Esther Perel: The #1 Secret to Know if Your Chemistry Will Last & Why You’re Addicted to Your Ex

28:13You just explained it very well. But sometimes, I mean, the effect is the same. You topping her, you know, in such a big way, completely says to her, you have nothing to complain about, which is not necessarily your intention, but it is often the way the other person registers it. And then the question to you is, do you ever say to her, I have a tough week without her prompt? Yes. Because part of what happens is that you get prompted by the other person and it suddenly says, oh, if you give yourself the permission to complain or to just vent a moment, then maybe I get that permission too. And what changes it is to just, you know, A, is to acknowledge what has just been said and then to say, I have that feeling often too.

28:58Yeah, yeah. But it is the competition. It is the, you suffer, I suffer more. Yeah, absolutely. Now something that's really helped me. Do you use humor now? Yeah, my wife can make anything funny. So I rely on her to bring the humor in because she's just - Very useful. Yeah, she's just, she's hilarious. She's a comedian. So not as in not professionally, she's just a funny person. And so she can always add that. But now what really helps me, and this is more what I'm like, is I'm kind of preemptive of stress. and so I'll sit down with them and be like, hey, I've got a really stressful week coming up.

29:31I just want you to be aware of that. And so, you know, if I'm a bit short or I'm running around or I'm not fully present, I just want you to be aware I've got a lot of stuff going on and if you need me, of course I'll be there, but just know. And I like to set that up and communicate that because to me, it gives me space to at least let her know where I'm coming from rather than to catch me in a bad moment. And then I end up behaving in a way that I'm not proud of, whereas now she's aware. So now she's mindful of that too. And she doesn't have to tiptoe around me She doesn't have to be unaware, but it's the idea that she's conscious, that I get it.

30:02He's got three crazy days coming up and, you know, we can talk about something maybe the day after. Can I take this one a step further? Please, I'd love to. I'd love that. It's probably one of the most useful things I have seen changing in a relationship. When you do what you just do, you're attentive, you're caring, you let her know, you're apologetic. and being apologetic is very beautiful, but it still says my life is very important. And I just want you to know I'm not going to be there. The step that really changes it around is when you say to the other person, I'm so thankful that you are here because you're being here is what enables me to go take care of my busy week.

30:47Because once you say it like that, you make the other person very important and not my life is so important. Thank you for understanding it. You come after. I'll be there if you need me, but you come after. The thanking reinforces the interdependence. And it's true because you couldn't go and attend to your life the way you do without having the other person do whatever it takes for you to be able to be absent for a while. And when you acknowledge that, it makes them feel like they're part of the story rather than they're on hold while your story unfolds. Absolutely. Absolutely. I couldn't agree with you more.

31:23And I've always found that at least for me, doing that separately in different contexts has at least helped me when it's not tied to the same context. But I love that idea. And I fully agree with you. Like, you know, I think. It's a nice switch. Yeah, it's beautiful. It's a tweak that really changes the power dynamic in the relationship in a small move. Yes, definitely. It's switching the significance from yourself to this relationship and the support that you each provide. Yeah, that's beautiful. I love that. I love what we're talking about. And you've probably heard this a million times. And that's what I think it's important to address.

32:01A lot of people will say, I want to talk to my partner about these things. I want to be curious about them. I want to ask them about their past But every time I do they shut down They go quiet They don't want to talk about it If I get curious and say Hey you know when we're not arguing But when we're just talking And I say hey you know what I just wanted to figure out Like is there anything that scares you from your past Is there anything that worries you Or is there any challenge you're going through How can I help you And the other person goes No no no I'm fine I'm okay I'm dealing with it And people often feel like they get shut down When they're trying to be curious I'm sure you've heard this a million times in sessions and how have you dealt with that?

32:38Parking shouldn't slow you down. ParkWiz gives every driver a shortcut. Book ahead, save up to 50 % and skip the hassle of circling the block. Park smarter, park faster. ParkWiz. Download the ParkWiz app today and save every time you park. I'm Radhi Dvlukia and I'm the host of a Really Good Cry podcast and I have the opportunity to talk to Logan Ury. Logan is a dating expert, a behavioral scientist, a best-selling author and someone who is seriously changing the way we think about love and dating. In our conversation, we talk all things dating that Logan has studied and tested from what to put in your dating profile, the pictures you should and shouldn't be using to the conversation starters that actually work and the huge no-nos that people probably do not realize are reducing their chances of success on apps.

33:22Whether you're single, dating, or just trying to be more intentional in love, Logan offers the kind of clarity we all need. relationships do require work and the best relationships are people who really work on them together they're so focused on if i find the perfect person then i'll have the perfect relationship instead of understanding really that they can choose someone great and then build that relationship together they don't need to keep searching for perfection listen to a really good cry on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast have you ever looked a piece of abstract art or music or poetry and thought, that's just a bunch of pretentious nonsense?

34:00Well, that's exactly what two bored Australian soldiers set out to prove during World War II, when they pulled off what was either a bold literary hoax or a grand poetic experiment, publishing over a dozen intentionally bad but highly acclaimed works of expressionist poetry under the name Earn Malley in an incident that caused a media firestorm and even a criminal trial. The Earn Mally episode made fools of believers and critics alike and still fascinates poetry lovers to this day. We break down the truth, the lies, and the poetry in between on Hoax, a new podcast hosted by me, Lizzie Logan, and me, Dana Schwartz.

34:36Every episode, Hoax explores an audacious fraud or ruse from history, from forged artworks to the original fake news, to try and answer why we believe. Listen to Hoax on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you've tried to ask your partner a certain set of questions and you systematically get the same answer, change tactic. The point is not doing it one more time, hoping that this time you're going to get a better response. It's a little bit like Moses and the rock. You know, the water won't flow. So what I like is not to be so direct. You know, somebody told me recently that they had gone to an offsite at work.

35:21So it started in a different context, but it's a good example. And she organized this whole offsite and she took a card from the game, from where should we begin? And the card was somebody who impacted your life and doesn't know it. And the whole group went through this question. and basically people spoke that you knew nothing about, people who never talk and people who you thought you knew that came up with stories that you had no idea about. Try to do it in a more playful way. Try to do it sometimes as part of a dinner conversation. Try to do it with a question that is less on the nose, you know, and that invites you to start from anywhere you want.

36:09This is an interesting question that you can answer at so many levels of depth. There are many of those. If you just say, tell me about your past, no. You know, you saw this movie and you saw what happened there. It's like anything of that that is familiar to you and you tell your story. You need to create a context. Yes. For many people, digging deep into the past is traumatizing, aversive, scary, uninteresting, you know, or they don't have the vocabulary for it. It's the other thing. So that's why people have used the arts. Books, movies, plays, songs, poetry. They speak our human experience with, and we only have to say that.

36:53That's my thing. So sometimes I say to people, you know, how about you find some songs that express the stuff that you don't know how to talk about? And that's a much lighter lift than tell me about your past. You know, a character that represents the parent that you grew up with and you go and find into a series, a television series, one of these characters. They've all been written about. use other mediums other vocabularies to open up stuff that people don't necessarily want to be in therapy with their partner yeah i love that that's such great advice and i couldn't agree more i always say everyone who's listening to me i always say to them like please don't force my book onto your partner like please don't like you may love my book so you may put it on the night table please don't do that and i always say to people like it's about speaking the language that your partner connects to.

37:46And that's what you're saying. The language could be music, the language could be art, the language could be movies. And I always talk about one of the reasons why I love having my podcast is because I get to speak to so many different people from so many different backgrounds, so many different walks of life, talking about similar things. You read a book a day. Yeah, exactly. And what I find is someone may relate to athletes more. So if an athlete is opening up about their mental health and their vulnerability or a challenge they have with a parent, your partner may respond to that more than they would a coach, a therapist, a psychologist, or one of your partners may respond to academics and scientists more than they would to a guide.

38:23And it doesn't matter how they open up. And so I love that you said that. I love that you said sometimes we're just trying the same strategy for too long. And, you know, like you said, on the nose, we kind of approach it in a very direct, yeah, linear way. Like, tell me about, you know, you're doing this, what happened to you before, you know, like a cause and effect, You know, play with it. Yeah, you're trying to be that therapist and you can't. I think play is a good thing. I think movement is important too. Many people talk much more easily when they're walking, when they're hiking, when they're, you know, on a ski lift.

38:56Don't just sit and try to do face-to-face. There's a reason that fishing is so good because you do parallel play. Everybody's looking forward. Nobody has to lock eyes. And it allows me to think out loud and to answer a question here and there. The other thing is sometimes the question comes later. Often there's one person that's much more articulate about some of these things than another. So find other mediums, other vocabularies and other settings. Start with that. Yeah, I love that. One of my favorite dates that me and my wife went on very early on was this activity in England called Go Ape.

39:30And what it is, is it's like a ropes course that's high up in the air. So it's like 80 feet or whatever up above the air. and you've got all these different like activities and things. So you're like swinging, you're like trying to walk on these steps. It's challenging, but it's fun. And I remember having so much fun because there were activities that she found easy and I found hard and activities that I found easy and she found hard. And we could help each other. We could talk while we were doing it. There was a sense of support. And I think what you're saying is so true that I find that doing activities where we're both novices are really fun because when we're both getting a chance to see a new, fresh, unseen side of each other, we really get to play and really get to understand.

40:14If I'm in a position of strength, if I know a sport really well and she's never done it, then I'm not really learning anything new. I'm kind of just being there and trying to be the teacher and same vice versa. But if we both have no clue about something, like me and my wife took a surfing lesson for the first time in our life, like a couple of years ago when we went to Hawaii, we'd both never surfed in our life. You know, we're both from London and that wasn't accessible there. And we went on a first ever lesson and it was just hilarious. It was fun. It was silly. We were both learning about how much tolerance we both had and there was humor coming in and what skillset we had.

40:49And you're so right that adding movement to being together, especially I find in ways where you're not familiar, provides a real opportunity to see someone vulnerably. So you added more than just movement. You added risk and you added playfulness. There's a beautiful book by Eli Finkel called The All or Nothing Marriage. And he talks about really what creates a sense of aliveness in relationships. And one of the things he highlights is the importance of doing new things. Not just doing things that you both enjoy, that you're comfortable with. That's good, but that breeds friendship. Whereas when you do new things that also involve unknown, mystery, risk, curiosity, that's where you actually bring in excitement and in my language also desire.

41:39I love that. Yeah, that's beautiful. That makes complete sense. And I love those words. Those words we don't often use around relationships, risk, mystery. I do. Yeah, no, no, I know, but you just don't hear them as much. No, not enough. You don't hear them enough at all around relationships. You always feel mystery with something you had on date one or when you saw that person from across the room, right? Like that's when the mystery was and there isn't any, but I couldn't agree with you more of that. But that's because people prefer sometimes to create an illusion of familiarity as if I know you like you're the inside of my pocket.

42:13Yeah, yeah, yeah. Until you do something I absolutely did not expect you to do and then suddenly I realized and I said, I thought I knew you. The real beauty is to know that whoever is next to you, who you think is already so familiar and so known, is actually still somewhat mysterious, somewhat elusive. And that's where you maintain your curiosity next to the person that is with you. You know, faced with the unknown, you can either react with fear and try to flatten it and just ignore all of that and just hold on to what's familiar, or you can nurture it and then you are actually engaging with the mystery and the curiosity that is right in front of you.

42:53And that you know from your spiritual work that is very much taken from that notion. How you then, because that allows you to sit like this when you're talking with your partner because you're still attentive and curious versus like this. Yeah, definitely, definitely. let's let's say someone decides to break up or maybe they're broken up with and we can talk about both sides of that if we talk about the side of someone's decided to break up with someone for their own reasons and of course there could be a million reasons for breaking up with someone so it's hard to be specific there but if someone's broken up with someone but they are having those feelings as you said the consequences will be you'll still have that grief of what could have been, you have the consequences of maybe it could have worked, maybe we should have tried.

43:43There's still a feeling of, I wish they were still around. I used to talk to them every day at 7pm at night. I used to, on a Friday night, we'd always go to this favorite restaurant, whatever it may have been, we have these memories. What do people do with that feeling? What do you do with that feeling of craving? You know, you do a lot of different things, but it's so interesting. I literally edited a new episode for the podcast for where should we begin of a guy who leaves his wife who he had been very close to for quite a few years has a young child moves in with another woman is on the verge a few years later of marrying that other woman and can't do it and has felt guilt and remorse and regret and longing for all those years and starts to meet the mother of his child again, not just as a mother, but now they're going on a first date again.

44:47And it's like, I left you and then I came back to you. It's an incredible story to see one person that because that is a question that doesn't have one answer but in this case he couldn't leave her fast enough but he could never leave her fully and I can't tell you today if he's back with her or what but I have a sense that something when he was about to marry this other woman held him back that he couldn't necessarily put into words and that made him feel like he had to examine himself which is what this whole conversation on where should we begin is about and I've never had that particular version of it but it is the one that most responds to your question but you're gonna have to go listen yeah yeah absolutely absolutely no and I recommend everyone go and listen to that if that's a question you've been asking yourself I think that heartache that that people feel often feels endless as you said it can just go on and on and on forever people feel like we've always heard you know, time will heal all wounds, but.

45:50Who instigated the breakup? Is that really changes a lot? Or if it was mutual. Is it ever mutual? Yes. I think, I think that it is often mutual where two people say we evolved into something else or it just didn't work or, you know, both people may have felt it, but one person was able to say, let's do it. That makes sense. And the person who is more afraid of abandonment and rejection and all of that is often more the person who may not say it, but that doesn't mean they didn't feel it. Many people tell you, I didn't have the guts to do it, but it's the best thing that happened to me. My partner pushed it.

46:30I didn't want it then. So between what happens in the moment and how people experience the consequence, it's not one and the same. the person who may have pushed it may be the one who has the most regret the person who was more hesitant it may be the one who actually is most liberated yeah it's not it's a much more intricate puzzle than just of course of course what are some of the phases that you see people go through that can give people hope that there is another side to this because I think when you're in it the emotion is, I'm never going to be loved again. I'll never find someone as good as them again.

47:10I can't trust anyone again, right? Like these are the thoughts that people are repeating in their minds. What does someone need to understand during that time to know? You just made me think of another episode of this, but it's the daughter who describes how one day a truck came, took all of her father's stuff. I mean, never comes back home. That's a story that we hear quite often. And then all the situations of betrayal, of infidelity, of falling in love with somebody else or discovering that your partner, you know, wants a fundamentally different relationship than you. And I think that the situations where you are like completely sidelined and you realize, wow, the first experience you have is that your whole sense of reality is shattered.

47:59I thought I knew my life. And this has nothing to do with where I thought I was at. How can this be happening to me? You're in a state of confusion, in a state of disbelief, and in a state of shock. And in a state where you feel like you've been just ejected from your life. You had value and you have none. That's all part of betrayal. It's not just the lying. It's the fact that somebody could toss you away like that and that you think I don't matter. And that's what It makes you much more afraid. Will I ever find someone who can hold me, carry, care and carry me, you know, and can I trust that ever again?

48:38Because I trusted it here. The question is as much about how do I trust again, but not just how do I trust somebody else? How do I trust my own perception? That's the piece that when you lose the belief in your ability to know that what you believe is what is, then you are on such shaky ground. So it demands a real scaffolding and a rebuilding. No, you haven't lost your entire sense of perception because you have good friends, family, colleagues, mentors. There's not just that person. And you need to get your sense of value from noticing the other relationships that you have. So you need to bring those people into your life.

49:19Do not isolate at that moment. You need the people who see you differently from the one who just left you. And those who seek you out, those who value your presence, those who think you're great, you know. And then slowly you often will find that you connect better with other people who have experienced a sense of betrayal like that. But betrayal is not only infidelity. It can also be in a partnership. It can be in being co-founders of something. And there are other relationships that go through this complete fracture. Slowly you begin to say, it's not one person's harming me or hurting me that is a decree on who I am and my self-worth.

50:02That person hurt me deeply. I have been hurt and I learned from this. And I protect myself a little bit, but I don't have to protect myself in such a way that I don't live. because the biggest victory on this kind of hurt is the ability to love again, to trust again. You did not take that from me. That is probably your biggest vengeance is to be happy. Wow. Yeah, I mean, that resonates very, very strongly. And first of all, can people rebuild trust after experiencing infidelity? and what does that process look like for someone and how different is it to what they expect it to be? The beauty of your questions is that it filled an entire book of mine because it's actually a big, big topic.

51:03But if I was to try to summarize it, yes, yes, of course people can rebuild trust. I mean, that is very, not everybody and not in every situation, but the process itself very much is real. And I have met, you know, I began State of Affair by going to talk to couples that I had seen five or ten years earlier to know whatever happens to these people. Because I see them in a moment of crisis and often I don't know afterwards. You know, they decided to stay together, they worked it through and off they went. So I wanted to know what does that relationship actually look like years later? Who are they?

51:45What happened to their bond? You rebuild trust through a few major stages. The first one is that whoever hurt you, especially if you choose to stay together, has the ability to express guilt and remorse for hurting you, even if they don't feel guilty for the affair itself, even if they have a host of good explanations, good reasons that make it understandable, not justifiable, not condonable, but understandable, they still can experience the guilt and the remorse for hurting you. That acknowledgement is fundamental. It's fundamental in an intimate relationship, in a friendship, or between nations, for that matter.

52:26Then it's the ability to basically become what I call the vigilante of the relationship. It means it's your job now to say how much you value the relationship and to protect the relationship. So in the situation of an affair, for example, it means that instead of you asking me questions about what I did and me hoping that you won't ask me because we've already gone through this 10 times, I ask you, is there something you want to ask me? because if I bring it up rather than hoping you won't bring it up, then I'm saying to you, I'm owning my thing. I take responsibility. I care about the relationship.

53:07And most of the time, if we have a good day, you may say to me, I don't want to talk about it. I'm having a good day because I am reminding us and I'm not letting it be forgotten and I'm taking charge. That's the vigilante. I'm the protector of the relationship. And then number three is to explain, to talk between the people. why did you do this? What did it mean to you? And then what did it do to me? The affair always includes both sides. If you just talk about what it meant for you, you're missing a point. If we're just talking about what it did to me, we're missing a point. So the ability to not just look at the facts, what did you do, but the meaning of it.

53:49Affairs have meaning, they're stories. They tell us something about the person, about the relationship. Not always bad things for that matter. So what did it mean to you? And those three stages in the crisis phase, remorse, guilt, acknowledgement. In the inside phase, you are the vigilante. And together we explore meaning making of this crisis for us. What are we going to do with this? And then phase three is if we do stay together, what's our vision for who we want to be? No, we will probably not go back to what we were. because what we were may have been part of why we got to where we are. Who do we want to be?

54:31What does it open up? An affair topples the scorecard in a relationship. So I may have accepted all kinds of things because this was the way I conceived of our relationship. And I was willing to not work and I was willing to make more money. I was willing to work all the time. I was willing to do all the childcare. I was willing to do none of it. I was willing to take care of your ailing mother, of your addicted brother, whatever. I accepted a lot of things, but now this basically gives me the opportunity to also say, I also have discontent. It's not just your affair that expresses the discontent.

55:06And so here's the fundamental line. Most of us today in the West are going to have two or three relationships in our adult life or marriages. Some of us are going to do it with the same person. So sometimes the affair is the end of the first marriage or the first relationship, but it can be the beginning of the next one with each other. And that's the rebuilding of the trust. Well said. Yeah, no. And it's, I'm sure that's going to give people a lot of hope, but also what I love about your work and your books is that there's also a process there. There's a structure there. There's a method there for people to go, oh, okay, that's where we're at.

55:49That's what I'm struggling with. I think one of the biggest thoughts that repeats in people's minds when they're broken up with or when they've experienced infidelity that I hear from people is, Jay, I feel like I'm not worthy anymore. I feel like I'm not lovable again. I feel like I'm not desirable. While they are staying with the person or while they've broken up? Both. I've heard people say, I don't feel desirable because they desire someone else, but I still want to be with that person. And I don't feel worthy even with that person now, because I'm reminded constantly, as you said, of their infidelity.

56:25And these thoughts perpetuate, but what I'm hearing you say, and I'd love for you to guide us, is what I'm hearing you say is, well, that's why you need to do the meaning making because you really need to understand their story and meaning and yours. Right now, you're just focused on yours and that's always going to be this negative repetitive pattern. Parking shouldn't slow you down. ParkWiz gives every driver a shortcut. Book ahead, save up to 50%, and skip the hassle of circling the block. Park smarter, park faster. ParkWiz. Download the ParkWiz app today and save every time you park. I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and on the new season of Heavyweight, I help a centenarian mend a broken heart.

57:07How can a 101-year-old woman fall in love again? And I help a man atone for an armed robbery he committed at 14 years old. And so I pointed the gun at him and said, this isn't a joke. And he got down, and I remember feeling kind of a surge of like, okay, this is power. Plus, my old friend Gregor and his brother try to solve my problems through hypnotism. We could give you a whole brand new thing where you're like super charming all the time. Being more able to look people in the eye. Not always hide behind a microphone. Listen to Heavyweight on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

57:54The risks they took would be unthinkable to any doctor today. But odds are, someone you know is alive because of them. Welcome to the Wild West of American Medicine. I'm Chris Pine, and this is Cardiac Cowboys, a podcast that tells the gripping true story behind the birth of open-heart surgery and the maverick surgeons who made it happen. It changed the way we live. It changed the life expectancy of people throughout the world. I should be dead. The repair that he did when I was six years old saved me. A ragtag group of surgeons united by a common mission. Some appeared on the cover of Time magazine, operated on kings and advised presidents.

58:39Others ended up disgraced, penniless, convicted of felonies. Together, they ignited a revolution in medicine. It's as if a man landed on the moon and nobody even told the story, except this is more important. Listen to the Cardiac Cowboys podcast starting February 6th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You remind me of a couple I saw. And this man had done something that was really egregious in some way because he had taken everything that was special to the relationship and shared it with the other person. But everything. Wow. Their favorite places, restaurants, clothing.

59:23I mean, he had left nothing sacred. That's a devaluing, right? And whenever they would drive, there was a way when they would arrive to a place and she would look at him and it was like there too. And so he would dread it because he knew he was guilty as charged. And then I began to say to him, I want you every time you drive, when there is a place you say yes there too without waiting for the question because you know that you have to stand but when there is that you have to stand accountable but when there is a place not you say no they're not before the question comes up that's part of the vigilante so that you protect the relationship and you bring back the value you say you know now go create new places too that are new for the two of you and that you need new cells you You can't just go back and try to reenter the spaces that you were in.

1:00:22The loss of value gets addressed by having someone who is slowly reclaiming the value. The feeling is true, but it doesn't mean that because they had desire for someone else, they had none for you. Actually, sometimes they had desire for someone else because you had none for them. You know, the person who says that to you comes with one particular story, but there's so many stories. You know, sometimes you have a person who was completely uninterested for a decade and then they are upset that their partner was interested with somebody else. It's not just, you know, I was there available for you and you dumped me for someone that you looked at with a bigger, you know, fonder eyes.

1:01:06So what people experience after the betrayal doesn't always tell the story of what happened before. That's why the meaning making is so really important. You know, sometimes somebody is going to say to the other, you devalued me for 10 years. You barely paid any attention to me. You were so enraptured in your work. You were so busy with your phone. You were so, you know, I was abandoned long before, you know. And that also needs to be put into the story. The story doesn't start the moment that you discover something. because there are a lot of moving pieces underneath. And people addressing this with care, carefulness and responsibility is the process.

1:01:51The hope doesn't come from nowhere. It comes because two people say, this is important. We built something. We've been together 5, 10, 15 years, 25 years. We're not letting this just go. Now we need to reclaim the value of this for both of us. Absolutely. this idea that we're going to have two to three relationships in our adult life and they could either be with the same person or of course with two to three different people and I think this idea of choice and selection has obviously rapidly changed because of technology and apps and the amount of people you can bump into you know I looked at studies saying that you know 25 years ago, most people ended up with someone within a five mile radius of where they grew up.

1:02:40We know that that's not the case anymore. People are moving countries for people, moving states. People are living in different parts of the world. We both live in different parts of the world than where we grew up. And so when I look at that, one of the biggest challenges I find or that I hear from people is because there's so much selection, there's a sense of like, I'm not feeling any spark. I'm not feeling any chemistry. I don't feel a connection with this person. I hear that a lot and let's address that. And then the other thing I hear is this idea of like, you know, this guy didn't have as much as the other guy or, you know, and you start comparing it because you can, because you're just exposed to so many more people now.

1:03:20And you're almost comparing resumes of people that you've heard about, spoken to, seen on a dating app, introduced through your friends. So this idea of choice and the paradox of choice as it's always been called in studies, from products to people now. You know, we can get stuck at a grocery store wondering which product to buy. But in dating, it feels like you can keep going because you can just keep swiping. Let's talk about both of those. The idea of how do you choose? How do you select? And when you're choosing and selecting, how do you not feel that sense of there could be more? I said choice comes with loss.

1:04:01I'm actually very excited about this question because I'm very interested in this at this moment, right? I'm interested in the intersection of technology and relationships and mental health. And I've just done a bunch of episodes with people in the dating scene because of exactly this. So we have a frenzy of romantic consumerism in which in search of the perfect, people are no longer happy with the good. We have people looking for a soulmate on an app. That's an interesting combination between spirituality and capitalism. And how do we even think that a partner is a soulmate? Soulmate used to be God, you know, and now we want transcendence and mystery and wholeness and all of it.

1:04:53an ecstasy almost with a person. You know, the stuff that people looked for in the realm of the divine, they now want with their person. And at the same time, they're doing it with a checklist so that many dating experiences are like job interviews. So all of that combined, right? I do think we have more choice, but we also have a lot more uncertainty and a lot more self-doubt. And we are a lot less capable of handling uncertainty because we live with a host of predictive technologies that are all meant to take away uncertainties, obstacles, friction, you know, rough edges. So we don't rub anymore with stuff that helps us deal with uncertainty, unknown, and engage with happenstance.

1:05:40You know, happenstance means you stand in line and you start talking to the person that is behind you in line. And after that, you go and have a drink with that person. and after that you find yourself exchanging numbers and a story starts. Spontaneously, unprompted. So I think that the commodification that people feel is real. It's not just because of your childhood. It's part of society at this point. There is a way in which we talk about ourselves as products and there is a way in which we talk about ourselves online with followers as if we are religious leaders. You and me, for that matter.

1:06:17So... The first thing, don't go in thinking that you have to find somebody at the first meeting. That's not the way it works. And that you go down your list and, you know, and then if the first thing that goes wrong, you go, ick, and you just go on to the next. You know, what I'm doing now when I address this very question is I show a very famous clip. It's classic in psychology called the still face experiment. Have you ever seen it? No, I haven't. It's a two-minute clip on YouTube. In the still face experiment, the mother is playing with the little one. And the little one is cooing and showing her things and, you know.

1:06:58And then at some point, the mother goes still face. And the kid continues to point and continues to call her attention. And within 30 seconds or less of the mother not responding, the kid goes into a panic, a frenzy, loses its body composure, starts shrieking. And basically, you understand that we are relational people from... And what this clip shows me is that this is what goes on in ghosting, in breadcrumbing, in checklisting. This is what is the experience of many people at this moment. You go, you have a hedonic treadmill, you meet someone, you think there's possibilities, and then they disappear on you.

1:07:40And you're left like this, and then you unravel. And you do this sometimes 20 times a day with the same person. This is kind of the experience of modern dating. I haven't seen many people say, I love it. You know, maybe 65 % of meeting people meet on an app, but I don't see people saying, I love it. Actually, it's the number one complaint of people dating at this moment. So try to bring back something that is more humane. You meet somebody or a friend introduce you to someone. Don't go and meet with them alone in a bar to have a face-to-face conversation to go down an interview. Do an activity.

1:08:16It's exactly what you were talking about. Do something you enjoy doing. Bring that person to a thing that you're doing with friends. You want to get to know somebody, put them in a social situation. See how they interact with people, how they act, how they respond, how they engage with people. If you think that you're going to have epiphanies with clarity like an app, forget it. You will be exhausted and you won't meet anybody. Really well said. and I couldn't agree with you more. I'm always trying to push people away. I'm like, get out of your inbox and your DMs and your messages and get out there.

1:08:51There's no way talking to someone over a couple of messages is gonna help you figure anything out. But you've probably spoken to so many people who've had chemistry, lost chemistry, never had it. I feel like a lot of people today that I hear from, they're meeting people, but they're like, there's no spark, there's no chemistry. I'm not feeling anything. What should we want to feel if there is anything we should want to feel at all with someone? And what is the difference between chemistry, compatibility, and connection? First of all, I think we need to differentiate. Are you looking for chemistry for a love story?

1:09:24Or are you looking for chemistry for a life story? Lots of people you can have chemistry with, have a fantastic night with for that matter or more, but that's not the person you necessarily want to make a life with. The project will determine the nature of the chemistry. Right? That's number one. So number two is curiosity, a desire for more. I want to, you know, it's like you read a book. A person is a book, right? Or you can use other metaphors. Do you drag yourself through the next page? You know, I should, you know, let me see where it goes. Or like, you can't wait. You know, it's a page turner.

1:10:05If you have the experience of the page turner with the person, you want more, you want to have the next conversation, you want to ask them that kind of question, you want to go do something else with them, you're on a good track. You know, this notion of this instant combustion of emotion that fills you up, you want a religious experience. That is not always the case. Sometimes people fall like that, you know, as we say. But the majority of the time, things grow. You know, they grow through the interaction. You get a good text. You like what you just read. You find yourself wanting to answer a sentence and you've just answered two pages.

1:10:44You know, you wanted to go and meet them for half an hour and three hours later, you're still sitting on the floor in the hallway having an enthralling conversation. That's the stuff that breeds the feelings. If you sit there like this and think that some, you know, deus ex machina is going to fall from the heavens, you're off you know it's this false certainty that is not the majority of people and there's many ways in some people start hot and then they become lukewarm and some people start lukewarm and the heat grows over time there isn't one narrative this notion that hollywood has sold us that just like ah and i can't wait and i just have this i fall for you on the spot that's one plot There are many plots.

1:11:30And if you constrain yourself in thinking, this is how I should be feeling and I'm not feeling it, then you are limiting your options. Yeah, one thing that has really come up a lot with people I've spoken to recently is this idea of they find someone who makes them feel safe, who they feel cared for by, and the person seems to be, they consider them to be good hearted. That person makes... I'm waiting for the but. Yes, exactly. You already know. You already know. This person, in their words, makes sense. Mm-hmm. But they feel like they're settling because there must be someone else who has all of that plus the other three things that they want.

1:12:18You are a perfect candidate for romantic consumerism, if you think this way. You've been had. You've been, literally, you've become a good person that I can, we can, you know, your mind is set for somebody telling you, this is the product you need. The perfect fit. And then you are going to be the perfect patient who comes in thinking, I thought my person was like this and this and this, and they're not the deal that I bargained for. It's not what was written on paper. You can clear the language. It's like business, you know, capitalism enters romantic life. It's really crippling to people. You know, the more you have this notion of perfection, the higher you can fall.

1:13:03You know, are you perfect? Are you that great? Do you think that everybody falls free? Like, what is this notion? So then there is this idea that there is the sense and settling with the passion, you know, and you should have that passion. Passion is a wonderful feeling to have. It's maybe not the best thing to decide if you want to have a life with somebody. It's not the most important ingredient for that. You know, that doesn't mean you don't want excitement, intensity, you know, draw. But this idea that there is reason and passion, that's a very old divide. That is the divide of the 19th century, the rationalists and the romantics.

1:13:42And why do you say that? Why do you think that, and I get that you're giving a balanced approach there, but to enlighten all of us in what you've seen, you compared the love story and the life story. Why do you think, it almost feels like what we've been sold is for the love story, but the life story requires a different set of skills. Yes, skills and values and compatibilities because there are many more people that you can love than people you can make a life with. I can have many love stories with people that I meet on a trip with whom I have a beautiful short story with. But would that be the person with whom I can...

1:14:20Do we share anything else in terms of how we see life with everything else that life brings? That's a different thing. That doesn't mean you don't want love in the life story. but many more love stories can exist without life story. Not that many life stories will exist without a love story. You know, you can call it an adventure. You can call it, you know, and it is what people used to do when they date before they looking for someone with whom they want to have a more committed relationship. It's very important that, that we see that a lot of the things that we're looking for are the things that make for a real love story.

1:15:01The things we want to feel, the things that are on the checklist are the things that we've kind of created an impossible situation. It's really so you don't settle. If you see that language says what? I am fantastic, you know, or I am not fantastic, but I'm going to find someone fantastic who is going to make me rise. and it is a kind of use of people that really is creating such a psychological paucity. It's really eroding people's sense of self-esteem and sense of self-worth. It's not good. Where are you at in your life? At 23, you're going to think differently from 33. You know, at 33, it's likely that you're going to think of a few people that you said no to at 23 that were perfectly fine.

1:15:52And you kind of didn't because you kept thinking I can do better. And this I can do better is eating people up because it creates constant restlessness in relationships, in life, in pursuit. And then they need to go and meditate to get calmer, to be less restless. But the restlessness is this constant pursuit of more, better, younger, and therefore living with the feeling not enough. I don't have enough. I'm not enough. And that's the crisis that then follows around self-worth. Because you constantly want more, you end up constantly feeling not enough. Yeah. And someone else will make me feel more than enough.

1:16:36Yes. The evaluation. You know, the meaning of finding the love partner today is that it will end my sense of constant self-evaluation. I'm evaluating myself. I'm presenting myself. I'm selling myself. I'm trying to compete on the market. It's like language, you know. The romantic language is about the market, you know, the meat. And then when I find you, my beloved, I will finally stop the process of evaluation. This is a thing from Eva Ilouz, a great sociologist that studies love relationships. That's such a beautiful language as well, that you want to end your process of evaluation when actually a life story is an evolution of self-evaluation.

1:17:21It's only going to come with more. Do you see there being inherent value in long-term committed relationships? Or is that also a construct of society? I see, look, I work very cross-culturally, right? So I don't think the answer is the same. If I am in Belgium, in India, in Turkey, But I think there is a lot of value in a long-term relationship, but the long-term relationship has doubled in lifespan. So 100 years ago, we lived half of now, so the long-term keeps on getting longer. But there is also tremendous value in having had the possibility of finally being able to end this and to start anew, or to never have had it and to start anew.

1:18:07People who marry for the first time in their 60s or people who realized that they had a beautiful relationship for certain things and that now they needed something else. Marriage was an institution that you couldn't leave. You got in and you got in for life. And if you didn't like it, you could hope for an early death of your partner, you know, because that was the only way out. And especially for women. I mean, marriage has not meant the same for men and women. Marriage for same sex people is very recent. So the question has a lot of different pieces. I think that there is something very beautiful in a long novel.

1:18:44And I think that there are beautiful short stories. There isn't a one size fits all at this moment. And the interesting thing is we've been creative about a lot of things. We disrupt, we are creative about even family life. We have blended families, same sex families, single parent families, accordion families. But when it comes to romantic couples, romanticism, the exclusiveness, the monogamous long-term model has been the dominant model for two centuries and is quite strong. So I think we can be more creative and in rethinking relational arrangements and relationship arrangements that are more diverse and that bring in other people as in the community.

1:19:30because what is happening in the long-term relationship of today is not only that it is much longer, but it is also much more isolated. Longer and lonelier. Longer and lonelier. One person to give us what normally an entire village should provide. And that is crippling the relationships under so much weight and so many expectations. So those who do it well, do it better than the relationships of the past, says Eli Finkel but the majority of them don't manage to climb the Olympus yeah and I you know I often think about that because I think what we were talking about earlier when I first met my wife I definitely say that there was so much of the romanticism of the perfect relationship and I often talk about in my book as well about how I proposed to my wife which was basically based off of Instagram and YouTube videos, how I invented a proposal that was so not personal or not.

1:20:29She liked it? Well, I'll tell you, I'll tell you what happened. So, and if anyone's heard this story before, I apologize, but I want to ask her to have the context. Yeah. So we'd been together, I think at that point for like, maybe I proposed off like a couple of years. And so we'd been together. I decided I was going to propose. We were walking down the bank of the River Thames in London, I had an acapella group jumped out and sing Bruno Mars, will you marry me, like marry you to her. They gave her a bouquet of flowers. They performed this amazing number. I got down on one knee. I proposed. We both shed a tear.

1:21:04She said yes. We then had dinner on the side of the Thames where I had to kind of finagle a table from a restaurant. I had food that was brought in, but it was cold because everything had gone wrong on the timing. So we ate cold food, which was, we didn't mind. My wife is amazing, so she didn't care. But I was looking at that going, hmm. And then we walked around the corner and we ended up on a white horse-drawn carriage that I'd booked that took us around London on this beautiful carriage. And it was a beautiful trip. And then we got on the train to go back to her parents. And we got home to her parents.

1:21:37Her parents opened the door and they said, what happened to you to her? She had hives all over her face because that was the day I discovered that she was allergic to horses. And I didn't know that and she didn't know that. And I've always looked back and reflected at that story Because my wife said yes She's never complained about it She was happy with it But when I really look at it And as I've got to know her more and more every year And like you said I feel like I get to know more of her New things and old things every year We've been together for 10 years now And I still feel like every day I'm discovering something new about her I realized that that was the most impersonal show of love ever However, the song wasn't specific to her.

1:22:19The horse-drawn carriage wasn't specific to her. The food was the only thing my wife would care about because she's a big foodie and that's her world. And it was cold. And I look back at that event and I go, I'm lucky she said yes. But actually the hives were a reminder to me of how little I knew my wife at that time. And how eager you were to impress. How eager, exactly. I was a complete show of ego. I was 20, maybe six, 27, yeah. And just what a show it was as opposed to a - Did you come from traditional families? I would say we come from, yeah, like, I would say we come from more traditional families.

1:22:58Yes, yeah, definitely. They're modern thinking, but generally traditional overall in the world. Were they arranged marriages or were they - My mom and dad were and pretty much hers was as well. Yeah, pretty much her parents were as well. So that's a major transition. So when you ask me about long-term relationships, I think people who are in an arranged marriage system answer that question very differently than people who start with the romantic. You know what the research says, right? I've seen bits, but please clarify. Yeah, I don't want to assume. I think it's Dan Ariely's research that people who start with romantic and falling in love and passion are much more likely to then experience a dissatisfaction in the relationship then the majority of people who start in an arranged situation which is much more rational actually their satisfaction rises as they get to know each other and develop the fondness and the relationship i think this is true if the relationship is good yeah if it's good for those for whom it was really not a good match it must be horrific yeah and i think the reason why i was sharing that story was because i think what i've realized and you were mentioning this earlier is that I feel like I found the person who has helped me continue self-evaluation in a way that I would have avoided with someone else or that I would have tried to avoid if I would have had multiple love stories.

1:24:26Whereas this life story that I have with my wife currently is just the most purifying and cleansing, detoxifying process internally, but in the most fun, loving, and caring way. And I look at that and I think about that often where I think to myself, I would have had to learn these lessons with anyone, but maybe someone else may not be able to challenge me as much as my wife does with the lack of criticism and complaint and judgment in a safe space with humor, which actually makes it accessible to me. And it's one of these really interesting reflections that I wanted to share with you to hear your thoughts on that.

1:25:13Because I don't think I would, there are so many skills today that I have only because I married this particular person. There are so many emotional parts of myself that I've been able to discover because of this person. There have been so many, you know. You know what you're telling me in some way? is you didn't succeed in impressing her. I've never succeeded in impressing my wife. And that's her power. Yeah. You know, I mean, not that you're not impressive to her, that she doesn't appreciate and admire, but you didn't succeed. Till this day. Right. And therefore, her opinion matters. And therefore, she can keep you on your toes.

1:25:49And therefore, she doesn't let you sit on your laurels and get away with stuff. And therefore, she can see you in a more humble way when you come home from having done 40 stage events after another where you get, you know, clapped the whole time and you kind of lose a sense of, you know, proportions. And that is an extremely, I think that you're very lucky and not just lucky because you found her, but also because you knew that you did need someone who challenges you and who can hold hers to you, but do it in a way that doesn't feel authoritarian or humiliating or ball busting, et cetera. And so it creates the right friction.

1:26:30She cares and she can criticize. She loves and she can challenge. You know, it's both and. And holding those tensions in a relationship is, in my mind, very important and gives a lot of strength and energy to a relationship. Yeah. I think, yeah. Oh, sorry, please go ahead. No, no, that's it. I think it's your self-awareness of it that is really good. It's like if you had somebody who just looks like that, it would have been a problem. If you had somebody who just did that, it would have been a problem. But you knew that you needed that. Yeah, and I don't think I knew it before we started having that experience, but it just became really evident to me that she loves me for who I am, not what I do and what I achieve and how I try to impress, for example.

1:27:20And I think that's a great reminder for me to love myself for who I am and not love myself for what I achieve or what I do or what I create. And I think that that is a really, I'm like, that's the great. It's very important. Yeah. Yeah. To have some, yeah. And it's also how you perceive it. I think what you're saying is true. Like I've talked about it with people. I could easily perceive it and people could perceive it and say, Jay, you're just a pushover. Jay, you're just, you know, making it up. You're making sense of something and it's bad treatment or whatever. And I'm like, well, no, because I can see that it's done from love and care and it's humor, as you said, like it's done from such a special loving place that I feel that I know it's a knowingness that it is liberating and it is, it is wonderful.

1:28:05But it's interesting because I think a lot of people may have that experience, but they don't want to be humble. They don't want to access that point. And I'm fortunate that my, my monk training is kicks in there and allows for that vulnerability and self-reflection and not thinking I'm perfect. Whereas I wonder if that's, we're scared to do that because we almost want our partner to make us feel perfect. No, I think that this thing of perfection is, I think we want our partners to recognize us and accept us in our imperfection. But it comes in the form of, at least in the beginning, demanding adoration and honor.

1:28:43Yeah, but the beginning is only the beginning. It's one phase of a relationship. You know, I think my friend Terry Reel has this beautiful definition. Self-esteem or self-worth or self-confidence is seeing ourselves as flawed, imperfect people and still hold ourselves in high regard. If you actually need to see yourself as perfect, you lack the confidence. The confidence is the ability to make mistakes and not to not sleep over it for three weeks because you feel such shame and such, you know, intense attack on your identity. But I have a question for you that from what you just said, do you feel that these days on both sides of on all sides of the spectrum of the gender spectrum that people are so enraptured with the notion of identity and holding on to the self that they find accepting influence from another person an instant threat of their identity like pushover.

1:29:52Pushover is like, you know, it's a power dynamic instantly when you use that word. You know, if you accept what your wife says, what kind of a man are you, right? You're just a pushover. That's more in the masculine version. Women have it in the, but it is along the whole spectrum. Something about the way we are so busy protecting our egos is making everything that involves letting someone else actually have influence over us, which is part of what being in a relationship is about as an attack. Yeah. I mean, I'd love to discuss this with you. And my reflection from what you were saying, and I was nodding along because there's so much of it that I agree with.

1:30:35I think that what I see is most of us struggle to know ourself when we get into a relationship. So I think I'd propose that I don't think most people have a lot of self-awareness when they get into a romantic relationship. So they don't actually have a conscious sense of self-identity. We have a subconscious sense of self-identity in the sense of what our parents taught us and what family and media, we have all this mix of stuff, but we wouldn't, if I asked someone to lay out their top 10 values, they wouldn't be able to do that because they'd be like, I'm not sure. And what ends up happening, I think in that scenario is you adopt the values of the other person.

1:31:17and then at some point you go, wait a minute, I've just been doing what you want. And you think that person made you adopt their values, but actually you just didn't know yours. And so I think you see that happen in some relationships. In other relationships, I think what you're saying is true. People are so definitive about their own self-identity that they go into a relationship going, I'm not going to get influence at all by this person. And I think that also happens because we're getting into long-term relationships later in life. So if you're going into a relationship later in life, chances are you actually have, you know who you are and what you want to do and what you're building and what's important to you.

1:31:57When you're younger, you're less self-aware. When you're older, hopefully you're somewhat more self-aware. And so you're more concrete in your ideology. But the opposite could be equally true. The opposite could be equally true. When you're young, you think you know everything and you're certain about stuff you have no certainty about. Totally. And when you get older, you actually become more flexible because you realize that there isn't one way for everything. Totally, exactly. So it can be both ways. And I think overall, I think the point that at least I think we're trying to get to, which I like is that it's a bit of both.

1:32:25It's almost like I read, I'm trying to find this poem and I can't find it ever since I read it. It's one of those, I'm sharing it here because hopefully someone finds it. I read this poem while I was researching and there was this beautiful poet and I can't find it. I've like looked for it and everything, but this poet was talking about how when you are single, you've been building your home with the bricks that you were given. And your home is broken and some of it's beautiful because that's how we are as people. Some parts of our home make sense and some part of the bricks are falling out. And he said, when you come into a relationship, you want the other person to move into your home.

1:33:10You want them to come to your home and the other person wants you to go to their home. But actually what you need to do is take the bricks you both like from your own homes and build a new home together. And I really love that visual, the idea that this unified agreement, which was the language you used, or this idea that you're saying of like, how much do I allow the influence without feeling powerless, but to feel like we're co-creating something. You know, my wife and I have a lot of agreements that they're not rules or contracts, but they're agreements of how we deal with certain things. and it's something we've created together.

1:33:42It's not something we adopted from my parents, her parents or anywhere else. And I feel that if we walked into a relationship and said, what do we want to build together? What do we want to create together? What does a good, healthy relationship mean to us? To me, those questions at least feel empowering as opposed to draining of power. One of the complementarities in relationships is that we are often drawn to a person who brings characteristics that we are trying to get away from. So true. So true. You understand? Yeah, so true. So it's, I mean, when it's dynamic, it's really a very beautiful, you know, kneading of the dough.

1:34:28Yeah. So Esther, throughout our conversation, you've been referencing this new course of yours, which I'm so excited for people to do, because I feel like so many of what things we've discovered today with your books and your work. The main practice. Yes, exactly. How do you actually apply it? So please tell us where we can find this course and the name of the course and where it is. Turning Conflict into Connection. It's a one hour, eight videos with a fantastic workbook that really not just helps you fight better and more constructively, but also helps you relate better. Because if you have a different attitude toward conflict, you have a whole different relationship.

1:35:03It's on my website, estherperel.com and it's coming out October 10. Okay, amazing. Well, I recommend everyone who's listening and watching, make sure you go and check out the course. If you've loved this conversation, I know you're going to get so much value from it, so much insight. And of course, make sure you go and take a look at all of Esther's books as well. So please check those out. I want to do one last thing, Esther, with you. Yes. Because you did our final five last time. Yeah, because when we don't fight, I want you to play. And so first I created the game. I said, let's play. I love it.

1:35:32This is Esther's beautiful game, Where Should We Begin? A Game of Stories by Esther Perel. if you don't have this grab it too we're gonna pick a couple of cards and and have some fun with this open it like a chocolate oh there we are like oh there we go there we go like a chocolate i'm belgian do you know what's really i love chocolate so you speak in my language completely we are too i'm going to take this out and we're going to shuffle these cards and then what do we do pick one at random yes we pick look this is you know relationships are stories yeah and we tell stories about ourselves to people at every level yeah um and we recreate connection intimacy and fun you pick this is fun oh i'm picking first let's start then you hold it you shuffle it too then i'll to make sure everyone knows that this is truly random i want to have some fun and i love stuff like this so i love games i love play like one of my wife's and i's favorite things to do is we play a lot of pickleball right now we love you write to me after you've played with her escape Yeah, I'm going to, this one I'm going to, yeah, definitely.

1:36:31I'd love to. All right. All right. Off we go. Okay. If you don't like it, you pick another. Oh, okay. Is that how it works? Well, it works now. I'm going to do a few. I'll do a few because they're quick. So at a party, you'll find me is the prompt. And so at a party, you'll find me finding the one person I can have a deep, meaningful conversation with, sitting in the corner with them and having existential conversations for the whole night. And people may not even know I was at the party. That would be me. Really? Yes. So then we'd just be sitting next to each other. Great. I love that. So I'll do that with you.

1:37:06I love it. Awesome. Oh, me again. Yeah. Oh, you're like poking that out to me. This is like. I caught it. There we go. All right. Oh, wow. If I could change something about the way I was raised, it would be. So the easy answer, the first thing that came to mind is I wouldn't change anything because I'm really happy with the human I am today and how my life has gone the way it has. I really think that is my honest answer. But if I could change something about the way I was raised. And it doesn't just have to be your family. Yeah, I would say it would be, I would have loved earlier on to know that there were so many more careers and paths in the world.

1:37:47So when I met the monks when I was 18 years old, that was the first time my mind was open to that path. But it took me years to recognize that you could have a career in media or that you could have a career in... do this. Do this. Like I had never thought, I never knew any of that. Like I literally thought there were like three, it sounds ridiculous, but I was so limited in my thinking growing up because of what I was surrounded by. I would change that. I want people to know that there are so many different, I didn't know you could be a therapist. I didn't know you could be a neuroscientist. I didn't know you could be, I would have wanted to be a neuroscientist if I knew that existed.

1:38:22I didn't know I can be a therapist outside my office. I've worked in a field that is very confidential. I could never talk about what I did. And through the podcast, I'm able to work with people who are not patients, will never be. And so I can actually bring what is happening between the four walls to the world and bring the world inside the office. And you can be a fly on the wall in someone else's session. Amazing. So just to remind everyone, the game is called Where Should We Begin? You can also, or the game as well, play with your friends and family and with your dates with your partner you grab a few cards you put in your pocket you can leave the box yes and off you go into story land i love it and you can surprise someone with chocolates in it too seeing as oh yeah yeah yeah you can mix you can mix and match esther has been such an honor honestly talking to you i i feel so it's really interesting when you talk to someone and you just feel like you've immersed yourself so deeply in this space for so many decades and the wisdom shines through your words it shines through your empathy at the same time your assertiveness I am so grateful that you do what you do for the world honestly I learned so much from you I learned so much from your work I'm a I'm a student of your work and I honestly feel humbled and grateful that I've got to spend this time with you and I highly encourage everyone to go and immerse themselves in your world in all ways so thank you so much for the gift that you to the world.

1:39:47I really mean that. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. It means a lot. I mean it. Thank you. If you love this episode, you're going to love my conversation with Matthew Hussey on how to get over your ex and find true love in your relationships. People should be compassionate to themselves, but extend that compassion to your future self because truly extending your compassion to your future self is doing something that gives him or her a shot at a happy and a peaceful life. Parking shouldn't slow you down. ParkWiz gives every driver a shortcut. Book ahead, save up to 50 % and skip the hassle of circling the block.

1:40:23Park smarter, park faster. ParkWiz. Download the ParkWiz app today and save every time you park. I'm Radhi Devlukia and I'm the host of a Really Good Cry podcast and I have the opportunity to talk to Logan Uri. If you're out there trying to date right now, being ghosted on Hinge or want to create a dating profile that gives you a solid chance of matching with someone you actually want to go on a date with, then this episode with Hinge's director Doctor of Relationship Science, Logan Ury, is definitely for you. Relationships do require work. The best relationships are people who really work on them together.

1:40:55Listen to A Really Good Cry on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The risks they took would be unthinkable to any doctor today. But odds are, someone you know is alive because of them. Welcome to the Wild West of American Medicine. I'm Chris Pine, and this is Cardiac Cowboys, a podcast that tells the gripping true story behind the birth of open heart surgery and the maverick surgeons who made it happen. Listen to the Cardiac Cowboys podcast starting February 6th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart podcast.