Expression is who I am. I’ve hosted the Highest Self Podcast for ten years, I teach the Speak With Soul method, I created my festival, and I make music videos twerking on my motorcycle. Still, it has always felt like I can’t be in love and be fully expressed at the same time. It’s one or the other.
I’ve never been in a long-term relationship where my full expression felt understood and applauded. I always limited parts of myself because they made the person uncomfortable. Because I wanted love, I divorced myself from those parts. Then I literally got divorced and became so expressed, and now there’s a part of me that says, “I don’t want to lose her. A man won’t like her.”
In episode 679, my dear friend Alyssa Nobriga, a transformational coach, former therapist and founder of the Institute for Mastery, coaches me live through the root of this. You get to see a side of me I rarely share, because the inner work is never done. Here’s what we uncovered about the father wound in relationships, why so many of us only feel free when we’re single, and how you can meet this pattern in yourself.
Every Trigger Is a Breadcrumb Toward Freedom
Alyssa looks at anything that contracts us as a breadcrumb leading to freedom. Whether it’s love or money, single or partnered, whatever triggers you is here to free you if you use it that way.
She works at the root, because surface-level change is like Whac-A-Mole. If you never see the pattern your ego is running, one problem simply pops up somewhere else in your life.
We Attract Our Perfect Puzzle Pieces
Alyssa explains that we’re attracted to people who are the perfect puzzle piece for our wounds. Picture a hyper-independent woman who learned self-reliance because her parents couldn’t attune to her. She builds a successful company with that pattern, and attracts a partner who under-functions, maybe because he was criticized as a child and avoids action so he won’t feel inadequate. The more she takes on, the more he withdraws, which confirms her belief that she can’t rely on anyone. She thinks he’s the problem. The pattern was there before him.
Her work is to let go and trust more. His is to take action without believing imperfect action means he’s inadequate. Seeing the pattern puts you on the same team: you trigger this in me, I trigger this in you, so how do we support each other’s healing?
You can do this work single too. As Alyssa says, the thing you try to avoid, you ironically create.
The Protective Part That Ends It After Two Quiet Days
I told Alyssa what so many of my friends feel: it’s hard to find a man who puts in anything close to the effort I do. Men often show up beautifully at the start and then drop off, which reinforces the belief that it’s better to be single.
She asked who I didn’t feel met by as a child. Both parents, I said, and by far more my dad.
I know my pattern. If someone is inconsistent and doesn’t message me for a day, I think, “That’s who he is. Let me end this before I get more invested.” It has kept me out of toxic situationships. It has also kept me single for a long time, because I’m so quick to spot the red flags.
Alyssa’s reframe: that’s my protection pattern, a safety strategy. “She’s fierce. I love her. I don’t want her to go away.” That part is also exhausted, and underneath her is a vulnerability. When I tuned in, I found it: if this is how he is now, what will he be like when I’m grieving a parent or pregnant and really need him? Underneath that was the deepest fear, being emotionally unmet and having an absent partner the way I had an emotionally absent father. Physically there, emotionally missing.
Meeting My Inner Child: The Little Ballerina
Alyssa asked me to close my eyes and let an image or memory arise. I saw my dad in my childhood living room, and myself saying, “You don’t understand me.” I felt sadness and a protective “Get away from me.” Tears came: “I’m so exhausted. You’ll never get me.”
When she asked what that little girl needed, I saw myself doing ballet in a pink leotard and tutu. Dance was always my safe place, and I’ve recently come back to ballet as a practice of being with every little part of my body. Alyssa had me breathe that safety into my body and bring it into the scene with my dad, without changing anything about him.
The little girl said, “I don’t like him.” She wanted to leave and be in her girl world: pink, dancing, fairies, whimsical. She took me to a playground. Then the insight landed: she feels so much more relief being herself when he’s not around. Maybe that’s why I can only be myself when I’m single.
Alyssa gently named the playground as an escape and brought me back to the living room. In that house the little girl felt suppressed. She couldn’t be loud, dance or make a ruckus because he’d yell. Alyssa invited my adult self to protect her, let her know she gets to be fully expressed, and promise that the adult would have any conversations with him.
Opening the Aperture
Then Alyssa asked for moments when I did express myself authentically around my dad and it was safe. I remembered performing an Indian dance for my parents in their apartment. He said “Oh” and kept doing his thing. It didn’t bother him. I remembered telling him about my divorce, something I’d never normally share, and how it was a big stride in revealing the truth. I remembered our boat days, which we both loved.
Each example cracked open the belief that I need to get away to be free. I noticed it seemed like my very feminine expression wasn’t allowed, while the things he felt comfortable with were. That mirrors my relationships: I’m such a whimsical, feminine person, and I’ve felt I have to become another version of myself to connect with men.
The Patriarchal Template
Another layer surfaced. In our home, when my dad came home, everything stopped. TV off, dinner ready, everyone attuned to him until he finished and went up to his office. Then we could be ourselves again. Persian culture is very patriarchal, and Alyssa pointed out this is likely another reason a part of me resists relationship: the story that partnership means losing your freedom.
When she asked me to imagine him coming home while I kept doing my own thing, my first reaction was, “That’s so rude.” Then I saw my high school self, who had stopped being the good girl trying to get his attention and let that version of herself die. The rebellion only came once I left home, because that was safer.
How to Stay With Sadness Without Fixing It
I asked Alyssa for a tool to embrace sadness. Her answer: think of sadness as a little kid tugging on your pant leg. It’s looking for your presence. It isn’t trying to be fixed.
With emotions, most of us either indulge or avoid. Alyssa teaches allowing. Let the feeling move through your nervous system, fully up and out. It often moves in under two minutes. Real freedom is freedom to feel, rather than freedom away from feeling.
When you meet your sadness, you cultivate attunement to yourself. Then when a man doesn’t text back, the protective manager can relax, because you’re already giving your little one the attunement she needed. You don’t need to end it or manage him. You feel sourced and secure.
Is It Wisdom or Protection?
I asked how to tell when my protector is helping me make a good decision. Alyssa’s answer: if there’s anxiety and you’re trying to avoid feeling something, slow down and meet yourself. If there’s a calm knowing, like “This isn’t my person,” it’s a clean no thank you, and a good sign to move on.
I shared a real example. After two great dates, a man left the country for a month. We’d said we’d stay in touch, which to me meant daily. He went quiet for two or three days, messaged daily for a bit, then went quiet again. I went through a full breakup in my head and decided not to reply for two days. The old me would have been the child: “Hi Dad, let’s FaceTime, I have your attention.” Now my rebellious high school girl said, “Two days? I’ll take two days.” Another part said he’s not it, and my lover girl said, “But you really like him.”
Alyssa called them all protection mechanisms, and beautiful crayons in the coloring box. When you create safety for the wounded part underneath, they stop making the decisions. The anxiety comes from trying to control someone else, which is impossible.
Love Gets Awakened in You
I told Alyssa I love the soft lover-girl version of myself, and it feels like I need a man present to be her. She questioned that. Nobody ever gives you love. They evoke the love already inside you, all 31 flavors of your goodness. When you believe someone gave you love, you believe they can take it away, and that creates anxiety and pressure. When you come home to yourself mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually, people can come and go without you clinging.
When Alyssa was single for nine months, she and her best friend practiced conscious relationship on each other. Every trigger became, “That’s mine. What’s inside me looking to be resolved?” You can express the lover in you with your sisters, your friends and yourself.
The Stronger the Attraction, the Deeper the Wound
Alyssa shared that when someone feels like “the one” right away, it’s usually a sign of deeper wounding and projection. That person is often the perfect puzzle piece to show you your childhood wounds. Before meeting her husband, she healed her wounds with her mother within herself and left a three-year relationship that made no logical sense to leave. They simply weren’t puzzle pieces anymore. When she met her husband, she didn’t recognize him, because he wasn’t a template of her past. When she first started dating him, she told him it was “just for now.” Seventeen years later, it’s still now.
She sees everyone as “the one,” a soulmate teaching her how to evolve. That takes the pressure off any single relationship and lets it breathe.
Can You Be Deeply in Love and Fully Yourself?
This is the question underneath the whole episode. My first year single, when I met someone I was mildly interested in, I muted my Instagram stories from him so he wouldn’t see what I talk about on my podcast. Love and expression couldn’t go together. While writing my new book, I kept thinking, “A man is going to read all of this.” Now it’s printed, there’s no going back, and whoever I’m with will meet this version of me.
Alyssa reminded me that being fully expressed is part of my healing, and that freedom and love go together. It starts with questioning the narrative my little one concluded, meeting myself, and creating safety so I get to be free and in partnership. When the protective parts get scared, I can thank them, honor how they kept me safe, and test whether something new is available.
I’m going to meditate on what she told me: true love is expression.
About Alyssa Nobriga and the Institute for Mastery
Alyssa holds two master’s degrees in psychology, was a somatic psychotherapist, and now trains coaches, therapists and healers through her Institute for Mastery, which she says has more than 2,000 graduates. Her method works on five levels of acceptance: mental, emotional, behavioral, unconscious and somatic. She’s also clear about the line between coaching and therapy: coaching serves high-functioning people focused on what they want to create, while big-T trauma and active addiction belong with a therapist.
Listen to the Full Episode
Grab a blanket and a friend who feels things deeply, then press play on Highest Self Podcast episode 679 with Alyssa Nobriga, or listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Join Alyssa’s free Rewiring Your Beliefs Challenge and get $1,000 off enrollment plus my Speak With Soul course as a bonus at alyssanobriga.com/sahara.
I go much deeper into this in my new book, Maybe This Love Story Is Really About Me. It’s the companion I wish I’d had in my own heartbreak.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the father wound in women?
The father wound is the imprint left when a father was absent, emotionally distant, volatile or conditional in his love. In women it often shows up as hypervigilance in dating, ending things at the first sign of inconsistency, or feeling you have to shrink your expression to be loved.
Why do I only feel free when I’m single?
If you grew up feeling you could only be yourself once a parent left the room, a part of you may have concluded that freedom requires being alone. That belief can make relationships feel like a loss of self, even with a loving partner.
How do you heal the father wound?
Start with awareness of your protective patterns, then meet the vulnerable part underneath them. Inner child work, allowing sadness to move through your body, questioning the stories you formed as a child, and working with a skilled coach or therapist all help.
How do I know if my red flags are wisdom or fear?
Fear-based protection comes with anxiety and urgency. Wisdom feels calm and clear, more like a simple “no thank you.” When you feel anxious, slow down and meet yourself before deciding.
If this wound lives in you too, come tell me in the comments. For deeper support, my Ultimate Heartbreak Healing Course walks you through 31 days of healing, and you can read more on why men ghost and divine feminine energy. My new book, Maybe This Love Story Is Really About Me, shares the full story. Come home to yourself, love.