Esther Perel: Relationships and How They Shape Us | Feel Better Live More Podcast

this notion sometimes that people have that you have to know yourself first you have to love yourself first you know and then you can go and be in a relationship never made sense to me because you only know yourself through your interactions with others the way I speak is influenced by the way you listen the way I see myself is influenced by the way you see me we are not just one person we may have core characteristics but we are shaped by the relationship in which we are we make the relationship and the relationship makes us as that well can see the podcast thank you it's a pleasure for me to be here yeah me too but we've got about 10 minutes of background stress trying to connect over Skype and then zoom which in many ways is the way of the new world in which were living rights yes the tech meltdown is the new intro I have been wanting to interview you for many years now I love like many people love you'll work your ideas and so really grateful for you giving me some time today really context of people where are we having this conversation I'm in my house and South Manchester in England how about yourself I am in Woodstock New York where I have been confined since March so about what 12 weeks now yeah Wow long time yes we have a different situation here but slowly but surely hopefully we'll have a bit of an opening up yeah sure well there's a there's a lot I wanted to talk to you about today you you're one of my dream guess why with love you idea in my studio for two hours but I don't have that luxury so I'm gonna have to see what I can get in one hour hours of you and unless we do it again another time I will say right now I'm very happy to take you up on that to any science but given that given this short period of time we've got I thought let's just jump straight in a lot of people know you for your expertise on relationships and why is it when relationships are fundamental to how we feel about ourselves why do we feel fulfilled whether we feel happy why is it that so many the struggle with what really is a core part of being a human being I think that you know we are wired for connection we are social creatures we don't survive when alone and at the same time our dependence on others our interaction with others can cause us situations of utter bliss and situations of utter grief the quality I tend to think that it is the quality of our relationships that determines the quality of our lives in the end it is the people and the way they will remember you and the way you will live inside of them that will give the ultimate description of the life you've led and meaning of what you have met what you have represented for others you know we like to know that we matter that I mean something for for you and that you mean something for me we creatures of meaning and this meaning-making is a set of stories that we tell ourselves about our relationships do you like me do you not like me do you find me attractive do you value me do you respect me do you think I'm smart you think I'm good person you know will you leave me all of these fundamental questions are continuously relational questions that's why it's so core yeah you mentioned stories they're the stories we tell ourselves and you know it's interesting when you think about that a lot of a lot of our life a lot the way we see ourselves a lot the way we see our relationships is driven by the stories we tell ourselves about it we as humans we're great at telling ourselves stories because it helps us make sense of where we are in our lives right now we need a story but if your story has become toxic within your relationship how go about rewriting that story and telling a new one you come to therapy right that's one of the main things that we do in therapy is we people come in when people come to see me they often come with a story of what's going on of how they got there of why this is happening of why they can't change it of why the other person is making them miserable and they often come of course as experts about the faults of the other very few people come to couples therapy to say I came to check myself out they generally come to tell you how they're an expert on the wrongdoings of the other and then they'll watch you while you fix it it's often like a Curt couples therapy sometimes is a drop off center you know but the story is what people come with and my goal in my work is often that after the first session you will leave with a different story because you're stuck in that story and people generally come to see us because they're stuck and they start based on the set of assumptions the assumption is you don't care about me you mean harm to me you no longer love me or I can never do it right by you or it will never be good enough these are stories and these stories what you call making sense which I call making meaning is what drives the thing a relationship is a story it's not just that we tell ourselves stories a relationship is a story it has an origin it has a beginning it has expectations it has a plot and all of that makes up for a story there is no relationship that is not a story tell me about your relationship with your children it's a story it really is I went for a walk before this conversation today just to have a think about what we might talk about I tend to have free-flowing conversations that I have no real set order where they're going to go but what really struck me as they as I was walking was you know you're a relationship counselor a relationship therapist right that's how a lot of people I think would know you right but in many ways what you're offering people is so much more than relationships because if your relationship in proves you get to know more about yourself so in some ways I think it's all about relations for you do and in some ways it's not it's about helping us understand ourselves better because only understand ourselves better we're going to show up in a much more meaningful and different way in our relationship with much less of our own baggage so so for me I have the sight conflicts which I haven't figured out yet in my head that it is about relationships but in many ways it's just about being a human being so that's part of the reason you think this way I would say it's because we have a way of thinking that there is the relationship and then there is me there is the snuff and then there is the relationship but when you think in a relational perspective like I am a relational thinker and I am a narrative thinker as in stories then I don't see these two a separates the self is relational there is no way of thinking about yourself outside of that framework this notion sometimes that people have that you have to know yourself first you have to love yourself first you know and then you can go and be in a relationship never made sense to me because you only know yourself you through your interactions with others even if it's the ones in your head but there always are relational so I don't divide those two things and yes when I think relationally I think existential it's true in the end it is about being a human being what's your place in this in this earth you know what do you represent what do you want to do what do you want to leave behind who are you not just what do you do and how do you perform but who are you and that who are you is always a combination of how you see yourself and how others see you how much you are aware of yourself and how you impact others and how much you realize what others are doing to you you know the story of a relationship it's not just a story you tell yourself because the story you tell yourself is influenced by the character that you have become in other people's stories you know one of the ways that one day I threw out that line and became a real gun of guide a guide for me I said to somebody in a session I said you know you have been recruited for a play in this relationship that you never auditioned for and here you are suddenly representing for your partner all those characteristics which you don't even recognize yourself but this is what happens in a relationship you enter somebody else's story somebody else's theater and you become a character in their plot and let alone did you know they know that you even apply to be that character but you have become little did you know that you were gonna become the abusive brother little did you know that you were going to become the adoring father little did you know but here you are you know so the story is never just created by one person it's a co-creation the way I speak is influenced by the way you listen the way I see myself is influenced by the way you see me and this is why I think that the podcast of where should we begin which is really about the stories of the relationships became became so so attractive because for the first time people began to see how the story gets created in other relationships that gave them an idea about how their own story came into being yeah I think the podcast is fantastic I would encourage every listings mister to go and check it out it's something I've seen in my almost 20 years now as a doctor as a medical doctor that what a patient comes in and they're struggling with something I'll often tell them hey you know what you're I've seen many patients like this this week I've seen other people who've got just the same problem as you and you see the shouldest drop happens just the knowledge that this is not just me and I'm not the only one in the world suffering from this it's quite reassuring and often opens up that Avenue for change and I think very much when I listen to those episodes of your podcast we can all take little bits on our own lives and our own relations there's always a little thread and one of them what you think and one of that applies in my own marriage and it's easier I guess it's in some ways it's one of the beautiful things about therapy is that there's a third person there it's not just you and your partner trying to fix things between yourselves there's a bit of distance by hearing it in someone else's story right how old are you kids my kids my son just turned 10 and my daughter is 7 years old when they were a little younger they probably got very interested in Kappa Theatre yeah and puppet theater is exactly the same thing the puppets tell a story it's not exactly your story but you can relate to the universal themes of the story you see yourself in the have you ever gone to children's theatre I mean they aren't those characters yeah and in a way when people listen to the sessions of other couples they have a little bit of that same experience but in a more sedated version of the way an adult sits in the theatre children never sit in the theatre quietly and watch they are entering the plot they encourage the good person to say no you're in the wrong direction and they go for good they go for the good you know that's the important thing especially if you take an example of a police person these days you know but it's really entering the characters of the other gives you an immediate experience about what happens to you yeah in couples therapy I think is sometimes the best theatre in town it's something about hearing it that you can't switch off you want to him all you want sir there's yeah they're just incredible it's like you are eavesdropping on a private herpe conversation it's it really is it's fascinating it's insightful and I think it helps a lot of people look at their own lives looks at that look at the record relationship maybe they can figure some stuff out on the back of it themselves maybe it's a trigger for them to go and see a therapist Klee but but something you just said us about these stories and and just before that which I can't stop thinking about is this idea that we exist within relationships so it's not separate and you're right humans are social beings we've always thrived in community with people around us so who we are by ourselves out with the community in some ways is irrelevant because that's not how we operate do you think in all your experience or your clinical experience that your relationships provides the ultimate mirror to look at your own behavior to look at your own I guess inadequacies and insecurities are they really highlighted in relationships in a way that nothing else can yes yes I think that there is I I would put it like that actually it's more dialectic you know in order for me to know me I really need to know myself through you through my connections with people but it can be strangers it doesn't just have to be the intimate relationship to the people who raised me which is probably the origin story you know through my friends to my colleagues I it's a mirror but what's so interesting is that in we tend to think that we are reacting to what other people do to us and we don't know that they are also at the same time reacting to things that we do to them that is what is amazing to see in relationships is that we we see ourselves are to receiving it with very aware you made me feel you set me up to it's because you said this that I you know if you hadn't done that I would never and we see ourselves as if we are in reaction to we don't often see the action we only see the reaction and the real awareness in a relationship is both and it's what I do to you that makes you do to me that then sets me up to do to you then that makes you to say to me the opposite of what you ever intended to say then then makes me say to you what I would never have wanted to say to you either and here we are stuck it's this way that people tend to think a human being is a person and they have a fantastic sentence for it which is that's just the way you are that's who he is that's who she is she's that kind of a person and I always say with you she is that kind of a person but we are not the same person with others we are not just one person we may have core characteristics but we are shaped by the relationship in which we are we make the relationship and the relationship makes us and the relationship is the dynamic between you and me it's the space in between it's not who I am and who you are it's what we do to each other that draws from you certain things and that rose from me certain things and that's the definition of a relationship it's the space in between it's a very different way of thinking about it than the two people coming together now it's what is it that it creates together and what is it that they bring out in each other does that answer your question it does and whatever you speak I have a about five different thoughts that go in my heads and I'm thinking about my own relationship I'm thinking about all kinds of different things you can make it I think it's if you give if you want to give a personal example it's kind of you know I'm giving you a theory of perspective but I'm happy to bring it into very granular level yeah I mean I think I think I'll be a good idea so we can talk about the show but before we do that I the thing I thought about I remember in my 20s were I had a lot of back problems back then and this may seem quite unrelated and when I finished this thought it may prove to have been unrelated but what's really interesting to me is that you know I'd be insufficient and chiropractors and all kinds of people to help me with my back and ultimately I ended up at a spinal surgeons door he did an MRI scan and he said yes there's a disc problem that but then he said to me this he said but wrong and the thing is if I took a 100 people off the streets and did a scan maybe 40% of them will have the same problem that you've got but maybe only 10 or 15% would have pain so I don't know if that is the cause of your pain or not it's a static scan and what matters is what have missed your back when you move and the analogy why I thought of that is it's this whole idea that we exist within our relationships how we are only went well I can't say only matters but it is dependent on that relationship and that's not saying I've really reflected on before and I guess if you want to bring it back to a personal level I guess my wife might sometimes say to me or you're so lovely and caring and attentive with everybody else right and sometimes you're not with me and that can be taken as an attack it could be it could be said as something that is very frustrating but I guess the way you're describing it well of course you might be different people I guess we'll be triggering you in different ways so you'll be wrapped into that rights so here's the story behind it first of all the your back movie is the equivalent of what I mean when I say a relationship is dynamic yeah and the dynamics the dynamism the movement that will determine what is the issue exactly the way that you're back in motion will determine what is your issue perfect energy here's the story that I hear behind what your wife says to you sometimes actually I will not say sometimes most often behind the criticism there is a wish when a person says you give the best of yourself to your work to your colleagues to your clients to the people you interview to your guests and you bring the leftovers home this is a criticism but two wishes I wish that I would get sometimes that same kind of very focused attention that you're giving a step around right now you're thinking with her you present you're focused you're not on your phone you're attentive if you're engaged you're alive I want that person with me and that is what many many partners say you know I know you have it in you because I know you're doing it elsewhere but that's because you're motivated that's because you can't get away with less that's because that's the way you need to show up you're asked with me there's a certain way in which you know I'll be there tomorrow so even if you give me pittance today I should just wait and for my turn kind of thing that's the story that lies behind now that story sits on another story when we met I used to be that person who got that kind of attention from that's what drew me to you your way of listening your engagement your likeness you made me feel special you made me feel smart you.this is the next layer of the story and I'm mister and where has that gone and yet I start to feel jealous because I see it when you play with the kids I see it when you are with your guests and I think that what is between us becomes more perfunctory task-oriented Management Inc where is our love story I thought rich was gonna be a love story so this this is the multiple layers of story that are behind the kind of comment that she makes and the answer to that comment can be you know no that's not true or all kinds of defensiveness but it can also be thank you for reminding me well because sometimes I forget and I'm so glad that you don't and please hold me accountable because what it means is that you have high expectations for our relationship and I want that rather than say you critical again I can't do it right you know there's a - we'll shape the next layer of the story so essentially what you have just done there is rewrite the story that we may both wish to tell ourselves about that conversation it's in some ways it's it's a great thing because it means she cares and that she wants a great relationship and I've got to say just continuing that what you think of this cuz we have never took I mean to lay cards right on the table I've been married now for about 13 years and I think I'm like to think my wife would also share the same view that it's about as good as it's ever been but it doesn't mean there weren't some rocky times along the way and we have both done a lot of personal work ourselves separately but I think although when you do personal work yourselves you sort of shift at differing paces with can really change the dynamic within a relationship because I guess you meet with all your baggage and then if you start to let go some of that baggage in some ways you're not the same person anymore so a lot of what I'm describing are things that used to happen a lot I know in my own life and my own relationship reframing that has been a crucial part of growth and a deepening of our relationship and we have not had couples therapy yet but we want to not because we think there's a gross problem that needs fixing but because we're committed to being together for life we're committed to growing together with the understanding that there will be ups and downs but still we've still got that common goal where we're heading would you say that relationship therapy is necessary or advisable for all relationships whether they think they've got a problem or not maybe we could say relationship therapy is very useful but you don't have to go to therapy for it I mean in that sense I would say this podcast reading books talking to friends there's a lot of ways to do relationship therapy that isn't just about going to a therapist you know when I think of where should we begin I think it has democratized psychotherapy and Cotters therapy in particular it has made it accessible it's affordable it's free its global it's for people who have zero access to psychotherapy in the Western sense of the world and it is highly therapeutic without being therapy so that is also called relationship therapy if you want but it's not about going to a therapist I think part of what you are asking me is what I was trying to do you're saying that I have to go to a therapist in order to engage in therapeutic processes in therapeutic endeavors in things that improve my relationship that make it a more conscious relationship no the same way that I wanted to take what I do in my office and bring it to the global world outside of the office because I thought this stuff that is said here should not only be said in my four walls it really belongs in the public square it shouldn't be a privileged practice for very few it should be the way that people think about relationships with dignity respect joy and aliveness and sensuality for all and so you are doing it without coming to me and I am coming to you yeah I love that and I think that's one of the beasts or things about technology and things like podcasts is that people can get a window and they can listen in on conversations that they never would have been out sooo before and as you say it's free so you've even taken out that cost equation away from people if they want help with our relationships start listening to your podcast and actually does they'll learn a lot of tools that they can start to apply and and I guess that's never been done this notion everybody wants to know what really goes on in wrong hands life when he closes the door what really goes on in the person I just had dinner with once they entered the car you know they look like this but is this really the true story what really goes on in other people's lives and especially these days were many people and many couples live in an atmosphere of fake news where everybody can curate and filter their profiles online and tell beautiful stories people are constantly wondering am I the only one how does that play out in other people's homes you know when you say we used to live with challenges and then what we could we deliberately went and try to improve them you know relationships are continuously a story what my treatment my friend Terry real cause of harmony disharmony and repair connection disconnection reconnection that's the rhythm of a relationship you know it's not what it was bad now it's really good it was bad it's really good for this and then something else will happen and he doesn't even have to be put in the term of bad and good things emerge new new issues appear in life we changed that doesn't mean the relationship is bad you know and there is no perfect relationship but to know all of that people need truth and the truth is not easy to come by because everybody today has a tremendous pressure to prove that their relationship is perfect that they're doing great and this kind of fake happiness kind of thing and in fact people get a lot more when they know you have had loss you have you had illness you've had unemployment you've had economic hardship you've been finding it really tough to spend three months with your partner 24/7 me too and how are you doing tell me what's been challenging for you tell me what you have found useful share the resources of your relationship intelligence with me yeah and I'll do the same and that makes the world a little bit of a better place you say that there's a lot of pressure on us now to you know in many ways be perfect and and you know we're constantly comparing ourselves with others it's interesting the emotion I felt as I was talking to you about this comment that my wife you used to say in the past and I I thought deeply uncomfortable about talking about it because part of me is thinking well hundreds of thousands of people are going to hear this conversation and will they think I'm not a good husband and the thing is I'm glad I'm aware office I'm aware that that was something that was going on and of course that to me would be indicative of some of my own insecurities perhaps that might be playing out in that moment it's a great impression it's both you see if you just say individual insecurities then you individualize the problem if you combine it with an societal pressure you know I thought it was beautiful what you said and I and also I knew that you said things are much better I took note of this I did something with this she didn't just say this for 10 years in a row and I told nice this is something that you your audience wants to hear is that your amongst us me too you and that you have your things and that doesn't make you a good husband a bad husband look how limited is the dialogue the minute you showed that there is something that could use improvement it becomes a good husband a bad husband a good marriage baggage and that is the pressure of the individualistic society in which you have to be at your best all the time and shine it's not one of the main issues today so I love us to try and compare relationships and let's say 50 years ago 100 years ago is there a difference between those relationships and the relations today and I guess what I'm getting at one of the things I think about a lot and this is not just new in relations for me I feel that the culture in which we lived because of many things that's good let's take social media as an example where we see the best of everybody's lives so even if you're having a great day in your home you will see someone pre long-dead who's having a beautiful breakfast looking out on a beach in the Maldives or you may have just been in a holiday for two weeks and come home and you know what you're stuck with your 200 emails trying to get through their list of patients you're trying to get and see and someone else's on holiday so this concept feeling of inferior Ness to everyone around you and I really as a doctor I see this playing out in medical problems whether it's anxiety depression insomnia guts problems whatever it is that sense of dissatisfaction plays out there but I'm sure that plays a role in our relationships where you know these days we ask ourselves questions also you know am I happy am i fulfilled you know do I love my job you know there's always that feeling that there could be something better out there and that I think is inherently problematic when it comes to a long term relationship so the history of marriage or intimate adults relationships in a nutshell is this there is a massive difference there is a massive difference because the expectations of our adult intimacy's are unprecedented we used to marry for survival for the basic needs of the Maslow ladder for refuge for economic support for family children companionship then we brought love to marriage and then we wanted in marriage also to experience a feeling of belonging and a feeling of connection and intimacy and then we made marriage or adult relationships an identity economy I want to become the best version of myself that's a completely different set of expectations and the way Eli Finkel writes in his book is that the good relationships of today are probably much better than the good relationships of the past but they're very few of those people who managed to climb Mount Olympus and have an amazing view the view is fantastic but the air is also thinner and no but not everybody gets up there now what also changed is that relationships used to be part of our communal living and when you lived in a community you had a few basic needs that were supposed to be met by your partner but the rest of your needs were met by your siblings of which you had many and by your community and by your religious institutions and by and by your your extended family all of that today our need for belonging our need for connection our need for specialness our need for intimacy sexuality you name it has been put onto one person and today we asked one person in the West to give us what once an entire village used to provide and that is a tall order for a party of two this is the rise of expectations that has taken place and you know sex used to be for production you needed many children now we have about two or three at best in the West and that means that sexuality is for connection for pleasure for intimacy that is a completely rewrite we used to marry and have sex for the first time now you and you stopped having sex with others we used to think of monogamy as one person for life today monogamy is one person at a time we used to marry in our late teens today we marry in our late 20s early 30s that is a completely different story when you already arrived quite ready-made and what you want is for somebody to recognize how hard you've worked at making yourself and vice-versa we used to never have divorce it was married till you die now it's marital love dies these are major transformations to the way we live our adult relationships and in addition we live in a world in which happiness used to belong to the heavens and then we brought happiness down to earth and first it was a possibility and now it's a mandate you must be happy what's wrong with you that you're not happy what are you doing wrong because if you did it right you would be happy and that is all the pressure that people feel that is around them when they look at their relationship and when they look at the happy people on Instagram that's a mini history of a hundred years and you if you just sit with that and try and absorb it of course it's a natural consequence then that well ships a struggling that people feel dissatisfied but divorce rates are going up in many countries that relations are such a source of pain and anguish for so many people they have rapidly changed again I like drawing analogies like the food environment has changed so rapidly that we've not had time to evolve and actually come to terms with all this hyper powerful processed food that is available everywhere I guess same thing you're saying with with relationships and marriage in particular it is evolved rapidly and probably evolved in a way that many this weren't even aware of it's just if you think about your parents and if you think about your grandparents or same for me I will know everything I just told I can see literally passing by generations that divorce went up when women got more rights and when women got to have a modicum of economic independence so that they could survive without their husbands you know men have had drug basically a license to cheat and women have basically been extraordinary for it so it has also to do with the power dynamic in the relationships with the way that marriages have unfolded and that's why it's very important to not just be romantic about the past and say we used to have lasting relationships because they lasted you know longevity has never been the marker of success they lasted because people had no option they people sometimes today leave for good reasons and they have the option to do so and that is actually commendable as well at the same time I think that people are often very self-critical you know the word failure did not exist till the end of the 19th century in the way that people would constantly think they are a failure Taylor doing it well and that has to do with individualism in my grandparents generation and your grandpa generations you had a good marriage if you fulfilled your duties and you fulfilled your obligations and you did the things that were expected from you and your role was clear the role of the father the role of the mother everybody knew exactly what they're supposed to do these days all the big decisions are on us so we have a lot more freedom we have unprecedented freedom and we have unprecedented self-doubt self-criticism from the minute you start to date to the minute you end am I happy am i happy enough you know is this a good relationship will I get it better you constantly like negotiating yeah I'm happy but could I be happier is that sort of nagging thought in many people's minds and and I said it's it's really interesting that but I did that we're saying and I guess the story that society tells us is that getting married and staying married is a barometer of success right so if you come from that standpoint then not meeting that makes you feel inadequate but you're saying it's not so you're not necessarily looking through rose-tinted glasses and saying hey it was great in the past you're just saying it's just different and I mean I probably should have said that up front we live twice as long as a hundred years ago so when we used to say till death do us apart the longevity of the marriage was a lot shorter than what we are hoping for today we want six years of this kind of bliss you know part of what i doing where should we begin is say to people there is not a one size fits all let me show you what marriages look like or adult relationships from all backgrounds from all orientations so that you stop feeling that it is this one model and if you didn't succeed at that well you failed that you can actually reinvent your relationship that the story is not over start writing differently your partner says and you've been answering B for the last nine years when try say something different and see what happens now the story begins to change and let me show you how you could actually change the story because when you change the story you change the experience and when you change the experience you feel that you have agency over your life and you're not just stuck there you know suffering till God knows when yeah you mentioned your parents my parents grandparents is interesting that culture also plays a role here I'm sure in terms of how we define a relation to some my parents for example my dad was came to the UK in the early 1960s British no more recruiting a lot of doctors from the Indians of concept to fill gaps here and dad worked here if they're sort of 5-10 years and then he went back to Calcutta where he's from for 10 days to get married so he'd never met my mum before his family and my mum's parents you know had arranged the marriage you know they match you for culture backgrounds you know things that are typically frowned upon in Western culture and probably as a kid and as a teenager I may have frowned upon I grew up in the UK but it's really interesting that I remember they never met or the day before their marriage never met they kept married mum that flies over and spends the rest of her life and who came in my dad's I think wow that is probably compromise on so many levels you're not even individually choosing your partner yet you then create a life together in a different country and to me someone has brought up in the West it seems incredible that what you would what you wouldn't really know your girlfriend or your boyfriend's before you'll feel safe before you get married it's just incredible but now we'd add a piece and she got up rooted from her entire family and her entire life to come and meet him in a world that was already his and a level of adaptation that she must have gone through the level of really starting from lately scratch and I think the story of your mother is a story that is often told in literature but not enough inside the families yeah and was one happy satisfied in her relationship you know I don't know but I'm not sure that was necessarily what was top of mine know what rest up of mind was the joy she was gonna get from her children and you from her firstborn yeah the way that family worked is that the connection came not from your partner particularly but from your children and if you did well by your children you have you a proud know you know it's a very different model of relationships not my parents is the same you know I come from the same tradition I don't mean my parents were Orthodox Jews but they came from arranged marriages exactly the same way it so happened that my parents who went through the war and then went through the concentration camps when they came out they had no family he left with nobody to decide who they should marry and so they actually chose but they chose people that would never have been chosen by their families they chose each other by virtue of circumstance and did they think that they would that the intimate relationship between the couple was not the center of the marriage the family was the center of the marriage that's touched that is profound the family was the center of the marriage it's it's so different so me for many of us and it's interesting on on the podcast a few weeks ago I spoke to Vivek Murthy the Surgeon General under Obama we just had a wonderful conversation and one of the themes we talked about was our parents as immigrants from India coming over to the west mine to the UK has to the United States they came for a better life and material success you know we can get our own house we can we can work hard and we can progress up the chain I don't think anyone knew at the time I don't think my parents said I don't think vedettes parents did and then they necessarily understood the full sacrifice they were making yes on one hands they might be getting more material success or in the other hands going back to what you were saying before about villages communities tribes they lost their communities they lost their tribes they lost that support network so there was you know I grew up I didn't have any family around at all nothing apart from one uncle about 200 miles away that was it and when I got scheduled on my wife and see she's got although as a family I think wow that's incredible so you had so much help and support growing up and it's just fascinating how the world has looked for commercial materialistic gain but at what cost has that come you know in terms of communities and networks friends but did your parents create new communities because the community offered support but the community also made demands yeah I mean it never you know they go together you argue all the community you know one of the questions that I ask people when they come to see me in my practice and when I work in conferences with companies or in the podcast is that goes directly to the heart of what you say where you raised for autonomy or where you raised for loyalty where you raised for self-reliance and told you need to stand on your own two feet nobody can ever tell you what to do you need to figure it out yourself or were you raised for interdependence meaning you or others others are there for you when you have a problem the first thing you think about is who can I call and you are part of a network of connections those are the two most important differences in Outlook and in the way we raise our children for that matter to understand their relationship to others you know is the emphasis on the relationship to the self or is the emphasis on the relationship to others and I think your parents which are and particularly you dad in this instance who you know on the one hand he leaves his community but on the other end he gains against freedom so he loses the support but he gains in the ability to write his own story and maybe to raise his children quite differently from the way he was raised and maybe to practice medicine differently and maybe your mother and this is what becomes fascinating you know felt uprooted but maybe she also on some level felt liberated maybe not maybe she felt really approved and not liberated but this is where the modern era has created this multiplicity of identity and of stories negotiation between the past and the present between the collective and the individual you know the give it you is another example the first episode in this season of where should we begin is a is a couple that are religious that met his african-american she's Indian they meet in religious school they are together but cannot be together because they're in a devoutly Christian upbringing and what she says is just an amazing sentence she says my sexuality as in myself my identity as a woman has never belonged to me first it belonged to India then it belonged to my parents then it belonged to my Christian school and then it belonged to my husband and this time I want to define it myself and I just thought you pretty much have told the history of people women in this instance you know over many many decades in this one sentence and each one of these sentences represent an entire set of expectations an entire set of behaviors and an entire set of frustrations as well yeah but this as pros and cons on every single level you know as they're thinking about what you said about the two different types of viewpoints and says of how you raised it to continue the story of my wife and I because I agree that I think it's easier to relate to with a concrete example I think one of the biggest problems early on in our relationship possibly was a different viewpoint on that so I very much was although I'm the youngest for variety reasons I was responsible for looking after my family that was my role within my immediate family my dad got seriously unwell was about 18 or 19 he had to retire lupus kidney failure suddenly our whole lives changed my whole adult life until dad died maybe seven years ago all revolved around looking after my family seven days a week 365 days a year that was I guess in many ways how I define myself I wouldn't think about what I wanted or what do I need to be happy I as long as everyone's happy and I'm good and important sentence what you just said now that is that is the fundamental difference it's not what I want it's what I should do and if I do it well and other people are good then I know I'm good but that then becomes an can and was in was incredibly problematic man when you bring that dynamic into your relationship so my wife and I we met we were had a whirlwind passionate romance I proposed after three months were married after eight months were like you know world is amazing that you were amazing where you know it was it was just it was really really intense where is she she like me is born and brought up in the UK but she has an Indian background like me but she's you know very much like me born of course up here but really interestingly she has unconventional type of Indian upbringing her parents are very sort of I think very progressive they've been in this country a lot longer than my parents I think her mum was in the UK since she was 12 or 13 just a very very I have a lot of assumptions about what her viewpoint would be she was closer to you than she was and she was more of the third generation than you and in that westernized than you and therefore more individualistic than you and the idea that your family would come ahead of your marriage and your relationship to her became a bone of contention because you performed loyalty and she was claiming independence and you've got it it's as if we've had it to our session exactly I mean it's but it's amazing that when you're in it you can't see it you just there's this friction going on again this was looking time ago now but but I'm sure you see these patterns everywhere and I guess I've morphed one way and she's probably move the other way it's which I guess we both learned from each other about some of the qualities maybe we want to or some things we might want to change but it but it definitely causes issues and I would also say that me and my wife my what we've been talking about this recently and I think I think if we hadn't got married I think we may have split up in our first year we were just dating I think we'll split up but there's something about being married there and maybe it's because you know our parents are still together maybe there was something that where we thought you know we need to meet me not needs it we want to work at this rent commitment league not negotiable is what we're asking you know other people reevaluate their commitment and you say I really value it my relationship but the commitment is a non-negotiable that's a different value to and those are cultural values as well I mean even the autonomy versus versus interdependence it's a value framework and when you put it in that context it's less about what's wrong with you person it's more this is where you come from and this is the values that you live with and they're much bigger than just you that's a story as well you know and I think that it's very very important to put people in their cultural context but because she came from the supposedly same background you attributed to her more similarity that there actually was and which is something that often happens and then slowly you get to readjust and then slowly each person gets to know why they pick the other even in ways that were not conscious sometimes and each person gets to receive from the other that very thing that they wanted a little bit more off without having to be the one to own it yeah everybody is incredible and I've got to say I wouldn't wish it went down any other way because I feel that whole experience has brought us closer I think it's helped us understand ourselves Bassets helps us understand how the way we were brought up has influenced the way we're now showing up in our relationship let's get some practical strategies to people who are listening to this and one of the most important things we do and I've got to say in lockdown it's slipped by the wayside a little bit because of the various pressures of being at home home schooling the kids trying to keep up with our workloads but it's something I gross like my last book called a tea ritual so we know if we everyday have at least five minutes five minutes is a commitment often it's more than that but the commitment is only four five minutes we have to sit together often when the kids are in bed and over a cup of tea catch-up without a laptop without a phone just to catch up with each other it's incredible that when we do that even if it lasts 5 or 10 minutes when we do it consistently our relationship is completely different we're closer we're more intimate we're more connected what rituals do you advise people think about applying into their relationships that could have quite transforms to the facts right so by the way just because you're you're gonna see a lot of these rituals I did a special season of where should we begin with couples under lockdown see Seelye Germany in New York and Nigeria well I heard Sicilian Germany they were great absolutely brilliant and I emphasize routine ritual and boundary those are three important dimensions in relationships in general but it is extremely important right now and we are going to be in confinement again this is we are in it for a good year or two here so this is not over and the routine you know what you do when you do the T it's basically you're saying I'm sitting and cordoning off I'm creating a boundary around the relationship that says now our attention goes to each other not to what we need to do but to who we each are and how much we value our relationship what we're saying when we do the T is our relationship matters it needs upkeep it needs protection from all the stuff that in penetrates it all the time it needs a ritual the T because that gives it a meaning a symbolic meaning and it needs a routine which is to be done repetitiously and not at the same table where we worked the whole day and not while we are answering our phones and all of that makes you feel important and it makes you feel appreciated not because you've done the good things but because you have the quality of the person that is what is so important in that experience of appreciation I enjoy my few minutes with you I'm checking in with you how are you it's not what have you done it's it's who you are and and that attention is really enormous ly nurturing and enlivening it may brings energy into a relationship and it creates an experience of vitality and aliveness which really is essential so that you're not just surviving and functioning and practical and efficient but that you also are thriving that's what you're doing how people can do it multiple ways but the meaning of it is set it won't change it could be tea it could be a walk it could be sitting on a bench it could be sitting in a bathtub it could be you know massaging each other's feet it could be on a bike it could be on the top of a mountain but essentially every one of these rituals is going to have the same meaning it's going to do the same thing it's gonna say we are taking a moment to check in with each other and nothing else matter at this moment but us and when we do it even for five minutes it gives us such an enormous amount of energy to go and deal with the world and all the stuff that we have to do it's just incredible and it involves eye contact and it involves touch which is one of the things that is most important in this one there's very few people we can touch except the ones that are in the house with us so this touch hunger is very very much at the forefront of our relational experience at this moment and that touch is a balm it's soothing it's of calming it's a grounding it's a relaxing it's everything that this stresses us and that's what you're doing with this tea but I think what people have highlighted is gardening it's walking it's everything connected to nature I've not heard people talk as much about nature and because they've slowed down for the first time in 150 years we've slowed down it has to do with food it has to do with nature it has to do with the elements you know water earth fire sitting by the fire if they have that option you know it's very very very basic the rituals and the routines that people have created together yeah when you say gardening or walking you mean together with that somebody else when you do those things together that's when you bond and connect yes the walking is different from the tea there's two kinds there is face-to-face and every side-by-sides the walking is a side by side it's like fishing it's parallel the tea is face-to-face a difference right because face-to-face is intense right there's a certain intensity with face-to-face where a side to side is a bit more just a bit more relaxed and I wonder there must be a different kind of connection that comes about depending on whether you're facing each other or faith in the same direction but they're not difference in intensity necessarily look children some of your best conversation with your kids are when you're lying next to them in bed that side by side and when you're in the car and you're driving together and everybody knows that so there is some freedom that you get from the side by side that allows you to actually go deeper and it becomes deeply intimate but its side by side and then there is a different kind of intimacy when it's I to eye contact and it's face to face but I don't think that while it they're very different but they're not different as in one is deeper than the other I think that that's misleading and if you do when you know that your child in the back of the car suddenly comes with one of those incredible stories or quest like what and then you just have these 12 minutes of drive and you've just plunged you didn't even realize we were still driving yes they say yeah it makes me thinking some of my most funnest conversations over the last years have been when my kids are a bit younger and we'd be driving home at the weekend somewhere kids have fall asleep in the back and you know obviously you're driving on their honor on a motorway so you're not looking necessarily at your partner but you you're in a confined space no no none of you can escape anywhere real deep and meaningful conversation and I heard I think it's at golden said once maybe it was in the Tim Ferriss book or somewhere I can't remember where but he said he loves cooking with his children because it's a semi distracted environment that allows some really deep conversations to come up and since then it's something I've tried with my children and it works you know you've just distracted enough where it doesn't feel so intense that you can't bring something up in its I guess people can experiment with that and you're in movement I think that the difference is between situations that are more static and situations that involve movement the body is in motion and when the but that's why the works are so important as well when the body is in motion it liberates energy it releases energy and that energy transforms into connection what about when you want to have a conversation with someone about something that's bothering you I'm conscious of your time and so I know I also wanted to talk about work and how your new podcast is about relationships but in the work setting right and I think this communication piece I'd like to talk to you about probably fits with both of them and to me it's a good time to talk about the work relationships as well now but how we communicate grievances or things where for strace about things we would like to address makes a huge difference so I know with a child for example or frankly with anyone that it's always best to lead with pods ever see it tends to go better than when you lead with negative and I just wonder if that's something you've seen in your relationship counseling and work relationship counseling this idea that sometimes people get frustrated and then they go you know I can't stand it when you do this and you always alight in this and you always do this I wonder if you could help give some practical guidance of people like sir sighs you can do that I borrow from my friend and Seagal no repeat say it after me no no no no so basically I ask a person to repeat after me ten times no and now start with a conversation then I'm saying now let's do 10 yeses and when I ask you to beep it yes yes yes look at my face first of all you can't say yes you know the whole expression changes yes yes yes yes yes and then you start a conversation often when people want to have a difficult conversation they have already said 10 times no to themselves I won't accept this this is not the way I want it to be you cannot do this to me no no no no no and then you won't start to talk you it's very very difficult so that's two different it's not just that you need to say something positive as a start is that when you check your own body your own physiology your own heart rate your own sweaty palms you will know if you arrive with a massive amounts of no which basically means you're going on the attack you're not going to improve the relationship versus when you enter with a state of yes it's a state of mind it's a state of mind and a state of mind is a state of physiology and being its mind and body always together but the thing is that that in all the podcasts how is work the entire first season fourth season of where should we begin I would say that probably one of the most important things I do is I engage with people in complex challenging innovative surprising conversations which when you listen gives you the vocabulary for the conversations that you would like to have even though they may be completely different I do think that's one of the most difficult things of that so people is how do you start how do you begin this thing about something that is very challenging and especially in this moment of social upheaval and black lives matter worldwide and the pandemic the kind of perfect storm there is so many challenging conversations about grief about loss about unemployment about economic hardship about racism about being anti-racist about talking to your children about race and all of those things and how do you begin you know and what's very important to understand is that maybe more than talking about the positive versus the negative is to understand that the essence of a conversation is not so much in what you say but in how you listen and so when you want to come to somebody with a difficult conversation it starts when there's something that we have never really talked about that I would love to bring up with you you know and I note and I think it could be much more comfortable to avoid it but I know that you matter to me too much or our relationship matters to me too much for me to just avoid it you know and then you ask yourself what are the themes of conversations is it somebody that you need to apologize to or is it someone that you would like to receive an apology from is it somebody that you owe an explanation to now what is the thing that you need to convey in this conversation is it someone who you feel has betrayed you or you have betrayed them is it about trust is it about power is it about control is it about integrity those are the main themes do you value me do you care about me and do you and do you value my contribution power issues control you know who makes the decisions who's who whose priority is matter most in effect most impasses in a conversation or in a relationship with people are about power and control care and closeness and recognition and integrity respect and recognition whatever people are fighting about comes down to these six themes primarily so the reverse is what people need to talk about is less about the specific issues but it usually means that it's about these themes and that's what both podcasts show is to have those conversations and especially to do it and not forget the humor that is sometimes necessary in the midst of all the crisis that needs to be a room for the comic in the midst of tragedy and so that's it how his work looks at how we deal with our relationships in the workplace who we are not just what we do at work but who is there at work and Season 4 brings an array of diverse couples who are each grappling with the ins and outs of love yeah I mean I've not heard the work one yet I think that's going straight onto my list to do next hey I'm interested be I have just started working this year with one of my best friends we have resisted for two or three years because we would didn't want to put any potential strain on our friendship and we feel we've done a lot of work on ourselves we've had a lot of open and transparent conversations so we have tentatively move forward so far it's been amazing but it would be incredible to hear some of those experiences just to see oh this could be coming up you know just be mindful of this and I think that would be really really useful so in its exactly this everybody comes to work with an official resume your CV what you've done and an unofficial resume your relationship history what you describe between you and your wife for example in terms of you know your devotion to your family and her wanting more to devotion to the you know imagine that dynamic in the workplace because that happens all the time people that go to work while they're busy taking care of others and sometimes those others need additional care how do you bring that up in the workplace how do people not interpret it as you're working less I'm doing more I'm the one carrying all the load how long is this gonna last have you been appreciative enough of me for doing this for you etc etc and it's really all of those relational dynamics in the workplace which ultimately determine if you're happy at work and how well you perform at work it's more than money more than free food more than any other compensation if your relationships at work don't go well you won't sleep well why is it that you started this podcast on work relationships in particular so I first of all have worked in the work context in companies for a long time I just hadn't done a podcast about it but I also think that the workplace has come to me I didn't go to the workplace and what that means is this never has the work of him the world of emotion entered business and the work environment to such an extent we talk today at work about authenticity belonging transparency psychological safety an entire emotional vocabulary has entered the workplace in ways that it never had and so this is where I am I've come with that vocabulary to a place that's realized it now wants to focus on it relationship intelligence relational intelligence in the workplace was always considered a soft skill now it's actually considered a core skill for business success people won't stay people are moving around way too much if the relationships are not well so a lot of this has to do with what is changing in the in the future of work and I also think that everyone understands this when you say you know when your relationships don't go well at work it just is impossible to go to and spend ten hours there every day it's miserable you know and and but nobody had really just simply said you know what this set of issues that I see happening in couples is what happens between people at work it's the same issues power and control care and trust and respect and recognition it's about expectations it's about boundaries it's about rituals and especially when we move on zoom and we're going into a digital digitalized work all these questions about how do you create the relationship how do you create connection how do you create support trust teams etc it's really what we're gonna be talking about so I'm working now on season two of how is work at the same time as season four of work we bring in comes up because it's that I changed context but the relationship issues remain fundamentally the same yeah Alissa thank you for everything you've done over your entire career but where you're bringing awareness to such fundamentally important issues for us to thrive as human beings this podcast is called feel better live more when we feel better in ourselves we get more out of life and clearly when we have better relationships yes that's going to lead to us feeling better and it's definitely going to result honest living models so always love to leave my listeners with just a few practical tips that they can think about applying into their everyday lives immediately I wonder you know be as short as you like but aren't there two or three top tips you would leave my listeners with yes if you want to change the other change yourself you can wait for other people to change for a long time but you get at any moment decide that you're gonna do something different and when you change the story their story changes as well it really is a dynamic interplay that's one number two it's really important that you'd be able to sometimes simply say can I listen I think I just need the best way to talk at this moment is to listen and you don't have to agree with anything you just want to give the other person's point of view space and validity there is never just one experience in a relationship there are multiple points of view coexisting at the same time it's the beauty of relationship and it's the challenge of the relationship so that's the second one the third one don't ever leave play pleasure joy fun for the end they are incredibly important experiences of life in the midst of crisis I think it's one of the most important lessons I learned from my own parents or spent years in the war and then years as refugees and who basically explained to me we didn't stop loving we did stop laughing because it was fundamental to our humanity in the midst of degradation it's not true that you need to only stay serious and be efficient machines in order to get true things you want to stay connected to nature to beauty to joy - laughter and especially to sensuality so those are my tweeting so today I said thank you so much making Stein's come on the podcast today if the invitation still remains that you gave at the start of the podcast I would love to have you back on some point either when your nets in the UK at some point or when I'm in New York at some point in the future but thank you so much press subscribe to get more inspiration and ideas on how to feel better so you can get more out of life and if you have a moment why not check out this conversation that I've picked out as a perfect follower remember lifestyle change is always worth it because when you feel better you live more

Channel: Dr Rangan Chatterjee

Views: 463,697

Rating: 4.9024777 out of 5

Keywords: The Four Pillar Plan, NHS, GP, Four Pillar Plan, lifestyle medicine, the stress solution, feel better in 5, feel better live more, fblm, health, wellness, drchatterjee, rangan chatterjee, how to make disease disappear, low carb, vegan, keto, podcast, apple podcast, obesity, joe rogan, sleep, jay shetty, health advice, richroll, therichrollpodcast, relationships, communication, esther perel, presure, couples counselling, family history, marriage, community, reframing criticism, be the change

Id: _Yaka0RHYfo

Length: 75min 54sec (4554 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 30 2020