Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - #119 Esther Perel: Relationships and How They Shape Us

Episode Date: June 30, 2020

As human beings, relationships are fundamental to who we are. We know that relationships can be a big source of happiness and fulfillment in our lives but they can also be one of the major sources of stress. So, why is it that we often find relationships so hard? In this conversation, I speak to arguably one of the world’s leading and most original thinkers on modern relationships, the wonderful, Esther Perel, who has long been on my dream guest list. We talk about the many differences between relationships of the past and the relationships of now. How we are now all under pressure not only to have the perfect relationship, but also to portray this illusion to others as well. Esther believes that it’s the quality of our relationships that determines the quality of our lives. And who we are is actually a combination of how we see ourselves and how others see us. We only really get to know ourselves through our interactions with others. We talk about the idea that we are not one person but different with each person – and rather than being one-way, all interactions are reciprocal. We discuss the value of couples’ counselling and whether it’s something all relationships, healthy or otherwise, need. Reassuringly, we learn that there’s no such thing as a perfect relationship, they all follow a rhythm of harmony, disharmony and repair. Esther and I touch and expand on our own situations and how the family history and values you bring to a relationship or marriage impacts the dynamic between you. She talks us through how much the concept of marriage has changed over the past century, and how it’s a tall order to ask just one person in our lives to meet all of our needs – needs which once would have been shared across our extended families and communities. This episode is a joyous celebration of all the relationships in our lives. It’s challenging, poignant but ultimately hugely practical. Esther offers some wonderful examples of practices we can all start implementing today, from rituals to build strength in our intimate relationships, to advice on reframing criticism or starting difficult conversations at work. The upshot? Rather than hoping others will change, we can be the change ourselves. It was a great pleasure to speak with such an incredible lady and I know that you will get a lot of value from hearing what she has to say. Show notes available at: https://drchatterjee.com/119 Follow me on instagram.com/drchatterjee/ Follow me on facebook.com/DrChatterjee/ Follow me on twitter.com/drchatterjeeuk DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This notion sometimes that people have that you have to know yourself first, you have to love yourself first, you know, and then you can go and be in a relationship never made sense to me because you only know yourself through your interactions with others. The way I speak is influenced by the way you listen. The way I see myself is influenced by the way you see me. We are not just one person. is influenced by the way you see me. We are not just one person. We may have core characteristics, but we are shaped by the relationship in which we are. We make the relationship and the relationship makes us. Hi, my name is Rangan Chatterjee. Welcome to Feel Better, Live More.

to feel better, live more. Hello and welcome back to another episode of the podcast. I think this week's show is a really, really good one. The topic of discussion is relationships and who doesn't want to improve the quality of their relationships, whether it be with partners, friends, or even work colleagues. Well, on today's show, I speak to arguably one of the world's leading and most original thinkers on modern relationships, the wonderful Esther Perel, who has long been on my dream guest list. Now, before I had this conversation, I put a post out on my Instagram page, asking people whether their relationships had thrived in lockdown or actually whether they had been put under a lot of strain. And surprisingly, the response was pretty much split 50-50. Some people said that the extra time had allowed them

to nourish and nurture their relationships. Others found the opposite. Now, I had planned to go into this very topic on the podcast today, but at the last minute decided against it because Esther has a brilliant podcast on this already called Where Should We Begin? On this show, she actually talks to couples all over the world about their lockdown relationships and gives them tools that actually we can all apply in our own lives. So if this is something you are struggling with, after you have heard today's conversation, I really would encourage you to go and check out Esther's own podcasts. They really are essential listening. Now we know that our relationships can be a big source of happiness and fulfillment in our lives.

But they can also be one of the major sources of stress. So what is the deal with modern relationships? Why do we find them so hard? Well, this is something that we discuss today in great detail. We talk about the many differences between relationships of the past and the relationships of now. The pressure we are all under these days to not only have the perfect relationship, but also to portray

this potential illusion to others as well. Esther believes it's the quality of our relationships that determine the quality of our lives. And who we are is actually a combination of how we see ourselves and how others see us, and that we only really get to know ourselves through our interactions with others. This is an idea that I've been sitting with and pondering ever since my chats with Esther a few weeks back. We talk about the idea that we are not one person, but actually different with each person. And rather than being one way, all interactions are reciprocal. We discuss the value of couples counselling and whether it's something all relationships, healthy or otherwise, actually needs. And reassuringly, we learn that there's no such thing as a perfect relationship. They all follow a rhythm of harmony, disharmony, and repair.

Esther and I touch and expand on our own situations in marriages and how the family history and values that you bring to a relationship impacts the dynamic between you. She talks us through how much the concept of marriage has changed over the past century, and how it's a tall order to ask just one person in our lives to meet all of our needs. Needs which once would have been shared across our extended families and communities. In fact, Esther probed me a little about my own relationship, and I must say that I wasn't really prepared for that, and actually ended up divulging In fact, Esther probed me a little about my own relationship.

And I must say that I wasn't really prepared for that and actually ended up divulging personal details about my own marriage that made me feel a little bit uncomfortable. And that discomfort itself is something I explored with Esther. You see, these podcast conversations for me are about authenticity and vulnerability, traits that I think are hugely missing from the world these days. And if I'm going to be part of the change, then I also need to show that vulnerability and authenticity on my own platform, no matter how uncomfortable that may feel. This episode is a joyous celebration of all the relationships in our lives. It's challenging, poignant, but ultimately hugely practical. Esther offers

some wonderful examples of practices that we can all start implementing today, from rituals to build strength in our intimate relationships, to advice on reframing criticism or starting difficult conversations at work. The upshot? Rather than hoping others will change, we can be the change ourselves. It was a real pleasure and privilege to speak one-on-one with this incredible lady. I know with certainty that you are going to get a lot of value from it. Now before we get started, just a quick shout out to some of the sponsors of today's show who are essential in order for me to put out weekly episodes like this one. Vivo Barefoot, the minimalist footwear company, are sponsoring today's show.

Vivo Barefoot, the minimalist footwear company, are sponsoring today's show. I'm a huge fan of Vivo shoes and have been wearing them exclusively for years, well before they started supporting my show. And to say they have transformed my life is honestly no exaggeration. Yes, they make really comfortable minimalist shoes. But I've got to say, another thing I like about this company is their ethos. Over the past few years, I've got to know the guys behind Vivo really, really well. And I love their philosophy, their concern for the environment, humanity, and doing the right thing.

And I'm a huge fan of supporting companies that take their social and environmental responsibility seriously. Now, I've been recommending these shoes for years to friends and family but also to patients and honestly I never get tired of hearing the positive feedback. It could be an improvement in back pain, knee pain, ankle pain, general mobility or just a feeling of being more connected to the ground as they walk. I myself wear Vivo Barefoot shoes anytime I am not barefoot. So when I'm walking, working, running, or just playing with my kids. And if you've never tried them before, I really would encourage you to give them a go. It's completely risk-free to do so because they offer a 100-day trial for new customers. So if you're not happy, you can send them back for a full refund. For listeners of my show

they continue to offer a fantastic discount if you go to vivobarefoot.com forward slash live more they are giving 20% off as a one-time code for all of my podcast listeners in the UK, USA and Australia. You can get your 20% off code by going to vivobarefoot.com forward slash live more. Now, on to today's conversation. Esther, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. It's a pleasure for me to be here. Yeah, me too. We've had about 10 minutes of background stress trying to connect over Skype and then Zoom,

which in many ways is the way of the new world in which we're living, right? Yes, the tech meltdown is the new intro. Exactly. I have been wanting to interview you for many years now. I love, like many people, love your work, your ideas. And so really grateful for you giving me some time today. First of all, to put a bit of context for people,

where are we having this conversation? I'm in my house in South Manchester in England. How about yourself? I am in Woodstock, New York, where I have been confined since March. So about, what, 12 weeks now? Yeah, wow, long time. Yes, we have a different situation here but uh slowly but surely hopefully we'll have a bit of an opening up yeah for sure well there's a there's

a lot i wanted to talk to you about today um you you're one of my dream guests where i would love you ideally in my studio for two hours but i don't have that luxury. So I'm going to have to see what I can get in one hour out of you. Unless we do it again at another time. If that's an offer, I will say right now, I'm very happy to take you up on that anytime. But given the short period of time we've got, I thought let's just jump straight in. A lot of people know you for your expertise on relationships. And why is it when relationships are fundamental to how we feel about ourselves, whether we feel fulfilled, whether we feel happy, why is it that so many of us struggle with what really is a core part of being a human being? I think that, you know, we are wired for connection.

We are social creatures. We don't survive well alone. And at the same time, our dependence on others, our interaction with others can cause us situations of utter bliss and situations of utter grief. I tend to think that it is the quality of our relationships that determines the quality of our lives. In the end, it is the people and the way they will remember you and the way you will live inside of them that will give the ultimate description of the life you've led and meaning of what you have met, what you have

represented for others. You know, we like to know that we matter, that I mean something for you, and that you mean something for me. We're creatures of meaning. And this meaning making is a set of stories that we tell ourselves about our relationships. Do you like me? Do you not like me? Do you find me attractive? Do you value me? Do you respect me? Do you not like me? Do you find me attractive? Do you value me? Do you respect me? Do you think I'm smart? Do you think I'm a good person?

Will you leave me? All of these fundamental questions are continuously relational questions. That's why it's so core. Yeah. You mentioned stories there, the stories we tell ourselves. And it's interesting when you think about that. A lot of our life, a lot of the way we see ourselves, a lot of the way we see our relationships is driven by the stories we tell ourselves about it. We, as humans, we're great at telling ourselves stories because it helps us make sense of where we are in our lives right now. We need a story. But if your story has become toxic within your relationship, how do you go about rewriting that

story and telling a new one? You come to therapy, right? That's one of the main things that we do in therapy. When people come to see me, they often come with a story of what's going on, of how they got there, of why this is happening, of why they can't change it, of why the other person is making them miserable. And they often come, of course,

as experts about the faults of the other. Very few people come to couples therapy to say, I came to check myself out. They generally come to tell you how they're an expert on the wrongdoings of the other, and then they'll watch you while you fix it. It's often like couples therapy sometimes is a drop-off center, you know. But the story is what people come with. And my goal in my work is often that after the first session, you will leave with a different story because you're stuck in that story. And people generally come to see us because they're stuck and they're stuck based on a set of assumptions. The assumption is you don't care about me. You mean harm to me. You no longer love me, or I can never do it right by you, or it will never be good enough.

These are stories. And these stories, what you call making sense, which I call making meaning, is what drives the thing. A relationship is a story. It's not just that we tell ourselves stories. A relationship is a story. It has an origin. It has a beginning. It has expectations. origin, it has a beginning, it has expectations, it has a plot. And all of that makes up for a story. There is no relationship that is not a story. Tell me about your relationship with your children. It's a story. Yeah, it really is. I went for a walk before this conversation today, just to have a think about what we might talk about. I tend to have free-flowing conversations that I have no real set order where they're going to go. But what really struck me as I was walking was, you know, you're a relationship counselor, a relationship therapist,

right? That's how a lot of people I think would know you. But in many ways, what you're offering people is so much more than relationships because if your relationship improves, you get to know more about yourself. So in some ways, I think it's all about relationships, what you do. And in some ways it's's not it's about helping us understand ourselves better because when we understand ourselves better we're going to show up in a much more meaningful and different way in our relationship with much less of our own baggage so so for me i have this site conflicts which i haven't figured out yet in my head that it is about relationships but in many ways it's just about being a human being. So that's part of the reason you think this way, I would say, is because we have a way of thinking that there is the relationship, and then there is me, there is the self, and then there is the

relationship. But when you think in a relational perspective, like I am a relational thinker and I am a narrative thinker, as in stories, then I don't see these two as separate. The self is relational. There is no way of thinking about yourself outside of that framework. This notion sometimes that people have that you have to know yourself first, you have to love yourself first, you know, and then you can go and be in a relationship. Never made sense to me because you only know yourself through your interactions with others, even if it's the ones in your head, but they always are relational. So I don't divide those two things. And yes, when I think relationally, I think existentially. It's true. In the end, it is about being a human being. What's your place in this

earth? What do you represent? What do you want to do? What do you want to leave behind? Who are you? Not just what do you do and how do you perform, but who are you? And that who are you is always a combination of how you see yourself and how others see you. how much you are aware of yourself and how you impact others, and how much you realize what others are doing to you. You know, the story of a relationship, it's not just a story you tell yourself, because the story you tell yourself is influenced by the character that you have become in other people's stories. You know, one of the ways, one day I threw out that line and it became a real kind of guide for me. I said to somebody in a session, I said, you know,

you have been recruited for a play in this relationship that you never auditioned for. And here you are suddenly representing for your partner, all those characteristics, which you don't even recognize yourself. But this is what happens in a relationship. You enter somebody else's story, somebody else's theater, and you become a character in their plot. And let alone did you never know that you even apply to be that character that you have become. Little did you know that you were going to become the abusive brother. Little did you know that you were going to become the adoring father. Little did you know, but here you are, you know? So the story is never just created by one person. It's a co-creation. The way I speak is influenced by the way you listen.

The way I see myself is influenced by the way you see me. And this is why I think that the podcast of Where Should We Begin, which is really about these stories of the relationships, became so attractive because for the first time, people began to see how the story gets created in other relationships that gave them an idea about how their own story came into being. Yeah, I think the podcast is fantastic. I would encourage everyone listening to this to go and check it out. But it's something I've seen in my almost 20 years now as a doctor, as a medical doctor, that when a patient comes in and they're struggling with something, I'll often tell

them, hey, you know what? I've seen many patients like this this week. I've seen other people who've got just the same problem as you, and you see their shoulders drop when that happens. Just the knowledge that this is not just me, and I'm not the only one in the world suffering from this, is quite reassuring and often opens up that avenue for change. And I think very much when I listen to those episodes of your podcast, we can all take little bits on our own lives and our own relationships. There's always a little thread in one of them, which you think, you know what, I wonder if that applies in my own marriage. And it's easy. I guess it's the, in some ways, it's one of the beautiful things about therapy is that there's a third person there.

It's not just you and your partner trying to fix things between yourselves. There's a bit of distance by hearing it in someone else's story, right? How old are your kids? My kids are, my son just turned 10 and my daughter is seven years old. Okay.

When they were a little younger, they probably got very interested in puppet theater. And puppet theater is exactly the same thing. The puppets tell a story. It's not exactly your story, but you can relate to the universal themes of the story. You see yourself in the puppet. Go, go, go, go, get him. Have you ever gone to the universal themes of the story. You see yourself in the puppet. Go, go, go, go, get him. Have you ever gone to children's theater? I mean, they are those characters.

And in a way, when people listen to the sessions of other couples, they have a little bit of that same experience but in a more sedated version of the way an adult sits in the theater. Children never sit in the theater quietly and watch. They are entering the plot. Children never sit in the theater quietly and watch. They are entering the plot. They encourage the police person. He's there. He's there. Go fetch him. Go fetch him. They encourage the good person to say, no, no, no, no, no. You're in the wrong direction. And they go for good. They go for the good. You know, that's the important thing,

especially if you take an example of a police person these days, you know but um it's really entering the characters of the other gives you an immediate experience about what happens to you yeah and couples therapy i think is sometimes the best theater in town it's there's something about hearing it that you can't switch off. You want to hear more. Yeah, they're just incredible. It's like you are eavesdropping on a private therapy conversation. It really is. It's fascinating. It's insightful. And I think it helps a lot of people look at their own lives, look at their own relationship. Maybe they can figure some stuff out on the back of it themselves. Maybe it's a trigger for them to go and see a therapist locally. But something you just said, Asa, about these stories, and just before that, which I can't stop thinking about, is this idea that

we exist within relationships, So it's not separate. And you're right, humans are social beings. We've always thrived in community and with people around us. So who we are by ourselves out with a community in some ways is irrelevant because that's not how we operate. Do you think in all your experience, all your clinical experience, that your relationships provide the ultimate mirror to look at your own behavior, to look at your own, I guess, inadequacies and insecurities? Are they really highlighted in relationships in a way that nothing else can?

Yes, yes. I think that there is... I would put it like that, actually. It's more dialectic. You know, in order for me to know me, I really need to know myself through you, through my connections with people. But it can be strangers. It doesn't just have to be the intimate relationship to the people who raised me, which is probably the origin story, you know, to my friends, to my colleagues. It's a mirror. But what's so

interesting is that we tend to think that we are reacting to what other people do to us. And we don't know that they are also at the same time reacting to things that we do to them. That is what is amazing to see in relationships is that we see ourselves at the receiving end. We're very aware of, you made me feel. You set me up too. It's because you said this that I, you know, if you hadn't done that, I would never. And we see ourselves as if we are in reaction to.

We don't often see the action. We only see the reaction. And the real awareness in a relationship is both ends. It's what I do to you that makes you do to me, that then sets me up to do to you, then that makes you say to me the opposite of what you ever intended to say, then that makes me say to you what I would never have wanted to say to you either. And here we are stuck. wanted to say to you either. And here we are stuck. It's this way that people tend to think a human being is a person and they have a fantastic sentence for it, which is that's just the way you are. That's who he is. That's who she is. She's that kind of a person. And I

always say with you, she's that kind of a person, but we are not the same person with others. We are not just one person. We may have core characteristics, but we are shaped by the relationship in which we are. We make the relationship and the relationship makes us. And the relationship is the dynamic between you and me. It's the space in between. It's not who I am and who you are. It's what we do to each other that draws from you certain things and that draws from me certain things.

And that's the definition of a relationship. It's the space in between. It's a very different way of thinking about it than the two people coming together. No, it's what is it that they create together and what is it that they bring out in each other does that answer your question it does and whenever you speak i have a about five different thoughts that go in my head and i'm thinking about my own relationship i'm thinking about all kinds of different things um but but one thing that i can create you can make it i think it's if you give if you want to give a personal example it kind of you know i'm giving you a theory a perspective but i'm happy to bring it into very granular level yeah i mean i think i think that

would be a good idea so we we can try that for sure um but before we do that, the thing I thought about, I remember in my 20s, right, I had a lot of back problems back then. And this may seem quite unrelated. And when I finished this thought, it may prove to have been unrelated. But what's really interesting to me is that, you know, I'd been to physios and chiropractors and all kinds of people to help me with my back. And ultimately, I ended up at a spinal surgeon's door. He did an MRI scan. And he said, yes, there's a disc problem there. But then he said to me this, he said, but Rangan, the thing is, if I took 100 people off the streets and did a scan, maybe 40% of them would have the same problem that you've got, but maybe only 10 or 15% would have pain. So I don't know if that is the cause of your pain or

not. It's a static scan. And what matters is what happens to your back when you move. And the analogy, why I thought of that is this whole idea that we exist within our relationships, how we are only really, well, I can't say only matters, but it is dependent on that particular relationship. And that's not something I've really reflected on before. And I guess if you want to bring it back to a personal level, I guess my wife might sometimes say to me, well, you're so lovely and caring and attentive with everybody else, right? And sometimes you're not with me. And that can be taken as an attack.

It could be said as something that is very frustrating. But I guess the way you're describing it, well, of course, you might be different people, I guess, will be triggering you in differing ways. So you'll be reacting to that, right? So here's the story behind it. First of all, your back moving is the equivalent of what I mean when I say a relationship is dynamic. And it's the dynamics, the dynamism, the movement that will determine what is the issue. Exactly the way that your back in motion will determine what is your issue. Perfect analogy.

Here's the story that I hear behind what your wife says to you. Sometimes, actually I will not say sometimes, most often behind a criticism there is a wish when a person says you give the best of yourself to your work to your colleagues, to your clients to the people you interview, to your guests

and you bring the leftovers home this is a criticism but the wish is I wish that I would get sometimes that same kind of very focused attention that you're giving Esther Perel right now. You're thinking with her, you're present, you're focused, you're not on your phone, you're attentive, you're engaged, you're alive. I want that person with me. And that is what many, many partners say.

You know, I know you have it in you because I know you're doing it elsewhere. But that's because you're motivated. That's because you can't get away with less. That's because that's the way you need to show up. Whereas with me, there's a certain way in which you know I'll be there tomorrow. So even if you give me pittance today, I should just wait for my turn kind of thing. That's the story that lies behind. Now, that story sits on another story.

When we met, I used to be that person who got that kind of attention from you. That's what drew me to you, your way of listening, your engagement, your aliveness. You made me feel special. You made me feel smart. This is the next layer of the story. And I miss that. And where has that gone? And yet, I start to feel jealous because I see it when you play with the kids. I see it when you are with your guests. And I think that what is between us becomes more perfunctory, task-oriented, management-ink.

Where is our love story? Yeah. I thought marriage was going to be a love story. So this is the multiple layers of story that are behind the kind of comment that she makes. And the answer to that comment can be, you know, no, that's not true or all kinds of defensiveness. But it can also be, thank you for reminding me. Because sometimes I forget and I'm so glad that you don't. Sometimes I forget and I'm so glad that you don't.

And please hold me accountable because what it means is that you have high expectations for our relationship. And I want that rather than say, you're critical again. I can't do it right. You know, that will shape the next layer of the story. So essentially what you have just done there is rewrite the story that we may both wish to tell ourselves about that conversation. It's in some ways, it's, it's a great thing because it means she cares and that she wants a great relationship. Um, and I've got to say, just continuing that, and I know what you think of this

because we have never i mean to to lay cards right on the table i've been married now for about 13 years and i think i'm i'd like to think my wife would also share the same view that it's about as good as it's ever been. But it doesn't mean there weren't some rocky times along the way. And we have both done a lot of personal work ourselves separately. But I think although when you do personal work yourselves, you sort of shift at differing paces, which can really change the dynamic within a relationship. Because I guess you meet with all your baggage. And then if you start to let go of some of that baggage, in some ways, you're not the same person anymore. So a lot of what I'm describing are

things that used to happen a lot. I know in my own life and my own relationship, reframing that has been a crucial part of growth and a deepening of our relationship. And we have not had couples therapy yet, but we want to. Not because we think there's a gross problem that needs fixing, but because we're committed to being together for life. We're committed to growing together with the understanding that there will be ups and downs, but still we've still got that common goal where we're heading.

Would you say that relationship therapy is necessary or advisable for all relationships, whether they think they've got a problem or not? Maybe we could say relationship therapy is very useful, but you don't have to go to therapy for it. I mean, in that sense, I would say this podcast, reading books, talking to friends, there's a lot of ways to do relationship therapy that isn't just about going to a therapist. You know, when I think of where should we begin, I think it has democratized psychotherapy and couples therapy in particular. It has made it accessible. It's affordable. It's free. It's global. It's for people who have zero access to

psychotherapy in the Western sense of the word. And it is highly therapeutic without being therapy. the world and it is highly therapeutic without being therapy so that is also called relationship therapy if you want but it's not about going to a therapist i think part of what you are asking me is what i was trying to do you're saying do i have to go to a therapist in order to engage in therapeutic processes in therapeutic endeavors in things that improve my relationship, that make it a more conscious relationship. No, the same way that I wanted to take what I do in my office and bring it to the global world outside of the office, because I thought this stuff that is said here should not only be said in my four walls. It really belongs in the public square. It shouldn't be a privileged practice for very few. It should be the way that people think about relationships with dignity,

respect, joy, and aliveness and sensuality for all. And so you are doing it without coming to me, and I am coming to you. Yeah, I love that. And I think that's one of the beautiful things about technology and things like podcasts is that people can get a window and they can listen in on conversations that they never would have been able to before. And as you say, it's free. So you're even taking out that cost equation away from people. If they want help with our relationships, start listening to your podcast and actually they'll learn a lot of tools that they can start to apply um and and i guess it had never been done by the way it had never been done this notion everybody wants to know what really goes on in rongan's life when he closes the door what really

goes on in the person I just had dinner with once they enter the car? You know, they look like this, but is this really the true story? What really goes on in other people's lives? And especially these days where many people and many couples live in an atmosphere of fake news where everybody can curate and filter their profiles online

and tell beautiful stories. People are constantly wondering, am I the only one? How does that play out in other people's homes? You know, when you say we used to have challenges and then we deliberately went and tried to improve them. You know, relationships are continuously a story. What my friend Terry Real calls of harmony, disharmony, and repair. Connection, disconnection, reconnection.

That's the rhythm of a relationship. You know, it's not what it was bad, now it's really good. It was bad, it's really good for this, and then something else will happen. And it doesn't even have to be put in the term of bad and good. Things emerge, new issues appear in life because we change.

And that doesn't mean the relationship is bad, you know, and there is no perfect relationship. But to know all of that, people need truth. And the truth is not easy to come by because everybody today has a tremendous pressure to prove that their relationship is perfect, that they're doing great. And this kind of fake happiness kind of thing. And in fact, people get a lot more when they know you have had loss, you've had illness, you've had unemployment, you've had economic hardship. You've been finding it really tough to spend three months with your

partner 24 seven? Me too. And how are you doing? Tell me what's been challenging for you. Tell me what you have found useful. Share the resources of your relationship intelligence with me. And I'll do the same. And that makes the world a little bit of a better place. You say that there's a lot of pressure on us now to,

you know, in many ways be perfect. And, you know, we're constantly comparing ourselves with others. It's interesting, the emotion I felt as I was talking to you about this comment that my wife used to say in the past, And I felt deeply uncomfortable about talking about it because part of me is thinking, well, hundreds of thousands of people are going to hear this conversation. And will they think I'm not a good husband? And the thing is, I'm glad I'm aware of this. I'm aware that that was something that was going on. And of course, that to me would be indicative of some of my own insecurities, perhaps, that might be playing out in that moment.

And societal pressures. It's both. You see, if you just say individual insecurity, then you individualise the problem. If you combine it with and societal pressure, you know, I thought it was beautiful what you said. And also I knew that you said things are much better. I took note of this.

I did something with this. She didn't just say this for 10 years in a row. And I thought, nice, this is something that your audience wants to hear is that you're amongst us, me too, you know, and that you have your things and that doesn't make you a good husband, a bad husband a bad husband but look how limited is the dialogue the minute you show that there is something that could use improvement it becomes a good husband a bad husband a good marriage a bad

marriage and that is the pressure of the individualistic society in which you have to be at your best all the time and shine. Really hope you're enjoying the conversation so far. Just taking a very quick break to give a shout out to the sponsors who are essential for me to put out weekly episodes like this one. Athletic Greens have always been a big supporter of my show and I really, really like this company. They make one of the most nutrient-dense whole food supplements that I've ever come across and I myself take it

regularly. But this podcast is all about empowering you to become the architect of your own health. And of course, today's topic of conversation is about relationships. How we feel in ourselves will absolutely play a role in our relationships. And when we think about the important pillars that play a role in how we feel, of course, nutrition is one of the most important ones. Ideally, everyone would get all of their nutrition from real whole foods. The reality though, is that many of us struggle to consistently do that and that is why I do like high quality whole food supplements like Athletic Greens. Many of you have reached

out to me and let me know that since taking Athletic Greens you've experienced so many different benefits. Common themes that you talked to me about are improved sleep, more energy, better mood, concentration, and so much more. Athletic Greens contains vitamins, minerals, prebiotics, and digestive enzymes. And I personally like their travel packs, which often accompany me when I'm on the roads or on the move. So if you're looking to take something each morning as an insurance policy to make sure that you are meeting your nutritional needs, I can highly recommend it. For listeners of the show, if you go to athleticgreens.com forward slash live more, you will be able to access a special offer where you get a free travel pack box containing 20 servings of Athletic Greens, which is worth around £70 with your first order.

You can check it out at athleticgreens.com forward slash live more. Is that not one of the main issues today? So I'd love us to try and compare relationships from, let's say, 50 years ago, 100 years ago. Is there a difference between those relationships and the relationships today? And I guess what I'm getting at, one of the things I think about a lot, and this is not just to do with relationships for me, I feel that the culture in which we live, because of many things, let's take social media as an example, where we see the best of everybody's life. So even if you're having a great day in your home, you will see someone who's having a bad day, who's having a beautiful breakfast, looking out on a beach in the Maldives, or you may have just been on a holiday for two

weeks and come home. And you know what? You're stuck with your 200 emails trying to get through the list of patients you're trying to get and see, and someone else is on holiday. So this constant feeling of inferiorness to everyone around you. And I really, as a doctor, I see this playing out in medical problems, whether it's anxiety, depression, insomnia, gut problems, problems, whether it's anxiety, depression, insomnia, gut problems, whatever it is, that sense of dissatisfaction plays out there. But I'm sure that plays a role in our relationships where, you know, these days we ask ourselves questions all the time, you know, am I happy? Am I fulfilled? You know, do I love my job? You know, there's always that feeling that there could be something better out there.

And that, I think, is inherently problematic when it comes to a long-term relationship. So the history of marriage or intimate adult relationships in a nutshell is this. There is a massive difference. There is a massive difference because the expectations of our adult intimacies are unprecedented. We used to marry for survival, for the basic needs of the Maslow ladder, for refuge, for economic support, for family, children, companionship. Then we brought love to marriage. children, companionship. Then we brought love to marriage. And then we wanted in marriage also to experience a feeling of belonging and a feeling of connection and intimacy. And then we made marriage or adult relationships an identity economy. I want to become the best version of myself.

That's a completely different set of expectations. And the way Eli Finkel writes in his book is that the good relationships of today are probably much better than the good relationships of the past. But there are very few of those people who manage to climb Mount Olympus and have an amazing view. The view is fantastic, but the air is also thinner and not everybody gets up there. Now, what also changed is that relationships used to be part of our communal living. And when you lived in a community, you had a few basic needs that were supposed to be met by your partner, but the rest of your needs were met by your siblings, of which you had many, and by your community and by your religious institutions and by your extended family. All of that today, our need for belonging, our need for connection, our need for specialness,

our need for intimacy, sexuality, you name it, has been put onto one person. And today we ask one person in the West to give us what once an entire village used to provide. And that is a tall order for a party of two. This is the rise of expectations that has taken place. And you know, sex used to be for production. You needed many children. Now we have about two or three at best in the West. And that means that sexuality is for connection, for pleasure, for intimacy. That is a completely rewrite. We used to marry and have sex for the first time. Now you marry and you stop having sex with others. We used to think of monogamy as one person for life. Today, monogamy is one person at a time. We used to marry in our late teens. Today, we marry in our late 20s,

early 30s. That is a completely different story when you already arrive quite ready-made. And what you want is for somebody to recognize how hard you've worked at making yourself and vice versa. We used to never have divorce. It was married till you die. Now it's married till love dies. These are major transformations to the way we live our adult relationships. And in addition, we live in a world in which happiness used to belong to the heavens. And then we brought happiness down to earth. And first it was a possibility. And now it's a mandate. You must be happy. What's wrong with you that you're not happy? What are you

doing wrong? Because if you did it right, you would be happy. And that is all the pressure that people feel that is around them when they look at their relationship and when they look at the happy people on Instagram. That's a mini history of a hundred years in three years and and you if you just sit with that and try and absorb it of course it's a natural consequence then that relationships are struggling that people feel dissatisfied that divorce rates are going up in many countries, that relationships are such a source of pain and anguish for so many people. They have rapidly changed. Again, I like drawing analogies, like the food environment has changed so rapidly that we've not had time to evolve and actually come to terms with all this hyper-palatable processed food that is available everywhere. I guess, same thing you're saying with relationships and marriage in particular.

It has evolved rapidly and probably evolved in a way that many of us weren't even aware of. But you are aware of it. If you think about your parents and if you think about your grandparents or same for me, I will know everything I just told, I can see literally passing by generations. Divorce went up when women got more rights and when women got to have a modicum of economic independence so that they could survive without their husbands. You know, men have had basically a license to cheat and women have basically been excoriated for it. So it has also to do with the power dynamic in the relationships, the way that marriages have unfolded. And that's why it's very important to not just be romantic about the past and say we used to have lasting relationships because they lasted. You know, longevity has never been the marker of success.

They lasted because people had no option. People sometimes today leave for good reasons, and they have the option to do so, and that is actually commendable as well. At the same time, I think that people are often very self-critical. You know, the word failure did not exist till the end of the 19th century. And the way that people would constantly think they are a failure, they're not doing it well. And that has to do with individualism.

In my grandparents' generation and your grandparents' generations, you had a good marriage if you fulfilled your duties. And you fulfilled your obligations and you did the things that were expected from you and your role was clear the role of the father the role of the mother everybody knew exactly what they're supposed to do these days all the big decisions are on us so we have a lot more freedom we have unprecedented freedom and we have unprecedented self-doubt self-criticism yeah from the minute you start to date to the minute you end am i happy am i happy enough you know is this a good relationship will i get it better you constantly like negotiating yeah i'm happy but could i be happier is is that sort of nagging thought in many people's minds. And it's really interesting that

that idea that we're saying, and I guess the story that society tells us, is that getting married and staying married is a barometer of success, right? So if you come from that standpoint, then not meeting that makes you feel inadequate but you're saying it's not so you're not necessarily looking through rose-tinted glasses and saying hey it was great in the past you're just saying it's just different and it's just different and I mean I probably should have said that up front we live twice as long as a hundred years ago So when we used to say till death do us apart, the longevity of the marriage was a lot shorter than what we are hoping for today. We want 60 years of this kind of bliss. You know, part of what I do in Where Should We Begin is say to people, there is not a one size

fits all. Let me show you what marriages look like or adult relationships from all backgrounds, from all orientations, so that you stop feeling that there is this one model. And if you didn't succeed at that, well, you failed. That you can actually reinvent your relationship, that the story is not over. Start writing differently. Your partner says A and you've been answering B for the last nine years. Well, try say something different and see what happens. Now the story begins to change. And let me show you how you could actually change the story. Because when you change the story, you change the experience. And when you change the experience, you feel that you have agency over your

life and you're not just stuck there you know suffering till god knows when yeah you mentioned your parents my parents grandparents it's interesting that culture also plays a role here i'm sure in terms of how we define a relationship so So my parents, for example, my dad came to the UK in the early 1960s. The British government were recruiting a lot of doctors from the Indian subcontinent to fill gaps here. And dad worked here for sort of five, 10 years. And then he went back to Calcutta, where he's from, for 10 days to get married. So he'd never met my mum before. His family and my mum's parents, you know, had arranged the marriage. You know, they match you for culture, backgrounds, you know, the things that are typically frowned upon in Western culture. And probably as a kid and as

a teenager, I may have frowned upon. I grew up in the UK, but it's really interesting that I remember they never met till the day before their marriage. Never met. They get married. Mum then flies over and spends the rest of her life in the UK with my dad. I think, wow, that is probably compromise on so many levels. You're not even individually choosing your partner, yet you then create a life together in a different country um and to me someone is brought up in the west it seems incredible what you would you what you wouldn't really know your girlfriend or your boyfriend before your fiancee before you get married it's just incredible but i would add a piece and she got uprooted from her entire family and her entire life

to come and meet him in a world that was already his. And the level of adaptation that she must have gone through, the level of really starting from completely scratch. And I think the story of your mother is a story that is often told in literature, but not enough inside the families yeah and was mom happy satisfied in her relationship you know i don't know but i'm not sure that was necessarily what was top of mind what was top of mind was the joy she was going to get from her children and particularly from her first born yeah the way that family worked is that the the

connection came not from your partner particularly but from your children and if you did well by your children you had you were proud and you had done you know it's a very different model of relationships now my parents is the same same. I come from the same tradition. My parents were Orthodox Jews, but they came from arranged marriages exactly the same way. It so happened that my parents

who went through the war and then went through the concentration camps, when they came out, they had no family left with nobody to decide who they should marry. They actually chose, but they chose people that would never have been chosen by their families. They chose each other by virtue of circumstance. And did they think that the intimate relationship between the couple

was not the center of the marriage? The family was the center of the marriage. That's changed. That is profound. The family was the center of the marriage. The family was the center of the marriage. That's changed. That is profound. The family was the center of the marriage. It's so different, certainly for many of us. And it's interesting, on the podcast a few weeks ago, I spoke to Vivek Murthy, the Surgeon General under Obama. We just had a wonderful conversation. And one of the themes we talked about was our parents as immigrants from India coming over to the West, mine to the UK, his to the United States, they came for a better life,

a material success. We can get our own house, we can work hard and we can progress up the chain. I don't think anyone knew at the time. I don't think my parents did. I don't think anyone knew at the time I don't think my parents said I don't think Vivette's parents did I don't think they necessarily understood the full sacrifice they were making yes on one hand they might be getting more material success but on the other hand going back to what you were saying before about villages communities tribes they lost their communities they lost their tribes they lost that support network. So there was, you know, I grew up, I didn't have any family around at all. Nothing apart from one uncle about 200 miles away. That was it. And when I got together with my wife and see she's got

loads of family, I think, wow, that's incredible. So you had so much help and support growing up and it's just fascinating how the world has looked for commercial materialistic gain but at what cost has that come you know in terms of communities networks friends but did your parents create new communities because the community offered support, but the community also made demands. Yeah. I mean, it never, you know, they go together. You owe the community. You know, one of the questions that I ask people when they come to see me in my practice and when I work in conferences with companies or in the podcast, is that goes directly to the heart of what you say.

Were you raised for autonomy or were you raised for loyalty? Were you raised for self-reliance and told you need to stand on your own two feet? Nobody can ever tell you what to do. You need to figure it out yourself. Or were you raised for interdependence? Meaning you owe others, others are there for you.

When you have a problem, the first thing you think about is who can I call? And you are part of a network of connections. Those are the two most important differences in outlook and in the way we raise our children for that matter, to understand their relationship to others. You know, is the emphasis on the relationship to the self or is the emphasis on the relationship to others. You know, is the emphasis on the relationship to the self or is the emphasis on the relationship to others? And I think your parents, which are, and particularly your dad in this instance, who, you know, on the one hand, he leaves his community, but on the other hand, he gains freedom.

So he loses the support, but he gains in the ability to write his own story and maybe to raise his children quite differently from the way he was raised and maybe to practice medicine differently. And maybe your mother, and this is what becomes fascinating, you know, felt uprooted, but maybe she also on some level felt liberated. Maybe not. Maybe she felt really uprooted and not liberated. But this is where the modern era has created this multiplicity of identity and of stories, of negotiation between the past and the present, between the collective and the individual.

You know, I'll give it to you as another example. The first episode in this season of where should we begin is a is a couple that are religious that met he's african american she's indian they meet in religious school they are together but cannot be together because they're in a devoutly christian uh upbringing And what she says is an amazing sentence. She says, my sexuality, as in myself, my identity as a woman, has never belonged to me. First, it belonged to India. Then it belonged to my parents.

Then it belonged to my Christian school. And then it belonged to my husband. and then it belonged to my husband and this time I want to define it myself and I just thought you pretty much have told the history of people women in this instance you know over many many decades in this one sentence

and each one of these sentences represent an entire set of expectations an entire set of behaviors and an entire set of behaviors, and an entire set of frustrations as well. Yeah, there's pros and cons on every single level. You know, Esther, thinking about what you said about the two different types of viewpoints in terms of how you're raised. To continue the story of my wife and I, because I agree that I think it's easy to relate to with a concrete example, I think one of the biggest problems early on in our relationship possibly was a differing viewpoint on that. So I very much was, although I'm the

youngest, for a variety of reasons, I was responsible for looking after my family. That was my role within my immediate family. My dad got seriously unwell when I was about 18 or 19. He had to retire, lupus, kidney failure. suddenly our whole lives changed. So my whole adult life until dad died maybe seven years ago, all revolved around looking after my family, seven days a week, 365 days a year. That was, I guess, in many ways how I defined myself. I wouldn't think about what I wanted or what do I need to be happy. It was like, no, as long as everyone's happy, then I'm good. That's such an important sentence, what you just said now. That is the fundamental difference.

It's not what I want, it's what I should do. And if I do it well and other people are good, then I know I'm good. But that then becomes, and can, and was incredibly problematic then when you bring that dynamic into your relationship. So my wife and I, we met, we had a whirlwind, passionate romance. I proposed after three months. We're married after eight months. We're like, you know, world is amazing.

But you were amazing. It was just, it it was really really intense she like me is born and brought up in the UK but she has an Indian background like me but she's you know very much like me born and brought up here but really interestingly she has I would say a very unconventional type of Indian upbringing her parents are very sort of I think very progressive they've been in this country parents are very sort of, I think, very progressive. They've been in this country a lot longer than my parents. I think her mum was in the UK since she was 12 or 13.

Just a very, very, I had a lot of assumptions about what her viewpoint would be. You thought she was closer to you than she was and she was more of a third generation than you. And in that sense, more westernized than you and therefore more individualistic than you. And the idea that your family would come ahead of your marriage and your relationship to her became a bone of contention

because you performed loyalty and she was claiming independence and autonomy. Oh, you've got it. It's as if we've had a two-hour session. Exactly. I mean, it's amazing that when you're in it, you can't see it. You just, there's this friction going on. And again, this was a long time ago now, but it's, but I'm sure you see these patterns everywhere. And I guess I've morphed one way and

she's probably morphed the other way. It's which I guess we both learnt from each other about some of the qualities maybe we want to, or some things we might want to change, but it definitely caused issues. And I would also say that me and my wife, we've been talking about this recently, and I think if we hadn't gotten married, I think we may have split up in our first year. If we were just dating, I think we would have split up in our first year if we were just dating i think we would have split up but there was something about being married there um and maybe it's because you know our parents are still together um maybe there was something there where we thought okay no we need to we not need to we want to work at this well commitment is not negotiable is what you're saying whereas commit you know other people re-evaluate their commitment

and you say, I re-evaluate my relationship, but the commitment is a non-negotiable. That's a different value too. And those are cultural values as well. I mean, even the autonomy versus interdependence, it's a value framework. And when you put it in that context, it's less about what's wrong with you person.

It's more, this is where you come from from and this is the values that you live with and they're much bigger than just you that's a story as well yeah you know and um i i think that it's very very important to put people in their cultural context but because she came from the supposedly same background you attributed to her more similarity than there actually was um and which is something that often happens and then slowly you get to readjust and then slowly each person gets to know why they picked the other, even in ways that we're not conscious sometimes. And each person gets to receive from the other that very thing that they wanted a little bit more of without having to be the one to own it. Yeah, it really is incredible.

And I've got to say, I wouldn't wish it went down any other way because I feel that whole experience has brought us closer. I think it's helped us understand ourselves better. It's helped us understand how the way we were brought up has influenced the way we're now showing up in our relationship. I'd love to get some practical strategies for people who are listening to this. And one of the most important things we do, and I've got to say in lockdown, it slipped by the wayside a little bit because of the various

pressures of being at home, homeschooling the kids, trying to keep up with our workloads. But it's something I wrote about in my last book called a tea ritual. So we know if we every day have at least five minutes, five minutes is a commitment. Often it's more than that, but the commitment is only for five minutes we have to sit together, often when the kids are in bed, and over a cup of tea catch up without a laptop, without a phone, just to catch up with each other. It is incredible that when we do that, even if it lasts five or 10 minutes, when we do it consistently, our relationship is completely different. We're closer, we're more intimate, we're more connected.

What rituals do you advise people think about applying into their relationships that can have quite a transformative effect so um by the way just because you're you're you're going to see a lot of these rituals i did a special season of where should we begin with couples under lockdown sicily germany new york and nigeria where i heard sicily and Germany. They were great. Absolutely brilliant. And I emphasize routine, ritual, and boundary. Those are three important dimensions in relationships in general, but it is extremely important right now. And we are going to be in confinement again.

We are in it for a good year or two here. So this is not over. And the routine, you know, what you do when you do the tea is basically you're saying, I'm setting, I'm cordoning off, I'm creating a boundary around the relationship that says now our attention goes to each other, not to what we need to do, but to who we each are and how much we value our relationship. What we're saying when we do the tea is our relationship matters. It needs upkeep.

It needs protection from all the stuff that penetrates it all the time. It needs a ritual, a tea, because that gives it a meaning, a symbolic meaning. And it needs a routine, which is it has to be done repetitiously. And not at the same table where we work the whole day and not while we are answering our phones. And all of that makes you feel important and it makes you feel appreciated,

not because you've done the good things, but because of the quality of the person. That is what is so important in that experience of appreciation. I enjoy my few minutes with you. I'm checking in with you. How are you? It's not what have you done?

It's who you are. And that attention is really enormously nurturing and enlivening. It brings energy into a relationship and it creates an experience of vitality and aliveness, which really is essential so that you're not just surviving and functioning and practical and efficient, but that you also are thriving.

That's what you're doing. How people can do it multiple ways, but the meaning of it is set. It won't change. It could be tea. It could be a walk. It could be sitting on a bench. It could be sitting in a bathtub. It could be massaging each other's feet. It could be on a bike. It could be on the top of a mountain. But essentially, every one of these rituals is going to have the same meaning it's going to do the same thing it's going to say we are taking a moment to check in with each other and nothing else matters at this moment but us and when we

do it even for five minutes it gives us such an enormous amount of energy to go and deal with the world and all the stuff that we have to do. It's just incredible. And it involves eye contact and it involves touch, which is one of the things that is most important in this moment. There's very few people we can touch except the ones that are in the house with us. So this touch hunger is very, very much at the forefront of our relational experience at this moment. And that touch is a balm. It's a soothing. It's a calming. It's a grounding. It's a relaxation. It's everything that distresses us. And that's what you're doing with this tea. But I think what people have highlighted is gardening. It's walking.

It's everything connected to nature. I've not heard people talk as much about nature. And because they've slowed down, for the first time in 150 years, we've slowed down. It has to do with food. It has to do with nature. It has to do with the elements, you know, water, earth, fire, sitting by the fire, if they have that option, you know water earth fire sitting by the fire if they have that option you know it's very very very basic the rituals and the routines that people have created together yeah when you say gardening or walking you mean together with that somebody else when you do those things together that's when you bond and connect yes the walking is

different from the tea there's two kinds there is face to face and there is side by side the walking is a side by side it's like fishing it's parallel the tea is face to face but that must have a difference right because face to face as is intense right there's a certain intensity with face to face whereas side to side is a bit more just a bit more relaxed and i wonder there must be a different kind of connection that comes about depending on whether you're facing each other yes or facing in the same direction but they're not difference in intensity necessarily look children some of your best conversation with your kids are when you're lying next to them in bed that's side by side and when you're in the car and you're driving together and everybody knows that so there is some freedom that

you get from the side by side that allows you to actually go deeper and it becomes deeply intimate, but it's side by side. And then there is a different kind of intimacy when it's eye to eye contact and it's face to face. Yeah. But I don't think they're quality. They're very different, but they're not different as in one is deeper than the other. I think that that's misleading.

And if you, when you know that your child in the back of the car suddenly comes with one of those incredible stories or questions and you're like, what? And then you just have this 12 minutes of drive and you've just plunged. You didn't even realize you were still driving side by side. Yeah. It makes me think some of my most funnest conversations over the last years have been when my kids are a bit younger and we'd be driving home at the weekend somewhere, kids would fall asleep in the back. And, you know, obviously you're driving on a motorway, so you're not looking necessarily at your partner, but you're in a confined space. None of you can

escape anywhere. You just have a real deep and meaningful conversation. And that I heard, I think it was Seth Godin said once, maybe it was in the Tim Ferriss book or somewhere, I can't remember where, but he said he loves cooking with his children because it's a semi distracted environment that allows some really deep conversations to come up. And since then, it's something I've tried with my children and it works. You know, you're just distracted enough where it doesn't feel so intense

that you can't bring something up. And it's, I guess people can experiment with that. And you're in movement. I think that the difference is between situations that are more static and situations that involve movement the body is in motion and when the that's why the walks are so important as well when the body is in motion it liberates energy it releases energy and that energy transforms into connection yeah what about

is there when you want to have a conversation with someone about something that's bothering you. I'm conscious of your time. And so I know I also wanted to talk about work and how your new podcast is about relationships, but in the work setting. And I think this communication piece that I'd like to talk to you about probably fits with both of them. And so maybe it's a good time to talk about the work relationships as well now. But how we communicate grievances or things we're frustrated about or things we would like to address makes a huge difference. So I know with a child, for example, or frankly with anyone, that it's always best to lead with positivity that's certainly what i found in life if you lead with positivity it tends to go better than when you lead with negative and i just

wonder if that's something you've seen in your relationship counseling and work relationship counseling this idea that sometimes people get frustrated and then they go look you know i can't stand it when you do this and you always are late in this, and you always do this. I wonder if you could help give some practical guidance to people with relation to that. So here's a little exercise you can do that I borrowed from my friend Dan Siegel. No. Repeat.

Say it after me. No. No. No. No. No. No. Basically, I ask a person to repeat after me 10 times no. And now start with a conversation. Then I'm saying, now let's do 10 yeses.

And when I ask you to repeat yes, yes, yes, look at my face, first of all. You can't say yes. You know, the whole expression changes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And then you start a conversation. Often when people want to have a difficult conversation, they have already said 10 times no to themselves.

I won't accept this. This is not the way I want this to be. You cannot do this to me. No, no, no, no, no. And then you want to start to talk. It's very, very difficult. So that's the difference. It's not just that you need to say something positive as a start.

It's that when you check your own body, your own physiology, your own heart rate, your own sweaty palms, you will know if you arrive with a massive amount of no, which basically means you're going on the attack. You're not going to improve the relationship versus when you enter with a state of yes. It's a state of mind. It's a state of mind, and a state of mind is a state of physiology in being. It's mind and body always together. But the thing is that in all the podcasts, How Is Work, the entire first season, fourth season of Where Should We Begin,

I would say that probably one of the most important things I do is I engage with people in complex, challenging, innovative, surprising conversations, which, when you listen, gives you the vocabulary for the conversations that you would like to have, even though they may be completely different. I do think that one of the most difficult things sometimes for people is how do you start? How do you begin this thing about something that is very challenging? And especially in this moment of social upheaval and Black Lives Matter worldwide and the pandemic, the kind of perfect storm, there is so many challenging conversations about grief, about loss, about unemployment, about economic hardship, about racism, about being anti-racist, about talking to your children about race

and all of those things. And how do you begin? You know, and what's very important to understand is that maybe more than talking about the positive versus the negative is to understand that the essence of a conversation is not so much in what you say, but in how you listen. And so when you want to come to somebody with a difficult conversation, it starts with, this is something that we have never really talked about,

that I would love to bring up with you. And I think it could be much more comfortable to avoid it. But I know that you matter to me too much or our relationship matters to me too much for me to just avoid it, you know. And then you ask yourself, what are the themes of conversations? Is it somebody that you need to apologize to? Or is it someone that you would like to receive an apology from? Is it somebody that you owe an explanation to? What is the thing that you need to convey in this conversation? Is it someone who you feel has betrayed you or you have betrayed them?

Is it about trust? Is it about power? Is it about control? Is it about integrity? Those are the main themes. Do you value me? Do you care about me? And do you value my contribution power and control, care and closeness, and recognition and integrity, respect and recognition. Whatever people are fighting about comes down to these six themes primarily. So the reverse is what people need to talk about is less about the specific issues, but it usually means that it's about these themes. And that's what both podcasts show, is to have those conversations and especially to do it and not forget the humor that is sometimes

necessary in the midst of all the crisis. There needs to be a room for the comic in the midst of tragedy and so that's it how his work looks at how we deal with our relationships in the workplace who we are not just what we do at work but who is there at work and season four brings an array of diverse couples who are each grappling with the ins and outs of love. Yeah. I mean, I've not heard the work one yet. I think that's going straight onto my list to do next. A, I'm interested. B, I have just started working this year

with one of my best friends. We have resisted for two or three years because we didn't want to put any potential strain on our friendship. And we feel we've done a lot of work on ourselves. We've had a lot of open and transparent conversations. So we have tentatively moved forward. So far, it's been amazing, but it would be incredible to hear some of those experiences just to see, oh, this could be coming up, you know, just be mindful of this. And I think that would be really, really useful. So it's exactly this. Everybody comes to work with an official resume,

your CV, what you've done, and an unofficial resume, your relationship history. What you describe between you and your wife, for example, in terms of, you know, your devotion to your family and her wanting more devotion to the marriage, you know, your devotion to your family and her wanting more devotion to the marriage, you know, imagine that dynamic in the workplace because that happens all the time. People go to work while they're busy taking care of others. And sometimes those others need additional care. How do you bring that up in the workplace? How do people not interpret it as you're working less? I'm doing more. I'm the one carrying all the loads. How long is this going to last? Have you been appreciative enough of me for doing this for you? Et cetera, et cetera. And it's really all of those relational

dynamics in the workplace, which ultimately determine if you're happy at work and how well you perform at work. It's more than money, more than free food, more than any other compensation. If your relationships at work don't go well, you won't sleep well. Why is it that you started this podcast on work relationships in particular? So, I first of all have worked in the work context in companies for a long time I just hadn't done a podcast about it but I also think that the workplace has come to me I didn't go to the workplace and what that means is this never has the work of the world of emotion entered business and the work environment to such an extent. We talked today at work about authenticity, belonging, transparency, psychological safety.

An entire emotional vocabulary has entered the workplace in ways that it never had. And so this is where I am. I've come with that vocabulary to a place that realized it now wants to focus on it. Relationship intelligence, relational intelligence in the workplace was always considered a soft skill. Now it's actually considered a core skill for business success. People won't stay. People are moving around way too much if the relationships are not well. So a lot of this has to do with what is changing in the future of work. And I also think that everyone understands this when you say, you know, when your relationships don't go well at work, it just is impossible to go and spend 10 hours there every day.

It's miserable, you know. hours there every day it's it's miserable you know and uh and but nobody had really just simply said you know what this set of issues that i see happening in couples is what happens between people at work it's the same issues power and control care and trust and respect and recognition it's about expectations it's about boundaries it's about rituals. It's about boundaries. It's about rituals. And especially when we move on Zoom and we're going into a digitalized work, all these questions about how do you create the relationship? How do you create connection? How do you create support, trust, teams, et cetera? It's really what we're going to be talking about. So I'm working now on season two of How Is work yeah at the same time as season four of where should we bring incomes out because it's i change context but the relationship

issues remain fundamentally the same yeah well that's a thank you for everything you've done over your entire career the way you're bringing awareness to such fundamentally important issues for us to thrive as human beings. This podcast is called Feel Better, Live More. When we feel better in ourselves, we get more out of life. And clearly when we have better relationships, yes, that's going to lead to us feeling better and it's definitely going to result in us living more. So I always love to leave my listeners with just a few practical tips that they can think about applying into their everyday lives immediately. I wonder, you know, be as short as you like, but are there two or three top tips that you would leave my listeners with? Yes. If you want to change the other, change yourself.

You can wait for other people to change for a long time, but you can at any moment decide that you're going to do something different. And when you change the story, their story changes as well. It really is a dynamic interplay. That's one. changes as well. It really is a dynamic interplay. That's one. Number two, it's really important that you'd be able to sometimes simply say, can I listen? I think I just need the best way to talk at this moment is to listen. And you don't have to agree with anything. You just want to give the other person's point of view space and validity.

There is never just one experience in a relationship. There are multiple points of view coexisting at the same time. It's the beauty of relationship and it's the challenge of a relationship. So that's the second. The third one, don't ever leave play, pleasure, joy, fun for the end. pleasure, joy, fun for the end. They are incredibly important experiences of life in the midst of crisis. I think it's one of the most important lessons I learned from my own parents

who spent years in the war and then years as refugees and who basically explained to me we didn't stop loving, we didn't stop laughing because it was fundamental to our humanity in the midst of degradation. It's not true that you need to only stay serious

and be efficient machines in order to get through things. You want to stay connected to nature, to beauty, to joy, to laughter, and especially to sensuality. So those are my three things for today I said thank you so much for making time to come on the podcast today if the invitation still remains that you gave at the start of the podcast I would love to have you back on some point either

when you're next in the UK at some point or when I'm in New York at some point in the future but thank you so much it's a pleasure very much so bye wow so what did you think of that i am still thinking about a lot of the themes that came up in my conversation with esther just a few weeks back there is certainly i think a lot for us all to reflect on but i would ask as always, instead of getting overwhelmed with all the different things you might want to change, how about picking just one thing that you can take from this conversation and start to apply in your own relationships? Of course, do let Esther and I know what you thought of today's show on our social media channels. She is super easy to find all over the internet. Please do tag her and myself in all of your comments. Let her know the impact this conversation has had on you. You heard her, as did I, say that she would be very happy to

return on my podcast in the near future. So I really look forward to getting that booked in. And in the meantime, do send her some love on social media. If you go to the show notes page for this episode, which is going to be drchatterjee.com forward slash 119, you will see links to most of the things we spoke about, her two brilliant podcasts, her social media channels, some really insightful articles that she's written and her two brilliant TED Talks. Just a quick reminder about her podcasts, both of them are well worth a listen. In Where Do We Begin, she counsels real couples as they reveal the most intimate, personal and complicated details of their relationship conflicts. And in the new season, she takes on open marriage, racism inside an extended family,

coming out in a religious home and chronic infidelity amongst other delicate dynamics. What I love about that podcast is that she creates an intimate space for you to hear your own problems articulated through the stories of others and gives you a language to have the conversations you didn't know where to begin. My podcast with Esther is also available to watch in full on YouTube. If you have friends and family who you feel would benefit from today's conversation, but do not listen to audio podcasts, please do let them know about my YouTube channel. And if you want to read more about my take on relationships and how they impact our stress levels, I wrote a whole section on this in my second book, The Stress Solution,

which is available all over the world in paperback, ebook, or as an audiobook, which I am narrating. Just a quick reminder that my latest book, Feel Better in Five, which also has a lot of five-minute rituals on how to nurture our connections, including relationships, is actually coming out in the United States of America on September the 1st. So I know a lot of people in America listen to the show. You can go onto amazon.com now and pre-order Feel Better in 5. It's also coming out shortly in Sweden and Holland in October and November later this year.

All links to these books will be in the show notes page for this episode. As usual, please do share this podcast with your friends and family. If it's easier, you could even take a screenshot right now and simply put it on your social media channels to help spread the words. And if you can spare 30 seconds, please do leave us a review. A big thank you to my wife, Vedanta Chastity, for producing this week's podcast, and to Richard Hughes for audio engineering.

That is it for today. I hope you have a fabulous week. Make sure you hit press subscribe and I'll be back in one week's time with my latest conversation. Remember, you are the architect of your own health. Making lifestyle changes always worth it because when you feel better you live more i'll see you next time