Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - #156 BITESIZE | Improve Your Relationship and Transform Your Life | Esther Perel

Episode Date: February 12, 2021

Relationships are integral to our lives – they can bring us joy and happiness but navigating them can sometimes be hard. Feel Better Live More Bitesize is my new weekly podcast for your mind, body and heart. Each week I’ll be featuring inspirational stories and practical tips from some of my former guests. Today’s clip is from episode 119 of the podcast with Esther Perel. Esther is arguably one of the world’s leading and most original thinkers on modern relationships. She explains why relationships shape every aspect of our lives and why we often feel under pressure to have the perfect relationship. Esther talks us through how much the concept of marriage has changed over the past century and how our modern-day relationships are so different from the relationships of the past. Where once we would have had support from extended families and communities, increasingly we look to just one person to meet all our needs. Esther believes it is the quality of our relationships that determines the quality of our lives and she offers some relationship tips we can all start implementing today. Show notes and the full podcast are available at 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. 

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10. And these packs are perfect for keeping in your backpack, office, or car. If you want to take advantage of this limited time offer, all you have to do is go to drinkag1.com forward slash live more. Welcome to Feel Better Live More, bite-sized your weekly dose of optimism and positivity to get you ready for the weekend. Today's clip is from episode 119 of the podcast with Esther Perel. Now Esther is arguably one of the world's leading and most original thinkers on modern relationships. In this clip she explains why relationships shape every aspect of our lives and why we often feel under pressure to have the perfect relationship. She believes it's the quality of our relationships that determines the quality

of our lives. And she offers some relationship tips we can all start implementing today. 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. 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 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 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? All of these fundamental questions are continuously relational questions. That's why it's so core. You mentioned stories there, the stories we tell ourselves. A lot of the way we see ourselves, 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. 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 been

finding it really tough to spend three months with your partner 24-7. 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're a relationship counselor, a relationship therapist, 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 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. It is about relationships, but in many ways, it's just about being a human being. 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. It's true. In the end, it is about being a human being. What's your place in this earth? 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. 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. 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. These days, we ask ourselves questions all the time. You know, am I happy? Am I fulfilled? Do I love my job? 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. 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. 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 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.

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. You know, part of what I do 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 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 are there two or three top tips that you would leave my listeners with 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, 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. Don't ever leave play, 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 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. 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. Hope you enjoyed that bite-sized clip. Please do spread the love by sharing this episode with your friends and family. And if you want more, why not go back and listen to the full conversation with my guest. And if you enjoyed this episode, I think you will really enjoy my new bite-sized Friday email. It's

called the Friday Five. And each week I share things that I do not share on social media. It contains five short doses of positivity, articles or books that I'm reading, quotes that I'm thinking about, exciting research I've come across, and so much more. I really think you're going to love it. The goal is for it to be a small yet powerful dose of feel good

to get you ready for the weekend. You can sign up for it at drchastity.com forward slash Friday five. I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Make sure you have pressed subscribe and I'll be back next week with my long form conversation on Wednesday and the latest episode of Bite Science next Friday.