Dr. Paul Conti: How to Build and Maintain Healthy Relationships

00:00:00.000 | Welcome to the Huberman Lab guest series,

00:00:02.460 | where I and an expert guest discuss science

00:00:05.140 | and science-based tools for everyday life.

00:00:07.340 | I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology

00:00:11.120 | and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine.

00:00:14.240 | Today marks the third episode in our four episode series

00:00:17.080 | about mental health with Dr. Paul Conte.

00:00:19.860 | Today's episode deals with the topic

00:00:21.740 | of healthy relationships,

00:00:23.500 | how to define what a healthy relationship is

00:00:25.800 | and how to achieve healthy relationships of all kinds,

00:00:28.480 | including romantic relationships,

00:00:30.280 | interpersonal relationships at work,

00:00:32.160 | friendships with family, and of course, with oneself.

00:00:35.440 | This episode builds on the framework

00:00:36.960 | of the psychology of self and mental health

00:00:39.120 | that was established in the first

00:00:40.480 | and second episodes of this series.

00:00:42.100 | However, even if you didn't listen

00:00:43.400 | to the first or second episode in this series,

00:00:45.760 | today's episode will still contain

00:00:47.440 | a lot of information and protocols

00:00:49.000 | that you will find valuable

00:00:50.200 | for improving your relationships.

00:00:51.840 | That said, if you have the opportunity

00:00:53.520 | to listen to the first and second episodes in this series,

00:00:56.120 | I think you'll find those to be tremendously beneficial

00:00:58.440 | at any point.

00:00:59.340 | During today's episode, Dr. Conte discusses

00:01:01.520 | what makes for a successful relationship of any kind,

00:01:04.680 | as well as tools to improve those relationships.

00:01:07.000 | He discusses various types of bonds,

00:01:08.720 | including healthy bonds and trauma bonds,

00:01:11.020 | not just in the context of romantic relationship,

00:01:13.440 | but in the context of all types of relationships.

00:01:15.840 | We also discuss different challenges

00:01:17.380 | that people face in relationships,

00:01:18.660 | including abusive relationships.

00:01:20.600 | And we discuss the role of power dynamics,

00:01:22.680 | anxiety, and boundaries in relationships,

00:01:25.340 | both from the perspective of unhealthy relationships,

00:01:27.980 | but more importantly, from the understanding and protocols

00:01:30.780 | to cultivate healthy relationships.

00:01:32.800 | While there is an abundance of opinions

00:01:34.580 | and information out there on the internet these days

00:01:36.820 | about relationships, both healthy and unhealthy,

00:01:39.560 | today's discussion approaches the topic of relationships

00:01:42.280 | through an entirely different lens,

00:01:44.080 | which is the lens of the self

00:01:46.180 | in terms of one's conscious and subconscious mind,

00:01:49.240 | and how multiple conscious and subconscious minds

00:01:52.420 | through different individuals interact with one another

00:01:55.120 | in ways that we can see and ways that we can't see,

00:01:57.740 | and all of that framed within the actionable steps

00:02:00.200 | that any of us can take to improve our relationship

00:02:02.680 | to ourself and to others.

00:02:04.520 | Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast

00:02:07.140 | is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.

00:02:09.800 | It is, however, part of my desire and effort

00:02:11.760 | to bring zero cost to consumer information about science

00:02:14.440 | and science-related tools to the general public.

00:02:17.020 | In keeping with that theme,

00:02:18.120 | I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast.

00:02:20.880 | Our first sponsor is BetterHelp.

00:02:22.960 | BetterHelp offers professional therapy

00:02:24.800 | with a licensed therapist carried out all online.

00:02:28.180 | I've been doing therapy for more than 30 years,

00:02:30.900 | and while I confess that initially

00:02:32.740 | I was forced to do that therapy as a condition

00:02:35.080 | for being let back into high school,

00:02:36.780 | over time I learned that therapy

00:02:38.880 | is a tremendously valuable practice.

00:02:41.540 | In fact, I consider doing regular weekly therapy

00:02:44.260 | as just as important as doing regular physical exercise

00:02:47.420 | in order to improve one's health.

00:02:49.100 | The beauty of BetterHelp is that it makes it extremely easy

00:02:51.600 | to find a therapist that's excellent for you,

00:02:54.020 | and we can define an excellent therapist

00:02:55.680 | as somebody who's going to give you a lot of support,

00:02:58.020 | but in an objective way,

00:02:59.660 | as well as somebody with whom you can have excellent rapport

00:03:02.520 | and that can help you arrive

00:03:03.540 | at positively transformative insights

00:03:05.880 | that you wouldn't have otherwise had.

00:03:07.540 | And with BetterHelp, they make it convenient

00:03:09.540 | so that it's matched to your schedule

00:03:11.060 | and the other aspects of your life.

00:03:12.620 | If you'd like to try BetterHelp,

00:03:14.100 | go to betterhelp.com/huberman

00:03:16.560 | to get 10% off your first month.

00:03:18.680 | Again, that's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com/huberman.

00:03:22.440 | Today's episode is also brought to us by Waking Up.

00:03:25.480 | Waking Up is a meditation app

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00:03:29.560 | mindfulness trainings, yoga nidra sessions, and more.

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00:03:44.380 | And while there are many different forms of meditation,

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00:04:02.940 | It includes a variety of different types of meditations

00:04:05.300 | of different duration, as well as things like yoga nidra,

00:04:08.500 | which place the brain and body into a sort of pseudo sleep

00:04:11.700 | that allows you to emerge

00:04:12.820 | feeling incredibly mentally refreshed.

00:04:14.760 | In fact, the science around yoga nidra is really impressive,

00:04:17.420 | showing that after a yoga nidra session,

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00:04:22.060 | are enhanced by up to 60%,

00:04:23.740 | which places the brain and body

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00:04:27.140 | for mental work and for physical work.

00:04:29.600 | Another thing I really like about the Waking Up app

00:04:31.660 | is that it provides a 30-day introduction course.

00:04:34.280 | So for those of you that have not meditated before

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00:04:47.820 | If you'd like to try the Waking Up app,

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00:04:52.380 | and access a free 30-day trial.

00:04:54.920 | Again, that's wakingup.com/huberman.

00:04:57.980 | And now for my discussion about mental health

00:05:00.020 | with Dr. Paul Conte.

00:05:02.000 | Dr. Conte, welcome back.

00:05:03.500 | - Thank you, happy to be here.

00:05:05.700 | - Today, we're going to discuss relationships,

00:05:08.300 | and that will often focus on romantic relationships,

00:05:12.740 | but also relationships between friends,

00:05:14.800 | between family members,

00:05:16.580 | and inevitably the relationship to self,

00:05:19.140 | which is what we really focused on

00:05:20.680 | in episodes one and two of this series.

00:05:22.960 | Episode one being all the things

00:05:25.300 | that go into a healthy self

00:05:27.620 | and how to understand what is unhealthy and healthy

00:05:30.380 | in all of us and make adjustments

00:05:32.540 | to the unhealthy aspects of our unconscious and conscious

00:05:36.120 | through really specific proactive behaviors

00:05:40.940 | and patterns of thought.

00:05:42.000 | So really a roadmap to these ideals

00:05:44.300 | that we call mental health and understanding of the self.

00:05:47.540 | Today, we want to talk about relationships

00:05:50.140 | from the perspective of, of course, how people relate,

00:05:53.660 | but I have a feeling it's going to have

00:05:55.900 | something to do with,

00:05:56.900 | or perhaps almost everything to do with

00:05:59.540 | our relationship to understanding ourselves first.

00:06:02.380 | - Yes.

00:06:03.200 | - So just to make sure that we're all on the same page,

00:06:05.320 | regardless of whether or not

00:06:06.260 | people have seen episodes one and two,

00:06:08.580 | and certainly people do not need to have seen

00:06:11.380 | or listened to episodes one and two of this series

00:06:13.900 | in order to understand today's discussion.

00:06:16.740 | Could you please tell us what is a healthy person

00:06:20.560 | and how can we ask ourselves the sorts of questions

00:06:23.580 | that allow us to determine whether or not we are healthy

00:06:26.440 | and where to look in terms of making adjustments

00:06:29.980 | if we want to be healthier than we already are,

00:06:31.780 | which I have to believe almost everybody,

00:06:34.100 | if not everybody certainly wants to be the healthiest

00:06:36.900 | and best expression of themselves

00:06:38.480 | so that they can do the most for themselves

00:06:41.240 | and for others in the world.

00:06:42.460 | - So the linchpin of it all, right,

00:06:45.540 | is the agency and gratitude as verbs, right?

00:06:49.300 | That's the top of the mountain, right?

00:06:50.880 | There's a lot of climbing we do

00:06:52.860 | to get to the top of the mountain.

00:06:54.280 | Once we're over the top of the mountain,

00:06:56.100 | then things are in a better place.

00:06:58.420 | And even though there are two words, right,

00:07:00.260 | agency is of course a word, gratitude is a word,

00:07:03.460 | but it doesn't mean that they're separate concepts.

00:07:06.100 | Approaching the world through the lens of agency

00:07:08.760 | and gratitude, thought of as one thing

00:07:11.380 | because they come together and they come together as verbs.

00:07:16.100 | That's what we're aiming for, right?

00:07:18.740 | Because that's the thing that we can work towards, right?

00:07:21.740 | If you think about what comes underneath of that, right?

00:07:24.700 | It takes us back to the two pillars and the 10 cupboards,

00:07:29.700 | right, and if we're looking in there enough,

00:07:32.260 | we're minding, like what is in my unconscious mind

00:07:34.420 | I might not be aware of?

00:07:36.060 | Let me generate some curiosity about my defense mechanisms

00:07:39.200 | and my character structure and think about what's salient

00:07:42.100 | inside of me.

00:07:42.940 | Like if we're doing all of that, then what we're doing,

00:07:45.860 | we're building empowerment, we're building humility,

00:07:48.480 | and then ultimately the expression of all of that

00:07:51.540 | is the agency and gratitude.

00:07:53.620 | And it's something that we can't have enough of.

00:07:56.420 | Like I said, what's the best amount of that?

00:07:58.660 | The most that's possible, right?

00:08:00.820 | Because we're going to engage in the world

00:08:03.500 | in the healthiest way because agency and gratitude,

00:08:06.040 | it doesn't mean like we're happy about everything, right?

00:08:08.640 | If there's something negative and we can change that,

00:08:12.060 | then we don't feel happy about that.

00:08:14.540 | The sense of gratitude in me makes me more likely

00:08:18.060 | to feel that I can change that, right?

00:08:20.100 | Or to take the chance of trying to change that.

00:08:22.780 | And then the agency part of that concept

00:08:25.180 | can come more to the fore and I can make the change.

00:08:27.740 | So it's not about bliss, right?

00:08:30.140 | It's not about forgiving self and others

00:08:32.660 | for all sorts of things and not working to make better.

00:08:35.300 | It's about being in the world and being as aware

00:08:38.460 | as I can possibly be, including being aware

00:08:41.340 | that there are things I'm not aware of, right?

00:08:43.280 | So sort of having a healthy respect

00:08:45.740 | and an orientation to the world that values truth

00:08:48.660 | and values understanding and exploration.

00:08:51.200 | If we do all of that, then we reach the top of the mountain

00:08:54.540 | through the agency and gratitude.

00:08:56.400 | And then what builds upon that or what comes from that

00:09:00.400 | is the peace, the contentment, the delight,

00:09:03.760 | the generative drive being strengthened.

00:09:05.820 | Like that all comes together.

00:09:08.100 | And then the aggressive, or we say aggressive

00:09:10.620 | 'cause that's a traditional term,

00:09:11.820 | but the aggressive or the assertive, right?

00:09:13.580 | The assertiveness or assertion drive.

00:09:15.780 | However, whatever word we wanna put to that,

00:09:18.580 | that drive exists in us in a way that subserves

00:09:22.300 | the generative drive.

00:09:23.600 | The same thing with the pleasure drive in us.

00:09:25.720 | It exists in us, but it's observing the generative drive.

00:09:29.300 | And then all those good things come together

00:09:31.700 | and they come together to help us be as healthy as we can

00:09:34.420 | and to stay healthy, right?

00:09:36.140 | Including when tribulation or difficulties come our way

00:09:39.460 | so that we stay as best we can

00:09:42.220 | in the agency and gratitude as verbs.

00:09:45.100 | And again, there's nothing theoretical about this.

00:09:47.940 | Like it's a way to live.

00:09:50.580 | And there are a lot of people who live some of their lives

00:09:53.740 | or parts of their lives through that, right?

00:09:55.940 | And we can aspire to it and we can work towards it.

00:09:58.460 | And if we're the best that we can be,

00:10:01.380 | then we're gonna be in our relationships

00:10:03.620 | the best we can be.

00:10:04.620 | Like think about it, like you and I have a relationship.

00:10:06.780 | We know each other, we're working together.

00:10:08.720 | If I can bring my best self to you,

00:10:11.380 | to thinking about you, to understanding you,

00:10:13.860 | if I can bring the agency and the gratitude,

00:10:16.580 | then I'm gonna do right by you.

00:10:18.660 | I'm gonna mentalize this idea of thinking about

00:10:21.320 | what's going on inside of you.

00:10:22.540 | Like I'm gonna bring the best of all of that.

00:10:24.780 | And then because we have a relationship,

00:10:27.140 | there's also an us.

00:10:28.420 | Like there's a me, there's a you,

00:10:30.340 | there's something that happens between us.

00:10:32.140 | That's the relationship, that's the us.

00:10:34.420 | And I will also bring my best self to that thing

00:10:37.780 | that is no longer just me or just you, but that isn't us.

00:10:41.740 | And that applies to all relationships, right?

00:10:44.800 | You can apply that to seeking health

00:10:47.540 | in every single relationship in our lives.

00:10:51.580 | - What you're saying really speaks to the importance

00:10:53.460 | of people taking a real look at themselves,

00:10:57.420 | which is not necessarily an inventory of self

00:11:00.740 | in the typical sense that we're used to hearing it,

00:11:03.500 | but rather through this lens or map of the self

00:11:07.060 | that was spelled out in episodes one and two.

00:11:09.100 | And again, for those that are just joining the series now,

00:11:12.960 | the map as we're referring to it is available

00:11:16.140 | as a downloadable PDF in the show note captions.

00:11:19.620 | People wanna get that, it's completely zero cost.

00:11:21.620 | You can just go there and access it

00:11:22.900 | or just view it on a screen, print it out,

00:11:24.520 | whatever you like.

00:11:26.400 | You certainly don't need to do that

00:11:28.720 | because here again, we're talking about the core elements

00:11:31.900 | of that map, which if I understand correctly,

00:11:34.840 | arrive eventually at a set of verb states

00:11:39.620 | that we're calling agency and gratitude.

00:11:41.780 | Those are not separate, as you pointed out.

00:11:44.140 | They work together.

00:11:45.900 | - You described it as on top of the geyser, right?

00:11:48.780 | And I really like that.

00:11:50.340 | Like there's a lot of things going on,

00:11:52.340 | but then it all uplifts to something, right?

00:11:55.300 | And if we're doing it in the right way,

00:11:56.860 | in the diligent way, then it is like a geyser.

00:11:59.700 | And what it's lifting up on top of it

00:12:01.860 | is the agency and gratitude.

00:12:03.420 | I love, you put those words to it

00:12:05.140 | and I think it captures it really profoundly.

00:12:08.480 | - Well, the stuff that geysers up perhaps

00:12:10.740 | deserves a bit of our attention just for a few moments.

00:12:14.220 | You described these two pillars that I described

00:12:19.460 | as geysering up to agency and gratitude

00:12:22.140 | in the best circumstances.

00:12:23.660 | But the best circumstances we wanna remind ourselves

00:12:27.260 | and everybody are attainable by looking at

00:12:30.060 | what's in those pillars.

00:12:31.340 | Those two pillars are the structure of self.

00:12:34.100 | So really understanding something

00:12:35.380 | about the structure of self.

00:12:36.980 | So that includes some understanding

00:12:39.020 | of the unconscious mind,

00:12:40.340 | some understanding of the conscious mind,

00:12:42.740 | defense mechanisms, character structure, and self.

00:12:46.200 | That was all reviewed and described in episodes one and two.

00:12:49.700 | As well as the functions of self,

00:12:52.060 | which are more of the verb states,

00:12:53.780 | the expressions of the structure of self.

00:12:56.940 | Self-awareness being the first of those.

00:12:59.620 | Defense mechanisms in action.

00:13:01.420 | And here I'd be remiss if I didn't tell myself

00:13:05.400 | and everybody else again,

00:13:06.340 | that defense mechanisms are not always bad.

00:13:08.540 | There can be healthy defense mechanisms.

00:13:10.540 | They can protect us in very valuable ways.

00:13:13.380 | And then this notion of salience,

00:13:15.580 | what we pay attention to.

00:13:17.060 | What sorts of scripts are going on in our head

00:13:19.020 | about ourselves and others?

00:13:20.140 | What are we paying attention to?

00:13:21.280 | How are we interpreting those in our head and to others?

00:13:24.260 | And then most importantly, perhaps to ourselves.

00:13:26.500 | And then our actual behaviors of what are we doing

00:13:28.940 | from the time we wake up

00:13:29.900 | until the time we go to sleep at night.

00:13:31.420 | And then our strivings, our sense of hopefulness,

00:13:35.520 | or perhaps lack of strivings.

00:13:37.540 | And there I am reminded also that

00:13:40.180 | nobody does all of these things perfectly all the time.

00:13:44.600 | We all have elements within us that perhaps are not

00:13:48.540 | serving to geyser up into agency and gratitude

00:13:51.460 | as well as they could.

00:13:53.280 | But that all of us have the capacity to look

00:13:56.300 | at these two pillars and these 10 things

00:13:58.940 | that were just listed off as you described them as

00:14:01.180 | cupboards that we look into and examine and think about.

00:14:04.100 | And that if we can do that with a skilled clinician

00:14:06.680 | like yourself or another psychiatrist or psychologist,

00:14:09.740 | terrific, but even if we don't have access to that,

00:14:12.560 | that we can examine within us what is and is not serving

00:14:17.040 | to geyser up into agency and gratitude.

00:14:20.460 | - We can bring any issue of self to those two pillars

00:14:25.300 | and the 10 cupboards within them.

00:14:27.140 | Any issue of self, why?

00:14:28.460 | Because that's what it is, right?

00:14:31.380 | In the sense that like it is the us, what's inside of me.

00:14:35.260 | I have an unconscious mind, I have a conscious mind,

00:14:37.340 | I have a defensive structure, I have a character structure,

00:14:39.620 | I have a self, right?

00:14:40.780 | Like that's what it is, right?

00:14:42.800 | And all the functions that you mentioned,

00:14:44.780 | they're all going on within that structure of self.

00:14:49.020 | They're manifesting themselves.

00:14:50.420 | Like that's what it is when we're being, right?

00:14:53.600 | In the active way of the verb being, right?

00:14:56.680 | That's what it is,

00:14:57.520 | which is why we can bring to it any issue of self,

00:15:01.200 | even though of course there's tremendous complexity there.

00:15:04.360 | The million things that go on in a second,

00:15:06.960 | underneath the surface in the unconscious mind

00:15:08.940 | and our defensive structures and how to see them.

00:15:11.520 | But we're human beings, we're complicated, right?

00:15:13.980 | Like that's okay because we have methods of understanding,

00:15:17.660 | we have methods of inquiry and we can use those methods

00:15:21.340 | to make things better.

00:15:23.840 | And that's how we make the geyser as strong as it can be.

00:15:26.240 | Where like maybe some of the water's running counter-current

00:15:30.680 | in the okay, well let's try and have things

00:15:32.520 | go all in the same direction,

00:15:33.580 | but we don't need things to be perfect

00:15:35.840 | for the geyser to spring up and the agency and gratitude

00:15:40.840 | to then be uplifted upon it.

00:15:43.180 | - So everybody has one of these maps as I understand it.

00:15:48.200 | And therefore, anytime we're talking about relationships,

00:15:51.520 | romantic relationships or otherwise,

00:15:53.860 | we're talking about the intersection

00:15:56.080 | or overlap of those maps in some way.

00:15:58.460 | Maybe even the synergy and the outgrowth of those maps

00:16:01.100 | becomes its own map.

00:16:02.160 | I think we'll get to this a little bit later.

00:16:03.760 | - Yes.

00:16:04.600 | - When I and most people hear the word relationships

00:16:09.240 | in particular romantic relationships,

00:16:11.620 | I make a couple of automatic assumptions.

00:16:14.180 | First of all, I have to assume that people

00:16:16.860 | are either in a relationship or out of a relationship.

00:16:20.400 | There's probably a third category out there

00:16:22.560 | of plurals and other things,

00:16:23.840 | but we'll keep it relatively simple.

00:16:25.640 | And most people, I assume, when they search for

00:16:30.960 | or enter or entered a relationship,

00:16:33.880 | they thought about whether or not they had resonance

00:16:37.500 | with the person, whether or not there was a intellectual

00:16:41.080 | or mutual interest resonance or a physical resonance.

00:16:47.240 | Maybe something about family history, common goals, et cetera.

00:16:50.400 | That's typically what people think about.

00:16:53.820 | And then perhaps if people have a bit more

00:16:56.840 | of a psychological understanding

00:16:58.320 | or they're reading some pop psychology books these days,

00:17:02.040 | some of which are pretty good,

00:17:04.380 | they might understand something about themselves

00:17:07.200 | or the other person being a bit more anxious

00:17:08.920 | or a bit more relaxed.

00:17:09.840 | So you'll hear things like anxious attached,

00:17:11.840 | secure attached, things of that sort.

00:17:14.440 | If we could just step back from all of that for a moment

00:17:17.840 | and examine it through the lens of the maps

00:17:20.840 | as you're describing them, which exist in all of us

00:17:22.960 | and that really are the map

00:17:24.920 | to being the best version of ourselves.

00:17:27.040 | If we look at relationships in terms of lists

00:17:32.080 | of where people went to school, if they went to school,

00:17:35.280 | are their parents married or divorced?

00:17:36.960 | Do they have trauma that they're aware of or not aware of?

00:17:39.600 | These kinds of things.

00:17:41.160 | I guess we could call those,

00:17:42.800 | and here I'm borrowing language that you used earlier

00:17:46.280 | off camera, so I want to acknowledge that.

00:17:49.320 | Points of compatibility.

00:17:50.780 | I think that seems like a reasonable place to start.

00:17:55.160 | Do people want the same thing?

00:17:56.520 | So if you could, could you talk a little bit

00:17:59.160 | about points of compatibility in relationship

00:18:01.480 | and how those show up for better or for worse

00:18:05.520 | when you encounter people in the clinical setting?

00:18:07.600 | When you see somebody who's in a relationship

00:18:09.600 | that's really working for them and is healthy

00:18:12.200 | versus if they're in a relationship

00:18:13.380 | where it's really unhealthy?

00:18:15.280 | Presumably there's some knowledge

00:18:17.040 | about points of compatibility,

00:18:18.280 | but I'm guessing that it's not always intuitive.

00:18:20.680 | I think the place we start there

00:18:24.400 | is acknowledging what we can know and what we can't know.

00:18:29.240 | So this idea that there are levels of emergence

00:18:32.760 | where things at a lower level come together

00:18:36.100 | and create something that's new.

00:18:38.120 | We see this throughout science from subatomic particles

00:18:41.420 | all the way through to culture, right?

00:18:43.240 | So someone could know theoretically,

00:18:45.880 | like lots and lots and lots about you

00:18:48.080 | and lots and lots and lots about me,

00:18:50.500 | but they don't know about us, right?

00:18:54.060 | Like they don't know how we interact.

00:18:55.460 | They don't know if we have shared interests,

00:18:57.000 | what we talk about, right?

00:18:58.360 | They don't know that, no one knows that.

00:19:00.560 | Like we don't know that about the combination of people.

00:19:05.340 | We can't know it in advance,

00:19:07.240 | but we often believe that we can,

00:19:10.040 | which then leads to a lot of false metrics

00:19:13.540 | of trying to figure things out.

00:19:15.340 | So when we're looking for compatibility,

00:19:17.840 | the thought of these very basic, tangible things,

00:19:20.300 | like in romance, for example,

00:19:22.020 | if there's someone who absolutely wants to have a family

00:19:25.320 | and there's someone who absolutely

00:19:26.540 | does not want to have a family,

00:19:28.060 | okay, that would be a reason for those two people

00:19:30.320 | to not choose one another, right?

00:19:33.140 | So there are these factors,

00:19:34.820 | but the factors are all in a sense very evident

00:19:37.200 | and very concrete, right?

00:19:39.040 | If we go beyond that,

00:19:42.620 | we say, okay, we can see the obvious, right?

00:19:44.900 | Then what we're looking for

00:19:46.700 | is really a compatibility of generative drives, right?

00:19:50.220 | And then that, it tells you,

00:19:51.700 | can these people then get along?

00:19:53.780 | Like, you know, maybe one of them

00:19:55.060 | is from one side of the world

00:19:56.320 | and the other's from the other side of the world,

00:19:57.900 | or one's an accountant and the other is a musician.

00:20:00.660 | And, you know, it doesn't mean that,

00:20:03.100 | oh, like they're built not to get along,

00:20:05.420 | or that if they're doing the same thing,

00:20:07.100 | they're built to get along,

00:20:08.360 | or if they went to college in the same place,

00:20:11.660 | or they went to college versus not going to college, right?

00:20:14.340 | There's so much there that we try to build a story on.

00:20:19.340 | And then what we do is we miss the forest for the trees,

00:20:22.940 | right, and the trees, I think,

00:20:24.180 | are the factors that don't matter.

00:20:26.340 | So again, let's think about the factors that do matter.

00:20:28.420 | Person wants to have a family, other person doesn't.

00:20:30.820 | That's relevant.

00:20:32.060 | But the trees that mislead us might be,

00:20:34.900 | do they have the same level of education?

00:20:37.340 | Do they have the same family structure growing up?

00:20:39.300 | Are parents still together?

00:20:41.260 | What do they enjoy?

00:20:42.100 | Are they creative or scientific or whatever?

00:20:45.020 | Or creatively scientific, right?

00:20:46.440 | We could look at all of that,

00:20:47.940 | but I think then we're making a bunch of trees

00:20:50.620 | that mislead us.

00:20:51.820 | If you say, look, do these people come at the world

00:20:55.680 | through how much agency and gratitude is there guiding them?

00:20:59.700 | You know, how high is the top of that geyser?

00:21:01.560 | How high is it uplifting that?

00:21:03.380 | How strong is the generative drive?

00:21:05.340 | If we match people upon that,

00:21:06.820 | then we see, oh, those people got along

00:21:09.120 | and those people didn't.

00:21:10.000 | And then there are all the other factors like pheromones,

00:21:12.460 | right, and things that we can't understand

00:21:14.540 | or like reflexive first impression.

00:21:16.320 | So we could let things develop,

00:21:18.980 | honoring the truth of what we can't know,

00:21:21.260 | that when you put two people together,

00:21:23.500 | you get something that's different

00:21:25.440 | than the sum of both people, right?

00:21:28.380 | It's not an overlap of maps, right?

00:21:30.780 | It's a new map, right?

00:21:32.020 | And the map is informed by things

00:21:33.780 | that are on each individual's map.

00:21:36.140 | But what we're looking for are maps

00:21:38.420 | that don't have very significant differences

00:21:42.420 | around just clear, concrete things, right?

00:21:47.580 | But once we get beyond that,

00:21:49.560 | the maps can synergize in all sorts of beautiful

00:21:52.800 | and unpredictable ways.

00:21:55.060 | And if both are coming from the perspective

00:21:58.820 | of a generative drive that is at the forefront,

00:22:02.220 | great, you put those maps together and see what happens.

00:22:04.920 | Maybe nothing happens.

00:22:06.040 | Okay, those people don't go out on a second date.

00:22:08.300 | You know, maybe something happens,

00:22:09.440 | but it doesn't develop in certain ways.

00:22:11.300 | Okay, those people dated and stop dating.

00:22:13.000 | Like this happens all the time, right?

00:22:14.860 | But we set the odds in our favor

00:22:17.340 | that the generative drive in each that is at the forefront

00:22:21.120 | means that their maps can synergize

00:22:23.060 | in ways that can then be beautiful

00:22:24.740 | and ways that can maybe bring to both people

00:22:27.720 | that which they want.

00:22:29.780 | And I think there's a simplicity to that

00:22:33.180 | that I think if we honor it, it can be very, very helpful,

00:22:37.440 | whether it's romance, it's friendships

00:22:39.200 | of looking at what the truth of it is

00:22:41.320 | instead of the factors that we try

00:22:43.840 | and gain a false sense of security

00:22:45.820 | if we're using them to select upon.

00:22:48.620 | You mentioned several times the generative drive,

00:22:51.940 | and I definitely would like to learn more about that

00:22:54.920 | and spend some time there in the context of relationships.

00:22:58.340 | But just to drill a little bit further

00:23:00.340 | into what we've all heard so often,

00:23:02.860 | and you touched upon a few of these themes,

00:23:05.160 | around points of compatibility,

00:23:07.740 | but also where sometimes we can respond

00:23:12.260 | to the wrong things when thinking about compatibility.

00:23:15.260 | Again, we're framing this mainly in the context

00:23:17.900 | of hypothetical romantic relationships,

00:23:20.100 | but certainly it pertains to other sorts of relationships.

00:23:23.680 | Things like, is one person educated

00:23:27.740 | with an advanced degree and is the other person also?

00:23:31.100 | We tend to assume that people who are

00:23:33.820 | are somehow a better match than people who aren't.

00:23:35.940 | It's sort of an implicit assumption

00:23:37.980 | that's often made, not always.

00:23:39.840 | Or that if two people really love music,

00:23:43.380 | that they will enjoy music together

00:23:45.460 | and therefore the sum of the whole

00:23:47.820 | is greater than either of its parts.

00:23:49.900 | And I think those things are utterly irrelevant.

00:23:52.580 | - Interesting, and I want to hear more about this

00:23:54.320 | because I think that if you think about,

00:23:57.020 | which I'm sure you don't,

00:23:57.940 | but like dating apps, for instance,

00:23:59.940 | like what's listed out there or first or second dates,

00:24:04.020 | which consists of like learning a little bit

00:24:06.580 | about somebody and what they're doing

00:24:07.780 | and maybe even a little bit about their history

00:24:09.700 | and maybe an activity and certainly an intentional awareness

00:24:14.700 | to how the other person is behaving

00:24:17.340 | in the context of different things,

00:24:18.760 | like a waiter or a waitress

00:24:20.500 | and how they're treating people and you.

00:24:22.780 | And then you hear about things like,

00:24:24.900 | this is not something I'm familiar with,

00:24:28.100 | oh, right, the love languages,

00:24:30.700 | people are like, oh, what's their love languages?

00:24:33.060 | It's like gifts or like acts of physical touch

00:24:37.740 | or acts of service or something.

00:24:40.580 | I met someone recently and she told me,

00:24:42.460 | my love language is all of them,

00:24:44.020 | which I think is the most honest answer, right?

00:24:47.300 | Because sure, there's probably some weighting

00:24:48.820 | around what people value more or less.

00:24:50.740 | And in the absence of the things they value the most,

00:24:53.540 | it would probably feel a bit like deprivation

00:24:56.260 | in any relationship.

00:24:57.240 | But as I'm describing all this,

00:24:59.420 | I'm realizing more and more, yes, all of that matters,

00:25:03.380 | anxious, attached, secure, attached,

00:25:04.940 | love languages, et cetera,

00:25:06.740 | but it really doesn't get to the heart of the matter.

00:25:09.940 | It really doesn't get to this, as you're describing it,

00:25:12.160 | this generative drive in individuals

00:25:16.180 | and whether or not those match up well

00:25:17.820 | along the points of compatibility

00:25:19.620 | with the other person's generative drive.

00:25:21.500 | And I haven't run a controlled study for this,

00:25:24.220 | but the best evidence I have is that

00:25:26.020 | there fortunately are many people out there

00:25:28.580 | who are in happy, healthy relationships,

00:25:31.400 | but there are many, many, many people who are not,

00:25:35.500 | either because they can't find them or they're in them

00:25:37.800 | and they're not healthy or they're not happy, et cetera.

00:25:41.280 | So if you could elaborate a bit more on the generative drive,

00:25:45.240 | again, reminding us what the nature of that is,

00:25:47.360 | we cover this a bit in episodes one and two,

00:25:49.000 | but what the nature of that is

00:25:50.960 | and some different ways that that's expressed

00:25:54.660 | and how that shows up in healthy relationship.

00:25:59.660 | - Yeah, yeah.

00:26:00.780 | I think we really disprove the idea

00:26:03.680 | that some of these factors that I think are superficial

00:26:07.840 | in the context of whether people are gonna be compatible,

00:26:10.660 | they're not superficial things, but they're not germane.

00:26:13.600 | So let's say you think about music, right?

00:26:15.860 | And say two people are contemplating romance, right?

00:26:19.900 | And they both really like music.

00:26:22.900 | Well, that could go very, very well.

00:26:24.980 | Let's say they both have a strong generative drive.

00:26:28.500 | Those pillars are pretty healthy

00:26:30.200 | and the geyser of the agency and gratitude

00:26:33.460 | is riding upon it and they can find peace in themselves.

00:26:37.980 | They're strongly generative.

00:26:39.260 | Then they could become interested

00:26:41.340 | in the music the other person likes.

00:26:43.940 | There's not gonna be a complete overlap, right?

00:26:46.860 | Even if people generally like the same thing,

00:26:49.660 | but let's say they like different things,

00:26:51.180 | like just liking music or even liking the same music,

00:26:54.100 | there's still difference, right?

00:26:55.880 | So the person has to go beyond themselves, right?

00:26:58.700 | And say, okay, I'm interested in like what you think

00:27:01.360 | even about the music we both like, right?

00:27:03.100 | What factors do you like?

00:27:04.540 | There are places of learning and of growth for both.

00:27:08.540 | And you could see how both liking music,

00:27:10.660 | whether it's the same or different music,

00:27:12.260 | that sounds great, right?

00:27:14.140 | We could also see how that can not be great, right?

00:27:16.940 | If the generative drive is too low

00:27:19.400 | and the aggression drive is too high,

00:27:21.940 | then I'm gonna think I like music,

00:27:24.380 | my music's better than yours, right?

00:27:26.360 | Or people then start, they'll fragment, right?

00:27:29.940 | Even though they have the same interest

00:27:32.180 | or if the pleasure drive is too high,

00:27:33.860 | then they think I wanna listen to my music, not yours.

00:27:36.080 | I'm familiar with it.

00:27:37.360 | Instead of, hey, I'm interested in that music

00:27:40.780 | because you're interested in it

00:27:43.200 | and I'm interested in you, right?

00:27:45.040 | Which leads us to the second part.

00:27:46.600 | Let's say you have someone

00:27:47.440 | who really has no interest in music

00:27:49.260 | and someone who does.

00:27:50.720 | Well, there can be an openness of saying,

00:27:52.880 | if I'm interested in this person

00:27:55.020 | and this person is really interested in music,

00:27:57.640 | well, I have some interest in it, right?

00:27:59.760 | I wanna learn something about it.

00:28:00.940 | I wanna experience some of it with the other person.

00:28:04.120 | And let's say that person then finds,

00:28:05.580 | hey, that's not my thing, it's not the thing we connect on,

00:28:07.880 | then why would that be the end of the world, right?

00:28:09.860 | Plenty of people, one person goes to concerts,

00:28:11.940 | the other doesn't, right?

00:28:13.180 | So we try and find these points of commonality

00:28:17.340 | because I think we get over reductionist

00:28:19.180 | and then we think, oh, here's a bunch of factors

00:28:21.320 | that we will identify.

00:28:22.880 | And what they do is they obscure us

00:28:25.680 | from the primary factor, which is the generative drive,

00:28:29.620 | which of course will then induce open-mindedness,

00:28:32.480 | mentalization.

00:28:33.320 | If I don't like music and you do,

00:28:35.100 | instead of saying, what does he like music for?

00:28:38.120 | You know, I need a friendship with somebody who likes music.

00:28:40.520 | You know, you think, hey, like that's interesting.

00:28:43.200 | Like if I'm interested in you as a friend

00:28:45.000 | and I have respect for you and what you think,

00:28:46.600 | then why would I not have some interest

00:28:48.880 | in what you're interested in?

00:28:50.400 | You know, so this idea of compatibility

00:28:52.880 | revolves around the health in each person.

00:28:56.680 | It doesn't revolve around factors

00:28:59.640 | that are anything but the concrete logistical factors

00:29:03.600 | that would just keep two people apart.

00:29:06.280 | - I love the idea that healthy relationships

00:29:08.640 | center around the factors that really matter

00:29:11.200 | within the self, in particular, the generative drive.

00:29:14.680 | And I love the example of someone being able to be curious

00:29:19.400 | about somebody's interests, about their partner's interests,

00:29:23.040 | even though they might not share those

00:29:25.000 | from the standpoint of agency and gratitude,

00:29:28.720 | because the agency component there is really key.

00:29:31.280 | I think that a lot of people feel as if

00:29:33.540 | they aren't really good at something

00:29:34.980 | or really knowledgeable about something,

00:29:37.200 | then it's not for them, right?

00:29:40.320 | Which is the opposite of having agency and gratitude,

00:29:43.440 | because gratitude is closely tied to humility.

00:29:47.120 | How could we know everything?

00:29:48.400 | It can be good to certain things and not others.

00:29:50.440 | So the way you describe it includes aspects of openness,

00:29:55.040 | of humility, but also the agency side, the empowerment.

00:29:57.920 | Like, oh, if I'm gonna learn more,

00:29:59.320 | then perhaps we could enjoy more of that together.

00:30:02.840 | Perhaps not, right?

00:30:03.920 | I think this is what I'm sensing.

00:30:05.840 | And I'm also sensing that the words like-minded,

00:30:09.960 | like-minded people, has so much more to do

00:30:12.960 | with their generative drives and how those match up,

00:30:17.560 | as opposed to the activities that they prefer engaging in

00:30:21.160 | and the sorts of foods they like or the movies they like.

00:30:24.600 | Which makes sense at some level,

00:30:27.360 | but I think it is still counterintuitive for a lot of us

00:30:31.040 | who just kind of reflexively think,

00:30:32.720 | oh, like they like the same things, you know,

00:30:34.640 | or maybe even they met at work

00:30:36.420 | because they like the same type of work.

00:30:39.160 | They like to live in a certain area of the country

00:30:40.720 | and therefore by proximity they met.

00:30:42.900 | And this raises all sorts of interesting ideas perhaps

00:30:46.860 | about the statistics of what we see, right?

00:30:49.800 | Like two musicians together,

00:30:51.640 | we therefore assume that musicians belong together,

00:30:55.940 | or two scientists together.

00:30:57.320 | I know loads of scientist-scientist couples

00:30:59.720 | or scientist-physician couples.

00:31:02.400 | But of course the numbers are skewed

00:31:04.280 | because they were working in environments

00:31:05.800 | where it increased the probability they would interact.

00:31:08.360 | So this is actually a vote for online dating.

00:31:10.440 | In some sense, because it breaks through all those,

00:31:13.480 | sometimes even geographical barriers,

00:31:15.020 | but certainly the traditional barriers of culture.

00:31:18.200 | - Right, right.

00:31:19.240 | And if you think about,

00:31:20.440 | 'cause we're talking about relationships.

00:31:21.880 | So I would like my relationships

00:31:23.960 | to last as long as possible, right?

00:31:26.460 | That means now we're talking about my lifespan

00:31:29.440 | and my healthspan, right?

00:31:30.840 | Like that then becomes part of that discussion.

00:31:33.400 | And of course we're very interested

00:31:34.780 | in lifespan and healthspan.

00:31:36.240 | And we see people do much, much better

00:31:40.060 | when they're interconnected in the world around them,

00:31:42.560 | when they're still learning new things.

00:31:44.340 | Like we know that's true,

00:31:45.800 | that people often will sort of trail off

00:31:48.660 | of what they're learning,

00:31:50.080 | whether it's music, it's literature,

00:31:52.120 | it's the world around us,

00:31:53.760 | relatively early in our lifespan.

00:31:56.100 | But the person who's interconnected, learning new things,

00:31:59.600 | has a much greater probability of living longer

00:32:04.280 | and living healthier, right?

00:32:06.240 | So what's that about?

00:32:07.600 | It's about a generative drive, right?

00:32:09.580 | It's about, you know what?

00:32:10.760 | I've learned a lot of things over the course of my life

00:32:13.080 | and I'm 80 years old now.

00:32:14.300 | And like, great that there's more to learn, right?

00:32:17.480 | And like, that's what you see.

00:32:18.660 | It makes me think of a woman who's around 90 years old

00:32:21.800 | who in my practice, she's always learning new things.

00:32:24.740 | Like she's super interested in things.

00:32:26.720 | And I'm always struck about how,

00:32:28.720 | like she seems so much younger, right?

00:32:31.120 | And there, that's not just a selection bias.

00:32:33.700 | Like, oh, I just happen to see that in that person.

00:32:35.920 | Like she has the factors that predispose to aging

00:32:39.620 | in the way that's healthiest and happiest.

00:32:42.200 | So it really comes down the route of all of it

00:32:45.540 | in ourselves, in our relationships,

00:32:47.740 | in the quality of them over time

00:32:49.420 | and how long we get to have them,

00:32:51.260 | really arises from a generative drive.

00:32:54.180 | And that's the thing that makes us then undefended, right?

00:32:58.260 | And lets us find interest in things about other people

00:33:02.380 | that are different from the things in us,

00:33:04.980 | which also comes about naturally.

00:33:06.780 | Like, I think it's interesting that we have this sort of bias

00:33:09.120 | so that musicians belong together.

00:33:11.240 | Or why they're familiar with the same things, right?

00:33:13.540 | I guess they have the same interests,

00:33:14.920 | same thing with scientists,

00:33:16.600 | but then a lot of people like different foods, right?

00:33:19.940 | Like I love different ethnic foods, like why?

00:33:21.940 | 'Cause it's different, right?

00:33:24.000 | It's an appreciation of difference.

00:33:25.740 | I don't wanna eat just like I did growing up.

00:33:27.860 | And many, many, many people are like that.

00:33:30.100 | That's an appreciation of difference, of diversity.

00:33:32.700 | So sometimes we'll kind of harness that

00:33:34.740 | and we'll look at it and we'll say,

00:33:35.940 | "Oh, like that's present in us."

00:33:38.060 | But for whatever reason,

00:33:39.580 | we become very reductionist about relationships.

00:33:42.360 | And now we're trying to match based upon sameness, right?

00:33:46.580 | And like sameness is not the point of it.

00:33:50.800 | I mean, there are even thoughts, right?

00:33:52.020 | About people then in some way seeking difference, right?

00:33:54.660 | And maybe pheromones are telling us that.

00:33:56.180 | Like I actually know very little about that,

00:33:58.880 | but I certainly know that striving for sameness

00:34:02.460 | doesn't make good things happen in relationships.

00:34:05.540 | I've been doing this for over 20 years

00:34:07.020 | and like I don't see that the alleged factors

00:34:10.560 | of sameness matter.

00:34:12.120 | Again, unless they're so concrete.

00:34:13.700 | Like if this person is absolutely gonna live

00:34:15.740 | in North America and that person's absolutely gonna live

00:34:17.820 | in South America, let's not potentially put them together.

00:34:21.140 | But once we get away from almost that level of concreteness,

00:34:25.040 | let's look for something different

00:34:26.720 | and then like everything else, it simplifies, right?

00:34:31.140 | The higher we go up the ladder, the more simple things get.

00:34:35.600 | If you're looking at the pillars, structure of self,

00:34:37.700 | function of self, you're creating the agency and gratitude,

00:34:40.780 | then what are you looking for

00:34:41.980 | when you're looking for a partner?

00:34:43.600 | A match in generative drive.

00:34:45.740 | I want mine to be strong

00:34:47.420 | and I see that it's strong in this person.

00:34:49.460 | They create in a way, you know what?

00:34:50.820 | I do science, they grow a garden.

00:34:53.700 | We're generative together, right?

00:34:55.180 | Like that could be super compatible

00:34:56.820 | because we're looking at the one factor that really matters.

00:35:00.060 | I'd like to take a brief break

00:35:01.160 | and acknowledge one of our sponsors, AG1.

00:35:03.820 | AG1 is a vitamin mineral probiotic drink

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00:36:26.940 | I'm realizing that most of what I and everyone else

00:36:29.540 | has heard about relationships is complete nonsense.

00:36:33.640 | I really mean that.

00:36:34.760 | I mean, it has occurred to me before

00:36:37.500 | because I've experienced both

00:36:39.260 | that the phrase is absence makes the heart grow fonder

00:36:43.020 | and out of sight, out of mind

00:36:45.700 | are in direct contradiction with one another.

00:36:48.140 | So they're both true, depends on the circumstances

00:36:50.400 | and who the hell knows why.

00:36:53.380 | You also hear opposites attract,

00:36:55.020 | but they don't stay together, right?

00:36:57.000 | You hear similar, the important thing

00:36:59.100 | is to find someone similar to you

00:37:01.180 | or that there's like one person, right?

00:37:03.100 | That's right for you.

00:37:03.940 | I mean, these are, if we really think about it,

00:37:06.620 | crazy notions,

00:37:09.540 | but they drive a lot of what people

00:37:12.100 | think about relationships. - They drive angst, right.

00:37:13.740 | They drive angst.

00:37:15.180 | They drive bad choices.

00:37:16.680 | They drive situations that then create a sense of guilt

00:37:20.240 | and shame and inadequacy.

00:37:21.780 | We mislead ourselves by not going to the basics

00:37:25.540 | of what is actually true.

00:37:27.020 | Like, I mean, look at myself,

00:37:28.420 | make myself as healthy as I can be, right?

00:37:30.580 | Because if I'm healthy,

00:37:31.420 | I'll recognize a lack of health in the other, right?

00:37:34.480 | So it also protects us against bad relationships.

00:37:37.180 | And then if I'm gonna make myself healthy,

00:37:38.980 | which we're describing how that looks,

00:37:40.860 | wouldn't I want someone who also

00:37:43.100 | wants to make themselves healthier,

00:37:44.380 | at least if we're gonna ally, right?

00:37:46.700 | Let's ally around making both of ourselves healthier.

00:37:51.860 | - Absolutely, and we're going to go deeper

00:37:53.780 | into how to look into the map of self

00:37:56.980 | and how that relates to relationship,

00:37:59.880 | certainly more as we go along this discussion.

00:38:03.580 | You've mentioned several times, however,

00:38:06.700 | about generative drive and that it really is

00:38:10.060 | the definition of like-minded in some sense.

00:38:13.700 | And you also mentioned aggressive drives

00:38:15.580 | and pleasure drives, themes that we touched on again

00:38:17.900 | in episodes one and two,

00:38:19.300 | but listening to those episodes

00:38:20.540 | is certainly not necessary to digest

00:38:22.340 | what we're talking about today.

00:38:24.220 | Could you go a little bit deeper into the generative drive,

00:38:26.760 | flesh out for us what that is?

00:38:29.920 | I think generative, I think generator, I think energy.

00:38:33.060 | I hear aggression or aggressive drive,

00:38:36.380 | I think as I think most people do,

00:38:39.240 | friction, maybe even conflict,

00:38:42.720 | maybe physical conflict, maybe verbal conflict,

00:38:45.940 | but I know it's some of that perhaps, but a whole lot more.

00:38:50.520 | And then pleasure drive and pleasure,

00:38:52.500 | some people think bliss, some people think delight,

00:38:56.160 | some people probably have all sorts of specific things

00:38:58.720 | they think of with respect to pleasure.

00:39:00.060 | So if you could just flesh those out for us

00:39:01.460 | a little bit more,

00:39:02.300 | because I think those are going to serve

00:39:03.980 | as cornerstones of today's discussion.

00:39:07.740 | Sure, so drives, and in this case,

00:39:10.480 | the generative drive sort of exists within us.

00:39:14.100 | And what they do is they're defining potential, right?

00:39:17.700 | So right now, one could argue if we just pause

00:39:20.600 | for a couple of seconds,

00:39:21.440 | we're not doing anything generative in those seconds, right?

00:39:24.240 | But then we resume doing something

00:39:26.460 | that we believe is generative, right?

00:39:28.480 | So at the time we're pausing,

00:39:30.580 | that's when we can sort of look at that as a drive within us

00:39:34.360 | to make new learning, right?

00:39:38.040 | To understand things we didn't understand before,

00:39:40.600 | to spread a sense of goodness, right?

00:39:42.860 | So it resides in us in a way that is determined

00:39:46.740 | by a whole bunch of different factors.

00:39:48.260 | Like everything else that's determined within us,

00:39:51.080 | there's a nature and a nurture component.

00:39:53.340 | So some aspect of it,

00:39:54.420 | or what are the genetics that came down to us?

00:39:56.560 | What are formative experiences?

00:39:58.460 | But we can go in and alter that.

00:40:00.900 | So if we see the drive as a set of potentials,

00:40:04.100 | like in that moment we pause,

00:40:06.180 | there's a set of potentials within us,

00:40:08.820 | like potential of where we can take our thoughts,

00:40:11.520 | our actions, our reflections, our decisions, right?

00:40:14.380 | That's the drive within us.

00:40:16.620 | And it exists within us in a way

00:40:20.700 | that we could localize now.

00:40:23.060 | Like if we think enough about,

00:40:24.520 | okay, how much of a generative drive is there in a person?

00:40:27.200 | How much is that person looking

00:40:29.300 | to make a better life for themselves

00:40:33.220 | or a better world around them?

00:40:34.540 | And how do they feel about themselves

00:40:36.220 | and their ability to do that?

00:40:37.240 | How generative are they?

00:40:38.580 | Or how shut down or demoralized or envious?

00:40:41.460 | So we can, in a sense, localize that.

00:40:44.340 | And again, the localization has these genetic

00:40:47.020 | and nurture components to it,

00:40:49.260 | but we can then go and influence that.

00:40:51.760 | And that's the importance.

00:40:53.500 | If the drive is a set of potentials,

00:40:56.220 | a set of possibilities,

00:40:57.700 | then that drive is one in the same,

00:41:00.700 | pervaded with however we want to describe that

00:41:04.040 | with the agency and gratitude.

00:41:06.020 | 'Cause the agency and gratitude

00:41:07.440 | is sort of the operative form of that.

00:41:08.940 | That's the verb, right?

00:41:10.400 | It's the drive actually driving something, right?

00:41:13.420 | So if you have a strong generative drive,

00:41:15.460 | then agency and gratitude are leading the decisions,

00:41:18.240 | the reflections are coming through that.

00:41:21.180 | The aggression within us,

00:41:23.020 | or again, that's the historical word,

00:41:27.420 | but we can say aggression, assertion, proactiveness, right?

00:41:31.940 | All of this inside of us and our drive for pleasure,

00:41:34.780 | for gratification, right?

00:41:36.460 | That all is then, it's in us,

00:41:38.460 | but it's observing the generative drive,

00:41:40.820 | meaning the generative drive, that set of potentials

00:41:43.700 | and possibilities is dominant,

00:41:46.480 | which of course makes sense with agency and gratitude,

00:41:50.460 | those active verbs being what is most active, right?

00:41:54.820 | And then we're also gonna feel at times,

00:41:57.640 | and hopefully at a lot of times, that set of peacefulness,

00:42:02.180 | that sense of contentment, the sense of delight, right?

00:42:05.460 | What you're describing when you're doing the podcast

00:42:08.180 | and you're in it and all these good things

00:42:09.460 | are happening to you, right?

00:42:10.740 | There's a strong generative drive in you,

00:42:13.020 | that set of potentials are being actualized

00:42:15.540 | through the verbs of agency and gratitude,

00:42:18.340 | like you're doing it all right then,

00:42:20.300 | and as you're doing it,

00:42:21.580 | you have a sense of peace and contentment

00:42:23.820 | as you're enacting all of it,

00:42:25.780 | and then that makes you healthier,

00:42:27.740 | reinforces the generative drive,

00:42:29.400 | it protects you against the next sling or arrow

00:42:32.260 | of outrageous fortune that will come your way, right?

00:42:35.020 | You become more self-knowledgeable,

00:42:37.860 | you become stronger, right?

00:42:39.600 | And ultimately, that's what we're looking for,

00:42:43.100 | like that's the state of goodness,

00:42:45.000 | and I believe that if you look historically,

00:42:47.520 | what is it that we're seeking?

00:42:48.760 | We can put so many words to it,

00:42:50.940 | and we're choosing to put these words to it.

00:42:53.620 | I mean, I think that this is the structure

00:42:55.820 | because I think the science, the history,

00:42:57.980 | the clinical experience, the phenomenology,

00:42:59.980 | I think it all tells us this.

00:43:01.980 | We can put different words to it,

00:43:03.840 | but what we're looking at when we're looking at truth

00:43:06.560 | and how to get to the happiness, quote unquote,

00:43:09.140 | that people have sought through the ages,

00:43:11.600 | I mean, I think we know enough now,

00:43:13.160 | we've learned enough that we can say,

00:43:15.180 | oh, this is what it looks like,

00:43:17.540 | and it fits the arbiter of all truth,

00:43:21.520 | which is as you get further up the hierarchy,

00:43:24.580 | it gets simpler.

00:43:25.660 | That's true about humans.

00:43:27.680 | What's going on in my own consciousness

00:43:29.440 | is very, very complicated, right?

00:43:32.460 | But if that's summing to, as we get higher up,

00:43:35.060 | to like I'm approaching the world

00:43:37.340 | with a lot of agency and gratitude, right,

00:43:39.940 | that's a lot simpler,

00:43:41.660 | and that's what can be common among us,

00:43:44.280 | which is why if my pillars are very different

00:43:47.780 | from your pillars and what we've struggled against,

00:43:51.060 | each is very different,

00:43:52.740 | and what we may still have to work against

00:43:55.180 | is very different,

00:43:56.500 | well, we can be extremely compatible as friends

00:43:59.140 | because are we working on ourselves?

00:44:01.100 | Are we fostering the generative drive?

00:44:03.340 | So we're coming at the world in that way,

00:44:05.260 | and agency and gratitude,

00:44:06.660 | that's the similarity, right, between us that matters,

00:44:10.420 | and ultimately we're looking at the potential,

00:44:13.020 | that every moment we're building the potential in us

00:44:15.900 | for what comes at the next moment,

00:44:17.980 | which is why we're describing the overlap,

00:44:20.740 | the point of commonality that really matters,

00:44:24.100 | that matters.

00:44:24.940 | We're putting a label to it, right?

00:44:25.780 | We're saying it's the generative drive,

00:44:27.580 | but it is also that, okay,

00:44:28.680 | we both come at the world through agency and gratitude

00:44:31.900 | if two people are assessing compatibility,

00:44:34.680 | but if we're looking at something to nest that under,

00:44:37.120 | and what seems most logical

00:44:39.360 | is the set of potentials within us

00:44:41.820 | that we're building and altering each moment,

00:44:44.200 | and then as I alter it in this moment,

00:44:46.800 | right, it's altered and it affects my next moment, right?

00:44:50.200 | If I do something that's just kind of thoughtless

00:44:52.600 | to somebody, you know, because I'm in a bad mood, right,

00:44:55.920 | then what am I doing?

00:44:56.980 | I'm projecting out my aggression.

00:44:58.400 | I'm doing something that basically makes me less than,

00:45:00.440 | right, and then I'm gonna feel less in the next moment,

00:45:03.520 | whether that moment is about me or is about someone else.

00:45:05.860 | The drives are the potentials in us,

00:45:08.720 | but we are actively working on them, determining them,

00:45:12.880 | changing them each moment.

00:45:15.780 | - I'm well on board the idea that the typical pairings,

00:45:21.880 | let's call them the idiosyncratic pairings of, you know,

00:45:24.400 | musician with musician in many cases,

00:45:26.300 | but, you know, sometimes very verbal person

00:45:28.460 | with quieter person, you know,

00:45:29.880 | introvert with extrovert or introvert with introvert,

00:45:33.100 | that all of that takes backseat or it perhaps

00:45:37.780 | even back backseat and perhaps it even is out of the vehicle

00:45:41.600 | compared to the critical importance of generative drive.

00:45:45.260 | - Right.

00:45:46.820 | - When we think about generative drives in individuals,

00:45:50.760 | you beautifully described what a generative drive is

00:45:53.700 | and how it shows up in individuals.

00:45:56.240 | When thinking about generative drives

00:45:58.560 | in romantic relationships, however,

00:46:01.800 | because generative drive can be expressed

00:46:04.040 | to varying degrees, does one often see that

00:46:08.520 | or do you think that a matching of sort of levels

00:46:12.840 | of generative drives is what fosters the best relationships?

00:46:17.160 | In other words, let's say somebody has

00:46:19.120 | a pretty high pleasure drive, but not as very strong,

00:46:23.780 | aggressive, also called proactiveness drive.

00:46:27.360 | And so maybe like they watch a lot of Netflix,

00:46:32.200 | like a lot of Netflix, but they're not even

00:46:34.360 | the sort of person that's like really excited

00:46:36.000 | about the shows and telling you about them.

00:46:37.440 | 'Cause there's a version of watching a lot of Netflix

00:46:39.280 | where the person is really interested in learning

00:46:42.140 | and in knowing, maybe even they're thinking

00:46:43.560 | about writing something, you know, poetry or a book,

00:46:46.960 | or they're bringing some of that to their life, right?

00:46:49.480 | I mentioned it that way because watching Netflix

00:46:52.220 | isn't bad per se, right?

00:46:53.960 | It's not anti-generative.

00:46:55.440 | - Is it an escape or is it generative?

00:46:57.280 | Is the person thinking about what they're going to do?

00:46:58.840 | They're going to write that book

00:47:00.000 | or are they just trying to numb out?

00:47:02.160 | And at the end of five hours in front of the television,

00:47:04.800 | they don't know what those five hours were, right?

00:47:06.840 | There's no intrinsic value judgment based upon

00:47:10.980 | a lot of things that we make intrinsic value,

00:47:13.840 | we make value judgments about, right?

00:47:15.760 | You have to look at who is the person, what is the context?

00:47:18.800 | Are they being generative or not?

00:47:20.800 | - Yeah, some of the movies and shows

00:47:22.120 | that I've watched in relationships

00:47:23.480 | became the points of connection around, at least to me,

00:47:27.880 | tremendously interesting discussions on hikes

00:47:30.140 | that we took the next day and reflections

00:47:32.740 | on our own relationship and work and life.

00:47:34.960 | And so I'm so glad that you point out

00:47:37.520 | that there's nothing intrinsically valuable

00:47:39.320 | or invaluable about something like Netflix

00:47:43.640 | or even intrinsically passive about doing something

00:47:47.200 | like sitting around or even reading books for that matter.

00:47:49.520 | There's a passive version of reading great books also,

00:47:52.120 | people forget that.

00:47:53.200 | It's hard to read a great book and not learn something.

00:47:55.320 | I guess that's why they're called great books,

00:47:56.740 | but there is a version of that.

00:47:58.680 | And I know many people-

00:47:59.520 | - People wanna possess the book.

00:48:01.080 | I read the book and I'm gonna check it off.

00:48:02.520 | I don't know what was in it.

00:48:03.400 | Like people do that, that is not generative.

00:48:05.920 | - So should we consider matching of level

00:48:09.560 | or expression of generative drives

00:48:11.960 | as perhaps what we are all seeking in seeking relationship?

00:48:16.960 | And do you think that people tend to pair up,

00:48:22.360 | naturally pair up with people

00:48:24.000 | that have a similar level of generative drive?

00:48:27.120 | Or if they don't, do you think it leads to problems?

00:48:30.280 | - Right, yeah, I think that by and large people don't,

00:48:32.980 | that it's not the thing that we're thinking about

00:48:35.380 | and looking for in ourselves or others.

00:48:37.580 | And I absolutely believe that it makes problems.

00:48:40.940 | And let's take a look-

00:48:42.160 | - To not look, it makes problems to not look.

00:48:44.400 | - Right, it makes sense the way,

00:48:45.400 | the fact that we're not basing it upon generative drive

00:48:48.880 | does indeed I think make many, many, many, many, many.

00:48:51.840 | And in fact, countless problems.

00:48:54.600 | And I would take as an example,

00:48:56.680 | think about the idea of a trauma bond, right?

00:48:59.460 | A trauma bond is not a bad thing.

00:49:01.900 | That sounds like a strong statement

00:49:05.240 | because the way that I hear trauma bond used

00:49:08.420 | is it's a bad thing, right?

00:49:10.580 | But it doesn't have to be.

00:49:12.000 | So let's take a look at it.

00:49:13.960 | Imagine that you have what people call a trauma bond.

00:49:16.640 | You know, you have two people who,

00:49:19.160 | let's just, we'll make up a situation, right?

00:49:21.320 | They're functioning in the world around them,

00:49:24.200 | but they each have had some very significant trauma

00:49:27.920 | that is creating issues in them.

00:49:29.800 | So let's say they're avoidance issues.

00:49:32.120 | Person doesn't feel safe or comfortable

00:49:33.740 | in the world around them.

00:49:35.200 | They get invited to places that they'd like to go,

00:49:37.800 | but they don't go, right?

00:49:39.800 | They wanna go to the museum

00:49:40.920 | and see something really new and cool there,

00:49:42.640 | but there might be a crowd, right?

00:49:44.360 | I mean, this happens, right?

00:49:45.280 | And let's say you have two people

00:49:47.040 | who both have this in them.

00:49:48.920 | It could be because the trauma is similar.

00:49:51.480 | The trauma could be night and day, right?

00:49:53.920 | But they each have this in them.

00:49:55.760 | They could bond around that trauma

00:49:59.320 | in a way that worsens the trauma.

00:50:02.480 | That's why people think negatively of a trauma bond, right?

00:50:05.680 | So if the case is that the trauma bond is not a good thing

00:50:10.480 | for these two people, you say, why is that?

00:50:12.960 | It's not because both of them have had trauma

00:50:15.280 | and both of them are impacted by trauma

00:50:17.600 | and both of them are impacted by trauma in similar ways.

00:50:20.440 | It's not that.

00:50:21.480 | It's that the drives are not in a healthy place

00:50:24.480 | and the gratification of the generative drive

00:50:28.340 | and the pleasure drives are not high enough.

00:50:30.240 | So let's imagine the generative drive

00:50:32.960 | is could be relatively low in each of these people

00:50:37.640 | in one or the other,

00:50:38.560 | or they could have a naturally high drive

00:50:42.640 | that's being thwarted, right?

00:50:44.800 | So there's something that's out of balance.

00:50:46.960 | Where the drive is, the ability to express the drive, right?

00:50:51.280 | Is there enough agency, right?

00:50:53.120 | If there's not, like let's say one person

00:50:54.800 | is really, really shut down,

00:50:56.440 | that person can't stand their job, right?

00:50:58.760 | Okay, something is shutting that person down.

00:51:00.960 | The generative drive wishes greater expression.

00:51:03.340 | They go back and look at themselves.

00:51:04.720 | You can bring that into line, right?

00:51:06.480 | But something is out of balance at the time.

00:51:09.640 | The pleasure drive may be low or it may be high,

00:51:13.600 | but it may not be gratified.

00:51:14.960 | Maybe that that person loves museums

00:51:16.960 | and wants to go to the museum,

00:51:18.840 | but can't find that gratification, right?

00:51:21.200 | That's a possibility.

00:51:22.400 | The aggression or assertion drive would be on the low end,

00:51:26.600 | right, but it could be higher.

00:51:27.960 | Maybe if that person felt safer, right?

00:51:29.720 | That drive within them has a lot of latitude in it

00:51:32.840 | and maybe it could move higher, right?

00:51:34.540 | But something is out of balance in the drives

00:51:37.840 | and in their expression, right?

00:51:40.160 | That's the problem.

00:51:41.720 | Because let's look at the other side

00:51:43.620 | where a trauma bond is a great thing, right?

00:51:46.400 | So each of the people in the example has trauma

00:51:49.380 | and they recognize it in themselves

00:51:51.740 | and they understand how it makes things harder for them.

00:51:55.600 | And then they're communicating

00:51:57.560 | about how it makes it hard in the other, right?

00:52:00.560 | So maybe there's a lot of overlap, right,

00:52:03.200 | in social avoidance and sense of vulnerability,

00:52:06.120 | but maybe there are things that are different

00:52:08.120 | in one person versus the other.

00:52:09.900 | So then they can come together and say,

00:52:12.480 | look, what's the goal of life?

00:52:14.720 | Like, I would like to be as healthy as I can be.

00:52:17.460 | I'm working on myself.

00:52:18.460 | You wanna be as healthy as you can be.

00:52:20.200 | We wanna be as healthy as we can be.

00:52:22.160 | And if we're healthy, we also help each of us be healthy.

00:52:26.340 | So maybe those two people,

00:52:28.580 | neither of which say would ever go to the museum

00:52:31.280 | on their own because the trauma inside of them

00:52:34.560 | is at a point it hasn't been worked through

00:52:36.340 | or it's at a place where they just simply

00:52:39.100 | feel too vulnerable, right?

00:52:40.820 | But together they can go to the museum.

00:52:43.680 | And then the bond around trauma helps them be healthy.

00:52:48.680 | The drives are in a better place

00:52:51.020 | because they're able to recognize,

00:52:52.820 | hey, there are things going on in me

00:52:53.980 | that I'd like to be different and better.

00:52:55.260 | And you recognize that too.

00:52:56.420 | And we can talk about it with one another, right?

00:52:58.700 | So they're in a healthier place.

00:53:01.060 | And then from that healthier place,

00:53:03.600 | they build greater health.

00:53:05.060 | - So much of what we hear about

00:53:07.580 | in terms of friction points in relationships,

00:53:10.660 | centers around it seems communication

00:53:14.060 | or lack of communication.

00:53:15.940 | And as you're describing the role of the generative drive

00:53:18.600 | and healthy relationship,

00:53:19.900 | it seems to me that it ties back in every way

00:53:23.660 | to agency and gratitude and agency being

00:53:26.260 | such a critical element of communication,

00:53:28.280 | because wherever you've identified that,

00:53:30.220 | okay, there's a potential problem here,

00:53:32.580 | people with high generative drive in these examples

00:53:35.160 | seem to be capable of like self inquiry,

00:53:39.500 | asking the other person questions

00:53:41.200 | that bring them closer together

00:53:43.020 | and to a deeper understanding of the self.

00:53:45.220 | I raise this because one thing that's often overheard

00:53:50.220 | or that I've overheard,

00:53:51.460 | I of course have siblings and friends are,

00:53:54.460 | and I'll place this in the way

00:53:56.060 | that I've most typically heard it,

00:53:57.780 | but I'm sure it exists in other ways too,

00:53:59.540 | which is the conversation in my head

00:54:03.200 | is one where a woman is saying,

00:54:05.140 | like they're with somebody or dating somebody

00:54:08.420 | and like, he's so clueless.

00:54:10.860 | Like I wish that he would just do this thing.

00:54:13.540 | Sometimes these are acts of chivalry,

00:54:15.220 | like maybe it's flowers or vacations,

00:54:17.780 | but more often than not it's a request

00:54:21.420 | or a complaint about a lack of proactiveness.

00:54:24.180 | This is also what ratchets up to these very pan statements

00:54:27.180 | that you hear like, oh, there's no real men these days,

00:54:30.100 | or like there are no real men left or this kind of thing.

00:54:32.620 | You also hear it in the reverse, right?

00:54:34.140 | You hear men making pan statements about women

00:54:37.300 | and here we're doing this in the context

00:54:38.580 | of heterosexual pairings,

00:54:40.460 | but of course it could all work just as well in homosexual.

00:54:44.460 | Exactly, it could all work

00:54:46.020 | in the context of homosexual pairings too.

00:54:48.500 | So you hear those sorts of things

00:54:49.780 | and it sounds like a lack of communication.

00:54:52.340 | Okay, maybe one person needs to be better

00:54:54.260 | at asking for their needs to be met.

00:54:56.700 | Maybe the other person needs to develop more of an awareness

00:54:59.000 | of what the other person needs.

00:55:00.160 | Of course, we all seem to kind of intrinsically wish

00:55:03.020 | that things would just happen for us

00:55:04.920 | without the need to request them or ask for them,

00:55:07.920 | but I'm realizing again that all of that

00:55:11.160 | is distracting commotion

00:55:13.960 | because that's not really what's going on.

00:55:16.320 | What's really going on, it seems,

00:55:19.680 | is that the engine behind communication,

00:55:22.700 | the engine behind curiosity, a desire to learn and know

00:55:26.900 | and create something from that learning and knowing

00:55:30.280 | in the relationship, the generative drive

00:55:33.640 | is really what's the issue

00:55:35.400 | or the lack of generative drive.

00:55:37.520 | In any of those conversations,

00:55:39.880 | it seems one could circle back to that and go,

00:55:41.800 | okay, well, someone's not asking the right questions

00:55:45.080 | and therefore not doing the right things

00:55:46.400 | because they don't either have a sense of agency

00:55:48.960 | or they don't have gratitude for the situation they're in,

00:55:52.000 | including their own ability to do that, right?

00:55:54.760 | So when you hear people aren't showing up

00:55:56.800 | for the relationship, they're not showing up

00:55:59.000 | or she's not showing up or again,

00:56:01.660 | let's make the pan statement go in the other direction

00:56:04.100 | that somebody just wants a lot of attention, right?

00:56:08.780 | They just need an excess amount of attention,

00:56:10.600 | won't let me do my own thing,

00:56:11.780 | but also wants me to work and be successful.

00:56:14.080 | Again, these are stereotypes,

00:56:15.960 | but all of that seems very distracting.

00:56:18.860 | However, all of it seems far simpler

00:56:22.380 | if we push it through this filter of generative drives

00:56:27.120 | and whether or not it's being expressed.

00:56:29.120 | Yes, yes, I think maybe the best example of this

00:56:32.880 | because it's so highly charged

00:56:34.500 | is imagine the pleasure drive

00:56:36.760 | through the lens of sex and sexuality, right?

00:56:39.580 | So imagine that people are in a pairing,

00:56:42.700 | they're in a relationship.

00:56:43.540 | Regardless of how they got there,

00:56:44.460 | we're taking people who are in a relationship.

00:56:46.640 | And one has a sex drive, which means an interest in sex

00:56:51.640 | and maybe proclivities for a diversity of sexual experience

00:56:56.440 | that say, if we just, for sake of this example,

00:56:58.920 | we put on a one to 10 scale, that person has a two, okay?

00:57:02.520 | Now let's say the other person in the-

00:57:04.440 | 10 being the greatest.

00:57:05.680 | Yeah, sorry, 10 being right, that person is a two.

00:57:08.340 | Now let's say the partner is an eight, okay?

00:57:10.960 | So there's a big mismatch there.

00:57:14.140 | You think, how does that normally go?

00:57:16.180 | The two stays a two, the eight stays an eight,

00:57:19.840 | and things don't go well, right?

00:57:21.800 | It creates friction in the relationship at a minimum.

00:57:24.560 | It blows the relationship apart at a maximum.

00:57:27.540 | The person who's a two feels inadequate often.

00:57:30.320 | I mean, it's not always right,

00:57:31.320 | but this is how this often goes.

00:57:32.560 | Person who's a two feels inadequate

00:57:34.020 | 'cause the person who's an eight

00:57:35.320 | wants either more or different, right?

00:57:37.700 | And the person who's a two doesn't.

00:57:39.720 | Now that person feels bad

00:57:40.880 | and they may feel bad about themselves

00:57:42.280 | or resentful of the person with a higher sex drive.

00:57:44.700 | The person on the higher level feels now resentful

00:57:47.560 | of the person at the lower level,

00:57:48.700 | or maybe they feel like there's something wrong with them

00:57:50.760 | because their sex drive's too high,

00:57:52.180 | or they have an interest that the other person doesn't have,

00:57:55.360 | and now they start labeling themselves.

00:57:57.040 | Like, this happens all the time,

00:58:00.560 | and it doesn't change most of the time,

00:58:03.640 | and the problems are enormous, okay?

00:58:07.240 | So let's see, how could that look?

00:58:10.760 | How would that look with really high generative drives,

00:58:15.000 | and therefore the ability to think about self,

00:58:17.600 | to think about others,

00:58:18.840 | and to think about the us of the situation, right?

00:58:21.860 | The two people together, right?

00:58:23.560 | So they'd be able to talk about it

00:58:27.840 | in ways that wouldn't be faulting of the other,

00:58:32.580 | and would acknowledge what's inside of them.

00:58:35.320 | Like the person with the lower drive could say,

00:58:37.080 | you know what, just things that doesn't strike me

00:58:39.640 | as more interesting.

00:58:40.480 | I don't think about it more.

00:58:41.320 | They could talk about all of that.

00:58:43.040 | The person who wishes more or wishes different

00:58:46.200 | could talk about that too, right?

00:58:48.160 | And could talk about what they feel inside

00:58:49.960 | if there's a frustration of that,

00:58:51.220 | just like the person with the lower sex drive

00:58:52.920 | could talk about how frustrating it feels

00:58:55.200 | to feel pressured, right?

00:58:56.360 | So what are they developing?

00:58:57.840 | They're mentalizing, right?

00:58:59.160 | They're thinking about each other's emotional states,

00:59:01.960 | and they're coming at each other through agency

00:59:05.600 | and gratitude, like I'm so grateful for you.

00:59:08.200 | The example is these people are partners,

00:59:11.180 | and they're happy with their partnership.

00:59:12.620 | Like, oh my God, I'm so grateful I found you, right?

00:59:15.560 | They would each feel that way.

00:59:17.000 | I'm so grateful you're in my life.

00:59:18.480 | Like this happens too, right?

00:59:20.720 | And then from that lens,

00:59:22.820 | the two isn't going to become an eight.

00:59:24.920 | The eight isn't going to become a two, right?

00:59:27.120 | But in general, in situations like this,

00:59:29.280 | there can be somewhere in the middle, right?

00:59:31.400 | And let's say the two says, okay, you know what?

00:59:34.920 | I can get out of my comfort zone a little bit.

00:59:36.880 | Why don't most people try that?

00:59:38.520 | 'Cause they feel embarrassed.

00:59:39.520 | They feel self-conscious.

00:59:41.060 | You know, they don't want to try new things or try more.

00:59:43.680 | People get closed down

00:59:45.600 | because there's such shame around sexuality.

00:59:47.880 | You can take people on any spectrum of sexuality

00:59:50.800 | and you will find shame, you know, not in every person,

00:59:53.640 | but across whatever population we're looking at

00:59:55.780 | because it's so emotionally charged.

00:59:57.740 | So let's say in a loving, caring relationship,

01:00:00.240 | you're like, that person feels the freedom inside.

01:00:02.400 | Say, you know what?

01:00:03.580 | Maybe I could enjoy sex a little more,

01:00:05.660 | a little more often, a little more...

01:00:07.120 | That person thinks about it like somebody who's at a two

01:00:10.260 | can then move that to a different place,

01:00:12.320 | you know, a little bit more,

01:00:13.580 | or maybe even a lot more depending.

01:00:15.400 | And then the person who's at the higher level,

01:00:18.020 | you know, the eight doesn't need another eight, right?

01:00:20.440 | In order to stay in the relationship.

01:00:22.140 | But something may be more than a two, right?

01:00:24.960 | And then let's say they come into the middle

01:00:26.960 | and then the person who's an eight realizes like,

01:00:29.140 | look, I love you and you love me

01:00:31.020 | and you out of your comfort zone, right?

01:00:34.480 | In order to do this and like, and wow.

01:00:35.960 | And it's like more fun for both of us.

01:00:38.240 | So like, you know what?

01:00:39.160 | It's okay, my higher sex drive, I'll deal with that.

01:00:41.820 | That maybe just making it up,

01:00:43.360 | like I would like to do it three times a week,

01:00:45.700 | we're doing it two.

01:00:46.920 | Okay, you know what?

01:00:48.040 | That's fine.

01:00:48.860 | Both sides can live with it, but it is not threadbare.

01:00:53.020 | It's not like, well, they can live with it.

01:00:54.460 | It's like, no, number one, they can live with it.

01:00:56.420 | Number two, it's better.

01:00:59.140 | It's better, right?

01:01:00.300 | The two at one point was thinking,

01:01:02.360 | hey, anything more than a two is I can't do that, right?

01:01:04.900 | It's shut down.

01:01:05.740 | The eight doesn't want anything less than an eight.

01:01:07.080 | Now they're in the middle and their relationship is closer.

01:01:09.740 | That's real.

01:01:10.960 | That happens.

01:01:12.220 | What is it relying upon?

01:01:13.620 | It's relying upon the generative drive

01:01:15.600 | to have the openness, the ability to communicate.

01:01:17.500 | Maybe the person who's an eight say,

01:01:19.460 | has a sexual proclivity they're embarrassed about.

01:01:21.500 | That happens all the time too.

01:01:23.020 | But in the sense of acceptance of self

01:01:25.300 | and the belief in the strength of the relationship

01:01:28.580 | and the acceptance of the other,

01:01:30.140 | people can broach things.

01:01:31.620 | Most people who feel like,

01:01:32.620 | oh, I could never broach that.

01:01:34.180 | It's not something bizarre or dangerous.

01:01:37.060 | It's not something that in a relationship

01:01:39.000 | that's defined by the generative drive,

01:01:41.900 | the other person is likely to reject.

01:01:44.300 | So let's define our relationships

01:01:47.900 | through the generative drive

01:01:49.600 | and let's cultivate in self and others

01:01:52.440 | the most generative drive.

01:01:54.220 | If somehow, let's say person A and person B here,

01:01:57.420 | 'cause it doesn't matter who's the eight and who's the two,

01:01:59.420 | has cultivated more of a generative drive,

01:02:01.740 | then maybe that person could give more to the other

01:02:04.580 | before that person can give back to them.

01:02:07.100 | We have these, I think,

01:02:10.620 | completely nonsensical ideas about mutuality.

01:02:14.540 | The idea that even in a situation

01:02:16.380 | that's supposed to be defined by love.

01:02:18.740 | And friendship is a form of love.

01:02:20.660 | So friendship, a collaborative endeavor.

01:02:25.040 | They have some affection in them.

01:02:27.780 | Friendship can have love and often does.

01:02:29.940 | And let's say the love of romance,

01:02:32.220 | that there's supposed to be some equality.

01:02:35.020 | The idea that, well, if I'm gonna give something,

01:02:37.260 | I want you to give something too.

01:02:39.580 | It is not good if one person is always doing the giving.

01:02:43.780 | Things are out of balance.

01:02:45.220 | But it is very healthy to be able to say,

01:02:48.160 | you know, if I can give something

01:02:49.540 | and you're not in a place to give something,

01:02:50.980 | let me just give something to you.

01:02:53.100 | People don't always, or maybe don't often,

01:02:56.540 | depend on how we wanna look at it,

01:02:58.140 | give to others with a sense of freedom.

01:03:00.420 | And you don't owe me anything either, right?

01:03:03.300 | Why?

01:03:04.120 | Because it comes from love.

01:03:04.960 | It comes from the abundance,

01:03:06.740 | the excess of goodness in me coming through

01:03:10.700 | the agency that I feel, the gratitude that I feel.

01:03:14.100 | And then what's more likely?

01:03:15.380 | You're much more likely, the other person, right?

01:03:19.140 | To sort of feel like, hey, I can go a little more.

01:03:21.260 | You feel stronger, you feel empowered.

01:03:23.300 | Making someone feel worse or saying, you know what?

01:03:26.340 | I can give you something, but you owe me something back.

01:03:29.140 | Even if that's tacit, I can give you this now,

01:03:31.780 | but you kinda know that the other person's

01:03:33.240 | gonna end up doing the laundry for two months or something.

01:03:34.980 | Like, this is not okay, why don't I just give something?

01:03:37.300 | Right, you're giving goodness,

01:03:38.480 | and then the other person actually gets the goodness,

01:03:40.860 | and they're more likely to find it within themselves, right?

01:03:44.020 | To then come a little out of their comfort zone,

01:03:47.900 | move their generative drive a little bit forward.

01:03:51.540 | So gifts given to others with no expectation of return

01:03:56.540 | are gifts of abundance.

01:03:58.020 | They're gifts that arise from the generative drive,

01:04:00.580 | and they make us more generative.

01:04:01.940 | Think about the opposite, what often happens?

01:04:03.700 | Each person makes the other feel guilty, right?

01:04:06.460 | Right, oh, this person wants, he wants so much,

01:04:08.480 | and look, there you are again.

01:04:09.320 | Like, people feel terrible about that,

01:04:10.840 | or, you know, you don't want any sex, or this or that.

01:04:13.100 | The other person feels terrible, like,

01:04:15.660 | that's why the two stays the two

01:04:17.140 | and the eight stays the eight, right?

01:04:18.900 | But it doesn't have to be that way,

01:04:20.140 | and it's also not that if both end up in the middle,

01:04:22.580 | say both are a five, that that's some compromised position

01:04:25.580 | that implies less.

01:04:26.940 | No, that's the compromised position that makes more.

01:04:29.980 | - I'd like to take a brief break

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01:05:50.200 | Based on my understanding of the generative drive,

01:05:52.760 | the aggressive, also we're calling it proactiveness drive,

01:05:56.460 | and the pleasure drive, and the importance

01:06:00.300 | of the generative drive being greater

01:06:02.620 | than the aggressive or pleasure drives.

01:06:05.860 | I can also see the potential problem

01:06:08.300 | of having like two eights along the sexual desire scale,

01:06:12.540 | or two nines, or two tens.

01:06:15.720 | And actually I've observed a lot of examples of this.

01:06:18.460 | For instance, if there are, let's say two nines,

01:06:22.780 | they're both people nine out of 10 on the joy

01:06:26.720 | and sort of proclivity for sex, adventurous sex, et cetera,

01:06:30.220 | on the very high on the pleasure scale.

01:06:32.420 | Perhaps even so much so that they don't pay attention to,

01:06:37.100 | or one person doesn't pay attention to the critical need

01:06:40.900 | for points of compatibility to be met,

01:06:43.740 | like the desire to someday have a family.

01:06:46.060 | I've known couples like this.

01:06:47.920 | They're together for a long time.

01:06:49.060 | They seem to really enjoy one another.

01:06:50.580 | I know nothing of their sex lives,

01:06:52.180 | but there just seems to be a very strong attachment

01:06:55.260 | around certain forms of pleasure

01:06:57.540 | that they both enjoy engaging in.

01:06:59.160 | So this could be activities or travel.

01:07:01.620 | I mean, here we're saying nine out of 10 on the sex scale.

01:07:05.700 | But in many of those cases, there's one person saying,

01:07:10.300 | but I want to have a family someday,

01:07:11.680 | and they're just not into that.

01:07:13.080 | Or perhaps even like, but he won't leave his wife, right?

01:07:17.100 | They're like involved in something that feels really good.

01:07:19.940 | They're matching along some pleasure drive,

01:07:23.420 | but completely overlooking the larger goals

01:07:26.100 | of one or both people, right?

01:07:28.460 | And here I pointed to an instance of infidelity.

01:07:32.180 | That's its own issues with morals, et cetera.

01:07:35.700 | But you see this a lot,

01:07:37.880 | like people really orienting towards what feels good

01:07:40.480 | and who feels good to be with.

01:07:42.160 | And that of course is healthy,

01:07:44.140 | but that's not the entire picture.

01:07:46.360 | So would you say that what I'm describing

01:07:49.080 | is an example of where the pleasure drive

01:07:51.520 | has overcome the generative drive?

01:07:54.160 | Because in the case of somebody wanting a family

01:07:57.140 | and the other person already having one

01:07:58.600 | and being unwilling to leave that one,

01:07:59.940 | or the other person not wanting a family,

01:08:03.700 | that the generative drive of the person

01:08:06.940 | who wants a family is not being respected,

01:08:11.060 | or it's being undermined by this excess desire for pleasure.

01:08:13.820 | Like they're just drawn into the moment

01:08:15.400 | and the amazing weekends,

01:08:18.000 | but this person's incredible and they're charismatic.

01:08:20.160 | And I can't tell you how many times I've had friends say

01:08:23.020 | that they admire the person they're with,

01:08:26.840 | but they know the relationship can't work

01:08:28.640 | because of all these other underlying issues.

01:08:31.320 | Right, right, right.

01:08:33.240 | It's interesting.

01:08:34.180 | We both overestimate and underestimate

01:08:37.760 | what say love can do, right?

01:08:40.760 | People say, "Oh, love can do anything."

01:08:42.240 | No, if I spill that glass,

01:08:43.600 | love's not gonna put the water back in it, right?

01:08:46.880 | If I must live in North America

01:08:49.940 | and my partner must live in South America,

01:08:52.240 | like we're not gonna be okay, right?

01:08:55.160 | So we say these things in a very wishful way.

01:08:57.560 | Love will overcome everything,

01:08:58.720 | like it doesn't overcome that, right?

01:09:00.920 | Or maybe it does in the right circumstances.

01:09:05.840 | So think about if the generative drive

01:09:09.000 | is very, very high, right, in both people.

01:09:13.560 | So both people have say a strong need

01:09:15.720 | to live in a certain place,

01:09:17.320 | they can find a compromise position.

01:09:19.240 | Maybe they live half the year in North America

01:09:21.400 | and half in South America, but why?

01:09:23.680 | Because in that situation, the love between them,

01:09:27.280 | which is the generative drive in the relationship, right?

01:09:31.200 | So what does that mean?

01:09:33.200 | The first person has to have a strong generative drive,

01:09:36.000 | be healthy, understand that even though

01:09:38.240 | I need to live in North America,

01:09:40.600 | does it actually mean that?

01:09:41.720 | Do I really need to live in North America?

01:09:43.440 | Right, I have to be able to see beyond myself.

01:09:45.120 | And what does that mean to the person I love

01:09:47.120 | who needs to live on the other side of the world?

01:09:48.980 | If the other person can do that too,

01:09:51.480 | then in the relationship, which is a new entity, right?

01:09:55.720 | It emerges from one person and the other.

01:09:58.140 | You can know everything about one person,

01:09:59.980 | everything about the other.

01:10:01.880 | You don't know about the two of them together, right?

01:10:04.520 | So the two of them together are an us.

01:10:07.600 | And if that us has a strong generative drive,

01:10:10.660 | which it can, if each person has a strong generative drive,

01:10:15.320 | they can bring to the state of emergence of the us,

01:10:17.860 | the generative drive.

01:10:19.240 | And that's the, we're talking about a relationship,

01:10:21.280 | let's also say the love between them,

01:10:22.960 | and they can find a way through.

01:10:24.900 | So the idea that like love cures all things,

01:10:28.600 | like we have to find what does that actually mean, right?

01:10:30.840 | It doesn't mean we have a lot of pleasure together, right?

01:10:33.340 | Or we like a lot of the same things.

01:10:35.240 | Like that's not what that means.

01:10:36.440 | And people can very, very much love one another,

01:10:39.260 | but not be aware of the limitations inside of them, right?

01:10:42.720 | Because maybe there are other things going on in them,

01:10:45.480 | like say childhood trauma, they love one another,

01:10:47.540 | but they can't get out of their comfort zone enough, right?

01:10:50.760 | So the point is if we make ourselves as healthy

01:10:53.920 | as we can be, and then two selves come together

01:10:57.380 | that are making themselves as healthy as they can be,

01:11:00.420 | then the us between them really can fit that definition

01:11:04.880 | of love and do anything.

01:11:06.880 | But we have to define that in the right way,

01:11:09.560 | in a way that honors the truth, which again,

01:11:11.600 | is not a higher degree of complexity,

01:11:14.080 | it's actually more simple.

01:11:15.880 | - So you gave an example of a romantic relationship

01:11:18.300 | where one person has a strong sex drive

01:11:21.380 | and the other a weaker drive.

01:11:23.080 | And then we talked about an example

01:11:25.320 | where both people have a essentially high sex drive

01:11:28.700 | and where that could potentially be beneficial,

01:11:31.720 | assuming that the generative drive

01:11:33.160 | is also high in both of them.

01:11:34.600 | And we also explored a little bit of how it can be bad

01:11:38.500 | for relationship if it exceeds the generative drive.

01:11:41.660 | What about the aggressive proactiveness drive?

01:11:45.340 | How does that show up in romantic parents?

01:11:48.440 | If one person has a high proactiveness,

01:11:51.840 | AKA aggressive drive, and the other person does not,

01:11:54.660 | what does that look like?

01:11:56.720 | And do you see that often in your clinical practice?

01:11:59.620 | - Sure, sure.

01:12:01.000 | If this makes sense, maybe we look at that example

01:12:03.600 | of the person who's a two and the person who's an eight

01:12:05.880 | on the sex drive scale, right?

01:12:08.560 | You'd say, okay, the person who's a two

01:12:10.400 | who's trying to raise that, right,

01:12:13.560 | has a strong generative drive.

01:12:15.120 | What does that mean?

01:12:15.960 | The person thinks, you know what, I think I can do this.

01:12:18.280 | I can set myself about this.

01:12:19.480 | I see it will make my relationship better.

01:12:21.240 | Like, I'm gonna give it a try.

01:12:22.720 | That's the generative drive in action.

01:12:24.680 | The pleasure drive, the person may look at that and say,

01:12:26.820 | look, maybe this can be more fun for me, right?

01:12:29.320 | Like, has it been that fun for me?

01:12:30.900 | If I have a low pleasure drive,

01:12:32.280 | could I start enjoying this more?

01:12:34.200 | And then maybe that moves up, right?

01:12:35.920 | Or maybe I have a higher pleasure drive,

01:12:37.700 | but it's not been gratified

01:12:39.060 | 'cause I haven't been able to be open and honest.

01:12:40.620 | Like, let me see if I can make that better.

01:12:43.180 | Then what's active, what the person is doing

01:12:46.780 | is then going to the aggressive or assertive,

01:12:50.200 | proactive, right, to that drive

01:12:52.420 | and going to the potential in that drive

01:12:55.180 | and mining some of what's in it.

01:12:57.100 | Like, yeah, how am I gonna do that?

01:12:58.680 | I'm gonna bring myself to bear, right?

01:13:01.220 | And like, that's not an easy thing.

01:13:02.880 | It's not like that person then all of a sudden decides

01:13:06.020 | to be more sexual, right?

01:13:07.500 | There has to be a lot of communication

01:13:08.920 | between the two people, a lot of discussion

01:13:10.940 | of what setting might be best for that,

01:13:13.260 | what helps the person feel understood

01:13:14.940 | or feel more comfortable.

01:13:15.820 | Like, there's a lot then to do there.

01:13:18.660 | And the person may even need to go back to the pillars,

01:13:22.020 | right, 'cause the person may feel like,

01:13:23.140 | whoa, I don't think I can do that, right?

01:13:26.780 | And then it is, that's not good.

01:13:28.260 | I wanna do that, right?

01:13:29.380 | What is it that I can't do?

01:13:30.380 | There's a realization there.

01:13:31.900 | And then maybe the person who's an aide

01:13:33.660 | because they're so well-connected gets it.

01:13:36.220 | Okay, you can't do that.

01:13:37.460 | Like, let me support you, right, in whatever way,

01:13:40.420 | while you're figuring that out,

01:13:41.500 | 'cause they're both generative.

01:13:42.420 | They wanna figure that out.

01:13:44.340 | - Sorry to interrupt.

01:13:45.180 | When you say go back to the pillars,

01:13:46.380 | you mean go back to exploring the structure of themselves

01:13:50.420 | and the function of themselves

01:13:51.900 | so that they can, for instance, get some insight

01:13:55.540 | into what sorts of defense mechanisms might be in place,

01:13:58.600 | what they're paying attention to, or their behaviors,

01:14:02.300 | like maybe even health-related behaviors

01:14:04.620 | that could be impacting their sex drive,

01:14:06.700 | but maybe even things that reside at a deeper level,

01:14:10.860 | the unconscious mind, you know,

01:14:12.120 | talking to somebody till they make a connection

01:14:14.140 | around shame or some story that they've integrated

01:14:19.140 | into their thinking at a subconscious level.

01:14:21.580 | - Right, right, just an example that I see a lot

01:14:24.060 | is avoidance, where, again, not always,

01:14:26.820 | but let's say the person who's the two

01:14:30.100 | on the sex drive scale who finds like, I can't do it, right?

01:14:34.180 | Wow, I just can't bring myself to do it, right?

01:14:36.460 | And then they go back and they explore.

01:14:37.940 | This happens a lot, where there's avoidance.

01:14:41.700 | And then we get curious about the avoidance.

01:14:44.140 | 'Cause the person's like, I just,

01:14:45.660 | there's something, I'm just, I don't want to do that, right?

01:14:49.060 | Okay, so there's avoidance.

01:14:50.220 | We identify avoidance.

01:14:51.660 | We also identify that it's not healthy

01:14:53.120 | because the person does actually want to do that

01:14:55.260 | 'cause it's good for their relationship

01:14:56.900 | and it could be good for them too.

01:14:58.540 | And then maybe we start looking at unconscious mind, right?

01:15:01.860 | Or conscious mind, right?

01:15:03.020 | And maybe we don't find,

01:15:04.580 | 'cause it's easy now if I said,

01:15:06.660 | oh, there was a major trauma

01:15:08.040 | that the person hasn't processed.

01:15:09.340 | Sometimes it's that.

01:15:10.740 | But a lot of times it's not that.

01:15:12.620 | Maybe that person just never learned

01:15:14.140 | to feel comfortable with sexuality.

01:15:16.620 | Or maybe the way that they experience

01:15:19.660 | or are attracted to sexuality was disparaged

01:15:24.060 | or denigrated, right?

01:15:25.660 | Or they had some bad feeling about it

01:15:27.640 | 'cause the society and the culture told them that.

01:15:29.780 | Or maybe they had a couple of bad experiences

01:15:31.820 | where they were treated in a certain way.

01:15:33.500 | And then it's like, okay, that person comes by that honestly.

01:15:36.340 | There's not a major trauma there.

01:15:37.900 | In fact, unfortunately, there's a trauma

01:15:40.420 | that's almost predictable from the way our society

01:15:44.140 | has been structured.

01:15:45.380 | So a person can go look at that.

01:15:46.860 | I'm like, right, I never learned how to do this

01:15:51.860 | or how to be comfortable with this.

01:15:53.840 | Or I learned that I'm not good at it.

01:15:57.400 | Or I learned that no one will enjoy it with me.

01:16:01.460 | But that's not true.

01:16:02.860 | These are situations not in the sight

01:16:04.540 | of a loving relationship, right?

01:16:06.180 | Now that person is able to bring that knowledge to bear,

01:16:09.460 | whether it came from the unconscious mind

01:16:11.460 | or the conscious mind.

01:16:12.800 | And then that's how you work to start shifting things.

01:16:15.380 | Like that was then, this is now, right?

01:16:17.780 | It is not then when say the person say in high school

01:16:20.580 | had a sexuality that others didn't approve of

01:16:23.340 | and made them feel bad.

01:16:24.200 | Well, guess what?

01:16:25.040 | It's not then.

01:16:25.860 | And like, that's unfortunate, it's wrong, it's unjust.

01:16:29.180 | We're gonna honor and validate all that that is.

01:16:32.100 | But we're also gonna look at that that was then,

01:16:34.800 | this is now, and you get to behave differently now.

01:16:37.900 | You're an adult now,

01:16:39.340 | and adults get to choose their relationships

01:16:40.980 | and you chose a good relationship, right?

01:16:42.580 | So this is the kind of thing that can get that person

01:16:46.000 | to the point where they can go back up through.

01:16:48.300 | Now, what happens at the end of it?

01:16:49.780 | The geyser is stronger.

01:16:51.340 | There's more agency.

01:16:52.280 | There's more of a sense of gratitude, right?

01:16:54.260 | Why?

01:16:55.100 | Because the person can attach themselves more to,

01:16:57.260 | I'm so lucky to have this person,

01:16:58.900 | as opposed to, damn it,

01:17:00.340 | I wish that person didn't have a higher sex drive, right?

01:17:02.780 | So the person, and they feel better about themselves

01:17:04.800 | instead of what's wrong with me

01:17:06.140 | that I don't have a higher sex drive, right?

01:17:08.740 | So they wish the other person had a lower sex drive,

01:17:10.700 | or wish they had a higher sex drive.

01:17:12.380 | That's not grateful.

01:17:13.300 | I'm grateful I am who I am

01:17:14.880 | and that I have any sex drive at all

01:17:16.460 | and I'm grateful for this other person.

01:17:18.200 | Now, through that, that change,

01:17:22.820 | they can go back and better access the assertion,

01:17:27.280 | the proactive drive, the aggressive drive,

01:17:29.660 | whatever we wanna call it,

01:17:30.580 | because they've taken away,

01:17:32.340 | they've gone and worked through the barrier to it.

01:17:34.920 | Then they're able to be a little more

01:17:36.020 | out of their comfort zone

01:17:36.980 | and the other person meets them there, right?

01:17:39.140 | And they start having this healthy thing between them

01:17:43.380 | where the us, that is them,

01:17:45.260 | the love between them gets better, right?

01:17:48.020 | And then where do they find themselves?

01:17:49.320 | That's how they get to the five,

01:17:51.260 | which is not a compromise

01:17:53.340 | between eight and two that satisfies neither.

01:17:55.840 | It is a compromise between eight and two

01:17:58.180 | that is way better for both and for the relationship.

01:18:01.700 | - I'm curious about common pairings

01:18:05.500 | that you observe in the clinical setting

01:18:07.660 | and not to focus on the bad,

01:18:11.340 | but if there are common pairings

01:18:14.600 | that rarely lead to a good outcome,

01:18:17.700 | I think it's worth us learning about those

01:18:21.340 | simply because they're common

01:18:23.860 | and they lead to a bad outcome.

01:18:25.860 | And a discussion of this sort

01:18:28.300 | could potentially help people avoid such pairings

01:18:31.260 | or at least recognize that they're in such pairings.

01:18:34.900 | And I realize, of course,

01:18:36.380 | because of the way that we're framing things

01:18:38.140 | during this series,

01:18:40.100 | that any time we talk about a pairing,

01:18:42.340 | we're really talking about two maps coming together,

01:18:46.460 | forming a new and somewhat independent map

01:18:50.500 | that represents the relationship.

01:18:53.360 | I have to assume that many people in the world

01:18:56.180 | have maps that are very, very healthy,

01:18:58.140 | and they're probably even those rare individuals

01:19:01.600 | that don't need to go into those cupboards

01:19:03.600 | that reside within structure of self and function of self

01:19:05.960 | and do any work.

01:19:06.800 | But for those of you that are just listening

01:19:08.960 | and not watching this,

01:19:09.800 | I'm sort of smiling as I'm saying that

01:19:10.840 | because I don't actually believe any such person exists.

01:19:14.920 | I think all of us, even the healthiest among us,

01:19:17.360 | could be even healthier

01:19:19.420 | and express more generative drive

01:19:21.440 | and more positivity for ourselves

01:19:23.240 | and for the world, were we to do that work.

01:19:25.300 | So it's a lifelong-

01:19:26.140 | - There's no end point to that.

01:19:27.860 | That's beautiful.

01:19:28.700 | We can do that forever as long as we're here.

01:19:31.480 | - And should, I do believe, right?

01:19:33.540 | Which is one of the reasons for having this discussion.

01:19:35.780 | - Exactly.

01:19:36.620 | - Nonetheless, I have to imagine

01:19:40.580 | that there are also a lot of people out there,

01:19:42.500 | perhaps most people who still have a lot of work to do.

01:19:46.460 | And those words, a lot perhaps,

01:19:48.660 | are in boldface, capital, underlined, highlighted letters.

01:19:52.600 | Right?

01:19:53.440 | And as a consequence,

01:19:55.560 | we see relationships in the world that are not healthy.

01:19:59.660 | What are some of those common unhealthy pairings?

01:20:01.880 | I think it's worth spending

01:20:02.800 | at least a little bit of time on this.

01:20:04.120 | - Yeah, yeah.

01:20:05.280 | As we talk about this,

01:20:06.800 | I think that we should make a sort of somewhat simplified,

01:20:10.240 | but hopefully helpful distinction, right?

01:20:12.740 | So there are people who are coming at coupling

01:20:15.220 | from primarily health, right?

01:20:17.640 | And again, this isn't to criticize people

01:20:19.380 | who aren't coming at it from primarily health.

01:20:21.280 | We all want to get to where we're coming at anything

01:20:23.880 | and everything from primarily health.

01:20:25.820 | And there, a lot of the problems are those simple things.

01:20:29.260 | Like, wow, I can't believe it didn't work out.

01:20:31.300 | I play the trumpet and he plays the clarinet.

01:20:33.480 | It's like, no, that wasn't a real set of factors.

01:20:36.640 | That's why it didn't work out.

01:20:37.600 | Like, it's more in that realm.

01:20:40.280 | It's not always just that,

01:20:41.120 | but like that kind of stuff is a big factor, right?

01:20:43.980 | When we look in the other realm

01:20:46.320 | where there's a significantly problematic

01:20:51.320 | mental health issues, right?

01:20:53.800 | Which people come by honestly,

01:20:56.840 | but need to face if life is gonna get better, right?

01:21:00.680 | There are two common paradigms there.

01:21:03.960 | Now again, there are way more than two ways

01:21:05.840 | this can happen, but I'm gonna highlight two

01:21:09.040 | that we see a lot and maybe more than anything else

01:21:12.700 | in the clinical setting.

01:21:14.680 | So the first gets called repetition compulsion, right?

01:21:19.320 | But don't be very, very clear.

01:21:20.740 | I do not believe that there is any such thing

01:21:23.420 | as a repetition compulsion.

01:21:25.280 | A compulsion is something that one cannot control, right?

01:21:28.420 | What's going on inside the person is very, very complicated

01:21:31.220 | when they're making decisions that lead to repeating a cycle

01:21:34.480 | and those are things that can change, right?

01:21:36.920 | And do not have to be compulsive.

01:21:38.660 | So people are often struck by why a person

01:21:42.960 | is in the same bad relationship seemingly

01:21:45.600 | that they have always been in,

01:21:47.280 | but with a different name on the other person, right?

01:21:50.180 | I mean, people will say this,

01:21:51.680 | like it's that person's fourth abusive relationship in a row

01:21:54.760 | and it seems to be just the same person

01:21:56.700 | with a different name.

01:21:57.540 | Like that people say that a lot.

01:21:59.360 | They say that about themselves, they say that about others

01:22:01.920 | and it's very, very baffling.

01:22:03.200 | I mean, people have often been in my office

01:22:06.120 | very upset about that, like realizing they're repeating

01:22:08.920 | and they don't know and it's frightening

01:22:10.800 | and you can get a lot of fear and vulnerability from that,

01:22:14.960 | but there's a way of understanding that

01:22:16.840 | because the limbic system, right?

01:22:20.840 | The emotional parts of our minds

01:22:23.680 | don't care about the clock and the calendar, right?

01:22:26.280 | So trauma impacts, well, it impacts the whole brain,

01:22:30.400 | but trauma impacts the limbic system.

01:22:32.800 | It creates strong, negative emotion

01:22:35.720 | that then stays with us regardless of time.

01:22:38.560 | It doesn't care about time, right?

01:22:40.440 | So imagine now a person gets in a relationship

01:22:44.960 | and the relationship starts to become abusive, right?

01:22:49.960 | I mean, it's easy to say that

01:22:51.920 | and then move on to something else.

01:22:54.000 | What's that like for that person?

01:22:55.960 | What does that feel like when that person

01:22:58.200 | who they may have seen as a protector or friend, right?

01:23:01.040 | Is now cursing at them, denigrating them, pushing them,

01:23:04.860 | hitting them, I mean, it's terrifying.

01:23:06.800 | It's horrible, right?

01:23:08.720 | So there's a deep impact, a traumatic impact on the person.

01:23:11.920 | And a lot of the time, most of the time,

01:23:15.040 | like all trauma, it triggers shame, right?

01:23:19.040 | So trauma triggers shame in us.

01:23:20.760 | If the trauma is strong enough,

01:23:22.680 | it changes us as we move forward in the world.

01:23:25.380 | And then we are different in a way that makes the past

01:23:29.520 | very immediate in the present.

01:23:32.280 | So what the person then is trying to do,

01:23:36.000 | and there's been a lot of thought about this

01:23:37.680 | over the years in the fields, trying to understand this.

01:23:40.580 | And I think in many ways,

01:23:41.520 | doing a good job of understanding this,

01:23:44.240 | that the "repetition compulsion" is the drive,

01:23:49.240 | and I don't mean drive, like we're saying,

01:23:51.320 | there's a push inside the person

01:23:53.360 | to try and make that right, right?

01:23:56.320 | With the idea that if that person

01:23:57.840 | can be in that situation again, right?

01:24:00.280 | And I don't mean in the exact situation

01:24:01.800 | when someone raises a hand to them,

01:24:03.260 | but they can navigate a relationship.

01:24:05.360 | It's like they thought it was a good idea the first time.

01:24:07.760 | So they don't want to feel like that was a very bad idea.

01:24:10.700 | So I'm going to make it right.

01:24:11.700 | And then I'm going to be okay.

01:24:12.680 | And I'm going to be whole, right?

01:24:14.000 | Because the person is driven by fear and vulnerability

01:24:16.320 | and the shame of the trauma, right?

01:24:18.020 | So then they're trying to make it right

01:24:19.720 | because the limbic system doesn't care

01:24:22.880 | about the clock or the calendar.

01:24:24.120 | If you can make it right now,

01:24:25.440 | you make it right in the past, right?

01:24:28.000 | 'Cause that system doesn't care about the past.

01:24:29.560 | It's driven by trauma.

01:24:31.600 | So then the person's trying to figure out

01:24:34.020 | something that is different.

01:24:35.240 | They're trying to choose that person,

01:24:36.440 | behave in the relationship.

01:24:37.960 | They're trying to make things different,

01:24:40.060 | but they've selected for a dramatically high

01:24:44.320 | pretest probability of the same thing happening again,

01:24:48.500 | which is why, you know,

01:24:50.120 | if I could count the number of times

01:24:52.600 | that someone has said to me,

01:24:54.280 | oh, you're not going to help me,

01:24:56.320 | especially at the beginning of therapy,

01:24:57.640 | there's no way you can help me, right?

01:24:59.500 | My last five relationships were totally terrible.

01:25:02.920 | Like, there's no way, there's no hope, right?

01:25:05.380 | People have said that to me.

01:25:06.480 | Someone has, the last three, the last five, the last nine.

01:25:09.460 | And I will say back,

01:25:10.800 | if you tell me seven different stories

01:25:14.500 | of relationships with seven pretty different people,

01:25:17.520 | several different relationships as they evolved

01:25:19.840 | and the same really bad outcome, I'll agree with you.

01:25:23.040 | But you're not going to tell me that.

01:25:25.680 | And that's why there's hope.

01:25:27.800 | And no one has ever told me seven different stories, right?

01:25:32.160 | Feel like, wow, you just can't do it, right?

01:25:35.120 | No, and again, even if there were seven,

01:25:36.640 | you know, I'm saying the same thing for exaggeration, right?

01:25:38.600 | But there are, but there aren't, right?

01:25:40.560 | What is it?

01:25:41.400 | It's the same thing seven times.

01:25:43.400 | That's what it is because the person is repeating

01:25:45.460 | and if they can understand the what and the why,

01:25:47.760 | why are they selecting?

01:25:49.280 | How are they selecting someone?

01:25:50.440 | What's going on inside of them?

01:25:52.160 | We go back to the structure of self, the function of self.

01:25:55.660 | We address what is there.

01:25:57.280 | Then that absolutely can change.

01:26:01.180 | And then what will we talk about

01:26:02.760 | is that person then goes out to find another relationship.

01:26:05.740 | Even if they said they never, never, never would again,

01:26:07.740 | like now they're making the decision to go out.

01:26:09.480 | This is to say, what relationship are you looking for?

01:26:12.000 | Your second.

01:26:13.600 | You're the first one seven times, no harm, no foul,

01:26:16.840 | but you can navigate the second

01:26:18.700 | because they're in a different place.

01:26:21.600 | They're coming through agency and gratitude

01:26:24.060 | instead of denigrating themselves.

01:26:26.000 | If you're, what's wrong with me?

01:26:27.000 | What's wrong with everybody else?

01:26:29.280 | I'm here, right?

01:26:30.800 | Even though like some bad things have happened to me,

01:26:32.740 | look at what I can bring myself to bear.

01:26:34.260 | I can go out there and try and find someone

01:26:35.900 | I can see with clear vision.

01:26:38.720 | Now there's agency, there's gratitude.

01:26:41.620 | And then that person can go out

01:26:42.960 | and find relationship number two, that's a really good one.

01:26:46.240 | - In the example you gave it's very powerful

01:26:49.320 | and also very extreme, an abusive relationship

01:26:52.340 | where someone is sadly getting hit or screamed at.

01:26:56.460 | Oftentimes it seems people end up

01:26:59.400 | in repeated unsuccessful pairings,

01:27:02.000 | meaning unhappy pairings of maybe someone

01:27:05.480 | who's very strongly assertive.

01:27:07.520 | Maybe we would say have a strong, aggressive drive.

01:27:10.960 | Some people might even call them a narcissist.

01:27:13.340 | That phrase is thrown around a lot these days.

01:27:15.560 | I mean, narcissist, gaslighting, like projection.

01:27:18.280 | These phrases are thrown around all the time.

01:27:20.200 | I think with frankly very little understanding

01:27:23.320 | of what they actually mean,

01:27:25.560 | unless they're coming from a qualified clinician.

01:27:29.000 | Is it the case that somewhat passive

01:27:33.800 | or submissive people are drawn to narcissists?

01:27:38.480 | Are narcissists drawn to submissive people?

01:27:41.040 | I think these questions ring in a lot of people's minds.

01:27:43.420 | - If I could clarify something

01:27:45.200 | that I think I maybe could have said in a clearer way.

01:27:48.040 | You pointed out that the example I gave

01:27:50.500 | was a very strong one, an extreme one, right?

01:27:53.260 | So as a physician, I think I naturally gravitate

01:27:56.800 | to the extreme circumstances

01:27:58.580 | because they're the ones that bring the greatest risk, right?

01:28:01.120 | But we are talking to people in those settings, right?

01:28:05.120 | But most people are not in those extreme settings, right?

01:28:08.840 | But that extreme serves as a model

01:28:11.540 | for how things that are less extreme can happen.

01:28:14.080 | So when I think, right, we're sitting here

01:28:15.960 | talking to everyone across the spectrum

01:28:18.420 | and most relationships that are not going well,

01:28:20.640 | thank goodness, are not gonna be that extreme.

01:28:22.840 | The repeated patterns aren't gonna be that extreme.

01:28:26.000 | But it's just as important to pay attention to a pattern

01:28:29.080 | where one person really is sort of more deferential

01:28:33.680 | than they would like to be to the other,

01:28:35.700 | than is comfortable to them.

01:28:37.000 | And they're seeking someone ultimately

01:28:38.960 | who's just a little bit more assertive.

01:28:40.700 | And that's not some disaster,

01:28:42.820 | but it can not go well over time

01:28:45.280 | where that person slowly gives up, say,

01:28:46.880 | more and more of themselves.

01:28:48.560 | And there can be that repeated pattern.

01:28:50.280 | You hear people say, yeah, it was a pretty good,

01:28:52.880 | pretty equal at the beginning.

01:28:54.080 | But then, I just had like less and less of a say or every,

01:28:59.080 | or then more and more,

01:29:00.960 | like I just became the whole relationship, right?

01:29:04.280 | So it's no less important when it's less dramatic, right?

01:29:08.160 | Because the relationship still goes in a wrong way.

01:29:10.460 | When it's more dramatic, there's more risk, of course.

01:29:13.280 | But most people are gonna be in the less dramatic,

01:29:15.800 | but super important category.

01:29:19.240 | And I think it's important to point that out too.

01:29:24.000 | How much of what we're talking about

01:29:26.280 | is nested on people's deep, perhaps understandable desire

01:29:30.960 | to just make sure that the other person doesn't leave?

01:29:33.960 | I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've heard about

01:29:36.960 | or observed relationships that from the outside,

01:29:39.080 | it seemed really unhealthy.

01:29:41.160 | But it also occurred to me that people are doing things

01:29:45.800 | on both sides of the relationship

01:29:47.680 | that ensure that the other person doesn't leave.

01:29:50.480 | So I'm not talking about a physical trapping

01:29:52.040 | of someone in the environment.

01:29:53.080 | I'm actually talking about the opposite.

01:29:54.220 | I'm talking about somebody going against

01:29:56.200 | their better judgment and doing things for the other person

01:30:00.940 | or against themselves or both,

01:30:03.000 | perhaps even in the context of what looks like healthy family

01:30:07.320 | like doing an excessive amount of raising of children

01:30:11.400 | or excessive amount of work to support the family

01:30:15.000 | simply to ensure that the other person doesn't leave.

01:30:19.420 | - Right, right.

01:30:20.480 | Here again, we can look across the spectrum, right?

01:30:23.480 | So before this, you had talked about relationships

01:30:25.800 | that can be very unhealthy, like a narcissistic person

01:30:28.280 | and how can those relationships develop?

01:30:30.320 | It's important that we touch on that in the context of this

01:30:34.160 | because that's sort of the extreme example.

01:30:36.320 | So people who are narcissistic,

01:30:38.080 | meaning a narcissistic character structure.

01:30:40.280 | Now we're getting into the realm

01:30:41.380 | of significant psychiatric problems

01:30:43.920 | and people who are narcissistic are exploitive, right?

01:30:47.100 | They're a bottomless pit of need arising from vulnerability

01:30:50.580 | and yes, they can be helped.

01:30:52.140 | And if someone out there thinks I'm narcissistic,

01:30:54.100 | then I'm not trying to be negative or mean,

01:30:56.060 | like you can get help and you can be better.

01:30:57.660 | That's the whole point of what you

01:30:58.860 | and I are talking about here, right?

01:31:01.220 | So people can change, but someone who's coming at the world

01:31:04.820 | through a narcissistic character structure

01:31:06.460 | is exploitive of the other and then can say survey a room

01:31:09.940 | and find that person who's had trauma

01:31:12.140 | such that that person is gonna be desperate

01:31:13.780 | not to leave a relationship.

01:31:15.180 | And then they can exploit that person

01:31:16.580 | and often behave in awful ways

01:31:17.980 | and the other person won't leave.

01:31:19.620 | Now I'm giving an example.

01:31:20.860 | It's not the case that way every single time,

01:31:24.140 | but that's the dominant picture

01:31:27.620 | if you have a narcissistic person

01:31:29.760 | and who is that person more likely to pair with

01:31:32.200 | and then you sense the vulnerability,

01:31:33.740 | the desire for the other person not to leave.

01:31:36.320 | So, and that person would have to have then

01:31:38.540 | significant problems in themselves,

01:31:40.260 | like potentially instead of a pathological level

01:31:43.080 | of narcissism, a pathological level of dependence,

01:31:46.560 | for example.

01:31:47.480 | So we're in the realm then of real problems.

01:31:52.260 | And again, real problems can be treated

01:31:53.740 | and real problems can be improved

01:31:55.480 | and that's why we have clinical care,

01:31:57.720 | but it can also serve as a model for seeing

01:32:00.840 | the ways that are less dramatic, right?

01:32:04.760 | So there are many people who through the desire

01:32:09.480 | for the other person not to leave

01:32:10.960 | and we could call that attachment insecurity, right?

01:32:13.980 | And maybe if we leave away the stereotype version of it,

01:32:17.280 | right, the person doesn't feel securely attached

01:32:19.320 | to the other person, right?

01:32:20.640 | And somewhere inside of them, they've learned

01:32:24.880 | that if they're more pleasing, right?

01:32:27.280 | If they give up little parts of themselves,

01:32:29.400 | that person won't leave, right?

01:32:31.400 | It might be because that's why their mother

01:32:33.900 | didn't leave their father when they think about it.

01:32:35.880 | It might be that's why their father left their mother

01:32:38.140 | because their mother wouldn't do that, right?

01:32:39.640 | Whatever it may be or it may be their own

01:32:41.880 | prior life experience or who knows,

01:32:43.520 | something they read but forgot.

01:32:45.280 | I mean, usually it's something more salient, not always,

01:32:48.300 | but they've internalized something

01:32:50.240 | that leads to a compromise of the self.

01:32:53.720 | Now again, that's not what attachment insecurity is, right?

01:32:57.520 | Attachment insecurity is just feeling some insecurity

01:33:01.820 | about the attachment.

01:33:02.840 | So for example, I feel attachment insecurity

01:33:05.720 | about just about everything, right?

01:33:07.840 | I've had the experience of sudden,

01:33:11.560 | very painful losses happening, right?

01:33:15.640 | So I have attachment insecurity

01:33:17.520 | in the sense that I'm worried, right?

01:33:19.920 | I get anxious about like people going away

01:33:22.020 | and I can wanna over control,

01:33:24.880 | but I recognize this inside myself.

01:33:27.120 | I try and do my best to say,

01:33:28.800 | look, I don't want that to make me unhealthy.

01:33:30.440 | I wanna recognize it.

01:33:31.500 | I wanna find some happy medium where I honor that in me,

01:33:34.520 | but don't get carried away with it

01:33:36.520 | to the point where I try and over control

01:33:38.320 | and then I push my relationships away, right?

01:33:40.760 | So I say that because there's such a contrast

01:33:43.760 | between that kind of attachment insecurity,

01:33:45.840 | which can involve over control, right?

01:33:48.480 | And the kind of attachment insecurity

01:33:50.820 | that can involve compromise of the self.

01:33:52.680 | So, and we wanna be very, very careful.

01:33:54.840 | Like we wanna be careful, like what is a trauma bond

01:33:56.880 | and what does it mean?

01:33:57.960 | We wanna be careful.

01:33:58.800 | What is attachment insecurity and what does it mean?

01:34:01.120 | A certain kind of attachment insecurity

01:34:03.760 | can lead a person to make progressive compromises of self

01:34:07.780 | that are not good and healthy for them.

01:34:10.920 | - I'm curious about some of these unhealthy relationships

01:34:14.160 | from the other side, meaning from the side of the person

01:34:17.520 | who is let's hope not, but in some cases exploited

01:34:21.780 | or who's being taken advantage of

01:34:23.720 | or in this scenario of a narcissistic person

01:34:27.100 | or an abusive person is the one who's taking the abuse.

01:34:31.780 | Often it seems the victim in that scenario

01:34:34.640 | will be truly stuck in that situation.

01:34:37.560 | They can't leave for financial reasons or kids

01:34:39.780 | or their own internal workings,

01:34:41.980 | their psychological machinery

01:34:44.280 | has them locked into that in some way.

01:34:46.280 | And it's that locked in by psychological machinery

01:34:49.200 | that I'm interested in.

01:34:50.540 | And I think a lot of people are interested in

01:34:52.180 | because from the outside, we just look at that and say,

01:34:56.020 | why doesn't the person leave?

01:34:58.400 | Why don't they just leave?

01:35:00.140 | But clearly there's something about that situation

01:35:03.120 | that quote unquote works for them.

01:35:06.420 | And by works for them, I don't mean that it's adaptive,

01:35:08.580 | clearly it's maladaptive, but that works for them.

01:35:11.680 | The possibility I raised earlier, perhaps is relevant here.

01:35:15.040 | You know, maybe it works for them

01:35:16.200 | because they know that the narcissist

01:35:18.900 | gets some sort of internal reward

01:35:22.080 | for engaging this kind of dynamic and therefore won't leave.

01:35:25.920 | And the other person not leaving

01:35:28.000 | is of more value to them than feeling safe even, right?

01:35:32.000 | So it's trading one form of safety for another.

01:35:34.920 | Or perhaps the victim as we're calling them in this scenario

01:35:38.600 | is somebody who feels a great sense of reward

01:35:42.320 | by serving somebody more powerful than them.

01:35:44.660 | This raises all sorts of interesting questions

01:35:47.600 | perhaps about power dynamics as well,

01:35:49.440 | which I certainly have questions about.

01:35:51.800 | But what are some examples of the internal workings

01:35:55.280 | of such a person that reside within those bins

01:35:58.840 | of structure of self or function of self

01:36:01.160 | that would put someone into that sort of situation

01:36:04.320 | and lead them to stay in that kind of situation?

01:36:07.560 | - Yeah, well, any situation like that,

01:36:10.880 | if it's, as you say, working for a person,

01:36:12.980 | which at times, you know, we see that from the outside

01:36:15.720 | because like things continue to go along

01:36:17.720 | and things continue to go forward.

01:36:19.520 | But that only works for someone

01:36:22.640 | if they don't have the understanding,

01:36:25.960 | the empowerment that we would wish

01:36:28.160 | for anyone and everyone to have.

01:36:30.980 | So what is going on inside leads that person

01:36:34.520 | to feel a sense of an inability to change, you know,

01:36:39.040 | whether they can't see their way out of it

01:36:40.760 | or they kind of could, but could never navigate to it.

01:36:43.640 | And there's a problem there

01:36:46.940 | if that's working for someone, right?

01:36:48.760 | Because we're talking about something that's exploitive,

01:36:51.360 | right, that's abusive, regardless of how it's abusive.

01:36:54.840 | And I think, I believe that can only happen

01:36:58.440 | in the context of being demoralized, right?

01:37:02.240 | Or the circumstances of being so disempowered, right?

01:37:05.080 | You know, if someone just can't go 10 feet from home,

01:37:06.960 | like there's situations of outrageous amounts of oppression

01:37:11.920 | of a person where the person just cannot choose differently.

01:37:15.900 | And there's situations where we as stewards of all of us,

01:37:19.720 | where the government may intervene, for example, ideally,

01:37:22.280 | right, that someone would come in and help that person.

01:37:24.720 | But barring that kind of outlier,

01:37:27.840 | a person would only be in that situation

01:37:30.280 | in the context of being demoralized.

01:37:32.760 | And that demoralization would come from too low a drive

01:37:37.760 | for assertion, being proactive, aggression, right?

01:37:42.160 | That that drive, its realization is too low.

01:37:46.460 | And if we give people the understanding

01:37:49.860 | and we give them the help, the means,

01:37:52.860 | they don't have to stay in abusive situations.

01:37:55.500 | Like we see this in situations

01:37:57.860 | where our society will intervene

01:37:59.700 | or someone helpful will intervene.

01:38:01.280 | Some person or entity will intervene and help a person,

01:38:05.400 | help that person to understand what's going on

01:38:09.580 | inside of them that leads them to feel

01:38:12.080 | that things can't be better, they can't do better,

01:38:14.600 | or that they're not worth better, or whatever that may be,

01:38:18.000 | and help them to find the empowerment

01:38:21.180 | to then navigate themselves out of the situation.

01:38:24.680 | And here again, I think it's not just agency,

01:38:28.020 | but it's agency plus gratitude, right?

01:38:30.920 | Including gratitude for having a self

01:38:33.040 | that could leave a situation.

01:38:34.680 | When people are in situations like that,

01:38:37.260 | we talk about people as beaten down.

01:38:40.500 | It's a way to kind of capture like what I think

01:38:44.060 | that feels like and how much suffering there is

01:38:47.340 | in those situations to be in that place

01:38:50.840 | and to not have the agency to get out of it.

01:38:53.680 | Then the person is not feeling

01:38:55.080 | a sense of gratitude for self, right?

01:38:57.180 | They feel so bad about self

01:38:58.660 | that there's nothing to be grateful for, right?

01:39:01.300 | And there is so much to be grateful for, right?

01:39:03.840 | I mean, we could go through any person

01:39:05.400 | in a situation like that,

01:39:06.900 | and we could list wonderful things about that person,

01:39:09.120 | adaptive things about that person,

01:39:10.700 | kind things about that person, diligent things.

01:39:13.320 | There are things like that in every person.

01:39:16.660 | But if the person can't see that,

01:39:19.280 | they can't attach to that,

01:39:20.500 | they can't have the agency and gratitude,

01:39:23.280 | then they stay in a situation

01:39:25.860 | that is really defined by the agency and gratitude,

01:39:30.200 | and therefore that aggressive assertion, proactive drive

01:39:33.520 | being expressed at such a low level.

01:39:36.480 | - I can see how a healthy relationship

01:39:40.460 | could exist in relative isolation, not complete isolation.

01:39:45.180 | And here again, I'm referring to her

01:39:46.740 | thinking about a romantic relationship.

01:39:48.980 | I can see how a healthy romantic relationship

01:39:51.520 | could exist in relative isolation,

01:39:53.540 | a few friends, some contact with family members,

01:39:57.500 | or in great connectivity with friends

01:40:01.500 | and family and neighbors, et cetera,

01:40:03.740 | and still be a really great romantic relationship.

01:40:06.500 | - Sure.

01:40:07.660 | - I can also see how the sorts of relationships

01:40:09.500 | that we happen to be focusing on at this moment,

01:40:11.300 | which are this unhealthy dynamics,

01:40:13.180 | are made far worse by lack of connectivity to outsiders.

01:40:18.820 | In fact, a previous guest on this podcast was David Buss,

01:40:21.920 | who's a professor of evolutionary psychology

01:40:23.780 | down at the University of Texas, Austin.

01:40:25.320 | And he talked about some of his research

01:40:27.180 | into the dark triad.

01:40:28.500 | These are narcissistic, Machiavellian,

01:40:31.020 | sometimes also sociopathic individuals,

01:40:33.460 | and how that plays out in romantic relationships.

01:40:36.260 | And it's a terrible thing,

01:40:38.140 | but an important thing to understand,

01:40:40.620 | given the unfortunate frequency that that occurs.

01:40:43.860 | But one of the things that I remember so clearly

01:40:46.540 | from that discussion with David Buss was that

01:40:50.780 | even when there isn't sociopathy

01:40:52.900 | or a strong desire to destroy the other,

01:40:55.620 | that in these sorts of relationships,

01:40:57.340 | there's often an attempt to isolate the person,

01:41:00.180 | first by isolating them from their family,

01:41:04.000 | also from friends and coworkers,

01:41:05.740 | but all with the goal of convincing that person

01:41:08.740 | that no one else would want them

01:41:10.820 | as a way to make them quote unquote voluntarily stay.

01:41:15.160 | In other words, to undermine their sense of safety,

01:41:18.300 | to ramp up their sense of anxiety,

01:41:20.020 | except in the presence of that individual.

01:41:22.260 | And I'm remembering that now because as we're talking about,

01:41:26.820 | why wouldn't somebody just leave?

01:41:28.260 | Why wouldn't they just tap into that agency and gratitude?

01:41:31.940 | It's clear that the oppressor in this kind of relationship

01:41:36.540 | has a real incentive to try and undermine

01:41:39.580 | agency and gratitude.

01:41:41.780 | Because of course with those,

01:41:43.220 | they would be revealed for what they are

01:41:44.800 | and the person would feel enabled to leave.

01:41:47.600 | Taking us back once again to the critical need

01:41:50.740 | to cultivate agency and gratitude,

01:41:53.020 | not just in unhealthy,

01:41:54.620 | but certainly in healthy relationships.

01:41:57.020 | - Right, I mean, I think the principle here

01:41:59.460 | is that darkness always favors the oppressor.

01:42:02.180 | So the oppressor wishes for darkness.

01:42:06.260 | So you wanna isolate that person, right?

01:42:08.820 | Because when people see that things are better

01:42:11.800 | for someone else, they realize things can be better, right?

01:42:15.800 | When people are told by someone that they're worthwhile

01:42:19.020 | or they're funny or they're pretty or they're smart

01:42:21.220 | or whatever the case may be, they may take that inside, right?

01:42:24.220 | You know, they may take inside, oh, maybe I am, you know,

01:42:27.820 | I'm handsome and smart maybe, or they start thinking about

01:42:30.500 | that they're very basic concepts that allow a person

01:42:34.300 | to entertain new ways to look at themselves, right?

01:42:39.300 | So the person who's oppressing

01:42:42.140 | wants that person to live in darkness.

01:42:43.820 | They don't want them to see that there can be better.

01:42:46.940 | They don't want them to be directly told

01:42:49.460 | that they're better than how things are.

01:42:52.180 | And that same darkness on the outside,

01:42:55.100 | say the lights are out around the relationship,

01:42:57.620 | is the goal of the oppressor on the inside.

01:43:00.780 | Now, again, the oppressor may know this

01:43:02.460 | and be doing it consciously,

01:43:03.780 | but often this gets played out in unconscious ways,

01:43:06.060 | like the constant denigration of someone.

01:43:08.260 | The person isn't saying inside, gosh,

01:43:10.340 | I'm trying to reduce their agency, their aggressive drive,

01:43:13.840 | really down to zero, right?

01:43:15.660 | But that's what they're doing.

01:43:16.700 | Somewhere inside, there's a knowing of that,

01:43:19.180 | even if it's an unconscious knowing.

01:43:21.320 | And then what the impact of that kind of abuse over time

01:43:25.700 | is a lower and lower and lower ability

01:43:29.740 | to bring oneself to bear.

01:43:30.980 | Less proactive, aggressive, assertive,

01:43:34.060 | lower sense of agency and gratitude.

01:43:36.340 | That's really the definition of being demoralized, right?

01:43:40.620 | And that kind of abuse is always promoting demoralization

01:43:44.960 | because demoralization is the darkness on the inside, right?

01:43:48.540 | Just as envy is too, right?

01:43:50.020 | Demoralization is a form of darkness on the inside.

01:43:53.920 | Envy is no less dark.

01:43:55.700 | Envy may be a lot more active, right?

01:43:58.680 | But in both cases, there's no knowledge, there's no growth,

01:44:02.300 | there's no wisdom, there's no learning, right?

01:44:04.640 | So they're the states of darkness.

01:44:07.040 | And what can happen in a way

01:44:08.380 | that's really so tragic to think about

01:44:10.940 | is you often can have an abuser, an oppressor,

01:44:14.760 | who is living in total darkness inside,

01:44:18.580 | living through the lens of envy.

01:44:21.640 | And then you can have a person who is being oppressed,

01:44:24.300 | who is being exploited, who's living in darkness,

01:44:28.220 | but they're living in the darkness of demoralization.

01:44:31.460 | And now that's a very sad thing to say, to imagine.

01:44:35.940 | And it's been a very, very sad thing to see, right?

01:44:38.720 | If you do clinical psychiatry for long enough,

01:44:41.460 | you see a lot of this and it doesn't have to be this way.

01:44:45.660 | Now, even the people who are oppressing

01:44:48.340 | have it within them the majority of time

01:44:50.380 | to make things better.

01:44:51.460 | And we do see that.

01:44:52.720 | I took care of a man a long time ago

01:44:55.380 | who had been terribly abusive to his family.

01:44:58.340 | And it was always unclear to me.

01:45:00.540 | It had happened years before that he just understood.

01:45:05.200 | And again, I never understood what happened that he got it.

01:45:10.140 | And the man really made change.

01:45:12.620 | Like, again, I don't know what the circumstance was

01:45:14.480 | that made that motivation to him,

01:45:15.740 | but he went back and looked at himself.

01:45:17.420 | And he went back and looked at how his father

01:45:20.620 | oppressed and terrorized the family

01:45:22.700 | and how he just did it with automatically, right?

01:45:25.580 | Because what was rooted in his own fear of vulnerability

01:45:28.500 | and he's gonna lose his family and not be a man anymore

01:45:31.020 | unless he oppresses them.

01:45:31.980 | Like, he recognized all of it in him

01:45:34.860 | and he had changed it so dramatically.

01:45:37.420 | He had removed himself from the family system.

01:45:39.780 | And when I got to know him, it was years later

01:45:42.660 | and he was reintegrating back into the system

01:45:46.200 | because there had been such prolonged change

01:45:48.500 | and he had communicated to the family

01:45:50.620 | his understanding of self.

01:45:52.520 | So it's not impossible.

01:45:54.420 | Even someone who is abusing, oppressing,

01:45:57.160 | coming through a narcissistic character structure,

01:45:59.660 | there's no therapeutic nihilism here, right?

01:46:02.580 | Things can change and things can change in the oppressor,

01:46:05.700 | which isn't excusing that, right?

01:46:08.300 | I mean, a person who's doing things is morally culpable,

01:46:11.860 | right, they often are criminally legally culpable.

01:46:14.500 | So that is all true just as the ability to change is true.

01:46:18.660 | And then the person we think about more commonly

01:46:21.720 | in this situation, of course,

01:46:22.940 | is the person who's being oppressed

01:46:24.700 | and there can be change there too.

01:46:27.300 | But a problem is how hard it can be,

01:46:30.140 | the impact of the isolation, right?

01:46:33.200 | And also the dearth of resources to really help people.

01:46:36.780 | Like, it's an actual true story of a woman

01:46:40.220 | who I believe with all my heart

01:46:42.060 | could get out of the cyclic abusive situation she was in

01:46:45.940 | if she had a carburetor, a carburetor, right?

01:46:50.340 | She had a car, the car didn't function.

01:46:52.700 | She had a place to go, right?

01:46:54.680 | That where others wouldn't know that she was there.

01:46:57.580 | And the problem was just a few hundred dollars

01:47:00.220 | to change the carburetor.

01:47:01.620 | But it was like, there's no place to go,

01:47:03.060 | there's no resources, and we as a society don't help people.

01:47:06.900 | And that may be that someone helped that woman

01:47:09.300 | and got her a carburetor and she drove away, right?

01:47:12.160 | But it shows how we can bring ourselves to bear

01:47:14.660 | as a society to offer people help,

01:47:17.820 | which sometimes is like the lifeline the person needs.

01:47:21.360 | And maybe that person really needs a safe house

01:47:24.580 | or something very dramatic,

01:47:25.660 | or they need a carburetor to get away from being terrorized.

01:47:29.600 | But a lot of times it's just community support structures,

01:47:33.260 | good structures around people in communities

01:47:36.780 | that can offer them support in situations

01:47:38.820 | that may be less dramatic.

01:47:40.500 | Opportunities for interconnection,

01:47:42.020 | which sometimes people can find through social venues

01:47:45.500 | or through religiously affiliated venues.

01:47:47.700 | But the idea that community support systems on all levels

01:47:51.460 | make a huge difference, that's how,

01:47:54.060 | there's another level right beyond the relationship, right?

01:47:56.360 | It's the society, it's the culture, right?

01:47:58.980 | And that's how we on that next level of emergence,

01:48:02.000 | beyond the individual relationships can foster goodness,

01:48:05.660 | can foster health in each and every one of us.

01:48:08.960 | - How does some of these same dynamics play out

01:48:12.260 | in non-romantic relationships?

01:48:14.480 | So for instance, in the workplace,

01:48:16.260 | I was weaned in academic laboratories.

01:48:19.840 | So what's most familiar to me are, gosh,

01:48:23.420 | unfortunately numerous examples

01:48:25.020 | where people working in laboratories, not the same as mine,

01:48:28.280 | 'cause I've been very fortunate to have amazing,

01:48:31.180 | benevolent mentors, quirky and outrageous at times,

01:48:35.220 | but benevolent nonetheless.

01:48:37.380 | But others around me have been in laboratories

01:48:39.500 | where for instance, the workload was just ridiculously high.

01:48:43.420 | Like the demand far exceeded what any person could do.

01:48:46.660 | And if somebody had, God forbid, a cold or children,

01:48:51.140 | like it was near impossible to impossible

01:48:53.820 | that they could meet the standard there.

01:48:56.100 | Or stress dynamics, pressure cooker dynamics

01:49:01.020 | that made it what anyone would call a toxic environment.

01:49:05.420 | You see this also in law firms, you see it in companies,

01:49:08.380 | you see it in families, you see it in friendship circles.

01:49:12.060 | How many movies are about teens oppressing one another

01:49:17.020 | through bullying and ridicule and practical jokes

01:49:21.380 | that are anything but funny,

01:49:23.780 | that are downright destructive and on and on.

01:49:27.100 | And so often the victims in these cases,

01:49:29.780 | if it's not a Hollywood movie,

01:49:31.320 | feel as if that's their only choice

01:49:35.100 | because to leave is to essentially have no other options.

01:49:40.100 | It's not that that's the only option is to stay,

01:49:42.900 | it's that to leave is essentially to leave science.

01:49:45.460 | Because these people in positions of power

01:49:48.580 | have the louder voice, they have the megaphone,

01:49:50.580 | they write the letters of recommendation,

01:49:52.540 | the law firms, people talk.

01:49:54.480 | As I kind of spool this out in a long form question,

01:49:59.160 | I'm realizing I can't think of a single exception.

01:50:02.220 | Like as long as there are going to be people interacting

01:50:04.660 | and people talking about their interactions

01:50:07.860 | and people in positions of power,

01:50:10.340 | this sort of dynamic is going to take place.

01:50:12.580 | - Right, absolutely.

01:50:13.460 | Anytime you have a closed system without accountability,

01:50:17.780 | you're just rolling the dice for that kind of oppression.

01:50:22.340 | We need accountability.

01:50:23.980 | Think about theoretically what should have happened there.

01:50:26.660 | There should be higher order accountability, right?

01:50:29.600 | Whether it's in a company or university

01:50:31.380 | or wherever it may be,

01:50:32.760 | there should be higher order accountability

01:50:35.000 | that is reasonable and rational.

01:50:36.880 | So it's not then acting in a top-down way

01:50:39.560 | that would be over-controlling.

01:50:41.080 | Are you telling me exactly what you kind of can't say

01:50:43.120 | or what you kind of can't do?

01:50:44.220 | And sometimes there's too much rigidity

01:50:46.700 | that can be enacted top-down,

01:50:48.680 | but the problem runs both ways.

01:50:50.700 | If there's no accountability from the bottom up,

01:50:53.700 | then that person is just simply stuck, right?

01:50:57.580 | Why?

01:50:58.420 | Because the system we've put into place has failed, right?

01:51:01.820 | And this is where we're talking now

01:51:03.700 | about not just individual relationship

01:51:06.140 | with two people relationships,

01:51:07.700 | but now we start talking about systems of people

01:51:09.860 | and systems of people are another level of emergence

01:51:12.400 | with a personality, so to speak,

01:51:14.600 | an environment all their own.

01:51:16.200 | You can know everything there is to know

01:51:17.540 | about each person in the system.

01:51:19.020 | You don't know about the system,

01:51:21.140 | but what you do know is that accountability is necessary.

01:51:25.640 | I mean, probably if we added up all the examples in history,

01:51:29.860 | you know, we'd have to talk about them over 1,000 years,

01:51:32.620 | right, I mean, how many examples do we have

01:51:34.980 | that close systems without accountability

01:51:37.460 | are just rolling the dice, they breed oppression?

01:51:40.780 | You know, this is true,

01:51:42.340 | and I've been at several different places,

01:51:43.820 | so I'm not trying to implicate

01:51:45.540 | this is any one place versus another,

01:51:47.660 | but I was part of a medical treatment team.

01:51:50.560 | So this is a hierarchical medical treatment team

01:51:53.200 | of maybe seven people, give or take one,

01:51:55.980 | depending upon the circumstances,

01:51:57.620 | where there was physical abuse

01:51:59.260 | going on in the treatment team.

01:52:00.820 | This is true, and I'm not saying this

01:52:05.540 | in some exaggerated manner

01:52:07.140 | where somebody brushed up too close to someone

01:52:09.620 | and they slipped, no hurting someone on the treatment team,

01:52:13.540 | right, two different people

01:52:14.900 | who are being hurt by someone senior.

01:52:16.900 | So this is using a major university in a clinical setting,

01:52:21.760 | right, and it's not again,

01:52:23.040 | it's not like that's the be all and end all,

01:52:24.880 | but you think about the alleged sophistication

01:52:27.960 | of the people in the system,

01:52:28.920 | the alleged empowerment of the people in the situation,

01:52:31.920 | which did not put a stop to that.

01:52:34.400 | So we need to have accountability.

01:52:37.140 | The accountability has to be reasonable.

01:52:39.420 | It doesn't mean over control,

01:52:41.320 | but it doesn't mean under control either.

01:52:43.600 | And if that person is being overworked,

01:52:45.640 | as you described, with no way of winning

01:52:48.280 | or harmed on a medical team,

01:52:51.040 | and there's no way that that person can change that,

01:52:54.880 | the system has failed that person

01:52:57.260 | and failed them dramatically.

01:52:58.400 | And guess who suffers?

01:52:59.960 | Everyone does, right?

01:53:01.700 | That person suffers, right?

01:53:04.520 | And the science that's being done

01:53:06.480 | or the medical care that's being provided

01:53:08.780 | is important to all of us.

01:53:10.200 | Anyone could be the patient

01:53:12.640 | who is being taken care of by the team

01:53:15.520 | where one person is hurting a couple of the others.

01:53:17.880 | You think that medical care is gonna be optimized, right?

01:53:20.760 | Is the science gonna be optimized

01:53:22.440 | that we're utilizing to try and make our lives better,

01:53:25.280 | live longer, be in less pain?

01:53:27.660 | What's happening there is envy.

01:53:29.320 | That person who's oppressing other people is driven by envy,

01:53:32.700 | whether it's a narcissistic character structure

01:53:35.120 | that acts almost exclusively through envy

01:53:38.020 | or it's envy that is in this person's life in this way

01:53:41.000 | or not another way, does it matter, right?

01:53:43.360 | What's going on there is envy

01:53:45.080 | and envy is nothing but destructive, right?

01:53:47.560 | The generative drive is nothing but productive.

01:53:50.720 | Envy is nothing but destructive.

01:53:53.560 | - Could you remind for people

01:53:54.680 | that perhaps may not have heard episodes one and two yet

01:53:58.400 | that envy is perhaps not just a desire

01:54:03.240 | to be like somebody else,

01:54:04.680 | that envy in the context that we're discussing here

01:54:07.080 | is something quite possibly different.

01:54:09.680 | - Right, and there's a varying lexicon,

01:54:11.720 | which is why it is important to define it

01:54:13.360 | 'cause I think people learn it in different ways.

01:54:15.200 | I've heard it talked about in different ways.

01:54:17.080 | So to define that,

01:54:20.000 | there's a difference between jealousy and envy.

01:54:22.000 | And again, we could choose different words,

01:54:23.300 | but this is the way I learned it that's been most impactful.

01:54:26.560 | Where jealousy is benign, right?

01:54:29.560 | It's the idea that if I see

01:54:31.320 | that you have something that I don't,

01:54:33.240 | then I think, oh, well,

01:54:34.400 | maybe I could work harder and get that thing, right?

01:54:36.520 | Or if I can't have that thing,

01:54:39.080 | like maybe it's a person is younger, right?

01:54:41.000 | Okay, I can't make myself younger.

01:54:42.600 | Then I can think, okay, through a lens of gratitude,

01:54:45.920 | is that the only thing about me, right?

01:54:47.640 | I can't think of anything good about myself, right?

01:54:49.760 | Other than maybe I could be younger.

01:54:51.120 | I mean, if you come at that through the lens of health,

01:54:55.000 | it's like, it's okay, right?

01:54:56.860 | It can serve to motivate people to like try harder,

01:54:59.360 | work harder, take a look at themselves

01:55:01.120 | and be more accepting of who they are

01:55:03.480 | and what their circumstances in life

01:55:05.240 | and what kind of control they can enact

01:55:08.160 | and what kind they can't.

01:55:09.440 | It's okay, right?

01:55:11.280 | Envy is different, right?

01:55:14.280 | Envy comes at that problem from the perspective

01:55:19.280 | that bringing down the other person, right?

01:55:24.960 | Is just as effective as bringing up the self.

01:55:27.800 | That's why envy is destructive.

01:55:31.220 | So someone who might see another person

01:55:35.100 | and they envy them their youth, right?

01:55:40.120 | They envy, they want that.

01:55:42.600 | And they wanna bring that person down, right?

01:55:44.920 | 'Cause I can't make myself younger,

01:55:46.520 | but then they realize I can't make that person older either,

01:55:49.200 | but they can do other things to them, right?

01:55:51.740 | They can sexually harass them, maybe.

01:55:54.360 | They can make terrible jokes that are really insulting

01:55:57.720 | and humiliating, maybe, right?

01:55:59.960 | There are all sorts of things a person can do

01:56:02.240 | to bring down someone else.

01:56:03.680 | The inaction of envy is destructive.

01:56:06.640 | And I truly believe this,

01:56:08.680 | that people who come at the world very strongly through envy

01:56:13.160 | by and large in narcissistic character structure,

01:56:16.480 | this is a small percentage of the population,

01:56:19.600 | but that small percentage does most of the damage on earth.

01:56:24.600 | Right, it's a strong thing to say.

01:56:27.540 | But when I think about studying political science

01:56:30.640 | and thinking about history and learning medicine

01:56:32.920 | and learning about psychiatry and sociology

01:56:35.320 | and really trying to look at the world

01:56:37.320 | and thinking what drives a person on a medical team

01:56:42.320 | who's gotten to be a senior physician

01:56:44.520 | to physically hurt doctors lower on the hierarchy, envy.

01:56:48.880 | Right, that person feels terrible about themselves

01:56:50.920 | and then is being destructive to those people.

01:56:53.200 | Same thing is at work in the lab.

01:56:56.200 | The same thing is at work when people start wars

01:56:58.320 | of destruction that just simply harm other people

01:57:02.080 | and we can see no other sense of it.

01:57:04.080 | That from the individual setting

01:57:07.400 | all the way up to the world setting,

01:57:09.220 | we see the destruction of envy

01:57:11.040 | and we also see it inside of us

01:57:13.360 | because a person who's enacting envy

01:57:15.240 | in the world around them is never,

01:57:17.640 | there's no chance of happiness.

01:57:19.600 | Hence the idea of a bottomless pit, right?

01:57:22.140 | Whatever you get, let's say an envious person

01:57:25.040 | who wants more money.

01:57:25.940 | I wanna have more money than anybody, right?

01:57:27.780 | I want everyone to have less money than me, right?

01:57:30.800 | So then they come at the world through the lens of greed.

01:57:34.480 | When they get more money,

01:57:35.560 | how long does that make them happy, right?

01:57:37.960 | This doesn't mean money is bad or having money is bad.

01:57:40.360 | It just means if you're coming at the world

01:57:42.920 | through the lens of envy, right,

01:57:44.320 | and that lens is specifically focused on money,

01:57:46.780 | then you'll be a greedy person who is never satisfied

01:57:49.240 | even if you have $10 trillion, right?

01:57:51.820 | So it's never good.

01:57:53.120 | It takes away from that person any possibility of happiness.

01:57:57.840 | And if you see people, work with people

01:58:00.040 | with a narcissistic character structure,

01:58:02.200 | there can be a sense of a very brief happiness

01:58:05.420 | in the moment.

01:58:06.260 | Like I'm happy because I realize

01:58:08.060 | I have something someone else doesn't.

01:58:09.480 | I'm happy because I'm thinking of myself.

01:58:11.600 | And even though I feel very insecure and vulnerable inside,

01:58:14.820 | I have a whole set of defense mechanisms

01:58:16.440 | that let me turn those tables around

01:58:18.640 | and then feel good about myself

01:58:20.520 | in a way that places me above others.

01:58:22.220 | Whatever's going on in that person,

01:58:24.300 | it may bring some very brief gratification in the moment,

01:58:28.360 | but that's not happiness.

01:58:29.740 | Hence the need for the gratification

01:58:31.640 | over and over and over again.

01:58:33.700 | Narcissistic people are the least secure,

01:58:36.960 | most diffident people on earth.

01:58:39.640 | They just have a phenomenally healthy defensive structure

01:58:43.660 | that comes about in order to try and protect them

01:58:46.680 | that leads them to go to the opposite.

01:58:48.680 | Some of what's called a reaction formation,

01:58:50.400 | going to the very opposite,

01:58:52.000 | denial, avoidance, rationalization, projection,

01:58:55.000 | very unhealthy defenses that then leads that person

01:58:59.320 | to protect themselves from any help

01:59:02.460 | while they are frantically trying to gain some goodness

01:59:05.740 | that makes them feel good for a split second

01:59:07.520 | and then disappears forever.

01:59:09.400 | Hence the tremendous predilection for destruction.

01:59:14.080 | - How do you and how should we think about power dynamics

01:59:17.560 | in relationships?

01:59:18.680 | And perhaps starting with romantic relationships.

01:59:21.740 | I've heard it said before that there's always power dynamics

01:59:25.060 | in relationships of all kinds.

01:59:26.800 | I don't know if that's true or not,

01:59:28.080 | but I've heard that.

01:59:29.840 | And I've also heard that that's particularly salient

01:59:32.620 | in romantic relationships,

01:59:34.280 | independent of whether or not it's a homosexual

01:59:36.520 | or heterosexual relationship,

01:59:37.720 | that there's always to some extent or another

01:59:40.160 | one leader and one follower.

01:59:42.680 | This is a interesting, perhaps a controversial idea,

01:59:47.380 | but I've heard it enough times

01:59:49.060 | that I want to know more about it.

01:59:51.120 | - Sure, so power dynamics of course, very important,

01:59:55.560 | but also something we tend to be so over reductionist about.

01:59:59.360 | I mean, this idea thing that there's always a leader

02:00:01.360 | and there's always a follower.

02:00:02.600 | Every single relationship, right?

02:00:04.660 | That's true on balance.

02:00:05.880 | Like we tend to be so reductionist.

02:00:09.020 | And then what we do is we miss the real power dynamics

02:00:12.680 | that are going on.

02:00:13.600 | Just like I said in a previous episode

02:00:15.920 | that I think my math minor has helped me the most

02:00:18.420 | for like all of life, right?

02:00:20.120 | I think a power dynamics course

02:00:22.140 | that I took as an undergraduate in political science

02:00:24.880 | has helped me the most as a psychiatrist.

02:00:27.440 | Took it long before medical school

02:00:29.280 | because that class taught me so much about power dynamics.

02:00:33.000 | I thought it was gonna be about overt power.

02:00:35.360 | Who has power over whom and tells whom to do what, right?

02:00:38.420 | But what I learned is so much of power dynamics are covert.

02:00:42.240 | They're under the surface.

02:00:43.320 | For example, they're the things that are not said.

02:00:45.760 | Something that was called at the time, at least,

02:00:47.560 | the issue of the non-issue, right?

02:00:49.600 | Where there's an issue between two people,

02:00:51.920 | like this person never takes out the garbage.

02:00:54.600 | That person always takes out the garbage.

02:00:56.160 | That person is resentful about it.

02:00:58.680 | Both of them know,

02:00:59.680 | but the person who always does it can't say so

02:01:01.880 | because if they say so,

02:01:02.960 | the first person will punish them in some other way, right?

02:01:06.080 | By not taking out the garbage, then the place smells,

02:01:08.440 | that person goes to work

02:01:09.380 | and the person who's at home has to take it out, right?

02:01:11.980 | That's one example of the issue of the non-issue.

02:01:15.880 | Other examples are where someone is looking and smiling

02:01:19.720 | and being really nice to someone

02:01:21.880 | who they know is gonna physically harm them

02:01:24.080 | if they bring to light that they're actually not happy

02:01:27.080 | and don't feel good about that person, right?

02:01:29.020 | So from the dramatic to the non-dramatic,

02:01:31.400 | unstated power dynamics are going on all over the place

02:01:35.240 | and they're in every single relationship.

02:01:37.440 | I mean, unless a person is in a relationship

02:01:39.160 | with someone else and they're both comatose,

02:01:41.600 | no, I guess only one of them has to be comatose, right?

02:01:43.800 | There are power dynamics going on,

02:01:45.680 | but again, it doesn't mean that they're unhealthy, right?

02:01:49.200 | 'Cause there are always power dynamics.

02:01:51.180 | So then what are we looking for?

02:01:53.060 | And again, there are a lot of things we could look for,

02:01:55.400 | but we could talk about really two primary things.

02:01:58.680 | One is look for the non-obvious

02:02:02.920 | and two is the give and take.

02:02:05.400 | So the first, even in our own relationships,

02:02:08.180 | because it's interesting how many people will say,

02:02:11.080 | "Talk about the power dynamics in their relationship."

02:02:13.660 | They're not always saying,

02:02:14.940 | "Here are the power dynamics in my relationship,"

02:02:17.160 | but they're telling me about them

02:02:19.080 | and they're telling me about the things that are overt, right?

02:02:22.260 | Now, somewhere inside of them,

02:02:23.600 | they know that they can't really raise issue A, B, or C,

02:02:26.760 | or there'll be some retribution,

02:02:28.080 | whether it's small or large,

02:02:29.760 | or they might even know everything's okay

02:02:31.960 | and that person is happy,

02:02:33.040 | but they know I'm not giving them room

02:02:34.560 | to say that they're not happy.

02:02:35.800 | And that could just mean if they say they're not happy,

02:02:38.080 | then I'll come home a couple hours late the next day

02:02:41.800 | and that person will feel some attachment

02:02:43.340 | and security because of that.

02:02:44.540 | And there are all sorts of ways this can play out,

02:02:47.880 | but since so much of power dynamics are unstated or covert,

02:02:52.880 | kind of like the iceberg of conscious and unconscious,

02:02:55.940 | there's an iceberg of power dynamics.

02:02:57.840 | So to think about including in one's own relationships,

02:03:00.660 | whether it's a neighbor, it's a friend,

02:03:02.420 | it's a work relationship, or most charged, it's romance,

02:03:06.120 | what's really going on between us, right?

02:03:08.580 | What's really going on between us?

02:03:10.020 | I'm not looking to tell myself lies, right?

02:03:14.220 | I know that I may not be able to understand all of it,

02:03:16.820 | but let me stop and think about it.

02:03:18.420 | And people, if you ask people to stop and do that,

02:03:20.760 | they can say, yeah, this is really not okay.

02:03:24.460 | Or, you know, because sometimes they don't know

02:03:26.740 | that it's there or they don't want to know that it's there.

02:03:29.060 | And the therapy work is trying to guide them

02:03:31.780 | to there's an immense power disparity maybe

02:03:34.200 | in the relationship when they're presenting.

02:03:36.360 | No, everything is equal.

02:03:37.200 | It's a good supportive relationship.

02:03:38.800 | You hear that a lot.

02:03:40.220 | And of course, it's not always

02:03:41.500 | that there's something bad under the surface,

02:03:43.280 | but a lot of times there is.

02:03:44.420 | And even something mildly bad is not okay.

02:03:46.780 | And can cause problems.

02:03:48.060 | And sometimes there's something very bad.

02:03:49.740 | So look for the non-obvious.

02:03:52.220 | And then the second is that give and take

02:03:54.740 | is a very good sign of health.

02:03:57.500 | Is a very good sign of health.

02:03:58.620 | So if a person can kind of see that there's give and take,

02:04:01.620 | and it might be about something as simple as like,

02:04:03.220 | who chooses where we go to dinner?

02:04:04.980 | Okay, you know, sometimes one, sometimes the other.

02:04:07.140 | It depends who has a stronger feeling.

02:04:08.700 | Or it may be that person always decides

02:04:10.940 | where we go to dinner,

02:04:11.760 | but the other person's okay with it, right?

02:04:13.600 | And that person always decides what movie they want.

02:04:15.420 | The other person, right?

02:04:16.740 | So the idea that there's give and take,

02:04:19.540 | and then in periods of time

02:04:21.960 | where one person may be in a more difficult place,

02:04:24.820 | one person has a significant loss, right?

02:04:27.060 | Or an injury or an illness,

02:04:28.660 | then you see that that shifts a little bit.

02:04:30.560 | One person is giving more, right?

02:04:32.900 | But then ultimately the idea is that's from the outside,

02:04:36.460 | right?

02:04:37.300 | If one person is giving more to the other,

02:04:38.900 | there's a generosity of spirit

02:04:40.700 | in both the giving and the accepting, right?

02:04:43.740 | That leads them to then be stronger together.

02:04:46.260 | So even when people say, well, they're imbalances.

02:04:48.860 | In some way, if you just look at what's going on day to day,

02:04:51.580 | but in a healthy relationship with high generative drive,

02:04:54.660 | the periods of imbalance strengthen the relationship.

02:04:58.300 | But you see this with friends

02:04:59.660 | where two people have a pretty equal friendship.

02:05:02.060 | And then like one person has something difficult happens

02:05:04.500 | and the other person is there for them.

02:05:06.160 | What's true on the other side of that?

02:05:08.060 | They're better friends, right?

02:05:09.580 | And it's also why we often want to be interconnected

02:05:12.340 | when we're healthy.

02:05:13.320 | What if something bad happens to both of them, right?

02:05:15.660 | It's good to be interconnected

02:05:16.860 | and friends and family can be supportive to us.

02:05:19.700 | So the idea that give and take is healthy,

02:05:22.540 | I think is very central.

02:05:24.700 | So just looking for evidence.

02:05:26.260 | It's often, if I don't understand

02:05:27.660 | like what's going on in the relationship,

02:05:29.140 | maybe it's early in the therapy

02:05:30.440 | or it's just been kind of opaque

02:05:32.140 | or I can't figure it out.

02:05:33.520 | I'm looking for, is there a give and take?

02:05:35.380 | Because then I'm gonna think,

02:05:36.300 | okay, more likely than not things are healthy.

02:05:39.160 | If I see an imbalance, whether the person knows it or not,

02:05:41.900 | I'm thinking more likely than not it's unhealthy.

02:05:44.140 | And then there's just clues along the pathway

02:05:46.820 | of my efforts to understand.

02:05:49.660 | - The non-obvious piece is really intriguing

02:05:53.900 | as is the give and take.

02:05:55.060 | And I really appreciate that you brought up the give and take

02:05:57.620 | because that's a very concrete place

02:05:59.960 | that we can all look and ask ourselves.

02:06:02.380 | Even if people aren't in romantic relationships,

02:06:04.820 | like what is the give and take in a given friendship?

02:06:08.580 | And as you mentioned earlier,

02:06:09.460 | it doesn't have to be scripted one for one, one for one.

02:06:13.220 | Maybe it balances out over time or maybe it doesn't.

02:06:15.700 | I mean, I've had friendships

02:06:17.500 | that have lasted many decades even

02:06:20.940 | where I can honestly say I'm always the person

02:06:23.800 | to reach out to the other person.

02:06:25.700 | But when they connect,

02:06:28.060 | they connect with such a depth of attention

02:06:30.660 | that I don't feel any deprivation whatsoever.

02:06:33.040 | In fact, I don't think I've ever considered

02:06:34.620 | that I'm the person that always reaches out until today.

02:06:37.060 | And so it doesn't bother me whatsoever.

02:06:38.460 | I feel infinitely rewarded in the relationship.

02:06:42.080 | Like it's generative, it feels generative.

02:06:44.340 | Right, it doesn't have to be equal,

02:06:46.060 | however one wants to define equal, but it has to be mutual.

02:06:49.660 | Like you're feeling goodness from the relationship.

02:06:52.660 | So is the other person.

02:06:54.020 | Okay, that's coming from that high generative place.

02:06:58.540 | And when we really, let's say we push that concept forward

02:07:01.460 | to where we wanna be living, not some pie in the sky, right?

02:07:05.080 | But agency and gratitude as verbs.

02:07:07.420 | The generative drive is very strongly expressed

02:07:10.980 | and the other drives are subservient to generative drive.

02:07:13.980 | Then we get to the place where we really see

02:07:16.720 | it is true that it is better to give than to receive.

02:07:21.080 | The happiest people I see are the people who are giving.

02:07:25.600 | Now, of course it feels great to receive, right?

02:07:29.160 | But it feels better to give

02:07:30.920 | because there's a goodness in the self, in the giving.

02:07:33.860 | And I remember seeing this as a child

02:07:35.940 | and being too young to understand it.

02:07:37.440 | But as a little kid, I liked getting things, right?

02:07:40.160 | And as a little kid, I liked getting things

02:07:41.760 | more than I liked giving.

02:07:42.740 | Like that's okay when you're a little kid.

02:07:44.480 | But what I did observe is that my maternal grandmother

02:07:47.160 | who is very sweet and loving and caring,

02:07:50.080 | she loved giving, right?

02:07:52.340 | You give her presence and we did.

02:07:53.680 | And she really liked getting presents.

02:07:55.920 | She loved giving, right?

02:07:57.420 | There was an excess of goodness.

02:07:58.780 | And then as I got older and I learned more

02:08:00.700 | like who she had been in the community

02:08:02.260 | and how she had been to people and I could see.

02:08:05.380 | And now through the lens that there was such goodness in her

02:08:09.740 | I think she's, for me, she's the shining model of goodness

02:08:12.800 | that I internalize as I aspire to be better.

02:08:15.740 | So then I think I want to be like that.

02:08:18.140 | I am more generative as I try and think more

02:08:21.000 | about giving than receiving.

02:08:22.760 | It's not, I'm not trying to say I'm some noble person

02:08:25.140 | or I'm being ascetic.

02:08:26.220 | I'm thinking that's a good way for us all to feel, right?

02:08:29.300 | Or someone, a very, very successful person

02:08:33.540 | that I consult with is in my life, right?

02:08:36.540 | Who talked about how he always makes inside of himself

02:08:41.540 | the best understanding of what's going on

02:08:43.420 | between him and another person,

02:08:44.860 | whether it's a very big financial deal

02:08:46.940 | or it's about power or it's personal

02:08:49.020 | and then gives a little bit, always.

02:08:51.240 | Where have we ended up?

02:08:52.780 | Let me give a little bit, right?

02:08:54.380 | And there's a person who's very, very successful,

02:08:56.460 | very, very happy, right?

02:08:58.020 | But I would argue the goodness in him

02:09:02.160 | is why he's successful and happy.

02:09:04.360 | It's not that he's successful and therefore he's happy,

02:09:06.620 | right, it's what's inside of him

02:09:08.260 | that fosters both of those good things.

02:09:10.420 | And he could be just as happy without the big success.

02:09:12.840 | Maybe he wouldn't, maybe he wasn't minded to do that.

02:09:15.860 | And he grows a nice garden.

02:09:17.480 | Like he could be equally happy,

02:09:18.840 | but the point is the goodness in self

02:09:22.200 | to be able to do that, right?

02:09:24.540 | To feel good about doing that.

02:09:26.120 | I feel better about giving that

02:09:28.180 | than I would have receiving that.

02:09:30.040 | That's pretty stark, right?

02:09:31.620 | It's something given to the other

02:09:32.680 | that I would have gotten right now.

02:09:34.320 | And we're in maybe a negotiation.

02:09:36.220 | To give it feels better than to have it.

02:09:39.060 | - I'm sure there are many people thinking about individuals

02:09:41.960 | who are highly successful, who are not givers,

02:09:45.080 | who are takers.

02:09:47.040 | I do think those examples of takers as I'm calling them

02:09:50.720 | grab a lot of attention.

02:09:53.080 | But I know at least within science

02:09:55.240 | and the other domains of life I've been in

02:09:58.080 | that there are far more successful people

02:10:01.980 | who are also givers, even to a great extent.

02:10:05.760 | And of course that doesn't mean that they're giving

02:10:07.400 | to the point of an inability to give further

02:10:10.260 | or to take care of themselves.

02:10:11.960 | The giving is part of taking care of themselves,

02:10:14.380 | but it's part of this generative cycle.

02:10:17.280 | It's not one thing, it's not a tit for tat.

02:10:19.780 | It's part of something that makes them feel good,

02:10:22.500 | makes others feel good.

02:10:23.820 | It's sort of anti-transactional.

02:10:27.300 | And as we're talking about the self

02:10:28.860 | and interrelations between selves

02:10:31.200 | in these different relationship contexts today,

02:10:33.860 | this word transactional keeps coming to mind.

02:10:37.840 | And what I'm so aware of as you're describing

02:10:42.180 | what healthy selves and healthy relationships look like

02:10:45.820 | is that it runs counter to pretty much everything

02:10:48.920 | that I've heard and that we hear in the world

02:10:51.080 | about relationships and about the relationship to self,

02:10:53.560 | meaning it's not transactional.

02:10:56.460 | It's really about a cycle.

02:10:58.780 | And we're using this word generative over and over

02:11:01.160 | in its specific context today.

02:11:03.700 | So I don't want to rob that word for a different purpose,

02:11:07.260 | but I'm imagining a sort of upward spiral in my mind

02:11:10.820 | or perhaps something that's really like a circle of life

02:11:14.760 | that just keeps growing bigger and bigger and bigger.

02:11:17.420 | Maybe we could talk a little bit about this notion

02:11:20.220 | of relationships being transactional.

02:11:22.780 | I mean, it's such a loaded word,

02:11:24.340 | but I have a close friend who's married

02:11:27.540 | with more than a few children

02:11:30.340 | who told me the other day,

02:11:32.760 | I realized that it's all kind of transactional,

02:11:36.320 | like they're extracting from me

02:11:38.400 | and I'm extracting from them

02:11:39.600 | and it's benevolent 'cause it's all good.

02:11:41.280 | And I thought, wow, this is really dreadful.

02:11:45.560 | No one wants to think that the closest relationships

02:11:47.760 | in their lives are transactional.

02:11:50.400 | And he was coming to that conclusion.

02:11:51.840 | I disagreed with him and I don't know

02:11:53.420 | where that all sits for him right now,

02:11:54.940 | but maybe we could talk about the transactional

02:11:58.000 | versus non-transactional aspects of relationship

02:12:00.700 | because we all want things.

02:12:04.080 | That's perfectly healthy, I believe.

02:12:06.560 | We all experienced disappointment and pleasure and relief

02:12:10.300 | and sometimes major disappointment, pleasure, relief, et cetera.

02:12:13.560 | But what is the role of transaction in relationships?

02:12:18.040 | And how does psychiatry, how do you

02:12:19.920 | and how should we think about that?

02:12:21.680 | - We often get confused because there are transactions

02:12:27.180 | in every relationship, but that does not mean

02:12:30.800 | that every relationship is transactional, right?

02:12:33.720 | So if we think about what transactions are,

02:12:36.360 | we can think of like kind of the stereotypical way.

02:12:39.160 | So it can also be like, here's the transaction.

02:12:41.840 | I'll do the dishes and you wash the clothes.

02:12:43.680 | - Right, or for instance, I'll make the money

02:12:46.040 | and the other person will raise the children.

02:12:48.480 | - Right, right.

02:12:49.320 | So there are transactions, right?

02:12:51.960 | But that does not mean that the be all and end all of it

02:12:55.520 | are sort of hard-hearted calculated transactions.

02:12:59.100 | And transactions also occur in less obvious

02:13:02.140 | but equally important ways, right?

02:13:04.360 | So another way that transactions occur is,

02:13:07.540 | so right now I'm putting something out there, right?

02:13:10.060 | 'Cause I'm saying something, right?

02:13:11.540 | And then at a point I stop and I'm waiting for you

02:13:14.040 | to put something out there.

02:13:15.120 | And then I take in what you said and we're doing something

02:13:17.800 | that in that sense is transactional.

02:13:20.160 | I'm waiting for you to give me something.

02:13:21.520 | I take it in, I process it,

02:13:22.840 | I give something back out to you.

02:13:24.960 | But that's not the be all and end all of it.

02:13:28.960 | So there are transactions, whether it's the,

02:13:32.440 | who's gonna wash the dishes, who's gonna do the clothes,

02:13:34.420 | or it's what do I put out there that you take in

02:13:36.740 | and what do you put out there that I take in,

02:13:39.260 | that there is something greater than,

02:13:41.720 | something beyond the transactional.

02:13:44.080 | And there is some controversy to this,

02:13:46.000 | a thought that there really are a historical thought

02:13:49.860 | in the field that there are just aggressive

02:13:53.120 | and pleasure drives in us

02:13:55.280 | and that everything is transactional.

02:13:57.840 | Now, again, we don't really have a way of disproving that.

02:14:01.380 | I mean, there's not gonna be some equation

02:14:02.920 | that disproves that,

02:14:04.620 | but I think it's entirely disproven by human experience.

02:14:08.740 | And there's so many, I mean, I could,

02:14:12.320 | we could talk about an infinite number of resources

02:14:15.060 | to consider this,

02:14:15.900 | but just imagine the writings of Viktor Frankl

02:14:18.280 | and the writings and the theories around human interactions

02:14:22.260 | and psychological theories that have come of it.

02:14:25.320 | To think that everything is just transactional,

02:14:28.280 | it's a denial of the humanness in all of us

02:14:30.820 | that I think he just brought to the fore so strongly.

02:14:33.460 | But again, there could be nearly infinite,

02:14:36.160 | infinite resources throughout human history that say,

02:14:38.920 | hey, we're not entirely transactional.

02:14:40.760 | It's not just aggression and pleasure,

02:14:43.920 | but there's something more going on here.

02:14:47.120 | There's learning that feels good for the sake of learning.

02:14:50.080 | There's kindness that feels good for the sake of kindness.

02:14:52.960 | There's giving that feels good because giving feels good.

02:14:56.560 | Like this is going on in us.

02:14:58.100 | It's going on when we're like loving children, for example,

02:15:00.940 | or loving animals.

02:15:02.240 | There's something inside of us

02:15:03.720 | that's not just transactional.

02:15:06.760 | And that's why, like, I think what we're talking about is,

02:15:11.160 | if it's truth, it should all hang together, right?

02:15:13.760 | It must all hang together.

02:15:15.040 | And this is why there's an us, right,

02:15:18.380 | over top of each individual that's in a relationship, right?

02:15:22.100 | This is why you can know everything about me,

02:15:24.700 | you can know everything about you,

02:15:25.980 | and you can know nothing about our friendship, right?

02:15:28.020 | Absolutely nothing, right?

02:15:29.540 | Because it's something different, right?

02:15:31.700 | And if it were all just transactional,

02:15:33.660 | there would be nothing different, right?

02:15:35.480 | And I think our experience as human beings, right?

02:15:38.740 | I know that to be true because I just know

02:15:41.820 | that I don't always feel selfish about things, right?

02:15:44.980 | Like maybe sometimes I do and I do something nice

02:15:47.000 | 'cause it'll make me look good.

02:15:47.960 | Like, okay, we're all human, right?

02:15:49.680 | But I know that there's good feeling

02:15:53.040 | from others towards me at times.

02:15:54.960 | It's just about the good feeling.

02:15:56.600 | I know that there's that from me towards others.

02:15:59.440 | So that tells us, yes,

02:16:01.260 | there is something other than just the I.

02:16:03.860 | There is the we of dyads, right, of relationships,

02:16:07.680 | no matter whether they're work,

02:16:09.140 | family, friendship, relationship.

02:16:11.200 | And then there are the levels beyond that

02:16:13.200 | that are larger we's, right?

02:16:15.440 | The we of groups.

02:16:18.340 | - So if I understand correctly,

02:16:20.900 | it can be the case that one person makes the majority

02:16:24.580 | or all of the income for a family,

02:16:26.080 | the other person raises the children,

02:16:27.980 | takes care of the majority of the home.

02:16:30.020 | And of course there is a transaction there,

02:16:33.460 | a set of transactions,

02:16:34.980 | but that it's in service to something larger

02:16:37.180 | that really isn't transactional.

02:16:39.060 | I'm just stealing your words here.

02:16:41.220 | But if I were to expand on that,

02:16:44.440 | just to make sure I understand,

02:16:46.220 | that the non-transactional thing that emerges from that

02:16:49.420 | is generative because it's a family, right?

02:16:53.340 | It's a family that everyone can extract

02:16:55.740 | growth and pleasure and meaning from.

02:16:58.140 | And just because the roles are divided as such,

02:17:01.600 | it doesn't necessarily mean that the relationship

02:17:03.780 | is defined as transactional

02:17:05.940 | in the sense that it's less than it could be.

02:17:09.280 | - Right, right, right.

02:17:10.740 | If you think about what's really being transacted.

02:17:13.060 | So let's say one person is out in the world

02:17:15.380 | and is making an income.

02:17:16.740 | The other person is taking care of the family

02:17:19.020 | and taking care of the home.

02:17:20.260 | What's being transacted?

02:17:21.460 | Well, the person who's making the money

02:17:23.740 | is sharing the money, right?

02:17:25.420 | Is in that sense transacting some of the money

02:17:27.760 | to the other person.

02:17:28.600 | Like you get to have some of it too.

02:17:29.900 | You get to have some of the benefit from it.

02:17:31.300 | And the person who is at home,

02:17:33.380 | who's taking care of the family in the home,

02:17:35.540 | saying you get to have some of that too, right?

02:17:37.900 | You get to come, the children are taken care of, right?

02:17:40.500 | The home is taken care of.

02:17:41.340 | So both are transacting something to the other, right?

02:17:44.660 | I mean, that's truth of it, right?

02:17:46.740 | If you look at what's really going on there,

02:17:48.620 | one person's getting benefit of money they didn't earn.

02:17:50.820 | The other person's getting benefits.

02:17:51.900 | They have childcare they didn't do or pay for, right?

02:17:54.740 | They're not paying for childcare.

02:17:56.360 | They're sharing resources, right?

02:17:58.460 | So yes, that's true, but is that it?

02:18:02.160 | I mean, are these two robots, right?

02:18:04.520 | One is the money-making robot

02:18:05.780 | and the other is the childcare robot.

02:18:07.420 | Like that's not what's going on, right?

02:18:09.940 | The way we want to envision that

02:18:11.500 | if we have two healthy people with generative drives

02:18:13.940 | is they love one another.

02:18:15.740 | They're creating something better

02:18:17.340 | than they could create on their own.

02:18:18.660 | In fact, they've created children, right?

02:18:20.900 | They've created a home together

02:18:22.740 | and they're nurturing that family together

02:18:25.140 | that is generative.

02:18:26.820 | And because it's generative, it can also be flexible.

02:18:29.960 | So let's say the person who's at home says,

02:18:32.520 | I need to do some things outside of the house, right?

02:18:35.260 | Or let's say the person who's out working thinks,

02:18:37.660 | oh, I feel overwhelmed and I like to switch to a better job,

02:18:40.160 | but that job's half time.

02:18:41.420 | I could be half in the house, right?

02:18:44.100 | Like this is where people can come together, right?

02:18:46.580 | In the same way we talked about the two and an eight

02:18:48.860 | on the sex drive or sexuality scale

02:18:51.380 | where people then can find compromises, right?

02:18:54.060 | And if one really wants to stay out of the home all the time

02:18:56.740 | but the person in the home wants to leave the home,

02:18:58.980 | well, they find a way that that works, right?

02:19:01.380 | Because they care for one another.

02:19:03.020 | The generative spirit that is in them individually

02:19:06.320 | and as a couple lets them nurture that.

02:19:09.400 | And one isn't interested in oppressing the other.

02:19:11.800 | I'm not gonna leave my job, you stay at home

02:19:13.440 | or I'm staying at home, you stay out there.

02:19:15.480 | It's like, okay, let's think about things.

02:19:17.060 | Let's communicate, right?

02:19:18.560 | That's how the generative drive

02:19:20.400 | not only like makes that awesome, right?

02:19:23.100 | Like the five isn't the compromised position

02:19:24.760 | between the eight and the two, the five is awesome, right?

02:19:27.160 | Here, the transactional aspects are awesome

02:19:29.680 | because of the generative aspects of what comes of it

02:19:33.200 | far more than either of those people could make on their own.

02:19:36.960 | I mean, home would say, it's not so obvious.

02:19:39.240 | Maybe if one makes X amount of dollars,

02:19:41.440 | each could make half X.

02:19:43.000 | That's not what we're talking about.

02:19:44.060 | Neither of them can create that family on their own.

02:19:46.660 | - It seems that so much of what we're talking about

02:19:50.580 | relies on the hallmarks that we always hear

02:19:54.520 | make up good relationships of all kinds,

02:19:57.420 | romantic and otherwise.

02:19:58.880 | Like things like communication, listening, generosity,

02:20:03.200 | all the stuff that we all know

02:20:05.380 | that we should bring to relationship

02:20:06.840 | and hopefully are getting from relationships.

02:20:09.280 | And that if we're not,

02:20:10.240 | that we should probably request from others

02:20:12.920 | in polite ways.

02:20:15.080 | - I have one word for that, kindergarten, right?

02:20:20.640 | Think about that.

02:20:21.600 | We learned that in kindergarten.

02:20:23.320 | What you're describing is so simple, right?

02:20:25.840 | That's why it's so high up on the,

02:20:28.320 | this is what the geyser is pushing up.

02:20:29.720 | It's high up from the two pillars, right?

02:20:32.440 | Because what you're talking about is simple,

02:20:34.480 | generosity of spirit,

02:20:35.640 | giving rather than taking, right?

02:20:37.420 | Being kind to others, letting things go,

02:20:39.340 | feeling good about yourself, even if you fall down, right?

02:20:42.020 | We learned this in kindergarten.

02:20:43.680 | So we must somewhere inside of us really value it, right?

02:20:46.680 | But then we let it go.

02:20:48.000 | We make things overly complex.

02:20:50.000 | And this idea that in many ways

02:20:54.880 | we should go back to kindergarten, right?

02:20:56.480 | Because there's a purity there, right?

02:20:58.600 | Children in an age where they can learn

02:21:01.020 | and then we bring a nice kind of learning to them

02:21:03.280 | and a nurturing to them.

02:21:04.400 | And we can bring it to ourselves too,

02:21:06.760 | so that we simplify that which has become overly complex.

02:21:10.440 | Right, we simplify because trauma makes complexity.

02:21:13.180 | Having to just make one's way in the world is complicated.

02:21:16.840 | Right, so things get more and more complicated

02:21:18.680 | and we lose the simple roots of goodness

02:21:21.740 | or the goodness of simplicity, right?

02:21:24.680 | And we can come back to that.

02:21:26.360 | So I couldn't resist when he said,

02:21:27.940 | oh, these are kind of simple, these basic things, right?

02:21:30.760 | Like, right, that's the point of it

02:21:32.340 | because that's where agency and gratitude

02:21:34.340 | and the generative drive,

02:21:35.180 | that's where they live in the simplicity.

02:21:37.720 | - I'm glad you mentioned kindergarten.

02:21:39.560 | It brought me back to images of kindergarten

02:21:43.100 | where, yeah, as far as I can remember now,

02:21:45.360 | there were all the critical components

02:21:46.780 | of a great generative environment.

02:21:48.440 | You know, adults who really cared about us.

02:21:50.280 | Fortunately, there were snack time with oranges,

02:21:53.260 | so nourishing food.

02:21:54.880 | There was nap time in the afternoon.

02:21:56.520 | Like these things are all things that I think-

02:21:57.360 | - You got some exercise, explore.

02:21:59.160 | - Yeah, you can take a guinea pig home on the weekends.

02:22:01.520 | Do they have this guinea pig?

02:22:02.580 | I think they actually, I think there were several guinea pigs

02:22:04.880 | but they kept trying to convince us

02:22:05.960 | it was the same guinea pig

02:22:07.720 | because they would allow one family

02:22:09.880 | to take home the guinea pig each weekend.

02:22:11.840 | And sometimes I think it didn't work out quite so well.

02:22:13.920 | But anyway, the guinea pig was a pervasive feature.

02:22:16.840 | So you learn to take care of things.

02:22:18.280 | And in all seriousness, now that I stepped back from it,

02:22:21.160 | there's nothing more generative, it seems,

02:22:23.600 | than a kindergarten classroom environment,

02:22:25.960 | or we should say a healthy

02:22:26.900 | kindergarten classroom environment.

02:22:28.400 | It's all about support of others.

02:22:30.960 | And if we go to the pillars,

02:22:33.800 | the structure of self and the function of self,

02:22:35.740 | I mean, surely there's a lot going on at home too,

02:22:37.820 | but think about like what's salient.

02:22:39.860 | It's learning messages of self,

02:22:42.680 | self-confidence, like instilling those.

02:22:46.420 | It's behaviors that are based on strivings and hopefulness.

02:22:49.860 | Like it's all the good things, all the good things.

02:22:53.060 | And so, as I was thinking about communication

02:22:57.620 | and all these good things that clearly,

02:22:59.700 | kindergarten is a wonderful template for,

02:23:01.460 | in all seriousness, I think is an amazing template.

02:23:04.020 | I'm thinking about what gets in the way.

02:23:07.420 | And of course, trauma can get in the way.

02:23:10.720 | And we should talk about that more.

02:23:12.960 | But it seems to me that one of the things

02:23:14.820 | that gets in the way of asking for what we want,

02:23:17.580 | of hearing requests of us in the way

02:23:20.020 | that is going to bring about the most generative goodness

02:23:23.660 | is anxiety.

02:23:25.220 | It's like, you're tired from a long day.

02:23:27.460 | And someone mentions like, we have to take the trash out.

02:23:30.600 | You're like, ah, like I was at work all day.

02:23:32.300 | Like, you know, that kind of thing.

02:23:35.300 | Or earlier talking about the issue of the non-issue

02:23:39.860 | in terms of power dynamics, you know, that,

02:23:42.620 | well, let's just say I've had the experience before

02:23:45.700 | in relationship of feeling like if I make a request

02:23:49.280 | or I have a quote unquote complaint about something,

02:23:52.240 | that the other person is going to be so upset

02:23:54.240 | about the fact that they didn't do something well,

02:23:57.140 | that it's gonna be three days

02:23:59.140 | of just like diminished happiness for everybody.

02:24:02.100 | So I just assume, like not deal with it, right?

02:24:05.340 | So when we hear the word anxiety,

02:24:06.700 | I think we often think about the person like quaking about,

02:24:09.220 | you know, public speaking or like getting the circuits

02:24:12.580 | in their brain hijacked that were only designed

02:24:14.500 | for saber-toothed tigers.

02:24:15.640 | But you know, anxiety seems to serve both

02:24:18.340 | a very important functional role in modern life

02:24:21.180 | that has nothing to do with physical threat.

02:24:24.020 | But it also seems to be the feature

02:24:26.400 | that if not kept in check,

02:24:27.780 | if we can't regulate our own anxiety,

02:24:30.580 | I'm realizing there's no way that we're going to be

02:24:33.300 | in a position to ask for what we need and what we want,

02:24:36.500 | to hear what's needed of us and what others want.

02:24:39.820 | In other words, anxiety seems like a major barrier

02:24:44.080 | to the generative drive.

02:24:45.320 | - I think the place to start is if you show me a person

02:24:50.040 | who has no anxiety, I'll show you a mannequin, right?

02:24:53.860 | We all have anxiety in us.

02:24:55.700 | Remember, it's just a word, right?

02:24:57.420 | What are we getting at?

02:24:58.580 | We're getting at a sense of tension, right?

02:25:00.540 | Or a sense of disquiet inside of us

02:25:04.920 | that we would like to solve,

02:25:07.140 | we would like to ease if we could.

02:25:09.460 | It is not helpful or healthy if we have very,

02:25:12.580 | very low levels of that, right?

02:25:15.300 | Because then our strivings are certainly gonna suffer,

02:25:17.980 | right, there's not a lot of motivation, right?

02:25:20.020 | To go make change in the world, change in our lives, right?

02:25:24.180 | So if we have too little of that tension,

02:25:26.980 | that doesn't go well.

02:25:28.420 | And that maps to a low assertiveness, right?

02:25:33.420 | Aggression, proactive drive,

02:25:36.300 | there are other ways that could show itself,

02:25:38.160 | but it maps very clearly, I think, to that.

02:25:40.820 | And that's not good for us.

02:25:43.040 | On the other end of the spectrum,

02:25:44.540 | we're much more concerned

02:25:45.540 | with the other end of the spectrum

02:25:46.700 | because a lot of anxiety feels very, very bad

02:25:49.060 | and it feels very bad right now, right?

02:25:51.320 | So our high levels of anxiety,

02:25:54.080 | they narrow our cognitive spectrum,

02:25:56.280 | they narrow our ability to think about what's going on

02:26:00.140 | around us, to think about ourselves.

02:26:02.340 | So the idea with anxiety is to recognize,

02:26:06.220 | hey, we all have it and we can call it anxiety,

02:26:08.940 | we can call it tension, we can call it whatever we want to,

02:26:11.700 | but we want that to be in a healthy place, right?

02:26:15.740 | Which comes, of course, back to the self,

02:26:18.700 | that if my levels of anxiety are very high

02:26:22.740 | and therefore it's causing problems in my relationship,

02:26:25.540 | like maybe I'm always asking my partner if we're okay,

02:26:29.940 | right, that happens a lot.

02:26:30.860 | Like, are we okay?

02:26:31.700 | Are you happy?

02:26:32.540 | Right, because there's a lot of anxiety in me.

02:26:34.380 | Like the first place to go is to look at myself

02:26:37.320 | so we could say, oh, I have attachment insecurity.

02:26:40.100 | That's just stating the obvious, right?

02:26:41.800 | - Or, sorry, Jindra, but a very common one nowadays

02:26:45.320 | that I think is new in the course of human history

02:26:47.460 | is the tugging the line phenomenon.

02:26:51.360 | You text somebody, 'cause you're thinking about them,

02:26:53.440 | you don't hear back, and then attention starts to mount.

02:26:57.280 | And then depending on the context,

02:26:59.440 | you may either be concerned about the person

02:27:02.280 | or even suspicious about what the person is up to.

02:27:04.380 | I mean, here, it's very contextual, right?

02:27:06.520 | And it depends on the history of both individuals

02:27:08.580 | and that relationship.

02:27:10.080 | But then the person will reach back eventually

02:27:12.940 | and it either will bring relief or relief with some resent.

02:27:16.140 | Like, where were you?

02:27:17.180 | What happened?

02:27:18.020 | This is very, very common.

02:27:21.540 | So much so, in fact, that I've come to learn

02:27:24.780 | in talking to others, and this is the classic,

02:27:27.140 | I have a friend who, but really others who are

02:27:29.980 | in the landscape of looking for a relationship.

02:27:32.200 | And there are people I know well who go through

02:27:36.020 | a lot of effort to set an intermittent schedule of response,

02:27:41.020 | like to not give the other person the sense

02:27:43.100 | that they always respond with short latency,

02:27:45.100 | because indeed, sometimes they will be able to do that

02:27:47.980 | and sometimes they won't.

02:27:48.820 | What they're basically trying to do is make sure

02:27:50.300 | that the person doesn't, they're actually trying

02:27:52.120 | to take care of the other person in addition to themselves,

02:27:55.120 | because I think we come to expect a certain latency

02:27:57.320 | of response with certain individuals.

02:27:58.820 | And if we don't hear back with that particular latency

02:28:01.600 | of response, our own anxiety starts to pick up

02:28:04.680 | and it can be quite damaging to a relationship,

02:28:06.760 | in particular, to the generative drives within us.

02:28:09.820 | Because in that time that we're stressed,

02:28:11.660 | we're not tending to other things,

02:28:13.060 | including things that we could do for the relationship

02:28:14.960 | that we're so worried about.

02:28:15.800 | - So the famous scene in "Swingers," right?

02:28:17.740 | Where the person leaves a message

02:28:19.300 | and then lives the whole relationship in his own mind

02:28:22.180 | and breaks up with the person

02:28:23.260 | and they never actually spoke, right?

02:28:25.460 | There's the anxiety run wild.

02:28:27.380 | And of course, I remember that was very,

02:28:29.940 | very popular when that came out.

02:28:31.260 | Why?

02:28:32.100 | 'Cause it resonated with the insecurities we feel.

02:28:34.160 | And now with the ability to feel those insecurities

02:28:37.020 | in a much more immediate way,

02:28:38.320 | that person didn't text me back, right?

02:28:40.260 | There's a lot more of that inside of us,

02:28:42.340 | which really points to if you're able to identify

02:28:46.400 | that you're anxious, too anxious for comfort,

02:28:49.540 | which again, if one looks inside

02:28:51.660 | or even listens maybe to what others have said or reflected,

02:28:54.400 | there's a lot of data, especially introspection,

02:28:56.540 | to be able to identify that, right?

02:28:58.520 | The next question is always why, right?

02:29:01.440 | Let's go look at that.

02:29:02.560 | Maybe that person has been anxious their whole life, right?

02:29:05.140 | Maybe they just have run tense all the time.

02:29:07.680 | You know what, sometimes a little bit of medicine

02:29:09.900 | that kind of just pulls that down,

02:29:11.280 | person can take that for 50 years,

02:29:12.500 | life is better, there's no side effects.

02:29:14.120 | So sometimes like that might be the case, right?

02:29:16.540 | Sometimes the person's anxiety kind of grew

02:29:19.080 | throughout childhood and maybe that's because

02:29:20.800 | there were difficult things or traumatic things that happened.

02:29:23.120 | Maybe there was nothing like that,

02:29:24.760 | but maybe the person was very good at engaging in the world

02:29:27.640 | and then felt more and more pressures upon themselves

02:29:29.680 | and no one ever did anything wrong

02:29:30.920 | and they've only been rewarded, right?

02:29:32.640 | But regardless, look at the anxiety in yourself,

02:29:35.960 | go back to those pillars, right?

02:29:38.080 | And one might discover, for example,

02:29:40.240 | maybe the anxiety I'm feeling

02:29:43.080 | is attributable to the other person.

02:29:44.920 | Am I feeling anxious because I'm intimidated, right?

02:29:47.640 | Am I feeling anxious because I know

02:29:49.600 | that if I don't behave in a certain way,

02:29:51.600 | you know, the next time there's a group meeting,

02:29:53.220 | there'll be some snarky joke made about me.

02:29:56.200 | So anxiety, sometimes it's the self.

02:29:58.620 | Sometimes it's still got a lot of biological components.

02:30:00.800 | Sometimes it's got a lot of psychological components.

02:30:02.620 | Sometimes both, right?

02:30:04.000 | Sometimes it's the environment.

02:30:05.280 | Sometimes it's the other, right?

02:30:06.700 | The other person.

02:30:07.540 | So look at why, because that's how we learn, right?

02:30:11.780 | Like what is going on inside of me?

02:30:13.240 | Where is that level of anxiety?

02:30:14.920 | How does it not feel comfortable?

02:30:16.400 | Like what actually is it?

02:30:17.540 | How is it changing?

02:30:18.980 | How I'm behaving?

02:30:19.820 | How might it be changing?

02:30:21.120 | How am I responding to it?

02:30:22.780 | So what are we doing?

02:30:23.940 | We're going back to this look in those 10 cabinets

02:30:27.860 | and figure out why, which we can do, right?

02:30:31.140 | The vast majority of times between ourselves

02:30:33.400 | and the use of others,

02:30:34.240 | either professionally or non-professionally,

02:30:36.300 | we can go understand the anxiety or the lack of anxiety.

02:30:40.380 | Why am I not so motivated, right?

02:30:42.700 | I mean, that's a case with a lot of people

02:30:44.100 | who feel demoralized.

02:30:45.180 | They don't feel they can get anywhere in the world, right?

02:30:47.400 | The world's a bad place.

02:30:48.420 | And how are you gonna make your way in the world?

02:30:50.420 | And they start feeling nihilistic

02:30:51.780 | or they feel like the eight ball is against them,

02:30:55.320 | even in a generational capacity, right?

02:30:57.140 | And now they feel demoralized

02:30:58.760 | and the tension inside is soothed by things.

02:31:02.460 | So maybe that's the person who's overusing

02:31:04.340 | the thing that soothes, right?

02:31:06.100 | So they could go look at,

02:31:07.620 | hey, like I always kind of motivated

02:31:09.160 | and did well in sports or the well in this,

02:31:10.960 | was interested in that, right?

02:31:12.840 | What's going on?

02:31:13.680 | That's how a person could identify,

02:31:14.920 | for example, being demoralized.

02:31:16.580 | So that process of inquiry gives us the information

02:31:20.480 | that we can use in the service of change.

02:31:23.020 | And the change, while not achieved 100% of the time,

02:31:26.180 | the change for the better is predictable

02:31:28.440 | if it's arising from a place of understanding.

02:31:31.360 | - I'm very curious about frames of mind in relationship,

02:31:35.400 | in particular, how being in our own experience,

02:31:38.660 | let's say anxious because someone hasn't responded to us

02:31:42.280 | and really paying attention to the anxiety

02:31:44.700 | and drilling into it and asking ourselves,

02:31:47.240 | why am I anxious and do I deserve to be anxious?

02:31:50.400 | Is it about me?

02:31:51.240 | Is it about them?

02:31:52.880 | Whether or not that's a valid pursuit

02:31:55.600 | or whether or not focusing on the other person

02:31:58.880 | and trying to imagine like what's going on in their head

02:32:02.360 | that they might be doing this

02:32:03.480 | or that they seem to do something repeatedly.

02:32:05.960 | This of course relates to much more

02:32:07.400 | than just the scenario of waiting for a text message

02:32:09.980 | and feeling anxious.

02:32:11.220 | I mean, I think so much of how we come into relationships

02:32:14.400 | of all kinds, romantic certainly,

02:32:17.040 | but family relationships are in and around the tendency

02:32:21.940 | to switch back and forth.

02:32:23.880 | Sometimes seemingly at random between our own experience

02:32:26.800 | and what am I feeling?

02:32:27.680 | What am I experiencing?

02:32:29.080 | And then thinking about the other,

02:32:30.440 | like what are they thinking?

02:32:32.340 | What are they experiencing?

02:32:33.320 | I mean, this is everything to do with human dynamics, right?

02:32:37.180 | I would think that it's near impossible

02:32:39.720 | for the typical person to just live life

02:32:43.000 | through their own frame and lens

02:32:45.440 | and never pay attention at all

02:32:46.940 | to what others might be thinking.

02:32:48.040 | Even for instance, the most exploitive,

02:32:50.040 | extractive narcissist sociopath presumably is thinking about

02:32:55.040 | you know, who in the room is going to be their target

02:32:57.200 | because of how that person might be feeling.

02:32:59.480 | And of course, on the benevolent side,

02:33:00.880 | people who want to do positive generative things

02:33:04.680 | in the world are probably thinking about, you know,

02:33:06.860 | who to align with,

02:33:08.360 | who has common goals that they might want to work with

02:33:10.940 | or be with romantically that could help them

02:33:13.480 | and the other person generate.

02:33:15.840 | So what is this thing that we do, you know,

02:33:19.760 | what is it called and how does it work

02:33:22.760 | to place ourselves in the mind of others

02:33:25.120 | and what roles does it serve

02:33:26.720 | and what goals does it undercut when we do this?

02:33:29.820 | - Well, so I think the first thing to say

02:33:32.060 | is that everything follows the same simple pattern, right?

02:33:35.920 | So I start with thinking about me, right?

02:33:39.880 | If I'm anxious, why am I anxious?

02:33:42.460 | What's going on inside of me?

02:33:43.900 | Then I think about you, are you anxious too?

02:33:46.520 | Or maybe I'm not anxious but I notice that you are, right?

02:33:49.500 | So there's the thought about the I

02:33:51.460 | because I can't think in a clear-headed way about you

02:33:54.280 | unless I've thought about me, right?

02:33:56.320 | 'Cause if I'm really, really, really anxious,

02:33:58.120 | then how am I supposed to understand

02:34:00.220 | and try and get an idea of where you're at, right?

02:34:02.640 | So then where do we arrive?

02:34:04.240 | We arrive at the magic bridge of the us, right?

02:34:08.180 | That's what connects us, whether the us is a friendship,

02:34:11.820 | it's a professional relationship, it's romance, right?

02:34:15.720 | There's the bridge of the us

02:34:17.000 | because it's not just how or when am I anxious?

02:34:20.600 | How or when are you anxious?

02:34:22.960 | What are things like when we're together, right?

02:34:25.400 | Maybe I'm anxious when we're together

02:34:27.800 | and what's that tension about it?

02:34:29.480 | You're anxious when we're together

02:34:30.600 | and maybe that's for reasons we could talk about

02:34:33.040 | and make less, maybe there's some insecurity in one of us

02:34:35.960 | or maybe the other person is behaving in a certain way

02:34:38.880 | that's not making the second person feel good, right?

02:34:41.720 | We can then come together and see

02:34:43.520 | how does the us impact the level of anxiety

02:34:47.120 | and how do we then take away from the us being stronger?

02:34:50.880 | So think about, we talked about the trauma bond.

02:34:53.200 | Trauma bond can be enacted in a negative way.

02:34:56.200 | It can be enacted in a positive way.

02:34:58.040 | And those two people who can go to the museum together,

02:35:01.120 | who can't go to the museum separately, right?

02:35:04.160 | They're living in the magic bridge of the us, right?

02:35:07.220 | They're both at the museum,

02:35:08.600 | but neither can go to the museum, right?

02:35:10.740 | Neither can go to the museum,

02:35:12.120 | but both can go to the museum.

02:35:14.440 | And then they take away stronger selves from that, right?

02:35:18.200 | That's a reinforcing experience, it's positive, right?

02:35:21.400 | It builds the generative drive, it builds confidence, right?

02:35:24.080 | The person went, they were assertive

02:35:25.780 | and that was gratified in a good way

02:35:27.360 | and they felt pleasure, right?

02:35:28.840 | So when we look at the us, it is about the us in the moment,

02:35:32.480 | right, but it is also about how two people

02:35:34.980 | are impacting one another in the rest of their lives.

02:35:37.560 | And this, of course, this is more important

02:35:39.680 | the closer the relationship, like this is very important,

02:35:42.440 | for example, in close friendships or family relationships.

02:35:45.520 | And I think this is of extreme importance in relationships.

02:35:49.440 | Right, these are the two people who presumably

02:35:51.600 | are the closest to one another on earth.

02:35:54.100 | So a shared us that promotes understanding

02:35:58.360 | and bolsters a sense of agency and gratitude

02:36:02.160 | and bolsters the generative drive,

02:36:04.280 | like that's great for both people when they're not in the us,

02:36:08.080 | when one goes one way and one goes the other,

02:36:10.040 | because that happens all the time in relationships too,

02:36:12.040 | right, you go to work at different places,

02:36:13.840 | or we bolster ourselves outside of relationships

02:36:17.960 | if we see what the magic bridge of the relationship can be.

02:36:21.900 | So we can look there for problems,

02:36:24.000 | like why am I anxious, why are you anxious,

02:36:25.800 | why are we anxious?

02:36:26.880 | Why are you only anxious when we're we and not?

02:36:29.140 | We can look over all that and we should, right?

02:36:31.780 | But we can also even more powerfully

02:36:34.360 | look for the good there, right?

02:36:36.840 | How can our shared bond, whatever it may be,

02:36:39.640 | be better for both of us?

02:36:40.900 | And what stronger incentive could there be

02:36:43.720 | than to do that in relationships, right?

02:36:46.480 | Romantic relationships are the ones that are closest to us.

02:36:48.640 | If they're not romantic, they could be friendships.

02:36:50.160 | Whatever our closest relationships are,

02:36:52.420 | they're the most important vehicles, so to speak,

02:36:55.300 | to better health and happiness, to getting to that place

02:36:57.860 | of peace and contentment and delight, right?

02:37:02.600 | The us is very, very powerful.

02:37:04.780 | In fact, even more powerful than the I and the you.

02:37:08.080 | - When thinking about the us and trying to understand

02:37:14.180 | why somebody that we know and are in relationship with

02:37:18.460 | is behaving the way they are or might be feeling

02:37:21.680 | or claiming they feel the way that they are,

02:37:23.980 | how useful do you think it is for us

02:37:25.880 | to put ourselves in their shoes?

02:37:28.320 | I can think of all sorts of ways

02:37:31.960 | in which this could be beneficial.

02:37:33.380 | I can also think of all sorts of ways

02:37:35.080 | in which it would be focusing off the self

02:37:37.920 | and our own experience in ways

02:37:40.460 | that might be defensive avoidance or denial, right?

02:37:45.460 | Yeah, I'll come clean.

02:37:46.280 | I mean, there've been plenty of times in relationship

02:37:48.060 | where I get fixated on why someone is the way they are,

02:37:52.420 | behaved the way they did.

02:37:54.260 | And more often than not, by taking a step back

02:37:57.540 | and thinking about why my reaction to that is the way it is,

02:38:02.240 | I don't solve the quote unquote problem,

02:38:05.580 | but I get a lot further along

02:38:07.280 | in terms of quelling my own anxiety

02:38:09.860 | and finding a path forward.

02:38:11.420 | - Right, right, right.

02:38:12.900 | Well, mentalization, which is the ability

02:38:15.740 | to discern feeling states, intention states

02:38:19.300 | in self and others, but now we're looking for others, right?

02:38:22.340 | So the ability to understand feeling states,

02:38:25.100 | what's going on inside of you, intention,

02:38:27.100 | what are your intentions, right?

02:38:28.700 | That should only be good, right?

02:38:31.380 | Because if we're seeing it through a clear lens,

02:38:35.480 | meaning a lens that's not biased by some problem,

02:38:38.740 | like a defense mechanism of rationalization, for example,

02:38:41.940 | or of projection, right?

02:38:43.220 | If we're seeing clearly, we're learning about the other, right?

02:38:47.180 | And the learning is never bad, right?

02:38:49.300 | Knowledge, truth is good.

02:38:51.860 | So if we learn about the other by, in that sense,

02:38:54.020 | putting ourselves in their shoes, then we gain information,

02:38:57.660 | but it's the health in us that is so crucial

02:39:01.540 | to what we do with that information, right?

02:39:03.660 | So one person could say,

02:39:04.780 | put themselves in the other person's shoes

02:39:08.020 | and they can say, okay, that person I can see,

02:39:10.400 | that person's responding, and they say pretty calm,

02:39:12.580 | pretty calm about something, right?

02:39:14.900 | And maybe that's just a good thing.

02:39:16.540 | Maybe there's some contention going on

02:39:19.000 | and that person's maintaining their cool

02:39:21.060 | and that person's gonna be really helpful

02:39:22.980 | in navigating an argument or a disagreement

02:39:25.340 | to some really positive end point, right?

02:39:29.340 | So if a person sees clearly, like I see,

02:39:32.380 | okay, I can see that you're calm

02:39:34.280 | and I also see that you're trying to figure things out

02:39:37.460 | and the things that you're saying are sort of positive,

02:39:39.400 | you're disagreeing with me,

02:39:40.460 | but you don't seem to mean ill, right?

02:39:42.840 | Then I can see, you know what?

02:39:43.900 | I think your calm is good, right?

02:39:45.780 | Because I'm getting a little bit upset and you're not,

02:39:48.820 | and I see that there's a benevolence in you.

02:39:50.620 | So maybe you'll guide us to the place that maybe I can't,

02:39:53.540 | right?

02:39:54.380 | But think about if there's not a clear lens inside of me,

02:39:59.180 | right, if I have a defense system

02:40:02.620 | that leads me to externalize responsibility,

02:40:05.600 | that leads me to project,

02:40:06.780 | or leads me to all sorts of things that are not healthy,

02:40:09.000 | now I might think, well, you're calm

02:40:11.300 | because you just don't care about me, right?

02:40:13.860 | I mean, so think about the same exact thing, right?

02:40:16.400 | Now, in the example we're giving,

02:40:17.660 | the person in your position is like being really benign

02:40:20.100 | and benevolent, but it happens all the time

02:40:23.100 | where that is misconstrued.

02:40:25.180 | So it's not that the insight, that person is calm,

02:40:29.740 | I see that they're calm,

02:40:30.660 | it's that there's a deficit in the mentalization.

02:40:33.140 | The person's not fully understanding their intention, right?

02:40:36.780 | What's coming through then gets distorted, right?

02:40:39.420 | So we think about defense mechanisms,

02:40:41.220 | they can be clear, they can let light through

02:40:44.100 | in this beautiful way that has fidelity,

02:40:46.420 | or they can be very distorting.

02:40:48.180 | So the thought, if I'm discerning that you are benevolent

02:40:53.180 | and you seem to be trying to solve the problem for us,

02:40:57.500 | but I take in, and you just don't care about me,

02:41:00.440 | and you're trying to put one over on me,

02:41:03.420 | if I've assessed it accurately,

02:41:06.320 | but it comes on the other end in a way that's changed,

02:41:10.540 | that's because there's a lack of clarity,

02:41:12.260 | there's a distortion inside of me, right?

02:41:15.420 | So then if I'm really working on myself,

02:41:18.500 | I'm in the best place I can be,

02:41:20.240 | I'm gonna be better at mentalizing about you and me, right?

02:41:24.100 | Even if I say, well, we're having a disagreement,

02:41:25.860 | I know I tend to get a little defensive,

02:41:27.940 | so I'm gonna be a little biased to see what's in you

02:41:31.100 | in a kind of negative way, right?

02:41:32.580 | So what am I seeing?

02:41:33.420 | Like, okay, you're pretty calm, like maybe you don't care.

02:41:36.240 | Like, I know I can think that, right?

02:41:38.820 | But like, come on, you're trying,

02:41:39.980 | you wanna solve our problem.

02:41:40.820 | Like I can imagine when that goes on inside of a person,

02:41:43.280 | which sometimes goes on consciously

02:41:45.080 | or goes on unconsciously or some mixture,

02:41:48.180 | it's so powerful, right?

02:41:50.020 | The person's aware of their own state,

02:41:51.940 | which helps them to be aware of the state of the other,

02:41:54.700 | and then the information they're getting

02:41:56.180 | comes through with fidelity.

02:41:57.580 | And now all of a sudden,

02:41:58.620 | instead of maybe I'm gonna blow things up,

02:42:00.360 | now I'm aligned with you in solving our problem

02:42:02.260 | because I see clearly about you and me.

02:42:04.260 | And that's going on all the time.

02:42:06.580 | It might say, well, it's complicated,

02:42:07.780 | there's a lot of back and forth.

02:42:09.480 | Right, there are millions of things going on

02:42:11.520 | every split second in our unconscious mind

02:42:13.560 | that is throwing all this up to the conscious mind,

02:42:15.620 | it's doing things rapidly.

02:42:17.100 | That's going on all the time in us,

02:42:19.360 | whether we want to acknowledge it or not.

02:42:21.380 | And we choose not to acknowledge it at our own peril

02:42:25.160 | because then we're not going to those two pillars

02:42:27.420 | and there are 10 cupboards.

02:42:28.740 | We're not going to the structure of self,

02:42:30.520 | the function of self and what comprises those two pillars

02:42:34.360 | to look for, hey, what's going on, right?

02:42:36.800 | Let me understand better.

02:42:38.180 | And even if things are going well, right?

02:42:41.100 | We can always, as you said not that long ago,

02:42:43.060 | we can understand ourselves better.

02:42:44.920 | The stronger I am, the more generative drive there is in me,

02:42:48.340 | the less defensiveness, the more the agency

02:42:50.960 | and the gratitude, the more I'm armed

02:42:52.900 | for whatever difficult thing comes my way.

02:42:56.300 | So if there's a conflict with someone,

02:42:58.100 | whether there should be or there shouldn't be,

02:43:00.180 | maybe someone's being really aggressive

02:43:01.660 | and I got to kind of say some things

02:43:02.780 | and try and counter that, right?

02:43:04.220 | I'm going to be able to discern one from another.

02:43:06.620 | I'm going to be more effective in both, right?

02:43:08.760 | I just set myself up for success.

02:43:11.380 | And if I'm setting me up for success,

02:43:14.180 | then I'm also setting you up for success

02:43:16.120 | if you're someone I have a relationship with,

02:43:18.020 | no matter what it is.

02:43:19.020 | And then ultimately I'm setting the we, right?

02:43:22.140 | The magical bridge of us.

02:43:24.220 | I'm setting that up for success too.

02:43:26.300 | And that's how you see on these levels of emergence that,

02:43:29.420 | you know, if you understand everything about you

02:43:31.300 | and understand everything about me,

02:43:32.660 | and let's say person understands we have a generative drive,

02:43:36.700 | you don't really know what our relationship

02:43:38.280 | is going to be like, but you think,

02:43:39.380 | I bet it's going to be a good one, right?

02:43:41.040 | And then what would we then contribute,

02:43:43.860 | say to a broader culture?

02:43:45.220 | So a group of people, maybe there's 10 people,

02:43:47.220 | a bunch of friends getting together,

02:43:48.780 | we would contribute goodness at that next level,

02:43:51.340 | which is then the culture of the larger group.

02:43:54.040 | - In hearing your description of mentalization,

02:43:56.060 | this ability for all of us to get into the mind of another

02:43:59.820 | and to try and imagine motivations and states

02:44:03.680 | that would explain their behavior.

02:44:04.940 | - And self, right?

02:44:05.780 | - And self. - Mind of self and other.

02:44:07.180 | - Yeah, that seems like a natural reflex that's healthy.

02:44:10.380 | And it seems to surface most often

02:44:12.880 | as the consequence of negative interactions, right?

02:44:16.300 | You know, something didn't go right.

02:44:17.520 | And so we kind of explore like, was it them?

02:44:19.560 | Was it me?

02:44:20.400 | Like, was it something that happened before?

02:44:22.420 | You know, what else is going on with this person?

02:44:24.540 | As a way to try and arrive at some sort of,

02:44:26.280 | hopefully generative understanding.

02:44:28.120 | But it seems to me that there's also great value

02:44:30.360 | in mentalizing about others under conditions

02:44:34.080 | in which things are going well,

02:44:35.680 | so that one can potentially make things

02:44:38.440 | or encourage things to go even better

02:44:40.640 | in future interactions.

02:44:41.880 | - Right.

02:44:42.720 | Well, the first thing I would say is,

02:44:44.200 | I think the reflex is most often not mentalizing.

02:44:49.200 | That the reflex is most often not mentalizing, right?

02:44:54.020 | Because the reflexes often come from a position

02:44:57.440 | of not feeling safe, right?

02:44:59.960 | There's some conflict.

02:45:00.800 | I don't feel good, right?

02:45:02.200 | There's some conflict.

02:45:03.040 | People, you know, we all can get very defensive very quickly

02:45:05.720 | whether we show it on the outside

02:45:07.120 | or we start partitioning inside.

02:45:09.540 | And the problems come not from mentalizing,

02:45:12.760 | but they come from not mentalizing, right?

02:45:15.080 | And not being aware of the difference.

02:45:16.680 | 'Cause then I conclude,

02:45:17.520 | I know what's going on in you and I don't, right?

02:45:20.520 | Because I don't know what's going on in me, right?

02:45:22.720 | And I think you're being aggressive, really.

02:45:24.720 | I'm feeling kind of defensive.

02:45:26.040 | I'm feeling vulnerable.

02:45:26.880 | And then I'm getting aggressive, right?

02:45:29.160 | But I can't handle that

02:45:30.380 | because I don't wanna be aggressive.

02:45:31.580 | So you're aggressive, right?

02:45:32.760 | So there's such a difference between, say,

02:45:35.480 | coming at a self-other conflict

02:45:37.960 | from the perspective of say, not mentalizing,

02:45:40.740 | the thinking that you are versus mentalizing.

02:45:43.320 | There's a difference between, is it me?

02:45:46.540 | I know it can't be.

02:45:48.200 | Is it you?

02:45:49.040 | It must be, right?

02:45:50.680 | And that's how a lot of that goes.

02:45:52.600 | And then of course, what's the data that's gathered?

02:45:54.940 | The data that's gathered supports that.

02:45:56.860 | I mean, I think there's wars I think have happened,

02:45:59.560 | you know, based upon this little conflicts in friendships

02:46:02.040 | and in relationships.

02:46:03.360 | The key about mentalizing is that's not what it is.

02:46:06.000 | Mentalizing, it goes like this.

02:46:08.000 | Is it me?

02:46:09.220 | Is it you?

02:46:10.120 | Is it us?

02:46:11.720 | Let's figure that out.

02:46:13.580 | Let's figure it out together, right?

02:46:15.260 | It's not defensive.

02:46:17.500 | It's not aggressive.

02:46:18.340 | It's not projecting.

02:46:19.180 | It's really actually seeing.

02:46:22.000 | And look, if it's me, I wanna be aware of it and say,

02:46:25.040 | yeah, like, whoa, I got up on the wrong side of the bed.

02:46:27.000 | Like, look, let me just say, I'm sorry, right?

02:46:28.720 | Or if I might say, look, I know that you're being aggressive

02:46:31.040 | and you normally wouldn't be there.

02:46:31.880 | I'm gonna say, look, let me just get away from this.

02:46:33.880 | Let the person I care about calm down, come back later.

02:46:36.880 | You know, or if it's us,

02:46:38.220 | there's really something between us and let's sort it out.

02:46:40.320 | Like the information that allows the healthy, right?

02:46:44.320 | The agency and gratitude decisions

02:46:46.440 | is always there through mentalizing.

02:46:48.600 | The danger is when we're not mentalizing,

02:46:50.560 | but we think we are.

02:46:52.200 | Got it.

02:46:53.040 | In keeping with thinking about others

02:46:56.440 | and what's going on with them, mentalizing that is,

02:46:59.860 | and in thinking about what's going on with ourselves

02:47:01.680 | and the exploration of the cupboards

02:47:03.440 | under the pillars of structure of self function of self

02:47:05.840 | and our desire for all of that to geyser up

02:47:07.920 | into agency and gratitude.

02:47:10.060 | One thing that we hear about so much these days,

02:47:14.160 | and generally I think it's good

02:47:15.540 | that people are talking about them, are boundaries, right?

02:47:19.320 | You know, you've crossed my boundary

02:47:20.800 | or I'm setting a boundary.

02:47:21.960 | And I've certainly embedded the message in my head

02:47:26.420 | that in order for certain relationships

02:47:28.120 | to be at their most loving in my life,

02:47:30.240 | sometimes the boundaries require

02:47:32.220 | very little frequency of communication.

02:47:35.360 | But that doesn't mean the relationships aren't ongoing.

02:47:38.100 | So what are your thoughts on boundaries

02:47:41.440 | and how should we think about boundaries

02:47:43.540 | for sake of healthy relationships?

02:47:45.940 | Well, healthy boundaries always start inside.

02:47:49.580 | And then once we have them squared away inside,

02:47:52.140 | we can project them outward, right?

02:47:54.080 | The same as everything works, right?

02:47:56.200 | It starts with the self and then it includes the other.

02:47:59.580 | So let's say you took an example of a friend

02:48:02.880 | who's just a little too presumptuous, right?

02:48:05.920 | Like the kind of person you'd rather knock on your door,

02:48:08.740 | but who just opens the door and comes in.

02:48:10.220 | Like that kind of thing.

02:48:12.080 | And you like the person a lot

02:48:13.440 | and there's a lot of resonance

02:48:14.540 | and you don't want to lose the friendship.

02:48:16.220 | And then, so let's imagine what could happen here.

02:48:18.840 | It's not the only thing that can happen,

02:48:20.120 | but a thought experiment, right?

02:48:22.000 | So the person may then question themselves like,

02:48:24.640 | is there something wrong with me?

02:48:26.020 | Like, 'cause I don't really like this person

02:48:28.280 | coming in my front door.

02:48:29.280 | Like, is that just me?

02:48:30.340 | Am I being weird about that?

02:48:31.620 | Or the person can kind of stop and think about that

02:48:34.320 | and they can take stock of self

02:48:35.700 | and they can arrive at an answer, right, for themselves.

02:48:38.560 | Like, look, that person may conclude that, you know what?

02:48:41.980 | People I'm as close to as this person come in my front door,

02:48:44.160 | you know what, that's okay, right?

02:48:45.560 | You know what, I don't need to set a boundary there, right?

02:48:47.860 | That's possible, right?

02:48:49.420 | More often what the person concludes is,

02:48:52.740 | no, I don't really want that.

02:48:54.180 | Like I do actually want this person to knock on the door

02:48:56.780 | and that's okay.

02:48:58.400 | There's not something wrong with me.

02:49:00.060 | It's not that I'm being a jerk.

02:49:01.460 | It's not that I'm being a bad friend, right?

02:49:03.400 | 'Cause what are they saying?

02:49:04.420 | You might say, oh, they're preparing

02:49:05.500 | for what the other person could say.

02:49:06.940 | But no, they're countering

02:49:08.140 | what they're testing out to themselves.

02:49:11.200 | Does that mean I'm a bad friend?

02:49:12.240 | No, right?

02:49:13.540 | That kind of thing.

02:49:14.420 | So they know and then they understand

02:49:16.500 | and then they have the right to set the boundary, right?

02:49:19.020 | Like, okay, it's my house.

02:49:20.160 | I try and be generous,

02:49:21.420 | but I still don't want people coming in the door.

02:49:22.720 | Like you come to some conclusion

02:49:25.460 | that setting the boundary is okay

02:49:27.060 | and you're squared away with it inside.

02:49:29.780 | Then you communicate the boundary outward, right?

02:49:32.380 | And you decide, how do I want to communicate that?

02:49:34.580 | Like saying, hey man, don't come in the front door anymore.

02:49:37.440 | Like that's not so good, right?

02:49:39.000 | Now the friendship is really on the rocks, right?

02:49:41.900 | But to say to someone something like,

02:49:44.420 | yeah, look, I care about you and I trust you

02:49:46.940 | and I know you feel the same way about me,

02:49:48.680 | but it just makes me nervous.

02:49:50.660 | People just come in the door.

02:49:51.860 | Like, do you mind?

02:49:53.340 | Like, is it okay?

02:49:54.180 | Like if you just please knock on the door.

02:49:56.180 | Now think about how that's been done.

02:49:57.620 | Like it's so accurate, right?

02:50:01.820 | To what's going on inside the person,

02:50:03.540 | to how the person wants to communicate with the other,

02:50:06.980 | then you have the highest likelihood of effectiveness, right?

02:50:11.100 | And the person also in that sense

02:50:13.140 | has sort of the clean conscience, so to speak,

02:50:15.780 | that lets them take in information back.

02:50:18.520 | So let's say the other person hopefully

02:50:20.760 | has a high generative drive

02:50:22.120 | and all the good things we're talking about could say,

02:50:23.940 | oh, you know what, I'm sorry, I didn't,

02:50:26.580 | I mean, I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable.

02:50:28.380 | I kind of just automatically do that.

02:50:29.960 | Or, you know, I always do that at my brother's house

02:50:32.220 | and it's close by or whatever the person is saying.

02:50:34.940 | No worries.

02:50:35.940 | Okay, everything is fine, right?

02:50:37.660 | But let's say that person does get mad, right?

02:50:40.320 | Now you know, like, whoa,

02:50:41.980 | what's going on in this person, right?

02:50:43.420 | 'Cause now what you're doing is you're seeing signs

02:50:45.000 | of unhealth in the other person.

02:50:46.740 | And it may be that, whoa,

02:50:48.200 | that's not so healthy with the person,

02:50:50.000 | but I like other aspects of the friendship

02:50:51.840 | and that seems like kind of a strange idiosyncrasy.

02:50:54.440 | Then you might decide, you know what,

02:50:56.500 | I want to keep this friendship,

02:50:57.500 | so I'll start locking the door.

02:50:59.620 | And the person has to knock.

02:51:01.220 | Or you might think, okay,

02:51:04.100 | is this, am I seeing something here

02:51:06.320 | that's about lack of consideration, right?

02:51:08.260 | That's about selfishness.

02:51:09.380 | That ultimately may be about envy.

02:51:10.960 | I'm gonna walk into your house and ruin your privacy.

02:51:13.580 | I'm gonna walk into your house and make you feel anxious.

02:51:15.160 | I feel entitled to do that.

02:51:16.440 | Like the kind of thing

02:51:17.440 | that's really coming through the lens of envy.

02:51:19.260 | So then you start thinking about that.

02:51:20.580 | And maybe, not always, of course,

02:51:23.420 | sometimes you find a friend who can do the right thing.

02:51:28.420 | Sometimes you find a friend who can't

02:51:29.780 | and you can still make the friendship work.

02:51:31.240 | Sometimes you find a person who's not a friend, right?

02:51:33.900 | And you see like, oh, that's how everything is

02:51:36.660 | with this person.

02:51:37.500 | You realize like there's no us.

02:51:39.420 | There's no us, right?

02:51:40.940 | And that's how people can leave relationships

02:51:44.820 | that ultimately are exploitive in one way or another,

02:51:47.000 | whether it's a friendship, it's a romance.

02:51:49.620 | If a person really understands

02:51:51.420 | there's the me, the you, the magical bridge of us,

02:51:53.860 | and then wait, there's no magical bridge of us.

02:51:56.360 | I feel that there's a magical bridge of us,

02:51:59.300 | but the other person doesn't.

02:52:00.820 | There's immense power of understanding

02:52:03.380 | and then of appropriate self-care and self-protection.

02:52:06.980 | - Over and over again, not just during today's episode,

02:52:11.940 | but in the previous two episodes,

02:52:13.820 | it seems that getting squared away with oneself

02:52:17.940 | or at least one's own internal processes to some degree,

02:52:22.060 | gaining some insight as to where the negative

02:52:24.940 | or even positive emotion within us is arising

02:52:27.720 | when we're in relationship to anyone or anything,

02:52:30.540 | it just seems so key.

02:52:32.420 | It's like the foundation of it.

02:52:33.920 | You said like getting to the maximum amount of agency

02:52:38.920 | and gratitude is the goal really.

02:52:42.500 | And that's done by cycling back through the cupboards

02:52:46.440 | that reside under structure of self and function of self

02:52:48.760 | and asking questions about oneself.

02:52:50.580 | And really, unless we are trained psychiatrists like you,

02:52:55.580 | none of us really should be doing that

02:52:57.840 | for the other person, it seems.

02:52:59.300 | This is really each and all of our own responsibility

02:53:03.340 | to do for ourselves,

02:53:05.140 | but that it serves others in so many positive ways.

02:53:08.600 | - Right, right.

02:53:09.660 | So mentalization, Greece is the progress of all things good,

02:53:14.260 | because it is about actual understanding,

02:53:16.220 | feeling states, intentions,

02:53:18.820 | but I have to first mentalize about me

02:53:22.520 | before I mentalize about you.

02:53:24.120 | A way of putting this would be,

02:53:25.760 | if I'm thinking about you before I'm thinking about me,

02:53:28.240 | I'm on a fool's errand, right?

02:53:30.560 | You have to start with the self

02:53:32.520 | and to try and attain clarity of self

02:53:35.560 | or to realize that you can't, right?

02:53:38.440 | Like it's a very important nuance.

02:53:41.500 | If I know that say there's trauma in me

02:53:43.560 | about a certain thing,

02:53:44.460 | and I know that I respond in ways

02:53:46.600 | where sometimes my emotions get high

02:53:49.000 | and I can't quite think through it all, right?

02:53:52.240 | Which can happen to me with references

02:53:55.080 | or something that's encompassing a certain kind of trauma,

02:53:58.440 | I wanna be aware of that, right?

02:54:00.160 | So this is the idea of not only being aware

02:54:02.720 | of what you know about yourself,

02:54:04.560 | but being aware that there are things

02:54:06.040 | you don't know about yourself.

02:54:07.540 | So if I know enough to know

02:54:09.880 | that a certain kind of interaction

02:54:12.160 | about a certain kind of trauma really sets me

02:54:14.720 | to a place where I'm not able to mentalize

02:54:18.240 | like I normally would be, right?

02:54:19.720 | I'm sort of flying blind, right?

02:54:21.780 | Then good for me to know that

02:54:23.280 | because I don't know what that's doing to me.

02:54:25.520 | So it's the last time to make a conclusion.

02:54:27.600 | So let's say I'm in that state.

02:54:28.920 | Let's say I'm in that state

02:54:30.280 | because of something that just happened, right?

02:54:32.720 | And now we have some sort of conflict, right?

02:54:35.040 | And for me to realize like, well, what's going on in me?

02:54:37.080 | I'm bringing to this a lack of clarity

02:54:39.920 | because I'm really activated, right?

02:54:42.680 | From that sense, the anxiety, the tension in me

02:54:45.120 | has been raised to the negative emotion

02:54:47.000 | that reflexive negative affect feeling emotion

02:54:50.520 | has been raised in me.

02:54:52.040 | And then I realized like, I don't know how it's gonna go

02:54:54.720 | if we interact about it now because I can't rely on me.

02:54:58.240 | So like, hey, can we talk about this later?

02:55:00.200 | The same way if you recognize in the other,

02:55:02.080 | that person who's usually rational

02:55:03.640 | is like it was all worked up,

02:55:05.440 | recognize that in the other, right?

02:55:06.940 | And maybe that person doesn't realize that

02:55:08.480 | they still wanna interact.

02:55:09.560 | And you say, can we, let's revisit this.

02:55:12.120 | And we're like, we're both kind of calm, cool,

02:55:13.880 | and collected, right?

02:55:15.200 | So mentalization greases the wheels of all progress,

02:55:18.960 | but like anything else has to be deployed

02:55:21.000 | in a way that works.

02:55:22.880 | And the way that works is I start with me,

02:55:25.360 | then I go to you, and then I go to us.

02:55:27.460 | I'm fully on board the start with me,

02:55:31.800 | then to the other, and then to us model.

02:55:35.480 | It makes total sense, in fact,

02:55:37.280 | so much so that I'm starting to build an image of my mind

02:55:41.680 | where first is a kind of a rule,

02:55:44.920 | which is it starts with self-understanding

02:55:47.640 | and thoughtful, structured inquiry

02:55:50.080 | along the lines of the map that was laid out

02:55:52.160 | in episodes one and two of this series

02:55:54.560 | and that we've been alluding to numerous times today.

02:55:57.720 | And then there's a second line or rule

02:56:00.400 | that I've got written on this imaginary piece of paper

02:56:03.180 | in my mind where anytime I default to thinking about

02:56:07.120 | another without first going to my own map

02:56:10.580 | and exploring what's going on with me,

02:56:13.000 | that my own map starts to become blurry,

02:56:15.360 | like I'm losing access to it

02:56:16.780 | and it potentially could disappear.

02:56:18.440 | I'm just creating this in my own mind as a way

02:56:20.240 | to create a little bit of, I think,

02:56:21.920 | healthy anxiety to really go there first.

02:56:25.960 | - Paints the picture, yes.

02:56:27.900 | - And the purpose in having such an image in my mind

02:56:32.900 | that access to the self and understanding of self

02:56:36.140 | is potentially drifting away is because I think for me,

02:56:39.480 | there's a third line in this rule set that I'm imagining,

02:56:42.820 | which is that the less understanding we have

02:56:46.960 | of our own map and internal process,

02:56:49.400 | the more likely I am where we all are

02:56:52.840 | to just latch onto an unhealthy map,

02:56:56.560 | another unhealthy map.

02:56:58.500 | I have to believe this.

02:56:59.340 | - Or even follow the directions of our own unhealthy map,

02:57:01.840 | right, which leads us to someone else's unhealthy map

02:57:04.240 | and then we latch onto it, like you said.

02:57:06.440 | Yeah, absolutely, yes.

02:57:07.860 | - Yeah, that's right, because it's still active,

02:57:09.260 | even if it's blurry or if it's obscured from my awareness

02:57:12.520 | and drifting away.

02:57:14.180 | - If I'm trying to guide myself with my broken compass,

02:57:16.700 | I run into someone else with a broken compass.

02:57:19.020 | Now we're both wandering, right?

02:57:21.260 | So be aware if the compass isn't working

02:57:23.120 | the way we want it to, can we go look at that?

02:57:25.800 | Can we make the map healthy, make the map accurate,

02:57:29.380 | make the map guide us towards what we want

02:57:31.220 | because then we will find other people

02:57:33.120 | who've worked on their own maps that way.

02:57:35.800 | - Absolutely, and so often I hear about,

02:57:38.720 | and frankly I've experienced this feeling like,

02:57:42.380 | oh, it's just a matter of finding somebody who is healthy,

02:57:46.640 | and then things will be much easier and much better.

02:57:49.000 | And surely that has to be the case.

02:57:50.920 | And surely there have to be instances

02:57:52.480 | where people have a interaction with somebody

02:57:56.560 | that leads to a relationship with somebody

02:57:58.280 | and the other person is much healthier

02:57:59.720 | and whatever trauma we come to the relationship with

02:58:02.320 | is best supported or better supported than it would be

02:58:05.280 | if we were with somebody exploitative

02:58:06.880 | or who is truly damaged in some way

02:58:10.040 | who basically had a map that was really,

02:58:11.840 | I don't want to say screwed up,

02:58:12.880 | but that they had not explored.

02:58:14.440 | - They need a lot of work.

02:58:15.280 | - They need a lot of work, but I don't see that very often.

02:58:18.600 | I definitely see people who at least from my outside read

02:58:21.520 | seem to have healthy maps

02:58:23.500 | or are doing regular exploration of their maps

02:58:26.880 | and therefore healthy, who knows?

02:58:28.160 | I don't know what they do with their time

02:58:31.080 | in every domain of life.

02:58:32.520 | But once again, we come back to this importance

02:58:36.880 | of understanding what's in those cupboards,

02:58:39.920 | what's in those pillars as a not just important,

02:58:44.080 | but critical step in understanding

02:58:47.180 | and building ourselves in positive ways.

02:58:50.160 | And as I said once or twice before in this series,

02:58:53.040 | but I'm going to say it again,

02:58:55.120 | and I'm sure again and again

02:58:57.560 | before we conclude this series

02:58:59.240 | is that what's so attractive about this map

02:59:02.080 | is that it sets a very clear and simple set of ideals,

02:59:07.080 | not necessarily simple to attain.

02:59:08.520 | And as you've said, it takes time,

02:59:10.320 | but agency and gratitude, empowerment, humility

02:59:15.320 | leading up to peace, contentment, and delight

02:59:18.720 | all as action states,

02:59:19.960 | not as passive states to just bask in and disappear.

02:59:24.960 | And this notion of the generative drive.

02:59:27.240 | And by now in this episode, I'm sure people

02:59:29.920 | are well on board the understanding

02:59:31.320 | that the generative drive is not just about going out

02:59:33.680 | and doing things.

02:59:34.880 | It's about doing things in service to

02:59:37.340 | and in a way that supports learning, knowing, creating,

02:59:40.920 | not just of others and in the world, but inside.

02:59:44.360 | - Yes, I love the map imagery

02:59:48.400 | because you can almost see the map changing, right?

02:59:51.600 | As a person, I imagine the person

02:59:52.960 | is busying away in the cupboards, right?

02:59:54.980 | Oh, there's a lot to work on in this cupboard

02:59:56.480 | and they're busying away and they're doing the work

02:59:58.160 | and we can see the map changing.

03:00:00.360 | That path that looked like a really good path

03:00:02.600 | actually goes through a swamp.

03:00:04.840 | We can see the swamp on the map, now it appears on the map.

03:00:07.320 | That other path that looked like it's a little circuitous,

03:00:10.160 | that's a good path, right?

03:00:11.480 | Maybe a harder path, it is a little circuitous,

03:00:14.120 | but look where it leads, right?

03:00:15.560 | The map becomes clear as we do the work on ourselves.

03:00:20.560 | - Yes, and also the understanding

03:00:22.320 | that you've laid out for us here

03:00:24.000 | really helps avoid a lot of the common pitfalls

03:00:26.640 | that are associated with sticky language

03:00:29.480 | and sticky for good reason.

03:00:30.840 | I mean, what's stickier and more interesting

03:00:32.960 | for people that are interested in themselves

03:00:34.560 | and relationship than things like boundaries

03:00:37.240 | or labels like anxious attached or secure attached.

03:00:41.300 | I'm not being disparaging of those labels,

03:00:43.080 | but I'm realizing those are just labels, right?

03:00:45.600 | They don't define action items and specific lines of inquiry

03:00:50.800 | to get us back into our self-understanding over and over

03:00:55.640 | and not as a full-time job, right?

03:00:57.400 | We all have to live our lives,

03:00:58.540 | but as a way actually to be more leaned into life

03:01:01.880 | in the outside world.

03:01:03.160 | - Those labels define people no better

03:01:05.720 | than the numerical diagnoses

03:01:07.760 | in the psychiatric taxonomy book that we glorify, right?

03:01:12.000 | Labels are not understanding,

03:01:13.920 | numbers are not understanding, they can help.

03:01:16.360 | Taxonomies are good.

03:01:17.920 | Sometimes labels let us categorize things,

03:01:20.320 | but labels are not a substitute for understanding.

03:01:24.000 | Numbers are not a substitute for understanding.

03:01:26.240 | If we look at ourselves, we get real understanding

03:01:31.040 | and that's what makes the difference.

03:01:32.460 | That's what bolsters agency, gratitude,

03:01:35.060 | all those good things, clear mentalization,

03:01:37.720 | greasing the wheels of progress more,

03:01:39.840 | the generative drive getting stronger.

03:01:41.940 | We really can find goodness and often do.

03:01:45.080 | And that's why I think everything we're talking about

03:01:47.280 | is very hopeful.

03:01:48.360 | I mean, it acknowledges there's complexity,

03:01:50.120 | there are pitfalls, right?

03:01:51.360 | There are all sorts of things to it

03:01:52.540 | that we need to be aware of and to be aware of.

03:01:55.640 | But that doesn't mean that ultimately it isn't positive,

03:01:58.440 | that we're not speaking to,

03:02:00.040 | hey, whatever it is that's ailing you,

03:02:02.160 | that thing can be better.

03:02:03.460 | - Well, I'm so grateful that you're sharing your knowledge

03:02:07.360 | and experience around all of this with us

03:02:10.240 | and that you've laid out such a clear and logical

03:02:14.760 | and deep and tractable,

03:02:17.360 | really actionable understanding of all this,

03:02:19.620 | that we can engage in is tremendously powerful.

03:02:22.800 | - Thank you, I so appreciate it, thank you.

03:02:25.140 | - Thank you for joining me for today's discussion

03:02:27.020 | about how to improve your relationships

03:02:28.820 | with Dr. Paul Conte.

03:02:30.360 | I'd also like to take a moment to remind you

03:02:32.380 | that the fourth episode in the series on mental health

03:02:34.620 | with Paul Conte will be out next week.

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Dr. Paul Conti: How to Build and Maintain Healthy Relationships | Huberman Lab Guest Series

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