Something You Should Know - Startling Ways Food Affects Your Brain and Body & Mastering the Art of Apologizing

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Starting point is 00:00:28 sometimes you need a good cry. At least that's what people say. But is it true? Listen and find out. Then the really interesting science behind how food affects you. For instance, sweet foods. Now people vary to the extent

Starting point is 00:00:43 to which they have a sweet tooth, but everybody, if you give them a taste of sweet, actually it makes everybody happier and it makes actually everybody a little bit nicer and more agreeable to their fellow human. Also, why mosquitoes want and need your blood. And how to apologize and forgive. There is a lot people don't understand. And one of the myths about forgiveness is that you forgive or you don't forgive 100%. And that's not true.

Starting point is 00:01:14 You can forgive 10% or you can forgive 90% or whatever you don't please. All this today on Something You Should Know. This winter, take a trip to Tampa on Porter Airlines. Enjoy the warm Tampa Bay temperatures and warm Porter hospitality on your way there. All Porter fares include beer, wine, and snacks, and free fast-streaming Wi-Fi on planes with no middle seats. And your Tampa Bay vacation includes good times, relaxation, and great Gulf Coast weather. Visit FlyPorter.com and actually enjoy economy.

Starting point is 00:01:55 Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hello there. Welcome to Something You Should Know. It has long been suggested that sometimes what you really need to do is have a good cry. Crying has been called the release valve for stress and sadness and grief and anxiety and frustration.

Starting point is 00:02:26 Western psychology has embraced crying as a good thing. One analysis of 140 years of popular articles about crying found that 94% of them promoted crying as beneficial and warned readers that suppressing tears could be harmful to body and mind. So everyone agrees that crying is beneficial. Unfortunately, there isn't much scientific data to support that argument. According to Jonathan Rottenberg, an associate professor of psychology at the University of South Florida, it is impossible to make the blanket statement that crying is a good thing.

Starting point is 00:03:06 It's not. In fact, when crying episodes are induced in a laboratory setting, like watching a sad movie, people rarely report that the tears provide any sort of immediate mood benefit. In fact, in most laboratory studies, people who cry report feeling worse. Crying is complicated. People cry throughout their entire lives, for all sorts of reasons and in many different situations. More study is needed, but the little bit of science that we do have does not support this one-size-fits-all statement that crying is good for you. And that is something you should know. For much of human history, people ate whatever they could get their hands on.

Starting point is 00:03:55 Finding food, any food to survive on, determined what was for dinner. Today, we eat food for reasons in addition to survival, and those reasons are fascinating in ways I bet you can't imagine. Rachel Herz is a neuroscientist specializing in perception and emotion. She teaches at Brown University and Boston College, and she is author of the book, Why You Eat What You Eat, The Science Behind Our Relationship With Food. Hi, Rachel. Welcome. Thank you, Michael. Great to be on. It's interesting that humans for so long throughout history have struggled to find food, and today we struggle to resist food. Right. Now, we are living in an atypical phase of our

Starting point is 00:04:39 evolutionary biology in the sense that we are struggling to resist all the tempting delights that are around us all the time. And most of us have a problem with saying, no, I kept trying not to eat rather than searching for food, you know, all day long. And that is the main goal of the day. So we are, unfortunately, from the point of view of present day, programmed to be very, very attracted to foods that are very high in calories, especially those that are high in sugar and high in fat. And they're, you know, a little sugar and a little fat are great, but the point and the problem is that there's too much of that around us. And so we have to kind of fight our own nature, as it were, to try to resist overdoing it. But this is a question I've asked a lot of people I've always wondered about, that we have this obesity problem now and people are eating a lot of junk.

Starting point is 00:05:28 But if you go back to the 60s, I mean, there were still a lot of fatty, sugary foods in the supermarket, but people weren't as fat as they are now. So what changed? Probably the most significant from the point of view of changing people's waistlines is probably portion size, and especially from the point of view of going out to restaurants. And I think also there is much more eating outside of the home in general. So we are much more exposed to these really large portions, and we then tend to think that these portions are actually normal, so that when we go home and we're making ourselves food, we're also serving ourselves very big portions. And I think a lot of the time we're not paying attention to how food is making us feel, if it's making us feel full, if we're

Starting point is 00:06:09 getting satisfaction from it. And this ties into something else, which is that we're often very distracted when we're eating these days. So a lot of people end up eating their main meals in front of the television or maybe in front of a screen, you know, working or something like that. And when you do that, you don't pay attention to how much you're eating and can definitely overeat. So by paying attention to what you're eating and being more mindful of the plate in front of you, you will tend to eat less? You'll tend to eat less and you'll also get a lot more pleasure and satisfaction from eating

Starting point is 00:06:39 because when we pay attention, we actually get more sensation. We get more flavor. We get more enjoyment. And so you can feel like, okay, you know, I've just really enjoyed what I've just eaten, and I actually feel full. I feel satisfied. But if you're not paying attention, even if it's the most delicious thing, and your hand is just going in, you know, reaching into the souffle or the potato chips or the chocolate cake or whatever the case might be,

Starting point is 00:07:01 you're not even getting the full flavor profile. And as a function of that, you're not getting the same kind of satisfaction, which can also lead you to eat more, on top of which you're just not even paying attention and just keep on eating as a function of the habit of it rather than the intentionality of it. So what are some of the main things that influence the average Joe throughout his day? What are the things that cause us average Joe throughout his day? What are the things that

Starting point is 00:07:25 cause us to eat what we eat? So one of the things that's interesting, if the average Joe, for example, walked into a fast food restaurant where there was a really loud, fast music playing, that actually can make us eat more quickly and also eat, take more bites and therefore also overeat potentially. We're also less likely to be engrossed and engaged in the food because the music is also distracting and really loud music can actually change how food tastes. So this was, in fact, there was a fascinating study done based on an observation made by Lufthansa, the German airline company, who noticed that people were ordering as much tomato juice as beer on flights. And this is kind of strange when you have the opportunity for beer, but also it's strange because fruit juice outsells vegetable juices by a large margin.

Starting point is 00:08:19 So they were wondering what was going on with respect to people ordering so much tomato juice. And it turns out that the noise and also the cabin pressure, but specifically the noise, actually changes how we taste different basic tastes. And by that I'm talking about salt, sour, sweet, bitter, and umami, which is sort of the savory, kind of salty, delicious kind of quality that's in tomatoes, as well as mushrooms and a variety of other foods. It turns out that our response to sweet and our response to salty actually is diminished by the loud noise of an airplane cabin, and that's between 80 and 90 decibels, which is actually

Starting point is 00:08:56 very loud. It's like standing next to a lawnmower. So that kind, although we get habituated to it when we're on an airplane and we often don't notice that we're actually in this really loud noise environment. But one of the reasons why food never tastes very good on an airplane is because tasty things like salty and sweet are decreased. Bitter does not change. So if you're eating grapefruit, it tastes probably more bitter and less sweet because the bitter is coming out. But umami taste, which is in tomato juice, like I said, becomes augmented and it tends to be a pleasurable sensation. So people who don't normally drink tomato juice actually often order tomato juice on airplanes because of the fact that it really is a different flavor experience when you're in the mile high scenario than on the

Starting point is 00:09:43 ground. And that's essentially because of the really loud noise of the cabin. So back to what you said about loud music in a fast food restaurant causing you to eat more. So is the antidote to that soft music, no music, silence? So there's a couple of different things. So interestingly, when we're in, let's say, a restaurant that is playing soft, however, whatever you want to consider nice music to be, it has a positive ambient, so a low light ambient. People do eat more slowly, but they tend to linger longer also. So lingering longer at the table can also potentially lead to more eating because, for instance, if you're not in a rush, you might order really don't want to leave, especially when food is being offered to you, but also not being in an environment which is rushed and loud and where your senses are being dulled by the sort of overload of experience. I think the most interesting thing I saw in the book was this idea that food labels that you read can influence how your body metabolizes food.

Starting point is 00:11:06 In other words, if you think something is low-fat, your body will process it. That's baffling. So explain that. This was a fascinating study done with a milkshake, a French vanilla milkshake, where people were given the milkshake to drink, and in real life the milkshake had 340 calories. So that's like the truth of the milkshake calories. But in one condition, this milkshake was given to them with this label, decadence you deserve, and this luxurious, really high calorie, 620 calorie shake with all the

Starting point is 00:11:41 delicious, you know, fat and fantasticness that you would want in a really great dessert kind of milkshake. And in another condition, the same people were given the same exact milkshake to drink, but this time it was labeled Sensi Shake, 140 calories, you know, no added sugar, 0% fat, and so forth. And what was being examined in this study was ghrelin, which is the hunger hormone, and to see how it responded to the calories in the milkshake. Now, normally for 340 calories, if you didn't know, but that's a fair number of calories, your body should respond in such a way that ghrelin levels actually drop because ghrelin levels are, ghrelin is the hunger hormone,

Starting point is 00:12:24 so it's high when you're hungry and after you eat, it drops. And by dropping, it also revs up your metabolism, so you can burn the calories you've just consumed. So that's the normal response. Now in the 620 calorie indulgent label shake, that's exactly what happened. People's ghrelin levels dropped down dramatically after drinking the shake and seeing that label. But when they were given the exact same milkshake, but it was tagged 120 and sensible and low, low calorie and this and that, their ghrelin levels didn't budge at all. They stayed flat. Their metabolism didn't rev up.

Starting point is 00:12:56 So their bodies actually acted like they'd consumed something very low calorie, even though the real calories were moderately high. And this is something phenomenal, that we can be deceived. Our brains are literally quelling or suppressing our body from something that it would naturally do as a function of just believing something is low calorie. So the takeaway is don't look at those low calorie labels and think everything is really high calorie instead. And another really amazing thing too, and this is sort of simpler,

Starting point is 00:13:31 is that sweet taste is, going back to your original question, so we are driven to want sweets because sweet is carbohydrate and carbohydrates are a great form of usable energy. And especially in a food scarce world where we're trying to survive, calories from carbohydrates are fantastic. So we love the taste of sweet. Now people vary to the extent to which they have a sweet tooth, but everybody, if you give them a taste of sweet, actually gets a little bit nicer. So it makes everybody happier and it makes actually everybody a little bit nicer and more agreeable to their fellow human. So one of the things I've sort of suggested is if you have, for instance, a really important meeting where you are, you know, trying to discuss something that's going to be difficult and you're trying to bring things together But it actually is a really useful strategy. So the people, you know, the sort of examples of the person always brings the donuts or something like that to the boardroom meeting and so on.

Starting point is 00:14:32 And people like that person more. Well, part of it is that they're being generous by bringing this. And people tend to like sweets. But also because they feel happier in the presence of this person. And they're actually feeling more agreeable with each other. Why does bringing reusable bags to the grocery store encourage you to buy more treats? So this is also one of these incredibly fascinating mind-over-matter kinds of situations where, and this is potentially less so today, and especially living in a state like California,

Starting point is 00:15:01 although this research was originally done in California, it was done between 2005 and 2007 when you weren't penalized for not bringing your own bag. So in the case, though, where, and it's still the case in many states in the U.S., if you just bring your own bag out of your own free will and feel like you're doing something good for Mother Nature and not adding to the landfill and so forth, you actually have this sense of feeling virtuous. And the fact that you've done a good deed leads you to feel like you can give yourself a little pat on the back. And in the food store, this pat comes in the form of a little tasty treat. So you are more likely to, you know, pass by the ice cream aisle and go, oh, yeah, you know, I'm going to stick some of that into the cart because I have my reusable bags with me. And I'm like, you know,

Starting point is 00:15:48 this is a way of rewarding ourselves, in other words. And so we end up, when we bring reusable bags, tending to buy more organic produce and products, which is somewhat logical given the sort of combination of organic and environmental conscientiousness with your own bag. But the really funny, interesting thing is that we feel licensed also to reward ourselves, and we do that with food when we're in a grocery store. Rachel Herz is my guest. She's a neuroscientist and author of the book, Why You Eat What You Eat, The Science Behind Our Relationship With Food. This is an ad for BetterHelp. Welcome to the world. Please read your personal owner's manual the science behind our relationship with food. Fortunately, life doesn't come with an owner's manual. That's why there's BetterHelp Online Therapy. Connect with a credentialed therapist by phone, video, or online chat.

Starting point is 00:16:48 Visit betterhelp.com to learn more. That's betterhelp.com. Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations. Hey. No, too basic. Hi there. Still no. What about hello, handsome? Who knew you could give yourself the ick? That's why Bumble is changing how you start conversations. You can now make the first move or not. With opening moves you simply choose a question to be automatically sent to your matches. Then sit back and let your

Starting point is 00:17:20 matches start the chat. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. So Rachel, what are some of the other things going on in the store that affect what we eat or at least what we buy? So another thing that's really interesting is how we shop, sort of the geography of shopping in relation, again, to our virtue and vice meter that we all have kind of subconsciously rolling in the back of our head. And that is that when you have just been in the produce aisle and put that kale and grapefruit into your shopping cart, the next place people are most likely to go in a grocery store is either the alcohol or the ice cream department. And this was actually shown in an experiment where radio frequency

Starting point is 00:18:01 trackers were put on grocery store carts so the sort of paths that people took in the grocery store could be tracked. And so we have this incredible internal kind of register of, oh, I just did something healthy. Okay, now I get to do something not so healthy. And we're kind of constantly balancing this out so that, unfortunately, we tend to not usually err too far into the healthy domain before giving ourselves a little surprise in the less healthy context. Isn't that weird that it's so simplistic that, you know, if you think you've done something good,

Starting point is 00:18:34 you reward yourself with something a little naughty. It seems almost childlike. Well, it is. And, you know, it's also, unfortunately, it goes all the way to diet and weight loss. So people who are tracked when they're on a diet, the more weight someone loses in a given week, the more likely they are to either gain that weight back or not lose any the following week. So we have this kind of internal set point, both with respect to patting ourselves on the back for, like you said, doing something great. We get to do something a little bit naughty. But also, even for our own body metabolism and our own body weight,

Starting point is 00:19:14 even when we're trying to decrease that, so we're trying to lose weight, yet we still tend to, oh, like I lost 10 pounds. Great. Now I'm going to have that dessert I've been craving. And so, unfortunately, especially when we're on a diet, and actually a diet is the worst way to lose weight, the sort of evidence from dieting is that you want to gain weight in the long run, go on a diet. I mean, what you really need to do is kind of change your relationship with food in a much more global way, sort of just approaching it differently. And like I said, sort of this moderation variation, I think, personally, and also coupled with smaller portion sizes really kind of is the way to go. But in any case, we tend to have this sort of constant frame where we're keeping ourselves,

Starting point is 00:19:51 whether it's the goodies and the beer or how much we weigh and so forth. And so the whole point, I think, is not to try to think in these black and white terms, so not to try to think that, okay, this is good, now I get to do something bad, but rather this is a whole way of life, And when I'm living in this way of life, I can, you know, be in this more moderate zone and I don't have to, you know, always balance everything out. But that's not true for everybody. And, and, and I wonder what the difference is because some people, I mean, I have a friend who, who just put herself through hell to be in a bikini contest because it was on her bucket list of things she wanted to do. And, and, and she,

Starting point is 00:20:31 she did it. And, and so some people can say, you know what, I'm going to lose the weight, actually do it. And then there are those people who do what you just described. They lose a little weight, then they gain back. So what's the difference? Is it just willpower? Is it determination? What is it? Well, it is willpower and determination, but I do have to say, and, you know, maybe your friend is one of the really rare extremes, the sort of the exception that makes the rule, but most likely, even people who really get down to that, their fighting weight, whatever,

Starting point is 00:21:01 their desired, you know, bikini weight, will over time gain that weight back and usually with interest. So that's just the unfortunate nature both of our metabolism because one of the things that happens when we diet is actually our metabolism slows down because your body thinks you're starving. So it's trying to conserve energy and keep everything kind of functioning at the lowest possible level so that you don't lose too much weight under the conditions where that would actually be very dangerous. So there is that as a problem. So even when people are trying not to overeat, your body tends to kind of take the wrong

Starting point is 00:21:34 road and add on more weight for the exact same amount of food that it would have not added as much on prior to dieting. So that's one of the issues, unless someone really maintains a very rigorous exercise regimen on top of that. But in any case, there are definitely exceptions. But like I said, the more important part is to sort of change your eating plan and mentality in a much more global sense, rather than just like, I'm going to get down to that bikini weight or not. But apart from that, it is the case that people who just as a function of their personalities will have a very, you know, strict goal in mind and can adhere to it. Now, the problem though, and this could also be for your friend as well, like you said, she put herself through hell. It's not fun to be in that super restricted state. And that's another reason why these things in the

Starting point is 00:22:21 long run don't work because people don't like to be in this sort of negative relationship with food because it is one of the greatest pleasures of existence. And so, you know, especially when existence isn't always fantastic, food is something that people often turn to to try to make themselves feel better. And it's a very reliable, comforting friend in those respects. So to keep in any kind of longterm sense, that kind of squash on something which is so inherently pleasurable is extremely difficult. And then, like I said, you often have this sort of backfiring where your metabolism has been suppressed, so it's not functioning the way it previously was, and so you end up gaining weight from even eating little amounts of food. Right.

Starting point is 00:23:03 Talk about comfort food. I. So talk about comfort food. I mean, what is comfort food? What makes it comfort food? Why does it have its own category? Talk about that. So comfort food is food that is comforting, and dictionaries typically have this redundant description of it. It also tends to be food that is high in carbohydrate and high in fat

Starting point is 00:23:24 and often high in calories as well. And there's two aspects of comfort food that make it comforting. One is that it was food that our caregivers gave us in childhood. So it is actually associated with feeling comforted by our parents or caregivers or whoever loved us and took care of us. And so when we eat comfort food as adults, we have this feeling of being brought back to that comforting time and place and you sort of feel a warm hug from your parents or your caregivers when you're eating that food. So when we're stressed and we feel like we need that hug, that's a really reliable way of getting it. On top of the fact that the calories and the carbohydrates and

Starting point is 00:24:06 the fat also make the brain very happy too. So we get that positive hit as well. Now, the fact that comfort food is associated with people who loved us and took care of us can be especially dangerous, as it were, for people who actually did really grow up in very loving, trusting homes. So people who have what are known as a securely attached attachment style, so that is to say they had very loving parents or caregivers who were constant in their love and affection and they never were worried, you know, if I do this, mommy's not going to be happy with me. And they were sort of, there's a variety of different attachment styles that we develop

Starting point is 00:24:44 through childhood as a function of how our parents treated us. And so from the point of view of having like a really loving, trusting upbringing, you are more likely then to use comfort food as a stand-in for mom giving you a hug or your best friend or someone else than someone who is not securely attached and doesn't feel so comfortable with relationships. And then comfort food doesn't sort of become that best friend or your mother or someone giving you a hug. It's still great from the point of view of your brain loving the food and you love the taste and the flavor sensations, but you don't use it like getting your best friend's arms around you as it were. So research has shown that people who are securely attached, after they, for example, have been thinking about having a fight with

Starting point is 00:25:29 someone they're very close to, are more likely to eat a lot of comfort food and actually enjoy the comfort food more, whereas people who are insecurely attached don't have that same level of pleasure from comfort food after thinking about a fight. Well, it's so interesting. Who knew so much is going on in our head and behind the scenes when it comes to why we eat what we eat? So this is great. Rachel Herz has been my guest. She's a neuroscientist specializing in perception and emotion. She teaches at Brown University in Boston College, and she is the author of the book, Why You Eat What You Eat, The Science Behind Our Relationship with Food. There's a link to her book in the show notes.

Starting point is 00:26:14 And thank you, Rachel. I really enjoyed it. Thank you very much for the interview. Bye-bye. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show. Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy,

Starting point is 00:26:56 it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes. Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back, and in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed critical thinker. Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world,

Starting point is 00:27:30 looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI,

Starting point is 00:27:58 discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. Being the imperfect creatures that we are, we all do things that upset and hurt other

Starting point is 00:28:36 people, which in turn does damage to the relationship. So the thing we're supposed to do when that happens is apologize. But how you say you're sorry really determines whether or not the apology really helps fix the situation or potentially makes it worse. Relationship expert and psychotherapist Harriet Lerner has spent many years studying this, and her latest book is all about it. It's called Why Won't You Apologize? Healing Big Betrayals and Everyday Hurts. Hi, Harriet. Welcome. So why do you think this is so important, this whole topic of apologies? Well, we all unwittingly hurt others just as

Starting point is 00:29:20 we're hurt by them. So the need to give and receive apologies is with us until our very last breath. And when done right, apologies can be deeply healing. And when the apology is absent or it's done wrong, that really compromises a relationship or it could even end it. So I've been interested in apologies for actually for much of my career. What actually got me to sit down and write the book is that I was on the receiving end of a really awful, gaslighting, blame-reversing apology. And that's what got me to sit down at the computer and start writing.

Starting point is 00:30:09 So I wonder why, then, if a really well-delivered, heartfelt apology really helps fix things, why is it so hard to do, and why is it so hard to get it right? It's not that we're motivated to give a bad apology. It's not that we say to ourselves, gee, you know, how can I muck up this apology so the other person ends up feeling worse. It's just that humans are wired for defensiveness. We are wired for it. So it's very hard for humans to take clear and direct responsibility for specifically what we have said and done. And to apologize without a hint of evasion, blaming, obfuscation, minimization, it's quite a challenge. And there are certain ways we automatically muck it up without realizing it. For example?

Starting point is 00:31:16 Well, there's that little word, but. For example, I'm so sorry that I forgot to call you, but I was just swamped. I was overloaded with work. Everything fell through the cracks. It doesn't matter if what you say after the but is true. The but makes the apology false. And it's interesting because this little word, but, almost always signifies a rationalization, a criticism, an excuse. So, you know, the first rule is get your but out of your apology. And then another very common way that we muck up the apology that's a little more subtle is that we focus on the other person's feelings or reactions. Like, I'm so sorry that you were hurt. I'm sorry I made you angry.

Starting point is 00:32:14 Rather than apologizing for what we said or did or failed to say or do. And this is really an important one. For example, if you say, I'm really sorry that people were offended by the joke I told at the meeting. It's not an apology. There's no accountability. The apology would be the joke I told it the meeting was insensitive. It was out of line. I'm sorry. I want to assure you that it won't happen again. behaviors that we're sorry for and not with that we're sorry that the other person reacted the way they did. So those would be the top two. All right. Well, I want to go back to your but one,

Starting point is 00:33:16 because if you forgot to call me and you apologize that you forgot to call me, I might want to know why. I want to know the but. It might help me understand better that you got stuck on the train, and the train was in the tunnel, and that's why you didn't call. That might make me feel a lot better. If, in fact, for example, if I were stuck on the train, I might say, I'm so sorry that I'm late, but the train got stuck and I couldn't reach you. That's not an apology. It's an explanation.

Starting point is 00:33:55 You know, we do that all the time. We say, you know, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you got this diagnosis. I'm sorry that you're going through this tough time. And there's nothing wrong with that kind of empathy, but don't confuse it with an apology. An apology, meaning that you're accountable for hurting another person or being insensitive. A real apology will not have the word but. An explanation, I'm sorry I'm 15 minutes late, but I was stuck in traffic, that's different. Sometimes though, when you want to apologize,

Starting point is 00:34:37 you want to apologize because you want to, somebody has to take responsibility and we really need to put this behind us. But it isn't that I did something to you or you did something to me. Things kind of went bad and maybe we both had a role in this and there's responsibility and accountability on both sides. But I'm apologizing so we can get past this. Still in that situation, and even if you're convinced that you're only 47% to blame or you're only 28% to blame, it's helpful to be able to take responsibility for that part, to be able to say, I apologize for my part in this. And, you know, this is what and this is how I think I contributed.

Starting point is 00:35:28 And to be able to do that first. For example, if you say, I'm really sorry that I went out and made this major purchase without consulting you. Please remember that you did that last week. You went out and you bought that thing and you didn't consult me. You're really undoing your apology. And the high integrity and better thing to do would be to be able to apologize for your part and then leave some silence there. And, you know, another way that we muck up an apology that's very important is that we don't really want to listen to the hurt party's anger and pain

Starting point is 00:36:18 because it's not the words, I'm sorry, that heal the injury. The hurt party wants us to really get it. They want us to validate and care about their feelings and to carry some of the pain we've caused them to feel. So no apology will have meaning if we're talking about something, you know, important. No apology will have meaning if we haven't listened carefully to the hurt party's anger and pain. And I think that's the hardest part when it's a really big betrayal or a big hurt. We just want to say, I'm sorry. We want it to be over with. And it's so hard to really open up our hearts, put our defensiveness on a shelf,

Starting point is 00:37:14 and really get it. Well, and how many times have you been on, I've been on the other end of that apology, and heard something like, well, see, I've been on the other end of that apology, and heard something like, well, see, I apologized, as if just saying the words I'm sorry should just wash this away. When you don't, you heard the words I'm sorry, but you don't think the person actually gets it. Exactly. Or there needs to be more than one or two conversations. For example, in my consulting room as a therapist, and let's say there's been an affair, what I'll frequently hear, you know,

Starting point is 00:37:55 the husband may say to his wife, I've told you five times that I'm sorry. Why do you keep bringing it up? And of course, the more that he tries to muzzle her and he communicates that he doesn't want to listen to it, the more tightly she will hold on to her pain. So in a case, again, a case of a serious betrayal, that husband may need to listen for as long as it takes and to really let her know that he's carrying some of the pain. where someone has said or heard, why are you still upset? I already apologized. And I suspect that's probably not a particularly productive thing to say. It's not a very helpful thing to say, but I've already apologized,

Starting point is 00:38:59 meaning so, you know, why are you bringing it up again? It would be more helpful to say, is there more that you haven't told me? Is there something that I'm not getting here? Because a good apology helps the hurt person to feel safe and soothed in the relationship again. What's the anatomy of a really good apology?

Starting point is 00:39:26 Take me through what one sounds like. A really good apology involves caring about the relationship. It means accepting responsibility for our part of the problem, even when the other person can't see their own contribution to the problem. And it usually is short. The good apology initially usually is short because when we go on and on, we're going to end up making explanations that are actually excuses. So the good apology starts out very simply. You know, what I said at the party was really out of line when I kept correcting your stories. You told me that you don't like that, and I was correcting your stories anyway,

Starting point is 00:40:31 and I was wrong. I apologize for that, and I want to assure you that it's not going to happen again. There's this belief, I think, that many people have, that if someone sincerely apologizes, that you should forgive them. But should you? I mean, what if it's unforgivable? You know, many people believe that forgiveness, like gratitude, is a universally healing emotion.

Starting point is 00:41:09 So I hear people, for example, in my consulting room say things to, for example, a mother says to her daughter, what your father did happened a long time ago. He did the best he could. You need to forgive him. You need to move on. You need to not live in the past. That is not helpful. And in fact, the words, you know, can't you forgive him already, are the last words that a hurt person needs to hear. and ditto for cliches like, your mom did the best she could. It is what it is. This happened 40 years ago. You need to move on for your own sake. When we ask someone to forgive, we ask another person to forgive,

Starting point is 00:42:01 someone who's never apologized to them, we can leave that person feeling alone and abandoned and disoriented all over again. So it's not our place to tell another person that they need to forgive someone who's never cared about their feelings, who's never apologized, who's never tried to get it, a person who won't orient toward reality. It's simply not our job to say that, and it can hurt them all over again. It would seem that time plays a part in this. I may not be able to forgive you now, but give me a little time and, you know, I'll come around.

Starting point is 00:42:49 But right now it's just too fresh, it's too painful, and let's just give it some time. Yeah, that might be a very wise thing to say, if that's what you're feeling. And by the way, you know, you can continue a relationship without forgiving the other person. You can say, you know, this particular thing that you've done, I don't forgive, but we have a long history. I love a lot about you, and let's just move on. And one of the myths about forgiveness is that you forgive or you don't forgive 100%, and that's not true. You can forgive 10% or you can forgive 90% or whatever you don't please. Like, for example, a woman, going back to the subject of affairs, a woman said to her husband, after a lot of good work that he did earning back her trust,

Starting point is 00:43:50 she said to him, I forgive you for the affair, but I will never forgive you for sleeping with her in our bed when I was away seeing my dying mother. So I will never forgive you for that. And she told him that she forgave him 90%, but that was the 10% that for her was not forgivable. And they moved on, and they had quite a good marriage. Well, it is interesting how people are often defined by the worst thing they do, especially if it goes public, and especially if it's really horrendous. I mean, you commit murder, that's kind of what you're known as, as a murderer. But people aren't just the bad things they do, just as they aren't just the good things they do. People are much larger and more for the very bad things that

Starting point is 00:45:11 they've done, but we can also see them as bigger, larger, more complex, and ever-changing people. Who sometimes need to apologize for what they've done. Harriet Lerner has been my guest. Her book is called Why Won't You Apologize? Healing Big Betrayals and Everyday Hurts. There's a link to her book in the show notes for this episode. Thanks, Harriet. Thanks for being here. Thank you. Mosquitoes don't need blood to live on. Mosquitoes live on sugar found in plant nectar.

Starting point is 00:45:46 So what's with all the biting? Well, only the female mosquitoes bite. You see, the females cannot produce fertile eggs without the proteins found in blood. They need a new blood meal for every nest they lay. And they love to do that.

Starting point is 00:46:03 They lay about 250 eggs for every blood meal they get. Female mosquitoes are the ones with that long, needle-like, built-in syringe thing on their mouth. That allows them to suck the blood out of your body. They've also got chemical sensory receptors that help them zero in on a blood source from 100 feet away. Female mosquitoes also have a much longer lifespan than the guys, up to several weeks. Male mosquitoes only last about four to five days, and they die after mating. And that is something you should know. I hope you found this podcast interesting, entertaining, and hopefully useful, and I bet you know someone else who would get the same benefit. So please, tell someone, or tell a couple of people, tell

Starting point is 00:46:51 three people, about this podcast. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group.

Starting point is 00:47:21 Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more

Starting point is 00:47:38 sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. Chinook. Starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a co-founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce.

Starting point is 00:48:00 That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lightning, a fantasy adventure series we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lightning, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. During her journey, Isla meets new friends, including King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, and learns valuable life lessons with every quest, sword fight, and dragon ride. Positive and uplifting stories remind us all about the importance of kindness, friendship, honesty, and positivity.

Starting point is 00:48:28 Join me and an all-star cast of actors, including Liam Neeson, Emily Blunt, Kristen Bell, Chris Hemsworth, among many others, in welcoming the Search for the Silver Lining podcast to the Go Kid Go Network by listening today. Look for the Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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