Esther Perel: The #1 Secret to Know if Your Chemistry Will Last & Why You’re Addicted to Your Ex

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
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Speaker 2 (01:27):
We are often drawn to a person who brings characteristics
that we are trying to get away from. Are you
looking for chemistry for a love story or are you
looking for chemistry for a life story?

Speaker 1 (01:38):
To a psychotherapist, author and hosts around the clause, welcome,
How do you turn conflict into connection?

Speaker 2 (01:45):
It's not what you fight about, it's what you fight for.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
How do you know if a relationship is worth saving?
Before we jump into this episode, I'd like to invite
you to join this community to hear more interviews that
will help you become happier, healthier, and more healed. All
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(02:09):
I love your support. It's incredible to see all your
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for subscribing. It means the world to me. The number
one health and well inness podcast Jay Sheety Jay Shetty say,
hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the number one

(02:30):
health and wellness podcast in the world. Thanks to each
and every one of you that come back every week
to become happier, healthier, and more healed. Today's guest is
someone that we've had on before, and you loved her.
I know you loved her before, but you loved her
on the show and I couldn't wait to get her
back on because we've never actually met in person until
this day. I've loved her books from Afar, We've connected

(02:54):
over messagings and emails, and we have so many mutual friends,
and I'm so grateful that I finally get to sit
in her present today and actually get to do this
interview face to face. Please welcome back to On Purpose, Esther, peroo, Esther,
thank you so much for doing this, Thank you for
making the time. Thank you genuinely so grateful.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
It's a pleasure to be here in three d.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
Yes, exactly after all these years. I think the first
time I interviewed you must have been during the pandemic
or something like that.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
I mean, I remember I remember very clearly seeing you
through the screen and saying, oh, this is a new life.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
I love it. Well, let's say, let's dive straight in
because I have so many questions today. I have questions
from me, I have questions from our audience, we have
questions from social media. We're going to get to play
your game as well, which I'm very excited about and
pick some questions from. But my first question is, how
do you know if a relationship is worth saving?

Speaker 2 (03:46):
Shall I stay or shall I go? Is one of
the fundamental questions. And here's the thing. Even if you
decide to stay, or even if they decide to go,
you may do so while at the same time having
a part of you that actually holds the other side.

(04:06):
If you think that the decision is one hundred percent perfect,
no doubt, no hesitation, then it's a set up. If
you leave, you need to be able to leave while
experiencing the loss of some things that may have been good,
even if it's just a dream of what was. If
you stay, you have to be able to grieve the
part of you that will never know what it would

(04:27):
have been like if you actually left. So the answer
is not in the extreme determination. It's in the ability
to hold the inherent contradictions it's a complex question, and
complex questions don't have easy, binary answers.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
And it's interesting, isn't it, Because we crave a binary,
easy answer we wanted to feel. We often seek complete
clarity when we're trying to make a decision rather than
accepting that a decision is followed by consequences and a
number of different feelings. You use the word grief there, yes,

(05:07):
And I've seen research that shows how when someone breaks
up with you, or when you break up with someone,
you almost crave them, like we crave an addiction that
may even be unhealthy for us at times. Why do
you use the word grief? And can you walk us
through both of those losses of identity that you spoke
about on either end?

Speaker 2 (05:28):
So grief is because I think every choice comes with loss.
The consequence is the choice you didn't make and even
though you think this is the right choice and this
is what I must do, the grief may be the
fact that you didn't you were not capable of making
this thing work, or that you had such high hopes
and it didn't materialize, or that you have wished that

(05:50):
you didn't make some mistakes that you made, or that
you wish you had left sooner. There's lots of dim
fruit ways, but there is no choice that doesn't have loss,
and therefore some grief attached to it, and that is
the nature of the beast. That does not mean that
you didn't make the right choice in terms of heartbreak,
It's a different part. Yes, some people experience heartbreak with

(06:13):
such an ache, with such a sense of longing and
such a sense of fracturing on the inside that they
are that their longing becomes obsessive, that they are trapped
in rumination, and that it experienced like a withdrawal. That
is not all breakups, but that is the extreme kind

(06:33):
of breakup which has been compared to an addiction because
of the intense sense of withdrawal and because it takes
place in the same centers in the brain.

Speaker 1 (06:43):
Let's say someone does want to save their relationship, they
want to make it work. What does that take on
a deeper level from that individual? What have you seen
over the years of what it really takes. I think
we often think of saving a relationship as like, let's
do more date nights, let's spend more time together, let's
do more this. But what have you seen it really
takes from a human.

Speaker 2 (07:04):
So look, I work with relationships for forty years. These
are questions that I can answer in multiple ways. So
I'm going to answer it in one way with you today,
and somebody is going to say, but you didn't talk
about that. So I just want to preface that because
there isn't one size fits all. And when I'm going
to highlight something now with you, because it's the first

(07:26):
thing that came into my mind. When you ask what
can we do to actually repair our relationships, strengthen them,
fortify them, solidify them, enlivened them, one of the first
things I often think about is accountability. It's actually not
asking the other person to do all the changing. Somebody
is going to tell me, but what if you've done

(07:48):
that and it hasn't made any difference on the other side.
So I just want that to be mentioned in Generally,
in relationships, we often get to a place where we
think you need to change. Here. I'm going to tell
you what you could do differently that would make this
relationship better. And the hardest thing to do is to
actually say what can I do? Because if you change,

(08:11):
it is quite sure that it will also create change
on the other side. Because we are interdependent parts in
a relationship. I start to do something which makes you
do something, which makes me do something. It's a figure eight.
But if I start to do something else sooner or later,
you cannot continue do the same. If I no longer

(08:33):
answer you when you say something, there's a good chance
that at some point you're going to stop saying it
because you don't get the reaction that you've been used
to get. So there's no better way to change the
other than to change ourselves. But that's not one hundred
percent thing. It's just a good principle to keep in mind.
What is it that I can do differently? What's one

(08:55):
thing I could choose that I know would improve the
relationship because I've heard you, because I know us, And
if I don't instantly walk out every time, but I
actually stay and I listen and I pay attention, will
that create something rather than thinking about, you know, all
the good reasons why I should get out or leave
in that moment. So this accountability piece is very high

(09:18):
on my list, But there are ten other things about
what makes us work on a relationship to improve it.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
And you talked about there, how you know, trying to
change the other person isn't necessarily the focus, but for
so many of us, that seems to be the problem.
The problem seems to be the other person's behaviors, their attitude,
their approach to life, maybe their aspirations. I hear a
lot of people say things like they don't dream enough,

(09:46):
they don't dream, they dream too little, right, like it's
much too much, Right, that's it. Yeah. I hear some
people say they don't dream enough, they dream too much. Yes.
I hear people say, oh, they have too many friends,
they have no friends, right. I see people at both
ends of the spectrum. We always seem to have issues
with how our partners live. And what I've learned, at

(10:07):
least in my own personal reflection, and I've found, is
that for a long time in my relationships, I often
projected the way I lived onto my partner, and we
so strongly believe that the way we live is right,
the way we were brought up is right, that we
want our partner to kind of follow suit. And I

(10:28):
always give this very small example from my own home.
But in my house, we used to eat, hang out,
and then at the end of the night we'd wash
the dishes. In my wife's home, they used to eat,
wash the dishes, and then hang out. And so when
we got married and we started living together, and when
we were having friends over or whatever it may be,

(10:49):
in my mind, we're gonna eat, we're gonna hang out,
and then we're gonna wash the dishes. And now my
wife's sat mind, she's thinking, we're gonna eat. Now we
have to clean up, make sure everything's clean, and then
we can hang out. And something as little as that
can call so much friction and bad communication and feelings of, oh,
you don't care about me, and you don't love me,
and you don't appreciate me, or you don't value the work.

(11:10):
And there's so much that comes from something. And that's
just a very small example. But it's interesting to me
that in that scenario, we both had not created a
new belief system for our relationship, but we're operating based
on two old belief systems that we'd simply adopted. Walk
us through, whether you agree, whether you disagree, whether you

(11:32):
can edit that, reveal more to us about I find
so many of our challenges exist because we project our
operating system onto someone else, rather than creating one with them.

Speaker 2 (11:42):
I like the way you call it the operating system.
So I'm going to take a sentence that you highlighted
and start from there. You said, here, we were fighting
about what's the right moment to do the dishes, But
in fact, what we were talking about is you don't care.
You don't see me, you don't appreciate me. You wanted
your way. And what you're highlighting here is something that

(12:05):
I've actually talked a lot about in a new course
that I'm doing on conflict, which is exactly that how
do you turn conflict into connection? And one of the
things I say is that it's not what you fight about,
it's what you fight for. You were fighting for recognition,
you were fighting for power and control, you were fighting
for respect, you were fighting for trust and closeness. Underneath

(12:29):
the fight, there are usually three sets of issues that
we are actually fighting for, and that is power, trust,
and value. So you don't value me. You know, I
worked on this cooking, I've made this nice meal, like prepared.
I try to be kind to your friends, and you
don't value me. Once you've understood that, what is the

(12:51):
hidden dimension that you are actually fighting for? The fight
the dishes, the when to do them becomes a lot
more clear. A lot more clear, rather than it's not
just I'm imposing my belief on you and I want
it to do my way because my way is the
right way. That's you may think this way. But the

(13:13):
question is what happens when you have to confront yourself
with someone who is different. I mean, everything about relationships
is about straddling sameness and difference, you know, and when
you are a couple's therapists, it's very typical that people
come to you and I could drop off center right.
They tell you, you know, here my relationship, here's my partner.
Let me tell you what's wrong with them, and maybe

(13:34):
you can fix them. And I'll help.

Speaker 3 (13:35):
You jump on how to make my partner understand why
my family's way of doing things is the best way
of doing things.

Speaker 2 (13:47):
It's a very good way. And so then the question
is if you have to change your mind, does that
mean that it's a loss of your identity or can
you actually experience that as an expansion as something that
you in How do you let the other person influence
you without being constantly in the defense of your you know,
this is my flag and here are my values or

(14:09):
my operation system.

Speaker 1 (14:10):
Yeah, I really really relate to what you're saying. And
I love how you've broken it down to what we're
fighting for versus what we're fighting about. I think that's brilliant.
And that's from your masterclass, right.

Speaker 2 (14:21):
No, this is from my own new course.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
Oh, this is from that.

Speaker 2 (14:24):
I am coming out with it very soon. And that's
really about letting people have a very different view and
set of skills for handling conflict like this one. You know,
at first it was a nice thing. You didn't fight about.
You just said, we do it. Oh, that's so interesting. No,
let's do it now. No, And then slowly, because you
couldn't come into an unified agreement, it became a point

(14:47):
of contention. And then that point of contention became the
go to every time you need to talk about your backgrounds,
your values, your style, your priorities, your way of doing.

Speaker 1 (14:59):
I think we feel so robbed, or at least when
I speak to people about this, they feel so robbed,
as you said, of their identity. But also, as you said,
people feel robbed of their power that if I give
in to this other person, my partner may be the
more powerful one in the relationship, or if I concede,

(15:20):
then in the future when we're making decisions, they're going
to think I'm going to concede. And often that is
the case that people get into relationships because they think
the other person is submissive or conceding to them, or
agrees with them on everything they say. And then one
day that person goes, wait a minute, I didn't realize
I just gave up everything I care about for you.
And so how does one learn how to practice that

(15:43):
humility and giving up of power? Or is the solution
a unified agreement as you called it just there? What
are we trying to unravel? How do we do that?
Because I think that, but.

Speaker 2 (15:55):
You just betrayed yourself in the question. Okay, your whole
question is framed in power terms. Concede, acquiesce, give in
loss of self, loss of power. Yes, some people feel
this way. That is one frame for some people to
enter into a relationship. But if I actually change the

(16:18):
word power, I could go like this. In every relationship,
you will find that there often is one person who
is more afraid of losing the other and one person
who is more afraid of losing themselves, one person more
afraid of abandonment and rejection, therefore more likely to acquiesce,

(16:39):
to pacify, to placate, to say yes, until maybe one
day not and one person more afraid of suffocation. And
therefore they fight for their ideas, their ways of doing it.
The timing of the dishes, and that is less about power.
That is more about the nature of connection. The majority

(17:00):
of power struggles in a relationship are not power struggles.
Power is the defense. The control battle is the way
people are defending, trying to get something for something else
that they are worried about. It's the surface behavior. You know,
some people, when they're afraid, they fight, but the issue
is not fighting. The issue is that they're actually afraid

(17:21):
and they're trying to deal with their fear by gaining control.
So don't just go for what you see, because what
you see isn't necessarily just what it is. Go always
looking at a level below. Otherwise you're going to have
a lot.

Speaker 1 (17:35):
Of this yeah exactly. And so you're encouraging those people
that feel that way to look at that layer deeper.
The giving in yeah makes.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
You lose your identity. Where did you get that idea?
Who did you have to fight with that? You had
a sense that if you don't go all the way
and with fists. That's the motion of fighting. Right. It's
not this, you know, but you enter the relationship with that,
and yet you live it with this. So what happened
to you that is making you continuously interpret every situation

(18:11):
as a fight, as a power struggle, as I have
to stand up and hold on because if I give in,
this is the beginning of a slippery slope. That's a
frame that is not the truth. Now, maybe you picked
somebody with whom this is sometimes what is going to happen.
So then you ask this person what happens if you
don't get you awigh? For you, the question is what

(18:33):
happens if the other person gets their way? And for you,
the question is what happens when you don't get you awagh?
Can you still feel confident even if you don't trample somebody?

Speaker 1 (18:43):
Yeah? And I think the questions you answer asking that
we all need to reflect on for ourselves. I almost
think they're as important to ask our partners, like to
understand what happened to them, like why they're in that position,
why they get afraid? And I think that curiosity is
so often lost in romantic relationships, where we don't understand

(19:03):
why someone is the way they are. We just assume
that it's about us, like we make it personal. We
don't recognize that they have a whole history of relationships,
of family, of parenting, of experiences that have made them
that way, and maybe they are dealing with a deep
fear or a deep challenge. Does that resonate?

Speaker 2 (19:20):
Yes, you know. This thing about curiosity is the most
important shift. We try to make Curiosity about yourself and
curiosity about your partner or friend or coworker, whoever. The
other is. Curiosity is on the other side of reactivity.
So everything dealing with conflict is about helping us shift

(19:42):
from reactive to reflective and curious. But more interestingly, what
you reminded me of is a thing I talk about
in the course. That's called fundamental attribution error. If you
are nasty or reactive, or bullying me a bit, or
if just simply if you late whatever you're doing, that

(20:03):
the tendency is to think that when you do this,
it's because you have a negative personality. But if I
am nasty or short, or you know, cutting a little bit,
then it's because I had a tough day. Mine is
circumstantial and yours is character logical and the loss of

(20:23):
curiosity in relationships is because we tend to think that
we are more complex than our partner. And that's what
makes us not ask what is your story with this?
Why do you need to get things your way all
the time? Why do you have to really din until
I finally say whatever you want there? You know, we'll
do it your way? Because unless you got it your way,

(20:44):
you think that you are, you know, on the floor.

Speaker 1 (20:48):
Yeah, I think people and as that you've I mean,
you've done this for decades now, Like I'm sure you
feel that what we're really addressing here, which I'm so
happy that we've kind of gone in this direction. It's
beautiful and I'm so happy that with that that this
idea of are you curious about yourself and why it's
happening and what happened to you? Are you curious about
your partner and what happened to them? Are you not
making it personal? Are you thinking about working as a team,

(21:11):
building unified agreements? All of this language is so positive
and I genuinely believe that what we've just covered is
so often missed in relationships because we're so busy pointing
the finger and pointing the blame and pointing the responsibility
that as you started off with, there's a lack of accountability,
and that being such a brilliant shift to even just

(21:33):
start liberating.

Speaker 2 (21:34):
Yeah, it's actually liberating for people to say, let me
check myself for a minute. The fear that people have
is why me, is it my problem? Why are you
blaming me?

Speaker 1 (21:45):
No?

Speaker 2 (21:45):
No, no. Taking responsibility is liberating because the only thing
you can really change is you. There's a lot more
freedom to do something about yourself than to go look
for your partner on the other side. I had a
moment like that simply so I was on the phone
and I was a little agitated talking to banks and

(22:06):
people and administrating bureaucracy, which gets me agitated. And then
my partner said, you know you doo. And then my
partner says, my husband says to me, I have a headache.
I said, what happened? He says, You've been so yelling
here next to me in the car, and I'm like,
you know, I'm trying to solve these problems and you

(22:28):
can't just say to me, you know, that's really frustrating.
These people were like keeping you on the phone for
an hour. You think I wanted to be on the
phone for an hour with this, and I just felt
like a little lack of empathy, please, a bit of sympathy,
some support, And on top of it, I'm getting called now.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
For my attitude.

Speaker 2 (22:46):
And I sat there and I began, you know, brooding,
and I said, Okay, I'm not going to talk to you.

Speaker 1 (22:52):
You know.

Speaker 2 (22:52):
I thought, if you don't want to, if I'm that unpleasant,
well then I'm not going to say anything. And then
I sat in there and thinking, I'm married almost forty
I'm thinking to myself, am I going to go do
this one again?

Speaker 1 (23:03):
You know?

Speaker 2 (23:04):
Why am I doing this? Why do I feel so upset?
Why don't I just simply say I can imagine that
it was unpleasant to So he says to me, why
don't you say something about the fact that it's really
annoying to sit next to someone who is so agitated?
And I'm thinking, why doesn't you say something about how
frustrated it is that I need to be so agitated,

(23:25):
you know? And this could have turned into a real fight.
And luckily a little bit of humor takes us out
of this very quickly. It's like we game, like how
many minutes are we going to do this? Yes, you know,
And where was that coming from? After all this time? Like,
like you said, you've been together for four decades, you
love each other, like you trust each other, You've worked
through so many of these things.

Speaker 1 (23:46):
What do you think it is that we're still fighting
for in that moment? Like? What is it? Because it
doesn't go away? You're right, like he has two answers.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
I mean, we would have very different answers to your question.
First of all, just so you understand, I will tell
you I sometimes, you know, hear him talk in a
situation like this and he's very could you explain to
me why this is? And I'm thinking tell him that
this is not right, you know, And he says afterwards
he hangs up, just I was very angry on the phone.

(24:16):
Excuse me. That is good, you know. So I don't
think I get much further by being more you know,
confrontational than Actually I don't think I'm any more effective.
I think these situations are frustrating whichever way. But we
get into an argument over which of our approaches is
the better one to talk with the bureaucracy.

Speaker 1 (24:36):
It's ridiculous, yeah, exactly, And it's so.

Speaker 2 (24:40):
He thinks I should be nicer, right, right, and I
think he should be a little more.

Speaker 1 (24:46):
Yeah. Yeah, And what are you saying. Are you saying
that neither approach matters and we're arguing about something insignificant
or is it?

Speaker 2 (24:54):
Here's the thing. You're in a situation where you are
bound to not necessarily be success. Yes, you're bound to
experience some helplessness. It is frustrating, The situation is frustrating.
Instead of dealing with the frustration of the situation, you
start to blame the other person for the fact that
they didn't get to the result that you wanted. Instead

(25:17):
of this kind of situation where you go back week
after week with another person on the phone automated thing,
you know, and instead of align together against the situation,
you start to project onto the other. Why are you
not competent so that I don't have to feel so helpless?

Speaker 1 (25:35):
Yes, yes, yes, yeah, wow, yeah exactly, And I can
relate that we had a similar one kind of inverse
to what you just said, but a similar interaction where
I remember my wife would often say to me, I've
had a really tough day, and I take that as
an opportunity to say.

Speaker 2 (25:53):
I had a tough day too, and.

Speaker 1 (25:56):
I had a tough week really, you know. And it's like,
I'm using her opportunity to be vulnerable and to share
how she feels with me and to feel comforted and
supported and just heard to be heard. I'm using her
opportunity to be heard to hear myself. And it's kind
of like when you were looking at me looking at

(26:17):
myself earlier. It's like that that idea of she's saying, hey,
just sit with me for a second, and I'm saying,
when I sit with me for a week and think
about where I'm coming from, you, yeah, And then that
it just turns into a competition as to whose life
is tougher and making the other person feel like their
pain is not valuable or that their stress that they've
gone through is insignificant compared to mine. And all of

(26:40):
a sudden, you're fighting for something that you don't even
want to prove to your partner, Like I don't want
to make my partner feel like their pain is not valuable.
But because I'm not honoring my challenge and my stress
and what I'm going through, I'm expecting to use their
space to do that.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
You just expanded very well, but sometimes yeah, please, I
mean the effect is the same you topping her, you know,
in such a big way, completely says to her you
have nothing to complain about, which is not necessarily your intention,
but it is often way the other person registers it.
And then the question to you is do you ever
say to her I have a tough week without her

(27:18):
prompt Yes, because part of what happens is that you
get prompted by the other person and it suddenly says, oh,
if you give yourself the permission to say to complain
or to just vent a moment, then maybe I get
that permission too. And what changes it is to just,
you know, is to acknowledge what it has just been
said and then to say I have that feeling often too. Yeah,

(27:42):
but it is the competition. It is the you suffer
I suffer more.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
Yeah. Absolutely. Now, Now something that's really helped me to
use humor. Now, Yeah, my white wife can make anything funny.
So I rely on her to bring the humor in
because she's just very Yeah, she's just she's hilarious's comedians,
so not as a not professionally, she's just a funny
person and so she can always add that. But Now
what really helps me, and this is more what I'm like,

(28:08):
is I'm kind of preemptive of stress, and so I'll
sit down and hey, I've got a really stressful week
coming up. I just want you to be aware of that.
And so you know, if I'm a bit shorter, i'm
running around, or I'm not fully pressed, I just want
you to be aware. I've got a lot of stuff
going on, and if you need me, of course I'll
be there, but just know. And I like to set
that up and communicate that because to me, it gives
me space to at least let her know where I'm

(28:31):
coming from, rather than to catch me in a bad
moment and then I end up behaving in a way
that I'm not proud of, whereas now she's aware. So
now she's mindful of that too, and she doesn't have
to tiptoe around meal, she doesn't have to be unaware.
But it's the idea that she's conscious that I get it.
He's got three crazy days coming up, and you know,
we can talk about something maybe the day after.

Speaker 2 (28:50):
Can I take this one asleep?

Speaker 1 (28:52):
I love that. I'd love that.

Speaker 2 (28:53):
It's probably one of the most useful things I have
seen changing in a relationship. When you do what you
just do, you're attentive, you're caring, You let her know
you're apologetic, and being apologetic is very beautiful, but it
still says my life is very important, and I just

(29:15):
want you to know I'm not going to be there.
The step that really changes it around is when you
say to the other person, I'm so thankful that you
are here. Because you're being here is what enables me
to go take care of.

Speaker 1 (29:28):
My busy week.

Speaker 2 (29:30):
Because once you say it like that, you make the
other person very important and not my life is so important.
Thank you for understanding it. You come after. I'll be
there if you need me, but you come after. The
thanking reinforces the interdependence, and it's true because you couldn't
go and attend to your life the way you do

(29:51):
without having the other person do whatever it takes for
you to be able to be absent for a while.
And when you acknowledge that, it makes them feel like
they're part of the story rather than they're on hold
while your story on false.

Speaker 1 (30:04):
Absolutely absolutely, I couldn't agree with you more. And I've
always found that, at least for me, doing that separately
in different contexts, has at least helped me when it's
not tied to the same context. But I love that
idea and I fully agree with you, Like you know,
I think it's a nice Yeah, it's beautiful.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
It's a tweak that really changes the power dynamics and
the relationship in a small move.

Speaker 1 (30:29):
Yes, definitely, it's switching the significance from yourself yes, to
this relationship and the support that you each provide. Yeah,
that's beautiful. I love that. I love what we're talking about.
And you've probably heard this a million times, and that's
what I think it's important to address. A lot of
people will say I want to talk to my partner
about these things. I want to be curious about them.

(30:50):
I want to ask them about their past. But every
time I do, they shut down, they go quiet, they
don't want to talk about it. If I get curious
and say, hey, you know, when we're not arguing, when
we're just talking, and I say, hey, you know what
I just I just wanted to figure out, like, is
there anything that scares you from your pastor is anything
that worries your is there any challenge you're going through
that how can I help you? And the other person
is no, No, I'm fine, I'm okay. I'm dealing with it.

(31:12):
And people often feel like they get shut down when
they're trying to be curious. I'm sure you've heard a
million times in sessions, and how have you how have
you dealt with that?

Speaker 2 (31:21):
If you've tried to ask your partner a certain set
of questions and you systematically get the same answer, change tactic.
The point is not doing it one more time hoping
that this time you're going to get a better response.
It's a little bit like Moses and the rock. You know,
the water won't flow. So what I like is not

(31:41):
to be so direct. You know, somebody told me recently
that they had gone to an off site at work,
so it started in a different context, but it's a
good example. And she organized this whole off side and
she took a card from the game from where should
we begin? And the card was us somebody who impacted

(32:02):
your life and doesn't know it. And the whole group
went through this question and basically people spoke that you
knew nothing about, people who never talk, and people who
you thought you knew that came up with stories that
you had no idea about. Try to do it in

(32:23):
a more playful way. Try to do it sometimes as
part of a dinner conversation. Try to do it with
a question that is less on the nose, you know,
and that invites you to start from anywhere you want.
This is an interesting question that you can answer at
so many levels of debt. There many of those. If

(32:43):
you just say, tell me about your past. No, you know,
you saw this movie and you saw what happened. There
is like anything of that that is familiar to you,
and you tell your story. You need to create a context. Yes,
for many people, digging deep into the past is traumatizing, aversive, scary, uninteresting,

(33:07):
you know, or they don't have the vocabulary for it.
It's the other thing. So that's why people have used
the arts, books, movies, plays, songs, poetry. They speak our
human experience with and we only have to say that
that's my thing. So sometimes I say to people, you know,
how about you find some songs that express the stuff

(33:28):
that you don't know how to talk about. And that's
a much lighter lift than tell me about your past.
You know, a character that represents the parent that you
grew up with, and you go and find into a
series a television series one of these characters they've all
been written about, use other mediums, other vocabularies to open

(33:49):
up stuff that people don't necessarily want to be in
therapy with their partner.

Speaker 1 (33:54):
Yeah, I love that. That's such great advice, and I
can agree more. I always say, everyone is listening to me.
I always say to them like, please don't force my
book onto your partner, Like, please don't like you may
love my books. Yeah, please don't do that. And I
always say to people like, it's about speaking the language
that your partner connects to. And that's what you're saying.
The language could be music, the language could be art,

(34:16):
the language can make movies. And I always talk about
one of the reasons why I love having my podcast
is because I get to speak to so many different
people from so many different from backgrounds, so many different
walks of life, talking about similar things. You read a
book a day, yeah, exactly. And what I find is
someone may relate to athletes more so. If an athlete
is opening up about their mental health and their vulnerability

(34:38):
or a challenge they have with the parent, your partner
may respond to that more than they would a coach,
a therapist, a psychologist or one of your partners may
respond to academics and scientists more than they would agree
to a guide, and it doesn't matter how they open up.
And so I love that you said that. I love
that you said sometimes we're just trying the same strategy
for too long, and you know, like you said, on

(35:00):
the nose, we kind of approach it in a very
barrier yeah, literary.

Speaker 2 (35:04):
Way, like tell me about you know you're doing this,
what happened to you before? You know, like a cause
and effect, you know, play with it.

Speaker 1 (35:12):
Yeah, you're trying to be the therapist and you can't.

Speaker 2 (35:14):
I think plays a good thing. I think movement is
important too. Many people talk much more easily when they're walking,
when they're hiking, when they're you know, on a ski lift.
Don't just sit and try to do face to face.
There's a reason that fishing is so good. Yeah, because
you do parallel play. Everybody is looking forward, nobody has
to lock eyes, and it allows me to think out

(35:35):
loud and to answer a question here and there. The
other thing is sometimes the question comes later. Often there's
one person that's much more articulate about some of these
things than another. So find other mediums of the vocabularies
and other settings start with that.

Speaker 1 (35:50):
Yeah, I love that. One of my favorite dates that
me and my wife went on very early on was
this activity in England called go ape, And what it
is is it's it's like a ropes course that's high
up in the air, so it's like eighty feet or
whatever up above in the air, and you've got all
these different activities and things, so you're like swinging, You're
like trying to walk on these steps. It's challenging, but

(36:12):
it's fun. And I remember having so much fun because
there were activities that she found easy and I found hard,
and activities that I found easy and she found hard,
and we could help each other, we could talk while
we were doing it. There was a sense of support.
And I think what you're saying is so true that
I find that doing activities where we're both novices are
really fun because when we're both getting a chance to

(36:36):
see a new, fresh, unseen side of each other, we
really get to play and really get to understand if
I'm in a position of strength, if I know a
sport really well and she's never done it, then I'm
not really learning anything new. I'm kind of just being
there and trying to be the teacher and same vice versa.
But if we both have no clue about something like

(36:56):
me and my wife took a surfing lesson for the
first time in our life, like a couple of years
ago when we went to Hawaii. We both never served
in our life. You know, we're both from London and
that wasn't accessible there and we went on a first
of a lesson and it was just hilarious. It was fun,
it was silly. We were both learning about how much
tolerance we both had and there was humor coming in
and what skill set we had. And you're so right

(37:18):
that adding movement to being together, especially I find in
ways where you're not familiar, provides a real opportunity to
see someone vulnerably.

Speaker 2 (37:29):
So you added more than just movement. You added risk
and you added playfulness. There's a beautiful book by Eli
Finkl called The All or Nothing Marriage, and he talks
about really what creates a sense of a liveness in relationships,
and one of the things he highlights is the importance
of doing new things, not just doing things that you

(37:51):
both enjoyed, that you're comfortable with. That's good, but that
breeds friendship, whereas when you do new things that also
involve unknown mystery, risk, curiosity, that's where you actually bring
in excitement and in my language, also desire.

Speaker 1 (38:07):
Hmm. I love that. Yeah, that's beautiful. That makes complete sense,
and I love those words. Those words we don't often
use around relationships, risk mystery like it. Yeah, no, no,
I know, but you just don't hear them, not enough.
You don't hear them enough at all. Around relationships. You
always feel mystery with something you had on date one,
or when you saw that person from across the room,

(38:27):
right like, that's when the mystery was and there isn't
any But I can't agree with you more that.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
But that's because people prefer sometimes to create an illusion
of familiarity, as if I know you, like you're the
inside of my pocket. Yeah yeah, yeah, until you do
something I absolutely did not expect you to do, and
then suddenly I realized, and I say, I thought I
knew you. The real beauty is to know that whoever
is next to you, who you think is already so

(38:53):
familiar and so known, is actually still somewhat mysterious, somewhat elusive.
And that's where you maintain your curiosity next to the
person that is with you. You know, faced with the unknown,
you can either react with fear and try to flatten
it and just ignore all of that and just hold
on to what's familiar, or you can nurture it, and

(39:15):
then you are actually engaging with the mystery and the
curiosity that is right in front of you and that
you know from your spiritual work that is very much
taken from that notion. How you then, because that allows
you to sit like this when you're talking with your partner,
because you're still attentive and curious versus like this.

Speaker 1 (39:35):
Yeah, definitely, definitely. Let's say someone decides to break up
or maybe they're broken up with and we can talk
about both sides of that. If we talk about the
side of someone's decided to break up with someone for
their own reasons, and of course, there could be a
million reasons for breaking up with someone, so it's hard

(39:56):
to be specific there. But if someone's broken up with
someone but they are having those feelings, as you said,
the consequences will be you'll still have that grief of
what could have been. You have the consequences of maybe
it could have worked, maybe we should have tried there's
still a feeling of I wish they were still around.
I used to talk to them every day at seven
pm at night. I used to on a Friday night.

(40:18):
We'd always go to this favorite restaurant, whatever it may
have been. We have these memories. What do people do
with that feeling? What do you do with that feeling
of craving?

Speaker 2 (40:30):
You know, you do a lot of different things, but
it's so interesting. I literally edited a new episode for
the podcast for Where Should We Begin of a guy
who leaves his wife who he had been very close
to for quite a few years as a young child,

(40:51):
moves in with another woman, is on the verge a
few years later of marrying that other woman and can't
do it, and has felt guilt and remorse and regret
and longing for all those years, and starts to meet
the mother of his child again, not just as a mother,

(41:12):
but now they're going on a first date again. And
it's like I left you and then I came back
to you. It's an incredible story to see one person
because that is a question that doesn't have one answer.
But in this case, he couldn't leave her fast enough,
but he could never leave her fully. And I can't

(41:33):
tell you today if he's back with her or what.
But I have a sense that something when he was
about to marry this other woman held him back that
he couldn't necessarily put into words, and that made him
feel like he had to examine himself, which is what
this whole conversation on where should we begin is about.

(41:53):
And I've never had that particular version of it, but
it is the one that most responds to your question.
But you're gonna have to go listen.

Speaker 1 (42:01):
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely no, And I recommend everyone going and
listen to that if that's a question you've been asking yourself.
I think that heartache that people feel often feels endless.
As you said, it can just go on and on
and on forever. People feel like we've always had. You know,
time will heal all wounds.

Speaker 2 (42:18):
But who instigated the breakup? Is the really changes a lot?
Or if it was mutual?

Speaker 1 (42:23):
Is it ever mutual?

Speaker 2 (42:24):
Yes? I think that it is often mutual where two
people say we evolved into something else or just didn't
work or you know, both people may have felt it,
but one person was able to say, let's do it.
That makes sense, you know, and the person who is
more afraid of abandonment and rejection and all of that

(42:46):
is often more the person who may not say it,
but that doesn't mean they didn't feel it. Many people
tell you I didn't have the guts to do it,
but it's the best thing that happened to me. My
partner pushed it. I didn't want it then, So between
what happens in the moment and how people experience the consequence,
it's not one and the same. The person who may

(43:08):
have pushed it may be the one who has the
most regret. The person who was more hesitant it may
be the one who actually is most liberated. Yeah, it's
a much more intricate puzzle.

Speaker 1 (43:19):
And just of course, of course, what are some of
the phases that you see people go through that can
give people hope that there is another side to this,
Because I think when you're in it, the emotion is
I'm never going to be loved again, I'll never find
someone as good as them again, I can't trust anyone again, right, Like,

(43:40):
these are the thoughts that people are repeating in their minds.
What is someoney to understand during that time?

Speaker 2 (43:45):
To know it? Just made me think of another episode
of this, But this the daughter who describes how one
day a truck came took all of her father's stuff.
I mean, then it comes back home. That's a story
that we hear quite often. And then all the situations
of betrayal, of infidelity, of falling in love with somebody else,

(44:07):
or discovering that you partner wants a fundamentally different relationship
than you. And I think that the situations where you
are like completely side lined and you realize, wow, the
first experience you have is that your whole sense of
reality is shattered. I thought I knew my life and

(44:30):
this has nothing to do with where I thought I
was at. How can this be happening to me? You're
in a state of confusion, in a state of disbelief,
and in a state of shock, and in a state
where you feel like you've been just ejected from your life.
You had value and you have none. That's all part
of betrayal. It's not just the lying. It's the fact
that somebody could toss you away like that and that

(44:53):
you think don't matter, and that's what makes you much
more afraid. Will I ever find someone who can hold me,
carry care and carry me? You know? And can I
trust that ever again because I trusted it. Here the
question is as much about how do I trust again,
but not just how do I trust somebody else? How

(45:15):
do I trust my own perception? That's the piece that
when you lose the belief in your ability to know
that what you believe is what is, then you are
on such shaky grounds. So it demands a real scaffolding
and a rebuilding. No, you haven't lost your entire sense
of perception because you have good friends, family, colleagues, mentors.

(45:36):
There's not just that person, and you need to get
your sense of value from noticing the other relationships that
you have. So you need to bring those people into
your life. Do not isolate at that moment. You need
the people who see you differently from the one who
just left you, and those who seek you out, those
who value your presence, those who think you great. You know,

(45:59):
and then slowly you often will find that you connect
better with other people who have experienced a sense of
betrayal like that. But betrayal is not only in fidelity.
It can also be in a partnership. It can be
being co founders of something in There are other relationships
that go through this complete fracture Slowly you begin to say,

(46:21):
it's not one person's harming me or hurting me that
is a decree on who I am and my self worth.
That person hurt me deeply. I have been hurt and
I learned from this, and I protect myself a little bit.
But I don't have to protect myself in such a
way that I don't live, because the biggest victory on

(46:46):
this kind of hurt is the ability to love again,
to trust again. You did not take that from me.
That is probably your biggest vengeance is to be happy.

Speaker 1 (47:00):
Wow. Yeah, I mean that resonates very very strongly. And
first of all, can people rebuild trust after experiencing infidelity?
And what does that process look like for someone and
how different it is it to what they expected to be.

Speaker 2 (47:22):
The beauty of your questions is that it filled an
entire book of mine because it's actually a big, big topic.
But if I was to try to summarize it, yes, yes,
of course people can rebuild trust. I mean that is
not everybody and not in every situation, but the process

(47:45):
itself very much is real. And I have met you know,
I began State of Affair by going to talk to
couples that I had seen five or ten years earlier
to know whatever happened to these people, because I see
them in a moment of crisis, and often I don't
know afterwards. You know, they decided to stay together, they

(48:05):
worked it through, and off they went. So I wanted
to know what does that relationship actually look like years later?
Who are they? What happened to their bond? You rebuild
trust through a few major stages. The first one is
that whoever hurts you, especially if you choose to stay together,
has the ability to express guilt and remorse for hurting you.

(48:28):
Even if they don't feel guilty for the affair itself,
Even if they have hosts of good explanations, good reasons
that make it understandable, not justifiable, not condonable, but understandable,
they still can experience the guilt and the remorse for
hurting you. That acknowledgment is fundamental. It's fundamental in an

(48:49):
intimate relationship, in a friendship, or between nations for that matter.
Then it's the ability to basically become what I call
the vigilan of the relationship. It means it's your job
now to say how much you value the relationship and
to protect the relationship. So in the situation of an affair,

(49:11):
for example, it means that instead of you're asking me
questions about what I did and me hoping that you
won't ask me because we've already gone through this ten times,
I ask you, is there something you want to ask me?
Because if I bring it up, rather than hoping you
won't bring it up, then I'm saying to you, I'm

(49:31):
owning my thing. I take responsibility. I care about the relationship.
And most of the time, if we have a good day,
you may say to me, I don't want to talk
about it. I'm having a good day because I am
reminding us and I'm not letting it be forgotten, and
I'm taking charge. That's the vigilante. I'm the protector of
the relationship. And then number three is to explain, to

(49:52):
talk between the people, why did you do this? What
did it mean to you? And then what did it
do to me? The affair always includes both sides. If
you just talk about what it meant for you, you're
missing a point. If we're just talking about what it
did to me, were missing a point. So the ability

(50:13):
to not just look at the facts what did you do,
but the meaning of it. Affairs have meaning their stories.
They tell us something about the person, about the relationship,
not always bad things for that matter. So what did
it mean to you? And those three stages in the
crisis phase remorse, guilt, acknowledgment. In the inside phase, you

(50:37):
are the vigilante, and together we explore meaning making of
this crisis for us? What are we going to do
with this? And then phase three is if we do
stay together, what's our vision for who we want to be? No,
we will probably not go back to what we were,
because what we were may have been part of why
we got to where we are. Who do we want

(50:59):
to be? What does it open up an affair topples
the scorecard in a relationship? So I may have accepted
all kinds of things because this was the way I
conceived of our relationship. And I was willing to not work,
and I was willing to make more money. I was
willing to work all the time. I was willing to
do all the child care. I was willing to do
none of it. I was willing to take care of

(51:19):
your ailing mother, of your addicted brother, whatever. I accepted
a lot of things. But now this basically gives me
the opportunity to also say I also have discontent. It's
not just your affair that expresses the discontent. And so
here's the fundamental line. Most of us today in the

(51:39):
West are going to have two or three relationships in
our adult life or marriages. Some of us are going
to do it with the same person. So sometimes the
affair is the end of the first marriage or the
first relationship, but it can be the beginning of the
next one with each other. And that's the rebuilding of

(52:00):
the trust.

Speaker 1 (52:02):
Well said, yeah no, and it's I'm sure that's going
to give people a lot of hope. But also what
I love about your work and your books is that
there's also a process there. There's a structure there, there's
a method there for people to go, oh, okay, that's
where we're at. That's what I'm struggling with. I think
one of the biggest thoughts that repeats in people's minds

(52:22):
when they're broken up with or when they've experienced infidelity
that I hear from people is jay, I feel like
I'm not worthy anymore. I feel like I'm not lovable again,
I feel like I'm not desirable.

Speaker 2 (52:35):
While they are staying with the person or while they've
broken up both.

Speaker 1 (52:39):
I've heard people say I don't feel desirable because they
desire someone else, but I still want to be with
that person, And I don't feel worthy even with that
person now because I'm reminded constantly, as you said, of
their infidelity, and these thoughts perpetuate. But what I'm hearing
you say, and I'd love for you to guide us,
is what I'm hearing you say is well, that's why

(53:00):
you need to do the meaning making, because you really
need to understand their story and meaning and yours. Right now,
you're just focus on yours, and that's always going to
be this negative, repetitive pattern.

Speaker 2 (53:13):
You remind me of a couple I saw, and this
man had done something that was really egregious in some
way because he had taken everything that was special to
the relationship and shared it with the other person. But everything, wow,
their favorite places, restaurants, clothing, I mean, he had left

(53:36):
nothing sacred. That's devaluing, right, And whenever they would drive,
there was a way when they would arrive to a
place and she would look at him and it was
like there too, And so he would dread it because
he knew he was guilty as charged, and then I
began to say to him, I want you. Every time

(53:58):
you drive, when there is a place, you say yes,
they're too, without waiting for the question, because you know
that you have to stand up. But when there is
that you have to stand accountable. But when there is
a place not, you say no they're not before the
question comes up. That's part of the vigilante, so that
you protect the relationship and you bring back the value.

(54:21):
You say, you know, now go create new places too
that are new for the two of you, and that
you need new cells. You can't just go back and
try to re enter the spaces that you were in.
The loss of value gets addressed by having someone who
is slowly reclaiming the value. The feeling is true, but

(54:41):
it doesn't mean that because they had desire for someone else,
they had none for you. Actually, sometimes they had desire
for someone else because you had none for them.

Speaker 1 (54:51):
You know.

Speaker 2 (54:51):
The person who says that to you comes with one
particular story, but there's so many stories.

Speaker 1 (54:58):
You know.

Speaker 2 (54:58):
Sometimes you have a person who was completely uninterested for
a decade and then they are upset that their partner
was interested with somebody else. It's not just you know,
I was there available for you, and you dumped me
for someone that you looked at with a bigger, you know,
founder eyes. So what people experience after the betrayal doesn't

(55:21):
always tell the story of what happened before. That's why
the meaning making is so really important. You know, sometimes
somebody is going to say to the other, you devalued
me for ten years. You barely paid any attention to me.
You were so enruptured in your work, you were so
busy with your phone, you were so you know. I
was abandoned long before, you know, And that also needs

(55:44):
to be put into the story. The story doesn't start
the moment that you discover something, because there are a
lot of moving pieces underneath, and people addressing this with care,
carefulness and possibility is the process. It's the hope doesn't
come from nowhere. It comes because two people say this

(56:07):
is important. We build something. We've been together five, ten,
fifteen years, twenty five years. We're not letting this just
go now. We need to reclaim the value of this
for both of us.

Speaker 1 (56:18):
Absolutely, this idea that we're going to have two to
three relationships in our adult life, and they could either
be with the same person or of course with two
to three different people. And I think this idea of
choice and selection has obviously rapidly changed because of technology

(56:39):
and apps and the amount of people you can bump into.
You know, I looked at studies saying that, you know,
twenty five years ago, most people ended up with someone
within a five mile radius of where they grew up.
We know that that's not the case anymore. People are
moving countries for people moving states, people are living in
different parts of the world. We both live in different

(56:59):
parts of the world than where we grew up. And
so when I look at that, one of the biggest
challenges I find, or that I hear from people is
because there's so much selection, there's a sense of like,
I'm not feeling any spark, I'm not feeling any chemistry,
I don't feel a connection with this person. I hear
that a lot, and well, let's address that. And then

(57:21):
the other thing I hear is this idea of like,
you know, this guy didn't have as much as the
other guy, or you know, and you start comparing it
because you can because you're just exposed to so many
more people now, and you're almost comparing resumes of people
that you've heard about spoken to, seen on a dating app,
introduced through your friends. So this idea of choice, in
the paradox of choices, it's always been called in studies

(57:43):
from products to people. Now, you know, we can get
stuck at a grocery store wondering which product to buy,
but in dating it feels like you can keep going
because you can just keep swiping. Let's talk about both
of those, the idea of how do you choose, how
do you select? And when you're choosing and selecting, how

(58:07):
do you not feel that sense of there could be more?

Speaker 2 (58:10):
I said choice comes with loss. I'm actually very excited
about this question because I'm very interested in this at
this moment right, I'm interested in the intersection of technology
and relationships and mental health. And I've just done a
bunch of episodes with people in the dating scene because

(58:33):
of exactly this. So we have a frenzy of romantic
consumerism in which, in search of the perfect, people are
no longer happy with the good. We have people looking
for a soulmate on an app. That's an interesting combination
between spirituality and capitalism, and how do we even think

(58:53):
that a partner is a soulmate? Soulmate used to be God,
you know, and now we want transcendence and missy and
wholeness and all of it an ecstasy almost with the person,
you know, the stuff that people looked for in the
realm of the divine they now want with their person.
And at the same time they're doing it with a checklist,

(59:15):
so that many dating experiences are like job interviews. So
all of that combined, right, I do think we have
more choice, but we also have a lot more uncertainty
and a lot more self doubt, and we are a
lot less capable of handling uncertainty because we live with
a host of predictive technologies that are all meant to

(59:37):
take away uncertainties, obstacle friction, you know, rough edges. So
we don't rub anymore with stuff that helps us deal
with uncertainty unknown and engage with happenstance.

Speaker 1 (59:50):
You know.

Speaker 2 (59:51):
Happenstance means you stand in line and you start talking
to the person that is behind you in line, and
after that you go and have a drink with that person,
and after that you and yourself exchanging numbers and a
story starts spontaneously, unprompted. So I think that the commentification
that people feel is real. It's not just because of

(01:00:13):
your childhood. It's part of society at this point. There
is a way in which we talk about ourselves as products,
and there is a way in which we talk about
ourselves online with followers as if we are religious leaders,
you and me for that matter. So the first thing,
don't go in thinking that you have to find somebody
at the first meeting. This is not the way it works.

(01:00:36):
And that you go down your list and you know,
and then if the first thing that goes wrong, you
go ick, and you just go on to the next.
You know what I'm doing now when I address this
very question is I show a very famous clip that's
classic in psychology called the still face experiment. Have you

(01:00:58):
ever seen it? Minute clip on YouTube. In the still
face experiment, the mother is playing with the little one,
and the little one is cooing and showing her things,
and you know, and then at some point the mother
goes still face, and the kid continues to point and
continues to call her attention, and within thirty seconds or

(01:01:19):
less of the mother not responding, the kid goes into
a panic, A frenzy loses its body. Composer starts shrieking
and basically you understand that we are relational people from
and what this clip shows me is that this is
what goes on in ghosting, in bread crumbing, in checklisting.

(01:01:41):
This is what is the experience of many people at
this moment. You go, you have a hedonic treadmill. You
meet someone, you think these possibilities, and then they disappear
on you and you're left like this, and then you
unravel and you do this sometimes twenty times a day
with the same person. This is kind of the experience.

Speaker 1 (01:01:59):
Of modern days.

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
I haven't seen many people say I love it. You know,
maybe sixty five percent of meeting people meet on an app,
but I don't see people saying I love it. Actually,
it's the number one complaint of people dating at this moment.
So try to bring back something that is more humane.
You meet somebody or a friend, introduce you to someone.
Don't go and meet with them alone in a bar,

(01:02:22):
to have a face to face conversation, To go down
and interview. Do an activity it's exactly what you were
talking about. Do something you enjoy doing. Bring that person
to a thing that you're doing with friends. You want
to get to know somebody, put them in a social situation.
See how they interact with people, how they act, how
they respond, how they engage with people. If you think
that you're going to have epiphanies with clarity like an app,

(01:02:47):
forget it. You will be exhausted and you won't meet anybody.

Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
Really well said, and I could agree with you more.
I'm always trying to push people away. I'm like, get
out of your inbox and your DM and your messages
and get out there. There's no way talking to someone
over a couple of messages is going to help you
figure anything out. But you've probably spoken to so many
people who've had chemistry, lost chemistry, never had it. I

(01:03:12):
feel like a lot of people today that I hear
from their meeting people, but they're like, there's no spot,
there's no chemistry, I'm not feeling anything. What should we
want to feel, if there is anything we should want
to feel at all with someone? And what is the
difference between chemistry compatibility?

Speaker 2 (01:03:28):
And First of all, I think we need to differentiate.
Are you looking for chemistry for a love story or
are you looking for chemistry for a life story. Lots
of people you can have chemistry with, have a fantastic
night with, for that matter or more, but that's not
the person you necessarily want to make a life with.
The project will determine the nature of the chemistry.

Speaker 1 (01:03:52):
That's number one.

Speaker 2 (01:03:53):
So number two is curiosity, a desire for more, want
to you know, it's like you read a book, a
person is a book, right, or you can use other metaphors.
Do you drag yourself through the next page? You know,
I should you know, let me see where it goes,
or like you can't wait? You know it's a page turner,

(01:04:16):
if you know, if the experience of the page turner
with the person, you want more. You want to have
the next conversation. You want to ask them that kind
of question. You want to go do something else with them.
You're on a good track. You know, this notion of
this instant combustion of emotion that fills you up. You
want a religious experience. That is not always the case.

(01:04:39):
Sometimes people fall like that, you know, as we say,
for but the majority of the time, things grow, you know,
they grow through the interaction. You get a good text,
you like what you just read. You find yourself wanting
to answer a sentence and you've just answered two pages.
You know you wanted to go and meet them for
half an hour, and three hours later you're still sitting
on the floor in the hallway having an entralling conversation.

(01:05:02):
That's the stuff that reads the feelings. If you sit
there like this and think that's some you know, diosx
Machini is going to fall from the heavens, you're off.
You know, it's this false certainty that is not the
majority of people. And there's many ways in Some people
start hot and then they become lukewarm, and some people

(01:05:24):
start lookwarm and the heat grows over time. There isn't
one narrative, this notion that Hollywood has sold us that
it's like, oh and I can't wait and I just
have this. I fall for you on the spot. That's
one plot. There are many plots. And if you constrain
yourself in thinking this is how I should be feeling

(01:05:45):
and I'm not feeling it, then you you are limiting
your options.

Speaker 1 (01:05:50):
Yeah. One thing that has really come up a lot
with people have spoken to recently is this idea of
they find someone who makes them feel safe, who they
feel cared for by, and the person seems to be
they consider them to be good hearted. That person makes.

Speaker 2 (01:06:12):
I'm waiting for the butt.

Speaker 1 (01:06:13):
Yes, exactly, you already know, you already know this person
in their words makes sense, but they feel like they're
settling because there must be someone else who has all
of that plus the other three things that they want.

Speaker 2 (01:06:29):
You are a perfect candidate for romantic consumerism. If you
think this way you've been had, you've been literally you've
become a good person that I can, we can. You know,
your mind is set for somebody telling you this is
the product you need, the perfect fit, and then you

(01:06:50):
are going to be the perfect patient who comes in
thinking I thought my person was like this and this
and this, and they're not the deal that I bargained for.
It's not what was written on paper. You can lead
the language. It's like business. You know, capitalism enters romantic life.
It's really crippling to people. You know, the more you

(01:07:11):
have this notion of perfection, the higher you can fall.
You know, are you perfect? Are you that great? Do
you think that everybody falls?

Speaker 1 (01:07:19):
Like?

Speaker 2 (01:07:20):
What is this notion? So then there is this idea
that there is the sense and settling with the passion
you know, and you should have that passion. Passion is
a wonderful feeling to have. It's maybe not the best
thing to decide if you're want to have a life
with somebody on it's not the most important ingredient for that.

Speaker 1 (01:07:37):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:07:37):
That doesn't mean you don't want excitement, intensity, you know, draw,
But this idea that there is reason and passion, that's
a very old divide. That's the that's the divide of
the nineteenth century, the rationalists and the romantics.

Speaker 1 (01:07:52):
And why do you say that? Why do you think that?
And I get that you're giving a balanced approach that
to enlighten and what you've seen you compare the love
story in the life story? Yes, why do you think?
It almost feels like what we've been sold is for
the love story. But the life story requires a different set.

Speaker 2 (01:08:08):
Of skills, yes, skills and values and compatibilities. Because there
are many more people that you can love than people
you can make a life with. I can have many
love stories with people that I meet on a trip
that I you know, with whom I have a beautiful
short story with. But would that be the person with

(01:08:29):
whom I can do we share anything else in terms
of how we see life, with everything else that life brings,
that's a different thing that doesn't mean you don't want
love in the life story. But many more love stories
can exist without life story. Not that many life stories
will exist without a love story. You know. You can

(01:08:52):
call it an adventure, you can call it, you know,
and it is what people used to do when they
did before. They're looking for someone with whom they want
to have a more committed relationship. It's very important that
we see that a lot of the things that we're
looking for are the things that make for a real
love story, the things we want to feel, The things

(01:09:14):
that are on the checklist are the things that we've
kind of created an impossible situation. It's really so you
don't settle. If you see that language says what I
am fantastic, you know, or I am not fantastic, but
I'm going to find someone fantastic who's going to make
me rise. And it is a kind of use of

(01:09:38):
people that really is creating such a psychological paucity. It's
really eroding people's sense of self esteem and sense of
self worth. It's not good. Where are you at in
new life at twenty three? You're going to think differently
from thirty three. You know, at thirty three, it's likely
that you're going to think of a few people that

(01:09:59):
you said no to are twenty three that were perfectly
fine and you kind of didn't because you kept thinking,
I can do better, and this I can do better
is eating people up because it creates constant restlessness in relationships,
in life, in pursuit and then they need to go
and meditate to get calmer, to be less restless. But

(01:10:22):
the restlessness is this constant pursuit of more, better, younger,
and therefore living with the feeling not enough. I don't
have enough, I'm not enough, and that's the crisis that
then follows around self worth. Because you constantly want more,
you end up constantly feeling not enough.

Speaker 1 (01:10:43):
And someone else will make me feel more than enough.

Speaker 2 (01:10:46):
Yes, the evaluation. The meaning of finding the love partner
today is that it will end my sense of constant
self evaluation. I'm evaluating myself. I'm presenting myself, I'm selling myself.
I'm trying to compete on the market. It's like language,
you know, the romantic language is about the market, you know,

(01:11:09):
the meat. And then when I find you, my beloved,
I will finally stop the process of evaluation. This is
a thing from if I lose a great sociologist that
studies love relationships.

Speaker 1 (01:11:22):
That's such a beautiful language as well, that you want
to end your process of evaluation when actually a life
story is an evolution of self evaluation. It's only going
to come with more. Do you see there being inherent
value in long term committed relationships or is that also
a construct of society?

Speaker 2 (01:11:42):
I see. Look, I work very cross culturally, right, so
I don't think the answer is the same if I
am in Belgium, in India, in Turkey. But I think
there is a lot of value in a long term relationship.
But the long term relationship has doubled in lifespan. So
one hundred years ago we lived half of now, so

(01:12:04):
the long term keeps on getting longer. But there is
also tremendous value in having had the possibility of finally
being able to end this and to start a new,
or to never have had it and to start a
new People who marry for the first time in their sixties,
or people who realized that they had a beautiful relationship
for certain things and that now they needed something else.

(01:12:26):
The marriage was an institution that you couldn't leave. You
got in, and you got in for life, and if
you didn't like it, you could hope for an early
death of your partner, you know, hopeful, because that was
the only way out. And especially for women, I mean,
marriage has not meant the same for men and women.
Marriage for same sex people is very recent. So the

(01:12:48):
question has a lot of different pieces. I think that
there is something very beautiful in a long novel, and
I think that there are beautiful short stories. There isn't
a one size fits all at this moment. And the
interesting thing is we've been creative about a lot of things.
We disrupt. We are creative about even family life. We

(01:13:09):
have blended families, same sex families, single parent families, Accordian families.
But when it comes to romantic couples, romanticism, the exclusiveness,
the monogamous long term model has been the dominant model
for two centuries and is quite strong. So I think
we can be more creative and in rethinking relational arrangements

(01:13:32):
and relationship arrangements that are more diverse and that bring
in other people as in the community, because what is
happening in the long term relationship of today is not
only that it is much longer, but it is also
much more isolated longer and lonier, one person to give

(01:13:53):
us what normally an entire village should provide, and that
is crippling. The relationships under so much weight and so
many expectations. So those who do it well do it
better than the relationships of the past, as I think,
but the majority of them don't manage to climb the olympus.

Speaker 1 (01:14:12):
Yeah, and I you know, I often think about that
because I think what we were talking about earlier, when
I first met my wife, I'd definitely say that there
was so much of the romanticism of the perfect relationship.
And I often talk about in my book as well,
about how I proposed to my wife, which was basically

(01:14:33):
based off of Instagram and YouTube videos, how I invented
a proposal that was so not personal or not she
liked it. Well, I'll tell you. I'll tell you what happened. So,
and if anyone's heard this story before, I apologize, but
I want to ask them. I don't know the context. Yeah,
so we've been together, I think at that point for like,
maybe I proposed off like a couple of years and

(01:14:55):
so we've been together. I decided I was going to propose.
We were walking down bank of the River Thames in London.
I had an a cappella group jumped out and sing
Bruno Mars, will you marry me? Like marry you to her.
They gave her a bouquet of flowers. They performed this
amazing number. I got down on one knee I proposed.
We both shed a tear. She said yes. We then

(01:15:17):
had dinner on the side of the Thames where I
had the kind of finagle a table from a restaurant.
I had food that was brought in, but it was
cold because everything had gone wrong on the timing, so
we ate cold food, which was we didn't mind. My
wife is amazing, so she didn't care. But I was
looking at that going hmm. And then we walked around
the corner and we ended up on a white horse

(01:15:38):
drawn carriage that I'd booked that took us around London
on this beautiful carriage and it was a beautiful trip.
And then we got on the train to go back
to her parents. And we got home to her parents.
Her parents opened the door and they said, what happened
to you? To her? She had hives all over her
face because that was the day I discovered that she
was allergic to horses and I didn't know that, and
she didn't know that. And I've always looked back and

(01:16:00):
reflected at that story because my wife said, yes, she's
never complained about it, she was happy with it. But
when I really look at it, and as I've got
to know her more and more every year, and like
you said, I feel like I get to know more
of her new things and old things every year. We've
been together for ten years now, and I still feel
like every day I'm discovering something new about her. I

(01:16:22):
realized that that was the most impersonal show of love ever.
It wasn't the song wasn't specific to her, the horse
drawn carriage wasn't specific to her. The food was the
only thing my wife would care about because she's a
big foodie and that's her world. And it was cold.
And I look back at that event and go, I'm lucky.
She said yes. But actually the hives were a reminder

(01:16:45):
to me of how little I knew my wife at
that time.

Speaker 2 (01:16:48):
Or how eager you were to impress, how.

Speaker 1 (01:16:50):
Ego exactly, how I was a complete ego. I was
twenty maybe six, twenty seven years and what a show
it was, as opposed.

Speaker 2 (01:17:02):
To do you come from traditional families.

Speaker 1 (01:17:04):
I would say we come from yeah, like I would
say we come from more traditional families. Yes, yeah, definitely
they're modern thinking, but generally traditional overall in the world.

Speaker 2 (01:17:14):
And where they arranged marriages or where they.

Speaker 1 (01:17:16):
My mom and dad were, and pretty much hers was
as well. Yeah, pretty much her parents were as well.

Speaker 2 (01:17:21):
So that's a major transition. So when you ask me
about long term relationships, I think people who are in
an arranged marriage system answer that question very differently, yes,
than people who start with the romantic You know what
the research says, right.

Speaker 1 (01:17:36):
What does I've seen? Bits? But please clarify. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:17:39):
I think it's Dan Arieli's research that people who start
with romantic and falling in love and passion are much
more likely to then experience dissatisfaction in the relationship than
the majority of people who start in an arranged situation,
which is much more rational. Actually, their satisfaction rises as
they get to know each other and develop the fairness

(01:18:01):
and the relationship. I think this is true if the
relationship is good.

Speaker 1 (01:18:04):
Yeah, if it's good for those for whom it.

Speaker 2 (01:18:05):
Was really not a good match, it.

Speaker 1 (01:18:08):
Must be horrific. Yeah, And I think the reason why
I was sharing that story was because I think what
I've realized and you were mentioning this earlier, is that
I feel like I found the person who has helped
me continue self evaluation in a way that I would

(01:18:30):
have avoided with someone else, or that I would have
tried to avoid if I would have had multiple love stories,
whereas this life story that I have with my wife
currently is just the most purifying and cleansing, detoxifying process internally,
but in the most fun, loving and caring way. And

(01:18:54):
I look at that and I think about that often
where I think to myself, I would have had to
learn these lessons with anyone, but maybe someone else may
not be able to challenge me as much as my
wife does with the lack of criticism and complain and
judgment in a safe space with humor, which actually makes

(01:19:15):
it accessible to me. And it's one of these really
interesting reflections I wanted to share with you to hear
your thoughts on that, because I don't think I would.
There are so many skills today that I have only
because I married this particular person. There are so many
emotional parts of myself that I've been able to discover
because of this person. There have been so many.

Speaker 2 (01:19:35):
You know, what you're telling me in some way is
you didn't succeed in impressing her.

Speaker 1 (01:19:42):
I've never succeeded in impressing my wife.

Speaker 2 (01:19:44):
And that's her power, you know. I mean, not that
you're not impressive to her, that she doesn't appreciate and admire,
but you didn't succeed till this day, and therefore her
opinion matters, and therefore she can keep you on your toe,
and therefore she doesn't let you sit on your laurels
and get away with stuff, and therefore she can see

(01:20:05):
you in a more humble way when you come home
from having done forty stage events after another where you get,
you know, clapped the whole time, and you kind of
lose a sense of you know, proportions, and that is
an extremely I think that you're very lucky, and not
just lucky because you found her, but also because you
knew that you did need someone who challenges you and

(01:20:29):
who can hold hers to you, but do it in
a way that doesn't feel authoritarian or humiliating or ball busting,
et cetera. And so it creates the right friction. She cares,
and she can criticize. She loves and she can challenge
you know, it's both and and holding those tensions in

(01:20:51):
a relationship is in my mind, very important and very
gives a lot of strength and energy to a relationship.

Speaker 1 (01:21:00):
Yeah. Yeah, please, no, No, that's it.

Speaker 2 (01:21:03):
I think that it's your self awareness of it that
is really good. It's like, if you had somebody who
just looks like that, it would have been a problem.
If you had somebody who just did that, it would
have been a problem. But you knew that you needed that.

Speaker 1 (01:21:15):
Yeah. And I don't think I knew it before we
started having that experience, but it it just became really
evident to me that she loves me for who I am,
not what I do and what I achieve and how
I try to impress, for example. And I think that's
a great reminder for me to love myself for who
I am and not love myself or what I achieve

(01:21:37):
or what I do or what I create. And I
think that that is a really I'm like, that's the
very important Yeah, yeah, to have some Yeah. And it's
also how you perceive it. I think what you're saying
is true. Like I've talked about it with people, I
could easily perceive it, and people could perceive it and say, Jay,
you're just a pushover. Jay, You're just you know, making

(01:21:57):
it up. You're making sense of something and it's treatment
or whatever. And I'm like, well, no, because I can
see that it's done from love and care and it's humor.
As you said, it's done from such a special loving
place that I feel that I know it's a knowingness
that it is liberating and it is wonderful. But it's
interesting because I think a lot of people may have

(01:22:19):
that experience, but they don't want to be humbled, they
don't want to access that point. And I'm fortunate that
my Monk training kicks in there and allows for that
vulnerability and self reflection and not thinking I'm perfect, Whereas
I wonder if that's we're scared to do that because
we almost want our partner to make us feel perfect.

Speaker 2 (01:22:40):
No, I think that this thing of perfection is I
think we want our partners to recognize us and accept
us perfection.

Speaker 1 (01:22:49):
But it comes in the form of, at least in
the beginning, demanding adoration and.

Speaker 2 (01:22:54):
Yeah, but the beginning is only with the beginning. It's
one phase of a relationship. I think my friend Ry
Reel has this beautiful definition. Self esteem or self worth
or self confidence is seeing ourselves as flawed, imperfect people

(01:23:14):
and still hold ourselves in high regard. If you actually
need to see yourself as perfect, you lack the confidence.
The confidence is the ability to make mistakes and not
to not sleep over it for three weeks because you
feel such shame and such you know, intense attack on

(01:23:34):
your identity. But I have a question for you that
from what you've just said, do you feel that these days,
on both sides, on all sides of the spectrum of
the gender spectrum, that people are so enraptured with the
notion of identity and holding on to the self that

(01:23:55):
they find accepting influence from another person an instant their
identity like pushover. Pushover is like, you know, it's a
power dynamic instantly when you use that word. You know,
if you accept what your wife says, what kind of
a man?

Speaker 1 (01:24:12):
Are you?

Speaker 2 (01:24:13):
Right? You're just a pushover. That's more in the masculine
version that women have it in the but it is
along the whole spectrum. Something about the way we are
so busy protecting our egos is making everything that involves
letting someone else actually have influence over us, which is
part of what being in a relationship is about.

Speaker 1 (01:24:34):
As an attack, yeah, I mean, I'd love to discuss
this with you and my reflection from what you were saying,
and I was nodding along because there's so much of
it that I agree with. I think that what I
see is most of us struggle to know ourselves when
we get into a relationship. So I think i'd propose

(01:24:57):
that I don't think most people have a lot of
self awareness when they get into a romantic relationship, so
they don't actually have a conscious sense of self identity.
We have a subconscious sense of self identity in the
sense of what our parents taught us and what family
and meedia. We have all this mix of stuff, but
we wouldn't if I ask someone to lay out their
top ten values, they wouldn't be able to do that

(01:25:18):
because they'd be like, I'm not sure, And what ends
up happening. I think in that scenario is you adopt
the values of the other person, and then at some
point you go, wait a minute, I've just been doing
what you want and you think that person made you
adopt their values, but actually you just didn't know yours
and so I think you see that happen in some relationships.

(01:25:41):
In other relationships, I think what you're saying is true.
People are so definitive about their own self identity that
they go into a relationship going, I'm not going to
get influence at all by this person. And I think
that also happens because we're getting into long term relationship
later in life. If you're going into relationship later in life,

(01:26:01):
chances are you actually have you know who you are
and what you want to do and what you're building
and what's important to you. When you're younger, you're less
self aware. When you're older, hopefully you're somewhat more self aware,
and so you're more concrete in your ideology.

Speaker 2 (01:26:14):
But the opposite could be equally.

Speaker 1 (01:26:16):
It could be equally.

Speaker 2 (01:26:16):
When you're young, you think you know everything and you're
certain about stuff you have no certainty about totally, and
when you get older, you actually become more flexible because
you realize that there isn't one way for.

Speaker 1 (01:26:26):
Everything totally exactly. So it give me both ways. And
I think overall, I think the point that at least
I think we're trying to get to, which I like,
is that it's a bit of both. There's there's it's
almost like I read that. I'm trying to find this
poem and I can't find it ever since I read it.
It's one of those I'm sharing it here because hopefully
someone finds it. I've read this poem while I was researching,

(01:26:46):
and there's this beautiful poet. I can't find it. I've
like looked for it and everything. But this poet was
talking about how when you are single, you've been building
your home home with the bricks that you were given,
and your home is broken, and some of it's beautiful
because that's how we are as people. Some parts of

(01:27:08):
our home makes sense, and some part of the bricks
are falling out. And he said, when you come into
a relationship, you want the other person to move into
your home. You want them to come to your home,
and the other person wants you to go to their home.
But actually what you need to do is take the
bricks you both like from your own homes and build

(01:27:29):
a new home together. And I really love that visual.
The idea that this unified agreement, which was the language
you used, or this idea that you're saying of like,
how much do I allow the influence without feeling powerless,
but to feel like we're co creating something. You know,
my wife and I have a lot of agreements that
they're not rules or contracts, with their agreements of how

(01:27:50):
we deal with certain things, and it's something we've created together.
It's not something we adopted from my parents, her parents,
or anywhere else. And I feel that if we walked
into a relation and said what do we want to build together?
What do we want to create together? What does a
good healthy relationship mean to us? To me, those questions
at least feel empowering as opposed to draining of power.

Speaker 2 (01:28:12):
One of the complementarities in relationships is that we are
often drawn to a person who brings characteristics that we
are trying to get away from.

Speaker 1 (01:28:26):
So true, so understand, Yes, so true.

Speaker 2 (01:28:29):
So it's a I mean, when it's dynamic, it's really
a very beautiful you know, kneading of the dough.

Speaker 1 (01:28:39):
So, as said, throughout conversation, you've been referencing this new
course of yours, which I'm so excited for people to
do because I feel like so many of what things
we've discovered today with your books and your main practice. Yes, exactly,
how do you actually apply it, So please tell us
where we can find this course and the name of
the course and where it.

Speaker 2 (01:28:56):
Is turning conflict into connection. It's a one hour eight
videos with a fantastic workbook that really not just helps
you fight better and more constructively, but also helps you
relate better, because if you have a different attitude to
a conflict, do you have a whole different relationship. It's
on my website a Staparil dot com and it's coming

(01:29:17):
out October tenth.

Speaker 1 (01:29:18):
Okay, amazing. Well, I recommend everyone who's listening and watching
make sure you go and check out the course. If
you've loved this conversation, I know you're going to get
so much value from it, so much insight. And of
course make sure you go and take a look at
all of USTA's books as well, so please check those out.
I want to do one last thing, did with you? Yes?
Did you did our final five last time?

Speaker 2 (01:29:36):
Yeah? Because when we don't fight, I want you to play.
And so first I created the game. I said, let's play.

Speaker 1 (01:29:42):
I love it. This is beautiful game. Where should we begin?
A game of stories? By Esteburell. If you don't have
this gravitude, we're gonna pick a couple of cards and
have some fun with this.

Speaker 2 (01:29:52):
Open it like a chocolate.

Speaker 1 (01:29:53):
Oh, they are like and Belgium. You know what's really
I love chocolate. So you speak in my language completely too.
I'm going to take this out and we're going to
shuffle these cards and then what do we do? Pick
one at random?

Speaker 2 (01:30:08):
Yes, we pick Look, this is you know, relationships are stories,
and we tell stories about ourselves to people at every
level and we recreate connection, intimacy and fun.

Speaker 1 (01:30:22):
You pick this is fun? Oh I'm picking, and then
you hold it. You shuffle it too, then to make
sure everyone knows that this is truly random. I want
to have some fun and I love stuff like this.
So I love games. I love play like one of
my wife's and my favorite things to do is we
play a lot of pickleball.

Speaker 2 (01:30:37):
Right now, you write to me after you've played with
her Escape rooms.

Speaker 1 (01:30:40):
Yeah, I'm going to this one. I'm gonna yeah, definitely,
I'd love to.

Speaker 2 (01:30:42):
All right, all right, we go Okay, if you don't
like it, you pick another.

Speaker 1 (01:30:47):
Oh, okay, that it works well?

Speaker 2 (01:30:49):
Works like now.

Speaker 1 (01:30:50):
I'm going to do a few. I'll do a few
because they're quick. So at a party, You'll find me,
is the prompt. And so at a party, you'll find
me finding the one person I can have a deep,
meaningful conversation with, sitting in the corner with them and
having existential conversations for the whole night, and people may
not even know I was at the party.

Speaker 2 (01:31:12):
That would be me really.

Speaker 1 (01:31:13):
Yeah, then we'd just be sitting next to each other. Great,
I love that. So I do that with you. I
love it. Oh me again, Yeah, Oh, you're like poking
that out to me. This is like, I got it there,
you go all right, Oh wow. If I could change
something about the way I was raised, it would be
so the easy answer, The first thing that came to
mind is I wouldn't change anything because I'm really happy

(01:31:34):
with the human I am today and how my life
has gone the way it has. I really, I really
think that is my honest answer. But if I if
I could change something about the way I was raised.

Speaker 2 (01:31:47):
And it doesn't just have to be your family.

Speaker 1 (01:31:49):
Yeah, I would say it would be I would have
loved earlier on to know that there were so many
more careers and paths in the world. So when I
met the monks when I was eighteen, years old. That
was the first time my mind was open to that path.
But it took me years to recognize that you could
have a career in media, that you could have a
career in do this, do this, like I never thought.

(01:32:12):
I never knew any of that. Like I literally thought
there were like three It sounds ridiculous, but I was
so limited in my thinking growing up because of what
I was surrounded by. I would change that. I want
people to know that there are so many different I
didn't know you could be a therapist. I didn't know
you could be a neuroscientist. I didn't know you could
be I would have wanted to be a neuroscientist if
I knew that existed.

Speaker 2 (01:32:33):
I didn't know I can be a therapist outside my office.
I've worked in a field that is very confidential. I
could never talk about what I did, and through the podcast,
I'm able to work with people who are not patients,
will never be and so I can actually bring what
is happening between the four walls to the world and

(01:32:53):
bring the world inside the office. And you can be
a fly on the world in someone else's session.

Speaker 1 (01:32:58):
Amazing. So just from I never on the game is
called where should we begin. You can also or the
game as well, playing with your friends, family, and with your.

Speaker 2 (01:33:07):
Dates with your partner. You grab a few cards, you
put in your pocket, you can leave the box and
off you go into storyline.

Speaker 1 (01:33:14):
Love it and you can surprise someone with chocolates in
it too.

Speaker 2 (01:33:17):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, you can mix you can mix.

Speaker 1 (01:33:19):
It mess es. There has been such an Honestly, talking
to you, I feel so It's really interesting when you
talk to someone and you just feel like you've immersed
yourself so deeply in this space for so many decades,
and the wisdom shines through your words, it shines through
your empathy at the same time your assertiveness. I am

(01:33:40):
so grateful that you do what you do for the world. Honestly,
I learn so much from you. I learn so much
from your work. I'm a student of your work, and
I honestly feel humbled and grateful that I've got to
spend this time with you. And I highly encourage everyone
to go and immerse themselves in your world in all ways.
So thank you so much for the gift of the world.
I really mean that thank you means a lot an

(01:34:01):
thank you. If you love this episode, you're going to love.
My conversation with Matthew Hussey on how to get over
your ex and find true love in your relationships.

Speaker 2 (01:34:11):
People should be compassionate to themselves that extend.

Speaker 1 (01:34:15):
That compassion to your future self, because truly extending your
compassion to your future self is doing something that gives
him or her a

Speaker 2 (01:34:23):
Shot at a happy and a peaceful life

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