Podcrushed - All About Love with Esther Perel

Episode Date: December 13, 2023

In our penn-ultimate episode of the season, we interview the trailblazing renowned psychotherapist and relationship expert, Esther Perel. We learn about her new course "Turning Conflict into Connection," and Esther shares her profound wisdom on love, conflict, and human connection. She leads us in answering personal questions from her new game "Where Should We Begin", while she shares personal stories of worst dates and delicate family dynamics. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Look, it's very simple. Every system needs stability and change, every relationship. If you put too much emphasis on the stability and you don't change, you atrophy and you die from within. If you put too much emphasis on the change all the time, you become chaotic and you dysregulate. And it's both ends instead of this or that. Welcome to Pod Crushed. We're hosts. I'm Penn.

I'm Nava and I'm Sophie. And I think we would have been your middle school besties. Never drinking water. Always eating too much sugar and generally ignoring the signals from our bodies. But anyway, let's have a sleepover.

Welcome to Pod Crushed. As always, I am your host, Sophie Ansari. I'm currently on maternity leave. But would you believe it? I'm so dedicated I came in today. Your voice has changed, though. Those hormones must just be. Yeah, listen.

birth changes you it changes your body it changes it completely never everything about you no hello my name is pen badgely with me is now a cappelin sophia and sari our co-host is not with us in this intro however she is in the interview yeah it's weird there's like a time space continuum that's being

pen penith yes penneth badgely our episode today deals largely with relationships and love and I wanted to ask you what is a piece of relationship advice that you thought was good advice that turns out to be maybe bad advice in your experience you know I I really like that because I know I know that it's there it'll give me give me a second okay so so say it again it's advice I got that I thought was good that like on the face like a common one is like don't go to bed angry now a lot of people say like Actually, you should go to bed angry, like, just calm down and then talk about it when you're rational.

That's like a known one. Is there something else that on the face of it was like, oh, yeah, that sounds like good advice? And then, in your opinion, like, not such good advice. Hmm. Ah, I do think that's such an insightful question. So I want to commend you. I'm having trouble thinking of an answer because I may don't have enough perspective yet. I don't know.

Okay, while you think of it, Penn, I'm going to answer the reverse of that question. and advice that seemed like bad advice that ended up being good advice that I got from Penn and it was at a moment in time where I was interested in someone who kept talking about other women that he was seeing

and I was like, I'm not going to go out with this guy again because this is ridiculous and Penn was like actually I think you should because one, you just like don't have a lot of dating experience and it would be good for you to enter the arena and two like there may be like reasons why he's doing this like it's a deflection or whatever like

just give it time like you don't need to rush to exclusivity and I think other people thought that you were giving me bad advice and that this was like an obvious red flag situation but it was really good advice like it was a really good experience I became good friends with that person and the thing that Penn told me was even if I was like but it's totally like not going to work out like I can foresee that and Penn said even if it doesn't you are capable of overcoming rejection

and I feel like all the popular advice is like protect your heart from rejection and you were the first person who had ever told me like it's okay like you're capable of overcoming it, like just gain the experience. So on the face, that might have seemed like bad advice, but you were the only person who said it, but I really appreciated it and I'm really glad I went through that experience. I like that. The way you're saying it makes me sound more insightful than I felt.

Yeah, I know. The way I was saying, I'm like, this sounds like great advice, but I must be elevating it because I get that because I think what I was saying, I mean, to be honest, I think that what you were saying I agreed with, which was like, yeah, it sounds like actually that it's probably not, going to pan out well but there's only one way you can know and I think there's maybe a lot of emphasis on like protecting your heart but that might also be like protecting your ego because like getting rejected like old I mean it hurts your heart at a certain point but I think it's also like

it's like it's like a painful blow to your ego yeah so it's like is our ego worth protecting that much like it's okay if someone ultimately decides to go a different way like that's fine you'll survive that no totally yeah I like I like I like the way you said what I said I like best what I say when you say it later That's good Penn Have you thought of something You know there's

I think it's at the level of culture It comes to me I'm like I can't think of whoever said this To me directly But there's this idea that marriage is 50-50 Everything is a two-way street You know There's something about that that implies

That both partners are coming to the table have to decide to come to the table equally in order to like, you know, resolve a conflict. And somehow I've, there are times where you're just like, you have to recognize my partner might be struggling more than me right now and I'm struggling a lot

but I have to, I cannot ask her to do what I myself am not willing to do. Like, so it doesn't feel like, sometimes it's like 70, 30, sometimes it's like 95, 5. Sometimes you really have to do more because there's another time when you can't when you're gonna do a lot less you know and so there's something

there's something there's something there there's something there where I just feel like there's a lot of bland broad platitudes about how to make things work that just don't get into the essence of how hard it is you know how hard how hard it is to let your guard down your ego actually kind of what you were saying it's about that guard and ego

God, no one, no one no one in my life prepared me for what a true relationship is actually that's crazy, isn't that crazy? Wow, that is crazy. It's true for, I think, more people than it's not. But you don't realize it until you're in one. Well, rather than listening to us

drag on with our haphazard relationship advice, why don't we get into an interview with a brilliant world-renowned expert in the matter? We have Esther Perel, who is a famed psychotherapist and relationship therapist. Her most famous book, I think, is mating in captivity. She also has The State of Affairs. The subtitle of that book is Rethinking Infidelity,

which is the title of her most famous TED Talk, which I think probably is the thing that really announced her on the world stage. She's really brilliant, really in touch, really intuitive, a lovely, lovely expert to have. we think you're going to get a lot out of it so you should stick around that's it yes thank you does anyone else ever get that nagging feeling that their dog might be bored and do you also feel like super guilty about it well one way that i combat that feeling is i'm making meal time everything it can be for my little boy louis nom nom does this with food that actually engages your pup senses

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Hey, it's Lena Waithe. Legacy Talk is my love letter to black storytellers, artists who've changed the game and paved the way for so many of us. This season, I'm sitting down with icons like Felicia Rashad, Loretta Vine, Eva DuVernay, and more. We're talking about their journeys, their creative process, and the legacies they're building every single day. come be a part of the conversation Season 2 drops July 29 Listen to Legacy Talk wherever you get your podcast Or watch us on YouTube So you're so expert

I think in In psychotherapy I guess broadly is the term you could call it Which is perfect for us And yeah in relationships Right yeah that's a good specialization So you know we think about that Probably more than anything here

So before we get on to the specific specifics of what you're promoting now and all the things you've done. We want to start, if we can, with you, just a snapshot of Esther at, say, 12 years old and that period of adolescence. So can you give us just a snapshot of Esther at 12? It's very interesting. I had a reunion with the people that I went to school with after 40 years. Wow. And we were together in school for 12 years.

in the same class so we have a tremendous amount of early history about each other and many of us were asking who was I then how did you see me then you know what do you remember of me then and that kind of thing and you know

people always will say things that that I remember as well and that have been consisted I was a leader I had tremendous energy I often spoke up and disagreed or shared my opinions on different things. I exuded confidence and what they didn't know is that I was a shaking leaf inside.

I think that I didn't look that different or acted that different from today, but I experienced myself internally very, very different. I actually described it to someone recently. I would be either very joyous and engaged and happy. And then I would go over and be very dark. And when I was dark, I thought that that was the truth, that was the real me. And I almost couldn't remember that I had that other part. So they lived as rather two dissociated parts of me.

the one that felt good and the one that just was often quite tortured on the inside and I can I ask for a moment can I ask for a moment why do you think that that as you said darker experience why do you think you identified that as more real

the person that I told is to ask me the exact same question I think it's a part of different things a piece of it felt that You know, the light was probably superficial, and the dark had more depth, and depth meant truth. Another part was probably some romantic idea, you know, young vertor by Goethe, you know, this notion that, you know, suffering had a truth to it that joy did not have.

And a part of it was that I didn't know how to come out. of it. And so I felt very trapped in it. So the longer it would last sometimes, it could go on for months. The more I felt that this must be the real me. And I was much more confronted to myself there. You know, I would get angry at myself. I would criticize myself. I would, you know, I would fundamentally think there was something missing or wrong with me. And I probably had internalized, you know, a good critical voice that my mother especially excelled at. And so all of that made it feel like this was more true than the other. And seriously, coming out of other lessons or coming out of young adulthood was about reconciling

these two parts, A, so that they would remember each other and know that they were part of one person. And then, and that they would more blend with each other as well. That really resonates with me a lot. Probably not my two posts. I don't know. But I could say, you know, I was really, as a teenager, very curious, which I've always been. I traveled a ton.

I started hitchhiking at 14. Wow. I hitchhack many parts of the world. I was a musician. I was, I did theater. I mean I had a very rich social life So all of that was there too But internally there was

You know I could completely dismiss all of that So when I would say that this was more true It was like And it's very interesting I haven't thought about this in a while Until this person asked me a question And I had to say

Oh I just thought of this I used to have these two These two selves so to speak that makes me curious hearing that you hitchhiked at 14 that seems so

unfathomable to me and it makes me curious if you were very fearless in all areas of your life or if there were some areas that you were more fearful maybe than other people

but more fearless in this area that maybe other people wouldn't have been so I could answer this in two easy ways one is I've always thought of myself not as

I've always thought of myself as counterfeit which means I'm actually quite fearful, but I live as if I'm fearless. Wow. So... Say that word again, counterphobic? Yes.

Huh. It's like jumping from heights when you are terrified of heights. Okay, right. It's daring yourself. It's kind of putting yourself in a position in which you block out, you numb out the fear by doing these big things,

but that doesn't mean that there is no fear inside. But I would say that I did a lot of things that I thought I can do. So I didn't necessarily go to the places where I didn't know if I was capable of. Actually, the first thing I ever did that I had zero idea if I could do it was right mating in captivity, my first book. because I have a tremendous awe and reverence for books and I just could not believe I could ever write a book, let alone a book that has survived for almost 20 years the way this book has.

But I only did the things that on some level I thought I probably could handle. So in a way, I was fearless about the things that I wasn't that fearful of. I would imagine. you've done a lot of reflection if you're willing to share some here what is so much of what makes us the way that we are is our nurture not just our nature

what was your family life at this point in life or lack thereof you know I mean for a lot of people it's tough you know it's interesting I just so I've just released this course on conflict and I've had to think what was conflict like in my

growing up right and I had two scenes that came up immediately. One was a scene on Friday night. And this is very timely. That's why this is so amazing that it's not like I forgot it, but I haven't told this in a while. I hadn't had a reason to tell about this.

On Friday night, my family would come together. We would have Shabbat dinners. And inevitably, we would launch into acerbic screaming matches on politics, particularly on. Middle Eastern politics, but also on France, Belgium, we know, whatever was going on. We would scream. These were not nice, you know, reflective conversations.

And in the middle of the whole argument, somebody would say the apple tart is delicious tonight. And then we would continue yelling. And there was this way of, you know, of being at each other and fighting, but also reminding us of our connection. You know, every once in a while, somebody said something that said, we are family, you know, and then we went on in our arguments. So we did, we, we, we, they the conclusion was there was fighting conflict, you know, um, acrimony and stuff, but it never went, it never destabilized the connection. Um, how I grew up, I grew up, I grew up.

grew up in a family of two parents who were both sole survivors of the Holocaust and that kind of permeated our home life a lot to know we were steeped in history we were there were no grandparents or any of that my parents had lost everybody they there was a lot of laughter actually in the house I mean humor was a major panacea and my mother had a saying which was that the friends and the neighbors will tell you what is good about you and the mother is there

to tell you what the other people won't tell and she was true to form till she died so I understood early on that I'm going to have to find people who have good things to say elsewhere. My dad was one of them my brother I mean I didn't have a

shortage of that but her voice was very very big and I actually have replicated most of that. I fought Tootendale as a teenager with my mother. I was at loggerheads with her because in some way I thought if I fought back, I could kind of resist some of the onslaught of the criticisms that she could have of me. But it didn't. You know, she penetrated under my skin in very invisible ways. But nevertheless, I screamed a lot with her. I had big fighting matches. And that lasted all probably till I was nice. or something. They didn't go away at 15, 16. And in the same breath, she taught me to dance. She taught me to sing.

We would laugh together. We would travel together. All of that happened too. But every once in a while, we had one of those major fits. Did you feel, did you ever get to a point in your life where you were able to talk in a productive way with your mom about that experience of having so much criticism from her? productive would mean that she accepted or understood or empathized or something.

No, I did tell her. I said, you know, we're alike, you know. It's like if you think that I come from nowhere, I come from you and I fight back with the same strength you have. So we had those. Now, the best way really became to learn to differentiate and to just say to her, I would basically say, you know, use humor to deflect and to not engage. And then later to just understand that this was one out of many behaviors, this wasn't all of her. But yeah, she had a way of really getting me out of my body.

And then I had to learn to not jump out of my body. And then she became less problematic to me. I mean, you don't change the other. You change your reactions to the other. Right. Your description of your family at dinner or what conflict looked like in your family felt sort of familiar to me and I wonder

when you started to be in relationship with other people like in romantic relationships and where conflict comes up pretty frequently or can did you have to shift something about the way

you approached conflict and was that hard for you? What was that experience like? I think the main thing I had to learn in my way of fighting was it's okay to say what you just said is true or I see a point without having to deflect or be defensive all the time because if I admit something then it means that I'm wrong completely that dance you know because

I mean I had a dad who was phenomenal and completely different from my mom but but in the conflict zone since that was honed on with skill was honed in with her she was very defensive she never admitted anything ever and so I learned never to admit too much either and to learn to admit is a very liberating thing yeah that's so much power and just like that's right that there's some truth to that I did do that and I was wrong or I did say that and that should not have or you know and to apologize also I am an amazing apologizer today when I say amazing I mean I'm a I believe I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I I'm I'm I I'm I'm I'm I I'm I'm I I'm I I like to be given the opportunity to it doesn't take

anything away from me but as a teenager I did not necessarily mean man to apologize was to justify everything she had just done it was this kind of polarized situation that's extremely rich and liberating when you learn to apologize

to acknowledge to not just be knee jerk defensive it opens up a whole new vista and we'll be right back all right so um let's just let's just let's just real talk as they say for a second that's a little bit of an aged thing to say now that that that dates me doesn't it um but no real talk uh how important is your health to you know on like a one to 10 and i don't mean the in the sense of vanity i mean in the sense of like you want your day to go well right you want to be less stressed you don't want it as sick when you have responsibilities um i know myself i'm a householder i have uh i have two children and and two more on the way, a spouse, a pet, you know, a job that sometimes has its demands. So I really want to feel like when I'm not getting the sleep and I'm not getting nutrition, when my eating's down, I want to know that I'm being held down some other way physically.

You know, my family holds me down emotionally, spiritually, but I need something to hold me down physically, right? And so honestly, I turned to symbiotica, these vitamins and these beautiful little packets that they taste delicious. And I'm telling you, even before, before I started doing ads for these guys. It was a product that I really, really liked and enjoyed and could see the differences with. The three that I use, I use the, what is it called, the liposomal vitamin C, and it tastes delicious,

like really, really good. Comes out in the packet, you put it right in your mouth. Some people don't do that, I do it, I think it tastes great. I use the liposomal glutathione as well in the morning. Really good for gut health, and although I don't need it, you know anti-aging um and then i also use the magnesium l3 and 8 which is really good for for i think mood and stress i sometimes use it in the morning sometimes use it at night all three of these things taste incredible um honestly you you don't even need to mix it with water uh uh and yeah i just

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iExcel.com slash podcrush to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. Astaire, we were really excited to receive your game, copies of your game. Where should we begin? And we thought it might be fun to ask you a few of the questions that come up in your game to get to know you a little bit more. Are you? Did you play? I actually did play with my husband and when his husband, high school friend was visiting when the game arrived. And I realized, wow, there were several questions where I had an immediate answer. And I thought, I can't share this. I can't talk about it with this person here. And it just made, I think of myself as like quite a vulnerable person. So it really was confronting for me. I was like, I ended up having to give sort of my

secondary answers for several um so rather than open up you just decided to stay closed yeah but you know i have i have it now so i can keep playing yeah are you down for us to ask you some of the questions from yeah yeah but i think we should all answer them let's go okay okay okay i want to hear pen and that's good yeah yeah yeah i want to hear nava you know okay okay the first one is something i wish I had been told as a child is? Oh, that I don't come from the stork. Ah, that's a good one.

So amidst all that you were also told that you come from the stork? Oh, yeah, yeah, I grew up in utter ignorance. I grew up as a... I was nine years old when I understood there is no stork. Wow. That was a big day.

And then you went right into that 15 years of no consequences and sexual liberation. I had a few steps. But yeah, can you believe coming home and just saying, Mom, that is not true. There is no story. And she says, we'll talk about it later. And then never once later.

Of course not. I found other people to talk to. I have a brother who's 12 years older than me who filled in many, many gaps in this regard. So that's the thing I wish I had been told as a kid. You didn't expect that one, right? No, I didn't expect that at all. It's not like I'm prepared to your questions. Yeah.

I don't know. Something I wish I'd been told as a child was no, but my parents didn't let me be entitled. Like, it's not like they never said no, but they let me quit anything that I wasn't good at. And it's like one of my biggest, I think they were really great parents in a lot of ways, but it's one of the ways that I feel like they could have been better. So I sort of developed this thing of like, I only do things I'm good at and I don't sit in discomfort. It's like, oh, I wasn't good at that after a couple months quit. Interesting.

That actually resonates with me. I'll make mine, I'll piggyback off of that and make it just a little more specific, was to keep playing piano. Like keep playing, oh my goodness. Did you pick it up again? Yes, but much later. And I'm not in a phrase of life where I can sit four hours. Yeah, right.

It's become like a longstanding family joke that I say, like I'm the nub of the family because I'm the youngest child and everyone laughs but I'm serious I do feel like in some ways they've just you know they're like oh Sophie so I guess I don't know what I wish I had been told maybe I wish I had just been told like yeah I want to hear what what your opinion is

or what you have to say about that rather than you the baby yeah yeah yeah the nub the nub yeah I have questions about that. It's a cute word. A cute word for really sad feelings. I know, I know.

That's why. It makes sense that it's a joke. It's like a family thing. Okay, when I look at a photo of my younger self, I guess hysteria doesn't always have to go first, whoever wants to go first. I think I, I think I cringe or I go like this. Oh, I thought you were going to say, I cried.

I did too. I was like, well, he's going to be vulnerable today. No. I suppose it could go there, but that's why I cringe instead. I think that when I see a picture of my younger self, I really do think, what was I so tortured about? You know, like, is that sentence that, you know, if I had the confidence of today with the looks of them,

what was I so tortured about? Why did I make it so hard on myself? You know, I had, you know, so much good stuff in my life. and I didn't always know to appreciate it. So that's what I say. I just see, you know, wow, a whole world. Yeah. What would you say?

I was just going to say, it depends on the age, totally, you know. Yes, as well. But thinking about what you said, Astaire, when I see a picture of myself from like the ages of 18 to 23, I got married at 23. And so that like started like sort of a new. transition in life and that period right before was such a particular moment. I think I felt it was going to last forever, you know, living with my girlfriends and being independent, living

in New York City. When I see a picture of myself from that time, I want to just like tell myself to just soak it up, you know. When I see a picture myself as a kid, I almost always feel like, oh, like I feel a lot of sympathy, but I feel almost like I'm a different, like I'm looking at a picture of a kid that's not me. I'm like, oh, she had a hard time. Like, she was really trying. So, yeah, that's lately how I've been feeling when I look at pictures. That resonates with me, too.

It's amazing, the range of answers. It's so evocative. It's really, you know, it really is evocative. It's very poetic and beautiful. And, you know, it's like sometimes you look at the younger self and you say this wasn't me. And sometimes you look at the younger self and you have such tenderness for this little creature and you just remember and you kind of wish that you had had that same compassion,

gentleness, care towards your younger self as that you can have. It's really, it shows you, it shows you in the multiple parts, you know. But you said something before, Penn, about how so much of what we do in our relationships is predicated on our earlier experiences, which is true. And at the same time as a therapist, it's also often. through that we help people not stay stuck in those early experiences as the determinant of their future. You are not what happened to you.

You are what you become, said young. And I think that that's a very liberating experience. If we are just predetermined, you know, and by what happened, then there's... Then we're like machines or something. Or we have very little freedom. Exactly. and by the way that's predestined and we don't have much choice exactly so you know what let's use that as a segue into everything that you currently specialize in because that's i think what people most want to hear they want to hear so now we've got to hear about you perell

we spent it's the best one i wanted to hear about her worst date the worst state yeah yeah yeah yeah we do we do love these kinds of stories here the worst date you start penn oh yeah the worst state you've ever been on fun so so so here's the truth about me just a little bit of context i'm going to make this a long answer that's so surprising uh i i've been on i've been on i can think of really like one one day comes to mind and very informal and casual i've not i've been in four relationships the fourth one was my wife um i my first relationship was very very long and quite difficult with someone who unfortunately has passed because of you know it's like it's a very very intense formative relationship thing so by the time i was in my early 20s i was on gossip girl so i never got a chance to date as like an anonymous person and the pressure was so high that i essentially didn't

do it and i just waited until like i you know met someone where there's just was immediately a relationship basically and I didn't consciously do this but this is this is what happened so the worst date I've been on is like the only date I've been on and it wasn't that bad it just wasn't that good it was like it was just awkward you know it was I felt I felt just like why am I doing this this is I'm spinning my wheels I don't particularly like this person but this is what I'm meant to do right I'm not particularly interested but it's like fine you know that's that so yeah I don't

I don't know if that partly interesting I can go I have a worse one mine was here in L.A. I was like last year I had just broken up with someone the most serious relationship I've ever been in I was like I'm gonna like jump I'm gonna get back in there you know online dating and and basically the person I felt it was so obvious we didn't have a connection right away.

It was, like, very painful to get through the date. He, like, wouldn't ask, I would ask him questions. He wouldn't be like, what about you? Even not, like, simple. It was just, like, him answering interview questions, basically. I ended up ending the date early, and he insisted on walking into my car. And then he tried, but I really feel like he just didn't understand social cues. Like, I don't think he was, like, a malevolent person.

But he was trying to kiss me, basically, and I didn't want to kiss him. And I didn't want to say, I don't want to kiss you. I was just trying to give him the body language of, like, No. And he was just like holding me so tight. He would lean in and I would like, it was like almost funny. Like if we had filmed it for a movie where I'm like starting my head around. And then I finally had to like push him off of me.

And then he understood. And it was really definitely the worst day. Then he understood. And then he understood when I pushed him on. I was like, oh. I just want to kiss me. This is in a weird game. So that was the worst date I've ever been on.

That's unfortunate. The worst date I've ever been on was with David, my husband. No, no. that just i i like pen have been on very few dates i can only think of pretty much that date but basically we were we were like i said we were 23 when we got married so at this point maybe i was 23 at this point but we decided we should go on a date just because we thought you know that's what you have to do when you're getting to know somebody and we had been close for so long at that point and hanging out constantly but we never considered any of those times together dates and so we

thought we should go on a date we should go out to dinner and we spent more money than we had and it felt formal and kind of forced and I think I realized that I don't like dates like I like I like more a more informal spontaneous hangout or casual maybe is the word But we've been married six and a half years, so we're nearly seven years. So we're good. It worked out. Yeah. It's interesting.

I think more like you. Like, I don't think I have been on dates. I didn't, we didn't date. We didn't have the term dating either. It's like you and somewhere or, you know, you met someone in a cue and at a concert, at the party, at a whatever. You met somebody and then you start talking. And then that talking leads you to walk. away together and then you find yourself having another drink and then and you're curious and

the story unfolds i mean i never have gone to you know i mean i'm pre pre app i'm pre um it was happen stance it's a combination of choice and happenstance yeah chance and choice and uh and you know and then you have butterflies and then you realize you kind of really want this person to connect and and and you realize, oh, there's a bit of tension here, and then you flirt a little bit, and then this whole thing. And then the store comes at some point. Yeah.

I've never gone and sat in a noisy bar and interviewed someone and tried to date as if I was doing a job interview. I mean, seriously. I find the whole thing so unimaginative and so constraining and tense. but I have a list of people that I fondly remember

and I have a list of people that I'm thinking what was I thinking and I cringe it's not one it's just like I have images I see this one on a train

and this one here and I'm thinking oh poor Perel what were you doing yeah I think for me it's like I want to go on record

saying actually the beginning of all of my relationships was always magical and lovely so there's like these incredible you know very cinematic memories that i have and then also within them i can remember like wow i i cringe at the insecurity that i recall feeling in an early stage always having crippling insecurity at some point you know at some point and and just remembering the person who did not know where this was going and so that is i guess you could you could

you could fit that into this. So, you know, I listen to you and I'm thinking, it might be interesting to just say, I created a game, you know, where should we begin, like the podcast, because I wanted people in a playful way to

experience connection and curiosity and fun and trust without it having to be solemn and serious and interrogatory and let's be vulnerable with each other. And Stories is really the way to bridge connection between people you know that i've had a question recently i highly invite you to use

it did you play freely on the street when you grew up in only in virginia for that brief period that i can scarcely remember personally i grew up on the beach that's very annoying so we played a lot on the beach but that was like this street for us yes yes that's a street and you i'm trying to remember I remember, like, walking to my friend's houses, but I don't think we played on the street. We would play outside in their yards. But you had unscripted, un-corrored, unmonitored, unmonitored social interaction. Yeah. Right.

This is one of the most important things that the younger kids are missing. Why do you think? What are the factors that agree to that? Well, one of the main factors, there are two main factors. One is the hyperstructured lives of a lot of kids. and worldwide, well, world wide, western world.

And the other thing is screens. Yeah. Screens and the isolation and the individualistic lives instead of the free form outside with people that are different from you because they're just, you know,

they're around, they're in the playground, they're in the beach, wherever. There is silos in our lives. there is the virtualization of our lives on all aspects that starts very, very young, very young. We're talking two-year-olds. And then, well, so those are the things.

There's just a few, there are many other things, but those are two of the things. You know, it's so interesting. We interviewed Dr. Laurie Santos, who's one of the world's, I think, leading experts on the date of happiness. And she said, I don't remember if she said it was a piece of advice she would give to parents,

but it stood out to me as like something she wanted parents to hear, which is that it's very important for kids to rest. And she was saying that today parents over-scheduled their kids more than before. Violin and then swim, and their kids are like, it's creating a lot of anxiety in children's lives. And then the other thing she said is that the number one factor in happiness is sociability and that this generation is the most like anxious and depressed and lonely and recorded history. And a lot of it is because, not just because they spend so much time online, but because their friendships unfold online. And so it doesn't give you the same hit as being with someone in person

and they're not aware of that. So they're being robbed of like the number one thing that creates happiness. I've really been thinking about that a lot and even how my friendships unfold more online now than in person and what that means. It's called the rise of the new AI, artificial intimacy. Oh, I've not heard that.

And artificial intimacy is when you have a thousand virtual friends but no one to feed your cat. Yeah. And you have a lot of friends but no friendships. Yeah. Yeah, that really hits. Totally.

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of stories that are popular and have been for generations and the effects it has on, you know, whether positive or negative. I think a lot about the negative effects. I'm curious, what do you think are some of the most unhelpful myths about love that you specifically in your work have been learning for years now, like how untrue it is and how unhelpful it is and how you can encounter it all the time? Interesting question.

It's interesting because I've just done a course on conflict. But of course, a course on conflict is not just about conflict. It's a course on connection. If you do a course on how not to hate, you do a course on how to love. Right, right, right. It's the other side that is interesting, right? So myth, one person for everything, you're going to be my best friend, my trusted confidant, my passionate lover, my intellectual equal, my co-parent,

the person who's going to help me become the best version of myself, et cetera, et cetera. It's like, that's a myth. Myth is, with you, I will never feel alone again. No, that's not necessarily the case. Myth is, I don't have to tell you what I feel, because if you really know me and love me, you would understand, and you would know, and I wouldn't have to try to break my teeth to put it into words.

Myth is sex is spontaneous. It's unprompted. It just surges inside of me and it explodes like a volcano and I can't get my hands off of you and this is going to happen after 18 years too. Myth is how can I be with somebody who disagrees or who thinks differently about the world, about life, about politics, you know, impossible. That's a few. Yeah, those are amazing.

You often discuss the balance between security and adventure in relationships. And I was wondering if you could explain how, from your experience, from your research, how couples can maintain both a sense of security and help foster sort of playfulness and excitement and novelty throughout the years, if they're able to be together. Yes, it's how do you create a home with wings? how do you straddle the anchor and the waves right it's that constant it's kind of the ulysses myth so to speak but listen i think that the first thing quickly to say is that we all have two fundamental sets of human needs we all need security and safety and predictability and reliability and dependability and so forth the anchoring forces of our lives and we all also need

exploration, discovery, playfulness, curiosity, risk, change, even danger, adventure, adventure, freedom, all of that. Everybody comes out of childhood. Some of us needing more protection and security and safety, and some of us needing more freedom, space, individuality, etc. And often these two people meet in a relationship. My vulnerabilities meet your proclivities. That's the complementarity.

And so often in a relationship, you have one person who represents more of the security and the stability and the other one who represents more of the liquid and the fluidity and the improvisation and the spontaneous, etc. And in the beginning, that's very attractive. Each one is finding a draw to what the other person is bringing. The problem of relationships are coupled them is that what is initially attractive

is often the very same thing that becomes the source of conflict later because you get a little more than what you bargain for. So now the fluid and the liquid and the improvisational becomes erratic and constantly restless and never happy with anything that's there and always wanting more and cons it still and the one who is solid and structured and grounded

becomes rigid and unbending and not fluid enough. How do you straddle both is really first and foremost to recognize the inherent need for both. A relationship does well when both people understand that if I emphasize more one side,

it's because you emphasize the other. The reason I don't have to talk about this side is because you do a fine job at it, but that doesn't mean I don't need it. That duality is a duality we straddle our whole life internally as well as between the two of us. And if you polarize, then it becomes,

I only talk security and you only talk freedom. I talk monogamy, you talk polyamory, I talk this, you know, as if I talk I want more children, you talk I want less children or something. Instead of, you know, these complicated questions involves holding the ambivalence, holding the duality. You need enough safety. and to be able to take risks.

But it is also when you take risks that you develop the trust. It's both ends. That's true. That's a very important thing to understand. If you only hunker down, hunker down, hunker down, hunker down, look, it's very simple. Every system needs stability and change,

every relationship. If you put too much emphasis on the stability and you don't change, you atrophy and you die from within. if you put too much emphasis on the change all the time you become chaotic and you dysregulate. This is true for every living organism. And that's the thing that we need to do in a relationship.

Yes, we need a family gathering. We need to be together. But yes, we also need you to go see your friends and to go do the things that are interesting to you and for you to take a trip that I'm not interested in. And no, we should not only do the thing that the two of us agree on and can do together and go to bed together and wake up together

and come to the party together and leave together even if one of us would just have luck to stay another four hours and dance till I drop. And it's both ends. Instead of this or that, couples end up in that negotiation, should we leave or should we stay? Why don't one go and one stay?

And the more room you make for the individual and the more togetherness you will have because wherever you feel free, you come back home. I really like that. It's so helpful. Yeah, I want to ask them the question. I feel like we're so close to the end. Then what, okay, then what is the balance between like a healthy individualism?

And that, which is we know like almost too supported by our own culture because of all the things we were talking about earlier, like screens and, you know, like I'm thinking of how, what are the qualities of that help? Oh, it's very easy to answer this. There is no precept for this. This is not a set of criteria. ever think in that way. I think that you ask yourself in a relationship,

how am I straddling me and us? I and we. And if you find that you've been spending a lot of time on the eye, it's time to switch. And if you feel like you've done everything on the we and the eye has been totally absorbed, it's time to switch.

It's just basically, look at yourself, be accountable, and say, where have I put my emphasis? This thing, what helps the relationship is not to get stuck. It's to stay dynamic and responsive to the changes that take place that come from within and from outside. If somebody is in a crucial moment they're sick or they're vulnerable or they're pregnant or they just had a baby, then of course you become more focused on the we. And if somebody, you know, there are times when you need to come together and there are times when the relationship can allow

for more space and individuality and if you do it correctly you do it in a kind of a response to what it's calling you for but on a personal level every person that walks into my office is just asked to do their own checkup and you know

you know when you've been a dilettante and you've neglected something because you leave it to the other right what are we doing Saturday morning and one person says, oh, I would like to go swim. And the other one says, why don't we do something together? If the one that always says, I want to go do X, Y, Z stays in the eye, what needs to happen is they need to be the one that says, let us go do X.

And if the one that is always doing a, shall we do we, we, we, then you say, what would be the thing you would do if the other one wasn't here today? it's that that's fluidity that's flexibility that's adaptability in a relationship it's not what's the right formula the formula is the formula that changes all the time depending on your taste butts right it's just like organic life yeah you know and and and when these things falter people get into conflict. I mean, this is the thing. It's like, then people start to fight. No, we should do it this way. We should, you know, why you always say I? Why always say we? Okay, we can have a whole fight about that. Yeah? This is when it becomes what I call nonproductive conflict, right? Destructive

conflict. Instead of, okay, you know, if you really want that person to stop saying what they're saying, change what you're saying. If you want to change the other, change yourself. I don't know about that though, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't want to apologize. I'm pretty sure I'm right. I think that's a perfect note to end on. It's so helpful. Yeah. We do, we have a, we have a last question for everybody. If you could go back to 12 year old astaire or that otherwise adolescent ester, what would you say or do if anything? I have a card that says if you could whisper something in the ear of my younger self. Oh yeah. There you go.

In the game. And where should we begin? I, what I would seem to my, uh, it would be something about being less hard on myself, basically. Um, you know, I think that I would, actually I wouldn't say much.

I would have done this. Ah, yeah. For those who are not watching, just placing her hand. I'm putting my hand on my shoulder. I think what I, really I had to learn is to put my hand on my shoulder. It's okay.

It's okay. And that doesn't need words. It's the hand on the shoulder and then you move it. And it says that movement on the shoulder, you don't just keep it still. It says it's fine. It's right. Because what are you doing when you move the shoulder?

You're basically holding the baby. It's the same motion. That's soothing. And that says you're okay here. safe here. It's fine. That's the gesture I would do to myself. My three-year-old is so sick right now and I've been holding him so much and even though it's only been a couple hours now, I now want to hold him so badly with the way you're saying. Then you got to go. Thank you so much, Astaire. You can buy Astaire Perel's new game where should we begin at astairporell.com. You can listen

to her podcast of the same name wherever you get your podcasts and you can also follow her on Instagram at Esther Perel official. I texted Nava, I said, Nava, just in case I have some contractions in the episode and you see me like squirming in my seat, don't be alarmed. I had contractions last night, but they've stopped. So my doula thinks that they were just like, very strong Braxton Hicks, but she told me

tonight might be an exciting night. I feel like Penn and I can never skip again. Sophie came in labor and did the episode. Penn and I will never have an out. That's right. Stitcher.