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 Bring a little optimism into your life with The Bright Side, a new kind of daily podcast from Hello Sunshine, hosted by me, Danielle Robay.
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And me, Simone Boyce.
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Every weekday, we're bringing you conversations about culture, the latest trends, inspiration, and so much more.
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I am so excited about this podcast, The Bright Side.
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You guys are giving people a chance to shine a light on their lives, shine a light on a little advice that they want to share.
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 Listen to The Bright Side on America's number one podcast network, iHeart.
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Open your free iHeart app and search The Bright Side.
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 At one of the most famous restaurants in the world, there's a table in the corner where the most incredible conversations on the planet are happening every week with owner Ruthie Rogers and amazing guests like Martha Stewart, Jimmy Fallon, and Paul McCartney.
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 We've saved you a seat.
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Ruthie's Table 4.
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Listen to Ruthie's Table 4 on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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This is the story of how a group of people brought music back to Afghanistan by creating their own version of American Idol.
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The joy they brought to the nation.
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You're free completely.
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No one is there to destroy you.
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The danger they endured.
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They said my head should be cut off.
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 I'm John Legend.
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Listen to Afghan Star on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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 How do I make a request that doesn't turn into a protest?
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Instead of criticizing the other person, tell them what you want.
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And tell them what you want without implying that they're not doing it.
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Because then they pay attention only to the fact that you told them you're not doing it, you're wrong, it's you again.
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And then they will basically do what every human being does, which is defend themselves.
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Because nobody likes to be attacked.
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SPEAKER_03
 Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world.
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Thanks to each and every single one of you that come back every week to listen, learn, and grow.
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And I am so excited to be talking to you today.
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I can't believe it.
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 My new book, Eight Rules of Love, is out, and I cannot wait to share it with you.
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I am so, so excited for you to read this book, for you to listen to this book.
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I read the audiobook.
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If you haven't got it already, make sure you go to eightrulesoflove.com.
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It's dedicated to anyone who's trying to find, keep, or let go of love.
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So if you've got friends that are dating, broken up, or struggling with love, make sure you grab this book.
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 And I'd love to invite you to come and see me for my global tour, Love Rules.
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Go to jscheddytour.com to learn more information about tickets, VIP experiences, and more.
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I can't wait to see you this year.
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SPEAKER_03
Now I'm really excited for this conversation because I've been speaking to this guest for a while to get this to happen.
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And I'm really excited because I know that this is a theme and a topic and a subject that is something you have so many questions about.
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 My guest today is a psychotherapist and New York Times best-selling author.
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She's recognized as one of today's most insightful and original voices on modern relationships.
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Fluent in nine languages, she helms a therapy practice in New York City and serves as an organizational consultant for Fortune 500 companies around the world.
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 Her TED Talks have garnered more than 30 million views, and her best-selling books, Mating in Captivity and The State of Affairs, are global phenomena translated into nearly 30 languages.
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She's also the executive producer and host of the popular podcast, Where Should We Begin, and How's Work.
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Her latest project is Where Should We Begin, a game of stories I can't wait for you to play.
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Welcome to the show, Esther Perel.
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 It's a pleasure to be here.
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It's been a long time coming.
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I have to say, it's been too long, and this is truly one of my favorite books.
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And I was just saying earlier to you offline that we have so many mutual friends, and your name pops up all the time, and I can't believe we haven't met yet.
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But I'm so looking forward to having dinner with you one day soon.
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 But I want to dive right in.
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We'll make it happen.
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We will, we will.
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I want to dive right in because, I mean, relationships is just the core of our being and the core of our lives.
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And as you know, they cause us so much joy, but they also can create so much pain in our lives.
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And, you know, you always say the quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives.
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 I want to ask you, when did you start to first experience that?
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When did you first start to notice that?
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That I noticed it because there had been such tremendous loss of loved ones, of family members, of my parents' entire community.
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You know, because they came out of World War II and the Holocaust as the sole survivors,
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 The absence of the connections was what highlighted the importance of the connections.
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We talked about people who I will never meet and have never met.
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We talked about what it means to experience the decimation of a community, to be immigrants, to create new communities, to make new friendships.
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 What does it feel like to love again when you've been so dehumanized?
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What does it mean to trust again, to play again, to fall in love, to make love?
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And I think that I would say I was four years old when these conversations began for me, that I always thought people, people, people.
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You can have money, you can have education if you don't have the loved ones, the people, the real relationships, the ones that make the eulogy.
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 And not the CV, as David Brooks often distinguishes, that that is where the heart of the matter lies.
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Yes.
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I mean, it's such a beautiful answer and you can see how these beautiful purpose that you have today comes from so much.
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 pain in one sense and challenge and these stresses and pressures.
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And if anyone whose stresses and pressures, sorry, if anyone's listening or watching right now, I hope you're hearing how you may be going through a really tough relationship or a tough loss right now, but often that can be the birthplace of so much power and so much greatness.
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I wanted to ask you, Esther, from your perspective,
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 What do you think is the biggest challenges that we faced for our relationships during the quarantine and lockdown?
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Because I feel like this is just the biggest part of our lives that has been affected has been our relationships.
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You know, what has been the biggest challenge for our relationships during the quarantine or that you're hearing from clients, people you're working with and the communities that you're serving?
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What are you hearing?
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 It's a great question.
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I would divide it in three main categories.
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The first thing is that lockdown, quarantine, pandemics, disasters are relationship accelerators.
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 What it means is that when you deal with a massive global event like this, it puts you in touch with mortality.
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It is a pandemic.
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So life is short.
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Life is fragile.
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And so you begin to rearrange your priorities.
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What truly matters?
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Who is really important?
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Who are the few people I'm going to make sure to stay in touch with?
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 The accelerator says, I've waited long enough.
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I'm out of here.
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I want something else.
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The accelerator also says, what am I waiting for?
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I like you.
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Let's move in together.
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So you get the beginnings and the endings really heightened.
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 The pandemic also highlighted all the cracks that existed in the relationships, but also highlighted all the lights that shine through the cracks in the relationship.
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So people got to really experience their strengths, but also their challenges with each other.
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The pandemic highlighted how much when you live with a partner, you have a rhythm.
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 You know, you move away from each other, you leave for the day, one of the people travels, both people travel, you come back, it's like an accordion.
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You expand, you get some air, you get input from the world, and then you come back together.
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Here, people who live together, we're 24-7 on top of each other with no air.
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 Now, you know, I've written Mating in Captivity to say that fire needs air.
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This was Mating in Captivity, the quarantine edition.
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No air at all coming into the relationships, people needing to flatten the curve and ending up flatlining themselves.
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 Then what was missing as well is that a relationship dances between the need for security and stability and the need for novelty and exploration and risk-taking and experiences.
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And we could not do any of that this year.
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We had to completely stifle the erotic.
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 the erotic in the sense of what makes us feel alive, curiosity, adventures, novelty, change, risk-taking, that whole side of us had to be shut down so that we could feel stable, secure, and safe.
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And that made people really feel that the life, the energy was being siphoned out of their experiences and out of their relationships.
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And for those of us who were alone,
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 This prolonged isolation, with the prolonged uncertainty about how long the isolation will even last, really was crippling to people.
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The degree of loneliness, the degree of longing, the degree of touch hunger that people have experienced, I don't think we've even begun to understand the long-term effects of all of that.
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And this is just talking about adults.
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I haven't even begun to talk about what this has done to the little ones that live with us.
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SPEAKER_03
 That is such a great analysis.
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That is without a doubt the best analysis I've heard of how the quarantine has affected our relationships.
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SPEAKER_03
Thank you so much for that.
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I think I was listening and I was just nodding the whole time.
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I was like, that is so true.
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That is so true.
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And I'm sure everyone who's listening is feeling the same way.
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You know, when we think about relationships during these times of extreme pressure,
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 There are those of us that are trying to be the perfect partner, the perfect parent, the perfect person at this time.
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And there are those of us that are just so overwhelmed that we can't even feel like we're getting ourselves together.
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Whichever side you're on from that perspective,
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 How do you approach a relationship at times of pressure?
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What is an effective way to approach relationships at times that are completely unexpected?
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No one could have predicted this was going to happen.
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What are you meant to do at that time?
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What's the right thing to do if there is one?
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 Well, I will start by saying that the right thing, if you want to call it like that, is certainly not to try to be perfect and to think about optimization at all time.
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There is other things.
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You know, I did a whole season for the podcast, Where Should We Begin, on couples under lockdown.
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 couples in Nigeria, in Sicily, Germany, in New York that were in the middle of April and May, but this could still be today, this is not passé at all, about what were the tensions that they were experiencing?
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What were the questions?
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So you had the couple that is on the verge of divorce and that suddenly has to be together just as one person is about to move out.
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And basically they have to just be civil.
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They don't have to be perfect.
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They just have to be kind.
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 Then you have the couple in Sicily where the woman goes to work in the hospital and the husband suddenly became the frontline parent with three young children.
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And every time she comes back from the hospital, she's just afraid that she's going to contaminate them.
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And she scrubs herself so that she can protect her family because she is, as we've come to call her, an essential worker.
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Then you have the couple who was separated for a year and a half.
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And suddenly in the pandemic, she says, come back.
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 you know, and they realized that they really didn't have a really good reason to separate, that in fact they had so much more to stay together.
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So the stories are very varied.
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It's not one thing, but if I was to say what are some of the things that have helped people,
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 Because I think that's what you're asking, right?
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What has helped people be together in the better way possible?
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I would say three things have been extremely useful, actually four.
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One is boundaries.
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 The loss of boundaries that we have experienced, especially when you sit at the same table and all your roles, mother, teacher, parent, lover, friend, sister of, daughter of, boss, you name it, are all in the same spot without any delineation.
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You don't know where one thing stops and the other thing starts.
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Boundaries.
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 Boundaries between work and home.
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Boundaries between the table that is used as an office and the table that becomes the dinner table.
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Boundaries between weekdays and nights.
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Just boundaries to recreate structure.
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And then routines.
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People really needed to stay connected to their routines.
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New ones that they created, old ones that they really liked.
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These routines became a marker of continuity, of stability, of consistency.
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And then rituals.
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 Rituals that people created, you know, I always say if you cook every day, it's a routine.
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It means you have to eat.
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But if you actually suddenly make a very nice table and you pretend that your kitchen has become your favorite bistro, then you have turned a routine into a ritual.
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The routine says we need to eat.
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The ritual says there's something special between us.
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SPEAKER_01
 And these small three categories of events have been extremely helpful in people being able to be with each other, you know, and with the people that they stayed connected with in their paths.
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Add to that kindness, just civility, not perfection.
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When somebody brings you coffee, you can be very nice and just say, thanks for bringing the coffee.
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But you can do even better when you say, thanks for being such a thoughtful person.
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SPEAKER_01
 And especially at a time of isolation, when you don't have 20 other people that can give you feedback, and the person that gives you feedback is the one that's all the time right there with you, with whom you have to suddenly do all those things at the same time, it's very important to feel that they get you, they see you, and you're not just a function.
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Because those are the validations that we get when we leave home as well.
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And here, we suddenly asked one person to replace an entire community.
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SPEAKER_03
 That's incredible.
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SPEAKER_03
Those are such great tips.
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Rituals, routines, and boundaries.
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Three really, really powerful steps.
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And I know that when I was thinking about it at the beginning of the pandemic, me and my wife had to reset our new expectations and boundaries of each other, of our space, of our home.
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SPEAKER_01
 And what's one way you did this?
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What's one of the ways that you think you made a tweak that really was helpful?
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So one of the things that me and my wife did was she said to me that now we're just living in the same spaces, I need to make sure that I feel that you're helping this space remain what the space is.
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SPEAKER_03
 So she was like, you know, before we would leave our laptop out or we would leave our trainers or our sneakers in the living room because we were going to the gym or whatever.
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SPEAKER_03
She was like, now that we're enclosed, we need to make each space feel like the space that it is because we no longer have the freedom that we're going out to the gym or that we're going out to see a friend.
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SPEAKER_03
So we need to make sure that we're cleaner, that we're tidier, that we're making sure that we're putting everything away.
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SPEAKER_03
Now we're not ordering food.
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We're not going out to restaurants.
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 So we need to make sure that we've cleaned up everything straight afterwards.
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SPEAKER_03
It's very basic things, but these things often get lost when you're all going through your own pressure and stress.
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SPEAKER_03
And to me, those simple resetting of expectations and boundaries were so useful.
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SPEAKER_03
We also made a rule that we would only work in certain areas of our home.
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So she had her work area and I had my work area.
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SPEAKER_03
In the beginning, we were both on the same dining table taking both of our phone calls.
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SPEAKER_03
 and trying to get the other person to be quiet, and it wasn't working.
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And so, for me, it was integral that we had that conversation.
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But here's the interesting, Esther, that I wanted to ask you, is when couples are having those conversations, they think it's bad.
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We get worried.
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We think, oh, no, my partner should just know this.
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SPEAKER_03
They should just understand this.
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SPEAKER_03
And we almost get scared when we're having conversations like that because we think that
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SPEAKER_03
 We should just know, we should just be aware.
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SPEAKER_03
How do we get beyond this false idea we've created that difficult conversations show weakness, when actually difficult conversations help build strength?
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You just said it.
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You know, difficult conversations, when you get through them, you feel emboldened, you feel more trusting, and you feel more confident.
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SPEAKER_01
 You know, the one time where the other person knows what you need, what you want, what you care about, without having to say anything, is when you're in utero.
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 before you're born, and just as soon after you're born.
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SPEAKER_01
After that, your whole life is a dialogue in which you begin to express your thoughts, your wishes, your needs, your hurts, and you begin to intuit what other people need from you.
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We are relational creatures.
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The only time where somebody guesses for you is when you're a baby, and you can cry, and then there is five things which the caregiver can decide is probably what you need.
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SPEAKER_01
 I think what you did was it looked small, because if you think about this as the laptop, you know, and the shoes, and you think that it's about the shoes, then it looks, you know, trivial, but you missed the point.
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 Because what you're really doing is you are creating an awareness of the other.
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You say, we are both people here.
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We each have things that we need to do.
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SPEAKER_01
We have to show up.
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SPEAKER_01
I respect your work.
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SPEAKER_01
You respect mine.
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SPEAKER_01
I am aware of your presence.
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SPEAKER_01
I don't pretend you're not here.
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SPEAKER_01
I think of you even when you're not there.
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SPEAKER_01
 I know what matters to you and what you care about even when you're not telling it to me because you've told it to me before.
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I carry you inside of me and vice versa.
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It's that the conversation.
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If you think that it's about the shoes, you missed the point.
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The shoes are a representation.
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The shoes, the table, all of these things.
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SPEAKER_01
 in addition to why it is important is because it says where you stop and where the other person starts.
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SPEAKER_01
And that sense of boundary is extremely important because every relationship is made up of my relationship to myself as I am with you and my relationship with you while I don't lose myself.
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SPEAKER_01
It's both and.
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It's how I hold on to me and how I hold on to you.
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 vice versa, how I hold on to you without losing me and how I hold on to myself without losing you.
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SPEAKER_01
That's the dance.
0
SPEAKER_01
And this conversation that you were having with your wife is all about that.
0
SPEAKER_01
And when you put it this way, it's no small feat.
0
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, absolutely.
0
SPEAKER_03
I love how you unpack that.
0
SPEAKER_03
It's so much more deeper and it has so much more of a true impact on each other when it's performed in that way.
0
SPEAKER_03
I'm sure there are a lot of people listening right now, Esther, going,
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SPEAKER_03
 You know what?
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SPEAKER_03
I'm doing all of that, but my partner is not responding, right?
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SPEAKER_03
They're not thinking about me.
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SPEAKER_03
They're not aware of my presence.
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SPEAKER_03
They are prioritizing their work.
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SPEAKER_03
They are not being aware and being conscious and being intentional.
0
SPEAKER_03
When someone is feeling that way, this is probably the number one question you get asked.
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SPEAKER_03
 Always.
0
SPEAKER_03
But when someone is feeling that way, that they're doing everything they can, they're trying to clean up and do this and do that, but the other person doesn't respond.
0
SPEAKER_03
What happens?
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SPEAKER_03
What do you do in that situation?
0
SPEAKER_01
 Well, there's a few things you do.
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SPEAKER_01
See, the beauty of couples is that you have another person to blame and to think it's unavoidable, it's irresistible.
0
SPEAKER_01
I am doing my share, you're not.
0
SPEAKER_01
You know, it's like when people come to couples therapy, they come to my office and they often come to tell me, here's my partner, let me tell you what's wrong with them, fix it.
0
SPEAKER_01
 And fundamentally, I mean, it's a drop-off center, you know.
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There is a reality in which this is one of the hidden truths of relationships.
0
SPEAKER_01
If you want to change the other, change yourself.
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 If you continuously go and say to the other person, you're not doing, you're not listening, I keep asking you, why don't you pay attention, et cetera, you're gonna get the same response.
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SPEAKER_01
You're gonna get defensiveness, you're gonna get what about you, you're gonna get tit for tat, et cetera, et cetera.
0
SPEAKER_01
If you want to call the attention of the other person, maybe there's a way in which you actually think to yourself, what's a different way I can say this?
0
SPEAKER_01
 How do I remind the person that when we pay attention to each other, things are much better?
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SPEAKER_01
How do I make a request that doesn't turn into a protest?
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SPEAKER_01
Meaning, instead of criticizing the other person, tell them what you want.
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SPEAKER_01
And tell them what you want without implying that they're not doing it.
0
SPEAKER_01
 because then they pay attention only to the fact that you told them you're not doing it, you're wrong, it's you again, and then they will basically do what every human being does, which is defend themselves, because nobody likes to be attacked.
0
SPEAKER_01
So the temptation is to say, how do I make my partner different?
0
SPEAKER_01
 And I say start with the one thing you can control.
0
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Is there anything I can do different that is more likely to elicit a different response from my partner?
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SPEAKER_01
It's the one thing you can control is you.
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SPEAKER_09
When you find that bright spot to help you get through your day, it's powerful.
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SPEAKER_09
 That's where The Bright Side comes in.
0
SPEAKER_09
A new daily podcast from Hello Sunshine that's bringing you a daily dose of joy.
0
SPEAKER_09
I'm Danielle Robay.
0
SPEAKER_07
And I'm Simone Boyce.
0
SPEAKER_07
Listen, both Danielle and I are reporters.
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SPEAKER_07
We've covered the news and we know the world can feel heavy.
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SPEAKER_07
But The Bright Side podcast is a space to have a little fun, to learn something new and get into some friendly debates.
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SPEAKER_09
 That's right.
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And this season, we are bringing fans even deeper into the ton.
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Colin Bridgerton has returned from his travels abroad.
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Is Betrothal written in the stars for the eligible bachelor?
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I sit down with Nicola Coughlin, Luke Newton, Shonda Rhimes, and more to offer an exclusive peek behind the scenes of each episode of the new season.
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Right, Elliot?
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Oh, yes!
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We learned how to recycle at the beach.
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 That was great fun!
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Cowie, what do you say?
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It was!
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And that time when we did the science experiment and Billy made raisins dance!
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That is so cool, Billy!
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He did!
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Not to mention when a certain Elliot took up swimming classes with Lisa.
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That was me!
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Bet you can't catch me!
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 You're so right about the blaming.
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We're always looking for a scapegoat in any scenario.
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Often, I want to be empathetic and compassionate that it can be true sometimes that you could be doing everything you possibly could and someone is not conscious or focused, but then
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 Again, it comes back to what you just said, which is you still need to go and do what's right for you and do what's best for you.
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If you need to feel connected and loved, you may spend more time with family or more time with your friends or spend more time on the phone to get that fuel you need.
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Now, moving forward, Esther, I know a lot of people are struggling with what you call re-entry anxiety.
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 right, the idea that we're entering back into the workplace, we're entering back into dating, we're going back into being in person.
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You know, what are the symptoms of that re-entry anxiety that people are feeling that you so beautifully explained and have coined?
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And also, how can we start?
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Actually, this is the question I want to ask.
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What are the skills that we lost
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 in the pandemic and what are the skills we gained?
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Because I think people are unaware of... It's a beautiful question.
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Right?
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It's like we gained some really good people skills during the pandemic and we lost some too.
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Tell me about the re-entry anxiety and what we lost and gained.
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I think that what many people have experienced, well, there's a range.
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There's people who have experienced acute loneliness.
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 and they have been talking way too much with themselves.
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They've heard their own echo.
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They're in an echo chamber, me and me.
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And for them, suddenly hearing the real voices of others can be quite shocking.
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Then you have people who have reduced their part.
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And basically, the acquaintances have dissipated, and they have really stayed in touch with a few important social ties.
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 For them, the re-entry is, you know, oh God, I'm meeting you.
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Shall we hug?
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Do we kiss?
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Vaccinated?
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 Test it, you know, what's the protocol?
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Do I trust you?
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Do you tell, you know, are you just saying this because, you know, we're here at this gathering together or is this really true?
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You know, what's the, what, what can I ask, you know?
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So that's this first thing.
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Then there is, are you huggable?
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 That's a question many people are asking.
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Are you huggable?
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Because we arrive with this, you know, I haven't held you, I haven't touched you in so long, you know, and the hugs that you see people do, it's just like, usually you see them at airports when people come back from many years of not having seen their loved ones, you know, and they hold each other for dear life like that.
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 Then there is, you know, how the fact is basically many of us have only seen each other from the chest up for a year and a half.
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You know, what's it like to suddenly be embodied, just fully embodied, you know?
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We can't hide in the same way.
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 And then, you know, what is the chat going to sound like?
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Chat is a four letter word.
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What's the chat going to be when I see you?
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So I see you.
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And for the first time, we actually have a whole different range of conversations.
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Every gathering where I've gone so far,
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 where people are meeting, it's like, oh, this is my first time.
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I haven't seen that many people in a long time.
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I'm so, I hungered for this, or this is weird.
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I've not been so close to so many people in a long time.
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I don't know how close I can come to them.
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You know, there is all these experiences that people are talking about.
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Where were you?
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 Were you with your family?
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Were you with your loved ones?
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How was it for you?
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What were the important moments?
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Have you lost anyone?
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Is everybody okay?
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Loss could be loss of your plans, your weddings, your birthdays, your anniversaries, loss of family members, loss of income, loss of your apartment, loss in the multiple sense of the word.
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 I think that's what people are experiencing in the re-entry is what is okay to talk about?
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How do we deepen the conversation?
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People are slightly less in the mood to be just on the surface completely.
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And, you know, I had a very interesting experience about this because
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 I, during this pandemic, at one point, I just began to feel like I miss my friends.
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I miss being, you know, in my other homes and abroad.
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 And I thought, you know, I'm writing about playfulness, but I want to create something playful.
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I miss my dinner parties.
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How am I going to do something of that sort?
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And I kept noticing, you know, there's very little surprise.
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There's very little, you know, mystery, unknown.
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The unknown is basically something you worry about.
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And I thought, I'm going to create a game.
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 you know, I want to actually create a game that reconnects us with our storytelling.
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And what I ended up doing, because all of this I did on Zoom, I came up with a thousand questions on Zoom, but it was all Zoom.
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So you can't play.
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Playing is me looking at you, that smile, you know, that mischief, that it's all this.
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 And so I brought friends together in a pod that I've known for 25 years.
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And we basically started to playtest every night after dinner, just what are the really important conversations we want to have?
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What are the stories we feel we need to tell?
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And it was very moving, actually.
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It was like you could see
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 a social atrophy, a social muscle you haven't used for a long time, and slowly it opens up, it loosens, it strengthens, and people are laughing and sharing and asking questions and building on the stories of others and basically recreating social threads.
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 That's, I think, what we are going to do in this re-entry at this moment.
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And basically, the question was always the same, where should we begin?
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And it was like, I want to know about this.
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Tell me about that.
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 Yeah.
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What are some of your favorite questions from the game, Where Should We Begin?
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Can we play or try to play some part of it so that we can, and then you can let my audience know where they can find the game so that they can actually get it and play it too.
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I'd love for them to have that.
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 It's really a game.
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It's not just questions and parts.
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So in the game, there are prompts because I was thinking, this is what happens at my dinner party.
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How do I, I needed this.
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Like I want to feel that thing.
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And generally you have a tone at a dinner party, right?
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Like you set an intention when we started.
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 So, you can have, there's a set of prompt cards.
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The prompt cards basically can say, share something that nobody knows, or that changed your worldview, or that is embarrassing, or that was heartbreaking, or that you would never tell your mother.
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That's the prompt.
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That's the emotional lens with which I'm going to then put a card in front of you.
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A rule that I secretly love to break.
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 Now imagine that you get the thing, something embarrassing, and I put in front of you the card, a rule that you secretly love to break.
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Because we all, all the players put a card in front of the storyteller.
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It's a game where there is one storyteller at a time.
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A phone number that I would like to delete.
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Yeah, everybody has some phone numbers that kind of linger with them in their life, you know.
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If I wasn't working as,
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 I would be a, if you caught me at my fridge with the door open in the middle of the night, you would catch me.
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Yes.
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My most irrational fear is, and it is a combination between the prompt cards and the story cards.
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And then we have coins so that if you want to evade my question, I can.
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 impose on you, push you to answer the question that I want.
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And then you have deeper questions.
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I've never told you the story.
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I've never told you the whole story about.
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Everybody has stories that they have fudged.
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And what is it like?
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My guilty pleasure is if I could change something about the way that I was raised.
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 you know, or I'm most judgmental when it comes to.
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And then we go a level deeper, a dream that I've never shared out loud, a blind spot that I have, a mistake that I will never make again, or I haven't told anyone about the time when.
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 And then we have a whole set of questions around sexuality and intimacy.
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A text message that I fantasize sending.
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I wish that somebody had told me X about sex.
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My sex life was never the same after.
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And a sexual situation that I have always wanted to try.
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So you can play the sex cards or you can take them out if you play with colleagues.
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But basically what I tried to do, I thought, what are the many dimensions of my life
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 What do I want people to ask me about?
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And what am I curious about?
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And we all have a storyteller inside of us.
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And anybody who has ever been a child knows that one of our greatest pleasure was someone telling us a story before we go to bed.
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Yes.
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I love that.
1
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I'm so glad.
1
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Where can people find the game if they want to go and get it?
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I know I'm going to order it straight after this.
1
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 The game will come out in June.
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It will be called, Where Should We Begin?
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Like the podcast, a game of stories.
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And when it is out, Jay, I promise I tell you, and then you can tell your entire community, but it will be available directly through my website, Where Should We Begin?
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 Okay, perfect.
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We'll make sure that we put the link in the comments when the episode goes out and then when it's available because that sounds like so much fun.
1
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And I thought of it as a re-entry game.
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It's a game for connecting and reconnecting.
1
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Because everybody's asking me, what do we talk about?
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What are the conversations we can have?
1
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And I just said, let me create it because I see it in my office.
1
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I see it on the Housework podcast as people are going back to work and all the work-related questions.
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 One thing is love, one thing is work.
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What happens when people start to go back to work right now?
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And all what that evokes in us.
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And I just thought, okay, let me...
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 Let me select, but the thing that was so important was the shift between the time when I did it on Zoom and then doing it in person and then doing it with strangers and doing it with people who I thought I knew or who we thought we knew each other and to realize how much we still had to discover.
1
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I think that that's one of the things about friendships, love relationships is how do we remain really curious?
1
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 Yeah, I love that.
1
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I'm so glad that you designed a game around it.
1
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I always think...
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 I always think people approach these conversations feeling it's very heavy, and they feel like it's going to be quite stressful, and they think it's going to be really weird.
1
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Then when you have a game, it's like all of a sudden, we drop our guard, we start laughing, we get playful.
1
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I love that.
1
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I can't wait to play it myself.
1
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I've been saying the same.
1
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I was doing a corporate keynote recently, and I was speaking to an executive.
1
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 uh, who is briefing me on, you know, what I would be talking about and what the audience was like.
1
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I know you do lots of corporate speaking as well.
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So it was one of those briefing calls and he asked me a question.
1
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He said, he said to me, Jay, what's the coolest thing that you've done in the last seven days?
1
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And all of a sudden I was so alert and fresh because no one had asked me a question like that for, I don't, I can't remember the last time I answered a question like that.
1
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Most questions are like, how are you?
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How's your day going?
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 You know, it's the usual stuff and the small talk.
1
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And as soon as he asked me that, all of a sudden, like, I felt alive.
1
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And so I can only imagine that your game will do the same thing.
1
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And the other thing was, I was encouraging a lot of people to ask more interesting questions, because otherwise, of course, the people in your life are boring, right?
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We ask them boring questions.
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So how can people be interesting?
1
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 And I was also encouraging people to look... I want to repeat this.
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I want to repeat this.
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If you ask boring questions, you will feel that people are boring.
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If you ask, you know, interesting questions, questions that breathe energy in you, like you just described with this guy.
1
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 You receive a completely different person right in front of you.
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Totally.
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It's really crucial.
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I actually came alive and even the idea of, and I was going to say with your beautiful painting or artwork you have behind you, I was encouraging people to be more curious about what they see in the Zoom call with people.
1
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So I was sitting with another client
1
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 And he had a paintbrush hanging on his wall behind him, like you're speaking to me now.
1
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And he was a corporate client, and he had a paintbrush.
1
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I don't know him that well.
1
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And I said, hey, look, I don't want to be creepy or weird.
1
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I'm just intrigued.
1
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I'm curious.
1
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I've never seen a paintbrush on someone's wall.
1
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Can you tell me where it's from?
1
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 And he started laughing and he said to me, he said, oh, you know what, no one ever asked me that.
1
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And I was like, all right, well, do you mind telling me?
1
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And he said, I have it there because my first ever job, he's probably in his 50s now, he said my first ever job when I was around 14 years old is I used to paint fences and paint walls and paint homes.
1
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And so this paintbrush reminds me of where I started.
1
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 And you know, it just opened up.
1
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And then I told him what I did as my first job.
1
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I used to be a paperboy and deliver newspapers in my area.
1
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And it just was such a refreshing conversation that I'm still talking about it right now.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so I can't wait for people to play, you know, Where Should We Begin?
1
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It sounds wonderful.
1
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I just wanted to share those with you because I couldn't agree with you more.
1
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 Objects are super important.
1
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Objects tell stories.
1
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I ask in many sessions, bring an object that represents the part of your relationship that you would like to harness, to develop further.
1
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 to maintain and bring an object that represents a part of your relationship that you would like to let go.
1
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Now it can be your relationship with your partner, it can be your relationship to money, it can be your relationship to sex, but objects are wonderful catalysts.
1
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You know, you start to talk, people bring things.
1
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I did a conference this year on
1
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 on sex, death, and money.
1
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And for each one, people brought objects that represented the relationship, the taboo, to death, to sex, and to money.
1
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The stories that people wrote with a caption, the objects that they chose, it was a book.
1
SPEAKER_07
It really was a book.
1
SPEAKER_07
So this brush is very telling.
1
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Everybody has a brush.
1
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Everybody has a version of that brush.
1
SPEAKER_01
 I love that.
1
SPEAKER_01
Thank you so much.
1
SPEAKER_01
How can people be encouraged to try out that activity at home, to think about what object represents their thought around sex, death, or money, and what does that indicate for them?
1
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Oh, you know, when people did their relationship, the biggest one was the relationship to money, actually.
1
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Interestingly, surprising to me, I thought death or sex would be way bigger.
1
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 People had, it went from, you know, a checkbook, because my father lost all his money and could never pay his bills, to a pair of shoes that represented either the shoes I would never allow myself to buy, the shoes I finally felt I deserved to buy because I've worked so hard, the shoes that I've never dared wearing because they were so expensive I've kept them in the box, and the shoes I continue to wear while there are holes in it because I don't feel like I deserve to get new ones.
1
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Shoes were very important.
1
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 You know, about money, you know, the ring, the ring that I received, you know, for a wedding and marriage that lasted for a year or two.
1
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So people told stories of homelessness, of destitution, of hard work, of intergenerational legacies inside the family around what was lost and what was gained.
1
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I mean,
1
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 That's it, a little object told stories of generations.
1
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So you can do this at a table with a small pod with your friends.
1
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There's a few of them actually in the card game as well, but basically bring an object that represents
1
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 what you discovered most about this year, for example.
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What was most important to you this year?
1
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Bring an object, you know, and what you will notice, I've done that one.
1
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People have brought things that involve baking because they've been baking.
1
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Why?
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What was that sourdough thing?
1
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It's not the bread.
1
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It's the fact that people needed to create something.
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People needed something from nothing that became something.
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It's an antidote to death when you bring something into the world, creativity, things like that.
1
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 People brought things related to nature, people brought things related to painting, writing, you know, art and the importance of art to pets and to children.
1
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Because children were the ones who could remain imaginative, you know, they put three books on the floor and it becomes a rock.
1
SPEAKER_01
 That's beautiful.
1
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I love those examples, especially the shoes.
1
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I'm going to go and try that out with my wife later on and see what we would pick for each.
1
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I love that.
1
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Tell me, Esther, one of the things that I see a lot of my closest friends go through and experience is that they're all
1
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 you know, they're doing well for themselves, they're successful, they're in their own way, but they have this desire to be in love, and often they fall in love too fast, or they fall for someone very quickly only for that to end very quickly as well.
1
SPEAKER_01
They have this rush to want to find that right person, and when they think they've found someone, they're all in, and then within a month, things are kind of going backwards again,
1
SPEAKER_01
 What is the intention or the mindset with which one should approach love and relationships when seeking out a partner?
1
SPEAKER_01
Today, we have guides on how to have the perfect online dating profile and how to put the perfect caption to describe how you look and what you like and what you're looking for and what you're interested in.
1
SPEAKER_01
What really should be going on in that preparing for a relationship and love phase?
1
SPEAKER_00
 Hey everyone, this is Molly and Matt and we're the hosts of Grown Up Stuff How to Adult, a podcast from Ruby Studio and iHeart Podcasts.
1
SPEAKER_05
It's a show dedicated to helping you figure out the trickiest parts of adulting.
1
SPEAKER_00
Like how to start planning for retirement, creating a healthy skincare routine, understanding when and how much to tip someone, and so much more.
1
SPEAKER_05
 We're back with season two of the podcast, which means more opportunities to glow up and become a more responsible and better adult, one life lesson at a time.
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SPEAKER_00
And let me just tell you, this show is just as much for us as it is for you.
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So let's figure this stuff out together.
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This season, we're going to talk about whether or not we're financially and emotionally ready for dog ownership.
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 We're going to figure out the benefits of a high yield savings account.
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And what exactly are the duties of being a member of the wedding party?
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All that plus so much more.
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Let's learn about all of it and then some.
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Listen to Grown Up Stuff How to Adult on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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 Guess what, Bango?
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What's up, Will?
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So iHeart is giving us a whole minute to promote our podcast, Part-Time Genius.
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 I know, that's why I spent my whole week composing a haiku for the occasion.
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It's about my emotional journey in podcasting over the last seven years, and it's called Earthquake House.
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Mango, I'm going to cut you off right there.
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Why don't we just tell people about our show instead?
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Yeah, that's a better idea.
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So every week on Part-Time Genius, we feed our curiosity by answering the world's most important questions.
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Things like, when did America start dialing 911?
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Is William Shatner's best acting work in Esperanto?
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Also, what happened to Esperanto?
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 Plus, we cover questions like how Chinese is your Chinese food?
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How do dollar stores stay in business?
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And of course, is there an Illuminati of cheese?
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There absolutely is.
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And we are risking our lives by talking about it.
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But if you love mind-blowing facts, incredible history and really bad jokes, make your brains happy and tune in to Part-Time Genius.
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Listen to Part-Time Genius on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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 When the Taliban banned music in Afghanistan, millions were plunged into silence.
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Radios were smashed.
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Cassettes burned.
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You could be beaten or jailed or killed for breaking the rules.
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And yet, Afghans did it anyway.
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This is the story of how a group of people brought music back to Afghanistan by creating their own version of American Idol.
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 The danger they endured.
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They said my head should be cut off.
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The joy they brought to the nation.
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You're free completely.
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No one is there to destroy you.
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I'm John Legend.
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Listen to Afghan Star on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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 I have bad news for your friends.
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I'd rather you tell them than me, so... I get it.
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You know, I've been working for almost 40 years now, helping people with, you know, the challenges of their relationships.
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The first thing I would say is love is a verb.
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It's not a permanent state of enthusiasm.
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 It's not about finding the right person, it's about being the right person.
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You know, if you just want to be dazzled, you will have an adventure, you will be infatuated, you will fall in love, you will have a love story maybe, but you won't have a life story.
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And a life story is different from a love story.
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 There are many love stories that are never becoming life stories.
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People have had beautiful things, experiences with others, of a few days or of a few years for that matter, but they don't really integrate to become a life.
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And a life has more than just a feeling of love, it's to build something.
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 It's sometimes to raise children together.
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It's sometimes to bury parents together.
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It's sometimes to deal with illnesses together.
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It's sometimes to move countries and migrate together.
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It's a lot of other experiences that make a life.
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It's building a business, losing a business, or building a second one after the first one did very well.
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All of that.
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 if you just think of it as I see you and I have butterflies inside of me and then after a few months I see you and I don't feel the same intensity anymore, I'm sorry to say but your conception of what is love is not one that will give you that what you are looking for.
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Yeah, so well said and I love that idea of
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 I think so much we're always about like, does this feel right?
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And does this feel good?
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And I've been thinking about that a lot lately.
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I've been thinking how I'm not, and I'm still trying to investigate this thought.
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I'm not, this is not something I'm sure about.
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I'm sharing it as a, as an experiment.
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And it's the idea of just, I'm not sure if asking myself how I feel is always the right question.
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 Because sometimes you feel like doing something and sometimes you don't feel like doing something, but it's often the times when you show up, even when you don't feel like doing something, that something builds, something is created.
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There's more of a possibility and opportunity.
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So I'm just investigating that thought recently around how people go from feeling madly in love to then feeling out of love.
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 when actually they were never in love in the first place.
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Like you rightly said, they may have had a life story.
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Or love is something that you actively cultivate.
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Yes.
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You nourish it.
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You do things that express it, that show the other person that you're thinking of them, that they're important to you, that you carry them inside of you even when they're not there.
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I mean, to just think, you know, it's an in or out is very, very narrow.
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 Now, the other thing is when you say, you know, how do I feel?
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I think it's a very important question to ask, but it is one of many questions.
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Our emotional life is one narrative.
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Then we also have a values life.
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 Have I acted right?
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Have I done according to my principles?
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Have I done right by virtue of this person to whom I owed something?
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You know, you don't always feel like going to the gym, but you rarely regret afterwards because it feels good.
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So sometimes the feeling comes after the act.
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 That's it.
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Not always as a preceding of the act.
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And then sometimes it's not how do I feel, but what am I thinking that is coloring the way that I feel.
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So you have behaviors, actions, thoughts, feelings,
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 And then you have a spiritual dimension to what you do as well.
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And to just sit with the emotional truth as the only truth, I think we miss a few other parts of life.
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We miss the values, we miss the morality, and we miss the spiritual.
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And all four are part of our life.
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 This is why I love doing this podcast.
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I don't have to investigate that thought anymore.
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You just answered the question for me.
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You just, you gave me exactly what I was looking for.
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That is such a brilliant answer.
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And I love how you explained the idea that, and that's kind of what I was trying to think about.
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And I was playing with was the idea that sometimes you have to do something and you get the feeling afterwards and working out is deaf.
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You spoke my language.
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That's for me.
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 I say to my wife, every time I get back from tennis, which is what I do to exercise, I say to my wife, I say, never let me miss a tennis lesson.
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Every time I get back, I always tell her, never let me miss a tennis lesson, because I always feel phenomenal when I get back.
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But in the morning, if I'm not feeling up to it, my mind can trick me.
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And so we have to remind ourselves.
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So that's such a brilliant answer.
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Esther, you've advised couples for so long.
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You've worked on relationships.
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You've seen every different type of relationship.
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 When you've really looked at the heart and the core of it, what are the deepest, truest, most root reasons that relationships fail?
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What is it at the heart of it?
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Like you said, you've unpacked everything so deeply today.
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What is that deep root of why relationships fail?
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 I haven't thought about that, but I'm going to say that in light of what you just said.
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What I did when I answered you is share a thought.
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I never think I'm right.
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I sound very confident, but that doesn't mean that I know.
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This is how I think of it today, and if you come back and we have another conversation, I may answer the very same question.
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 differently.
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And I think that that's very important for all our listeners here, too.
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These are not questions that have a black and white answer.
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And it's so important to be able to hold nuance and ambiguity when we think about these things.
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So when you ask me what are the killers of a relationship, I do turn to the work of John Gottman very much.
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I would add a few, but you know, he talks about the four horses of apocalypse.
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 And one thing is criticism.
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This constant negative sentiment override, criticism.
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And that's why I said before, remember, behind many criticisms is a wish.
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Ask for the wish.
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Don't give the criticism or you will never get the wish.
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Love that.
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Two, stonewalling.
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Stonewalling.
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 You know, and that lets the other person just feel like they don't exist.
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They can talk, they can weep, they can scream, they can even hit you and there is no answer.
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There is no answer.
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The third one is defensiveness.
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I can't say anything that you don't answer defensively.
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You never own anything.
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You don't take responsibility for your actions.
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It's all about blaming the other or externalizing and it's always everybody else's fault and everybody, every other circumstance that made me do and I'm just a victim and I've never done anything.
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 And then the big one, the fourth one, is contempt.
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And that's considered the killer of them all.
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Contempt.
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Because when I am contemptuous, I look down upon you.
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I despise you.
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I belittle you.
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I diminish you.
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I devalue you.
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And I basically do one of the most important things, is I take away your meaning.
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And we are creatures of meaning.
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We want to know that if I'm here or if I'm not here, there's a difference.
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I matter.
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And if you manage to make me feel like I matter none,
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 That one is the, you know, the real zinger.
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So I think these four basically sum up the depth of a relationship.
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I can give you smaller ones, smaller ones, you know, because not everybody's at that end.
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So the smaller ones for me are complacency, freaking complacency.
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People would never, you know, you have a lot of entrepreneurs and a lot of people who do their best