Shownotes
Zoey Charif describes how a painful breakup in her early thirties forced her to confront her lack of self-worth and the relationship patterns she had repeated for years. Growing up across continents, Zoey was no stranger to change, but this moment required a different kind of transition: an internal one. By examining her values and the beliefs guiding her choices, she began rebuilding her life in a way that finally felt aligned. Zoey and Stephanie explore self-awareness, authenticity, and the freedom that comes when you stop living by what life “should” look like and start choosing what actually fits you.
Guest Bio
Zoey Charif isn’t just redefining how we think about love — she’s providing a blueprint for it. As the author of “Love Can, In Fact, Be Calculated”, Zoey spent nearly two decades decoding the patterns of human attraction, pulling from her background in criminology, data analytics, and a relentless drive to challenge everything we’ve been taught about relationships.
Born in Afghanistan, raised in Vancouver, Canada, and now based in Orange County, California, Zoey brings a rare blend of emotional depth, analytical precision, and lived experience to her work. Her framework isn’t just theoretical, it’s coachable, actionable, and designed to help people transform how they choose, build, and sustain relationships.
Her work is a wake-up call: love isn’t magic. It’s math, psychology, and emotional mastery. Outside of the relationship space, Zoey is a powerhouse entrepreneur — the founder of Business Plans USA— helping startups and established businesses secure funding and scale with precision. Whether she’s helping people find aligned love or aligned success, Zoey’s mission is the same: to turn hope into mastery and potential into reality.
Turning 40 and recognizing the patterns keeping you stuck
Zoey Charif has spent most of her life navigating change. Born in Afghanistan and raised across multiple countries, transition has been part of her story from the beginning. But in her early thirties, after a painful breakup left her questioning her self-worth and direction, Zoey hit a personal rock bottom that forced her to look inward. Instead of continuing down the same path, she developed a framework to examine her values, rebuild her confidence, and change the patterns shaping her relationships and life. In this conversation, Zoey shares how that moment of self-reflection led to a rapid and profound shift, one that ultimately helped her create a healthier relationship, a stronger sense of identity, and a life that feels much more aligned with who she truly is.
In This Episode, We Talk About
- How a childhood filled with constant transition shaped Zoey’s resilience and adaptability, buy ultimately affected her sense of self
- The breakup in her early thirties that forced her to confront her sense of self-worth and the patterns in her relationships
- Why many of us spend our twenties and early thirties blaming external circumstances before realizing we may be part of the pattern
- How small shifts in mindset, daily habits, and environment can trigger surprisingly fast personal transformation
- Meeting her husband at a dog park and discovering the difference between dramatic relationships and peaceful ones
- Letting go of comparison and embracing an unconventional life path as she approaches 40
Self-awareness can completely change the trajectory of a life. Zoey shares how recognizing her own role in repeating relationship patterns allowed her to break those cycles and create something healthier. Along the way, she and Stephanie reflect on the broader midlife transition many people experience, the shift from external validation to internal alignment, and the surprising freedom that comes from letting go of expectations about what life “should” look like.
If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to follow the podcast, leave a rating, and share it with someone who might need to hear this conversation.
Guest Resources
Zoey’s book, “Love Can, In Fact, Be Calculated”
Connect with Zoey on Instagram
Do you have the Midlife Ick?
Download Stephanie’s guide to the Ick to diagnose whether you or someone you love is suffering from this insidious midlife malaise. www.thebigfouroh.com/ick
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Sponsor
The Big Four Oh Podcast is produced and presented by Savoir Faire Marketing/Communications
Transcripts
Stephanie: Hi Zoey. Welcome to the show.
Zoey: Hi. So nice to be here. Thank you for having me.
Stephanie: It's my pleasure and it's really so nice to have you.I am really looking forward to this conversation today because you are someone who has not yet reached the milestone birthday of 40, and yet you have had already some pretty significant transitions in your thirties. So let's dig right in and start all the way back at the beginning because your story is quite unique, in that you are, an immigrant. You have an immigrant experience. So will you go back to the beginning and tell me a little bit about the forces that shaped you into who you were when our story begins in your early thirties?
Zoey: Sure. So my story really begins when I was 32, when I hit rock bottom, but everything that led up to that, essentially I was born in Afghanistan and my parents got us out when I was just a baby. I was only 12 days old. We moved to Geneva, Switzerland. When I was two years old, we moved to Montreal, Canada. When I was six years old to Vancouver, Canada. All to say I feel like transitions is literally a part of my DNA. It seems like that's all I know right now and whether I want it or I don't want it, it's like my body on a cellular level is just ready to step into a new world.
And that's essentially been my experience my whole life. Now, when I reached 32, that's when I was a little sick of the transitions. I just need to be grounded. And I just need my life to be predictable. And I really did hit a rock bottom to the extent where I didn't know who my authentic self truly was. I didn't know what was happening with my relationships and I felt like I was failing at them.
I felt like I was failing myself in terms of how I was approaching life, my accomplishments in life, and my freedom in life. And yeah, I was 32 where something in my brain just literally clicked and said, so we need to get out of this funk, and if we are gonna transition, it's gotta be a peaceful transition, a transition of growth, not a lateral and for sure not a dip.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Zoey: So I think 32 is when I really kicked my own butt.
Stephanie: Okay. All right.
Zoey: and
Stephanie: Before we go into that, let's back up before 32, you said things were already sort of bumpy and lots of transition before that. So what did like your teens and twenties look like? Just from a big picture point of view.
Zoey: Yeah. I mean, okay. Put it this way, in terms of transitions, elementary school, I was on it. I was president of my school. I was accomplished, like a finalist three or four years in a row for, speaking competitions in French actually. Right. So I was doing really well. Now, high school was a completely different story.
I was not doing my homework and my parents, they were wrapped up in business. This business really drained every ounce of energy, of joy out of our family. And my parents were so much in survival mode that I don't know that they had enough time or awareness to be there for me in the way that I needed it.
And this is not a knock on them. They were just in survival mode. They got us out of Afghanistan. I am forever, eternally grateful. But it was a very sensitive stage in my life. So essentially I went from a high achiever to completely bottom of my class, completely. In fact, I was surprised that I even graduated from high school considering how awful I was in school.
Stephanie: Now were your parents business owners? Is that why things were in such crisis, they were trying to keep a business afloat?
Zoey: Yes. I mean, yeah, financially things were really difficult. Beyond that, like they worked together, so when they came home they brought their work home. So there was a lot of conflict and dysfunction, and a lack of love, a lack of nurturing towards themselves and each other, but also towards me and my sister.
My sister and I, we have a very different story in terms of how each of us experienced elementary school and high school. Right. Finally, we came together when we were in college. I think that's where things kind of became more aligned in our, in our experience. But she's four or five years older than me.
So when I was in high school, like let's say grade eight. And Canada Grade eight is like 13 years old, and she was 18 in grade 12, like clearly we're not gonna be aligned or matched. And also when we went home, she was highly independent. She was working, wore a closet full of clothes, whereas I couldn't do that clearly. I was too young. So yeah, it, it was not the great,
Stephanie: Yeah.
Zoey: it was not the greatest time clearly, but I obviously learned a lot from it. Twenties when I started college, that's when I gained my independence. But still, there were so many transitions after college, which was a study of criminology. I studied criminology.
I moved to Thailand for a year. Then I got the itch and I moved to Australia for a couple years and then finally I moved to Orange County where my mom was living at the time, and still is actually. so yeah, just transition after transition. And I just could not find my ground and find my peace. And again, it was in my early thirties, so I guess five, six years ago where I'm like, I'm so tired. Like my soul is so tired.
Stephanie: That's so funny. You were talking about that, and I was thinking the word in my mind was exhausted. Right.
Zoey: I was so exhausted.
Stephanie: It
Zoey: My soul felt it.
Stephanie: It sounds like your, childhood and sort of teens and twenties were the opposite I think of what a lot of us know with that stability, that consistency, that predictability. And instead, to your point, you said you were born and 12 days old, and two and six, and the transition for you was constant through that period until your early thirties when you found yourself at what you called rock bottom.
Now tell me what rock bottom looks like and what it feels like to you at that point.
o I moved to Orange County in:Stephanie: Listen, you are talking to a former party girl.
Zoey: There you go, right? We've all had our moments, right, and there's nothing wrong with it, but I do think that I may have overdone it at that time. So then, I slowed down. COVID happens and I connect with someone, and the connection with this person spiraled in a very negative way.
So I have a book out, Love Can In Fact Be Calculated. And when I was in my rock bottom, I really dived into writing it. But the epilogue of it describes that rock bottom in terms of how not only I felt about the breakup, but how I felt about myself during the breakup.
So there's this one thing that I do. I, assess self-worth numerically. There's a way to do that. My self-worth was so low in terms of how I thought I was showing up career wise, financially, socially, and all these things that I value in life, I was giving myself such a low score for each one. And that's when I'm like, oh my God, if I don't nip this in the bud right now in terms of who I allow into my life, like how healthy they are, and also boosting my own health in terms of, once again, you know, how I approach life and everything. I am going to spiral in a very negative direction. So that was my wake up call. If I don't do something about this, I'm going to hurt myself a lot.
Stephanie: All right. So tell me a little bit about how you came about quantifying these things, like where does that urge even come from? And let me, before you answer the question, let me just back up with a bit of an anecdote. I am someone who had some pretty terrible romantic relationships. I had a terrible, terrible track record until I met my husband where I finally won the game, I guess.
But in the decades before that, and I know this is reflects on me, but it was always picking the wrong people. Or you know, they had issues. Or it was very like outward looking and external looking, from my point of view. It took me a long time to realize that I was part of the equation, even though I was half of it.
How did you come about to realizing that you were part of the equation, and then starting to quantify it?
Zoey: Yeah, so this all started 20 years ago. I was cheated on by a long-term boyfriend. And I started to justhave this laser sharp focus on love and relationships and trying to understand it. I came across this one article that said that you can't fall in love with someone unless they're a match to you.
So I figured, wait, hold on. Was I a match to this guy who cheated on me? So I'm like, okay, hold on. How do you even measure a match? And that's when I figured out that the way you do that is by A, listing off your top five values, but recently I've actually extended that to top 10 values for me personally. And then for each of those values, you give yourself a score on how well you feel, you show up. And that's miracle assessment of self-love.
In my mind, I thought at the time that the goal is to see if it's a match, and it's true because the analytics are in fact confirming that the people who are currently together are a numerical match, right?
What I did not expect was to see that the people who are currently together have a high self score. If they have a low self score, they're usually getting broken up with. They're in an on and off relationship, or there's a mutual breakup happening. Those were the lower tiers of self scores. What that means is you need to have strong self-worth to engage and sustain a relationship.
And this is the first time that, from my knowledge, that we've been able to numerically validate that you can't love someone else unless you love yourself, which is a really cool thing. So now when I have people that come to me and they say, Hey, I can't find a relationship that I want, right? And why doesn't this person like me, or how can I win in the dating game? I say, forget about the other person. We need to work on you first.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Zoey: Let's figure out what your top five values are. Let's see how well you feel you show up. Beyond that, I go into personality types. I go into score distortions. I go into background, patterns and all of that. Unless that is stable and we have a clear cut understanding of what's happening with these dynamics, there's no sense in even thinking, I wanna snag that person. It's completely pointless. You need to work on yourself first.
Once you have a strong self score, then we can start to see how we can, attract the right partner. Right? Not in a way to snag per se. The right person will think that they're lucky to have you, and that's exactly what you wanna put in their minds.
In fact, the analytics show that we're not just looking for an exact numerical match. The people who were currently together viewed their partner as 4% above them, so there was admiration. So we're not just looking for, sorry, go ahead, Stephanie.
Stephanie: That's okay. I wanna go back to your story. Let's focus on you and your story. Tell me a little bit about. So you were cheated on when you were like 19 ish and you had this idea of, of matches and you decided that you were gonna create,a scoring system that would kind of equalize so that you could be consistent around this quote unquote measurement.
Now, let's jump forward to this period in your early thirties, and tell me about how you realized that you didn't have that level of self-worth. How did you come up with that? How did you uncover that?
Zoey: Yeah, I mean the way I was broken up with was pretty brutal. And I was so heartbroken. And I was just over it. Like there, there was, it was that time where it's like something in me, whether it was my angels or my own mind, my own subconscious, my survival.survival. what's that word?
The survival instinct. Thank you so much. My survival instinct was like, you need to stop and you need to snap out of it. So at that time, I was already working on this framework, so I did the self score and I was way below average. And that's when I'm like, I need to work on this because the calculations showed that I was infatuated with this person.
But why was I infatuated? Because I didn't have strong self-worth. I thought I sucked.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Zoey: Why do I think I suck? We need to work on this.
Stephanie: Well, let's dig into that. That's kind of what I wanna understand. First of all, tell me, you said you had lower self scores than average. What were you calculating average on at that point in time? Had you taken this out and had a bunch of people do this so far, at that point?
Zoey: Yes, so the surveys showed that the average self score for women is 76%. That's the average self score. I was in sixties, like low sixties, so already I knew that this is like not good. It's just not good.
Stephanie: Okay. Was that the first time you had done that though? I mean, you've been working on this for probably 10 or 12 years at this point. Did you not already have a sense that, self love, self-worth muscle was underdeveloped?
Zoey: You would think so, but I wasn't applying it to myself because I didn't have the need to work on myself. Right. I didn't realize that there was a real issue with how I was approaching life and how I was seeing myself. It's when that happened that I was just so sad that, and I just wanted to stop being sad. And I wanted to work on myself. So that's why in that point, my instinct was like, let me use this tool that I've developed.
Sad that I'm gonna have to reach that extent for me to use my own tool. But that's when I used it and that's when I got the self-awareness. You know, I need to be better. I need to be easier on myself, 'cause I was very hard on myself too. And also just work on myself.
And I applied the action plans. And it worked like literally three months later, I met my husband. I had my dog, my career boosted and bumped up. And I, little by little removed the people in my life that were not super healthy and attracted people who are healthy. And then there you go. The shift was so fast.
And we spoke about this, when we first met. There was a cellular shift, something in my brain transferred that information to each and every one of my cells and said, this is the new Zoey. This is the new me. This is what we're doing now. And the fact that first I just wrote it all out, I think that my subconscious really, truly latched onto that and transferred that info throughout my whole body to the extent where I was getting repulsed by the things that were not reflecting my values. And I'm like, no. Like hell no.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Zoey: Not going there.
Stephanie: So I'm gonna back up and just sort of point out a couple of things. So, there was a triggering event, which was this breakup, which left you sad and broken hearted and hurt. And so that was the action or that was the happening that got your attention,
Zoey:
Stephanie: and convinced you that it was time to look at your own actions and perhaps make some changes. Is that, do you think that's a fair statement?
Zoey: A hundred percent. My survival instinct literally was yelling at me. You're going to do serious damage to yourself and to your mind, and to your body if you continue.
Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah. So tell me about the three months because for a lot of people, transition is a long and drawn out affair. I know for me personally, my transition around age 40 took several years of sort of, mounting changes and those things kind of building on each other, and me seeing myself differently, and then acting differently, and then things around me changing.
So for me, it was a much more drawn out affair. But you are saying that in, in like three months, your whole life changed, which is amazing and wonderful. But tell me about the three months. What did you do during those three months that resulted in that change?
Zoey: Sure. I really think that it started with me recognizing that if I don't make changes to my mindset that I would hurt myself. It, I, it started with that. The awareness, that anchor that I had in my mind was taking away my ability to connect with people, my ability to pursue like purpose, to pursue like a healthy financial environment and situation for me.
And beyond that, my face changed like. You know, like my youth was gone in that time. I mean, I'm being serious though. In that time because I was so sad, like I was just different. My face looked different. My body looked different. The way I walked looked different. Like I was hunching. I was so, I was anchored.
And I decided in that moment that I love myself too much to see myself spiral in this way for someone who really doesn't care, by the way. Right? Like, why am I doing this?
So with the like assessment of the self score, that's how I started to boost myself. And then something in my subconscious, and I'm spiritual too, so I believe in angels. Strong believer in God. And also I got a dog. Okay? So for me, dogs, these are also spiritual helpers, and it sounds odd, but I believe that they're little angels in just pet form.
Stephanie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Furry angels. Mm-hmm.
Zoey: Yeah, I, I, exactly. Yeah, I, I know it's like a thing that people say, but I actually genuinely believe this, that there's a spiritual component to dogs, right?
So, in three months, I think all of these little things just allowed me to really shift. But keep in mind that shift is literally most likely in my DNA, 'cause of how often I experienced it in the beginning. Right? So I don't have a fear of shift and transitions, not like most people. I'm okay to leave a house, go into another, I'd be okay to leave to a different city.
I'm okay to drop people or distance myself from people who don't give me peace of mind. Right? Whereas a lot of people don't necessarily have those early experiences, so now they kind of settle for a situation, and I think that's where it becomes so hard to transition. There's a fear of the unknown, whereas I'm used to unknown.
Stephanie: Yes. I love the way you're describing that because you used a word a couple of minutes ago, you said something about you felt like there was an anchor in your mind and you were able to identify that the anchor was what was preventing you from moving forward. And it's interesting as you describe the difference between your upbringing and, like I was saying earlier, a lot of others, including my own, that were much more stable, much more predictable.
And so I think sometimes those of us who grew up in that more stable, predictable environment can end up anchored in different ways, anchored in environments, anchored in things that are comfortable. And so it's interesting because no matter where your anchor sits, if you can identify that anchor, it will help you shed it, right? You can cut the line to the anchor, and then move towards what it is that you want. So that's, I love the way you described that and I,I think that's in, that's really interesting.
Zoey: And you know, we talked about this our first time, about the cellular shift. And I described it as, it's like my cells. Each one had these little tiny little anchors and then my mind said, we're going to release these anchors and we're going to flow towards growth, towards joy, towards peace of mind. We're going to engage in healthy habits. Right? And it literally, it was like that. It was like that. But I all, once again, going back to the dog thing.
I, I really believe that Marlon, who's my Labradoodle, like I sincerely believe that he allowed me to release these spiritual anchors or like energy that was stuck in my cells, or like, whatever it is, like I, I don't understand it. I'm just human, obviously. Right? But there's something there where he un anchored me.
Stephanie: Well, the interesting thing about that is, regardless of whether you are a spiritual person and you're out in the woowoo, or whether you are a more grounded person and you believe in what you can see, feel and touch.
Zoey: Yes.
Stephanie: The thing about bringing an animal into your life, especially a dog, is that it's going to change your day-to-day life. It's going to make you do things differently. You are going to need new habits and new ways of doing things. You're going to have to go out and walk several times a day. You're going to have to think of something outside of yourself because there's another creature, another being that's relying on you.
So whether you're looking at it from the more spiritual point of view or from the more grounded point of view, the fact of this creature making a change in your life is absolutely not surprising. And you're talking about healthy changes. Well, walking two or three times a day is a healthy change right there. Like, let's just start with that.
Zoey: Exactly. And in fact, there's a lot of science behind how dogs and pets release the love hormone oxytocin, right. So to your point, it's very positive whether the spiritual stuff, you know, that's up for debate, right. But there's some science behind that animals will make you feel better as it's as simple as that.
Right. but yeah, so I really love my dog.
Stephanie: Yeah.
Zoey: literally for that. Yeah. He's my angel.
Stephanie: Yeah, for sure. It's interesting. I always thought I was a dog person growing up. We had a couple of dogs when we were kids. And, my parents, oh, were always very vocal about hating cats. And so I just thought that I was a dog person, that I hated cats. And then, in my mid thirties, my brother was living at my parents' house for a little while, and there was this stray cat that was caught in a tree. And so he rescued it outta the tree, and then it just kind of stuck around the house for a few days.
And for some reason, I don't know why, it's literally divine intervention. I, I said to my brother, it had been, I don't know, three or four, five days, I said, Hey, is that cat still around? And he is like, yeah, it is. Why? I said, I, I think, I think I'm gonna take it.And he was like, oh, okay. He didn't care. He wasn't bringing it in the house. Right. My parents weren't gonna let him do that.
So I went over on a Friday evening and he was sitting on the porch with one of his buddies. They were smoking cigars. And, I said, where's that cat? And he said, well, I don't know. She was here recently. And so I, he had named her, he had named her Tuna. And so I called her, I said Tuna because she, 'cause he fed her tuna, right.
So she came running to my feet and then I picked her up and I snuggled her. And then she wanted to get down. So she got down and she ran away out into the yard. And I called her and she came running back to my feet. And she did this like two times. And then I said, okay, well I don't know. Let's see. I'm gonna put her in the car and see what happens.
And I went to my car, I opened the door, and she jumped into the car. And I was like. And let me tell you, within days she had me wrapped around her little finger. And she was with me, I had her for 11 years, before she, she passed. And then we, I couldn't, I had this four-legged hole in my heart. So we adopted Quinnie five years ago, and he's a monster, but it's the same thing.
It's the four-legged, angel. He just loves us and we are his people. And, so I understand the bomb and the,the love that an animal can bring into your home and into your life. For sure. Even though I thought I was a dog person.
Zoey: Yeah.
Stephanie: Until two cats proved me different.
Zoey: That's such a beautiful story. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. They do something to our heart, right? We feel loved and we, and it kind of gives us purpose too. Right. And science shows that there, it's actually very healthy for the mind and for emotions too. So yeah, I totally agree. Totally agree with you.
Stephanie: Yeah. And having that something outside of you that you have to take care of. I think many times, most times, certainly in my case, and in your case, you wanna take the best care of your little friend. So as you start doing that, I think it helps you take better care of yourself.
Zoey: Yeah, absolutely. In fact, when Marlon and I, when, I'm sorry, I'm like, I'm gonna be a weird dog the dog mom now.
Stephanie: Do it. Do it. Do
Zoey: Yeah.So we go through phases. Sometimes we go through phases where we're super attached to each other. And then we go through phases where Marlon just says, what even do with me? And he goes in his cage and he's like, pouty or whatever, right?
Stephanie: It's usually related to how much attention I give him and how much I play with him, right? So if I am like, busy on my phone or busy, you know, with work, right? And whatever, like I feel like it doesn't feed our connection. Right?And then he gets a little independent. He's like, okay, screw you, mom. I'm just gonna go do my thing. Right?
Well, relationships are like gardens and they need to be tended, right? In order to have them grow and flourish. And so if he's feeling, rejected is too strong a word, but if he's feeling, overlooked by you, then it's probably the like, all right, I guess I'll go just do my own thing, right? Versus, yay, let's play. So I totally get that.
Zoey: Yeah, especially with Labradoodles. 'cause they're very loving and they're very playful and super high energy.
Stephanie: Alright, so tell me a little bit about, you identified your anchor. You took your own assessment. You identified places where you were weak, and you said, I'm gonna address this. You had already built this framework, so you knew some of the things that you had to do to address your own self-worth issues.
Tell me about meeting your husband, and how it was different than anything that had happened before.
Zoey: Sure. So we met at the dog park, actually. Marlon, my dog, met his dog, Steve. His first line to me was, which one's yours? Like, which We ended up talking for about an hour. I honestly didn't think anything of it. I was so over guys at that point. Right. And the next day I went back to the dog park and he says I was looking for him. That's his story, right? But the true story was that he was looking for me. He asked me out on a date, and he wasn't the typical person that I would date, to be honest with you. He didn't fit my typical type, but because it was a new me, I'm like Zoey, just chill, right? As in like, I wanted to get rid of these toxic patterns that I had, let's call them healed patterns that I had.
And I really truly wanted to live a life of stability. I wasn't into the transitions anymore. I just wanted predictability. And Kevin bless him, like he was predictable, in a really good way, though. What that means is he would text all the time. There were never any games. There was never any thoughts in my mind of, does he like me, does he not like me?
He was always very forward about his interest for me. Also his willingness and desire to commit to me. Besides just committing, he also wanted to be in a long-term relationship and wanted to get married. And again, although he didn't fit my type at the beginning, I should say, eventually I allowed myself to open my heart and then he did fit my type.
He was making me laugh. I enjoyed his presence.I guess the number one thing that I would say is I released fears. I released what I think is me. I released, an attachment to an identity. I released an attachment to high stimulation, that dopamine hit, that going out, going to bars and blah, blah, blah.
Right? And the ups and downs of relationships that are really dramatic, to be honest with you. I released all that crap. And I allowed myself to step into something that brings me peace. It's not like it was instant joy. It's not like it was the spike of joy or the spike of I'm so in love. It was peaceful.
And that's what at that time, I needed in my life.
Stephanie: Yeah, I can relate to some of that as well. when I met my husband, I had finally identified that I had this long and not so distinguished track record of all these terrible relationships. And I had finally come to the understanding that I had played a part in all of it, whether it was just the choosing them, or the staying with them or, you know, whatever it was.
So when I met my husband, I knew he was different. I knew he was different. So I said to myself, I remember standing in the front window of my condominium and saying, alright, Steph,let's try something different this time. Whatever I normally do, I'm going to do the opposite of. If I want to call him, I'm not gonna call him. If I want to text him, I'm not gonna text him. I'm just going to try and achieve a different result by changing my actions, by doing the opposite of what I normally do. And it worked and, you know, it, it worked for me because again, I was doing something different. I had identified an issue and I was trying to do something different.
And and it's funny too, 'cause about, I don't know, six or seven months in, my husband said something to the effect of like, you know, wow, you were pretty intense at the beginning. I thought, oh my God, could you imagine if I had unleashed myself upon you, like, I really wanted to? Like imagine what would've happened.
But, obviously everything, worked out great and we are a great match. It's identifying those patterns that are preventing you from achieving the life that you want for yourself.
Zoey: Totally, totally. Sometimes it's okay to shed the identity you think you should have, right? Or an environment.
I think for a long time I was a little insecure about these transitions that I was going through. And over time I just accepted that it's who I am. I'm constantly growing. If you look at my life every three years, it's like I've just leveled up, right?
So a part of that is tough for me. And I'll give you an example. At my wedding, so Kevin, born and raised in SoCal, right? Went to college here. Big family here, right? With me, I'm from Vancouver, Canada. And I transitioned so much from Thailand to Australia. And then even here, there were several transitions, right from introvert to, you know, bar scene, to a whatever. My family is all over the world too.
Stephanie: So when the wedding time happened, it was really hard to just see the difference between what he was bringing and what I was bringing, and that's one of the times where I felt fearful that these transitions that I was going through were not good for me and that, you know, maybe I messed up in life. And maybe I don't have substance in life. And maybe so I, it was actually very heartbreaking. Like in, in a lot of ways it was heartbreaking. How old were you when you got married? You met him when you were about 33. How old were you?
Zoey: I was 33 and I was 35 when we got married.
Stephanie: You were 35, when you got married.
Okay.
Zoey: So two years ago.
So now two years later. I would say probably six months ago is when I finally started to shed this idea that I needed my life and my environment to reflect his environment. Our lives are completely different. I was born in Afghanistan, we were refugees.
God, my life has just a massive shit show of just transitions. You know what I mean? So I allowed myself to accept that, and I allowed myself to be okay with that. And I also allowed myself to not be fearful that I am now going through another transition. So for the last six months, I've been going through a transition. Now the transition is landing again. It's just, and it's just one of those things where it's like, but if I didn't transition, then I would be stuck there. Do I really wanna be stuck there? And I'm thinking no. Like literally no, not at all.
Stephanie: Right.
Zoey: This word transition, there's so much fear attached to it, but the reality is that once you land on the other side, so much better. And that's your true authenticity. That's where your soul wants to be. That's where your cells wanna be. That's where your mind wants to be, where your physical body wants to be. It's like, just allow that to happen, right? yeah. The,
Stephanie: My experience too is because my life, resisted a lot of transition. And resisting transition can actually make a bigger mess than just going with it. Trust me, when I tell you, you know, there was in my mid to late thirties, there was a job that wasn't going well, that I wouldn't acknowledge that it wasn't going well because that meant that I would be a failure and not that the job wasn't the right fit, or it wasn't, the right place for me, or that there weren't, three dozen other jobs that I could be great at. So instead of acknowledging the situation, and shifting into a place that felt better for me, I just hung on really, really, really tight until things just got worse and worse and worse and worse.
And that job ended, and leaving me kind of, at loose ends. So, you know, not transitioning, not shifting, not moving forward, not changing, can actually be harder than moving with the flow of life, which is about change and about moving forward.
One of the things I heard you say though, and this is interesting because one of the consistent themes about the transition that we go through sometime around our 40th birthday, is that we stop putting so much weight and value on other people's opinions, on other people's ideas. And a lot of times that comes wrapped in the word should, right? I should do this, I should do that. And we keep ourselves anchored with the word should.
And when you tell me this story of sadness about what your life looked like and what you brought to the table, to your marriage, it makes me sad because you, I'm interpreting you as putting the should filter over your own self by saying, my life should look like this incredibly stable life in Southern California for the last 30 something years, instead of this absolutely magical mixture of adventure and all the things that you did from the time you were born.
Zoey: And so, yeah, tell me a little bit about the word should. That's exactly it. I think, when we got married, that six month period where we were planning, there were so many, oh my God, I should. You know, whether it was family or guest list or like whatever, and I'm, I've, yeah, I started to doubt my own experiences.
Stephanie: And to your point, knock on wood, I've seen so much. I've experienced so much. Why would that, why would I let that go to match someone else's lifestyle where they were, you know, born and raised in SoCal? There's nothing wrong with that. Clearly there are a lot of positive things to that. But I guess it was just A, self-judgment, B, a fear of being criticized, C, a perception, not the truth. It was just a perception of imbalance, of love that he had versus love that I had. But the reality is that I've been loved my whole life, but that love has transitioned a lot. Well, if you wanna measure the love, his love,the love that he has been blessed by is all in Southern California.
Zoey: And the love that you've been blessed by is literally all the way around the planet. So of course yours would be spread out and his would be concentrated. When you can say it out loud like that, it makes sense. But I can see how, that time before you get married is, destabilizing because we're in a period of change. We're staring down the nose of, you know, attaching ourselves to someone and changing our lives. And so I can imagine that in that destabilization you might have been comparing and despairing a little bit.
I think that's exactly what it was. I was comparing and despairing. And again, like that stayed with me for a while.
Stephanie: How'd you shake it off?
Zoey: with you. So it happened six months ago when I managed to shake it off. I'm actually currently going through a little transition, which will become more clear in about six months. That's when I'll make the transitions a bit more public. But it was about six months ago. And that's when I realized that I had attached a so-called identity or who I needed to be. I felt like I needed to attach an identity. And the reality is that that was not my identity.
Stephanie: So eventually, about six months ago, I went back into authenticity. And by authenticity I started to reevaluate who I truly am, who I want to be. And I started working on that rather than thinking that I needed to match what my partner is and who he is. So I think my individuality just started becoming more prioritized and at the forefront. And I'll be honest with you, since I started doing this, I've started taking way better care of my health, of my work, of my social friendships.
Zoey: I started finally pivoting to the people I wanna be around, not the people that I think I need to be around. I think it came down to just me choosing not to compromise on who I feel I need to be. And that allowed me to transition into someone I want to be. Like, I feel so much more authentic now. And I'm coming close to 40 and I'm so excited for 40 because now I'm, I feel like I'm going into it literally who I want to be. Whereas in my whole life, I don't know that I had that level of freedom. Right. And I was always kind of stuck or anchored in some way, whether it was insecurities or true, like environmental factors. Right. And I don't feel that way right now.
Stephanie: That's great. Yeah. So by the time this episode, comes out, you will have recently turned 39. So tell me a little bit about what 40 means to you.
Zoey: I am so excited. I'm genuinely so excited. I feel like I just know myself a lot more and I feel like I'm making decisions, that fit me. And you know, Kevin understands that I need this, right? He understands that I just need to be me. So I don't know what else to say other than I am excited.
I'm already, for the last six months have watched myself shape into someone that, when I was a kid, I'd be like, I wanna grow up to be like her. I'm watching myself become that.
Stephanie: That's wonderful. Zoey, I think that's such a perfect place to, to stop today. I'm sure we could keep going and keep talking, but I love, I love the fact that you've grown into the person that you've always wanted to be and you're looking forward with joy and excitement. That's all we can ask for.
So I, I think you've done it.
Zoey: Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. This was such a great chat. Very wholesome.
Stephanie: Yeah, it was, it was.
