The One You Feed - How to Overcome Loneliness through Platonic Friendships with Marisa Franco

Episode Date: August 2, 2024

In this episode, Marisa Franco shares how to overcome loneliness through platonic friendships. Through her work and personal experience, she discovered the importance and power of platonic love, challenging societal assumptions about the hierarchy of relationships. Delving into the historical roots of platonic love, she explores the transformative impact of friendship in navigating loneliness and the need to reevaluate cultural norms surrounding love and companionship. In this episode, you will be able to: Discover the key to overcoming loneliness through the power of friendship Uncover the lesser-known benefits of platonic relationships in your life Learn effective strategies for making meaningful adult friendships Explore how your attachment style impacts your ability to form and maintain friendships Find ways to handle friendship rejection and embrace acceptance for a more fulfilling social life To learn more, click here!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our friends kind of make us feel like whole people because of the ways they invite different parts of ourselves to come out. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet for many of us our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious,

consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Hey, y'all. I'm Dr. Joy Harden-Bradford, host of Therapy for Black Girls. This January, join me for our third annual January Jumpstart series. Starting January 1st, we'll have inspiring conversations to give you a hand in kickstarting your personal growth. If you've been holding back or playing small, this is your all-access pass to step fully 1st, we'll have inspiring conversations to give you a hand in kickstarting your personal growth. If you've been holding back or playing small, this is your all-access pass to step fully into the possibilities of the new year. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls starting on January 1st

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallyknowreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast,

or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really Know Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app Jason bobblehead. The really, no really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Decisions Decisions, the podcast where boundaries are pushed and conversations get candid. Join your favorite hosts, me, Weezy WTF. And me, Mandy B. As we dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. That's right. Every Monday and Wednesday, we both invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms.

With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, we share our personal journeys navigating our 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engage in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. Thank you. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections. Tune in and join in the conversation. Listen to Decisions Decisions on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Marissa Franco, a psychologist and national speaker. She's known for digesting and communicating science in ways that resonate deeply enough with people to change their lives. Marissa is a professor at the University of Maryland and wrote the New York Times bestselling book that is discussed in this

interview. It's called Platonic, How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make and Keep Friends. Hi, Marissa. Welcome to the show. Hi, thanks so much for having me, Eric. I'm excited to have you on. We're going to be discussing your book, Platonic, how the science of attachment can help you make and keep friends. But before we do that, I'd like to start like we always do with a parable. And in the parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild and they say, in life, there's two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear.

And the grandchild stops. They think about it for a second. They look up at their grandparent. They say, well, which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Yeah, I think that what that brings up for me is like internal family systems theory. I don't know if you've heard of it. to our good wolf is being able to understand our bad wolf as unmet needs and sitting with

what that bad wolf might need from us so that it can express itself differently than the ways that it is expressing itself. Yep. That makes a lot of sense. I think the thing about that parable is it makes it sound like we have these sort of two competing things within us, which most of us, if you pay close attention to yourself, you realize there's more than two things going on in there. It's a family as they say. So part of why I was so excited to have you on is we are spending June orienting our email newsletter and our texts that we send to people around friendship.

And friendship is core to this show because part of the reason that I started it 10 years ago was because my best friend was an audio engineer and I wanted something for us to do together. You know, friendship has been important on our hundredth episode. We discussed Chris and I's friendship. So it's always been something that I've really valued. And yet you describe early on in the book, I think something that's pretty common for most of us. And you talk about the end of a promising romance ending in disaster. Yeah, yeah. So in my young 20s, I was way more romantically oriented than platonically oriented.

And I went through this breakup and, you know, thoughts that went through my head was like, oh, I guess I'm unlovable because I don't have this romantic love and I have no love in my life. But one thing that I did that I'm really happy that I did was I went to my friend Heather and I was like, let's start a wellness group. We can meet up and cook and meditate and do yoga and practice wellness.

And I thought this would really help me grieve, but what it did was it just blew my mind because I was like, wow, this form of love is so stabilizing right now. It's so significant to me. It's the safest love I've known so far. And I began to question those assumptions that I had about I have no love in my life without romantic love. And I was like, well, why doesn't this love matter? Like, why isn't this considered significant? Why do I feel like I'm worthless without one form of love when I have so much of another form of love? And so that's how I became really interested in friendship because I felt like my experience probably reflects a larger

culture that really has a problem in this hierarchy that we place on love. Yeah, you talk about the fact that platonic love lies at the lowest rung of the hierarchy our culture places on love, right? It goes under the one that most people glorify, which is romantic love. And then it falls certainly under even family love in our general cultural way of viewing the world. And I certainly have fallen into that in the past. When a relationship ends, I grieve that relationship greatly. And then when I'm in the relationship, I spend less time on my friendships. Now, I've been fortunate to have a number of friends that I've had for a long time. And those friendships sort of have managed to endure. And it's always been important.

And I've always wondered if some degree what's going on with me is I take my friendships for granted because I have them. But I think you're pointing towards a much broader phenomenon than that. Yeah. Yeah, I am. And it's interesting because I like to mention that it hasn't always been like this, that, you know, the term platonic is based off of Plato's teachings. And it's a love so beautiful that it transcends the physical. And it's actually seen as like a superior form of love that we don't need this physicality to bring us together. What really changed was, you know, women used to kind of have to get married because we didn't have any rights. And so there was no way to

threaten romantic love and threaten marriage. But once women started to get more rights, and now you don't need this marriage, there's this cultural shift that made it so that people now felt psychologically incomplete, even if they weren't materially incomplete in the same way without marriage. And so, you know, around the turn of the 1900s, that's when we saw this like big change in terms of the hierarchy that we that's when we saw this like big change in terms of the hierarchy that we have of love. And I say that because I think we can easily think that the ways we perceive love now are normal and natural.

And I want to call out that, in fact, your friendships may be weaker than your platonic partnerships because you think that that's normal and natural. You then invest so much less. You're not reaching out as much. You're not as vulnerable. You're not prioritizing. You're not spending as much time together. And any relationship that you're not putting as much effort in is going to be inferior,

not because it's inferior inherently by definition. One of the points that you make that I think is interesting because it reflects back on romantic love is that people who have good friendships, I don't know if this is the way you would say it, but tend to be more successful in romantic love or have better relationships. Friendships outside of the core romance actually are a strengthening and protective factor for that relationship itself. Yeah. We see in the research, for example, that if I have a partner, not only am I less depressed if I have friends outside of the partnership, but also my partner is less

depressed. It's like a spillover effect that if I go through conflict with my romantic partner, the next day my stress hormones are all wonky in terms of their release, but not if I have quality connection outside the partnership. So anything that stabilizes and anchors you like friendship does for us allows us to have resources to show up in our romantic partnerships better. The other thing is, you know, I certainly realized this in the pandemic. I was living with a partner and still feeling very lonely, and I'm sure a lot of people felt that way. And I read that there were actually three different types of loneliness, intimate loneliness, the desire for a close intimate relationship, relational loneliness, the desire for someone as close as a friend, and then collective loneliness,

which is the desire for a group working towards a common goal. And the implications of this research is that you could find someone that you feel so deeply connected to romantically and still feel lonely because as human beings, we're kind of wired to need an entire community to feel completely socially nourished. Yeah, I think that's interesting because I have used the term community for a long time. I got sober in 12-step programs, which is a very much a community thing. It's a phrase that gets thrown out a lot in well-being circles. And part of the reason that I wanted to spend June not on community, but on the idea of friendship is because it seemed like, as I thought about it, I was like, well, that's

a slightly maybe easier entry point because a community indicates that there's lots of people moving around you. And friendships are, if you have one friend and you get another friend, you've doubled your friendships, right? And so it's interesting to hear you talk about that those are distinct needs. Yeah. You know, when I think of like friendship versus community, like I think community of people that are like investing in each other or taking care of each other, like it could be a place of worship and people could kind of be more anonymous to you and you could still have community with them because

you're, you know, you're all invested in like mutual support. But friendship feels like there's more of a direct connection. And I think both are very valuable. But why I think friendship is so important is because like there's almost like pieces of ourselves that we only access around different people. And so when we're close to someone, it's like, oh, there's this piece of me that I get to experience because you're here. And then there's this other piece of me I get to experience because there's this friend and that friend and this friend. And so it feels like our friends kind of make us feel like whole people because of the ways they invite different parts of ourselves to come out. You refer to it in the book as self-expansion theory. The idea that our identity needs to expand for us to be fulfilled,

and the way that happens is through our relationships. Can you give us an example of that? Well, I'm trying to think about a friend that has expanded me recently. Oh, okay. So I have a friend, Raina Cohen, who also wrote a book on friendship and her book is on platonic life partners and that you can choose a friend as a life partner, you know, just like you could choose someone romantic. And my best friend was having a hard time living in New York. And I said to her, I have a one bedroom apartment in Washington, DC. I had just talked to Raina. Raina had just told me, you know,

when we think about living with people, we often think about the trade-offs and we undersell the benefits of it. Like, oh, I won't have my privacy. You know, especially when we're doing something non-traditional, we tend to focus a lot more on the negatives and ignore the positives. Like everyone's like, yeah, go to your big house in the suburbs, separate from other people. But, you know, when you're like, oh, actually I want to like live with a friend. They're like, oh, well, you know, that's rough. I don't know what's wrong. So I was just had all of these things in mind. And I ended up inviting my best friend to stay with me. And she stayed with me for like nearly a month in my one bedroom apartment. That is just not something that I would have done if Raina didn't expand for me to like not just

focus on, oh, I won't have my privacy in the same way and we're in this small space but like what will I get out of this like precious time with my best friend that as adults gets harder and harder and so it was like some of the best times of my life having her here it was awesome I mean it was just so good she's coming back we're like part-time platonic life partners so um Raina really expanded my way of thinking. And then I also self-expanded with my best friend because of that. So it's interesting to see how like one form of self-expansion can ricochet and affect another form. Yeah, that's such a great story.

I think we tend to think of like that situation is like going backwards. Like, well, you know, I had roommates when I couldn't afford not to. And now that I can afford not to, you know, whereas, yeah, I was just actually having this conversation with somebody the other day about traveling and sharing a hotel room with a friend. And, you know, on one hand, you can be like, well, but we're both older and we need a little bit of space. And so you focus on the negatives. But the positive is you get a lot of really great time with that person, like you said. Exactly. Yeah. I want to talk about the role that friendship plays in the way we view the world. So, you know, I feel like there's like two directions I want to take with this. There's the psychiatrist, Harry Stack Sullivan, and he kind of says, you basically learn to relate to people through your friends. It's this theory of chumships.

Friendship is the first reciprocal relationship we have in our lives. This is how you relate. This is how you connect. We learn that first from our friends because our parents, it's not exactly equal footing, a different kind of thing. But the other thing that I wanted to share is that we perceive the world very differently when we're lonely. We often think of loneliness as just a feeling, but it actually completely alters how we view reality. People that are lonely think they're more rejected than they are, think people are judging them more than they are. And we kind of get just like very vigilant for signs of negativity in the world.

We tend to get more judgmental of others, like lonely people report liking others less. We can be more punishing and hostile in response to others. And from an evolutionary perspective, this happens because, you know, if you were lonely in your tribe and on the African savannah, you suddenly became separated. You were in danger. You had to be very vigilant for threat. But now, obviously, it doesn't function the same way. But I think it's really helpful to know because I think, for me, sometimes I'll be like, why am I in a bad mood? Or why do I feel like reaching out to a friend, but also feel like they don't want to hear from me?

And I know, oh, that's just loneliness. So I don't necessarily have to buy into it. Hey, y'all, I'm Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, host of Therapy for Black Girls, and I'm thrilled to invite you to our January Jumpstart series for the third year running. All January, I'll be joined by inspiring guests who will help you kickstart your personal growth with actionable ideas and real conversations. We're talking about topics like building community and creating an inner and outer glow. I always tell people that when you buy a handbag, it doesn't cover a childhood scar. You know, when you buy a jacket, it doesn't reaffirm what you love about the hair you were told not to love. So when I think about beauty, it's so emotional because it starts to go back

into the archives of who we were, how we want to see ourselves, and who we know ourselves to be, and who we can be. It's a little bit of past, present, and future, all in one idea, soothing something from the past. And it doesn't have to be always an insecurity. It can be something that you love. All to help you start 2025 feeling empowered and ready. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls starting on January 1st on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast,

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Courts are not supposed to decide elections. Courts are not really supposed to play a big role in choosing our elected leaders. It's for the voters to decide. Follow The Big Take podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. Hi, everyone. One of the things that I know many of you struggle with is anxiety. And very recently, I shared some tips on managing anxiety in our newsletter. Specifically, I shared a practice on clarifying your values. In the practice, you write down one or two of your core values and

then identify one action step that aligns with them. I find that taking one positive action towards things that matter to me really helps reduce anxiety. Also, I have a reflection question. What positive experiences have you had today that you could focus on instead of your anxiety? Every Wednesday, I send out a newsletter called A Weekly Bite of Wisdom for a Wiser, Happier You. And in it, I give tips and reflections like you just got. And it's an opportunity for you to pause, reflect, and practice. It's a way to stay focused on what's important and meaningful to you. Each month, we focus on a theme.

This month's theme is anxiety. And next month, we'll be focusing on acceptance. To sign up for these bits of weekly wisdom, go to goodwolf.me slash newsletter. There's more opportunities for your social structure to crumble. I see this with people that are like my parents age, like the friends are starting to disappear. I don't mean disappear as in like do something different. I mean, like the long goodbye. Yeah. Yeah. So you get lonely, whatever the condition is, which then causes you to do all the things that you just said, which causes you to become more lonely.

It's the classic downward spiral that can be really difficult to get out of. And so recognizing that is, I think, as you've pointed out, is so important. I want to ask a question because I feel with all the research that's come out about loneliness, which is in essence, it's terrible for you, right? It's just a terrible thing for you. It's terrible for you, right? It's just a terrible thing for you. I feel a little bit like I felt for a while when everybody was all over how important sleep was. And if you weren't sleeping, basically, you were going to be dead six minutes from now.

You're already dead and speaking from beyond the grave. I worry about the effect that that had on people who might be saying, I'm trying to sleep and I'm having trouble. And now I'm way more stressed about sleeping than I was before. And I worry about this a little bit with loneliness, which is that all of a sudden I'm being told how bad loneliness is. So now I am more worried about this. What are ways that we can take this lesson? And it's partially why I wanted to talk to you about your book, because it gives us actual strategies for cultivating friendship. But before we get to those, let's just talk about what I just said and what your thoughts

are. It's such an important point. And I teach a class on why we're all so lonely. And the first thing I have to say is like, if you're lonely, there's nothing wrong with you. In fact, if you're lonely, you're more normal than the people that are very socially connected, statistically speaking. You know, we see statistics of anywhere, like up to 50% of people are lonely. And Gen Z, it's like even worse. And so it's not a you problem. And I think that that's really important to say this is a systemic issue. Like the way our society is set up means that a lot of us are inherently going to be lonely unless we're very intentional

about swimming upstream against the tides of loneliness. So we were just talking about the importance of hope, Eric. And I feel like what you said was really poignant that it's not about hitting rock bottom. If you're like in despair, that's not necessarily good or going to motivate you to change unless you also have hope. So I want to give everyone hope by telling them it's not your fault, you're normal. And also, I'm sure we're going to get into a ton of strategies that you can use that are going to help you feel less lonely. You talk very eloquently about shame. And I think being lonely is one of those things that tends to cause us a lot of shame. It feels shameful to be lonely, as if there's something wrong with me. Talk about the role that shame is playing in this and the role that shame can play in us building friendships also. us building friendships also. This is from Harry Sullivan too. And he says that why shame is so harmful is because it makes us feel inhuman. It makes us feel as if we are having

an experience that is outside of the human experience. We are uniquely wrong, uniquely deficient, uniquely weak. And that shame is the kind of thing that will make your loneliness continue. If that's how you're interpreting your loneliness, I'm, you know, they would call it internal stable attributions, which means it's something wrong with me that's not going to change. I'm just flawed. I have issues. I'm awkward. You know, like I'm just not a good person. I'm not a person that people like. You know, I think it is understandable just the way that loneliness affects how we feel and see ourselves in the world. Why one might think that way when they feel lonely and they're experiencing rejection. But there's a possibility, right? Like we talked about that you're feeling that way because that's

just how loneliness makes you feel rather than because it's a reality. And there's so much research, I'm sure we're going to get more into, but I'll just mention one study briefly now on something called the liking gap, which is this finding that when strangers interact and they predict how much the other person likes them, we underestimate how liked we are. We're actually a lot more liked by other people than our brains tend to tell us. I think that's because when our brains are deciding between safety and connection and those two things feel a little bit at war with each other, our brain's always going to push us to safety. And so one of the things I like tell people, like if you're scared of reaching out to connect, you should ask yourself, how would it feel if someone did this to me? Right? Because

then you're going to get over your brain's inbuilt bias to try to make you safe at the cost of connection because now you're taking the self out of it. And usually my students are like, I would love if someone would reach out to me. Like, I would love if someone in my class was like, oh, you're so cool. Like, I would love to hang out with you. But then when they think about how would it come off if I reached out to them, they're like, oh, they'd be creeped out. They'd be weirded out. They'd be like, why is this clinging person wanting to talk to me and hang out with me? And I'm like, yes, but if you understand this research, you understand that you should probably use the question of how would it come off if someone did it to me? That's probably more reflective of the truth. That's a great way of looking at it.

So one of the core things that you talk about is that adult friendships don't happen organically. that you talk about is that adult friendships don't happen organically. Say more about why not? Yeah. So I think our issue is that friendship once happened organically in our lives when we were children. And there's a sociologist, Rebecca G. Adams, and she identifies that as children, we have repeated unplanned interaction and shared vulnerability in our lives through school, through lunch, through art class, through recess, through extracurricular activities. As adults, we often don't have that. Like maybe you see people through work repeatedly, but you're often not vulnerable with them because you're like, this is work and I want to keep some professional distance. So what that means is that you don't have the same infrastructure. You cannot

rely on the same assumptions that it's just going to happen for you. And we see in studies, for example, that people that see friendship as something that just happens without effort, they are more likely to be lonely five years later. Whereas people that see it as taking effort, they are less likely to be lonely five years later because they make the effort. They show up at volunteering. They show up at volunteering, they show up at place of worship, they find different clubs to join. They're putting themselves out there. And as I mentioned in the book, it's not just that you have to show up even

to these events, because that's what I call overcoming overt avoidance, which is like, overt avoidance is like, I'm scared, so I'm not going to get out of my house. But you also have to overcome covert avoidance, which means, you know, I show up to that kickball league. I show up to that yoga retreat and I engage when I get there. I'm not just on my phone in the corner. I'm not talking to the one person I already know. I'm introducing myself.

Hey, I'm Marissa. How have you liked this yoga class? How have you liked this teacher? Tell me more about it. Yeah, that's where things break down for me. yoga class? How have you liked this teacher? Tell me more about it. Yeah, that's where things break down for me. I can overcome the overt avoidance, but boy, when I get there, it's a whole lot harder. Yeah. Part of what I've recognized about myself is that if I'm in a situation that is going to have repeated interaction, then I actually relax a little bit and recognize that it's just going to take me a few times.

Like, and just, okay, that's who I am. And if I keep showing up by about the fourth time or whatever, some of my personality will start to leak out. I'll start to be more of myself, which is why one of the things you point out in the book is as you're looking for ways to build friends, one good strategy is to find events that are going to occur repeatedly, right? A language class versus a half day workshop. Let me ask you a question because I think you go from adult friendships don't happen organically to people have to take initiative. And when we think about people taking initiative, one of the reasons that we think it's really hard for people is because they're afraid of being rejected.

And I want to talk about that in a minute. I think that's a big one, but I don't think it's all of it. I think that that's part of it is our fear of rejection. But I also think as we get older, it gets harder because we are, I don't know another way to say this except to say we are more tired. Like it takes more effort. It feels to me like it's harder to sort of get out into the world than it did when I was being at 50, however, I don't know where, somewhere in my 50s than when I was, say, 35. So I think there's that element too. But I think there's something else, which is not always that we're going to be rejected, but that we're not going to find anybody that we want to be friends with. And what made me think about this is I was thinking about, I know a couple of women

who have been on match.com recently, and they'll go out on a few dates and then maybe something will work out for a little while and then it'll stop. And the thought of wading back into that, some of it's rejection, but some of it is just like, oh, it's going to be a ton of work weeding through a bunch of people that I don't really like. So I think in addition to rejection, there are these other factors that get in our way. Can you give us some advice about how to work with those? Yeah, that's a good point. And there is research that finds that as we get older, we do get pickier about our friends. Whereas when we're young, we're just looking to expand our identity. So we're willing to hang out with all different types of people. But as we get older, we're like fewer quality people that I really love, that really understand me.

So we get pickier and it makes it harder. But that's where I would give the advice of just do something you love. Like you love sailing, join the, do something you love in community. You love bowling, join the bowling league. You know, you love walking, join the hiking crew. And so that at the end of the day, it's like, well, whether I meet people or not, this is still going to be an enjoyable experience for me. And you're also like at your best at connecting with people when you are in a state of joy.

Like research finds that the more positive your mood is going into a social interaction, the more you like people, the more they like you. So I would just suggest to like take a little bit of the pressure off, like, all right, I want to find community, but I can just really, I'm going to do that through the back door. And the front door is me just getting out there doing things I really like. That makes a lot of sense. And I guess the same thing would go for volunteering. I might be volunteering with the hope that I'm going to meet people, but I'm also doing it because I think it's a cause that matters and I can feel good about doing that, even if the other things don't necessarily happen. Exactly. Yeah. So what other things under, you know,

sort of taking initiative do you think are important that we may not have covered? Well, I know we covered showing up repeatedly, doing something repeated over time. And I just wanted to mention the research behind that is on the mere exposure effect, this phenomenon that when we interact with people more, we like them more and they like us more. And it's completely unconscious, like based on a study that researchers planted women into a large psychology lecture. And at the end of the semester, no one remembered any of the women, but they liked the women

that showed up for the most classes 20% more than the women that didn't show up for any. And I think this is really important because when I wanted to make friends in the past, I would show up to an event once and be like, hey, because this isn't working. It's a sign that you are in the process of connecting. So that's why one thing I tell people is like, if you're not dreading it, stick with it for like two to three months, you know, because trust that you're going to have a very different experience when you're two months in than you do right now, because that's like literally how we're wired to be like stressed out by what's unfamiliar. Hey, y'all. I'm Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, host of Therapy for Black Girls.

And I'm thrilled to invite you to our January Jumpstart series for the third year running. All January, I'll be joined by inspiring guests who will help you kickstart your personal growth with actionable ideas and real conversations. We're talking about topics like building community and creating an inner and outer glow. I always tell people that when you buy a handbag, it doesn't cover a childhood scar. You know, when you buy a jacket, it doesn't reaffirm what you love about the hair you were told not to love. So when I think about beauty, it's so emotional

because it starts to go back into the archives of who we were, how we want to see ourselves and who we know ourselves to be and who we can be. So a little bit of past, present and future, all in one idea, soothing something from the past.

And it doesn't have to be always an insecurity. It can be something that you love. All to help you start 2025 feeling empowered and ready. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls starting on January 1st on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really Know Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer.

Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us today.

How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really?

That's the opening? Really, no really. Yeah, really. No really. Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason Bobblehead. It's called Really, No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The forces shaping markets and the economy are often hiding behind a blur of numbers. So that's why we created The Big Take from Bloomberg Podcasts, to give you the context you need to make sense of it all. Every day in just 15 minutes, we dive into one global business story that matters. You'll hear from Bloomberg journalists like Matt Levine. A lot of this meme stock stuff is, I think, embarrassing to the SEC. Amanda Mull, who writes our Business Week buying power column.

Very few companies who go viral are, like, totally prepared for what that means. And Zoe Tillman, senior legal reporter. Courts are not supposed to decide elections. legal reporter. Courts are not supposed to decide elections. Courts are not really supposed to play a big role in choosing our elected leaders. It's for the voters to decide. Follow the Big Take podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. The other tip that I like to give people, and literally, this is a very hard tip to practice because my second book is all about being able to do this. And that is to try to assume that people are going to like you.

And that is based off of research on something called the acceptance prophecy. This finding that when people are told, hey, based on your personality profile, we did this analysis and we think you're going to go meet this person and they're going to like you. And when they're told that, even though that's fake, that's deception from the researchers, people actually become more likable. They become warmer, friendlier, more open. Whereas when we think we're going to get rejected, we reject people. We become more closed off. We become more withdrawn.

We reject them. Then they reject us right back. So I know it's hard to tell yourself that people are going to like you or they do like you. And I think it's okay to have a voice that's like, oh, I'm really scared. I'm nervous. They think I'm weird. But just to offer that voice some humility and say, well, what if they think I'm great? What if they do like me? And to just try to lean in to that voice, even if you can't necessarily silence the other one.

Oftentimes, what you offered there at the end is the way that those things work for me. I may not be able to get all the way to like, they're going to love me, but I can at least get to like, you just don't know. Why are you assuming the worst? Let's just be neutral on this topic for right now. You know, if I can even get there, that often helps. Were these mice that they were telling that the mice were going to be accepted or was this done on humans?

Human beings. I've been reading about a bunch of, well, you're always reading about mouse studies if you're reading science stuff. And, you know, anyway. I've been reading about the mice too. So funny. I love the mouse studies or rats yep i just thought it would be mean to tell a mouse that nobody likes them that's all so i want to go back to the mere exposure effect for a second i actually was reading about that recently in a totally different context which means that the more times we hear a message the more we start to become more likely to almost

believe it meaning it's why politicians keep repeating the same things over and over. I also think it might happen with songs, that the more I hear a song, I often like it more. Neither of those reflections had anything to do with what we're talking about. Well, they're pretty good though. I don't know, that we have relationships with everything, right? Not just people. We have relationships with things that are inanimate. Our template for how people relate to us can predict how we relate to items, can predict how we relate to things that are more abstract. And I think that's kind of fascinating. I do too. You'll also talk about, and it's in the title of the book, how the science of attachment can help you make and keep friends. We've done some episodes in

the past about attachment theory, but I'm wondering if you could run us very quickly through what attachment theory is and how it wondering if you could run us very quickly through what attachment theory is and how it plays out in our friendships. Yeah. So the idea behind attachment theory is how we've connected fundamentally shapes who we are, how trusting we are, how loving we are, how affectionate we are, how nervous we are. And so our previous experiences of connection have built for us an internal template of how people will respond to us. And that internal template becomes more true than the truth. Because social interaction is so ambiguous, people don't explicitly tell us, I love you,

or I hate you. And even if they do, we often suspect they mean something different than what they say, and that becomes what's true for us. And so people that have had loving, stable relationships, they develop secure attachment, which means they go into connections assuming that they're going to go well. They can trust people. They can be vulnerable with people. They're just open. People that have had more inconsistent caregivers, they've had caregivers that maybe were more distracted by other things. They learned that

I can only get love and affection by forcing it and trying so hard. And people are rejecting me and I have to earn their affection. That's what's called anxious attachment. People that are anxiously attached, they tend to put a lot of effort in their friendships, but get little reward. They're just like, why are my friendships ending? They're not sustainable. I'm trying so hard. I'm working so hard. And that's really because if you're anxiously attached, you often feel rejected even when you're not. I mean, that's what we see in the research. Like your amygdala is lighting up more often. And so because of that, you're taking things as rejection. You might be withdrawing from friends when they're just sort of like busy and kind of ending relationships and not even realizing that you're doing it.

And then we have avoidantly attached people. And these folks, their early relationships were characterized by emotional neglect. If they ever expressed a feeling, they were perceived as weak, push that down, don't share that here. And so they have learned that they can't trust people. They can't share themselves with people and trust. And so they kind of become these low effort, low reward folks in friendship. They're either on their own, not really investing in anyone, or their relationships are more shallow. They really struggle with vulnerability.

So even if they have friends, their friends don't feel close to them, don't feel like they really know them. And so the anxious and the avoidant, they're both considered insecure attachment patterns, which are basically coping processes people are using because they're predicting that just like their past, people will continue to treat them that way. And these are the strategies that they're going to use to manage that in their interpersonal relationships. And then there's the lucky ones of us who have what's known as disorganized attachment style, which means we just do a little bit of all of it. We'll just bounce back and forth. I like you. I don't like you. Come close. Get away. That whole dance.

That's me. I just think it's funny. It's called disorganized because it just makes me laugh. Because there's no one strategy. You're like, I'm going to use whatever strategy. It's not an, yeah, you're just a, you got a whole toolkit. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I often talk with people because I've run group programs over the years through the one you feed. And I often talk about how like groups can be so powerful because they're such good mirrors. You know, you get into a group and all of us, when we get into one, even people, I think, who are securely attached are going to be doing some measure of figuring out where do I fit here, right? It's just a natural human thing. We're trying to figure out where we fit. And so to your point, someone who is anxiously attached is probably going to assume that people there

don't like them. Someone who's avoidantly attached is probably going to assume like, I know these people are worth my time. And then those of us that do both will ping pong back and forth through those feelings all within the first hour. And I think it can be so good if we understand these things because we can just observe it sort of happening and then go, okay, so that's what my brain is telling me. And that's doing that because this is what happens to me in group situations. Can I just relax that a little bit, you know, and, and just kind of hang around long enough that the mere exposure effect can take effect. I can relax and I can get closer. And so I thought recognizing our attachment styles. And I think one of the important things about attachment style,

and I've heard you say this in your book and on other shows, is that some of us will take that as like, that's the way we are. And that's not the point. The point is that's an unconscious pattern that you have the ability to rewire, right? Yep. Oh my gosh. Can I go into this a little bit? Because this is literally my next book on how to heal your sense of self. What is your attachment style? Why do you feel unworthy or insecure, right? You might think it's because I don't have job success or I'm not as attractive as I hope I am, but it's really not about who you are right now. It's about your past and it's about your memories. And so memories that are unprocessed impose themselves onto how we perceive reality now. So anxious attachment style, series of unprocessed memories

from the past that are telling you it's going to continue. Avoid an attachment style very similar. You're just perceiving the future like the past because you have these unprocessed childhood memories. When I say unprocessed, I mean, when you go back to those memories, they still trigger you. You feel uncomfortable thinking about it. You ruminate on it. It's not like I can put that behind me. It's like, I don't even want to think about this. When I think about my parents, when I think about my childhood, all these feelings still come up. But the thing about memories is that memories are made to predict the future, not reflect the past. What that means is we can change our memories. Every time you revisit a memory, you can change your memories. It's called memory

reconsolidation theory, which basically means for people that are anxiously attached, if they're able to go back to old memories where they have been abandoned or rejected, and this is like interparenting work like basically offer that young you like love and appreciation and tell them everything they needed to hear, right? That can actually begin to heal your attachment style. And in the research on attachment style, something that's really popular that has been found to be effective for healing attachment is security priming, which means you're constantly exposing yourself to like pictures of people that love you, words of people that love you, right? And what you're doing here is really trying to

change these memories because you don't need a coping mechanism is the threat going to reoccur. And if you are able to heal your memories, then you no longer think it's going to happen again. And so you don't need to prepare yourself with the anxious clinging or with the avoidant pushing away. I love that. What about for people, and I fall firmly into this camp, that have very, very little memory of, well, I mean, I have very little memory of even a week ago, let alone when I was a kid. I mean, I have almost no memory of my childhood. I think what memory I do have, I've gotten from pictures or stories that I've been told. So what do you do in that case? This is a good question. This is like debuting the material in my new book.

You're going to have to address this in the book. I know. And I totally am. So here's the thing about memory. We think of it as an image, a video, a picture, but memory also manifests as a sensation. It manifests as how we feel. There's two different parts of our brains that record memory. The hippocampus records the scene, the picture. And if it's a traumatic, stressful event though, that hippocampus goes offline, but you know what stays online? The amygdala, which records the emotion of the memory. And so even if you don't remember things, when you're triggered, that's a sign of a memory that needs to be reprocessed. When you're feeling so strongly

and other people don't feel as strong, that's a sign of a memory that you need to reprocess. Now, how do you process amygdala-based memories? Well, there's this theory called working memory theory, which is basically the idea that when you access a memory, your working memory is very limited. And so because of that, if you're distracted with something else, when you access that memory or sensation in the sense that might represent a memory trigger that might represent a memory, and you distract yourself with something else at the same time, because you only have limited memory RAM to call up that memory, you can actually degrade that memory. And this is the crux of EMDR. If you're familiar with it, you're like looking at something moving back and forth while picturing the memory

because that actually degrades the memory because you're focused on something else. And there's also interesting research that if you play Tetris while feeling triggered, or if you even like count count while thinking about your triggered sensation at the same time, you begin to degrade the sensory aspect of your memories. You just kind of blew my mind there. I've been doing this podcast for a decade. It's rare I hear something that I haven't heard before. So bravo. Thank you. That sensation that's being triggered by the amygdala is a form of a memory, right? That's kind of amazing

because one thing that people say, and I recognize it on some level, but the rationalist in me goes, but hang on, what's the mechanism? And it's when people talk about memories being stored in the body. I get that they're sensations, but the fact that they're in the amygdala, I'm like, oh, that makes sense. You're in your freaking amygdala. Yeah. Remembering everything for you. You can't deny the amygdala. You can deny the hippocampus.

Oh, yeah. Your hippocampus thought nothing happened here. My hippocampus, I suppose it's not entirely broken or I wouldn't know the function. It's got problems for sure. Yeah. Yeah. You can always trust the amygdala to stress you out for the rest of your life on things you don't even remember happened. That's fascinating that just the actual sensation is sufficient. I understand the memory reconsolidation stuff, right? Like every time you pull out a memory, right, when you put it back, it's subtly changed. And so what you do while you have it out affects it. So fascinating.

That's really interesting. I think you're going to love my next book. And your listeners have a sneak peek. Yeah. We're nearly at the end of our time here. You and I are going to continue in the post-show conversation because I do want to talk a little bit more about some other strategies for building friendship. I love that you position

this as almost as a skill, right? And I think so much of what goes on in our mental and emotional lives, if we can position it as a skill or something that we can learn, it takes so much of the shame out of it, which then allows us to actually do it. And I love that you are really taking that to something that can feel in very personal loneliness. Yeah, I totally agree with you. I think it is a skill. I find my fellow introverts, we are the worst at thinking that we are inherently non-social and there's no hope for us because that's part of our personalities, but initiating is not a part of your personality.

It is a skillset and it's as easy as, let me give you some direct language. I've really enjoyed spending time with you. I'd love to stay connected. Would you be open to exchanging phone numbers? That's all you got to do. Were you asking me or was that as an example? Well, both really, Eric. I mean, initially it was an example, but now that you're offering me to ask you directly, I will take that route. Okay. All right. All right. You and I will continue in the post show conversation with some additional strategies. Thank you so much for coming on. It's been a real pleasure. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a monthly donation to support the One You Feed podcast. When you join our membership community with this monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive members-only benefits. It's our way of saying thank you for your support. Now, we are so grateful for the members of our

community. We wouldn't be able to do what we do without their support, and we don't take a single dollar for granted. To learn more, make a donation at any level, and become a member of the One You Feed community, go to oneyoufeed.net slash join. The One You Feed podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the show. Hey y'all, I'm Dr. Joy Harden-Bradford, host of Therapy for Black Girls. This January, join me for our third annual January Jumpstart series. Starting January 1st, we'll have inspiring conversations to give you a hand in kickstarting your personal growth. If you've been holding back or playing small, this is your all-access pass to step fully into the possibilities of the new year.

Listen to Therapy for Black Girls starting on January 1st on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden and together our mission on the really no really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor what's in the museum of failure and does your dog truly love you we have the answer go to really no really.com and register to win 500 a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition sign Jason bobblehead. The Really Know Really podcast.

Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Decisions Decisions, the podcast where boundaries are pushed and conversations get candid. Join your favorite hosts, me, Weezy WTF. And me, Mandy B. As we dive deep into the world of nontraditional relationships and explore the often taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. That's right. Every Monday and Wednesday, we both invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity,

we share our personal journeys navigating our 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engage in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that will resonate with your experiences, Decisions Decisions is going to be your go-to source for the open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections. Tune in and join the conversation. Listen to Decisions Decisions on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.