#418: Esther Perel — Tactics for Relationships in Quarantine

Esther Perel — Tactics for Relationships in Quarantine | Brought to you by Magic Spoon http://magicspoon.com/tim and ShipStation https://www.shipstation.com/?ref=tim. “Maybe you don’t feel that enough people love you, but I can tell you, there’s a world of people out there who need you at this moment.” — Esther Perel Psychotherapist and New York Times bestselling author Esther Perel (@EstherPerelOfficial https://www.instagram.com/EstherPerelOfficial/) is recognized as one of today's most insightful and original voices on modern relationships. Fluent in nine languages, she helms a therapy practice in New York City and serves as an organizational consultant for Fortune 500 companies around the world. Esther is an acclaimed TED speaker and the host of the hit podcasts Where Should We Begin? https://www.estherperel.com/podcast and How's Work? https://www.estherperel.com/podcast. Esther recently launched Couples Under Lockdown https://open.spotify.com/episode/7faaMuuucE2JgucM0S1HiZ, a bonus mini-series on her podcast Where Should We Begin? https://www.estherperel.com/podcast, and the first episode aired last week and features a couple in Sicily several weeks into their quarantine. Esther will also host an international conversation about the new normal, what it means for our relationships, and how we can move forward in a time of social distancing, uncertainty, and grief. It will be broadcast live on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/esther.perel/ and YouTube https://www.youtube.com/estherperel. The four-part series, entitled The Art of Us: Love, Loss, and Loneliness Under Lockdown http://www.estherperel.com/lockdown, will be broadcast live at 3 p.m. ET on April 1st, 8th, 15th, and 22nd. Please enjoy! This episode is brought to you by Magic Spoon https://magicspoon.com/pages/tim cereal! Magic Spoon https://magicspoon.com/pages/tim is a brand-new cereal that is low carb, high protein, and zero sugar. It tastes just like your favorite sugary cereal. Each serving has 12g of protein, 3g of net carbs, 0g of sugar, and only 110 calories. It’s also gluten free, grain free, keto friendly, soy free, and GMO free. And it’s delicious! It comes in your favorite, traditional cereal flavors like Cocoa, Frosted, and Blueberry. Magic Spoon https://magicspoon.com/pages/tim cereal has received a lot of attention since launching last year. Time magazine included it in their list of Best Inventions of 2019, and Forbes called it “the future of cereal.” My listeners—that’s you—get free shipping and a 100% happiness guarantee when you visit MagicSpoon.com/TIM https://magicspoon.com/pages/tim and use code TIM. This episode is also brought to you by ShipStation https://www.shipstation.com/?ref=tim. Do you sell stuff online? Then you know what a pain the shipping process is. Whether you're selling on eBay, Amazon, Shopify, or over 100 other popular selling channels, ShipStation https://www.shipstation.com/?ref=tim was created to make your life easier. ShipStation lets you access all of your orders from one simple dashboard, it works with all of the major shipping carriers, locally and globally, including FedEx, UPS, and USPS. Tim Ferriss Show listeners get to try ShipStation https://www.shipstation.com/?ref=tim free for 60 days by using promo code TIM. There's no risk and you can start your free trial without even entering your credit card info. Just visit ShipStation.com https://www.shipstation.com/?ref=tim, click on the microphone at the top of the homepage, and type in TIM! *** If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-tim-ferriss-show/id863897795?mt=2/iTunes? 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Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Can I ask you a personal question?

• 0:08Speaker 02

  Now would be an appropriate time.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

• 0:24Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Magic Spoon. I love these guys and I love their products. Magic Spoon is a brand new cereal that is low carb, high protein, zero sugar. It tastes exactly like your favorite cereals from your childhood. It just doesn't include all the bad stuff. That's the gist. So, especially these days when I'm looking for fond associations, good feelings. You know, back in the day when I was before school watching Scooby Doo and eating these cereals that would leave my milk some sort of phosphorescent color, those were good times. And now I can eat this cereal, which I haven't done in decades, but I do now regularly. Because let's face it, beans and pasta gets old after a while.

• 1:08Tim Ferriss?

  So, variety pays off. Each serving has 12 grams of protein, 3 grams of net carbs, 0 grams of sugar, and only 110 calories. It's also gluten free, grain free, soy free, GMO free, basically all the things that you don't want, free. And it's delicious. Comes in your favorite traditional cereal flavors like cocoa, frosted, and blueberry. You can try them all by getting a variety pack at magicspoon.com/tim. And the way I found out about this was actually through a number of my friends. One of my friends and one of this podcast's most popular guests, Dr. Peter Attia, has crushed, and I've seen this on Instagram and elsewhere, 6 to 7 servings of this at a time. That's a lot of cereal, with no glycemic response.

• 1:53Tim Ferriss?

  In effect, his blood sugar remained flat. He was so impressed with the results of his self experiments that he ended up investing in the company. And that's true for two other friends as well, Kevin Rose and Ryan Holiday. So, check it out. See what all the buzz is about. You can go to magicspoon.com/tim to grab a variety pack. And no need to take just my word for it. Magic Spoon has received a lot of attention since launching last year. Time Magazine included in their list of best inventions of 2019. And Forbes called it "the future of cereal." And my listeners, that's you, get free shipping, direct to your door. So you don't have to go out to buy this. And a 100% happiness guarantee. So if you're not a fan, if you don't love it, they'll give you a full refund.

• 2:37Tim Ferriss?

  No questions asked, just use code TIM. I've been stocking up on this and I know a bunch of my friends are as well. So check it out. magicspoon.com/tim. One more time, that's magicspoon.com/tim. And at the very least, check it out for a really, really well-done website. But the product is even better than the website. I promise you that. So, check it out.

• 3:04Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by ShipStation. I've been super impressed with these guys. ShipStation is the shipping software with the most five-star reviews. Now, speaking as a former e-commerce CEO, back in a previous incarnation, when I was shipping tens of thousands and then hundreds of thousands of products, this is what I wish I had way back in the day. As folks adapt to this changing world, these strange times, we are all going to be buying more stuff online than ever before. And if you're an ecommerce seller, or if you want to be selling more online, you have to ask yourself, are you ready to meet the demands of our new delivery economy? You can be ready with ShipStation.

• 3:49Tim Ferriss?

  And lots of my friends use them. So, why ShipStation? When you're selling online, getting a lot of orders out fast can be super hard. I've experienced this firsthand. How do you keep track of who gets what? Which shipping carrier should you use? How do you process refunds? How do you process returns? How do you do all of that? Are you getting the best rates? ShipStation helps online sellers of any size get orders out quickly, save money on shipping costs, and keep customers happy. They do a few things really, really well. You can import more orders from more places. So no matter where you're selling, Amazon, Etsy, Shopify, eBay, your own website, wherever, ShipStation brings it all into one simple interface, making it really easy to manage from any device, including your cellphone, your smartphone.

• 4:33Tim Ferriss?

  You can instantly rate shop your favorite carriers, and this is a huge deal. As a ShipStation user, you can get access to discounted rates that are typically reserved for much larger companies like Fortune 500 companies that meet certain minimums. Just as an example, ShipStation just negotiated a new deal with UPS in which rates are discounted as much as 62%. That has a huge impact on businesses and on your bottom line, your profit margin. And in Amazon Prime world where people are used to free shipping, small businesses or smaller businesses can struggle to stay competitive with high shipping costs. ShipStation can help with that. You go way beyond ordinary tracking. So there's a self-serve portal for people who want to know where their order is, when they're going to get it, et cetera.

• 5:18Tim Ferriss?

  Returns, ditto, self-serve. It just makes everything easier. That's why ShipStation is the number one choice of online sellers today. You ship more product in less time with the best rates available. And right now, my dear listeners, you can try ShipStation free for 60 days when you use offer code TIM, T-I-M. There's absolutely no risk. You can start your free trial without even entering your credit card info. Just visit shipstation.com, click on the microphone at the top of the homepage and type in TIM. That's shipstation.com, then enter offer code TIM. Shipstation.com. Make ship happen. One more time, shipstation.com, click on the microphone at the top and type in TIM. That's me, T-I-M. Check it out.

• 6:03Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by AG1, the daily foundational nutritional supplement that supports whole body health. I do get asked a lot what I would take if I could only take one supplement, and the true answer is invariably AG1. It simply covers a ton of bases. I usually drink it in the mornings and frequently take their travel packs with me on the road. So what is AG1? AG1 is a science-driven formulation of vitamins. Probiotics and whole food sourced nutrients. In a single scoop, AG1 gives you support for the brain, gut, and immune system. So take ownership of your health and try AG1 today. You will get a free one year supply of vitamin D and five free AG1 travel packs with your first subscription purchase. So learn more, check it out.

• 6:46Tim Ferriss?

  Go to drinkag1.com/tim. That's drink A G one, the number one, drinkag1.com/tim. Last time, drinkag1.com/tim. Check it out.

• 7:03Tim Ferriss?

  Hello, ladies and germs, boys and girls. This is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show Quarantine Edition, where it is my job every episode, as we know, to interview and deconstruct world-class performers of all different types, tease out the habits, routines, and so on tactics that you can emulate, apply, test in your own lives. This episode, much like many recent episodes, is going to be a little unusual because of its various points of focus. But my guest is, I suppose, on some levels, also unusual, but a friend of mine who's been on before. That is Esther Perel, psychotherapist and New York Times bestselling author. Esther Perel on Instagram, at Esther Perel Official.

• 7:47Tim Ferriss?

  That's E S T H E R P E R E L. Is recognized as one of today's most insightful and original voices on modern relationships. Fluent in nine languages. That is not me misspeaking, nine, count them, nine. That's all of your fingers minus one. She holds a therapy practice in New York City and serves as an organizational consultant for Fortune 500 companies around the world. Her celebrated TED Talks have garnered more than 30 million views and her international bestseller, Mating in Captivity, subtitle Unlocking Erotic Intelligence, has been translated into nearly 30 languages. Her newest book is the New York Times bestseller, The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity. Esther is also an executive producer and host of the popular podcasts, Where Should We Begin and How's Work?

• 8:31Tim Ferriss?

  You can learn more about her at estherperel.com or by following at Esther Perel Official on Instagram. You can also hear my first interview with Esther, which ended up being one of the most popular episodes of the year, at tim.blog/esther. That's E S T H E R. And without further preamble, Esther, welcome back to the show.

• 8:51Speaker 02

  I didn't know that our first conversation together was so popular. That's nice to hear, so it's nice to be back.

• 8:57Tim Ferriss?

  It was, you're an MVP. And I want to give people some context to place us at a certain time, certain places, because we were chatting before we started recording and you were saying that I'm catching you at a raw moment. And I think a lot of people are feeling that way to different degrees. Could you just tell us what today looked like for you? And perhaps how you are feeling, how we are finding you right now before we jump into the questions and answers and so on?

• 9:35Speaker 02

  It's been actually a day not unlike the days that I've been here in quarantine. I do all my therapy sessions online. I am seeing couples in quarantine all over the globe, families, two, three generations of families in a home together, people navigating divorce and separation and the shuttling of children in the midst of lockdown. And it's not that I haven't done online sessions, it's just that an entire day in people's living rooms, bedrooms, cars, the places where they try to find some moment of some

• 10:19Speaker 02

  space for privacy, it's intense. Then I had a supervision session with 23 practicing clinicians, talking about what's happening to them, how is our work changed, what are we hearing in our offices, what are the main themes, how are we taking care of ourselves while we're taking care of others, how much volunteer work we're doing with people who, you know, cannot pay for therapy anymore, etc. And then I did a session just before you of a couple with a teenage daughter, she's in Germany and they've been living apart, he's been in Italy, red zone, and she basically told him to come back within two hours, he was on a plane, and that's it. For the first time in a year, they're living together for three weeks in lockdown.

• 11:05Speaker 02

  And interestingly, it's giving them an opportunity to actually work through some of the things that the long-distance relationship had conveniently made, in a way, managed to not make them deal with. And you have silver linings. You have these opportunities in the midst of constraints. So that's been my day so far, and then come you, dear Tim.

• 11:31Tim Ferriss?

  Then starts the inquisition of the interview. I'll try to make it as sort of user-friendly as possible.

• 11:44Speaker 02

  No, I'm really looking forward, actually. First of all, because I know you have good questions often, and your audience as well, and I just thought it'll kind of be the summary of the day and the summary of a lot of thoughts of the last two weeks, for that matter.

• 12:01Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I've been looking forward to this conversation as well, and I know we had to reschedule due to some of the chaos on my side also. So I appreciate the flexibility, and I've really been looking forward to it. I'm in quarantine. I am with my girlfriend and my dear dog. And we've been in quarantine for more than four weeks now. And that's partially because I have pre-existing pulmonary issues. So I've been exceptionally cautious. But nonetheless, I think that many of the questions that will be asked are questions that I would have asked you over a bottle of wine anyway. So I'm looking forward to

• 12:43Tim Ferriss?

  the conversation. And I suppose before we jump into some questions that I have and questions from my audience, I would love to just hear from you what patterns you're seeing in interacting with so many couples in quarantine, so many couples who are either together and facing challenges, apart and facing maybe a different set of challenges. What are some of the things that you've seen, perhaps, that are noteworthy or surprising to you?

• 13:18Speaker 02

  I think that when people live under acute stress, or when people live with prolonged uncertainty.

• 13:28Speaker 02

  Or what I would add this week, which I probably would not have been so keen to talk about last week, is when people are um experiencing a growing sense of grief that they are living with. Um grief for the loss of normalcy, grief for the world that they've known, grief for a future that they thought they could imagine and that they currently can't. Um in all these situations, tensions rise. And it exacerbates the differences that are already existing between two people, and particularly their coping styles. So people are either coming in to my office and our offices, I would say in general,

• 14:13Speaker 02

  with feeling more together in with their efficient complementarity. There's a good kind of merging of the differences in styles, or there can be more polarizing. And each one is kind of looking at the other person's way of handling things as as a threat. You're going out is a threat, the way that you are not being careful, the way that you are being uber careful is funny. It's less funny at this moment. I mean, i- it's funny, every day the answer will change at this moment, but, you know, uh I can't read one more piece of information. You know, here is another piece I just read, you wanna listen to the latest episode of that?

• 14:54Speaker 02

  And and the other person says, I am, you know, I can't I can't ingurgitate any more information. What you often get in this, in in when you have this kind of uncertainty in front of you is that people can argue as if one of them is sure. And it's a kind of a fake certainty in the face of uncertainty and unknown that you will hear in couples. That's one major dynamic. Um and then um you have, I think, one of the more interesting things that I would describe is what is being called in the disaster literature, the principle of continuity.

• 15:34Speaker 02

  And the principle of continuity is that when people are faced with the kind of situation that we have right now with COVID-19 and this mass loss of safety and security on a global level, people divide along those who emphasize routine and those who emphasize emergency, those who are trying to preserve the consistency of their life as best they can, and those who are in upheaval and everything can change, those who think the structure matters, the kids should continue the rules, the schedule should stay in place, and those who are thwarting the rules because the world is nothing like it was a week ago. And so

• 16:16Speaker 02

  what's the point of maintaining that structure? There's a whole new normal. And that distinction on the principle of continuity is a very useful concept to look at how people deal with the situation. I mean, I can go on, but then explain this concept, but let me stop right here.

• 16:37Tim Ferriss?

  Well, this provides us with plenty to chew on and to think about. And I would imagine, like a lot of people who are listening, these images, these scenes from my own life are popping up as you're giving these different examples. And I'm asking myself, am I A or am I B? Or am I both, depending on the day? And I would love to hear, feel free to take this in a different direction if you like, but if we're looking specifically at this concept of, and could you just say it one more time? I remember continuity, but the principle of continuity is that, I can't remember the exact phrasing that

• 17:18Tim Ferriss?

  you used, but if you have those who want to maintain continuity and those who say to themselves and perhaps those around them, the rules have changed, the new normal is not the old normal, it doesn't make sense to continue with, say, the kids trying to follow the same lesson plan they were a month ago or two months ago. If you think to your own experience, if you call to mind a couple you've spoken to trying to navigate this and finding friction because they have these two different styles, what do you do to work with them? What types of questions do you ask? Or how do you try to help them find some degree of harmony with such?

• 18:01Tim Ferriss?

  Seemingly polar opposite positions.

• 18:04Speaker 02

  I mean, the first thing you do here is you basically provide people with a framework. And you tell them, this is what is often called anticipatory trauma. Or anticipatory grief, that sense, you know, of foreboding. It will a little bit in a horror film, in the beginning of a horror film, in which the set has been set up and the cast and the characters have been outlined, but the action hasn't started, it's just about to start. And until now, there was more of an option for denial. And people could just, because it's, you know, we are, it's so difficult for us to imagine an invisible danger.

• 18:48Speaker 02

  And danger usually is something you feel and see, it's a threat. And therefore, your reptilian brain reacts, a danger that you don't see, it's very hard to make people change their entire life in relation to that. So the first thing I say is I normalize, I tell people, this is what happens around a disaster, you know, there's the, there's four stages. There's the warning, there's the planning, there's the actual event, and then there is the aftermath. You, for example, you were very active during the warning. And many people kind of looked at you like strange, what is he talking about? You know, he's just, or hypervigilant, etc.

• 19:34Speaker 02

  And then they caught up with you, some of them, during the warning. And some of them will catch up with you in the next phase. So I, I give a framework, and I say, this, we, there is a literature out there. This is not the first disaster, this is not the first epidemic, this is not the first natural disaster, um, you know, and, um, and in some way, um, it kind of highlights a perpetual rule, which is that we are all vulnerable to being randomly exterminated at any time.

• 20:08Speaker 02

  You know, and it can, this time it's a virus, so it could be a war or an accident. I mean, it really puts us in touch with that which we may not be able to control. So I talk about that fear that comes from that. And in many couples, one person is actually more in touch with that sense um that they uh have a structured, purposeful, proactive approach. And they often will then see the other person as more passive and more fatalistic, you know. For example, I remember working, you know, with people um who had been in um their apartments during the um Gulf War and there were the SCUD attacks and they would put their gas masks on.

• 20:51Speaker 02

  And so you had some families where things were very clearly organized. Everyone had a role, the anxiety was really managed, parents knew where to put the mask on who. And then you had other people who basically said, if the SCUD hits the building, the building falls anyway, so what's the point? And they had this kind of, what would have been perceived as indifference? But in fact, it was probably an expression of such fear that, and fatalism, that they didn't really get into gear. I think, I hope, for example, that your girlfriend, and this is really a classic. In some situations, one partner was laughing at the other one stocking up. And in some situations, one partner basically said, "I'm so freaked out by it that I can't even get my head around it, so I really thank you for preparing this for us."

• 21:36Tim Ferriss?

  I was, I was very, very lucky that my girlfriend knows how closely I track data, knows that I have very, very, very good sources of information and was willing to, with, with uh some hesitation, of course, because all of her friends were calling us completely insane, follow my lead and we were able to work together. But that's at least.

• 22:11Tim Ferriss?

  At least in my peer group and my friends, that's been reasonably rare. There's been a lot more friction. I think it makes it a lot easier for us that we do not have kids. There's no school. There's, there are fewer variables like that to complicate things. So it was on some level, I think, easier for us without any dependence.

• 22:32Speaker 02

  But it may be easier on the practical side, right? It may be easier because you don't have, like this morning, I was talking with my colleagues. One of them, you know, she does her sessions in the car. She has three kids at home that she needs to school and she needs to cook and she needs to manage her whole private practice and she needs to have a minute maybe to herself. It's like, you know, and the other one was basically, you know, she's also with a small one and, and she found this magician who was willing to do these sessions online and she has a grandmother in the Ukraine and another grandmother somewhere else and she's basically doing babysitting with the grandmothers online. It's just an amazing set of situations like this.

• 23:12Speaker 02

  But the deeper question of how people deal with fragility, with the unknown, with, with mortality, with grief, with, with uncertainty, that is not different because you have kids or not kids. Even though, you know, this, I just did this session with a Sicilian couple for the podcast, Where Should We Begin? And she's a midwife. She goes every day to the hospital. She delivers babies. She has to report. In Italy, a midwife is part of the medical system. And she comes home and if a person comes in with fever, I mean, she has three young children in the house.

• 23:55Speaker 02

  And he's thinking, you know, what are you bringing home? He's taking care of the kids. He, so you have the practical piece, but the existential piece is that he's thinking, what is the world that I'm raising my children in? And then I say to her, do you share his despair? And she says, no, because when I bring a baby into the world, I still think it is this magnificent miraculous moment. And I think it's tempting to stay focused on the practical stocking up, you know, preparation piece here, the washing of the hands, all the consignments that we have received.

• 24:34Speaker 02

  I think it's much deeper when you engage with people in a conversation about loss. You know, about, so continuity, for example, when I think of the principle of continuity, um, and Nachi Alon, my friend in Israel, actually is the one from whom I learned this. It's divided around three things. So one is role continuity, right? It's basically the way that, uh, the structure, the structure, the way that you do tasks, that you solve problems. Can you, like you, you're a data person and you have continued to read data and that is part of your role continuity. But the second level of continuity is the relational continuity. It is really, basically how people stay in touch.

• 25:18Speaker 02

  There is nothing that's going to help us more in this moment than social cohesion and mutual support. So how do people stay in touch, um, you know? Not everybody is in a harmonious situation of relationships. Some people have to go home 3,000 miles away, back to a family from where they fled because it was so violent and unhealthy. And other people are living by themselves and so relationships. And the third continuity, which I think is really the interesting one here, is what is called the historical continuity. It's the stories that we've grown up with. You know, the stories from our indigenous traditions, from our families, from our religious backgrounds, culture,

• 26:01Speaker 02

  that have told us how people have overcome adversity. Stories of vulnerability and triumph that we grew up with, that existed in our family and that are kind of transitional pathways, we call them, to help us in this moment so that we can imagine a future. And this is where I really find a lot of people, you know? Have you had other losses? Have there been moments in your family? Has your family experienced other disasters? Um, have you ever experienced this kind of cataclysmic moments like this? Um, one of my... You know, I mean, and and one of my moments, I can tell you super personally, it's like I grew up,

• 26:46Speaker 02

  you know, with these Holocaust survivor parents and their whole group. And there was all these conversations about how did they know when to leave Germany, those who left? How did they know it was time to go, you know? And my kids, you know, at some point, I discussed with them coming home, not coming home, they're twenty-three and twenty-six, you know? And and at one point, I said to one of them who wanted to go back to town, to New York City. And I said, look, from where I come from, you know, I would not be able to live with myself that I let you go back to the city. My whole life, I grew up with this story of, you know, they could have left and they didn't, you know? But maybe he's right and it doesn't fit the current reality. But this is one of the historical continuity that lives inside of me,

• 27:31Speaker 02

  from which I am organizing my reality. So I've been away for two and a half weeks too. Not as not as soon as you, but sooner than others.

• 27:41Tim Ferriss?

  How how did you handle that situation with with your child wanting to go back to New York City? What was the after you said that?

• 27:50Speaker 02

  He left, he said, I know this is your story, but I and he is very careful. And I said, I will be better off at home. I'm trying to finish college on top of it. You know, this is a kid whose second day of kindergarten was nine eleven and his final semester of college is coronavirus. So he's bookmarked with historical events, his whole education. And seriously, and I and we had this whole conversation. And in the end, he's twenty-three, you know, I at twenty-three was making my decisions too. And in the same way that some of us have eighty-year-old parents who are making their decisions and are not listening to us, and not me, but others, um, he went back, he went back and, um,

• 28:37Speaker 02

  you know, that's that we are, we talk every day and have another one in London, you know, it's not the most. I did bring him out of New Orleans. I did succeed in doing that. I said, you can, you know, at least come come up north, you know, um. Not because I am sure that I'm right, that's the other thing. I said, I don't know if one is better than the other. I just know the place from which my fear and my decision-making process at this point emerges. And all your resident fears, all those fears that live inside of you, that are usually nicely tucked away, I promise you, they will come out in situations like this. It's the residual, you know, the attic opens up.

• 29:19Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I've, I've personally definitely noticed that where there've been moments in the last few weeks where my response has been so strong and/or a certain sort of high-frequency stress has lasted so much longer than I would expect, given the inputs, that the only way I could explain it was this is coming from somewhere in the past. There, this is some type of echo that is that.

• 29:51Speaker 02

  And could you identify it?

• 29:52Tim Ferriss?

  I tried, I tried. And I did have some assistance with some of this, which we can talk about if you'd like, but make it into tricky territory if.

• 30:10Speaker 02

  You went on a journey for it.

• 30:11Tim Ferriss?

  Yes, yeah, we'll leave, we'll leave it at that. And I identified a memories from, this specifically relates to shortness of breath and tightness in the chest and acute fear related to that. And I did have a fever and shortness of breath and a dry cough for a period of about thirty-six hours a week ago. So there was a period of time leading up to that, culminating with that, that, that put me in a very significant state of duress. And my best guess, based on what I was able to gather from my own memories, is a childhood asthma, difficulty breathing, caused by some pre-existing.

• 30:59Tim Ferriss?

  Pulmonary issues effectively ending up last in something we have in the US called, or we used to have called the presidential fitness test, where you'd have to run a mile and do these various things and I'd always come in close to last and I would just feel like I was about to die. And also specifically this memory that I had of waking up in the middle of the night when I was, let's just say somewhere between seven and 10 years old, being unable to breathe and just for whatever reason being unable to breathe. There was a lot of mold and a lot of allergens in my house growing up for a whole host of reasons. And I woke up unable to breathe and was unable to breathe for about a minute. I burst into my parents' room in the middle of the night and couldn't say anything,

• 31:43Tim Ferriss?

  couldn't breathe, couldn't do anything. And then it suddenly just broke and I was able to breathe, but it was at the point of blacking out basically. And I don't know if that's a causal factor, a one-to-one causal factor, but it seems to be, some of those experiences seem to be lending themselves to magnifying certain things now. That's my working hypothesis.

• 32:13Speaker 02

  But I don't know that you need to call it a causal factor. It's an embodied memory, you know? And we have explicit memory and we have implicit memory, right? So the explicit memory is you kind of, you remember, you can, it's conscious. The implicit memory lives in your body. It's not necessarily articulated and in, and in words, but then, you know, this thing rises and comes toward you and it activates the embodied memory. And people are having dreams, people are having nightmares and people in journeys are uncovering all kinds of things. I mean, I am surrounded by that and it makes total sense because that it's the personal historical continuity, if you want.

• 32:58Speaker 02

  And it's, it's what connects you to prior experiences of powerlessness, of loss of control, of, of mortality, of, of constriction, you know, constraints in the metaphoric sense, not just the, the, I mean, the breath is the basic of basic, you know?

• 33:18Speaker 02

  So I'm, I'm not surprised. I'm, I, it's a, if you ask me what I would say with people, it's this. The first thing is you, you elicit the memory, you normalize it, you name it. I give a lot of, I, I'm giving names to things so that people can have a vocabulary with which to then talk with the people around them. Um, and I'm go and I mine the stories that people have, uh, that people carry inside of them. You know, like what was told to you afterwards by your parents about this event? How has this event been described in your childhood afterwards?

• 33:57Tim Ferriss?

  Could you run us through an example perhaps? Or just use a past experience, past client, a hypothetical, or what I just said to show how this might be applied? I don't, I don't actually recall what my parents said to me.

• 34:12Speaker 02

  For example, you know, um, a lot of the people that, you know, what we call pre-existing conditions, right? Or people who experience themselves as at high risk, young people even, you know? Were you described by your family, by your, I mean, you've just actually described it when you talked about the running. You know, did you grow up with an image of yourself as, I'm not athletic. Uh, I'm, I'm, physicality is not my strength, you know? That's not, my mind is stronger than my body, for example. Or, you know, my mother, for example, always described my brother as, he was the fragile one. He was the sickly one, you know?

• 34:52Speaker 02

  People, those words become a part of your self-description for a while, until you change it. It's not edged in stone, but it lives on for quite a long time, you know? Um, I have an image of myself as robust, um, you know? But I also think that if ever something was to hit me, it will knock me over. I will not have small boo-boos, you know? I will have big things and I, I, I, I can put myself in the seat of patience for a moment. It's like, I, I have, I live with that idea that things can disappear overnight. It's part of my history. And that you can just, today you're walking around, that's the descriptions you're hearing these days. Yesterday, he was still running in the park.

• 35:37Speaker 02

  And you know, here he was and he's gone. Um, and it's like, it goes so fast, it doesn't fit. And so I have that image. I think of myself as someone who yesterday will be running in the park and today will be gone. Um, what am I doing with, with people? I'm, uh, I'm, a lot of the things I do have to do with writing letters to your parents. This is the moment, if you've got things to say, you gotta say them. Uh, and don't wait. Um, you know, understand that some of your parents who are much, much older and have gone through all kinds of things in some way have, have maybe less scared of dying than boomers and millennials.

• 36:20Speaker 02

  In some interesting way, they figure at some point, everybody must go. That they may have experienced other adversity, that in some way makes this not necessarily the thing that is frightening them the most. Uh, or that they have gone through other, you know, epidemics, uh, earthquakes, tsunamis, you name it. Um, and they have dealt with loss massively and they know that you continue living afterwards. So they're not willing to stop playing golf or to stop playing cards or to go indoors and you're like, you know, pulling your hair, but they're not necessarily listening. Um, I am talking with parents about how to talk to their kids.

• 37:03Speaker 02

  Um, so it's a range now, we're going in all ages of children. So you have the, the, let's start from the older, you know, the, the, first of all, if you're gonna go back home and you already are an adult, you need to understand that many times, family visits are processes, you know, experiences of regression. Just so you get used to that. You will feel like you were an adult until you enter the house of your family. And then, um, so I talk with them about that, about how you're going to, um, not turn this now into a moment of having to prove that you've really grown up.

• 37:37Tim Ferriss?

  Sorry, if I could just pause you for a second. It makes me think of the very recently, late Ram Dass's quote of if you think you're enlightened, go spend a week with your family.

• 37:47Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, of course, of course. Yes, yes. That's a fantastic line. I mean, it's like, you know, people are telling you, I went home and it's like, they don't wanna listen to me and I brought all this stuff and they don't wanna wear it and I'm like, it's like. You know, it's it's very granular, you know. One comes home and all he wants to talk about is being with his friends and and the the parents are like all upset because he doesn't want to. And I'm like, no, no, instead of feeling rejected that he doesn't want to be with you. This is your perfect moment to talk with your kid about the importance of friendships. And what it's meant to be in college or wherever they are now, developing new connections and and why it's so disruptive. You know, what we're dealing with is massive disruption.

• 38:29Speaker 02

  And so you talk with people about how the multitude of responses that we have to this disruption. And instead of blaming your kids or getting all angry that all they think about is friends. Use this as an opportunity to talk about friendship, to talk about your friends, to talk about the importance of community, whatever it is. But there are really incredible opportunities for deepening at this moment. That that is actually one of the beautiful things happening. People are spending more time together. At the end of a day or night, they actually don't want more online. At the end of learning, the whole day for distant learning on on their iPads. They don't want to watch another series at night, they actually want to play a game.

• 39:11Speaker 02

  So it's all these paradoxical moments and, you know, uh, I. What I can tell you is that the multitude of family situations that has presented itself to me in these two weeks is just mind boggling. Um, how are you going to deal with the shuffling of the children with your ex? You know, who do who you think has not been protecting themselves enough? How do you deal with, you know, the the the person who just began dating someone, but they suddenly are living together? Because, you know, they they what disruption and impending disaster does is it accelerates everything. It functions like an amazing accelerator.

• 39:53Speaker 02

  We all know that and in the aftermath of disaster, there will be more babies, more marriages and more divorces. You know, it's either what are we waiting? Life is short, what are we waiting for? Let's make a baby. It's either life is short, I've waited long enough, let's leave. You know, it's like you read, you are meeting a place where suddenly your priorities get reorganized and the superfluous gets thrown overboard and you feel like you're touching the essence. You know, you, you don't know what's gonna be, so you wanna really hone in on the few things that matter to you a lot. So I have a lot of these kinds of conversations with people.

• 40:33Speaker 02

  You know, people telling me, this is, you know, I've not really had integrity for the last few years and I feel like this has kind of rung an alarm to me that I wanna, I wanna be more honorable again. I wanna not just think about money, business, success, et cetera. I wanna think more about the people that matter to me. And another one who talks about, you know, I've been wanting to be, do art for so long and this maybe is the opportunity for me to, to rethink what's important to me. There's a lot of rethinking what's important to me at this moment and who is important to me. And there's a lot of people calling their previous therapists. That's a classic thing that happens around disaster. It happened after nine eleven as well. People who reconnect with someone that knew them in, before.

• 41:18Speaker 02

  And then people who are calling people in Europe, in Asia, you know, who they haven't spoken to in a long time and people are calling, they're talking, they're not just texting, they wanna hear voice. All of that is happening. I'm giving you a bucket full, but it's a, it, it comes at me as a bucket as well.

• 41:36Tim Ferriss?

  Uh huh. Well, there's a lot to, there's a lot to explore in the bucket. And on one hand, it seems like we have these philosophical existential questions. We have this glimpse of perhaps mortality that is often receded in the background that allows us to see the finite nature of our time that helps to bring out the essence, as you said. And then you have these These tactically challenging situations for a lot of people. And you mentioned one that I would love to highlight and get your opinion on. And that is someone who is saying sharing custody with an ex.

• 42:17Tim Ferriss?

  And I have a friend of a friend who, so she lives with her, I think it's daughter, along with her elderly parents. She shares custody of that daughter with her ex and her ex is not being as careful as she is.

• 42:35Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 42:36Tim Ferriss?

  And is, at least from her perspective, perhaps acting somewhat.

• 42:42Speaker 02

  Irresponsibly.

• 42:43Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, irresponsibly. They're in different circumstances, but she's very concerned, not for her own health necessarily, not even for her daughter's health necessarily, because.

• 42:53Speaker 02

  But for her parents.

• 42:54Tim Ferriss?

  But for her parents, exactly. Although, although, I mean, I do think, just to point out that in the US at least, a fairly high percentage of those on respirators are 45 and younger. So it's not entirely biased towards the old entirely. But, but let's, for the time being, just assume that, that they are at the greatest risk. How would you suggest she approach having a conversation with her ex? How would you help someone like that, if they were your client, try to navigate this? Maybe it's not a conversation, maybe it's something else. But how would you help someone in that position navigate that?

• 43:33Speaker 02

  Tim, I know that our lives are very different. And that you really typically do things the way that you do them. And when our kid comes to stay with you.

• 43:52Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, sorry, I thought you were talking to me. Actually, me, okay, I got it. So this is what you would say to her, I'm sorry.

• 43:58Speaker 02

  Yes, yes, this is the conversation that I would suggest.

• 44:01Tim Ferriss?

  I was like, oh, no. I do things, I always do things the way I do them, you're right. All right, so, sorry, could you just start over so my head isn't like in.

• 44:09Speaker 02

  I can call you John, okay.

• 44:10Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, John, let's do John.

• 44:11Speaker 02

  Yes. John, first of all, tell me the age of the child.

• 44:17Tim Ferriss?

  I believe, let's say, child's eight years old.

• 44:21Speaker 02

  Okay. So, John.

• 44:25Speaker 02

  You live the life you live. And in more of the time when John comes to you, I trust you. Or I don't always trust you, but that has not impeded the fact that that our kid stays with you, that he eats with you, goes to school with you, drives with you, a lot of things that I typically would probably do differently. Um, but you are who you are. And this is not me coming to ask you to not be, to change or to criticize you. This is me sharing with you that I feel a tremendous sense of responsibility and fear at this moment for the many people that are living in my house.

• 45:08Speaker 02

  And, um, and that's why I would like to ask you to please collaborate with me. Would you be willing to help me in this? Not because you are scared, not because you think that washing your hands or doing all the things that we're supposed to do is important. I'm not here to convince you of any of that. I'm just asking you if you would be willing. For my parents who once were your in-laws and who hopefully that you're still fancy or have liked us people all those years, et cetera. Um, I need your help. Um, I need us to put a few ground rules down for the time being. Um, because I can't do it without you.

• 45:52Speaker 02

  That's the hard thing to say suddenly, right? It's like the part of the divorce is I don't need you.

• 45:57Speaker 00

  Right.

• 45:58Speaker 02

  But here you're coming to say, I can't do this without you. We are still woven together in some way. The divorce is the end of the marriage, but it's not the end of the family.

• 46:10Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 46:11Speaker 02

  And it's a reorganization of the family. And this special circumstance forces us to reorganize yet again, to be more interdependent than we usually have been or want to be. I don't necessarily want it, I doubt you want it either. But if Jimmy is gonna come back and forth, uh, I need all his clothes washed.

• 46:34Speaker 02

  I need him to have one pair of shoes that goes outside. I need to to know that uh you are really careful, no playgrounds, no gyms, no, you know, whatever the things that people have decided is their way of staying really protected. Right. And you ask for it, you don't tell them, you don't admonish them. You know, you may be right, but it's very unproductive approach and you just show your fear, your vulnerability and the fact that you really need them and you hope that they will collaborate as best as they will. You won't see what they do behind closed doors. Then you're gonna talk to your eight year olds and you're going to say, there's a few things that you're gonna need to do as of today

• 47:18Speaker 02

  without having daddy or me remind you or tell you. And this is where people are needing to brave talking with their children and not just kind of, you know, try to preserve reality as if it's business as usual. And you tell your eight year old that, hey, they can, believe you me, understand, um

• 47:39Speaker 02

  there's a very, there's a dangerous virus that we are all trying to make sure that um we are protected against the best way we can. We're probably all gonna have it. We just wanna have it at the level that is, that we can manage on our own, basically. Um, and here's what you need to do. And then when they come home, the first thing, you know, the whole thing, but you, you create a new awareness and a new set of behaviors that match the awareness. That's very helpful. Do it. Yeah, thank you. Um.

• 48:13Speaker 02

  Um, it's a, it's a, it's a real, it's a very important one. It's, it's actually one that I hadn't thought about at first. I wasn't, uh, uh, until it came in front of me and I said, of course, I did, I forgot that one. It's like, you know, how many versions of the story of COVID as it pertains to relationships, am I gonna say, oh, I forgot this one? I did have the ones that are living apart and can't meet. I have the ones that are living three generations in the house. Um, I have the ones who are in the process of divorce, who are suddenly caught together and, and, you know, even a big house will become really tight when you have to still be together and you're on your way gone. I have the ones who've barely met and are suddenly living together. I've got, and now came,

• 48:56Speaker 02

  you know, then I have the same thing in, in a bigger version where it's adult children in the divorce situation and it's the adult children who won't let the grandmother come and see the grandchildren because she is in another house with her new partner. I mean, this, this thing has many versions.

• 49:15Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, many, many different permutations. Well, let's, let's talk about, thank you for answering that in such detail and giving a template for people, at least an example of how you would use language. And let's, let's talk about two of the more common situations, or at least looking at the questions from my audience, it seems like two of the more common groups. So two people who are in tight quarters together, could be more than two people, but let's, let's focus on couples for now. We could talk about kids, of course. And then two people who are separated. So you have, for instance, from Judith H., she asks how couples and families can cope

• 49:55Tim Ferriss?

  and give each other space when they're quarantined together. And then Greg F. has every tip she has for long distance romance, asking for a billion friends. Now, I want to actually modify this slightly and borrow from another question from Murad K., which is what are her thoughts on how to take advantage of this crisis and the positive ways people are trying to, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. Could be anything. But take advantage of this crisis, I think, is a framing that I like a lot. You don't have to use it. But as that applies to two people together in tight quarters, or two people separated and feeling separated, how have you seen people

• 50:37Tim Ferriss?

  or advised people to sort of take advantage of this crisis?

• 50:43Speaker 02

  So there's lots, lots of things that, that I've talked about. So the people together, I mean, I, it's, you know, let's, let's imagine they're in the same space. There is, so a lot more cooking going on. People are cooking. They're not necessarily ordering out or going out, period. So there's cooking and the whole meaning of cooking. Um, it's like it goes from the, um, it's so long that I've taken care of people like that. Uh, to the guy just in the, in the session I just did and it's like, she came down for lunch, she cooked, but then she went to eat at her computer and he just says, you know,

• 51:27Speaker 02

  I would do the cooking, just spend the fifteen minutes with me. I just want us to have moments where we touch base with each other. Where, where you're not kind of retreating completely into, into your computer. So there is food, then there is humor. I think that humor is extremely important in these moments. Um, there is laughter in hell, as my father often used to say. And they're, they're bad jokes, but there's a few of them that are just really hilarious. And when you crack up like that at some of the things, you, you, you receive some of the videos from abroad that I get, I, it makes me feel so good. It just reminds me that I still can have some perspective. That I don't have to just be constantly in the grip.

• 52:11Speaker 02

  Then there is, um, the critical conversations about, um, about mortality. Just simply talking about, um, are you scared? Are you worried? Um, we're building a studio. I'll leave it in a very personal, a painting studio for my, for my husband. And, um, and you know, this is gonna be, this is meant to be Jack's next phase. He's back into painting and, and so it's like, you know, we talk about what that phase represents, what, what would be lost if he didn't get it. Uh, about how eager and how clear he is now that he has to get there as fast as he can. About, uh, about, you know, he, one time he brought me a shovel because he said,

• 52:54Speaker 02

  you're already digging my grave, so why don't you just start?

• 53:00Tim Ferriss?

  Very theatrical, yes. Props.

• 53:03Speaker 02

  You know, he diffuses, he diffuses, you know. And of course, I cracked those, like, you know. It's so there is the humor, there is the creativity. I think people need to paint, draw, write poems, play music, sing songs. You know, the arts have helped us throughout the history to to deal with suffering, to deal with fear, to stay connected to our loved ones that are far away, that are at sea, all of that. You know, people are making playlists, sending music, dancing together through through Zoom. You know, it's it's all these life-affirming, what I call eros, you know, life-affirming experiences. Um, people are having sex, you know, distant sex as well.

• 53:47Speaker 02

  People are are are just laying in bed next to each other. It's all happening typically, but now it's happening to people who don't usually, who haven't done it in a long time. It's not that these are new behaviors, you know. Um, happy hours together, um, drinks, reading out loud to each other. Um, it's it's very interesting that the the kinds of stuff that people are willing to do, you know, these devices, like the first time you said we're gonna have a conversation, we were gonna talk about how our devices are keeping us apart. And today, we're gonna talk about how the very devices that have kept us apart are the ones that are keeping us connected. It's like in the in a very short amount of time.

• 54:32Speaker 02

  Now, they can do both. They can keep us much more lonely and and in the vortex of of the of the digital as well. But for many people, it really connects. So there's that. Then there is, you you know, the people getting more and more reactive, you know, irritable. And to just be able to acknowledge, I'm stressed, I need to go out. This makes me crazy. I don't get enough movement. I don't have enough air. I'm sorry, you know. And there's gonna need to be a lot of that, modulating and moderating reactivity, just acknowledging it. We know, we know that in situations of confinement, the tension rises,

• 55:15Speaker 02

  there is more fragmentation, and domestic violence ramps up.

• 55:20Speaker 02

  I tell people, probably not good to drink. Don't get, don't get too stoned and don't get, and don't drink these days. It's not, you know, it's not good if you get sick, but it's certainly not good at this moment. Uh, especially if you have a tendency to drink more than you should and that you are the version that becomes a lion rather than a donkey. Uh, not a good idea. Not a good idea, you know, it's like stock up on other stuff. Um, there is the, um, you know, let the other person be. Their way is just their way. It's, it's, you don't have, you know, it's really about learning differentiation, accepting that the other person is dealing with the same data from a different stance and that

• 56:05Speaker 02

  you can't just go ahead and think of them as they're your threat, you know? Um, then there is, you know, some people have had to say, maybe this is the time to take the medication that you've been trying to talk about, you know? It will help you, you know, it will level you just a tiny bit. Um, so that's been, uh, not many times, but enough times where I just thought, this is the moment, you know, you need it now. It's a, take care of yourself and don't just try to be heroic in this particular moment. And then for the people who are apart, um, I think that a very important thing for all people is really not to stay too focused on the practicalities.

• 56:48Speaker 02

  In general, I think long distance relationships do better when people don't spend the evening talking about the nitty gritty of days, pretending that they have just, that they're living in the same life. They don't, but really to connect around more important things. Um, and take a walk in nature together. Nature, suddenly people are walking more than they have in a long time, you know?

• 57:09Tim Ferriss?

  Now, you're talking about virtually on something like FaceTime?

• 57:12Speaker 02

  Yes, yes, yes. Uh, walk with, walk with somebody and see them as you walk, uh, and have them, and they walk too, you know? Um, people walk.

• 57:24Tim Ferriss?

  May I interrupt for one second?

• 57:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 57:26Tim Ferriss?

  So the, the talking about more important things and skipping the, uh, some of the sort of mundane.

• 57:37Tim Ferriss?

  Important, yes, but very

• 57:41Tim Ferriss?

  kind of surface level tactical, did we remember to restock the cannellini beans or whatever we're talking about? Do you have any questions or prompts or anything that you might suggest to couples?

• 57:58Speaker 02

  Have you been surprised by who has been calling you or reaching out to you? I mean, I'm getting texts from people that I don't usually hear from. You know, are there people that have surprised you? Are there people that you have been meaning to connect with? And this could be a good moment? You know?

• 58:18Speaker 02

  That's a very big one these days that people talk about. You know, this one spent some time in Italy 10 years ago and finds herself suddenly talking with people that she knew back then. You know? I think that's an interesting one. How is your family? You know, how are the different members of your family? I learned in the last week of friends of mine and people I knew that had siblings who were living in residential treatment centers, with people who were in jail, people who were homeless, people who were in vulnerable situations. I never even knew these siblings existed. I mean, it's like, wow, you know, you're telling me

• 59:00Speaker 02

  or things about family situations that I didn't really know, I kind of had a sense, but and so don't be scared to ask more and just say, tell me about your brother. Tell me about your sister. Tell me about your mentally ill, you know, whoever. And how are they dealing? Who takes care of them? You know, tell me about your for older people, you know, if I'm not that old, they're in their 60s and early 70s, not old, you know, but with Alzheimer. Tell me about those people that you can't go visit, you know, tell me about it's this, it's it's going with the next question rather than to stop and just say, what has surprised you? You know?

• 59:44Speaker 02

  What's the thought of the day for you? You know, what's the thing that really marked you day to day? You know? What have you noticed that you don't usually pay attention to anymore? Things like that. It's not just death and deep and disaster, but it's just more conscientious, more attentive.

• 1:00:04Speaker 02

  What we like to talk about as present, I don't know if that's the word I would always like to use, but just more, um, people are asking, how are you? In ways that they don't typically ask, and they actually wanna know. Um, people are signing their texts differently. Uh, they're taking a moment to check in, even work meetings. Before people get into the meeting, they kind of take a moment to just say, how are you? How is everybody? Any news? It's just, there is a kind of solidarity, a kind of thinking about the well-being of others that is in the air in a moment like this. Allow it, don't think it's, you know, don't think you're being intrusive. Don't think it's, it, it's not productive because we've got business to take care of.

• 1:00:49Speaker 02

  This is the moment to do all of that.

• 1:00:51Tim Ferriss?

  Le- and let me, let me play foil for just a second.

• 1:00:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:55Tim Ferriss?

  If you ask someone, and I'm guilty of this too, in answering in the following way, how are you? And someone says, family's safe, all things considered, we're good. How are you? Right, and so that's the answer.

• 1:01:09Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:01:10Tim Ferriss?

  Which has become a bit of a, among a lot of my friends who feel like they shouldn't complain, for instance.

• 1:01:17Speaker 02

  They have it good.

• 1:01:19Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, they have no right to complain because no one in their family is sick. Therefore, all things considered, everything's great. And then they move on to the next order of business. What would you ask to follow up that question? Or how would you respond to that?

• 1:01:33Speaker 02

  You just told me how I think, and I'm asking, how are you?

• 1:01:36Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. That's a great response.

• 1:01:39Speaker 02

  You know, you just told, I am so glad to know that the facts are in place. How are you? You know, people who don't think they're allowed to their feelings because they have it good are usually at, more at risk.

• 1:01:54Tim Ferriss?

  What do you mean by that?

• 1:01:55Speaker 02

  Because when they then have a feeling, they don't know what to do with it. Because they shouldn't have it. They shouldn't currently be afraid, they shouldn't currently be anxious, they shouldn't currently be depressed, they shouldn't currently be sad, they shouldn't currently be, because they have a big house or because their family is healthy or because they have the money, you know, they're not at risk of losing their job. That's, okay, so that's not your worry. That doesn't mean, how are you? You know? And sometimes I ask it again, I said, okay, that was, that was your, um... That's your first degree of answer. Now I'm gonna ask you again. Just tell me something. How did you sleep? Are you sleeping? Are you eating? Are you tasting the food? Are you, I mean, I, I think that a lot of people who don't have feelings don't sleep.

• 1:02:41Speaker 02

  You know, they, they don't tell you, I'm feeling bad. They just tell you, I haven't slept very well.

• 1:02:45Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:02:45Speaker 02

  And then I say, you know, are you the one? So this is one of my work, my, my colleagues, I said, you know, in, in, at EPGM, I say, and he hadn't slept, he overslept our meeting this morning. I said, you don't go to sleep or you wake up? He said, no, I woke up. I said, what happens at four o'clock in the morning? What was it like for you? You know, do you, what were you thinking about? What do you think got you up? You know, um, it's kind of caught up with you, you know? You've been trying to kind of think, I have it all under control. And then suddenly, you know, the, the night terror arrives. And we just chatted for three minutes. It's not like, uh, I don't, I don't do therapy sessions with every person I meet. But I, um,

• 1:03:29Speaker 02

  I can tell you, once we had gotten that, you know, address, then we could actually talk about what we needed to talk about. Rather than, you know, him rallying up and just kind of showing up to, to be disheveled, you know, um, ready for work. Um, no, you had a miserable night. And, uh, that warrants a minute of acknowledgement. So, people who tell me all is good, I say, um, tell me more. You know, how do, how do you get there? I wish I could have a little more of that myself on occasion. What happens when you say that to your partner or to your, or to your, the people you're living with?

• 1:04:09Speaker 02

  You know, um, do you, do you, are you the, are you the one that's in the role of being the person who has to cheer everybody up? You know, or I have on occasion asked my, asked two or three people that are, that gave me answers like this. And I just said, um, is that a role that you've had your whole life?

• 1:04:27Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm.

• 1:04:28Speaker 02

  That's a very good one. You know, is that, is that the typical way that you are allowed to cope?

• 1:04:34Tim Ferriss?

  I could also, just as you're talking, I also thought it could, at least with a lot of my friends, if I said, if I said, "How are you doing?" And they're like, "All things considered, great. Everything's great." And I would say, and I said, "How are you?" And they're like, "Good." If I said, "If I were to ask your wife, how are you, how you're doing, what would she say?" I'd probably get a much more accurate answer.

• 1:04:57Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And then sometimes you just say, "What does it take for you to get the permission to not have to emphasize the word 'great'?"

• 1:05:05Tim Ferriss?

  Can you say that one more time? I think that's important, what you just said.

• 1:05:08Speaker 02

  What does it take for you to finally have the permission not to have to emphasize "great"?

• 1:05:17Tim Ferriss?

  That would take me a while to chew on. How do you?

• 1:05:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. You don't have to answer me.

• 1:05:22Tim Ferriss?

  No, yeah, how do you, how do you answer that, though? I don't want it to be, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" type of koan. When you think about that question, how do you answer that for yourself? Or maybe it's not an issue and therefore it's not a question worth asking, but...

• 1:05:36Speaker 02

  I'm not always feeling the pressure of being great.

• 1:05:41Speaker 02

  And I have a range. But I know that people who have the pressure to feel great have also the pressure to make sure that they don't feel nothing, small, like nothingness. On the other side of great is often depression and nothingness.

• 1:05:59Tim Ferriss?

  Right, I see what you're saying. Right, it's not, it's not...

• 1:06:01Speaker 02

  You can't be feeling great at this moment.

• 1:06:03Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:04Speaker 02

  I mean, you're out of touch with reality if you're feeling great. You can feel relieved, you can feel thankful, you can feel, um, um, you know, appreciative for what you have, you can feel humble, you can feel, uh, thankful to things, but you can't feel great in this moment. Because if you're feeling great in this moment, you're detached, you're disconnected. That's really what I, I would say. But, you know, I, I just, I also know that some people don't feel internally that they have the permission to feel anything but great, on top of things, in control, in charge. "I got this, I got this." You know, now you've got nothing. You don't.

• 1:06:49Speaker 02

  You know, let me tell you something. After nine eleven,

• 1:06:54Speaker 02

  the people who came down the tower and lived with a worldview that shit happens, did a lot better and were a lot less likely to experience PTSD than the people who came down the towers and live with a worldview that says you're in charge, destiny is in your hands.

• 1:07:13Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, that's um.

• 1:07:17Tim Ferriss?

  That makes perfect sense to me.

• 1:07:19Speaker 02

  You understand, it's like.

• 1:07:20Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:21Speaker 02

  It does, it's the humility ultimately gives you flexibility. The great, when things then, when bad things then happen, when shit hits the fan to someone who must be great, even at the moment when it's impossible to feel great, it breaks them.

• 1:07:37Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm.

• 1:07:38Speaker 02

  And that's what I'm saying to people. I'm not turning them into mush or anything. I'm just saying it's okay. It's okay not to feel great in a time like this, you know. Um, it's either your work, your health, the market, the economy, the vision for the future, the, you know, I am much more okay when I say to someone, how you doing? And it says, I've been working very hard. I want to make sure the company doesn't go under. I want to make sure. And I have a guy I spoke to two days ago, he just laid off two hundred people out of two or four. That's, that's a conversation. And I said to him, oh, this was an amazing moment. So I, you know, I'm girlfriend of his wife and she, we were chatting and I was actually quite upset in that moment.

• 1:08:23Speaker 02

  And, and then she told me this and I said, hey, I pick up the phone and I said, I just want you to know, I know how much you care about your workers. I can't imagine what a hard thing that must have been for you to do. And I know, I mean, this, I haven't seen this guy cry ever. This is on the phone. I didn't see him. I heard it. I knew it. It's just, I just, you know. Um, and I also know that they're two or four and that even though it looked like you're protected, you're not, because it's not yours. But then he starts talking to me. I've never seen this man talk so much. I called every one of my managers. I I mean, it was so heart wrenching.

• 1:09:05Speaker 02

  You know, it was honorable. It was hard. It was done with integrity. And and then the next thing I get a text from her, I said, you don't understand what you just did. You know, it's like you just knew exactly what to say. And the thing was, I know how hard this must have been for you.

• 1:09:23Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm.

• 1:09:24Speaker 02

  That's when I say deepening the conversation. I could have talked about, you know, how much money the company has, and I could have talked about other things that's. But it's not important. At this moment, really, this guy

• 1:09:39Speaker 02

  just let go two hundred people who, you know, won't have jobs.

• 1:09:47Speaker 02

  That after that, you stay quiet, like you and me, I stay quiet. It's not like this. You just let it sink for a minute.

• 1:09:54Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:57Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, there are a lot of really difficult decisions, difficult conversations, difficult actions that have taken place in the last week, will happen this week, and will continue certainly beyond that. And you mentioned disconnected or feeling disconnected a bit earlier. I'd love to talk about, if we could for a moment, people who are living alone or in quarantine alone. I know that I know friends who are practicing or by mandate in isolation at home by themselves. Do you do you have anything you've learned with your patients that you could pass on to those people?

• 1:10:42Tim Ferriss?

  I can't personally imagine being alone right now. I do very. Even though I spent the majority of my life isolating myself, which not terribly surprising, also suffering with bouts of depression. Now that I've become over the last five years a more social creature, I find the prospect very daunting of of having of of being alone during this time. And I would love to know what you would say or what you do say to those people.

• 1:11:17Speaker 02

  I um, so I.

• 1:11:21Speaker 02

  I mean, I was literally looking, I just got a message from one of my close, closest friends who lives alone. Um, okay, I think that there are people who live alone, but they're not lonely. They're connected. They have a circle of friends, they have family, friends, whatever, they have, they have a, they have a network, a, a system, a support system. And, um, they chose possibly for all kinds of reasons, or they have to, to not, to, to quarantine by themselves. And for those people, I basically say, keep everything as vibrant as you can. You know, um, have dinner with other people. It's very interesting.

• 1:12:06Speaker 02

  You know, um, online, online, everything online, of course. But, um, a few times a day, make sure that you've had, you know, that you've touched base with people. Um, write, write and handwrite. Actually, if you can, then just picture, take a picture of it and send. I think it's a, it's a very interesting moment to actually bring back some of the, you know, our earlier uh, epistolary exchanges, you know, before you just send another email. Um, but I think that the distinction for me is between people who are alone and lonely, or people who are lonely and not even alone, and people who live alone. I think I want to distinguish that.

• 1:12:50Speaker 02

  The ones I'm the most worried about are the people who are lonely.

• 1:12:55Speaker 02

  And who are, um, have nobody to call and not many people checking them, call, X doesn't matter, but reach out. Those I'm very worried about. I'm worried about depression, I'm worried about alcoholism, I'm worried about suicide, I'm worried about a lot of, I'm worried about, you know, just and living in a, in an endless world of porn, whatever it is, disconnected, it's just, there's no one to reach out to them. And we, this is not new, even before the digital. You know, when things like that keep you away from others. So, the best thing I've found for those people is to say, go volunteer. You know, people need you.

• 1:13:35Speaker 02

  Maybe you don't feel that enough people love you, but I can tell you, there's a, a world of people out there who need you at this moment. And who could use you bringing food for them or go get their meds or walk their dog or god knows what. Purpose, a sense that you matter, a sense of social relevance is gonna be the most important thing and it always is, but it is even more so now against that kind of loneliness. Because when you're lonely, you begin to question, do I matter? And what's the difference if I'm here or not? And who even cares? Who would notice? And it's against that that I make people go outside. If you don't care that much anyway,

• 1:14:20Speaker 02

  then you can take some risks, but your risks will give you mental health and your mental health will ultimately help you with your physical health. Because being healthy is not just not having a virus. You know, being healthy is living connected to all kinds of things in the world. Nature, people, you know, work, art, but purpose is the piece. So I've made lists of all kinds of volunteering that exists and I've sent it around to everybody who I thought would really use it at this moment or should use it.

• 1:14:51Tim Ferriss?

  Could I get a copy of some of those? I don't know if they're really specific geographically, but would that be something that I could put in the show notes for this episode?

• 1:15:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'll give you, I'll give you a lot of things. I mean, you know, my neighbor is the one that is the easiest. I think it's called my neighbor, right? It's because it's by neighborhood. And is it that? That's the name of it.

• 1:15:14Tim Ferriss?

  I don't, I don't know, but I will, I will tell people that we will put these resources in the show notes. So if you just go to tim.blog/podcast and that will...

• 1:15:26Speaker 02

  I have it by New York, but they must be everywhere. Like I have a friend who runs a shelter for domestic violence. I have another person I know who works in a residential treatment center. All these places need people that will come and work with the people who live there. And I mean, it's endless, actually. It's a very interesting thing. There's no, there's gonna be less work, but there is actually an enormous amount of people needed for things. I will send you the ones I have. They are primarily mostly New York based, but I'm sure they have been spread around the country. There's two young kids who basically gathered thirteen hundred volunteers in the city to just deliver food to the elderly, those who are trying to stay home and don't necessarily know how to connect with Instacart.

• 1:16:12Speaker 02

  You know, or don't have kids who will do that for them. I mean, they, they, you know, walking dogs, going to get their meds, taking them to the doctor. People still need to go to the doctor. You know, there's still other health issues. And these two young kids in their twenties gathered thirteen hundred people in a few days. And I made sure that two people I work with, who I thought, you are not rotting away like this, you know, get up and go help, you know. Um, I didn't say it like this, but this, um, I, I really think that, um, if you don't feel that your life is important enough for you, sometimes it helps to know that at least it makes a difference for others.

• 1:16:53Tim Ferriss?

  And the phrasing that you used earlier, I thought was very powerful. And correct me if I'm wrong, but it was even if you feel that people don't love you, or wouldn't love you, or couldn't love you, there are still plenty of people who need you.

• 1:17:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:07Tim Ferriss?

  I, I think that's very, that's very, very powerful to let sink in. I think that's, I think that's a very strong wedge in the door that can, that can open the room, just a crack to let in a few rays of light. And, and from that point.

• 1:17:30Speaker 02

  But you know, there's another version of it, Tim. It's like, I think of this other person I was working with last weekend. You know, she was, she's on her own now. She's separate, she's, she's divorced, whatever, for a long time. But she also broke up with a new, with a new partner. And, um, there was this kind of nostalgia of, I don't have a partner. And meanwhile, there are a lot of other people around who actually would be there. So I think it's also important to identify with people who is in their circle and to do a social mapping, you know, who actually does think of you, but you don't value it enough because it's not that. It's not your partner. It's not a boyfriend, a

• 1:18:13Speaker 02

  lover, you know, it's not romantic. And so, um, and that's an important piece as well is to actually broaden the definition of, of who, who's there for you. Um, I, you know, I draw a lot from my memories around the AIDS epidemic, from my work around nine eleven, from my own personal history, from, uh, from the Gulf War, that, you know, I mean, there's a, there's a lot of. The AIDS epidemic for sure, there's a lot of situations where we've learned a lot of things. It's not like this is the first time that we, and we have to invent everything. Peer connection is probably the most important thing that will help us in terms of mental health at this moment.

• 1:18:56Speaker 02

  Parent groups, uh, people, you know, men's group continuing online, people, um. Sometimes it's just basically activity based, it's fine, it's fine, it's at least, you know. Because why is it so important? Because in this moment, when you live in your home like this and, and you especially if you don't have much space, the disruption is in space and in time, you know, people have a rhythm. They're used to going out, they come in alone or with partners, they, they know when they are together, when they are apart, when, even with kids, when the kids are away, when the house is their own. And none of this, structurally, nothing is actually sustained at this moment.

• 1:19:38Speaker 02

  So it demands tremendous adaptability, tremendous adaptability in very, very short amount of time. Um, and people who are alone in that sense, or live alone, or, uh, have less adaptability, in that sense, their life is actually more similar to the way that they've lived it. Except that they can't move themselves the way they used to move. But in terms of what happens inside their space, there's not that big of a difference.

• 1:20:06Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I've, uh, seen certainly for my girlfriend at least, that group exercise classes online have, have, have had a profound impact on her ability to function and thrive on a daily basis. Whether that be group exercise or dance classes.

• 1:20:29Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:20:30Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, I think there's a site, if you're interested in hip hop dance, I think it's called Skeezy, I have no idea how to spell this.

• 1:20:37Speaker 02

  No, I follow Gaga. But dancing is extraordinarily important at this moment, more even than exercise.

• 1:20:47Speaker 02

  Because you can't dance and be sad. You know, you can listen to music and cry, you can read and cry, you can draw and cry, but you can't dance and cry. The body won't let you.

• 1:20:57Tim Ferriss?

  I'm just trying to imagine what that would look like. I remember somebody sent me like a a a kind of like a crying combination smiley emoticon recently, and it was so confusing to me. So yes, dancing and crying seems difficult to combine.

• 1:21:14Speaker 02

  No, because the body that is collapsed cannot dance. So dancing is actually very important. And there's a lot of people, they put music together, they put songs, they dance together, they talk at the same day. I mean, it's actually very imaginative and resourceful how people are

• 1:21:31Speaker 02

  doing everything to to to stay connected, to stay, to feel energized, to feel, you know, vital. What has helped you? What have you done? So she does the exercise classes and you?

• 1:21:43Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I do a few things and it's evolved over the last four weeks as I've realized what seems to help and what doesn't seem to matter, at least personally. So I will say that I have no delusion that this is normal as it was, say, the same normal two months ago, nor will it be the same two months from now, I don't think. Certainly economically, that will not be the case. And I have found structure and routine to be very, very helpful for me because I am bombarded all day with requests for help,

• 1:22:27Tim Ferriss?

  text updates, data, et cetera, that reflects such a high degree of uncertainty and unpredictability that it's very helpful to have certain parts of the day that are predictable for me. And so there, so among other things, my girlfriend and I, up to this point, I would say up until a few weeks ago, woke up at very different times. She would get up very early, I would get up a few hours later, and we would work respectively during the day.

• 1:22:57Tim Ferriss?

  Meet up, maybe we go out to dinner, maybe we eat at home. Oftentimes we would have different social engagements, so we might not eat together. That's all changed. So we've, we're now waking up around the same time, seven o'clock or so, seven thirty. We are, at least most recently, exercising together. We're not actually following the same workout. She'll be doing her dancing or yoga or using an app for different types of calisthenics. I'll be doing something called, well, there are a few things I rotate through. There's something called the Happy Body by Jersey and Anyela Gregorek. That's a whole mouthful, but if you search the Happy Body and Gregorek, G R E G O R E K,

• 1:23:42Tim Ferriss?

  you'll find what I'm talking about. I did a podcast interview with, with Jersey as well. It's effectively a very short morning mobility sequence. It's very low impact and I, I find that it undoes a lot of the damage that's sitting with a laptop or multiple screens for a good portion of the day can inflict. So wake up, exercise together, which has really been surprisingly impactful for us. Then at that point, the phone is also on airplane mode. I have to, I've been trying to put my phone on airplane mode around, say, eight PM and to take it off of airplane mode only after breakfast.

• 1:24:27Tim Ferriss?

  Otherwise you're just getting assaulted with bad news 24/7. Then this is going to be, just give me a minute because some of this might be helpful to folks. So then I'm also ensuring at least when it is allowed to walk at least an hour a day, try to get sunshine. And if I can't do that, I actually have a

• 1:24:55Tim Ferriss?

  Chest freezer that has been modified and caulked. Some of this can still be done even in places where there's some restriction of movement so that I can use a cold plunge. So I'm using a lot of cold and even a cold shower during the day for some type of physiological change. At night, this is one of the bigger changes, as you mentioned, we're cooking at home every night and will sometimes cook for multiple nights at a time. But when we eat, even if we're not cooking, we've actually chosen a different table in a different room because my girlfriend has an office here in the house.

• 1:25:36Tim Ferriss?

  I don't, I would usually go downtown to an office and work, but I can't do that at this point, or I'm not willing to do that. So the kitchen table has become my office and the last thing I want to do is sit at the kitchen table and have dinner. So we've moved a smaller, really small table, low small table to the living room and we sit down and we, we make a ritual out of dinner and we'll set out the placemats and we'll use the folded linens and we'll open the door so that we'll close the screen but can hear some nature outside and we'll light a candle and say a grace, say what we're grateful for and eat together, no devices.

• 1:26:17Tim Ferriss?

  And at that point, we usually go for a walk after dinner with the dog because Mali requires outside time for bathroom and otherwise and come back and at that point usually try to avoid devices and we have a, we have a television series that we watch during the week, which right now is The Amazing Mrs Maisel, which is a fantastic show. And then we watch something else on the weekends so that we are distinguishing between the weekdays and the weekends. So we deliberately change our routines and activities on the weekends so that there's some feeling.

• 1:26:54Tim Ferriss?

  Of a break such that it's not Groundhog Day every day.

• 1:26:59Tim Ferriss?

  Also use heat exposure. My girlfriend likes hot baths. I am very fortunate to have a a small barrel sauna and so I will use heat at night and then.

• 1:27:12Speaker 02

  I said to Jack that I needed to buy your sauna thing because it's actually one of the things that they find to be very, very useful over, over fifty six degrees Celsius. It actually, it's very countering of the virus.

• 1:27:25Tim Ferriss?

  It's very helpful.

• 1:27:27Speaker 02

  And I said, Jack, we need to get one of Tim's.

• 1:27:31Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, the barrel saunas. Yeah, they're surprisingly, I mean, look, I, I recognize this is where I can get very judgmental towards myself. I recognize it's not within the grasp of everyone, but at least last I checked, they sell reasonably inexpensive barrel saunas at Costco. They did at least for a period of time. These are not, this does not require a year's salary necessarily, but the, the point being that we're using heat and cold as contrasts through the day and we find that to help with sleep also. Then I, I, I usually foam roll a little bit before bed because I'm still so spun up, even if I've done a lot of walking,

• 1:28:15Tim Ferriss?

  even if I've done some exercise. My mind is generally still very, very active, so I will do some foam rolling to try to down regulate and then we'll go to bed. And we use a humidifier. We also use, or I use at least a hot vapor device for, just to try to ensure upper respiratory tract or support upper respiratory tract health. And that's the day. There are, and then there are days where there are certain types of other exercise. Like I might not do the happy body and I might do Peloton, for instance. I use Peloton quite a lot and just seeing human faces on a big screen is

• 1:28:54Tim Ferriss?

  recorded or live doesn't seem to matter for me is really, really helpful. So I'll, I'll do that or on the bike. Meaning the stationary bike will do scenic rides. So there, these are, this is video footage of the Alps or New Zealand or fill in the blank. And that's more or less the day and it's pretty much copy and paste every day. There's, there's, there's less variance in my routine right now than at any other time in the last several years. And I think that is part of what is helping me to stay mostly sane.

• 1:29:31Tim Ferriss?

  So that's a long answer to a short question.

• 1:29:32Speaker 02

  No, no, it's a, but I think that many of these will be, will be really helpful. And I mean, you inspire me to add a few things to.

• 1:29:40Tim Ferriss?

  Can I add one more before I forgot?

• 1:29:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:29:42Tim Ferriss?

  The other, the other thing that my girlfriend and I have, have done, and this is actually based on a conversation I had with Brené Brown not too long ago on the podcast, who spoke about how she does this with her husband. But we will tell each other in the morning, oftentimes, we don't do this every day, but if we are really worn thin, maybe we didn't sleep well, like last night, I couldn't stop thinking. I was physically exhausted, but just had that tired and wired experience where I just could not ramp down and I had, I had taken a fair number of things already to try to help me sleep and it didn't matter. So I got probably two or three hours of sleep last night.

• 1:30:23Tim Ferriss?

  And so I told my girlfriend this morning, I said, I'm, I'm probably at about 20%. Just to give you a heads up in case I'm overly sensitive. I, I don't have a whole lot of slack in the system right now. I probably, I, I have a total of 20% in the tank and she does the same. So it could be that we're at 70, 80. How are you doing? I'm feeling really good. I'm at 90, had a full night of sleep. It's a beautiful day. Great. And then there are some days, whether it's, there are hormonal contributions, let's say with menstruation and so on, or could just be related to sleep, events, news from close friends and family, et cetera,

• 1:31:05Tim Ferriss?

  that we give each other an indication of, of how much buffer we have in the system. So that our, our behaviors are perhaps easier to understand and also so the other person can pick up the slack if necessary and, and make, make more of a, make more of an effort for a day or two.

• 1:31:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's very much what I was saying before when I said, you know, if you're irritable, if you're low energy, if you... It's basically kind of let... check in with each other, do pulse checks and let the other... let each other know where you are at so that your responses are put in a context, you know, and each one knows what they can expect from the other. I... I think you've given a really rich list, you know. I go to nature, I take hikes, and I have certain paths where I can literally... here I go alone every morning, or I will have somebody else call someone and say, "You wanna go ride?"

• 1:32:09Speaker 02

  And they drive to me and we walk up the mountains, but one person on each side of the road.

• 1:32:16Speaker 02

  So I actually am able to still see people. A few, but I have. I have a book club. We have migrated online. And I have a movie club, which is the most beautiful thing because we spend ninety minutes talking about films. Every week we have to watch a film and we talk about it. And for a while you talk about something completely unrelated, so different with people who are in Australia, in France, in the US, we are all over the place, our little group. And it's been so nice, so nice to just... yeah.

• 1:32:52Tim Ferriss?

  No, could you say more about that? Just tell us more about the format, when you do it? How does it work? What are the rules of the movie club?

• 1:33:01Speaker 02

  We were about to start this movie club because we've had a book club for three years now. And we were just about to start a movie club and this thing happened and we spread out. And so I said, "We want, you know, let's not let it wait. Let's do it wherever we are." Literally, some are in Europe, some are in Australia, one is in Hawaii, the others are all over the US. And basically, we decided on a movie.

• 1:33:25Tim Ferriss?

  What did you decide on?

• 1:33:27Speaker 02

  Well, the first one was Jojo Rabbit. The second one was The Marriage of Maria Brown by Reiner Fassbender, which is a movie of seventy-nine, that is a phenomenal movie. And the third one that we're doing now is uh some uh um na na na, let me see, it's an American film, um.

• 1:33:49Tim Ferriss?

  Dumb and Dum, Dumb and Dumber.

• 1:33:50Speaker 02

  No, no, no, it's it's some, it's, you see, Film Club, uh in fr- Stars in My Crown.

• 1:33:59Tim Ferriss?

  Stars in My Crown.

• 1:34:01Speaker 02

  Um, but uh Stars in My Crown, it's a one person basically rec- said, you know, we highly recommended it and so we we don't know what we're watching, you know, one person chose a movie and and we say, let's go with it. So we meet four o'clock on Sunday, because that is uh six AM or four, whatever, this just that they're changing in Australia and in Europe this week, so we had to make sure that this one isn't too early and this one isn't too late, and we are in the middle, three or four o'clock in the afternoon on Sunday, and we meet, and uh and we are about uh, how much where we live this time, maybe around fifteen of us,

• 1:34:43Speaker 02

  and uh some of them, two of them are in the same room, some of them are on their own, and um and we discuss the film, um.

• 1:34:51Tim Ferriss?

  So you watch it anytime you want?

• 1:34:53Speaker 02

  Yes, you watch it.

• 1:34:54Tim Ferriss?

  Is it weekly or monthly? It's a monthly?

• 1:34:57Speaker 02

  Weekly.

• 1:34:58Tim Ferriss?

  Weekly, okay.

• 1:34:59Speaker 02

  Weekly, we were gonna do it monthly, but we moved it to weekly because it just was so nice, such a relief.

• 1:35:06Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, that's a great idea, that's a great idea.

• 1:35:08Speaker 02

  Um, so so so, you know, so we often, we've seen the movie actually one or two days before, so it's fresh, and uh one of us is the, is the the moderator, that basically makes sure that everybody gets a chance uh to speak.

• 1:35:24Tim Ferriss?

  And you're using Zoom for this, or what are you?

• 1:35:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, Zoom, Zoom. And then this week, we have the book club, which is usually once a month, um, and um.

• 1:35:35Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, once a week for the book club is ambitious.

• 1:35:38Speaker 02

  Yes, yes, no, plus, I can't read, I mean, I I I feel like I do not have enough of that concentration at this moment, so I haven't done my homework for this Sunday.

• 1:35:48Tim Ferriss?

  What is, what is, what was the assignment? What was the book?

• 1:35:51Speaker 02

  Book of this month of is, I will tell you in a sec. Uh, book club, next book club, A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell.

• 1:36:03Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm.

• 1:36:04Speaker 02

  Don't ask me more, I have not.

• 1:36:06Tim Ferriss?

  Haven't read it.

• 1:36:07Speaker 02

  Uh, I have not, no, and if I don't read it, I don't attend, I can't just be, you can't just show up for the sake of showing up, you can show up for the first twenty minutes when we are checking in and having a drink. And then, uh, and then when people start the conversation, basically, you say, see you next time.

• 1:36:24Tim Ferriss?

  And, well, is there a, is there a particular set of questions that you go through for the movie? Or is it just a free for all when you guys meet for the movie check in?

• 1:36:32Speaker 02

  We, we did it twice, you know, um, what, what, you know, we start sometimes with what, you know, were there people who particularly loved it and particularly did not? And then we asked, you know, why, why did you love it? Why did you hate it type thing? And then we go, you know, with me, the question was, why did you choose it? Why, because I chose the one from, uh, from last week, why did you, why did you choose this movie? Uh, what did you see? Uh, then there are some real, you know, there, there's a couple of people who know a lot about cinema and they often know the work of that director and then it's just really a, a very interesting chat.

• 1:37:14Tim Ferriss?

  So what, uh, so tell us your answer, what, which movie was it last week and why did you choose it?

• 1:37:20Speaker 02

  Last week, the movie was The Marriage of Maria Braun, um, which I, if you don't know Fassbender, you, it is one of the most important post-war German directors, um, six seventies, um, and, uh, it basically is the story of a woman who is also the metaphor for Germany. So it's a story told through this one woman and her post-war life and how she climbs and becomes this rich lady and, and her relationship to this man that she married, who she actually spent one night with, but spent her whole life waiting for. But in fact, the story of Maria Braun is also the story of how Fassbender sees Germany post-war.

• 1:38:05Speaker 02

  So you have these two tracks being told at the same time, the story of a love story of a woman, but in fact, it's the story of a nation and that. Being able to tell two stories at the same time of which one is overt and the other one is hidden is incredibly, is incredible. Plus, it's the cinematography, the guy who was the cameraman of Fassbender, then after that movie, he moved to the States and he became Martin Scorsese's cameraman.

• 1:38:36Tim Ferriss?

  I've heard of him, yeah.

• 1:38:38Speaker 02

  You know, so the cinematography of the film is also just something, you know, amazing. And I didn't see this film since seventy-nine. I just remembered it as some, as a, as a, one of those formative movies in my life. And, um, uh, and it followed Jojo Rabbit. So it kind of had a logic as to why I, I thought about that. And then our next movie will be Badlands.

• 1:39:04Tim Ferriss?

  Badlands.

• 1:39:06Speaker 02

  Um, Terrence Malick, one of the greatest American directors. Um, so we're, we're just going, it's, it's very, it's not very formal, you know, it's like somebody says, let's do Malick. Malick is an amazing director to discuss. And, and so then we decide which would be a good Malick movie to see. And then we, we decided, okay, let's do Badlands because it's one of the great American films. And, um, it's exciting. It's so nice to be talking about something else for a bit.

• 1:39:40Tim Ferriss?

  Sorry to interrupt. You said in the beginning, you do your, your catch-up introductory check-ins and have a drink. Are there any rituals or rules around that? Do you guys kind of cheers each other? Are you all just kind of nursing one drink?

• 1:39:55Speaker 02

  No, no, it's in that sense, it's rather, you know, we are half Americans and half from all over the world. And, um, the people from abroad tend to not want this to be too structured.

• 1:40:16Speaker 02

  Let's put it like that. It's like, you know, we, we, we don't really know, we, the conversation ends when we've said what we had to say. It's not like, you know, we say from six to eight. Um, it starts at four and then this one, it went in five thirty and at five thirty, it feels like we had enough.

• 1:40:37Tim Ferriss?

  Right. I like it. I like it. I like it.

• 1:40:39Speaker 02

  You know, it was just like, okay, I, I guess we're ready for the next film. We've kind of gone around the block. Everybody has said what they had to say. We've had our discussions. And uh, it's good. And then we've had a few more minutes where people checked in. How are you? Where are you? You know, what's it like in Australia? You caught the last plane, you know? People kind of checked in with each other and then we said, let's see you next Sunday. Um, so that's the, that's been a real high for me, actually. Um, I do yoga every morning with a different, either it's class. I have two unusual, ongoing classes in the city and I've just continued them online. And then I just check in every night with a friend and I say, you know, do you wanna meet me at seven thirty for an hour?

• 1:41:25Speaker 02

  Cause I realized that I can't do it alone. I don't have the motivation. If I do it alone, I'll do it for twenty minutes and then I'll, you know, I'll get caught up with something else. Uh, my productivity level is not at the same level in my discipline either. So if I'm accountable to someone, someone is waiting for me, I'll be there, I'll show up. And I just text anybody, I, I, I send it out to, to a variety of people and I just say, are you, are you free tomorrow for yoga? Or for a walk, you know? Um, it's very impromptu in that way, but uh, I realize that I do better with somebody than alone at this moment.

• 1:42:03Speaker 02

  And then I go with my husband. I say, let's take a, let's just take a twenty minute walk before we start sitting at the laptop the whole day. Let's just walk together and uh, we haven't been to town or anything. I haven't, I have not been outside of just plain nature in that sense, or even walk around, you know, it's snow this week. So we just walked around the place here in the, the, the neighboring streets. It's not uh, it's not nature, but just, just to hear, you know, to see skies, like you, sun, this and that. Um.

• 1:42:37Speaker 02

  And what I've listened to a lot of music. I've actually been listening to a lot of music in ways that I don't, not as background. And I think your thing about setting the table, Jack did that last night, it was so good. You know, he set the table by the, you know, in a different room and put a can, I mean, a ritual. Ritual of kind of, let's, let's still, let's still feel that we can settle in and um, and savour this whole, even if it's a half an hour, you know, but just, let's, let's not just

• 1:43:11Speaker 02

  let everything kind of, you know, unravel around, let's keep us in, but it's more than structure, it's really a ritual.

• 1:43:18Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:18Speaker 02

  Um, I think rituals at this point are extremely, are extremely important, like the one that when you wake up in the morning, that's a ritual that you do with your girlfriend. So I, I, I am looking for different rituals. Um, you know, um, I definitely measure, and this I would say to a lot of people, I know when I can't read one more article about this.

• 1:43:44Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:45Speaker 02

  You know.

• 1:43:47Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I think I go, I think I go past the point of, of being helpful, yeah.

• 1:43:51Speaker 02

  I mean, like, you know, no, I can't, I, I, I, I wasn't gonna listen to the daily yesterday, you know, I was just like, I, I or, or I get the briefing of the, you know, I've got my list, but I, I, I just know sometimes it's okay, I'm gonna go two days without, it's fine, it's fine.

• 1:44:10Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it's fine.

• 1:44:11Speaker 02

  So that's the thing, it's just, it's okay to think about other things. Um, and we have also done some watching of TV together, you know, though I really don't feel like having more screen time at the end of the day, I'm like you know, screened out. So sometimes just sitting quiet and listening to the, like you with your porch, just sitting outside, it's still cold here, but just quiet, um, because we talk the whole day is another thing. We talk, we listen, we are in conversation with patients the whole day. Um.

• 1:44:48Speaker 02

  And work, you know, I think we haven't said much about that, but I do feel better when I work. I feel that uh I'm not, I I'm, I feel that I have a sense of agency, that I can do things. So I prepared a keynote address last week for thirteen hundred people about couples in quarantine and, you know, teaching my colleagues. I um I I my supervision group is usually monthly. I said we will meet every week. Uh and now I will kind of hold a group. It's twenty five therapists together, helping other people to think about their work concerns, um doing the podcasts. I I found it so creative to be doing this podcast at this moment. I feel like I'm,

• 1:45:31Speaker 02

  I'm I'm I'm finding a way to bring purpose and creativity together and um and I'm not thinking about myself. It's really that. I just don't wanna spend all my time thinking about me and my own little world. Um and just feel like I I can contribute, do something for others. Um those are the things that I've worked harder than I have done. I mean, it's an incredible thing. How how I don't know even know where it suddenly came from. And you know, I live with uh my husband, Jack, who Saul, S A U L, who happens to be a uh for three decades, an expert in disaster preparedness.

• 1:46:13Speaker 02

  So I uh I'm I've got W H O U N, you know, I get the, I hear the names, the calls. You know, this is very much uh in our house, um the expertise of people who have worked with large scale psychosocial trauma. So um I go back and forth between wanting to hear from him, cause he knows so much, and then kind of saying, can we talk about something else?

• 1:46:41Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:43Speaker 02

  You know, um but that uh that so I think we're very much on the same track in terms of things, things that uh that we do. He meditates every day. I don't. But I know that that's very important. That's my do my yoga if you want, but meditation. I've been trying to run and put a little goal for myself that I will add ten minutes every day to my run, cause it's my uphill. Um.

• 1:47:12Speaker 02

  I try to still feel like I can discover certain things that put little challenges for myself rather than just preservation.

• 1:47:19Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I think we've given people a lot to chew on. There's so many different things to explore, how to use music. I've ended up using classical during weekday, workday, typically reggae at night on weekday evenings, and then different music for the weekends. I have a whole system.

• 1:47:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, we do vinyl. Our vinyls are here. So we are like, every night we rediscover music we haven't heard in years.

• 1:47:49Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, that's amazing. And Esther, you're amazing. I always love our conversations. And it's been actually a real nice decompress for me, just to have this conversation with you. And I know how full your days are, and I'm thrilled that you were able to find time to spend some of it in this conversation. And I know people are going to want to learn more about you, see what you're up to, listen to what you're up to. Where would you like people to go? What would you like them to pay the most attention to? You have so many different projects.

• 1:48:24Speaker 02

  There's a few that are very much in line with the moment. So my newsletter and blog, I think, is probably the most direct place where I also give some of the suggestions, the recommendations. And you just go to my website, estherperel.com, and you sign on. I mean, that's where I'm really putting together in small bites what I often develop in non-form, if you want. So the newsletter, where should we begin? We have a special season that is couples in quarantine.

• 1:49:02Tim Ferriss?

  Now, just to be clear, I know I said it in the introduction, but the name of the podcast is Where Should We Begin?, question mark.

• 1:49:08Speaker 02

  Correct, correct.

• 1:49:09Tim Ferriss?

  Just making sure.

• 1:49:11Speaker 02

  So my podcast, Where Should We Begin?, has a special season, of which the first episode was dropped last night, which is a couple in Sicily. It's called Two Adults, Three Children, and a Wall in Between. Um, I did the second one today. We'll do a series of that. And then How Is Work? Which I also am gonna do episodes for How Is Work. The first season is out everywhere where you get your podcast. It's about the invisible forces that shape workplace dynamics, but it is ever more relevant right now, ever more relevant. So, but I will do a few episodes as well about the issues around work as they are presenting themselves right now, here and abroad.

• 1:49:54Speaker 02

  Sessions is the platform where I work with anybody who wants to be more trained, as coaches, therapists, all the people who want to more get the training. That's a digital training platform. And Sessions is going to be the place through whom I'm gonna do training for managers, founders, you know, all of that. Um, and all the social channels, you know, it's all integrated. But I've always worked on how people handle their relationships. And I think that health, as it relates to relational health and mental health, it's at the forefront of what we talk.

• 1:50:36Speaker 02

  And you don't get so much of that when people are spending more time about the virus itself. Uh, health is more than just not being sick. So, that's what I wanna emphasize in this moment. Um, and that's where you find me. Esther Perel dot com is the gate to it all. And then the podcast app.

• 1:50:57Tim Ferriss?

  Wonderful. Esther Perel dot com is the gate to it all, folks. I'm telling you. Check it out. She has just an incredible corpus of work and you continue to put out.

• 1:51:07Speaker 02

  Things.

• 1:51:08Tim Ferriss?

  Yes.

• 1:51:08Speaker 02

  The guy who asked you what kind of things for people who are living apart.

• 1:51:14Tim Ferriss?

  Yes.

• 1:51:14Speaker 02

  Also, Rekindling Desire, which is the online workshop that I have, that really is um, for how you maintain playfulness, spontaneity, curiosity in your relationships. You can, you don't have to be living together at all to go through that. And it is jam-packed with suggestions of how to maintain that connection at distance, as we say.

• 1:51:36Tim Ferriss?

  What was it called again?

• 1:51:37Speaker 02

  Rekindling Desire.

• 1:51:38Tim Ferriss?

  Rekindling Desire. That was actually almost verbatim, another question. So you, you, you answered a question without even knowing it also, a separate question. Rekindling Desire. Excellent.

• 1:51:50Speaker 02

  It's on the website. It's a, I mean, it. Well, I don't have to say more. Just go check it out. It says, it is what it says.

• 1:52:01Tim Ferriss?

  It is. It is what it is. It is what it says. And everybody out there should try Weekly Movie Club. I think that's a brilliant idea. I'm absolutely going to explore that with a friend of mine to see what we can put together with our, with our gang. And it's always such a pleasure, Esther. I really appreciate you taking the time. We will link to everything in the show notes and more specifically, for folks who want to see resources from this episode, to see our first episode, which has completely different content, very, very, very different, looking at monogamy, non-monogamy, all sorts of other topics,

• 1:52:40Tim Ferriss?

  as well as the volunteer resources, which will be, I think, very important and powerful for a lot of people who can benefit from feeling needed right now. We will put those at tim.blog/esther. So that's T I M dot B L O G forward slash E S T H E R. So you'll be able to find all of my conversations with Esther, as well as the resources at that link and links to everything that we have discussed so far. And I think that's a full conversation for now. Thank you so much, my dear.

• 1:53:19Speaker 02

  Same, same here. Be well, be healthy, be safe. And all of you who are listening to us, I wish you really all the best.

• 1:53:27Tim Ferriss?

  And I will echo that. Thanks to everybody for tuning in. And until next time, be safe, form a movie club.

• 1:53:37Speaker 02

  Listen to good music.

• 1:53:39Tim Ferriss?

  Listen to good music.

• 1:53:40Speaker 02

  Allow yourself to dance.

• 1:53:41Tim Ferriss?

  Allow yourself to dance.

• 1:53:42Speaker 02

  I have to get that, I have to get that barrel. I have to find a way. And stay connected, people. And one thing, it's so-called social distancing, that's the wrong word. You know, it's physical distancing, but it's social leaning. Do not misunderstand that word.

• 1:53:59Tim Ferriss?

  Exactly. And last but not least, be kind, and that includes yourself. All right, signing off. Thanks, everybody.

• 1:54:10Tim Ferriss?

  Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday? That provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend. And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the world of the esoteric as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short.

• 1:54:52Tim Ferriss?

  It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by ShipStation. I've been super impressed with these guys. ShipStation is the shipping software with the most five-star reviews. Now, speaking as a former e-commerce CEO, back in a previous incarnation when I was shipping tens of thousands and then hundreds of thousands of products, this is what I wish I had way back in the day.

• 1:55:34Tim Ferriss?

  As folks adapt to this changing world, these strange times, we are all going to be buying more stuff online than ever before. And if you're an e-commerce seller, or if you want to be selling more online, you have to ask yourself, are you ready to meet the demands of our new delivery economy? You can be ready with ShipStation, and lots of my friends use them. So why ShipStation? When you're selling online, getting a lot of orders out fast can be super hard. I've experienced this firsthand. How do you keep track of who gets what? Which shipping carrier should you use? How do you process refunds? How do you process returns? How do you do all of that? Are you getting the best rates? ShipStation helps online sellers of any size get orders out quickly, save money on shipping costs and keep

• 1:56:19Tim Ferriss?

  Customers happy. They do a few things really, really well. You can import more orders from more places. So no matter where you're selling, Amazon, Etsy, Shopify, eBay, your own website, wherever, ShipStation brings it all into one simple interface, making it really easy to manage from any device, including your cellphone, your smartphone. You can instantly rate shop your favorite carriers, and this is a huge deal. As a ShipStation user, you can get access to discounted rates that are typically reserved for much larger companies like Fortune 500 companies that meet certain minimums. Just as an example, ShipStation just negotiated a new deal with UPS, in which rates are discounted as much as 62%.

• 1:57:02Tim Ferriss?

  That has a huge impact on businesses and on your bottom line, your profit margin. And in the Amazon Prime world, where people are used to free shipping, small businesses or smaller businesses can struggle to stay competitive with high shipping costs. ShipStation can help with that. You go way beyond ordinary tracking. So there's a self-serve portal for people who want to know where their order is, when they're going to get it, etc. Returns, ditto, self-serve. It just makes everything easier. That's why ShipStation is the number one choice of online sellers today. You ship more product in less time with the best rates available. And right now, my dear listeners, you can try ShipStation free for 60 days when you use offer code TIM, T-I-M. There's absolutely no risk.

• 1:57:45Tim Ferriss?

  You can start your free trial without even entering your credit card info. Just visit shipstation.com, click on the microphone at the top of the homepage, and type in TIM. That's shipstation.com, then enter offer code TIM. Shipstation.com, make ship happen. One more time, shipstation.com, click on the mic front at the top, and type in TIM, that's me, T-I-M. Check it out. This episode is brought to you by Magic Spoon. I love these guys and I love their products. Magic Spoon is a brand new cereal that is low carb, high protein, zero sugar. It tastes exactly like your favorite cereals from your childhood. It just doesn't include all the bad stuff. That's the gist.

• 1:58:27Tim Ferriss?

  So especially these days when I'm looking for fond associations, good feelings. You know, back in the day when I was before school, watching Scooby Doo and eating these cereals that would leave my milk some sort of phosphorescent color. Those were good times. And now I can eat this cereal, which I haven't done in decades, but I do now regularly because let's face it, beans and pasta gets old after a while. So variety pays off. Each serving has 12 grams of protein, three grams of net carbs, zero grams of sugar, and only 110 calories. It's also gluten free, grain free, soy free, GMO free, basically all the things that you don't want, free. And it's delicious.

• 1:59:10Tim Ferriss?

  Comes in your favorite traditional cereal flavors like cocoa, frosted, blueberry. You can try them all by getting a variety pack at magic spoon.com/tim. And the way I found out about this was actually through a number of my friends. One of my friends and one of this podcast's most popular guests, Dr. Peter Attia, has crushed, and I've seen this on Instagram and elsewhere, six to seven servings of this at a time. That's a lot of cereal with no glycemic response. In effect, his blood sugar remained flat. He was so impressed with the results of his self experiments that he ended up investing in the company. And that's true for two other friends as well, Kevin Rose and Ryan Holiday. So check it out. See what all the buzz is about.

• 1:59:53Tim Ferriss?

  You can go to magic spoon.com/tim to grab a variety pack and no need to take just my word for it. Magic Spoon has received a lot of attention since launching last year. Time Magazine included in their list of best inventions of 2019 and Forbes called it the future of cereal. And my listeners, that's you, get free shipping, direct to your door. So you don't have to go out to buy this and a 100% happiness guarantee. So if you're not a fan, if you don't love it, they'll give you a full refund. No questions asked, just use code TIM. I've been stocking up on this and I know a bunch of my friends are as well. So check it out. MagicSpoon.com/Tim.

• 2:00:34Tim Ferriss?

  One more time, that's MagicSpoon.com/Tim. And at the very least, check it out for a really, really well-done website. But the product is even better than the website, I promise you that. So, check it out.