What Shapes the Way We Love? — Dr. Sara Nasserzadeh
What if the way you love was shaped long before you ever chose a partner?
Dr. Sara Nasserzadeh has spent more than two decades studying how people love across cultures, languages, and continents. A social psychologist, psychosexual therapist, author of Love by Design, and creator of the Emergent Love model, her research with couples across 41 countries asks what actually helps love thrive.
In this episode, Robin and Sara explore the blueprints for love we inherit from our families, cultures, language, and earliest experiences—and how those invisible influences shape what we expect, accept, desire, and believe we deserve in relationships. They talk about why two people can say “I love you” while meaning entirely different things, whether romantic love can truly be unconditional, and why we may be asking one relationship to give us more than it possibly can.
Together, they challenge the idea that love is something we simply find, fall into, or either have or don’t have. Instead, Sara invites us to look at what actually creates love between two people: trust, respect, compassion, intentionality, and the everyday ways we relate to one another. They also explore the difference between knowing about relationships and actually becoming fluent in them—and why, in a world increasingly designed for comfort and convenience, practising human connection may matter more than ever.
This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. When life feels overwhelming, therapy can help. Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com/loveready.
IN THIS EPISODE
(00:04:14) Our Earliest Blueprints for Love
(00:05:34) How Culture & Language Shape Love
(00:11:18) Is Love Really Unconditional?
(00:17:16) How Culture Teaches Us to Relate
(00:21:04) Why Relationship Education Is a Human Right
(00:29:31) What Is Universal About Love?
(00:31:23) Deconstructing What We Believe About Love
(00:34:05) Which Cultures Get Love Right?
(00:36:24) Are We Asking Too Much From Our Relationships?
(00:41:25) Emergent Love: When One Plus One Equals Three
(00:43:47) AI, Comfort & the Future of Relationships
(00:48:11) Relational Literacy vs. Relational Fluency
(00:52:52) What Sara Had to Unlearn About Love
(00:57:48) Being in Love vs. Practising Love
(01:01:49) Knowing About Love vs. Actually Living It
(01:07:45) What 41 Countries Taught Sara About Love
(01:10:07) The Myth About Love We Need to Unlearn
(01:10:53) What Is Love?
QUOTES
“When you have clarity of mind and peace of heart, you have arrived.” — Dr. Sara Nasserzadeh
“Where you are born shapes the way you love—the rituals, the language, the expectations.” — Robin Ducharme
“The ingredients for loving relationships are the same no matter what.” — Dr. Sara Nasserzadeh
“It is about the little things. It’s how we treat each other in the day to day. The little details matter.” — Robin Ducharme
“We all carry different meanings packed into that word. I say, ‘I love you,’ you say, ‘I love you’ back—but do we exchange the same expectations and rules of engagement within that one specific word? We don’t.” — Dr. Sara Nasserzadeh
“You don’t fall out of love; you fall out of loving.” — Robin Ducharme
GET THE REAL LOVE READY BOOK
Real Love Ready: A Guide to Relational Literacy is a clear, compassionate guide to the knowledge, skills, and daily practices that help us love with greater intention, truth, and heart.
https://geni.us/RealLoveReadyBook
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