Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 213: Mating in Captivity, Esther Perel

Episode Date: November 13, 2019

Psychotherapist and New York Times bestselling author Esther Perel is recognized as one of today’s most insightful and original voices on modern relationships. Perel provides her insight on such topics as: how to make a relationship work in today’s society, the real reasons why we cheat, and how political or economic shifts can affect our relationships. Her celebrated TED talks on relationships have garnered more than 28 million views and her international bestseller Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence became a global phenomenon translated into 25 languages. Plug Zone Website, Newsletter and Blog: https://www.estherperel.com/ Podcast: Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/where-should-we-begin-with-esther-perel/id1237931798 Podcast: How’s Work? With Esther Perel: https://open.spotify.com/show/0P13JasQfVZ1RiDCMZMYNU Book: Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence: https://www.amazon.com/Mating-Captivity-Unlocking-Erotic-Intelligence/dp/0060753641 Book: The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity: https://www.estherperel.com/store/the-state-of-affairs TED Talk: Rethinking infidelity… a talk for anyone who has ever loved https://www.ted.com/talks/esther_perel_rethinking_infidelity_a_talk_for_anyone_who_has_ever_loved?language=en TED Talk: The secret to desire in a long-term relationship: https://www.ted.com/talks/esther_perel_the_secret_to_desire_in_a_long_term_relationship?language=en The Future of Love, Lust, and Listening: SXSW 2018: https://www.sxsw.com/interactive/2018/esther-perel-interactive-keynote-at-sxsw-2018-video/ Relationship Skills and Workplace Dynamics at SXSW 2019: https://www.sxsw.com/interactive/2019/esther-perel-on-relationship-skills-and-workplace-dynamics-at-sxsw-2019-video/ Instagram: @estherperelofficial Twitter: @EstherPerel Facebook: @esther.perel, https://www.facebook.com/esther.perel/ Have a question for Dan? Leave us a voicemail: 646-883-8326 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Before we jump into today's show, many of us want to live healthier lives, but keep bumping our heads up against the same obstacles over and over again. But what if there was a different way to relate to this gap between what you want to do and what you actually do? What if you could find intrinsic motivation for habit change that will make you happier instead of sending you into a shame spiral? Learn how to form healthy habits without kicking your own ass unnecessarily by taking our healthy habits course over on the 10% happier app. It's taught by the Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonical and the Great Meditation Teacher Alexis

Santos to access the course. Just download the 10% happier app wherever you get your apps or by visiting 10% calm. All one word spelled out. Okay on with the show. For ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello, before we dive into a truly fascinating and my opinion, riveting discussion with a couples counselor, before we dive into that, if you're interested in relationships, and by the way, it's not just relationships, romantic relationships, also relationships with anybody in your life. If you're interested in doing that work of being a human being in contact

with other beings more successfully, check out there's a great course on our one of the most popular courses we have on our app, the 10% happier app, the course is called quite simply relationships. The teacher is orange, a sofa. People come up to me on the street and stop me to tell me how much they love orange so far. So, there's something about this guy. I love him too, so I'm not entirely surprised by that. But this course is a great way to teach you practical actionable skills for cultivating

a kind of more mindful communication, which is very often the sort of currency of relationships. If you don't have the app and you want to check it out, you can do so for free. There's a seven-day trial that you can start at your leisure. All right, let's get to the episode. Our guest this week is Esther Perel, who is a Belgian-born psychotherapist. She practices here in New York City, a big part of what she does, is couples counseling or marriage therapy. She has written a couple of best-selling books, including the amazingly titled book, Mating in Captivity. I love, and then she filed that

up with State of Affairs. She's given TED Talks, which have garnered more than 20 million views, and she has a podcast where you can hear her kind of work in real time. It's called, uh, where should we begin? I loved this conversation. To sit with somebody whose mind is so sharp and is a person who's clearly so brilliant and talking about an issue that matters to all of us was super invigorating for me, and went, just to emphasize how this does matter for all of us, I want to quote one thing she says that you're going to hear her say and also expound upon. This is the quote, ultimately is the quality of your relationships that determines the quality of your life. And that is not just mere opinion, that is backed up by reams of science. So in this episode we talk about a term she's

developed called erotic intelligence. We talk about in her observation on the front lines of marriages and relationships what are the common denominators among successful couples. We talk about the role of internal reflection including meditation in being in a healthier relationship. We talk about the shifting stigma around couples therapy. She thinks the stigma is going down. And finally, we address a big question, which is, why do people cheat? And then stick around afterwards.

One of our, we got a very brave voicemail question, a question submitted to us via voicemail from a listener. And we ran it by Esther and she answers it so that that'll be after the interview. In the meantime here we go Esther Perel. Well thanks for doing this, appreciate it very much. I'm happy to be here. I'm just by way of backstory and background, how did you get interested in relationships and sexuality? So I have always thought of myself as a cross-cultural psychologist, and what that meant, specifically for me, is that I have, for more than three decades, been looking at how our relationships

change when large cultural, social, or political shifts occur. So how do relationship change when there is migration, forced or voluntary migration? How does that change child-waring practices or gender roles in a family? What happens when there is the fall of a political regime and a change from communism to capitalism and democracies? What happens when there is mixed marriages,

cultural racial and religious intermarriage, which is often kind of migrating in one's own living room, or what happens with the digital revolution. And so I've always looked as a couple and family therapist at how these large cultural shifts affect what happens in the intimacy of relationships. And then I took it a step further, which was what happens when it also enters the bedroom. And what happens under the sheets? Why? Because sexuality that interests me is not so much about what people do with each other. It's really the fact that the most archaic, rooted aspects of a culture are rooted, are located around its views, beliefs, attitudes towards sexuality, and the most progressive radical changes that occur in societies also take place around sexuality.

And this is very clearly understood in the United States. From gay marriage to abortion rights to abstinence campaigns, we completely know that you can look at a society through the lens of sexuality and you will understand a lot. So too for a relationship, a couple or an individual. And so putting sexuality and relationships together came in about 20 years later, but it made perfect sense. You use a few, I just doing some background reading that my friend said. Was this clear with our just said? Yes, and it raises a bunch of questions that I'm really excited to talk to you about.

You use a bunch in reading about you, Samuel, who's one of our producers, that handsome guy seated in the corner over there, gave me a bunch of research. And there were a few phrases that really left out to me that I thought were really provocative. One is the modern ideology of love, which popped into my head after your first, while you were speaking on that first question there. What do you mean by modern ideology of love? The modern ideology of love is basically romanticism and everything that followed. So, what happens in romanticism is that the narrative of love becomes central to our committed relationships. We no longer have marriages that are primarily economic institutions.

We bring love to marriage. Then we bring sex to love and marriage. And then we link even sexual satisfaction with marital happiness. We also want one person to give us security, stability, predictability, safety, reliability, permanence, all the rooted anchoring experiences of life. And we want that same person to give us passion and awe and mystery and love, and excitement and unknown and surprise, and this notion that we're going to find the right person, which today is even called soulmate, which used to be God, not a human being, will give us what once

an entire village used to provide. And that ascension, that know, that kind of entrainment of the relationship, of that one and only person, with whom I'm going to experience intimacy, which today doesn't mean that you share the vicissitudes of everyday life together, it means into me see. We are going to reveal each other in a discursive experience, the way we talk, while we're looking deep into each other's eyes, and you are going to help me become the best version of myself and vice versa. That is the modern ideology of love. So is this ideology at the root of the divorce rate? No, no. The root of the divorce rate is that people finally could leave. And that meant primarily women. Marriage has always been an institution

in which you did it once. There was no exit, and it was still death to us apart. Where romanticism enters is that it has become where love dies, not when we die. That is different. But what changed and what created the divorce was that there was less of a threat of excommunication, that there was more economic independence for women, and that there was no full divorce laws, and that women could actually leave without fear that they would be destitute and

without children. So I think that just making the divorce with a matter of a reaction to unprecedented expectations and therefore high dissolution is not fully complete. There is a whole set of economic and political reasons that really influence divorce. That's so interesting. So given just getting back to the overheated expectations that we, well, I don't know about everybody, I'll just speak for myself, that I bring into my romantic relationships and I imagine many others do, how do we navigate that?

You're on the front lines, you're on the couch or you're actually probably in a cozy chair well, the couples on a couch talking to couples, what do successful couples do to navigate this? Look, first of all, I think that there is something very beautiful in the fact that we expect more from our partnerships and our relationships than many people did before. I mean, it's not a matter of is it right and wrong or good and bad, but it means that,

you know, what has happened in our secularized, individualistic, consumer-oriented society is that we have brought lots of expectations that belonged to religion and to geographies and to institutions and to larger families, and all of those things have now been siphoned into our Romantic relationship and our work for that matter, which is why where should we begin and how's work because all Disney the two podcasts Yes, they they really Highlight what I think is happening in our society is that many needs that Communal and that were religious have been siphoned into love and work. So that's part of why this became such rich

territories of exploration for me. Now, I think that as a couple's therapies, maybe that's an interesting way of asking about couples and successful couples. Couples therapy is a rather recent profession. Why did it emerge and become as central as it is today? Because this is the first time in the history of humankind that the survival of the family depends on the happiness of the couple. And that's why couples therapy becomes as central as it is, right? You had families, the family met, mattered and you basically took whatever your relationship was going to be because you were married for the service of the family.

And that is very, very different. So on the one hand, we demand much more, but we are also investing a lot more. We've never invested more in love and then we do today as well. But therefore, when it doesn't happen, we often, you know, trail a lot of disenchantment and we fall from very high. There's a colleague of mine, Eli Fingel, who says, you know, the couples of today that are good and succeed at what they are aspiring to are often much better than the couples of history. But it's like climbing a mountain.

At the top, the view is really beautiful, but the air is also thinner and not everybody gets there. Now, then the question is, what makes us go there? I think one of the things from my end that is definitely clear is the people who come early on. A couple of steps used to be the thing you go literally as a last chance, you know, last call before the gates close. And this is really changing.

People come early on. They understand their older, their 10 years older than they were in the 60s when they partner, you know, and they want to make this, they want to optimize their relationship. They really want to make it a good solid base. And they come from the beginning before they arrive with encrusted patterns that are completely rigid and fossilized. So that is already a good resource. And then what really goes into relationships is basic things of how much people are able to deal with a lot of different ways, you know, to answer that question.

I think a good relationship has a foundational balance between how we meet our security needs and our commitment and how we deal with our need for freedom and individuality. That is actually one of the most important balance, togetherness and separateness. And that touches on a lot of different things, but that is a conversation from day one. What do we do together? What do we share? What are the decisions that we consider of? Join decisions. What are the people that we must see together? The activities that we must do together?

The commitments, the loyalties, and then where do we still have some space for our own self-expression, for our own freedom, for our own purposes and things that matter to us, that the other person doesn't really care too much about? Then there is admiration, I think, goes a long way because it's different from compassion, from respect, because when you admire, you also have a certain element of idealization, and it means that you really are curious about the other.

So curiosity is crucial. A sense of aliveness, I think that that is to me essential, vibrancy, vitality, because that means that you're still looking forward for something, you're hoping for things, meaning you haven't yet gone around the block and that's it, and this is what it's going to be for the next 25 years, is this it? Yes. Those who say, I don't know yet what's still in store for us, there's still a level of anticipation that breeds tremendous energy into a relationship. Doing for the other just because they care.

Just a good dose of generous spirit. You know, it doesn't matter to me, but it makes the other person happy and I'm happy to do that just for that reason. And then on the other side, accepting that the other person is doing it just because you asked, and because you're worthy of that, even if they couldn't care less, rather than they should want what I want because they should agree with how important it is. That's just a start. That's a good start.

You know, the knock, I feel I hear, I feel I hear some from people in my world. If you're in couples therapy, it's over. Yeah. You only go there to facilitate a breakup. And also there seems to be some stigma around it. If you admit you're in couples therapy, well then everybody knows that you're on the rocks. So I think it's changing a lot. It's changing a lot. And I would say that the podcast where should we begin is helping me see this because what is this thing? It's literally listening to couples therapy of other couples and going behind closed doors

and listening in deeply on the experience of others while in fact seeing yourself in your own mirror. And beginning to reflect on what's happening to you, even if you don't relate to the specifics, you actually relate to the central themes of these conversations. And so, I think that that is being in couples therapy without being in my office. And I think that that's what needs to change, is that the idea that you need to go and isolate yourself in a room that is described by being a problem-driven space.

It's very different than when I do a workshop and people come to a workshop. They come with the same issues, but they don't think that they're coming to the problem-ridden environment. Well, it's even less so when they listen to the podcast, they're listening to stories, they're listening to a podcast, but they're in couple's therapy. And I think if you broaden couple's therapy to a practice rather than to a space, you already are beginning to redefine it. You know, it used to be that going to a therapist meant you crazy. Mental health and madness have been deeply connected like that.

Today you come to couple's therapy or to individual therapy for that matter. Not just because of mental health issues or mental illness, but you also come because it has become the new place where you are processing identity. And trying to define yourself, your values, your aspirations, your hopes, your fears, and that process of identity formation that used to take place in other places, as in the community, because the community told you who you were. You didn't have to go and sit somewhere to figure out who am I. Or in church, or in religious institutions.

That is part of the new therapeutic practice. It's therapy itself has changed meaning. So, there are still quarters where if you go to Gabas therapy, it means it's over. But then you say to them, seriously, you really only bring your carto de the garage when it's kaput? Or do you understand the notion of maintenance? Do you understand that this is the thing that you want to do for decades on end and without ever taking a check on what planet do you live? You know, there is no other institution as in an intimate relationship where people think because I was in a high when I started

and I found the person and I could finally delete my apps, that's it, we're gonna coast like that. It's just a level of ideal, that is idealism. See, that is part of that myth of a, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, is an incredibly important thing to do, especially given the stakes you elucidated several minutes ago that the survival of the family depends upon the happiness of the parents. So to normalize this, to get the word out, that this is maintenance and that you can do it when you're on the rocks, you can do it proactively and protectively and in a preventive way, that seems to be just in my opinion enormously healthy because

I've had a psychiatrist or psychologist friend who said to me, and I expect you might agree with this, that we get no training for how to be in romantic relationships. We do, but it's called our family. Yes, and it's not always a good training. Yes, that's it. Or the movie. Correct.

But you know, I'll say to you like this, being healthy isn't just not being sick. And most of your health, you don't acquire at a doctor. You acquire in the way that you live your life, and you know that very well. So this is true for mental health. And to understand that mental health is deeply influenced by relational health. That ultimately it is the quality of your relationships that determines the quality of your lives. This is why we do this. Now I don't want to let sir, I apologize for interpreting that. I just want to put a pen in the importance. I want to, sorry, I want to amplify the importance

of what you just said. I don't want to let it go by too quickly. The quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives. So that is not just a passing bromide. That is deeply based in evolution. We are social creatures. Correct. And, you know, a lonely, I've said this

before on my show that a lonely person on the savannah was a dead person. We are deeply wired for intimate interpersonal connection. Correct. And I think people forget that, especially in this atomized tech-driven age where we're looking for likes on Facebook instead of actually having a conversation. So I would completely agree with that, and I will expand on this like that. This is the foundational belief of all my work, that the quality of your relationships determines the quality of your life. And this is true at home, where should we begin, podcast?

And this is true at work, house work podcast. It's really both. That's what took me a moment to understand. The location changes, but the same, you know, at work, no amount of purpose or money or even free food will compensate for a poisonous relationship in the workplace. Everybody gets that. So, but something is changing about relationships. will compensate for a poisonous relationship in the workplace. Everybody gets that.

So, but something is changing about relationships. Relationships are undergoing massive change. And this is where my work as a couple-star-pist, family-turbist intersects with what's happening in the world at large. And the way I looked at this is two ways. One, you know, I go to Europe a lot, I go to small villages where the neighbors literally are a meter away from each other.

And so. At the metric system kids, about three feet. Yeah, sorry. And what happens in the village like this is everybody knows what's happening in the neighbor's house. You're not alone. You know that they fight and they reconcile. You know what they say to each other.

Today you have no idea what is going on in other people's relationships. And therefore you don't know if what you are experiencing is unique, is different, is marginal, or is actually part of a larger collective experience. Number one, number two, in that village, relationships were very clear. There was a clear structure, everybody knew who they were, everybody knew what was expected of them, your sense of identity and your sense of belonging was very

clear and it was regulated by a set of institutions, the larger family, the school, the religious authorities, etc. We have completely shifted from structure to network. And in our network society, your digital society where you won't lose threats that you can go in and out of where commitment is much more fluid, you have a lot more freedom than you've ever had before. But you also have a lot of uncertainty and a lot of self-doubt when you now have to become the master of your own identity. What do I want? What do I believe in? Who's going to wake up to feed the baby? Who's career matters more? Who has a right to demand for sex? Everything is up for negotiation.

And the rules and the duty and the obligation of the past system are now replaced basically by conversations. And that's why suddenly this becomes very relevant. Why is this exploding like this? Because people need to have conversations about stuff they never needed to have. Did you ever have to discuss if you want a child? No. You had sex, you probably will have children at some point. Nobody asked you if you're ready. Today it's an existential question, not just a biological question. And once all of these things become part of conversations, then you need to learn. And therapy, at this point, is a part of that psycho-educational experience?

Amen. You brought up sex. There's another quote that I really like, or point phrase. I believe you coined that I think is provocative and worth exploring erotic intelligence. Yes So it's a very interesting thing right? I my first book is called mating in captivity, but originally It's a one of a kind. I tried with the state of affairs. It's not bad either, the second book. No, no, it's not bad either. You're right. There's something truly magical about that. About mating. But the original, when I wrote about mating, I wrote about erotic intelligence.

And at first it was a bit of a spoof, because I thinking of Daniel Goulemann who wrote about emotional intelligence and Colberg who wrote about moral intelligence. And my husband basically said, we're going to do EQ, you know, because we knew that there is erotic arts. Ars erotica exists throughout human history. But to think of it as an intelligence, A made it more contemporary, but two now I had to define it. So here's how I would define. Animals have sex. And it is the pivot, and it is our instinct, and it is the basic, biological component. But we have an erotic mind. We are actually capable of making love for hours, having a blissful experience and touching nobody, just because we can imagine it. And we are the ones who can dream about it and can make meaning to it and give the poetic touch to it. And that is what makes this the erotic experience. It is

pleasure for its own sake. It is the central agent of the erotic is our imagination. It's not what we do physically. And it is utterly not related to reproduction. And that notion of erotic intelligence, which is how do you maintain this is beyond sexuality? It's eros in the sense of life force. How do you maintain yourself alive? Vibrant vital. What do you do for relationships? And what is the difference between relationships that are not dead and relationships that are alive?

What's the difference between surviving and driving? We know it in physical terms We don't always think of it in relational terms and that erotic Intelligence is our ability to stay connected to that energy so that you don't sit there next to your partner feeling lonely. And there is no worst loneliness than the one you feel next to the person with whom you should actually feel connected. And think, is this it? How trapped am I going to be here and for many more years. Rather than, you know, I still have a lot to look forward to.

This story isn't over. And that is the antidote to death. That is the erotic as an antidote to death. You know, simply, simply put. People know it when they experience something that feels like they are locked, they're trapped, they can't get out, they barely breathe, they don't look forward to anything, there's no horizon. And when you live in a relationship like that, by definition, it also taps into your health. Relational health is directly connected to stress, which is directly connected to any other physical symptoms

you may get. And we don't like to think about it in this kind of integrated way, but it happens to be the case. Stay tuned more of our conversation is on the way after this. Celebrity feuds are high stakes. You never know if you're just going to end up on page 6 or Du Moir or in court. I'm Matt Bellissi. And I'm Sydney Battle and we're the host of Wonder E's new podcast, This and Tell, where each episode we unpack a different iconic celebrity feud from the build up, why it happened, and the repercussions. What does our obsession with these feud say about us? The first season is packed

with some pretty messy pop culture drama, but none is drawn out in personal as Britney and Jamie Lynn Spears. When Britney's fans formed the free Britney movement dedicated to fraying her from the infamous conservatorship, Jamie Lynn's lack of public support, it angered some fans, a lot of them. It's a story of two young women who had their choices taken away from them by their controlling parents, but took their anger out on each other. And it's about a movement to save a superstar, which set its sights upon anyone who failed to fight for Brittany.

Follow disenthal wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad free on Amazon Music or the Wonder App. When couples come to you and say they're having problems in their intimate life, generally speaking, what are the, what do they want? Yeah, or what do you advise? Look, most couples may want more sex. That's the intimate party talking about, right? Or you're talking in general in sex. So most people may want more sex, but all people would like better. And when they talk about better, it is dearotic they're talking about. What they want to feed is a level of intensity, of pleasure, of playfulness, of curiosity, of imagination, of mystery, of all. They don't just want to do sex. Sex isn't just something you do, it's a place you go.

And so the questions you ask is not what do you do, you know? How often, how hard, how strong, how long, the stuff you can measure. What you ask is, what's the quality of your experience? How do you feel about yourself when you engage with your partner? You know, what parts of you do you connect with? What do you express? What's, because sexuality is a language. You know, what parts of you do you connect with? What do you express? Because sexuality is a language.

What is it you say when you are intimately connected with your partner? Is it intimate? What kind of intimacy do you actually seek? There are lots of different types of intimacy that are not only about gazing into each other's eyes. When do you release? What is the control you want to keep and when do you like to surrender? There is no greater power than voluntary surrender.

Giving yourself over to somebody is the greatest gift you can give and also the greatest sense of agency you can have. And it's that that you talk about. You talk about health, you talk about discrepanty desires with one person who is still longing and feeling a real sense of loss and the other one who says, over my dead body, I couldn't be bothered. What do you do in those situations? You talk about monogamy and exclusivity.

You talk about what it's like when you have an affair because your partner is Hal'sheimer and you go to visit them three times a week and you are deeply loyal, but you also want to still stay connected to the world of the living and the loving. You talk about the complexities of life and how sexuality intersects with all of that. You talk about abuse, you talk about sexual trauma.

It's actually extraordinarily rich and vast, way beyond just how often do you have sex. So it's not like you as a therapist can dig into your toolbox and say, here are three hacks it's going to solve all your problems. Oh please. Now, there are things sometimes where you say, you know, this way is for you to talk about this very differently. You want to have more sex, don't talk about why you don't have sex. I've never seen people want it more from talking about why they don't want it.

So there are small hacks like this that you can do, you know? What do you talk about if you're not talking about why you don't want it? What it would be like to have it? When is the time when you actually felt deeply connected and what was it like and what did you feel like and what frees you up? You ask people, you know, I turn myself off how? How do you shut yourself down? That's a very different question that one turns you off is, or you turn me off when.

So then people start to talk about how they basically, you know, numb themselves because they are self-critical, because they are not happy with their bodies, because they are exhausted, because they are bloated, because, because, because, but you see what they do to themselves, because if I close myself off, you can do all the beautiful things that I've told you I want you to do. The shop will be closed. And you ask them, when do you turn yourself on?

What makes you feel awake? You know, I ignite myself when and how and by, which is not the same as you turn me on when, or what turns me on is, and you explain that desire is to own the wanting. And what do people talk about? They feel alive when they take care of themselves, when they're in nature, when they're connected to art, to music, to movement, to dance, when they talk more with each other, when they

laugh, when they're out of their routine. It's not that they give you specific sexual turn-ons. The sexual turn-on comes because there's actually someone who's willing to notice them. The same stuff is around you all the time. Some days you see it, some days you don't. It's not because the stuff itself changed. It's because you are available and awake and interested. So how do you connect with your own erotic self?

That's a very different conversation than you should first start with the ear and then move to the shoulder. Or, I mean, what I'm hearing is... It's there too, but that's the goal. Of course, I mean, there are levels to this conversation. It sounds like the most important level is you're saying to each partner, look inward for a moment here. It's not going to be useful for you to say, you know what, when you clip your nails at seven o'clock at night,

well, then I'm turned off and we're done. It's more like looking inwards if I'm here you correctly and get a sense of what makes you alive. That's a major piece. It's to really do the, how do you connect with your own sexual self? That's one major piece. The other one is, okay, let's take the clip.

You know, now you want me, it's five ways you could handle this clipping. Your typical one is again, but another one would be, imagine you've made a beautiful tree and you put an entire nail set of access to the tree and you just brought it to your partner and you said, for you darling, let me know, when you're done, would you like me to help you? You know, everybody has always understood that there is no better way to diffuse something than to exaggerate, the exaggerated. Make it into humor, right? And laugh at it and create a complicity together about it. Another one is maybe to say, you know what, let me do all the dishes.

Or you may clean up everything so that the partner can go and groom themselves. There's so many ways to subvert. Ways that you say, you did this, well, now there will be nothing. You know, this is the kind of... If you hadn't done this, we would be together. But because of you, this is a dance. This is a way of getting an excuse. I'll find anything that you do to explain why I'm not interested in you.

And I will pretend I'm not interested in you. And in fact, it is me who doesn't find myself desirable enough to think that you could be interested in me. This is the hidden stories. What people say and what people feel or actually think about themselves are three intersecting categories, but they're not one and the same. You're... I just had this question come up

because when you talk, you're conjuring a theoretical partner who's not interested in her or his lover spouse because he or she or they really can't imagine that they're worthy of sexual desire. But you did it in a really sort of incisive, tough way. And I'm just wondering, when you're in therapy, will you bring the hammer down? Yes.

What I just said to you, I would say in a session. I will channel the person, and I will speak the unspoken. I will speak the inner voice that frightens little child that really actually is trying to pretend something else when in fact they're not Zoro and I will give voice to it and then I will watch to see hit or miss. The people I forget really matter you. Very rarely because when people feel seen and understood, you know, I do it with kindness and humor, but people, I just say,

how they're called. Is this it? And, you know, then they just shake their head, sometimes they don't know, bingo or, yeah, that's it. So it sounds like you do with kindness, humor and humility, because you're not sure you're right or saying. Kindness. Yes, I will tell you in the first five minutes, you are here, I will try to tell you everything that I think is worthy of sharing with you. I'm never right. It will only be true if you tell me this fits for me, this feels right.

But that gives me the freedom to say and to try to kind of channel you. And imagine, is this your experience? What exactly are you really feeling here? You know, many of the people I see don't have sexual dysfunctions, they have erotic dysfunctions. They can do it, they did it, they used to do it. Those people, there's a range, you know, but those are the ones I'm talking about at this moment.

Those are people, they once had it. So when they lost it, it's not because they don't know what to do. It's because they don't feel like doing it. And so then you want to find out why not? What is it that has happened in your relationship, in your life and in yourself, that is making you want to close off on this? And then what do you do with the losses? Because as long as two people

are agreeing, okay, then they switch to an affectionate companion, relationship that is a deep partnership for life, and that is just as beautiful. But if one person wants more, and the deprivation of touch is really, you know, you can live without sex, you can't live without touch. touch is really... You know, you can live without sex, you can't live without touch. Touch is biologically, you know, it's basic. And you want it, or you become irritable, or depressed, or angry, and then you create other issues, and it's like, but in fact, all you need is just to put that hand on that shoulder, and the person would just go, you know, but because that's not happening, then you get an armor and then that armor starts to fight

and then you think that that's the issue. You know what's a good metaphor for couples therapy? It's playing pool. That's was one of the most important things my teacher, Manuchin, ever told me and I can't thank him enough because it doesn't mean that you can't think linear. If you want to kick a ball in a hole, when you play pool, that is not the one you kick. And so the whole point is to look at which is the one that you need to kick that is actually

going to get this one down. And that's what you're looking at. It's what is it that is actually going on that this one is doing for yesterday I had a woman and she was like presented as the hysterical explosive one. It was very convenient and he's good. He's always been good. And then you understand that when she says to him just simply like, I'd love it if you brought me coffee in the morning. He could answer a lot of different things, but the typical thing he says is, you don't bring me tea at night.

You know, that kind of, and you, and you. And then, of course, she gets all upset because she can't say anything about her that he doesn't make about him. And then, she gets mad. And now, she's presented as the hysterical. I'm just smiling because I really resonate with the fact that we were the stars of our own movies and we're casting our spouse or or our boss or whatever as the villain or the hero. We're creating these stories and putting people in that bucket. It reminds me of a

very close friend of mine, a close couple that my wife and I are friends with and the husband and I were he was saying the following facetiously, but we're talking about how they were doing some preventative care work in couples counseling and he said, what do I want out of this? I just wanted to be cooler. Yes, be cooler. It'll be fixed.

She was happy everything would be fine. Yes, yes, yes. But what you also highlighted is that relationships are stories. And I do work very much from a narrative perspective, which I think is part of why I lend my approach, lend it itself well to the podcast format. And the goal when you come to therapy in a first session, or the goal, not just in a first session,

and a couple of long, is that you come in with a story. And if you've been there a long time in your relationship, your story is rather than crusted by now. And my goal is to help you live with a different story. Because if you have a different story, you change the vocabulary. If you change the vocabulary, you change the experience. If you change the experience, you change your body state,

and et cetera, et cetera. It's all interrelated. And that idea that people had waited to their stories, even if they're miserable, is very powerful. It's a very powerful human thing we do. One of the alternate stories, and I'm guessing here, you'll tell me if I'm right, that appears to come out of the research that I've done on you is the idea of being in your second marriage with the same person. Yeah. You know, it says an interesting thing. Some of the quotes that you have here are sentences that I just one day threw out and then they became part of a theory kind of thing.

I have to justify. This was a sentence that I just joke to it, you know, but then I saw how people responded to it And how much it gave them hope when they were in crisis We do live twice as long as we did a hundred years ago When we say long-term relationship it just doesn't mean the same, you know, we use the same words but the clock is a very different so I words, but the clock is a very different. So I do think that most people in the West today will have two or three marriages or committed relationships in their adult lives. And some of us will able to do it with the same person. We will be

able to somehow reinvent ourselves, the structure of the relationship, the balance of interdependence, the vision that we have together, our goals of life, and others will have to find a new partner in order to go and write the next story. And those fundamental qualities you listed at the beginning of our discussion, admiration is the one that I remember because I really hit home from here.

I do admire my life. Are those the qualities in a relationship that allow for the reinvention that you've just described to get to the second or third romantic relationship with the same person? It's a piece of it, huh? There's an exercise I love to do that I've done all over the globe, actually.

And I ask people, when do you find yourself most drawn to your partner? Not sexually attracted but drawn to in broad sense. What's two tweets that come up right off the bat for you? You're asking me right now compassion intelligence Beauty, right, but if you were to put it in narrative form, you would say, I am most drawn to my partner when she is being an incredible doctor and incredible mother and When she we work out together, she's just really great athlete. Well, now listen when she's being an incredible doctor

Means when she's in her element. Mm-hmm. She's confident. She's good at it, she's radiant, she's striving, and she doesn't need me. I don't need to take care of her. Therefore, there is that space where I can desire her. She doesn't need me and I can want her. But all three of the things I listed have that quality. All of them. What you're describing is I'm looking at this person who is already so familiar, but who is momentarily once again mysterious, unknown and draws my attention. I'm curious about her. I still don't have the full picture because every time there's something else I haven't seen, kids grow up, so I'm going to see new situations. Patients, you know, we are to gym. You're describing pleasant situations, shared experiences,

competence and confidence. There's no greater turn on than confidence, basically. Whatever form it takes, it becomes confidence. She can be on stage, she can be on a horse, she can be in her medical practice, but it's confidence. It's seeing somebody who, you know, you are, and that's admiration. That's where the admiration actually resides. And when people describe this, when you meet people who've been 60 years together and still you feel like there is that energy between them, you hear those kinds of descriptions, many others, but this falls right into that category. It's so interesting because what you're describing is how she can... I think you talked earlier here about how

we're asking of one individual to perform the role that entire village used to perform. So the stability, the comfort, and also the unknown and the adventure. And it's the grand experiment of modern love right right exactly beautifully put and it is in what you just described that I can watch my wife in these various contexts in a way that she doesn't need me I'm still curious fascinated admiring she can do all of that and we can have this stable comforting really. She can be the whole village in the way you just described. So you're good.

You have a that's and you know it's don't be so surprised. I'm not I'm not I don't know you are told but I know when I recognize it I mean I know when a person describes it because when you when you get it you describe mean, I know when a person describes it, because when you get it, you describe it and you know exactly the pieces that we're talking about. And not everybody A is lucky, I will put it like that, and B is able, you know, because what's on the reverse of what you just described? Let's put it, this is the positive description on the other side of this is No, I'm not drawn to my partner when she's a being a terrific doctor because what I have primarily experienced is that The her entire medical career is one big deprivation of me

All I experience is that she's never home or she comes home late or she gives the best of herself. I have heard that. She's an amazing doctor. All her patients love her and she has nothing to say to me when she comes home because she brings the leftovers home or she's so attentive and present to them and I feel so often that she pays no attention to me. I mean, she'll just give me a little tap on the shoulder, but when's the last time she just really held me,

the way I want to be held, which I know is the way she holds her patience, even though it's not in the physical holding. It's a completely different experience of the same, my wife is a doctor. Or my wife is a fantastic mother, and I love to watch her just run the whole thing with the kiddos, I don't know how many you have. And instead what you hear is, you know, she plays with them, she talks to them, she's all engaged with them, and that's all that matters.

And I've been waiting here for 17 years. Oh, yeah, it's not my experience. But you think that more. You understand? That's the flip side of the same ingredients. That's what's so powerful about this in relationship is that the same thing can be experienced as a gift or as a deprivation sometimes. And it's that thing that makes this so rich and complex and not easy to decipher all the time. But a couple that is driving is a couple where everything you just said is mentioned.

And a couple that is not driving and sometimes surviving is talking about the same specifics, but with a completely different experience of them. Before we go, let's talk about this as a big subject. We'll see how far we get cheating. Yes. So, state you mentioned before, state of affairs. The state of affairs. The state of affairs.

Why do we cheat? Okay. Let me put it a tiny bit in context. I think that, and also that will also explain why, in fact, I was interested in the subject of infidelity. Because I'm interested in the subject of modern relationships, as I said, and I thought infidelity will be a very powerful window through which to study relationships. The same way that the first book was about the challenges of desire on the inside of relationships,

this one became the book that looked at what happens when desire goes looking elsewhere. And because the experience of infidelity has betrayal, duplicity, lies, secrecy, jealousy, possessiveness, vengeance, passion, love, you just generally have to go to the opera for all of this. So it had the entire human drama. I didn't need another topic to really explore in depth some of that. Now in the past we did not talk so much about this type of cheating because it primarily was a male privilege.

Women are still able to be killed in nine countries if they look in the wrong direction, and men have basically had a privilege, a license to cheat, often supported by all kinds of biological and evolutionary theories that justify why they need it, and she doesn't. And in fact, we have no idea what women really want because they've generally done what they can and are allowed to rather than what they want. So, the thing changed, and then in the past you cheated because marriage wasn't about love and passion. So you went outside to look for the love and passion. And once you brought love and passion to the marriage, when you cheat, it changes meaning completely. It becomes the ultimate violation, the ultimate

betrayal, and basically the shattering of the grand ambition of love. So why do people cheat? I would collect it in two main directions. One has to do it all the discontents in a relationship. has to do with all the discontents in a relationship. Neglect, resentment, violence, indifference, sexual rejection for decades on end, conflict, miscommunication, and the longing for basically being seen, feeling important, feeling that you matter, being touched, being made love to, the basics. And sometimes, because you are a person who is constantly trying to prove yourself, but those people do a lot of other things, and amongst that, they cheat. But that is not their sole thing.

What was really more interesting for me, and I think most of my colleagues, is that the vast majority of people that we work with are not chronic philanthropists. They're not cheaters. They are people who have been exclusive and faithful for years, decades, and they one day will cross a line that they themselves never thought that they would cross. And then you ask yourself, why would a person risk losing everything, everything that they build for a glimmer of what, what makes people

do this thing, you know, and then it becomes an interesting thing. And the most, there's a lot, a lot to say, but I would say that the most important word that came up, that came up in so many countries that I went is I felt alive. That, now I have to explain, this doesn't mean I'm justifying or condoning or promoting. Can you be pro-affairs? I mean, it's just like, you know, I'm no longer going to recommend you to have an affair that I'm going to recommend you to have cancer.

But I understand that experiences of extreme like that will jolt people and reorganize their priorities in their lives on all sides. But this thing about a life made me curious. And what are we talking about? People who sometimes hadn't touched anybody. Then the other person was somewhere on an invisible, you know, digital wave, you know. And what people talked about was it wasn't that I wanted to leave the person that I was with. It was that I wanted to leave the person that I had myself become.

Right, so you had in your TED talk this incredible insight that it's about, it's not about the partner often. It's about the self. Yes, a new self, you want to experience a new self. It's about the self, it's about reconnecting with lost parts of oneself, it's about mortality, it's about its do-stings. And that is a very different story than we have problems in the relationship. Some affairs are directly related to the relationships and some have nothing to do with the relationship.

And this is a weird thing to say that even people in happy relationships will, at times, find themselves acting recklessly contrary to every principle they've ever had. And it hurts badly. It is really one of the most painful breaches that people experience today because we no long or expect that it would happen. Well, also because of what you said earlier about how much we're investing in relationships, it's replaced the church as you've read for many people, it's replaced the church. For many people it's replaced God. And now when your earth bound deity turns around and says, you used to be the one, maybe

you're still the one, but there's another one. Right. You're not the one. Actually, in romantic love we believe we are the one. And once you are replaced, you're not unique, you're not indispensable, and it hurts terribly. And then you are lied to for so long, and then you think that your whole marriage was a fraud, and then you wonder if you ever had the way right to believe even in the beginning. I mean, it just shatters your entire sense of reality. Can you come back from it?

Yes, I think that actually the vast majority of couples stay together after breaches and infidelities. But I think that you need to be able to turn the rupture into a repair. You need to be able, some affairs will basically kill a relationship that was dying on the vine. And some affairs actually liberate the wounded partner who already wanted to leave for a long time but didn't want to do it. And now they have their justification to finally go. So it's a bit messy. But some affairs actually become a powerful alarm system that jolt's people

and reminds them why they care and why they should put an effort and why they've completely forgotten about each other and how they completely lost touch and why they actually don't really want to lose each other. So some affairs will kill and some affairs will become a source of a new relationship with the same person. That's really where this message really came up for me. Final question, which is a very short question, which is I'd like to give my guests an opportunity to just plug everything. Remind us of the names of your books, your podcasts, where we can find you in social media, anything or your TED talks, where if we want to binge on your Instagram. If you want to binge a

stare parallel. How do we do that? But because you ask me about the affairs and the sexuality and the collectible. I would say that where should we begin? The podcast is really the podcast for anyone who's ever loved and it's a vast array of, we are going into season four now, worldwide, of people going into the needy-grady of relationships. And then the new podcast housework is for anyone who's ever had a job. And that means everybody has ever worked knows the kinds of myriad of relational dynamics that can take place at work. And it's gripping. The two books are mating in captivity and the state of affairs. The TED talk, one is the secret of desire in long-term relationship and the state of affairs. The TED talk, one is the secret of desire

in long-term relationship, and the other is rethinking infidelity, a talk for anyone who's ever loved. And then they are the two talks at South by Southwest, I think, that are the more recent ones that talk about the future of relationships, and what couple of therapy can teach business leaders about relationship dynamics at work. Because a lot of my work now is really taking

what we've learned from home and applied into the workplace with family business, colleagues, co-founders, co-workers. And on social, I am at Estére Pareloficial on Instagram. I think the best thing would be to actually join me through the newsletter and the blog, which is at estére-parelle.com. Because this week, just as an example, we did a letter, you never know, you know, it was about how helpers can sometimes feel helpless.

And it's about all of us who have a brother, a friend, a parent, a colleague, who's stuck, troubled, either with mental health issues, either with self-destructive behavior, and how we've been trying for years to help these people. And everybody always talks about a less-abled person, the child who needed the attention. But we don't talk about the others who will then put aside to just take care of themselves and raise themselves alone. And that is just as many of us.

And it's an incredible thing because it becomes public-held about relationships outside of the therapy office because these conversations actually should not be in a closed office. They really belong on the public square. Facebook and Instagram, I'm the typical channels where you can find me. I don't even know my handles by heart for those. But it's a step where L.com is really the gate to the heavens. You're doing great work. It's a pleasure to meet you.

I can talk to you for, honestly, for hours, which may mean that I have to bug you to come back on. But I'd be happy to. This was amazing. Thank you. Thank you. Big thanks to Esther. Like I said, I love that interview. We need to have her back on the show.

She's incredible. And as I mentioned in the introduction, we got a voicemail, which you're about to hear, which we were able to run by a stair. So first, let's play the voicemail, and then we'll play for you after that a stair's response. Here's the voicemail. Hi, Dan. This is Kim, calling from the Campus of Skull.

And I, first of all, love your podcast. I love listening to all the guests in their unique insight into meditation and how it changed their lives, really inspiring. And your book is great. And yeah, I just have been so happy to have found you. My question is kind of explicit. So I'm just going to go for it. I'm finding that time when it has been an IRB intimate that my mind starts to really dive into self-judgment and doubt and worry.

And I've been meditating now for a month, pretty solidly, but often on for probably about two years and I'm just wondering if there's specific meditations that you can do to kind of combat that I'm sure I'm not the only person whose mind starts to go that way but I'm just wondering if you have any insight or specific meditations that can be used for that or if I should be focusing on my breath that just seems kind of, I don't know, a little bit forced if I'm thinking about how I'm messing up or not, I don't know. It's such a tough thing. I just want to feel present and in the moment during that time obviously. And I just, I really want to get away from this racing mind

and considering all of my insecurities. So if you have any guidance, I would really appreciate it. And yeah, keep doing what you're doing. Look forward to hearing from you. Thanks. That is an amazingly brave voicemail. I just send you a ton of respect for sending that in. Thank you. I have some things to say about it.

But before I do, let's bring in somebody who really knows what she's talking about. Here's what Esther said when we told her what you said. Tell her to read Emily Nagoski's book, Come As You Are, Nagoski, and AGSKY, Come As You Are. Because one of the things that's very important in what Emily talks about, it's exactly that. The breaks and the accelerators, the inhibitors, you know, the thoughts, the inhibiting cognitions, like I'm not some fat, I'm this, I'm old, I'm not attractive, you know, he still

thinks about the eggs, whatever thoughts you have that just basically will deflate you. And then what would be thoughts, cognitions that actually connect you to your sexuality, to your desirability, and to your own desires. And what she describes is what the she has fantastic exercises to help women, this book for women really, to distinguish and to understand that for many women desire is responsive and not initiative. Rather than thinking, I'm not into it. No, you're not into it. You are, this is a way of being in, is that you wait and then something wakes up and then you respond and then you get involved and then the more you get involved, the more you get in the mood,

it doesn't start with the mood. It's very good book. Okay, so that's what Astair had to say. I want to just answer the question from a sort of a meditative standpoint, because I just picked up on a few phrases you used in describing this issue, which I have to agree with you. I would imagine this is very common, but you just tried wanting to get away from this inner critic. And so the meditator in me, the bell goes off, well, that's a version. You're, you know, that one of the classic hindrances in meditation, the Buddha used to talk about this, is a version, you know, just struggling with not wanting something that's here right now to be here.

And in this case, you're trying to be intimate with your partner and you're noticing this self-judgment and then that's worse than you're criticizing yourself for being caught up in your own head when you should be paying attention. It just spirals into, I just have so much empathy for that. I can see how that could happen to any of us in any situation. But the fighting with it, though, not wanting it to be here, that strikes me as classic aversion. And so I don't know what I'm about to suggest.

I don't know that it's a silver bullet per se, but just maybe making a soft mental note of judgment you know, judgment or self-criticism. And then you're shifting just, if only for a nanosecond, into out of a version and into just a mindfulness of like, yeah, this is what's here right now. And maybe over time, as you practice this, maybe you'll be less caught up in this self-judgment, which by the way, you didn't invite, it's not your fault. And maybe over time that can shift into being able

to be more in the present moment than then caught up in these stories. So maybe that'll work, but I'm sure as there's advice is way better. Thank you again for that question. I really appreciate it. Let's do voice mail number two. Hi there. My name is Andy. I'm from Rochester, Minnesota, and I am a podcaster, insider. And I am wondering about something that I've noticed through my practice over the last few years, which is I'm so appreciative and so grateful for finding

a little bit of space between myself and the absolute nonsense that I've written through my head on a day-to-day basis. And one thing in particular that I spend a lot of time with is I find that I've got this kind of closed-cheeked boot where I try not to be so harsh with my judgment as other people and then somehow that kind of morphs into something internal and I kind of go after myself and then it's kind of off to the races. So I'm wondering if there's something that some advice that Joseph or Jack would proper

just helping me to get out of that loop. I appreciate everything you do. Peacefully. Well, first of all, thank you very much for being a podcast insider. Just for those of you who aren't aware of this, these are hundreds of folks who have signed up to give us feedback on every episode or as many episodes as they can. And we really integrate this into how we're doing our work here.

So really appreciate that. I know you would prefer to have this question answered by Jack Cornfield or Joseph Goldstein, who were guests over the last couple of weeks and months, but you're stuck with me. And actually, my answer is gonna be similar to the answer I just gave, which is I had this experience on the last, one of the last retreats I was on a couple years ago, where I realized that if I'm suffering, there's something I'm not mindful of.

And that even no matter how bad a situation is, usually for me, unretreat, it's like wanting to get out of there. Dropping back into mindfulness, just the non-judgmental awareness of the thing, just investigating, how is this restlessness showing up in my body right now? What kind of thoughts are coming up? Looking at the raw data of the current the current situation as opposed to the getting stuck in the story in my head There's no suffering in that in the nanoseconds during which you can actually conjure the mindfulness Of course you get lost quickly and that that's just the way the mind works, but over time you just get better and better at

recovering from From being lost and spending more time in just noticing, oh yeah, wow, I'm super sad, but instead of being stuck in the story of being sad, I can get curious about what does this feel like in my body, et cetera, et cetera. So it seems to me that what's happening for you right now is, and I'm not sure, I quite understand the mechanism that you said something about how you're trying to not be so judgmental of other people and maybe that's sort of there's like a back draft there of you being more judgmental of yourself. Whatever it is, I think mindfulness may be the answer.

If not the answer, maybe an answer. And of course, you know, there are a couple levels to this. There are the things that you can deal with in a meditative way, which is through mindfulness or sending yourself compassion. The other is, of course, some of these stories that you're telling yourself may be addressed, best addressed through psychotherapy. I'm a, as I've said before, a maximalist

when it comes to mental well-being. And so I think pulling all the levers that make sense to you can often be the best approach. But meditatively speaking, you know, the in the moments when you're noticing a ton of self-judgment, but by the way, I do too. Just being mindful of it can be very useful. Another, as I'm kind of alluded to this, is, is something this is people in my life have been encouraging a lot of what I'm about to encourage you to do. Another way to do it is through self-compassion.

We had Kristen Neff on the show recently, and she's got this three step move you can do when you notice you're engaged in a robust round of self-flagulation. First step is just to notice, oh yeah, this sucks. Herver beages, it's like this is a moment of suffering, and that doesn't really work for me, that sounds a little formal. So I'm just like, wow, Ouch, you are this sucks. You are really going at it. You're really, you know, sort of eating, chewing yourself up here. The second step is, you're not alone, like a lot of people deal with either this specific thing of self-criticism or just

a lot of people are suffering. So anguish is misery, suffering is that is part of the human condition and there are any number of human beings in this exact same situation or a similar one right now. So just widening the aperture a little bit so you can have some perspective on your own movie. And then the third is just to send yourself a little, this is where it gets a little cheesy, but it kind of works. And I think there's a lot of research to suggest it definitely works. It's just to send yourself a little, a little love. You know, like, may you be free of suffering?

I haven't found a better way to say that, but whatever. Somebody, I heard a quote recently from somebody who was complaining about compassion practices to a meditation teacher, and the teacher said to this woman, if you're afraid of being cheesy, then you're never going to be free. I love that quote. So yeah, this stuff is a little cheesy. Some people have been actually being criticizing me for calling out the cheesiness of this content. I apologize to those of you who don't find this cheesy, but there's a large number of us who do and I think it's healthy to acknowledge that. Anyway, whatever your stance is toward this stuff, it's useful

and Christen said a lot of study on this. So that three-part move along with some mindfulness, and by the way, mindfulness is embedded in those three parts because the first step is just to notice that it's happening. That might be useful for you. So give it a try. I've found it to be useful for me. Thanks again for the questions everybody. Love them. And as I said, I really appreciate it having Esther, Esther, Perrell on the show this week. I want to thank all the folks who make this show possible. Ryan Kessler, Samuel Johns, Grace Livingston, Lauren Hartzog, Tiffany O'Me hundred, Mike Tabusky, our podcast insiders and all of you who listen. If you like what we do, do us a solid and share it on social media or just share it with one friend

because that's how we'll grow. We'll be back next week with a new show. We'll see you then. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash Survey. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash Survey.