Esther Perel
Appearances
Criminal
Into the Vault
Hello, I'm Esther Perel, psychotherapist and host of the podcast Where Should We Begin, which delves into the multiple layers of relationships, mostly romantic. But in this special series, I focus on our relationships with our colleagues, business partners and managers. Listen in as I talk to co-workers facing their own challenges with one another and get the real work done.
Criminal
Into the Vault
Tune into How's Work, a special series from Where Should We Begin, sponsored by Klaviyo.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
It's the closing of the prefrontal cortex. Pretty much.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
But they have a challenge. You see, when you grow up together, you often put a lot of energy into the building of the unit, right? And that unit then is supposed to become your base, your scaffolding from which two individuals can begin to grow and to define themselves.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
When you meet later, you are already two individuals that have defined themselves who now have to find a way to create the energy to come together. So it's a different movement. It's a different choreography. I think that the challenge for young couples today who meet early in college and have known often only themselves and a few people in their teenage years, et cetera, or none,
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
is what happens when they begin to change individually. Can the relationship expand enough to broaden the envelope, to let these two people emerge individually, or is the jacket too tight? Is the vest too tight? And often it becomes a bit of a crisis, because they grew together on the basis of this togetherness.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
Um, and sometimes they can, and sometimes it just feels like, is this that in order to become adults, it may need to happen with a different partner. And that's why I always say, I think this moment we have two or three relationships or marriages in our adult lives in the West. And some of us will do it with the same person, but the relationship has to change.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
It's like the person changes the relationship, but the relationship makes room for the person to change. This is dynamic.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
That's absolutely correct.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
Well, his last stage is the generative stage. It's actually an amazing, I mean, he's the most articulate theoretician of stages of life.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
A good metaphor is rooted in science.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
You know, a good question is a question that has many answers. There's different ways to answer this. I think that more than thinking about it as they were able to overcome crises, it's really the ability to redefine oneself and to redefine a relationship. It's much more creative than problem solving. You can overcome a crisis and put it aside and stay the same.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
this is much more of a generative experience, it's a creative experience, is that you actually become a different unit. The power dynamic is different. The interdependence is different. The erotic charge is different. The connection to the outside world is different. It's really, it's enlivening.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
You know, I think everybody understands the difference between a relationship that is not dead and a relationship that is alive. I am not there to help people survive. My work is about more than that. It's about helping people to feel alive. And the redefinition of having the same relationship with the same person, it has to be alive, not just not dead.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And if sometimes that alive means recreating a new, you know, going to a new person, a new country, a new city, a new social circle, a new profession, a lot of things that we today have access to change, things that people did once. You know, when I ask an audience,
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
If your grandparents grew up in the same neighborhood or in the same town and worked in the same company, I mean, most people raised their hands. And then I go down the generations, and then now it's like, how many of you have had three jobs in the last five years? So this notion that we can...
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
create new things for ourselves is actually one of the greatest things that has happened in the realm of relationships. We can have kids much later. We can join somebody who has already had those children. We can marry in our 60s for the first time. We can live in a threesome. There's a plasticity, if you want to use a word, to the world of relationship today.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
that is extremely rich and expansive, but demands a set of skills to negotiate, to understand the uncertainty that comes from having to make so many decisions. At the time, in the past, none of us made decisions about most of these things. They were handed down to us. So that level of freedom is utterly rich, but comes with a tremendous amount of anxiety and demands maturity.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And sometimes couples have become so entrenched and so locked in their story and confusing their story with the truth and feeling that they're living next to someone who has a completely different version of the story that they cannot talk to.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
Like there is no greater polarization sometimes than a couple that once agreed on a lot of things that you just think there's no way change can enter this system.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
I think you almost articulated one of the most important pieces of my work. I mean, curiosity is one of the top words for me because it stands in opposition to reactivity. Reactivity reinforces the cycle. It just creates narrow repetition, rapid cycles of escalation. It usually involves defense and attack and blame, et cetera. Curiosity is an active engagement with the unknown.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And I like when you say without the attachment to the outcome or the emotional investment, I think that's absolutely accurate. And much of what I do is try to have people switch from reactive to curious. But that curiosity means that they're willing to enter empathically and respectfully into the realm of another person whose narrative is completely different.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
I'm very invested and familiar with the neurosciences and the whole work on the brain in relationships, but I am very interested in narrative because I believe that the story shapes the experience. And when people hold on to the story and they don't think it's a story, they think it's fact. This is what happened last night. I'll tell you what you did. I'll tell you what happened.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
That's not the case. And they don't see this as a subjective rendering. It's totally valid, but it's valid as your experience. And much of couples' conversations is pseudo-factual talk, but it is actually subjective. Once you get that, you can become curious. Once you are curious, you open up.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
But it is very challenging when people are hurt, wounded, defensive, holding tight to invite that curiosity. It's what's happening in their bodies. is about shutdown and defense and self-protection.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And you want, I'm doing this physically to you because this is where the brain and the neurobiology in that moment is going against what actually is in their best interest psychologically and existentially.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
You know, I have gone to a lot of meetings in the last year on issues of polarization on societal levels. And I often think, like, what is a psychologist or a couple therapist doing in those meetings? Why am I invited here? And then I think, you know what? You actually have a lot of experience with polarizations. Sitting for a long time with couples who once actually...
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
thought in the presence of the other, I discover myself now, you know, can be so at odds. They're sitting in the same room. They're listening to the same session. They have a complete different interpretation of what I said and what it meant. And they leave and you wonder, did it happen in the same room? And the same thing is about what they describe about the night before.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
It's like, and if you didn't see them together and you saw them each alone, you would be completely mistaken. Because it's like Swiss cheese. Everything that one has left out is where the other one starts. So...
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
We learn a lot from doing couples work around the process of polarization, around the process of intractable conflict, around the sense that you are my enemy and there is nothing in what you say that I can recognize or be empathic towards or understanding. I think on a societal level, the people who have studied intractable conflict
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
basically have a method of how you bring two opposing parties, factions, tribes, you know, who have been in conflict and at war for a long time and how you bring them together. There is... There's actually a method, a process. It's not written in stone, but you certainly don't start by talking about the things that drive you completely apart and unable to talk to each other.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
You start by finding some elements of your shared humanity. In a couple, because that is the space we talk about now, in a couple, it's an incredible thing how people can literally think that the other person wants their demise. You live day in, day out with someone who you really think wants to hurt you, is your enemy. And sometimes there is evil. There's people who don't have good intentions.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
But in many situations, it's... It's also a projection. It's also experiences that you've had in the past. And this is where what's interesting is that the narrative, the conscious narrative, lives here. And what you call the brain that can only locate itself in three temporal, and the brain and the physiology are in a different time. Implicit memory is completely influencing explicit narrative.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
If I feel it, this is what's happening. That's right. And because we are creatures of meaning, we need to reconcile those things and we need coherence in our narratives. And that coherence is what is so difficult when you work with people who are, what is it that they're holding on to? I mean, one of the classic examples is someone says, I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And the other one says, that's not the case. Like if someone tells you, I didn't mean to hurt you, you would think that someone would say, ah, that's reassuring. I like to hear that. I hope that's true. Makes me feel a lot better. Rather than proving to you that that's not true. You wanted to step on my toes. You intentionally put those heels on or those shoes or those fists to step on me. And
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
That coherence of maintaining the idea that if I feel that you hurt me, you must have been wanting to hurt me rather than, you know, I can be hurt and that doesn't mean you intentionally were trying to do anything. It's as if I need to justify my being hurt by the intention of what you did. And to just make sure sometimes that's the case.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
It's not that there are people who intentionally want to hurt some people. But at other times, what I'm highlighting is that the coherence to make sense of why I'm feeling this way demands that I also define what you are trying to do to me.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
That's because your apology I screwed up is incomplete. Most of the time, people say that I made a mistake. I'm sorry. But it doesn't acknowledge what the other person felt in response to what we did.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
You've apologized many times.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
I think apology is an amazing topic in the realm of relationship. It's a huge piece. Apology, forgiveness, ownership, responsibility, accountability, that whole range of things. I think if you give that apology many times somebody, and it's not that you're doing this every Tuesday, the person will probably just say, thank you.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
If you have someone who can't receive an apology and the apology is sincere, that's the first and foremost thing that accompanies an apology. Then you begin to ask, why is this person struggling to receive this? Because it is the thing that you should be getting. And then you start to ask yourself. Is it because if I accept your apology, it's as if I agree that what you did wasn't so bad?
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
It is repairable. And in order to really make clear that the grievance is big, I cannot receive your apology. That's one of the dynamics that often occurs in that moment. And so you ask sometimes, you know, you sit and you see, you see somebody who pretends to say, I'm sorry. You see somebody who just says, come on, what's the big deal? And then you see people who really are sincere.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And then you watch what's happening to the other person. Are they relieved? Are they suspicious? Are they feeling like they would dissolve a certain element of their identity if they don't hold on to this? Is it as if they're saying, you know, you can get away with it? You know, it's not as bad because accepting the apology is to minimize the issue.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And then you switch the burden on the other side. You know, in Judaism, you apologize three times. And if after the third time, and you've done a real reckoning apology, if after three times the other person does not accept it, the burden passes over to the other person.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
This is my money desk. And I think it's an incredibly interesting idea that at some point, the person has made the amends when they have. And when you cannot receive it, then now the burden passes on you.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And by the way, accepting the apology doesn't yet mean that you forgive. Forgive is your freedom. You decide at what point you do it, and you may do it alone. It's not always a dyadic experience. Apology is a dyadic experience, but forgiveness is freedom.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
I love this topic because it's really so many things happen underneath. You know, there's issues of shame around apology. What's the difference between shame and responsibility? What is the capacity of a person to have real distress rather than empathic distress? Real empathy rather than empathic distress. So it's a portal into a lot of things. There are people who can never apologize.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
Shame. I think a lot of that piece is around shame. Because self-esteem, as my friend Terry Reel says, is your ability to see yourself as a flawed individual and still hold yourself in high regard. When you admit you're flawed, it means there's something wrong with you. Then it's very hard to say, I'm sorry. This is the essence.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
How do you see yourself as imperfect, flawed, but you still respect yourself and you hold yourself in high regard. If you can do those two things, you can apologize very easily.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
First of all, I like that it's interesting we're going from apology to conflict. It makes total sense. I spent the last year creating a whole course on conflict and how do you turn conflict into connection? Beautiful. What is good conflict? You know, I think conflict is inherent to relationships. And then what are problematic ways to deal with conflict? Yes, on some level...
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
there is very little you can hear if you are in a state of hyperarousal. If you are in a position of self-protection, I mean, all these stressful places, all these cortisol levels going up, et cetera, are not gonna help you. But at the same time, you can't, in the moment that someone is completely agitated, talk with them about trusting. It's just like the physiology is not corresponding.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
So it's a real dance. I don't do the breath often, sometimes. I actually don't do anything all the time. I am working like a tailor. I do fittings. I mean, I think the richness of therapy is in its art on some level, maybe. But sometimes I just say, I think you need to stand up and move and just listen to what your partner has to say, but don't sit. Sometimes I say, don't look at each other.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
Sometimes I say, turn to each other. Some things are better done face to face and some things are better done side by side. You know, parallel play, fishing. There's a lot of, like, you know, driving. Every parent who's ever had a kid in the back knows this. You don't... You have both.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
You have moments when you need to be able to look into each other, and then there are moments where you just need to do something about the side by side. Then it's also the limits of words. When is it important to talk? And when we're talking because we are homo sapiens, but in fact, if we were animals, we would be just making noises. We're not really making sense. So stop talking.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
What I try very hard to do is to not let people show the worst side of themselves. They can do that at home. They don't need to come and shame themselves in my office. And I do know that certain situations will draw the worst out of people, but that doesn't mean that that's who they are. And that's one of the big things as a therapist is to not fall for that.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
Because if you met these people alone, they would be charming. And if you had met them maybe two years before, they would have been charming too. So something's happening between them that is making them act and react from places of deep hurt and fear and attack and all of that and aggression. And sometimes I see them alone.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
I don't think that you are capable of having this conversation at this moment because you're not willing to take any responsibility when you're sitting next to your partner. You're in a blame fest. And we're not going to do that. So I'm going to talk with you alone. And then I'm going to prepare you to come to your partner with at least one or two things that you can own.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
What am I doing to contribute to this mess? Or what am I doing to make things better? I like to start the session by asking, if I'm dealing with a kind of chronic conflict, low intensity warfare or bigger, it depends what kind, there's different kinds of conflict. But I like to ask, what have you done this week to make things better?
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
What have you done to make your partner feel that they matter? rather than what happened this week. I kind of have a sense. Please do not tell me the last unraveling. I got it. It goes from zero to 60 in no time. None of this. I don't need the details of the story. I need to know what you're doing to each other, what feelings you're instigating in each other. I don't need the plot. The plot is...
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
There's only three dances. This fight, you know, aiming at each other, withdrawing from each other, or one person withdrawing and one person pursuing. These are three types of major choreographies of conflict. Or quiet silence, or one goes after the other who is closing the doors and they follow them through the house. Mm-hmm. which is following them to a lot of other things.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And from that place on, you decide, okay, who is doing what to whom? Who is feeling what at the hands of whom? What is influencing this? You know, this person is once again feeling that when this one didn't talk to them, they were being given the silent treatment that they used to feel when they grow up.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And this feeling of neglect and dismissal is just crushing them because they suddenly feel like they've been rejected completely. And this one is feeling like they're once again being attacked and invaded by this other person who keeps following them and wants to talk when they have nothing.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And it's remembering when they were living in the place where they grew up, where they couldn't wait to get out because they were feeling completely flooded and overwhelmed by the shit show of their house. And these two stories are now dictating what's happening between these two people. These two people are no longer adults in the room. Their younger selves have completely taken over.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
Their amygdala is completely flooded. And then it matters. It depends. Sometimes... Because I'm a little bit narrative driven, I may make the mistake to actually go to the story when in fact these two people really put... Sometimes I sit for 10 minutes quiet. I say, we're going to just wait for our systems to regulate. Because even I get agitated. It's not like I don't absorb it.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
I say, I think we need some sitting here. Sometimes I put music. I love music, so I put music, you know, um, I just say, I don't think a single word is going to help here. And sometimes I say, I think we should stop the session. I mean, it depends if you think there's something that can be gained, if you start to feel like it's just going to make it worse.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And sometimes I, in the middle of the session may say, when's the last time you made him a cup of tea? And the fact that you can still make a cup of tea to someone who you would like to strangle is really special. It's amazing how we can inhabit two completely contradictory feelings at the same time. I can't stand you. Get me the hell out of here. And I can't imagine my life without you.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
Those things coexist, love and hate, side by side.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
No. Pursuer, pursuer is both people go at each other.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
Those are escalations.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
Two arrows, yes.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
No, not in conflict. It's usually not in a good way. And there's a whole interpretation of an attachment style that underlies why two people in the situation of threat go on the attack. You have two people fighting. You have two people flighting, fleeing, and you have one person who flees and one person who fights. Mm-hmm.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
That's another language for pursuer, pursuer, distancer, distancer, pursuer, distancer.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
It's feeling states and physiological states. It's two different things. The physiology is more primitive, more basic. It's physiology, senses, feelings, thoughts.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
is the way I would, you know, but because we, I say it, you know, because we are homo sapiens and we think, we really, this thing about coherence and thinking that what we say has meaning is extremely powerful to the point sometimes of delusional.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
You know, because I have to believe this because there would be too much dissonance if what I feel and what I think and what therefore happened didn't all have a coherence to themselves. And, you know, sometimes when you see it in the room, you kind of say they never said that.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
I'm not calling either person psychotic. It's psychotic because it's a disconnection from reality. I would say it's such an inhabiting of an internal reality that it is disconnected from the possibility. And this is where curiosity comes in. It's the possibility that what you are experiencing is completely real in its experience. But that doesn't mean it is...
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
factual or it is real in reality you know and to when I'm hurt and when I am thinking that you want to harm me it's very difficult for me in that moment to be willing to be empathic towards you. And there are relationships where this is the truth. I want to constantly come back to that because not everything is imagined.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
You know? But there are many other relationships where why would he want... Maybe he stepped away because he just thought that whatever was going to come out of his mouth, he would regret. It's not because he doesn't care about you. In fact, it's the opposite. And he knows what he can sometimes say. He, they, she, it doesn't matter. But not because he wanted to just throw you to the wolves.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
It's funny you call it stress states because stress to me is so physiological that it doesn't include the relational component. I mean, there needs to be a word for stress that involves the emotional reality. And that emotional reality that now may be somewhat imagined and this is why it's complicated, was once true. What now is an internal truth once was what really happened.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And that's why we imagine, and this is how we interpret the dynamic. It's very important to add that. So the past was real. There was someone in the past who actually did this to me. But when you do this, I think of them, I bring those two things together. I collapse the past and the present. And that's why I'm convinced this is what you're doing to me too.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And so how do you take somebody out of their physical and mental and emotional past to be grounding themselves into the present so that they can consider that this person that is next to them is not doing to them what once was done to them?
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
That's probably the hardest nugget of couples therapy. I mean, I do individual work too, but if we talk relational therapy, this is one of those nuggets because people are not aware that they are in their past. They are convinced that this is in the present. It's a collapse of time zones. And realities. It's what makes us so rich. It's what makes us so able to be creative and artful.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
But it's what sometimes makes it very challenging for us, especially in romantic relationships. Because you asked. At first, you began with romantic relationships. A lot of what we say here is true for friendships and work relationships, but there is only two relationships that mirror each other.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
It's the one we had with our first caretakers, mostly our parents, and the ones we have with our romantic partners. People can sit in the office and tell you, I don't have this with anybody else. And it's true. Often. You believe him. Because nobody gets as close to you and nobody elicits in you the kinds of early yearnings and emotional needs than a romantic partner. And that is very interesting.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
Tell me more about this repurposing. It's really interesting.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
What do you think was the evolutionary logic of that?
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
You know, it's interesting because some models of couples work, of couples therapy, will say you have recreated with each other patterns of your early life in order to be able to transcend them.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
Correct, correct.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
I think it's a very useful idea. You know, I was thinking at one point, it's like sometimes when I listen to you and, you know, there is an exactness in the things that you describe often rooted in science and research, et cetera, couples therapy or psychotherapy, relationship thinking, you don't have an exact answer. It's...
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
First of all, you don't have an exact answer because modern relationships are more complex than ever. And I don't think any relationship expert at this point can have answers. You have invitations. You have ways of thinking that are useful. And here is the question. Is it true? For me, it's answered by, do the people, does it resonate for them? If they buy it, then it's true. It's a framework.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
I can analyze this tableau in multiple ways. If this is the one that resonates for you, this is what we're going to go with. And that's what makes it true. This is a very interesting thing.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
There's multiple, I mean, to me it's interesting because there's a whole movement within the world of psychotherapy and psychology that wants to actually become much more normatized with protocols and the same thing for everyone. I think that much of what, at least relationship therapy, which is really the world that I practice in, is existential and it's meaning making.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And there's a lot of ways to do that. So if this interpretation works for you, be my guest. But that's not because it is more true than another. It's the one that was useful for you. And that makes you much more humble.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
It's a little bit like when you raise kids. I used to think that all these things I had done with my first one is because I had such good ideas. Then I had a second one and none of these things worked with them because it was a different person. So I realized that the first one, it worked because there was a fit between my method and the person.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And this is the important thing in therapy is that it's an issue of that fit is what you're looking for.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
It's a great question, but I have a moment now as if I'm in the session with you where I have like five things that are arriving here in front of my brain and I'm thinking, which one am I gonna enter? I'm gonna actually start with just the actual question, but then I probably is an opportunity to say a little bit about how I approach this thing. I think some naming is, very useful. It frames it.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
It gives it a foundation, something to hold on to.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
language matters if we would not be having a conversation without having a shared language at this moment but within that you and i are using the same words and may have very different meanings attached to it so that's the richness of the of the process is what do you mean when you say invitation curiosity you know conflict etc when i for example when i do the work on conflict
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
I did provide language. For example, one of the things that happens in conflict is we have confirmation bias. That's a cognitive framework that is often present in situations of emotional conflict, of conflict which involves always something, an emotional dimension could be political too.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
Confirmation bias means that I am looking for evidence that reinforces my beliefs and I disregard any evidence that contradicts it. Now, this happens between two people. This happens between two parties. That's a very important naming. It's interesting. I've noticed this, this, this, this, but all you mentioned is that. Okay, cognitive bias.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
Another cognitive bias that is very common is fundamental attribution error. We have this idea that I am complex and you are more simple. If I'm in a bad mood, it's because there was traffic. There's circumstances, there's context. If you're in a bad mood, it's because you're a cantankerous person. That's just your personality.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
We'll categorize and totalize the behavior of others and we'll have lots of nuance and poetry for our own. That's a concept. That concept is very useful. It's neutral. It doesn't blame anybody. And it says, we all do this. I like that kind of naming. This is very different from the kind of naming that pathologizes people, the kind of naming that unlocks you into one identity.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
You know, you may have addiction, and addiction may be a really important thing It may even have destroyed your life, but to just say you're an addict. I've seen, so I worked in an addiction center for two years and, you know, people had a lot of, there were a lot of other things happening in these people's lives.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And to just focus on this one thing, it reduces the person, but it also reduces your ability to do something with the person. It narrows your lens. So there's always this question about how wide is the lens that you don't get overwhelmed. So you want to make it smaller, but not that small that you're looking through a keyhole. A person is more complex than a keyhole. We don't just treat symptoms.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
We work with lives. That's the difference, for me anyway, in the work that we do. And then when you begin to think about lives, then you start to think about culture. What is happening in the world of relationships today? It's such an incredible thing that is going on. And if you don't put that in the broader context, I'm trained as a systemically oriented family therapist.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And that means that you're looking at the interaction of different systems. And I think that a lot of what happens is a hyper individualization of these things. And the naming is useful when it expands your understanding. The naming is not useful when it locks you into a symptom, a reductionistic thing that gives false certainty to prophets. I can't agree more that naming...
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
Because on the one hand, more than many other forms of medicine or healthcare or care, psychotherapy, psychology, but certainly psychotherapy, was always stigmatized. And still is in many parts of the world. It's for the crazies. It's for people. There must be something fundamentally wrong. I mean, it's something that nobody went around talking about the fact that they are in therapy.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
You went to see a therapist. Now you're putting it on your dating app. It's a status symbol. So there is a destigmatizing that is very important. But there is also words that are weaponized. And they are not useful. And they are separating people. And we have enough separation at this moment in our societies in the West. We don't need more efforts to pull people apart.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
We need efforts to bring back the collective, the community, the shared experience, because we are too far apart. And that's why I think that some naming is useful and some naming is not always that useful.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
Let me start like this. I mean, I've studied sexuality for quite a few decades now in relationships, but I think maybe because of what you said around the world, love and desire are universal experiences, but the way that they are constructed are highly culturally contextual.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And so the most archaic, rooted, traditional aspects of a culture or a society are lodged around its beliefs and attitudes and behaviors towards sexuality and relationships, especially the sexuality of women. American elections case in point. But the most radical progressive changes that take place in a society also occur around sexuality and relationships, sexuality of women in particular.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
So sexuality is a window into a society. Sexuality is also a window into a relationship and into a person that invites deep listening, One of the big challenges is that modern sexuality has been, I mean, traditional sexuality was identified with procreation. Modern sexuality is identified with performance and outcome. Sex is something you do.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
To which I say, let's drop the performance and outcome for a moment and let's think of it as an experience. So now you're going to start to see the choreography I draw. When I think of sexuality as an experience and I say sex isn't just something that you do, sex is a place you go. So my question to you is, where do you go in sex? Inside yourself and with another or others?
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
Do you go to seek deep spiritual union, a deep intimate connection, transcendence? Do you go... to a place for vulnerability, a place to surrender, a place to be taken care of, a place to be safely powerful, a place to be naughty, a place to have just plain fun, a place to abdicate your responsibilities of good citizenship because sexual desire is quite politically incorrect.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
I think it is both, completely both. We meet another person. in order to find ourselves. And we meet an other and want to be surprised by the self we haven't known. I think that all of us come into this world with a fundamental sets of dual needs. We need security and we need freedom and adventure. And we need togetherness and we need separateness.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
Where do you go in sex? What parts of yourself do you try to connect with? What is it that you're expressing there? Sexuality is a coded language. for our deepest emotional needs. Our wounds, our fears, our aspirations, our longings, it's that. Sex is never just sex, even when it's hit and run. And then it becomes really interesting.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
So one of the things that, one of the assumptions that existed very much at the heart of my field and that I challenged or questioned was that sexual problems are by definition the consequence of relationship problems. So you fix the relationship and the sex will follow.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And I, together with many colleagues, have helped a lot of relationships get along better, fight less, laugh more, enjoy each other. And it changed nothing in the bedroom. Because, in fact, maybe sexuality is not a metaphor of the relationship. Maybe sexuality is a parallel narrative to the relationship.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And that, in fact, when you change the sexuality in a couple, you change the whole relationship. but not necessarily in the other direction. So that opened up a whole, that was one of the foundational ideas for Mating in Captivity, my first book, because I have been trained to think like this. And then I began to think love and desire, they relate, but they also conflict.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
They're not one and the same, and they don't need the same things. They don't thrive on the same elements. And modern relationships, romantic relationships, have wanted to reconcile those two fundamental sets of human needs into one relationship. That is the grand experiment of modern love.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
No, no, no, not at all. It actually has been remarkably successful. The romantic ideal is tenacious. You know, many other philosophies and ideologies of the end of the 19th century have all gone. This one has survived many others.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
Yeah. No, no, no. I think that it's a, but it is an experiment. It's not something that we have tried throughout history, in human history. So I think that If you ask, it's an exercise I like to do sometimes. I say, divide your page with this line in the middle, up from top to bottom. And on the top left, you write, when I think of love, I think of. Then go to the other side.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And when I think of sexuality, I think of. And then you go back and you say, and when I am loved, I feel. And when I am desired, I feel. When I'm wanted. And when I love, I feel. And when I want or I desire, I feel. And when I think about the love between me and my partner, if there is a couple. And when I think about the sexuality between me and my partner.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And then you let people free associate about this. And there are words that you find back and forth. And then there are words who just never appear in the other column.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
Yeah, they do it at the same time. Then they read it out loud in front of each other. I do this in groups, you know, huge audiences as well. But what I'm asking people to see is when you look at what you responded in both categories, Create a line between those two. Is it a thick line, like what happens in love is completely separate from me than what happens in desire.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
I need a complete different set of things. I express myself differently, I interact differently. Or is it very much that when this exists, it completely ignites that. They are interrelated, interdependent, one feeds on each other, one reinforces the other. There is a degree of variety about that. For some people, love and desire are inseparable.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And for some people, they are often irretrievably disconnected. And I think the model wants them to be really together. And for a lot of people, it's exactly what they aspire to. For other people, it's more challenging.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
Because some people... experience love in such a way that it sometimes becomes challenging for them to make love to the person they love. What I mean by that is that love comes with a sense of responsibility, worry, care about the wellbeing of the other person. And some of us sometimes have learned to love in a way that comes with extra worry, extra responsibility, extra burden.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
We were the parents of our parents. We took care of our depressed parent. We took care of our alcoholic parent. We learned to love with a sense that is not free, that is not curious or playful because curiosity cannot happen in a state of stress, as you so well said.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
So in the relationship, you come in order to create that identification, but also that differentiation. It's a dialectic all the time. But what's interesting is even if I choose you because you represent sometimes the parts of me that are more challenging or that I disavow or that I prefer to outsource so I don't have to be too vulnerable about them.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
When we experience love with that extra sense of burden, it is difficult to be with someone that you feel close to and at the same time go inside yourself and completely chill and relax in pleasure land.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
That's one of the scenarios, there's many others, but this is one of the more common ones, Michael Bader's work, that makes it difficult for some people to experience love and desire at the same time. The more they love, the more challenging the desire becomes for them. Because desire is to own the wanting. You can't make someone want.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
You can make someone have sex, but you can never make them want. Want is your sovereignty, your autonomy, your freedom. And for some people, that wanting cannot exist when they are with someone that they feel so responsible and worried and anxious about. And that's the attachment piece that you're talking about.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
So this is how attachment style often manifests in the way that you then organize your sexual self.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
Look, I wrote an entire book about infidelity, as in what happens when desire goes looking elsewhere. I think that some people go outside as a response to a lot of discontents in the relationship, loneliness being the first one. Neglect, indifference, conflict, rejection, sexual rejection in particular. But some people go outside and it has very little to do with the relationship.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
It sometimes has to do with how they organize themselves in the relationship to the degree that in order to feel a certain freedom or ability to think about themselves, they need to be outside. And I used to say, I have seen a lot of infidelity in happy relationships. It's not always a symptom of a flawed relationship by no means.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And that in those situations, people tell me, it's not that I wanted to find another person. It's that I wanted to find another self or to reconnect with lost parts of myself. And I don't say this to promote or to condone or anything, but I just listened across the globe. One word, it's not that I wanted to find another partner, it's that I wanted to find something else inside of me.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And I don't know how to do that in the relationship that I'm in. And that's not because of the person I'm with. That's because of what I do to myself in the context of intimate connection. And the word that you hear all over the globe, when you interview people who are in affairs, is that they feel alive. It's kind of the erotic as an antidote to deadness. They feel that aliveness.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And that doesn't mean this. They often, that doesn't necessarily involve sex. It's about something. Aliveness is the erotic, not the sexual. And the erotic is the quality of aliveness, vibrancy, vitality, hopefulness, curiosity, imagination, playfulness. It's those elements that often people lose. For a host of reasons, life, work, children, dying parents, illness, economic hardship, you name it.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And there's a sense that they need to go elsewhere to find that. Some people would say bullshit justification. And some people understand that at the heart of affairs, there is betrayal and long and duplicity and lying and all of that. But there is also longing and loss. on an existential level. That's a very different lens into this.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
What draws me to you in the beginning, because it is different, that I think may expand me and make me change is also the very thing that becomes the source of conflict later, because we want to change, but up to a point, not too much and not on your terms. So we want change, but we sometimes are afraid of change.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
So the people for whom that reconciliation that you talk about is more challenging are often people who are often more likely to compartmentalize.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
That is the definition of intimacy, or a definition of intimacy. And that is probably the number one task of every relationship, a romantic relationship, is... How do I get close to you without losing me? And how do I hold on to me without losing you? Now, you know, I said to you in the beginning that we grow up and we have both needs, togetherness and separateness.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And then we come out of our childhoods, and some of us need more space, freedom, separateness, and some of us need more protection, connection, togetherness. Of course, we tend to meet somebody whose proclivities match our vulnerabilities. And so you find that in many relationships, you have one person who is more afraid of losing the other, and one person who is more afraid of losing themselves.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
One person more afraid with the fear of abandonment and one person more afraid with the fear of suffocation.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
Right. It doesn't switch back and forth. It switches by relationship, but not within one relationship. You may have been in different roles with different partners.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
You know, one of the ways that you sometimes can see this is that I mean, in the tour this week, one woman stood up and basically said, I recently divorced. I would like to be able to enter another relationship again. And I said, is the issue an issue of trust or is the issue, was there betrayal? She says, how do I allow somebody to enter into my life without losing myself?
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
So it's in the language, you know, it's one person, but this could, and really, I think it's very important for me, many of these things are not gender specific, nor orientation particular. This is human. But then I answered a little bit with some of this and other things. And so then the next question is, how often do you not say what you really think?
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And so we let the other person represent the part of us that would want to change, but then we disconnect from it. So you become the representative of that. I am drawn to the fact that you are stable, grounded, structured, solid, reliable, on time, you name it. I know that this is something that I would like to be more of and just a very simple example.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
because you want to please, or you want to harmonize, or you want to avoid conflict. How often did you then resent the partner who actually stood for their ground? Because if you're afraid to lose yourself, you're often more the one who stands for your ground. You don't give in.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And if it's rigid, you don't give in at all because you think that every time, even the language, agreeing is giving in, and giving in is losing a part of myself. I mean, it's built in. It's so, you know, it starts here and it continues all the way. It's like, so, do you know what I mean? And it's like, it's a sequence of things. You break apart in small granular pieces.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
How does it play out for you when you lose yourself? What are the things you do not do? that facilitate this dissolution. And to the other person who is, when you're afraid, sorry, of losing the other. And when you're afraid of losing yourself, like where's your rigidity? Where is your kind of totalistic thinking? Where is this lack of flexibility?
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And that may manifest in, I don't travel to those places. You know, the sentence that indicates that we're dealing with this bigger issue is something sometimes very anodyne. You know, I don't go to those kind of restaurants. You know, why shall I go to those kind of places? And you kind of want to say, why is there such intensity about the restaurant?
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
What are you fighting against and what are you fighting for? And why are you even fighting? We're talking about going out, supposedly meant to be fun. Now you start rewinding, you know, what is this statement connected to that we are going to have, you know, so now you have conflict meeting, identity meeting, connection to another person. This is when, and it is sleuth work.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
It's fantastically engaging and exciting, right? It's like, I'm sure when you do scientific research, it's that sleuth work that you say, this thing doesn't fit at all. You know, why do you want me to wear blue shoes? Why do you make such a big deal out of the blue shoes? What are blue shoes for you? Don't start talking about the shoes, please. Talk about, you know, boundaries.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
But boundaries today is a concept that has become so illused almost. So it's talk about boundaries. how the preservation of the self now involves not wearing blue shoes. I mean, you get what I'm... I do.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
But then I start to think of you as rigid because I get a little more than what I bargained for. And now I start to argue with your rigidity and my desire to actually become more structured and solid and punctual and reliable has somehow disappeared.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
You just made me think of something. Because you asked before the thing about the sexuality. And I like the concept of erotic blueprints, which I work with a lot. And I try to really kind of distill it in this Desire Bundle course that I'm releasing. Because I thought, how can people ask themselves a set of questions?
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
Like a lot of my work is about finding the good questions that will, you know, a good question is like a portal, right? And the line on top, which is the answer to your question is, tell me how you were loved and I will tell you how you make love. not just how you love, but how you make love, meaning that your emotional history is inscribed in the physicality of sex.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And it's all about what you asked me in the beginning, identity and change, holding onto oneself, connecting with the other. Sexuality is the place where this occurs at the most fundamental level. It's to be inside oneself and inside the other at the same time, their universe, not their orifices. That is what is the experience, that temporary oneness that then again opens up as two people.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
So people who struggle with that emotionally, how do I stay connected to me and then to you without these polarities, experience that in sex. And then you ask a set of questions. How did you learn to love and with whom? Were you protected by those people who took care of you or did you have to flee for protection? Did they take care of you or did you take care of them?
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
Did they hold you, rock you, cuddle you or did they harm you or violate you or shake you? Was it okay to laugh and to cry? Was it okay to experience pleasure? Was it safe? A set of questions like that. And this is where people enter their erotic blueprint and get to see
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
that their emotional challenges are directly, if you film them, if you watch them making love, you'll understand their emotional challenges. But then comes the next level. And if you then study their fantasy lives, then you'll understand the depth of their emotional needs, which are brought into their sexuality.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
You get it?
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
Your sexual preferences, your sexual fantasies are a translation of your deepest emotional needs. Not sexual needs, emotional needs. You know, my mother used to say, tell me about your friends and I'll tell you who you are. And then I said, you tell me about you sexually and I will know a heck of a lot about who you are. But you have to translate.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
The problem of sexuality in modern society is the literalness with which we approach it, and in our pornographic society ever more so, to our detriment.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
That's confirmation bias. Right.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
That's right.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
I have a segment of my podcast, Where Should We Begin, that opens the tour where basically they talk about how they met and then they fight about everything all the time. And they think that they're fighting. This is the line of the show. They think they're fighting about the closet, the cat litter and the cat.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
What I think they're fighting about is that when she says, why didn't you close the closet? He instantly thinks of his dad, who was this military guy who told him, you know, and he's basically in a fight saying to her, you ain't telling me what to do. You ain't the boss of me. So she can never make a request for which he doesn't feel like she's controlling him.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And he answers with this fight and that throws her into the, she grew up all alone, you know, took care of her two siblings, mother was gone, et cetera, et cetera. And she hoped her whole life she would finally meet a partner and she wouldn't feel alone. And there would be somebody to support her. And every time he says to her, you ain't the boss of me. Don't tell me what to do.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
Yes. You know what it is? Every system straddles stability and change and then grapples for homeostasis. Every relationship goes through that. Every system in nature goes through that. But the same thing is true inside an individual. We want change. And we need stability. And then these things sometimes are compensating each other, and they are complementary, and at times they butt heads.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
She says, oh, I'm going to be alone for the rest of my life. Here I am in the worst place that I always wanted to avoid. This is what they're fighting about. But they're talking about, why did you leave the cat closet open? Beautiful example. Beautiful example.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
It's a little bit more subtle and complicated nuance than that. I think the frameworks are useful, but they are frameworks. And they're models that help us to think and make sense of things. But it's a little bit like in science, you know, the truth of today is the joke of tomorrow.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
It connects to what we discussed about apology.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
There's a sequence to this. And it's true in intimate relationships. It's true in friendships. I'm very interested in friendships these days and in friendship therapy. I do co-founders work. I mean, there's other diets that I'm very interested in beyond the romantic unit, but
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
You said something before that I thought actually I may come back to when you said, you know, it's about acknowledging that you were wrong. Sometimes you may not have been wrong, but you were hurtful. And rather than get all, you know, I didn't do anything, I didn't do anything. It doesn't matter.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
What you did, even if you don't think it was anything terrible, seemed to have really upset your partner. Do you care about that? Or do you want to just kind of stand? So I think the first piece in repair work, and I think, by the way, that repair is not the end of the story. The revival is the end of the story. Much better word. You know, the erotic recovery.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
Erotic in my sense, in my definition of the word. So that's when I say it's not enough to survive. I'm a child of survivors. I wanted to see people who, how do they continue to live? Not just how do they stay alive. And I think there's a fundamental difference in our lives and in our relationships. It's a huge piece of, it's really at the heart of my work and of my life, you know?
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
So every trauma process, you know, of nations or of individuals demands the acknowledgement of what happened. And that acknowledgement involves remorse and guilt for the hurt and the harm that it caused, even if you don't feel guilty for the act itself and you think the act is justified. The consequences of the act on the other person is where the guilt and the remorse must take place.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
Without that, there is very little option for repair. If I don't feel that you even know what you did to me, you, my dad, you, my boss, you, my political enemy, I mean, it's really at the root. So after you do the remorse and the guilt, the next part is is to be really careful that you don't sink into the self, now I'm going back to relationships, into the shame. I'm such a terrible person.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
How could I do something like this? So I feel so bad about myself that I still can't feel bad about you. Now that's narcissism. That's a different story. The point is not for you to still think that you're at the center. You were at the center when you heard, and now you're at the center of your own wound. It's really a process of reckoning with the other person.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And it's slow and challenging for some, and it's immediate for others. And then I think the next piece in a relationship is not just to apologize and to show your remorse, but it's actually to show that you value the other person. Because hurting a person, and especially when it's betrayal and careless, is a devaluation of the other person. You didn't matter. That me mattered more than you.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
For whatever the reasons, it was still selfish and I devalued you. And to become the vigilante of a relationship is that you become the person who protects the relationship by showing that the other person really matters. And in detail, that sometimes means You know, how are you today? Is there anything you want to talk about? Do you still think about it?
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
You know, this is a big one to carry every day. Are you able to go to see this movie? Can we, you know, just without being so afraid that every time you ask, You're going to get blamed again or you're going to feel so bad about yourself. It's a little bit step out of yourself and just reach out and just check in half the time when you say, how are you? And do you want to talk?
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
The person says, no, I don't. But I just wanted to know that you are prepared to in case I needed to. Set the conditions. Make me feel that you value me and our relationship, which you have just trashed. And then the third thing is what I call the erotic recovery. It's the regeneration or the generation of new cells. And, you know, I need a new skin to come over the scab.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
That's the real, you know, repair is not yet healing. The healing is, I know I hurt myself somewhere. It's here. I can feel it when I touch it, but I don't feel it the whole time. It's not front and center every moment of my obsessive rumination. But when I touch it, it's tender, it's wounded. It's a place that I need to make sure not to hit again. And don't hurt me again.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And don't do this to me again. I can't recover from that twice. It's very, it's that vulnerable. And then it says, let's go do new things. You know, erotic recovery is not about comfortable and familiar and the return to the status quo.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
Erotic recovery is about new, risky, curious, playful, unknown imagination outside of the comfort zone so that we can see ourselves anew as who we are and who we are together. And I think that's where the revival takes place. It's hopeful, it's possibility, it's adventure. It's got that energy.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
I can't believe I hurt you that bad. You know, one of the big things is people are often shocked at the hurt. I told you I wouldn't care, or I didn't think about it. Because there is a dissociation that takes place when you take off. And so when people are faced with the raw pain, hurt, wound, suffering, collapse, fracture of the other person, they find it very hard to tolerate.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And this has to happen. You have to be able to know the consequences of your action. If you want to, you know, freedom in the existentialist Sartrean terms involved the ability to take responsibility for the consequences of your actions. This is it. I'll help you face that. That doesn't mean that you become the worst creature on the planet, but you have to face that.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And that is something very hard for us because sometimes we meant it. Sometimes we thought we deserve it. And sometimes we didn't think that that was going to be the case. And so it's sometimes easier to stand in front of someone else's anger than someone else's hurt.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
There's a beautiful book by Harriet Lerner about apology that I often recommend in these situations because she really... If you ever do apology, this concept of sincerity, of the apology that actually shows that I care about you and not just about restoring my dignity and my pride and all of that.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
The maneuvers that are about self-preservation versus the maneuvers that are really about restorative justice.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
You know, what's a question that I ask people often, almost in the first session, knowing yourself as well as you do, what do you think makes it hard to live with you?
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
That will give you some of the material about, you know, nobody's ready. As in, I'm prepared, I'm perfect, I'm fully baked. I say to every person, everyone has relationship issues they're going to have to address at some point in their life. The only question is with whom? Not if, just with whom? Who's the one that you're going to do the work with? We're all works in progress.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
We are notoriously imperfect, rather unpredictable. And many relationship problems are not problems that you solve. They're paradoxes that you have to learn to manage.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
Different ways to answer this. You know, I think sometimes people say, I want to be with you because you helped me become the best version of myself.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
They're societal.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And so what is that version? You know, who is it that I want to see that I think you will help me become? When you talk about these romantic relationships, first of all, I think there's a different answer if we're talking about cornerstone relationships or capstone relationships. Do you know the concept?
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
Thank you so much.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
Right. So the cornerstone relationship is when we used to meet in our early 20s and together we build the foundation of our relationship. We grew together. We saved our first monies together. We got our first places together, etc. It was very much foundational. Capitalism. is the foundation has already been established because we tend to meet at this point 10, 12 years later.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
So during those 12 years, I've already actually worked, so to speak, on my identity. I have defined myself, my values, my aspirations, my constructs, how I want to see my life. And when I meet you, you're a confirmation for all of this. You're a confirmation of what I've already built. And I am putting you and me as the capstone, which we put on top of what we've already created.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
You and me, you've done the same thing. So I am looking for someone who recognizes my identity, not for someone who helps me develop my identity from a much earlier age. So there's a developmental arc that changes the mandate. I said it's both, but the priority of if it's a...
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
The building of identity or the expansion of that identity, what you call change, differs if you meet somebody when you're young and if you meet somebody when you're in your 30s.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
I mean, there is a big age differences a lot of the time. And in gay relationships, you have often a major gap. age difference that means something else, but it creates differentiation. In straight relationships, you often have men who are a lot more, a lot older than the women, very much rooted in evolutionary biology, I think, and fertility.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And now we have more and more a new phenomenon of older women with younger men, but that's actually been very rare in most cultures.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
You know, when you have four movies at this moment that are talking about this, then you begin to see the crescent of a new cultural phenomenon. I think the fact that it appears in the arts and in the culture usually announces something. I wouldn't make it yet a phenomenon. But you asked me a question before about what are the things people need. I mean...
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
When you embark any relationship, again, I tend to think as both end on a lot of things. I come to you with a certain self-awareness. How much self-awareness, the more there is, the better. And that self-awareness, I think, as its best translates in a sense of, you know, I think a good vow to say at the time of your wedding is, I'll fuck up on a regular basis and on occasion I'll acknowledge it.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
Yeah. It means that self-awareness comes with self-knowledge about your limitations and your ability to take responsibility for it without blame and shame. And basically accountability. I think accountability is an enormous component of relationship. It's okay. We all do things.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
You know, we all have our wounds and our frustrations and our expectations and our unexpressed needs and our unfulfilled longings, etc. But it's a good thing to know it and to admit it and to not pretend that it's not me, but it's you. You know, I often say that couples therapy, I am a practicing couples therapist for almost 40 years.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And couples often come to therapy thinking that you're a drop-off center. You know, they come to deliver their problem and their problem is their partner. And you're going to fix it. And they're going to help you because they're an expert on what's wrong with the partner.
Huberman Lab
How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships | Esther Perel
And it's an amazing thing how people have tremendous insight on all the shortcomings of the other person and do not see themselves as part of a system. A relationship is a breathing, living system of interdependent parts.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
That is an amazing question. I could have guessed 10 different other things I've said. I didn't think you would come up with that. But no, I did not. When I began the TED Talk, I was so much into this challenging certain perceived notions that people kind of took as truths, but they were only truisms.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
That, you know, by definition, you look at infidelity from the point of view of a victim and a perpetrator. And that it is a symptom of a flawed relationship. That the transgression is way more serious than any other relational betrayal that may have existed in the relationship before. And I remember thinking to myself, but relational betrayals come in many forms.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
Indifference, neglect, abuse, years of sexual rejection. Why are we not integrating that? Why do we single out the sexual infidelity as the ultimate betrayal, as the queen of all betrayals? And that is not to justify, and that is certainly not to promote, but that is to add layers of complexity here. That people would say, why didn't you talk about it? Why didn't you bring it up?
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
Seriously, people talk and people bring things up for years and can't get their partner's attention until, you know, nothing can compare to this. And I'm not sure these are helpful statements. And so I wanted to make a point, which was to say an affair takes place in the context of a relationship.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
The relationship lives at the center of the affair and the affair lives in the shadow of the relationship or the other way around. But it's a triad. And to just think that it's a dyadic thing, me and what I did to you, rather than, of course, I chose it. I carry the responsibility. I didn't absolve anybody. But I wanted to make a point that it's easy sometimes for the person
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
who is betrayed, who feels violated, who feels lied to, who feels deceived, to enter the role as if nothing before that proceeded and to say, you did this to me, when the story is often 20, 30 years earlier, of so many things that have happened between us that give context. They don't justify, they don't condone, but they give context, layers, complexity, nuance.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
And we need all of this if we want to help the thousands of people. that are living with the experience of infidelity and affairs.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
But it was the most important finding. There are egregious situations where, you know, it's quite black and white. I'm not always thinking it's nuanced. Sometimes it's just like you lift your heads and your eyes and you just say, wow, you know, no context will add up to this. But
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
The line I kept hearing from people is, I love, you know how in mating in captivity, people would say to me, we love each other very much. We have no sex. And I began to hear a parallel line in the state of affairs. I love my partner. I'm having an affair. And I feel torn about it. And I don't know what to make of it, et cetera. But what they would say to me is, I feel alive.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
More than sex or anything, the experience globally, worldwide, the one word that kept repeating, I haven't felt so alive. The aliveness had to do with a lot of other dimensions of relationships. But what they would say and what I got from it is this. Sometimes it's not that you want to leave your partner. but you want to leave the person that you have yourself become.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
And it's not that you're looking for another person, but you're looking for another self or to reconnect with parts of yourself that have gone dormant for decades. And those lines made it so. No, affairs are not always symptoms of troubled relationships. They actually are more existential sometimes. They're a quest for something. They're an antidote to deadness.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
And they are not to blame on the relationship and certainly not on the partner. There's nothing wrong with you. It's not about anything having to do with you not being enough. And that sometimes is even more difficult for people. is to think it has, you know, if at least it had to do with the relationship, we could fix something.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
But if it has nothing to do, then I am really at a loss here, completely helpless. So it was a complicated statement, but it is probably the most important statement in the book because the other affairs have been written about. I mean, it's not that they're not there.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
It's sometimes not even, it's like when you, you know, you hear the stories and sometimes there has been sex once or twice in the course of two years because people are in different places. It's the plot. It's not even, I mean, I remember when you and I talk about this, I think it's different in a heterosexual context than among men. But in many straight stories, the sex is the sexual energy.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
It's the possibility. It's the erotic charge that comes from even discussing movies and music. It doesn't come from touching anything. Mm-hmm. And that's what this alive thing was about. It's different parts of me are talking here that I haven't been in touch with.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
I've been the responsible, caretaking, caregiving citizen of my drunken brother and my sick and demented father and my partners and my children. And for the first time, I'm thinking about me. You bet it's selfish. You bet. Yeah. And I don't want to hurt and I don't want to lie. And it has nothing to do with my marriage.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
And you listen to these things and it's like you scratch your head a little bit. And you know that devastation can follow and the kind of accumulated hurt that is going to happen. My God, the day this thing ends. And you sometimes even hope that, you know, let the thing die a natural death.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
When people died younger and they didn't have devices, you know, you only found all of this after grandma was gone, you know?
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
I think there are two different questions here. If you want an insurance policy, I can't give you.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
No, I don't. I think that ultimately what you hope is that when there is any temptation, I see your face approach from behind the screen and it kind of captures my eye in front of me and I just say, I would love to, but no, it's not worth it. It's not, you know, I won't do this to you. And suddenly you experience the conflict between your desires and your conscience, basically.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
But you acknowledge your desires. And if you have a relationship that can be open enough to make space for those desires, then you even have a partner to whom you can say that and you can talk about this. And that in itself brings air. Fire needs air. If you try to choke it down, you will get a flicker. You won't get a flame.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
And so when I wrote about the eyes of the other, it goes a step further because if another can want your partner, then you never have your partner. This tale that you actually have a challenge to want what you already have presumes that you have. And any affair tells you that you don't. This notion is a contrived illusion of safety. We don't have our partner. They are forever.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
Free agents, they can die, they can get sick, they can fall in love with someone else. As a result, invest the most and the best of you in your relationship so that you have more of them. But no, there is no guarantee. And that is an existential dread with which free love lives with. If you don't want that, go to traditional societies in which... There is no choice.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
You have been married to someone. You are in it for life. And it's a different conception of marriage. But if we want a marriage or a committed relationship that is rooted in free choice, then we have to live with the anxiety that that choice can be at times changed.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
That's right. That's right. I say this so many times. You know, if you want to curse, if you want to put them down, if you want to be dismissive, if you want to talk to them with your face glued to your screen, don't think that there won't be somebody else out there who says, no, you're not. I can't understand how your partner treats you like this. I think you are a wonderful person.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
You know, no, you're not at all a mess. I think you are so inspiring. No, I don't think you're a fuck up at all. I think you have really deep values. I mean, you know.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
Two courses, one that is bringing back desire for people who are really stuck in a sexual rut, in an impasse, can't talk about it or have really poor conversations about it, experience a massive discrepancy of desire with the pursuer and a distancer, and they just don't know where to get the flicker back.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
The second part, playing with desire, and some people just go directly to playing with desire, is for people who feel like they've kept the flicker, but the flame is gone. And they would like to experience something more robust, more intense, more exciting. They feel like they're kind of slouched in complacency and laziness, and they don't know how to jolt themselves out of it.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
And to give a tool that is not just a book, but that is actually a one-hour set of short videos with a great workbook. It's the workbook that never actually accompanied mating in some way. And that gives you practices, tools, ideas, conversations, interesting conversations, not conversations about the fact that we never have sex.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
And that's supposed to make us want to have sex by talking about how we never have sex. No, how do you actually have rich sexual conversations that make you kind of curious about each other to the point of even being turned on to each other, even if it starts from the mind and not from your genitals.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
But, you know, it's that course for anybody, any age, any stage, any orientation, the whole thing, but who say... It's hard to sit on the couch at night for the umpteenth time where each of us is watching TV, scrolling on the phone at the same time, answering with that classic lag of uh-huh, uh-huh, while somebody's trying to say something interesting, and suddenly say, I'd love to talk about sex.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
You know, I'd love to talk about where we are at or I'd love to discuss something that's been really a part of my fantasy life. So, you know, how do you do that? So I have the card game that really promotes a lot of conversations between people and partners. But then I thought something more targeted that isn't therapy.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
That you do amongst you, that you can come back to that workbook for years and you pick one question out of it or one thing that says, I could use exploring that for myself, not just with my partner alone. I need to understand this thing about me. Then maybe I can go and have a chat with you.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
You're saying it daily to your behavior. You don't have to put words to it.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
For many years, I say to people, you know, your relationship is primarily a scaffolding. It's what it gives you access to. But it's not necessarily what exists between the two of you. And that is a model. I say, you are an affectionate, companionate couple. You are deep friends. You are no longer romantically involved. What do you want to do with that?
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
If both people say that I'm good with this at this stage, there's not much that we need to talk about. If one person said, I still want to feel this thing, will I ever get this back? Will I never be touched again? I mean, I can't live like this. I'm drying on the vine. Then you say to the other person, this is a power trip.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
If you say no, but you can't have it anywhere else either, you're in a power struggle here. And the question is, what are you afraid of? You can't trap your partner into the desert to protect you from your fear of abandonment. Or you may not want to reach out anywhere else because you are afraid of the consequences of this.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
And we don't need to make a decision, but we do need to have a conversation about any of this.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
But I did make a chastity commitment. A monogamy commitment is not a chastity vow.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
When we did the course, this was a question that came up all the time. Who is it for, right? And who will benefit from this? And what do we say to the person who says, I've tried to get my partner to engage in this. Is it still worth it for me to take the course? And I say, you will learn a ton about yourself and you will learn about
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
your limits, and you will learn about how important is sex to you. And I'm not talking actually just the fucking. It's being seen by someone. It's someone who looks at you and still notices that you have a body. Somebody who touches you. Somebody who... It's a sensuality. I actually broaden it.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
Because people can sometimes live even with the no fucking, but it's the entire erotic realm that disappears. And that... gives people a real sense of grief. What you're dealing with is not horniness. You're dealing with loss. You're dealing with grief. You're dealing with, you know, I am a cherished spouse or partner, but I am a famished lover. And... That's the experience.
Savage Lovecast
Savage Lovecast Episode 934
It's like it is an experience of deadness. They can feel really loved. And that's why it's so tormenting, because they do feel deeply loved. They feel cared for. They know that there's no one who would be there for them the way that their partner will show up. But there is something about that sensual, sensuous touch, gaze, smile, lick, flicker, you know?
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Notable Moment: Love Expert Reveals Why 80% Of Modern Relationships Fail
You know, and then when the person tells you something really important, you go, uh-huh. Uh-huh. You know, and you're kind of there, but not present. And that's the beginning of a kind of modern loneliness, actually, is that this idea that you can share something really important to someone who is half there, half there.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Notable Moment: Love Expert Reveals Why 80% Of Modern Relationships Fail
And I think that that's what's happening with a lot of younger people these days, is that they experience a lot of half there-ness, right? And that begins to cultivate a real sense of loneliness that is to do not with I'm physically alone, that has to do with do I matter? Who hears me? Who cares? Who pays attention? Who notices me? So sometimes the advice is very banal.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Notable Moment: Love Expert Reveals Why 80% Of Modern Relationships Fail
It's to tell people, put your freaking phone down. Take an hour and put your phone down.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Notable Moment: Love Expert Reveals Why 80% Of Modern Relationships Fail
Huh?
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Notable Moment: Love Expert Reveals Why 80% Of Modern Relationships Fail
that you will be busy and there won't be a relationship. Sooner or later, there won't be a relationship. It's not difficult. You can wait, you can wait for the kids to grow up if there are kids involved, things like that. But in the end, there isn't.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Notable Moment: Love Expert Reveals Why 80% Of Modern Relationships Fail
Well, it's not just on the phone. It's on the phone means I am continuously saying something is more important than you. We come last. We're a cactus. We don't need to be watered. We can survive in a desert. It's called, there's a term I've been using for this that I borrow from something else. It's called ambiguous loss. Have you ever heard of this term?
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Notable Moment: Love Expert Reveals Why 80% Of Modern Relationships Fail
Biggest loss is a term that was developed by a colleague, Pauline Boss, a wonderful psychologist, when she talked about what happens when you have a parent, for example, that has Alzheimer. They are physically present, but they are psychologically gone. They're emotionally absent. And you can't really mourn them because they're still physically there.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Notable Moment: Love Expert Reveals Why 80% Of Modern Relationships Fail
But you're caught in this in-between, in this ambiguous loss. On the other side, you can have somebody who is deployed, hostage. Miscarriage, they are emotionally very present, but they are physically absent. In both cases, it's an ambiguous loss. You can't, are they still there or are they gone? Who knows? When we live with this founting,
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Notable Moment: Love Expert Reveals Why 80% Of Modern Relationships Fail
When we are, because you've been at work, you've been at the computer, you come home, you think, I'm so happy to finally let go of the computer. You turn on the TV, you turn on the TV, and then you turn on the phone at the same time. You're watching here, you're watching there, and there's a person next to you. And most likely they often do the same thing in the end too.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Notable Moment: Love Expert Reveals Why 80% Of Modern Relationships Fail
And gradually, you know, there is less and less of a thread of conversation, of connection, of joy, of sex, of intimacy, all of what, you know, that becomes ambiguous loss. Somebody is there, but they're not really present. I'm, you know, is there a difference between me and the sofa? It's comfy. It's routine. You sit on me.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Notable Moment: Love Expert Reveals Why 80% Of Modern Relationships Fail
But comfy and routine do not give us joy or meaning or relevance or connection. And that's what we still seem to want. So it means saying to people, you know, it's actually not very, very complicated. What did people do for centuries? They took walks. That's one of the few times you can't click. So take a walk. Don't sit.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Notable Moment: Love Expert Reveals Why 80% Of Modern Relationships Fail
Don't try to do, you know, take a walk around the block and just be in motion. Then you're parallel, you know, it's not face to face, it's side by side. And you can talk about the day. If you, instead of just saying, stop, stop, stop, you just said, you know, let's go for a walk. It's London, but still you can, you know, and you do half an hour walk. It will change.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Notable Moment: Love Expert Reveals Why 80% Of Modern Relationships Fail
Yeah, that's a terrible way to think. I mean, and everybody knows it. If you give the best of yourself at work, if you bring the leftovers home, if when you come home, you say, I've given everything I had. Now I'm just putting my feet on the table. I just need to chill. I don't want to make any effort. You know, slowly your relationship degrades, period. And then there's all kinds of ways it ends.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Notable Moment: Love Expert Reveals Why 80% Of Modern Relationships Fail
You'll come back to me and you tell me what it will do. But it's amazing how these small interventions that are playful, creative, not digging, change the dynamic of the relationship. Because she is only pursuing you in part because of how much you are withdrawing. You change, she change. If you want to change the other, change yourself.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Notable Moment: Love Expert Reveals Why 80% Of Modern Relationships Fail
Once you understood the figure eight and how we create the other, you understand that if you do something else, sooner or later, they do something else too. So if you want to change the other, change you. This is part of the question you asked me, right? What are some of the essentials understandings of working with relational systems? This is true at work, in companies.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Notable Moment: Love Expert Reveals Why 80% Of Modern Relationships Fail
This is true in intimate relationships. This is not just for romantic love. This is foundations of relational systems. feedback loop, it's called in cybernetics.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Notable Moment: Love Expert Reveals Why 80% Of Modern Relationships Fail
The Gottmans call them bids for connection.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Notable Moment: Love Expert Reveals Why 80% Of Modern Relationships Fail
You know, it's the little things. It's the difference between turning towards someone or turning away. You know, when you read something, there's a classic example they give. You read something. Do you actually say, hey, did you read this? Let me send you this article. That's a bid for connection. It's not a big declaration, but it says we're in this together.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Notable Moment: Love Expert Reveals Why 80% Of Modern Relationships Fail
When I see something that's interesting that I think you would like to read as well, I share it with you. I'm thinking of you. I know you exist even if I'm not with you.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Notable Moment: Love Expert Reveals Why 80% Of Modern Relationships Fail
Because it's like when you receive a birthday gift, do you think?
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Notable Moment: Love Expert Reveals Why 80% Of Modern Relationships Fail
When you buy a birthday gift, is it important to give it?
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Notable Moment: Love Expert Reveals Why 80% Of Modern Relationships Fail
Okay, that's the reason. I mean, how would she know that you watched it if there is no acknowledgement? And the acknowledgement is not about the video or the DM. The acknowledgement is we share something.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Notable Moment: Love Expert Reveals Why 80% Of Modern Relationships Fail
Yes, but the seen it means that I have seen the video. The acknowledgement is we are part of a thread. We're connected. She's absolutely right. So in that sense, when people lose the spark, it is a lot of these small details that people say so much in the beginning. You know, all the positive stuff that people lose.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Notable Moment: Love Expert Reveals Why 80% Of Modern Relationships Fail
And it's actually only more important with time rather than less important with time. The death of a relationship is when people take each other for granted. And when you stop acknowledging those things, it is part of the mechanisms of taking for granted.
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Notable Moment: Love Expert Reveals Why 80% Of Modern Relationships Fail
None of them are particularly joyful. And basically, if people were able to put a little bit of creativity, attention, attention into their relationships as they do with their customers or their guests, relationships would be doing a lot better and my profession would be seeing a lot less people. I mean, there's no doubt. And why are people so lazy, so complacent, so unimaginative?
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Notable Moment: Love Expert Reveals Why 80% Of Modern Relationships Fail
with their relationships at home. I mean, I see so many people when you, like here, you know, you're not taking out your phone. You're not, you're looking at me, you're paying attention on occasion, you look for your questions and where we go, but basically you're with me. But at home, if you do this or this.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
And your question is, how do I get her to want more?
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
Are you prepared to change tracks?
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
I mean, sexual candor is really difficult.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
Wonderful. Beautiful. Can I hear from you just a bit?
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
Maybe we first switch a little bit the way we think here, right? And that is very often when we think about sex, we think about an act and an outcome, something that we do. And instead of thinking of it like that, I would probably want to switch you to think more about an experience. Not what do you do in sex, but where do you go in sex? What parts of yourselves do you connect with?
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
What do you want to experience there? What do you want to express there? And then you will notice that for some people, desire is autonomous. As you say, I come, I'm ready, spontaneous erection, autonomous, I don't need any prep, I'm go. You know, the majority of other people are responsive, what we call responsive desire, meaning they don't come ready. They are maybe sometimes open or willing.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
That willingness, you know, I'm not always hungry. I see you're eating. I'm sitting next to you. It looks like it's quite good. I taste. I'm open. I'm curious. I want to see where this takes me. Slowly, I find myself, I take out a plate. I'm actually eating a whole meal. I wasn't really hungry to begin with, and I could have done without, but I'm happy I did it.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
You know, that switch for you, instead of thinking, how do I get her to also be able to compartmentalize and be ready? I'm sorry to say it may not work. And she's going to get frustrated. Rather than your understanding that foreplay starts at the end of the previous orgasm. It's not a five minute before the real thing. Say that again? Foreplay starts? At the end of the previous orgasm.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
Not just, you know, five minutes before you get going. Absolutely. So instead of thinking you are the norm and she's the problem, how do I get her to change? You understand that for a lot of people, it's willingness that gets us going. And that is a wonderful thing. I'm open. I'm willing to see. And then here's the piece.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
A lot of relationships, male-female relationships, you're going to tell me probably nothing turns me on more than to see her turned on. Yeah? Yeah. Love it. Now, it is most likely that she will say, whatever happens to him is kind of irrelevant to me. Because what gets me going is what happens to her, not what happens to you.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
And that means that she needs to be able to enter into her own erotic self. And that means that she needs to be able to let go of the role of mother and caretaking, responsible, making sure that everybody's fine, worrying about the well-being of others.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
That is the essential liberation that any woman needs to feel, especially when I hear what Christina just said about that biological instant response that she has to the kids. It's how do I allow that to recede and I trust that everybody's fine so that I can finally enter into myself and give myself the permission to think about me and experience my own pleasure.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
give her the permission to be slightly more selfish in the moment. Because desire is that attention onto me that says, I deserve, I can be, I can enjoy, and everything else is fine. And that's how I can let go.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
But you need to be willing to ask for things, right? What starts to happen when you're in that kind of a dance is that he says yay, you say nay, and your emphasis is on all the nays and his emphasis is on all the yays. So it's about you asking, do I want to just relax? Do I want something more sensual? Do I want us to be naughty? Do I want to just have fun? Do I want to connect?
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
Do I want to just be taken care of? All of these are places that we go in the erotic world. That have, you know, you can, as you just said, you can do a lot in sex and feel absolutely nothing. Women have done that for centuries. You know, in the erotic, you can do very little and feel a lot.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
But for that, you need to ask for certain things and know that you have someone who really appreciates it and welcomes it. Because then, you know, he likes to give, he likes to make you feel good and happy. Even if it's just, you know, small little things, it's about pleasure, not about performance or outcome.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
I mean, sexual candor is really difficult, you know. And here's the thing. The majority of people often fall in a trap where they think that they will want more sex from talking about all the sex they don't want. Okay, you got it. You know, it's like we talk about the problem.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
Yes, but you can turn that whole thing. You see, what happens is that then you start to say, I don't even want to cuddle because then he's going to get turned on. He's going to get turned on. He's going to want more. He's going to want more. I'm going to frustrate him. He's going to get up. He's going to be all upset. He's going to pout, etc., Yeah. But so turn it around.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
You know, it's nice that you want her, but it's also a burden sometimes for her to feel that she constantly is your one outlet with whom you need that. Basically, in the end, she's doing it for you to take care of you. That's not what sex is supposed to be. So on occasion, that is, but not when it becomes. I just want to make sure he doesn't get upset.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
And, you know, then the next day he's in a bad mood because he's that whole thing. It's nice for you to say to him, I like the reaction that you have. Maybe sometimes you take care of him. Maybe sometimes you take care of yourself. And you do it not in hiding. You do it next to her because it's okay. And then sometimes as she watches you, she may join you.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
There's a lot of possibilities if you don't fall into the trap of on or off and afraid to do the slightest move because, my God, if he then reacts, then I'm going to have to service. That's under the subtext from this dynamic that you described.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
And then on occasion, when you just call him and you, whatever it is, you take a bath together, shower together, something where he experiences your invitation. But the pressure is what you want to watch. Because you're a high energy guy and you release a lot sexually and there's nothing wrong with it. But you also have three other boys in this house.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
And so, yes, it's very different from 10 years ago. And it may come back after the boys are older as well. This is, you know, so how do you... give yourself the permission to say, mom, time is off. I take off my apron. I take some time. I transition. I retrieve the woman from behind the mother. But it doesn't have to be the full operation each time.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
It doesn't have to be the whole production because otherwise you are going to get her shutting down just because she's afraid that you're going to want the whole thing. And that is where the women start to really deprive themselves as well. That's the other thing. It's like it deprives because she enjoys being with you. That is not the point. You enjoy being together.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
And you feel the vulnerability of the change of that balance. You feel that you are more reliant or dependent on your partner. And that is not the way that you've usually liked it because you've always made sure that you can stand on your own two feet.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
And is that fear reinforced by him or it's really something that you bring with you?
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
So it's purely in my head as somebody who's been very independent and trying to figure out how to... So this already is a big... It's a big starting point, is your ability to say, look... I from whatever happened to me in my life, I decided that nobody would ever have any power over me, that I was going to be in control. Nobody could take advantage. I can take care of myself.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
I don't depend on anybody beyond a certain level. And I have done this well. And then what happens when you leave work as that position, which was one of the symbols of your independence and all of that, is that you are in transition. And transition is by definition no longer here and not yet there. That's what transition means. So in transition, you are of balance.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
It is the nature of that change to be of balance. There's nothing wrong with it. It's just unknown to you, unfamiliar. And here is your opportunity. You have a great guy. that you know is valuing you, that is not going to take advantage of what you call feeling a little bit more precarious, more unbalanced, more unsure of myself and all of that.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
This is your opportunity to really do some repair from the dowry of your childhood and to actually allow yourself to lean on someone and to know that you can and to have someone show up for you.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
So instead of how do I empower myself, I would actually invite you to say, how do I allow myself for the first time ever to take advantage of this big transition and lean on someone and learn and experience the depth of trust? Something I've yearned for my whole life and have never allowed myself.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
I heard that.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
Where does it land for you? Just because I don't know you, so I just took a leap.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
No, I don't. Because you said, I left a big job. I have always been independent. And you kind of said and implied was, how do I continue to feel as strong as I always did? And I thought, but this is not about staying strong. And then she said, I have a good guy. I waited and I have a good guy. And I thought, you haven't even given him the opportunity to show you how good he can be.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
And what would it be like for you instead of holding yourself up to actually leaning on him and experiencing, I mean, you're going to sob maybe. It's going to bring back this little girl who fought, you know, to make sure that she's in charge and nobody takes advantage.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
Yes. And it goes actually with what we talked before when you said, what is it that people fight for when they are in conflict? Yes. The people who fight for power and control are often people who did experience various forms of emotional, psychological or sexual abuse. Because then it is your adaptive style. You respond with a strategy. That's how you stay in control. That's right.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
It's a gift for your life. It's the gift you've been waiting for that therapy could only offer partially and that it looks like your partner may be able to offer you.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
They're very expensive, by the way.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
Scary at first, but very expensive.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
Thank you so much.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
Hello, Erica.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
What would you like? What would you like? I almost, instead of saying, what is your question? I would like to ask, what is your wish?
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
Yeah, yeah. Because you carry a lot. You've been dutiful, loyal, responsible. And as you speak, I experience your ache for play, for fun, for aliveness, for...
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
Yes. You're so organized around what do they need from you. And you so just hope that they would stop asking. But you need to ask yourself a different question. And that is really, you've done it all, you know. If you worry about being the good daughter and the good mother and the good spouse, you got your A+.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
Because otherwise, you know, sometimes we don't have another way that when we feel entrapped like that, sometimes we get sick just as a way of saying I'm off duty.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
Don't ask me anything. I can't get up, you know. And sometimes we just think, OK, I'll leave the marriage. And then sometimes, you know, it's really what would be even the smallest thing today that would connect you with your aliveness today? with your joy, with your freedom, small? What would it be?
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
It's like you sit with new people you've never met and you just say, okay, where should we begin?
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
Okay, forget the we. Forget the we.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
Forget the we. You know, you start, you have to go with a girlfriend, go with somebody else, go with one of your children, if you know. But it's not... Don't make it contingent. You see, when people carry as much as you do, their fantasy is that one day everybody will be set, everybody will be taken care of, and then I can go do my walk on the beach. No. Not going to happen.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
You're going to go do your walk on the beach because that's what's going to help you to continue to make sure that everybody is set. Otherwise, you're going to collapse. So what do I wish for myself? What's one thing I could do that I would enjoy? You know, how do I give myself pleasure?
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
You know what happens once you start this thing? It's irresistible.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
Once you really claim and you don't feel that guilty and you don't want to constantly look back to make sure everybody's OK and you begin to ask yourself, am I OK? Not in a selfish way, because it's amazing how the biggest givers are the ones who worry about being selfish.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
Thank you so much.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
The first thing that just jumped into my head is this. My mother told me that I came from the stork. And what I wish I had been told as a child was that there was no such a thing. As a stork. As a stork. I was nine years old when I understood that this is... Not true. No. And that it says more about her discomfort with the subject.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
No. Right. And if I understand what you may be grappling with is, it took me a while to see a lot of things. The relationship ended, whatever the reasons that precipitated it. And so what often follows from a relationship like this is questions of trust. Yeah, there are betrayals. And then one wonders, how will I trust again? Is that part of what...
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
I think that you're highlighting something that is so important because betrayal creates a question of trust. Can I trust people? But it also puts into question, can I trust myself? Yes.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
How do I trust that my perception of reality is accurate when all these things took place that I had no idea about that happened behind my back and I thought I know what the hell is going on and then I found out I was clueless. And I think that... What happens when we start to meet new people, sometimes we would like to know that we can trust them before we start.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
But trust is by definition a leap of faith. I mean, trust is an active engagement with the unknown. So it's iterative. It's small, little steps. You learn to trust by taking a risk and watching the response, taking a risk and watching the response.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
But if it involves new dating, then I think one of the things that help a lot with trust is that there's something very weird that's happening around dating these days, that we are dating totally away from our lives, secluded from our lives, you know, on an app, in a dark bar.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
And then when all of this trust has been established, so to speak, then we do the big reveal and we bring this person to our friends and our family. Right. Which is strange because the way you get to know a person is by watching them in interaction with other people. So that kind of dating that is happening away from your life may not be the best model for you.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
You bring that person into your life, into your interactions, your friendships, and then you watch. And then you let other people give you data points. And... Look, if your instincts have served you well for a long time and you made a mistake with this person, then the ratio is quite good. Quite good.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
Than anything else. And then I began to dig and try to find, you know, so then where exactly did I come from? And when I told her, you know, actually I came from you, she said, we'll discuss this one day.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
Do things with people... You're going to go, whatever, bike, hike to a movie, listen to live music, invite that person to join you. Just hang and then you'll feel and then you'll have a better sense. And you'll know even if you want to see them another time and you'll hear what other people say.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
And it's much more integrated into your life than in this kind of sterile thing called, you know, the dating space.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
I think I completely grew up with that perspective because my parents, both of them, had lost their entire families in the Holocaust, and they were both the sole survivors of their entire family. And really, they had nothing. I have nothing, nothing, nothing, nobody, nothing. And they created families of choice before the world existed. They understood the rebuilding of community.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
They understood that You get your memory from meeting people who have experienced something like you. When your entire community is decimated, there's not a trace left of the life that existed. You need to share it through stories with other people. And so in multiple fashions, they created rituals, gatherings. People, people was the way that you rebuild life more than anything else.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
And that wasn't spoken, but there were people in my house all the time and I would hear the conversations and I understood that you do not survive alone. They didn't survive alone and they didn't revive and rebuild alone. You need people. We need intimacy and connection to survive from the moment we are born. And that's part of why your question about modern loneliness is so powerful.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
Because at this point, we're not only lonely, we are also experiencing self-imposed solitude. You don't have to leave your house to eat, to work, to shop, to exercise, to meet people. So you're not just having remote work. You have a complete form of remote living.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
And that disconnect affects how we feel about life, why we wake up in the morning and our level of happiness and our level of joy and contentment. And all of these things are interconnected. So people... And the quality of your relationship, it's not just relationships. They have to be nurturing, good, thriving relationships, determines the quality of your life.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
When people think, and you are a sexologist and you must have had... No, no, no. I grew up in utter ignorance. Wow. I wish I had been told a lot of things in that domain.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
A well-lived life is a life where you are able to experience the two most important sets of human needs. Our need for safety and security and our need for adventure. Our need for togetherness and our need for autonomy. The good life is the ability to reconcile these two fundamental sets of human needs inside of you and hopefully inside of your relationships. Mm-hmm.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
A good lived life is a life that is erotic. That means it's not only useful and meaningful, but it is also alive. You know, everybody knows the difference between a relationship that is not dead and a relationship that is alive. That difference is the erotic. And the erotic means curiosity, imagination, playfulness, creativity, exploration, the embracing of serendipity and the unknown.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
And you can be in your 90s When you meet these people and they're still curious.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
You know, that is the life well lived is a life where you feel alive.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
So I wish I'd been told that. It's a very common answer. Is it? Yes. I wish I had been told I was loved. I am capable. I'm worthy of something. I miss you. I mean, many things that people want to hear have to do with feeling, basically feeling seen, feeling acknowledged, feeling valued, you know.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
So I spent 35 years in my office seeing patients. I still do. And at one point, I started to wish that people would hear some of the powerful insights that occur in the conversations in my office. And not that many people can actually enter the kind of healing that takes place. And I just thought, I have to open the door to this office.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
so that people can hear not everything takes place in a therapy office. How do I bring those stories to the world at large? How do I create what has become a public health campaign for relationships worldwide? And that was my invitation is first I open the doors and I come to you, but then I want you to actually become a fly on the wall
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
and listening to the raw, intimate, anonymous conversations of others, and you will see yourself. If you listen intensely to others, you see yourselves, even if it's not your exact story. That's right.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
So one of the things that changes is that we are today looking for a soulmate on an app. And the soulmate is the one and only, which basically has always meant God.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
And now it's your partner. Yeah. And with this partner, you want to experience transcendence and wholeness and ecstasy and meaning all the things that you actually used to look for in the realm of the divine. And now you want that with your partner. So people say, well, are we asking for too much? And I say, no, we don't. We can have enormous expectations.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
But we are asking one person to give us what once an entire village used to provide. I want with you what everything traditional relationships are about. Companionship, economic support, family life, social status. But now I also want you to be my best friend and my trusted confidant and my intellectual equal. And my fitness buddy and my professional coach.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
And last but not least, my passionate lover. And all of this for the long haul. And this long haul keeps on getting longer, right? And then we have taken love, commitment, intimacy away from our relationships with family, with friends, with neighbors. All these other relationships are weakening. And all of this is being brought into play. Modern love. So modern intimacy today is me talking to you.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
You're validating me. You're reflecting on me. And I am momentarily going to transcend my existential aloneness. And modern intimacy becomes intimacy.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
That's modern romance as I begin to see it.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
I think it is. I think we cannot have one person give us what the whole community should represent. And I think that we are actually overburdening our relationships and then we get very disillusioned.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
And I'll find someone else who I think can actually meet all my needs.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
um alone right now especially this week people get so hung up on what the valentine experience means or doesn't mean and i don't have and i didn't get and i wasn't acknowledged and i think the the to actually continue directly from what we just said love intimacy being valued being cherished don't just imagine that it takes place in your romantic relationship so valentine us all
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
Make it about love and it's the love that you share with all the people of your life. If you don't have a partner at this time, that doesn't mean you're excluded from the event. That's right. And then how do you feel less lonely? In general, we feel less lonely when we connect with others and we feel that we are able to bring a smile to their face and suddenly we realize that we matter.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
And that something is happening. Yesterday, I was literally thinking about these questions. And I'm walking here in Santa Barbara by the beach. And as I'm thinking this, a woman stops me. And she says, can you help me come down the steps? And so I help her walk down. She says, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I says, no, thank you for giving me this opportunity. I just...
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
feel like I was able to do something for someone. And when I left, she had a smile, I had a smile, and we momentarily felt less lonely. And that happens in small incremental things. You know, what happens today is modern loneliness masks as hyper-connectivity. I mean, you can have a thousand virtual friends and no one to feed your cat.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
Let alone pick up a prescription at the pharmacy, let alone pick you up at the airport, let alone so many things. Yes, yeah. You know, but they give you a parasocial relationship with a little like and it leaves you You know, not really feeling fit. You're undernourished.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
Because they're actually fighting not about certain things, but they're fighting for certain things. Ooh. If you think you're fighting about, then you think that you're arguing about, you know, why did you put the straw in this glass? You know, and now we're going to have a whole argument about the straw.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
You know, it's a little bit like sex. It used to be that you had to be ashamed if you had sex. Now you are ashamed if you don't.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
No. What people typically fight for, I think, can be summarized in three basic things. It's based on the work of Howard Markman, but people fight over power and control. Whose decisions matter more? Who has the priorities? You know, you hear it in sentences on the podcast all the time. People say, you know, you don't value my contributions with the children. You constantly undermine me.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
We are doing everything on your terms. We have sex when you want. We live where you want. We travel where you want. You're the boss.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
Power and control. People fight for closeness and care, trust. Do you have my back? Can I rely on you? Can I lean on you? And what we hear is, you know, I open myself, I share my anxiety, and instead of supporting me, you fly it back in my face.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
No, and when your mother says things about me, instead of protecting me, you ally with her.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
Okay, that kind of stuff. And people fight for respect and recognition, meaning, do you value me? Is my contribution recognized? Do I matter? And that is sentences like, I do so much and I don't think you ever value me. When you want to go see people, you just go, you know, without even checking in with me. Like you're unilaterally making your choices.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
And ultimately, you know, I had a thing in a podcast episode where they come in and they start to argue because he left the closet door open. And the cat could enter into the closet. And now follows a whole fight about the cat closet. Did the cat enter the closet or could? No, I couldn't care less. I don't listen to the story.
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
You know, all I hear is now they're talking about the closet, the door, the cat litter, the cat. And all I am thinking is what is it that they're really fighting about?
The Oprah Podcast
The 3 Things EVERY Human Wants with Esther Perel | The Oprah Podcast
He's saying, you know the boss of me. Then you know the boss of me means, you know, he had a very dominant father who talked constantly. And so that's what he's fighting for. He's fighting about the closet, but he's fighting for power and control.
The Oprah Podcast
How Your Childhood Shapes Your Life
Well, thank you, Ms. Winfrey and Dr. Perry, for letting me join this discussion. Your work, this book has had such a profound impact on my life personally and professionally. So thank you. It was, you know, the summer of 2020, a global pandemic. Our family, like the families all over this nation and beyond, were observing a quarantine that had been called by Governor Murphy in March of 2020.
The Oprah Podcast
How Your Childhood Shapes Your Life
And our son Daniel, at 19 at the time, he did such a great job. you know, really concerned about us, but he was lonely. And he finally, you know, worked on us long enough to say, you know, for his birthday, which was July 13th, can I have a few friends over? And so we thought about it. My husband, Mark, and I thought about it. And we decided to let him have a few friends over.
The Oprah Podcast
How Your Childhood Shapes Your Life
And so on Friday, July 17th, as Daniel's friends from Catholic University of America started coming over and ringing the bell, I had no...
The Oprah Podcast
How Your Childhood Shapes Your Life
clue that there was a disgruntled lawyer who a self-proclaimed anti-feminist um who had hate in his heart had a plan to assassinate me and he was on our block that night watching these kids come to our house and so that night they slept over the next day i made them breakfast And I decided to walk our two dogs, to give Daniel a little privacy, walk our two dogs down the block.
The Oprah Podcast
How Your Childhood Shapes Your Life
And as I was walking, I sensed a car. It was like out of place. And I remember looking at the driver and he looked at me. And for a moment, we locked eyes. And then he looked away. And I had no clue what this man had in store for us. And so that day he watched us. or every move. My son went to the beach with the remaining of the friends that had stayed. He saw me packing a cooler and umbrellas and
The Oprah Podcast
How Your Childhood Shapes Your Life
And that night, Daniel came back from the beach with his three friends. We had dinner. And then on Sunday, when Daniel's friends, the last of the friends, had left, Mark knew and I knew. He was so tired. He didn't get any rest. So we said, you know what? You don't have to do your usher duties. We're going to go to church. And when we come back, we'll clean up.
The Oprah Podcast
How Your Childhood Shapes Your Life
So we came back and we all were cleaning up and Daniel and I ended up in the basement and we were talking about all his concerns because one of his friends didn't show. And, you know, when Daniel was in his human form, Miss Winfrey, his dad was his buddy, but I was his confidant. And so we were talking this beautiful, deep conversation. And Mark ran down to the basement steps where we were at.
The Oprah Podcast
How Your Childhood Shapes Your Life
And he said, Dad, Mom and I are talking. And so that was Mark's cue to get a water and go. And Daniel was swinging a wiffle ball bat. And he turned around and he said to me, Mom, keep talking to me. I love talking to you. And, like, on cue, the doorbell rang, and Daniel's face changed from serene and calm to concerned and alarmed. And he went, who's that?
The Oprah Podcast
How Your Childhood Shapes Your Life
And before I could tell him, you know, don't go upstairs, Daddy's got it, he just bolted up those steps, and I'm cleaning up, and the next thing I hear is, like, mini bombs going off, like... And I scream, what is happening? And I run up the basement stairs and I turn to the left where the foyer is. And there is my only child lying perpendicular to the door, holding his chest.
The Oprah Podcast
How Your Childhood Shapes Your Life
And Mark is crawling on his hands and knees, trying to just get the look, like a look at the license plate or something of the man that just rocked our world, you know? And I remember dropping to my knees and pulling the shirt up and seeing the bullet hole in Daniel's chest. And then Mark crawled back. And we were flanking him in our foyer. And we watched our beautiful baby boy fade away.
The Oprah Podcast
How Your Childhood Shapes Your Life
Well, you know, I'm a lawyer, and I started researching grief, and I have to say I'm a self-proclaimed super soul junkie. Thank you. Thank you. I was just eating it all up, you know, eating it all up. And one of my friends mentioned that you had come out with a book and I, you know, I just wanted, I had to read it.
The Oprah Podcast
How Your Childhood Shapes Your Life
I had to figure out what was going on in my head and what was going on in Mark's head because he saw Daniel shot and then he saw that gun pointed at him and Mark was shot. Three times it hit five different parts of his body. So we were experiencing trauma from different places.
The Oprah Podcast
How Your Childhood Shapes Your Life
And I had to understand. And thankfully, the way that you wrote this book. The way that, you know, you and Dr. Perry are able to storytell and share vulnerability. And it was just so easy for me to understand and relate to that I began to understand the concepts of regulation and dysregulation and to understand that a dysregulated person can't talk to a dysregulated person.
The Oprah Podcast
How Your Childhood Shapes Your Life
And so it really... Nobody can. Exactly. Save my marriage. And we still, by the way, I mean, that's common lingo. You know, I'll say, Mark, I'm dysregulated right now. I need to go for a walk.
The Oprah Podcast
How Your Childhood Shapes Your Life
Absolutely. I mean, you know, it started with obviously me understanding and you even say in the author's note, this book is for anyone who wants to better understand themselves. Yes. But I began to realize that the men and women that were coming before me.
The Oprah Podcast
How Your Childhood Shapes Your Life
You know, we're dealing with a power differential, which you explain and Dr. Perry explains beautifully in the book, and that they are probably dysregulated from the moment they walk into the courtroom, you know? Yes. And so I began, you know, trying to understand how do I even out that power, you know, that power differential?
The Oprah Podcast
How Your Childhood Shapes Your Life
And I began to try to change maybe this voice, which is pretty loud, but the tone of my voice. And then, of course, the story of Joseph in the book about, you know, just short bursts of interactions that are positive. And so I now have status conferences with some of the individuals that come before me. And it's not as a judge, what have you done? It's more like, what can we do?
The Oprah Podcast
How Your Childhood Shapes Your Life
What can we do to help you? And by the way, I have to thank you both because I often ask individuals who are under supervision to read this book, to read this book and come back and talk to me about what they felt and what they understood.
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Dr. Sharon Malone on Everything You Need to Know About Menopause
Thank you. Thank you both for your continued discussion on this topic. I have learned so much about menopause just listening to all this information. My mom is in her late stages of Alzheimer's, so I can't talk to her about her experience with menopause. I can't help but feel
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Dr. Sharon Malone on Everything You Need to Know About Menopause
Like when I walk into a room and forget why I walked in or a word doesn't roll off the tip of my tongue, that this is the start of dementia. Or will this brain fog improve? So my question is, what can I do now in menopause to be preventative?
The Oprah Podcast
Oprah and Dr. Sharon Malone on Everything You Need to Know About Menopause
Um, I had a hysterectomy seven years ago because I had a history of adenomyosis and endometriosis. So the doctor has been a little wary of giving me HRT because of the estrogen.
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
that people care about them even when they don't see them, that they take them with them, inside of them, that their relationships are meaningful, nurturing, that they don't judge them and that they also don't ignore them. So, it's this kind of nice flexibility between, you know, you're there for me, but not on the condition that I do what you want.
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
And I have the freedom, but not that you can cancel an hour before dinner, because these days, who cares? Which happens a lot in this town, Casing Point.
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
So this is freedom too, like the freedom to think, do I have better? Is there a better deal for me tonight? And this is also freedom, is that I'm so important that I no longer think about how this is going to affect you, that you may have cooked a whole meal and I just at 7 o'clock tell you that I won't show up at 8. That makes people feel...
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
What makes us happy is meaning, creativity, flexibility, and good laughter.
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
Which is why people have family of choice. People create today new communities. People pursue polyamory as a form of community building. I mean, there's a lot of iterations of how to build community.
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
But it doesn't have to be always the people that you grew up with. Right. Because they're not always your best community either.
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
Right. I tend to not like, first of all, the concept of single and coupled. Because today you're single and tomorrow you're not. And today you're coupled and tomorrow you're single. There's a lot much more fluidity these days. But what I do know is this. We live with belief systems. Relationships are stories. Everyone here has a story about your relationship.
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
And we sometimes hold on to our stories so tightly that we confuse them with the truth. If I say there are no good men out there, if I say old people are out to get you, if I say I'm a pathological pleaser, if I say people have never cared about me properly, these stories become belief systems that become a part of my confirmation bias.
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
And when we have confirmation bias, it means that I'm now going to look at you and see to what extent this is going to reinforce my belief. And then I'm going to disregard evidence of the rest. So, check your assumptions. That's the first thing on the chain. What are your fundamental beliefs with which you enter relationships? And to what extent do you find yourself busy proving that they're true?
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
Number one. Number two, when you go out on a date, don't turn them into job interviews. They've never seen something less interesting. I mean, people ask questions and then they look to see if they have butterflies. How can that work? It's the most dull kind of encounter. This weird thing that I see has happened, but you go out to date, as this is if you get a date,
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
You know, because they had that other experience. And then you have to come back to your life to tell them if you won the lottery or not. And you come back with your shame or with your emptiness. It's dreadful. You know, there was something useful in the other model, the old model. You date, you meet somebody, you bring them to your life. You meet them with your friends.
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
You'll have a thousand data points. Far more interesting than sitting in some noisy bar and trying to ask questions. This integration, if the date doesn't work, the date is gone and the friends are here and you continue your life. This is not about the building of the relationship, but it's about the dating itself. The next thing is that we have a thing in relationships that's very interesting.
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
It's called fundamental attribution error.
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
It goes like this. I am complicated and complex. You are simple. When you come late, It's because you don't care. When I come late, it's because there were circumstances in my life to explain why I am late. Mine is circumstantial. Yours is characterological.
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
You're just a slob. You're just a this. You're just a that. It's a fantastic way we have to organize the world. So that is one of those nasty things that really make relationships not thrive. You know, name calling the other person, the whole thing. And then I'll ask you one other one that I think is really crucial. When you fight, because fighting is a major piece of relationship, it's intrinsic.
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
Conflict is part of love and relationships, all relationships. But don't think that what matters is what you're fighting about, but always ask yourself, what is it that I'm fighting for? What people fight for when they fight is usually three things. You fight for care and closeness. You fight for respect and recognition. And you fight for power and control. Who makes the decisions?
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
Whose priorities matter more? Power and control. Care and closeness, do you have my back? Can I trust you? And respect and recognition, can you value me? Most fights you will find are about one of those three things. But that's not what we say. What we say is, why did you leave your shoes once again? In my tour, I have this couple, and they fight about the cat closet, the litter, the cat box.
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
And I'm thinking, seriously, we're going to talk here about cat litter? I mean, this is an important session. And then I understand that when she says, why didn't you close the closet? It has nothing to do with the closet. It has to do with his father who told him all the time what to do, who stood with his foot on his neck, who never let him breathe,
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
And this guy grew up saying, nobody's going to be the boss of me. This is what he's saying when he says, why should I close the closet? That's power and control. And then she grew up all alone, taking care of the whole family, really miserable situation. And when he says, why should I close the closet? You close the closet. What does she hear? I'm going to be alone for the rest of my life.
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
I've always had to do it for everybody. I took care of everyone. And this is going to continue. You know, this is the underlying thing. But people will get so caught in the closet and the cat litter, it's phenomenal. This is why... Do you get, this is the, what are you fighting for? Ask yourself that, it will shorten your therapy hours by many.
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
Yes, yes, these days we trust our robots more than our partners. I know, right? It's amazing.
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
Yes. Half of me was so excited I have an answer and half of me wished I didn't have to have an answer. But you'll hear why. Basically, when did we go to Australia? Two years ago, two and a half years ago. I came to LA on November 1st. I was with my husband and we were on our way to New Zealand. I was starting a whole tour. My kids were already waiting for us there.
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
And basically we entered the doctor's office and the doctor said, you ain't going on any plane. You're not flying. You have 10% kidney function left.
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
For him. And we knew he had kidney issues, but not that bad. Not that bad. That meant... And you know, in the United States, there are no organs because the system is set up that if you want to be a donor, you have to specify it on your driver's license. In Belgium, where I'm from, everybody is a donor unless you specify on your driver's license that you don't want to be a donor.
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
So think about that because it really saves lives. But now I needed to find a kidney. Wow. And that meant I needed to let people help me. And I was at a mercy. So I began to talk to small groups of friends. Just grew the circle every time a little bit. Who would like to donate a kidney? I'm not a match. My son is not a match. My other son was not going to be able to do.
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
And it's an amazingly humble thing. you know, experience to... I had no problem asking, I have to say. I genuinely have no problem asking for help. I am not the person who helps others but can't ask for myself.
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
And I got a point where we had 10 people, 10 people who were willing to donate, but one match. And anyway, the match came through. It was our friend. We brought her over from Europe. We created this whole ritual with friends in my house where the night before they went in, instead of it just being an organ donation, we turned it into a sacred gift.
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
We sat in a circle and talked about what is our experience in life about giving and receiving. We brought them together the next day. And then for the next months while they were recovering, basically I had all our friends, this one took them to the hospital every morning at 7, this one cooked, this one this, this one that.
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
And here's the important thing, I live with an expert on community resilience. His work, his lifelong work is about collective trauma and community resilience, but he had never experienced it himself in action. Wow. So this is my story. Oh my goodness. Oh my God. That's beautiful. I have not yet told this in public.
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
So here's the interesting thing. There is a moment that is a lesson. At one point early on, I said I talked to so-and-so and they said we should go see the doctor so-and-so, which we're going to see now in LA. And he said, why do you talk about this with people? I'm entitled to my privacy. any of you who are in this room who are that person.
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
And I said, but come on, it's because I talked to these people that I got this name, that I now have this appointment, that this is how it works, community. I mean, do you think we're just gonna sit here and find a doctor who's gonna see us in less than six months? That's what I meant by I talk.
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
And it's about overcoming your shame and thinking that privacy is really nice, but you will die in privacy. And that if you don't want to do it, that's okay, but let the people around you do it for you.
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
It's like, you know, a new life. It's impressive. I mean, you know, most surgeries take things out. This one just puts something in.
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
I mean, the donor, what you experience is you feel like you've given life to someone. And by the way, you live perfectly well with one kidney. So it's really when the most important moment about the donor is that at Mount Sinai, they have every year a gathering of the donors, liver donors, kidney donors. And you're in a room with these people.
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
We happen to know ours, but all of the other people, sometimes it's strangers who just one day appear like angels. And you watch these people, these unsung heroes, and you just shut the up because, you know. I don't know if I would do it. This is the thing. Would I have done this? Have I known people? Have I heard and I never responded? Like, it's so easy, you know, to think, but no, no.
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
And I watched these people and I just bawled.
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
I'm pretty open. Because the last time we met, you were just in the engagement, going to therapy, working on it, and here you are. You said, I worked on my cell phone, we have worked together, but what's the part of yourself that you discovered that you didn't know existed? I have another one afterwards. Is that Machta whispering to you?
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
That I didn't know existed. The thing that has come out of me that surprises even me.
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
I think that everything you just said is part of your question. It's part of the answer to the question, you know, how does one prepare oneself to be in a relationship? You know, there's often a pull in a relationship between two polarities. The fear of losing the other and the fear of losing oneself.
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
The fear of abandonment and the fear of suffocation.
The School of Greatness
3 Steps To Building A Healthy Relationship
I will not leave you but I will lose myself in order not to be alone. Or the reverse is I leave you all the time. I don't stick around anywhere because I'm afraid that if I hang one more day, I'm going to get trapped.
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
something is missing in the story yeah that doesn't mean that the other person may not have done things that were hurtful to them but add to it who were you in this relationship absolutely what role did you play what did you see that you didn't want to pay attention to what things do you wish you had done differently
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
What pieces do you wish that your partner had seen and accepted from you differently? Where did you wish you would have said less and where did you wish you would have said more? What do you learn from this relationship? And if when you say what you learn is just that I want to make sure that the next person is...
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
Or is less of this or more of that. Who do you want to be in the next relationship?
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
A relationship is a story of many people. It's not even a story just of two. Who was too involved in your relationship? Who was not involved enough? So there's a cast of characters in a relationship.
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
and uh and it's all those questions that you want to ask when you are in transition what what i think that's it i mean you can but they are both directions if you find yourself with a spotlight only on the other person and you in a passive receptive um stance you're missing yeah a whole pan of the story yeah and you're probably more of the problem than the of the relationship than them if you're just focusing on them probably
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
A relationship is not about this person and that person. The relationship is what happens in between. This is my view on relationships. It's not an essentialist view, this is this personality and that personality. It's the dynamic. You can have a dynamic with a certain partner. You've had dynamics with certain partners. And of course, it was just the right fit between the match and the ignition.
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
And so you had enough inside of you to react with a certain kind of, let's put, your jealousy. But you may meet another person who acts differently, and you may still have a little bit of that jealousy inside of you, but it doesn't get activated because this person is responding very differently to you. And when you say, where were you?
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
They don't say, why do you always have to ask me that question? They just say, I just want to do this. It's all good, darling. I'm right here. I've got your back.
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
and then you don't go into your chest pain you know pain so this is very important to understand we are not the same person with with different partners we may have certain things that come out depending on what is being sent over to us so the relationship is a figure eight it's what i do
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
that makes you do something, that then makes you react to me a certain way, that then draws that out of me, that draws that out of you, and each one actually creates the other. And when you get that view of relationships, when you come out and you're in transition, you say to yourself, let's say I was with someone who completely disconnected. Okay, they disconnected. Did I push them away?
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
Are there ways in which I contributed sometimes to the disconnection? And that is not self-blame. That is understanding the dynamic. You can take responsibility about things without blaming yourself. And you can hold the other person accountable without blaming them. It's not a blame dance. But it is an understanding of what did I do that made you do what you then did to me that then made me?
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
That's the relationship.
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
But you asked me, it's different questions, right? What keeps a relationship alive is one question. How much do you invest in a relationship is a different question. So I'm going to go to the one about what keeps it alive. Because it's part of, and I'm suddenly watching the box and thinking, it is what I'm mostly interested in. Because I work on eroticism. What keeps us alive?
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
What keeps us hopeful? What keeps us engaged with possibility?
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
physically connected to life life force life energy why because Because I think everybody understands relationships that are not dead versus relationships that are alive. Teams that are not dead, companies versus companies that are alive. What is flourishing versus surviving?
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
And because it is part of my personal history, and I come from a background of survivors, of parents who were in concentration camps, and I wanted to understand how do people stay alive when they spend five years in a concentration camp. So that's why I've got interested in eroticism. Sexuality is a piece of this, but sexuality is not eroticism. You can have sex every day and feel nothing.
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
Eroticism is the poetry that accompanies it. It's the meaning we give to it. It's the story that's attached. So eroticism in a relationship... is the quality of imagination, curiosity, playfulness, mystery, risk-taking, novelty that people bring to their relationship. Those are the things that I think bring life to a relationship.
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
So in the research of Eli Finkel, it means doing new things together, taking risks beyond your threshold, out of your comfort zone. Because if you do pleasant things that are familiar, it's cozy, it's friendship, it's love, but it's not exciting, it's not erotic, it's not necessarily desire. It's calibrating your expectations.
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
And that means diversifying your intimate connections or your deep connections. For me, intimacy doesn't mean sexual either. It just means people that are important to you, that accompany you through the life stages and through the big events in life. These three things, expectations, calibrating expectations, diversifying your social connections, and taking risks and doing new things,
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
is the research of Eli Finkel for driving relationships. But then in that piece, I think play is essential. Playfulness, it's huge. And it is actually the quality of emotions that is the least talked about.
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
All the time. Humor is essential. It's an essential salve and balm in my relationship. I can be in the middle of an argument and then I start to laugh. And then I just get perspective and we just kind of ground ourselves back again. It's flirting. It's teasing. It's making fun of.
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
it's uh it's it's that whole realm of um we're not really serious and we don't take ourselves that serious and what happens when relationships are taking themselves very serious and they're not playing look i had a teacher who once said to me if a couple comes to you for therapy and there is absolutely zero humor left it is diagnostic really Now, is it true? Nobody has proven that scientifically.
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
But what you know is that humor, and if you listen to my podcast, if you listen to the sessions on Where Should We Begin or on How Is Work, you'll see in the middle of talking about trauma, painful event, major fights, strife, I laugh with them.
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
I manage to see if they can see themselves, if they have a bit of distance, of perspective, if they understand sometimes the absurdity of the things that we get into, the things over which we fight, the way we do it. Even if it's just a glimmer, a smile on the side, on the corner, I know they know that I know that we know. And it creates that complicity and it invites a new possibility.
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
If you want to hold on to righteousness, to I am right, to victimization, to I have the view that is the only view that matters and only my perception and my experience is the truth. then you are in a polarized system that is rigid and unyielding humor and play is possibility possibility invites change change invites healing yes
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
need to continue the healing journey of that came out in the last couple years with being at home and you know not doing things the way they used to be I will answer this in two ways the way that I experienced the the pandemic so in the first in the beginning right after I left you I went back to New York and I went in lockdown
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
and basically it was in the you know suddenly kind of i got gripped with a bit of a panic and primarily because i thought i can't catch this thing because if i catch it i am now suddenly considered elderly i'm past 60. but you're 35. yeah yeah
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
for the pandemic it changed it suddenly shifted overnight i became elderly and that meant i wasn't sure if we entered the hospital me or jack that we will pass the triage interesting and he's older than me And I got really, really scared. I had a lot of post-traumatic stress symptoms that are very much connected to the Holocaust and to my family experience.
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
That sense that overnight, this whole life I have built could just disappear like this. And it was irrational. I was terrified that Jack would die, to the point, you wanted to know about humor in my relationship? So we are in the middle of construction at the time, and the workers, and at the point he comes to me and he says, I asked the workers to dig a hole in the garden. I said, oh yeah, why?
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
He said, so that when I die, you can just roll me right in. Oh my God, yeah.
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
But I cracked up because he showed me, girl, you gripped in fear. And I just started to laugh. And I just realized, no, no, no, he's not dead. Because I was ready to stop construction. I said, we're not making this.
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
it's more like we will not survive no way i was i really when it's post-traumatic it's it's trauma is the word right so i really was very very very scared and his humor diffused it for me and just brought me back and said we're continuing to build we're gonna live we're gonna survive don't worry girl it's like
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
So this was one, and it slowly, you know, I entered into the long term of the pandemic, and it dissolved. And that's when I understood this came out of that. I missed my friends. I missed my dinner parties. I missed intimacy. And I created a host of different group experiences, pods. I had a movie club on Zoom on three continents. I had a book club.
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
I had a yoga group that met four times a week still till now that is over two continents.
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
And I had a hiking group. I had a swimming group in the summer. And then one day I said, I need to play and I need to continue to have conversations where I learn something new. I was so freaking tired of talking about the pandemic all the time. And I said, I'm going to create a game, not having any idea of what this thing was going to become and what it represented.
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
I just thought, oh, I want to do something creative and I'm going to, I want people to be able to talk about something that isn't just like, you know, when you live six months like this in lockdown you begin to have the same conversation so I just thought how am I going to make couples have fun Get energized, you know, be curious about each other, talk about something else.
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
And I thought we need to play because play is a container. Play gives you the possibility to take risks, to talk about things that you would otherwise not talk about because it's under the guise of play. Play allows you to ask questions that you would otherwise not ask, certainly not to your partner, because we get more shy.
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
with the people that we live with than with strangers sometimes you know you're more daring to ask sometimes questions to strangers or people you've just met than the person you live with for decades on end and I just so play became very very central when when you play you still you still are able to lift yourself from the ground.
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
And it means you can enter the world of imagination and where the rules are different. And every child at this moment, you know, around the Ukrainian crisis, you can see when kids are still able to play, it is the moments when they are not in hypervigilance. It is an essential survival skill. Underrated. And from that place came...
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Building Deep & Meaningful Relationships
Where should we begin?