimacy. Drawing from psychology, attachment theory, and trauma research, she explains why fawning is not love but a nervous-system survival response, and how suppressing your needs leads to emotional disconnection, resentment, and unhealthy power dynamics in dating and relationships.

34 min

3

In The Trenches: Help! Does My Crush Like Me?

Sabrina answers real dating and relationship questions submitted by the community, covering workplace flirtation, mixed signals, age gaps, anxious attachment, and what to do when someone doesn’t say “I love you” back. She breaks down how uncertainty, overthinking, and “going with the flow” often lead to self-abandonment instead of clarity.

47 min

4

Lessons In Healing Anxious Attachment Style W/ Paige Homan

In this deeply personal episode, Sabrina Zohar is joined by her longtime best friend Paige Homan to reflect on Sabrina’s growth journey from anxious attachment, dating anxiety, and emotional dysregulation to self-trust, nervous system regulation, and secure love. Through honest conversation and real-life reflection, they explore personal transformation, healing patterns in relationships, emotional maturity, and what it actually takes to evolve into a grounded, emotionally secure version of yourself over time.

48 min

5

If You Want To Change Your Life, You've Got To Do This

Three years ago, Sabrina Zohar hit rock bottom after losing everything she thought defined her. In this raw anniversary episode of The Sabrina Zohar Show, she reflects on the journey from heartbreak, identity collapse, and losing her sense of direction to rebuilding her life through self-trust, nervous system healing, and emotional growth. This episode explores grief, attachment patterns, worthiness, and what happens when the path you were certain about disappears.

42 min

6

What Heartbreak Teaches You About Love

Heartbreak can feel like the end of everything, but it’s often the beginning of healing. In this raw episode of The Sabrina Zohar Show, Sabrina shares the three biggest heartbreaks of her life and what they taught her about anxious attachment, abandonment wounds, limerence, and self-worth. From childhood trauma to toxic relationships and loss, this episode explores how heartbreak shapes our dating patterns and beliefs about love.

36 min

7

Is It Lovebombing? Or Were They Genuinely Interested?

When someone comes on strong early, it can feel like intimacy—but it’s often just intensity. In this episode, Sabrina breaks down love bombing, future faking, and why fast-moving connections activate dopamine and attachment wounds rather than real emotional safety. She explains what’s actually happening in your brain when chemistry feels overwhelming and why those relationships tend to crash just as fast.

34 min

8

Am I Falling For The Idea Of Them? W/ Damona Hoffman

Sabrina sits down with dating expert ⁠Damona Hoffman⁠ to unpack how fairy tales, rom-coms, and modern dating apps fuel obsession, fantasy, and anxious attachment. They break down why texting chemistry, dopamine loops, and “potential” keep people stuck in confusing dating dynamics—and how to shift from chasing sparks to choosing emotional safety, clarity, and real connection.

46 min

9

If You’re Losing Yourself in Relationships, This Episode Is For You

Sabrina breaks down self-abandonment in dating and relationships, why losing yourself often gets mislabeled as love, and how chronic people-pleasing, codependency, and anxious attachment actually form. Using psychology, neuroscience, and attachment theory, she explains differentiation of self, emotional fusion, and how the nervous system drives self-betrayal, protest behavior, and fear of abandonment in romantic relationships.

31 min

10

Breadcrumbs and The Bare Minimum In Dating

If someone keeps texting but never makes plans, says “we’ll see,” or gives just enough to keep you hooked, this episode is for you. We break down breadcrumbing and bare minimum dating, including mixed signals, strategic ambiguity, and future faking—and why inconsistency keeps your brain stuck chasing clarity instead of connection. You’ll learn how to tell the difference between someone who’s genuinely busy versus emotionally unavailable, and why ambiguity fuels anxiety and attachment loops.

37 min

11

Money & Dating: The Conversations You're Avoiding That Will Make or Break Your Relationship

Who pays on the first date? When should you talk about money in a relationship? How do you split finances with your partner — and what happens when you don't? Sabrina sits down with Jean and Cherie, the Tiger Sisters, to tackle every uncomfortable money question in dating and relationships — from first-date expectations and financial red flags to prenups, combining finances, and protecting yourself before marriage. If you've ever avoided "the money talk" with someone you're dating, this episode is your wake-up call.

63 min

12

Why You Like Someone's Potential Instead of Who They Are

Ever caught yourself saying "when it's good, it's so good"? In this first episode of the 4-part Hard Truth Series, Sabrina breaks down why you keep falling in love with who someone could be instead of who they actually are — and why potential is just a placeholder for the grief you're avoiding. She dives into the neuroscience of the "prospective brain," the impact bias that keeps you chasing a fantasy, and the 13-year longitudinal study that explains why you lower your standards for the wrong people but can't appreciate the ones who actually show up.

39 min

13

In The Trenches: How To Let Someone In Without Losing Yourself

Dating with an open heart sounds beautiful until your nervous system has other plans. In this solo In The Trenches audience Q&A episode, Sabrina answers your most raw questions about how to let someone in without losing yourself, how to date after grief, and what it actually looks like to stay present when fear or anxiety is running the show.

36 min

14

Can You Get Someone To Be Emotionally Available?

You've done the therapy, read the books, and know your attachment style... so why does nothing change? In part 2 of the Hard Truth Series, Sabrina breaks down why you cannot heal your way out of incompatibility. Drawing on real research, she unpacks how to tell the difference between a wrong match and relationship anxiety, why therapy language can become a cage that keeps you stuck, and the line between actual growth and emotional gymnastics.

38 min

15

How To Actually Heal Your Nervous System And Change Your Life w/ Nicole LePera

Why do you overreact in relationships when the situation doesn't match the emotion? Sabrina sits down with Dr. Nicole LePera, The Holistic Psychologist, to break down inner child wounds, how your nervous system stores childhood trauma before you have words to process it, and why certain dating triggers send you spiraling. They dive into emotional attunement, generational trauma, shame, and anxious attachment patterns.

62 min

16

Do You Want Love Or Do You Want to Be Picked So You Feel Worthy?

If you've ever lost interest the moment someone became available, or stayed obsessed with someone who kept you at arm's length, this episode is for you. Part three of the Hard Truth Series breaks down the most common pattern nobody wants to admit: using relationships to collect proof of your worth instead of building real partnership.

35 min

17

Closure, No Contact, And How To Get Over Someone

Closure is a lie, and waiting for it is keeping you stuck. In this episode of the Hard Truth Series, we get into why closure doesn't come from another person, what your brain is actually doing after a breakup, and why the conversation you keep replaying in your head would never be enough even if you got it. We cover the neuroscience of heartbreak, why searching for "why" makes things worse, and how identity loss after a relationship ends is what's really driving your distress.

33 min

18

Breaking Up With Green Flags

What happens when you have to end a relationship with someone who did nothing wrong? This episode covers the breakup nobody prepares you for: leaving someone good, or being left by someone who simply "isn't feeling it." Sabrina breaks down why love and alignment are not the same thing, how to tell the difference between a rough patch and real incompatibility, and why these breakups can hurt more than the ones with an obvious reason.

35 min

19

In The Trenches: Watch This If You Lose Yourself In Relationships

Are you so afraid of losing someone that you have already lost yourself? Sabrina answers listener questions about self-abandonment, emotionally unavailable partners, and why holding on to hope in a low-effort dynamic keeps you stuck in childhood core beliefs instead of building the healthy relationship you deserve. She breaks down dating with detachment, the difference between attention and intention, and how to stop performing for people who are not showing up for you.

33 min

20

Can You Change Your Attachment Style? With Amir Levine

The author of Attached, Amir Levine, M.D. , is back with a new book called Secure and a whole new framework for understanding why your relationships feel the way they do. In this episode, we get into the biggest misconceptions about anxious and avoidant attachment, the truth about whether you can actually change your attachment style, why avoidants shut down instead of showing up, what a "closeness overdose" is and why it kills perfectly good relationships, and the five pillars of a secure life built around his CARP framework: consistent, available, responsive, reliable, and predictable.

40 min

21

Navigating Insecurities, Self-Worth And Believing In Yourself

For the 200th episode, Sabrina tackles the question she gets asked more than anything: how do you actually believe you're enough? This one breaks down where insecurity really comes from, why "just have more confidence" is bullshit advice, and what social psychologist Mark Leary's sociometer theory reveals about self esteem, rejection, and why one mean comment drowns out a hundred compliments.

37 min

22

This Is What Happens When You Finally Choose Yourself

In this raw birthday episode, Sabrina gets honest about the hidden cost of personal growth and what nobody warns you about when you actually start doing the work. From losing friends who only knew the old version of you, to grieving the identity you outgrew on purpose, to realizing success doesn't fix your insecurities or quiet your anxiety, this is the unfiltered truth about healing that the self-help world skips over. If you've ever wondered why your "best year ever" also feels like the loneliest, this episode explains exactly why, backed by Harvard research on identity loss during major life change.

31 min

23

The Ick, Shadow Work, And Why You're Still Single

If you keep getting the ick with every person you date, the problem might not actually be them. In this episode, Sabrina unpacks shadow work and the ick, breaking down how the parts of yourself you rejected long ago are running your dating life, your relationships, and the triggers that send you spiraling over something small. This is why you keep walking away from available, kind, emotionally present people and calling it intuition.

37 min

24

Why You Keep Choosing The Same Person Over And Over W/ Thais Gibson

We hurt in relationships, but we also heal in them. Sabrina sits down with Thais Gibson, founder of the Personal Development School, to map out the actual stages of healing attachment wounds: core wounds from childhood, unmet needs, subconscious rewiring, anxious attachment patterns, somatic work, and nervous system regulation. No secure partner is going to fix you, and this episode breaks down exactly why.

62 min

25

Stop Trying to Be Picked. Start Picking Yourself. (Live Coaching)

In the first ever live coaching session of The Sabrina Zohar Show, Sabrina sits down with brand ambassador and content creator ⁠Judit Moreno⁠ for an unfiltered conversation about anxious attachment, the father wound, and why so many of us keep dating emotionally unavailable men. They unpack how childhood shapes adult relationship patterns, what love bombing does to your nervous system, and why self-abandonment can feel like home when chaos was your blueprint for love.

51 min

26

How to Heal After a Breakup When You're Anxious

It's 2am, you've checked their Instagram three times, and your body still aches for the person you know wasn't right. Sabrina unpacks the anxious attachment breakup: why anxiously attached people chase, ruminate, and spiral after a relationship ends, what new research reveals about the nervous system pull toward an ex, and the one move keeping most anxious people stuck in the loop.

35 min

27

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.

39 min

28

Fearful Avoidants: The Push-Pull Cycle That Ends Relationships

Ever swing between anxious and avoidant with the same person, reaching for them one minute and running the next? That's not you being broken or "too much." In week three of the Breakups by Attachment Style series, Sabrina breaks down disorganized attachment (also called fearful avoidant attachment): the push-pull, hot-and-cold, on-again-off-again pattern that makes you feel like you're losing your mind. Learn what's actually happening in your nervous system, why your relationships keep taking this shape, and why no attachment style ever excuses how someone treats you.

35 min

29

My Partner Wants to Open the Relationship, Am I Not Enough? W/ Brandon Kyle Goodman

What is polyamory, and how is it different from ethical non-monogamy? Can an open relationship actually last, and is dating really any different across the gay, straight, and bisexual communities? In this Pride Month episode, Sabrina sits down with writer, actor, and Tell Me Something Messy host Brandon Kyle Goodman to unpack polyamory, ethical non-monogamy (ENM), open relationships, jealousy, trust, and what every monogamous person can learn from how non-monogamous people communicate.

57 min

30

The Best Way To Handle A Breakup

What does a secure breakup actually look like? Most of us have never seen one, so we don't know it's even possible. In the finale of this four-part breakup series, Sabrina breaks down secure attachment in real terms: the in-person conversation, the honest reason, the clean ending that lets grief actually move instead of looping for years. She lays all four attachment styles side by side (anxious, avoidant, disorganized, and secure) so you can finally see why the same breakup hits four completely different ways, and why your reaction was never about how much the relationship mattered.

30 min

31

How To Know If You Are Compatible With Someone

What does compatibility actually mean, and why do so many people walk away from good relationships while staying stuck in bad ones? Sabrina breaks down the broken definition of compatibility most of us absorbed from movies and Disney, and why shared hobbies, an easy connection, instant chemistry, and looking good on paper are not the things that make love last. She brings the research, including what a 20-year study revealed about perceived partner responsiveness and the quiet experience of feeling truly known by your partner.

35 min