Rebuilding the Bonds of Love

29:41And my friend Jen Bailey talks about this idea of we need to we need to compost the great traditions, right? Like some of it needs to die. The patriarchy, the racism, like the shitty abuse. Like there's so much there that needs to die. But there's also so much there that can give us life. And so for us, the job is what are we going to let go of and what are we going to hold on to? And I think that question of what is worthy of my devotion is one way of identifying. yes, justice is worthy of that. Yes, love and forgiveness. And these, you know, transcendence, like those are the things that are worthy of our sustained moral commitment.

30:21Do you think there's like a minute to minute check-in somebody could do to ask? Because to me, I sit here asking that question of whether that's like, I'm still pissed about this thing. I'm still thinking about it, which means that I'm giving it some level of devotion. You know what I mean? And is this kind of brewing negativity inside of me worthy of devotion, right? I think so much of even the context around when people talk about people who behave like internet trolls, I try not to call people trolls, but behave like a troll online or put on a mask online to be mean. People are often talking about, you know, they're jealous or they're this or they're that.

31:05And instead of asking that person, is this worthy of your devotion? Is like to only and obsessively see what is negative about someone and want to like kind of put it in public forum. Is that worthy of your devotion? Because there is something I know there's the big things to be devoted to. Yeah. They're almost so big. You don't think about them in the day to day, minute to minute moment. Yeah. I'm thinking of two things. One is, I think we're drawn into those more beautiful things to devote ourselves to the closer we get to one another. You know, so many parents will say, you know, what's worthy of my devotion is my children.

31:53Or, you know, activists will talk about a cause that they, you know, believe in. And nearly always that relationship exposes us to vulnerability. And I think that's the second half of it is that it's painful to love the world. It's painful to love someone because it means there's risk and it can go wrong. And, you know, Walter Brueggemann, who's a great scholar of the Hebrew prophets, I was listening to him talk yesterday and he was talking about lament, the practice of lamenting. And he said, lament is the breaking of numbness by the admission of pain and loss. And I think that's, isn't that beautiful?

32:35And I think so many of us are numb. And that practice of vulnerability, that practice of grief, of lamenting is a way in which our hearts can open again to love. And Bishop Tutu, Archbishop Desmond Tutu talked about his practice every day was to laugh and to cry. And that was the way he knew how to stay human in the midst of just the most horrific, you know, apartheid government and everything else. And so I think part of that, like behaving like an internet troll is when we've hardened so much that all we have is numbness, then something that kind of behavior feels like it's okay. And yet when we really connect with the goodness that's at the heart of who we are, No one would ever want to do that.

33:24And that so often happens. I had a friend who ran this project, Conversations with People Who Hate Me, Dylan Moran. He literally reached out. He would find the contact information to someone who wrote nasty stuff on his profiles and then recorded a podcast conversation with them. And it's not that they ended up agreeing about politics or other things, but like nearly always it would reestablish the sense of like, hey, we are both humans and we can have a conversation that's different than this. And it was it was this amazing practice of that kind of heart opening, dignifying conversation that that is is healing.

34:00yeah one of the reasons I named the RUK booth the RUK booth was because I which is for anyone who doesn't know it's a booth that I do once a year where I listen for eight to ten hours in a city and and I sit just sit in a local park but I named it that because when someone would say something negative like not not negative as a negative feedback or critique but you know when someone was trying to be me yeah online whether it was privately in a message or publicly my first question would be like are you okay wow and and I do understand that can seem kind of like snippy back like are you okay and I don't mean it that way I was just like hey are you okay like because the idea that I a love poem of eight words upsetting you to the point or or you know doing kind of activating something in you that that you know created this exchange is is telling me like to ask you if you're okay yeah do you know and and I think that even that question is something I feel like more of us could ask and maybe more of us could answer honestly for the sake of connection.

35:19Yeah. Well, I love that example so much. And also the practice of listening in the booth. I think so often when we see someone suffering, what we want to give is advice. And this is one of the biggest things we learn with the nearness circles is the way to protect the health and the vitality of the small group is to make sure no one gives unasked for advice. And so it really is a practice of listening, but sort of like a sacred listening, because you're not just listening to the word someone's saying, but you're listening to what's underneath the words. And so often I have seen that groups where there's that loving, sustained attention, that there's a phrase, the idea that we're hearing one another into speech so that when we're really being listened to, we end up saying things and knowing things that we didn't know we knew.

36:08And so the biggest gift we can give is that deep listening. And what's really cool is practicing it in a small group then means you're showing up for your children differently for your colleagues for your spouse for your for your family and so it really is a skill but it's uncomfortable because we want to jump in and be like actually I went through this and let me tell you well it's this I think that there's two things people have that are like often unchecked and I know because I live with them unchecked but I'm constantly trying to check them, which is like compulsive generosity that I do think at times can come from a desire to control.

36:46And because true generosity, I think is very thoughtful and a little bit more slow moving so that you can see the beginning, the middle and the end of how the generous act is, you know, lives towards the relationship between you and the person, not just the moment of crisis. and I think also this like you know impulse to fix obviously which is that like oh my god well let me just tell you that and I have dreams of being musical and I'm not and I I know but I took a ukulele lesson once okay I bought a green ukulele in New York and I went to take a ukulele lesson. This is almost 10 years ago. And the guy says to me, I'll never forget it.

37:35The first thing he asked me is, do you listen? And I was like, what do you mean listening to music? And he's like, well, where do you, what do you listen with? And I was like, my ears. And he's like, no, you'll never be able to create music. If you think you listen with your ears, he's, he said, the listening is done with your entire body because it demands presence. That gives me chills. ah I mean it's haunted me since then and I always think about how the listening when you are only listening with one part of your body you're allowing your brain to think of like what am I going to say next and what did I just say then and or how do I help when you decide to make listening a total body experience like meditating of course you get off track but the call the kind of intention within is to come back to, to come back to the moment, to come back to the witnessing.

38:29That was a profound shift for me that I think enabled me to be able to do things like the RUK booth, because if not, I think it would have been like a Miss Cleo's advice booth. Which will be fun too, just different. Right. Very. So for anyone who's maybe wondering right now, what would you say is the difference between religion and spirituality? Is going to Taylor Swift a religious experience or a spiritual one? Why is it different? And how do you differentiate, especially in today's world where we're not churchgoers in the way we used to be or temple? So the first thing to say is that academics who study this every day do not agree.

39:15So both of these words are like highly contested in the literature. What I would say about how most people use those words is that religion is a stand-in for institutions and spirituality is a stand-in for personal experience. Now, so when people say I'm spiritual but not religious, what they often mean is I am interested and I care about the quality of my connection to the world around me, to something bigger than with my deepest self. Like I might have a practice like tarot or meditation or yoga, whatever it is, but I don't identify with a bigger institution. No, I think that is, first of all, well-earned, you know, the way in which religion has weaponized itself against queer people, against women.

40:01You know, there's so much shit, if I could say that, that religious institutions have done, especially in the last 50 years. And yet, I think where that notion of spirituality falls short is that it often stops with the individual. And I think what we can learn from the best of religious traditions is that there is a mutuality that allows us to go inward, but then that calls us outward. and that asks questions like, what is breaking your heart? And how can you serve the places where you see suffering, right? Whether it's homelessness or climate change or whatever it is, that a spirituality that is only focused on me will forever be insufficient.

40:40And that's been some of my favorite stories to see of secular communities. Like there was a maker space in the Boston area that we studied, right? Where people come to make jewelry or to do woodwork or to print 3D, you know what robots whatever it is that that there are all of these machines and lates and tools where they can create beautiful things and ostensibly this is a secular organization for creativity but it started to do more than that they started to celebrate makers giving a kind of thanksgiving festival where people not only brought a beautiful dish but something cool that they created that year they started to to you know to find ways to mentor each other and slowly they realized because they were open 24-7 that people were coming who were housing insecure.

41:24So people were staying overnight and finding a place to sleep on a sofa. And suddenly this community that had started inward looking was pulled out into the world and became an advocate for better public housing in the town, in the Boston suburbs. And so I think we move into a, I don't want to say from spiritual to religious, but from a thin spirituality to a rich, deep, capacious spirituality when it's no longer just for us. And so that's one of my hopes for, you know, something like, you know, the Swifty world, like, what are the ways in which all of those fans could be mobilized around a justice issue?

42:03What are the ways in which those people could become anchors of connection in their city, right? For me, that's the big like creative task for us is like, how are we gonna use the amazing power and attraction and excitement and creativity that are in these spaces for something beyond ourselves? Well, because it is already interesting that something that is so spiritually felt takes place in like a purely capitalistic space. And that's what I actually think is the most fascinating as you know I feel that at a Beyonce show or a Taylor Swift show where I'm like wow the fact that the their talent and love of the people that they make things for transcends you know because not to be rude but it's like Jeff Bezos will never be able to do that right and no because he doesn't connect through the arts whereas this these really enduring in and yeah almost infinite feeling powers of that, that do take place where you have to buy the tickets for a zillion dollars.

43:07And, you know, the merch is not cheap and the, all of these things. And usually, and, and you're sitting there feeling your entire past, you know, 15 years of your life, if you're on a Taylor Swift show and you're really, it's so spiritually enriching for people that it's fascinating to, you know, most places there's the, this idea that you should be doing that for free, right? Because if you go to church and you feel that way, you went for free and then you decided to donate. But I think what's really interesting is how do we convert the fact that we can hold the spiritual and the capitalistic at the same time, which to me is the most unbelievable part of this artistry.

43:52And then how do we add the third thing, which is how do we kind of convert all of this energy into some type of social safety net for the vulnerable? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the relationship between, for better words, God and money, right? Religion and capital. First of all, it's not a new relationship, right? I don't want to paint some idealized past. Every institution has always been an economic one, too. So, you know, money and religion have been together for a long time. But I think it's not new. But your point absolutely is right, which is about access and about justice. And so one of the things that we really were thinking about when we started The Nearness was like, what's a way in which we can build a legal and a financial model that echoes and embodies the values that we care about?

44:43And so we incorporated as a cooperative because that sense of mutuality and solidarity that happens in the small groups, we wanted to build that into the model. And so when you sign up for an in a small group, you're invited to make a contribution, but we have a pay what you can system. So if the price point of like 200 bucks, 160 bucks, you know, doesn't fit your budget, you can choose the number that works for you. And so it's a really delicate balance because I also think in our kind of brand-led world, people often think community happens for free. And it doesn't. It takes a lot of work. And so how do we balance those things of like pitching in to make something happen and making sure that it's accessible to everyone?

45:28Or I find that people think it's hard to value community space as the thing to pay for. So, you know, because obviously there's a show or there's a, you know, and I have definitely seen or felt that too of like, you know, I think the question I'm probably asked the most is, and I honestly, for almost everyone who's been on this podcast with me, I focus mostly on loneliness and friendship and relationship. people are constantly saying you know how do I make friends and I think part of it has to do with you know valuing like whether is your$20 worth going to the community space too and not just going to like maybe the show where you can't hear somebody talk or do but I think that we think that that should just be free this this is something we found in the study over and over again especially with fitness communities, people would come for the body, but they would stay for the community.

46:28And so having something of value that people know that they'll pay for, right? And often that's about learning a skill or learning some information. It's about status or having some experience that you have a story to tell about. But the reason why they would stay committed was that they built relationships that were meaningful to them. And so we think about that with our work too, where it's like, okay, come and learn and have the conversations that you want to have about life's big questions in a way that, you know, you, you, you don't really have the space and opportunity to usually, but stay for the relationships of support and, and, and love, right.

47:07That, that happens over time. Will you talk to me about the nearness starting from if someone right now, if I'm answering, cause I would love to actually say to the next person who asked me and says, I'm looking for community. My kids have all gone to college and the school moms were my group. And now we don't have school activities anymore together and people are moving away and I've moved neighborhoods because we don't need the big house. What should I do? Or I've just moved to a new city or I've moved during, I'm sure you've had a lot of this people moved during the pandemic. So if I want to say, this is why I think you should look into the nearness and I'm not even saying this to plug I for anyone listening I I truly am I've been a fan of Casper's I've read his book I am in his book you are indeed but I love your work so much and I remember when you were first in launching this really early on and unfortunately was when I was having both of my kids so I wish I could have been even more involved in it but I truly am such a fan of what you do and what you want our world to be.

48:18And so I'm not trying to say you should do the nearness, but I'd love to be able to understand how they could and, you know, become part of the nearness community. Yeah. Yeah. So I would say for anyone interested, first of all, check out the website, the nearness.coop. But essentially what we'll invite you into is to sign up for a six or an eight week journey where we'll match you with five or six other people into a small group and you'll meet with them each week at the same time for 90 minutes online. And so it's a very structured conversation. So we always open with a very simple breath and body meditation, very simple awareness practice just to get settled into our bodies.

48:59There's a little ritual where we read aloud the community covenant, which is kind of the set of intentions we hold for how we want to show up for each other, where we talk about things like advice giving, stuff like that. We light a little candle so kind of symbolizing the the different time that we're entering while we're together and then each week there's a different journaling and conversation prompt so some sometimes it's a storytelling prompt about when have you had an experience that a b and c or what what is your river of belonging we just did that last week where everyone drew an image of a river and then illustrated the times when we felt deep connection and the times when we felt the absence of it and And so it's a beautiful, deep, intentional way to get to know a small group pretty quickly.

49:43Or it might be an activity that's a sort of kind of an internal assessment moment of like, hey, what are the values that I really want to guide my life? And when do I get to fulfill those? And when do I feel sure? So it's a sort of a rhythm of reflection each week to have that time and that space. And as you do that reflection together, you build these really beautiful connections. And so we've had groups that have now been going three or four cycles each, each time together. And my favorite things, honestly, Cleo, are that more than 90 % of people who start the eight weeks finish and more than half sign up for another one.

50:18And so it's, and it's not because they love me or what we're like, they love each other. That's what's so great. It's like, right. People start showing up for each other in that beautiful way. And so when you go through a breakup or when a parent dies or when there's a diagnosis or a divorce or something happens, these are the people that you have in a text thread who you know are going to show up for you in the way that we know makes a difference. And so it's kind of building an extra layer of solidarity and joy and comfort into our life. And whether they live far away or whether they live close by, we found that both of those can really make a difference.

50:58And I was thinking, actually, Cleo, I am super excited. I'm going to host just a one-off conversation for anyone who's listening to this pod. And we're going to read one of your poems. What? Yes, I know. I'm very excited about it. So on the 8th of August at 12 p.m. Pacific, I'll host a Zoom reflection conversation where we're going to read your wonderful poem with eyes closed and think about like what's the hurricane that we've just lived through in our lives and what do we want more of? And so we'll engage with your beautiful written work, but then also break out into small groups so we all get a taste of the nearness experience if anyone's interested.

51:36So, well, I will definitely tune in. I would. Oh, you, I don't, you, you don't have to. I know. I just, I mean, I, I ask that we all do, and I would love to witness and even be able to have the reflection. And maybe I'll do one where it's not me, my work, but I would love to go to one. And, and something I really love about this intention is in my new book, remember love. I like, I spent a lot of time writing about how our social circles are not necessarily our healing circles. And there's a difference. There's a huge difference. And I don't think we consider that a lot. I don't think, I think we think that everyone should know how to move through infertility with us.

52:23I think everyone should know how to understand the tragic loss of our mothers with us. I think that we attach and create community based on where it, where it feels sparkly, like where we feel like a spark towards it. So I think that when you, there is this kind of unfortunate, kind of unfortunately, but there's like aspiration around this tribe building where you'd be like, whether it's like friendship goals or whatever, but it all seems to be like, or they'd be like, I wish I could be in that group chat where, and I think maybe social media kind of emphasize this idea that friendship is like this very aspirational like haha yeah like 100 % get what you're saying and this I think we were talking about like what are the gifts to inherit from tradition this to me is one of the biggest gifts of religious congregations because you end up sitting next to people that you wouldn't have chosen to and you end up realizing that we can love one another without liking each other right like for these kind of conversations that real deep stuff you don't actually need to have a lot of shared interests because what actually matters is that is the commitment to honesty and vulnerability and deep listening that's that's where the bonds get built and that's where we can really support and encourage one another and so for me that's one of the great joys with with ninus groups too is like you see people who are different in whether it's generationally or religious backgrounds or not religious or whatever it is people you're like wait they've bonded in this way and it's it's so great to see because it's exactly what you're pointing to it's like yeah we don't like we don't both like baseball or whatever it is but we we are committed to this kind of mutuality and and loving support and i think we need both types of friendships right like i was playing mario kart last night with a bunch of friends and trash talking and i love that and then i have a text thread you know with a dear friend of mine where, you know, both our spouses have struggled with depression and like, it's an open thread where we get to say whatever the hell we want.

54:26And the other person doesn't even have to respond. Right. It's just like, it's a place to vent and it's so helpful. But, you know, I think what's also so interesting is that I think the two types of people that something like the nearness is so great for, which is people who are struggling to find community period and feel truly alone and looking for space to feel belonging and really activate aliveness within, which I think really activates in arts and in community. And I think the other person that's for is also someone who maybe has a lot of relationships slash lives in their own kind of online world where we are almost really spoiled by a likeness and we, we, we're confusing a likeness and algorithm for belonging.

55:20So it's like your algorithm or Instagram for you page is not where you belong actually. Oh, that's a word. And so I think what really excites my brain about the idea of being a part of the nearness community would be like, how often am I not spoiled by, and because by the way, we're so spoiled that even if we're one of our friends begins to rub us the wrong way, we just don't call them for a week. And then we're like, oh, I'm over it. We both mellowed. And now we can like realign on behaving in these ways where we like share, you know, 99 % of our interests. We can just disconnect during that 1 % that we're off.

56:01So what I really love about that these are six weeks and eight week spaces is that, you know, you owe it to yourself and them to show up and to remove yourself from this kind of false sense of belonging that social media is giving us. And it's giving us belonging in a lot of ways, but it's not belonging to me. Sorry. I think it's activating a lot of communicating without connection, perhaps. It's a thin veneer, but not the true depth. You know, I want a T-shirt with the algorithm is not belonging. That is fire. That is straight fire. And I think it leaves us feeling confused because we're like, well, I'm being given what I think I want.

56:56Why is it not fulfilling? And it's, I, you know, the biblical word for that, and I'm on this Walter Brueggemann kick, but he would call it idolatrous, right? That we're putting our hope and our faith into something that cannot meet what it is actually that we seek. so I'm going to be thinking about that for the next few days holy moly that's really cool Cleo something I've been personally focusing on a lot for deepening connection not only to myself and which is also so cool about the nearness is that it's a space for you know doing I think what we were saying about therapy earlier which is like you know how do we look at the big thing so that we can break it down and become the small thing that's a part of a big thing when I was writing my new book, I wrote this thing that was like, I'm not like butcher my own words, but it was like when the material is at the center of my goals, I find that when I cross the finish line, there's loneliness there.

57:57But when the relational is the center of my goals, I find that whether I win or I lose, whether the trophy is in my hands or not, I'm the thing that's held. Like I'm what's held, right? And - Cleo, you're going to make me cry. This is why you're a poet. It's so beautifully said. It's so true because you're saying it's the means are the ends, right? Like the love that we give and receive, the people that we're in relationship with, whether we win or lose, we're holding and being held. Like that's, when you listen to people on their deathbed say what they wish they'd done more of and what they actually care about, it is always relationships.

58:46That for me is the purpose of being alive is to love and be loved. I mean, Moulin Rouge said it all along. A hundred percent. But it's like, what is happening is that it's the pace. It's the pace of that, you know, we can't build ritual around music because, and someone, an artist's entire catalog is available to us and we can look up anything at any moment. And, and I honestly think that the, we, we like to say that our, our, our brains can't handle this much information, but spiritually, like our hearts cannot move at this pace. And we cannot, we cannot make sense of the why we are here-ness of it all, which is so critical when we are moving at the pace that we move and moving through and witnessing the amount that we are going to be forced to witness, but we can repace in how we witness, I think.

59:45Abraham Joshua Heschel, great Jewish theologian, talked about God was not a God of place, but a God in time. And so the only way in which we encounter God is in the presence by being aware of the present moment. And he described Shabbat, the traditional Jewish Sabbath, as a palace in time, that when we crossed the threshold of Friday night, and it became dark, and there were stars in the sky, that we entered into a time where, you know, it wasn't that we had finished what we were doing. It's that the time interrupted us, we had to lay it down in order to be present to God, to one another, to the joy of life.

1:00:27And so what you're mandated to do in the Jewish Sabbath tradition is to eat together, is to rest, to make love. Like you're literally supposed to have a taste of heaven in these 24 hours. And in fact, it's 25 because it's so delicious that they added an extra hour. So I love all of those traditions because they're pointing us to exactly what I think that you're saying, which is that if we think that the hustle is going to get us to a place where finally we're going to arrive and have that sense of spiritual fulfillment. It is never going to be finished. And so we have to allow ourselves to be interrupted and it's going to be inconvenient.

1:01:03But the only way I think that we come back into that rhythm is by allowing ourselves to be interrupted. And so I read Heshaw in Divinity School and I'm not Jewish, but I loved this practice so much. So I thought, okay, I'm going to do a tech Sabbath. And so, you know, all the people who are doing these digital detoxes on Friday night, I will turn off my phone and my laptop and I hide them in the bookshelf so I don't see them. And I can't tell you that so much creativity, so much ease bubbles up. Like I often end up writing very bad poetry or like singing a song just for the joy of singing something to myself.

1:01:42Like there's something that once there is space for it, it emerges. I'll think of the person who was like, oh, I forgot that Jack was really struggling with that. I should check in on him, right? Like suddenly there's just other stuff that comes into my awareness that there wasn't space for and there wasn't time for. And so, yes, we need ways in which the clock of selfishness is interrupted by exactly those kind of practices. And what's beautiful, final thing I'll say about this, is the Sabbath is just one part of that calendar, the weekly thing. But then when you kind of zoom out into a social view of that, you have the Shemitah, which is the year of rest every 49 years.

1:02:25And there is a kind of a jubilee, which means that all of the debts that were owed are forgiven. All of the land that has entered into a single ownership is redistributed. And so these rhythms of time are also rhythms of justice where everyone is given the chance to thrive. And boy, do we need that right now. I'd love to know, you know, what is your answer when someone says, I'm really lonely and how do I get through? Or I'm having trouble. Well, you know, as someone who has written so many, I would say very well-known and highly used research papers on how we gather and the care of souls and, you know, how we get into community with each other and make it really meaningful.

1:03:12When someone says to you, like, I'm lonely, whether they're married or they're not, or they're in relationships or they're not, or I really want to make new friends beyond obviously becoming a part of the nearness community. having done all the research you've done what is the answer to that from you anyway well first I would say I'm really sorry and that it sucks and that it's hard and that there are real structural reasons why we've ended up in this place like we are not supposed to live like this so with that caveat I would I think the first thing I would think about is a lot of the scientific research tells us that it's not actually about having more friendships in our life.

1:03:58It's about the quality of connection that we have in the friendships that we do have. And so loneliness is different from social disconnection because, yeah, it's about our experience of the relationships. And so I would ask myself, is there someone I can tell the truth to about my experience? And one way of thinking about that is like, it might not be someone that we expect to think about is there someone who's listened to us in the past and it might be a friend it might be a mentor it might be a colleague it might be a family member but like where is a place that we can tell the truth about our experience and know that it will be received because any experience of loneliness is diminished when we when we are heard when we are when we are seen and validated so that would be the place that i would start and if if not that the other thing again that research tells us is that we feel less alone when we're serving others.

1:04:55And so often the gift we most need ourselves is the thing we can give to other people. And I think about this a lot when I'm like discouraged or feeling like what I'm doing isn't good enough or, you know, all of, all of the stories we tell ourselves. The thing I try and do in those moments is to reach out to someone who's created something that I've enjoyed, whether it's a book I loved or a song that I enjoyed listening to or you know an article in a newspaper that i enjoyed reading just like sending someone just a very short note saying i loved what you wrote it meant so like meant this to me is why i wish you well like not asking for anything just saying thank you and as a as a practice that has been enormously helpful of just redirecting my energy from falling into i don't want to say pity party but just just feeling alone and and being like well i could give this.

1:05:45And that means that was meaningful. So those would be my two, my two go-to spots, I think. Yeah. And then a hug. Yeah. I find that too, that knocking myself off the center, so as not to erase my experience, but to join it with someone else. That's exactly right. Is often the nearest antidote to loneliness, whether that's going into a forum and speaking with others about something I'm going through. And I think those spaces are much more easily found than we could ever imagine. Or whether someone asked me this the other day, I said, you know, look at your local bookstore and see who they have coming to town, who has written anything that you are interested in and go to the talk.

1:06:32I can't tell you, I'd say 80 % of the people who come to my book tour stops come alone so much so that we noticed them making groups. The final thing I would say, in addition to the bookstore thing, is like, sometimes we feel lonely and that's okay. Like, I also don't want to get into a place where we think it's off, like, like it's bad, inherently bad. Like life is going to be full of connection and it's going to be full of loneliness. And that, that duality is just true. And so not every moment of being alone is a failure. So I think holding all of those things together is hopefully what we could offer to someone.

1:07:15Thank you for listening to my conversation with Caspar Turcayle. I highly recommend his book, The Power of Ritual and to check out The Nearness for anyone who is interested in nurturing more connection in their lives. See you next week. Thanks for tuning in. This has been a presentation of Cadence 13 Studios. I hope you'll listen, follow, rate, and review all of our episodes, which are available for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening to the Goop Podcast.