Good Life Project - How “Me First” Culture Destroys Us (and what to do about it) | Terry Real

Episode Date: June 13, 2022

So, what if being fiercely self-reliant and individualistic was actually a terrible thing? I know, I know, sounds silly. I mean isn’t that the very thing we’re told to strive for from the youngest age? And, especially, in our culture now? Problem is, living in a me-first or me-over-you world is not only destroying our personal relationships, it’s destroying us, our states of mind, and even physical wellbeing. And, intimacy, deep connectedness, even reliance on and elevating others just might be the solution to much of what ails us.That idea may sound strange at first, it’s hard to argue that the rise of a wildly individualistic society has also gone hand-in-hand with the destruction of social bonds, friendship, mental health and nearly every marker of health in communities as well. As humans, we are all designed to be in relationship with others to experience the positive effects of connectedness, when that breaks down, so do we. And today's guest, Terry Real is an internationally recognized family therapist, speaker, and author. His new book Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship is a guide not just for couples, but also just for all human beings, filled with tools and advice to help anyone tap into their most collaborative and relational self. In today's conversation with Terry, he shares his story of growing up in a dysfunctional home to reveal how the techniques we've all learned to survive dysfunction as children can take a toll on our present relationships. And we explore how re-engaging with the people around us we hold most dear just may save not only those relationships, but our lives as well, and society more broadly. You can find Terry at: Website | FacebookIf you LOVED this episode you’ll also love the conversations we had with Julie and John Gottman about how to build deeper, loving relationshipsCheck out our offerings & partners: My New Book SparkedMy New Podcast SPARKED. Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Under individualism and patriarchy, you can either be connected or you can be powerful, but you can't be both at the same time. Leading men and women and non-binary folk into intimacy is synonymous with leading them beyond patriarchy and this culture of individualism. It's really a new frontier for all of us. So what if being fiercely self-reliant and individualistic was actually kind of a terrible thing? I know, I know. It sounds silly, right? I mean, isn't that the very thing we're told to strive for from the youngest age and especially in our culture now as adults? The problem is living in a me first or a me over you world is not only destroying our personal relationships, it's destroying us, our states of mind, and even our physical well-being. And intimacy, deep connectedness, even reliance on and elevating others just might be the solution to much of what ails us. Now that idea may sound a little bit strange at first. It's hard to argue that the rise of a wildly individualistic society has also gone hand

in hand with the destruction of social bonds and friendship, mental health, and nearly every marker of health in communities as well. It turns out that as humans, we're all designed to be in relationship with each other, to experience the positive effects of connectedness. And when that breaks down, well, so do we. And today's guest, Terry Real, who likes to joke that he began his career as a family therapist at the age of four, drives home this point in a fascinating conversation on intimacy, interconnectedness, trauma, relationships, and the power of us, especially at this moment in time.

Terry is an internationally recognized family therapist, speaker, and author. He founded the Relational Life Institute, offering workshops for couples, individuals, and parents, and a professional training program for clinicians to learn his relational life therapy methodology. In addition to being a therapist and a teacher for over 25 years now, Terry is also the bestselling author of I Don't Want to Talk About It, How Can I Get Through to You, and The New Rules of Marriage. And his new book, Us, Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship, it's a guide not just for couples, but also for really all human beings, filled with tools and advice and help for anyone to tap into

their most collaborative and relational self. In today's conversation, we dive into all these different topics with Terry, and he shares his own story of growing up in a pretty dysfunctional home, the way he describes it, to reveal how the techniques that we have all learned to survive dysfunction as children can take a toll on our present relationships and lives when we bring them into our grown-up existence. And we explore how re-engaging with people around us that we hold most dear, and maybe those that we don't hold most dear but would like to, how that just may save not only those relationships but our lives as well and society more broadly.

So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. Pilots to hitmen. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk.

The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. You know, it's interesting. I heard you say not too long ago that you described sort of like a family lineage of

being the son of a depressed, angry dad who lived in an unhappy marriage, who was himself the son of a depressed, angry dad who lived in an unhappy marriage. When I hear things like that, one of my curiosity, I mean, I have a whole bunch of curiosity, but one of them is, do you have a sense for how old you were, how young you were when you really first started becoming aware of that? You know, Jonathan, I tease and say, I began my career as a family therapist at about the age of four. A lot of people have noted this. When you're a child in a dysfunctional home, if you're a woman connected to a grandiose man, if you're a member of a marginalized minority group dealing with someone from the majority, you develop great sensitivity. That's what Alice Miller called the drama of the gifted

child. The gift is the gift of being able to read people, and you read them because you know at three, four, that it's in your interest to keep these people regulated, because when they aren't regulated, you pay for it. So one of my gifts, and I think this is gendered, I think it's because I was a boy, I never took it in. I never was swamped with great shame, and there was plenty of it, but I didn't feel like I was nuts. I knew at a very early age that they were nuts. But that doesn't mean that I wasn't a caretaker, that I didn't love them and want to make them better, and that my life didn't depend on it. what I call the adaptive child part of us. My adaptation from as far back as I can remember is the gift of knowing how to read a room and the burden of feeling like it was my responsibility to keep that room safe, like all traumatized kids, so that I could be safe.

Yeah. And I mean, it occurs to me also that what might go along with that is a sense of hypervigilance. It's like perpetual scanning mode, which can have its benefits. You really become aware of social dynamics and context and subtext. But at the same time, that level of sustained hypervigilance, there's got to be a side of it that takes something from you as well. Yeah, well, we know this from trauma. This is the hallmark of trauma. When you're in a dangerous environment, and that very much includes emotionally,

they've done research, and people who have been subject to both physical and emotional abuse will tell you they prefer the physical abuse, no problem. It's the emotional abuse that really gets to you. And when you grow up in a dangerous environment, your central nervous system is being formed. You're in a state of fight or flight, of hypervigilance, while your nerves are being grown. And the consequence of that, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out, is that your hair trigger from that point forward. But you know what?

When it comes to trauma, you can have a ton of it and grow up in an overtly violent home the way I did. You can have subtle trauma. We call it little t trauma, relational trauma. It's more like water on a stone. You can have misalignment that hurts that's repeated a hundred million times a year. And the wound and the adaptation to the wound are still very much a part of who you are and what you bring into your current relationships. That's what my new book is all about, how to understand your particular wound and, more important, the way you adapted to that wound.

How that adaptive part of us, I call it the adaptive child part of us, spills into your relationships and makes a mess of things, and how to move into a wiser part of us, a less triggered part of us. It's literally a different part of our brain. It's the prefrontal cortex. And that's the part of us that's here and now and not triggered, the part that can stop and think and reason. You know, one of the things I say is there's no such thing as overreacting. It's just that what you're reacting to may not be what's in front of you. It may be what's behind you. Your past, you know, there's no such thing as trauma memory. That's a misnomer. You don't remember trauma, you relive it. You're not thinking, I'm walking down Main Street remembering

combat. You hear a noise, you've got a gun in your hand, you're back in combat. And so what happens when we're flooded and we get triggered whenever anything in the present comes close enough to what happened to you as a kid, that you get confused. And the past overtakes the present in your body, viscerally. And you are back there. You know, my dad was a harsh, violent guy. He was also a very loving guy. He was both. Confusing.

My wife speaks to me harshly or she's critical to me. Boom. I am that four-year-old. She is that six-foot-three towering man. And my defenses are up. My knee-jerk automatic response, my adaptive child, is fight. And so is hers. So we're off to the races. The essence, how you know you're in your triggered adaptive child is how automatic it is. It's not thoughtful. It's major. And for those of you listening to the podcast, I have three, fight, flight, and fix. And you can flee, by the way, sitting six inches away from somebody. That's called stonewalling. But are you a fighter like me?

Screw me, screw you. Are you a fleer? I'm going to shut down. I'm not listening. I'm out of here. Or are you a fixer? Oh, my God, something's bad. Let me fix it so that I can feel better. Fight, flight, or fix. Take a moment if you're listening and be honest

with yourself. What is the adaptive child part of you? In the heated moment, where do you go? And Jonathan, where do you go? It's interesting as you're laying that out, you know, and I had an immediate different reaction to the, I learned years ago this sort of like the sympathetic and parasympathetic response, fight or flight. And then it seems like that model had evolved to fight, flight, or freeze. You know, like there was this understanding that sometimes we just become utterly

paralyzed and we do neither. So you're, you're, you swap in this sort of thing, which is fix, as part of the polyvagal spectrum, which is fascinating to me. It's in the literature now. It's actually fight, flight, freeze. And I collapse, freeze, and I call freeze frozen flight. But I'll include it. Fight, flight, freeze, or fawn fawn oh no kidding yeah tell me about that part well that's when the animal you know rolls over on his belly or starts licking the

paws of the more dominant animal it's like i'll be subservient to you you let me regulate you so you don't attack me. And that fawn in the animal kingdom I speak of in humans as fixing. It's not an adult responsible, let me see what I can do here. It's a compulsive, anxiety-driven, I won't feel good unless you feel good. Let me make you feel good at all costs. Right. It's sort of a let me subsume my identity into whatever I think is going to bring peace in the moment, even if it completely is not in service of my own humanity. Yes. So you can pass if you want, but I'm wondering...

Yeah, no, I'm curious. And I was thinking, I said, I think in an earlier part of my life, having been knocked around enough and having a pretty devout mindfulness meditation practice for about a dozen years, I feel like the response for me is more zoom out, pause, and then engage probably on the what you would designate as fight side of it, but not in an adversarial way, more in an engaged responsive way. At least that's my sense of it. It'd be interesting to ask my wife, actually, what her sense is from the other side. And what is your new hard-won fight response look or sound like? I'm trying to figure out if you're fighting out of your adaptive child or if

you're standing up for yourself out of your wise adult. Yeah, I would probably say it depends on the moment and the circumstance. My sense is that it's more standing up for myself rather than defaulting to some sort of adaptive child slash coping mechanism. And I wonder if part of that is because I felt safe as a child. I felt loved as a child. I felt like I could be who I needed to be and had parents who modeled that even though they ended up not with each other. And so I wonder if part of that is that actually I was given a lot of what I yearned for to feel safe and comfortable and able to express myself as a child. And that patterning has followed me for a large part of my life.

Well, Jonathan, you may be healthy. Oh, no. It's been, you know, over 30 years of being a therapist, I've collected a lot of cartoons. And one of them is this huge sort of convention hall, and the banner read, Adult Children of Healthy Parents, and there were like four people in there. But that might be the healthy response, particularly as you describe it, that you stop and pause and then make a decision. That stopping and pausing is you pulling out of the triggered subcortical parts of your brain, flight, flight, or fix, and accessing the prefrontal cortex, the wise adult, the part of you that can really be there and make a conscious choice to do something more functional. I'm going to say your adaptive child is a fleer and that in your wise old age, you have developed what my book is

all about, what I call relational mindfulness, the capacity in the heated moment to take a breath or 20, take a break. I'm a big fan of breaks. Take a walk around the block. Get re-centered until you're out of that automatic triggered response. It's what I call remembering love. Remember the person you're speaking to is someone you care about. Remember why you're opening your mouth is to make things better. And when you're re-centered in that wiser part of you, then you go back into the fray and deal with what was ever upsetting. But I do have a note on how to stand up for yourself. Do you want to hear it? Yeah, please. See, the essence of this new book is about learning to live relationally.

It's us. The prefrontal cortex has the capacity to remember that we're a whole, that we're a team. When you get triggered and you move into that trauma response, you forget that. You don't have the more primitive parts of the brain that light up don't have the capacity to remember the whole. And so it's you and me, adversaries in a power struggle. One wins, one loses. When you're there, get out. You're not in your right mind. Take a break and get centered and then use relational skills. One of the bitter pills is that this triggered automatic reactive part of us does not want to be intimate. It wants survival. It's about

me, me, me. You know, for decades, I ran around the country giving skills workshops, and my favorite slide was this one. Other workshops teach you skills. We deal with the part of you that won't use them. So anyway, the book Us is very much a critique of what I call the toxic culture of individualism in the West. And what thinking like an individual does in your relationship to yourself, self-esteem, to others, the people you live with, and to other races, other cultures, to the planet. And recovering the us, remembering that we're a team together, is a completely different energy and language than you versus me. Now, a lot of people, when they stand up for themselves, they do so as an individual.

And a lot of therapists and 12-step sponsors and feminist groups will cheer you on. I wouldn't take that bullshit if I... No, no, no, no, no. It's not, I was weak, now I'm strong, go screw yourself. It's, I was weak, now I'm strong, let's empower each other to make this work for both of us. That's thinking relationally. It's a whole different ballgame. So what I teach people, and I go into this in detail in the book, is what I call soft power or loving power. Under individualism and patriarchy, which I've been writing about for 30 years, you can either be connected or you can be powerful, but you can't be both at the same time.

When you step into power, because power is dominance, power is power over, not with. When you step into power, you break the connection. And one of the things I say is that leading men and women and non-binary folk into intimacy is synonymous with leading them beyond patriarchy and this culture of individualism. It's really a new frontier for all of us. So what does soft power sound like? Instead of, Jonathan, don't talk to me like that, which is fair enough,

it becomes, Jonathan, I want to hear what you have to say. Could you tone it down so I could really listen to it? Instead of saying, don't treat me like that, you say, honey, when you just called me a big fat pig, it pushed me to the other side of the room. I would like to be close to you. Could you say you're sorry and make some repairs so I can feel close to you again? Who the hell talks like that? Who the hell stands up for themselves and cherishes their partner in the same breath? It's new territory, and that's what I've been writing about. Can I tell you a story? Yeah, please.

I'd love to tell it. This is an absolutely true story. So a heterosexual couple comes to me young, and it's a classic deal. She wants sex none of the time, he wants sex all the time. So, like any good therapist, I get them off of the actual thing into what it means. What does it mean to you to have sex? And this guy, unfortunately, like a lot of men, filtered almost all of his emotional needs through the physicality. It meant he was desirable. She liked them. They were on the same page.

They were close. Things were good between them. It meant everything. So they come back two weeks later. It's absolutely true. All smiles. They said, the sex thing, we got it knocked.

Okay, what's the story? About three days after our session, the woman tells me, my husband wanted sex. And instead of my usual, which is to go to the other side of the room, I walked over to him, I gave him a big fat kiss, put my arms around him, looked him in the eyes, and said something like this. Honey, the first thing I want you to know is I think you're really hot.

You got a great bod. You're a really handsome man. You turn me on. You're, and more than that, you're a good man. I feel loved by you. I feel close to you. I want to be in your arms. I think, oh, by the way, I don't want to have sex tonight.

And anyway, I think you're wonderful. And I feel really, and to his amazement, the guy looked at her and went, uh, okay. And they were done. And the reason why they were done is she said yes to him in so many wonderful ways that the no of not having sex went down like not a problem. We don't know how to say no to a particular issue and yes to our partners in the same breath. That's new territory for us. And most of us have to learn how to do that. Yeah. And what a beautiful story. You know, I would imagine that so much of that is that we are without the objectivity of somebody like going to somebody who can sort of like sit between us and say like, have you thought that maybe there's this bigger

dynamic happening that the ability for two people or three people, people in relationship to sort of pull out and gather that level of understanding and say, well, this is not actually about the, in this case, sex. It's about all of the associations about identity that I'm bolding into this act and feeling like rejecting the act is rejecting all of these things that I hold dearly onto as like a source of identity for me. How does somebody get to the place where they are able to sort of zoom the lens out and identify the nuance, what's really happening below the surface? Because you can't have the reaction that you just talked about until you can actually see what's really going on. Well, you can learn to say yes while you stand up for yourself and then apply it to a particular situation. But the only part of you that is capable of doing that is the non-triggered adult part of you. I have a saying, there's no such thing as overreaction. It's just that what we're reacting to may not be what's in front of us, it may be what's behind us. So the principle art is staying seated in this adult that can learn these skills. And you can learn these skills, including

the, in some ways, most important skill, the fundamental skill of writing yourself when you're reactive and triggered, taking a break, taking a walk around the block, having a little chat with that little boy or little girl that is what is being triggered. It's not you, it's that young version of you. And getting re-centered into the place of you that can remember love and use these skills. And the skills can be used cross-issue. You don't have to be a psychoanalyst and unearth the deeper meaning of every issue. You can learn how to be more related. Can I give you another concrete skill? Yeah, sure. So first of all, you change the map. You move from thinking like two adversarial individuals, and you remember

the us, the team. That changes everything. The relational answer to the question, for example, who's right and who's wrong, is who cares? It doesn't matter. What matters is how are we going to work this issue in a way that works for both of us. So changing the map and learning to think relationally changes everything. It's like the difference between, I need more sex in here, and honey, we both deserve a good sex life. What do we need to do together to jumpstart this thing? It's a completely different energy and a completely different language and a completely different toolbox. So here's a tool. You and me consciousness versus us consciousness. When we are faced with a unhappy, angry,

complaining partner, in other words, when the moment calls for repair, I'll talk more about repair, we lose our shit. And we usually reference two reference points. I talk to this day in and day out in my office. Our first reference point is accuracy. Well, that's right, that's not, that's half right. Yeah, that's sort of right, but you have to understand that. Here's the first bitter pill. There's no place for objective reality in personal relationships. Objective reality is great for getting, you know, a vaccine made,

but it's irrelevant in personal relationships. We don't care who's objectively right or wrong. The second reference that we all go to is us, me. I can't believe I have to put up with this shit. Here we go again. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. How unfair is this? How long is this going to go on for?

And when I teach people, and it's literally a teaching, I want you to give up those two reference points, objective reality and me, me, me. And as an act of generosity, I want you to lose your ego, walk over the bridge to your partner's, this is what I want you to replace it with, compassionate curiosity about your partner's subjective experience. It's not about setting the record straight. It's not about you, you, you. And it sounds as simple as this. Honey, I'm sorry you feel bad. I love you. I don't want you to feel bad. Tell me what's going on. Tell me more about it. That's all you need. And if you really want an A+, you get to say, I can understand how you might feel like that.

That's empathy. And if you want an A++, you get this punchline. This is a line I would like all your listeners to jot down. Honey, is there anything I could say or do right now that would help you feel better? That's called repair. What do you need? Is there something I can say or do right now that would help you feel better? But you have to put yourself aside.

And you have to put the record aside. And you have to be willing to be generous to your partner in their distress. Reach in to their upset and see if you can. Everybody gets this wrong. All relationships are a dance of harmony, disharmony, and repair. And our culture doesn't teach the skills of repair. It doesn't even acknowledge that disharmony exists. But when you're faced with an unhappy partner, start off with the wisdom that is in your interest to help them be happy with you. It's in your interest. This is not a dialogue. Everybody gets this wrong. It's a one-way street. I tell people, think of yourself as being at the customer service window. Somebody comes to you and says, my microwave doesn't work. They don't want to hear you say, well,

my toaster doesn't work. They want you to fix their damn microwave. When you are faced with an unhappy partner, help them get happier. It's in your interest to do that. You love them. And, you know, I have these big burly guys, Jonathan, and they say to me, why should I work so hard to please my wife? And I go, knock, knock, dummy, you live with her. Okay, that's why you should. It's in your interest. But that's remembering the us, the whole. Yeah. I mean, it's a powerful sort of way to reexamine it, the notion of harmony,

disharmony, and then to really focus on like, what is the process of repair here? If you're at a point in life when you're ready to lead with purpose, we can get you there. The University of Victoria's MBA in Sustainable Innovation is not like other MBA programs. It's for true changemakers who want to think differently and solve the world's most pressing challenges. From healthcare and the environment to energy, government, and technology, it's your path to meaningful leadership in all sectors. For details, visit uvic.ca slash future MBA. That's uvic.ca slash future MBA. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here.

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charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. I wonder if there is a bit of a slippery slope. You described earlier these sort of different states, fight, flight, freeze, or consider myself a feminist family therapist. I have been for 40 years, and I'm not unaware of how many women traditionally have subsumed their voice, their wants and needs, for the sake of peace in the relationship. I ain't talking about that. I like to say in relationships, I want the mighty to melt. I want the weak to stand up. And both of those moves are a move into increased vulnerability. to come down and open your heart and say, I'm scared. For the more quote-unquote codependent one, the one down placating one, it's a move into vulnerability to assert yourself and stand up.

So I'm not talking about doing away with the individual. I'm just talking about keeping the individual in context. And a lot of people shift from being over-accommodating to, now I found my voice, go screw yourself. That's not a step up. You know, I'll get killed for this, but one of the things I say is that after 50 years of feminism, a lot of women have earned the right to be as obnoxious as men have always been. I don't want you to shift from one side to the other side of the dichotomy. I want to blow up the dichotomy. I want related, loving power. A lot of 12-step therapy, you know, as a couples therapist, individual therapy is the bane of my existence. I wouldn't put up with that if I was you. And people get, I call it individual empowerment. I don't want you to be individually

empowered. I want you to be relationally empowered. I'm going to bring my full strength into this relationship. I'm going to insist on what I want. Now, what do you need, honey? How can I help you deliver for me? Who says that? The golden rule of thinking relationally is, what could I give you to help you come through for me? That's thinking relationally. We're a team. Let me empower you to deliver for me what I'm asking for. This is not an adversarial contest. We need to work

together. So if we define power as something that derives from some sort of relationship or collective effort, what happens when a person is not in a relationship or in some sort of community, if their sense of power is derived largely from interacting with others, and they're in a moment or a stage in their life where they're sort of like in relative solitude, how does that affect the individual sense of power? Well, first of all, I make a distinction. It's Rianne Eisler, actually, the chalice and the blade between what we call power over versus power with. Dominance versus agency. And the whole book is about trading in the delusion of power over and control for the wisdom of cooperation and collaboration with yourself. You know, before I answer your question, let me back up a bit.

This book is a critique of the toxic culture of individualism. And what that means is the word individual means I'm apart from nature. I'm an individual. And individualism, which has, one of the chapters is the history. It was created by a bunch of, guess what, wealthy, privileged white men in the Enlightenment. It hasn't been around forever. But individualism fuses with patriarchy, which I've been writing about for 30 years. Patriarchy teaches us not only are we apart from nature, but we're above nature and we control it.

We dominate it. Whether the nature you're trying to dominate is your partner or your kids or the result of your efforts, like landing that job, or your brain, I need to be less negative, or your body, I need to lose 10 pounds. This power over control model is insane, and it wreaks havoc in our relationship to ourselves, in our relationships to the people we love, in our society. We're living now in an extremely divisive, one-up, one-down culture, to the planet and to spirit. And the essence, and I'm proud to say, I start with neurobiology in the book, what happens in our brains. And I move to personal relationships, and it's full of relationship

skills. The last third of the book zooms out, and I talk about this power over model in terms of racism, sexism, homophobia, our relationship to nature itself, to the planet, and the spirit. If we don't trade in the dominance power over model for a, I call it ecological humility, the understanding that we're in our systems, not above it. If we don't move from dominance to collaboration, we're in deep shit as a species. So anyway, I define power as agency, not dominance. Got it. But let me answer your question. Somebody out of relationships. Jonathan, I've never met anybody out of relationships. I don't know if you have. These are the same relationship skills. If it's

work or your family at home or your dog or the kids on the playground. Relationship skills are relationship skills. It's about how you relate to your garden. It's about shifting from you versus me, power and control, to you and me together. I am in this with you, not at you. And that shift can be the way that you drive your car. Yeah. And I love that context. And also, if you think about it, just the way that you step into your life, the way that you step into every part of your life, if you step in with the frame of how can we all collaborate in a way that feels amazing to all of us? And you constantly are asking that question, how do we all win? How do we all do this together in a way where we all rise? Rather than, how do I set this up so that I am the one who ends with the most?

I mean, the former just feels like such a more joyful way to step into your life, to step into conversations, to step into walking in the woods. Like you said, we're relating to everything and everyone all day long. And if you go in there, you know, with this just much more expansive view, it just feels like a more energizing, a more upbeat, a more nourishing way to live your life because you're removing a lot of the adversarial context of moving through each day by doing that. I think that's right. I don't move from my day as an adversary. I move through my day as a participant. One of the things I say is our relationships are our biosphere. It's the atmosphere we breathe. And once we replace dominance for what I call

ecological humility, understanding we're not above it, we're in it, then everything, it changes. You know, as a couples therapist, let me tell you, if one of you wins and the other one loses, you both lose. Now, that's not pie-in-the-sky idealism. You both lose because I've seen it. The loser will make the winner pay for it. Trust me. You're not outside of the dance. You're in it. You're intimately connected. And so it's in your interest to take care of the biosphere because you're dependent upon it. You breathe. You can pollute your biosphere over here with a temper tantrum, but you'll breathe in that pollution in your partner's withdrawal or sexlessness or coldness. You are connected. You cannot escape. And once you wake up to the interconnectedness that is the net we all live in, all of the rules change. It's not about me, me, me, me, me. Whether you're walking in the woods, whether you're fighting, hopefully constructively with your partner, it's about the whole and how are we as a whole going to make this work.

Yeah. As you mentioned, you dive into the neurophysiology of individualism, which I thought was fascinating. And you described this phenomenon you call social baseline theory, this notion that our brains are actually not designed to self-regulate in isolation. Talk to me more about this. I found this fascinating. Well, from what we've learned about the brain, from a neurological perspective, this idea of the freestanding rugged individual is just bullshit. That's not how we're designed. We co-regulate each other's nervous systems all day long, and we depend upon it. One of the things I say in the book is, if you want to see what happens to a nervous system that's completely cut off from

social interaction, look at what solitary confinement does to somebody. It drives them crazy. Dan Siegel, pioneer of neurobiology, has said social interaction is not a luxury, it is an essential nutrient to the brain. We need it. So social baseline theory is one of the newer theories that I like a lot. It goes like this. We know that all animals are calorie counters. All animals conserve energy. As I introduced this concept, I talked about being in the Serengeti and I saw a lioness hunting a warthog, and they were crouched in the ground, and then boom, they both took off. And then just as suddenly, boom, they both stopped, did stop, in utter unison. And I turned to my friend who was an old safari hand,

I said, what the hell? He said, conservation of calories. I said, what? He said, that moment was the moment both lion and Warthog knew the Warthog would never be caught. And they just stopped. Why expend your energy? Now, the way this works in the brain, we've known this forever, is the prefrontal cortex, the most mature part of our brain, which develops up to 26 years old, develops last, is an energy hog. You know, it's like the CPU that takes a lot of electricity. And this more mature part of the brain offloads more rudimentary tasks to less calorie-consuming parts of the brain, simpler parts of the brain,

like breathing, for example, or your heart rate. We know that. What we didn't know until very recently is you can offload your brain to other people's brains. Simple example, I tend the fire and I'm looking out for saber-toothed tigers. My prefrontal cortex is working overtime. Versus I tend the fire and my cavemate Ralph stands behind me and he looks for saber-toothed tigers. Much less expenditure in my brain. My brain is working less because the two of us are sharing one brain. And we share brains like this all day long. They call it social

baseline theory. The brain operates at rest when it's in a social matrix. The brain operates actually more actively when you're alone. It calms down when you're with others because we share brain functions. This is a revolutionary way of looking at how we operate. It's so extraordinary that the new neurobiologists are saying the individual may not be the proper study of science. It should be the collective. That is, how do we stay healthy? With others. How do our brains work? With others. How do we regulate? We co-regulate. So this whole idea of an individual who does everything for himself is just not how we human beings operate. It's a myth. Yeah, which makes a lot of sense, frankly.

That's the reason that we still exist as human beings is because enough people figured out that I can't do this thing alone, that they decided to support themselves in community. Although certainly the last few years, I think is challenging a lot of that. There is so much rhetoric, so many resources being put behind this notion of individualism and that being the ultimate aspiration for us as for loneliness. And we've never been a more lonely society than we are right now. I, I, I, me, me, me. We're pack animals. We're designed to be connected and relational. It's how our bodies work best. You know, intimacy is as much a factor in physical health as not smoking and eating right and exercise. One of my favorite studies was there was a study, there are hundreds of studies that intimacy does well for our body. But one of my favorites is there was this study, talk about simplicity. A Dartmouth study, people recovering from surgery in the hospital had shorter stays in the hospital correlated to how many visitors they had.

The more visitors you had, the quicker you were back home. We are born to be connected. It's the only thing that makes us happy. And one of the things I say in the book is look at addiction. What we self-medicate when we self-medicate is the pain of disconnection. I gave a talk for a group once. I said the cure for sex addiction is intimacy. I think the cure for most everything is intimacy.

It's what we're designed to be. Yeah. If you're at a point in life when you're ready to lead with purpose, we can get you there. Yeah. From healthcare and the environment to energy, government, and technology, it's your path to meaningful leadership in all sectors. For details, visit uvic.ca slash future MBA. That's uvic.ca slash future MBA. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever,

making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary.

Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot.

Flight risk. I remember looking at some of the research that John Cacioppo, who was one of the leading researchers in loneliness for years, who's no longer with us, sadly. But reading about the research on loneliness, which is very different than being alone. You can be surrounded by people and still feel, you know, like incredibly lonely. But the research on the, not just the psychological effect, but the physiological effect of the feeling, the experience of loneliness down to, you know, dramatic increase for risk of disease, for inflammation, it's stunning how it affects you. And like you said, the most effective and free treatment is to be reconnected with other human beings or reconnected with other beings, whether they're people or animals or nature or all. And yet still we hang on to this notion that the purest unit, the ultimate aspiration is for me to be utterly self-reliant as a human being. And especially now,

it's causing so much harm. Yeah. Well, that's probably why I wrote the book. It's because individualism is on the rise. The strongman, patriarchy, traditional masculinity is all, there's been a great backlash. And there's this upsurge of all of this nonsense. Relationality is the only thing that will make us happy. It is the panacea. It's the pearl of great price. I deal with a lot of high-powered guys, and I speak to them about what I call the difference between gratification and relational joy. Gratification is a short-term hit of pleasure. It's great. Pretty girl smiles at you. You make a hit on the stock market. All good. I like gratification in this place. Relational joy.

And think of parenting. Relational joy is a deeper down pleasure. Sometimes it's gratifying. Sometimes it's a pain in the ass. But it's the pleasure of just being there and being in connection with the person. I tell a story about my son, Alexander. When he was little, little, he was a maniac. And I was giving him a timeout. It had to be like three foot.

We don't have locks. So I was holding his bedroom door shut and he was trying to get it open. You know, lightning was coming out of his, I mean, thunderclouds. And there was a part of me that wanted to throw a little bugger right out the window. I mean, I hated him. But a deeper down part of me was like, you mighty little spirit, you're going to do just great. And I talked to people in general and men in particular. Many of the men that I see have lived most of their lives out of their adaptive child, have been governed by gratification, and have little to no relational joy. And I tell this story,

if I may. Now, I'm proud to say none other than Bruce Springsteen wrote the foreword to my book, and he quite generously spoke about, referenced his work with me and Patty, very, very generous. So this is not Bruce. I've worked a lot with Hollywood people and musicians and celebs. This is a rock and roll star. And he told me when he was on stage, he was alive. When he was at home with his family, he was like a computer on sleep mode. He was really depressed. And I talked to him over time, as I do many of the men I work with, about what I call becoming a true family man, getting up out of yourself and giving. So his four kids would be like, daddy, daddy, no, no, no, no. And he began to say, okay, yes. And I began to teach him about relational joy and about the pleasure of deep connection. And he came to me one day and he said, I just spent

the best day of my life. I said, OK. I wasn't in a stadium in front of 60,000 people. He said, my wife and kids and I spent all day Sunday in our PJs. We played a 10-hour vicious game of Sado Monopoly. And I forgot all about everything. I was in the moment with my family. It was the happiest day of my life. That's relational joy.

And that's what will fulfill us. And nothing else can take its place. Yeah, I love that. It sounds like, and it's been around for time immortal. As you were describing it, two things came into my mind. One is, in Buddhism, one of the four measurables is loosely translated to appreciative joy, which is a lot of what you're describing. But the way that I learned the concept that you're talking about, actually, it comes from a Yiddish term, naches. And this is, for those who don't

know the word or the feeling, this is the joy that you feel when somebody who you love so unconditionally goes out into the world, succeeds, whatever it may be, that you feel their elation, their joy as your own. And you wish it for them. And it's not about you. It's just you seeing them, people who you love, go out and have this incredible feeling, gives you that same feeling. In an interesting way, it's both selfless and self-centered. Well, I talk about the difference between short-term greed and enlightened self-interest. Being related is self-interest. It's just wise self-interest. Right.

Yeah, and I think it's an important distinction. You've used the word intimacy a number of times also, and one of the things you write about is a modified version of that term, what you call fierce intimacy. What's the distinction here? Fierce intimacy is my shorthand for the capacity to take each other on. Most couples stop taking each other on after a few years. And they tell themselves that they're compromising or accepting,

but they're really settling. And resentment builds, sexuality dies. The first casualty when you stop being honest with each other is sex and your eroticism. And what I say is that there's a reason why people back off of each other, because they don't have the skills to pull it off and have it be successful. You tell your partner the truth about what ails you, and they get defensive, or they block it, or they counter with what ails, or, or, or, or. They don't know the skills of repair. You know, historically, we have never wanted more from our relationships than we do right now. Our grandparents' generation didn't care about all

this stuff. If nobody beat each other or drank too much, they were fine. Nowadays, we really want to be lifelong lovers. We want long walks on the beach, holding hands. We want great sex in the 70s and 80s. We want heart-to-heart talks. We really want a lifelong lover relationship. But our anti-relational, narcissistic, addictive, patriarchal, individualistic culture does not give our sons and daughters what they need to pull off this ambition. So that's where the book comes in. First, you need a map, how to start thinking relationally instead of individualistically, and then you need a set of tools. How to, for example, stand up for yourself and cherish your partner at the same time. How to digest grief. What to do when you're in your wise adult and your partner's stuck in his or her adaptive child and they ain't coming out. How to tolerate disappointment. These are all

essential skills in a relationship, which I would love taught in elementary school and junior high and high, but which we need to be taught as adults because we didn't learn them in the family growing up and we didn't learn them in this culture. We can do better. Yeah. And underneath all of that, and this is one of the things that you write as well, you write, we must face with compassion our own orphaned parts, our shame and judgments. So part of it is about skills, but part of it also is sort of saying, okay, let me look at this adapted child. Let me look at these things that are within me. And, you know, part of it is about skilling your way into this fierce intimacy and this like developing something that we all yearn for. But it sounds like part of it also is not focusing on self-awareness for the

purpose of deepening into individualism, but self-focusing on self-awareness and self-discovery for the purpose of being able to bring yourself more wholly, more openly, more fully to a relationship. That's exactly right. We have to tend, you know, these inner children. And in the book, in my work, I talk a lot about your inner adaptive child and wounded child. I do personification work where I have big burly guys talk to their little boy in a chair and put their arms around them.

But what you need, these inner children are really just personifications of trauma states. They're you at the age you were when you were traumatized and what you were experiencing then and how you adapted to that experience. It got frozen in time. And over and over again, I bring the wise adult part of you into relationship with these younger parts of you. One of the things I say is that maturity comes when we tend to our inner children and don't foist them off on our partners to deal with. Yeah. And as you write, intimacy is, this is not something that we just magically have. This is something that we do. You know, it's something that it feels like it's less just a matter of who we are.

It's a matter of the way that we move into our lives and the way that we make decisions and take actions. And it arises from that. Including actions that heal our own trauma from the past. Yeah. Our relationships are a great crucible for that. You know, my darling wife, Belinda, will look at me when I'm being particularly obnoxious and get that little smile of hers and kind of bow and say, I just want to thank you for giving me this opportunity to work on myself. Beautiful. Well, this feels like a good place for us to come full circle in our conversation as well. So in this container of good life project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life,

what comes up? To live a good life, to live a life of authentic connection to myself, to the people I love, to my society, to people who are unlike me, other cultures, other races, to nature and the planet at large, and ultimately to connection to spirit. The largest wise adult in the arena. I had a guy I worked with, and he had a beautiful image. He was triggered, very triggered. And his image, he closed his eyes and he visualized he was putting his arms around his overwhelmed little boy. And spirit was putting its arms around both of them. Maybe we'll end with that. Beautiful. Thank you. It's been great talking to you. Thank you for having me. Hey, before you leave, if you love this episode, safe bet you'll also love the conversation that we had with Julie and John Gottman

about how to build deeper loving relationships. You'll find a link to Julie and John's episode in the show notes. And of course, if you haven't already done so, go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app. And if you appreciate the work that we've been doing here on Good Life Project,

go check out my new book, Sparked. It'll reveal some incredibly eye-opening things about maybe one of your favorite subjects, you, and then show you how to tap these insights to reimagine and reinvent work as a source of meaning, purpose, and joy. You'll find a link in the show notes, or you can also find it at your favorite bookseller now. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist,

whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised.

The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him! Y'all need a pilot?