Sabrina Zohar: How to Stop Chasing People Who Don’t Want You

Nonverbal Period (Birth-18 Months) Builds Foundation for Nervous System, Safety, Emotional Regulation

Infants Absorb Cues to Develop Beliefs on Safety and Trust

Sabrina Zohar explains that even before infants can understand or use language, they are deeply tuned in to their caregivers’ nonverbal behaviors. During the nonverbal period, children absorb micro-cues—eye contact, facial expressions, and attunement to their needs. This period is crucial for building the foundations of safety, trust, and emotional regulation. For example, if a baby cries and the parent responds promptly and consistently, the child learns to trust and feels safe. Conversely, long periods of being ignored teach the nervous system that safety and reliability aren’t guaranteed.

Zohar highlights that facial expressiveness and engagement teach children how to interpret emotions; interventions such as [restricted term] that limit facial movement can interrupt this learning process, making it harder for children to distinguish between emotional states.

Still Face Experiment: Babies Form Attachment Through Consistent Caregiver Attunement, Eye Contact, and Emotional Responsiveness

The still face experiment, first conducted in the 1970s and replicated many times since, directly illustrates these principles. In the experiment, a mother first interacts warmly and responsively with her baby, making expressions and engaging, but then is instructed to turn completely still and expressionless. The babies quickly pick up on the change: some become anxious and act out to regain attention, some shut down in silent withdrawal, while secure children might look for reconnection or scan the environment. When the mother resumes attuned interaction, the baby’s response reflects the attachment style he or she has learned. The experiment shows that children’s emotional strategies—even before they can speak—are shaped by whether caregivers are consistently engaged, available, and responsive.

Caregivers' Emotional Unavailability, Dismissiveness, or Inconsistency in Critical Times Leads To Children's Maladaptive Strategies Like Hypervigilance, Shutdown, or Anxiety

Inconsistent, emotionally unavailable, or dismissive caregiving engrains feelings of unsafety and unreliability in the child’s nervous system. When needs are met with delay or neglect, the child internalizes beliefs such as “I am not safe” and “I cannot trust.” As a result, children develop maladaptive strategies like hypervigilance, emotional shutdown, or anxiety—patterns which become the templates for adult relationships.

Brain Prioritizes Safety Via Patterns, Not Growth, Recreating Harmful Dynamics

Amygdala Reacts Swiftly to Threats Based On Past Experiences, While Prefrontal Cortex Engages Slowly, Making Emotional Reactions Automatic and Difficult to Override

Zohar describes how the amygdala, the brain's fear center, triggers defensive reactions within milliseconds—much faster than the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for rational thought and takes significantly longer to engage. This discrepancy ensures that when emotions run high, our bodies revert to learned, automatic responses from childhood, prioritizing safety over growth. For example, if a partner’s behavior echoes something from one’s childhood—such as feeling dismissed or judged—the brain instantly deploys familiar coping mechanisms.

Our Nervous System Reverts to Childhood Strategies due to Partner's Behavior Resembling Parental Dynamics

Zohar and Jay Shetty discuss how adults unconsciously respond to partners as if they were parents, not because the partner behaves identically, but because the partner’s actions evoke similar feelings. When emotionally flooded, adults may regress to how they felt at a specific childhood age, reactivating strategies like withdrawal, silence, or acting out, because these were once self-protective.

Interpreting Neutral Actions Through Self-Belief Narratives

People may interpret their partner’s neutral actions or simple rejections as evidence supporting negative core beliefs formed in childhood—such as being unworthy or unlovable. Zohar describes how, if someone declines a dinner invitation, instead of seeing it as a neutral fact, one might think, “They said no because they don’t like me.” This proj ...

Jay Shetty and Sabrina Zohar discuss the psychological and biological reasons why individuals are drawn into unhealthy relationship patterns, highlighting how unresolved childhood experiences and nervous system responses perpetuate cycles of trauma bonding, anxious-avoidant dynamics, and the confusion between intensity and true compatibility.

Repetition Compulsion Makes Us Choose Partners Reflecting Unresolved Family Emotional Needs

Mistaking Familiarity For Rightness: Emotional Patterns as Safety Signals

Jay Shetty points out the common belief that when something feels familiar, it must be right, but Sabrina Zohar counters that familiarity isn't always healthy. For many, especially those who never felt emotionally safe at home, someone who "feels like home" may actually evoke feelings of being dismissed, put down, or being unable to be authentic. This sense of familiarity tricks the nervous system into thinking unsafe emotional patterns are actually safe simply because they're known. Zohar illustrates that, if someone she dates mirrors aspects of her own father—cold, gregarious, even narcissistic—her nervous system responds with recognition: "This, I can do. I can keep me safe here." If, instead, someone offers genuine love freely, it feels dissonant and undeserved, leading the body to reject it, believing something is "off."

Attracted To Recreating Our Family Dynamic, Even if It Involves Feeling Small, Dismissed, Criticized, or Unworthy

Zohar shares that people repeatedly form relationships with partners who activate unhealed childhood parts, often unconsciously seeking partners who make them feel as they did with critical or dismissive caregivers. Rather than making a conscious choice, they fall into "limerence," obsessing over emotionally unsafe people and projecting fantasies onto them, which generates [restricted term] and addictive hope. This obsessive attachment is driven by a desire to finally feel worthy or chosen, hoping to resolve early wounds—"if I can get you to like me, then my dad was wrong about me."

Desire to Heal Through a New Relationship With a Dismissive or Avoidant Partner Keeps Us Pursuing Unavailable People

The compulsion to pursue emotionally unavailable partners is rooted in the hope that winning their affection will heal past wounds of rejection or neglect. Zohar observes that people often don't see their partners as they truly are; instead, they become fixated on chasing a fantasy, believing that achieving love from someone who mirrors their childhood pain will finally make them feel whole. This pursuit is both emotionally risky and rarely fulfilling, keeping individuals looped in trauma-bonded cycles.

Anxious and Avoidant Styles Create Unhealthy Relationship Cycles

Anxious Individuals With Low Self-Worth Are Drawn To Avoidant Partners' Confidence, While Avoidant Individuals Are Attracted To Anxious Partners' Warmth

Jay Shetty highlights, and Zohar elaborates, that anxious and avoidant individuals are often drawn to each other. Anxious people, struggling with low self-worth, find avoidant individuals’ stoicism, independence, and apparent confidence attractive. Conversely, avoidant partners are initially enticed by the anxious person's warmth and energetic personality.

Push-Pull Dynamic in Anxious and Avoidant Relationships

Once paired, anxious and avoidant attachment styles often create a "push-pull" dynamic. When conflict or emotional need arises, the avoidant withdraws, while the anxious person pursues—"wait, where are you going? Come back!"—increasing the avoidant’s feeling of suffocation and the anxious person’s desperation. Protest behaviors, like giving the silent treatment or sending repeated texts, attempt to force reconnection but only sustain the unhealthy cycle.

Both parties must do personal work: anxious individuals need to learn that space is not a threat, and avoidants must recognize that their partner's distress isn't a personal failure or attack. Zohar explains being able to self-soothe and communicate openly—such as saying "Talk to me in 20”—can break this cycle. The avoidant partner often returns after distance because the separation calms their nervous system, and past partners are viewed more favorably from afar, but the underlying triggers remain unaddressed, perpetuating the cycle.

Avoidant Partners Return Post-Separation As Distance Calms Their Nervous System, Improving the Relationship Feel

Avoidant individuals tend to leave when intimacy intensifies, blaming the relationship for their discomfort. After pulling away and finding external triggers elsewhere, they begin to see their ex-partner through a softened, nostalgic lens, returning and contributing to the cyclical "on-again, off-again" dynamic. This cycle is not about genuine compatibility or resolution but about seeking relief ...

Sabrina Zohar and Jay Shetty examine how healthy relationships require flexible boundaries, genuine self-love, and willingness to take responsibility for one’s own healing, while addressing the misuses of therapeutic language and the importance of knowing when to walk away.

Self-Love Shown by Flexible Boundaries For Sustainability, Not Just by Self-Care Rituals

Sabrina Zohar reframes self-love as more than indulgent rituals like bubble baths and face masks. True self-love, she explains, comes from setting boundaries that reflect self-respect and a belief that one deserves to have their needs met. Saying no is a powerful form of self-love, even knowing it may require grieving the loss of people who benefited from previous boundarylessness. She notes, “When you love yourself, it’s not bubble baths and face masks, it’s setting boundaries… I’m more afraid of losing myself than I am anybody external.”

Boundaries Arise From Self-Respect and the Belief We Deserve to Have Our Needs Met; Walls Are Rigid Defenses Stemming From Fear and Distrust In Ourselves or Others

Zohar distinguishes between boundaries—which are flexible, rooted in self-trust, and keep the right people in our lives—and walls, which are rigid barriers stemming from fear or distrust that keep everyone out. She sees boundaries as a sign of trusting oneself and being open to honest dialogue, whereas walls are about protecting oneself from hurt due to past experiences.

Childhood Teachings: Boundaries Seen As Bad, Selfish, or Unlovable Causing Guilt and Shame

Many people feel bad for setting boundaries due to childhood lessons that saying no is selfish, unlovable, or even dangerous. For Zohar, expressing a need was once met with guilt and shame, leading to the belief that one must remain silent to preserve connection. She posits that boundaries should be seen as a way to keep the right people rather than a guarantee of rejection.

Difference Between Boundaries and Control

Zohar cautions that real boundaries are not about control. Stating ultimatums such as “you have to text me every day” is control, not a boundary. Boundaries are about what the individual will or will not accept or do: “I’m not going to be in a relationship with someone who isn’t communicative.” True boundaries require vulnerability and clear communication.

Healing and Growth Responsibility

Self-love includes taking responsibility for one’s own healing. Zohar warns against using therapy language to evade accountability—statements like, “That’s just my boundary, that’s how I am,” or “You triggered me,” can be deflections rather than genuine engagement. Jay Shetty adds that therapy talk can sometimes be used to avoid hard decisions or tough conversations.

Using Therapy Language to Evade Accountability

Zohar encourages expressing boundaries with honest, vulnerable I-statements, such as, “When you said this, I felt dismissed. Here’s what I need from you,” rather than rigid assertions. She also points out that sharing trauma too early can lead to manipulation by those who use personal information against others.

Expecting a Partner to Fundamentally Change Shows We Don't Love Them as They Are

Growth may be possible for those willing to change, but waiting for someone to become a different person is a sign that they are not loved for who they are but for who we want them to become. Zohar emphasizes it is not our job to fix or coach a partner; people must pursue their own healing. Shetty adds, “If they don’t want to change and if they don’t choose to change… then what are you waiting for?”

Healing Involves Validating Our Experiences and Self-Compassion Instead of Seeking Validation From Emotionally Unavailable People

Zohar stresses the importance of self-compassion: validating our own feelings and not tying our worth to external validation, especially from emotionally unavailable partners. “If you can show yourself that love… self-love means just not attacking yourself. Given everything I’ve been through, of course it makes sense I would feel like that.”

The 80-20 Principle Helps Evaluate if a Relationship Merits Grieving What's Missing, Enabling Conscious Choices Over Fear

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Sabrina Zohar and Jay Shetty dismantle common relationship myths, highlighting the realities of healthy connections and the pitfalls of romanticized beliefs.

The Myth of "the One" Limits Community, Independence, and Compatibility In Choosing Partners

Zohar emphasizes that love alone is not sufficient for a sustainable relationship; proximity, timing, shared values, and aligned goals matter more. She shares that being with the right person requires matching stages in life, priority alignment, and genuine intention, not just strong feelings. Jay Shetty adds that the paradox of searching for "the one" fosters a scarcity mindset—believing love is rare yet expecting each potential partner to become the ultimate one causes frustration and disappointment.

Zohar advises against putting partners on pedestals or clinging to the idea that someone who was not a good fit is "the one that got away." Situationships and mismatches should be seen for what they are: arrangements with people who did not align with one's needs, intentions, or availability. Shifting the narrative from missed soulmates to realistic assessments of compatibility allows for healthier detachment and growth.

Believing that only one person can fulfill all emotional and companionship needs can make people ignore the necessity of community and chosen family. Zohar stresses that a single partner cannot provide every kind of support, joy, or validation and that meaningful relationships exist beyond romance—our wider circle nurtures and shapes us in essential ways.

Healthy relationships, according to Zohar, are less about finding something unique and irreplaceable and more about intersecting lives at the right moment with the right priorities. Timing, demographic factors, and life context all affect compatibility, so even if someone "better" exists, they may not be accessible or suitable at the right stage of life. Contentment in partnerships comes from shared values and a sense of fit, not from seeking the ever-elusive perfect match.

Dangerous Myths: Partners Never Fighting, Perfect Alignment, and Indefinite Early-Stage Intensity

Zohar debunks myths such as "couples never fight," "perfect alignment exists," and "early intensity should last forever." She asserts that healthy conflict, when driven by curiosity and understanding rather than a desire to win, is vital; couples who never argue may be suppressing resentment or avoiding true intimacy.

Expecting a partner to remain unchanged over time is unrealistic. Both Zohar and Shetty discuss the importance of curiosity and adaptability as partners grow and evolve. Stunted growth or clinging to an idealized version from the early relationship stages prevents deep ongoing connection and acknowledgment of authentic selves.

Novelty and early-stage intensity—manifested as frequent communication, extravagant attention, or love bombing—are unsustainable. Zohar warns that confusing this excitement with lasting love leads to repeated disappointment or a constant search for new relationships. She cautions that attention does not equal intention, and performative affection often vanishes when early demands arise or boundaries are set.

Zohar encourages slow pacing, letting the nervous system acclimate to a new person without rushing. Early encounters should be about learning the basics: a first date determines if a second is wanted, and so on. Rushing to intense attachment can obscure red flags, boundaries, and true compatibility.

Healthy Relationships Involve Being Seen, Heard, and Understood, Not Avoiding Friction or Seeking Constant Excitement

Zohar states that healthy relationships may feel "boring" precisely because they do not trigger anxiety or nervous system dysregulation. This "boring" is actually safety, stability, and emotional securit ...

Sabrina Zohar explores how meaningful healing comes not from changing romantic or social partners, but from recognizing and transforming the internal patterns that shape our relationships. This journey involves deep self-reflection, compassionate acceptance, and courage to make new choices even when uncomfortable.

Recognizing Patterns: Reflecting On Who We Attract, Our Relationship Behaviors, and Influential Past Experiences

Sabrina describes her own experience of bed hopping—moving from person to person hoping to finally find relief from familiar pain—but finding that the underlying feeling always returned. She notes that many people engage in repetition compulsion: we keep dating or befriending similar types, replaying the same roles, or gravitating toward the same dynamics not only in romance but across friendships, families, and careers. She encourages tracing reactions and recurring emotions back to their origins in childhood or early significant relationships, asking, "How old do I feel?" and "Where did I learn this?" For instance, feeling dismissed might trace back to a childhood memory with a parent, or feeling left out at work might evoke the loneliness of not being chosen at recess.

Zohar explains that these ingrained responses extend into every sphere—friendships, careers, and family—shaping what we allow and how we expect to be treated. By examining patterns and asking whether a current “pinch” matches an old “ouch,” we move from blaming others to owning our role in what we perpetuate. Recognizing, for example, that losing oneself in relationships or tolerating poor treatment echoes a pattern learned in childhood empowers us to choose differently. This shift from blame to responsibility is foundational for true transformation.

Healing Means Grieving the Childhood We Missed, Not Just Understanding Patterns

Understanding alone is not enough; true healing requires emotional integration and grieving what was missed. Zohar shares that intellectual insight—tracing a behavior back to a parent or sibling—is important, but unless we allow ourselves to feel and grieve for the child who adapted to survive, we stay stuck in old beliefs. Acknowledging and emotionally processing the loss, disappointment, or unmet needs of childhood recalibrates the nervous system. These are corrective experiences; moments when we consciously choose new responses or receive support that contradicts old fears of abandonment or unworthiness.

She recounts personal examples, such as a reconciling conversation with her brother that allowed them both to acknowledge and release old wounds. These breakthroughs require courageous honesty and a willingness to revisit memories we've tried all our lives to escape. Zohar emphasizes that healing is not about fixing something broken but showing compassionate curiosity toward ourselves. Compassion releases more [restricted term] than external validation, reinforcing self-love as simply not attacking or abandoning ourselves. Grieving—whether for the life we wished for, the losses we endured, or the ways we tried to keep ourselves safe—creates space for genuine growth.

Moving Forward Requires Different Choices, Tolerating Discomfort, and Enduring Change Rather Than Expecting Healing Through Insight Alone

Zohar stresses that making new choices, not just ruminating, rewires how we relate. Healing happens in small, micro moments, such as choosing not to text someone who hurt us, or pausing to regulate before responding. This incremental approach is like preparing for a marathon by first laying out shoes, then socks, gradually signaling safety to the nervous system.

She advises that healing means tolerating the discomfort of change—sometimes for months—rather than settling for a lifetime of the same pain. Sometimes, relationships won’t survive our growth, ...