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The Secret to Lasting, Deep Friendships · Raising Daughters

0:12
Speaker 1: Welcome back friends. Doctor Tim Jordan here with a brand
0:15
Speaker 1: new podcast on Raising Daughters. And as you know, I
0:19
Speaker 1: try and find some good guests who are doing interesting things.
0:24
Speaker 1: And I think you're going to really like today's guests
0:26
Speaker 1: on this podcast because he does a lot of interesting things.
0:30
Speaker 1: He's an interesting man. His name is Barnett Bain and he's,
0:34
Speaker 1: among other things, an award winning filmmaker. Some of the
0:38
Speaker 1: films you may recognize with things like What Dreams May Come,
0:42
Speaker 1: which I remember I enjoyed when it came out a
0:44
Speaker 1: while back. He's Emmy nominee for several films.
0:50
Speaker 2: He also.
0:53
Speaker 1: It teaches a course at Columbia University which he can
0:55
Speaker 1: talk about in just a moment. And his latest endeavor
1:00
Speaker 1: is he wrote a book which I thought would be
1:02
Speaker 1: interesting to talk about today. It's called How to Be
1:04
Speaker 1: a Friend in Unfriendly World. So, Barnette bin, thank you
1:08
Speaker 1: so much for coming on Raising Daughters.
1:11
Speaker 2: Thank you for inviting me, And it's an opportunity for
1:17
Speaker 2: us to honor our daughters. I'm maybe the most exciting
1:27
Speaker 2: the exciting aspect of my life is being a dad
1:31
Speaker 2: to a daughter. So I appreciate that you wanted to
1:35
Speaker 2: talk about this subject that's meaningful to me. I'll start
1:39
Speaker 2: it with something simple. Nobody ever taught us how to
1:44
Speaker 2: be a friend. We were taught how to say please
1:48
Speaker 2: and thank you. We were taught how to share when
1:51
Speaker 2: we were very little. Later, we were taught how to succeed,
1:56
Speaker 2: how to compete, how to stand out. But at no
1:59
Speaker 2: point did anyone ever sit us down and say, well,
2:02
Speaker 2: here's how you stay connected when it gets awkward, here's
2:08
Speaker 2: what you do when feelings are hurt. Here's how you
2:13
Speaker 2: don't quietly drift apart from people you care about. And
2:20
Speaker 2: those skills matter, especially now, because I don't have to
2:25
Speaker 2: tell you. We're living in a world that feels in
2:28
Speaker 2: a lot of ways less friendly. People are tired, everyone
2:32
Speaker 2: is busy, families are scattered, everyone's distracted, and even though
2:37
Speaker 2: in some ways some very superficial ways, we're more connected
2:42
Speaker 2: than ever texts and group chats and social media, many
2:47
Speaker 2: of us feel lonelier than we ever expected to. So
2:54
Speaker 2: full disclosure. I didn't write this book because I felt
3:02
Speaker 2: like an expert. I wrote it because I wasn't very
3:06
Speaker 2: good at it, and that started for me with my
3:12
Speaker 2: daughter some years ago. My daughter went off to college
3:18
Speaker 2: first time away from home, and she came to visit
3:22
Speaker 2: first time back, and we went out to dinner, just
3:27
Speaker 2: the two of us, and she excitedly began to unpack
3:31
Speaker 2: her experiences, and to both of our surprises, I came
3:36
Speaker 2: at her with a whole kind of litany of questions.
3:39
Speaker 2: And I would love to say that they were without
3:44
Speaker 2: judgment and without criticism, but that's not the case. They
3:49
Speaker 2: were all very loaded. Did I approve of what she
3:53
Speaker 2: was doing? What were her course load, who was she
3:56
Speaker 2: hanging out with? How was she spending her time? And
3:59
Speaker 2: she hit the brakes and she said, who wha, whoa, whoa, Dad,
4:03
Speaker 2: what's going on here? This is not how you showed
4:06
Speaker 2: out for me for the first sixteen years. And it
4:11
Speaker 2: feels bad.
4:12
Speaker 1: M good for her.
4:15
Speaker 2: And so I understood something profound in that moment. One
4:23
Speaker 2: was that I took responsibility for hurting a person that
4:28
Speaker 2: I love. And secondly, you know, she said, you you
4:33
Speaker 2: you sold me a story of your unconditional love, and
4:40
Speaker 2: I said, well, yeah, I realized that that is a
4:46
Speaker 2: fairy tale that I also bought into, and that the
4:50
Speaker 2: love appears to be unconditional until you hit the until
4:54
Speaker 2: you hit the boundaries. Until you hit until you hit
4:57
Speaker 2: the end of the lane. And what happened for me
5:00
Speaker 2: is that as long as my daughter was living under
5:03
Speaker 2: my roof, we had many shared values. But the moment
5:08
Speaker 2: she started to become more of herself, it rubbed up
5:10
Speaker 2: against who I am. And just to unpack that a
5:15
Speaker 2: little more, not long after that story, I was walking
5:24
Speaker 2: and I came across a street performer in a park
5:28
Speaker 2: near my home. And this performer had two sticks with
5:34
Speaker 2: a length of yarn between them, and he would dip
5:36
Speaker 2: it into a pan of soapy water and make these
5:38
Speaker 2: incredible soap bubbles. And it was captivating and his pierce
5:45
Speaker 2: was astanced. The big finish was he made this enormous bubble,
5:50
Speaker 2: wrapped it around himself, stepped into it, and he was
5:53
Speaker 2: fully enclosed in this shimmering soap bubble. And a penny
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Speaker 2: dropped from me. I realized, well, this is what I do,
6:01
Speaker 2: This is what we all do. We operate inside a bubble.
6:05
Speaker 2: And this is a bubble built from our beliefs and
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Speaker 2: our fears and our hopes, our history, our dreams, our education,
6:12
Speaker 2: our racial, social religious education and upbringing. And now on
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Speaker 2: top of all that, algorithms that keep us quote unquote
6:22
Speaker 2: comfortable inside our own fixed ideas, and that as long
6:29
Speaker 2: as I was meeting another person who had a similar
6:34
Speaker 2: bubble my daughter, everything was coopsetic. But when I encountered
6:42
Speaker 2: somebody whose bubble doesn't lay over mine like a ven
6:46
Speaker 2: diagram to the extent that it is different than mine,
6:49
Speaker 2: I judge them, or I have an internal narrative about
6:54
Speaker 2: them all quite automatically, and if it's too different from me,
7:03
Speaker 2: then I distance myself from them, or I make them invisible,
7:07
Speaker 2: which is perhaps the most hostile act of all. And
7:12
Speaker 2: so I realized I don't want to be that person
7:16
Speaker 2: I wanted to grow. I want to change that. I
7:19
Speaker 2: want to become more conscious of my automatic biases, and
7:23
Speaker 2: I want to pop the bubble. And that's how the
7:26
Speaker 2: book began. So I credit my daughter for being a
7:32
Speaker 2: great teacher and for leading me down this path.
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Speaker 1: But good for you, first of all, because one things
7:41
Speaker 1: I do in life is my listeners know is I
7:44
Speaker 1: run weekend retreats in summer camps for girls, and so
7:47
Speaker 1: we sit around on a circle on the floor and
7:49
Speaker 1: we talk about life important things, their emotions, what they're
7:53
Speaker 1: going through. And one of the concepts you talk about
7:55
Speaker 1: in your book, which relates to your bubble story, is
7:58
Speaker 1: you talk about people having invisible backpacks story and stories
8:03
Speaker 1: that they bring to current life and their friendships. And
8:08
Speaker 1: so talk about that for a moment because I thought
8:09
Speaker 1: it was a really nice metaphor.
8:13
Speaker 2: Well, I want to hear a little more in a
8:15
Speaker 2: minute about about your weekend retreats. But to your your
8:20
Speaker 2: question about the backpacks, So there are some fundamental skills
8:28
Speaker 2: that can be taught and that can be practiced it.
8:32
Speaker 2: And you know, I want to stress this word practice.
8:36
Speaker 2: It's a practice like anything else, whether you're going to
8:39
Speaker 2: the gym or you're learning how to turn a pot.
8:43
Speaker 2: Everything requires practice. So there are some fundamental skills in
8:47
Speaker 2: One of them is to honor. And you know, we
8:53
Speaker 2: have a we think we under I thought I understood
8:57
Speaker 2: what honoring means, you know, honor thy father and the mother,
8:59
Speaker 2: and I thought I knew what that meant. And then
9:02
Speaker 2: upon deep investigation, I realized it doesn't mean that you
9:06
Speaker 2: just take it on. It didn't mean that my daughter
9:08
Speaker 2: needed to just take on who, you know, the tools,
9:13
Speaker 2: the skills, the belief system that she grew up in.
9:18
Speaker 2: It means that I honor you by my willingness to
9:23
Speaker 2: be changed by you, which takes some vulnerability and some humility.
9:29
Speaker 2: I honor you by being willing to be changed by you.
9:33
Speaker 2: And so I honor my father and mother, for example,
9:38
Speaker 2: by being willing to be changed by them. That means
9:42
Speaker 2: I grow eventually to be able to assess, well, what
9:45
Speaker 2: is it about my upbringing that was beautiful and good
9:48
Speaker 2: and true and valuable? And maybe I want to retain that?
9:50
Speaker 2: And what maybe maybe I could grow beyond it. Maybe
9:55
Speaker 2: it wasn't so practical, Maybe it wasn't maybe it wasn't
9:59
Speaker 2: the best thing. I honor them by changing those behaviors,
10:04
Speaker 2: by stepping beyond them. And this is what is so
10:08
Speaker 2: precious about a good friendship is that a good friendship
10:13
Speaker 2: helps us become better. It's one of life's great moral teachers.
10:18
Speaker 2: We learn from each other in ways that allow us
10:24
Speaker 2: to honor the friendship by being changed by it, by growing,
10:28
Speaker 2: by letting go of some assumptions. And that's not all.
10:31
Speaker 2: That's not always comfortable. So to honor somebody, we have
10:37
Speaker 2: to appreciate where they're coming from and where they're going,
10:42
Speaker 2: and to understand that everybody is carrying what I call
10:45
Speaker 2: an invisible backpack, which is their family, their culture, their history,
10:48
Speaker 2: their hopes. You don't have to like what's in it,
10:53
Speaker 2: but one can respect the weight. The key to this
11:01
Speaker 2: is really about slowing down. So much of our lives unfold.
11:07
Speaker 2: It's such a it's.
11:08
Speaker 3: Such a quick rate, such quick at pace, that we're
11:12
Speaker 3: not really we don't really slow it down enough to say,
11:20
Speaker 3: before I act, before I.
11:21
Speaker 2: Speak, what is going on with me? If my friend,
11:28
Speaker 2: for example, doesn't feel safe with me, then you can
11:32
Speaker 2: forget the rest. Now, safety doesn't mean bubble wrap. It
11:36
Speaker 2: just means that I am not weaponizing their vulnerability. And
11:42
Speaker 2: that usually happens automatically. Yes, in some cases, you know
11:46
Speaker 2: it happens people are passive aggressive, or they're sarcastic, which
11:51
Speaker 2: is not honoring a friendship. But most often these things
11:56
Speaker 2: happen automatically. It's just automatic behavior. And if we can
12:01
Speaker 2: slow it down enough to introduce a tiny pause, that pause,
12:08
Speaker 2: that beat is the moment that we can step out
12:12
Speaker 2: of our autopilot. Our bubble are conditioning, and most of
12:18
Speaker 2: us rush to fix things because the discomfort of somebody
12:21
Speaker 2: else's that you know that somebody else's response to us,
12:25
Speaker 2: or or something somebody else does or says, it triggers
12:29
Speaker 2: something in us that we don't stop to identify. We
12:33
Speaker 2: just immediately rush to fix it by jumping in with
12:39
Speaker 2: an automatic and automatic behavior. So that tiny pause allows
12:45
Speaker 2: us to begin to to interrupt the pattern. It allows
12:49
Speaker 2: us to choose is how do I want to respond?
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Speaker 2: How do I do I want to lash out? Do
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Speaker 2: I want to be curious? Do I want to say
13:02
Speaker 2: create a boundary and say you know you're my friend?
13:04
Speaker 2: But I don't really agree with that, and it doesn't
13:08
Speaker 2: have to become a drama between us. You know, years
13:13
Speaker 2: ago a close friend of mine told me very gently
13:20
Speaker 2: that I treated disagreement with him like a personal attack,
13:23
Speaker 2: and immediately I wanted to argue with him, which of
13:30
Speaker 2: course proves his point. And I'm not underestimating the challenge
13:36
Speaker 2: of this because sitting with a discomfort, first of all,
13:42
Speaker 2: it showed me how fragile my bubble had become. How
13:47
Speaker 2: you know, I realized we all have a secret agenda,
13:50
Speaker 2: which is to confirm, to have people confirm who we
13:55
Speaker 2: already are. And when something comes at us, if a
14:01
Speaker 2: friend says something that is maybe a little messy about me,
14:04
Speaker 2: if I can hear it without flinching or fixing, but
14:10
Speaker 2: recognize that I want to flinch or fix. Then I
14:16
Speaker 2: can put my finger, I can point to a growth edge,
14:20
Speaker 2: and that's marvelous. It allows me to become more and
14:24
Speaker 2: it allows me to identify what is this about me
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Speaker 2: that is being triggered here? What is the soft spot?
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Speaker 2: And when I can identify it, now I have a choice.
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Speaker 2: Is this an old behavior? Usually these kinds of behaviors
14:41
Speaker 2: are not about now. Yeah, you know, and I think
14:44
Speaker 2: this is I find that our listeners may or may
14:49
Speaker 2: not agree. But when you know, when I'm speaking to people,
14:51
Speaker 2: particularly young people, they resonate with this. Most of what
14:58
Speaker 2: upsets us or bumps us or figgers us, or most
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Speaker 2: of us who causes us to push away or to
15:05
Speaker 2: shake a friendship, is not about now. It is almost
15:10
Speaker 2: always something that comes up that is the same or
15:14
Speaker 2: similar or familiar to an old thought, an old feeling,
15:18
Speaker 2: not always conscious, that comes up. And so when we
15:25
Speaker 2: can slow it down, we can say, is this about
15:27
Speaker 2: really about now? And usually it's not about now unless
15:31
Speaker 2: you're standing in the road and a truck is coming
15:33
Speaker 2: at you. That's about now. But you know, when when
15:39
Speaker 2: things happen that are similar our bodies. They remember everything.
15:46
Speaker 2: I'll give you an example. I can be driving down
15:50
Speaker 2: I could be driving down the street and of the
15:53
Speaker 2: radios on and I'll hear a song and the song
15:56
Speaker 2: might be something from what I was seventeen eighteen years
15:59
Speaker 2: old and old Beatles song or something, and instantly, instantly,
16:04
Speaker 2: I recall who I was with or situation, or the
16:07
Speaker 2: person that I was in love with at the time.
16:09
Speaker 2: It's an instant process. And the same is true for
16:16
Speaker 2: when we are offended or when we are triggered. It
16:22
Speaker 2: is almost always an old thought and an old feeling.
16:28
Speaker 2: And so that part tiny pots that I referred to
16:32
Speaker 2: that beat, it allows us to pump the brakes a
16:38
Speaker 2: little bit and before we react, it allows us to
16:43
Speaker 2: identify that this is not about now. In the safety
16:48
Speaker 2: of a friendship that has a certain boundary, I can
16:54
Speaker 2: depend on my friend to give me the space to
16:57
Speaker 2: work that out. And that is one of the the
17:00
Speaker 2: beautiful values of being a friend. They help us become better.
17:06
Speaker 1: We're talking to Barnett Bain. He's the author of a
17:09
Speaker 1: new book just came out a few weeks ago. I
17:10
Speaker 1: believe it's called How to Be a Friend. In an
17:13
Speaker 1: unfriendly world. You know, one of the things I do
17:16
Speaker 1: with girls in my counseling practice retreats is if there's
17:19
Speaker 1: somebody who's getting under their skin, triggering them in any
17:23
Speaker 1: number of ways, we have them do a little exercise
17:25
Speaker 1: where they have that person in mind, and then they
17:29
Speaker 1: fill in the blank. What I see in them, that
17:32
Speaker 1: I see in me is blank because there's always a
17:36
Speaker 1: piece of us in those reactions. That's what you're saying.
17:39
Speaker 1: I think, so instead of judging other people or reacting
17:43
Speaker 1: to other people, we can learn to understand not just
17:45
Speaker 1: them but us. What are they arousing in us? Because
17:48
Speaker 1: if I can handle that, Like, for instance, cocky guys
17:52
Speaker 1: used to piss me off, I didn't like them if
17:55
Speaker 1: they were allowed and they were self assured, if they
17:58
Speaker 1: were asking for what they wanted, I would say, what
18:00
Speaker 1: a jerk and all that until I decided to do
18:03
Speaker 1: the exercise myself and I realized that it wasn't what
18:06
Speaker 1: they were triggering in me. Was I wasn't being assertive
18:09
Speaker 1: in my life because of the way I was raised,
18:12
Speaker 1: and I really needed to start learning how to ask
18:14
Speaker 1: for I wanted to be more assertive, and so instead
18:17
Speaker 1: of saying you've changed. You knocked that off, I said,
18:20
Speaker 1: I pointed a finger to me and said, if I
18:22
Speaker 1: can work on that and switch that, those people will
18:25
Speaker 1: no longer trigger me. And that's what happened. I think
18:29
Speaker 1: that's one of the that's one of the things that
18:30
Speaker 1: we can do, is we can realize what is in
18:32
Speaker 1: our backpack, what's inside our bubble, and some of those
18:35
Speaker 1: things we can become aware of.
18:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, I completely agree. That's a beautiful exercise. And you know,
18:44
Speaker 2: every we can become, we can always become more and
18:49
Speaker 2: more and more aware of these patterns. And sometimes you know,
18:52
Speaker 2: when when somebody hears that, it can sound daunting and discouraging.
18:57
Speaker 2: So I don't mean to I don't mean to set
19:00
Speaker 2: up hurdles. It's a very it can be a very gentle,
19:05
Speaker 2: a very gentle process. I completely agree with you. What
19:10
Speaker 2: triggers me and another person is always always I'm seeing
19:15
Speaker 2: my own biases, my own behaviors, and and I'm I'm
19:19
Speaker 2: judging it because I don't want to judge myself. Yeah,
19:23
Speaker 2: and that's a tough one. A That's a really tough one.
19:30
Speaker 2: But there are gentler ways to approach that. And you know,
19:35
Speaker 2: I find I don't have to jump right into owning
19:39
Speaker 2: that's my I'm looking in a mirror and that's me.
19:43
Speaker 2: I don't have to jump right into that. I can
19:45
Speaker 2: start with providing being a safe place for friends. I
19:54
Speaker 2: can start with listening deeply to another person. Just I
19:59
Speaker 2: guess art with that, And that doesn't mean I'm pausing
20:03
Speaker 2: to reload my next point or argument, or it's that
20:09
Speaker 2: I'm listening deeply and staying curious long enough to actually
20:15
Speaker 2: hear what they're saying, and to listen to my own
20:19
Speaker 2: internal narrative and to put it in the you know,
20:24
Speaker 2: put it in its place. I I like to think
20:27
Speaker 2: of my own narrative, which only does two things. My
20:31
Speaker 2: narrative is either doing a color commentary like you know football,
20:36
Speaker 2: this is going on, is going on, he's fading back
20:38
Speaker 2: for the past. Or it's judging this is better, this
20:42
Speaker 2: is good, this is bad. It only does those two things,
20:44
Speaker 2: and so I remind myself to treat it like the radio.
20:50
Speaker 2: It's just background noise. It's just background noise. So that
20:53
Speaker 2: I give myself permission in a priority and prioritize listening
20:58
Speaker 2: to you. And sometimes I'll even repeat back in my
21:03
Speaker 2: head something that you just said before. I answer, not
21:09
Speaker 2: necessarily to agree, but to prove to myself that I
21:13
Speaker 2: heard that I'm listening. So you know, in a good friendship,
21:20
Speaker 2: I totally agree. What triggers us about a friendship is
21:23
Speaker 2: you is someone acknowledge aspect of my own behavior one
21:27
Speaker 2: hundred percent of the time. But that's a hard that's
21:33
Speaker 2: sometimes a hard one for me to let in. So
21:35
Speaker 2: I start with, well, can I learn how to listen
21:39
Speaker 2: deeply without having my own internal thing take priority? Can
21:44
Speaker 2: I start by, as we said, honoring where another person's
21:48
Speaker 2: coming from. I don't always have to agree with another person.
21:52
Speaker 2: I don't always have to make them agree with me.
21:55
Speaker 2: Doesn't always have to become a fight about I right,
21:57
Speaker 2: you're wrong? Can somebody be different than me without losing
22:02
Speaker 2: my love? Can a friend be different from me? Can
22:05
Speaker 2: my daughter be different from me without losing my love?
22:12
Speaker 2: That's not a simple thing. It requires me to be
22:18
Speaker 2: aware of what's going on with me. Oh, now I'm
22:21
Speaker 2: judging her? Why am I judging her? Well, I'm judging
22:24
Speaker 2: her because she's no longer a mirror of my own bubble,
22:31
Speaker 2: and that means I'm getting triggered because I have a
22:35
Speaker 2: love with myself. It's like you know the story of
22:39
Speaker 2: Narcissus who looked into the pond in Greek mythology and
22:43
Speaker 2: saw himself and didn't realize it was himself and fell
22:46
Speaker 2: in love with himself. So when I'm in my bubble
22:50
Speaker 2: to the extent other people have a bubble that aligns
22:54
Speaker 2: with mine, I'm in love with myself. It works smoothly
22:59
Speaker 2: because it's me. It's the parts of myself that that
23:03
Speaker 2: you know that I'm not. It's these are not the
23:07
Speaker 2: parts of myself that that bump me. They are the
23:10
Speaker 2: parts of myself that that I'm happy with, and they
23:16
Speaker 2: conform with with my worldview, and so I like them.
23:19
Speaker 2: But can I give somebody permission to be different than me?
23:23
Speaker 2: My daughter now to grow into herself without me pushing
23:30
Speaker 2: back on it. Can I acknowledge, well, this is somebody.
23:33
Speaker 2: She can be different than me, have different beliefs, have
23:36
Speaker 2: different values, and I still have a commitment, a conscious
23:41
Speaker 2: commitment to be loving. I don't always have to agree,
23:47
Speaker 2: but I can allow her to be different. I can
23:51
Speaker 2: I do some Sometimes I have a little practice. I
23:54
Speaker 2: test myself. I'll listen to a news channel or something
23:59
Speaker 2: that's off brand for me, and I'll notice what goes
24:04
Speaker 2: on in my body. I have certain thoughts and they're
24:07
Speaker 2: usually judgments, and that's all true. But what's below that
24:12
Speaker 2: is there are some kind of there's a certain kind
24:14
Speaker 2: of body sensations. I feel uncomfortable in my body. And
24:25
Speaker 2: that's that was a very big revelation to me that
24:30
Speaker 2: before I speak, before I deploy my judgments and my
24:35
Speaker 2: fixed ideas about life, before that happens, there is a
24:40
Speaker 2: body discomfort. It's something doesn't feel right, and sometimes it
24:45
Speaker 2: can be so alarming that you know that I that
24:48
Speaker 2: I I wriggle. I mean, so these are all qualities
24:56
Speaker 2: of our of our bubble. And what happened is when
25:00
Speaker 2: we become aware of the sort of dissonance that happens
25:06
Speaker 2: with other people's bubbles and then to begin to dismantle them.
25:11
Speaker 2: We do it by listening deeply. We do it by
25:15
Speaker 2: providing safety. That means when I'm starting to get a
25:19
Speaker 2: little feel a little messy, I understand, well, I'm feeling
25:25
Speaker 2: a little messy. This is about This is about me.
25:29
Speaker 2: Can I handle it? And if I can handle it,
25:31
Speaker 2: I can say, in the context of a good friendship,
25:34
Speaker 2: this is starting to trigger me it's not about you,
25:37
Speaker 2: You're my friend. This is a growth This is a
25:40
Speaker 2: growth edge for me. Can I reduce the fear of loss?
25:44
Speaker 2: Because usually when it happens, we pull away or or
25:49
Speaker 2: in the extreme, we ghost, We ghost people, and everyone
25:53
Speaker 2: is a little afraid that other people will disappear? So
25:58
Speaker 2: as a friend, can I can I be consistent? Which
26:02
Speaker 2: matters more than intensity? Can Can I? Can I text
26:07
Speaker 2: a friend, for example, who's drifted away? Can I Can
26:10
Speaker 2: I just text me I'm thinking of you, no reply needed?
26:13
Speaker 2: Can I? Can I put out the energy? Can I
26:17
Speaker 2: provide pleasure emostly, mentally, physically in ways that are appropriate? Folks,
26:24
Speaker 2: always in ways that are appropriate? Because joy is not fluff,
26:31
Speaker 2: it's fuel and fun is medicine. So can I be
26:36
Speaker 2: the person who remembers how to laugh? You know? This
26:40
Speaker 2: is something that I do with my my friends. I
26:44
Speaker 2: often send something ridiculous, a song, a meme, a bad joke.
26:48
Speaker 2: I want someone to borrow a little of my joy,
26:52
Speaker 2: and I want to be the beneficiary of other people's joy.
26:58
Speaker 2: So they're practices.
27:02
Speaker 1: We're talking with Barnett Bain. He is an award winning filmmaker.
27:07
Speaker 1: He is an author. He's a teacher of a master's
27:10
Speaker 1: level course at Columbia University, and he's the author of
27:13
Speaker 1: a brand new book. This came out a few weeks ago,
27:15
Speaker 1: called How to Be a Friend in an Unfriendly World.
27:18
Speaker 1: And this is not like a well actually for its
27:22
Speaker 1: friends of anybody at any age. But it's really a
27:24
Speaker 1: very deep book talking about a lot of things that
27:27
Speaker 1: are kind of below the surface that can interfere with
27:30
Speaker 1: us having the kind of relationships and the closest that
27:32
Speaker 1: we want.
27:33
Speaker 4: You have.
27:33
Speaker 1: One chapter we just talk about listening. And I'm not
27:36
Speaker 1: sure if you've ever read a children's book called Rabbit Listened.
27:39
Speaker 1: Your daughter is probably too your daughter may be too
27:42
Speaker 1: old for you. This is a fairly newish book, just
27:45
Speaker 1: Rabbit Listened.
27:46
Speaker 2: It's a very sweet book right now for little kids.
27:51
Speaker 1: But there's this little boy, I think, and he builds
27:54
Speaker 1: a tower of blocks, and then this bird comes in
27:58
Speaker 1: like knocks them all over, and so he's really up.
28:00
Speaker 1: He's got all these emotions, and so these different animals
28:03
Speaker 1: come in one at a time, and the bear wants
28:05
Speaker 1: him to growl, and this other animal wants him to
28:07
Speaker 1: do something else, and he doesn't want to do that,
28:09
Speaker 1: doesn't want to do it, just want to do that.
28:10
Speaker 1: And finally this little rabbit hops in and just quietly
28:13
Speaker 1: sits next to him and just sits there, and then
28:17
Speaker 1: the little boy feels better and he starts to rebuild
28:20
Speaker 1: the blocks again. I think sometimes we have a hard
28:23
Speaker 1: time as parents listen listening to our kids without fixing.
28:28
Speaker 1: That's not just with with kids, that's with spouses, that's
28:31
Speaker 1: with friends, and so you talk about that in your book.
28:34
Speaker 2: I do, first of all, thank you for recommending that book.
28:37
Speaker 2: I'm going to order it when we get off from
28:40
Speaker 2: from this podcast because it sounds profoundly, profoundly wise, yeah,
28:46
Speaker 2: and a wonderful thing to model. We learn, We learn
28:51
Speaker 2: by what is modeled to us. So by what we
28:56
Speaker 2: see is is how we learn. And so when when
29:00
Speaker 2: small children, particularly when they see these kinds of behaviors
29:04
Speaker 2: and these practices deployed in life, that's how they learn.
29:10
Speaker 2: It's not from it's not from being told, it's not
29:14
Speaker 2: it's from witnessing it. And so to witness an adult
29:20
Speaker 2: or a friend listening without jumping into fix this is
29:30
Speaker 2: the most profound gift that one can give to another
29:35
Speaker 2: is their presence, and to be present to someone you
29:40
Speaker 2: know and this is a little harder. I think this
29:43
Speaker 2: is This is only my opinion now. I think it's
29:47
Speaker 2: a little harder for men than it is for women,
29:52
Speaker 2: And at least out of my own experience. My wife
29:56
Speaker 2: we've been married for for many, many many years, but
30:00
Speaker 2: or as long as I can remember, when she starts
30:06
Speaker 2: unpacking feelings that and if there is, if there are
30:10
Speaker 2: strong feelings, I realize what it does is it makes
30:13
Speaker 2: me uncomfortable or it makes me impatient. I start to
30:21
Speaker 2: have those feelings in my body, which you know, as
30:23
Speaker 2: we talked about earlier, I'm not usually aware of. I
30:26
Speaker 2: usually jump right to a strategy, right to advice. Have
30:31
Speaker 2: you tried this, did you do this? You should do this,
30:33
Speaker 2: you should do this. And she's constantly saying, I'm not
30:35
Speaker 2: asking you to fix it, I'm just asking you to
30:38
Speaker 2: listen to me.
30:40
Speaker 1: Well, I have something to tell her the next time
30:42
Speaker 1: that happens, and I'm shorrying her a few But science
30:45
Speaker 1: would say that the male brain is different than the
30:47
Speaker 1: female brain in lots of ways. We're similar, but different ways.
30:51
Speaker 1: One way is when our emotional centers get triggered, I
30:54
Speaker 1: eat males, the part of our brain that then activates
30:59
Speaker 1: is a part of the brain called the temporal paridal junction.
31:03
Speaker 1: It's a part of the brain that likes to fix things,
31:05
Speaker 1: likes to fix problems, and that does not happen in
31:08
Speaker 1: the female brain. Their listening centers get motivated, their emotional
31:12
Speaker 1: centers get activated. There's connection. Parts of the brain get activated.
31:20
Speaker 1: But it's different for us, and it doesn't mean that
31:22
Speaker 1: we're screwed. It just means we need to be aware
31:23
Speaker 1: that that's been wired in. It's easy to automatically go
31:27
Speaker 1: to fix it when actually that's not what your wife
31:30
Speaker 1: or anybody for that matter, wants.
31:32
Speaker 2: Nobody wants it. Nobody wants it. What people want is presence.
31:41
Speaker 2: They want somebody to be with them, and nobody is broken.
31:49
Speaker 2: So to be able to listen deeply and to stay
31:55
Speaker 2: curious about what somebody is going on is such a gift.
32:00
Speaker 2: To be able to put down the phone, for example,
32:02
Speaker 2: and look someone in the eye and really listen, and
32:06
Speaker 2: to override the compulsion our own need for it, which
32:13
Speaker 2: is about us to fix them, because it's more comfortable
32:16
Speaker 2: for us, as you point out, to fix them than
32:18
Speaker 2: to be with them. Being fully present says you care,
32:24
Speaker 2: and usually what is going on in the other is
32:28
Speaker 2: they're simply emptying a reservoir of thoughts and feelings, and
32:33
Speaker 2: the act of doing so is reparative. And when we
32:38
Speaker 2: jump in a we're not listening, so we make them
32:43
Speaker 2: feel invisible. We also there is this, there is this
32:50
Speaker 2: kind of chauvinism that is involved that elevates what you're
32:56
Speaker 2: what you're talking about, these kinds of the male wiring
32:59
Speaker 2: o or over anything else that just says, you know,
33:03
Speaker 2: your feelings don't matter, I can fix it. So no,
33:09
Speaker 2: usually usually we can't fix it, but that doesn't stop us.
33:13
Speaker 2: That doesn't The only one that it makes feel better
33:17
Speaker 2: is the one that jumps in to try and fix it.
33:20
Speaker 2: And this is not only men that do this. I
33:22
Speaker 2: don't want to suggest for a second. We all do this.
33:26
Speaker 2: And it is almost always because we have a discomfort
33:33
Speaker 2: because we have not trained ourselves to be with someone
33:38
Speaker 2: and to have empathy with someone. And when we have
33:41
Speaker 2: empathy with someone, we have a sense of we mirror
33:46
Speaker 2: their feelings, so we can feel, we can feel a
33:51
Speaker 2: downstep of their feelings and if we are that uncomfortable
33:56
Speaker 2: feeling and imagine what's going on, what's going on with
34:00
Speaker 2: them and so we try and preempt our own feelings
34:04
Speaker 2: by jumping in and foreclosing somebody else's feeling process.
34:11
Speaker 4: And that the the the less understood part is that
34:17
Speaker 4: when somebody is expressing their thoughts and expressing their feelings
34:21
Speaker 4: by the.
34:22
Speaker 2: Act of feeling them, they dissipate. And when we jump
34:27
Speaker 2: into fix where we're foreclosing on their process of emptying
34:32
Speaker 2: that reservoir, and so it doesn't get empty, and on
34:35
Speaker 2: top of it, it doubles down because now we're adding
34:39
Speaker 2: to them. They don't matter, they're on the you know,
34:44
Speaker 2: we're sending messages that we're we're not patient enough or
34:49
Speaker 2: friend enough to simply listen and to be a companion,
34:54
Speaker 2: and that we know better. So it's it's not a
35:02
Speaker 2: friendly it's not a friendly act. And I've been married
35:06
Speaker 2: for many, many decades now, I still don't have the
35:10
Speaker 2: hang of this one. So it's it's it's.
35:16
Speaker 5: A challenge, it's in progress. But the first step, Yeah,
35:22
Speaker 5: but the first step with all these things is awareness.
35:25
Speaker 5: And that's one of the things I like about your
35:27
Speaker 5: book is that it really will arouse our awareness about
35:32
Speaker 5: all different kinds of things they have to do with friendships,
35:35
Speaker 5: developing friendships, deepening your friendships, that sort of thing.
35:40
Speaker 1: I was wondering too. I don't want to keep you
35:41
Speaker 1: too long, because I know you're a busy person. I
35:43
Speaker 1: appreciate your time. I was wondering what it says about us,
35:47
Speaker 1: I e. The culture that we need how to guides
35:52
Speaker 1: about how to make friends today in this day and age.
35:57
Speaker 2: Oh, that's a great observation. The first time that I'm
36:02
Speaker 2: aware of that. Somebody asked the question in a book,
36:07
Speaker 2: But how can we be better friends to each other?
36:10
Speaker 2: Whereas over two thousand years ago in forty four BC,
36:14
Speaker 2: when a fellow named Marcus Truly as Cicero wrote a
36:20
Speaker 2: book called how to Be a Friend? And not a
36:24
Speaker 2: lot has changed in two thousand years, but there's been
36:33
Speaker 2: a There's been an additive that fuels the fire of
36:40
Speaker 2: the complexity of this, and that is the speed of
36:46
Speaker 2: the speed of things nowadays. I mean a surprising amount
36:55
Speaker 2: is still the same, which is that we have our
36:58
Speaker 2: internal narratives and we operated in our bubbles. That's still
37:01
Speaker 2: the same. But now we have social media, and we
37:07
Speaker 2: have algorithms and whatever the bubble was previously, which was
37:13
Speaker 2: really just one of our psychological if then we build
37:16
Speaker 2: these kinds of these kinds of nests of if this happens,
37:22
Speaker 2: then that happens in my personal history adds up to
37:27
Speaker 2: a belief system around the world. And that was already
37:32
Speaker 2: that was already a challenge to undo in the time
37:36
Speaker 2: of two thousand years ago. But now we also have
37:41
Speaker 2: doubled down with media and communications and algorithms. The bubble
37:46
Speaker 2: of our algorithms keeps us sadly too comfortable in what
37:52
Speaker 2: is almost always a delusion. It keeps us comfortable in
37:58
Speaker 2: a worldview that we assume is the quote unquote the
38:02
Speaker 2: right one, and it makes us more adversarial to more
38:07
Speaker 2: and more people. And it is so incessant and so
38:10
Speaker 2: constant and so quick that it is a lot harder
38:16
Speaker 2: to pop into neutral and to examine life beyond it
38:25
Speaker 2: in a way that means that we can face the
38:30
Speaker 2: discomfort of challenging our bubble. So that's that's maybe that's
38:40
Speaker 2: maybe the biggest challenge, I mean, And one thing we
38:43
Speaker 2: can do about it now is to consciously make that choice.
38:46
Speaker 2: As you as you point out, it's really about becoming
38:49
Speaker 2: more and more conscious, becoming more and more self aware,
38:53
Speaker 2: not so much aware somebody else aware of myself and
38:59
Speaker 2: do it as a gentle practice. It means, you know,
39:04
Speaker 2: try stepping outside and reading something we disagree with, spending
39:10
Speaker 2: time with someone whose world looks different than ours. It's
39:13
Speaker 2: not about changing our minds. It's not about changing anybody
39:16
Speaker 2: else's minds. It's about enlarging our own minds and our
39:21
Speaker 2: own capacity to have feelings run through our system that
39:30
Speaker 2: are unfamiliar. You know, we preempt a lot of feeling,
39:35
Speaker 2: and to begin to allow more and more feeling and
39:39
Speaker 2: to notice, well, this what's going on in my body.
39:41
Speaker 2: And it's a little uncomfortable, but I could stick with
39:44
Speaker 2: it until you know, I can't stick with it. It's this
39:48
Speaker 2: is all the interesting knowledge about the self, really interesting,
39:55
Speaker 2: really interesting stuff to do. You know. I sometimes say
39:59
Speaker 2: that it's friending others, and this we're talking right now
40:06
Speaker 2: about friending myself, friending ourselves. It's a kind of elucid living.
40:11
Speaker 2: You know. There's people talk about lucid dreaming, becoming awake
40:15
Speaker 2: inside the dream, and this is sort of becoming like
40:20
Speaker 2: more and more awake inside our own living of our life.
40:25
Speaker 2: We start to friend ourselves, We start to become huh.
40:29
Speaker 2: I never even knew that I have feelings in my body.
40:35
Speaker 2: When something comes up that I don't agree with, I
40:39
Speaker 2: never noticed that before. I usually jump into fixing or
40:43
Speaker 2: I usually jump into having an opinion. It begins to
40:47
Speaker 2: change everything. It makes us, It makes us more of
40:52
Speaker 2: who we could be.
40:54
Speaker 4: There.
40:54
Speaker 1: There's a wonderful quote I offered to girls who a
40:57
Speaker 1: council that we're not in charge of whether or not
41:00
Speaker 1: bird lands on our head, but we're always in charge
41:03
Speaker 1: of whether or not we allow it to build a nest.
41:07
Speaker 1: So I think with all the algorithms and the information
41:10
Speaker 1: and everything that that it's pouring our way, sometimes it's
41:13
Speaker 1: hard to sift through, but we but we do have
41:15
Speaker 1: the ability to be in charge of us. I think
41:19
Speaker 1: our emotions, our reactions to people, and that's what your book,
41:23
Speaker 1: How to Be a Friend and Unfriendly World, that's I
41:25
Speaker 1: think one of the main messages I got in your
41:27
Speaker 1: book was that we really need to step back and
41:28
Speaker 1: really take charge of us and what we're bringing to
41:32
Speaker 1: our friendships and what we can't what we could bring
41:34
Speaker 1: to our friendships.
41:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, And it's so rewarding. And uh, you know,
41:41
Speaker 2: I'm afraid that it might sound hard and it might
41:44
Speaker 2: sound complex. It's just one little step at a time,
41:48
Speaker 2: you know, you choose one little area and it just
41:54
Speaker 2: it just it provides so many benefits so quickly, so
41:59
Speaker 2: so quickly. Just for example, to prioritize friendship. You know,
42:04
Speaker 2: I was raised, not that anybody specifically gave me these messages,
42:10
Speaker 2: but I received the messages just in the living of life.
42:13
Speaker 2: That friendship, like love, is supposed to happen automatically. Well,
42:19
Speaker 2: neither of these statements is true. It requires some sophistication,
42:26
Speaker 2: and it requires some growth, and it requires an ongoing growth. Otherwise,
42:33
Speaker 2: friendships or love it withers on the on the vine,
42:37
Speaker 2: it grows distasteful, it sours, and eventually it disappears. It
42:41
Speaker 2: requires certain skills that are developed throughout throughout life. So
42:49
Speaker 2: we can't just fit in a friendship. We have to
42:52
Speaker 2: plan around it. Friendship and love it fades when left
42:57
Speaker 2: to convenience. So you know, i'd suggest to anyone listening,
43:01
Speaker 2: put a name in your calendar and keep the date nice.
43:10
Speaker 1: I teach girls in my retreats and things sometimes who
43:15
Speaker 1: are struggling with friends, because you know, in middle school
43:17
Speaker 1: it's a it's a quagmire. Right in high school even so,
43:22
Speaker 1: what we have them do is We'll have them write
43:24
Speaker 1: down a list of what are the important qualities and
43:27
Speaker 1: a good friend, what's important to you? So they make
43:31
Speaker 1: their lists like loyal whatever it is, they make their
43:35
Speaker 1: list of these are the important we call BFF qualities
43:38
Speaker 1: of the best friend qualities is right, it's really important
43:40
Speaker 1: to me. And then we have them do several things
43:42
Speaker 1: with the list. One of them is to look at
43:44
Speaker 1: themselves and say, do I live these out? Because if
43:47
Speaker 1: I'm not living out these qualities, it's going to be
43:49
Speaker 1: really difficult for me to attract those kinds of people.
43:53
Speaker 1: And then we tell when you go to school, start
43:54
Speaker 1: looking around for people who match your list and try
43:58
Speaker 1: and befriend them. Those are people who seem like those
44:01
Speaker 1: are the kind of people I think that want in
44:03
Speaker 1: my life. And so you can take you can actually
44:06
Speaker 1: be active in kind of creating your your group, your community.
44:11
Speaker 2: That's so good. That's so good. You know. It reminds
44:15
Speaker 2: me of kind of the companion to that list making.
44:21
Speaker 2: If if we spend five minutes writing out how I
44:25
Speaker 2: treat myself when I mess up? Five minutes or two minutes,
44:31
Speaker 2: how do I treat myself when I mess up? What
44:33
Speaker 2: do I say to myself, and what are the messages
44:36
Speaker 2: I get? And then ask would a friend survive that?
44:43
Speaker 2: Would you say that to a friend you're so dumb,
44:46
Speaker 2: you're so wrong, and you can't do anything with a friend.
44:50
Speaker 2: How would a friend handle that? And that can be
44:56
Speaker 2: deeply insightful. I cannot be a better friend to you
45:03
Speaker 2: or to another person than I am to myself. That's
45:07
Speaker 2: a big one to let in, and so in order.
45:10
Speaker 2: Sometimes you know people, lots of times, older people and
45:16
Speaker 2: younger people, you know they complain or they're frustrated about
45:20
Speaker 2: their ability or inability to make or keep friends, and
45:29
Speaker 2: those same people rarely have a friendship with themselves. They
45:36
Speaker 2: have thought patterns, and they have judgments about themselves, and
45:44
Speaker 2: they have strong opinions, negative opinions about themselves. They're impatient
45:48
Speaker 2: with themselves. Now, I'm not suggesting that you can instantly
45:56
Speaker 2: override those because their habits, but it begins with knowing
46:03
Speaker 2: they're there. It begins one has to know I have
46:06
Speaker 2: a menu of very harsh judgments and attitudes and responses
46:13
Speaker 2: to myself. I treat myself very harshly. And then from
46:19
Speaker 2: there you know there are rich is maybe a little
46:22
Speaker 2: too much for this particular podcast. But you know, one
46:25
Speaker 2: can begin to look at where did I learn those
46:30
Speaker 2: I know? Isn't just born with those opinions about myself?
46:35
Speaker 2: Where did I learn them? And from there there are
46:44
Speaker 2: processes to unwrap that, and just one at a time,
46:49
Speaker 2: one at a time when you can't begin to change
46:53
Speaker 2: behavior that you don't recognize. But it's important to understand
46:57
Speaker 2: that the thoughts that I have about myself, as you
47:02
Speaker 2: pointed at it earlier, we project them onto others. So
47:08
Speaker 2: it makes it hard to have a friend. If a
47:11
Speaker 2: friend is in any way behaving or saying or speaking
47:16
Speaker 2: or talking anything that is the same or familiar or
47:19
Speaker 2: similar to some part of me that I have judgments about,
47:25
Speaker 2: that is going to blow up the friendship. Maybe not today,
47:28
Speaker 2: maybe not tomorrow, but it's going to blow up the friendship.
47:33
Speaker 1: Well, we could talk all day about about this topic
47:36
Speaker 1: of friendships in your book, but I'm gonna make sure
47:39
Speaker 1: I respect your time. We've been talking to Barnett Bain
47:43
Speaker 1: and he has a brand new book that came out
47:45
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago call How to Be a Friend
47:47
Speaker 1: and Unfriendly World. I recommend all of you go. I
47:51
Speaker 1: guess they can find it anywhere, right, they can.
47:53
Speaker 2: Go on Amazon or anywhere Amazon, your bookstores anywhere, great,
47:58
Speaker 2: and I will put I'll put some links to that
48:00
Speaker 2: in my show notes.
48:02
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for stopping by here and adding
48:05
Speaker 1: your expertise to the show. I think it's an interesting conversation,
48:08
Speaker 1: a lot of food for thought for people.
48:11
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you for inviting me. And if we
48:15
Speaker 2: could just stay on the line for a moment after
48:18
Speaker 2: because I'd like to ask you a little bit about
48:20
Speaker 2: your workshops.
48:21
Speaker 1: Okay, thanks so much, Burnette Main and folks will be
48:25
Speaker 1: back in a week with a brand new podcast as always.
48:28
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for stopping by, Thanks so much for
48:30
Speaker 1: sharing these podcasts, and I'll see you back here in
48:32
Speaker 1: a week