Podcast Summary: The Sabrina Zohar Show

Episode 174: Are You Ruminating Or Actually Processing?
Release Date: November 28, 2025
Host: Sabrina Zohar

Overview

In this foundational episode kicking off the "Clarity Series: Dating with Intention," Sabrina Zohar explores the critical difference between ruminating and truly processing emotions—especially as they relate to dating, breakups, and personal growth. With raw honesty, relatable anecdotes, actionable tools, and scientific studies, Sabrina helps listeners understand how to move beyond mental spirals into genuine healing and self-discovery as the year ends and a new one begins.

Main Themes & Purpose

• Difference Between Rumination and Processing: Understanding the neurological, emotional, and behavioral distinctions.
• Breaking Toxic Cycles: Why so many of us mistake “busy thinking” for healing, and how to close chapters instead of rereading them endlessly.
• Tools & Frameworks: Practical steps to notice when you’re stuck, disrupt the cycle, and reorient toward growth.
• Audience Questions: Sabrina addresses common listener struggles, such as dreaming about an ex, being stuck after no contact, and measuring true progress.
• Compassionate Self-Inquiry: Emphasizing acceptance, self-compassion, and realistic expectations on the path to change.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Sabrina’s Personal Update & Context

• (04:00) Sabrina opens up about her current struggles and recent relationship conversations with "Tech Guy," modeling vulnerability and transparency:
  • “I’m tired of having to pretend like everything’s amazing and great knit. That’s not life.”
• Theme: Healing requires detachment from outcomes and honest reflection without judgment.

2. The Foundation of the Series (07:00-09:30)

• Processing Before Dating Intentionally:
  • “If you want to date with intention and clarity, then we gotta do some stuff before we get there.”
  • Sabrina emphasizes the importance of a strong foundation—knowing your triggers, patterns, and boundaries—before entering new connections.
• Audience Engagement: Listeners are encouraged to participate fully in the series, as each episode builds on the previous one.

3. What Is Rumination? (12:00)

• Definition & Science:
  • “Rumination is repetitive, passive, abstract thinking about problems without moving towards a solution.”
  • Activates the brain's default mode network (DMN)—the same network lit up during depression.
  • Memorable quote:

    “When you’re ruminating, you’re just rehearsing the pain over and over and over again.” (13:45)

  • 2008 study: Rumination predicts longer and more severe episodes of depression.
  • “You are not sitting there being like, ‘Oh, wow, I’m doing such a great job. Look at me, I’m just thinking about this person 24/7…’”

4. Why Healing Gets Stuck on Repeat (20:00)

• Listeners write in with deeply relatable questions (“Why do I keep replaying the breakup?” “Why do I still think about them after months of no contact?”).
• Sabrina’s insight:
  • “Most of us aren’t actually doing [processing] right or even doing it—you're just running the same mental footage on loop.”
  • “Learning the ‘why’ isn’t going to make it feel any better.”
• Notable moment:

  “You keep asking the same questions you asked three months ago. You are not healing. You’re stuck.” (27:35)

• Reality check: If you keep telling yourself the same story about what happened more than five times, “you are just reliving the experience and re-traumatizing yourself off my babies. That’s all you’re doing.” (29:00)

5. The Trap of Busyness & False Progress (30:00)

• “Rumination feels productive because you’re busy thinking. If you’re busy thinking, it feels like you’re doing something.”
• Sabrina likens rumination to “rearranging the dirt and calling it a different environment”—no movement, just busy work.

6. Processing: What Does It ACTUALLY Look Like? (33:30)

• Core Components:
  • Emotional awareness (“I feel angry”)
  • Body connection (“Where do you feel it physically?”)
  • Meaning making (“What does this tell me about what I need or value?”)
  • Integration (“How does this fit into my larger story?”)
  • Action orientation (“What do I do with this information?”)
  • “One is a spiral, and one is a path forward.”
• Name It to Tame It:

  “Simply naming emotions reduces the amygdala response...but ruminating about those emotions increases the amygdala response.” (36:55)

• 2007 Study: Journaling about trauma helps only if it leads to meaning, not just venting.

7. Processing vs. Ruminating—Sounds Like... (38:30)

Rumination:

• “Why don’t they like me?”
• “What’s wrong with me?”
• “Maybe if I had done X differently...”
• Backward-focused, unanswerable, circular, stuck in the past.

Processing:

• “I feel rejected, and that activates my abandonment wound.”
• “What am I drawn to here? What can I learn about myself?”
• Forward-looking, actionable, grounded in self-inquiry.

8. Dreaming About an Ex & Lingering Sadness (45:00)

• “Dreams are your brain’s way of trying to make sense of unresolved emotional material.”
• If you wake up sad, “you’re re-entering the same emotional loop instead of completing it.”
• Tool:
  • Wake up, journal about what’s still being grieved, honor the sadness for a set time, then shift focus.
  • “Doing it with your journal actually activates a different part of your brain. Don’t just pull out your cellphone.”

9. Time Does Not Heal—Active Processing Does (50:00)

• “You think time is healing you. It’s not.”
• “If you’re asking the same thing you asked in week one, time isn’t your problem, baby, it’s what you’re doing with it.”
• “Stop measuring your healing by the calendar and start measuring it by whether your thoughts are different than they were last week.” (52:22)
• “You can have three months of rumination with zero progress, or one month of actual processing and have momentum that’s forward.”

10. How to Tell If You’re REALLY Making Progress (54:00)

Signs of Rumination:

• Questions are the same week after week.
• Thoughts feel urgent and repetitive.
• You feel worse, not different, afterwards.
• No new insights; friends/family are exhausted by the story.

Signs of Processing:

• Questions evolve (“What was I avoiding by staying?” etc.).
• There is sadness, but also clarity.
• You can talk about it without re-traumatizing yourself.
• You recognize patterns and learn about yourself.

“If you’re having the same thought for the 47th time, you’re spiraling, you’re ruminating.”
“Am I learning anything about myself?”

11. Hypotheticals & Fantasy

• “What if” scenarios are a way to avoid facing the present.

• “Healing doesn’t happen in imagination. Healing happens in the present moment.”

• Tool: When you catch yourself in fantasy, stop and say “I’m doing it again,” then ground with sensory awareness (e.g., name 5 things you can see), and ask “What is happening in this moment?”

  “My mama has been saying that to me for years. I would always say, ‘But what if, what if?’ And she goes, ‘But Sabrina, if that were the case, then it would be what is.’” (1:03:00)

12. Healing is Nonlinear—Waves of Processing (1:05:00)

• “You didn’t fail at healing. There is no metric here.”
• “You processed one layer and now there’s another one showing up.”
• “What matters is when it comes back up, are you asking the same questions, or are you asking different ones?”
• Healing is like peeling an onion: each wave brings a new opportunity for deeper understanding.

13. The Four Processing Questions (1:10:00)

1. Have my thoughts changed or evolved?
2. Am I asking questions I can answer (about me, not them)?
3. Do I feel worse or different after thinking about it?
4. Can I take action from this thought?

• “Sometimes you’re ruminating because you’re not ready to let go…rumination gives you the illusion of control.”

14. The Cost of Rumination & Moving to Processing (1:13:00)

• “Venting” without progress adds stress.
• No Contact is meaningless if you aren’t actually processing.
• Analogy:

  “You’ve had a wound and rumination is like obsessively touching the bandage, never actually cleaning the wound. Processing is when you finally take the bandage off and clean it out.” (1:17:00)

15. Practical Framework: Shifting Rumination into Processing (1:18:30)

A Four-Step Process:

1. Notice the loop: “I’m ruminating right now.”
2. Name the core emotion: Not just the surface thought, but the emotion beneath.
3. Ask a forward-facing question: “What am I learning about myself? What do I need?”
4. Create an endpoint: “I’m giving myself until Friday to feel this fully, then I’m choosing differently.”

• Jill Bolte Taylor’s “90 seconds to feel an emotion”—practice sitting with the feeling, not thoughts, for 60 seconds.

Notable Quotes

• “You’re not ruminating because you love them so much, you’re ruminating because you’re scared...Of what happens when you stop and what you’re going to have to feel and face.” (1:21:00)
• “The difference between processing and ruminating is the difference between moving on and staying stuck. You get to choose.” (1:22:32)
• “If I were to say in 2026 you’re never going to ruminate and spiral again, your brain’s like, ‘Get, lady.’” (1:24:00)
• “Treat yourself with compassion and grace because you’re a human, and you deserve nothing less.” (1:27:00)

Key Takeaways & Tools

• Rumination: Circular, backwards, feels busy but leads nowhere, increases anxiety/depression.
• Processing: Forward, clarifies needs and patterns, creates closure, feels different—even if sad.
• Progress is Measured Not By Time, But By Change: Evolving questions, new insights, new actions.
• Practical Interrupts: Name when you’re ruminating; ground in the present; journal; provide yourself closure.
• Compassion Is Essential: Healing is slow, nonlinear, and sometimes repetitive—and that’s okay.

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [04:00] – Personal updates and context
• [12:00] – What is rumination?
• [27:35] – Why you’re not healing: The cost of rumination
• [33:30] – What true processing looks like
• [38:30] – Real-life examples: Rumination vs. processing
• [45:00] – Audience question: Dreaming of exes, persistent sadness
• [50:00] – Time does not heal: Active processing does
• [54:00] – Signs you’re making progress (or not)
• [1:03:00] – Addressing hypotheticals and fantasy
• [1:10:00] – Four processing questions
• [1:18:30] – Four-step framework to interrupt rumination and process

Looking Forward

• Next episode: “Do they always come back?”—addressing the fantasy, closure, and how to move on for real.
• Ongoing encouragement: Catch yourself ruminating at least once this week, name it, ask what you’re avoiding, and treat yourself with compassion.

Closing & Call to Action

Sabrina reminds listeners that growth is possible, and that grace, curiosity, and small steps create real change.
“Whatever happens from this point on, you’re going to treat yourself with compassion and grace because you’re a human and you deserve nothing less.” (1:27:00)

For more support:

• Foundation Course
• Workshops & 1:1 sessions
• Free Guides
  All resources linked in episode notes/bio.

End of summary