125: Anxious vs. Avoidant: Breaking the Unhealthy Push-Pull Dynamic in Love With Jimmy Knowles

The Sabrina Zohar Show

Mental Health, Education, Relationships, Self-improvement, Society & Culture, Health & Fitness

4.9 • 4.8K Ratings

🗓️ 21 February 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

If you’ve ever felt like you’re too much in a relationship while your partner seems emotionally unavailable, you’re not alone. The anxious-avoidant dynamic is one of the most common (and frustrating) relationship patterns—but is it doomed, or can it actually work?

In this episode, Jimmy Knowles (@jimmy_on_relationships) joins Sabrina Zohar to break down the push-pull dynamic between anxious and avoidant partners. Both Jimmy and Sabrina lean anxious, while their partners are avoidant—so they get the struggles firsthand.

🔹 Why do avoidants pull away, and what are they really thinking?
🔹 How does anxious attachment lead to self-sabotage?
🔹 Can anxious-avoidant relationships actually thrive?
🔹 The key to breaking toxic cycles and building real trust

They unpack how early childhood experiences shape attachment, why anxious partners tend to people-please into resentment, and how avoidants often withdraw not out of rejection—but out of self-protection. Plus, they reveal the mindset shifts needed to stop chasing, start connecting, and build a relationship where both people feel safe.

If you’ve ever felt trapped in an emotional rollercoaster, this episode is for you. 🎢

👉 Hit play now and learn how to stop the cycle for good!

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of the Sabrina Zohar Show. My name is
0:06.7	Sabrina Zohar and I am your host. Hello my babes. Hello my baby. Hello my daughter. All right,
0:13.0	I'll stop. I just, you, your girl is a musical theater girl. But anyways, babes, welcome to
0:17.3	another episode. I'm so excited to have you. This week, we have a really special guest, a really good friend of mine and somebody I'm so excited.
0:26.7	Jimmy Knowles, as you guys might know him, is Jimmy on Relationships. He's here. We filmed. We have an in the trenches that's coming out later for you guys. But today we talk about the anxious avoidant dynamic and navigating that in relationships. And I am so
0:38.9	freaking excited for you guys to learn more from him, be introduced him if you don't know who he is
0:43.7	already, and just have a damn good time with us. Guys, don't forget, merch is out. It's here. It's here.
0:50.1	I'm so excited. I don't know where my bottle is, but it's all here, babies. And I'm so grateful for you guys. Everything we made was limited edition. And don't forget, here's a new announcement that I have not really been sharing with folks is if you join a course now in perpetuity forever, we offer free monthly group coaching with Sheila, who is my personal coach. She's taking all of my clients right now. She is phenomenal. Does IFS parts work and her child stuff. So please
1:11.8	know any time you guys join a course, you get that now in perpetuity for life as long as we're
1:15.8	going to be offering them, which is the foreseeable future. So guys, please don't forget,
1:19.1	rate review the show, share it with a friend. Please remember I read all the reviews. So if you
1:23.5	don't like it, that's okay, but just remember the language that we use. And thank you for everybody.
1:28.1	Thank you for everything.
1:29.6	And thank you for allowing me to be myself and show up authentically and just build this community of people that you guys just mean so fucking much to me.
1:38.6	And I just, that's it.
1:40.1	I'm just grateful.
1:41.1	So without further ado, I'll shut my mouth.
1:42.9	Let's get right on into it, shall we?
2:00.2	Oh, it's so beautiful.
2:01.3	I love it.
2:02.1	It's mountains.
2:02.9	I live in Florida for anyone that doesn't know, and it's less mountainous.
	...

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