Balancing Love & Desire | Esther Perel

Hello everyone, you will receive me in three deliveries today tomorrow the day after tomorrow and maybe they will be dessert, so let's start with this one and it will be an ongoing conversation as we continue while I am in dialogue with Marissa and then Savage so that in different formats the workshops tomorrow in the afternoon and then the panel and this is where I want to start with you for a moment. I want you to think about an experience where you had a moment in your life where you felt a deep sensation. of security you can close your eyes if it helps you see your life story right in front of you a moment when you felt safe content satisfied rather than successful perhaps a moment when you are crying on someone else's shoulder and You know you can really let go because they are there to hold you or at a time when you are saying goodbye to a dying member of your family and you know that you are holding them until your last breath or at a time when you are holding a newborn in your arm a place where you felt that I am enough there is nothing more necessary at this moment it is safe it is trusting it is reliable it is good and when you have that moment what it was like for you just very briefly what Highlighted about that moment for you and how you experienced it in your body , how it feels physically when we embody security, trust, security, familiarity, continuity, belonging, hold it and walk with me to the other side of the spectrum of life and think back to an experience you had where you experienced the profound sense of adventure of the novelty of taking risks of baldness where you stepped out of your comfort zone into the unknown a time when you allowed yourself to do something you normally probably wouldn't do when you spoke when you usually stayed silent where you stood up for an injustice when you're usually a passive bystander where you took the risk of letting yourself be seen even if you are imperfect a moment that may be reckless that may even be dangerous and what is it like?

What does it feel like on that side of the spectrum of life and what is it like to embody that? How is the experience of the body affirmed? It is expressed when you are bold, fearless, transgressive, adventurous, breaking rules outside the norm, even if it is just your own little rules that you have. who has them, just raise your hand who needs more time who is somewhere else it's totally fine to turn to the person sitting on your right and tell them very briefly what you were thinking what you remembered where you went go see each of us here comes into this world straddling two sets of fundamental human needs, we all have a need for security, for security, for reliability, for predictability, for belonging, for continuity, but we also all have an equally strong need for men and women, and everything else, from adventure for novelty for mystery for risk for the unknown for discovery for exploration all of us from the moment we come into this world need to negotiate our need for security and our need for adventure our need for connection and our need for autonomy I need togetherness and our need for freedom I need

love

and our need for

desire

and some of us came out of your childhood and your stories with a greater need for security for security for protection and some of you came out of your stories your first stories with a greater need space for freedom of choice and self-expression and many of you may have found partners whose inclinations matched your vulnerabilities so that they can give you the parts that you want more or at least think you want more.

Even if you often win, they will find you information about what you elected them for, because we all know that what leads to conflict is often the same as what we were originally in, like some of the contradictions that those of us who live with have always had. these two sets of needs and they change over the course of our lives, of course, none of this is static, but what is completely new is that romanticism and modern

love

have brought us to a situation where, for the first time , time in the history of humanity we want to reconcile them with a single person and in a relationship and for the long term, which means that we live twice as long and how do we get to this that we want with the same person to experience the anchor and The waves and a little history will help us put the pieces together because when it comes to relationships and modern love, we have actually experienced some pretty revolutionary changes in a very short period of time and since we often live a lot in the present or maybe We deny the future that sometimes forgets where we come from, so allow me a little three-minute history course.

We used to live in communities. We actually lived in tribes. We didn't have to join together from 40 countries to create tribes. In reality we were trapped in them very few options in those tribes very few options in those communities, but what we did get is a sense of belonging, a sense of identity and a sense of continuity. I knew who I was because I knew who I was a part of. and I know what to do because I do what I am told and my relationships are organized on a spectrum of duties and obligations and I am happy when I fulfill my duty and my obligations and I feel that I have achieved what is expected of me when I am raised in mosaic No I was raised for autonomy I was not raised to use my words to say what I want I used to grow up to know what other people want from me and this is We are still part of a big part of the world today but in our communities we had a deep sense of anchor, very little freedom and we moved in a very short time to cities with great revolutions of urbanization and the emergence of individualism and production economy and industrialization, etc. and what happens as we move to the city is that for the first time we are much freer but also much more alone and now one word in particular is going to change its meaning radically and that is the word intimacy in most of the world. , still today intimacy generally means that we share the vicissitudes of daily life, we milk the cows, we feed the children, we deal with droughts, we deal with floods, but today in our Western culture, intimacy is in my sight and privacy.

It means that when I talk to you, my beloved, you better look me in the eyes because the mirror neurons can't click when I talk to you and inside me, look what you're going to see, it's me. I am going to share with you my most precious deep assets and they are not my camels or my Hertz, they are my feelings, my worries, my anxieties, my aspirations, my dreams within me, look, I will open myself to you so that you can enter and when you enter. You will validate me, reflect me and momentarily help me transcend my existential loneliness.

Welcome to modern love and it just starts there and continues so we have this new definition of intimacy but we also have some other things that happened to most. From history marriage was a production economy it was an economic institution increasingly in the West today marriage has been replaced as an experience into an experiential institution for trust and affection and intimacy and connection which is an economy very different for most of history infidelity threatens the financial stability of a relationship today infidelity threatens the emotional security of a relationship for most of history we got married and had sex for the first time today we got married and stopped dating having sex with other people at least for most people that's still the norm when they get divorced First, because we were unhappy for a long time, you couldn't get divorced, you were just blessed to die young, then we were finally able to get divorced, but basically We divorced because we were very unhappy, today the new barrier is that we divorce because we could be happier.

Happiness, well, happiness belonged to the heavens, many religions understood it as for the afterlife, you suffer on earth, pay your debts and maybe have a little fun later, happiness was brought to earth first and then , for a time, became a possibility today. it's a mandate you have to be happy what happens to you if you're not you should it all depends on whether you work sexuality sexuality mainly within family or married life marriage and I'm in committed relationships but there wasn't much else For a long time, the species was basically the sexuality, the reproductive economy, we had sex for babies, we needed eight babies to work the land for which we would have ten;

We are not going to survive and yet in most of the world it is a marital duty for women, but we have changed sexuality in the West to a sexuality for pleasure and connection, because if you have bambinos and you have two after two, you have practically finished, so what is the motivation to continue being sexual with one partner or with many partners openly or not openly, but in general? in the traditional model it is with a partner, how do people do this when they have a model of sexuality that is now rooted in

desire

, desire defined by possessing desire, so now it's not because I have to, because I have to , because it is what is expected, but because I want and I want with you and you love me and perhaps at the same time so many conditions to fulfill and why it is so difficult to sustain the desire in the same place where we often feel a deep love but nothing of erotic energy. it's the fate of long-term desire so what else did monogamy change?

Monogamy used to be a lifelong thing. That was the definition of the word at this time. Monogamy is one person at a time and people tell you very comfortably that I am monogamous in all. my relationships and it makes a lot of sense ask your grandmother, you know, or your grandfather, so all these concepts that we think about have always been constantly changing, they've never really been static, they've always evolved, they evolve across cultures. , they evolve across religions, they evolve with the rise or decline of egalitarianism they evolve with changing definitions of gender they are not static and we are in the middle of a review around that, which is why desire has become the organizing principle of modern relationships in the West in our families in our careers in our intimate lives we want to feel desire we want to feel that we are owners of the story that we are the authors of our story that we can edit the story that we can decide when the story needs to end the chapter and starting a new one we want that sense of mastery over our lives, we come to places like this to experience more of that, so what is this illusory thing called desire and the million dollar question around desire is can we want what we already have What philosophers have always dabbled with?

Why does the forbidden fuel desire and when you love how it feels and when you desire how is it different and finally what helps us keep it alive? So I want to take us to some of these questions wherever we are. We'll have a conversation about all of this and how it will play out. What I want you to know is in everything I would tell you: it's been years of thinking and writing and my new book that is about to be published is called Rethinking the State of Things. infidelity and although sometimes I sound confident I am not sure of absolutely anything I live the dilemmas that we all live there is no relationship expert there are only people who have thought about it more and can put words to some of the paradoxes to some of the desires to some of the the disappointments to some of the aspirations that we all have then when you love and think about wanting to know the person know the loved one contract the distance minimize the threats have that deep connection live on a different side than when you want the verb to love is to have the verb to desire is to want and to want sometimes requires that we have a little psychological distance a sense of otherness a bridge to cross something or someone to visit on the other side so that between you and me there is this tension called only erotic and I began to think about this dialectic, this tension between closeness and space in terms of love and desire and the question I would ask is: Do I feel more attracted to my partner? when I'm not sexually attracted to him I'm only attracted to him more so what would you say if I asked you?

I feel more attracted to my partner when he or she gives me a few we laugh together when he or she is making art when we travel when we are adventurous when we are on the move when we are exploring together when we are discovering he or she is traveling just when he or she is present when we are dancing when she expresses herself completely when I connect with myself when what when we are not drunk is that we are drunk or high that one went ah I'm sorry, I thought it was good to move on and I feel attracted to my partner when she sings, I hear her and I see her when we're arguing, when I see him shine, how many of you would have that when I see him? he or she shining ok how many of you would say when we have been apart when we get together how many of you say when I am surprised in one way or another because what I am seeing is different from usual and how many would I say when I see it shining in the lights of the others, yeah, uh, taking risks, so the first thing you'll hear in general, even about being completely inherself, singing, dancing, traveling, what you will hear is that I.

I'm most attracted to my partner when he or she radiates, that's probably the best word to describe it, it's another word for confidence, but it's confidence with enlightenment, it has a little extra twist because when she sings, I'm looking at this person who already is generally so familiar and momentarily once again something unknown something mysterious something elusive and in this space between her and me lies this alone erotic is a space in which what is generally so known becomes momentarily once again something unknown so that I can explore and first and foremost be curious the essential experience that comes with desire is curiosity exploration and curiosity when my partner is confident or when I radiate it is the same when I am confident when I am in myself when you know that the Second is when we have been apart and when we have been part of when we meet or when he is far away or she is far away or they are far away what happens is that we come to connect with the other dimension of desire which is that it also has its roots in longing and in absence there is something about not having that allows us to want more not only because we want what we cannot have but because when we don't have it is right in front of us, it allows us to engage our imagination not only about what is but about what it means to us or what this person means to us and who we are in their presence when I am surprised because I can be surprised because I am attracted to my partner because the reason is vulnerable and it is not typically what I see or I am surprised because I see you do something that you normally don't do or that surprises me because you come to me with a different tone than what you usually do but surprise engenders novelty change difference that is also the ferment of desire and when I see my partner in the eyes of others when other people They let themselves be carried away by their intelligence, their words, their charm, their breadth, their humor, their looks, basically when I experience in the moment that my partner not only exists in my own gaze but also exists in the gaze of others and they do not belong to me, in reality they do not belong to me.

They belong, at best, your partner is on loan with a renewal option. What we often think is that once we engage his mind and the long series of songs, poems and sayings that have fueled a kind of romantic possessiveness we have often been led astray. I feel more attracted to my partner. To this tension that must exist in the realm of desire, can we want what we already have?, which is the second question, is best answered if we accept that we never have the person who is by our side, they have never belonged to us, in fact. they actually are. free to go, of course, we can control them, we can lock them up, we can create a surveillance system, but that is not intimacy or closeness, what did he say?

I need to know where I want to be next year, I can't even find it. my GPS these days you have a GPS with you you know, from the distance of the other person we can be controlled in fabulous ways, it has never brought anyone closer, it just brings them there, but that doesn't mean they are close, it can physically make them there no makes them present and, above all, no surveillance generates trust, not in the intimate sphere and I would dare to make a bit of fixed policy and not in the global sense, so that they never belong to you, so how are they cultivated? their interest, how do we maintain this desire?

What does it mean to stay actively engaged with someone and what does it mean to stay actively engaged with ourselves in someone's presence? How do I stay interesting to myself when I'm with you? Not creating situations that happen so often in modern couples and especially when they are busy and on the go and active and trying hard like many of you do, which is that often our erotic selves exist outside and the leftovers come home and erotic The self is the self of desire it is the playful self that is engaged that looks in the eyes that responds immediately it is a very different self it is curious if it is present it is focused it is everything we would like to experience in the intimacy of our own relationship but many of us have become much more adept at having that person outside and the one who comes home is the one who wants to relax.

I've finished now. I have turned off. I have brought out my charm. I have made the effort here is the place where I don't want to have to work so hard and even less do we want to work so hard because there are no rewards either or there are no immediate rewards and there is no danger of being fired or at least not tomorrow tomorrow we become lazy and we give up. we become complacent and desired forms in the routine laziness habits and complacency it simply falls asleep it falls asleep there it does not fall asleep at all and then the question can we want what we already have what is the difference between love and desire and why the forbidden feeds the desire because you see something very interesting when we begin to understand the anatomy of desire.

Most of the time we have a model of desire that creates freedom, possibility and choice, great, but at the same time. The moment when I do what I'm allowed to do is fantastic but when I do what I'm not supposed to do for many of us is when I really feel like I'm doing it and I'm doing what I really want, there's something fundamental. about breaking rules and transgression that makes us feel like we touch freedom with a capital F then the forbidden feeds the desire because the forbidden even if they are our own small forbidden things that we have not given ourselves permission to feel to say that they are not big things , but the moment we break and reach beyond the inhibitions, the boundaries, the prohibitions that we have told ourselves or our culture and what we have been told, we experience a sense of affirmation and recovery that is unmatched by what happens today. the notion of freedom is that you have known for a long time that if you wanted to go on a date you had to cross the square and you had to cross the town square and you had to find two three people to choose from and that was that today we have a village that is a great global digital village in which I do not have two or three options, I have thousands of options and on the one hand it gives me opportunities that I have never had but on the other hand it also gives me what is called the paradox of choice right to choose three options the big five is still good a hundred paralyzing doubts and massive uncertainty so there has never been a time where people ask me this same question more than ever.

I've done this for over three decades, how? I know when I found that but that question, of course, from Cinderella? You already know that this question, but that question, has had a new twist because what is today when you have that sea of ​​possibilities? Today's is the one that will make me want to close my applications, today's is the one that will make me no longer think that maybe there is something better around the corner that I didn't think about, that I should still go look , I'm under the table. looking at you and saying what else is out there, the one that is going to affect my entire inner Rumble, that will also be extraordinary, that I will no longer want to think that I have not found the one yet and the one that has to give me a feeling of certainty that it is basically impossible to get.

The people who find it are people who fully understand that life is imperfect at best and that you live with uncertainty, you just hope that if you put more and more into it. You become the one who will make the other more of that love is a verb and not a permanent state of enthusiasm that someone who is perfect gives you while you are not yet perfect. I guess this resonates with some people, so with that choice with that need for certainty it coincides with something that I think has really become one of the trademarks of modern relationships, which is what we still want in the and I'm going to talk now, but monogamists probably mostly heterosexual, but we'll see.

What happens after the gay marriage model? I think there's a whole proliferation of new relational models and configurations that challenge a lot of this and I hope we can talk about that as well, but one general model that really has been kind of a legacy that we entered history with is this we still want stability. financial support companionship social status and maybe children when we commit to someone married or unmarried it doesn't matter, but we still want all that and now I want you too to be the best for me friend, my trusted confidant and my passionate lover, to boot , to 80, to forgive, what this means to people, is this: we are asking one person to give us what an entire town once gave us and that is a difficult task for a group of two, so, where is? the tribe where the tribe is where the community is where the multiple people who help us are so that perhaps the relationship is not the source of all our food but is the bridge to all the food that we can find in the multiple parts of our lives. lives, which we then bring back into the relationship and then give it their energy when I work with couples and I'm still a practicing doctor every day and I work with couples pretty much all over the world.

I speak nine languages. I can translate, so I understand Also, the actual cultural nuances that I know are present in this room I don't understand all of them, but I am aware of them, let's put it more like this: I see two types of couples or relationships that have no vector to be. making up two can be relationships of three or four there are people who are not dead and they are people who are alive it is a very important distinction and there is a line that I stole from who is sitting in the back, which I think is priceless because One of the things What I always said was that you don't measure the success of a relationship in a funeral home;

It's not just because you stay together forever that actually means it was good or even tolerable, so what does it mean? not being dead don't be dead to me are people who experience fear lack of confidence legacies of trauma oppression rigidity and you survive when you're not dead you can survive but you do the basics you certainly don't have rich and full lives with meaning live that's not what it's about it's about to protect yourself from danger emotional and physical and relational danger economic danger and life is this is a body that opens its expansive extends allows things to come in is the ability to play to discover explore and when it comes to desire there is a map that I want draw quickly with you because I want you to then think which of these children are you, you sit on your mother or your father or whoever your father figure is, slap the one who raised you and At some point, each of you jumped and wanted to go find out and experience the world they went to play in.

You can experience it now in the role of the child or, if you want to bring it in the role of sexuality and intimacy, do so. in the adult version you will see the resonance when this little child leaves, there is an adult here who can see some things, if the adult says child, the world is a big place, have fun, play and enjoy, then the little child Go and go further and they will experience, and those of you who are, you will experience together about us and separation at the same time, security and adventure at the same time, mystery and trust at the same time, but many of you did not get that answer. many of you got the answer What's good out there?

Don't we have everything we need? You and I. I feel alone. I feel depressed. I am anxious. All kinds of messages telling you to come back and some of you may have done exactly that. I will give up a part of me to not lose you I will give up my freedom to secure my connection and that is a child, the second child does not return immediately because they are very enthusiastic, curious and anxious. and they want to go but they are constantly looking over their shoulder am I safe? They are going to punish me? Am I going to pay the price for this?

Are you going to collapse on me? What happens when I tend to myself and that person often in the beginning of a relationship, you experience a great capacity for security and adventure at the same time, but as you become more intimate, your desire decreases, the more connected I'm with you, the more I can want what's mine, not just sexually as a whole. The third child does not return because there is not much to return to so take a moment because in every relationship you will notice that there is often one person who is more in touch with the fear of abandonment and the fear of losing the other and one person which is more in touch with the fear of missing out and these two are often in a relationship with each other so there are three tensions that I want to highlight so you can think about which one you are, which one you were which you are today and what you want to change about from this.

We've talked about security and adventure as one of the great tensions in desire because sustaining desire is really about reconciling these two seemingly opposing forces, that's what it's really about and I'll tell you right. away is not a problem that you solve it is a paradox that you manage there is no answer there are many things you can do but it is not like that because that is how you get away from it, it is simply how you live better with it The second tension is the tension between mystery and transparency. We are in an era of massive transparency on all fronts and we are forgetting that there is a powerful aphrodisiac in not knowing everything, not knowing everything, neither within relationships nor on networks.social, leaving something undiscovered if nothing is hidden nothing can be discovered religion understood that fundamentally if we are going to live secular spiritualities we need to bring back the mystery we need to bring back the mystery as a foreplay, in fact, it is the same idea in instead of immediate gratification on all fronts. the difference between sexuality and eroticism sex is quite blatant and nature acts biology the animal a rhotacism sexuality transformed by the human imagination is everything that gives me an imagination is not necessarily direct it plays with things hidden behind the corners and the third tension after lover, mystery and transparency are trust and betrayal, people who live on the undead side often do not trust to be able to play, discover, explore, open up, you must have that fundamental glue that gives to each relationship its essence, its timelessness. and its truth is called truth trust and many of us have experiences of broken trusts betrayal and the need to know how we repair how we recover how we repair as in matchmaking when trust is broken, it is actually about reintegrating a new truth and a new trajectory for desire so that I can once again feel safe enough to want which means I can once again feel safe enough to feel free and feel free enough to build more security is a back and forth loop when it comes of love, it is our imagination that is the best actor, not necessarily the other person, thank you