Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - What If Everything You Believe About Lasting Love Is Wrong? I Dr Sara Nasserzadeh

Episode Date: July 16, 2026

We've been taught to believe that love is something you fall into. That when you meet the right person, you'll just know. The chemistry will be undeniable. The connection effortless. But what if almost everything we've been taught about love is wrong? In this episode of The Language of Love, I sit down with social psychologist, relationship expert, and author of Love by Design, Dr. Sara Nasserzadeh. For more than two decades, Sara has studied thriving couples across 40 countries to understand what actually creates lasting, fulfilling love. Her research challenges many of the myths we've grown up believing and offers a refreshing, evidence-based perspective on what makes relationships flourish. One of the biggest takeaways? Lasting love isn't something you stumble into. It's something you intentionally create. We explore why the butterflies we chase can sometimes be our nervous system responding to familiar patterns rather than genuine compatibility, why peaceful relationships can initially feel unfamiliar, and what it really takes to build a relationship that grows stronger over time. In this episode, we discuss: • Why love is built, not found • The biggest myth about love that keeps people stuck in unhealthy relationship patterns • Why intense chemistry isn't always a sign you've found the right person • How your nervous system shapes who you're attracted to • The difference between anxiety, excitement, and genuine compatibility • Why healthy love can sometimes feel "boring" at first and why that's often a good sign • The six essential ingredients Sara has found in thriving, long-term relationships • How to cultivate attraction and intimacy long after the honeymoon phase ends • A simple practice that helps couples feel more connected without saying a word • Why your relationship patterns show up not only with romantic partners, but also with family, friends, and colleagues • The powerful question that can reveal whether you're settling for the love you think you deserve Whether you're dating, married, healing from heartbreak, or simply wanting stronger relationships in every area of your life, this conversation offers practical wisdom grounded in decades of research and real-world experience. To learn more about Dr. Sara Nasserzadeh, visit her website and pick up a copy of Love by Design. If this conversation resonated with you, please share it with someone who could use the reminder that healthy love isn't about finding the perfect person. It's about creating the kind of relationship where both people can truly thrive. To learn more about Dr. Sara's work, grab her book Love by Design or connect with her at her website. And if this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who needs to hear that love doesn't have to be a mystery. It can be a choice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, I'm Dr. Laura Berman, and for more than 30 years, I've been helping people learn to love and be loved better across every kind of relationship. My intention on Language of Love Conversations is simple, to help you learn to love and be loved better, deepening your relationships, expanding your capacity for connection, and living with more presence, honesty, and love. Let's get fluent in the language of love together. What if love alone is not enough and there is another way to create lasting, deeply fulfilling relationships?

On this episode of the Language of Love, I'm joined by Dr. Sara Nasr-Sadeh. She's a globally recognized relationship expert, social psychologist, and author of the book, Love by Design. Sara has spent years studying love, intimacy, and the human connection across cultures. And in this conversation, we are unpacking some of the biggest myths we've been taught about relationships. Many of them may surprise you, including the idea that love is something we simply fall into. We talk about the surprising difference between desire and attraction, why chemistry and butterflies are not always signs of compatibility, people, and why peaceful love can actually feel unfamiliar when your nervous system has been

conditioned for intensity. Sara also shares her powerful framework of emergent love, the kind of love she found across the board the happiest couples around the world shared, and they consistently cultivate over time, as well as the six key ingredients to help it grow. We also get into the idea of a touch lexicon, a simple but transformative way of understanding touch, the kind of touch you and your partner like, communication through touch that can completely change the emotional and physical connection in your relationship and your intimate life. I feel like this is a really wonderful, thoughtful, eye-opening conversation about what healthy

love actually looks and feels like, not just emotionally, but in the nervous system too, and how to create it. So let's get into it. Here is my conversation with Dr. Sara Nazarzad. Dr. Sara, thank you so much for joining us on the Language of Love. My pleasure. My pleasure. Thank you for having me. So Love by Design, that is the name of your book. And I think it speaks

volumes to what I often talk about on this show. And I know you speak to a great deal. And we're going to be getting into some of the nuts and bolts of some of the beautiful teachings and messages you have around this. But there's this general concept that you're challenging as well, that love is all you need. Well, first of all, talk about how you challenge that and what inspired you, because I know you've done a tremendous amount of research through the years looking at how people love and intimacy and human connection across cultures. So let's just start there. This idea that love is all you need versus love by design, which is different. Sure. So the first aspect of it, I would like to be in control. I refuse to think that we have nothing to do with the love that we create. I truly believe I'm a very spiritual person. I believe in, yes, leave some to the faith and leave some to, you know, like try not to control everything in life.

But being in this profession for more than two decades, and you mentioned, I worked across 40 countries. And one thing that I'm taking away from all of these is we are so confused about love. In any language that at least I'm familiar with, we say, I love my mother, I love my husband, I love my dog, I love my shoes, I love my socks. So we use the same word usually without differentiation of what is the emotional attachment to that word. How did it come to be? Is it going to be fleeting or is it going to be something that I need to put some energy behind to be able to keep, if I want to keep this emotion towards this object or person long enough or not? And then over the years, sitting with clients in pain day in, day out, I thought, you know what? If I'm the expert, I should know better. I should be able to do more than just holding safe space for people. And as a social psychologist, I study patterns.

I study sociocultural dynamics. So I thought, okay, so with that hat on, what can I do to serve the clinical purposes as a psychosexual therapist and as a couples therapist? And then I got to work with relational spaces within governments. I do negotiations for the UN. So, for example, for different companies, I go in and help people deal with changes, transitions and endings and whatnot. Then I realized that the common denominator in all of those is the person. So the way we do one relationship is the way we do them all.

How can I help people to cultivate as well as keep the thriving relationships? Because it's not enough just to tell people what not to do. We should be able to also show them what to do. what is the path? And then obviously having respect that everybody is different, but at least there is one way that I could offer. And then if somebody wants to take it on, at least there is something for them to take on. Yeah. And then I'm trying to remember now, I was reading the book, there are kind of these three categories of skills that are important to have, right? So you're interpersonal. Do you know what I'm talking about? Yes. Yes. I'm having a brain,

a menopausal brain freeze right now and I can't think of the terms but tell us the terms well you're safe with me with that menopausal brain so one of them is the person yes that you know so the relationship with yourself and I talk about your essence what is it that is going to show up out of you from you regardless of the context regardless of the dynamic so that's your essence and what is your personal brand that's a big one whatever that you put out there how is it perceived by other people and that's for my dating audience here right that you know when the clients come i go through their dating apps and what they put out there they're the three first sentences that they share on their dating scenarios whatnot and oftentimes you would be really surprised as

how, you know, the level of discrepancy between who they are and what they put out there and how also they're received. So that is that, the personal aspect of it. The other person, part of it is the dynamic. Yes. In each dynamic, how are you showing up? How you choose which part of you is present or not. So for example, I've done these TEDx talk, which was about names, the importance of names

as gateways to intimacy at the beginning of this podcast you will spend at least three to five minutes making sure although we've known each other you know from years you spend time making sure that you pronounce my name Sarah not Sarah for example right you made sure that you get my title right you made sure that the pronunciation is right so right off the bat I feel that you see me i feel like there are certain parts of me that are welcomed in this space as opposed to another space that they don't really take that time or they just call me by their own assumptions yes and then all of a sudden they are actually chucking away pieces of me within this dynamic so within those dynamics so the personal is one the interpersonal dynamic is another one

And within that also, there are six ingredients that emerged out of our research that are respect, compassion, shared vision, loving behavior, all of those that I'm pretty sure we get into. So with those also, I realized that there are so many times that we say, oh, respect your partner, be respected by your partner. But do we mean the same thing? The word might be the same, but do we mean the same thing? So these are the dynamics that are, you know, being discussed in the book. Yeah. You talk about those, we'll get to those, but you talk about those six ingredients, I think they are.

Yes. In the recipe of a relationship and so important. I mean, one of my jokes with, it feels like it comes up in almost every long-term couple in one form or another is this idea of romance and how often men say to me in heterosexual relationships. She keeps saying she wants me to be more romantic, but I think I'm being romantic. You know, I bring her flowers once a week and I tell her how pretty she looks when we go out on a date. And, you know, for her that neither one of those are nice, but they don't really resonate as romance, you know, so it's not only it's it's a lot about communication. And I know you get into

that a lot in your work. This idea, I think this is another place that we really agree and it's kind of controversial. So I'm glad, or I don't think it's controversial, but it's treated as such. And I'm glad that you also feel this way, this idea of falling in love, right? The butterflies, the instant chemistry, this, you know, romantic idea that love just happens to us. And of course, chemistry is part of it. But one of the things that I talk about a lot is how butterflies, which everybody thinks they want, oh, he or she or they must be the one because I felt butterflies. Butterflies are often the body's warnings, the nervous system's warning signal, like danger or anxiety, and we mistake it for excitement. And so you talk about how the opposite of

the tumult, which is what we think or what we're taught to want in the movies and in the social commentary and verse is not boredom, but peace. So I'm wondering if you can speak to that, this idea of chemistry, where that fits in and what like healthy love in your research, how that's experienced truthfully and how we can start to recognize it. Yeah, I love this question. So many people don't know if they arrived. There are certain moments in a relationship that people come and say, well, this is not working because there's clearly something wrong, high conflict, whatnot.

But there are also other couples, which is the majority, that they are bombarded with all of this information that their relationship should be this, your relationship should feel like that. But I am none of those. Does it mean that I'm in a terrible relationship? Do I end it? Do I deserve better? Do I choose wrong?

You know, what are all of those questions? What came out of our research was that people, basically, I keep referring to the research and we just explained it briefly. So this study was about couples who've been together from one to 40 years. And then they self-identified as thriving. So I was not interested to see how we survive

because we've done that before. There are researchers before me who've done that before. I was interested to see if a couple sits in front of me, if an individual sits in front of me, can I help them see what good looks like? What is the matrix? What is the ROI? When do I know I arrived?

So here's the line that came up out of the research. Clarity of mind and peace of heart was present for all of these. They're not questioning themselves, the other person, the relationship. Are you okay? Am I okay? Everyone okay? Am I in the right place, wrong place? So they're not preoccupied by the relationship.

The relationship is the place that provides them with the support for them to grow rather than to suck out their energy and all the resources. So to answer that question, when you have that clarity of mind and peace of heart, then you have arrived, my friends. I like to say that, you know, it's when you've really when you're with that person who is really your person, you don't feel anxious or nervous or I mean, obviously, if you have wounds in love, you might be a little nervous about getting hurt again. But but in general, you don't feel the butterflies. It feels like the excitement that you might feel as you're about to move into your dream home. It's that kind of excitement.

So I think that sort of gels with what you're saying. And so along those lines, I know you speak to this and we'll touch on it here, but you speak to it a lot more in the book about how someone can tell the difference between genuine connection or the potential of that genuine connection. And I know the connection and its veracity, how genuine it is, will unfold as you kind of understand and look for these six ingredients, so to speak. But the difference between genuine connection and an old attachment wound being activated, which is what I think is happening with the butterflies. So with the butterflies, as you mentioned, it's the agitation of the nervous

system yeah in one way or the other so on one hand is the um anxiety which could be life enhancing or you know as our friends um you know dr schneider talks about it's a very it's interesting to see how people interpret that so because that same chemistry or agitation of the nervous system it could lead to really hot sex no yeah it can be great for sex because that's you know one of the things right but if the person is looking also for rewards for fulfillment and especially if they want to build something with someone not to preoccupied by you know the status of the relationship those attachment wants to be activated it's not something to go for as the main criteria Chemistry.

The chemistry. Because chemistry technically is a neurobiological entity, right? And then Ilan Lund and colleagues showed that within two-year average, it will fizzle out. It's like after a period of time that you are with somebody, especially in close proximity, your nervous systems are starting to sync with each other, get to know each other, you feel more comfortable. It's like somebody tickling themselves. yeah and then by the time they come to us they say reignite this rekindle this and that first of all let's just cross those words out because they will lead to disillusionment we can't really

do that we can just just neuroscientifically speaking neurobiologically speaking what we can do is to move from sexual chemistry and that mentality to sexual harmony that attunement that we talk about, that listening to one another, that dance that we have with one another. So that is the differentiation that we found. By the way, I want to clarify something else. When I say, you know, the title of the book is Love by Design, Six Ingredients to Build a Lifetime of Love. What I meant by that is that if you choose that, you could actually choose doing it until,

you know, you want. So the length of the relationship is not an indicator of anything. Yes, I agree. Right. So whether you're having a six months relationship or a 60 year relationship, you're and by the way, as you know, this is what I say to people all the time, whatever you're figuring out and working through and skill building in your relationship now, whether or not this relationship lasts, you are going to carry that forward to your next relationship. So it's never wasted to do this work. So maybe this is a good time as you were talking about chemistry and versus harmony, right? And building harmony to talk. Well, first let me ask you if this kind of is, if there's anything else you want to add to this conversation around desire versus attraction or desire and attraction, and then maybe get into

the idea of what you call the touch lexicon. Sure. So one thing that I want people to take away is think of desire as that fleeting neurobiological entity and attraction as a renewable energy. Because attraction at the core, when we say attraction, people quickly go to sexual attraction. But what we know based on research is, and also a multitude of people that I worked with, and I've seen them grow over 10 years, 20 years, is attraction being renewable energy, meaning that why do you want to be around this person at this moment in time? What is the draw? Because initially, that is a piece of the personal work that people need to do. What is it that I'm drawn to? What is it that I'm escaping? Because sometimes, you know, the default for us is that turmoil relationship and really not being respected.

Or they're unavailable or they don't commit or they don't make time for you or they cheat on you or they have addictions. We keep kind of getting into these patterns really based on our own wounding. So it sounds like what you're saying is that really kind of doing that insightful work of getting clear of what you want and why you want it. Yes. And I often actually ask people to think about two objects. They can just do it now as they're listening to us. If they were to bring two objects to us, one is the love you desire and the other one, the love you deserve. What would they be? I one time had this woman who brought this really soft and cozy blanket it as the one that I desire. And then the one that I deserve was the little cactus shaped plant that she brought to the workshop actually. And I didn't need to say anything. She concluded for

herself that, oh my God, this explains everything. The discrepancy between. So just some clarity of perspective, instead of people sitting down and making lists upon lists at what they want, but they don't want just get real with your love blueprint where are you coming from uh what does this word even mean to you when you were growing up who was deserving of it who was not what was done under the language of love and little by little with this literacy comes then the love fluency they will come and then know like how to show up in their spaces how to put themselves out there so that is the piece that um the other thing about the attraction that i want to say is uh in social psychology we have a principle called reciprocity of liking

and this principle is pretty important because by the time couples usually come to me or you know other colleagues it's not that they fell out of love you know the language that they use or the relationship is boring or, you know, they are unseen or, you know, whatever that the complaint is, when you go to the core of it, they start showing each other signs of liking. I often say, you know, in this new talk that I did for TED, I was talking about between diaper duty and deadlines and caring for your parents. Where is that signal that shows me you like me? You like to be around me. Yeah, I think that really goes by the wayside. I say that to couples

all the time, that one of the things that will be your downfall is when you forget, which we often do, that you are allies and that you really like each other. And when you get distracted and busy and you take your hands off the wheel of the relationship and your eyes aren't on the road anymore because you're so stressed, right? It's not that you don't necessarily like each other anymore, although resentments can certainly build during this time, but it's that you don't have the bandwidth or the focus or the skillset to communicate it regularly. I'm so glad you brought it up because, look, with the reciprocal liking, the whole principle is based on this. If you think I like you, I will like you back. So if you drop the ball on that, if I have a sense that you don't

really like me, you don't want to be around me, regardless of how I feel, how much effort I want to put forward, gradually that will cool off too. Yeah. So that piece. There's a whole energetic piece I write about in Quantum Love and teach about, which goes even beyond words and actions, just energetically. When you are in a space of feeling rejected and unwanted and unloved, it creates an energetic frequency in your body that your partner unconsciously feels and respond. Your reality reflects what's going on inside you always. That's just how it works. So it's even on an energetic level, not just a practical level, but let's, well, I want to talk about the six I have so many things to ask you about I want to talk about the six ingredients but let's

get into you tell me which we should do first the touch lexicon or the six ingredients because I think both are important are important go ahead yes and now I that's enough for now so I wanted to say before we introduce the six ingredients it might be a good idea just to first introduced the model of love that we're talking about yes and so imagine it this way there's a spark there there are logs we put them together in a conducive context with enough oxygen they will give us fire the fire is warm and cozy and for as long as the situation allows so the log is dry and with sustain and oxygen is there all of that it keeps giving it keeps giving right you keep feeding it and then it keeps giving so when people ask me what is emergent love model

i say instead of love comes first the rest will follow how about if we actually figure out what is the equivalent of that the spark and oxygen and log that can give you that fire that emergent entity so these six ingredients basically are what is needed for that fire to exist and for friends who are listening these are non-negotiables so people negotiate with me and say can i have not respect but i have more compassion i'm absolutely not you need all sex all of it all of it and plus there are certain dynamic skills that they have to have like for example knowing their conflict skill conflict management skills or for example this sexuality that we talked about from chemistry to harmony daily check-ins weekly check-ins monthly check-ins

annual check-ins that you know they need to keep track of everything to keep it all there because one of the issues that we have people don't falter in their relationships because they're lazy or they don't want to they just don't know where to put their efforts yes and if we can just show them where to put the efforts, they can brick by brick build that emergent love if they choose to do it. And there's a bunch of different models of love, guys. So as you read the book or explore some of Dr. Sara's work, you may recognize yourself in some of these other kinds of love or models of love. But emergent love, this is the love that you're describing that is really sustainable, the fire that can keep being stoked and sustain in a really beautiful way as long as

you want it. Yes, exactly. There are eight relational configurations that we found. One of them is emergent love. How many people of those you looked at have emergent love? I know you were looking at the most satisfied people who identify as happiest. So how many of those happiest people are living in emergent love? Well, majority. And that's why. So the first research was 312 couples that I personally worked with for a year at least. So that was the ground theory, the qualitative piece. And then I brought this forward and joined Dr. Azarmina to put this in a U.S. representative sample of 159 couples and more than 340 individuals. So with that, we wanted to offer something that is relatable and also reliable. So the validity of the research

mattered to me. So it's not just an anecdote that, oh, this is what I observed. This is what I saw. Right. It was all kinds of colors, configurations, orientations, identity, the works. Yes. Okay. So with that in mind, drum roll, what is emergent love? So the emergent love is the love that could emerge when you have the six ingredients intertwine and interacting with one another for as long as you want. So then love has a chance to emerge. That's the novel idea. And I know that many people identify with that, especially the ones who are in thriving relationships. Yes. So wait, all right. I keep putting it off the six

ingredients, but I have one more question that is occurring to me as I listen, because I work through the years with many couples from different cultures, many of whom are in arranged marriages. and this seems like a natural place for people who live in those cultures, right, to get to, ideally, hopefully, right, but it's not something, and I really want to highlight this for you guys, if you aren't from a culture that supports or encourages arranged marriages, that it may sound like right now you might be wanting to just be like, oh, hell to the no, like, why would I, you know, what do you mean love doesn't come first? Like that's not what we're taught in the movies and in romance novels and in the story we've been sold about what love is supposed

to look like. But I agree with you that, I mean, I certainly think attraction needs to be there and emotional and physical attraction. But I do think that many people mistakenly think that if they are like head over heels, totally in that, you know, crazy limerence infatuation with someone that that is going to last forever. And it just biologically and neurochemically and socio emotionally can not anywhere between three months and three years. But if you're as we're talking about emergent love, I want you guys to listen to these ingredients because I think you will find can then imagine that if you have these six ingredients and you're nurturing and feeding those six ingredients, that it doesn't preclude you from having the passion and the excitement.

For me, it's about like, and this is, you know, with my book, Sex Magic, I'll have to share you. It is for, it is like designed for people who want emergent love. It's really about creating intensity in a safe container where you're really feeling the connection. So you can still have amazing arousal, orgasms, pleasure, even intensity. People mistake intensity with novelty. They are two different things. You can still have all of that without having the uncertainty, the tumult, or the novelty. All right. So with that very long wind up, I just wanted them to stay open to this idea of emergent love and not shut it down because love emerges absolutely it's actually really interesting because years ago the first time that i officially presented on the

model was at stanford university it was the world sexual health day i presented it and at the end of my talk a woman stood up sobbing and clapping both at the same time i was so moved i you know got the mic to her and then she said look you just turned everything I knew about love upside down but where have you been 20 years ago and you know so this is something that we need and it's really interesting uh there are a couple of places that when I speak about this people think I'm talking about arrange marriages I say arrange your own marriage arrange your own relationship take some sort of agency over it don't don't wait for in the book I talk about this beautiful attractive successful woman walking into my office back then I was in New York and has this keyhole

as a pendant around her neck I said oh and this is really beautiful she said yes I'm you know I moved to New York because I want to find the key to this like oh my god so what if you don't what if like oh dear god the key is just gonna fall in her lap you mean versus building emerging the keys yes so you need to know where to put your efforts it doesn't matter which one of the um you know configurations you want to do like for example we have constitutionally bound couples those are the ones with arranged marriages one of the eight models that emerged out of this research one of them is friends with benefit one of them is emerging love one of them is stop marriage and love, which many of us were sold as a kid, me included.

Yes, talk about that too. Yeah, one plus one equals one. My husband and I, when we got together 20 something years ago, we did finish each other's sentences. We did like just with a gaze across the room. We knew what the other person said, right? But over a period of time, we realized that a lot of aspects of the relationship is not working just because of that,

because we were so enmeshed with each other. When you first get to know somebody, you are attracted to the person. If that person becomes you, then again, you fall into this trap of tickling yourself. Yeah, you're having sex with yourself. Yeah. Hey, it's Dr. Laura Berman.

I've been a sex, love, and relationship therapist for over 30 years. And the main question I always get asked is, how the heck do we spice it up in a long-term monogamous relationship? Well, if you want to take your love life, your sex life to the next level, whether you're in a relationship or not, check out my free course on quantum sex. It's going to teach you how to take your sexual response to the next level, capable of full body orgasms, how to use sex magic to manifest your dreams and how to connect on an even deeper level sexually with your partner. Just go to

drlauraberman.com and you'll find it right there on the homepage, the quantum sex free course. Check it out. Let me know what you think. All right. So let's, with all of this wind up, let's talk about emergent love. Okay. So one plus one equals three. That's the emergent love model, right? Now, the first one is attraction. Attraction has multi layers. It could be intellectual. It could be emotional. It could be physical. In our research specifically, physical attraction came on top of the list for the thriving couples. That was important. And it's different from sexual chemistry because physical attraction is socioculturally constructed. but sexual chemistry is you know neurochemical so that's that and then we talked about the

reciprocity of liking we talk about how liking needs to be turned into into me i see self-knowledge in any given moment phase of life season of relationship and into me you see i invite you to see the parts that are mattering to me important to me that comes the sharing so a lot of people especially in western europe and northern america they talk too much about their relationships forget to be in it yes yeah so it's important for us to know what to share how to share or they flood their partners or they use them as dumpsters oh but i you know you're my person i shouldn't have any filters yes you should have filters yeah don't that's how a lot of us i had to learn that in my marriage. Because in my family, if you're family, you can poop all over each other and say

whatever you want. That was my family. And I knew that I didn't like it. And I knew it didn't serve relationships. But it's a habit that you have to kind of work your way out of for many of us. Yes. The second one is respect. When I say respect, people think that, you know, some people think obedience some people think you know this and that here's what i mean and emerged out of our research respect as a word means to look again the greek latin word right okay what does that mean people come and say oh i'm not respected by my partner and i ask them are you respectable they look at me like i'm a crazy lady i'm like no seriously are you respectable Do you have loving and firm boundaries and communicating them on time?

Or are you communicating ultimatums passively or aggressively? Are you the first person walking all over your own wants and needs and boundaries? So that's where we start. With everything, all of these, are you respectable and are you respectful? fool so thriving couples they respect one another in little spaces for example they don't cut each other off mid-sentence they don't walk away they don't pick up their phones to you know like um check their phone in the middle of a conversation they say good morning and good night for god's sake basic etiquette human social etiquette so that's what i need my respect yes

trust trust in our research showed two components consistency and reliability and there are little moments and when I say trust people say who slept with whom it's not about that it's about social respect if I share something with you why did you share it with my mother at the dinner table right or financial trust so many different pieces the other thing is commitment. Do you know what you're committing to? Yeah. Do you have the same idea of the commitment, right? Yes. So, and consistency and reliability, that's important. Now, compassion. A lot of people think about compassion as, you know, the word of the day or empathy as the word of the day. So in our research, it showed that thriving couples, they actually, their default

is compassion, not empathy. Empathy, just again, scientifically speaking, is resonating with the other person's nervous system. But compassion is to be able to regulate yourself enough to be there for the other without making it about you. Amen to that. Boy, do we need that in our relationships. And in the world. Yes. And in the world. I know. Yes. And I see this a lot with men that because they feel a lot more than they let on, first of all, and it's very hard for, and I'm generalizing here. So forgive me guys, obviously not all men are this way and women are another way, but in general, what I find because they aren't raised and maybe there are other more neurobiological components too, but even just socially and nurture wise, they are not raised

to understand or feel fluent in an emotional vocabulary and handling emotional upheavals. And when they're in a relationship with a woman, right? I always say the masculinist, if you're a man and you're masculine, you're like the riverbanks. And if you're a woman and her feminine, you're the river. You've got rapids, you've got still waters,

you've got rocks, you've got detours. There's all kinds of things happening and it can feel overwhelming. and I meet with so many couples where when she has big emotions coming up authentic ones I'm not saying one she just wants to dump on him but like you know as her partner that she wants to talk through or an experience she's having that she wants to share he will just either be flooded or shut down so he just shuts down so it's such an important skill for each individual to learn how to hold your own nervous system and have compassion, have sympathy, offer support without

taking on the agitation, upset, anxiety, fear, sadness of your partner. Absolutely. I often tell people if we are both bleeding, who gets the band-aid? Yeah. Right? And there are some times that we need to commiserate as couples. Don't get me wrong, right? There are moments that we really need to sync together and yes of course that or erotic empathy is beautiful that's great but the default is compassion to be there for the other without making it about you yes so that piece and then the other one is shared vision shared vision is i ask people where you want to go they're like well i don't know life evolves you know like this and that and but at least know where you don't want to go because you tag along and then you sacrifice sacrifice sacrifice and

then over a period of time 10 years down the line you're like well where am i oh it's all your fault i gave up my life for you exactly so within shared vision three things that i would like people to really think about is negotiations which is fact of life what do we have for dinner in an equitable relationship of any sort, you need to be able to freely have negotiations on a daily basis. Compromises, you are clear what you give, what you receive. And, you know, like it's a reciprocal process and very civil. Sacrifice on the other side, it needs to be very kept as the last resort. Timely, it has to be time bound and it has to be rewarded, not expected. unless you are a part of a community that is religious wise or cultural wise you know you

believe that one person or both people need to sacrifice other than that it will come to bite you people yeah don't do that as rarely as as possible my husband and i started very early in our we've been together 25 years too very early together committing to not doing that unless i mean once in a while you have to but it's very rare it's always about finding the win-win right and not sacrificing or compromising what we call it is like compromising my aliveness you know if it's really going to suck the aliveness out of you or harm you in some way if there's any other solution right I mean I'm trying to think of a circumstance where sacrifice like maybe if you have a newborn baby and one and you don't want to leave them with a caretaker and both of you want

to work and one of you sacrifices hopefully for a finite period of time while the other works and maybe you switch out like maybe that's an example of a sacrifice finite period of time that's essential here yeah so we need to really be specific about the timing so last but not least is the loving behaviors. When I was writing the book, my editor asked me, Sara, the name of the book is love. So why a whole chapter on loving behavior? It's because loving behaviors are very different. So I'll tell you what, for example, for the thriving couples, we saw they're tender in their touch, in their words, in their, the physical energy they occupy around each other. it's just tender the tenderness the exclusivity of the touch as well as the wording that they

give to one another even if for for couples who have open relationships if they are in polar polyamorous relationships but every two people have very specific qualities about that relationship that exclusivity the compliments the nicknames this and the other one is the going out of your way, giving them benefit of the doubt. These are the qualities that are loving behaviors and they are not equated with anything else. So these are the six ingredients for you. Okay, beautiful. So that gives you guys some stuff to dig into there. And she gets a lot more into this, into the book. Now, touch lexicon. Let's talk about that. So with the touch lexicon, you know how I say we talk too much sometimes, and then we forget to be in our relationships. With sexuality, just sitting

with people over the years, I realized that it's really interesting. So with every touch that we offer somebody, we invite a very specific role and very specific parts of their identity and the way that they show up to us. So for example, if you are kissing very gently your partner, tenderly and teasingly it's more of that sensual feeling so it could actually lead to something else or not it's just a moment shared right but if you're coming home and then you tap them on the back and say that great job today mama with the kids and drop up and everything do you want to have sex yeah so it's a very interesting observation for me so as an exercise that I would like to offer to people is with the lexicon in any language, we have certain vocabularies that help us to express

what is it that we are internally experiencing. I was thinking, how about we have a touch lexicon that teach people that variety of different touches that could be experienced within the couple of them. So I give people guessing exercise. I sit them in front of each other in the office or in their home and then I say look one of you thinks of something let's say for example they are thinking I want you to comfort me or I want you to know that I'm here with you and for you or for example I'm attracted to you I love you you know whatever that the thing is in the back of their head or the role that they want to invite from the other person and give the touch whatever that is right communicate what they're thinking through touch through touch

exactly and then ask the other person how did you receive it what were they saying yes i do that too it's very powerful so in that piece they learn so much about each other from each other and their way of being around each other goes beyond just being stuck in one role because by the time couples get to us they're stuck in one of the roles that they play for one another or in one way or the other, they're stuck. So our role is to make sure to unstuck them and create the flow again. And that's one of the ways that I use to help people with the touch lexicon. Yeah, I think that's beautiful. And I often in a relationship, one person, usually the one more in their masculine energy is like, you know, I say it's like a microwave. They go from zero to 60

real fast. Like that's the one who's like, great job today. You want to have sex. The other 10, especially if there is a masculine and feminine energy in the relationship, which I feel like if there's real attraction, usually there's some polarity there between them. The one that's more in their feminine is more like a slow burning stove, right? That you are gently back to your fire analogy, I guess, gently stoking. And so when you try to use a microwave, you know, to heat up something that wants to be heated up in the stove, it doesn't, it doesn't really work. So I like that a lot. Now, if somebody listening is feeling like they've been chasing intensity instead of healthy love, where do they begin? What would you suggest? Take a deep breath and please accept this expert

opinion that everybody deserves to be in the loving relationship they desire. And I don't use those words or this as a slogan or advocacy or whatnot. I've seen it. I've done that. And I'm pretty sure Dr. Laura, you know, like has a testimony for that as well. So it's so important for you to first believe that this is not a race that you're on. This is not something that you're just chasing. Just be in your element, get to know yourself, put your efforts where they matter and start by flipping your idea around love. Love doesn't happen to you. Love is not preserved for lucky few. Loving relationship will give you that clarity of mind and peace of heart. And please get clear about what is it that you're attracted to? Who are the people that you want to be around?

And are you putting yourself in those places? Yeah. So these are the things that just initial steps that I would say. Yeah. And I know you get a lot more into this, whether you're single and looking for love. You talk about discernment and things like that, as well as for those in existing love relationships. Is there anything that I haven't asked you about? I mean, we could keep talking forever, but is there anything that I haven't asked you about that you think is important to share? If there are single people on the call, I mean, listening to us, or there are couples who've been together for eternity, I want you to take away hope and also do one exercise in the coming couple of weeks.

I want you to sit down and write a list of your quirks. We all have quirks. So for example, I hum a lot. Another person fidgets. Another person curls their hair around their finger. Another person makes sounds with their mouth. Whatever, whatever your quirk is, list it. And usually you might not be aware of it.

Ask people who are around you. The second one is, what are your pet peeves? in general and within a relational space. And the third one is your sensitivities. What, like, you know, some of us carry the chip on our shoulder. For example, maybe you've been betrayed in previous relationships or you're coming from attachment wounds, whatever that is, makes you a little bit more sensitive than the average person out there.

Get to know those very well and then invite your partner, if you are in a partnership, to sit together and then share those with one another. That's the great way to pivot the relationship that you're in or to find the relationship that you want to be in. And so how does it pivot when you share? What's the mechanism by which the pivot happens? I can give you an example. For example, a woman actually wrote to me on my, this was a message on Instagram wrote to me and said my husband kept telling me for the past 30 something years that please in the kitchen don't leave things behind please don't leave things behind and I always thought oh yeah yeah yeah and then after they did this this exercise

with each other it was not just a pet peeve for him but also sensitivity because he was coming from that very neglected household, that it brought all that avalanche of feeling for him. So, and then she was writing to me and say that I actually now see it as a sign of disrespect. The way to love him well when she cleans the kitchen. Yeah. First, the kitchen isn't left dirty, put it that way. And what about in dating? How does it turn things around? the content so a lot of people go on dating they go eat drink and dance and all good but i would love for people to create different shared experiences to put each other in different settings and scenarios and also start talking hey by the way i was listening to this podcast and you

know the woman was talking about this how about doing this what are your quirks here are lines What are your pet peeves? And then see whether you are actually, you want to be around each other. That's attraction 101. Yeah. All right. So that's what I would say. The content of the conversations will be different.

Good ideas. All right. There are a lot more in the book. You can learn more. We're going to put all of this in the show notes, but let me know where people can learn more about your work, Dr. Sara. Sure. So I have this monthly blog that I write on Substack.

It's called The Common Ground by Dr. Sara. And it's free for all. I take a topic, go from literacy to fluency and tips. That's one way to go deeper with me. I'm on Instagram and Facebook and I'm on LinkedIn for colleagues who are listening. And the book is out there everywhere, really. I try to get information out as much as possible because I'm not going to leave this world, leaving it as it is.

Everyone deserves to be in the love and relationship they desire. Well, thank you. Thank you for being in this journey and doing all you're doing to help us get there. I really appreciate it. Same to you. Same to you. Thank you so much. And thanks for joining us.

Thank you. Thank you for having me. I went to the doctor Said I'm crazy for your love