Esther Perel: The Modern World Can Sap Your Life Force. Here's How To Recapture It.

0:04This is the 10 % Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris.

0:36Just in case you're unfamiliar with Esther, she's the bestselling author of several books, including Mating in Captivity and The State of Affairs. She's also the host of the hit podcast, Where Should We Begin? And she's got a new substack, which I highly recommend. This conversation, we talk about what Esther means by the term eroticism, which she says is often used way too narrowly. The danger of numbness. She introduces me to the term hostile dependency, which I'd never heard before and is totally fascinating. We talk about how loneliness has become normalized, how to rebuild community, which everybody's always telling us how to do, but how to actually do it.

1:18Rituals as a way to mark time and create meaning in your life. The tension between individualism, belonging, and responsibility to others, and why cutting people out of your life does not always go the way you think it might go. So before we dive in, just a super quick plug for my new app, which is called 10 % with Dan Harris. Today is the start of our free New Year's Meditation Challenge. It's seven days with the legendary meditation teacher, Joseph Goldstein, who gives a kind of master class, an on-ramp to Buddhist meditation. This is good for both beginners and experienced meditators. I was in the room meditating along with Joseph while he recorded the guided meditations.

1:59I got a ton out of it. Sign up at danharris.com to download the new app and join the challenge. There's a free 30-day trial for the app if you want to try it before you buy. We'll get started with Esther Perel right after this. Esther Perel, welcome back to the show. Pleasure to be here again with you, Dan. So let me start with this question. Yeah. I'm always like, hey, what's going to be his open question? But yes, I'm all ears.

2:31Oh, man, I don't mean to spark that kind of apprehension in my conversation. Okay. So what is, you talk about Eros a lot, E-R-O-S. What do you mean by that? Look, the original meaning, the mystical meaning, the historical meaning of Eros is life force. Creativity, engagement, aliveness, vibrancy, vitality, imagination. It really is only very recent that the word has been kind of reduced to its sexual meaning, to a set of repertoire and techniques and urges and accoutrements. And to feel erotic is to feel alive. And that sometimes happens in the midst of acute pain too. It is not just an exalting experience.

3:23The erotic applies to all areas. It applies to art, to work, to relationships, to nature, to daily life. Everybody knows the difference between something that isn't dead and something that is alive. A relationship that isn't dead and a relationship that is alive. A project, a person, that distinction is very, very important. Modern life, I think, sometimes depletes the erotic. It overthinks, it over-isolates, it numbs, it tries to reduce every uncertainty into something that can be easily fixed and calculated. So that's for me the erotic. When do you feel most alive is a question that probes the erotic.

4:07So let me ask you that question, Esther. When do you feel most alive? I'm curious. I feel most alive when I sing, and especially if I sing with others. When I laugh with others, my experiences are often quite collective in nature, actually. They're less solitary. When we are a group of dear friends or my family and my friends around a table, super engaged in stories and conversation. I think movement, dancing of any kind are all experiences when I feel alive, energized, vibrant. And when you say that modern life depletes eros, is it that many, if not most of us, are not having these experiences of what I believe Emil Durkheim called collective effervescence?

4:59Yes, yes. Not enough. You see, I mean, here we are, you and I, we are talking, we're trying to reach each other. We, on the one hand, can have this conversation that if I was living far away, we would not. But on the other hand, we are not in the presence of each other. We are not able to be tactile. We're not able to see each other. We're not really having eye contact. And I do think that in real life is a major element of the erotic experience. It is sensory. It is sensual. It involves the entire being, not just words, basically. So that's the first thing about modern life depletes it. I also think that the erotic exists in a space that is much more ambiguous.

5:45It's not a place of certainty. It's a place of serendipity. It's a place of curiosity, of exploration, of discovery. And these days, many of us tend to lean on the side of rules and safety and security and less on the side of openness, risk, adventure. So that too numbs the erotic. If you're constantly wanting to be sure about things, then certainty is the enemy of change. What do you think are the negative impacts on us from having the erotic depleted in our lives? And again, the erotic in the most broad sense of that term. Look, eroticism, as in aliveness, vibrancy, vitality, is an antidote to death or deadness.

6:35On the flip side of feeling alive is feeling dead, deadened. Flat, muted, numb, dull. Those are the words that accompany it. Alive doesn't mean excited. Alive means feeling in touch with life, with its vibrancy. That's why I say it's very important to understand that you can feel very alive in the midst of grief, but you're feeling something with an intensity. The flip side of that is isolation, disconnection, numbness, and deadness. You can have it inside of you, and you can have it in relationships, and you can have it in companies, and you can have it in various places that once used to be creative hubs.

7:22energy so it is actually a major source of energy and we all know in the body that energy precedes blood flow if you have no energy you have nothing to start with it's true for all kinds of other mechanics as well so when i talk about the erotic i talk about an energy it's not a particular situation it's energetic everyone understands when you feel alive you sit differently your body has a different position. Your chest is open. Your arms are open. That is very different from this. She has her neck down in her phone, just for the listeners. Yes, I'm leaning forward. I'm lifting my shoulders. I'm lowering my head.

8:07I'm slouching in. I may be comfortable, but I'm expecting nothing. No surprise. I mean, the erotic is a field of mystery and surprise, which is what makes us feel alive and makes us want to get up in the morning and see what does today hold for me. So on the other side, when I say deadness, I could say depression, melancholy, anxiety, but I don't want to just use psychological terms. I want to use actually existential terms. And the erotic is essential because it's an antidote to deadness. It's where hope resides too, by the way, for those for whom that is a word. Aspiration, hope, longing. For the people who are listening who are introverts, and I have a lot of introverts in my life who would much rather be wearing comfy socks and splayed out on the couch than going with me to the parties I like to go to.

9:01They may be thinking, well, I'm exempt from everything Esther is describing. What would you say to anybody reaching that conclusion? But you're not. When you listen to music alone, you can listen to music and it transcends, it transports. When you are deeply immersed in a novel, it also has to do with being immersed in something and feeling something deeply. It doesn't have to be collective. But by the way, many introverts like to be with people on occasion. They need a lesser dose of it and they need to replenish by themselves. That doesn't mean they don't like to be in the company of people.

9:36But I think you may not want to go to a club, but you may want to be very pleased to dance with three, four friends. You may want to just listen to music and music that really kind of penetrates your pore. You may want to write, you may want to do clay work. I mean, you know, the tactile is extremely important too. So I absolutely don't think that there is a connection between introvert versus extrovert to the centrality of the erotic and eroticism in our life. Maybe to the particular expression of it. Yeah, of course. Why not? There's a broad range. Walking in nature, even if you like to do it by yourself, or looking at art, or all these experiences that connect you also with the aesthetic dimension and the regeneration.

10:26Because, you know, in nature, things die and come back. I mean, it's generative, and that means it is alive. So I think you may want different things than what I describe myself, because I'm like you, I'm much more of an extrovert. But I live with one who doesn't need nearly the same amount of social events as I do. And he's deeply connected to the erotic. So don't feel left out is what I'm saying to the introverts. You're completely connected to this dimension of life. So another area of the erotic that we haven't gotten to yet, and I know from personal experience hanging out with you is important to you, is food.

11:04Absolutely. I mean, everyone knows the difference between food for sustenance and food for pleasure and connection. It's the same idea as when I say a relationship, you know, that isn't dead, that just is surviving, and a relationship that is thriving and feels alive. It often involves pleasure as well, but it involves intensity. Food is extremely important to that. And I've never known that people want to understand the difference between introverts and extroverts as it relates to food necessarily. Interestingly, food transcends that, right? But there is something about that nurturing, that creativity that goes into cooking.

11:44For some people, it's not my thing, but that imagination, that element of surprise. I put that and that together. I had no idea. Wow. you know, that first spoon that you take, I mean, it's filled with all the erotic ingredients, discovery, surprise, mystery, pleasure, connection. It's very, you know, I think food is probably the one I would put above many others because we all eat. Tell me if you think I'm hearing you correctly. If I am hearing you correctly, I really agree with it, which is that introverts need connection with the world and with other people. They just might need fewer interpersonal connections than unreconstructed extroverts like Esther and Dan.

12:35Unreconstructed, I like it. Yes, yes. I think that we have a tendency to think that because someone is an introvert, they do not like to be with people. I think sometimes that is the case, But the majority of the time, it's a different ratio. It's a different intake level. And there's a different need to replenish and different ways to replenish. You know, an extrovert may often replenish by being with people. And then when they're full, then they go and spend some time alone. An introvert may often, you know, replenish by themselves, fill the tank. And then when they feel recharged, then they go into the world and meet with people.

13:13But to think that because one is an introvert, one is solitary by definition and disconnected from others, I don't think is capturing the range of what introversion includes. Same for extroversion for that matter. But, you know, you said something at first about the distinction between eroticism and sexuality and why I said modernity has narrowed the definition of eroticism in very sexual terms. Sexually as well, people know that you can do a lot of things and feel nothing or very little. People know that in the erotic, you can do very little and feel a ton. Because your imagination is active.

13:58Because your creativity is writing. Because your longing is singing. When I translate it like that, I have really wanted to bring back a word that describes such important parts of our lives and that we have kind of allowed to be narrowed and reduced. And it's not really helping us. I just so strongly agree with everything you're saying. one of the things you said earlier that I do want to kind of double click on because I see it in my own life and I see it in the research and the science that while our interpersonal lives can be fraught and difficult at times at the end of the day we do need other people in order to reduce our stress like many of the things that are bothering us stress overwhelm anxiety can be medicated through friendship and through being with other people.

14:56And that feels like an overlooked lever. Absolutely. But you know, as you were talking, I thought there was one other dimension that I would love to add to your first question, which is the spiritual dimension. Everyone knows that the most religious poems can be deeply erotic. And the most erotic poems are highly spiritual. These two dimensions are very interconnected. Why? Because it has a transcendent element to it, because it has a kind of an abandon to it, because it allows us to be taken, carried into a realm of mystery and unknown, which is what spirituality is a beautiful vocabulary for that.

15:38So this time of year, I've been going to places where I watch people sing together. And it is an incredible thing because the resonance of unison, of voices that come together, is probably, first of all, the most ancient or the more ancient and connective technologies that we have ever developed. You do not need to know the person next to you. You do not need to speak the same language as the person next to you. You just have to hum with them and you meet at the level of resonance that is talk about distressing. it's really really significant now it is true that some of the sources of our stress come from people around us and it is equally true that some of the best way we can alleviate and i prefer the word alleviate than medicate our stress our tension our despair our anxiety our angst comes from being with people one person doesn't have to be people in the plural comes from our connection to other human beings.

16:41And more importantly, it's not always a verbal connection. That's the thing I'm trying to say. And these days, since we have been texting nonstop, on the one hand, people have never written as much as they do today. We've really become an epistolary culture. On the other end, we are only relying on words when this happens. There's a whole contextual way that we communicate with each other that has to do with shared understandings and shared histories and nonverbal cues and body language and deep context that gives meaning to communication that at this moment we are not engaged with enough. We're primarily dealing with what is called cold information, not warm information.

17:24So I load the erotic into that. To me, these things are very much interconnected. But you were asking me a different question and I went back to the previous one. And so remind me. I took off in a different direction. Whatever direction you go in, I like. Coming up, Esther Perel talks about ways to co-regulate, why aliveness isn't about excitement, but about feeling deeply, how isolation and numbness show up in everyday life, and what happens when the erotic disappears.

18:01What I was just asking about is the mechanism by which we co-regulate. We co-regulate by putting a hand on the knee, on the shoulder, on the neck, what we call the bony handles of our bodies, where we ground someone. We co-regulate by breathing together. We co-regulate by singing together. We co-regulate through eye contact. We co-regulate by offering consolation and empathy and reassurance. It's all of those mechanisms that regulate us. But I am not someone who's talking about the nervous system. It's familiar to me, but it's not exactly my vocabulary. That doesn't mean it's not an essential component.

18:50But when I talk about co-regulation, I think of it, and I'm going to give you one example that I find very interesting. So yesterday I had a couple that is going to be coming onto the podcast soon on where should we begin. And at one point, the woman gets agitated and upset and he tries to reach out. And as he tries to reach out, she could say, this is really nice to hear. This is what I've been waiting to hear. But what happens to her is that she says, what took you so long? Now, after all this? So then he reaches out with his hands and then she gives him the hand, but then she takes it back.

19:34And then she gets upset that she's upset and that he's not able to make her be not upset. And then I said, Here's, for me, one of the most powerful images of regulation. And it comes from watching babies. You see a baby in the crib that is standing there and shaking it and saying, pick me up, pick me up. Then you pick them up. And what is the first thing that they do? They arc. They arc back. You know, they have a curve in their back. They open their hand, their shoulder. and slowly you rock them and slowly, slowly, slowly do they move their body forward and they let it drop onto your chest. We see it in kids and we understand it very, very well.

20:21When you are dysregulated, you arc and it takes a while till you are able to fold yourself and trust and connect to the source of comfort that is right next to you. That's what you're referring to, return to people. But for an adult, it's the same thing. It's just that we don't visualize the arcing of the adult. All we see is the adult who, instead of saying, thank you, says, fuck you. You know? And yet it's like the most important part about regulation is pacing. Pacing. If I need you to calm down quick, because I actually can't tolerate you being agitated because it agitates me, then we are actually not co-regulating.

21:07We are co-stressing. One of my perhaps glib little expressions is that I think about the human curse as we need other people in order to flourish and other people are a gigantic pain in the ass. It's not the same people. That's the good thing. That's the good thing. It's not the same people. In your marital life, it sometimes is. Yes, in your marital life, that is one of the beautiful paradoxes of a long-term relationship. And it is true also between parents and children. Yes. I love you. I hate you. I need you. I don't want to need you. We are constantly straddling. I want to please you, but I also want to stay true to myself.

21:52I want to stay true to myself, but I don't want to lose you in the process. I want to make my own decisions, but I also am caring about what effects they have on you. that whole dance there. It's the core dynamic of relationships, period. All of them, by the way, but especially between children and parents and especially even in friendships, in relationships that involve love in the broad sense of the word. But you can have many, many friends. And of course you can have more than one partner, but the majority of us at this point don't. So we are, you know in a cycle but I call often hostile dependency right I need you for things to be better I need you to change but you're not doing it so I get angry at you and the more I get angry at you and the more I need you to be the one to change and the less you change and the more angry I become and the more dependent I am on you to actually do the changing so we are in this hostile dependence the more you do this the more I feel that and the more I do that the more you feel this So it's a fantastic dance that partners do.

23:01That is such an incredible term and a hostile dependency. Yes. It can be true in romantic relationships, parent, child, business, colleagues. All of them. Because our tendency is to think that the change has to come often from the other side and that the cause of the misery is created by the other side. So I need you to do something different and change. And that needing you means I depend on you, but you're not necessarily responding to my request. So I get pissed. And the more I get pissed, the more I need you. Once you know the term, you're going to watch it and see it in many places then. So my point in bringing and steering us into talking about some of the many difficulties of interpersonal relationships is not to discourage people.

23:52But I think people often do get discouraged by the fact that interpersonal work is hard and we're now raising a generation of people who are, you know, and I don't blame the young people for this. I blame myself and my generation for this, for raising these kids without a lot of interpersonal skills. Then they go to a party, they feel anxious and they decide, well, I'm never going to go to a party again. And, you know, I think this is true for young people and plenty of people who are not young. I'm trying to get us back to this fundamental truth that even though it is difficult often to deal with other people, we do need other people, whether we're an introvert or an extrovert, in order to do this life successfully.

24:31But you know, it's become in vogue to say that it's difficult to be with people. But if we switched it around on a cultural basis, and we said it's actually really difficult to be so alone, to have no best friends, to not have dates, to be single for life, to talk to a bot in order to make us feel better. And if we switch the dominant narrative, And we actually said, it's being alone that is really challenging. Being with people, you know, it's not simple, but it's not that it's that constantly difficult. I think we would create a different reality. You know, language shapes the experience. At this moment, partly because of the isolation that we have experienced throughout the pandemic, partly because we are, you know, talking in our phones the whole day.

25:25There's a ton of reasons why we are out of practice and why we are socially atrophied and we are being de-skilled in our human interactions. But I think that us, we should not start from the premise that being with people or relationships are painful, depleting, you know, sucking you dry. I think we have to start from the other side. Otherwise, we collude with something. Societies have had relationships forever. Yes, they're messy. They're messy. That is true. They're not perfect. They involve a ton of friction. Friction is a word that I like a lot, especially if I talk about eroticism. But they are as important as food.

26:10And people have the ability of say there is nutritious food, delicious food, fast food, healthy food. You know, we make distinctions. When we say relationships are difficult, some relationships are really depleting. Some relationships are the meaning. Some, some, some. And some relationships are the complete opposite. And I think we have to not use the word relationships. We have to be more discerning the same way that we would do with food and other things. It'll help us on a societal level. I agree with you completely. There was a guest on the show, Ingrid Clayton, recently, who said wounding happens in relationship, but healing happens in relationship.

26:49That's correct. That's correct. So if we're looking to get more eroticism in our lives, I think it might be worth talking about how exactly to do that. One of the things that you recommend is a kind of gentle self-audit to get a sense of like what lights you up. because we have relationships with others, but we also have relationships with different parts of ourselves. So we live in relationships. People think that because you don't see other people, you don't have relationships. Oh, yes, you do. You have plenty of relationships with the parts of you that live inside of you, with the various things that you have internalized over your life.

27:27So you are continuously in a relational system. That, I think, needs to be really established. Now, I ask people, when's the last time you found a life? And it's really a very broad swat of experiences that people talk about. I was at sea, and I suddenly kind of was swimming, and I wasn't thinking anymore. I was just in this vast openness. I climbed a mountain. I crafted my first pottery. I mean, it covers the range. I was at a soccer game and we just cheered the thing and I felt completely identified with my team, etc. It's really beautiful as a question, actually. When's the last time you felt alive?

28:13You know, sometimes it's when I was holding my baby in my hands. I mean, it's very broad. And so what lights you up is that question. It doesn't mean what excites you. It doesn't mean what gives you butterflies in your stomach. It's actually often very subtle. It's not big things. And I like it because it challenges us from this kind of, you know, big bang. I have a very close friend, a fellow Belgian like you. Her name is Dahlia. And Dahlia's family and my family are very close. And we're out to dinner recently. And Dahlia snapped a picture of me talking to her husband, who's one of my best friends, and their son.

28:55And I just had this. I was in the midst of this huge laugh. and she sent me the picture, and I was like, oh, yeah, this is me feeling alive. This is what happens when you're with people you love. I mean, and laughter, laughter is such a state of abandon. When you're in the middle of a laughter, unless you're being jolted out of it by something massively surprising or scaring or disruptive, you are lost for a minute. You're in it. I love to go to see plays and live shows where people laugh. It's probably one of the most difficult things, right, to make people laugh. I've had a number of conversations with Trevor Noah about that, you know.

29:39What is the role of humor? I think humor is another dimension of aliveness because humor gives you perspective, right? Humor gives you control over a situation and allows you to change its meaning and its impact. And that too is the Berger's theory on laughter is also very important. So there's a lot of things that make us feel alive. That's what I often am trying to engage with. People putting their hands in the earth, digging. Children dig, you know, they dig holes wherever they can. That is also alive. You encounter other creatures. By the way, I think the relationship is very important to add, is really not just with the people.