Dr. Paul Conti: How to Build and Maintain Healthy Relationships | Huberman Lab Guest Series

[Music] welcome to the hubman lab guest Series where I and an expert guest discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life I'm Andrew huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and Opthalmology at Stanford school of medicine today marks the third episode in our four episode series about mental health with Dr Paul kti today's episode deals with the topic of healthy relationships how to define what a healthy relationship is and how to achieve healthy relationships of all kinds including romantic relationships interpersonal relationships at work friendships with family and of course with oneself this episode Builds on the framework of the psychology of self and mental health that was established in the first and second episodes of this series however even if you didn't listen to the first or second episode in this series today's episode will still contain a lot of information and protocols that you will find valuable for improving your relationships that said if you have the opportunity to listen to the first and second episodes in this series I think you'll find those to be tremendously beneficial at any point during today's episode Dr Ki discusses what makes for a successful relationship of any kind as well as tools to improve those relationships he discusses various types of bonds including healthy bonds and Trauma bonds not just in the context of romantic relationship but in the context of all types of relationships we also discuss different challenges that people face in relationships including abusive relationships and we discussed the role of power dynamics anxiety and boundaries in relationships both from the perspective of unhealthy relationships but more importantly from the understanding and protocols to cultivate healthy relationships while there is an abundance of opinions and information out there on the internet these days about relationships both healthy and unhealthy today's discussion approaches the topic of relationships through an entirely different lens which is the lens of the self in terms of one's conscious and subconscious mind and how multiple conscious and subconscious Minds through different individuals interact with one another in ways that we can see and ways that we can't see and all of that framed within the actionable steps that any of us can take to improve our relationship to oursel and to others before we begin I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford it is however part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to Consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public in keeping with that theme I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast our first sponsor is better help better help offers Professional Therapy with a licensed therapist carried out all online I've been doing therapy for more than 30 years while I confess that initially I was forced to do that therapy as a condition for being let back into high school over time I learned that therapy is a tremendously valuable practice in fact I consider doing regular weekly therapy as just as important as doing regular physical exercise in order to improve one's Health the beauty of better help is that it makes it extremely easy to find a therapist that's excellent for you and we can define an excellent therapist as somebody who's going to give you a lot of support but in an objective way as well as well as somebody with whom you can have excellent Rapport and that can help you arrive at positively transformative insights that you wouldn't have otherwise had and with betterhelp they make it convenient so that it's matched to your schedule and the other aspects of your life if you'd like to try betterhelp go to betterhelp.com huberman to get 10% off your first month again that's betterhelp hp.com today's episode is also brought To Us by waking up waking up is a meditation app that offers dozens of guided meditation sessions mind fulness trainings yoga NRA sessions and more by now there's an abundance of data showing that even short daily meditations can greatly improve our mood reduce anxiety improve our ability to focus and can improve our memory and while there are many different forms of meditation most people find it difficult to find and stick to a meditation practice in a way that is most beneficial for them the waking up app makes it extremely easy to learn how to meditate and to carry out your daily meditation practice in a way that's going to be most effective and efficient for you it includes a variety of different types of meditations of different duration as well as things like Yoga Nidra which place the brain and body into a sort of pseudo sleep that allows you to emerge feeling incredibly mentally refreshed in fact the science around yoganidra is really impressive showing that after a Yoga Nidra session levels of dopamine in certain areas of the brain are enhanced by up to 60% which places the brain and body into a state of enhanced Readiness for mental work and for physical work another another thing I really like about the waking up app is that it provides a 30-day introduction course so for those of you that have not meditated before or getting back to a meditation practice that's fantastic or if you're somebody who's already a skilled and regular meditator waking up has more advanced meditations and yoga needer sessions for you as well if you'd like to try the waking up app you can go to waking up.com huberman and access a free 30-day trial again that's waking up.com huberman and now for my discussion about Mental Health with Dr Paul Ki Dr Ki welcome back thank you happy to be here today we're going to discuss relationships and that will often focus on romantic relationships but also relationships between friends between family members and inevitably the relationship to self which is what we really focused on in episodes one and two of this series episode one being um all the things that go into a healthy self and how to understand what is unhealthy and healthy in all of us and make adjustments to the unhealthy aspects of our unconscious and conscious through really specific proactive behaviors and patterns of thought so really a road map to these ideals that we call mental health and understanding of the self today we want to talk about relationships from the perspective of of course how people relate but I have a feeling it's going to have something to do with or perhaps almost everything to do with our relationship to understanding ourselves first yes so just to make sure that we're all on the same page regardless of whether or not people have seen episodes one and two and certainly people do not need to have seen or listened to episodes one and two of the series in order to understand today's discussion could you please tell us what is a healthy person and how can we ask ourselves the sorts of questions that allow us to determine whether or not we are healthy and where to look in terms of making adjust ments if we want to be healthier than we already are which I have to believe almost everybody if not everybody certainly wants to be the healthiest and best expression of themselves so that they can do the most for themselves and for others in the world so the the Lynch pin of it all right is the agency and gratitude as verbs right that's the top of the mountain right there's a lot of climbing we do to get to the top of the mountain once we're over the top of the mountain then things are in a better place and even though they're words right agency is of course a word gratitude is a word but it doesn't mean that there are separate Concepts approaching the world through the lens of agency and gratitude thought of as one thing because they come together and they come together as verbs like that's what we're aiming for right because that's the thing that we can work towards right if you think about what comes underneath of that right it takes us back to the the two pillars and the the 10 cupboards right and if we're looking in there enough we we're minding like what is in my unconscious mind I might not be aware of let me generate some curiosity about my defense mechanisms and my character structure and think about what's Salient inside of me like if we're doing all of that then what we're we're doing we're building empowerment we're building humility and then ultimately the expression of all of that is the agency and gratitude and it's something that we can't have enough of like it's say what's the best amount of that the most that's possible right because we're going to engage in the world in the healthiest way because agency and gratitude doesn't mean like we're happy about everything right if there's something negative and we can change that then we don't feel happy about that we we the sense of gratitude in me makes me more likely to feel that I can change that right or to take the chance of trying to change that and then the agency part of that concept can come more to the for and I can make the change so it's not about BL right it's not about forgiving self and others for all sorts of things and not working to make better it's about being in the world and being as aware as I can possibly be including being aware that there are things I'm not aware of right so sort of having a healthy respect and an orientation to the world that values truth and values understanding and exploration if we do all of that then we reach the top of the mountain through the agency and gratitude and then what builds upon that or what comes from from that is the the peace the contentment the Delight the generative Drive being strengthened like that all comes together and then the aggressive or we say aggressive because that's the traditional term but the aggressive or the assertive right the assertiveness or assertion Drive however we whatever word we want to put to that that drive exists in us in a way that subserves the generative Drive the same thing with the pleasure Drive in US it exists in us but it's observing the generative drive and all those good things come together and they come together to help us be as healthy as we can and to stay healthy right including when tribulation or difficulties come our way so that we stay as best we can in the agency and gratitude as verbs and again there's nothing theoretical about this like it's a way to live and and there are a lot of people who live some of their lives or parts of their lives through that right and we can aspire to it and we can work towards it and if we're the best that we can be then we're going to be in our relationships the best we can be like think about it like you and I have a relationship we know each other we're working together if I can bring my best self to you to thinking about you to understanding you if I can bring the agency and the Gratitude then I'm going to do right by you I'm going to mentalize this idea of thinking about what's going on inside of you like I'm going to bring the best of all of that and then because we have a relationship there's also an us like there's a me there's a you there's something that happens between us that's the relationship that's the US and I will also bring my best self to that thing that is no longer just me or just you but that isn't us and that applies to all relationships right you can apply that to seeking Health in every single relationship in our lives what you're saying really speaks to the importance of people taking a real look at themselves you know which is not necessarily an inventory of Self in the typical sense that we're used to hearing it but rather through this lens or map of the self that was spelled out in episodes one and two and again for those that are just joining the series now um the map as we're referring to it is available as a downloadable PDF um in the show note captions people want to get that it's completely zero cost you can just go there and access it or just view it on a screen print it out whatever whatever you like you certainly don't need to do that because here again we're talking about the core elements of that map which if I understand correctly arrive eventually at a set of verb states that we're calling agency and gratitude those are not separate as you pointed out they work together you you described as a on top of the geyser right and I I really like that like there's a lot of things going on but then it all uplifts to something right and if we're doing it in the right way in in the diligent way then it is like a geyser and what it's lifting up on top of it is the agency and gratitude I I love you put those words to it and I think it captures it really profoundly well the the stuff that geysers up perhaps deserves a bit of our attention um just for a few moments um you describe these two pillars that I described as geysering up to agency and gratitude in the in the best circumstances but the best circumstances we want to remind ourselves and everybody are attainable by looking at what's in those pillars um those two pillars are the structure of self so really understanding something about the structure of self so that includes some understanding of the unconscious mind some understanding of the conscious mind defense mechanisms character structure and self that was all reviewed and described in episodes one and two as well as the functions of self which are more of the verb States the expressions of the structure of self self-awareness being the first of those defense mechanisms in action and here um I'd be remiss if I didn't tell myself and everybody else again that defense mechanisms are not always bad there can be healthy defense mechanisms AB absolutely they can protect us in very valuable ways and then this notion of salience what we pay attention to you know what sorts of scripts are going on in our head about ourselves and others what are we paying attention to how are we interpreting those in our head and to others and then most importantly perhaps to ourselves and then our actual Behavior like what are we doing from the the time we wake up until the time we go to sleep at night and then our strivings our sense of hopefulness or perhaps lack of strivings and there I reminded also that nobody does all of these things perfectly all the time we all have elements within us that perhaps are not serving to geyser up into agency and gratitude as well as they could but that all of us have the capacity to look at these two pillars and these uh 10 things that were just listed off as you described them as cupboards that we look into and examine and think about and that if we can do that with a skilled clinician like yourself or another psychiatrist or psychologist terrific but even if we don't have access to that that we can examine within us what is and is not serving to geyser up into agency in gratitude right we can bring any issue of self to those two pillars and the 10 cupboards within them any issue of self why because that's what it is right in the sense that like it is is the US what's inside of me I have an unconscious mind I have a conscious mind I have a defensive structure I have a character structure I have a self like like that's what it is right and all the functions that you mentioned they're all going on W within that structure of self they're manifesting themselves like that's what it is when we're being right in the active way of the verb being right that's what it is which is why we can bring bring to it any issue of self even though of course there's tremendous complexity there you know the million things that go on in a second you know underneath the surface in the unconscious mind and our defensive structures and how to see them but like we're human beings we're complicated right like that's okay because we have methods of understanding we have methods of inquiry and we can use those methods to make things better and that's how we make the geyser as strong as it can be where like maybe some maybe some some the water is running countercurrent and and the okay well let's try and have things go all in the same direction but we don't need things to be perfect for for the geyser to spring up and the agency and gratitude to then be uplifted upon it so everybody has one of these Maps as I understand it and therefore anytime we're talking about relationships romantic relationships or otherwise we're talking about the intersection or overlap of those maps in some way maybe even the Synergy and the outgrowth of those Maps becomes its own map I think we'll get to this a little bit later yes when I and most people hear the word relationships in particular romantic relationships uh I make a couple of automatic assumptions uh first of all I I have to assume that people are either in a relationship or out of a relationship there's probably a third category out there of plurals and other things but we'll keep it relatively simple and most people I assume when they search for or enter or entered a relationship they thought about like whether or not they had resonance with the person whether or not you know there was a intellectual or mutual interest resonance or a physical resonance um you know maybe something about family history common goals Etc um that's typically what people think about and then perhaps if people have a bit more of a psychological understanding or they're uh reading some you know pop psychology books these days you know some of which are are pretty good um they might understand something about themselves or the other person being a bit more anxious or a bit more relaxed so you'll hear things like anxious attached secure attached things of that of that sort if we could just step back from all of that for a moment and examine it through the lens of the maps as you're describing them which exist in all of us and that really are the map to being the best version of ourselves if we look at relationships in terms of lists of you know where where people went to school if they went to school you know are their parents married or divorced you know do they have trauma that they're aware of or not aware of these kinds of things I guess we could call those uh and here I'm I'm borrowing language that you used earlier off camera so I want to acknowledge that um you know points of compatibility like like I think that seems like a reasonable place to start right do people want the same thing so if you if you could uh could you talk a little bit about points of compatibility in relationship and how those show up um For Better or For Worse when you encounter people in the clinical setting you know when you see a Rel somebody who's in a relationship that's really working for them and is healthy versus if they're in a relationship where it's really unhealthy um presumably there's some knowledge about points of compatibility but I'm guessing it's not always intuitive right right I I think the place we start there I is acknowledging what we can know and what we can't know right so this idea that there are levels of emergence where where things at a lower level come together and create something that's new we see this throughout science from subatomic particles all the way through to culture right so someone could know theoretically like lots and lots and lots about you and lots and lots and lots about me but they don't know about us right like they don't know how we interact they don't know if we have shared interest what we talk about right they don't know that no one knows that like we don't know that about the combination of people we can't know it in advance but we we often believe that we can which then leads to a lot of false metrics of trying to figure things out so when we're looking for compatibility the thought is very basic tangible things like Ro in Romance for example if there's someone who absolutely wants to have a family and there's someone who absolutely does not want to have a family okay like that would be a reason for those two people to not choose one another right um so there are there are these factors but but the factors are all in a sense very evident and very concrete right if we go if we go beyond that we say okay we can see the obvious right then what we're looking for is really a compatibility of generative drives right and then that it tells you can these people then get along like you know maybe one of them is from one side of the world and the other is from the other side of the world or one an accountant and the other is a musician and you know it doesn't mean that oh like they're built not to get along or that if they're doing the same thing they're built to get along or if they're they went to college in the same place or they went to college versus not going to college right there's so much there that we we try to build a story on and then what we do is we miss the forest for the trees right and the trees I think are the factors that don't matter so again let's think about the factors that do matter person one have a family other person doesn't that's relevant but the the trees that mislead us might be do they have the same level of Education uh do they have the same family structure growing up are parents still together uh what do they enjoy are they creative or scientific or whatever or creatively scientific right we we could look at all of that but I think then we're we're making a bunch of trees that mislead us if you say look do these people come at the world through how much agency and gratitude is there guiding them you know how high is the top of that geyser how high is it uplifting that how strong is the generative drive if we match people upon that then we see oh those people got along and those people didn't and then you know there all the other factors like pheromones right and things that we can't understand or like reflexive first impression so so like we could let things develop honoring the truth of what we can't know that when you put two people together you get something that's different than the sum of both people right it's not an overlap of maps right it's a new map right and the map is informed by things that are that are on each individual's map but what we're looking for are maps that don't have very significant uh um differences around just clear concrete things right but once we get beyond that the maps can synergize in all sorts of beautiful and unpredictable ways if and if both are are coming from the perspective of a generative drive that is at the Forefront great you put those Maps together and see what happens maybe nothing happens okay those people don't go out on a second date you know maybe something happens but it doesn't develop in certain ways okay those people dated then stop dating like this happens all the time right but we set the odds in our favor that the generative Drive in each that is at the Forefront means that their Maps can synergize in ways that can then be beautiful and ways that can maybe bring to both people that which which they want and I think there's a Simplicity to that that I I think if we honor it can be very very helpful whether it's romance it's friendships of looking at what the truth of it is instead of the factors that we try and gain a false sense of security if we're we're using them to select upon you mentioned several times the generative drive and I definitely would like to learn more about that and spend some time there in the context of relationships but just to drill a little bit further into what we've all heard so often and you touched upon a few of these themes um around points of compatibility but also where uh sometimes we can um respond to the wrong things when thinking about compatibility again we're framing this mainly in the context of hypothetical romantic relationships but certainly it pertains to other sorts of relationships things like um you know is one person educated uh with an advanced and is and is the other person also you know we tend to assume that people who are um are somehow a better match than people who aren't it's sort of a implicit assumption that's often made not always or that um you know if two people really love music that they will enjoy music together and therefore you know the sum of the whole is greater than either of its parts you know and then and I think those things are utterly irrelevant interesting and I want to hear more about this because I think that um if you think about um which I'm sure you don't but like dating apps for instance like what's listed out there or um first or second dates which you know consists of like learning a little bit about somebody and what they're doing and maybe even a little bit about their history and and um maybe an activity uh and certainly an intentional awareness to how the other person is behaving in the context of different things like you know a waiter or a waitress and how they're treating people and and you and and then you hear about things like um what are the uh this is not something I'm familiar but oh right the um the love languages people are like oh what's their Love Languages you know it's like gifts or like acts of physical um uh touch or you know or acts of service or something I I met someone recently who and she told me U My love language is all of them you know which I think is the most honest answer right because sure there's probably some waiting around what people value more or less and in the absence of the things they value the most it it would probably feel a bit like deprivation um in any relationship but I'm describing all this I'm realizing more and more yes all of that matters anxious attached secure attached Love Languages Etc but it really doesn't get to the heart of the matter uh it really doesn't get to this as you're describing this generative Drive in individuals and whether or not those match up well along the points of compatibility with the other person's generative drive and you know I haven't run a controlled study for this but the best evidence I have is that there fortunately are many people out there who are in happy healthy relationships but there are many many many people who are not either because they can't find them or they're in them and they're not healthy or they're not happy Etc so if you could um elaborate a bit more on the generative drive again reminding us what the nature of that is we covered this a bit in episodes one and two but what the nature of that is and and some different ways that that's expressed and how that um shows up in health relationship yeah yeah I think we really disprove the idea that that some of these these factors that I think are superficial in the context of whether people are going to be compatible they're not superficial things but they're not Germaine right so let's say you think about music right and say two people are contemplating romance right and they both really like music well that could go very very well let's say they both have a a strong generative Drive they they those pillars are pretty healthy and the geyser of the agency and gratitude is riding upon it and they can find peace in them in themselves um they're strongly generative then they could become interested in the music the other person likes is there not going to be a complete overlap right even if people generally like the same thing but let's say they like different things like just liking music or even liking the same music there's still difference right so the person has to go beyond themselves right right and say okay I'm interested in like what you think even about the music we both like right what factors do you like there are places of of learning and of growth for both and you could see how both liking music whether it's the same or different music that sounds great right but you could also see how that could not be great right if if the generative Drive is too low and the aggression Drive is too high right then I'm going to think I like music my music's better than yours or you know right or you know people then start they they'll they'll fragment right even though they have the same interest or if the pleasure Drive is too high then they think I want to listen to my music not yours I'm I I'm familiar with it instead of hey I'm interested in that music because because you're interested in it and I'm interested in you right which leads us to the second part let's say you have someone who really has no interest in music and someone who does well there can be an openness of saying if I'm interested in this person and this person is really interested in music like well that I have some interest in it right I want to learn something about it I want to experience some of it with the other person and and let's say that person then finds hey that's not my thing it's not the thing we connect on then why would that be the end of the world right plenty of people one person goes to concerts the other doesn't right so you know we we we try and find these points of commonality because I think we get over reductionist and then we think oh here's a bunch of factors that we will identify and what they do is they obscure us from the primary factor which which is the generative Drive which of course will then induce open-mindedness mentalization if I don't like music and you do instead of saying what does he like music for you know I I need a friendship with somebody likes music you know you think hey like that's interesting like if I'm interested in you as a friend and have respect for you and what you think then why would I not have some interest in what you're interested in you know so so this idea of compatibility revolves around the health in each person it doesn't revolve around factors that are anything but the the concrete logistical factors that would just keep two people apart I love the idea that healthy relationships center around the factors that really matter within the self and in particular the generative drive and I and I love the example of um someone being able to be curious about somebody's interests about their partner's interests even though they might not share those um from the standpoint of agency and gratitude because the agency component there is really key I think that a lot of people feel as if they aren't really good at something or really knowledgeable about something then it's not for them right which is the opposite of having agency and gratitude because gratitude is closely tied to humility you know how could we know everything it can be good at certain things and not others so the way you describe it includes um aspects of openness of humility but also the agency side the empowerment like oh if I'm going to learn more then perhaps you know we could enjoy more of that together um perhaps not right I think um this is what I'm sensing and I'm also sensing that um the words like-minded you know like-minded people um has so much more to do with their generative drives and how those match up as opposed to the activities that they prefer engaging in and the sorts of foods they like or the movies they like and um which makes sense at some level but I think it is still uh counterintuitive for for a lot of us who um just kind of reflexively think oh like they like the same things you know or maybe maybe even they met at work because they like the same type of work um they like to live in a certain area of the country and therefore by proximity they met um and this raises all sorts of um interesting ideas perhaps about um the statistics of what we see right like two musicians together um we therefore assume that musicians uh belong together or two scientists together I know loads of scientist scientist couples or scientist physician couples and um but of course the numbers are skewed because they were working in environments where it increase the probability they would interact so this is actually a vote for online dating in some sense because it breaks through all those um sometimes even geographical barriers but certainly the the the traditional barriers of culture right right and if you think about we're talking about relationship so I would like my relationships to last as long as possible right that means now we're talking about my lifespan and my health span right like that's then becomes part of that discussion and of course we're very interested in lifespan and health span and we see people do much much better when they're interconnected in the world around them when they're still learning new things like we know that's true that people often will tail you the sort of Trail off of of what they're learning whether it's it's music it's literature it's the world around us you know relatively early in our lifespan but the person who's interconnected learning new things right has a a much greater probability of living longer and living healthier right so think what's that about it's about a generative drive right it's about you know what I've learned a lot of things over the course of my life and I'm 80 years old now and like great that there's more to learn right and like that's what you see it makes me think of a woman who's around 90 years old in my practice like she's always learning new things like she's super interested in things and I'm always struck about how like she seems so much younger right and and there that's not just a selection bias like oh I just happen to see that in that person like she has the factors that predispose to Aging in the way that's healthiest and happiest so it it really comes down the root of all of it in ourselves in our relationships in the quality of them over time and how long we get to have them really arises from a generative drive and that's the thing that makes us then undefended right and lets us find interest in things about other people that are different from the things in us which also comes about naturally like I think it's interesting that we have this sort of bias like that musicians belong together well why they're familiar with the same things right I guess they have the same interest same thing with Scientists but then a lot of people like like different foods right like I love different ethnic foods like why because it's different right it's it's an appreciation of difference I don't want to eat just like I did Growing Up and many many many people are like that that's an appreciation of difference of diversity so sometimes we'll kind of harness that and we'll look at it and we'll say oh like that's present in us but for whatever reason we become very reductionist about relationships and now we're we're trying to match based upon sameness right and like sameness is is not the point of it I mean there even thoughts right about people then in some way seeking difference right and maybe pheromones are telling us that like I I actually know very little about that but I certainly know that striving for sameness doesn't make good things happen in relationships you know I've been doing this for over 20 years and and like I I don't see that the alleged factors of sameness matter again unless they're so concrete like if this person is absolutely going to live in North America and that person is absolutely going to live in South America let's not potentially put them together but once we get away from almost that level of concreteness let's look for something different and then like every everything else it simplifies right the higher we go up the ladder the more simple things get if you're looking at the pillars structure of self function of self you're creating the agency and gratitude then what are you looking for when you're looking for a partner a match and generative Drive I want to I want mine to be strong and I see that it's strong in this person they create in a way you know what I I do science they grow a garden we're generative together right like that could be super compatible because we're looking at the one factor that really matters I'd like to take a brief break and acknowledge one of our sponsors ag1 ag1 is a vitamin mineral probiotic drink that meets all of your foundational nutrition needs I started taking ag1 way back in 2012 so I'm delighted that they're sponsoring the podcast the reason I started taking ag1 and the reason I still take ag1 once or generally twice per day is that it's the easiest way for me to ensure that I'm getting all of the vitamins minerals probiotics and fiber that I need in my diet now of course it's essential to get nutrition from Whole Foods but most people including myself find it hard to get enough servings of fruits and vegetables each day and especially to get enough prebiotics and probiotics to ensure gut health as you may know your gut contains trillions of little microbiota the so-called gut microbiome which establishes critical connections with other organs of your body to enhance brain health as well as to support your immune system and other aspects that relate to mental and physical health one of the most common questions I get is if you were to take just One supplement which supplement would that be and my answer is always ag1 because by taking ag1 I'm able to ensure that I'm getting all of the vitamins minerals and probiotics that I need to enhance my mental health physical health and performance if you'd like to try ag1 go to drink a1.com huberman to claim a special offer they'll give you five free travel packs and they'll give you a year supply of vitamin D3 K2 again that's drink a1.com huberman to claim this special offer I'm realizing that most of what I and everyone else has heard about relationships is complete nonsense I really mean that I mean it has occurred to me before because I've experienced both that the phras is absence makes the heart grow fonder and out of sight out of mind are in direct contradiction with one another so they're both true depends on the circumstances and you know who the hell knows why it could right you also hear Opposites Attract but they don't stay together right you hear similar you know the important thing is to find someone similar to you that that or that there's like one person right that's right for I mean these are if we really think about it crazy right Notions yes but they drive a lot of what people think about relationship right they drive angst they drive bad choices they drive uh situations that then create a sense of guilt and shame and inadequacy like we mislead ourselves by not going to the basics of what is actually true like let me look at myself make myself as healthy as I can be right because if I'm healthy I'll recognize a lack of Health in the other right so it also protects us against bad relationships and then if I'm going to make myself healthy which we're describing how that looks wouldn't I want someone who also wants to make themselves healthy at least if we're going to AE right let's let's AE around making both of of ourselves healthier absolutely and we're going to go deeper into how to look into the map of self and how that relates to relationship uh certainly more as we go along this uh discussion you've mentioned several times however about generative drive and that it really is the definition of like-minded in some sense and you also mentioned aggressive drives and pleasure drives themes that we touched on again in episodes one and two but listening to those episodes is certainly not necessary to digest what we're talking about today could you go a little bit deeper into the generative Drive flesh out for what that is um I think generative I think generator I think energy um I hear aggression or aggressive Drive I think as I think most people do um friction maybe even conflict maybe physical conflict maybe verbal conflict but I know it's some of that perhaps but a whole lot more and then pleasure drive and pleasure uh some people think Bliss some people think uh Delight um some people probably have all sorts of specific things they think of with respect to pleasure so if you could just flesh those out for us a little bit more because I think those are going to serve as um cornerstones of today's uh discussion sure so drives and in this case the generative Drive sort of exist within us and and what they do is they're defining potential right so so right now one could argue if we just pause for a couple seconds we're not doing anything generative in those seconds right but then we resume doing something that we believe is narrative right so the time we're pausing that's when we can sort of look at that as a as a drive within us to to to make new learning right to understand things we didn't understand before to spread a sense of goodness right so it resides in us in a way that is determined by a whole bunch of different factors like like everything else that's determined within us there's a nature and a nurture component so some aspect of it are what are the genetics that came down to us what are formative experiences but we can go in and alter that so if we see the drive as a set of potentials like in that moment we pause there's a set of potentials within us like potential of where we can take our thoughts our actions our Reflections our decisions right that's the drive within us and it exists within us in a way that we could localize now like if we think enough about okay how much of a generative Drive is there in a person how how much is that person looking to the to to make a better life for themselves or a better world around them and how do they feel about themselves and their ability to do that how generative are they or how shut down or demoralized or envious so we can in a sense localize that and again the localization has these genetic and nurture components to it but we can then go and influence that and that's the that's the importance if the drive is a set of potentials a set of possibilities then that drive is one and the same pervaded with however we want to to to to describe that with the agency and gratitude because the agency and gratitude is sort of the operative form of that that's the verb right it's the drive actually driving something right so if you have a strong generative drive then agency and gratitude are leading the decisions the reflections are coming through that the aggression within us or again that's the the this the um historical word but so we can say aggression assertion proa proactiveness right all of this inside of us and our drive for pleasure for gratification right that all is then it's in us but it's observing the generative Drive meaning the generative drive that set of potentials and possibilities is dominant which of course makes sense with agency and gratitude those active verbes being what is most active right and then we're also going to feel at times times and hopefully at a lot of times right the the that set of peacefulness that set of contentment the sense of delight right what you're describing when you're you know doing the podcast and you're in it and all these good things are happening to you right there's a strong generative Drive in you that set of potentials are being actualized through the verbs of agency and gratitude like you're doing it all right then and as you're doing it you have a sense of peace and contentment as you're enacting all of it and then that makes you healthier reinforces the generative drive it protects you against the next sling or Arrow of Outrageous Fortune that will come your way right you become more self- knowledgeable more you become stronger right and and ultimately that's what we're looking for like that's the state of goodness and I believe that if you look historically what is it that we're seeking we can put so many words to it and we're we're choosing to put these words to it I mean I think that this is the structure because I think the science that history the clinical experience the phenomenology I think it all tells us this we can put different words to it but what we're looking at when we're looking at truth and how to get to the happiness quote unquote that that people have sought Through the Ages I mean I think we know enough now we've learned enough that we can say oh this is what it looks like and it fits the Arbiter of of all truth which is as you get further up the hierarchy it gets simpler that's true about humans what's going on in my unconscious is is very very complicated right but if if that's suming to as we get higher up to like I'm approaching the world with a lot of agency and gratitude right that's a lot simpler and that's what can be common among us which is why if my pillars are very different from your pillars and what we've struggled against each is very different and what we may still have to work against is very different well we can be extremely compatible as friends because are we are we working on ourselves are we fostering the generative drive so we're coming at the world in that way and agency and gratitude that's the similarity right between us that matters and ultimately we're looking at the potential that every moment we're building the potential in us for what comes at the next moment which is why we're describing the overlap the point of commonality that really matters that that matters we're putting a label to it right we're saying it's the generative dve but it is also that okay we both come at the world through agency and gratitude you know if two people are assessing compatibility but if we're looking at something to Nest that under and what seems most logical is the set of potentials within us that we're building and altering each moment and then as I alter it in this moment right it's altered and it affects my next moment right if I do something that's just kind of thoughtless to somebody you know because I'm in a I'm in a bad mood right then what am I doing I'm projecting out my aggression I'm doing something that basically makes me less than right and then I'm going to feel less in the next moment whether that moment is about me or is about someone else the drives are the Potentials in us but we are actively working on them determining them changing them each moment I'm well on board the idea that the uh the typical pairings uh let's call them the idiosyncratic pairings of you know musician with musician in many cases but you know sometimes very verbal person with quieter person you know introvert with extrovert or introvert with introvert you that all of that takes backseat or it perhaps even back back seat perhaps it even is out of the vehicle compared to the critical importance of generative drive right when we think about generative drives and individuals you beautifully described what a generative Drive is and how it shows up in individuals when thinking about generative drives in romantic relationships however because generative Drive can be expressed to varying degrees does one often see that or do you think that a matching of sort of levels of generative drives is what Fosters the best relationships in other words let's say somebody has a pretty high pleasure Drive um but not a very strong aggressive also Pro also called proactiveness Drive and so maybe like they're um they watch a lot of Netflix like a lot of Netflix but they're not even the sort of person that's like really excited about the shows and telling you about them because there's a version of watching a lot of Netflix where the person is um really interested in learning and in knowing maybe even they're thinking about writing a writing something you know poetry or a book or or they're bringing some of that to their life right I mention it that way because watching Netflix isn't bad per se right it's not anti-ena is it an escape or is it generative is a person thinking about what they're going to do they're going to write that book or are they just trying to numb out and at the end of 5 hours in front of the television they don't know what those five hours were right there's no intrinsic value judgment based upon a lot of things that we make intrinsic value we make value judgments about right you have to look at who is the person what is the context are they being generative or not yeah some of the movies and shows that I've watched in relationships became the the points of connection around at least to me tremendously interesting discussions on Hikes that we took the next day and um and Reflections on our own relationship and work and life and so I'm so glad that you point out that there's nothing intrinsically valuable or um invaluable about something like Netflix um or even intrinsically passive about doing something like sitting around or or even reading books for that matter there's a passive version of reading great books also people forget that it's hard to read a great book and not learn something I guess that's why they're called great books but but um but there is a version of that and I know many people people want to possess the book I read the book and I'm going to check it off I don't know what was in it like people do that that is not generative so should we consider matching of level or expression of generative drives as um perhaps the what we are all seeking in seeking relationship like that and do you think that people tend to pair up um naturally pair up with people that have a similar level of generative Drive or if they don't do you think it leads to problems right yeah I think that by and large people don't that it's not the thing that we're thinking about and looking for in ourselves or others and I absolutely believe that it makes problems and let's take a look to not look it makes problems to not look right it makes sense way the fact that we're not basing it upon generative Drive does indeed I think make many many many many many and in fact countless problems and I would take as an example like think about the idea of a trauma Bond right a trauma bond is not a bad thing that sounds like a strong statement because the way that I hear trauma Bond used is it's a bad thing right but it doesn't have to be so so let's take a look at it imagine that you have what people call a trauma Bond you know you have two people who let's just we'll make up a situation right they're functioning in the world around them but they each have had some very significant trauma that is creating issues in them so let's say their avoidance issues person doesn't feel safe or comfortable in the world around them they get invited to places that they like to go but they don't go right they want to go to the museum and see something really new and cool there but there might be a crowd right I mean this happens right and let's say you have two people who both have this in them it could be because the trauma is similar the trauma could be night and day right but they each have this in them they could bomb around that trauma in a way that worsens the trauma that's why people think negatively of a trauma Bond right so if the case is that the trauma bond is not a good thing for these two people you say why is that it's not because both of them have had trauma and both of them are impacted by trauma and both of them are impacted by trauma in similar ways it's not that it's that the drives are not in a healthy place and the gratification of the generative drive and the pleasure drives are not high enough so let's imagine the generative Drive is could be relatively low in in each of these people in one or the other or they could have a naturally high drive that's being thwarted right so so there's something that's out of balance where the drive is the the ability to express the drive right is there enough agency right if there's not like let's say one person is really really shut down that person person can't stand their job right okay something is shutting that person down the generative Drive wishes greater expression they go back and look at themselves you can bring that into line right but something is out of balance at the time the the pleasure Drive may be low or it may be high but it may not be gratified it may be that that person loves museums and wants to go to the museum but can't find that gratification right that's a possibility the aggression or assertion drive would be on the low end right but it could be higher maybe if that person felt safer right that drive within them has a lot of latitude in it maybe it could move higher right but something is out of balance in the drives and in their expression right that's the problem because let's look at the other side where a trauma bond is a great thing right so each of the people in the example has trauma and they recognize it in themselves and they understand how it makes things harder for them and and then they're communicating about how it makes it hard in the other right so maybe there's a lot of overlap right in Social avoidance and sense of vulnerability but maybe there are things that are different in one person versus the other so then they can come together and say look the the what's the goal of life like I would like to be as healthy as I can be I'm working on myself you want to be as healthy as you can be we want to be as healthy as we can be and if we're healthy we also help each of us be healthy so so maybe those two people neither of which say would ever go to the museum on their own because the trauma inside of them is at a point it hasn't been worked through or it's at a place where they just simply feel too vulnerable right but together they can go to the museum and then the bond around trauma helps them be healthy the drives are in a better place because they're able to recognize hey there are things going on in me that I'd like to be different and better and you recognize that too we can talk about it with one another right so they're in a healthier place and then from that healthier place they build greater health so much of what we hear about in terms of friction points in relationship centers around it seems communication or lack of communication and as you're describing the role of the generative Drive in healthy relationship um it seems to me that it ties back in every way to agency and gratitude and agency being such a critical element of communication because wherever you've identified that okay there's a potential problem here um people with high generative Drive in these examples seem to be capable of like self- inquiry uh asking the other person questions that bring bring them closer together into a deeper understanding of the self I I raise this because one thing that's often overheard or that I've overheard I of course have siblings and friends or are um and I'll place this in the the way that I've most typically heard it but I'm sure it exists other ways too which is um uh in that the conversation in my head is one where a woman is saying you know like they're with somebody um or dating somebody and like he's he's so clueless like I wish that he would just do this thing sometimes these are acts of chivalry like maybe it's flowers or vacations but more often than not it's it's um a a request or a complaint about a lack of proactiveness you know this is also what ratchets up to these um very statements that you hear like oh there's no real men these days or like there no real men left or you know this kind of thing you also hear it in the reverse right you hear men making pan statements about women and here we're doing this in the context of heterosexual pairings but of course it could all work just as well in it's it's exactly could all work um in the context of homosexual pairings too so you hear those sorts of things and it sounds like a lack of communication you know okay maybe one person needs to be better at asking for their needs to be met maybe the other person needs to develop more of an awareness of what the other person needs of course we all seem to kind of intrinsically wish that um things would just happen for us without the the need to request them or ask for them but I'm realizing again that all of that is is distracting commotion because that's not really what's going on what what's really going on it seems is that the engine behind communication the engine behind curiosity a desire to learn and know and create something from that learning and knowing in the relationship the generative Drive is really what's the issue or the lack of generative drive in any of those conversations it seems one could Circle back to that and go okay well someone's not asking the right questions and therefore not doing the right things because they're they don't either have a sense of agency or they don't have gratitude for the situation they're in including their own ability to do that right so when you hear you know people aren't showing up for the relationship they're not showing up or you know she's not showing up or again let's make the pan statement go in the other direction that you know um that somebody just wants a lot of attention right they just need an excess amount of attention won't let me do my own thing but also wants me to work and be successful you know again these are stereotypes but all of that seems very distracting however all of it seems far simpler if we push it through this filter of Genera drives and whether or not it's being expressed yes yes I I think maybe the best example of this because it's so highly charged is Imagine The the pleasure drive through the lens of sex and sexuality right so imagine that people are in a pairing they're in a relationship regardless of how they got there were taking people are in a relationship and one has a a sex drive with which means an interest in sex and maybe uh proclivities for diversity of sexual experience that say if we just for sake of this example we put on a 1 to 10 scale that that person has a two okay now let say the other person in the 10 being the greatest yeah sorry right right sorry sorry 10 being right that person is a two now let's say the partner is an eight okay so so there's a big mismatch there you think how does that normally go the two stays a two the eight stays an eight and things don't go well right it creates friction in the relationship at a minimum it blows the relationship apart at a maximum the person who's a two feels inadequate often I mean it's not always right but but this is how this often goes person who's a two feels inadequate because the person who's an eight wants either more or different right and the person is who's a two doesn't now that person feels bad and they may feel bad about themselves or resentful of the person with a higher sex drive the person on the higher level feels not resentful of the person with the lower level or maybe they feel like there's something wrong with them because their sex D's too high or they have an interest that that the other person doesn't have and now they start labeling themselves like this happens all the time and it doesn't change most of the time and the problems are enormous okay so so let's see how could that look how would that look with really high generative drives and and therefore the ability to think about self to think about others and to think about the US of the situation right the two people together right so they be able to to talk about it in ways that wouldn't be faulting of the other and would acknowledge what's inside of them like the person with the lower Drive could say you know it just things doesn't strike me as more interesting I don't think about it more they could talk about all of that the person who wishes more or wishes different could talk about that too right and could talk about what they feel inside if there's a frustration of that just like the person with the lower sex drive could talk about the how frustrating it feels to feel pressured right so what are they developing they're they're mentalizing right they're thinking about each other's emotional states and and they're coming at each other through agency and gratitude like I'm so grateful for you remember see where the example is these people are partners and they're happy with their partnership like oh my God I'm so grateful I found you right they would each feel that way I'm so grateful you're in my life like this happens too right and then from that lens you know the two isn't going to become an eight the eight isn't going to become two right but in general in situations like this there can be somewhere in the middle right and and let let's say the two you know says like okay you know what I can get out of my comfort zone a little bit why don't most people try that because they feel embarrassed they feel self-conscious you know they they don't want to try new things or try more people get closed down because there's such shame around sexuality you take people on any spectrum of sexuality and you will find shame you know not in every person but across whatever population we're looking at because it's so emotionally charged so let's say in a loving caring relationship like that person feels the freedom inside say you know what maybe I could enjoy sex a little more a little more often a little more in that person thinks about like somebody who's at a two can then move that to a different place you know a little bit more or maybe even a lot more depending and then the person who's at the higher level you know the eight doesn't need another eight right in order to stay in the relationship but but something maybe more than a two right and then let's say they come in to the middle and then the person who's in eight realizes like look I love you and you love me and and you you out of your comfort zone right in order to do this and like and wow and it's like more fun for both of us so like you know what it's okay my higher sex traffic I'll deal with that that maybe just making it up like I I I would like to do it three times a week we're doing it to two okay you know what that that's fine both sides can live with it but it is not threadbear it's not like well they can live with it it's like no number one they can live with with it number two it's better it's better right the two at one point was thinking hey anything more than a two is I can't do that right shut down the eight doesn't want anything less than an eight now they're in the middle and their relationship is closer that's real that happens what is it relying upon it's relying upon the generative drive to have the openness the ability to communicate maybe the person who's an eight say has a sexual proclivity they're embarrassed about that happens all the time too but in the sense of acceptance of self and and the belief in the the strength of the relationship and the acceptance of the other you know people can Broach things most people who feel like oh I could never Broach that it's not something bizarre or dangerous like it's not something that in a relationship that's that's defined by the generative Drive the other person is likely to reject so let's define our relationships through the generative drive and let's cultivate in and others the most generative drive if somehow let's person a and person B here because it doesn't matter who's the eight and who's the two has cultivated more of a generative drive then maybe that person could give more to the other before that person can give back to them you know we we have these I think just completely nonsensical ideas about mutuality right the idea that even in a situation that's supposed to be defined by love right and you know friendship is a form of love right so friendship um a collaborative uh Endeavor right like these have they have some affection in them right friendship can have love and often does and let's say the love of of romance that there's supposed to be some equality right you know the idea that well if I'm going to give something I want you to give something too look it is not good if one person is always doing the giving things are out of balance but it is very healthy to be able to say you know if I can give something and you're not in a place to give something let me just give something to you right people don't always or maybe don't often depend on how we want to look at it give to others with a sense of Freedom like and you don't owe me anything either right why because it comes from love it comes from the abundance the the the excess of goodness in me coming through the the the agency that I feel the gratitude that I feel and then what's more likely you're much more likely the other person right to to sort of feel like hey I can go a little more you feel stronger you feel empowered making someone feel worse or saying you know I can give you something but you owe me something back right even if that's tacit right I'll give you know I can give you this now but you kind of know that the other person's going to end up doing the laundry for two months or something like this not okay why don't I just give something right you're giving goodness and then the other person actually gets the goodness and they're more likely to find it within themselves right to to then come a little out of their comfort zone develop you know move their generative drive a little bit forward so so gifts given to others with no e expectation of return are Gifts of abundance they're gifts that arise from the generative drive and they make us more generative think about the opposite what often happens each person makes the other feel guilty right right oh this person wants he wants so much and look there you are again like people feel terrible about that or you know there you don't want any sex or this or that the other person feels terrible like that's why the two stays the two and the eight stays the eight right but it doesn't have to be that way and it's also not that if both end up in the middle say both are a five that that's some compromis position that implies less no that's the compromised position that makes more I'd like to take a brief break and acknowledge our sponsor eight sleep eight sleep makes Smart mattress covers with cooling Heating and sleep tracking capacity I've spoken many times before on this podcast and elsewhere about the fact that getting a quality night sleep on a regular basis is the foundation of mental health physical health and performance when we're sleeping well everything goes better and when we are not sleeping well or enough everything in terms of mental health physical health and performance gets far worse very quickly one of the key things to getting a great night's sleep is to control the temperature of your sleeping environment and that's because in order to fall and stay deeply asleep you need your core body temperature to drop by about 1 to 3° and in order to wake up feeling refreshed you need your core body temperature to increase by about 1 to 3 de that all becomes very easy when using an eights Sleep mattress cover because it allows you to program the temperature of your sleeping environment at the beginning middle and towards the end of your night when you wake up I started sleeping on an eight Sleep mattress cover over 2 years ago and it immediately and persistently improved the quality and depth of my sleep and as a consequence I wake up feeling far more refreshed I have enhanced mood focused and alertness throughout the day if you'd like to try eightsleep you can go to eights sleep.com huberman to save up to $150 off their pod 3 cover eight sleep currently ships in the USA Canada UK select countries in the EU and Australia again that's 8sleep.com huberman based on my understanding of the generative Drive the aggressive also we're calling it pro proactiveness drive and the pleasure drive and the importance of the generative Drive being greater than the aggressive or pleasure drives I can also see the potential problem of having like two eights along the sexual desire scale or 29 um or 210 and actually I've observed a lot of examples of this uh for instance if they're let's say two nines they're put both people nine out of 10 on the on the joy and uh sort of proclivity for sex adventurous sex Etc on they're very high on the pleasure scale perhaps even so much so that they don't pay attention to or one person doesn't pay attention to the critical need for points of compatibility to be met like the desire to someday have a family I've known couples like this they're together for a long time they seem to really enjoy one another I know nothing of their sex lives but there just seems to be a very strong attachment around certain forms of pleasure that they both enjoy engaging in so this could be activities or travel I mean here we're we're saying you know 9 out of 10 on on on the sex scale but in many of those cases there's one person saying you know but I want to have a family someday and they're just not into that or perhaps even like but he won't leave his wife right you know they're like involved in something that feels really good they're matching along some pleasure drive but completely overlooking the larger goals of one or both people right and um in it you know here I pointed to an instance of infidelity that's its own you know issues with morals Etc but you see this a lot like people really orienting towards what feels good and who feels good to be with and that of course is healthy but that's not the entire picture so would you say that what I'm describing is an example of where the pleasure drive has overcome the generative drive because in the of somebody wanting a family and the other person already having one and being unwilling to leave that one or the other person not wanting a family uh that the the generative Drive of the the person who uh who wants a family is is not being respected it's or it's being undermined by this excess desire for pleasure like they're just drawn into the moment and the the amazing weekends and they're but this person's incredible and they're charismatic and um I can't tell you how many times I've had friends say that um you know they are they admire the person they're with but they know the relationship can't work because of all these other underlying issues right right right right it's it's interesting we we both overestimate and underestimate what say love can do right people say oh love can do anything no if I spill that glass love's not going to put the water back in it right if I must live in North America and my partner must live in South America like we're not going to be okay right so we say these things in a very Wishful way love will overcome everything like this doesn't overcome that right or maybe it does in the right circumstances so think about if the generative Drive is very very high right in both people so both people have say a strong need to live in a certain place they can find a compromised position maybe they live half the year in North America and half in South America but why because in that situation the love between them the which which is the generative Drive in the relationship right so what does that mean the first person has to have a strong generative Drive be healthy understand that even though like I I need to live in North America right doesn't does it actually mean that I really need to live in North America right I have to be able to see Beyond Myself and what does that mean to the person I love who needs to live on the other side of the world if the other person can do that too then in the relationship right which is a new entity right it emerges from one person and the other you can know everything about one person everything about the other you don't know about the two of them together right so the two of them together are an us and if that us has a strong generative Drive which it can if if each person has a strong generative Drive they can bring to the state of emergence of the US the generative drive and that's the we're talking about a relationship so say the love between them and they can find a way through so the idea that like love cures all things we have to find what does that actually mean right it doesn't mean we have a lot of pleasure together right or we like a lot of the same things like that's not what that means and people can very very much love one another but not be aware of the limitations inside of them right because maybe there are other things going on in them like say childhood trauma they love one another but they can't get out of their comfort zone enough right so the the point is if we make each ourselves as healthy as we can be and then two selves come together that are making themselves as healthy as they can be then the US between them really can fit that definition of of love and do anything but we have to Define that in the right way in a way that honors the truth which again is not a higher degree of complexity it's actually more simple so you gave an example of a romantic relationship where one person has a strong sex drive and the other a weaker drive and then we talked about an example where both people have a essentially high sex drive and where that could potentially be beneficial assuming that the generative Drive is also high in both of them and we also explored a little bit of how it can be bad for relationship if it exceeds the generative Drive what about the aggressive proactiveness Drive how does that show up in romantic pairings you know if one person has a high proactiveness AKA aggressive drive and the other person does not um what does that look like and and do you see that often in your clinical practice sure sure if this makes sense maybe we look at that example of the person who's a two and the person who's an eight on the on the sex drive scale right you'd say okay the person who's a two who's trying to to raise that right has a strong generative Drive what does that mean the person thinks you know what I think I can do this I can set myself about this I see it will make my relationship better like I'm going to give it a try that's the generative Drive In Action the pleasure Drive the person may look at that and say look maybe this can be more fun for me right like it hasn't been that fun for me if I have a low pleasure Drive could I start enjoying this more and then maybe that moves up right or maybe I have a higher pleasure drive but it's not been gratified because I haven't been able to be open and honest like let me see if I can make that better then what's active like what the person is doing is then going to the aggressive or assertive proactive right to that drive and going to the potential in that drive and Mining some of what's in it like yeah how am I going to do that I'm going to bring myself to Bear right and like that's not an easy thing it's not like that person then all of a sudden decides to be more sexual right there have to be a lot of communication between the two people a lot of discussion of what what setting might be best for that what helps the person feel understood or feel more comfortable like there's a lot then to do there and the person may even need to go back to the pillars right because the person may feel like whoa I don't think I can do that right and then it was that's not good I want to do that right what is it that I can't do there's a realization there and then maybe the person who's an eight because they're so well connected gets it okay you can't do that like let me support you right in whatever way while you're figuring that out because they're both generative they want to figure that out now sorry to interrupt when you say go back to the pillars you mean go back to exploring their structure of themselves and the function of themselves so that they can um for instance get some insight into what sorts of defense mechanisms might be in place um what they're paying attention to or their behaviors like maybe even Health rated behaviors that could be impacting their sex drive but but maybe even things that um reside at a a deeper level the unconscious mind you know talking to somebody till they make a connection around uh shame or or or some story that they've integrated into their thinking at a subconscious level right right just an example that I see a lot is avoiding where again not always but let's say the person with who's the two on the sex drive scale who finds like I can't do it right wow I can't I just can't bring myself to do it right and then they go back and they explore this happens up this happens a lot where there's avoidance and then we get curious about the avoidance like because the person's like I just there's something me just I don't want to do that right okay so there's avoidance we identify avoidance we also identify that it's not healthy because the person does actually want to do that cuz it's it's good for the relationship and it could be good for them too and then maybe we start looking at unconscious mind right or conscious mind right and maybe we don't find because it's it's easy now if I said oh there was a major trauma that the person hasn't processed sometimes it's that but a lot of times it's not that you know maybe that person just never learned to feel comfortable with sexuality or maybe the way that they experience or or are attracted to sexuality was disparaged or denigrated right or you know they had some bad feeling about it because the society and the culture told them that or maybe they had a couple bad experiences where they were treated in a certain way and then it's like okay that person comes by that honestly there's not a major trauma there in fact unfortunately there's a trauma that's almost predictable from the way our society you know has been structured so person can go look at that I'm like right like I never I never learned how to do this or how to be comfortable with this or you know I learned that I'm not good at it or I I learned that no one will enjoy it with me but but that's not true like these these are situations not in the side of a loving relationship right now that person is able to bring that knowledge to Bear whether it came from the unconscious mind or the conscious mind and then that's how you work to start shifting things like that was then this is now right it is not then when say the person say in high school had a sexuality that others didn't approve of and made them feel bad well guess what it's not not then and like that's unfortunate it's wrong it's unjust we're going to honor and validate all that that is but we're also going to look at that that was then this is now and you get to behave differently now you're an adult now and adults get to choose their relationships and you chose a good relationship right so so this is the kind of thing that can that can get that person to the point where they can go back up through now what happens at the end of it the geyser is stronger there's more agency there's more of a sense of gratitude right why because the person can attach themselves more to I'm so lucky to have this person as opposed to damn it I wish that person didn't have a higher sex drive right so the person just and they feel better about themselves instead of what's wrong with me that I don't have a higher sex drive right or I said They wish the other person had a lower sex drive or wish they had a higher sex drive that's not grateful like I'm grateful I am who I am and that I have any sex drive at all and I'm grateful for this other person now through through that right that change right they can go back and better access the assertion the the the proactive Drive the aggressive drive whatever we want to call it because they've taken away they've gone and work through the barrier to it then they're able to be a little more out of their comfort zone and the the the other person meets them there right and and they start having this this you know this healthy thing between them where the US that is them the love between them gets better right and then where do they find themselves that's how they get to the five which is not a compromise between eight and two that's satisfi IES neither it is a compromise between 8 and two that is way better for both and for the relationship I'm curious about common pairings That You observe in the clinical setting um and not to focus on the bad but if there are common pairings that rarely lead to a good outcome I think it's worth us learning about those um simply because they're common and they lead to a bad outcome and uh a discussion of this sort could potentially help people avoid such pairings or at least recognize that they're in such pairings and I realize of course because of the way that we're framing things during this series that anytime we talk about a pairing we're really talking about two maps coming together forming a new and somewhat independent map that represents the relationship I have to assume that many people in the world have maps that are very very healthy uh and they're probably even those rare individuals that don't need to go into those cupboards that reside within structure of self and function of self and do any work but I'm sort of SM for those of you that are just listening and not watching this I'm sort of smiling as I'm saying that because I don't actually believe any per such person exists I think all of us even the healthiest among us could be even healthier and express more generative drive and more positivity for ourselves and for the world were we to do that abolutely a there's no end point to that that's beautiful we can do that forever as long as we're here and should I do believe right which is one of the reasons for having this discussion exactly nonetheless I I have to imagine that there are also a lot of people out there perhaps most people who still have a lot of work to do and those words a lot perhaps are in bold-faced capital underline highlighted letters right and as a consequence we see relationships in the world that are not healthy what are some of those common unhealthy pairings I think it's worth spending at least a little bit of time on this yeah yeah sure as we talk about this I think that we should make a sort of somewhat simplified but hopefully helpful distinction right so there are people who are coming at coupling from primarily Health right and again this isn't to criticize people who aren't coming at it from primarily Health right we we all want to get to where we're coming at anything and everything from primarily health and there a lot of the problems are those simple things like wow I can't believe it didn't work out uh I play the trumpet and he plays the clarinet it's like no that wasn't a real set of factors that's why it didn't work out like it's more in that realm it's not always just that but like that kind of stuff is a big factor right when we look in the other realm where where there's a sign significantly problematic mental health issues right which which people come by honestly but need to face if life is going to get better right there are two common paradigms there now again there are way more than two ways this can happen but I I I'm going to highlight too that we see a lot and maybe more than anything else in the in the clinical setting so the first gets called repetition compulsion right but I want be very very clear I do not believe that there is any such thing as a repetition compulsion a compulsion is something that one cannot control right what's going on inside the person is very very complicated when they're making decisions that lead to repeating a cycle and those are things that can change right and do not have to be compulsive so people are often struck by why a person is in the same bad relationship seemingly that they have always been in but with a a different name on the other person right I mean people will say this like it's that person's fourth abusive relationship in a row and it seems to be it's just the same person with a different name like that people say that a lot they say that about themselves they say that about others and it's very very baffling I mean you know people have often been in my office very upset about that like realizing they're repeating and they don't know and it's frightening and you know you can get a lot of of fear and vulnerability from that but there's a way of understanding it that because our our the the limic system right the emotional parts of our minds don't care about about the clock in the calendar right so trauma impacts it impacts the whole brain but trauma impacts the lyic system it creates strong negative emotion that then stays with us regardless of time it doesn't care about time right so imagine now a person gets in a relationship and the relationship starts to become abusive right I mean it's easy to say that and then move on to something else what's that like for that person what does that feel like when that person who they may have seen as a protector a friend right is now cursing at them denigrating them pushing them hitting them I mean it's terrifying it's horrible right so it is a deep impact a traumatic impact on the person and a lot of the time most of the time like all trauma it triggers shame right so trauma triggers shame in us if the trauma is strong enough it changes us as we move forward in the world and then we are different in a way that makes the past very immediate in the present so what the person then is trying to do and there's been a lot of thought about this over the years in the fields trying to understand this and I think in many ways doing a good job of understanding this that the quote unquote repetition compulsion is the the drive and I don't mean drive like we're saying there's a push inside the person to try and make that right right with the idea that if that person can be in that situation again right and I don't mean in the exact situation when someone raises a hand to them but they can navigate a relationship because like they thought it was a good idea the first time so they they don't want to feel like that was a very bad idea so I'm going to make it right and then I'm going to be okay and I'm going to be whole right because the person is driven by fear and vulnerability and The Shame of the trauma right so then they're trying to make it right because because the limic system doesn't care about the clock or the calendar if you can make it right now you make it right in the past right because that system doesn't care about the past it's driven by trauma so then the person's trying to figure out something that is different they're trying to choose that person behave in the relationship they're trying to make things different but they've selected for a dramatically High pretest probability of the same thing happening again which is why you know if I could count the number of times that someone has said to me oh you're not going to help me especially at the beginnings of therapy there's no way you can help me right my last five relationships were totally terrible like I there's no way there's no hope right people have said that to me so many times the last three the last five the last nine and I will say back if you tell me seven different stories of relationships with seven pretty different people several different relationships as they evolved and the same really bad outcome I'll agree with you but you're not going to tell me that and that's why there's hope and no one has ever told me seven different stories where I feel like wow you you just can't do it right no and again even if there were seven you know I'm saying saying things for exaggeration right but there are but there aren't right is what is it it's the same thing seven times that's what it is because the person is repeating and if they can understand the what and the why why are they selecting how are they selecting someone what's going on inside of them we go back to the structure of self the function of self we address what is there then that absolutely can change and then what will we talk about is that person then goes out to find another relationship even if they said they never never never would again like now they're making the decision to go out is would say what relationship are you looking for your second get the first one seven times no harm no foul but you can navigate the second because they're in a different place they're coming through agency and gratitude instead of denigrating themselves and fear what's wrong with me what's wrong with everybody else like look I'm here right even though like some bad things have happen to me look at what I can bring myself to bear I can go out there and try and find someone I can see with Clear Vision now there's agency there's gratitude and then that person can go out and find relationship number two that's a really good one in the example you gave it's very powerful and also very extreme you know an abusive relationship where someone is you know sadly getting hit hit or you know screamed at you know um often times it seems people end up in repeated unsuccessful pairings meaning unhappy pairings of um maybe someone who's like very strongly assertive maybe we would say have a strong aggressive Drive um some people might even call them a narcissist uh that phrase is thrown around a lot these days I mean narcissist gaslighting like projection these phrases are thrown around all the time I think with uh frankly very little understanding or for of what they actually mean unless they're coming from a qualified clinician is it the case that you know somewhat passive or um submissive people are drawn to narcissists are narcissists drawn to submissive people I think these questions ring in a lot of people's minds if I could clarify something that I think I maybe could have said in a clearer way you pointed out that the example I gave was was a very strong one an extreme one right so as a physician I think I naturally gravitate to the extreme circumstances because they're the ones that bring the greatest risk right but we're we are talking to people in those settings right but but most people are not in those extreme settings right but that extreme serves as a model for how things that are less extreme can happen so when I think right we're sitting here talking to everyone across the Spectrum and most relationships that are not going well thank goodness are not going to be that extreme the repeated patterns aren't going to be that extreme but it's just as important to pay attention to a pattern where one person really is sort of more differential than they would like to be to the other that is comfortable to them and they're seeking someone ultimately who's just a little bit more assertive and you know that's not some disaster but it cannot go well over time where that person slowly gives up say more and more of themselves and and there can be that repeated pattern you hear people say yeah it was a pretty good pretty equal at the beginning but then you know I just had like less and less of a say or every you know or you know then more and more like I just became the whole relationship right so it's no less important when it's less dramatic right because the relationship so goes in a wrong way when it's more dramatic there's more risk of course but most people are going to be in the less dramatic but but but super important category and I think it's important to to to point that to point that out too how much of what we're talking about is nested on people's deep perhaps understandable desire to just make sure that the other person doesn't leave right I mean I can't tell you how many times I've heard about or observed relationships that from the outside it seemed really unhealthy but it also occurred to me that people are doing things on both sides of the relationship that ensure that the other person doesn't leave so I'm not talking about a physical trapping of someone in the environment I'm actually talking about the opposite I'm talking about somebody going against their better judgment right and doing things for the other person or against themselves or both perhaps even in the context of what looks like healthy family like doing an excessive amount of of a raising of children or excessive amount of of work uh to support the family simply to ensure that the other person doesn't leave right right here again we can look across the Spectrum right so before you had talked about relationships that can be very unhealthy like a narcissistic person and how can those relationships develop it's important that we we touch on that in the context of this because that's sort of the extreme example so people who are narcissistic meaning a narcissistic character structure now we're getting into the realm of significant psychiatric problems and people who are narcissistic are exploitive right they're bottomless pit of need arising from vulnerability and yes they can be helped and if someone out there thinks I'm narcissistic then not trying to be negative or mean like you can get help and you can be better that's the whole point of what you and I are talking about here right so people can change but but someone who's coming at the world through a narcissistic character structure is exploitive of the other and then can say survey a room and find that person who's had trauma such that that person is going to be desperate not to leave a relationship and then they can exploit that person and often behave in awful ways and the other person won't leave now I'm giving an example it's not the case that c that way every every single time but that's the dominant that's the dominant picture if you have a narcissistic person and who is that person more likely to pair with and then you sense the vulnerability the the desire for the other person not to leave so and that person would have to have then significant problems in themselves like a potentially a instead of a pathological level of narcissism a pathological level of dependence for example so we're in the realm then of of real problems and again real problems can be treated and real problems can be improved and that's why we have clinical care but it can also serve as a model for seeing the ways that are that are less dramatic right so so there are many people who through the desire for the other person not to leave and we could call that attachment insecurity right and and maybe if we leave away The Stereotype version of it right the person doesn't feel securely attached to the other person right and and somewhere inside of them they learned that if they're more pleasing right if they give up little parts of themselves that person won't leave right it might be because that's why their mother didn't leave their father when they think about it it might be that's why their father left their mother because their mother wouldn't do that right whatever it may be or it may be their own prior life experience or who knows something they read but forgot I mean usually it's something more Salient not always but they've internalized something that leads to a compromise of the self now again all that's not what attachment insecurity is Right attachment insecurity is just feeling some insecurity about the attachment so for example I feel attachment in security about just about everything right I've had the experience of of sudden very painful losses happening right so I have attachment insecurity in the sense that I I'm worried right I get I get anxious about people going away and and I can you know want to Over Control like I but I recognize this inside myself I try and do my best to say look I don't want that to make me unhealthy I want to recognize it I want to find some happy medium where I honor that in me but don't get carried away with it to the point where I try and over contr control and then I push my relationships away right so I I say that because there's such a contrast between that kind of attachment insecurity which can involve overcontrol right and the kind of attachment insecurity that can involve compromise of the self so and we want to be very very very careful like we want to be careful like what is a trauma Bond and what does it mean we want to be careful what is attachment insecurity and what does it mean a certain kind of attachment and security can lead a person to make Progressive compromises of self that are not good and healthy for them I'm curious about some of these unhealthy relationships from the other side meaning from the side of the person who is let's hope not but in some cases exploited mhm or who's being taken advantage of or or in this scenario of a narcissistic person or an abusive person is the one who's taking the abuse MH often it seems the victim in that scenario will be truly stuck in that situation they can't leave for financial reasons or kids or um their own internal workings their psychological Machinery has them locked into that in some way and it's that Locked In by psychological Machinery that I'm interested in and I think a lot of people are interested in because from the outside we just look at that and say you know why doesn't the person leave why don't they just leave but clearly there's something about that situation that quote unquote works for them and by works for them I don't mean that it's adaptive clearly it's maladaptive but that works for them the possibility I raised earlier perhaps is relevant here you know maybe it works for them because they know that the narcissist gets some sort of internal reward for engaging this kind of Dy damic and therefore won't leave and the other person not leaving is of more value to them than feeling safe even right so it's a trading one form of safety for another or perhaps the the victim as we're calling them in this scenario is somebody who you know feels a great sense of reward by serving somebody more powerful than them uh this raises all sorts of interesting questions perhaps about power dynamics as well which I certainly have questions about but what are some examples of the internal workings of such a person that reside within those bins of structure of self or function of self that would put someone into that sort of situation and lead them to stay in that kind of situation yeah well any situation like that if it's as you say working for a person which at times you know we see that from the outside because like things continue to go along and things continue to go forward but it that only works for someone if they don't have the understanding the empowerment that we would wish for anyone and everyone to have so what is going on inside leads that person to feel a a sense of uh an inability to change you know whether they can't see their way out of it or they they kind of could but could never navigate to it and there's there's a problem there if that's working for someone right because we're talking about something that's ex exploitive right that's abusive regardless of how it's abusive and I think I believe that can only happen in the context of being demoralized right or the circumstances of being so disempowered right you know if someone just can't go 10 feet from home like there are situations of um outrageous amounts of Oppression right of a person where where the person just cannot choose differently and and there's situations where where we as stewards of all of us where the government May intervene for example ideally right that someone would come in and help that person but barring that kind of outlier a person would only be in that situation in the context of being demoralized and that demoralization would come from too low a drive for assertion being proactive aggression right that that drive its realization is too low and if we give people the understanding and we give them the help the means they don't have to stay in abusive situations like we see this in situations where our society will intervene or someone helpful will intervene some person or entity will intervene and help a person help that person to understand what's going on inside of them that leads them to feel that things can't be better they can't do better or that they're not worth better or whatever that may be and help them to find the empowerment to then navigate themselves out of the situation and and here again I think it's not just agency but it's agency plus gratitude right including gratitude for having a self that could leave a situation when people are in situations like that you know we talk about people as beaten down you know it's it's it's a way to kind of capture like what I think that feels like and how much suffering there is in those situations to to to to be in that place and to not have the agency to get out of it then the person is not feeling a sense of gratitude for self right they feel so bad about self that there's nothing to be grateful for right and there is so much to be grateful for right I mean we could go through any person in a situation like that and we could list wonderful things about that person adaptive things about that person kind things about that person diligent things there are things like that in every person but if the person can't see that they can't attach to that they can't have the agency and gratitude then they stay in a situation that is really defined by the the agency and gratitude and therefore that aggressive assertion proactive Drive being expressed at such a low level I can see how a healthy relationship could exist in relative isolation you know not complete isolation you know and here again I'm referring to or thinking about a romantic relationship I can see how a a healthy romantic relationship could exist in relative isolation you know um a few friends uh some contact with family members or in great connectivity with friends and family and neighbors Etc and still be a really great romantic relationship sure I can also see how the sorts of relationships that we happen to be focusing on at this moment which are this unhealthy Dynamics are made far worse by lack of connectivity to Outsiders in fact uh previous guest on this podcast was David bus who's a professor of evolutionary ology down at the University of Texas Austin and he talked about some of his research into the dark Triad these are narcissistic mellian sometimes also sociopathic individuals how that plays out in romantic relationships and um it's a terrible thing but an an important thing to understand um given the unfortunate frequency that that occurs but one of the things that I remember so clearly from that discussion with uh David bus was that even when there isn't sociopathy or a strong desire to destroy the other that in these sorts of relationships there's often an attempt to isolate the person um you know first by isolating them from their family um also from friends and co-workers but all with the goal of convincing that person that no one else would want them as a way to make them quote unquote voluntarily stay in other words to undermine their their sense of safety to ramp up their sense of anxiety except in the presence of that individual um and and you know I'm remembering that now because um you know as we're talking about why wouldn't somebody just leave why wouldn't they just tap into that agency in gratitude uh it's clear that the the oppressor in this kind of relationship um has a real incentive to try and undermine agency and gratitude because of course with those they would be revealed for what they are and the person would feel enabl to leave um taking us back once again to the critical need to cultivate agency and gratitude not just in unhealthy but um certainly in healthy relationships right I mean I think the the principle here is that Darkness always favors the oppressor so the oppressor wishes for Darkness so you want to isolate that person right because when people see that things are better for someone else they realize things can be better right when people are told by someone that they're worthwhile or they're funny or they're pretty or they're smart or whatever the case may be they may take that inside right you know they may take inside oh maybe I am you know I'm handsome and smart maybe or they they start thinking about that they're very basic concepts that that allow a person to entertain new um ways to look at themselves right so the person who's oppressing wants that person to live in darkness they don't want them to see that there can be better they don't want them to be directly told that they're better than how things are and that same Darkness on the outside say the lights are out around the relationship is the goal of the oppressor on the inside now again the pressor may know this and be doing it consciously but often this gets played out in unconscious ways like the constant denigration of someone the person isn't saying inside gosh I'm trying to reduce their their agency their aggressive Drive really down to zero right but that's what they're doing somewhere inside there's a knowing of that even if it's an unconscious knowing and then what the the impact of that kind of abuse over time is a lower and lower and lower ability to bring oneself to Bear less proactive aggressive assertive uh lower sense of agency and gratitude that that's really the definition of being demoralized right and and that kind of abuse is always promoting demoralization because demoralization is the darkness on the inside right just as Envy is too right demoralization is a form of Darkness on the inside Envy is no less dark Envy may be a lot more active right but in in both cases there's no knowledge there's no growth there's no wisdom there's no learning right so they're the states of darkness and and what can happen in a way that's really so tragic to to think about is you often can have an an abuser an oppressor who is living in total darkness inside they living through the lens of envy and then you can have a person who is being oppressed who is being exploited who is living in darkness but they're living in the darkness of demoralization and no that's a very sad thing to say to imagine and it's been a very very sad thing to see right if if you do clinical Psychiatry you for long enough you see a lot of this and it doesn't have to be this way know even the people who are pressing have it within them the majority of time to make things better and we do see that I took took care of a man a long time ago who had been terribly abusive to his family and it was always unclear to me it had happened years before that that like he just understood and again I never understood like what happened that that he he got it and the man really made change like again I don't know what the circumstance was that made that motivation him but he went back and looked at himself and he went back and looked at how his father oppressed and terrorized the family and he just did it with automatically right because what was rooted in his own fear of vulnerability and he's going to lose his family and not be a man anymore unless he oppresses them like he recognized all of it in him and he had changed it so dramatically he had removed himself from the family system and when I got to know him it was years later and he was reintegrating back into the system because there had been such prolonged change and he had communicated to the family his understanding of self so so it's not impossible even someone who is abusing oppressing coming through a narcissistic character structure right there there's no therapeutic nihilism here right things can change and things can change in the oppressor which isn't excusing that right I mean a person who's doing things is is morally culpable right they they often are criminally legally culpable so that is all true just as the ability to change is true and then the person we think about more commonly in this situation of course is is the person who's being oppressed and there can be change there too but a problem is how hard it can be that the impact of the isolation right and also the dir of resources to really help people it's an actual true story of a woman who I believed with all my heart could get out of the cyclic abusive situation she was in if she had a carburator she a carburetor right she had a car the car didn't function she place to go right that where others wouldn't know that that she was there and the problem was just a few hundred dolls to change the carburetor but it's like there's no place to go there's no resources so we as a society don't help people now it may be that someone helped that woman and got her a carburetor and she drove away right it shows how we can bring ourselves to bear as a society to offer People Help which sometimes is like the lifeline the person needs and and you know maybe that person you know really needs a safe house or something very dramatic or they need a carburetor to get away from being terrorized but a lot of times it's just Community Support structures right good structures around people in community communities that can offer them support in situations that maybe less dramatic opportunities for interconnection which sometimes people can find through social venues or through religiously Affiliated venues but the idea that Community Support Systems on all levels make a huge difference that that's how there's another level right beyond the relationship right it's the society it's the culture right and that's how we on that next level of emergence beyond the individual relationships can foster goodness can foster Health in each and every one of us how do some of these same Dynamics play out in non-romantic relationships so for instance in the workplace um I was weaned in academic Laboratories so what's most familiar to me are unfortunately numerous examples where people working in Laboratories not the same as mine because I've been very fortunate to have amazing uh benevolent mentors quirky and uh outrageous at times but uh benevolent nonetheless but others around me have been in Laboratories where for instance the the workload was just ridiculously high like the demand far exceeded what any person could do and if somebody had God forbid a cold or um children like that it was near imposs possible to Impossible that they could meet the standard there um or uh stress Dynamics you know a pressure cooker dynamics that um made it what anyone would call a toxic environment um you see this also in law firms you see it in companies you see it in families you see it in uh friendship circles right I mean how many movies are about um teens uh oppressing one another through bullying and ridicule and um and practical jokes that are anything but funny right that are downright destructive okay and on and on and so often the victims in these cases if it's not a Hollywood movie um feel as if that's their only choice because um to leave is to essentially have no other options right it's not that that's the only option is to stay it's that to leave is essentially to leave science um because these people in positions of power have the louder voice they have the megaphone they write the letter as a recommendation uh the law firms people talk uh in as I you know kind of spool this out in a long form question I'm realizing I can't think of a single exception like as long as there are going to be people interacting and people talking about their interactions and people in positions of power this sort of dynamic is going to take place right absolutely anytime you have a closed system without accountability you're just rolling the dice for that kind of Oppression right we need need accountability you know think about theoretically what should have happened there right there should be higher order accountability right whether it's in a company or University or wherever it may be there should be higher order accountability that is reasonable and rational so it's not then acting in a top down way that would be overc controlling right telling exactly what you can and can't say or what you can and can't do and some sometimes there's there's too much rigidity that can be enacted top down but the the problem runs both ways if there's no accountability from the bottom up then that person is just simply stuck right why because the system we've put into place has failed right and this is where we're talking now about not just individual relationship or two people relationships but now we start talking about systems of people and systems of people are another level of emergence with with a personality so to speak an environment all their own you can know everything there is to know about each person in the system you don't know about the system but what you do know is that accountability is necessary I mean probably if we added up all the examples in history you know we we'd have to talk about them over a thousand years right I mean how many examples do we have that closed systems without accountability are just rolling the dice they breed oppression you know this is this is true I've been at several different places so I I'm not trying to implicate this any one place versus another but I was part of a medical treatment team so this is a hierarchical medical treatment team of maybe seven people give or take one depending upon the circumstances where there was physical abuse going on in the treatment team this it's true and and I'm not I'm not saying this in some exaggerated manner where somebody brushed up too close to someone and they slipped no hurting someone on the treatment team right two different people who are being hurt by someone senior so so this is is at a major university in a clinical setting right and is it's not again that's not the it's not like that's the be all and end all but you think about the alleged the sophistication of the people in the system the alleged empowerment of the people in the situation which did not put a stop to that so we need to have accountability the accountability has to be reasonable it doesn't mean over control but it doesn't mean under control either and if that person is being overworked as you described with no way of winning or harmed on a you know on a medical team and there's no way that that that person can change that the system has failed that person and failed them dramatically and guess who suffers everyone does right that person suffers right and the science that's being done or the medical care that's being provided is important to all of us anyone could be the patient who who is being taken care of by the team where one person is hurting a couple of the others you think that Medical Care is going to be optimized right is the science going to be optimized that we're utilizing to try and make our Our Lives better live longer be in less pain no what's happening there is envy that person who's oppressing other people is driven by Envy whether it's a narcissistic character structure that acts almost exclusively through Envy or it's envy that is in this person's life in this way or not another way doesn't matter right what's going on there is envy and envy is nothing but destructive right the generative Drive is nothing but productive Envy is nothing but destructive could you remind for people that perhaps may not have heard episodes 1 and two yet that Envy is um perhaps not just a desire to be like somebody else that Envy in the context that we're discussing here is is something um quite possibly different right and there's a varying lexicon which is why it is important to Define it because I think people learn it in different ways I've heard it talked about in different ways so so to Define that there's a difference between jealousy and envy and again we you could choose different words but this is the way I learned it that's been most impactful where jealousy is is benign right it's the idea that if I see that you have something that I don't then I think oh well maybe I could work harder and get that thing right or if I can't have that thing like maybe it's a person is younger right okay I can't make myself younger then I can think okay like you know through a lens of gratitude is that the only thing about me right I can't think of anything good about myself right other than maybe I could be younger I mean if if you come that through the lens of Health it's like it's okay right it can serve to motivate people to like try harder work harder take a look at themselves and be more of accepting of who who they are and what their circumstances in life and and what kind of control they can uh enact and what kind they can't it's okay right Envy is different right Envy comes at that problem from the perspective that bringing down the other person right is just as effective as bringing up the self that's why Envy is destructive so someone who might see another person and they Envy them their youth right they Envy they want that and they want to bring that person down right because I can't make myself younger but then they realize I can't make that person older either but they can do other things to them right they can sexually harass them maybe they can make terrible jokes that are really insulting and humiliating maybe right there all sorts of things a person can do to bring down someone else the inaction of Envy is destructive and and I I truly believe this that people who who come at the world very strongly through Envy by and large a narcissistic character structure this is a small percentage of the population but that small percentage does most of the damage on earth right it's a strong thing to say but when I think about you know studying political science and thinking about history and learning medicine and learning about Psychiatry and sociology and really trying to look at the world and and and thinking what what drives a person on a medical team who's gotten to be a senior physician to physically hurt doctors lower on the hierarchy Envy right that person feels terrible about themselves and then is being destructive to those people same thing that's same thing is at work in the lab the same thing is at work when people start wars of Destruction that just simply harm other people and we can see no other sense of it that from the individual setting all the way up to the world setting we see the destruction of envy and we also see it inside of us because a person who's enacting Envy in the world around them is never h there's no chance of happiness that hence the the idea of a bottomless pit right whatever you get let's say an envious person who wants more money I want to have more money than anybody right I want everyone to have less money than me right so then they they come at the world through the lens of greed when they get more money how long does that make them happy right this isn't mean money is bad or having money is bad it just means if you're coming at the world through the lens of Envy right and that lens is specifically focused on money then you'll be a greedy person who is Never Satisfied even if you have1 trillion dollar right so it's never good it takes away from that person any possibility of happiness and if you see people work with people with a narcissistic character structure there can be a sense of a very brief happiness in the moment like I'm happy because I realize I have something someone else doesn't I'm happy because I'm thinking of myself and even though I feel very insecure and vulnerable inside I have a whole set of defense mechanisms that let me turn those tables around and and then feel good about myself in a way that places Me Above others whatever is going on in that person it may bring some very brief gratification in the moment but that's not happiness hence the need for the gratification over and over and over again narcissistic people are the least secure most defent people on Earth they just have a phenomenally healthy defensive structure that comes about in order to try and protect them that leads them to go to the opposite some of what's called a reaction formation going to the very opposite to denial avoidance rationalization projection very unhealthy defenses that then leads that person to protect themselves from any help while they are frantically trying to gain some goodness that makes them feel good for a split second and then disappears forever hence the tremendous predilection for Destruction how do you and how should we think about power dynamics in relationships and perhaps starting with romantic relationships I've heard said before that there's always power dynamics in relationships of all kinds I don't know if that's true or not but I've heard that and I've also heard that that's particularly Salient in romantic relationships independent of whether or not it's a homosexual or heterosexual relationship that there's always to some extent or another one leader and one follower uh this is a uh interesting perhaps a controversial idea but I've heard it enough times that I want to know more about it sure so power dynamics of course very important but also something we tend to be so over reductionist about I mean this idea think about that there's always a leader and there's always a follower every single relationship right that's true on balance like we we tend to be so reductionist and then what we do is we miss the real power dynamics that are going on just like I I had said in a previous episode I think my math minor has helped me the the most for like all of life right I think a power dynamics course that I took as an undergraduate in political science has helped me the most as a psychiatrist took it long before medical school because that class taught me so much about power dynamics I thought it was going to be about overt power who has power over whom and tells whom to do what right but what I learned is so much of power dynamics are covert they're under the surface for example there're the things that are not said something that was called at the time at least the issue of the non-issue right where there's an issue between two people like this person never takes out the garbage that person always takes out the garbage that person is resentful about it both of them know but the person who always does it can't say so because if they say so the first person will punish them in some other way right by not taking out the garbage then the place smells that person goes to work and the person who's at home has to take it out right that's one example of the issue of the non-issue other examples are where someone is looking and smiling and and being really nice to someone who they know is going to physically harm them if they bring to light that they're actually not happy and don't feel good about that person right so from the dramatic to the non-dramatic unstated power dynamics are going on all over the place and they're in every single relationship I mean unless a person is in a relationship with someone else and they're both Kos no I guess only one of them has to be Kos right there are power dynamics going on but it doesn't mean that they're unhealthy right because there there are always power dynamics so then what are we looking for and again there are a lot of things we could look for but we could talk about really two primary things one is look for the nonobvious and two is the give and take so the first Even in our own relationships because it's it's interesting how many people will say talk about the power dynamics in their relationship they're not always saying here are the power dynamics in my relationship but they're telling me about them and they're telling me about the things that are overt right now somewhere inside of them they know that you know they can't really raise issue a b or c or there'll be some retribution whether it's small or large or they might even know everything's okay and that person is happy but they know I'm not giving them room to say that they're not happy and that could just mean you know if they say they're not happy then um I'll come home a couple hours late the next day and that person will feel some attachment in security because of that and you know there are all sorts of ways this can play out but since so much of power dynamics are are unstated or covert kind of like the iceberg of conscious and unconscious there's an iceberg of power dynamics so to think about including in one's own relationships whether it's a neighbor it's a friend it's a work relationship or most charged it's romance what's really going on between us right what's really going on between us I'm not looking to tell myself lies right I I know that I may not be able to understand all of it but let me stop and think about it and people if you ask people to stop and do that they can say yeah this is really not okay or you know because sometimes they don't know that it's there or they don't want to know that it's there and and the therapy work is trying to guide them to there's an immense power disparity maybe in the relationship when they're presenting no everything is equal it's a it's a good supportive relationship hear that a lot and of course it's not always that there's something bad under the surface but a lot of times there is and even something mildly bad is not okay and can cause problems and sometimes there's something very bad so look for the non-obvious and then the second is that give and take is a is a very good sign of health is a very good sign of health so if a person can kind of see that there's give and take and it might be about something as simple as like who chooses where we go to dinner okay you know sometimes one sometimes the other it depends who has a stronger feeling or it may be that person always decides where we go to dinner but the other person's okay with it right and that person always decides what movie they want the the other person right so the idea that there's give and take and and then in periods of time where where one person may be in a more difficult Place one person has a significant loss right or an injury or an illness then you see that that shifts a little bit one person is giving more right but then ultimately the idea is that's from the outside right if one person is giving more to the other there's a generosity of spirit in both the giving and the accepting right that leads them to then be stronger together so even when people say well there imbalances in some way if you just look at what's going on day-to-day but in a healthy relationship with high generative Drive the periods of imbalance strengthen the relationship right you see this with friends where two people have a pretty equal friendship and and then like one person has something difficult happens to and the other person is there for them what's true on the other side of that they're better friends right and it's also why we often want to be interconnected when we're healthy what if something bad happens to both of them right it's good to be interconnected and friends and family can be supportive to us so so the idea that give and is healthy I think is is very Central so just looking for evidence that's often if I don't understand like what's going on in the relationship maybe it's early in the therapy or it's just been kind of opaque or I can't figure it out I'm looking for is there give and take because then I'm going to think okay more likely than not things are healthy if I see an imbalance whether the person knows it or not I'm thinking more likely than not it's unhealthy and then there're just Clues along the pathway of of of my efforts to understand the non obvious piece is really intriguing as is the give and take and I really appreciate that you brought up the give and take because that's a a very concrete place that we can all look and ask ourselves you know even if people aren't in romantic relationships like you know what is the give and take and a given friendship um and as you mentioned earlier it doesn't have to be scripted one for one one for one um maybe it balances out over time or maybe it doesn't I mean I've had friendships that have lasted many decades even where I can honestly say I'm always the person to reach out to the other person but when they connect they connect with such a depth of attention that I don't feel any deprivation whatsoever in fact I don't think I've ever considered that I'm the person that always reaches out until today and so it doesn't bother me whatsoever I feel infinitely rewarded in the relationship like it's generative it feels generative right it doesn't have to be equal however one wants to Define equal but it has to be mutual like you're getting you you're feeling goodness from the relationship so is the other person okay that's good that's coming from that high generative place and when we really let's say we push that concept forward to where we want to be living not some pie in the sky right but agency and gratitude as verbs the generative Drive is is very strongly expressed and the other drives are subserving the generative drive then we get to the place where we really see it is true that it is better to give than to receive the Happ happiest people I see are the people who are giving now of course it feels great to receive right but it feels better to give because there's a goodness in the self in the giving and I remember seeing this as a child and being too young to understand it but I was a little kid I liked getting things right and as a little kid I liked getting things more than I liked giving like that's okay when you're a little kid but what I did observe is that my maternal grandmother who is very sweet and loving and and caring she loved giving right you could give her presents and we did and she liked she really liked getting presents she loved giving right there was an excess of goodness and then as I got older and I learned more like who she had been in the community and how she had been to people and and I I could see and now through the lens that there was such goodness in her I think she's you know for me she's The Shining model of goodness that I internalize as I aspire to be better so then I think I want to be like that I I am more generative as I try and think more about giving than receiving it's not I'm not trying to say I'm some Noble person or I'm being aesthetic I'm think that's a good way for us all to feel right or someone a very very successful person that that I uh consult with is in my life right who who talked about how he always makes inside of himself the best understanding of what's going on between him and another person whether it's a very big Financial deal it's about power or it's personal and then gives a little bit always where we end it up let me give a little bit right and and there's a person who's very very successful very very happy right but I would argue the goodness in him is why he's successful and happy it's not that he's successful and therefore he's happy right it's what's inside of him that Fosters both of those good things and he could be just as happy without the the big success maybe wouldn't maybe he wasn't uh minded to do that and and he grows a nice Garden like he could be equally happy but the point is the goodness in to to to be able to do that right to feel good about doing that I feel better about giving that than I would have receiving that that's pretty Stark right it's something given to the other that I would have gotten right now and we're in maybe a negotiation to give it feels better than to have it I'm sure there are many people thinking about individuals who are highly successful who are not givers who are takers I do think those examples of takers as I'm calling them grab a lot of attention but I know at least within science and the other domains of life I've been in that there are far more successful people who are also givers um even to a great extent and of course that doesn't mean that they're giving to the point of um an inability to give further or to take care of themselves the giving is part of taking care of themselves but it's part of this generative cycle it's it's not one thing it's not a tit fortat it's a it's it's part of something that makes them feel good makes others feel good um it's it's sort of anti-trans actional and as we're talking about the self and Inter relations between selves in these different relationship contexts today this word transactional keeps coming to mind um and what I'm so aware of as you're describing what healthy selves and healthy relationships look like is that it runs counter to pretty much everything that I've heard and that we hear in the world about relationships and about the relationship to self meaning it's not transactional it's really about a cycle and we're we're we're using this word generative over and over and um in its specific context today so I don't want to rob that yes word for for a different purpose but I'm imagining a sort of upward spiral um in my mind or perhaps something that's that's really like the a a circle of life that just keeps growing bigger and bigger and bigger um maybe we could talk a little bit about this notion of relationship being transactional I mean it's such a loaded word um but I have a a close friend who's married with more than a few children who you know told me the other day um you know I realized that it's all kind of transactional like they're extracting from me and I'm extracting from them and it's benevolent because it's all good and and I I thought wow this is really this is really Dreadful you know like that no one wants to think that the closest relationships in their lives are transactional and he was coming to that conclusion I I disagreed with him and I don't know where that all sits for him right now but maybe we could talk about the the transactional versus non-transactional aspects of relationship because um we all want things that's perfectly healthy I believe um we all experience disappointment and pleasure and relief and um sometimes major disappointment pleasure relief Etc but what is the role of transaction in relationships and you know how does Psychiatry how do you and how should we think about that mhm mhm well we often get confused because there are transactions in every relationship but that does not mean that every relationship is transactional right so if we think about what transactions are we can think of like kind of the stereotypical way so it can also be like here's the transaction I'll do the dishes and you wash the clothes right or for instance I'll make the money and the other person will raise the children right right so so there are transactions right but that does not mean that the be all and endall of it are sort of hard-hearted calculated transactions and transactions also occur in less obvious but equally important ways right so another way that transactions occur is so right now I'm putting something out there right because I'm saying something right and then at a point I stop and I'm waiting for you to put something out there and then I take in what you said and we're doing something that in that sense is transactional I'm waiting for you to give me something I take it in I process it I give something back out to you but that's not the be all and end all of it so there are transactions whether it's the you know who's going to wash the dishes who's going to do the clothes or it's what do I put out there that you take in and what do you put out there that I take in that there is something greater than something beyond the transactional and there is some controversy to this a thought that that that there really are a historical thought in the field that there are just aggressive and pleasure drives in us and that everything is transactional now again we don't really have a way of disproving that I mean there's not going to be some equation that disproves that but I think it's entirely disproven by human experience and there's so many I mean I could you know we could we could talk about an infinite number of of resources to consider this but just imagine the writings of Victor Frankle and the and the writings and the theories around human interactions and and psychological theories that have come of it to think that everything is just transactional it's a denial of the humanness in all of us that I think he just brought to the four so strongly but again there could be nearly infinite infinite resources throughout human history that say hey we're not entirely transactional it's not just aggression and pleasure but there's something more going on here there's learning that feels good for the sake of learning there's kindness that feels good for the sake of kindness there's giving that feels good because giving feels good like this is going on in us it's going on when we're like loving children for example or loving animals there's something inside of us that's not just transactional and that's why like I think what we're talking about is is if it's truth it should all hang together right it must all hang together and and this is why there's an us right over top of each individual that's in a Rel relationship right this is why you can know everything about me you can know everything about you and you can know nothing about our friendship right absolutely nothing right because it's something different right and if it were all just transactional there would be nothing different right and I think our experience as human beings right I I know that to be true because I just know that I don't always feel selfish about things right like maybe sometimes I do and I do something nice because it'll make me look good like okay we're all human right but I know that there's good feeling from others towards me at times it's just about the good feeling I know that there's that from me towards others so that tells us yes there is something other than just the I there is the we of diads right of relationships no matter whether they're work family friendship relationship and then there are the levels beyond that that are larger we right the we of groups so if I understand correctly it can be the case that one person makes the majority or all of the income for a family the other person raises the children takes care of the majority of the home and of course there is a transaction there a set of transactions but that it's in service to something larger that really isn't transactional I'm just stealing your words here but um if I were to expand on that just to make sure I understand that the non-transactional thing that emerges from that is uh generative because it's a family right it's a family that everyone can extract growth and pleasure and meaning from um and just because the roles are divided as such it doesn't necessarily mean that the relationship is defined as transactional in in the sense that it's um less than it could be right right right if if you think about what's really being transacted so say one person is out in the world and is making an income the other person is a taking care of the family and taking care of the home what's being transacted well the person who's making the money is sharing the money right is in that sense transacting some of the money to the other person like you get to have some of it too you get to have some of the benefit from it and the person who is at home who's taking care of the family in the home saying you get to have some of that too right you get to come the children are taken care of right the home is taken care of so both are transacting something to the other right I mean that's truth of it right if you look at what's really going on there one person's getting benefit of money they didn't earn the other person's getting benefits they have child care they didn't do or pay for right they not paying for child care they're sharing resources right so yes that's true but is that it I mean are are these two robots right one is the money-making robot and the other is the childcare robot like that's not what's going on right the the way we want to Envision that if we have two healthy people with generative drives is they love one another they're creating something better than they could create on their own in fact they've created children they've created a home together and they're nurturing that family together that is generative and because it's generative it can also be flexible so let's say the person who's at home says I need to do some things outside of the the house right or let's say the person who's at working thinks oh I feel overwhelmed and I like to switch to a better job but that job's halftime I but I want to be I could be half in the house right like this is where people can come together right in the same way we talked about the two and an eight on the sex drive or sexuality scale where people then can find compromises right and if one really wants to stay out of the home all the time but the person in the home wants to leave the home well they find a way that that works right because their care for one another the the generative spirit that is in them individually and as a couple lets them nurture that and one isn't interested in oppressing the other I'm not going to leave my job you stay at home or I'm staying at home you stay out there it's like okay let's let's think about things let's let's communicate right that's how the generative drive not only only like makes that awesome right like the five isn't the compromised position between the eight and the two the five is awesome right here the transactional aspects are awesome because of the generative aspects of what comes of it far more than either of those people could make on their own I mean one would say it's not so obvious maybe if one makes x amount of dollars each could make half X that's not what we're talking about neither of them can create that family on their own it seems that so much of what we're talking about iies on you know the the Hallmarks that that we always hear make up good relationships of all kinds romantic and otherwise like things like communication listening generosity okay all the stuff that we all know that we should bring to relationship and hopefully are getting from relationships and that if we're not that we should probably request from others in in uh you know polite ways right can I can I I have one word for that kindergarten right think about that we learned that in kindergarten what you're describing is so simple right that's why it's so high up on the this what the geyser is pushing up it's high up from the two pillars right because what you're talking about is simple generosity of spirit giving rather than taking right being kind to others letting things go feeling good about yourself even if you fall down right we learned this in kindergarten so we must somewhere inside of us really value it right but then we let it go we make things overly complex and you know this this idea that in many ways we should go back to kindergarten right because there's a purity there right children at an age where you know they can learn and then we bring a nice kind of learning to them and a nurturing to them and we can bring it to ourselves too so that we simplify that which has become overly complex right we simplify because trauma makes complexity having to just make one's way in the world is complicated right so things get more and more complicated and we lose the simple roots of goodness or the goodness of Simplicity right and we can come back to that so I I couldn't resist when you said oh these are kind of simple these basic things right like right that's the point of it because that's where agency and gratitude and the generative Drive that's where they live in the Simplicity I'm glad you mentioned kindergarten it brought me back to um images of kindergarten where yeah as far as I can remember now there were all the critical components of a great generative environment you know adults who really cared about us fortun there were um snack time with oranges so nourishing food there was nap time in the afternoon like these things are all things some excise explor you could take a guinea pig home on the weekends they had this guinea pig I think they actually I think there were several guinea pigs but they kept trying to convince us it was the same guinea pig uh because they would allow one family to take home the guinea pig each weekend and sometimes I think it didn't work out quite so well but anyway the the guinea pig was a pervasive feature so you learn to take care of things and in all seriousness now that I step back from it there's nothing more generative it seems than a kindergarten classroom environment or we should say a healthy kindergarten classroom environment it's all about support of others and um if we go to the pillars uh the structure of self and the function of self I mean surely there's a lot going on at home too but think about like what's Salient it's learning uh messages of self um you know self-confidence like instilling those it's behaviors that are based on strivings and hopefulness it's all good things yes all the good things and so you know as I was thinking about communication and all these good things that clearly uh kindergarten is a wonderful template for in all seriousness I I think is an amazing template I'm thinking about what gets in the way and of course trauma can get in the way um and we should talk about that more um but it seems to me that one of the things that gets in the way of asking for what we want of hearing requests of us in the way that is going to bring about the most generative goodness is anxiety it's like you know you're tired from a long day and someone mentions like you know we we have to take the trash out you're like like I was at work all day like you know that that kind of thing or um earlier you were talking about the issue of the non-issue in terms of power dynamics um you know that well let's just say I've had the experience before in relationship of feeling like if I make a request or I have a quotee quote complaint about something that the other person is going to be so upset about the fact that they didn't do something well that it's going to be three days of just like diminished happiness for everybody so I just assume like not deal with it right so when we hear the word anxiety I think we often about the person like quaking about you know public speaking or like getting um the circuits in their brain hijacked that were only designed for saber-tooth tigers but you know anxiety seems to serve both a very important functional role Modern Life that has nothing to do with physical threat but it also seems to be the feature that if not kept in check if we can't regulate our own anxiety I'm realizing there's no way that we're going to be in a position to ask for what we need and what we want to hear what's needed of us and what others want in other words anxiety seems like a major barrier to the generative Drive I think the the place to start is if you show me a person who has no anxiety I'll show you a mannequin right we all have anxiety in us remember it's just a word right what are we what are we getting at we're getting at a sense of tension right or a sense of dis Qui inside of us that that we would like to solve we would like to ease if we could right it is not helpful or healthy if we have very very low levels of that right because then our strivings are certainly going to suffer right there's not a lot of motivation right to to to to go make change in the world change in our lives right so if we have too little of that tension that doesn't go well and and could that maps to a low uh assertiveness right aggression proactive drive there are other ways that can show itself but it Maps very clearly I think to that and that's not good for us on the other end of the spectrum we're much more concerned with the other end of the spectrum because a lot of anxiety feels very very bad and it feels very bad right now right so our our high levels of anxiety they narrow our cognitive spectrum they narrow our ability to think about what's going on around us to think about ourselves so so the idea with anxiety is to recognize hey we all have it and and we can call it anxiety we can call it tension we can call it whatever we we want to but we want that to be in in a healthy place right which which comes of course back to the self that if my levels of anx xiety are very high and therefore it's causing problems in my relationship like maybe um I'm always asking my partner if we're okay right that happens a lot like are we okay are you happy right right because there's a lot of anxiety in me like the first place to go is to look at myself so we could say oh I have attachment in security that's just stating the obvious right or sorry to interrupt but a very common one U nowadays that I think is new in the course of human history is um you know the the reaching the TU in the line phenomenon you text somebody you're thinking about them you don't hear back and then attention starts to mount and then um depending on the context you you may either be concerned about the person or even suspicious about what the person is up to I mean here it's very contextual right and it depends on the history of both individuals and that relationship but then the person will reach back eventually and it either will bring relief or relief with some resent like where were you what happened um you know this is very very common um so much so in fact that um I've come to learn and talking to others and this is the the classic you know I have a friend who but really um others who are in the landscape of looking for relationship and there are people I know well who go through a lot of effort to set an intermittent schedule of response like to not give the other person the sense that they always respond with short latency because indeed sometimes they they will be able to do that and sometimes they won't what they're basically trying to do is make that the person doesn't they're actually trying to take care of the other person in addition to themselves because I think we come to expect a certain latency of response with certain individuals and if we don't hear back with that particular latency of response our own anxiety starts to pick up and it can be quite damaging to a relationship in particular to the generative drives within us because in that time that we're stressed we're not tending to other things including things that we could do for the relationship that we're so worried about the famous scene in swingers right where the person leaves a message and then and lives the whole relationship in his own mind and breaks up with the person and they never actually spoke right that there there's the anxiety run wild and of course I remember that was very very popular when that came out why because it resonated we know with the insecurities we feel and now with the ability to feel those insecurities in a much more immediate way that person didn't text me back right there there's a lot more of that inside of us which really points to if you're able to identify that you're that you're anxious too anxious for Comfort which again if one looks inside or even listens maybe to what others have said or reflected like there's a lot of data especially introspection to be able to identify that right the next question is always why right let's go look at that maybe that person has been anxious their whole life right maybe they they just have run tense all the time you know sometimes a little bit of medicine that kind of just pulls that down person can take that for 50 years life is better there's no side effects like so sometimes like that might be the case right sometimes the person's anxiety kind of grew throughout childhood and maybe that's because there were difficult things or traumatic things that happened maybe there was nothing like that but maybe the person was very good at engaging in the world and then felt more and more pressures upon themselves and no one ever did anything wrong and they've only been rewarded right but regardless look at the anxiety in yourself go back to those pillars right and one might discover for example maybe the the anxiety I'm feeling is attributable to the other person am I feeling anxious because I'm intimidated right am I feeling anxious because I know that if I don't behave in a certain way know the next time there's a group meeting there'll be some snarky joke made about me so anxiety sometimes it's the self sometimes it's got a lot of biological components sometimes it's got a lot of psychological components sometimes both right sometimes it's the environment sometimes it's the other right the other person so look at why because that's how we learn right like what is going on inside of me where is that level of anxiety how does it not feel comfortable like what actually is it how is it changing how I'm behaving how much it be changing how am I responding to it so what are we doing we're going back to to this look in those 10 cabinets and figure out why which we can do right the vast majority of times between ourselves and the use of others either professionally or non-professionally we can go understand the anxiety or the lack of anxiety why am I not so motivated right I mean that's a case with a lot of people who feel demoralized they don't feel they can get anywhere in the world right the world's a bad place and you know and how you going to make your way in the world and they start feeling nihilistic or you know they feel like there's the eightball is against them even in a generational capacity right and now they feel demoralized and and the tension inside is soothed by things so maybe that's the person who's overusing the thing that soothes right so they could go look at hey like I always kind of motivated and did well in sports or did well in this was interested in that right what's going on that's how a person could identify for example being demoralized so that process of inquiry gives us the information that we can use in the service of change and the change while not achieved 100% of the time the change for the better is predictable if it's arising from a place of understanding I'm very curious about frames of Mind in relationship in particular how being in our own experience say anxious because someone hasn't responded to us and really paying attention to the anxiety and drilling into it and asking ourselves you know why am I anxious and um do I deserve to be anxious is it about me or is it about them whether or not that's a valid pursuit or whether or not focusing on the other person and trying to imagine you know like what's going on in their head that they might be doing this or that they seem to do something repeatedly this of course relates to much more than just the scenario of waiting for a text message and feeling anxious me I think so much of how we come into relationships of all kinds uh you know romantic certainly but um family relationships are you know in and around the tendency to switch back and forth sometimes seemingly at random between our own experience and what am I feeling what am I experiencing and then thinking about the other like what is what are they thinking what are they experiencing I mean this is everything to do with human dynamics right I I I would think that it's near impossible for the typical person to just live life through their own uh frame and lens and never pay attention at all to what others might be thinking even for instance the most exploit of extractive narcissist sociopath presumably is thinking about you know who in the room is going to be their Target because of how that person might be feeling and of course on the benevolent side people who want to do um positive generative things in the world are probably thinking about you know um who to align with um who who has common goals that they might want to work with or be with romantically that could help them and and the other person generate so so what is this thing that we do uh you know what is it called and and how does it work uh to place ourselves in the mind of others and what roles does it serve and what goals does it undercut when we do this well so I think the first thing to say is is that everything follows the same simple pattern right so I start with thinking about me right if I'm anxious why am I anxious what's going on inside of me then I think about you are you anxious too or maybe I'm not anxious but I notice that you are right so there's the thought about the eye because I can't think in a clear-headed way about you unless I've thought about me right because if I'm really really really anxious then how am I supposed to understand and try and get an idea of where you're at right so then where do we arrive we arrive at the magic Bridge of the US right that's what connects us whether the US is a friendship it's a professional relationship it's romance right there's the bridge of the US because it's not just how we're went am I anxious how when are you anxious what are things like when we're together right maybe that maybe I'm anxious when we're together and what's that tension about or you're anxious when we're together and you know maybe that's for reasons we could talk about and make less maybe there's some insecurity in one of us or maybe the other person is behaving in a certain way that's not making the the second person feel good right we we can then come together and see how does the US impact the level of anxiety and how do we then take away from the us being stronger so so think about we talked about the trauma Bond trauma Bond can be enacted in a negative way it can be enacted in a positive way and those two people who can go to the museum together who can't go to the museum separately right they're living in the magic Bridge of the US right they're both at the Museum but neither can go to the museum right neither can go to the museum but both can go to the museum and then they take away stronger selves from that right that's that's a reinforcing experience is positive right it builds the generative drive it builds confidence right that the person went they were assertive and that was gratified in a good way and they felt pleasure right so when we look at the US it is about the US in the moment right but it is also about how two people are impacting one another in the rest of their lives and this of course this is more important the closer the relationship like this is very important for example in close friendships or family relationships and I think this is of extreme importance in relationships right these are the the two people who presumably are the closest to one another on Earth so a shared us that that promotes understanding and bolsters a sense of agency and gratitude and bolsters the generative drive like that's great for both people when they're not in the US when one goes one way and one goes the other because that happens all the time in relationships too right go to work at different places or you know we bolster ourselves outside of relationships if we see what the magic Bridge of the relationship can be so we we can look there for problems like why am I anxious why are you anxious why are we anxious why are you only anxious when we're we and not you know we can look for all that and we should right but we can also even more powerfully look for the good there right how can our shared Bond whatever it may be be better for both of us and what stronger incentive could there be than to do that in relationships right romantic relationships the ones that are closest to us if they're not romantic they could be friendships whatever our closest relationships are they're the most important Vehicles so to speak to better health and happiness to getting to that place of peace and contentment and Delight right the US is very very powerful in fact even more more powerful than the I and the you when thinking about the US and trying to understand why somebody that we know and are in relationship with is behaving the way they are are or um might be feeling or claiming they feel the way that they are how useful do you think it is for us to put ourselves in their shoes you know um you know I can think of all sorts of ways in which this could be beneficial I can also think of all sorts of ways in which it would be focusing off the self and our own experience in ways that um might be defensive avoidance or you know or denial right I you know I'll come clean I mean there have been plenty of times in relationship where I get fixated on why someone is the way they are behaved the way they did and um more often than not by taking a step back and thinking about why my reaction to that is the way it is I don't solve the quote unquote problem but I get a lot further along in terms of um quelling my own anxiety and finding a path forward right right right well mentalization right which is the ability to discern feeling States intention States in self and others but now we're looking for others right so the ability to understand feeling States what's going on inside of you intention what are your intentions right that should only be good right because because if we're seeing it through a clear lens meaning a lens that's not biased by some problem like like a defense mechanism of rationalization for example or of projection right if we're seeing clearly we're learning about the other right and the learning is is never bad right knowledge truth is good so if we learn about the other by in that sense putting ourselves in their shoes then we gain information but it's the health in us that that is so crucial to what we do with that information right so one person can say put put themselves in the other person's shoes and and they see okay that person I can see that person's responding and it say say pretty calm pretty calm about something right and maybe that's just a good thing maybe there's some contention going on and that person is maintaining their cool and that person is going to be really helpful in navigating an argument or a disagreement to like some some like really positive endpoint right so if a person sees clearly like I see I okay I see that you're I can see that you're calm and I also see that you're you're trying to figure things out and the things that you're saying are sort of positive you're disagreeing with me but but you don't seem to mean ill right then I can see you know what I think your calm is good right because I'm getting a little bit upset and you're not so you you so and I see that there's a benevolence in you so maybe you'll guide us to the play said maybe I can't right but but think about if there's not a clear lens inside of me right if I have a a defense system that leads me to externalize responsibility it leads me to project her leads me to do all sorts of things that are not healthy now I might think well you're calm because you just don't care about me right I mean so see the same exact thing right now in the example we're giving the person in your position is like being really benign and benevolent but it happens all the time where that is misconstrued so it's not that it's not that the Insight that person is calm I see that they're calm it's that there's a deficit in the mentalization the person is not fully understanding their intention right what's coming through then gets distorted right so we think about defense mechanisms they can be they can be clear they can let light through in this beautiful way that has Fidelity or they can be very distorting so that the thought if I'm Discerning that you are benevolent and you you seem to be trying to solve the problem for us but I take in and you just don't care about me and you're trying to put one over on me if I if I've assessed it accurately but the but it comes on the other end in a way that's changed right that's because there's a lack of clarity there's Distortion inside of me right so so then if I'm really working on myself I'm in the best place I can be I'm going to be better at mentalizing about you and me right even if I say well we're having a disagreement I I know I tend to get a little defensive so I'm going to be a little biased to see what's in you in a in a kind of negative way right so what am I seeing like okay you're pretty calm like maybe you don't care like you know I I know I can think that right but like come on you're trying you want to solve our problem like like imagine when that goes on inside of a person which sometimes goes on consciously or goes on unconsciously or some mixture it's so powerful right the person's aware of their own state which helps them to be aware of the state of the others of the other and then the information they're getting comes through with Fidelity and now all of a sudden instead of maybe I'm going to blow things up now I'm lying with you in solving our problem because I see clearly about you and me and that's going on all the time it might say well it's complicated there's a lot of back and forth right there are millions of things going on every Split Second in our unconscious mind that is throwing all this up to the conscious mind it's doing things rapidly that's going on all the time in whether we want to acknowledge it or not and we we choose not to acknowledge it at our own Peril because then we're not going to those two pillars and they 10 cupboards we're not going to the structure of self the function of self and what comprises those two pillars to look for hey what's going on right let me understand better and even if things are going well right we can always as you you said not that long ago we can understand ourselves better the the stronger I am the more generative drive there is in me the less defense iess the more the agency and the Gratitude the more I'm armed for you know whatever difficult thing comes my way so if there's a conflict with someone whether there should be or there shouldn't be maybe someone's being really aggressive and I got to kind of say some things and try and counter that right I'm going to be able to discern one from another I'm going to be more effective in both right I just set myself up for success and if I'm setting me up for Success then I'm also setting you up for Success if you're someone I have a relationship with no matter what it is and then ultimately I'm setting the wi right the the the magical Bridge of us I'm setting that up for Success too and that's how you see in these levels of emergence that you know if you understand everything about you and understand everything about me and and let's say person understands we have a generative drive we don't really know what our relationship is going to be like you think I bet it's G to be a good one right and then what would we then then contribute say to a broader culture so a group of people maybe there's 10 people a bunch of friends getting together we would contribute goodness at that next level which is then the culture of the larger group in hearing your description of mentalization this ability for all of us to get into the mind of another and to try and imagine motivations and states that would explain their behavior right mind of self and other yeah that seems like a natural reflex that's that's healthy and it it seems to surface most often in um as the consequence of negative interactions right you know something didn't go right and so we kind of explore like was it them was it me like was it something that happened before you know what else is going on with this person as a way to try and arrive at some sort of hopefully generative understanding but it seems to me there's also great value in mentalizing about others under conditions in which things are going well so that one can potentially make things or encourage things to go even better in future interactions right well the F first thing I would say is I think the reflex is most often not mentalizing that the reflex is most often not mentalizing right because the reflexes often come from a position of not feeling safe right there's some conflict I don't I don't I don't feel good right there's some conflict people you know we all can get very defensive very quickly whether we show it on the outside or we start partitioning inside and the the problems come not from mentalizing but they come from not mentalizing right and and not being aware of the difference because then I conclude I know what's going on in you and I don't right because I don't know what's going on in me right and I think you're being aggressive really I'm feeling kind of defensive I'm feeling vulnerable and then I'm I'm getting aggressive right but I can't handle that because I don't want to be aggressive so you're aggressive right so there's such a difference between say coming at a self other conflict from the perspective of say not mentalizing but thinking that you are versus mentalizing there's a difference between is it me I know it can't be is it you it must be right and that's how a lot of that goes and then of course what's the data that's gathered the data that's gathered supports that I mean I think this is there Wars I think have happened you know based upon this let alone conflicts in friendships and in relationships the key about mentalizing is that's not what it is mentalizing it goes like this is it me is it you is it us I let's figure that out let's figure it out together right it's it's not it's not defensive it's not aggressive it's not project it's it's it's really actually seeing and look if it's me I want to be aware of it and say yeah like whoa I got up on the wrong side of the bed like look let me just say I'm sorry right or if I might say look I know that you're being aggressive and you normally wouldn't be let and say look let me just get away from say Let Let the person I care about calm down come back later you know or if it's us there really something between us then let's sort it out like the information that allows the healthy right the agency and gratitude decisions is always there through mentalizing the danger is when we're not mentalizing but we think we are got it in keeping with thinking about others and what's going on with them mentalizing that is and in thinking about what's going on with ourselves and the exploration of the cupboards under the pillars of structure of self function of self and our desire for all of that to geyser up into agency and gratitude one thing that we hear about so much these days and generally I think it's good that people are talking about them are boundaries right you know you've crossed my boundary or I'm setting a boundary and uh I've certainly uh embedded the the message in my head that in order for certain relationships to be at their most loving in my life sometimes the boundaries require very little frequency of communication but that doesn't mean the relationships aren't ongoing uh so what are your thoughts on boundaries and how should we think about boundaries for sake of healthy relationships well healthy boundaries always start inside inside and then once we have them squared away inside we can project them outward right the same as as everything works right it starts with the self and then it includes the other so let's say you took an example of a friend who's just a little too presumptuous right like the kind of person you'd rather knock on your door but who just opens the door and comes in like that that that kind of thing and you like the person a lot and there's a lot of resonance and you don't want to lose the friendship and then so so let's imagine what could happen here it's not the only thing that can happen but a a thought experiment right so the person may then question themselves like is there something wrong with me like cuz I don't really like this person coming in my front door like is is that just me am I being weird about that or other person can kind of stop and think about that and they can take stock of self and they can arrive at an answer right for themselves like look that person may conclude that you know what people I'm as close to as this person come in my front door you know what that's okay right I you know what I don't need to set a boundary there right that's possible right more often what the person concludes is no I don't really want that like I I do actually want this person to knock on the door and that's okay there's not something wrong with me it's not that I'm being a jerk it's not that I'm being a bad friend right because what are they saying you might oh they're preparing for what the other person could say but no they're they're countering what they're testing out to themselves does that mean I'm a bad friend no right that that kind of thing so they they know and then they understand and then they have and they have the right to set the boundary right like okay it's my house I try and be generous but I still don't want people coming in the door like you come to some conclusion that setting the boundary is okay and you're squared away with it inside then you communicate the boundary outward right and you decide how do I want to communicate that like saying hey man don't come in the front door anymore like that's not so good right now the Friendship is really on the Rocks right but to say to someone something like yeah look I I care about you and I trust you and I know you feel the same way about me but it just makes me nervous you know when people just come in the door like do do do you mind like is it okay like if you just please not knock on the door now think about how that's been done like it it's so accurate right to what's going on inside the person to how the person wants to communicate with the other then you have the highest likelihood of Effectiveness right and the person also in that sense has sort of the clean conscience so to speak that lets them take in information back so let's say the other person hopefully has a high generative drive and all the good things we're talking about could say oh you know I'm sorry I didn't I mean I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable I kind of just automatically do that or you know I always do that at my brother's house and it's close by or whatever the person is saying no worries okay everything is fine right but let's say that person does get mad right now you know like whoa what's going on in this person right CU now what you're doing is you're seeing signs of unhealth in the other person and it may be that whoa that's not so healthy with the person but I like other aspects of the friendship and that seems like kind of a strange idiosyncrasy then you might decide you know what I want to keep this friendship so I'll start locking the door and the person has to knock or you might think okay is this is am I seeing something here that's about lack of consideration right that's about selfishness It ultimately may be about Envy I'm going to walk into your house and ruin your privacy you know I'm going to walk in jail house and make you feel anxious I I feel entitled to do that like the kind of thing that's really coming through the lens of Envy so then you start thinking about that and and maybe not always of course sometimes you find a friend who can do the right thing sometimes you find a friend who can't and you can still make the Friendship work sometimes you find a person who's not a friend right and you see like oh that's how everything is with this person you realize like there's no us there's no us right and and that's that's how people can leave relationships that that ultimately are exploitive in one way or another whether it's a friendship it's Romance the if a person really understands there's the me the you the magical Bridge of us and then wait there's no magical Bridge of us I feel that there's a magical Bridge of us but the other person doesn't there's immense power of understanding and then of appropriate self-care and self- protection over and over again not just during today's episode but in the previous two episodes it seems that getting squared away with oneself or at least one 's own internal processes to some degree right gaining some insight as to where the negative or even positive emotion within us is arising when we're in relationship to anyone or anything it just seems so key it's like the foundation of it you know you know you you said you know like getting to the maximum amount of agency and gratitude is the goal really and that's done by cycling back through the cupboards that reside under structure of self and function of and asking questions about oneself and and really unless we are trained psychiatrists like you none of us really should be doing that for the other person it seems with this is really our each and all of our own responsibility to do for ourselves but that it serves others in so many positive ways right right so mentalization greases the progress of all things good right because it is about actual understanding feeling States intentions but I have to first mentalize about me before I mentalize about you a way of putting this would be if I'm thinking about you before I'm thinking about me I'm on a Fool's errand right you have to start with the self and to try and attain Clarity of self or to realize that you can't right like that's it's a it's a very important Nuance if I know that say there's trauma in me about a certain thing and I know that I respond in ways where sometimes my emotions get high and I can't quite I can't quite think through it all right which can happen to me with with references or or something that's encompassing a certain kind of trauma I want to be aware of that right so this is the idea of not only being aware of what you know about yourself but being aware that there are things you don't know about yourself so if I know enough to know that uh a certain kind of interaction about a certain kind of trauma really sets me to a place where I'm not able to mentalize or I normally would be right I'm I'm sort of Flying Blind right then good for me to know that because I don't know what that's doing to me so it's the last time to make conclusion so let's say I'm in that state let's say I'm in that state because of something that just happened right and now we have some sort of conflict right then for me to realize like who what's going on with me I'm bringing to this a lack of clarity because I'm I'm really activated right that sense the anxiety the tension in me has been raised the negative emotion that reflexive negative affect feeling emotion has been raised in me and then I realize like I don't know how it's going to go if we interact about it now because I can't rely on me so like hey can we talk about this later the same way if you recognize in the other that person who's usually rational is like is all worked up recognize that in the other right and maybe that person doesn't realize that they still want to interact and you say can we let's look let's revisit this we like we're both kind of calm cool and collected right so mentalization greases the wheels of all progress but like anything else has to be deployed in in a way that works and the way that works is I start with me then I go to you and then I go to us I'm fully on board the start with me then to the other and then to us model it makes total sense in fact so much so that I'm starting to build an image of my mind where first is a kind of a rule which is you know it starts with self-standing and you know thoughtful structured inquiry along the lines of the map that was laid out in episodes one and two of this series and that we've been alluding to numerous times today yes and then there's a second line or or or rule that I've got you know written on this imaginary piece of paper in my mind where anytime I default to thinking about another without first going to my own map and exploring what's going on with me that my own map starts to become blurry like I'm losing access to it and it potentially could disappear I'm just creating this in my own mind as a way to um create a little bit of I think healthy anxiety you know to really go there first Paints the picture yes and you know the the purpose in having such a you know uh an image in my mind that you know access to the self and understanding of self is potentially drifting away is because I think for me there's a third line in this rule rule set that I'm imagining which is that the less understanding we have of our own map and internal process the more likely I am or we all are to just latch on to an unhealthy map another unhealthy map yes I have to believe or even follow the directions of our own unhealthy map right which leads us to someone else's unhealthy map and then we latch on to it like you said yeah absolutely yes yeah that's right because it's still active even if it's blurry or if it's obscured from my awareness and uh drifting away if I'm trying to guide myself with my broken Compass I run into someone else with a broken Compass now we're both wandering right so be aware if the compass isn't working the way we want it to can we go look at that can we can we make the map healthy make the map accurate make the map guide us towards what we want because then we will find other people who've worked on their own maps that way absolutely and you know and so often I hear about and and frankly I've experienced you know that this feeling like oh it's just a matter of finding somebody who is healthy right and then things will be much easier I and much better and surely that has to be the case and surely there have to be instances where people you know have a interaction with somebody that leads to a relationship with somebody and the other person is much healthier and and whatever trauma we come to the relationship with is best supported or better supported than it would be if we were with somebody exploitive or who was truly damaged you know in some way who basically had a map that was really I don't want to say screwed up but that they had not explored they need a lot of work they need a lot of work I don't see that very often I definitely see people who at least from my outside read seem to have healthy Maps or are doing regular exploration of their maps and therefore healthy who knows I don't know what they do with their with their time um in every domain of life but once again we come back to this importance of understanding what's in those cupboards what's in those pillars as a not just important but critical step in understanding and building ourselves in positive ways and you know as I said once or twice before in this series but I'm going to say it again and I'm sure again and again before we conclude this series is that what's so attractive about this map is that it it sets a very clear and simple set of ideals not necessarily simple to attain and as you said it takes time but agency concept and gratitude you know empowerment humility leading up to peace contentment and Delight all as action States not as passive states to just bask in and you know and and disappear and this notion of the the generative drive and and by now in this episode I'm sure people are well on board the understanding that the generative drive is not just about going out and doing things it's about doing things in service to and in a way that supports learning knowing creating not just of others and in the world but inside yes yes I I I love I love the the mapping imagery because you can almost see the map changing right as the person I imagine the person is busying away in the cupboards right oh there's a lot to work on in this cupboard and they're bsing away they're doing the work and we can see the map changing that path that looked like a really good path that actually goes through a swamp you didn't see the swamp on the map now it appears on the map that other path that looked like it's a little circuitous that's a good path right may be a harder path it is a little circuitous but look where it leads right the map becomes clear as we do the work on ourselves yes and also the understanding that you've laid out for us here really helps avoid a lot of the common pitfalls that are associated with you know sticky language and sticky for good reason I mean what's stickier and more interesting for people that are interested in themselves in relationship than things like you know boundaries or or labels like anxious attached or secure attached and I'm not being disparaging of those labels but I'm realizing those are just labels right they they don't Define action items and specific lines of inquiry to get us back into our self- understanding over and over not as a full-time job right we all have to live our lives but as a way actually to be more leaned into life in the outside world th those labels Define people no better than the numerical diagnosis in the psychiatric taxonomy book that we glorify right labels are not understanding numbers are not understanding they can help taxonomies are good sometimes labels let us categorize things but labels are not a substitute for understanding numbers are not a substitute for understanding if we look at ourselves we get real understanding and that's what makes the difference that's what bolsters agency gratitude all those good things clear mentalization greasing the wheels of progress more the generative Drive getting stronger we really can find goodness and often do and and that's why I think everything we're talking about is very hopeful I mean it acknowledges there's complexity there pitfalls right there are all sorts of things to it that we need to to be aware of and to be aware of but that doesn't mean that ultimately it isn't positive that we're not speaking to hey whatever it is that's ailing you that thing can be better well I'm so grateful that you're sharing your knowledge and experience around all of this with us and that you've laid out such a clear and logical and deep and tractable really understanding of all this that we can engage in it's tremendously powerful thank you I so appreciate it thank you thank you for joining me for today's discussion about how to improve your relationships with Dr Paul KY I'd also like to take a moment to remind you that the fourth episode in the series on Mental Health with Paul KY will be out next week and that links to all the episodes can be found at huberman lab.com if you're learning from Andor enjoying this podcast please subscribe to our YouTube channel that's a terrific zeroc cost way to support us in addition addition please subscribe to the podcast on both Spotify and apple and on both Spotify and apple you can leave us up to a five-star review please also check out the sponsors mentioned at the beginning and throughout today's episode that's the best way to support this podcast if you have questions for me or comments about the podcast or guests that you'd like me to consider hosting on the hubman Lab podcast please put those in the comment section on YouTube I do read all the comments and if you're not already following me on social media I am hubman lab on all platforms so that's Instagram Twitter LinkedIn threads and Facebook and on all those platforms I discuss science and science related tools some of which overlap with the content of the hubman Lab podcast but much of which is distinct from the content of the hubman Lab podcast so again it's hubman lab on all social media channels not on today's episode but on many previous episodes of The hubman Lab podcast we discuss supplements while supplements aren't necessary for everybody many people derive tremendous benefit from them for things like enhancing sleep for hormone support and for Focus if you'd like to see the supplements discussed on the hubun Lab podcast you can go to live momentus spelled o us so it's liv.com huberman if you haven't already subscribed to our newsletter it is a zeroc cost newsletter called the neural network newsletter and in the neural network newsletter you get free podcast summaries as well as toolkits the toolkits are brief PDFs that list off the specific science-backed protocols for things like improving your sleep improving Focus optimizing dopamine deliberate cold exposure we have a complete summary of our fitness series again all available completely zero cost you simply go to hberman lab.com go to the menu scroll down to newsletter and provide your email to sign up we do not share your email with anybody thank you once again for joining me for today's discussion with Dr Paul Ki and last but certainly not least thank you for your interest in science [Music]