Today we have some counterintuitive relationship advice. If you’re in a tough spot with your loved one, why would you want to have a deep chat about religion, politics, work, or your eating habits? Wouldn’t that just make everything worse? My guest today says asking these hard questions is exactly what you should do.
Susan Piver is a fan favorite in TPH-world. She has been a practicing Buddhist for more than a quarter-century. She’s a graduate of a Buddhist seminary, founder of The Open Heart Project, and a New York Times bestselling author of many books, including How Not to Be Afraid of Your Own Life. This month, she’s releasing a revised and expanded edition of her blockbuster book, The Hard Questions: 100 Essential Questions to Ask Before You Say “I Do.” This book started out as a relationship tool for recently engaged couples, but it’s taken on a much broader life. You can use it if your long-term relationship has hit a snag, if you’ve recently broken up with someone and want to understand why, or if you’re single and just want to know yourself better. The book originally came out 20 years ago, but a lot has changed since then, so Susan has gone through and done a big rewrite.
In this conversation, we talk about: why hard questions are so key to building or rebuilding the foundation for a healthy relationship; the difference between love affairs and long-term relationships (and how failing to see the difference can tank your relationship); why breakups are rarely caused by lack of love, but instead by something else; and Susan will explore, from a Buddhist perspective, what happens when the boundaries between you and another person begin to dissolve – and what to watch out for when this happens.
Also, there’s (just barely!) still time to join us in our free Taming Anxiety Challenge. This ten-day meditation challenge will teach you how to understand your anxiety and give you practical tools for coping with the difficult thoughts and emotions that arise when you are anxious. And it’s also a great way to kickstart your meditation practice.
You can join the Taming Anxiety Challenge by downloading the Ten Percent Happier app: https://10percenthappier.app.link/install. You should be prompted to join the Challenge after registering your account. If you've already downloaded the app, just open it up or visit this link to join: https://10percenthappier.app.link/TamingAnxietyChallenge. Be sure to sign up by June 24!
Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/susan-piver-359
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This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
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hey hey today, some counter intuitive relationship advice, safer example, you're in a tough spot with their loved one. Why at that moment, would you wanna have a deep chat about religion and politics?
work or eating habits when they should make everything worse. My guest today says asking these hard questions is precisely what you need to do so in favour is a fan favorite in tpa world she's been practicing buddhist for more than a quarter century she's a graduate of a buddhist seminary founder of the open heart project and in europe.
As best selling author of many books, including- and I really like this title, how not to be afraid of your own life this month, though she's releasing a revised and expanded edition of her blockbuster book. The hard questions, one hundred essential questions to ask before you say I do
Let me clarify that subtitle, because some of you may be thinking. I am not about to say I do this
started out as a relationship tool for recently engage couples. However, it has taken on a much broader life
it's designed to be used if you're long term relationship has had a snag or if you ve recently broken up with somebody
in one I understand why, in your own mind or if your single in just want to know yourself better, the book originally came out twenty years ago, but it a lot has changed to say the least since then, so Susan has gone through and done a big rewrite, and this conversation we talk about why hardware
These are so keen to building were rebuilding the foundation for a healthy relationship. The difference between the law.
If the affairs and long term relationships and how failing to see the difference can tank your relationship, why breakups are rarely caused by lack of love, but instead by something else, we also talk about susan's explorations from a buddhist perspective of what happens when the boundaries between you and another person begin
dissolve and what to watch out for when that happens. Before we get going susan, I just wanna
I mention that there is still a little bit of time just barely time enough for you to join
our free taming anxiety challenge its attend day, meditation challenge. The goal is to teach you how to understand
your anxiety. Give you some practical tools for coping with the difficult thoughts and emotions that arise. We are anxious to also great way to kick start your meditation practice. If you're in a rut, once you sign up you'll, get a short video every day from me and cover
and with an expert on anxiety and then after the video there will be a short guided meditation for you to practise what you ve just learned,
You also get daily reminders to get you to your meditation, cushion or care.
Or wherever you meditate, and you can invite your friends and family to join you in the challenge and again it's all for free. So if your particular flavor of anxiety manifests as procrastination.
That's not unusual. I do want to say, though, that now is the last chance to join us for the challenge and replaced that have it with a new one. You can sign up by downloading the ten percent. Have europe, wherever you get your apps by june, twenty fourth
Ok, let's get going now we're susan fibre survivor. Welcome back to the show, I'm so glad to be here. It's always going to see you dad likewise ended before her before we start a rolling. I asked you my customary question that I ask guests which, as you know it anything you wanna talk about before we do the interviewing you said yeah my here
a question why our relationships impossible. So let me throw that question baggage you. Why are really additives impossible, yeah, I dont know, but they are.
As someone now has been married for over twenty years and has written about relationships a number of times and keeps thinking
Gonna get it right once we solve this one issue or if we get over this very irritating thing, or this very hurtful thing.
there's going be so smooth sailing ahead and
in all these years. I think what I've come to realize is for me, it's impossible not to be in this relationship. It's my life. It's not my whole life, but it's the fabric of my life is very interwoven with this relationship and it's impossible to get it right. So what happens when you find yourself in a situation, that's impossible to make right and impossible to not engage with that puts you in an interesting spot. Don't you think, maybe just don't expect her to get it right, excellent
I want that advice podcast over sia, but easier said than done. Maybe we need to approach relationships the way we approach meditation, which is you're not going to win. There is no sort of like acing the thing. It's just a you muddle through. Interestingly, we could also approach meditation as we do a relationship in the sense that it's different every time you can show up, in both cases with the best intentions,
I'm gonna nail at this time. I know exactly what I'm doing and it offers apart for you can show up in either case grumpy pen,
be I'm going to in today and something magical blossoms or not it's alive. In both cases, as I
your stand. It the inciting inside the insight that put you on the path. Writing this book was something
along the lines of
being in love? Isn't enough, you can be in love with somebody, but if you don't love your life with that person, it won't work exactly being in love is enough for me,
fair, but it's not enough for a relationship, the insight that I
when my then boyfriend suggested marriage, which I was very scared to hear him put that on the table.
I am thinking about it. Thinking about you, I love him, but so I love all the other people. I was in a relationship with two. I still owe them, but those relationships ended
But when I thought about it, I realized they didn't end because we didn't love each other. They ended because we couldn't find a way to create a life together that we both loved,
and so that made me start thinking about this particular person. I love him, but so why? What is happening to doesnt seem to mean that's it
the reason to make a commitment. So I started thinking about what what do I know about what he thinks about our life together, not how he feels about me because in longer term relationships it seems you don't really argue
feelings, so much you argue about. Why did you put that over there? I don't want to celebrate their holiday.
your family drive me crazy. I need you,
become my religion or those are the things that really push the buttons division of labour and you know who's doing doing what when etc, etc. Cetera it's interesting. My wife and I did some couples counselling several years ago with a guiding Michael Vincent Miller and he wrote a book called intimate terrorism. Oh, my god, I wrote this book before nine eleven, so terrorism was ill eat didn't have the same sort of punch that it has now. In any event, one of the arguments he made is that we in the west,
and arrested state of development, because we thanks to hollywood and love, songs, think of love as a narrow ban. The love affair that you just described and we have trouble coping once the fireworks of side and we need to figure out
Who's in laws are we gonna see for thanksgiving and the more mundane aspects of life? Does that sort of rhyme with what you're talkin about? Yes, it does, and I love that title is crazy. Up deafness.
gonna check it out, and I don't know if it's just because of love songs in hollywood. Certainly that plays a part in it. But as you know, because we know each other, I am a longtime buddhist practitioner, my partner, isn't, by the way, so just F y. I, for what that's worth their salt tremendous amount of emphasis, put on how you work with your thoughts and your feelings and sensations in the present moment, and there's so much irritation and difficulty
in long term relationships. No one ever tells us that for some reason, the closer you get to another person and the longer you know them the more the line blurs between who you.
Are and who they are used
we inhabit a world together. You don't
if their mood is your mood. So, according to this particular buddhist view, then the way we talk to ourselves bleeds into the way we talk to other people and the way most of us talk to ourselves is not very nice, a lot of judgment, a lot of harshness, a lot of critique and so part of the spiritual journey. As I have studied it is to work with those mind states not just for yourself, but so that when you enter the shared world that you have with others, you can tell the difference and use the voice. You know use your inside voice as it were, but in this way it seems like self compassion or reprogramming the way you talk to yourself. While it may seem self centered or solve systemic or individualistic, it can have profound effects on the way you show up in all of your relationships, including
intimate one, it's the opposite of selfish, it's a gesture of kindness, certainly towards yourself, but also to others. So tell me about the book you wrote this twenty years ago before you were married, and then you web
to rewrite it. What did you find as you were, going through that process? Will I wrote the book, as you say twenty years ago, because I was like in my thirty's
I've never been married. I didn't think you'd ever get married. My
then boyfriend and I were walking down saint marketplace actually in new york city, and we were just having this incredibly loving close moment and I looked at him and I could see
stood up asked me to marry him. I could see you start to sink down in the middle of a very crowded place, an eye slapped my hand over his mouth like don't do it,
Please don't do it, that's a terrifying thing, and only just looked at each other and laughed because we both knew what the other was thinking.
Anyway, we ended up revisiting.
Question and then I was thinking these thoughts were. How do I know this gonna work has doesn't seem to work for most people
I don't want to be like the people. I knew growing up, who just made fun of each other and roll their eyes at each
then sign. So I had this epiphany as we discussed at this
about our life together, not about how we feel what do I know about how he used his life. How do you make this commitment? Honestly? I went to the bookstore and air,
all the books about getting married, we're about what you wear and flowers, and I, like close,
and flowers and so on. But there is nothing that wasn't super psychological or super like it
day and I don't really want either of those
Just started: writing down questions that were important to me
Where are we going to live because we lived in two different cities at that point? And what does your kick gonna call me
his son was young at that time and it was hard-
have to know how to relate to me and what
they are going to celebrate and how much money do you have? I think that's a reason
a question to ask someone that year thrown your lot in with it.
With these questions down and we ended up answering them and for about a third of them were like yeah, okay, we we got that one. We agree for a third of them
We were like no you're wrong, we totally disagreed and for the fund,
Third, we just had no idea how to answer it and in all three cases it was. Ok, because these questions
and about engraving a contract. It's about knowing each other so was telling a friend of mine about this, and she said tat would make a good book and through happenstance- and I am not exaggerating- it became a book had to write like seventy more questions, but it became a book and by other happenstance it became a huge book. I heard
if the people who were grateful for this helped us get to know each other. I heard from people who are angry that we broke up because of your book. I heard from a lot of parents who are like I dunno about this person. My kid is: choosing I'm giving this book help them think it through, and I heard from a lot of single people who said this helped me figure out who I'm looking for. So all those things seemed kind of useful and then okay, decades decades decades years go by, and I was sitting at my desk about a year and a half ago or something thinking you know. What's not in that book questions about social media because there was no such thing
It would also about in that book questions about politics and back then you might disagree, but you could marry someone from a different political party without wanting to me no feeling murderous, but it's different now, so I suggested to the publisher: let's revise if in their like. Yes, let's do it, and additionally, I noticed wow. That book was written by a white person for white people, I'm still white person, but can I expand the view here.
So that its not just for people who look like me and without being performed at ever virtues signalling, are all all the things. Can I genuinely make it useful to more people so
things were behind the revision and in our brief cap, before getting into the media the discussion, you said that it was interesting to go back and read a book by that.
twenty years ago version of yourself, but you you haven't.
And been married at that point. So what are the differences between the voice of that person in the voice of this person? I really appreciate your bringing that, because that was the most powerful part was to remember her and a kind of law.
Her and I know her but she's, not me anymore, but I really appreciated her sweetness and hopefulness. I just appreciated her intention to make an honest commitment without having any idea what she was talking about.
and you know there are some embarrassing things too like little. I would never say that today, but mostly it was a full circle kind of feeling.
and I don't know how long you've been married but are about to have my eleven year anniversary. Congratulations! No! No! No! No! No! At thirteen years
for sure a two whore, congratulations, yeah! So something happens. You know it's like
get in a little boat. Was someone and you'd like push off, and I think
going over there? Let's? Let's head to that other shore of happiness and meaning in satisfaction and support and friendship and all the things and at some point, italy speaking for myself, that short disappears
You stole the longboat together in the middle of an ocean and you're, not sure where it's going and you ve lost.
And now you in the middle of the sea together. And what do you do
didn't know any of that when I wrote the book of course
Now I do that it's this moment to moment journey, I don't mean to sound cliched and its incredibly intimate, incredibly messy and incredibly powerful and incredibly mysterious. So that's the person who revise the book was the person who knows that
so is the book for people considering getting married or entering into a long term relationship, or could it be for people who are already in it and want to just sort of get to know each other better or have hard conversations with some sort of structure it was written for people.
Who are thinking of making a commitment and wanted to do it really responsibly and honestly, but it turns out that since the questions many there,
Questions have no answer or since answers change that
has been. I didn't anticipate this, but it has been really useful for people and longer term relationships who feel stuck on some particular issue whore, who just want to reconnect to go back and answer the questions, and so it's not a different process. Interestingly, to answer the questions, although there different contexts for it, so how do you recommend people do this there we
do one at a time we have some sort of marathon session were where we go through all of them. What your guidance dont like yourself in your basement and say you can't
Well. To answer of these questions. Don't do that so everyone's different of course, but my suggestion is just start with five questions start request number one and there there may be some chapters that you don't need to visit like questions about faith, because you share a faith, but otherwise, I would say start with
you and take your time duncan. My husband I at the
we're doing this one lived in
on the other lived in Boston
and so we used the travel time whether we
traveling alone or together to be on the phone or just to talk to each other, face to face for these questions, and that was good because
it's three hours or five hours. If there was a lot of traffic and we knew it was going to start and we knew it was going to end
Sometimes we answer questions. We went out to dinner. What we never did was like Hayes.
We're sitting around at home, not doing anything. Let's answer some questions. We didn't do that
made it. A little more defined and different people have different tolerance for such conversations, and the person with more tolerance is not the better person there. Colonel gets me to what I was going to ask next, which is, I suspect, there might be people listening this really. I don't want to disturb the peace. I don't want to get into this tough stuff or I want to avoid conflict fair enough. So this is a way to avoid conflict, and I understand that person. I am that person, but the questions in this book are, let's say, eighty five percent they're going to come up anyway, and it's better to look at them now. Whenever now is when there's a sense of spacious,
it's rather than as the point of conflict and if there are questions that are disturbing or triggering don't look at them respect yourself, but they are all going to come up anyway, and probably the most frequently asked question I've heard is I want to do this, but my partner? Doesn't I want to answer these questions? How can I get my partner to do this? How do you you cannot so written
arr the question and ask yourself: am I willing to be in a relationship with someone who will not discuss the relationship with me? You know a phrase that questions have no answer, but know is appropriate, but do you want to be in a relationship with someone who will not talk to you about the relationship? My answer would definite
I know so. Let's talk about some of the topics. Let's start with the let's dive right in the deep end here money. How do you
I commend we talk about money because this is as
understand and one of the most contentious and uncomfortable issues in relationships. So true, that's why this book exists is so it's like. Oh it's not me asking the questions. It's this lady, who wrote these questions down. So, oh, she says how much money do you have how much debt?
have. These are important questions that if you dont know them going in, you should be surprised
one way or another. So all these are called the hard questions, not the fun questions. So I hope it is a given that they're not easy, saw the hardest question for
by the way was. Are we gonna keep our money in the same bank account or not.
simultaneously. He said, of course, and I said no way I want to keep my money in the same bank account you. I have my own business here divorced. You have a child.
I happen to spend a lot of money on my hair
I don't really want to talk about that with you, so that was hard for us and there's no right answer, of course, but the point to me was, I don't want you up in my grill and the point to him was: are you going to have your own milk?
carton in the refrigerator like how are we going to really do this? If we keep our money separately, are you going to buy the groceries this week and I'm going to buy them next week to him? The question was: are you in or are you out that is a more important concern? Then I don't want you to know much. I spend on certain beauty products that had this
meaning for him that I didn't have for me and then I had not considered. I dont know to him. It was an indication of my commitment, so we put our money together from tat day to this very day religion. Here there are a few questions
the book that I would say our deal breakers and it's really important to know which our deal by four questions for you and religion can be one of them not for everyone. But there are people who feel like unless we are the same religion, I can't make a life with you, fair good, so no that about each other and then their people.
only at least as many people who have different religions and figure out a way to make it work? One of my husband's biggest concerns- and he still says this to me- is I'm not a buddhist.
Is there going to be some time when you're gonna wanna leave, because I'm not- and I say I don't think so I'll, let you know,
But my worry on that and is getting heavy I know is hopefully will get old
Certainly we will die. Then I think it might become something important. I want my death to be attended to according to a buddhist principles, so we have a little contingency plan. You call this person call that person
and so on. But if it's going to be a deal breaker, you should know it now before you have babies and stuff like that. Another deal breaker question, just f Y, I is, do you want children
People change their minds, certainly, but that's not something you can do and then change.
one of the couples I heard from early on who broke up broke up because one didn't know the other didn't want children
And the other one really did so there's just a few questions that I would say are deal breakers and those two children and religion are among them. You know I'm I self described as a bullet
then the pretty serious about meditation. My wife is definitely sort of buddhist curious, sore buddhist inclined, but would not describers offers a buddhist than meditates episodical ii.
It's not been a problem at all in our rooms, not really in our relationship. She may have a different story on that, but for me it has not been a problem, but I have seen relationships where if one party is really interested in growth, personal growth and the other is not that can create problems. So I'm just curious. How do you manage that? And what would you recommend to people, I suspect, are
as a nontrivial percentage of listeners to this show who really into this stuff and workin on themselves, training their own mind and there with people who are not interested in and might be,
knowing how to balance that yeah, it's really important point yeah, there's something similar to the question. How can I get this person?
Have these conversations with me when I want you and they don't? How can I get them to be interested in personal growth or deepening or exploration? If they're not the same answer, you can't you can't the real question, I think, is not. How can I get them to be like this? The real question is: how intimate can we be with each other? How much can we share? How much will this person here, listen to me
much? Will this person take an interest in me? How much can I show of who I am and how wide what they open to me? If that's there, that I think the particulars of lifestyle and how time is spent and how money is spent,
Our secondary so again, would you say you can't make them be interested in what you're interested in relationships are really terrifying.
Everything's on mine. There is no choice but to be vulnerable
up and go. How am I going to be vulnerable today? How am I going to be open today? Where am I going to feel today? What am I going to hat be asked to accept all
predicated on openness and gentleness and vulnerability. I find it's easy to come up with reasons not to go forward and I think the real reason most relationships fail armchair analysis
here based on. Nothing is because we know that
day swear buddhist thing, I'm about to say it's gonna end.
someone's gonna fall out of love, someone's and change their mind. Someone's gonna die, which is weirdly. The best case scenario.
It's a very strange design. This design fly here somewhere and I think when we start to consider what how much
give em I really going to commit. Am I
I say yes, I will share a life with you. It also kind of means. I'm gonna share death with you. We don't know. Look at that. I understand
But then we I and others I see just start to throw boulders and the way I you know
a sense of humor, don't make enough money or you don't have a practice. Are you
or this or that those are real things in that preparing them, but is also useful to look just under the surface of those concerns to find, and if there is a little shaking ass human and understandable in your own heart and mind about the potency of intimacy and the unpredictability. Sometimes you may think. Well,
If we're on the same path, I might be able to predict a little better how we're going to spend our time or what we're gonna talk about. Or I see us in the future
but he suffers or whatever, and you can't hear that won't help just to put too fine a point on the specifics around how to me
the approach it if you're in a relationship where you're getting really interested in meditation or personal development, personal growth and the other person isn't tell me if I heard you correctly on this point, the practical advice on the serve narrow question
what you said or what I heard was first, while you can't force them to get interested in whatever you're interested in. But if they're not interested in you, that's a problem. That's it! That's the fine point perfectly said. Thank you. You don't have to be interested in what I'm interested in, but you do have to be interested in me and if you not there's a gulf,
happy bridged. You know interpolating back to events in my life with bianca. There were moments, especially early on where she was threatened by my burgeoning interest in this meditation. They wanted.
Going out, retreats and making friends and- and that was that was scary to her, but she was always very interested in it. Even though she what was one of the reasons, I should say that she wasn't
meditating is because I was very annoying about in a kind of said. You should do this thing and I got kind of pretty annoying there. So don't do that, my vice and but there the other thing is to choose always interest in what was going on for me. If I wanted to talk about it, she never turned off to that. I've written two books, I'm in the middle of a third she's, deeply deeply.
involved in helping we write these books, that's fabulous by will read every page aloud to her, sometimes several times at different stages in the book. So she is. You know my conciliatory, no question about
You bring a tiered my eye that is so beautiful and is not just really great. It's the best. You can ask for from another person to wonder who let you guys have it. I do not take it for granted, and so I tell me that fits exactly with what you are recommending. So what if she's
it is interested in going out a ten day, silent retreat, as I am she supportive of my doing it. I mean parenthetical, I'm less annoying since I've started meditating so she's and that's not like there's no
the interest here, but you know anytime. I want to talk about that stuff, she's super open to it and she also read books and etc, etc. So I'm not going to force her or try to four
sure, which wouldn't work anyway to be you don't try to enter the first stage of enlightenment. That seems like a failing strategy
my husband happens to know a boat load about nineteen. Eighty stance already. I was not that interested in
have anyway, I'm not trying to equate these things. But why do I love it now and when he sees something comes across something that's like? Oh, my god, I can't believe this thing was just reissued or this person just emailed me that I'm just I'm so happy for him and just going back for a moment to the word intimacy.
He no room ass, happens beyond the pale and that some unearthly round its the closest most of us will ever get to a transcendent round, is falling in love. I think, and much of the work and relationship.
I spent trying to get back there. I remember that or if only we could go back there, let's have date night and okay good, but you're never going back there, maybe for moments because of dense. But what doesn't end is intimacy. How much can you show of yourself? How much can you know the other person
I never get to the end of that. It always can go deeper and so to me and in writing the hard questions and thinking. Well, what can I commit to in a relationship? I can't commit to love
or desire or anything about romance, but I can commit to intimacy for my life, that seems honest,
you're describing in your writing process of bianca in her appreciation.
If what you love that's intimacy to me in that's, that's what matters a man much more my conversation with susan piper coming up right after this. In the first part of the twentieth century, the hilton family had a lock on the hotel industry by offering upscale service at a modest price. The company was expanding fast and buying up by conic properties across the country, like the plaza and the waldorf historiae, but their unchallenged rise wouldn't last an ambitious mormon named J, w marriott decides to pivot, from restaurants, to hospitality and he's after hilton business, developing modern hotels across the world, but both the hilton and mary out families will have to contend with their share of drama in finding a successor, while also fighting to stay solvent in a high stakes: business hi, I'm david brown, the host of one. We show business wars. We go deep into some of the biggest corporate rivalries of all time in our latest season, hilton and mary out
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some the biggest controversies in? U S, history, events that have shaped who we are as a country and they continue to define the american experience
American scandal tells Marcie stories about american politics, like the breaking at the Watergate hotel, an event that led to the downfall of a president and raise questions about the future of
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future of the country follow american scandal. Wherever you get your podcast, you can listen and free on the amazon, music or wonder YAP. Let's do some more hard questions, social media,
no my guide? Well, I remember one of the questions I wrote was: how much of our life are we willing to share on social media because there
some people who are like nothing and, of course, some people who want to show every bowl of oatmeal. There are questions mostly relating to privacy, how much privacy do I want? How much do you feel comfortable with and what about?
past relationships and people who may friend you or follow your or something there are questions about just what do you feel comfortable with in the world? A social media and those answers certainly.
Are very likely to change or social media just continues to changing get weirder, but basically the questions were followed and things like privacy, and how much do you feel comfortable sharing? You have thoughts on how we can have these conversations that give us the the highest odds of achieving some sort of mutual understanding
That's a really good question here in the book. I try to make recommendations for having the conversation at a time where you're not multitasking in
sitting outside together or on a drive together or some space that feels protected to you. What I can suggest are ways to avoid disagreement or embarrassment or
Discomfort, disagreement, embarrassment, discomfort
gonna, be there over and over and over again in your relationship. So the thing I can suggest is listening is more important to listen.
Then talk. Listening is a very particular skill and
these areas that are fraught with
very vulnerable- and oh, my god, if you answer this question this way, I'm really scared. What's going to happen to us and so on, we tend to stop listening and instead we listen for I'm listening for this thing. That might make me feel happy, or this thing that might terrify me and when you listen for as opposed to just listening you're, not really listening, you're listening to yourself, which is important,
but precludes meaningful conversation, so the best definition of listening. I ever heard smurf
and and fellow writer and catherine mccone who said listening is when you stop thinking your thoughts and start thinking, mine such a great brilliant
condition. So, instead of thinking about what I think about what you're saying, I listened to what you're saying and trust you trust myself and give myself to listening. That's a very underrated skill and it tends to open meaningful conversation, whether it results in agreement or disagreement. So that's the best suggestion I have his listen and don't listen for and when you notice, you listening, forges, try to relax and think I'm going to really get to know this person
im not the person I wish they were but who they are, and there is nothing more loving than that we face constant choices with our loved ones of. Am I going to choose you or the person I wish you were. Do I choose to love you, or am I going to wait and try to love the person? I hoped you were the more. We can choose you, the more love there will be, and I don't mean to sound trite, but often.
Most intense relationships. Take the form don't do this to do that. I will try not to her in this way. Those are important things, but when they become the centrepiece of the relationship rather, then who are you
And can assure you who I am then I dont know what that's called, but I dont think it's called love so anyway,
this. Your question I know, is there a way to have these questions that will make them fruitful, I think, was the heart of your question and the answer is: listen to each other, really listen to each other and then wait and then say what you think I have you heard of reflective listening. I learned this. I've shouted these guys up before the show, but here I go again damn carmen. Then moody turn this girl, or a pair of
louis inflected, communications, coaches. I've worked with for nearly three years and they have given me many many tools, but the one that I used the most or try to use the most try to remember to use is called reflective. Listening. I had heard the advice. Oh, you should be a good listener and
you should maybe turned down the volume on your own ego in turn up the volume on the other person's words. That's.
A good, but I wasn't really good at doing it, and then I got in my head about what a horrible person I am and I have a retractable john cloven hooves and blah blah blah, and so
I was very relieved when I got this piece of advice that was very, very actionable from Dan and would to show somebody's talking if you'd
out of do reflective listening you list
to what they're saying to the best of your ability to be compulsive about it and
and when their done repeat back what they said
in your own words and not an
long way. The phrase them would be to users is just reflect the bones of what they have said, so you might speak for a couple paragraphs about
what you're worried about, and I can just short of repeated back in a sentence so that the sounds like with the real
Fear here is acts and it does a couple things one for you. It forces you to listen because you gotta be
ready to repeat it back in your own language and for the other
and whether they are aware or not, and often they're. Not it's just deeply satisfying to know that way, you ve said has been heard and absorption that's beautiful and I love that would deter, mean sympathetic, joy and that's just stay out of it so perfect. So
that sounds great and I'm gonna check them out, and this is a much less elegant way of kind of may be doing. The same thing you'll tell me the other day
a fight about something. Can I remember what it is? I cannot but I'll
was like in this and that in the other thing- and I'm very upset- and this really hurt me and when I finished there was a pause- and I said
and now I need you to say
to me why I'm so upset-
Well, I mean yes, you are, you are taking the deep need. We all have whether were aware of it or not, which is too to be heard or signorino acknowledged, validated and bless his heart. He did. He didn't tell me what
thought about what I said. He told me why I was upset in his own words, so I love that I love it there's a system for it. I would love to learn more about it, yeah for somebody who tends towards the narcissistic,
we're talking about myself here, it's been a really helpful tool to get me out of my own head and thinking the thoughts of the other person you become their advocate in some way. That's so true and, interestingly, when you stop thinking your thoughts,
the big deal and you start thinking. Mine means you let what I'm saying my own thoughts fill you not with an agenda, not picking and choosing, but you actually let them in, and I know we're both meditated is an imitation teacher as well as you there's. Sometimes the instruction is given observed. The breath noticed the breath. That's perfectly fine, but there's another instruction that feel the breath feel the body breathe, feel the sensation of breath and there's a sense of
not stepping away from myself and looking back at myself breathing. I am just embodied, I'm feeling it and whatever is removed in the difference between noticing the breath and feeling the breath is also it's removed. When you listen as opposed to listen for, I think what do you think yeah you're taking yourself out of it and you're completely present at the same time? Yes, yeah. It's a subject.
action with addition built in it. It's a good formula, it's not about me right now, and none of this could happen without me, the other advantage. I found him listening and stating somebody's position back to them, even if I disagree with it actually, especially if I do disagree with it, this is useful work of him in a conflict is that I am less likely did to revert to defensiveness because engaging my prefrontal cortex. This are rational part of my brain. In order to
think the thoughts of the other person, if gauging to the prefrontal cortex, the amygdala, the the reptile brain, the fight or flight part of the brain, has less purchase. So it d escalates, because I'm very good at being defensive and so on
less likely to revert to my power alley, which is fiery defensiveness. That's very interesting,
and it brings to mind the little known horn, evian, directional theory
which I don't know anyone would have ever heard of that unless you're
into the any aground like- I am because sometimes its reference, but they are never in directional theory
something defined by the german psychoanalyst
karen horney in, like the fifties or something she posited, that there are three primary ways of responding to challenges and one has to be defensive. It's called move against, I'm going to move against what you're saying going to try to take it away and try to discredit it whatever cool.
The second way, is to move towards. Oh, it's, ok, we can work it out. Let me let's pacify the situation of. We just sit down and talk about it, we'll figure it out. Ok, but it's as much of a defence as moving against and the third way is called move away just avoid and
I personally have found this theory very useful in my own relationship in general. Just to be able to identify my husband moves against that's his first impulse when something is upsetting to him can get out of here and I move away, I just withdraw.
so our flights, you know, can look like this for one person chasing my research using the other, but it's been very helpful and there are questions in the book about fighting styles that arose from this theory. That was really helpful to know which one
you can watch what am I so that when he wants to talk about everything
the bottom of it. Tell me why I'm wrong tell me why you write his problems.
The methodology of shared
made by someone else is called. I define the problem,
assign blame problem solved. While I agree with that one, but this this seems really key to in terms of how to have these discussions or just how to have a relationship which is to know what the other person's operating manual is. Absolutely. He felt that what I was doing by avoiding he thought I was like not interested, not willing to confront being a wimp just checking out
and I thought I was collecting myself and ceasing to dissociate, because it was scary and trying to find when I really thought and felt and I needed the introvert way to do it. I thought he was getting all up in my face and attacking me and being a bully and sometimes he was he thought he was trying to put it on the table, so we can resolve it and love each other,
imore, that's what he said, but we learned over time we're okay or stay longer than I feel comfortable. Staying in the conversation and he's learned, because he's wonderful I'll get to hold my own feelings right now I get is stale or quiet. I got a letter collect yourself, so we just sort of moved toward each other
in these fighting styles, hunger days sometimes sing storms, floods in the wrong way, but it's been really help.
To find a way to respect the other person's way. I bet if we were to do a lot, no study of successful relationships, learning to
work with and work around the other person's fighting style would be a huge component. I totally agree, and the fighting styles can look really different than when he gets angry. He you just feel heat his face.
Thread. He is voice, gets louder. When I get angry, I get cold and they're both for ways of being angry.
Her to understand or you're angry. It looks like coldness when you do it. It looks like keep when I do
You have used the word throughout this conversation, many times discomforting and you rota, column and excellent column in the ten percent happier news letter. Thank you now.
You for doing it, and you in title is, I believe, the magic of discomfort. What do you mean
by that you well, it seems that relationships are extremely uncomfortable and
they are uncomfortable? If you ve never met the person does you're afraid like what, if they dont,
Maybe they do like me, it's uncomfortable either
when you fall in love as wonderful and powerful and beautiful as it is, because everything so meaningful and you think
Why do they look at me that, where why did they not do this? You think, or maybe the whole thing's falling apart, very uncomfortable,
and then in long term relationships? The discomfort looks like irritation. It's very strange,
and you will come with these lofty, very powerful.
Very real heart intentions to just love and respect and support this person, and then they come home and they put their coat somewhere weird and you get all pissed off. What's up with that that there's just this perpetual irritation in living with someone, it's uncomfortable to acknowledge that keeps you on your toes. It keeps you open. It keeps you relating to the living aspect.
Have the relationship with LA and less so to the let's just nail it down in this perfect picture mode? It keeps you awake. It requires a lot of presence of mind to work with it. Let me not blow up. Let me actually make this point right now cause I'm tired of this. It keeps you present and all the magic that there could be in our experience, and that's a big statement is only in the present, so there's some sense that I'm never going to get comfortable here.
Never gonna get comfortable, I'm going to have to stay awake, I'm going to have to stay tuned, I'm going to have to realize I dunno what's going to happen next. Those are good conditions for deepening love. Another useful thing about knowing it's going to be uncomfortable is that when it inevitably becomes uncomfortable, you might not tell yourself a story well, this is all jacked up. This isn't the way it's supposed to be
So true, there's some kind of discomfort you shouldn't do that with. I always feel obligated to say that this guy
rights related to abuse or addiction. Those things are different category, but the other normal and normal irritations discomfort can range from
You put your coat there. No I'm fixated on the goat right now and you now. Oh you didn t.
We are going to have gender reassignment surgery. You know those are there's a big spectrum there, but those are not abuse or addiction. So it's always going to happen and then, when it does, you can think just as you say well, this may mean things. This is not the right relationship for me, but this doesn't mean that would happen
that this relationship is wrong and I find that really really helpful. Personally, as we wind down here, let's sit a few more hot topics. How do you recommend we talk about politics in this fraud? God I'm? I could answer that I would run from political office or what the question? What are the hard questions we put on the table? Do we share a political ideology? Does it matter to you?
Hu I vote for and if not right now do imagine a time that it could present a problem.
when he years ago, those more questions for most people there, it may be interesting, are useful, but they weren't life and death.
The way they are now and another question that is worth considering is,
either of us have friends or family who support a political or social ideology that runs counter to what we believe and if so, how are we going to remain in relationship with them or not? We all have friends
I feel, the opposite or family members who are like did the thing. That is the bad bad thing that we wish. No one ever did whatever. That might be, so those weren't conversations that I think we were having twenty years ago. I don't think so at this point, it's very useful to consider those things food. There are some people who feel that the whole relationship is built around dinner. I mean I'm exaggerating, but we have dinner together. We go out for dinners if we can afford to having meals together is a critical part of what it means to have a homelife together, a relationship and not everyone feels that way. So those are just reasonable questions to ask, but there are questions
about like veganism or vegetarianism. There is an ethical component to the way we may eat or shop or prepare food that if one feels one way and it's not shared it's not so much about food. It's about what can I live in a house where someone cooks, meat when I am a vegan because it doesn't just make me feel like? Oh, I can eat dinner with you, but it's like a whole different way of looking at the world
and I'm not a vague and or vegetarian, but I've certainly seen and spoken to many people from this question is a deal breaker. I'm a vague in alone
but a committed carnivore six year old, bacon famine. It's been totally fine for our relationship. Although recent has tried to shove, the bacon into my mouth can get old trick. You now you too
took sex out of the book. Why? Because what do I know about sex? The questions were stupid in the first edition, and you know it. This is something that is just so personal, so particular so individual. It doesn't make sense for some stranger to come up up to you with a bunch of questions that you should ask about your sex life, and, just personally, I find that conversations about sex are only
so helpful, but sexual connection, the sexual whatever it is that you have with another person. That seems to be a better way to work. Things out is in the doing.
if I may say, rather than the reflecting its also
the one area that is subject to like fleeting change, just things can change and keep changing its probably the most tangible. Another thing that's important to note about sex is it needs protection,
It's not the kind of thing that you can talk about. Like you talk about food and money, it puts it in in or around that too prosaic and too conventional and it needs it's own crucible and that crucible will look different for each person for each couple. So it felt to me, like questions about sex, would be intruding on a very personal crucible, where sex and desire seemed to flourish. Let me say
file thing and then them will wrap up. I write memoirs for a living, so I've been taking a little bit about a stage of my life where I was getting very, very injured.
early on in meditation and really wanted to progress in meditation, but was not really eager or willing to look at the messy aspects of my own relationships, and that was holding me back for making progress in meditation. And so I wonder if you think this is a
not uncommon pitfall. So, what comes to my mind is meditation in my experience doesn't care what you're willing to look at and unwilling to look at as you sit you soften soften hair doesn't mean like oh everything's, fine, I feel great. It means allowing then we'll sit with myself as I am, and I'm going to allow myself to be
As I am in this moment in this moment, that's actually the practice. So whether you want this to happen or not, your heart starts to kind of melt.
and you start to feel more vulnerable. You start to feel more because the wall starts to come down
And when the wall comes down, anything can come in and touch you, so
you are unwilling to look at. You can't avoid seeing further.
as you know in your writing about this. I happen to know meditation in the style of what we practice and, generally speaking, is famously associated with compassion and that's
at an accident like how is sitting there doing, nothing can make me more compassionate. This is why the softening and opening happens so compassion presents itself organically. Sometimes it looks like I really care about this other person's experience. Sometimes that looks like crying for yourself over past wounds, but the heart just wakes up
So you can try to avoid relationship problems and being a jerk or whatever it is
we all are from time to time, but your practice, one
you get very far with that. It will keep sourcing more loving, kindness, more compassion, more sympathetic, joy and more equanimity, and it might take us by surprise. It took me by surprise and then all the relationships that you're in our fed into that cauldron of the confusion and power and potency and messages of an open heart,
You see more clearly before we go. Can you just remind everybody in the name of the book, any other books that we should look at all the places we can find you on the interwebs plug? Please. Thank you. If you, google, my name susan piper or
heart project you'll find my world online. My new book is called the hard questions, a hundred essential questions too,
ask before you say I do, although at one hundred and three now I've written two other books about relationships that I want to offer in case, they could be useful. One of them is called the four noble truths of love buddhist wisdom for modern relationships, and it really delve deeper into some of the things we were talking about here. How can my meditation practice support me? My relationships and I also wrote a book called the wisdom of a broken heart and
that's the book, then I get the most communication about to this very day, spin out for ten years and its about how to work with heartbreak as a practice, not to feel better
or make it everything. Ok, but tremendous wisdom is invoked when ones hardest broken. So that's what that book is about susan piper. Thank you very much. Thank you. Didn't, thankfully, a decision, Susan always great to talk to her, don't forget to join the taming anxiety challenge in the ten percent happier app download the ten percent happier app wherever you get your apps to join.
That challenge by june twenty? Fourth, this show is made by Samuel Johns. Dj cashmere came like a mom were tell and gin boy plant colour point boy. Audio engineering comes from ultraviolet audio, this great folks over there, and as always shadow to my abc news from
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Transcript generated on 2023-08-19.