Sacrifice The Right Things In A Relationship (Sacrifice Old Beliefs, Fears, and Dopamine

Women in their 30s, 40s, and beyond fall into toxic relationship cycles shaped by people-pleasing, anxious attachment, generational trauma, and self-sacrifice. They shrink themselves, mute their needs, and sacrifice their worth in an attempt to maintain peace or avoid rejection—only to end up with resentment, eroded self-esteem, and unfulfilling partnerships.

Dr. Sarah explains why traditional sacrifice is not the answer—and introduces a powerful reframe: sacrifice is not about losing yourself, but about letting go of comfort to step into long-term alignment with your authentic self.

Key takeaways from this episode:

• The difference between unhealthy self-sacrifice that destroys attraction, respect, and self-worth vs. healthy sacrifice that fuels growth and alignment
• Why you must sacrifice the fear of rejection to be fully authentic and attract love built on honesty
• How to sacrifice instant gratification (toxic relationship patterns, trauma bonds, and dopamine-driven attention-seeking) in order to protect your long-term self-respect and emotional health
• The importance of sacrificing old core beliefs and subconscious programs that keep you trapped in cycles of self-doubt, self-criticism, and unhealthy relationships
• How strategies like somatic therapy, hypnosis, breathwork, and nervous system reprogramming can help shift deep patterns and unlock true relational freedom

The paradox of love? The less you sacrifice your authentic self, the more love thrives. By making the right type of sacrifice, you preserve your self-worth, raise your standards, and naturally attract the right partner—someone who loves the real, unedited you.

Toxic relationship cycles, self-worth in relationships, anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, people-pleasing in relationships, fear of rejection, instant gratification in relationships, trauma bonds, generational trauma, subconscious reprogramming, somatic therapy, breathwork healing, hypnosis for relationships, building secure attachment, finding the right partner, healthy sacrifice in relationships, self-sabotage in dating.

Transcript

0:01

Hello and welcome back. I am Dr. Sarah Award-winning relationship psychologist, helping high achieving women and toxic relationship cycles so they can build self-worth. Let's get to it. What is the right type of sacrifice? This is a question I face so much by clients I work with and people who just reach out to me. And unfortunately many women, especially when they are in their thirties, their forties. Or even beyond. They struggle with this idea of sacrifice and they believe that they have sacrificed so much. And I would say women at large sacrifice so much of themselves. They are constantly giving, they are constantly people pleasing. They are constantly prioritizing everybody else under the sun, including their partner, including their kids, including their staff members, including their colleagues, every single person and. Somewhere down the line, they find their name at the bottom of the list, and that's when they then prioritize themselves. But ultimately, they have built a life where they have been geared to sacrifice themselves. And unfortunately, this can be a generational issue in the sense that if your mum was sacrificing herself and her mum was sacrificing herself and her mum was sacrificing herself, and it just goes on. Then chances are that generational trauma would have bled down the line. And guess what? It ends up landing with you and you also learn to sacrifice yourself, and you're sacrificing yourself for the greater good. But actually the greater good is really unclear. It is not too obvious what that even entails or how it is even benefiting you. But here's the question I. What is the right type of sacrifice? Because I would argue sacrifice is necessary, but we have to be really selective as to what it is that we are sacrificing, how we go about sacrifice and actually what are the right things to sacrifice. Because here's the landscape at the moment, and this is true if you have an anxious attachment style, if you have constantly been giving yourself to other people, if you have constantly tried to keep the peace around you, but never keeping the peace in you, if you have constantly been pleasing every single person, if you are constantly shrinking yourself in order to make other people beg, but also if you are walking on eggshells. And you are really muting yourself. You are really editing yourself in order to please the other person and make sure that other people are okay with you, especially your partner being okay with you, then you are ultimately sacrificing your soul. And for what most people believe that they are sacrificing themselves in order to keep someone. But also what happens is that they actually start sacrificing their worth. They start sacrificing their time, they start sacrificing their standards. And even though it might feel noble at first. But actually it erodes you from the inside out and it reduces attraction, it reduces respect, it reduces happiness, and you end up being filled with resentment. But I did say there is some form of sacrifice that you should be doing, and. There is the right type of sacrifice, and this is really going to be a mindset shift for you. It's really going to be a paradigm shift for you, and I want you to consider this. Sacrifice is not necessarily about losing yourself, but it's about losing comfort in order for you to get long-term alignment. I'm gonna repeat that. Sacrifice is not about losing yourself, but it's about losing comfort in the short term. So in the long term, you can be aligned to your greater truth. What am I talking about? Well, really it's sacrificing the things that are keeping you stuck so that you can really start to step into the greater you. I am going to solidify this into three primary examples, and these are examples of people that I see day in, day out, and these are essentially fears that people are experiencing, and we need to sacrifice a lot of these fears so that we can actually step into a better version of ourselves, number one. We need to start sacrificing our fear of rejection because many of us, particularly if we have worked so hard to please other people, if we've worked so hard to prove our worth to somebody in order to get attention, to get love, to get admiration, there is a fear of rejection. And so we are constantly on the ster wheel doing more pleasing, more shrinking ourselves so that we don't get rejected, but. How about we sacrifice the risk of rejection? How about we sacrifice the fear of rejection? Because the more that we sacrifice the fear of rejection, the more that we have to be radically honest with ourselves. The reason why we are fearing rejection is because ultimately we are wanting to be accepted. Authentically as we are without any changes, without being edited. But unfortunately we can never really be accepted if we're constantly trying to escape. Being rejected because we don't really know if we're being accepted just the way that we are or if we're simply just avoiding rejection and we're entering this plateau phase and we don't even know if we are being accepted for who we really are or if we're being accepted for this curated version of ourselves. So. What would it be like for you to actually start sacrificing the fear of being rejected and being radically honest with yourself? That will mean that you will lose some people in your life. Some people will walk away from you, some people will not be happy with you, and that is perfectly okay. It is scary. It is uncomfortable. But the more that we shed, the more that we are able to really step into our authentic selves, and we are really able to step into this space where we know we are being accepted by the people who want to see our unedited version, our authentic version. And that is the ultimate goal that would be the right sacrifice, is sacrificing the fear of rejection. The second sacrifice is sacrificing instant gratification and the way that the brain has worked. We are hardwired to seek out dopamine. And dopamine is the thing that gives us that instant hit of gratification, that feel good sensation, and it is quick and it is addictive, and we get that when we get the text that we've been waiting for. We get that when we get the compliment, when we get the desire, when we get catcalled, when we get. Any form of attention that feels really good and really exciting and desirable. That is when we get the dopamine hit. But guess what? The more that we get that, the more that we enter this realm of seeking instant gratification. And by the way, if you've been trauma bonded, and if you are trying to end that harmful cycle with somebody, but all of a sudden that person shows you a lot of attention, or they show you a lot of affection, they show you a lot of care, they suddenly show you their vulnerability and that they're wanting to recreate something with you without really doing the long-term hard work. Then we are entering the realm of getting instant gratification, and I see this a lot with people who are trying to. Cut contact with certain individuals, but they can't help but search this person online, on social media, on Facebook, on Instagram, whatever it might be, and they're trying to keep tracks or they're constantly looking at their phone and they're instantly responding to that person, even though they know that it's a really unhealthy relationship or dynamic and they don't want to enter it again, but. They are doing that, they are engaging in that because there is instant gratification and. We need to start sacrificing instant gratification. We actually need to start implementing discipline because guess what? The more disciplined you are, the more disciplined you are in your own healing, in your own practice of wellness, the more disciplined you are towards yourself and maintaining your self respect. That is the thing that is really going to help you in the long term. That is the thing that is really going to change the narrative that you have with yourself, the voice that you talk to yourself with so that you can maintain self-respect in the long term, and that is the thing that is going to fuel your self-worth as opposed to instant gratification. So we need to sacrifice that instant gratification. Where even though it might feel good in the moment, you are depreciating your self-worth. You are depreciating your standards and what it is that you're expecting for yourself. So that we can get better, so that we can have a relationship where you are fully accepted, the way that you are, where you are admired, and you are receiving affection every single day, just the way it should be. And number three, E, we need to start sacrificing old core beliefs. All of us have programs that operate inside of us, kind of like a computer database in the background, the Goldie go, that we don't really see in what happens in a computer. There are so many codes that enable the computer to run it in a particular way, and we have codes as well. These codes are in our subconscious mind. These codes are programmed in our nervous system, and these codes ultimately set the story. For how good enough we are, how we should interact with other people, how we should let other people interact with us and treat us, but also what it is that we would expect for our future. These programs, these core beliefs are constantly running in the background and they influence how good enough we feel. And as much as we consciously may start to question that, and we may consciously negotiate with ourselves and rationalize, well, I'm good enough just as much as everybody else, but unconsciously, if you are really not convinced, if previously, historically, you have had painful experiences that were trauma based where you felt like you weren't good enough. Well, guess what? It is going to influence your core beliefs about yourself. It is going to influence the beliefs that you have about how other people would treat you and should treat you and how you should respond. The reason being is that the brain is always looking for a fast track way of being able to get through life. The brain is constantly. Bombarded with so much data that it needs to look for something that is super efficient. And the way that it does its efficiency is by seeing what is happening in front of us, going in the backlog of its database and saying, oh, I've had something familiar to this. I've, I've experienced this before. I know what's going on. I'll take over. This is our subconscious. I'll take over and I will be able to run the show. And when that happens. Then consciously, we are unaware. We are totally oblivious of what is going on. We are totally oblivious. We don't even see how it is that we view our self-worth. We don't even see how it is that the other person's treating us, but we are just running on autopilot and our subconscious mind governs 95% of our actions, the way that we treat ourselves, the way that we talk to ourselves. And guess what? All of those self-critical thoughts that you have, they are all run by subconscious programming and also even the partner that we choose. Everything is subconsciously driven. And if that's the case, and if we have got a lot of negative old programs in the background, we are going to need to start self sacrificing those old programs because those old programs are keeping you trapped. But unfortunately. We hold onto them, we hold onto them because we're too scared to change them. We're too scared to let go of them. The reason why we hold onto them is because the brain and the nervous system has figured out that actually if I hold onto this and if I figured out how to survive it before. This is really helpful information for me because I can survive it again and I can survive it again and again and again. So I really need to hold onto the program of this trauma and this is how I survive. So in case if it happens, again, I know what the script is, but guess what? The way that you operated previously is not necessarily what is going to serve you in the long term. It is not necessarily the thing that is going to allow you to break out of your shackles so that you can grow and evolve. It is not going to be the program that will enable you to have a healthier relationship with yourself, that you are able to speak to yourself kindly, that you are able to raise the bar for yourself and for your relationships. It is not going to enable you to support those boundaries that you are trying to implement. It is not going to enable you to have that loving relationship that you are looking for. Or because you are running on a backlog of really negative core beliefs that are just constantly churning and you are holding onto them, and as much as you are trying to reprogram it yourself from a conscious level. It is incredibly hard, but this is something that can absolutely be done and there are so many different strategies that we go into deep, into the subconscious, into the nervous system, so that we can start shifting some of these messages. Some of it is through hypnosis. Some of it is through somatic work. Some of it is through breath work. Some of it is through regressional work and spotting therapy. But all of these things are techniques that need to be done by somebody who is skilled, who is able to tunnel down. And it's certainly through that, that you are able to sacrifice those old programs so that you can step into your more authentic self to your growth self. And that is the payoff for the right sacrifice that actually, if you are sacrificing the right thing. You then open up the doors to abundance. You open up the doors to a stronger you, to a healthier you, to a you that has higher standards and you become magnetic in terms of your energy. And here's the paradox. The less that you sacrifice of yourself, the more that love thrives the traditional method of sacrificing yourself in order to. Have somebody in order to maintain a relationship, in order to get people drawn to you, that traditional method, you are not going to be loved just the way that you are. You are at best going to be loved for the mask that you are creating, and it's the mask that is being loved, not you at your core. But actually the more that you do the right type of sacrifices, the less that you are sacrificing your being, but you're actually preserving your being. And that is when love really does grow and it grows from a sincere and genuine place. And that is a thing that is really going to start attracting the right type of partner. So if you're wanting to be lucky in love, it is not about giving more of you away, but it's actually more about protecting yourself. If any of this has resonated with you, please get in touch and if you've enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or a family member because I bet you that one of them will do too. Until next time, take care of yourself.