Soul Boom - Penn Badgley & Dr. Nura, Are We Confusing 'YOU' With Real Love? Healthy Connections vs. TV Fantasies

Episode Date: October 22, 2024

Actor Penn Badgley (YOU, Gossip Girl) and therapist Dr. Nura Mowzoon join Rainn Wilson to explore how media and modern television distorts our understanding of love, relationships, and passion. Together, they dive into why people mistake conflict for passion, how media reinforces unhealthy romantic ideals, and the deeper psychological impacts of romantic media on young people. Penn also opens up about the unintended consequences of portraying toxic love on-screen and the complexities of attachment and commitment in real life. This conversation challenges popular narratives of love, highlighting the dangers of media-fueled misconceptions. Penn Badgley is an actor known for his roles in Gossip Girl and You, where he portrays characters that grapple with complex and often unhealthy romantic dynamics. Off-screen, he explores the intersection of spirituality, relationships, and media influence. Penn and Nura are touring colleges and universities to provide their Can We Talk? series of discussions with students. To have them come lead a discussion at your school, reach out below! Thank you to our sponsors! LMNT: http://drinklmnt.com/SoulBoom Waking Up app (1st month FREE!): https://wakingup.com/soulboom Fetzer Institute: https://fetzer.org/ MERCH OUT NOW! https://soulboomstore.myshopify.com/ Sign up for our newsletter! https://soulboom.substack.com SUBSCRIBE to Soul Boom!! https://bit.ly/Subscribe2SoulBoom Watch our Clips: https://bit.ly/SoulBoomCLIPS Watch WISDOM DUMP: https://bit.ly/WISDOMDUMP Follow us! Instagram: http://instagram.com/soulboom TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@soulboom Sponsor Soul Boom: [e-mail] Work with Soul Boom: [e-mail] Send Fan Creations, Questions, Comments: [e-mail] Produced by: Kartik Chainani Executive Produced by: Ford Bowers, Samah Tokmachi Companion Arts Production Supervisor: Mike O'Brien Voicing Change Media Theme Music by: Marcos Moscat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, Soul Boom Generation, I've got a really exciting announcement for you. We've got a substack. If you love the Soul Boom podcast and book and ideas, then you're going to want to get our weekly newsletter Substack sent to your inbox. It's magnificent. There's going to be fantastic guest authors. Some are written by me. A lot of them delve into the ideas around the podcasts that we're doing that week. So sign up. Please subscribe. Go to Soulboom.com.com. Thank you. You're listening to So Boo. What I found myself bumping up against, which is what prompted me to reach out to Penn, was what students thought love should look like, what they thought a healthy relationship should look like, mistaking high conflict for passion, peace for boredom. They had such distorted understandings of what a healthy relationship should look like, and so much of it was fueled by the media. You know, at the same time, his show was getting more and more popular, and I was noted.

how often people would joke about like, oh, put me in your cage, Joe. And I was just like, it. Let me talk to the man who built that page. Let me talk to him right now. Hey there, it's me, Rain Wilson. And I want to dig into the human experience. I want to have conversations about a spiritual revolution. Let's get deep with our favorite thinkers, friends, and entertainers about life, meaning, and idiocy.

Welcome to the Soul Boom podcast. Hey folks, I'm so excited to be here with Penn Badgley, of course, who you know, who has brought a friend, Dr. Nura Maozoon. I'm so excited to dig into this. This is really like this just completely energizes me and inspires me what you are about to undertake. It's really exciting. But before we go there, how did you guys meet? I just want to get all the background here. So my understanding of it is that...

Your understanding of how we met. My understanding, which is different. It's through my producing partner, NaviCavalin, is friends with you and had been for years. Well, the phone call that I got was basically like... Everything that she just described about her fascination with her research of, her study of love, because she knew that I was interested in,

the sometimes woefully toxic misconceptions of love and kind of like bad practices of love which are widely perpetuated in so many like just countless television shows, movies, books, you know, something I thought about a lot. Ultimately like, you know, the question I would ask myself sometimes when I was on a show like Gossip Girl, I was like, hmm, what effect does this happen?

You know, there are, okay, there's positive effects. I'm not going to overlook those anymore. But what are, What are there negative effects? Are there consequences to consuming this kind of content? You know, for our youngest people who are more or less unwitting in that process that's happening. And that, you know, on my worst days, on my most cynical days, my least grateful days, that would really bother me. And so, but what I never really had had the opportunity to do is speak to somebody who was, like, specialized in the study of this.

you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And so, you know, if I remember correctly, you wanted me to come speak about that. And really what I said was like, well, I'd feel much more comfortable if it was a conversation. Mm-hmm. Right? With somebody who really was a professional in this capacity.

And you're like, well, that's me. That's so happens. Right. My background is in therapy. So I'm trained as a marriage and family therapist. and I have a private practice where I work with couples and individuals about all things, relationship, and love-oriented. And then I also teach at Arizona State. So I work with college kiddos.

College kiddos? I don't think you've ever said that before. You work with little sun devils? Little baby sun devils. What do you teach there? The social sciences. So I have a couple classes on courtship and marriage. and then like a basic sociology 101.

And then a couple classes that deal with the psychology of race and prejudice and racism and groupthink. And did that talk happen? It did. Yeah. It did. And went well? Yeah, well enough. Yeah, it went great.

I think it went great. I think the thing that I'm the most passionate about, especially in the classes that focus on courtship and marriage and things like that is I'm very invested. And trying to teach them the science of attachment, love, relationships, and how to make better choices and hopefully how to have healthier relationships. And good Lord, do I wish that somebody when I was apologized had, like, made the effort to do that? Because I really, I may have overlooked it. I may have had that in my life, but didn't recognize it. But I do not recall it. I don't recall anybody being able to provide that. It's so rare that it's modeled for us. It was certainly my dad's four marriages, my mom's five marriages and the dysfunctional marriage that I grew up in.

It was never modeled, intimacy, how to talk through conflict, how to express anger in a healthy way. That's something I had to learn in my 40s, that anger is justified and it's okay and you can earn it and it's important to express. but how do you do it in a constructive way and not a destructive way? That took a lot of work. But isn't it so much about modeling in the home? And especially as the family structures and family units are breaking down more and more, it's pretty rare that someone gets all of those healthy aspects of loving relationship models. Yeah, definitely rare.

Well, it's not sexy. It's not what we see in the movies. It's not what we see in TV, you know. And what I found myself. bumping up against, which is what prompted me to reach out to Penn, was what students thought love should look like, what they thought a healthy relationship should look like, you know, mistaking high conflict for passion or mistaking peace for boredom. You know, they had such distorted understandings of what a healthy relationship should look like. And so much of it

was fueled by the media. And so I, you know, at the same time, his show was getting more and more popular and and I was noticing how often people would joke about like, oh, put me in your cage Joe. And I was just like, it. Let me talk to the man who built that page. Let me talk to him right now. Let me pause here. This is a fascinating sociological event that happened, which was you have this like obsessive, unhealthy psycho killer zeroing in on various love interests and love interest zeroing in on him in the same kind of way. And then you had all of these young women going, I wish I had my Joe. Yeah.

I wish I had the person who is standing outside my window masturbating. And plenty of men also, you know, whatever their orientation may be, like, it was people across the board either wanting love like that or being like somewhat tongue in cheek, but maybe an uncomfortable seat of truth to like, I have that to give to you or, you know, just some, there was everybody, everybody who, I think the point is that everybody who watches the show has an unhealthy relationship to Joe.

I think that's the point, you know? Interesting, interesting. So, and I'll just say real quick, sidebar, there was an interesting similar phenomenon on the office, actually, because I kept hearing from people like, you can't believe it go on these dating sites and like it's like a gym

looking for his Pam you know that was a very kind of thing and there was a myth there in the office that there was this I mean there was this longing between the two of them and she was taken and then he was taken and how many seasons can we get through six or seven seasons before they get married where there's just this kind of like

longing but they can't have each other and that there's some kind of a truth or purity in the love between Jim and Pam when actually it's, that's really not very healthy. It's not ideal. It's not ideal. In actuality, then I think about it, I think the Duangelo relationship from the office is actually a better indicator of, like,

real love because they have their struggles and ups and downs. She's kind of a cat lady church lady, and he's this misfit, weirder with zero social skills. And they find each other, these two misfits, find each other, they have their ups and downs, they break up, they get together, they get with other people, they come together at the end, he's like, I'm going to love you with the force of a thousand waterfalls. And they, he proposes with a megaphone, let this megaphone be how loud, I love you, you know, and it's actually a truer love story than the Jim and Penn.

I'm bullshit. You've heard it here. I like that. Suck it. Jim and Pam. But going back to the Joe thing, how do you guys understand this phenomenon? I think a lot of women just really appreciate a man who thinks he knows what he wants and goes after it. Like, you know, we say it kind of tugging cheek.

Is that confidence? Is it certitude? I hear that. I've heard it in. society. I've heard it from women friends of mine, but a lot of people, a lot of feminists might push back and say that's a traditional male role that can be easily toxified. I'm a man and I know what I want and I'm going after it. And it's the kind of like confident man who's going to like take charge and take control, which can lead to not being sensitive, not being responsive, not listening,

etc. How do you factor those two things together? I think they all kind of coexist. I think that I'm not trying to imply that Joe's character is healthy at all. I think women... Okay.

I think... But you just said that women like men or women think they like men who kind of know what they want to take charge and go after it. Not so much, not necessarily the take charge component. I think some women do,

some women don't care, but it's about a man who is all in and willing to commit. That resonates with me because I do think the dating world right now, I mean, I'm just like, you know, happy to be in a relationship that I love and married to a person that I love for a lot of other reasons, but also practically it's just like, thank God I don't have to deal with the shenanigans. Oh, it sounds like a health scape out there. In a lot of ways, just young people looking for like an authentic relationship, which I totally totally, that resonates with me because that's what made me despair a lot in my teens. But, you know, particularly women looking for men, there is undoubtedly, like the gender norms are

and stereotypes are there for a reason because they are still dominant, right? They're still prevalent. Like, this idea that men are trash, you know, like, uh, like this, this perspective, this perspective where, where I think young men in particular really do struggle with feeling feeling confident enough of themselves to commit to a relationship, you know, monogamous relationship because of all these other ideas about who they need to be in order to, in order to project masculinity and stuff. So what I hear from like really close female friends is I'm almost like, men are trash. Like some of these stories, some of the, you know, it's just like, my goodness, why is this so hard out there for women? Of course, I think the other side is that there's

like men are having their own, their own thing. On the other side with women, too, you have that. the hit viral song, like, I'm looking for a man, six, four, with a trust fund, you know. I don't remember that one, but I get the vibe. You'll know it if you heard it. I'm looking for a man in finance. Six four, trust fund. This was like a number one, number one song that was sampled from a girl talking about

what she wanted in a relationship. So a lot of men, you know, they're, you know, I know that if I put myself at 23 and I'm this gangly, kind of pimply and secure, want to be. actor kind of like, oh, I don't fit that. I don't even have enough money to buy a burrito. Right. You're over six four. You barely. You barely.

You can't even. Guys, just so the confidence I had that I was going to be six three. Oh. Why? Why on earth did I think I was going to be six three? People still call you a short king? They, you know, I want to say that's a toxic misconception. Okay.

I am not. A short king? Yeah. So the internet thinks I'm, my impression. The internet thinks I'm just a little bit shorter than I am. But I've been called a short king before. Anyway, where will we go? Yeah, I do want to touch on something really quickly.

We can edit it out if we want. But I do want to touch on this idea of like how easily we throw out this idea that men are trash. I think it's become really casual and normalized to talk about men in that way because I think women feel like it's almost owed to us after such a long. period of oppression, which we have experienced. But, and this ties into what we do with Can We Talk. I think the pendulum is swinging a little bit too far in the other direction where we've become too comfortable being incredibly disrespectful to the other gender or the other race or the other sexuality or whatever it is, the other. We've gotten so comfortable being casually insulting.

And then we wonder why change isn't really happening. So I know that there are a lot of men who are so tired of the trope of men being trash. And I think that's also what often pushes them towards these more radical kind of perspectives. Exactly. Exactly. They're kind of doubling down on their own toxic masculinity without realizing it. Yeah.

Yeah, that's as well said. I like what you're saying to me, that kind of gets to the seed of what we're always working on, which is like the ways. in which we perceive the other and what is now culturally not just expected or or acceptable, it's almost like believed that it's that it's the way forward, progressive, is to be belittling of the other to belittle someone else's cause, belief or, you know, ultimately what you see is their flaws where you see them as wrong is where you belittle them as opposed to maybe initially really listening and trying to understand and finding points of unity. What we're talking about

here in exploring is not the same thing as like, I don't know, like a superficial level of agreement and unity, which is just about maintaining civility and respectability for the sake of what, I don't know, actually for the sake of social norms. What we're exploring in our sort of thesis is that is that the social norms that we all want to get rid of. And we have different ones that we believe we need to get rid of. But if there's something that you want to deconstruct and then construct something in its place, we're suggesting that, um, quite counterintuitively, the more patient way forward is the fastest way forward. And it's initially harder, but it's where you, what you learn kind of maybe more than anywhere else

is like, say, in your romantic relationship, you learn it in marriage. It's like, you may be in, you may have in your sight an objective truth about, say, a dynamic between you and your partner. But if you just tell them they're wrong and you don't listen to them and how they feel and why they are acting a certain way because they believe you are acting a certain way, you're actually never going to get anywhere. You're like never going to get anywhere. And vice versa, if you're wrong, what is the process which leads you to believe you are wrong? And let me just pause it to everybody listening. At some point you've been wrong. Like, right, we've all been

wrong. It's it's it's invariable, inevitable, undoubtable. So, you know, have you ever been brought to a point where you realize you're wrong by somebody? Or maybe you've realized, it on your own, but what is the process at work there? You know, how do we bring truth to the foray? How do we actually discover truth together as opposed to assuming that we've already got truth and we need to either convince or belittle other people about our understanding of truth? You know what I mean? Was that coherent?

I don't know that it was, yeah. Yeah. Okay. You did great. Going back to the Joe thing, I think that one of the things, I think that one of the things I've noticed in my old age is there is there seems to be

a lot more and this might be kind of inflamed by social media people kind of talking over each other and not really listening and there's something about Joe that he is present I see you that's interesting I hear you

you're so right he's curious I'm really deeply grocking you and that's what people are longing for And they do the dates and the dating app and they have the coffee and like, so where are you from?

Where'd you go to college? And he's just like, I'm not here for that. Yeah. I'm here for you. And that's what it is. No, it's perfect. But isn't that a missing component in today's kind of quest for love? I actually think this is to see the kind of spiritual,

to see the good and spiritual impulse in anybody who like, you know, really loves Joe. too much or just really I guess at all it's that what you just named is what we all actually deserve we all have a right to be listened to right and we don't seem to live in a in a time and place where that happens a lot even within your own family you probably didn't grow up with it like you know we're all struggling to be heard and therefore we can also start acting more in ways that it's not easy to listen to you know but yes I think that That is where, shout out to all the fans in the stands,

what we have done with the show is we purposefully created a character who listened impossibly. He just, I mean, that's what I do. I go to work 85, 90% of the time I'm not talking. I'm just, and I stare. And often people come on the show, you know, in the beginning they're a little bit like,

this is so different. Like, somebody else is reading my thoughts, and I'm just like, I can stare at someone now, without doing anything for so long and not be uncomfortable. That's crazy. So, you know, really. It's like, I don't have to move. I'm just here.

And sometimes, like, after a long take, I'll be like, ugh. Because, like, all I was doing was just listening to you. And any chance I can have a feeling, you know. So, in a sense, the whole point of me saying that, though, is that I think what people are responding to is actually, in some ways, an actor who's not thinking about any of the serial, blah, blah, blah, I'm not, I'm not foreshadowing what's, I'm just, all I'm trying

to do. Be present. Is be present. Yeah. And that is, that is, that is a charm, uh, no matter who you are or how you do it. That's the whole purpose of the movie being there. Right. Choncy Gardner. My favorite movie just listens and people put all this stuff onto him because he's just so present. Yeah. Oh, he must be a genius. Let's elect him president, you know. But I do want to add to that because I think that's part of it. But I also think Joe represents kind of this dangerous trap that a lot of women fall into, which is the wounded good guy. Who needs to be fixed? The guy, yep, the guy with a good heart, good intentions, Joe was so tormented and he doesn't want to be. And, you know, he can turn into this puppy dog of like,

I love you. This is why I'm killing everyone. And girls are like, I can change him. But he represents, I think, what so many women, including myself, have struggled with over the years of being drawn to the good guy or the guy with the wounded, goodhearted guy. Not the bad boy. Is that different? That's part of that's another type of. That is the wounded, I think the heart of a bad boy is the same as the bad boy. No, no, no, no. The bad boy doesn't care.

The wounded good guy is like, I love you. but like I'm just not ready. I got to, yeah, exactly. The bad boy's like, I don't need you. I don't need anyone. And then the girls are like, oh my God, he's so hot. He must be right with God then. He must be self-subsistent.

They're different tropes with different magnets. Fascinating. One of the questions that we actually pose to the audience that I think is a really powerful one is what do you have to lose by humanizing the enemy? Wow, that's fascinating. What does that mean? That's such a great question. So this question was inspired by a TED talk given by Cassie J. She's talking a lot about gender dynamics and masculine female dynamics and feminism and the men's movement and all of that and how she was doing a documentary about the men's movement and in the process of making this documentary because she wanted she was setting out to basically show a. the world why it was toxic and horrible and they were all, you know, awful human beings.

And she said that in that process, as she interviewed more and more men, she realized how so many of them were actually just in so much pain. And when she would talk about that, her community, as she called it, felt like she was a sellout and she was a hypocrite. And so she was a hypocrite. And so she said that in her journey, she realized one of her biggest takeaways is often when you humanize your enemy, you risk being dehumanized by your community. Ah, it's deep. It's deep. And I think it's another piece of this puzzle that we're trying to figure out is a lot of this time, a lot of the time, the energy behind a lot of the time, the energy behind the, the

the dynamics that we have and the friction that we have is me coming from a place of us and you being relegated to a place of them. And it's me and us versus you. And if I was to accept that you have a point or to accept that maybe we agree on something, what does that mean about the us that I now belong to? Right. This happens a lot in the conflict in Israel and Gaza and Palestine, where Arab folks, Palestinian folks, who broach conversation with their Jewish neighbors

are betrayers of the Palestinian cause and Jewish folks that are protesting, you know, the Israel militia's military's use of force. They're self-hating Jews, you know. So it almost negates any kind of possible coming together for some kind of commonality or understanding, which is almost impossible under the best of circumstances. But if you have those two sides being shut down in that way, there's no way you could proceed. Well, and we have all kinds of creative and, you know, pseudo-intellectual labels for things like that. You know, like a woman who, who, a woman like Cassie J., who's talking about men being in pain, the common thing to call her would be, you know, say that she has internalized misogyny. You know, so we just throw labels like that that just shuts down this conversation that really needs to be had.

And, you know, you were giving a few examples there too. And I think we're just so quick to throw these labels on things because to do anything different is really uncomfortable. And we end up making our beliefs our identity. And one topic that we're talking about, which is incredibly important, but we end up making it our identity. And so when anybody thinks any differently, our identity actually feels threatened. rather than our belief being questioned, we interpreted it as our identity being threatened. That's a great point.

I hadn't thought about that. If we so internalize our opinions and our beliefs that they become part of who we are, that's why people get so, you know, reactive is because they feel their very identity is being attacked. And you talked earlier about, like, taking it personally. You have to ask yourself, do I see the world as progressing,

albeit maybe very slowly, but at all, towards this sort of vision of agreement and unity, which leads to healthy transformation for all, which would also bring justice, you know, more justice progressively in degrees for all? If the answer is I do not see that happening, we're, again, our thesis and our suggestion is,

well here is why you know we're addicted to anger you know I mean that's that's a gross oversimplification in some ways taken in the context of everything else we've said but we're addicted you could say just like what Dr.

Nura said like you get a dopamine hit from righteous anger right it sure seems like our whole country it's like on a dopamine treadmill of righteous anger yeah if not the world you know and And to us, we see that as a grave, serious, great, great problem and tragedy. And we're simply trying to offer what we understand as part of the solution, you know?

One way of thinking about it. And social media doesn't help. What's the role at that place? That one kind of changes, I feel, over time, you know? Because it's like it gets worse, but then you don't want to deny the... intrinsic value of the immediate connection between people on like opposite size of the planet, you know, um, something that we like the, you know, some of the, if there's value I bring to the table, it's like, okay, we're trying to frame this in a way where it's like we have the

entrance points. So let's remember on social media. It's not the phones or social media that's inherently bad. It's the fact that these are like, these are privatized platforms designed specifically to get you in habitual engagement. You know, Twitter is not just the place where, you know, people unanimously agreed or just intuitively decided that 140 characters is the best way for us to come together as a species and communicate. It happened because of an understanding of the attention span on a device. Certain colors were chosen in order to, you know,

communicate certain, right? Like, like, algorithmic, kind of dopamine control manipulation. I think capitalistic algorithms and our best understanding of human psychology in order to addict people,

more or less, is at the core of every app we use. Yeah, right? Even on Amazon, I get these notices of like, hey, review the product you got. Yeah. Because they want me to go back,

review it, and then say people who bought this. also bought this and then they want you to spend more time. But big box stores do the same thing where they put, you know, the free samples at Costco are in the back of the store. They want you spending more time in the store. In the front of the store like barbecue ovens and like dehumidifiers that no one wants.

The stuff you want, you need to kind of go to the back of the store because they calculate the amount of time you spend in a box store, the more money you're going to spend. Exactly. And they've just kind of taken that same algorithm and put it on your phone. Yeah, so we don't want to sound like boomers just saying social media is just a bad, toxic place. So it's understand the kind of capitalistic principles. Yeah, preying on your brain.

So don't be a victim to your own algorithmic dopamine. And something that we've done before, but we've not formalized is like, you know, just like what are some practices we can do to like kind of de-escalate your own like habit, right? and just know that, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. I can't be there at that protest right now, or I can't engage directly with this thing that really is inspiring me. So I'm doing this and, you know, like, how do I take that feeling and transform it and turn it into some seed of meaningful action if that's what I'm desiring? And again, that's the more high-minded, like kind of social justice aspect of things.

It's not necessarily, that's not the whole picture. And even social media is designed to feed you the negative first. You know, with the negative comments and the criticisms are always at the top. Outrage. Equals a faster click or a faster engagement than something that's pleasant. Even with this knowledge here, which I espouse and live sometimes, hopefully not a complete hypocrite, I don't go to social media or rather when I'm on social media and I use it. increasingly less.

I can totally see and feel like I don't want something meaningful. I'm not habituated to that. Like, I want something that's going to kind of flick my switches and just get my sensors going and make me feel... Yeah, right, exactly. The only time I ever spend more than, say, 15

or 20 minutes on at a time is when that process is happening. It's the doom scrolling or whatever we can now call it dopamine scrolling. And, I mean, we were saying before, like how we've deleted social media off our phones, but now YouTube actually is a place. Square. You know.

The YouTube shorts. Yeah. You know, someone flipping their kayak or an otter living in someone's kitchen. Oh, but that's so cute. That is so cute. Guys, raccoons, how about raccoons? And their little hands? Yeah, they're so human hands.

They're so little. Whale breaching videos. I was really into recently. Like, that's, that's like majestic. Right? Yeah. Let's go watch some. Let's go watch some.

Come on, guys. This is boring. Let's go turn on YouTube. Dr. Arthur Brooks was on the show. He was one of my favorite human beings on the planet, one of the wisest. He did a commencement address at Brigham Young University, and this is a thesis that he comes back to again and again and again. He said, what has happened in the modern world is really quite simple.

We need to disagree better. It's okay to disagree. We have to learn how to disagree better. Disagree with respect. Disagree with civility. disagree with like compassion and can i so can i ask the most obvious next question why like i'm we're obviously with you but i think a lot of people especially young people in a culture that is so used to a form of emotional violence intellectual violence actual violence the question comes

to some people screaming for justice why yeah why is it important to disagree better why do we need civility we've not been treated civilly because right and i would say The answer to that from my perspective is the alternative is not fruitful. So if you want change, you have to disagree better. If you want real change, yes, you can yell at people. It might feel really good. Like if I said, here's one of two, I'm going to say two incendiary statements to you. Okay.

Affirmative action has been proven to not work, and we need to stop having race, oriented kind of scholarship at schools. We've tried that for decades. It doesn't really work. And you throw that out. Now, do you throw that out to a lot of people? They hear that opinion. Not my opinion, but you hear that opinion.

And you're a racist. And so it becomes a really instantly like a super hot button issue. And then as soon as you lob the R word at someone, you're a racist, that shuts down the conversation. and the consultation, and it doesn't move anything forward. But I understand the reactivity because it comes from hundreds of years of oppression and being

held back. And so how would you deal with something like that in Can We Talk? Oh, the most challenging and vital issue of racism in America. Yeah. I mean, it's, of course, a question that begs asking. Certainly, you know, this is something that. Specifically, race is something that we do explore a lot, and I think we make it interactive, right? I mean, we're not trying to act as, like, certainly I as a white man.

I'm not going to be speaking about it in certain ways, but let me just underscore that that's a very important question. Are you asking how do we talk about race? I'm using that as an example. Yeah. And saying if someone was at one of your events and said, here's my opinion. Yeah, right. If you said, like, what's an opinion you had that's, you know, potentially dangerous or incendiary? And someone said, I don't believe in an affirmative action.

I've read a lot about it. I don't think it works. And here's why. And then immediately people were bristling at that. Uh-oh, this person's probably racist. How do you foster dialogue over something like that? Well, I think for me, the first question that I ask people is, do you

do you want to make progress do you want to make change or are you angry and you just need to be and you just need to be angry for a minute vent or something yeah because that's that's valid that's legit but are you wanting change or are you wanting to vent two different paths

two very different approaches well can I say that maybe the totally has validity to it I wonder because we've never we're approaching it in an analytical way and I think what's worked really well about can we talk is that when that kind of because race of course has come

up, kind of anything, you name it, like, has come up. I feel like right after Ukraine was invaded, we had a Ukrainian, right, refugee, student, and like they were speaking, you know, it's like, and it was the first question, actually, I think it was asked. That was right off the gate. Yeah, and you know, and it's like, this stuff is real and it's emotional, it's visceral, and we always approach it from a heart-centered space. So it's like, here, so what you just said, I mean, I like. And then I also think we're all here talking about it at this table. There's always the risk of removing context, intellectualizing it,

and then making like a false dichotomy or a binary where there doesn't need to be one. Like somebody can be angry and want progress at the same time. Not with that statement, though. What's the statement? Saying you're a racist. Oh, oh, oh, oh. You know, so I'm responding to that specifically. Like, are you in a constructive headspace or are you not?

And I think that's the most important thing to recognize at first is what kind of headspace are you in? They're all valid. We just have to know what we're working with and where you're coming from. And then I think the next step after that is then being curious. Because if somebody was to say you're a racist based off of one statement that you make that might be incomplete or misunderstood or just taken in the wrong way, which is, I guess, being misunderstood. that's a really hard one to not get defensive about. That's a really hard one to be like, tell me more.

Why do you think that? That's maybe like the one time that I'm like, no, I'm not. Flip the table over. But I think if you can get to a point of being curious and wanting to understand their why and where they're coming from and what they're hearing,

because half the time what you're saying is not what the other person is hearing when it becomes inflamed. like that. Probably more than half, right? I mean, it's like most of the time it seems at least, at least at the social level we're talking about, like you talk about social media spaces, especially if the matter of race and racism is, is the topic at hand. I mean, yeah, like how often are people who need to be communicating actually hearing each other? Yeah. That certainly doesn't happen on Twitter, right? No. You were talking about some universals in communication between

couples and universals between just good solid communication. What are some of those rules? Well, a big one that comes to my mind is the more you feel like you have in common with the person you're talking to, the more pliable you are and some of your thoughts. So if you feel like the person you're talking to is like you or gets you, there's more room for them to, insert something a little bit different for you to think about. So it's finding a point of commonality. Yeah. So that you foster that kind of feeling of commonality and building from that.

Building from it. Yeah. I would say that's the most effective. I think trying to, and we said this a second ago a little bit, but trying to stay in a place of mindful responsiveness rather than hot-headed reactivity, you know, which that's a hard one because psychologically, if I can just for a second, you know, our brains are actually wired to give us a dopamine hit. Our reward centers go crazy when we think that we are operating from a place of justice and putting somebody in

their place. When I think I'm telling you off and putting you in your place, And I am a social justice warrior. Yeah. The reward center in my brain is going crazy. I had no idea about that. Yeah. Yeah. This was found in a study done by Yale, I believe.

Which is a great chemical impulse for the human condition to speak up, find your voice, speak the truth, speak truth to power. And you get actual, you know, chemical reward, but it can be dangerous because then you take it too far. And then everywhere you go, you're like, Gaza! Yeah. And it's just, and there's no conversation. Yeah. Yeah. So recognizing that is really important.

We've stumped pen. Well, what I like to do is often play devil's advocate to, like myself, which is a terrible loop to always be in. But to what we're saying. So like earlier we named somebody who was justifiably angry at a potentially racist statement and then accusing someone of. racism or maybe identifying them as a racist. And then we just named somebody who might, you know, whether they identify as a social justice warrior or that's what somebody maybe belittling them might call them because they're vocal on social media.

You know, we, what's interesting is that we happen to have just sort of imagined people who ostensibly are more on the sort of liberal and progressive side. And what I hear from progressives and liberals, which much of my life has been the sort of milieu I've come from, is an impatience with the suggestions we're making because there are certain accusations made of, say, someone who is racist, which are true, which is that is somebody who is,

Exhibiting racist ideologies and beliefs and willfully being Hateful and ignorant because past a certain point you have to be responsible for your for who you are and how you think and how you act, you know And and so I'm just thinking of the Somebody who might be listening and wondering I just want to poke even more like why is it That because because there's there's something called respectability politics right which has been leveraged against black Americans and other people of color historically, which is to say... Talk to us about that. What is that?

So, as I understand it, it's basically suggesting that in a name of civility, we... Town police? Yeah, like, basically, you're just policing people's behavior and actually enforcing the status quo, which is racist. I mean, it just is.

Otherwise, we wouldn't have it. It's holding people down. It's holding people down. It's holding people down. angry and we're not able to have a conversation because you're so angry so simmer down yes so that actually is oppress oppression exactly so you know so i think what we have to be careful about is using language and speaking in a way about these things um which can sound coded to others and which it has like historical bias in it and you know and and i you know what we're doing

and what often happens on the stage in the moment when we're talking to college students, you know, of every background, which is really cool, such heart comes out, such patience comes out, such curiosity comes out. Everybody who comes these events is like really interested in being like, yeah, so what is this? But then I'm thinking about people who, you know,

for whatever reason in the moment or just habitually are not thinking that patience is going to, get us anywhere thinking that the word civility to me civility has i don't like that word um just like i don't like to use the terms white privilege anymore or woke or because they've they've just been kind of siphoned of their meaning and they've they've been weaponized right like they have and because we live in a in a in a world where these these violent oppressive norms are still being violent and oppressive to countless groups of people you know it's like the time is now the urgency couldn't be higher and the idea that we have to almost like slow down and listen to each other

sounds crazy you know i just want to acknowledge that i think it does sound to some people like are you sure because guess what i've even tried that i think or i've done that i think or i've seen it happen and not work oh do you want me to be like that one black dude who made friends with several kkk members and like one by one is i guess deconstructing the clue clock's like i you know Is that what we're saying? And I just feel like, you know, if we're not careful that... And by the way, we're careful. We're trying to be careful.

We're trying to explore like, yeah, yeah. In a lot of ways, you're right. In a lot of ways, like, it feels like we don't have time for that. In a lot of ways, it feels like it's too urgent. But, you know, we really believe... I think part of the premise that we have here is, like, it's too important, it's too urgent, to not have the patience to like,

to set about really exploring what is going to move us as a people, as a world forward. And I mean, I guess that sounds a little bit grandstandy because it's very big, but the reason we're starting with like, okay, so then what are the dynamics between just two people? Right.

What, what, okay, so let's play devil's advocate to this whole premise. So then between two people who are upset with each other, angry, how do they not only resolve but discover a truth together which then binds them together and provides insight to both of them which actually makes them both better and more knowledgeable more understanding more whole because they're more open-ended and curious and it's like okay that little bit of my of my bias i just shift a

open a bit and I'm now letting in other things. It's not about invalidating the anger. It's about harnessing it in the right way, which can feel stifling, you know. Like I talked about, you know, in the family home oftentimes if healthy anger isn't modeled, it becomes very difficult to express. Absolutely. One of the cornerstones of consultation is dispassionate conversation, right? So you remove the self, you remove the ego from the conversation in an effort to actually find truth. The effort is not to be understood. The effort is to seek truth. And scientifically, this is one of the most fundamental principles of the happiest couples is the couple who removes ego from conversation. So many people think that the happiest couples are the

couples who know. Who don't have conflict. Right. Right. Or the couples who know how to de-escalate it. So they know that like if you're getting upset, if I put my hand on your shoulder, or if I crack a joke or, you know, somehow help you regulate your nervous system, that that means we are a successful couple. And it does. However, the even more successful couples, which nobody talks about, are the couples who don't.

Have a great sex. Okay. Okay. Come on. It's just such a low-hanging. It is. It is. The even more successful couples are the ones who don't get dysregulated in the first place.

Who know that when they're talking about something hard, something really complicated or tender, that it's not personal. And that is scientifically backed. And this is the same principle of consultation. And it's the same thing that we try to talk about. in the events that we have. So you guys are all in on these conversations. This is fascinating. We haven't had anyone on the show remotely

talking about this arena. Oh, cool. And I think this is really cool and much, much needed. Because finding someone and developing real intimacy and courtship and commitment and mutual trust is the foundation of family.

regardless of gender. It's the foundation of building a family. And you can't have good families without that kind of like that strong cemented foundation of the two parental figures at the center of it. This conversation couldn't be more important.

So what is can we talk? Oh, the hardest question to answer. It is not. No, I'm always wanting to drill deeper and deeper and like understand something better. So I sometimes lose side of it and then gain side of it again. I love how you're like,

I'm always trying to understand something better. Yeah, she's totally content with a superficial, just like a, just a mantra. Yeah. She's happy with a. Can we talk? Can we talk? Why don't you,

you go ahead and describe it. It's a live event. Is it online? Is it a podcast? It's really live. Like, rain, like what I'm trying to say. Who invited this guy?

It's a live event. We go to different, typically universities, colleges around the country, and talk with students about really how to have meaningful conversations during really polarized difficult times. So we talk. Not just about love. No, it's actually very little about love. It could be politics. That's true.

We start in the entrance point that hopefully you all just got, if you didn't cut it to pieces. That brings people in? Yeah, that's kind of where we start because that's kind of where we meet. right that's where we have relevance i don't have any like authority or expertise obviously the way that she does but i but i have experience in that kind of that that stuff you know what i mean but then what we draw out from that is this idea that actually all all relationships whether it's between you know you can talk about this sort of ideal of two people who are married where you tend to learn a lot about your imperfections and how to listen and be patient and discover truth together

or build something true together. Or if it's even like we're talking about nations, you know, like literally the international stage. The same principles of relationships apply to all levels. Of course, they they complexify and are different at different levels, the same way any law applies to anything, the same way that gravity is a bit different at the macro, you know, the same. Our focus is on how to have healthy discourse.

It's not focusing necessarily on love or politics or religion. It's more about we've lost the ability to connect on our level of being humans and realizing that we actually probably have more in common than we have different. And instead, we've become so combative that we've completely lost the plot. We don't know how to talk about anything. We're not making progress. So our focus is really on how to have these harder conversations. I bring in the psychological component of how to effectively communicate principles of conflict, how the mind works, how defensiveness can work, what becomes constructive.

And so the psychological component, but what Penn brings to the table that I don't, well, I don't think you give yourself enough credit because the media really does shape how we view each other and how we allow ourselves to talk to each other. And you've been in the hub of that for so long. The belly of the beast. Yeah. Corroated by its stomach acid, but alive. But it's still here.

So this thing has, in a way, just gotten started. It was sort of slow going because of the pandemic, work, children, et cetera. But, you know, we've had about half a dozen, seven. We've done like six or seven, yeah. Breakout groups also something that we've talked about. We've talked about, like, okay, how full? far can we even get with this platform as it exists. Two people on a stage with a microphone. Microphones in the crowd. And it is quite interactive. I mean, there have been such resoundingly

profound, affecting moments for all of us. Like, you know, every time there's at least a few moments where it's like, ah, this is really rewarding. And it's like a confirmation that we should keep doing this. You know what I mean? But surely it's going to always grow and change. And we would like to see it grow and change, and that would mean we've got to find a way to like, this is how you practically apply it. Let's do that together. And then let's like even be able to have continuity where you check back in. But that's, there could be a workbook or a book that comes out of this. Theoretically, there could. It's been suggested. Yeah. So how can people find out more about can we talk and what you guys are doing or bring your, bring your roadshow to their

local college or university. Do you have a website or social media, a way to reach you guys? Both. All the things. Yeah, we have a website which can't help it feel archaic because it's like, go on your computer and type in WWW.W. What is the address? I don't even know it. It's can we talkseries.com. Yeah. We just started it. Can we talk series? Yeah, because can we talk.com was not available. Can we talkseries.com? Okay. Can we talk series.com? Yeah, because it's a discourse series. Okay. Can we talk series.com. And then there's it explains a little bit about what we do, how to contact us. Our social media is also Can We Talk Series. We're on TikTok and Instagram.

And what's your cell phone number? So yeah, can we talk series on all the things. And we're right now we're booking for East Coast for the fall. Yeah. Right. Ideally, like New York, New England-y areas. Yeah. And then hopefully branching outside of that in spring, right? And then, yeah, so we're open for business.

If you want us to come to your school, it helps for schools to contact us. A lot of people are like, come to us. Like, I want you to come to my university and call their activities office. And it's a little more complicated. You need to get an offer email. and offer letter. They've got to come to us. Yeah.

Okay. Well, part of what I do is I speak on college campuses a lot about mental health and also about spiritual tools for mental health and a little bit about my story. And there's nothing more beautiful or powerful than talking to people that are on the front lines, these young folks that are on the front lines of kind of societal collapse and confusion and the mental health epidemic and, you know, trying to find tools to make their lives. It's better. Absolutely. It's the world they're inheriting, you know, from us.

I was there not long ago. We all were, you know, and it's like they were not given the tools. And so they have to find tools. And if folks have tools to offer, all the better. We try. Thank you so much. Thank you for having us. Thank you for having us. Thank you so much for having us. This is great.

Thank you so much for having us. Good luck with your mission. Thank you. All right. The Soul Boom podcast. Subscribe now on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcast. and wherever else you get your stupid podcasts.