Balancing Love & Desire | Esther Perel

[Music] hello everyone you're gonna get me in three installments today tomorrow the next day and maybe they'll be dessert so let's start this one and it's going to be an ongoing conversation as we continue in as I'm in dialogue with Marissa and with then Savage so that in any different formats workshops tomorrow afternoon and then the panel and here is where I want to start with you for a moment I want you to think of an experience that you had a moment in your life where you felt a deep sense of security you can close your eyes if that helps you kind of see the history of your life right in front of you a moment when you felt safe content satisfied more than successful maybe a moment where you're crying on someone else's shoulder and you know you can really let go because they're there to sustain you or a moment when you are saying goodbye to a dying member of your family and you know that you're holding each other all the way to the last breath or a moment when you're holding a newborn in your arm a place where you just felt I'm enough there's nothing more needed in this moment it's safe it's trusting it's reliable it's dependable good and when you have that moment what was it like for you just very briefly what stood out about that moment for you and how did you experience it in your body what does it feel like physically when we embody security trust safety familiarity continuity belonging hold it and walk with me to the other side of the spectrum of life and think of a moment an experience that you had where you experienced the deep sense of adventure of novelty of risk-taking of baldness where you went outside of your comfort zone into the unknown a moment when you allowed yourself to do something which usually you probably may not when you spoke up when generally you stay quiet where you stood up for an injustice when generally you are a passive bystander where you took the risk to let yourself be seen even if you're imperfect a moment that may be reckless that may be dangerous even and what's it like on that side of the spectrum of life and what's it like to embody that how does the body experience itself assert itself express itself when it is bold fearless transgressive adventurous breaking rules outside the norm even if it's just your own little norms you got them who has them just raise your hands who needs more time who is out somewhere else it's totally fine to turn to the person that sits on your right and just very briefly let them know what you were thinking of what you remembered where you went go you see every one of us here comes into this world straddling two sets of fundamental human needs we all have a need for security for safety for dependability for predictability for belonging for continuity but we also all have a equally strong need men and women and everything in between for adventure for novelty for mystery for risk for the unknown for discovery for exploration all of us from the minute we come into this world need to negotiate our need for security and our need for adventure our need for connection and our need for autonomy I need for togetherness and our need for freedom I need for love and our need for desire and some of us came out of your childhood and you're histories with a greater need for security for safety for protection and some of you came out of your histories your early histories with a greater need for space for freedom for choice for self-expression and many of you may have found partners for whom their proclivities matched your vulnerabilities so that they can bring to you the parts that you want more off or at least think you want more of although many times you win they'll find them about the very thing that you chose them for because we all know that the very thing that leads to conflict is often the very thing that we were originally at - such as some of the contradictions that we live with we've always had these two sets of needs and they change in the course of our life of course none of this is static but what is utterly new is that romanticism and modern love has brought us to a situation where for the first time in the history of humankind we want to reconcile them with one person and in one relationship and for the long haul which means that we live twice as long and how did we get to this that we want with the same person to experience the anchor and the waves and a little bit of history will help us to bring the pieces together because when it comes to relationships and modern love we actually have undergone rather revolutionary shifts in a very short amount of time and since we often live so much in the present or maybe we deny to the future which sometimes forget where we come from so allow me a three-minute little history course we used to live in communities we used to live actually in tribes we didn't have to come together from 40 countries to create tribes we actually were stuck in them very little choice in those tribes very little choice in those communities but what we did get is a sense of belonging a sense of identity and a sense of continuity I knew who I was because I knew who I'm part of and I know what to do because I do what I'm told and my relationships are organized on on a spectrum of duty and obligation and I'm happy when I fulfill my duty and my obligations and I feel like I have accomplished that which is expected of me when I'm raised tiled I am not raised for autonomy I'm not raised in order to use my words to say what I want I used to be raised in order to know what other people want from me and this is still part of a large part of the world today but in our communities we had a deep sense of anchor very little freedom and we move in a very short amount of time to the cities with major revolutions of urbanization and in the rise of individualism and in production economy and industrialization etc and what happens as we move to the city is that for the first time we are a lot more free but also a lot more alone and now one particular word is going to change its meaning radically and it's the word intimacy in most of the world still today intimacy generally means that we share the vicissitudes of the everyday life we milk the cows we feed the children we deal with the droughts we deal with the floods but today in our Western culture intimacy is in to me see and intimacy means that when I talk to you my beloved you better look at me in my eyes for the mirror neurons ain't no clicking away when I talk to you and into me see what is it that you're going to see is that I am going to share with you my most prized deep assets and they're not my camels and my Hertz they are my feelings my worries my anxieties my aspirations my dreams into me see I will open myself up to you to come in and as you come in you will validate me you will reflect me and you will momentarily help me transcend my existential aloneness welcome to modern love and it only starts there it goes on so we have this new definition of intimacy but we have a few other things too that happened for most of history marriage was a production economy it was an economic institution more and more in the West today marriage is been replaced as an experience at an experiential institution for trust and affection and intimacy and connection that's a very different economy for most of history infidelity threaten the economic stability of a relationship today infidelity threatens the emotional security of a relationship for most of history we married and we had sex for the first time today we marry and we stop having sex with others at least for most people that is still the norm you divorce because we were unhappy first of all for long time you couldn't divorce you just had the blessing of dying young then we finally could divorce but basically we divorce because we were very unhappy today the new bar is that we divorce because we could be happier happiness well happiness it belonged to the heavens many religions understood it as for the afterlife you suffer on earth you pay your dues and maybe you'll get some fun later on happiness was brought to earth first and then for a while it became a possibility today it's a mandate you have to be happy what's wrong with you if you're not you should it all depends on you get to work sexuality sexuality primarily within family life or marriage marriage and I'm in committed relationships but there wasn't much other kind for a long time was basically sexuality was reproduct economy we had sex for babies we needed eight babies to work the land for which we would have ten - we're not gonna survive and still in most parts of the world it's a marital duty for women but we have shifted sexuality in the West to a sexuality for pleasure and connection because if you have bambinos and you have two after two you pretty much done so what's the motivation to stay sexual with one partner or many partners openly or not openly but generally in the traditional model is with one partner how do people do this when they have a model of sexuality that is now rooted in desire desire as defined by owning the wanting so now it's not because I have to because I should because it's expected but it's because I want to and I want to with you and you want me and maybe at the same time so a lot of conditions to fulfill and why is it so difficult to sustain desire in the same place where we often feel deep love but no erotic energy what is the fate of desire in the long haul so what else changed monogamy monogamy used to be one person for life that was the definition of the word at this moment monogamy is one person at a time and people very comfortably tell you I am monogamous in all my relationships and it makes perfect sense ask your grandma you know or grandpa so all these concepts that we think about have always been in flux actually they have never been static they've always evolved they evolve across cultures they evolve across religions they evolve with the rise or the decline of egalitarianism they evolve with the changing definitions of gender they're not static and we are in the midst of an overhaul around that so desire has become the organizing principle of modern relationships in the West in our families in our careers in our intimate lives we want to feel desire we want to feel that we own the story that we are the authors of our story that we get to edit the story that we get to decide when the story needs to end the chapter and start a new one we want that sense of mastery over our lives we come to places like this to experience more of that so what is this illusive thing called desire and the million dollar question around desire is can we want what we already have which philosophers have dabbled with forever and why is it that a forbidden fuels desire and when you love how does it feel and when you desire how is it different and then lastly what helps us keep it alive so I want to take us to a few of these questions wherever we get now we're gonna have a conversation about all of this and as and it will unfold right what I want you to know is in everything I'd tell you it's years of thinking and writing and my new book that's coming out called the state of affairs rethinking infidelity and even though sometimes I will sound confident I am sure of absolutely nothing I live the dilemmas that we all live there isn't an expert on relationships they are just people who have thought about it more and can put words to some of the paradoxes to some of the longings to some of the disillusionment to some of the aspirations that we all have so when you love and you think about wanting to know the person knowing the beloved contracting the distance minimizing the threats having that deep connection it lives on a different side than when you want the verb for love is to have the verb for desire is to want and to want requires us sometimes to have a little bit of a psychological distance a sense of otherness a bridge to cross something or someone to visit on the other side so that in between me and you lies this tension called the erotic alone and I began to think about this dialectic this tension between closeness and space in terms of love and desire and the question that I would ask is I am most drawn to my partner when not sexually attracted only just most drawn to so what would you say if I ask you I'm most drawn to my partner when give me a few we are laughing together when he or she he is making art when we are traveling when we are adventurous when we are on the go when we are exploring together when we are discovering that's traveling right when he's present when we are dancing when she's fully self expressed when I connect to myself when what when we are not drunk is that it drunk or drugged which one was it ah sorry I thought that one was good to keep going and I'm drawn to my partner when I when she sings heard and seen when we are discussing when I see him shining how many of you would have that one when I see him or her shining ok how many of you would say when we've been apart when we reunite how many of you we say when I'm surprised in one way or another because what I'm seeing is different from the usual and how many would say when I see him or her shining in the lights of others yeah huh taking risks so the first one you're going to hear generally even about being in fully into herself singing dancing traveling what you're going to hear is that I'm most drawn to my partner when he or she radiates radiates that's probably the best word for it it's another word for confidence but it's confidence with illumination it has a little added twist to it because when she sings I am looking at this person who is already generally so familiar and he's momentarily once again somewhat unknown somewhat mysterious somewhat elusive and in this space between me and her lies this erotic alone it's a space in which what is generally so known becomes momentarily once again somewhat unknown so that I can explore and first and foremost be curious the essential experience that comes with desire is curiosity exploration and curiosity when my partner is confident or when I radiate it's the same when I am confident when I'm in myself when you know the second one is when we've been apart and when we've been a part of when we reunite or when he's away or she's away or they are away what happens is that we get to connect with the other dimension of desire which is that it is also rooted in longing and in absence there is something about not having that allows us to want more not just because we want what we can't have but because when we don't have it right in front of us it allows us to engage our imagination about not only what it is but what it means to us or what this person means to us represents for us and who we are in their presence when I'm surprised because I can be surprised because I am drawn to my partner because reason is vulnerable and it's not typically what I see or I'm surprised because I see you do something that you don't usually do or I'm surprised because you come to me with a different tone that you usually do but surprise breeds novelty change difference that too is a ferment of the desire and when I see my partner in the eyes of the others when other people are taken by his or her intelligence their words their charm their width their humor their looks basically when I experience in the moment that my partner doesn't just exist in my own gaze but also exists in the gaze of others and they don't belong to me they actually I don't own them at best your partner is on loan with an option to renew what we often think is that once we commit your mind and the long series of songs and poetry's and proverbs that have fed a kind of romantic possessiveness have often led us astray I'm most drawn to my partner speaks to this tension that needs to exist in the realm of desire can we want what we already have which is the second question is best answered if we accept that we never have the person who is next to us they have never belonged to us they are actually free to go of course we can control them we can lock them up we can create a system of surveillance but that's not intimacy or closeness what was it that she said I need to know where I want to be next year I can't even find my GPS these days you have a GPS on you from you know from a distance from the other person we can be controlled in fabulous ways it has never brought anybody close it just brings them there but that doesn't mean they're close it can make them physically there it doesn't make them present and most and foremost no surveillance ever breeds trust not in the intimate realm and I would venture a little political landline and not in the global sense so they never belong to you so how do you cultivate their interest how do we maintain this desire what does it mean to stay actively engaged with someone and how does it mean to stay actively engaged with ourselves in the presence of someone how do I remain interesting to myself when I'm with you how do we not create situations that so often happen in modern couples and especially when they're busy and on the go and active and reaching far out the way many of you do which is that often our erotic self exists outside and the leftovers come home and the erotic self is the self of desire it is the self that is playful that is engaged that looks in the eyes that is immediately responsive it's a very different self it's curious it's if its present its focused it's all of what we would like to experience in the intimacy of our own relationship but many of us have become much more adept at having that person on the outside and the one that comes home is the one that wants to chill I'm done I've put out I've put my charm out I have done the effort here is the place where I don't want to have to work so hard and the less we want to work so hard because there are also no rewards or no immediate rewards and no danger of being fired or at least not tomorrow morning we become lazy and we become complacent and desired shapes on the routine laziness habits and complacency it just goes numb it goes numb there it doesn't go numb all in all and then the question can we want what we already have what is the difference between love and desire and why does the forbidden fuel desire because you see very interesting thing when we begin to understand the anatomy of desire is this most of the time we have a model of desire that breeds freedom and possibility and choice great but at the same time when I do what I'm allowed to do it's fantastic but when I do what I'm not supposed to do for many of us that's when I really feel that I do and I'm doing what I really want there is something fundamental about breaking rules and transgression that makes us feel that we touch freedom with a capital F so the forbidden fuels desire because the forbidden even if it's our own forbidden little things which we haven't given ourselves the permission to feel to do to say it's not big things but the moment we break out and we reach beyond the inhibitions the boundaries the borders the prohibitions that we have said to ourselves or our culture and our said to us we experience a sense of affirmation and reclamation that is unmatched what happens today though with the notion of freedom is that you know for a long time if you wanted to date you had to cross the square and you had to cross the village square and you had to find two three people to choose from and that was that today we have a village that is a big global digital village in which I don't have two or three choices I have thousands of choices and on the one hand it gives me opportunities that I have never had but on the other side it also gives me what is called the paradox of choice right to choice three choice great five still good a hundred crippling self-doubt and massive uncertainty so there is never been a time where people ask me this very question more than ever I've done this for more than three decades how do I know when I have found the one but that question of course from Cinderella already you know that this question but that question has come up with a new twist because what is the one today when you have that sea of possibilities the one today is the one who's gonna make me wanna close my apps the one today is the one that's gonna make me no longer think that maybe there's something better around the corner that I didn't think about that I should still go look right I'm under the table looking at you and saying what else is out there the one is the one that's going to quite on all my inner Rumble that's going to be also extraordinaire that I'm no longer gonna want to think that I haven't found the one yet and the one is the one that has to give me a sense of certainty that is basically impossible to get people who find one are people who completely understand that life's at best are imperfect and you live with uncertainty you just hope that if you put in more and you become the one you'll make the other be more of the one that love is a verb and not a permanent state of enthusiasm given to you by someone else who is perfect while you still are not I guess this resonates for a few people so with that choice with that need for certainty it matches something that I think has really become one of the trademarks of modern relationships which is this we still want in the in and I'm gonna talk now but the monogamous probably mostly heterosexual but we shall see what happens after gay marriage model I think that there's a whole proliferation of new models and relational configurations that are challenging a lot of this and I hope we get to talk about that too but a general model that has really been kind of the legacy with which we enter into the story is this we still want economic stability support companionship social status and maybe kids when we commit to somebody married or not married it doesn't matter but we still want all of that plus now I want you also to be my best friend my trusted confidante and my passionate lover to boot into our 80s forgiving what this amounts to people is this we are asking one person to give us what once an entire village used to provide and that is a tall order for a party of two so where's the tribe where is the tribe where is the community where is the multiple people that help us so that maybe the relationship isn't the source of all our nourishment but it is the bridge to all the nourishments that we can find in the multiple parts of our lives which we then bring back to the relationship and then give it its energy when I work with couples and I am still a practicing clinician daily and I work with couples pretty much all over the globe I speak nine languages I can translate so I get also the real cultural nuances that I know are present in this room I don't get them all but I am aware of them let's put it more like that is that I see two kinds of couples or relationships doesn't have a vector to be invent two can be relationships of three or four there are those people who are not dead and they are those people who are alive it's a very important distinction and there's a line that I stole from then who's sitting in the back which i think is priceless because one of the things he always said was you don't measure the success of a relationship at a funeral home it is not just because you stay together forever that it actually means that it was good or even tolerable for that matter so what does it mean to not be dead do not be dead for me it's people who experience fear lack of trust legacies of trauma oppression tightness and you survive when you're not dead you can survive but you do the basics you certainly don't have rich fulfilling lives meaningful lives that's not what it's about it's about protecting yourself from danger emotional and physical and relational danger economic danger and life is this it's a body that opens up its expansive it reaches out it allows things to come in it is the ability to play to discover to explore and when it comes to desire there is one map I want to quickly draw with you because I want you to then think which one of these children is you you sit on your mother or your dad or whoever your parental figure slap whoever raised you and at some point every one of you jumped off to want to go and discover and experience the world you went to play you can experience it now in the role of the child or if you want to bring it in the role of sexuality and intimacy do it in the version of the adult you'll see the resonance when this little child leaves there is an adult here that can see a few things if the adult says kiddo the world's a great place go have fun play and joy then the little kid is gonna go and go further and they will experience and those of you who are they're experienced together on us and separateness at the same time safety and adventure at the same time mystery and trust at the same time but many of you did not get that answer many of you got the answer what's so great out there don't we have everything we need you and I I am lonely I am depressed I am anxious all kinds of messages that said to you come back and some of you may have done exactly that I'll give up a part of me in order not to lose you I'll forego my freedom in order to secure my connection and that's one child the second child doesn't come back right away because they're very zesty and curious and eager and they want to go but they're constantly looking over their shoulder am i safe am I going to be punished am I gonna pay the price for this are you gonna collapse on me what happens when I attend to myself and that person often in the beginning of a relationship experiences a great ability for security and adventure at the same time but as they become more intimate so down goes their desire the more connected I become to you de más I am able to want my own not just sexually as a whole the third child doesn't come back because there's not much to come back to so take a moment because in every relationship you will notice that there is often one person who is more in touch with the fear of abandonment and the fear of losing the other and one person who is more in touch with the fear of losing themselves and these two are often in a relationship with each other you see so there are three tensions I want to highlight then you can think about which one is you which one you were which one you are today and what you want to change about this we've talked about security and adventure as one of the big tensions in desire because sustaining desire is really about reconciling these two seemingly opposite forces that's really what it's at and I will tell you right away it is not a problem that you solve it is a paradox that you manage there is no answer there are lots of things you can do but it isn't because that's how you get away from this it's just how you live with it better the second tension is the tension between mystery and transparency we are in an era of massive transparency on all fronts and we are forgetting that there is a powerful aphrodisiac in not knowing everything not knowing everything neither inside relationships nor on social media leave something to be discovered if nothing is hidden nothing can be discovered religion understood that fundamentally if we are going to live secular spiritualities we need to bring back mystery we need to bring back mystery as in foreplay for that matter to it's the same idea rather than immediate gratification on all fronts it's the difference between sexuality and eroticism sex rather blatant and act the nature the biology the animal a rhotacism sexuality transformed by the human imagination it's everything that gives its me an imagination is not direct necessarily it plays with the hidden things behind the corners and the third tension after mistress the mystery and transparency is trust and betrayal the people who live on the side of not dead often don't trust in order to play to discover to explore to open up you must have that fundamental glue that gives every relationship its essence its timelessness and its truth it's called truth trust and many of us have experiences of broken trusts of betrayal and of needing to know how do we mend how do we bring back how do we repair as in pairing back when Trust is broken it actually is about reintegrating a new truth and a new trajectory for desire so that I can once again feel safe enough to want which means that I can once again feel secure enough to feel free and feel free enough to build more security it's a loop back and forth when it comes to love it's our imagination that is the greatest actor not necessarily the other person thank you [Applause]

Channel: Mindvalley Talks

Views: 677,121

Rating: 4.8825703 out of 5

Keywords: relationship, relationship goals, happiness, Emotions, powerful emotions, desire, loneliness, how to deal with loneliness, marriage, sexuality, intimacy, romanticism, satisfaction, eroticism, contentment, Esther Perel, Esther Perel ted talk, how to master your emotions | emotional intelligence, 5 Signs You Cannot Handle a Relationship, Healthy Sexuality Vs. Healing Sexuality - Teal Swan, Famed Relationship Therapist Esther Perel Gives Advice on Intimacy Careers and Self-Improvement

Id: ierRipP-7JA

Length: 40min 51sec (2451 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 02 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/YOUREABOT]

A lot more free but a lot more alone...absolutely how I feel