When I was raising my two boys, I relied heavily on my friendships with older women who knew the ins and outs of what it took to be a mother in New York City. I was a foreigner without any family close by in a city where so many parents feel as if they have to go at it alone. And there was another factor, too. My relationship with my own mother was full of love but it was also full of ambivalence. I feared that if I called her with my parenting questions, she’d criticize me from across the ocean, in Belgium. I knew that I needed motherly mentorship beyond the perspective she could give me. The cliché is true: it takes a village to raise a child. But it also takes a village to raise a parent.
And so it was. My boys were raised by a host of family friends, chosen aunts and uncles. Seven families, from eight different countries of origin, morphed into a vibrant community. We were in it together, and it was a salve to the impinging loneliness one can feel as a parent.
Somehow my boys are now in their mid-late twenties. I currently have five friends who are twenty-five years younger than me who all have become mothers over the last decade. We’ve brought them into the fold. Babies at dinner parties, kids at adult gatherings who fall asleep on a pillow. I’ve relished talking to my young friends about pregnancy and motherhood, fielding their phone calls, meeting their little ones, and watching them grow. I love a front row seat with backstage experience.
I asked one of these friends, @erinallweiss if she could share a few thoughts with me about our dynamic for Mother’s Day:
“As I reflect on our intergenerational friendship and motherhood, what I appreciate most is the perspective of time. You get to look back, reflect on your parenting experience, and share lessons that are invaluable for what I’m going through right now; and I see in you the benefits of mothering in a way that is authentic to who I am and what I value.”
On this Mother’s Day, I’d love to hear about the motherly figures in your life who helped raise you, or are helping you raise your kids. I’d love to hear your stories of intergenerational friendship. I’ll look for yours in the comments.
When I was raising my two boys, I relied heavily on my friendships with older women who knew the ins and outs of what it took to be a mother in New York City. I was a foreigner without any family close by in a city where so many parents feel as if they have to go at it alone. And there was another factor, too. My relationship with my own mother was full of love but it was also full of ambivalence. I feared that if I called her with my parenting questions, she’d criticize me from across the ocean, in Belgium. I knew that I needed motherly mentorship beyond the perspective she could give me. The cliché is true: it takes a village to raise a child. But it also takes a village to raise a parent.
And so it was. My boys were raised by a host of family friends, chosen aunts and uncles. Seven families, from eight different countries of origin, morphed into a vibrant community. We were in it together, and it was a salve to the impinging loneliness one can feel as a parent.
Somehow my boys are now in their mid-late twenties. I currently have five friends who are twenty-five years younger than me who all have become mothers over the last decade. We’ve brought them into the fold. Babies at dinner parties, kids at adult gatherings who fall asleep on a pillow. I’ve relished talking to my young friends about pregnancy and motherhood, fielding their phone calls, meeting their little ones, and watching them grow. I love a front row seat with backstage experience.
I asked one of these friends, @erinallweiss if she could share a few thoughts with me about our dynamic for Mother’s Day:
“As I reflect on our intergenerational friendship and motherhood, what I appreciate most is the perspective of time. You get to look back, reflect on your parenting experience, and share lessons that are invaluable for what I’m going through right now; and I see in you the benefits of mothering in a way that is authentic to who I am and what I value.”
On this Mother’s Day, I’d love to hear about the motherly figures in your life who helped raise you, or are helping you raise your kids. I’d love to hear your stories of intergenerational friendship. I’ll look for yours in the comments.
When I was raising my two boys, I relied heavily on my friendships with older women who knew the ins and outs of what it took to be a mother in New York City. I was a foreigner without any family close by in a city where so many parents feel as if they have to go at it alone. And there was another factor, too. My relationship with my own mother was full of love but it was also full of ambivalence. I feared that if I called her with my parenting questions, she’d criticize me from across the ocean, in Belgium. I knew that I needed motherly mentorship beyond the perspective she could give me. The cliché is true: it takes a village to raise a child. But it also takes a village to raise a parent.
And so it was. My boys were raised by a host of family friends, chosen aunts and uncles. Seven families, from eight different countries of origin, morphed into a vibrant community. We were in it together, and it was a salve to the impinging loneliness one can feel as a parent.
Somehow my boys are now in their mid-late twenties. I currently have five friends who are twenty-five years younger than me who all have become mothers over the last decade. We’ve brought them into the fold. Babies at dinner parties, kids at adult gatherings who fall asleep on a pillow. I’ve relished talking to my young friends about pregnancy and motherhood, fielding their phone calls, meeting their little ones, and watching them grow. I love a front row seat with backstage experience.
I asked one of these friends, @erinallweiss if she could share a few thoughts with me about our dynamic for Mother’s Day:
“As I reflect on our intergenerational friendship and motherhood, what I appreciate most is the perspective of time. You get to look back, reflect on your parenting experience, and share lessons that are invaluable for what I’m going through right now; and I see in you the benefits of mothering in a way that is authentic to who I am and what I value.”
On this Mother’s Day, I’d love to hear about the motherly figures in your life who helped raise you, or are helping you raise your kids. I’d love to hear your stories of intergenerational friendship. I’ll look for yours in the comments.
Last month on @billmaher’s show @realtimers, I illuminated the difference between sexuality and eroticism, between a perfunctory act and the multi-sensory journey of pleasure.
Many of us, when it comes to sexuality, tend to do what we think we should do rather than what we’d like to be doing (and this is not just a statement about women). We get stuck in ruts and disconnect from our imaginations. We would love to experience new things with our partners but we can be afraid to invite ourselves or them. A minor annoyance or a major impasse can both be catalysts for shutting down sexually. Sometimes we’re “not in the mood;” other times we wonder if we’ve lost what once made us desirable to our partners.
We tend to think of these as sexual issues. Really, it’s an erotic dilemma. Contrary to what we are taught, eroticism isn’t purely sexual; it is sexuality transformed and socialized by the human imagination. The imagination creates the plot. Flirtation, longing, and anticipation all play within our mind’s eye. Engaging in eroticism enables us to maintain a sense of aliveness, vibrancy, and vitality.
As Octavio Paz has implied, eroticism is the poetry of the body the way that poetry is the eroticism of language.
A strong, meaningful apology goes a long way in repairing major and minor rifts in any relationship. Intellectually, we know this. Apologizing is one of the first relationship skills we learn as young children. But it’s a skill that needs to grow with us. When we first learn to apologize, we often do it because we are told we need to—apologize to your brother for taking his toy. Say you’re sorry to your classmate for not including them in the game. The other child is told to reply I forgive you. There is a clear outcome of this dance: repair in the service of getting back to what matters—play.
To learn more about artful and meaningful apology, visit this month’s blog through the link in my bio and try it out. I’d love to hear how your next apology goes.
A strong, meaningful apology goes a long way in repairing major and minor rifts in any relationship. Intellectually, we know this. Apologizing is one of the first relationship skills we learn as young children. But it’s a skill that needs to grow with us. When we first learn to apologize, we often do it because we are told we need to—apologize to your brother for taking his toy. Say you’re sorry to your classmate for not including them in the game. The other child is told to reply I forgive you. There is a clear outcome of this dance: repair in the service of getting back to what matters—play.
To learn more about artful and meaningful apology, visit this month’s blog through the link in my bio and try it out. I’d love to hear how your next apology goes.
A strong, meaningful apology goes a long way in repairing major and minor rifts in any relationship. Intellectually, we know this. Apologizing is one of the first relationship skills we learn as young children. But it’s a skill that needs to grow with us. When we first learn to apologize, we often do it because we are told we need to—apologize to your brother for taking his toy. Say you’re sorry to your classmate for not including them in the game. The other child is told to reply I forgive you. There is a clear outcome of this dance: repair in the service of getting back to what matters—play.
To learn more about artful and meaningful apology, visit this month’s blog through the link in my bio and try it out. I’d love to hear how your next apology goes.
A strong, meaningful apology goes a long way in repairing major and minor rifts in any relationship. Intellectually, we know this. Apologizing is one of the first relationship skills we learn as young children. But it’s a skill that needs to grow with us. When we first learn to apologize, we often do it because we are told we need to—apologize to your brother for taking his toy. Say you’re sorry to your classmate for not including them in the game. The other child is told to reply I forgive you. There is a clear outcome of this dance: repair in the service of getting back to what matters—play.
To learn more about artful and meaningful apology, visit this month’s blog through the link in my bio and try it out. I’d love to hear how your next apology goes.
A strong, meaningful apology goes a long way in repairing major and minor rifts in any relationship. Intellectually, we know this. Apologizing is one of the first relationship skills we learn as young children. But it’s a skill that needs to grow with us. When we first learn to apologize, we often do it because we are told we need to—apologize to your brother for taking his toy. Say you’re sorry to your classmate for not including them in the game. The other child is told to reply I forgive you. There is a clear outcome of this dance: repair in the service of getting back to what matters—play.
To learn more about artful and meaningful apology, visit this month’s blog through the link in my bio and try it out. I’d love to hear how your next apology goes.
A strong, meaningful apology goes a long way in repairing major and minor rifts in any relationship. Intellectually, we know this. Apologizing is one of the first relationship skills we learn as young children. But it’s a skill that needs to grow with us. When we first learn to apologize, we often do it because we are told we need to—apologize to your brother for taking his toy. Say you’re sorry to your classmate for not including them in the game. The other child is told to reply I forgive you. There is a clear outcome of this dance: repair in the service of getting back to what matters—play.
To learn more about artful and meaningful apology, visit this month’s blog through the link in my bio and try it out. I’d love to hear how your next apology goes.
In our modern world, we live under a guise of hyperconnectivity, digitally linked to one another and an endless sea of information through our devices. We can access answers to our questions in the blink of eye, share our thoughts with thousands of people in an instant, and speak to family across oceans face-to-face with the touch of a button. But there’s no denying that we live in an epidemic of loneliness.
And this loneliness and disconnect permeates even our most intimate relationships, even and especially those with our partners. We’re distracted, constantly multi-tasking, often more devoted to our devices than we are to each other on a daily basis. So how do we break this habituated disconnect? What would it take to shift the pattern?
At @sxsw this year, I offered this solution—and I’m curious how it lands for you? Does it feel risky? Exciting? Daunting? Overdue? Share your thoughts in the comments below, and follow the link in my bio to see the full talk on The Other AI: Artificial Intimacy.
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”
― Rumi
The process of repair begins with accountability. The act of taking responsibility for your part, coming to the center of the conflict, hands open, taking ownership of your contribution with no expectation of reciprocation or forgiveness.
In couples, breakthrough happens when each person freely shares what they are doing differently with the intention to improve things, rather than doggedly focusing on the change they need from their partner. This is how therapists know they’re getting somewhere. Their job is not to act as judge, jury, and executioner. It’s to help the clients navigate how people in love can behave in unloving ways—and how they can carve a new path.
To learn more about the art of taking accountability, visit my recent newsletter on the topic through the link in my bio.
How to Become the Perfect Partner 🧡
Follow: @greatness x @estherperelofficial and head to episode 1433 on The School of Greatness for more.
Recognized as one of today’s most insightful and original voices on modern relationships, Esther Perel shares how to develop a healthy relationship with your own expectations, and so much more in this powerful masterclass 🔥
You tuning in? Drop a YES!
It’s Mental Health Awareness Month — and I’m called to my annual examination of the state of mental health globally and here in the United States.
This year, I was drawn back to a memory that stays with me around how I felt as a parent when my children were struggling in school, as most children do for a period as they grow, evolve, and adjust. In fact, most families go through what they would call “problem years” with their kids. I’m reminded how isolated I felt as we were encouraged to go to therapy, the feelings of shame and embarrassment that emerged as we were encouraged to deal with these universal issues in a silo.
If you’ve been following my work, you know that a central tenant is the understanding that the health of our relationships has an incredible impact on our overall health, mental, physical, and emotional. And that healing and problem solving in community has the ability to not only crowdsource solutions and tactics, but also gives us the feeling of relational support that is so vital to our whole-body wellness.
A mistake we often make in modern-day society is individualizing and pathologizing these issues in a way that can be quite isolating, and thus exacerbating the problem by hiding and shaming it. Feeling alone while we’re experiencing difficult times intensifies the experience.
What I would love to see as a therapist and a mental health professional (and also as a parent) is a new focus and emphasis on relational health and collective healing as a key component of mental wellness—a facet we focus on as intently as we do nutrition, exercise, personal practice, therapy, medication, and the myriad of preventative and symptomatic prescriptions healthcare professionals recommend. Feeling personally and communally supported and connected is a key component to feeling good.
I’m curious, as we enter this annual mental health focus, what issues feel most present and important to you? How will you observe this month?
Can you believe it’s already been a whole month since we all came together for In Bloom? Let’s take a moment to reflect on the valuable lessons learned and the connections made. In Bloom was an opportunity to engage in meaningful discussions, learn from one another’s experiences, and grow as individuals. Now, as we carry on with our daily lives, let’s remember to apply the lessons learned to all our relationships – whether it be with friends, family, colleagues, or romantic partners. Let’s nurture these relationships, cultivate trust and empathy, and watch them bloom into something truly beautiful. 💕
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#estherperel #relationshipadvice #realloveready #inbloom #love #loveeducation #relationshippsychology
In my workshop last month, I was asked a very common question — how do I handle unrequited attraction in a friendship? And it’s a question for which there is no simple answer.
In fact, it prompts a host of qualifying questions: how deep is this attraction? Is it a nagging curiosity or a strong unyielding love? Are one or both of you in a relationship?
But the question I’ll focus on is this: how is the attraction affecting the friendship and each person individually?
If the ongoing platonic nature of the friendship feels like a daily rejection, affecting a person’s feeling of self-worth, then it could be too harmful to stay connected. Attraction can also impact the very foundation of a friendship, coloring how each person shows up, how much they give, the slant to their dating advice. It could be that a hidden agenda or an imbalance of power begins to destabilize the sanctity of the friendship.
So, while there are no hard and fast rules in this type of connection, these are all questions and qualities to be aware of when attraction comes into the friendship arena. To explore the topic further, visit last month’s workshop on the complexities of making new friends as an adult.
What is polarization, and how does it affect interpersonal relationships or social-political trends through history?
In August 2022, @estherperelofficial and Yuval Noah Harari sat down to explore these questions, in a free-flowing conversation hosted by @alpinefellowship.
To watch the full session, visit the link in the bio.
What is polarization, and how does it affect interpersonal relationships or social-political trends through history?
In August 2022, @estherperelofficial and Yuval Noah Harari sat down to explore these questions, in a free-flowing conversation hosted by @alpinefellowship.
To watch the full session, visit the link in the bio.
“Raise your hand if you’re experiencing some anxiety being here. Keep it low if it’s just a little anxiety. Raise it to a height that corresponds with the intensity. So, if you’re having a panic attack right now, your hand should be as high in the air as possible.”
Two weeks ago, I said these words to hundreds of first-time attendees of TED’s annual conference in Vancouver. The organizers had invited me to speak to newcomers about forming connections, grappling with imposter syndrome, and reconciling our home lives with the adventures to come in the week ahead.
At every conference, event, or gathering, there is what’s happening on the stage, but there’s also what’s happening in the hallways, in the bathrooms, or at the dinner tables. People are eager to connect on a personal level. They likely have deep connections at home, but there is something unique about connecting in a new space with new people in real time. You can walk in alone, but you won’t be lonely for very long. But there is always the question: how much of myself should I share?
Making new friendships as an adult comes with a host of questions we often never considered as children—many of us desire to go beyond the perfunctory or performative and dive a bit deeper, but sometimes we struggle with how and when. Visit this month’s newsletter to explore the topic and share your thoughts in the comments below.
Making friends as a child is one of the first free choices we have—it’s one of our first opportunities to exercise autonomy and preference but the parameters of these friendships are usually quite clear. We make friends based on proximity: the neighbor down the street, the girl who sits next to us in class, the child of our parent’s close friend.
As we grow up, our choices around friendship become more complicated: how do we choose new friends? How do we know when they’ve chosen us back? How do we deepen connections at a consensual pace?
Many of us feel the burden of this optionality when we’re in a room full of strangers, or navigating life in a new city. But if many of us are experiencing this, then that means that there are plenty of people out there, searching for new friendships, just like you.
Here are few skills to exercise when making new friends as an adult, and to explore the topic deeper, follow the link in my bio to this month’s workshop where we really dive in.
Estoy muy contenta de poder anunciar el lanzamiento del libro “Inteligencia Erótica” en la versión audio leído por la magnífica actriz, Martha Higareda. Visita el enlace en mi bio para escuchar. ¡Disfrutar!
I am very happy to be able to announce the launch of the book Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence in the audio version read by the magnificent actress, @marthahigareda. Visit the link in my bio to listen. Enjoy!
There is something unique about connecting in a new group space with new people in real time. You can walk in alone, but you won’t be lonely for very long. But there is always the question: how much of myself should I share?
This is a question that comes up in all new adult friendships. And it’s a topic that has fascinated me my entire adult life. When I moved from my tight-knit Belgium community to Israel for university, I was perplexed by how one makes friends without having grown up with each other—without knowing each others’ parents and seeing inside each others’ homes. When I moved to America, the question evolved: how do you make friends with people who know nothing about where you come from?
In this month’s workshop, we’ll explore the anxiety around making new friends and the mental health impact of turning toward people, rather than away. Join me tomorrow at 3pm ET for Letters from Esther Live through the link in my bio. I’ll be discussing this month’s newsletter on the question that comes up in all new adult friendships.
There is something unique about connecting in a new group space with new people in real time. You can walk in alone, but you won’t be lonely for very long. But there is always the question: how much of myself should I share?
This is a question that comes up in all new adult friendships. And it’s a topic that has fascinated me my entire adult life. When I moved from my tight-knit Belgium community to Israel for university, I was perplexed by how one makes friends without having grown up with each other—without knowing each others’ parents and seeing inside each others’ homes. When I moved to America, the question evolved: how do you make friends with people who know nothing about where you come from?
In this month’s workshop, we’ll explore the anxiety around making new friends and the mental health impact of turning toward people, rather than away. Join me tomorrow at 3pm ET for Letters from Esther Live through the link in my bio. I’ll be discussing this month’s newsletter on the question that comes up in all new adult friendships.
Understanding human health is a multi-faceted study, as we identify how intertwined our mental, emotional, physical, and yes, sexual health truly are. These aspects of the human experience significantly affect and impact one another, and optimizing for wellness means we must consider each category. This understanding is vitally supported by research and dedicated study by institutes such as Kinsey, and why the lack of funding for such organizations poses a risk to human health and wellbeing.
From the @kinseyinstitute : “Last month, Indiana lawmakers voted to approve a budget with amendments that specifically blocks Indiana University from using state appropriations to support the Kinsey Institute. This unprecedented action takes aim at the very foundation of academic freedom and stifles critical research on sexuality, gender, relationships, and reproduction. Since 1947, the Kinsey Institute has been an international thought leader in providing an unbiased and apolitical scientific approach to human sexuality. In this time of divisive politics and the rise of disinformation, Kinsey Institute research, education, and historical preservation are more important than ever.”
Visit their website through the link in my bio to learn how you can both raise awareness and support. #DefendResearch #ScienceMatters
