Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Cultivating Healthy Relationships | Psychologist, Dr. Melanie Joy

Episode Date: May 27, 2020

This week’s conversation is with Dr. Melanie Joy, a Harvard-educated psychologist specializing in relationships, communication, and social change.Melanie is best known for her groundbreaking theories on the psychology of violence, nonviolence, and building healthy relationships.Her analyses have helped explain why people engage in “nonrelational” behaviors—behaviors that harm other people, animals, the planet, and themselves—as well as how to change this patternShe is the eighth recipient of the Ahimsa Award—previously given to the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela—for her work on global nonviolence; and she also received both the Peter Singer Prize and the Empty Cages Prize for her work developing strategies to reduce the suffering of animals. Melanie’s mission is to raise awareness of the obstacles preventing people from interacting in ways that create a sense of mutual connection.These obstacles are both internal (psychological) and external (social), and they are a key reason why we act against our own interests and the interests of others—often without realizing that we’re doing so.With awareness, we are better able to think freely and act compassionately, to create healthier and more fulfilling relationships and a more equitable and sustainable world._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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By trade and training, I'm a sport and performance psychologist, as well as the co-founder of Compete to Create. And the whole idea behind these conversations is to learn, but not just learn in a passive way, to learn in a way to understand how people that are pursuing mastery in their life, how do they organize their inner life? What are they searching for? What are the mental skills that they use? And then so that we can apply those same insights and practices in our own lives in our unique way. And so there is a nice blend between the science that we're going to stand on of psychology, as well as the art of practice. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions.

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And really helping to explain why people engage in non-relational behaviors. And why that's important is because we are relational creatures. So why do we do, why do we act, why do we engage in non-relational ways? And what does that mean? It means like the behaviors that harm people, animals, harm the planet and themselves sometimes. And then she's focused on not only those systems and structures, but how do we help people change those patterns? And then my experience is that most people don't intentionally want to be violent, to do harm to others emotionally or physically, because we want to belong. We want to connect. Yet it's this weird little thing in a blink of an eye when someone says something that triggers us, like it's so easy to strike out.

And that's a protection mechanism. And that protection mechanism often can harm other people. It's almost like this knee jerk experience. And when that's not who we really want to be, but when we act to protect ourselves, it's a whole different ballgame. Rather than being aligned to our deeper want, to belong, to be kind, to be connected, and we get into the nuances of acting in alignment and what that means to become and be the person that you want to be. So how about this? Melanie is the eighth recipient of the Ahimsa Award, and that was previously given to the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela. I mean, a nice little list there, isn't it? And it's for her work on global nonviolence. And she also received both the Peter

Singer Prize and the Empty Cages Prize for her work developing strategies to reduce the suffering of animals. So her mission, so clear, is to raise awareness of the obstacles preventing people from interacting in ways that create a sense of mutual connection. So this conversation is about connection. It's about alignment between yourself, between others, between animals, between Mother Earth. And with that, let's jump right into the conversation with Dr. Melanie Joy. Melanie, how are you? I'm great. How are you? Yeah, thank you for spending some time to talk about two subjects that I'm passionate about. And so I want to start with your recent book and begin our conversation there, but also talk about some of your earlier work about animals and the way that we choose to relate to animals. So let's start with your first book about relations and the resiliency involved in relations.

So first, though, before we get into it, why did you choose a path of psychology? That's a great question. I think, you know, it's really so much of my work, all of my work, I now see really kind of culminated in my work around relationships and cultivating healthy relationships. And it emerged from my, I think, my own life experience, like most of our work does, all of our work does, right? And so my early experiences of relationships, I had a significant relationship when I was a child, and that was with my dog. And I came to realize that that life experience and the way that that relationship unfolded and what it taught me really had a profound influence on how I see the world and how I relate to others and also how I relate to myself. And that probably was, you know, a significant part of, you know, why I went on this trajectory, followed this path that I followed. I can tell you a little bit about my story, if you you want and how I kind of came to be here. Yeah, I definitely want to know where you grew up.

I want to know what it was like. I want to know kind of the family structure. You know, was it even stuff like, was it a big house, small house? How many people are in it? You know, just a texture to get a sense of what it was like growing up. Both of us, you know, an economic standpoint, a cultural standpoint as also a relational standpoint? Well, I think, I mean, we had, I grew up in the seventies. I was born in 66. So there's the cult, there's some of the context, that's my age right there. And I grew up in the seventies and the eighties. And I was, you know, as a young woman, first of all, I was a woman. And it was,

it's challenging to be a woman now. It was even more so back then. And my family, my parents got divorced when I was very young. Both of them had different relationships and eventually remarried. We moved around a lot. And I ended up with quite an extended family. And my experience was, it was interesting in that I was able to have some great moments of joy, of course, in my childhood. And I had the kinds of struggles in my childhood that I would later see really encouraged me to think more deeply about relationships, not just relationships with humans, but as I said, also with non-humans. And I think my dog, he was the one constant relationship in my life. We moved around quite a bit after my parents got divorced and my friends changed a lot. What age was the divorce?

Seven. Seven. Okay. And then, so it is odd to say one of my most important relationships was my dog. You know, it's, it's really endearing in many respects. And, but I, I mean, I, I hate to get into, it's like two shrinks now talking, but I hate to get into it with you about why that was like, was this an attachment thing? Was this this like it was, was it unsettled to have relationships or was it part of the just, no, it was just normal. Well, I wouldn't say that my most important relationship was my dog. I would say one of my most important relationships was with my dog. And I think a lot of people actually, certainly when they're children and they have a companion animal would, would feel that way and do feel that way. And we live in a society that so devalues the human-non-human relationship

that most people don't even think of it as a relationship. But of course it is. You know, we're always in relationship with other individuals, human and non-human, and we're also always in relationship with ourselves. So I would say that that relationship was important to me, not more important than my relationship with my parents, obviously, or my brother, obviously. Good context for me, because I was going down a different path. Okay, cool. Yeah, I mean, no, it was formative. And it was in later years that I actually realized the importance of that relationship because it led me to do the work that I do in the world today.

That's near and dear to my heart. Okay. That's a, that's a great cliffhanger. How do you describe the work that is near and dear to your heart? I know it's got, it's about relationships, but how do you put it into your, into your words in your words well it's my work spans a fairly broad you know i guess you know a number of different areas but the common denominator is relationships and just to give you a little bit of context of how i came into this work um you know when i was growing up and i had this this relationship with my dog I loved him like a family member, like children do. And I cared about all animals, of course. And when I was growing up, I was also eating animals, you know, meat and eggs and dairy,

and never really thinking about how strange it was that I could pet my dog with one hand, you know, while I ate a pork chop with the other. A pork chop that had once been an animal who had been at least as intelligent and sentient as my dog. And so it was in later years, it was back in 1989, I actually, I ate a hamburger that wound me, landed me in the hospital on intravenous antibiotics. I was wildly ill and I never ate meat again after that. And then something started percolating in me. And again, I wasn't really conscious of this. I was just like, you know, when you like the last thing you eat disgusts you. I didn't want to eat meat because I was disgusted by it. But I also needed to learn how to cook for myself. And I had to cook vegetarian and then eventually vegan. And I didn't know what I was disgusted by it. But I also needed to learn how to cook for myself. And I had to cook vegetarian, and then eventually vegan, and I didn't know what I was doing. So this

investigation, sort of this learning led me to information about animal agriculture. And, you know, of course, what I learned shocked and horrified me. I just I could not wrap my brain around the extent of the suffering and environmental damage and all of the other problems. Okay. Let's pause here for a moment because I want to get into this conversation with your new research around how to get relationships right. And your new book to the human experience. But even more so right now, there's a heightened concentration about the importance of them. But what we're talking about right now, I entered my first year of college and somehow it was my wife

that was like, Hey, we should look at this vegetarian thing. It was my wife, not my girlfriend at the time. Um, my current wife now. And, and so I started looking at it and I was like, what, what is happening? Like, what are we doing to these animals? So for nine years, I was a vegan and it was really hard. This was in probably about the same years you were doing it. And it was much harder than it is now. And then I started spending more time in fitness and sport, really not fitness, but sport. And I was having a really hard time

maintaining the proper protein levels for, I was in a catabolic state, which is a muscle eating state most of, you know, most of the day, which was awful. And so I ended up flipping back to vegetarian and then flipping back to eating meat after, I don't know, two, three years after that. So for about nine plus years, I didn't have any animal products. And I'm talking about like vegan lifestyle where I didn't buy shoes that had leather. So matter of fact, there's a new shoe brand that I want to share with you. I just found them and they're awesome. They got a great design and they're all sustainable vegan products as well. But anyways, so can you walk through the narrative about some of the conditions? Because I do think that most people are asleep to the way that animals are

treated and the way that they're raised before consumed or before slaughtered. So can you just walk through a couple of quick frames there? Yeah, absolutely. And you're right. I mean, you're right. This was what my research ended up being on originally was the psychology of eating animals. And why is it that most people are asleep? Why is it that most people are contributing to something that's completely antithetical to their core values and, you know, their true feelings about other animals in general. And yeah, as I said, I was shocked and horrified. I couldn't, first of all, I couldn't believe the numbers, you know, so in just one week, more animals are slaughtered than the total

number of people killed in all wars throughout history. And this is globally, of course, but this is, you know, this is not even including aquatic animals that could either triple or quintuple that number. So that in and of itself was just staggering. I had believed that, you know, well, these, this industry has to be regulated. They say it is, they have, you know, animal welfare and protection laws, but, you know, first of all, most animals in slaughterhouses are completely unprotected. There's no law protecting them. And it's, it is virtually impossible for the raising and slaughtering of animals at the

extent that we're consuming them to not be an act of just wanton violence. I mean, for most people. What did you call it? Wanted violence? Wanted violence. Just such extensive violence and unnecessary violence. You said unwanted violence. Wanted, yeah. Well, just excessive violence, I would say. Excessive violence. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's just not impossible to practice in this way. I mean, even, yeah. So, so I was, I was shocked. And this

was back in 89, right? So there wasn't a lot of information on the health implications of the diet. Oh, so, so this is the same years. This is the same years for us then. Oh, really? Yeah. So I graduated high school in 89 and I started in, in 1990, 1989. Yeah. Yeah. 1989 was the first year that, so it was, there's something in the water that we were taking. Right. Where were you, where were you in the world at that time?

I was in Connecticut at the time. Okay. So yeah, I was in California. I was in Boston. Actually at that point I had already moved to Boston, but yeah. So it was, yeah. And, but what was interesting, so I was, you know, this, this young woman, and I was just completely shocked and horrified. But interestingly,

what shocked me in some ways, even more than what I was learning was that nobody I talked to about what I was learning was willing to hear what I had to say. They would say things like, don't tell me that you'll ruin my meal, or they'd call me a crazy vegan hippie propagandist. It was like this wall went up. And I was thinking to myself, I mean, these were my friends and my family, people just like myself, just like I had been when I had been eating meat and eggs and dairy. And I thought to myself, how is it that otherwise like rational and compassionate people can just stop thinking and feeling and basically insist on staying asleep when it comes to this issue of eating animals?

Like what is going on here psychologically? And that was actually what really motivated me to want to study psychology and study the psychology of broadly. I studied the psychology of violence and nonviolence. And then I focused my doctoral dissertation on the psychology of eating animals. And the question was, how is it that compassionate people who care about their impact on others, you know, people who, who are naturally wired to feel empathy for others, we know that nevertheless, again, act against their own values and their

own interests and the interests of others without realizing what they're doing. Like what is going on here psychologically? So when you have this conversation with some people, they, and I had the same response, like I got pegged as this weird person. So I just stopped talking about it. And, um, and I did it for compassionate eating as well. And so, um, so when I would talk about, there's this really strong arm that would come back about like a religious point of view and that that's what they're here for. So, okay. And then I say, well, you know, that my response at the, at that moment would be, okay, I'm not sure that I'm going to agree with you or not. Like, let's put a pin in that for a moment. But the way that they are treated, you can't, you cannot,

once you see it, you can't. I grew up on a farm. And so actually seeing a pig slaughtered with dignity is very different than the way that they put a bullet in a cow or a pig's head. It's crazy to me. And so when you have those conversations, how do you move the narrative in any way? Or do you not care? Are you just you wrote the book? And if somebody wants to pick up the book, they're likely going to head towards compassion eating anyway. Like, how are you doing that? Well, this, the book that I wrote, that evolved out of my doctoral dissertations called why we love dogs, eat pigs andows, An Introduction to Carnism.

And so, you know, the goal of the book is really to raise awareness of carnism. What I identified essentially is that there is an invisible belief system that I called carnism, which is essentially the opposite of veganism. Right. We tend to assume that only vegans and vegetarians follow a belief system. But of course, the only reason we might eat pigs, but not dogs, for example, is because we do follow a belief system when it comes to eating animals. And when eating animals is not a necessity, which is true for many people anyway, in the world today, then it's a choice. And choices always stem from beliefs. So what I did in the book was I named carnism, but I also deconstructed the system. Like how does it stay

intact? And what are the very specific psychological mechanisms that are at work so that we remain unaware of what's right in front of us? How is it that we look at a hamburger and feel appetized? But if somebody told us that hamburger had been made from a golden retriever, we would immediately not see it as food, but see it as a dead animal, what it is. And instead of feeling appetized, feel disgusted and probably even morally outraged. Like what is going on here? And so the goal of the book is really to raise awareness so that people can make their food choices freely because without awareness, there is no free choice.

With my organization, Beyond Carnism, and our goal is to expose and transform carnism globally, we take a two-pronged strategic approach to the work that we do. On one hand, you know, we raise awareness of carnism to weaken the system, to basically help people free themselves from the carnistic box that they're in. And then we also work to strengthen veganism, you know, because that balance needs to shift in order for the system to transform. And we do this through training people who are vegan advocates who are communicating about the issue so that they learn how to communicate in a way that lowers defenses. And, you know, because what carnism does is it conditions us to resist the very information that would get us out of the box that we don't even realize we're in. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentus. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family,

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Just head to FelixGray.com and use the code FINDINGMASTERY20 at checkout. Again, that's Felix Gray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at FelixGray.com for 20% off. Okay. So on that note, let's transition over to your more recent work, which is getting relationships right. Okay. And so in this heightened sense of constriction, and by the way, the language we're using around this pandemic is jarring to me. It's like jail terms. It's lockdown, quarantine, isolation. I mean, we're talking about a living organism. We're talking about it in war and jail terms. And I bought this idea about war. I bought it early on. And then as I started to get more quiet with myself about what's happening and listening to the language, no, this is about a relationship with Mother Nature that we are so out of whack with that it's causing global hysteria.

And for good reasons, like there's some real reasons that I'm totally aware of, but the language is jarring. And so on that note, I want to share with you an axiom before we get into your work here. The axiom, one of the important axioms for me is that through relationships we become. Okay, well, what relationships? My relationship with myself, with others and with mother nature. And then the become part is left undone because that's up to you to decide like what that really means. And so I want to have this relationship or this conversation with you about relationships in a big way. So, you know, with so many books about relationships, why did you want to tackle it? Yeah. First of all, I love the axiom and I love your framing

and I completely agree with you. Yeah. I, in the work that I've been doing in the world, you know, my work focuses on the psychology, essentially the psychology of oppression and the psychology of social transformation. of oppression and the psychology of social transformation. The question, the big question that I was asking myself over the years was, what is it that causes good people to participate in harmful behaviors? If you look at all of the, you know, atrocities throughout the history of humankind, those were made possible because the populace turned away from a reality that they chose not to face or they couldn't face or whatever how is it you know what's going on here psychologically

um after why we love dogs i wrote a book i expanded on my theory of carnism and i wrote a book on the psychology of oppression more broadly and you know was really looking at power dysfunctional power dynamics and what is it that causes individuals to engage in abusive behaviors toward each other, social groups, and so forth. And what I recognized was that all of the most pressing problems in our world and in our personal lives, I should say, have a common denominator. And, you know, we tend to think of all these issues as distinct, you know, political polarization, toxic communication, animal exploitation, environmental degradation, domestic violence, war, poverty, I could go on and on. They have a common denominator, and that common denominator is relational dysfunction. All of these major problems relate, reflect a dysfunction in how we relate,

whether it's relating as social groups, whether it's relating to another individual, relating to other animals, relating to the environment, or relating to ourselves. And if they all have this common denominator of relational dysfunction, the good news is that there is one thing that we can do that will affect all of them, and that is work to develop and cultivate healthy ways of relating. And the beauty of this is that this very same principles and tools for cultivating a healthy relationship with your life partner are those for cultivating a healthy relationship with your life partner are those for cultivating a healthy relationship with the animals with whom we share the planet and so forth. So this was really what drove me to do my work on relationships.

I've always been very interested in relationships anyway, but it all came together for me under this umbrella. Okay. And then, all right, so this is life work. This isn't like, hey, I want to tackle relationships now. This is a broader level, yeah, my life's purpose is to reduce suffering and help cultivate a healthier and more compassionate world. Okay. All right. So what is, I don't want to use the word criteria. What are the characteristics, we'll use that word, of a healthy relationship?

And I say this with like, if we're not thoughtful, we could rattle off a bunch of different characteristics. But adults are multidimensional. of rules agreed upon, you know, mores that they operate by, an operating system that is good for them. And as long as it doesn't hurt themselves or others, I don't know, there's like an interesting play in here. But when you think of health and relationships, where do you go? Well, I would say the formula, at least this is what I write about in my book and getting relationships, right? The formula for a healthy relationship can be boiled down to a relationship in which you practice integrity. That means you practice the core moral values of compassion, sometimes called caring and justice or fairness. You practice integrity and you honor dignity in that process. Like it's really that's what it would boil down to.

And this leads to a greater sense of connection. So, and I want to say relationships are generally not healthy or unhealthy. You know, relational health, like most things in life, exists on a spectrum. So a relationship could be more or less healthy. When you practice integrity, you're basically treating the other person as though the way you would want to be treated, right? How can I be compassionate toward you? How can I treat you with what I think is fair? And when you honor dignity, that simply means you perceive and treat the other or yourself, if you're related to yourself, as having fundamental worth, no less worth than anybody else on the planet. We all have a core need to feel fundamentally worthy. So a healthy relationship is one that reflects integrity and honors dignity, and that leads to greater connection.

A dysfunctional relationship is one in which integrity is violated, dignity is harmed, and it results in disconnection. And so that's sort of what I would say is the formula, regardless of who you're related to. I mean, you could be paying for your groceries, you know, paying the cashier in that brief moment of interaction. Are you practicing integrity? Are you honoring dignity? If so, you'll feel more connected. Same thing applies to your relationship with your life partner. Now, obviously for relationships to have a degree of closeness, you know, you need to have a certain amount of compatibility and personality plays a role, socialization plays. I mean, there are so many factors that are involved, but those are extraneous to this key formula. Without integrity and without dignity,

nothing else really matters that much. How did you come to that clarity? What was the journey to get to that point? It was the result of so much of the work, the research and analysis I had done over many years on examining the psychology of oppression and the psychology of violence. And then a deep dive into the relationship literature and really, and my work with people in relationships, of course. And really, you know, looking at everything that I felt was relevant, as much as I could get my hands on over a number of years as well, in the relationship literature, you know, what are the studies showing? What are people saying? What do, you know, most relationship experts agree to be true? And then how do we whittle this down into something that is, that you really can apply? I mean, the reason that I wrote my book,

you had asked me that before is because I actually wanted a, I wanted a book that addressed relationships from a more holistic perspective. That's not just on saving your marriage. It's not just for, you know, a particular type of relationship, but that really encompasses all relationships that we have in their various manifestations and dimensions. And I also wanted a book that took into account the profound influence of systems of oppression, carnism, sexism, racism, classism, speciesism, and so forth, on how we relate. These systems, like carnism I was explaining earlier,

most people act against their core values and their own interests when they eat animals. They're fostering a disconnection between themselves and other animals, and yet they're conditioned to do this. Okay. So when you say most people's core values, how would you articulate what most people's core values are? I agree with your statement, but I'm wondering if you're boiling them down to,

you know, like my son's got five core values that he works on every day in his school. It's really cool. But I'm wondering how you capture those core values. Are you just saying, no, you know what they are? You know, most humans. Yeah. Core moral values. So research has shown that there are like five moral values that tend to be espoused across cultures. And of those five values, two tend to be the most prominent among people around the world. And those two values of foundational value, I shouldn't say foundational, but those two values that are moral values that are cross-culturally espoused are compassion and justice. And that's why I'm talking about those two values. Clearly, we all have more values than that. And we all have more core values than that. But the core moral values that inform the majority of people around the world are these two values. So this is why I focus on these two. I mean, people are very different. You know, you have different values than I do, obviously. These are personal values. They're moral values to us. They're personal values. I was looking at and more interested

in collective values. You know, what do we know? What does research suggest or show us? Our values that are espoused across cultures and universally recognized, essentially. with those. And when we're asleep, we're actually making choices, antithetical to them, like eating animals. And then where do relationships go wrong? Because for the most part, most people want to be in a relationship that's kind, that is of compassion and regard and dignity and integrity, for sure. Like most people want that, but sometimes things go terribly wrong in childhood or whatever. And there becomes a skewed sense, a warped sense of what the utility of a relationship is. Absolutely. Yeah. So can you walk through that just a bit? That's really well said. Yeah, it's true. I mean, studies have shown that we're hardwired to feel empathy for others. So we know that empathy is our natural state.

Almost everybody is. There are those sociopathic, highly narcissistic leaders of the free world that sometimes can't do that. Absolutely. I mean, and, you know, yeah, outside of, you know, falling on a clinical, you know, on a spectrum where you're clinically incapable of feeling empathy for others, we are. But so, so we, you know, most people are hardwired to feel empathy for others. And we also know that we are hardwired to seek connection with others and to avoid the pain of disconnection. So you're right. I mean, this is what we want. We want connection. And yet we so often act against these interests and these drives that we have. And this happens for many, many reasons. One of the things that I talk about in my book and one of the reasons I wrote it is because we are all socialized within these various systems that condition us to relate to others and ourselves in ways

that are dysfunctional and that cause a sense of disconnection. And I gave an example with carnism, but patriarchy, which some people refer to as sexism, it does the same thing. Racism, these isms that are, you know, everywhere and that influence all of us, we bring them home into our interpersonal relationships and they, you know, can cause a lot of problems for us. That said, all of us have been born into a deeply relationally dysfunctional world. We have inherited an absolute mess. I mean, if you think about it, most of us have to learn complicated geometry that we'll probably never

need to use. And yet we don't get a single formal lesson in how to have healthy relationships or communicate effectively. And what we learn, you know, we learn from our parents. Thank you. Go learn from their parents. We learn from Hollywood. we learn from our parents, thank you, go learn from their parents, we learn from Hollywood, we learn from our teachers. So we just, we don't have the tools. And we're, we are, you know, born into these biological brains and bodies, we're hardwired for survival, we're hardwired to feel defensive against anything that seems to threaten our survival, psychologically or physically. We're given virtually no guidance in how to relate to others or ourselves or develop any real self-awareness or understanding or ability to step back and observe an interaction rather

than get reactive to it. So we create various relational problems from a very early age. Many of us are like relational, like walking trauma survivors because of harm detachments and the way that we've been treated by others. You know, our parents do the best they can with what they have, but most of us have gotten kind of screwed up by them. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down. And that's why I've built intentional routines into the way that I close my day. And Cozy Earth has become a new part of that.

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clarity and energy and presence, the way you prepare for it matters. If you're looking for high quality personal care products that elevate your routine without complicating it, I'd love for you to check them out. Head to calderalab.com slash finding mastery and use the code finding mastery at checkout for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. So let's talk to the parents really quickly. And I'm listening because I'm a parent right now. My son is 11. So let's talk to the parents, myself included, about things that you would say, oh, okay, just include this as your daily rhythm and say, you know, at breakfast, do this. But like concretely, so what would you say would be some of the best ways that we could increase our awareness and then increase our skills? Yeah, well, what you know, this would apply not only to children, but also to the other people with whom we relate.

So one thing that we can do is to try to avoid defining the other person's reality. And this is particularly important when you're relating to children. So here's how to think about it. When you define somebody's reality, what you essentially do is you make yourself an expert on their experience. We all do this because we've learned to do it. So for example, your child says after dinner, I'm hungry. And you say, oh, you can't be hungry. You just ate. So that's defining their reality.

That's essentially saying, don't trust the signals your body is giving you. I know better than you do what you're actually feeling. And for all the people listening, thinking like, oh my God, I do this to my kids all the time. Well, that makes you normal because this is what we learned to do. And it doesn't mean you're going to screw your kids up terribly. Not terribly. And it is nevertheless a good idea to make sure that you honor, you teach them to trust the truth of their experience, to explore it, to be curious about it. Because otherwise children grow up into adults, you know, boys growing to men who have learned

to ignore the signals their body is giving them. They have to be on their deathbeds before they go see a doctor. So another way to say that is, oh, you're hungry? Really? Well, you just ate a lot of food. Do you think maybe you ate so quickly that your stomach hasn't registered yet, that your brain hasn't registered yet, that you're full? Do you want to give it a few minutes? Why do you say you're hungry? Where do you feel it? So teaching your children also to be

self-aware is really just such a great gift. When they start crying and you say what's wrong and they don't know where do you feel it in your body how are you feeling i don't know i'm mad are you feeling mad are you feeling sad where do you feel it i feel it my stomach what does it feel like so really helping them to identify their emotions asking them questions what happened to make you feel this way and asking them to be curious about their experience. And of course, modeling compassion for yourself is really great. Because if you want your children to grow up to be compassionate toward themselves, most people are not nearly as compassionate toward themselves as they need to be. Most of us relate to ourselves in a way we would never tolerate from somebody else. If you could

hear the voice in our head beating us up, teaching your kids to notice that voice in their head, what's it saying to you, practicing compassion to yourself, not being too perfectionistic and externalizing your own self judgments. These little things can really go a long way. And we just think about yourself. Imagine if your parents, I mean, I try to imagine if my parents ever stopped when I, when I was a child, for example, and encouraged me to develop self-awareness. What are you thinking now, honey? Where did that idea come from? What are you feeling? And if they, if your parents really taught you to just be a curious observer of your experience, you would have such a leg up in life. And that would really take you a long way.

You're making the case for applied mindfulness. Absolutely. So I'm imagining you have a mindfulness practice, but what you're doing, and I want to ask that question in a second, but what you're doing is you're saying, okay, non-critical observing of what is taking place and like, be curious about it without judging and critiquing. And that is the practice of mindfulness. But you're saying, Hey, why don't you do it at the dinner table? Why don't you do it in conversation? Why don't you do it with yourself? You know, the narrative that you have with yourself about the way that your skin is doing this, or your hair is doing that and just go, Whoa, how am I going to help my kid love himself?

If, if I'm having a hard time with my own narrative and then just the anecdote for it is to be more curious about where that's coming from or what could be a more dynamic or more loving response to the critique. So all that being said, do you have a practice? Or is this your practice? I mean, I have, I try to have a practice, I'm less consistent than I would like to be. But I do try to I am in fits and spurts. but I do try to meditate as regularly as possible. I also do very much believe what, you know, feminist psychologists in the 60s and 70s were saying, which is what you said earlier, you know, we, we learn and essentially, we learn and grow and develop in relationship. You know, we get harmed in relationship, we heal in relationship, relationships can be, you know, can be and

are incredible teachers for better or worse, depending on how mindfully we relate to our relationships. So we can use our relationships to become more mindful ourselves. And I think that's really important. I also think it's very important to not, to notice that voice, that perfectionistic voice that most people have in their minds, even now, thinking when I give talks on relationships, for example, or workshops, people will automatically start beating themselves up because they're not doing their relationships right. And to really recognize that part of the growth in relationships, part of the beauty of relationships is their tolerance for imperfection and their celebration of imperfection. Healthy relationships have wiggle room for people to be their complicated, messy, screwed up selves and to love them not only in spite of that, but even because of it. You know, to really recognize that our imperfection is where our beauty lies.

And people can make mistakes and people can screw up. And that's okay. That's life. That's just, that's being human. And every moment we have a chance to sort of, to repair if there was any kind of a slip up. That's what I want to ask you about is like, let's just go with the pillars, integrity and dignity. How do you practice that? Like concretely, how do you practice it? I think I could guess, but I would love to hear how you're doing it.

Well, there's, I mean, the how is a huge question. There are lots of tools, you know, and it's, you know, this is obviously easier said than done. But self-awareness, becoming an observer is fundamental to being able to practice this because you can't, we are so hardwired in so many ways just to be reactive. You know, studies have shown that when people feel that their dignity is harmed or threatened, essentially that we feel we're not being respected by others, treated with respect, treated the way that they would want to be treated if they were in our situation, we automatically become defensive. And when we're defensive, this means we're in a state of

heightened arousal. You know, it could be like massive heightened arousal or just minor heightened arousal. But when you're in a state of heightened arousal, you have less access to your rational capacity, faculty. So you're not thinking as rationally and you're less connected to your empathy. I was watching an athlete. It was a mic'd up athlete. And God, it's so good. And I use it all the time is that a ref came at him and he's like, gave him a foul or whatever. And the athlete got all of a sudden got super defensive i didn't i didn't because it was an injustice that he was feeling like he didn't he didn't actually think he did the foul right and so he was coming at the ref and the ref looked at

him gave him a look and the athlete and this is an alpha male athlete goes oh god i get so defensive and i loved it because he caught himself the self-awareness and then the playfulness of, oh, I just get so defensive. And I do that with my wife all the time because I'll get caught on my heels about something. And then I'll go, oh, I'm being defensive, huh? And she'll be like, yeah. So that is like, it's a great escape valve for me because I can root myself in a defensive posture pretty easily. It's not good. You know, you protect yourself, but you distance yourself at the same time, which is, you know, that's not really the aim. And so when you think about resilient relationships, how do you build resilient relationships?

And I'd love to hear how you define resiliency. Yeah. So in my book, I talk about how, you know, relationships are like bodies, they get sick, you know, when their immune system is weaker than the germs that challenge them, right? I mean, I know that's obviously a simplification, but you get the idea. And the germs I'm talking about in relationships are stressors, right? And so we're always experiencing stressors in our lives and, you know, the loss of a job and illness or something like that. If your relational immune system is strong enough, you know, it can withstand more stress. The stronger your relational immune system is, or, you know, another way to say this, the more resilient your relationship is,

the better able it is to withstand the stress that you encounter. So, so a strong relational immune system or a resilient relationship, I describe as being connected, you know, really having a sense of connection, but also being secure, you know, so it's secure and connected. So if you think about relationships in your life that, you know, you would consider pretty good relationships, chances are those are relationships where you feel a fairly strong connection with the other person. And you probably feel fairly secure in that relationship. Again, security and connection exist on a spectrum. Relationship resilience exists on a spectrum like everything else. They map so eloquently to dignity and integrity because that's one of the places or ways that

you will feel safe. You will feel secure. Exactly. That's a nice thread. So the way that I see it is like, it's like integrity is the North star of, of security and connection or relationship resilience. You know, if you think again, back to your own life, you know, chances are you feel more connected with people and more secure with them when you trust that they're going to practice integrity towards you,

when you trust that they're going to perceive you not as less than they are, not as less worthy of being treated with respect, essentially. They're really going to honor you as an individual and not see you as less than. And I see the parallel in your work with animals, right? There's a beautiful parallel between animals and others, you know, and humans as well. When you treat them with integrity, because they have value in the life that they hold, how are you going to eat them? So this is really, this is the crux, you know, this is the foundation of everything.

If you look at every, if you look at abuse, or you look at oppression, which is basically abuse on a larger scale, institutionalized, you know, abuse, you can see that the mentality that enables these behaviors, it's the same. And this mentality is a mentality that is organized around a core belief. It's a belief in a hierarchy of moral worth that some individuals or groups are more worthy of being treated with respect, of having their dignity honored than others. And the content changes. Who is being abused or exploited might change. Maybe it's this domestic

partner or child. Maybe it's this particular group based on their gender or their ethnicity or their species. I mean, the idea that we're talking about is so foundational to so many right now. I haven't met somebody that thinks they got it wrong. Most people, most people think that they're doing their very best and it's the other one that's got it wrong. How do you address that? Well, when you say that most people feel like the other one has got it wrong you mean you feel that that um most people believe that when they are not being respectful they have a right to be disrespectful so therefore it's not disrespect well it's like well i wouldn't act this way if you didn't do this or i wouldn't be like this if they didn't do that. Yeah. And so I'm not the monster, you are, or they are. And so it's more of a

protective mechanism, like victimization. It's not quite victimization, but it's a protective stance that it doesn't allow or makes it difficult to own your own response when it's easier to blame others, is what I guess the simplicity of it is. Yeah. And sometimes there's a difference between recognizing that somebody else is doing something that's fundamentally disrespectful, harmful, non-relational, and making up a about that. Like they're two different things. And I think what you're talking about is the latter one. And I think what you're also talking about is how this judgment becomes an excuse to justify treating them poorly or badly. Right.

So, so the way that I would describe this, I talk about this in my book power argue, which is about the psychology of oppression, is that we, you know, two of the most, you know, what I would, what I consider two of the most, the two most disconnecting of emotions, problematic of emotions are shame and contempt. And these two emotions are, there are two sides of a coin. Yeah. I noticed that you'd put guilt in there. So I want, I want to come back to that, but shame, shame and contempt. I'm right there with you. And before we go down the path,

can you talk about guilt for why you, why you didn't include that? Yes. So let me differentiate guilt from shame. Guilt is the feeling that we have when we've done something wrong or bad. We feel guilty when we think, you know, I've done something bad. So guilt is how we feel about a behavior. In and of itself, it's not problematic. It's actually really important because if we don't feel guilty, we're not in a position to actually change our behaviors. Shame is not a feeling of I've done something bad. Shame is the feeling I am bad. So shame is the feeling of being less than. Even more specifically, it's the feeling of being less worthy than. We feel shame when we feel like our fundamental or intrinsic worth is lower than

others on this planet. We have less of a right to have been born and be alive on this planet. Shame is, yeah, it's a profoundly disconnecting emotion and a very powerful emotion. Yeah, great distinction. Thank you. The flip side of shame is contempt. And contempt is the feeling that we have when we've placed ourselves in a position of moral superiority. So we feel contempt when we're perceiving somebody else as being less worthy, having less intrinsic worth than ourselves. And contempt is not the same as anger. I want to differentiate these two as well. So anger is an emotion. I hate you. That vile, like disdain, right? Yeah, exactly. It's like anger plus judgment, right? So anger is a normal,

healthful response to injustice, right? Anger is a sign that your moral compass is working. Your perceptions might be off, something might not be unjust, and you might perceive it that way. But generally, anger, that's what causes anger to emerge. Anger is healthy. It can be a really healthy emotion because it motivates us to stand up against injustice, right? Anger becomes problematic, however, when we don't recognize it for what it is, which is simply an emotion that's giving us information about a situation, about ourselves. And it becomes problematic when it has the charge of contempt, which is a sign that you've placed yourself in a position of moral superiority. you know, oppression of others. You know, you can see that it always involves this perception that one individual or group somehow has the right to treat another individual or group

in a way that they would not want to be treated, to disrespect them. And at the moment that somebody that you care about is angry, what would you suggest an eloquent response to actually demonstrate the resiliency or to increase the resiliency that you want? I mean, it depends on how they're managing their anger. Let's say it's without contempt. Let's just say it's anger. Like, this is not okay. Yeah. So they're angry at you, right?

So let's assume they're not being disrespectful or threatening or anything like that. You know, you can be curious about the anger. Anger is difficult. Anger is a very disconnecting emotion. You know, so if people have different responses to anger, personality type plays a role in this, you know, personal history plays a role. If you had a parent who was like very unhealthy

with their anger, when your partner gets angry, that's probably gonna have a fairly significant impact on you. So let's just say you're comfortable enough with anger, you can be curious about the anger. and the same thing for your own anger. You know, when you are angry, be curious about it. Anger results from a narrative that we create in our minds. It's a story that we're making up about something. And so be curious. What is this story telling me? Why are you angry? What have I done? And maybe also just recognize a lot of people feel defensive against anger because they're afraid of being wrong and having done something bad.

And that's in part, that's the ego talking like, oh my God, if you're angry at me, maybe I'm a bad person. Maybe I'm not good enough. You know, a lot of people can feel ashamed when they're on the receiving end of anger. Yeah. Well, it touches shame, you know, if you get honest, like, and that, which is to your point, which is like so toxic, you know, that instead of it touching shame, maybe the alternative is some sort of accountability. Like, oh, thank you. I needed that jolt of anger to get to a blind spot.

Oh, okay. Yeah. If you can handle it. Now, people are different and some people are really sensitive and it's asking a lot of them to be on the receiving end of anger and to be in that moment able to be accountable. So this was where it's important to know yourself and try to get to know yourself and know what your relationship with anger is. And if, you know, if it's a vulnerability that you have, you know, if you're scared around angry people, or it's just really hard because you're so sensitive to anger, then you give yourself permission to take a step back when somebody is angry and ideally have a conversation with that person about it another time and say, it's just very hard for me to be around you when

you're angry and I might just need to take a break and then we can have a conversation later when you're not. Okay. So if, if we could project what you dream about, and when you think about all that you've come to understand and learn, what would the world be like? Like, what do you dream about? I dream about a relationally functional world. It's, I feel like we're living now in many ways in like, I call it the relational dark ages. Like we're still in the relational dark ages. I imagine a time, I mean, I do imagine,

what would it be like if like our education system taught us to be mindful? You know, if it taught us to be relationally literate, and to learn how to communicate our needs and listen to others, we would, you know, many people have profound attachment traumas that they developed when they were younger, it makes it makes them afraid to like develop close relationships with others. It makes them abusive. I mean, it causes all sorts of problems. So I imagine a future where people are more relationally literate. And I think that would be a very different world than we live in now. I mean, the good news is that we're moving in that direction. And this is what we all actually want. So we have the same goals. So there is a lot to be hopeful for. If you were in front of, you know, 100 alpha competitors, and you were going to make a

case for an enhanced culture, and this is a total setup trap, you know, because this is what Coach Carol and I've been doing for the last 10 years is working towards building a relationship-based culture. And it's dynamic. It's hard. It's an outcome-based world with alpha competitors, like some of the most competitive humans on the planet. Their physical IQ is off the charts. I should say, and their physical IQ is off the charts.

So how would you shape that? Like, how would you build, it's not like a conversation is going to turn a, you know, a culture in a direction. It might, but how would you shape the rhythms of that, that culture, those relationships. So I'm not sure I understand the question. So when you say, how would I shape the rhythms of a culture? You mean a culture that's made up of people who are highly committed to being champions, essentially competing and winning? Yeah.

And the rhythm is a shorthand for, there's a rhythm of a day. There's things that people do together in the morning and mid-morning and afternoon. There's just a rhythm of the day. So I shorthanded that a little bit for you. But if you were to shape the rhythms of a day that was built on relationships with the purpose of helping each other become their very best. And then the outcome would be maybe just maybe we end up winning a lot, which is, you know, healthy for businesses. So how would you start at that foundation? What would the rhythms of the day be for you?

I think that there would be probably early in the day, a practice of, of, you know, mindfulness, you know, for as long as people can tolerate it, if they haven't been doing it, it's not that comfortable. And then I think there would be practice, instruction and practice around effective communication. Communication is the primary way that we relate. And when you learn the principles and tools of effective communication, it can, it, that alone can transform your relationships. And so really helping people in that really practical on that really practical level.

And you'd meditate, you would do your mindfulness around observation, curiosity. You do it around exploring integrity and dignity, I would imagine. Absolutely. And then you'd operationalize it maybe in ways like, in what ways would you act in alignment with integrity and dignity? And then maybe even prime people with different scenarios, or you'd hold those standards high throughout the day. Because that's what custodians of culture really are, is they're the beacons for and the models for core values. And so if the core value is a relationship, you're saying, well, great, build it, build it though on integrity

and dignity. And we use the word respect, which isn't quite right. We know it. So we soften it and harden it in the same way we think with the word regard. And it's a little bit tonally different than respect. It has more fullness to it. And so we talk about regard. And I'd love for you to kind of push up against that. And when you hear that one of our core moral values is regard oneself and others, how does that fit into your research? I mean, I would say it would depend on how you're defining regard. I mean, that's what I would want to know. Respect is the way that I have come to understand respect. It is essentially treating

others the way that you would want to be treated. So how would you define regard and how does that differ from respect? It's the same as respect with a lovingness embedded in it. So the regard has like a cherish or a bit more of a softer, more compassionate approach because respect can have a hard edge. Like softer, more compassionate approach. Because respect can have a hard edge. Like, you need to respect me. Or like, I respect you. As opposed to, I really regard. I have regard for you.

There's just a bit more compassion and love imbued in it. Yeah, I understand. I think you would probably say, ah, that sounds like integrity and dignity. Yeah. I mean, integrity is essentially respect. I mean, or what you would call in regard and, you know, regard is, is absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Awesome. Okay. So I love your work. I want to figure out how to amplify your work because it's right down the strike zone for what I'm trying to figure out.

And I'm so happy to spend this time with you. And I want to encourage people to get your book. But what else can they do? Where can they follow you? And my hope is that they buy the two books that we talked about. And I know you have a third book in there, but Getting Relationships Right is your new book. And they can probably find it on your website and all the other places.

But where else can we follow along with your work? Yeah. Thank you so much. Melaniejoy.org. Cool. So what's the, tell me about the foundation. Oh, the organization Beyond Carnism. So that, and if people are specifically interested in carnism, they can link through my website, melaniejoy.org, or they can go to carnism.org. And this organization is founded on the book, Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows. It emerged from that.

And the goal of our organization is to expose and transform carnism globally. And, you know, you don't have to be a vegan to be and transform carnism globally. And, you know, you don't have to be a vegan to be a part of this transformation. We invite people to be what we call vegan allies, you know, somebody who is not fully vegan themselves for whatever reason, but they really support, you know, like you, I think really support, you know, the values of veganism and see, see the importance of veganism in many ways. So.

I think you'll appreciate that. of veganism and see, see the importance of veganism in many ways. So, um, I would come in. I think you'll appreciate that. Um, just for what it's worth, the compassionate eating is still a big part of our life and in our home, like it's more lavo, not lavo, um, uh, pescatarian, you know, like we're not, we don't eat a lot of meat. And so every once in a while, and it's just hard for me to do, especially when I'm awake. So the timing of this conversation is important for maybe a couple reasons. So I love it. Thank you for your expertise, your research, your alignment with your principles. That's evident.

And then just a couple hits here. What are you reading that's interesting? Or what do you hope maybe people would read that's been influential to you? So much great stuff out there. There's so much great stuff out there. Yeah. I have been planning to read on my list, Sapiens, Yuval Harari's book, Sapiens. He wrote the foreword for my new Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows. And he's brilliant. So that's top of my list right now to read. He's brilliant. I loved both of his books. I've read two of them. I don't know if he has more, but they're good. A little scary, but they're good. Yeah. Okay. And then, you know, like concretely, do you have any practices that are important that we could maybe learn from like ways that

you wake up in the morning or go to bed or, you know, anything like routine wise that helps you? Well, I mean, I always encourage people and I had to learn this myself to pay attention to your own natural rhythms and like try really hard to build your practices around your rhythms and not to force your rhythms around your practices if you can, you know, to the degree that you can. So I, you know, for example, I'm very lucky. So I work whatever hours I want to, I mean, unless I'm on the road, which is a lot, but when I'm not on the road, I work my own hours.

So I don't have to set an alarm clock and I allow myself to sleep as I need to sleep. And if I sleep too, quote unquote, too late, I tell myself that a day where I'm rested is a much more efficient day. If I get seven hours in rather than eight and honor that. So that's what I would do is, you know, try to build your practices around your rhythm. There we go. Rhythms. Okay. Awesome. Melanie, thank you. And I can't wait for people to be not exposed, but to feel your work through this conversation. And is there anything left undone that we didn't get to that you want to make sure

that we hit? No, I think that was it. It's been really, it's been a pleasure. You're incredibly gracious, so easy to talk to. And I feel like I could just keep on talking to you for a really long time. So take that as the compliment it is. Yeah. Awesome. I did actually have one last question. I meant to ask you if you had seen the new James Cameron documentary, The Game Changers. It's on my queue, but I haven't seen it yet. Okay. It is fantastic. It's about plant-based athletes, actually. And it really debunks a lot of the myths of carnism, and it's really eye-opening. Okay. All right, good. So that's a place, definitely, I'm going to fire that up right away. And I know handfuls of athletes that are doing it.

And in the football world, almost all of the nutrition food scientists are saying you can but you know and they've got this real big butt next to it um and then one one scientist that i work with he is a vegan he's like 265 pounds six six percent body fat it's unbelievable like he's figured it out it's possible i think it's challenging so you've got to be this is just just me talking, you've got to be really armed with information about how to do it right. So does this documentary get into some of that? I believe it does. It's both.

And it's very interesting. And one of the things that I have talked about through my work around carnism with Why We Love Dogs is how, you know, because carnism is dominant and it's so widespread, when people study nutrition, they typically are studying carnistic nutrition. So there's this bias in the system and, you know, and a lot of pushback and, but maybe, and the game changers really like challenges a lot of the sort of kind of traditional carnistic, you know, paradigm around nutrition. So I think, I think you'd enjoy it. Awesome. And I want to put you together with David Young. I don't know if you've met him

from Green Monday. Have you met him yet? I don't think I've met him. I've heard of him, but I haven't met him in person. Yeah. I'd love to put you guys together. I think that there'd be a nice compliment between the work that you guys are doing. And so he's basically said, listen, it would be good if we went vegan and vegetarian for health-sustaining reasons for the planet. Why don't we just start with Mondays? So it's a smart way to kind of shift the habit. Yeah. So I'd love to put you guys together.

I think that sounds great. Fun conversation. Okay. All the best. Thank you. Thank you. Bye. All right.

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