Shall We Begin?

I’ve been talking a lot about grief lately and about suffering. So it’s time to talk about complaining. 

Grief expert David Kessler has explained how, right now, we’re all experiencing a “loss of normalcy; the fear of economic toll; the loss of connection,” and how “we are not used to this kind of collective grief in the air.” Kessler is famous for co-developing the five stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance—and recently added a sixth: finding meaning. 

At this very moment, we all know people who seem to be stuck in one or another of these stages. Lockdown protesters in denial. Your daughter angry she can’t see her friends. Your partner bargaining over household duties they previously hadn’t felt responsible for. Your doctor friend combating depression while working on the front lines. As for the last two stages, it’s hard to find acceptance or meaning when we don’t have any idea when this era of prolonged uncertainty might end. ‍

On any given day, most of us cycle through the six stages of grief faster than we can hit “Leave Meeting” at the end of a work Zoom call. And yet so many of us are fighting our feelings. You can wake up and say “we’re going to reopen; we’re going to get back on track; we’re going to go back to normal.” This kind of effort optimism—chopping the problem into pieces, rolling up our sleeves, not asking too many questions, and getting to work on a solution—is a means of denying the complexity of this experience. And when that denial and bargaining subsides, we’ll have to accept that there may be no “going back.” We can retain optimism, however, that the new normal may bring some good changes—what Dr. Viktor Frankl termed “Tragic Optimism,” or “the human capacity to creatively turn life’s negative aspects into something positive or constructive.” ‍

But don’t underestimate the catharsis of good old complaining. As a matter of fact, the six stages of grief would be well to add a seventh: kvetching. My Jewish ancestors mastered the art of suffering (and it is an art) as a means of maintaining a connection to our historical coping skills and to ensure, in a way, that the lessons learned from tragedy stay with us forever. ‍

Complaining is a mainstay of any culture: kvetching, lamenting, whining, fretting, nagging, fussing. So, when you complain to your partner…

• “I’m bored.”
• “I want to go to a restaurant. 
• “I’m tired of walking around with disinfectant spray.” 
• “Stop telling me to exercise.” 
• “Stop watching what I eat.”

…only for them to respond: “you know, we have it really good,” guess what? You’re both right. You’re allowed to complain; it feels good sometimes! We can’t be grateful all the time. Gratitude is deeply important and healing, but this is a time where we also have to make room for complaints. There’s a reason we have ten words for “complaining” in Yiddish. It’s a valve release. It's a way to still feel like you have a say over your life when you don't control squat. I come from a tradition that emphasizes complaining but that, as Michael Wex wrote in his book “Book to Kvetch,” “also allows a considerable scope for complaining about the complaining of others,” and isn’t that what your partner’s doing to you? 

Your partner should give you perspective; that’s part of it. That said, saying you shouldn’t complain because you have it better than most, as if you don’t already know that, doesn’t help. It’s going to make you feel guilty about complaining…and then complain about feeling guilty. By the way, guilt means you have a conscience. Turn it into responsibility and it becomes useful. If you have money, time, hands, a platform, share it and use it. When you turn your guilt into action, it has social value, otherwise it remains mere self-absorption. So, contribute what you can in this time, then get back to complaining. 

Week by week, we’ve been going through phases. Mad hoarding and planning moved into high anxiety and stress, and now we’ve entered the stale phase. After weeks of watching delayed faces on Zoom, are we surprised we’re feeling stilted? Hasn’t it been refreshing to read all of these articles about how productivity in quarantine is overrated? How many of us made plans to take care of the never-ending project list? On the days we have managed to be productive, it has felt great. But, besides work—which I love—I struggle to self-motivate. And since I’m bored of hearing myself complain and feeling bad about complaining, I have shifted to full group accountability. It’s not everybody’s recipe, but I find it more motivating than anything I can do alone. 

I get up early for yoga five days a week because I know I have my friends waiting for me on Zoom. Even if I stayed up late and didn’t sleep well, I’m motivated to see my people who are waiting for me and who are themselves motivated knowing that I’m waiting for them. Yes, we do yoga, but we also catch up, share resources, and get a chance to complain outside of our own echo chambers. And, by the way, it’s okay to have some friends that you want to engage with a lot, others you want to engage with a little—and others that you just want to complain about. I don’t usually condone gossiping to relieve stress, but when a friend’s pandemic-related social media behavior is driving you insane, or maybe even making you a little jealous, a little gossip can have a homeopathic effect.

As my friend Guy Winch wrote in his book “The Squeaky Wheel,” there is actually a right way to complain that will get you results, improve your relationships, and enhance your self-esteem. I recommend you read his book if you want to develop the art of effective complaint. But my letter today is simpler: it’s just to give us all the permission for good old kvetching, or as some of our grandparents called it, “krechtsen.” 

We can be grateful and complain. We can be accountable and slack off. We can be peaceful and loving and we can talk shit and blow off steam. Kvetching is a survival tool. Use it wisely. It will help us cope during these scary times. Complaining is juicy. So make your complaints good. 

Let’s Turn the Lens on You

Complaining is better with others. 

• ‍Make space for other people to vent aloud. It often expresses their feelings of loss and longing. They know that they are powerless and they have to accept the situation; venting gives them the illusion that they have a say. It’s best to just let it pass and not try to reason with it. 
• ‍Have a little competition with whomever you’re quarantined or in touch with about your best complaints.
• If you have kids, create a house chart of complaints where they can let out their own. Display it on the fridge for all to see. We can’t only have stars for good behavior.
• ‍If your complaints are more serious in nature, try Guy Winch’s tips for productive complaining, whether with a spouse, child, or friend. It’s not the same as venting. 
• ‍And be careful to avoid what Winch refers to as “the five mistakes we make when complaining.”

Let's continue the conversation.

Watch the replay of the Letters From Esther Workshop: Complaining, Comparing, and Coping.

More From Esther

The Art of Us: Love, Loss, and Loneliness (with a pinch of humor!) Under Lockdown / My free workshop series This free four part workshop series covers how we engage with the new normal from a relational perspective and includes a resource list to help you during this time. ‍

What Is This Feeling? Anticipatory Grief and Other New Pandemic-Related Emotions / A recent blog 
The unprecedented crisis caused by the novel coronavirus has left us with a set of unfamiliar emotions. Read more to learn about these new emotions you may be experiencing and what to do about them.‍

A New Documentary Series In the midst of our changing world, I am working on a documentary series about sexuality and eroticism. I am interested in hearing where your imagination has been taking you lately, and what creative ways you have encountered to stay connected to the erotic. So wherever you are in the world, I invite you to leave me an audio or video message at estherperelproject.com.

Conversation Starters

A compendium of highly recommended sources of inspiration and information    ‍

I’m Reading: 

• “The Squeaky Wheel: Complaining the Right Way to Get Results, Improve Your Relationships, and Enhance Self-Esteem,” by Guy Winch 
• “Born to Kvetch: Yiddish Language and Culture in All of Its Moods,” by Michael Wex
• “Stop Trying to Be Productive” by Taylor Lorenz (New York Times)
• “Why You Should Ignore All That Coronavirus-Inspired Productivity Pressure” by Aisha S. Ahmad (The Chronicle of Higher Education)‍

I’m Watching/Listening/Experiencing: 

• “This Human Moment,” Keith Yamashita’s series of weekly, 90-minute online gatherings to “help companies and their teams regain access to their highest capabilities as human beings, and discover the resilience, calm and creativity we’ll need to move through the COVID-19 crisis—and walk together to make the future.”
• “Cal Newport has an answer for digital burnout” (The Ezra Klein Show)
• Federico Fellini’s 1960 film “La Dolce Vita.” This year is the centennial celebration of the Italian film legend’s birth. 
• The 2006 film Little Miss Sunshine. 
• This Playlist my son, Noam, made for me on Spotify. 

Shall We Begin?

“Esther, nobody’s f*cking anymore.”

It was a strange way to start a phone call, but I understood the panic on the other end of the line. It was 2016 and my executive producer, Jesse Baker, and I were just starting work on our new podcast Where Should We Begin? The unprecedented format would consist of one-time, real-life anonymous therapy sessions with people who would never become my patients. We wanted to feature a wide range of relationship dilemmas but instead, it seemed as if the hundreds of people who had applied were all grappling with the same exact problem.

“All of these people are writing about their dry spells. Or saying that the sex they’re having is no good. No one’s having sex . . . and they want to talk to you about it.” I couldn’t help but smile. I knew this story all too well.

I'VE HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE

For forty years, I’ve started most of my therapy sessions with the same question: “Where should we begin?” (Hence the title of my podcast.) So often, the answers sound like so:

• “We still love each other but we have no sex . . . How do we get the spark back?”
• “Sex is really important to me, but it just doesn’t seem important to my partner.”
• “We have two kids, two jobs. We’re too busy, too tired, too stressed.”
• “My partner is neurodivergent and we have a hard time talking about sex.”
• “There’s so much pressure around it. It’s not enjoyable.”
• “I’m tired of being rejected.”
• “We’re too young to be in a relationship with no sex when, in truth, we both want it.”
  

SEX IS RARELY JUST SEX

Back then, I encouraged Jesse to search for the understories in these vignettes. Sexlessness is often the moment when people come to talk to me about the emotional desert they’re in. Talking about sex includes delving into:

• Closeness
• Loneliness
• Intimacy
• Trust
• Body image
• Wounding
• Gender roles
• Feeling remembered and that you matter
• Desire and being desired
• Pleasure and permission to feel good
  

It’s all of that under the word sex. Our podcast applications give us a lot of insight, but there’s always more to the story. (And, seven seasons later, we’ve still not run out of understories.)‍

IS THIS NORMAL?

It’s completely normal for people who like sex to go through sexless spells. And it’s incredibly common for people to walk into my office claiming that a desire discrepancy is “the big problem” they’ve come to “fix.”

• First, I encourage them to think of it not as a problem but as an alert that something else is going on.
• Second, I let them know that we’re going to address both—the obstacles that are keeping them stuck and what sex means for them.
• Third, I assure them that we’re not only going to talk about the sex they’re nothaving; we’re also going to talk about the sex they want to be having . . . and that’s a lot more fun. This is especially true if you have tools and exercises that take the pressure off, enable you to plumb the depths of your erotic mind, and teach you how to say what you want—and then ask for more.

LET’S GO DEEPER TOGETHER

This fall, I’m launching a two-course bundle focused on bringing desire back and infusing intimacy with more playfulness. I’ve long said that sex is not just something you do; it’s a place you go—inside of yourself and with another or others. These new courses are meant to help you travel to your desired place equipped with new insights and exercises for sustained intimacy. It is never too late to remove sexual blocks and to become more playful, erotic, and alive.

Click here to join the waitlist.

Let’s Turn the Lens on You

In our sexual preferences lie our deepest emotional needs. Where do you go in sex?

• Is it a place you go for connection?
• For surrender?
• For dominance?
• Transcendence?
• Spiritual union?
• Fun?
• Is it a place to be naughty?
• To escape responsibility and good citizenship?

Take a few moments now to reflect on these questions. Write them down, if you’d like. In my new two-course bundle, you'll discover next steps you can take using your answers and insights. Read on to learn more about the courses and join the waitlist.

More from Esther

ABOUT MY NEW COURSES ON EROTICISM | join the waitlist

In the first course, you’ll learn skills to help you get unstuck, remove sexual blocks, and reignite desire, no matter where you’re starting from. In the second course, you’ll learn how to tap into new erotic possibilities and play your way to an erotically charged life. Together as a bundle, these courses will help you overcome the shame and misconceptions that often block sexual satisfaction and invite you to bring more vitality into your erotic relationship.

When you join the waitlist, you’ll receive:

• Access to the best pricing
• A chance to submit your questions about desire and eroticism
• The opportunity to attend a live virtual workshop when you purchase the courses
• The opportunity to join a special foreplay challenge when you purchase the courses
  

Plus, you’ll receive more insights into desire and eroticism from me over the coming weeks. Click here to join the waitlist now.

Conversation Starters

A compendium of highly recommended sources of inspiration and information

I’M WATCHING:

• Baby Reindeer, a remarkable show by Richard Gadd. I know I’m late to the party, but I just watched the whole thing and it’s been the topic of many of my conversations with friends recently.

I’M READING:

• “Four Friends, Two Marriages, One Affair—and a Shelf of Books Dissecting It,” by Chris Heath, is a longread of literature and treachery with many twists and turns (New York magazine).
• “The New Age of Endless Parenting,” by Faith Hill, explores the pros and cons (but mostly the pros) of how technology and economic circumstances has brought parents and their adult children closer.

I’M LOOKING FORWARD TO:

• My dear friends at DAYBREAKER, the global sober morning dance party, are embarking on their most ambitious tour to date, taking place this September to early November. The Purple Tour is a 50-city tour to get out the vote and contribute to making civic engagement a joyful experience. These are mostly free events and tickets will fly so RSVP here: daybreaker.com/our-events. I'll see you on the dance floor.

Shall We Begin?

Recently, I invited my friends David Adam Moore and Vita Tzykun to visit me and my husband for a socially-distanced evening around our outdoor fire pit. It was freezing but I was determined to connect with my friends. As I wrapped myself in layer upon layer, wool and flannel and mittens and scarves, I thought about all of the questions I wanted to ask David and Vita about how the pandemic standstill has affected them, their relationship, and their work.

David and Vita are highly-accomplished in the performance world—David as an opera singer and Vita as a designer and director. For as long as I’ve known them, they’ve been globe-trotting from stage to stage, constantly working, and often spending no more than three months together in the same place due to contrasting schedules. 
I wanted to ask them all the questions one asks when they haven’t seen dear friends in a year. As I ladled homemade vegetable soup into bowls to take outside, I realized that all of those questions—How’s work? How’s your family? How’s the house?—have transformed in the context of this year. What if work is really bad because theaters have shut down? What if they lost a family member to Covid-19? What if they lost their home? Or what if the home they love has become a cage? As we huddled in our pairs around the fire, I realized that what I really wanted to ask was how has this crisis made you reevaluate your lives?‍

David and Vita, it turns out, had spent the last year “decoupling from their identities”—trying to find out who they each were when their external markers of success were forcibly stripped away due to the pandemic. As I listened to them, I thought about how many of us have had a similar experience this year without words to describe it. For David and Vita, it began with getting “thrown off the hamster wheel they didn’t know they were on” when their industry shut down last spring. In a single moment, they instantly lost dozens of projects. On opposite sides of the world, they caught the last flights available and reconvened at home—a place they hadn’t spent much time together since they moved in the previous year. 

At home, they assessed the damage. “It seemed like everyone's career just got zeroed out, particularly the freelancers,” David explained. “And the administrators were handed the unenviable task of trying to keep organizations afloat.” They weren’t surprised to hear colleagues and friends longing to go “back to normal.” David and Vita, however, had come to a different conclusion. As weeks stretched to months, they began to see that the lifestyle they once considered normal wasn’t exactly good for them. Vita kept coming back to a particular memory of seeing a very pale colleague with dark circles under her eyes. She wondered now why her first thought back then hadn’t been “is she okay?” At the time, she scolded herself, “She must be working hard. Maybe I’m not working enough. I have too much free time. I should work harder.” And so she did. 

In a world without the opportunity to fill every moment with work, David and Vita began taking long walks outside. Vita started strength training. For the first time in a long while, David started singing for fun. “All of the sudden, I had this laboratory to work on my vocal technique that I had not had before.” They began to take on different types of projects and work with a new mindset. And they began to lament. They remembered the trips they had taken to see family in which they had shut themselves away for hours to work. “I had gotten into these habits of constant anxiety that I would get behind on a deadline or wouldn't have enough future work,” David said. “But I could have taken 10 or 15% less work, easily, and reallocated the time to friends and family and relationships.”‍

We discussed how this year has revealed the fragility of life and of institutions. For David and Vita, these twin crises sparked a reprioritization that changed the very core of how they live. “This has really caused us to envision many more scenarios in which our friends and family are absolutely vital to our lives—far beyond just having nice conversations,” they shared. 

In February 2021, we have very much arrived at a stage which requires us to go beyond just having nice conversations. A social revolution—from little ones to our elders—is occurring under our noses. I have long believed that asking better questions is the key to creating closeness, and not just in my work as a therapist. I love questions so much that, together with my team, I’ve come up with thousands of questions to help reintroduce ourselves to each other. (Some of those are below; others are being made into a new card game.) 

Socializing with David and Vita reminded me that the questions we ask each other now have to fit the reality we are living in—that they hold space for our friends’ grief and growth. Socializing is fluid. In all relationships, patterns need to be adaptable. As Vita told me, “I think a question we should be asking each other now is: how has your personal definition of success changed? And what can you do now to stay true to it?”

Let’s Turn the Lens on You

Ask questions that meet people where they are now.

• What was an important change that took place around your relationships this year? 
• How did you maintain your connections? 
• What do you wish you would have done differently to maintain your connections?
• What are some of your new relationship challenges?
• What is a challenge you’ve overcome this year that felt satisfying? 
• What new things have you learned?
• What is a dream that you’ve never said aloud? 
• What is something that feels sensitive to talk about now? 
• How are you negotiating boundaries at this moment? And reacting to the boundaries of others?
• What are some qualities you’ve come to resent during this time? 
• Have your expectations of friends changed? 
• Have you had fall outs?
• When someone asks you how you’re doing, what do you say? 
• What do you wish you could say? 
• Have you found a silver lining?

Let's continue the conversation.

Watch the replay of the Letters From Esther Workshop: The Anti-Small Talk Workshop.

More From Esther

How Erotic Thinking Helps Emotional Connection / a blog article
No matter how effective our routines have been in helping us through the last year, if they’re not filled with creativity, they inevitably leave us numb. ‍

How Eroticism and Fantasy Can Help You Embrace a New Year / a workshop
2020 took a toll on our senses of connection, spontaneity, and energy—facets of what I call "Eroticism. In this workshop, we talk about the power of Fantasy and Imagination to pull us out of the slump.‍

How Not To Die Alone / a new book by Logan Ury
Over the past year, I've participated in multiple interviews with Logan Ury, behavioral scientist, former TED Resident, and lead relationship researcher at Hinge, for her new book How to Not Die Alone, out 2/2. Her book is a definitive guide for a generation navigating the murky waters of modern love and I'm glad to be a part of it.

Conversation Starters

A compendium of highly recommended sources of inspiration and information.       ‍

I’m Reading:

• Suleika Jaouad’s Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted
• Erica Keswin’s Rituals Roadmap 
• Adam Grant’s Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know

I’m Listening To: 

• Episode #146 of “The Peter Attia Drive” with Guy Winch, Ph.D: “Emotional First Aid and How to Treat Psychological Injuries”

Shall We Begin?

I am a Belgian with a French accent and yet for my early years, my U.N. refugee passport listed me as stateless. I was a Jew raised by Polish parents living illegally in Antwerp. They worked hard building their shop in their new home and raising their kids. I was educated for twelve years in Flemish, a formal education my father never had access to. He was illiterate, but he was a grand humanist. Five years in German concentration camps during World War II taught my parents that the decency with which people treated each other was their most important quality, no matter how rich or educated they were. Helping others was what made them feel strong, and it was a powerful way to fight injustice. After escaping the concentration camps, my parents experienced a new form of injustice in their adopted home, a social contract of sorts: you were a citizen in the streets, and a Jew in the home.

When I came to New York, it was the first time I felt I could be a Jew in public. It was as if I was coming out of hiding. There was a menorah next to the Christmas tree. But America looked at me differently. In America, I was not seen as the daughter of Holocaust survivors-turned-refugees. I wasn’t even seen as an immigrant unless I started talking. Walking down the street in America, I was a White Woman. I couldn’t believe how different it felt to be so baselessly accepted, trusted, noticed, and even protected, simply for my Whiteness. It was strange and powerful. This, I would learn, was what privilege felt like. ‍

Yvette Noel-Schure grew up in Grenada. As she tells it, as a young Black girl, she didn’t know what racism was because she hadn’t experienced it. Colorism? Absolutely. It’s a long, painful legacy left behind by colonizers in the Carribean and elsewhere. But, as she recalls, “we were all Grenadians. We were all Black people.” So when she immigrated to America at fourteen, she was shocked by how differently she was treated. “For the first time, I was called the N-Word,” she remembers. “I had to ask my uncle ‘what does that mean?’ I had never heard that word before, but it was said with so much venom I needed to know.” She recalls thinking that if only she had had her dictionary, she could have looked it up. 

In America, Yvette wasn’t the curious, Catholic, raised-by-Grandparents, sheltered girl. She wasn’t the daughter of a mother suffering from mental illness. She wasn’t a British citizen, a Grenadian of African, Indigenous, Irish, and Indian descent. On a good day, she was a Black girl. On a bad day, she was whatever that person had called her. She was a word she didn’t understand.

Decades later, Yvette and I are two American passport holders with vastly different American experiences. If you’re reading this letter, you likely know what I do as a cross-cultural therapist, podcast host, and speaker. You may know that I spent the first twenty years of my career working with mixed marriages and families—interracial, intercultural, and interreligious. What you might not know is that my first project upon landing in New York in 1984 was called “Minority on Minority: The Psychodynamics of Black-Jewish Relations,” and it’s a topic I continue to study and write about. This work is part of my ever-evolving quest to understand who or what defines our identities and how that informs our relationships. I, for instance, grew up with the idea that White Supremacy did not include Jews. And that meant me. In America, or more specifically in New York, it does. ‍

If you don’t know Yvette Noel Schure, it’s my honor to introduce you to her. She is the executive vice president and co-founder of Schure Media Group where she has been instrumental in developing the careers of major artists such as Prince and Beyoncé. She works with Beyoncé’s BeyGOOD initiative and she travels all over the world, working with Black girls and Women of Color to assist them in cultivating lives of dignity and possibility. She is a passionate advocate for accessible, affordable, and culturally-informed mental health services. 

And on June 10th, we participated in a social media experiment called “Share the Mic Now,” an initiative that paired around 50 Black women with around 50 White women for a social media takeover. From Tarana Burke and Glennon Doyle to Patrisse Cullors and Ellen Degeneres. Yvette spent the day on my platforms sharing the experiences that have defined her: as a fourteen-year-old immigrant in America, as a partner in an interracial marriage, as a mother who prepared her children to straddle two worlds, as a powerhouse career woman in entertainment, as a caretaker for her mother, and as an advocate for destigmatizing mental illness in the Black American community. Who and what defines Yvette? She does. And yet, even now, when she returns to the U.S. from visiting family in Grenada, it is not unlikely for her to be asked to prove that she should be sitting in first class.

It wasn’t immediately clear to Yvette and I why we had been paired together by our mutual friend Luvvie Ajayi Jones, one of the organizers of “Share the Mic Now.” But from our first conversation, the evidence of our connections has piled up. We spoke so long we missed dinner. Our immigrant experiences, when taken together, are a surreal look at how race is perceived in America. It’s a direct pipeline into understanding how our environments shape us, how relationships happen within a context, and how important it is to evolve that context so that our relationships with one another can evolve. ‍

Society is a project in progress. Humans have been fighting for a more just society throughout human history: racial equality, religious freedom, children and women's rights, access to education, protection from poverty and sickness, and more. The fight has always benefited from the newest tools of communication. Our latest megaphone is social media, for good and bad. The streets and the digital public square amplify each other, but let’s not forget the noise needs to lead to action. I’ve included additional resources at the end of this letter. Yvette is an extraordinary and patient educator. I encourage anyone listening to me to listen to her, too. Follow her at @yvettenoelschure.‍

Both of us believe that real change happens in small, sliding door moments that build trust. The deep divisions in our society are often present right at our family dinner table. Many of us have had to negotiate the arduous task of maintaining our personal integrity as well as our connection with family members who often harbor fundamentally different values and points of view. Not speaking about racial inequity is a privilege afforded to some that can no longer stand. Let’s have the courage to have the hard conversations. 

So, ask yourself: what dynamics and messages did you grow up with in your family? How are you dealing with that now? What are the parts of your identity that have been assigned to you? What are the parts of your identity that you have chosen?

Let’s Turn the Lens on You

These four questions can form the basis of some of the hard conversations we’re having at our dinner tables. Here’s more:

• Instead of asking “How can you think this way?” try asking “How did you come to think this way?
• Instead of “I can’t believe my brother would vote for X,” ask “how did you come to make that decision? 
• ‍Maintain the dialogue. You don’t want to make the conversation as short as possible. Find a way to be curious and to keep the conversation going. 
• ‍This is not an exact science. Explore how much you can tolerate people who are different from you. Remind each other not to confuse feeling really strongly with being right. And if you need to take a break, find something else over which to connect. 
• ‍Gather your resources. You’re not the only teacher on this planet. There are books, videos, podcasts, and more waiting to educate those willing to learn.

Let's continue the conversation.

Watch the replay of the Letters From Esther Workshop: The Skills To Have Difficult Conversations.

More From Esther

Where Should We Begin? / Season Four 
The way that legacies inside and outside of our families shape the way we love and hate is at the heart of the new season of my podcast. ‍

Share the Mic Now / with Yvette Noel Schure
Our conversation on Instagram Live. ‍

Share the Mic Now / Yvette Noel Schure & Julee Wilson
Yvette speaks with Cosmopolitan magazine’s Beauty Director, who took over Alice and Olivia’s social media platforms for the day.

Conversation Starters

A compendium of highly recommended sources of inspiration and information       ‍

I’m Reading:

• The 1619 Project Magazine
• Undoing Racism Resources from Mary Pender Greene
• A History of Race and Racism in America, in 24 Chapters a book list by decade compiled by Ibram X. Kendi
• Baratunde’s World Saving Books from Baratunde Thurston
• Countdown to Main Street, a blog by Mindy Fullilove
• The Politics of Empathy and Race from Psychology Today‍

I’m Watching: 

• Get comfortable with being uncomfortable by Luvvie Ajay
• A debate between James Baldwin and William Buckley
• How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
• George Floyd, Minneapolis Protests, Ahmaud Arbery & Amy Cooper by Trevor Noah
• We need to talk about an injustice by Bryan Stevenson
• How to deconstruct racism, one headline at a time by Baratunde Thurston‍

I’m Listening To:

• The 1619 Project Podcast
• Revolution Playlist of speeches and lectures compiled by Rachel Cargle
• A Weekend of Pain and Protest from The Daily
• The Mind of the Village from The Hidden Brain

Shall We Begin?

In order to live within civilization, society dictates that we must repress our primitive impulses for the greater good. In order to live within our relationships, the same is true. We live and love within a highly-complex and nuanced set of rules about what is right and what is wrong; what is acceptable and what lines are not to be crossed. And yet, some of our greatest pleasures and most significant advancements can come from crossing those very lines…doing the thing we’re not supposed to do…asking the questions we shouldn’t dare ask. Why?‍

One of the most useful and underutilized tools we have to understand ourselves and our relationships is the Taboo. It’s those hidden forces that all cultures, via the family and community, ingrain in us in order to create and maintain the boundaries which preserve social order. A central question in Freud’s Totem and Taboo asks what it means that every civilization, culture, and religion has had to create major things that are forbidden. Historically, taboos about what we can and cannot do, say, eat, wear, or with whom we can love or have sex have served utilitarian purposes. Some taboos, such as beastality and pedophilia, remain important fixed boundaries that combat violence. But most other taboos are ever-changing, and necessarily so—from interracial marriage to homosexuality. As a group of people acquires more freedom, the nature of the taboo once holding them back shifts. 

Many great love stories have explored this concept. We know from Jane Austen that when people were still marrying explicitly to acquire land and resources, it was taboo to marry someone who came empty-handed. But we also know from Romeo and Juliet that sometimes the most passionate relationships are fueled by the power of going against the rules, breaking the taboos we live with in order to follow some primal instinct deep within us. No matter the era, society has always been organized around shifting sets of incentives and prohibitions, license and abstinence. Is it any wonder that we struggle to find the balance between compliance and defiance in our personal lives? ‍

In Mating in Captivity, I ask: why is the forbidden so erotic? Is it that when we do what we’re not supposed to, it feels like we’re doing what we really want? When we trespass the line in the sand, when is it weakness and when is it boldness? How do we understand the guilt that can follow the pleasure of engaging with the forbidden? How is it different when we cross the line alone versus when it’s a shared experience?‍

As a cross-cultural therapist, I often work with interracial, interreligious, and intercultural families for whom the very act of marrying out may be taboo. In my work with these families, the taboos each partner has inherited may cause tension when trying to break a stalemate or find consensus. It can be about circumcision, premarital sex, death rituals, financial beliefs, or whether to let one’s daughter wear a miniskirt. That said, you don’t have to be a Jew marrying a Muslim to face these tensions. Every couple brings their legacy of taboos into their relationship. ‍

When people talk to me about their transgressions, they talk about freedom, rebellion, power, bravery, and excitement. They also talk about guilt, secrecy, fear, and shame. There are many situations where we’re told you can never do this, that will never work, no woman or man has ever done that, why do you think you can? But defying the odds, going against one’s history of obedience, or just feeling “naughty” can be so enticing. 

Individualism and the modern ideology of love has liberated us from many taboos. It’s afforded us unprecedented freedom—premarital sex, marriage as a free choice enterprise, divorce, and more. But it has also left us unmoored, in search of new rules. I often talk about how we all need freedom and security, and autonomy and structure. A rejection of the old rules means we must make up the new rules for ourselves. And that can be a burden. It’s easier to reject the societal mandate than come up with our own codes. And even more so, when we have to discuss them openly with our partners. What if what we desire is the very thing they find so taboo? But a deeper relationship requires that we explore our own dark side of the moon. 

Let’s Turn the Lens on You

Addressing one’s taboos is a journey. Here are some questions to help you start. 

• What are some of the main taboos you’ve grown up with? Around sex? Death? Money? Gender roles? 
• What are some of your key beliefs about those taboos?
• Where did you learn them? 
• How do they play out in your relationships? 
• How do you talk about non-normative past sexual experiences? 
• If you wanted to try non-vanilla sex, how would you bring it up?
• When someone close to you wants to talk about money, does it feel empowering, tacky, or neutral? Why?
• Are you comfortable talking about death? Why or why not?

Let's continue the conversation.

Watch the replay of the Letters From Esther Workshop: Are Taboos Holding Your Relationship Back?

More From Esther

Why Do Sexual Taboos Make Up Our Sexual Fantasies? / a recent blog
Our sexual fantasies, and the taboos they contain, are symbolic maps of our deepest needs and wishes. Accessing that vulnerability can enhance our sex lives, but getting there is a taboo in and of itself. It means talking about it.‍

Growing through Discomfort / a new free resource for mental health professionals
My five part mini-series to help therapists, coaches, and mental health professionals navigate change and difficult conversations with their clients around stress, death, loss, and boundaries.‍

Where Should We Begin? Season 4 Pod Club / on Instagram Live
In our second Pod Club, producer Jesse Baker and I discuss show notes from Episode 3 “The Chronic Philanderer.

Conversation Starters

A compendium of highly recommended sources of inspiration and information       
‍

I’m Reading/Watching:

• “The Trajectory of Loneliness in Response to Covid-19” by Paula R. Pietromonaco and Nickola C. Overall. 
• “How Not to Apologize in Quarantine” by Adam Grant (The New York Times)
• Dan Ariely’s “Dishonesty Project”
• “Neuroscientist David Eagleman on How the Physiology of Drug Withdrawal Explains the Psychology of Heartbreak and Loss” by Maria Popova (Brain Pickings)
• “With My Body” by Nikki Jemel
• The Lunchbox, a film by Ritesh Batra
• “The Person You Mean to Be: How Good People Fight Bias” by Dolly Chugh ‍

‍I’m Participating in: ‍

I am very excited to be one of the guest teachers in Rabbi Marcelo Bronstein’s online Teshuvah Puzzle Process—a spiritual and psychological journey in 12 (mostly live) online sessions beginning September 9. Teshuvah (return to our essence) is not easy in a normal year. But as we continue to face an unprecedented global pandemic, it is even more challenging to find a safe space to do an honest “Cheshbon Ha -Nefesh,” an accounting of our souls. I hope you’ll join us. 

Shall We Begin?

Where did we get the idea that we have to learn how to love all on our own? Have you ever ended a relationship because you needed to “work on yourself?” Have you ever said “I need to learn how to love myself before I can love anyone else—and before I can learn how to be loved? 

Western culture is obsessed with the exhortation of individualism. In the past few years, the lexicon of the “Self”—self-love, self-care, self-made, the selfie, etc.—has sparked intense debate. Has “self-love” become a marketing term so that beauty brands can sell more products under the guise of wellness? Is self-care making us more self-critical? Is Kylie Jenner really the youngest “self-made” billionaire if she started her business with family money and fame? Does a “selfie” show the world our most empowered self or does it present a better-lit and maybe even slightly tweaked version of how we think we’d like to look? When people say “love thyself,” I wonder, which one? ‍

While the idea of selfhood is not new, different cultures map the self on a continuum: unique or varied, separate or together, independent or conformist. And our ideas about the self are evolving. In the west, we tend to see the self as a separate entity with clear boundaries that delineate an independent identity. This vision of the self is comprised of internal ruminations about confidence, doubt, happiness, failure, ability, disability, and privilege or lack thereof. But the self is also entangled in a cosmic connection with the people around us and with social, political, and economic structures. We don’t just learn to love ourselves by ourselves. It’s a classic chicken or the egg scenario: in order to love another, we must love ourselves. In order to love ourselves, we must allow ourselves to be loved by others. And we must recognize that negative self-esteem is riddled with societal messages about who is lovable, laudable, or loathsome. 

It can be wonderful to be alone, to give our body a massage, to cook ourselves a delicious meal for one, but this isn’t self-love, it’s self-reliance and self-sufficiency. Self-love, on the other hand, is closer to my colleague Terry Real’s explanation of self-esteem, our ability to see ourselves as a flawed individual and still hold ourselves in high regard. Self-love is the ability to not fall into a puddle of contempt even when we mess up. It’s trying new things knowing that we could fail, without thinking of ourselves, therefore, as failures. Can we take that understanding and self-compassion into our connections with others?‍

On my way to the airport recently, I realized I had left my passport, wallet, and computer at home. My multiple selves instantly began a cacophony in my head, how could you do this? You’re going to miss your flight. And then a new voice emerged: Perel, what a good thing this is happening to you in your sixties. This was the voice I tuned into. ‍

Had this scenario happened thirty years ago, I’d be mercilessly beating myself up. I would have said to myself what the hell is wrong with you? You’re so stupid. Go hide. But this new voice said you made a mistake. It happens. Now what? I picked up the phone and called my assistant, a travel agent, my husband, and a friend to see if she wanted to grab coffee with the new free time I found myself with. For me, this is self-love. And look how many people it involved.‍

For this reason, I also resist the term “self-made”—that mentality of “if I make it, I did it on my own and if I end up on the street, I only have myself to blame.” Human beings are simultaneously dependent and self-reliant. When I write a book, I start with the acknowledgments, because without those people, I couldn't have written the book. I'm massively dependent on the expertise, help, presence, and love of others. We all are. 

Self-love is less about the ability to withstand loneliness or establish independence and more about awareness and acceptance of our incompleteness. It’s about letting others love us even when we feel unlovable because their version of us is often kinder than our own. 

Let’s Turn the Lens on You

What does self-love look like for you? Try asking yourself the following questions:

• Can I acknowledge that I messed up without telling myself I’m a mess? 
• Can I practice regret without falling into an abyss?
• Can I take responsibility without blaming myself?
• Can I apologize for a mistake instead of hoping everyone will just move on?
• Can I acknowledge a time when I could have been a better leader in my own life?
• Can I release myself from the shame of having not responded sooner to someone so that I can finally reach out?
• Can I accept that I will be okay even if someone who hurt me—a parent, former partner, friend, or stranger—never acknowledges the pain they caused?
• Can I let someone treat me for a coffee, dinner, or movie without feeling guilty?
• Can I accept help from another without jumping to the conclusion that they want something from me?
• Can I hold my point of view without being validated for it?

More From Esther

Why Eroticism Should Be Part of Your Self-Care Plan‍

Tune into your body and let it teach you what you like, don’t like, and what you don’t know yet.‍

The Value of Letter Writing‍

Though the inbox has mostly replaced the mailbox, letters remain an essential part of my life. Here’s how to incorporate letter writing into yours. 

Conversation Starters

A compendium of highly recommended sources of inspiration and information.‍

I’m Reading: 

• “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding” by John Locke
• Need to Keep Gen Z Workers Happy? Hire a ‘Generational Consultant’ by Jazmine Hughes (New York Times)
• “The ‘Dating Market’ Is Getting Worse” by Ashley FettersKaitlyn Tiffany (The Atlantic)

I’m Watching: 

• Terry Real on Self-Esteem and Depression
• “No Subject” by Miriam Aziz
• “End Game” a documentary about end of life care‍

I’m Listening To: 

• Adam Grant on how to deal with jerks at work

Shall We Begin? 

I want to start this letter with a deep breath. Inhale. Exhale. Settle in. Since I last wrote to you, our world has changed. Here in New York, we’re now firmly in the throes of the novel coronavirus pandemic. Outside, some of us are fighting a microscopic and invisible threat on the front lines. Inside, many of us on lockdown are experiencing a new normal. While we socially distance, some of us are feeling lonely, longing to touch someone. Others are trapped inside with the same people 24/7 and crave just a few minutes alone. Many of us are working harder than ever before. Some of us no longer have a job. Some are sick or recovering. Within a week, we’ve come to know people who may not recover and others who are no longer fighting. All of these changes can describe even just one person’s reality right now. We have been yanked into a completely new way of being. We are experiencing, for the first time, the collision of our many roles—worker, partner, caretaker, parent, child, friend, teacher, CEO and CFO of our personal lives—all in one place. For many of us, that place is our kitchen table.‍

For three weeks, I’ve been sitting in the same chair at the same table. Here, through my digital devices, I am a CEO of my startup, a therapist to my patients, a supervisor to my students, a friend to people all over the globe, a mother to two sons, a wife to my husband, and a companion to myself. All of this under one roof, in one room, on one chair for the past three weeks. If my husband walks in the room while I’m giving a webinar to thousands of people (which happened last week) suddenly I’m a speaker, streamer, and wife all at once. ‍

Many of you have shared with me your versions of overlapping roles under lockdown. You’re the child who worries about your parents. You’re the parents worried about your children. Some of you are both. You’re the partner of someone who is now either too close to you or too far away. You’re the partner to a healthcare provider with whom you must negotiate risk and proximity. You’re the sibling not letting your brother visit because he hasn’t been careful enough. You’re the parent now teaching your kids, suddenly needing to show that you’re a math whiz, a music teacher, and an English major. You’re navigating virtual conferences in which your colleagues can peek directly into your bedroom and hear the kids yelling or the dog barking—the evidence of all your roles. The mute button has become the last boundary. ‍

Perhaps you’re finding yourselves back in a childhood bedroom you haven’t lived in in decades. Maybe you are like me, realizing that, at 61, you’re considered “at risk” even though you feel youthful and vibrant. Some of you, also like me, are therapists trying to help your patients cope with the same prolonged uncertainty, acute stress, and loss that you yourself are facing. And throughout all of this, you are also working, filing taxes, and applying for loans, extensions, or unemployment. 
Right now, we’re not just social distancing, we’re distancing from the places we go and the things we do. The different parts of our identity are usually highly localized.

They have a setting—home, commute, office, school, bar, gym, etc. Even those of us who normally work from home are used to going out. Without this differentiation of settings, it’s hard to switch contexts, establish routines, and negotiate boundaries. But these challenges are having an interesting side effect: we’re seeing the possibility for a new way of being. We’re re-prioritizing. We’re communicating differently. We’re reconnecting. We’re slowing down. We’re taking care. We’re checking in. 
Contrary to the idea that we need to merely survive this pandemic, we need not only to take care of our physical, mental, and emotional health, but to be creative and to make concerted changes to our relationships. We must create new boundaries and dissolve those that no longer serve us. And there are some very concrete relational tools that will help us. 

Let’s Turn the Lens on You‍

Building new dynamics helps us thrive instead of just survive.  

• ‍Monitor yourself morning, noon, and night. Take a pulse check of your stress levels (anxiety, irritability, impulsivity, anger, depression, despair, fatigue, passivity). Check your hopefulness levels too. If you are with others, encourage everyone to share their pulse checks. Acknowledging our internal levels helps us to not turn these feelings on one another and it helps us regulate.
• ‍Understand that we all have different coping mechanisms and different means of processing our experiences. Under acute stress, some of us become highly logical, others highly emotional. Use these differences to balance your perspectives instead of exacerbating tensions.
• ‍Agree upon a code word that may be deployed when you just can’t engage. But know that whoever uses the code word is responsible to open the door to conversation when they are ready so the other person knows they are not dealing with endless silence.
• ‍Communicate clearly, state what you feel and what you need. Clear requests are better than criticism of the other.
• If you need more flexibility from your employer because your roles are overlapping, be explicit about your needs. This is new for them, too.
• If you need dedicated time and space from your partner or family, give them a schedule of when you are unavailable because you are working, taking time for yourself, etc.
• If you want someone to help you, tell them exactly what you need rather than having them guess or dumping a litany of complaints on them.‍
• Don’t just talk—try intense listening and validate what they say. By listening attentively to another person speak from the inside out, you allow them to be at the same time inside themselves and with you. Which is actually what happens in sex, too. It’s the ebb and flow of the boundary, the together and seperate. 
• ‍Don’t be afraid to bring in peers to help you. A friend recently asked me to talk to her oldest daughter because she thought I could offer a different perspective than what they had been talking circles around. We are often smarter with other peoples’ problems than our own. 
• As my colleagues John and Julie Gottman have suggeste, try expressing appreciation not just for what another person does, but for what it says about who they are. “Thank you for doing the dishes” is good but “thank you for being so thoughtful” is even better.

Shall We Begin?

Work friendships are a unique kind of companionship. They are forged inside the structures and pressures of labor and performance. What makes them profound is not necessarily how much colleagues “know” us, but how we show up for each other:

• loyalty in strained moments
• recognition when the labor is unseen
• honesty when the stakes are high
• relief when the load is heavy
• perspective when we lose our way
• protection when we need a witness
• support when things are tough at home
• collaboration, because we know it makes the work better
• comedic relief, as much as possible

ON THE CLOCK

These friendships are not always easy, but they are essential. They are the quiet scaffolding that holds us up in our work and, sometimes, in our lives. Many of us spend more of our waking hours with our colleagues than we do with our own families. I know, it’s shocking. Eight hours a day really adds up.

BEYOND THE JOB

Not all collegial relationships, however, take place in a daily structure, especially as career spans grow longer and we move from job to job more frequently than previous generations. Some colleagues stay with us for life, long after we’ve both moved on from where and how we met. These “forever colleagues” remind us that work friendships are not bound by office walls, nor a particular company or position, nor a chapter in one’s life.

OUTSIDE THE OFFICE

In my profession, I try to gather these work friends at least once a year at my annual conference, Sessions Live. This is not only where we catch up; it’s also where we learn from each other. It’s where we look at the year in review: what topics are coming up in our offices, how the mental health field is changing, the ways we are growing, and the places we feel stuck.

Mental health providers spend the majority of their hours listening to and helping patients and clients. This gathering is where we come together to listen to each other, share our big ideas, and tell our stories, some of which happen to be deeply personal. Over on my podcast, Where Should We Begin?, I am highlighting three work friends whose presentations at Sessions Live earlier this year exemplify for me why it is so important to intentionally gather outside of the normal work channels and get into real life together.

You’ll hear:

• Paul Browde, psychiatrist and narrative therapist, share a deeply personal story of secrecy, HIV, and stigma—and how telling the truth became his path back to aliveness. He reminds us that pleasure is not indulgence but part of healing, and that clinicians also need spaces to reconnect with their own vitality if we are to guide our patients toward it.
• Nedra Glover Tawwab, therapist and bestselling author, break down the language of boundaries, which has become all too distorted in popular culture. She shows us that boundaries are not exits but bridges—a way to preserve connection in imperfect relationships.
• Julia Samuel, psychotherapist and grief expert, bring us into the paradox of grief. She reminds us that grief does not begin with death but with love, and that to block pain is to block joy. She places Eros and Thanatos—the life force and the death instinct—side by side, teaching us that clinicians must help people oscillate between loss and restoration, pain and possibility.

Click here to tune in.

DOING THE WORK

Together, their talks form a mosaic of what it means to practice therapy today: to witness, to negotiate, to carry grief, and to insist on aliveness. Listening to them, I am reminded that our work is not meant to be done in isolation. It is sustained by the friendships we form with one another, the colleagues who walk beside us and remind us that “doing the work” is not just solitary but relational.

So I want to ask you: Who are your work friends? Who are the colleagues who push your thinking, who sit with you in the aftermath of a difficult situation, who help you hold what can’t be carried alone? I’d love to hear your stories of work friendship. Write to me at info@estherperel.com.

If you’re interested in attending Sessions Live 2026, join the waitlist to get first access to early bird tickets when they go on sale. Each year, the talks on stage are profound—but it is the community in the room, the conversations in the hallways, and the friendships that form between us that make the experience transformative. I hope you’ll join us.

Let’s Turn the Lens on You

Think of your colleagues, present or past, as you consider the following superlatives. Who’s most likely to:

• Catch your typo in the shared doc
• Save you from sending that ill-advised message
• Translate a cryptic email
• Drop the perfect meme or GIF in the chat
• Remind you to take a lunch break
• Make the spreadsheet actually readable
• Find an elegant solution to an absolute disaster
• Be asked for mentorship
• Ask the brave question in a big meeting

Now, hand out your awards. Send one person a note of appreciation—or better yet, share this exercise with your team and compare lists.

More from Esther

LISTEN TO WHERE SHOULD WE BEGIN? ON APPLE PODCASTS | tune in

Tune in to hear psychiatrist and storyteller Paul Browde on secrecy, truth, and aliveness; bestselling author Nedra Glover Tawwab on why boundaries are bridges, not exits; and psychotherapist Julia Samuel on grief as love in motion. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts for ad-free listening, bonus episodes, and exclusive behind-the-scenes content.

ENJOY 20% OFF ESTHER’S CLASS ON MASTERCLASS | learn more

Step into the classroom with Esther. As a Letters from Esther subscriber, you get 20% off a MasterClass membership—including full access to Esther Perel’s acclaimed class on relationships, plus 200+ more classes from the world’s most inspiring minds.  

JOIN US FOR SESSIONS LIVE 2026 | join the waitlist

Each year, Esther brings together her colleagues for multiple days of transformative conversations, community, and connection at Sessions Live. Sign up for the waitlist to get first access to early bird tickets for Sessions Live 2026—before they open to the public.

Conversation Starters

A compendium of highly recommended sources of inspiration and information

TO WATCH:

• 9 to 5, the 1980 cult classic film, stars Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Dolly Parton as three coworkers who transform office drudgery into friendship, solidarity, and rebellion. A sharp, funny comedy about the power of work friends.

TO READ

• “The Magic of Your First Work Friends” by Emma Goldberg (The New York Times). From cubicle gossip to career-shaping mentorships, this piece explores how early workplace friendships can crystallize who we become—and how it’s still possible in the era of hybrid work.
• “How to Make—and Keep—Friends at Work” by Belinda Luscombe (TIME). Smart, memorable, and instantly useful, this article gives you real tools for navigating the messy overlap of friendship and work.
• “How to Make Friends Across Age Gaps at Work” by Jeff Tan (Harvard Business Review). Entering the workforce can be daunting, especially when you’re collaborating across five generations. This article provides practical tips for building connections with older colleagues, from vetting team culture to cultivating mentorship.

Shall We Begin?

There are few words more joyful and more vulnerable than “best friend.” ‍

We say it easily as children and more carefully as adults. Friendship is the most free-choice relationship we have. There are no vows, no papers, no cultural scripts to follow, only reciprocity. You can’t be someone’s friend if they’re not yours.

LISTEN IN

In two very different episodes of my podcast Where Should We Begin?, I sat with two pairs of best friends: Emily and Olivia, who once called each other their “college wives,” and “A” and “S,” both sons of South Asian immigrants who met back in preschool in the American South. In recent years, the two women’s priorities have shifted, though they’ve never quite let go of each other. For the men, they’ve always been separated by class, but each represents a part of the other they wish they had. Both episodes focus on a specific rupture, but what emerges is something deeper: the slow drift of friendship under the weight of life and the longing to remain close despite it all.

Click here to listen on Apple Podcasts.

GROWING UP‍

Emily and Olivia shared a love story, not romantic, but undeniably intimate. For four years, they were everything to each other: emergency contacts, dinner dates, sounding boards. Then came the slow erosion—boyfriends, career shifts, unspoken resentments crocheted into complex narratives. It wasn’t one moment that caused the pain; it was the accumulation of missed moments.‍

For the two men, “A” and “S,” their career and financial decisions have left a gulf between them. One chose success; the other, connection. One grew up with a sense of deep obligation to give back to his parents. The other carried guilt for carving his own path. Each admired the other but also disavowed their choices, which left each one convinced that the other was no longer interested in being friends.

DO YOU WANT TO STILL BE FRIENDS?‍

All four of these people have been asked by others, or have asked themselves, “Why do you still want a friendship with this person?” Simply: they don’t want to give up on their shared history or the future they had so often imagined together.

And, so, we must ask: if you want to keep an important friendship, what do you need to do now to help that friendship continue to grow and change over time? Friendship often operates in the background of our lives, assumed to be sturdy, low-maintenance, unshakable. But even the most natural friendships need effort to stay alive. This means scheduled time together, rituals such as shared walks, bi-weekly calls, or annual trips. ‍

Perhaps this focus is a means of easing my own friendship aches. In recent years, three of my closest friends in New York have moved away. One more is leaving for Paris this month: the inimitable Erin Allweiss, cofounder of No. 29, who not only is a dear friend but also brought two of my closest colleagues into my life and me into theirs. Each of these friends who have moved are the types who gather you in, arrange parties, and connect people who otherwise may not have met. They are generous, special, and fun.

It’s easy to rely on these friends for community and sometimes hard to remember that they need you, too, especially when they are starting anew—be it a new place, a new job, a new romance, a new child, a new loss. Your intention and attention is the tide that lifts all boats. As the philosopher Cicero once wrote, “Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.” But that only happens if we show up. As bell hooks reminded us, “Rarely, if ever, are any of us healed in isolation.”

Let’s Turn the Lens on You

Step 1: Choose Your Person‍

Take the pressure off by choosing a friend you’ve drifted from and want to reconnect with, not one with whom you had a major rupture.

Step 2: Reach Out with Intention‍

Send them a voice memo, text, or short email that begins with:‍

“Hey, I’ve been thinking about you. I just listened to a story about two friends who found their way back to each other and it made me miss you.”‍

Keep it simple. Share one memory, one feeling, or one thing you appreciate about them.‍

Step 3: Create a Micro-Ritual‍

Extend a small invitation to connect with them regularly. This could be a monthly walk, call, or anything else. No pressure, just presence.

More from Esther

LISTEN TO WHERE SHOULD WE BEGIN? ON APPLE PODCASTS | tune in

This summer on my podcast, we’re taking a journey through the love and heartbreak of friendship. Tune in to listen to the two episodes mentioned above, plus a special conversation with Trevor Noah and so much more. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts for ad-free listening, bonus episodes, and exclusive behind-the-scenes content.‍

TURNING CONFLICT INTO CONNECTION | learn more

Conflict is intrinsic to every relationship—even friendship. In this short digital course, you’ll learn about the real reasons we fight, discover solutions for de-escalating conflict, and find new frameworks to help you reconcile and repair after an argument. Enroll today for just $99.‍

GAIN NEW INSIGHTS INTO FRIENDSHIP | explore articles

Friendship is different from romantic or filial love, but it’s just as important. This collection of articles highlights the unique nature—and struggle—of friendship and offers insights to help you navigate yours with more confidence.

Conversation Starters

A compendium of highly recommended sources of inspiration and information

TO READ:

• The Sisters, a new novel by Jonas Hassen Khemiri, began when Khemiri sensed that someone he loved had put a curse on him. In his own words: “I didn’t believe in curses. A curse is just a story, right? But stories are powerful, especially the ones that try to predict our future.” The titular sisters at the heart of Khemiri’s novel are also cursed, which we observe as we follow them over the course of 35 years. It’s a journey of love and loss, betrayal and forgiveness, learning new languages—and forgetting old ones.