Speaker 1Hello everybody. How you doing? Hope all is well. Welcome to another series of lectures. These will be on relationships and love. So this is the first introduction lecture. I want to kind of establish the different types of love that we're going to examine. In addition to that, I want to discuss a little bit from Epictetus, the art of living in regards to maybe, you know, setting some good expectations and situating ourselves in a conversation about how philosophy can be helpful when it comes to loving ourselves and loving others. Right? So I want to start off with that section from Epictetus and it's called Reason is Supreme. Rationality isn't everything. There are many domains of life to which it lacks access. The greatest mysteries of existence exceed its reach. Still, our reason is the best faculty we have to safeguard our integrity. Most people do not understand the correct use of arguments by inference and the proper use of logical forms. So they conduct themselves in a random, overly reactive or muddled fashion and are easily misled. Clear thinking is not a bloodless art. Reason's job is to critically test our conjectures, both our interpretations and our method of arriving at them. Reason is not an end, but an indispensable instrument. Questions are the engines of reason. Thus, you need to learn how to frame questions sensibly rather than emotionally. If your ability to think clearly is not enough, then you need to learn to think correctly. If your ability to think clearly is compromised, your moral life can become fuzzy and equivocal. Reason can distinguish error from truth and a deep truth from a petty one. The marks of good reasoning are clarity, consistency, rigor, precision of definitions, and avoidance of ambiguity. Hasten to your training in clear thinking so you can confidently enter a complex argument and not be thrown by it. There's a lot to say here, I think. And I want to start off with the beginning. I'm I think love is one of those things that is clearly not only rational, right? And I think a large part of our discussion in the preceding lectures will be sort of about maybe striking a healthier balance between emotion and reason. And how both of these things are really necessary to have healthy, loving relationships. So that's sort of the general theme, in all honesty, of the next few lectures, I think. When we're going to be examining different types of love, right, and we'll do that, we'll get into that in a second, we have to keep in mind some of the basics that Epictetus is saying here, right? Love is confusing and rewarding. Love at times will feel difficult. Love at times will feel simple. It's a huge idea, right? The idea of love as an idea, I mean, there's so many ideas within this one idea, because ultimately it's the best thing we do, right? So it's going to also be the most difficult. It's going to also be the most painful. Right? I would argue that, you know, the most profound types of suffering usually are connected to love. Right? We only suffer from, or let's say truly and profoundly and intensely suffer as a result of having loved or of loving. Right? So there's a lot to be said for this. And I love how he, you know, I think he's really being honest here. And again, we're keeping in mind, he wrote nothing down. Everything we have from him was written down. He wrote nothing down. So I would even just, you know, just as an exercise of imagination, someone might have asked him about love. Like, I'm trying to apply philosophy to love. And he's like, look, it's not going to be perfect. Right? Because there's a sense that there is irrationality almost as an inherent aspect of loving other people. And that doesn't necessarily, of course, have to be a bad thing. But of course, philosophy, especially in certain, say, modes of practicing, it's all about being rational. It's all about pursuing things through reason. Right? At times, it can even seem like it's about removing or denying emotions. And I don't think that's necessarily the case. Right? I think we can see that philosophy can help us in all of our relationships. I think philosophy can make us a better friend, a better sibling, a better parent, a better significant other. And by better, I mean better for those people who we're involved with and also better for ourselves. And I think when you break it down a little bit, this short section, you start seeing some really good virtues that philosophy will help us cultivate that will definitely help us in relationships. Right? The ability to think clearly. Right? The ability to conduct ourselves in a way that is not overly reactive. Right? To lead a life with a sense of order. Right? That makes us reliable for ourselves and for others. Right? To not be overly reactive. And this is maybe because he was a stoic. Right? To learn how to control our emotions a little bit or let's say to the best of our ability. Just because, you know, in a relationship, if two people are yelling, nobody's listening. Right? So if you're the person who has, let's say, who's cultivated the greater capacity to remain calm, that might be really useful in certain circumstances in any type of loving relationship. Right? Especially if our goal is to continue loving people, we want to get good at this. Right? So again, reason as an instrument, it's something, it's a really important instrument in love. To even learn, as he says here, to kind of check our interpretations. How often do things get misinterpreted in relationships? And that causes a problem. We can get better at making more accurate interpretations. We can get to know ourselves and see maybe the way that we're seeing things is not accurate. And even if it is, right, as he said in this sentence here, love this, right? Questions are the engines of reason. We have to ask people questions. Right? In a way that's authentic, in a way that's attentive, where that's caring, right? So not rhetorical questions, but real questions. That's a great tool to have, let's say, to turn an argument into a loving discussion is by, you know, preventing ourselves from kind of, you know, let's say, hurling statements at each other and instead ask questions. Again, a part of philosophy, as we've been studying, and especially from our last few lectures, is learning, I think, to a large extent, how to maybe see more clearly, how to slow down, how to not give assent in both senses of the two different spellings of that word, right? So one meaning to accept things as true when they're not really well supported or when they're false. And then the other one, assent is, again, like literally to rise up, right? To learn how to give a sense of, let's say, a pause or to learn how to give a sense of, let's say, be patient with ourselves and others through asking questions, through cultivating openness, right? These are all really good things we get from philosophy, right? The practice of dialogue in and of itself, I think, when done authentically, is an absolutely essential part of any loving relationship, right? So, of course, we get the Socratic dialogues we've discussed. Again, this from Epictetus coming as a result of a verbal dialogue. So we get certain tools, certain skills, certain ideas from our practice of philosophy that we can apply in our loving relationships to sustain them, to give them new life, right? We can train ourselves to see things in new ways. We can cultivate the virtues we need through philosophy by, once again, as we've been doing all semester, examining ourselves by asking thoughtful questions of others, to get to know them, to get to know their suffering, to get to know, how they feel, how they act, how they think. We need to do these things. And again, philosophy helps us do them well. We've talked a lot about philosophy as a pathway to self-knowledge, self-care, and service. All of those things help in a relationship. We're going to confront a lot of great ideas over the next few lectures. And one, I hope that we spend time with them. I know we'll spend a lot of time with Alain de Bouton in the School of Life. The idea that in a relationship, we all are going to be able to do these things. We're going to wear multiple different masks or have multiple different roles. In one moment, you might be a therapist. The next moment, you might be more of a teacher than an accountant, right? So all of these different roles have to be things that we're able to grapple with in order to sustain our loving relationships. And we can, right? So the idea of self-care, we want to make sure, and we'll get to this very quickly, but we want to make sure that we're able to grapple with the things that we're able to that we're loving ourselves. Philosophy is a pathway to that. Because as we said, philosophy is going to help us grow. How? Well, it's going to help us grow and become more virtuous. That's a mode of self-love. As we'll see with Thich Nhat Hanh, he tells us, if love stops growing, it starts to die. Philosophy is fuel for growth through the ideas we get from it and through the practices we get from it. And then when we talk about self-care, we also are working in the same time, right at the same time, relationships to offer care to others. What do you need? How could I help, right? These are maybe simple questions, but there's a profoundly important philosophical underpinning there when we make those a frequent question we ask of the world. Or we make those frequent questions we ask of the world. We'll have in our first guided philosophical meditation, a real emphasis on the common goal. because we're understanding love and relationships, you know, capital L, capital R. So it's the specific, let's say one friendship all the way up into how we view the world, how we view the people around us, right? So a great question is how could I be more loving? And maybe kind of sticking with the Stoics, right? One of the things I believe Epictetus said was you should strive to be lovable, which is to say, you know, focus more on cultivating a self that is good, that is honest, that is just, and worry a little bit less about, I mean, because listen, unrequited love has tortured everybody, right? That's a real thing. And of course the Stoics want us to not, you know, cause ourselves stress. So ultimately, right, the idea might be how could I offer more love to the world, right? What could that mean for me? And also how could I, to an extent as well, right, how could I work on being lovable? And in that we, we mean not only how can I shape myself into this virtuous person, but also maybe how could I work on receiving love in healthy ways? How do I do that already? So on that note, let's get into quickly a little bit, um, different types of love we're going to examine, right? So this, these are, uh, these are Greek ideas or Greek words. And I think it'll hopefully kind of broaden our understanding a little bit, right? So there's one kind of love is agape, which is like an unkind of love. And I think it's a little bit more of a, you know, conditional love that almost has kind of like a divine sense to it, right? It's, it's kind of like a selfless love, but there's a sense of almost like a transcendent love with agape, right? Um, another kind of love of course is philia, which is friendship love. And there are different interpretations of this, right? But I'm giving us what I think might be useful for our discussion, right? So philia is a love of friendship, really important. We're going to talk a lot about friendship too, um, for the next few lectures. Eros, romantic love. So philia is a love of love. We're going to talk about that as well. Um, Storge, which is like a familial type of love. Another important thing we're going to discuss. Um, and philia, which is self-love. So different types of love. I think, you know, in English, we're a little, you know, we're a little limited. You say, I love this cheeseburger the same way you say, I love, you know, I love your mom. So we have to, I think, expand our consciousness, um, and see that these types of loves will likely have some things in common. And of course we'll definitely have things that are different, right? And I do think a lot of what we'll discuss will be both specific, but we could also work to kind of extrapolate some general principles as well about ourselves, about love in general, that might be really helpful for us across different types of love. Um, so with that kind of Greek in mind, I want to present what debutant describes. As the kind of like a ancient Greek mythological conception of love. And this is a really interesting starting point for how I hope these lectures will sort of come together and what they'll primarily discuss, right? So what debutant describes is essentially the following, right? According to ancient Greek mythology, we were all born with four arms and four legs. We were too powerful in that way of being. So the gods cut us off. We were too powerful in that way of being. So the gods cut us in half. For the rest of our lives, right? We are looking for our other half. So we, of course, search and search and search until we find our quote other half. And that's what we're looking for in love, right? So this is more of a comment, um, on eros, right? Which will be the first type of love that we will, um, have a couple lectures on. I think again, right? To an extent we can detract from some of the meaning there and also see that maybe that could work for seeing someone else as your quote other half, right? Whether it might be a sibling or a friend or something of that, uh, in that direction as well. Right. But I do think generally speaking, we want to interpret this in the context of, um, a romantic love, right? Or eros. So it's sort of like a way of conceiving of that sense of familiarity. Right. The idea of a long lost other half, right? So you were originally joined with this person. And then again, the gods came in like, no, figure it out. So we're supposed to, according to, uh, debutante's piece essays in love, um, everybody, right? We're yearning nostalgically, but we're also confused until we rejoin with this person. Right. And essentially debutante doesn't love that. And I also make a bit of interpretation here. I don't think the Stoics would love that either. Right. We, we may want to conceive of things in the following, right? Right. You are whole, you have a self that you can cultivate. So we were getting some of this ancient Greek sort of, let's say for lack of better putting me like this dramatic approach to love. Right. Again, of course, you know, the ancient Greeks known for their, um, dramas, right. Um, we sense that here and debutante shares the following. And he, I think gets to start, you know, he starts to get us thinking in this direction, right? Theorists of love have tended to, to be rightly suspicious of this fusion, right? Again, back to the idea that we were once conjoined with our significant other, and then the gods split us and we're searching until we find them again. Right. There's skepticism stemming from the sense that it's easier to impute similarity than investigate difference. We base our fall into love upon insufficient material and supplement our ignorance with desire. Okay. In the mature account of love, we should never fall at first glance. We should reserve our leap until we have completed a clear eyed investigation of the depths and nature of the waters. Only after we have undertaken, a thorough exchange of opinions. And he mentions a few really interesting topics here from parenting to art, science, the appropriate snacks to have in the kitchen. Um, I would say he's, he's kind of hinting here at general habits, beliefs, um, you know, the stuff that ultimately to a large extent, right. Kind of fills in the relationship, um, investigate this stuff before we are, as he says, quote, ready to love each other in the mature account of love. It is only when we truly know our partner, partners that love deserves the chance to grow. And yet in the perverse reality of love, love that is born precisely before we know increased knowledge may be as much as a hurdle as an inducement for it may bring utopia into dangerous conflict with reality. So I think this is the sense we get from his other works as well. He's kind of criticizing to an extent here, romanticism, right? When we look at our movies, we listen to our music army, like modern people, right? Um, again, not always the case of course. Right. But when we turn to our music, our movies, our literature, we kind of love this idea of the irrational fallen to love, love at first sight, right? We kind of glorify that. And he's saying, wait a minute, that's a problem. He's saying he's using words like investigation. It makes you think of words like research, right? It goes back to Epictetus on the power and importance of questions. So the ancient Greeks starting this, maybe with this sort of romantic, dramatic idea that we're literally cut in half, walking around like, you know, at this sort of, uh, you know, in this confused way searching, I think that Bhutan is saying to even rethink that verb, right? Maybe we're not searching for someone, right? Maybe we're creating a self and we're looking for someone else with whom we can create a life together, not at the expense of the self and definitely not at the expense of our rationality. Cause that's really what he, when he's saying investigate, he's saying practice philosophy, I think in a way here, right? As you said, right? One thing that is a staple of philosophy and we've been practicing in our meditation, um, is dialogue with the self. And then of course the practice of philosophy as dialogue with others, meaningful dialogue discourse, right? So when he's talking about opinions, he's saying, we have to really converse with people about what matters to them and make sure we're talking to them about what matters to us. So we have to figure out what matters to us back to know yourself, right? So we're moving away maybe from a conception of love. I think it's important to talk about this in our first time. Um, that is this ancient Greek love at first sight, maybe romanticism type approach and into this idea of how can philosophy, how can asking questions, how can knowing ourselves caring for ourselves, how could working to know and care for others in a way that is based on a little more rationality, not just as fall falling into love. Right. I think he might even problematize the notion of, uh, you know, falling in love in general, like because then the verb to fall. Could we walk into love? And I'm being, you know, I'm using language a little bit metaphorically here, of course, right? But he would say, wait a minute, try to fall maybe at least slower, right? Because what he's asking us here is back to prosake. He wants us to be vigilant over our own emotions, vigilant over our own thinking, and then apply that attentiveness to, in a caring and honest and respectful way, really get to know somebody. And for him, I think that's what would lead to a healthy type of love. And we're keeping in mind, too, once again, to just draw a general connection, right? And we'll see this in the second meditation. Thinkers like Seneca took friendship very seriously. So if you're going to call somebody your friend, you should also do this. Do your research. Do your investigation. Have a more mature account of love, as per de Bouton's characterization of that. To truly know people before we give love the chance to grow. This requires also a little bit of, perhaps, discipline or self-control. This requires, once again, back to philosophy, talking to our emotions. This requires learning about our history, our past, right? Learning about our beliefs, and then doing the same, perhaps, with the other person. So, opening remarks. And again, I think the next lecture will likely focus a little bit more on eros. Okay, so we're going to have some guided philosophical meditation with our chapter on relationships and love. We have a few questions, as always, a couple prompts, and then some short quotes. Hopefully get us thinking. And as always, I'll do a little bit of elaboration on the quote, depending on if I think I can offer something helpful for us. So, first question. How do you aim to impact people on a regular basis? How are you most often affected by other people's actions and words? How do you help others? Fill in the blank. On a regular basis, my speech is blank percent positive, blank percent negative. The things I value the most are my actions. The things I value the most are my actions. The things I value the most are my actions. The things I value the most are my actions. The things I value the most are my actions. The things I value in a relationship most are, and let's interpret relationship as different types of relationships, right? So, family relationships, all the examples that are within that, friendships, and we could also consider romantic relationships. My strengths in relationships are the things I need to work on in relationships are. And again, same thing as the one before that, different types of relationships. And again, same thing as the one before that, different types of relationships. And try to be specific there. For the following, think about it in this way, right? So, maybe we'll create a spectrum from never to almost constantly. I compare myself to others. And then maybe it would be frequently, infrequently, constantly, never. I think about the results of that. And also think about the reasons. When do you start to think about the reasons? When do you start to see or feel yourself comparing yourself to others? And also think about how you do that. When and how do you ask for advice? When and how do you give advice? When and how do you give advice? When and how do you ask for advice? When and how do you ask for advice? How do you express kindness? How do you express love? What are the ways you most powerfully feel loved? When and how do you ask for advice? When and how do you ask for advice? When and how do you ask for advice? When and how do you ask for advice? When and how do you ask for advice? When and how do you ask for advice? When and how do you ask for advice? When and how do you ask for advice? When and how do you ask for advice? When and how do you ask for advice? When and how do you ask for advice? When and how do you ask for advice? When and how do you ask for happiness and joy to the people you love? How do you encourage the people around you to grow? Okay, so those are a good few questions. Let's now go into some bibliotherapy. Let's now go into some bibliotherapy. So we're going to be looking at Marcus Aurelius' here from his meditations, and I'll share a few quotes with us here. Okay, first one. Stand in no need of the peace that lies in the gifts of others. So, keeping in mind, as always, that Marcus Aurelius, he's writing for himself to encourage himself to develop virtues, to live philosophically, right? So I think with this quote, we could maybe think about the difference between relying on people in a way that's excessive versus relying on people in a way that's healthy, right? So I think the key term here would be need, right? Which isn't to say necessarily that there might be instances where, you know, of course, we could think about small children. There's a need there, obviously, right? But I do think this is interesting, in regards to encouraging us to cultivate a healthy, loving relationship with ourselves so we feel complete, right? The idea of need, a very strong desire, and maybe even an excessive desire, we want to be careful of that, right? We want to maybe make sure that we're stable, you know? Which is, you know, simply to say that we can stand on our own two feet, you know, to the best of our ability, as much as we can in our daily lives, right? Which, of course, doesn't mean, and I want to be clear about this, because I think there's a lot of different, let's say, levels to this, right? Need as people, right? Especially for the ancient Greeks, you know, many of them believed we were naturally social beings. So there's a natural necessity there, of course, right? I think what Marcus is encouraging us here, you know, to really consider is how do we work within ourselves to cultivate peace, right? Such that if, to give you a very simple example, our friends can't spend time with us that week, or a relationship ends, right? Or friendship ends, for that matter, right? If we need something, or we're almost creating a deficit within ourselves by not maybe thinking about what he's saying here. We want to have healthy, peaceful relationships, of course. I think Marcus and the other Stoics might argue that by being peaceful, or let's say by cultivating the ability to be peaceful within and for ourselves, we can offer that to others more readily, more easily. Not only that, we'll be more likely to create a sustainable relationship where both people are at peace. So let's say maybe calming the storms within ourselves should always be a high priority. So when we get into relationships, we bring that healthiness into them. Yeah, relationships of all different types, right? So we could say maybe that we want to work on being, or let's say on relying on ourselves, and that really doesn't in any way mean that we shouldn't at all rely on anybody else. That's not, I don't think what he's saying here, right? We're keeping in mind for the Stoics too, as we had a little bit in previous lectures, right? They really wanted us to serve society. They really wanted us to cultivate that inner strength, right? In the face of misfortune and prepare for misfortune. And in addition to that, they needed us to be healthy members of society who treated others justly, right? So this is not at all saying, you know, go live by yourself at all, you know? But I think, again, we keep in mind, he was writing this journal, it's on a day-to-day basis. So this might've been when he felt alone. So maybe you're feeling alone right now. This can maybe shift a little bit, of that consciousness, right? There's peace within you, or at least you can make peace within yourself. So again, I think this would be a, we have to maybe give a little imagination or some context with the quotes too, from the meditations, right? So maybe he was looking for a friend and Marcus had friends, you know, family, but they just weren't there. They weren't available, right? He had to remind himself, okay, I can handle this. And I think that's a really healthy mentality. We're going to talk a little bit from the school of life on the ancient Greek mythological conception of love, right? I want to give it all a go. I don't want to give it all away here, but ultimately, you know, give you a summary. You know, we're cut in half by the gods. We're all born with four arms, four legs, and the gods cut us in half and we're searching for our other half. And the school of life, you know, Alan de Boutin's project is sort of like, okay, wait a minute. That's not really that healthy. So I think Marcus here is, you know, coming from that world a little bit, the ancient Rome, ancient Greece, that stoic influence, of course. Excuse me. And he's reminding himself, let's not take that seriously. uh perspective with the with the ancient greeks too seriously i can be peaceful than myself okay this is a great quote for those of us who might compare ourselves to others right do not wear out what we what may still be left of your life in taking thoughts of others except when your goal is the common good that's powerful to me i really like this one a lot try to be serving the common good that's the only thing we should really think about right we could you know comparing ourselves to others clearly still go you know was going on thousands of years ago too that's not a new thing we might do it more now one might argue for various reasons right but ultimately i mean this is great simple powerful once again i imagine him getting caught up comparing himself to maybe another emperor or even to just a friend or you know to even just someone who he saw out walking around rome right for whatever reason and he reminded himself if i'm going to sit here and compare myself to people and either make myself feel bad because i'm at some kind of deficit or make myself feel good because i'm somehow winning in this imaginary competition neither of those is really healthy what is healthy is trying to be helpful thinking about the common good and the way i compare myself to others right what can i learn from people maybe what can i offer people that could be good those are the questions we want to focus on and this is another great quote in regards to in regards to comparing ourselves to others from marcus here for why neglect your proper duty in marveling what this person is doing and why what they are saying thinking and devising and in all the vain imaginings that divert us from the guiding principle within so again he's not saying don't be a part of society but the key here is the idea of a vain imagining and think about how imaginary so much of our modern ability to compare ourselves to people really is yes this is sort of a reference to social media for example just you know one part of social media i think one of the unhealthy parts among others that could be unhealthy or i even think to some degree social media could be a positive experience of course i'm open to hearing and learning more about that um and i stand by what i just said i think you can have a positive experience on social media um that being said right so much of that is imaginary and that's you know we're very aware of that now i think culturally but we don't necessarily maybe live with that consciousness and apply it so we do allow ourselves to be distracted right so i'm marveling at what this person is doing and why we're inventing first of all we're inventing the why more than likely right what other people are thinking and devising you're not gonna know that either so that's totally imaginary marveling what they're doing yeah let's say for example the photo might show them doing something but ultimately right to return back to the guiding principle within so that we could serve the common good so we could feel good about ourselves right that's what we should be focusing on and this is i think for me also very practical right how much of your time do you spend comparing yourselves to others in whatever way how do we maybe you know as we've said focus on the quantity decreasing your time using certain apps or decreasing your time thinking about certain things or i mean these are all really good examples of practices that come from number four next one it is our duty to have these two principles of action ever in readiness one to do nothing but what is dictated on behalf of the common good really big idea for marcus obviously right the other to be prepared to change our ground if there be found someone who can correct an opinion of ours and point to another way to a better way i mean the second part of this too i think is huge in relationships we need to be prepared to change our ground if there be found someone who can correct an opinion of ours if you cultivate that type of openness once again family friendship a relationship with a significant other right that willingness to be corrected and at the very least the willingness to hear their argument honestly attentively right not with um let's say malice right but to open ourselves up to that because one of the other questions that we didn't have that i was going to say for the next one how do you respond when someone corrects you or when someone gives you criticism or constructive criticism we want to get good at that we're going to see it at the heart of the conversation we're going to see it at the heart of the conversation we're going to see it at the heart of the conversation we're going to see it at the heart of the conversation we're going to see it at the heart of the conversation we're going to see it at the heart of the conversation we're going to see it at the heart of the conversation we're going to see it at the heart of the conversation we're going to see it at the heart of the conversation we're going to see at the heart of relationships for the at the heart of the conversation we're going to see it at the heart of the conversation we're going to see at the heart of relationships for the school of life in one of the essays at the heart of the conversation we're going to see it at the heart of the conversation we're going to see at the heart of relationships for the school of life in one of the essays is the fact that we have to teach and learn is the fact that we have to teach and learn from each other and with each other in from each other and with each other in relationships that's a tremendously relationships that's a tremendously healthy part of a relationship healthy part of a relationship again i think it's healthy as long as the uh again i think it's healthy as long as the uh let's say the intentions are goodness healthy part of a relationship again i think it's healthy as long as the uh let's say the intentions are goodness and to a degree largest i think it's almost and to a degree largest i think it's almost inevitable we could argue inevitable we could argue inevitable we could argue that when we have long-standing that when we have long-standing that when we have long-standing friendships family relationships or even friendships family relationships or even friendships family relationships or even you know relationships that you know relationships that you know relationships that might not be all that long-standing right might not be all that long-standing right might not be all that long-standing right sometimes we meet people we click and we sometimes we meet people we click and we sometimes we meet people we click and we almost immediately start teaching and almost immediately start teaching and almost immediately start teaching and learning from each other learning from each other learning from each other we'll get more into that in the meditation we'll get more into that in the meditation we'll get more into that in the meditation that's that's that's kind of revolves around friendship a kind of revolves around friendship a kind of revolves around friendship a little bit more little bit more little bit more but the idea here that we want to but the idea here that we want to but the idea here that we want to cultivate that posture of openness cultivate that posture of openness cultivate that posture of openness that's a hugely important part of what that's a hugely important part of what that's a hugely important part of what it means to be in healthy relationships it means to be in healthy relationships it means to be in healthy relationships not being closed off to the fact that not being closed off to the fact that not being closed off to the fact that the people around us the people around us the people around us the stoics marx really especially we're the stoics marx really especially we're the stoics marx really especially we're all woven in together all woven in together all woven in together we have to think about the common good quick one here think it no shame to quick one here think it no shame to quick one here think it no shame to accept help marcus too i think you know was big on marcus too i think you know was big on marcus too i think you know was big on the idea of asking for help the idea of asking for help the idea of asking for help having advisors right as an emperor he having advisors right as an emperor he having advisors right as an emperor he was was was i think you know based on my research i think you know based on my research i think you know based on my research from him or on him from pierre hadot from him or on him from pierre hadot from him or on him from pierre hadot he had people he would turn to teachers he had people he would turn to teachers he had people he would turn to teachers friends family members philosophers and friends family members philosophers and friends family members philosophers and it was a regular part of his existence it was a regular part of his existence it was a regular part of his existence right he he welcomed it or at least right he he welcomed it or at least right he he welcomed it or at least seemingly he welcomed it right seemingly he welcomed it right seemingly he welcomed it right once again how would life be a little once again how would life be a little once again how would life be a little different for you maybe if you different for you maybe if you different for you maybe if you remove some of the shame perhaps of remove some of the shame perhaps of remove some of the shame perhaps of accepting help accepting help doesn't accepting help accepting help doesn't accepting help accepting help doesn't make you know that doesn't mean you're make you know that doesn't mean you're make you know that doesn't mean you're weak right and i think what's really great too right and i think what's really great too right and i think what's really great too is sometimes when you is sometimes when you is sometimes when you allow or you ask someone to help you allow or you ask someone to help you allow or you ask someone to help you like you kind of feel like you know you like you kind of feel like you know you like you kind of feel like you know you have an obligation towards them and have an obligation towards them and have an obligation towards them and that's that can be really healthy i that's that can be really healthy i that's that can be really healthy i think right having a series of think right having a series of think right having a series of obligations obligations obligations um amongst you know the people that um amongst you know the people that um amongst you know the people that we're around like you want you want to we're around like you want you want to we're around like you want you want to feel a good sense of obligation to feel a good sense of obligation to feel a good sense of obligation to people oh i'm gonna reciprocate you people oh i'm gonna reciprocate you people oh i'm gonna reciprocate you know something as simple as you know know something as simple as you know know something as simple as you know having someone over for dinner i think having someone over for dinner i think having someone over for dinner i think like you could sustain whole like you could sustain whole like you could sustain whole relationships like that relationships like that relationships like that so opening ourselves up like asking for so opening ourselves up like asking for so opening ourselves up like asking for help and then also giving and receiving help and then also giving and receiving help and then also giving and receiving help i think is just a healthy thing to help i think is just a healthy thing to help i think is just a healthy thing to um you know cultivate in our um you know cultivate in our um you know cultivate in our relationships and back to this once again have i done and back to this once again have i done and back to this once again have i done an act that benefits the community an act that benefits the community an act that benefits the community then i have received my reward so for then i have received my reward so for then i have received my reward so for me this is you know really profoundly me this is you know really profoundly me this is you know really profoundly connected to connected to connected to relationships once again right the self relationships once again right the self relationships once again right the self the person who is selfless the person who is selfless the person who is selfless or let's say who knows how to be or let's say who knows how to be or let's say who knows how to be selfless in a healthy way i think is selfless in a healthy way i think is selfless in a healthy way i think is someone we admire someone we admire someone we admire right so we all need a self so i think right so we all need a self so i think right so we all need a self so i think complete selflessness complete selflessness complete selflessness is is not a good idea that maybe is is not a good idea that maybe we shouldn't you know i would even say to we shouldn't you know i would even say to we shouldn't you know i would even say to be very hesitant be very hesitant be very hesitant um with even making that your goal right um with even making that your goal right um with even making that your goal right i would say you need to have a self i would say you need to have a self i would say you need to have a self to be selfless in a way that is to be selfless in a way that is to be selfless in a way that is balanced i think it's a really good idea balanced i think it's a really good idea balanced i think it's a really good idea so why do i mention this well i think so why do i mention this well i think so why do i mention this well i think ultimately what ultimately what ultimately what kind of times plague a relationship and kind of times plague a relationship and kind of times plague a relationship and this is again all different types of this is again all different types of this is again all different types of relationships relationships relationships um would it be that every time you do um would it be that every time you do um would it be that every time you do something good for somebody something good for somebody something good for somebody you then need them to kind of not you then need them to kind of not you then need them to kind of not necessarily counter my last point but to necessarily counter my last point but to necessarily counter my last point but to i think actually connect with it in i think actually connect with it in i think actually connect with it in regards to the importance of balance regards to the importance of balance regards to the importance of balance here right here right here right um you should do good things for the um you should do good things for the um you should do good things for the people you love just because they're good people you love just because they're good people you love just because they're good things things things and that should give you as he's saying and that should give you as he's saying and that should give you as he's saying here a sense of joy here a sense of joy here a sense of joy now of course if we want to sustain now of course if we want to sustain now of course if we want to sustain relationships we want to sustain relationships we want to sustain relationships we want to sustain communities communities communities right a degree of um right a degree of um right a degree of um reciprocation i think reciprocation i think reciprocation i think is healthy is healthy is healthy we could think about for a moment i mean we could think about for a moment i mean we could think about for a moment i mean any relationship right i mean it any relationship right i mean it any relationship right i mean it shouldn't be one-sided shouldn't be one-sided shouldn't be one-sided a one-sided friendship is not a healthy a one-sided friendship is not a healthy a one-sided friendship is not a healthy friendship a one-sided romantic friendship a one-sided romantic friendship a one-sided romantic relationship relationship relationship a one-sided sibling relationship and i you a one-sided sibling relationship and i you a one-sided sibling relationship and i you know we'll all have different know we'll all have different know we'll all have different definitions of that of course definitions of that of course definitions of that of course um which is why we as always examine um which is why we as always examine ourselves what we're what we're offering ourselves what we're what we're offering ourselves what we're what we're offering our intentions how they're being our intentions how they're being our intentions how they're being um actualized and how what we offer is um actualized and how what we offer is um actualized and how what we offer is being received being received being received very important stuff right and of course very important stuff right and of course very important stuff right and of course we want to reflect on we want to reflect on we want to reflect on what we seem to be um receiving right what we seem to be um receiving right what we seem to be um receiving right what we feel the world our what we feel the world our what we feel the world our relationships um is offering us it's relationships um is offering us it's relationships um is offering us it's also very important right also very important right also very important right that being said i think if we were to that being said i think if we were to that being said i think if we were to accept the fact that marcus is accept the fact that marcus is accept the fact that marcus is presenting here that look when i do a presenting here that look when i do a presenting here that look when i do a good thing i feel good about it that's good thing i feel good about it that's good thing i feel good about it that's my reward my reward my reward it's not even necessarily to say that it's not even necessarily to say that it's not even necessarily to say that the other person or group of people has the other person or group of people has the other person or group of people has to do nothing it means you feel good to do nothing it means you feel good like this is to me this is just a win like this is to me this is just a win like this is to me this is just a win you know in terms of ethical you know in terms of ethical you know in terms of ethical self-cultivation and moral development self-cultivation and moral development self-cultivation and moral development right wouldn't it be great if you just right wouldn't it be great if you just right wouldn't it be great if you just did a good thing and allowed yourself to did a good thing and allowed yourself to did a good thing and allowed yourself to feel good about that feel good about that feel good about that um again not getting rid of all standards um again not getting rid of all standards um again not getting rid of all standards for reciprocation for reciprocation for reciprocation but just at least to some degree but just at least to some degree that makes sure we now maybe heighten that that makes sure we now maybe heighten that that makes sure we now maybe heighten that consciousness and are more grateful consciousness and are more grateful consciousness and are more grateful towards them maybe do towards them maybe do towards them maybe do more for them and if we're those people more for them and if we're those people more for them and if we're those people too you know we we can too you know we we can too you know we we can maybe use this quote to comfort us a bit maybe use this quote to comfort us a bit maybe use this quote to comfort us a bit and also you know use philosophy to work and also you know use philosophy to work and also you know use philosophy to work on encouraging people to treat us the way on encouraging people to treat us the way on encouraging people to treat us the way we like to be treated and we're constantly in a state of wanting our friends to do certain things right and what also I think is interesting and this is a very I think a simple example but it works to an extent is like people don't sign contracts so I think of some friendships I had where I would constantly be driving people and eventually I got frustrated because nobody was really picking me up nobody was really coming and this was a situation where I was driving constantly from the Bronx to Queens and that's fine I'll come pick everybody up that's cool it's fine but I ended up getting frustrated with my friends and I realized you know what I should be frustrated with myself I'm doing something good for my friends they didn't ask me I was always volunteering right yeah I mean would a drink be nice yes okay but anyway the point is they didn't sign a contract that every time I drive five times somebody buys me a drink and I realized I wasn't being fair to them so I think this quote was big for me you know what I'm doing a good thing let me just feel good about it I think I'm a good person I'm a good person I'm a good person I'm a good friend I should take pride in that and be happy with that but also I ended up you know calmly and kindly telling them after I had that first realization like look I'm driving a lot and I understand you know no one asked me to do that but could we and we had a great conversation about it I was like you know but could we maybe hang out a little more in the Bronx can we maybe have other people driving you know it was a great group of friends we had and I'm glad I sort of realized you know what no one asked me to do this and it's a good thing that I'm doing it but I'm just doing it too much and I'm expecting them to respond in a way that isn't really fair and you know once again I communicate the expectation calmly and clearly after I had that conversation with myself instead of getting angry which leads me to my final quote from Marcus Aurelius which I think is a great one be healthy in word are your words healthy in your relationships and we keep in mind that when you talk you're also listening to yourself talking you hear your words when you speak right and that's important too so we talked a lot about in the past lectures about self-writing well what is your speaking like on a regular basis a positive is a negative how do you talk about yourself we want to be vigilant over that and in addition to that let's again make it social to a greater extent right to the people around you right do they practice this are they healthy in word or are they unhealthy in word how may you encourage them to develop cultivate a little more healthiness in the way they speak and by this I mean you know mainly like a positive negative when we when we come together the unfortunate reality is sometimes we like to commiserate that's one of my favorite words not because I like it but because I think it's a cool word right co misery eight we're in misery together right unfortunately I don't know why we have this as a cliche but you know misery needs company you don't have to be there all the time you don't have to be a part of that company and of course some venting some commiserating is necessary right I'm just saying if the majority of your day is spent in using your words negatively we might want to reevaluate that there's power right words are powerful we have to think about these things how we use words and how others use words it's very important for our relationships how could we say positive things more often thank you I appreciate you I love you and mean them all right so after that brief introduction we are now going to have a lecture on the essay self-love from the school of life so the school of life ultimately to quickly give us a sermon before we move into the essay more specifically they encourage us to acknowledge the power and importance of our inner voices we have to think about the sources of these voices how you know we might characterize them and how we might understand the importance of that and then ways that we might be able to change some of these inner voices because for the school of life these inner voices we could even say these internal judges really impact our degree and level of self-love for the school of life within all of us there sits a judge can this judge really impacts the way we view ourselves and of course the way we view ourselves impacts what we feel about ourselves okay this judge for the school of life is in charge of what we might call self-esteem right the origins of this voice or these you know these voices is really important to understand right ultimately for the school of life they think that we're internalizing or we have internalized external voices external judges that may have come from caregivers during our childhood they may have come during formative moments with people around us right and a lot of the time unfortunately these voices these judges do not represent anything like our best insights or our most mature and healthiest capacities right so ultimately we adopt these external voices we make them our own and often perhaps if we struggle with self-love if we feel like we're lacking in self-love these voices these judges are not going to be positive right they're not going to be accurate they're not going to be truthful or just and ultimately they come from the sort of imperceptible adoption that we've committed right once again from external to internal okay we take these voices in because at certain key moments in the past they sounded so compelling and or irresistible right they might have come from an authority figure of some kind these messages might have even been repeated quite often right so they've sort of become let's say lodged into our ways of thinking and this is really important right these these ways of thinking will be ways of thinking about ourselves ways that we then view the world right so we want to confront this idea of the inner voice and the inner judge and really i think ask a couple key questions right this is right from the school of life generally speaking and we could even think about this in terms of percentages right is your inner judge kind or is it really punishing what percent of your inner voice of your inner dialogue in terms of you judging yourself um is let's say kind or punishing now we can keep in mind here kind doesn't mean that you necessarily let's say aren't scrutinizing yourself you can scrutinize yourself kindly so keep that in mind right when we say punishing we want to make that let's say um the unnecessary degree of pressure and judgment right so maybe another way to look at this would be when are you going from scrutiny into unnecessary punishment and we could also even just keep it more general right what percentage of this idea of the inner judge the way you view yourself the stories you tell about yourself because we're all doing that right what percentage of those stories that is positive what percentage is negative and we can even get more specific right what percentage of those stories are true what percentage are kind of false or based on something that's um let's say from our past that we're carrying with us that doesn't really apply to our current life right because a large part of what we're going to be examining with this first section right or what i hope this calls to mind is we want to start really going into our past a little bit here examining our past if we're saying that we've internalized voices from our formative years or let's say during our childhood as a result of certain interactions with you know various caregivers and or environments we have to spend time with this why am i kind of hard on myself well did i maybe see someone um let's say demonstrating that behavior for me with did i grow up around people who are really hard on themselves or was maybe one of my caregivers kind of hard on me were they a little tough on me and how could this impact the way i now view myself and how could this affect the way i now view myself do i feel like i'm never doing enough where could that have come from right what what maybe do we have difficulty doing what do we make ourselves feel bad about right maybe when we succeed we tell ourselves certain things when we do something that we think is a little bit stupid we tell ourselves certain things when we're feeling energetic when we're feeling lazy right we want to touch down on these um on these moments on these feelings on these thoughts and then see what the inner voice has to say about them right what are we usually telling ourselves about these things about these ways of being about these emotions about these responses right and we want to once again get down to the to the best of our ability to the to the origin of these voices why might i be uncomfortable when i'm feeling angry instead of just allowing myself to feel angry and then of course you know control it work to understand it see if it's righteous anger see if it's selfish anger you know why do i have to have you know i have to be uncomfortable when i'm feeling angry let's say why do i get angry about being angry instead of just allowing myself to to grapple with the emotion right what does my inner voice say when i feel like i'm getting angry again just just one example right um i for example have realized that when i succeeded something i usually tell myself congratulations and move on very quickly um and i even will sometimes when i succeed i'll make myself feel like i could have done better before i even congratulate myself so that's for example one thing i've really learned to examine right because i grew up let's say in an environment where where it was always, you know, you know, very goal oriented, which can seem virtuous, but when it's excessive, it's sort of not that much fun. And also it, it isn't all that healthy, right? Just as an example, right? So on that note of kind of me just for a moment, they're diving into my past. I want to highlight a couple other ideas from this article that I actually encountered in my work as a graduate student that I think is very interesting. It's called Picking Wildflowers and Orchids, Attachment Theory and the Implications for Adult Education. And it's by Dr. Ted Fleming. So basically, and I'm going to give a very brief excerpt here, but I do think it's useful for a conversation about locating inner voices, seeing, you know, where they're from and working to examine them in a way that's meaningful and helpful. So basically this, to briefly summarize it, this essay is about attachment theory, right? So they define attachment as the process whereby individuals, and I'm not going to go into too much detail here, but they define attachment as the process whereby individuals, and I'm not going to go into too much detail here, but they define attachment as the process whereby individuals, and I'm not going to go into too much detail here, infants and young children develop deep confidence in their caregiver's protection. And this enduring tie provides security. The child's experience of attachment strongly influences subsequent reactions to stress, to relationships, self-esteem, sense of security, and identity, right? So basically we create models and ways of thinking, feeling, ways of being in the world as a result of this process that's taking place during infancy and early childhood, right? So we're experiencing very important development during this time period that affects, as the quote just said, right, a number of really important things that we carry with us in regards to self-love and in regards to how we view the world and in regards to how we get into loving relationships in our adulthood. So it is, I think, a very meaningful exercise to think about those early memories with caregivers. Right, because those were times where we were crafting internal working models, right, that, once again, do impact the way we attach to our others and also attach to ourselves in the sense of, like, which voice we attach to, which voice we return to most frequently, which voice we promote in adulthood, right? So as the article continues to say, right, patterns established in childhood endure into adulthood and tend to structure the way we interact and relate. Okay, attachment style and behaviors persist through life and undergo developmental transformation. Adult attachments are linked to one's own childhood during which internal working models were constructed and, in turn, influence one's own parenting behavior and ability to create secure attachments. So I want to add to this, and this is really the point I wanted to use from this essay, right? We are not stuck with those voices. We are not stuck with those patterns of attachment. We are not stuck with those models only. Okay, so as the article shares, internal working models can be revised in the light of experience. Okay, but they are not always or indeed easily accessible to conscious examination and change because they were laid down early in the child's development. The attachment orientations of caregivers or adults influence their attachments with their infants and children, and the parents' attachment style is influenced by their parents' attachments with their infants and children. In this way transmitted, right? So keep that in mind. I like to view that somewhat as a starting point. And the better we know where we might be starting off, again, the more details we have about our engagement with caregivers during formative years in our childhood, the more we're able to see, let's say, how and why we might want to work through philosophy, for example, to try and shape ourselves. Right? So my example, again, I grew up, you know, I was mostly, especially in my early childhood, raised by my mother, and she's a highly motivated, very goal-oriented person. And as I said, that's, I think, generally a positive thing. That being said, it does come with the need to, in my opinion, right, learn how to not be excessively goal-oriented such that when I succeed, I don't even tell myself that I succeeded. Right. So me learning a little bit more about even just what I observed. My mother, you know, raised me and my sister, incredibly hardworking person. She was working full-time while she was getting her PhD, right, and raising us. So for me, I witnessed someone who was very driven in a literal sense, this is a specific memory, like almost jogging around the house, getting us ready, right, preparing us for school, picking us up, you know, working late at night. So for me, I think early formative memories, and this is someone who I always loved, admired, someone who always loved me, took very good care of me. I started to attach this hardworking, okay, what's next mentality to virtue, which again, in a sense, I think it is. But like all virtues, if we're to take an Aristotelian approach, they have to be, you know, at least somewhat balanced, right? So I've had to learn how to, within myself, balance this inclination, right? So just, I'm hoping this example is kind of illustrating the point of going back, finding, you know, who our caregivers might have been, learning how they may have impacted us, and then how that might imply or have implications on the way we view ourselves today, right? So it's not all that, the way I deal with my own success is not all that loving, because I don't allow myself to have a moment of congratulations, really, right? Or I really cut that incredibly short, because I feel like being driven to the next thing is the virtuous thing to do, always. Right? So this essay offers a very interesting critique, a whole section of critiques. And this is what I want to highlight, because I think it's optimistic, and I also agree with it, right? So one of the main criticisms of attachment theory concerns the idea that infant experiences determine adult behavior. Research confirms that there is considerable scope for later change in attachment style, but also points to a strong link between child and adult attachment. The word determined is not optimal, but early experiences make a unique contribution to adulthood. Change is always possible, but it's constrained by previous adaptations. So I like this remark, and this is, you know, this is something I'm, you know, I'm still learning about now in my class, in all honesty. But I like the, this to me feels balanced, right? So for me to say that I 100% agree, or that I've done, you know, an immense amount of research to support or deny this claim is not what I'm saying. That being said, I do think for our conversation today, this is a useful approach to take, and one that I agree with for the purposes of this conversation, right? Because again, the word to determine is what's really in question in this short excerpt, right? We are not necessarily, we may argue, right? And again, I think it's useful for the rest of this essay that I'm going to explain. We might want to think that we're not 100% determined by our early experiences or childhood caregivers. But it also might be naive to think that we're not influenced by them at all, right? So I think the balanced approach is, or let's say this excerpt, I think, presents a pretty balanced approach to how and why we might want to consider the importance, return to our memories, right? That we get from our childhood, while keeping in mind that we are capable of change, right? In regards to the ways that those experiences in our childhood might impact us, right? Which I mentioned earlier from the previous excerpts. And I really do think self-love falls into this category, right? So we might even want to say, you know what? The way I practice self-love might be influenced by my early experiences or some formative experiences during my childhood. And I think we might even argue that, and this is a bit of an additional point, right? I would say that, of course, if we've had past experiences in romantic relationships, those experiences in a somewhat similar way impact the way we love ourselves and impact the way we might view friendships in the future or romantic relationships in the future as well. And I would even say the same thing goes for family relationships, right? So this idea of the relationship between child and caregiver or caregivers is very important, right? And I also think an examination of how we might have experienced love in other contexts, of course, is a very important thing to sit down maybe in a self-writing session and examine, right? Our past relationships, our past romantic relationships, our past friendships, what were some patterns, what were some negative patterns, what were some positive patterns, what might we aim to change, right? So it's very interesting questions. And I think these questions all really revolve around, to some extent, this idea of the inner voice, right? Because that inner voice that we've adopted might have been a friend in the past. Again, might have been a caregiver in childhood, might have been a caregiver in childhood, might have been a caregiver in childhood, might have been a former significant other. And we have to be very cautious about what we adopt and what we internalize. And I think that's what this first section of the essay really calls into question. It also really calls to our attention very meaningfully, right? What do our inner judges and voices say most frequently? And once again, characterize them. Is it more punishing or is it more kind, right? And then, of course, whose outer voice became our inner voice? Thank you. So why bother thinking about what the inner judge, what the inner voice might be saying? Right? So the second part of this essay really elaborates nicely on that idea, right? And basically, you know, why the inner voice matters. So I'm going to read a little bit from the essay here. I think they do a great job of explaining it. And again, this voice that we've talked about already will affect our self-esteem, our view of ourself, our ability to be in relationships, and of course, our ability to love ourselves, right? So afflicted by a lack of self-love, romantic relationships become almost impossible. For one of the central requirements of a capacity to accept the love of another turns out to be a confident degree of affection for ourselves, built up over the years, largely in childhood. So we return to that idea a little bit here, right? So largely does not mean, totally, of course, right? We're keeping that in mind. We need a legacy of feeling that we, in some basic way, deserve love in order not to respond obtusely to affections granted to us by prospective adult partners. Now, we need a legacy. He already mentions childhood, right? Well, we can start, again, in light of especially what I offered a few moments ago from the other article, right? We can start a legacy. We can revise how we view our current legacy, to make it more truthful, to make it more helpful, right? To make it more accurate. We can help ourselves to understand that we do deserve love, right? We can add to that legacy. So keep that in mind, too. Back to the essay a little bit. Without a decent amount of self-love, the kindness of another will always strike us as misguided or fake, even as strangely insulting, for it suggests that they haven't even begun to understand us. So do we. We can add to that legacy. So keep that in mind, too. Back to the essay a little bit. No different are our relative assessments of what we happen to deserve. We end up self-destructively, though unconsciously, disappointing the intolerable, unfamiliar love that has been offered to us by someone who clearly has no clue who we are. So we don't even want to tolerate the love, right? So this is a great idea. If you want to be in loving relationships, and he may, I think, be referring here more so to romantic relationships, but I also think this goes, some of these ideas work, the idea of pursuing friendships and being in friendships as well, right? We have to re-evaluate, perhaps, again, these voices. We're going to get how to change the voices. One of them is going to be to add a new voice, and we'll talk about how to do that in a minute, right? But ultimately, we have to see there's a lot at stake here. If we don't take these ideas seriously, if we don't take the notion that we have to go back, as we talked about in our first section of this lecture, you know, if we don't take those exercise ideas seriously, those practices seriously, we might be running the risk of never fully and authentically opening ourselves up to loving others and to being loved by others. And that's not any way to live, right? We want to make sure that we are able to cultivate a healthy sense of ourselves and a healthy sense of what we are striving for in our relationships. Right? It's okay to work on these things, right? He says, self-love seems connected up with narcissism, vanity, selfishness, and a blindness to the needs of others. But that's not really true, right? We're not in danger of becoming narcissists, right? In fact, he says, we're more so, you know, we have a tendency more so to be really unfairly and deeply hostile to ourselves, right? We have the exhaustive habit of taking stock of our failures, of refusing to forgive ourselves, and of being suspicious of anyone strange enough to think well of us. And they add, which I think is a great point, if we saw someone else treating us the way most of us treat ourselves, we might think them really cruel, right? And we seek partners who will do us the favor of not thinking any better of ourselves. I'm sorry, thinking any better of us than we think of ourselves. If we are not modestly but genuinely convinced of our own lovability, receiving affection will just simply feel like being bestowed a prize for an accomplishment that we haven't ever earned. Okay, without the sufficient ballast or supportive self-love, we will go on to reject positive treatment across a range of areas, offers of praise in the professional context. All of these things will set off an alarm. We will mess up interviews, we will sabotage our work opportunities, right? And grow strange and rude around possible new friends in attempts to bring our outer reality back into line with our inner assessments of ourselves, right? So this inability, or let's say our lack of willingness or discipline to sit with other people's voices, characterize them, understand them, could lead to some really detrimental things. Right? So that's the why right there. That should really encourage us. You want to have a healthy relationship with your significant other, maybe some of the problems are arising from a lack of self-love. And maybe not, of course, right? But ultimately, it really warrants considering. And then we have the final section of this, which I think also connects nicely to the why, because the why kind of is in the middle here, right? So why should we bother thinking about the voices? That's why. Well, then we have to maybe think about why we should change some of these voices. And this is also a little bit about how we can change the voices. Okay, we have to learn to be better judges of ourselves. It doesn't mean that we should not judge ourselves. That's a bad idea, right? But again, we could judge ourselves kindly, more accurately, more honestly, more justly, and that's really important. So part of improving how we judge ourselves involves learning in a conscious, deliberate way to speak to ourselves in a new and different way, which means exposing ourselves to better voices. We need to hear constructive, kindly voices, often enough, and around tricky enough issues that they come to feel like normal and natural responses, so that eventually they become our own thoughts. So this is where, of course, I'm going to suggest some self-writing, as I pretty much always do, right? Hard to think about thoughts. It's very hard to change thoughts. It's possible, of course. But I think self-writing practices where we sit with the following ideas are really a good idea, are really good practices, okay? One approach to the following, right, which is to say, to changing the voice and adopting a voice that we can turn to more frequently that will then shape the way we view ourselves and judge ourselves, is to identify a nice voice we heard in the past and give it more scope. That's a great self-writing prompt, right? Who encouraged me in the past? Who maybe offered me some criticism but did it in a way that was kind, in a way that was patient, in a way that was loving? Write about it, right? And then we can start promoting it, right? So instead of promoting a punitive, critical voice, this new voice that we go back into our past, identify, and discuss can represent a calm, understanding way of addressing failings. We could try to focus on this kind of supportive approach and summon it on a regular basis, rather than waiting for it to pop, as it rarely does, into our heads. We can deliberately nurture and train it. This could also revolve around something else that's suggested with the practice, right? Why put a photo up? Well, maybe the person in the photo is this voice for you. So when you leave your apartment in the morning, when you're going to work, whatever, you can look at this photo and you're reminded of their voice, what they offered to you, right? And we can actively rehearse to ourselves the words of consolation they would most likely have offered us, right? This also goes back to the practice maybe of thinking about family mantras or mantras from our friendships. Right? These phrases that we can, you know, connect to people. So again, for me, my example, I think I offered was with my papu, who was someone who was definitely, you know, my grandfather definitely was a caregiver and someone who definitely impacted me in positive ways in the ways that this article is discussing right now. And that phrase I have from him is siga siga, which is a Greek phrase meaning little by little, right? So when I think of that phrase, I don't care, right? What he wanted for me, how I admire and love him, right? So these are all really good ideas, I think. Whether it's a photo or the mantra or the self-writing, right? And then we train. We train ourselves to connect to this person in this voice that then helps us feel better about ourselves. And or it helps us grow because sometimes I think we might even have a voice entirely positive. But again, we're sticking to this distinction between like really excessively punishing and scrutinizing ourselves with some kindness, right? Because some of that voice too might come in the form of encouragement that we need to change some of our ways of thinking, seeing, feeling, acting, right? Those are good things too, right? The other strategy for changing the voices in our heads is to try to become an imaginary friend to ourselves. And this part of the essay is great because he really starts to characterize what a good friend is. is, right? A friend doesn't forget that we're doing some things right, even when we're messing up. A friend generally likes us the way we are. And of course, a real friend, in my opinion, wants the best for us. And they understand that sometimes we'll require that they correct us, but they do so in a friendly way, right? We talked a little bit earlier about how, you know, we could almost, you know, when comparing the way we talk to a friend to the way we talk to ourselves, we might really have to consider, are we being cruel to ourselves, right? How would I say this to a friend? How would a friend discuss this with me right now? And back to self-writing for a minute, I may have already mentioned this, right? But this is where in the self-writing, you might want to use the word you, like you're talking to yourself, get into that voice as if you're talking to a friend. Another thing to adopt, maybe it might even be a, you know, a third person talk, you know, write your own name a little bit, like a note to yourself, right? That might encourage us to adopt more of a friendly voice. Right? So a friend thinks we're good enough already, but they want to join forces with us to help, to solve a challenge that we might be facing. Okay. The good friend is compassionate. Right? So we need to maybe, and this is, you know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. A little bit of a meta conversation, right? Back to some initial points, right? We have to break with our habits of mind. Okay. We have to break with the habits of mind that are really punitive about our failures, that are really punitive even about our successes. Because to constantly be punishing ourselves, of course, is going to detract from our self-love, right? And then when things go wrong, and this is another great part of the essay, we maybe should give ourselves a little bit more compassion as a friend would, right? And make some space for self-pity. Of course, don't live there permanently or don't feel self-pity so intensely that it becomes a prolonged state of sadness or, you know, of awfulness. But ultimately, I think sometimes we deserve a little pity. And this is something that the essay raises, right? A point the essay raises. Okay. We have to train ourselves a little bit to have a healthy relationship with self-pity. We have to train ourselves a little bit to have a healthy relationship with self-pity. And then when things go wrong, and this is another great part of the essay, we maybe should give ourselves a little bit more compassion as a friend would, right? To have a healthy relationship with self-pity. So we make space for it. Not that we succumb to it, right? But the essay really nicely, I think, says self-pity is compassion we extend to ourselves. A more mature aspect of the self turns to the weak and lost part of the psyche and comforts them. It tells them it understands. Okay. It allows for a while, right? A bit of, let's say, maybe immaturity, because that's what's going on in the moment. And that's what those feelings, kind of are, right? To be, let's say, the way the essay talks about it, right, is to maybe be upset about a small thing. Especially in light of larger suffering, it seems a little bit ridiculous, right? But giving a little space for that ridiculousness might not be a bad idea. Right? To give ourselves a little space for that, I think, is ultimately what the essay is suggesting. Because if you don't let yourself ever sweat the small, right? There's a lot of small stuff to sweat that's going to happen in life. And again, it goes back to this idea of are you just constantly punishing yourself and not being compassionate with yourself? So self-pity is, again, as he's saying here, an opportunity to practice, again, as long as it's within balance, I think, or within reason, right? A little bit of self-pity isn't the worst thing in the world. To think of how there's larger suffering in the world, I think, also can be useful, right? But that's when we should move on. And think for a moment, this works really nicely with the friendship thing, right? And I think that's when we should move on. And I think for a moment, this works really nicely with the friendship thing, right? Typically, if you're talking to a friend that you care about, and they're sort of, you know, again, sweating the small stuff, you don't immediately tell them to get over it, right? You don't immediately say, all right, people have it worse, get over it. You wouldn't do that. That would come across as kind of rude, right? And yet, again, we have a tendency to do that to ourselves. So make a little room for that. Again, as if you were talking to a friend, I think, is the takeaway with that. And the final suggestion for changing the inner voice, I think, this, I think, is probably my favorite, is to create friendlier expectations for yourself. Right? What he describes ultimately here is that we should maybe seek to be good enough. Okay? Because if you're someone who's especially hard on yourself, and you're always failing to live up to some ideal standard, we have to shift that to increase our self-love. Always feeling like you're falling short of some ideal standard is not going to help you feel confident. It's not going to help you develop self-esteem, and it's not going to help you even interact with the plan a lot of the time, right? So he's talking about Donald Winnicott, right? Psychoanalyst. And he was doing work with parents who were kind of obsessively trying to be the ideal parents. And ultimately, it was making them really anxious, really stressed, such that like their kids, you know, it wasn't even fun for anybody to be together because they were so obsessively trying to be this ideal parent that their emotional states were affected negatively, and they ended up being, you know, parents that were kind of tough to deal with. So when he said, like, look, just try to be good enough, instead of trying to be ideal, he was seeking to provide the parents with a more sane, balanced, and appreciative inner voice that could be fair to their great efforts, right? The efforts they were really making, we have to be fair with that, right? Our great efforts. We have to acknowledge that. And we have to be more forgiving to the inevitable mistakes. Okay, there's a terrible irony at the heart, of a punishing inner voice. It says it's trying to make us better, but actually the burden of being constantly criticized from the inside has the opposite effect. It's a great point that the essay pretty much ends on, right? It's ironic. Even back to my initial example, I'm kind of seeing this now, right? It's, you succeed and you make yourself feel like you didn't. So it's a very strange, if we don't learn to control these inner voices that we'll create within ourselves. Again, not conducive to love, that's self-love. And then obviously, as we talked about too, about why we should care, it's, it's both ethical. We want to feel good about ourselves, right? And, you know, we want to make sure we're being truthful and just and, you know, in our examination there, right? Of course. But also there's moral development, right? It'll affect the way we relate to others. It'll affect the way we relate to the world. Right? So let's work to establish different expectations, perhaps that again, give us credit where credit is due, that are more realistic. Right? That don't stress us out. And that are still good, of course, right? Let's adopt more of a friendly approach to how we talk to ourselves and think about how we are friends and how others are friends to us and how we might change those narratives. Let's even locate a specific voice from our past. And I, I think it could be someone from your life, but also I think we could even work in the present to find maybe it's authors, maybe it's philosophers, maybe it's musicians that kind of can play a similar role. I think that's a really good idea too, right? That encourage us. Right. And when we face things in life, when we face negative thoughts that aren't true, that aren't just right, we have to think to ourselves, what would this person say to me now? Again, this person we located, this new friendlier, version of ourselves, right? For examples. And we have to work to internalize these better voices so that we can become better judges of ourselves. And in so doing, love ourselves more and be open to receiving love and expressing love with others.
PodcastTranscript AI