Why Your Memory is Perfectly Imperfect & How to Love Better

Speaker 1 Today, on something you should know, why are things priced at $19.99 instead of $20?

Speaker 1 Then, human memory. Your memory is inaccurate a lot of the time.

Speaker 2 We have good research to suggest that actually we've gotten to the point that we should get to, which is these memories that are imperfect, but they are perfectly imperfect in that we forget things in a way that helps us to be happier.

Speaker 1 Also, how can your dishwasher cause allergies? And how to navigate the hard times in life and in love so you can learn to love better.

Speaker 3 The difficult moments in life, they're going to change at some point. That no storm in the history of the universe has lasted forever.

Speaker 3 So that means the tough times in your life, the dark moments in your life, they'll have a beginning and an end, which when you really embrace that truth, it makes it a little easier to move through the storm.

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Speaker 1 something you should know fascinating intel the world's top experts and practical advice you can use in your life today something you should know with mike carruthers

Speaker 1 why are things we buy priced so strangely Why is it $19.99 and not $20?

Speaker 1 Why is gas $3,259

Speaker 1 of a cent per gallon? Well, let's talk about that. Hi, welcome to another episode of Something You Should Know.
We all know that $59.99 is closer to $60 than it is to $50.

Speaker 1 Or do we? Economist Tim Hartford describes something called the left digit effect. That's the theory that consumers,

Speaker 1 we can't be bothered bothered to read the whole price. We just see the five at the front of $59.99 and we think more like $50 than $60,

Speaker 1 which is exactly why retail stores price things this way. But it gets more interesting.

Speaker 1 Two professors of marketing conducted five experiments and found that different prices are evaluated in different ways.

Speaker 1 For instance, consumers are more inclined to buy luxury or recreational products if they have rounded prices.

Speaker 1 So for example, consumers prefer a $40 bottle of champagne rather than a bottle priced at $39.72.

Speaker 1 However, for purchases that are more utilitarian, like say a calculator, participants were more likely to buy at the higher non-rounded price, like $29.99 instead of $30.

Speaker 1 In another experiment, participants were told that a camera had been purchased for leisure, like a family vacation, or other participants were told it was for a class project.

Speaker 1 And the participants preferred rounded prices if the camera was for a vacation, and non-rounded prices if it was for a class project. And that is something you should know.

Speaker 1 A topic of never-ending fascination for me is memory. Because who you are, what you think of yourself, how you relate to others, all these things are the result of memories.

Speaker 1 I mean, without memories, who would you be? And yet our memory system is severely flawed. We don't remember things the way we like to think we do, not even close.

Speaker 1 And that has ramifications for all of us, which you're about to discover. From my guest, Gillian Murphy.

Speaker 1 Jillian is an associate professor in the School of Applied Psychology at University College, Cork, and she is co-author of a book called Memory Lane, The Perfectly Imperfect Ways We Remember.

Speaker 1 Hi, Jillian. Welcome to Something You Should Know.

Speaker 2 Thank you so much for having me, Mike.

Speaker 1 So I imagine we should probably start by talking about what memory is and all that, but I'm going to jump over that.

Speaker 1 We'll come back to that later because there's something I've always wanted to know about memory, and I think most people want to know is, you know, how some people are labeled as, oh, he has such a great memory.

Speaker 1 What is that? Why do some people have great memories? Or is that just they remember some things really well? Or do some people really have great memories?

Speaker 2 A really interesting question to start with because you've kind of stumbled into a huge debate, I think, that would be active amongst memory researchers. Like there's a few questions within that.

Speaker 2 And I know we all have that experience of saying, so-and-so has such a good memory. They're amazing.

Speaker 2 And I suppose if you think about, you know, know, what we're often referring to in that regard would be maybe that they're really good at remembering trivia. I would say that about my dad.

Speaker 2 My dad is someone that I would want on my pub quiz team. He's one of those people that seems to know something about everything and he just retains information and he reads a lot.

Speaker 2 And so he just seems to absorb it.

Speaker 2 Whereas other people, I suppose, like you said,

Speaker 2 maybe you would describe an event and would be extremely confident in their memories.

Speaker 2 They would say, you were there and she was there and you were wearing your brown shoes and they seemed to have an amazing memory maybe for personal events rather than for trivia.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's what I'm talking about is that, because, you know, I've gone to like reunions and stuff and people say, you remember that time when we did the thing and then a couple years before that, you did the, and I don't have, and then when they say it, it starts to

Speaker 1 It starts to trigger something where I go, oh, yeah, actually, I do.

Speaker 1 But they remember the details. Like you said, they remember the shoes and the thing.
And I wonder, how do you hold on to that?

Speaker 2 We definitely differ in that regard. Some people are kind of better at that than others, but there's a lot of other factors going on there.

Speaker 2 I think the main one is that typically you don't have any means of checking whether or not that person is correct.

Speaker 2 They might just be very confident in their memories. And like you say, it might ring a bell with you when you hear it.

Speaker 2 But that might just be, you know, they might just be making suggestions to you and you're kind of actually going along with them.

Speaker 2 So that's one thing we do know about memory is we're very good at building memories in response to suggestion. And it's surprisingly easy to actually plant memories in people's minds.

Speaker 2 And it probably happens to most of us more often than we would expect.

Speaker 1 So let's get back to a more realistic fundamental question.

Speaker 1 And that is, what happens when I when I recall, when I remember an event, when I remember a conversation, when I remember something what's going on there what is what is happening that makes me remember what I remember whether it's true or not

Speaker 2 maybe before I tell you the scientific answer for it maybe you might think for yourself what do you think is happening if you if you were to think of a metaphor what do you feel like you're doing in your brain when you remember I don't know, the last time you went to the movies, something like that?

Speaker 2 If I ask you that question now, what does it feel like?

Speaker 1 Does it feel like you're looking for something something and and you pick it up like like a file or yeah it feels like i'm i i i thumb through mentally thumb through and find the the file of that memory and i pull it up and go oh yeah so we went to that we went in theater number seven and i got popcorn and

Speaker 2 yeah that's what it is yeah so so for me that's what it feels like too and i think um a lot of people think of it like pulling a book off a library shelf or maybe if you're a digital native you might think of it as searching through you know documents on your computer and and we pull it out and we look at it and we put it back and that's what it feels like to us because I suppose that's the closest kind of analogy that we have to it and it helps us make sense of it but you know our brains are so much more incredible than a library or you know a computer and and it's hard for us to understand and sometimes neuroscientists say if if the brain were so simple that we could easily understand it we would be too stupid to understand it and i think about that a lot when i think about things like memory, because so what we actually know is happening is it is not this kind of search and retrieval,

Speaker 2 you know, locate an object kind of process, even though that's what most of us think it feels like.

Speaker 2 It's actually the case that your memories, like your memory for the last time you went to the movies, it's not stored in any one spot in your brain.

Speaker 2 Actually, all the elements of that memory are stored all across your brain.

Speaker 2 So kind of who you were with and what the movie was and what the smell was and what temperature it was in the theater, all of that is kind of dispersed across your brain.

Speaker 2 And when you remember it, you are basically combining all of those elements together. You're picking up all the little pieces.
You know, it's kind of like building a Lego tower.

Speaker 2 You're picking up all those little blocks and you're building it together and building a memory.

Speaker 2 So psychologists would talk about memory as a constructive process or a reconstructive process over time.

Speaker 2 And I suppose if you think of that process, even though it might go against what it naturally feels like, if you can believe me when I say that that is what happens, then it becomes very easy to understand how memories might change and distort over time, because you're not just pulling something off a shelf, you're actually building something.

Speaker 2 So you might leave out a block next time that you build it, or you might add in a block that's not actually supposed to be there.

Speaker 1 I remember hearing, of course, it's my memory that remembers this.

Speaker 1 But I remember hearing somebody say,

Speaker 1 and that this is why memories distort, is that when you remember something,

Speaker 1 you're remembering the last time you remembered it rather than the actual event, that you're remembering the remembering. And over time, the remembering of the remembering distorts.

Speaker 2 Yes, exactly.

Speaker 2 So sort of on a on a neural basis, when I talk about gathering up all of those Lego pieces together, if you think of it on a neural basis, so in your brain, down at the cellular level, when you connect up all of those individual Lego pieces, you're kind of foraging connections between them.

Speaker 2 Think of it like wearing a path across grass, right? You're kind of developing a route that connects those things.

Speaker 2 And so even if you've accidentally added in a Lego block that doesn't really belong there, the next time you remember it, you're actually quite likely to also go down that same path and

Speaker 2 retrieve it again and include it in the build again because it becomes part of that pathway.

Speaker 2 And like, this all sounds very technical, but in a day-to-day life experience, I think most of us know what that feels like, you know, that a memory maybe changes or distorts in some way kind of initially, and then it becomes kind of cemented.

Speaker 2 So you might have... stories that you tell amongst your family or your friends or with your partner.
And, you know, you might realize later that there's something really inaccurate in that memory.

Speaker 2 And then you look back and think, God, you know, we've been telling it that way for many years. And that's the way we have come to remember that event.

Speaker 2 Things kind of crystallize, you know, both in your brain and then obviously socially because you develop this kind of shared understanding with someone else based on the way that you've been telling that story.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I had an experience not long ago that many years ago, when I was in college, my roommate made this appetizer, this dip, and it was so good that I've made it and I've given the recipe to people and I make it all the time.

Speaker 1 And I'm very true to the original recipe. He came over once, years later, and brought the dip that he said was the original recipe.
It was nothing like the original recipe.

Speaker 1 And he told me I was wrong and I told him he was wrong.

Speaker 1 And I know I'm right, but I think he knows he's right.

Speaker 2 Sometimes, you know, people say you can never step into the same river twice because the river is not the same and you are not the same.

Speaker 2 I think it's kind of the same with memory, you know, you can never taste the same dip twice because you have changed, your, your taste buds have changed, society has changed.

Speaker 2 And most importantly, possibly one or both of your memory of what that dip used to taste like has probably changed too.

Speaker 2 But I mean, ultimately, you know, when we do understand memory and we come to understand and appreciate the way that it works, I think we can learn to let go of this desire that we have to sort of fight for our memories and be able to step back in a situation like that and say, hmm, that's interesting.

Speaker 2 We both have a different memory of it, but that's okay. You know, that's not actually how our memories were designed to work.
They're not designed to be video cameras.

Speaker 2 And this is one small instance in the course of your life where that throws up a problem. But, you know, most of the time it doesn't, and it's fine.

Speaker 1 We're talking about how memory does and doesn't work. And my guest is Jillian Murphy, author of the book Memory Lane, The Perfectly Imperfect Ways We Remember.

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Speaker 1 So Jillian, when we look back at our own lives, and theoretically we would be the best witness of our own lives, do we remember it pretty accurately or do we remember remember it in a more adaptive way, a way that serves us?

Speaker 2 Yeah, kind of, yeah, in a way you're answering your own question there. And you could, because I suppose,

Speaker 2 what does it mean to remember something well?

Speaker 2 I think sometimes we fall into the trap of thinking that having a good memory or remembering something well means remembering it absolutely accurately with every single detail.

Speaker 2 There are so many movies and TV shows with these characters with these perfect memories, like photographic memories, and it's always presented as a good thing.

Speaker 2 And, you know, there's no such thing as photographic memory or eidetic memory. But

Speaker 2 also, I suppose what we've learned is that there's a very good reason that we didn't evolve that way. And it's not that we are imperfectly evolved as a species or that we haven't got there yet.

Speaker 2 We have good research to suggest that actually we've gotten to the point that we should get to, which is these memories that are imperfect, seemingly on the surface, but they are perfectly imperfect in that we forget things in a way that helps us to be happier and we misremember things in ways that helps us maintain bonds with people, you know, and overall in particular, you know, memory is a resource-intensive process and it's kind of

Speaker 2 expensive if you think of it that way for your body to run. Your brain is expensive for your body to run in terms of resources.
And so the most most important thing is that it's efficient.

Speaker 2 So you don't need to remember every single detail of your life. And if you did remember every single detail, then finding the information that you need would become really difficult.

Speaker 2 So I suppose my main answer to that is to challenge the idea of what does it mean to remember something well? Does it mean to remember it like a video camera with loads of detail?

Speaker 2 Or does it mean to remember in a way that serves you and helps you to survive and thrive? And I would argue it's the latter.

Speaker 1 When I think, and I think when most people remember their childhood or remember the past, they tend to remember it fondly, that they remember the good times.

Speaker 1 And yet when we look in the future, we tend to worry about it. We worry about the bad that might happen in the future.
But the past we think of fondly. Is that, you think, a fair statement?

Speaker 2 Yeah, it is. And I suppose in looking back fondly, that often means we're not doing so accurately.
And that's okay.

Speaker 2 I was just telling some students the other day a story about

Speaker 2 when I was a child,

Speaker 2 my parents had this like broken down old car and they bought us tickets to go and see this Power Rangers show. It was like a, you know, like a circus kind of outdoor show, but it was Power Rangers.

Speaker 2 And I was really young, like maybe four or five. And I have two older brothers.

Speaker 2 And it was taking place like an hour or two away from where we live and we were on the way there and something broke in the car in this you know terrible car that we had and the windscreen wipers stopped working and it was lashing rain like torrential rain and so like we couldn't drive and so we pulled over and we were all upset you know we were small kids and we wanted to go to this show and my parents went into a petrol station and came back out with some shoelaces and they tied them around the windscreen wipers and they had one each and they they developed a sort of you know, a pulley system to make the windscreen wipers work enough.

Speaker 2 We were nearly there to get us there safely. And we got to Power Rangers and we were delighted.
And we tell this story a lot.

Speaker 2 And certainly as an adult, I look back now and I think it's an example of how my parents would do anything for us.

Speaker 2 And they always made things happen, even if they didn't have, you know, necessarily the resources to make things happen.

Speaker 2 They had a can-do spirit that I really appreciate as an adult and as a parent now.

Speaker 2 But I was telling someone this the other day and I really thought about it and I thought, you know, I was four or five years old.

Speaker 2 Of course I wasn't laughing and happy at the fact that I was sitting in the back seat of the car and the rain was coming in and it was freezing and we were late.

Speaker 2 And when I really thought about it, I think actually we were complaining and whinging in the back of the car through this whole episode.

Speaker 2 Even though when I look back on it now, I see it as this kind of triumphant

Speaker 2 solution that my parents came up with. And I think a lot of us have that experience.

Speaker 2 And maybe as we become parents ourselves and as we get older, we look back with maybe a more shrewd eye and we realize that maybe that didn't go exactly as we thought it might have gone.

Speaker 2 But there are huge benefits to that. You know, I enjoy that memory and it shapes how I think of our family and how I think of my parents.

Speaker 2 And the two things feed into each other, you know, because I think of my parents as in this particular way, that probably is why I have misremembered that event because I'm misremembering it in line with who they are and what they're like.

Speaker 2 And I think that's ultimately a really good thing.

Speaker 2 And like I say, you know, there's not necessarily a lot to be gained by having a perfectly accurate memory of that scenario when the inaccurate memory actually might be very adaptive and functional in its own way.

Speaker 1 So we've up till now been talking about memory as something really to observe and to notice and to look at, but not something that we control. Do we control it? Can we make it better? Can we do things

Speaker 1 to manipulate our memory or to remember things better? Or is it just something to observe?

Speaker 2 It's kind of both, I suppose, in that most of the things you can probably do to improve your memory would be, you know, if there are things you really want to remember, you should think about them often.

Speaker 2 You know, that would be, if you go back to what we spoke about at the beginning there, if you think of that Lego tower being built and things being constructed, you know, the more often you revisit a memory, the more solid it's going to stay.

Speaker 2 It still will change, you know, there's no perfect way that you can guard against your memories changing.

Speaker 2 But I would say the most important thing is kind of just to make peace with that fact that you forgetting things and misremembering things is the way that it's supposed to work. And that's okay.

Speaker 2 And maybe sometimes experiences and memories are all the more beautiful because they are fleeting. And I think that's, you know, some people might feel that, some people wouldn't.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 I think it is most important that you kind of

Speaker 2 accept that that is how memory works and you have some humility, like I say, with not arguing with your spouse about whether or not such and such a thing happened, you know, that it's okay to meet in the middle and say, look, we have different memories about this, and that's okay.

Speaker 1 I wonder if ever

Speaker 1 a memory researcher has asked a group of people, is there something about your memory that seems really unusual to you if people have something?

Speaker 1 Like, I can remember

Speaker 1 every phone number I've ever had since the time I was five years old. And I'm not a numbers guy.
I'm not a math guy. I don't work with numbers.

Speaker 1 And I don't remember other numbers, but I can remember every phone number I've ever had.

Speaker 1 And I don't know why.

Speaker 2 A really good question. Asking people, you know, are you different? Are you special in some particular way? And I think for a lot of people, they would jump to the negative.

Speaker 2 You know, when you ask most people about their memory, a lot of us tend to focus on the flaws.

Speaker 2 They say, oh, I'm terrible at faces, or I just can't remember phone numbers, or terrible at general knowledge.

Speaker 2 A lot of us do jump towards our flaws. But like you say, it could be interesting to ask people, what are you particularly good at? What is your niche talent when it comes to memory?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think, you know, we all store memories in different ways and we all revisit different kinds of memories in different ways as well.

Speaker 2 We will tend to be better and clearer at remembering the memories that we often go back to.

Speaker 2 And, you know, we all know people are different in these ways. Some people are really nostalgic and some people really kind of...

Speaker 2 enjoy kind of soaking in the past and thinking about the past and some people you know really really hate it and don't want to look backwards always want to look forwards um so we all differ in so many different dimensions i'd say in relation to this that that's why we see such huge variation.

Speaker 2 But yeah, that's why I'm so interested in memory. And it's the topic I choose to study.
I just think it's fascinating and it affects every area of our lives.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Well, it is your life.
I mean, your whole life is a memory. I mean,

Speaker 1 how you choose to remember it.

Speaker 2 Absolutely. And, you know, sometimes if sometimes someone will say to me, like, why memory? You know, you could study any aspect of psychology.
Why memory?

Speaker 2 And I often think, you know, think who you would be if we took away your memories, if you didn't have any.

Speaker 2 And sometimes people will think of Alzheimer's or other forms of dementia as a way of thinking about this and think how much you lose when you lose your memories, you know, everything that makes you who you are, your preferences, your dreams, your fears, your hopes, your

Speaker 2 friends, your personality, all of it really rests on memory. There's very little that you can still have without, you know, some form of memory.

Speaker 2 So really to study memory, I would say, is to study humans

Speaker 2 and how we are, who we are, and how we use those memories every day to just kind of get through the world and live happy and fulfilling lives.

Speaker 1 Well, it's kind of refreshing to hear because you know how people complain about their memory and they don't remember. And as you've been pointing out for the last 20 minutes,

Speaker 1 that's okay. You're not supposed to remember everything.
And not remembering everything is perhaps a much better better way to go. Jillian Murphy has been my guest.

Speaker 1 She is an associate professor in the School of Applied Psychology at University College, Cork, and she's author of a book called Memory Lane, The Perfectly Imperfect Ways We Remember.

Speaker 1 And you can find a link to that book at Amazon in the show notes. Jillian, thank you for coming on and talking about this.

Speaker 2 Great. Thank you so much.

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Speaker 1 When you think about your relationships, whether with a lover, a friend, a relative, whoever, would you say that you love well, that you are good at the art and practice of loving?

Speaker 1 Or perhaps you tend to hold on to things, you hold grudges, maybe you can't let things go.

Speaker 1 How can all of us be better at our relationships? By loving better?

Speaker 1 Here to discuss this is young Pueblo. He's been featured on Good Morning America, The Today Show, CBS Mornings, and a lot of other media outlets.
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Speaker 1 His latest book is called How to Love Better, The Path to Deeper Connection Through Growth, Kindness, and Compassion. Hi, Young.
Welcome. Glad to have you on something you should know.

Speaker 3 Hey, Mike, thank you so much for having me on.

Speaker 1 So explain what you mean by loving better.

Speaker 1 Better than what? What does that look like to love better? What does it feel like?

Speaker 1 What is loving better?

Speaker 3 You know, we've been so impacted by romantic comedies and how, you know, what we see on television. And it just makes love look so easy.

Speaker 3 But the reality of love, especially when you talk to people who've been married for, you know, 20, 30, 40 years, it's like, of course, there are consistent disagreements.

Speaker 3 Similar fights will pop up over and over again.

Speaker 3 But they've learned, they developed their own sort of systems, their own culture between the two of them to be able to handle that that there's some productiveness coming out of these arguments.

Speaker 1 So, what you just said, I mean, I think if you were to ask people, do you understand the value of letting go? People would say yes. That, yeah, there's no point in holding on to things.

Speaker 1 It isn't that they don't believe that it would be helpful, they just don't know how to do it. Like, how do you not hold on to something that you've been holding on to?

Speaker 1 Because your tendency is to hold on to things.

Speaker 3 Yeah, the mind, the mind loves to cling and it, you know, will sort of slip into attachment very unconsciously. And I think it's hard.

Speaker 3 You know, I wish I can give people an easy answer that like, oh, these are the five steps of letting go.

Speaker 3 And for any mind on the earth, this is what you can follow and do, but that's just not realistic.

Speaker 3 I think one of the special things that we, that we don't quite fully accept and understand about this historical moment.

Speaker 3 is that there are so many different modalities that people are encountering and using and utilizing to really improve their lives.

Speaker 3 And, you know, through different therapy methods, you can learn how to let go, through different forms of meditation, you can learn how to let go, even through self-reflection and simple acceptance of the past and letting the past be what it is.

Speaker 3 But I think we live in a special time where people know that they should let go. They know that the idea of letting go would be beneficial in their lives.

Speaker 3 And then they find their own route to get to that point.

Speaker 1 So I think, you know, certainly in any relationship, whether it's a love relationship or, you know, family or whatever, that when there are

Speaker 1 when there are arguments, when there are fights, things get said and things happen that are hard to take back and that we, many of us anyway, don't fight well, that we don't understand

Speaker 1 what we're really doing. We just kind of want to make our point and

Speaker 1 have everybody agree. But so seldom does everyone agree.

Speaker 3 Even that, right? We were talking about about that sort of like evolutionary tendency and

Speaker 3 it feels almost animalistic when you are, you know, you've fallen into an argument and all of a sudden you feel like you're in a battle and the only option is to gain dominance, to like, you know, have your viewpoint be the dominant one and for the other person to yield.

Speaker 3 And what my wife and I learned over trial and error and over years of making these mistakes is that when we're both trying to win, we actually both lose. You know, we leave the argument dissatisfied.

Speaker 3 And sure, you know, there are times when people have to apologize, but

Speaker 3 there's still a great value in switching the framework from trying to win to trying to understand each other and taking literally taking a moment to try to understand

Speaker 3 where she's coming from, understand like, you know, how did the series of events move for her and get to this point? And how, and, you know, why is she she feeling like this in this moment?

Speaker 3 And then, simultaneously, her giving me that opportunity to share and show, you know, how I got to this point.

Speaker 3 And there's this magic that happens when you really try to understand each other, because when you can really see a person and where they're coming from, yes, there may still be a need for accountability, for apologies, but the tension fizzles out and evaporates much more easily when you can see each other clearly.

Speaker 1 And when you figured that out, was it a moment where you went, oh, I get it, or Or was this?

Speaker 1 Because no one would disagree with, you know, being able to hear the other person and understand and put your, you know, nobody disagrees with that. It's just so hard to like see it in the moment.

Speaker 3 You know, it happened over weeks and months. A lot of the times what would happen is that our minds, you know, we'd wake up in the morning and we weren't really aware of how we felt.

Speaker 3 And then whatever tension we were feeling in the mind would try to make itself into more tension.

Speaker 3 And they would try to to find reasons to figure out how, is this tension in my mind her fault and vice versa.

Speaker 3 And it was a very interesting dynamic where we found that in both our minds, we would try to jump through hoops to be able to blame each other.

Speaker 3 And, you know, sometimes, sometimes it was legitimate, but a lot of the times it wasn't.

Speaker 3 And what we found to counteract that was, Okay, how about when we wake up in the morning, let's just let each other immediately know how we feel.

Speaker 3 Like, oh, I feel good today, or, you know, I'm feeling a little sick, or I'm feeling tired, or, you know, what happened at work the previous day is still nagging me.

Speaker 3 Just having a little bit more of information. Like, now that I know if she's feeling down, to me, it's like, oh, great.

Speaker 3 Now I know that I, you know, have to support her a little better through the day, move around her a little more gently, and just like give her her space if that's what she needs.

Speaker 3 And I think that, you know, it's been really helpful.

Speaker 1 What a great idea. What

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 1 I'm going to do that. I mean, that's such a simple thing to do to just check in in the morning and see how each other feels.

Speaker 1 And then, and because you don't know, and so you start making assumptions that based on absolutely nothing that could set off all kinds of problems. It's so unnecessary.

Speaker 3 Yeah, Mike. And it's devastatingly simple.
right? It's like so, so simple, but

Speaker 3 we forget that we can just speak it.

Speaker 3 And there's so much power in, you know, if I'm the one that's feeling down that day, or I feel a lot of anxiety moving through me or sadness or, you know, whatever emotion it could be.

Speaker 3 But in the act of naming it, I'm helping myself and I'm helping her. Like I'm becoming fully aware.
Okay, you're accepting how you feel and you're aware of it.

Speaker 3 So be mindful of what's happening in your mind. What stories is your mind creating? to make that feeling worse.

Speaker 3 And simultaneously, she has the information she needs to, you know, for the both of us to be on a, you know, on a good footing with each other.

Speaker 1 Talk about impermanence, because I think that's an important part of your message here.

Speaker 3 Yeah. So, impermanence, what I really mean is just the fundamental law of change, right?

Speaker 3 Like, in this universe that we live in, everything is constantly changing at the atomic level, the biological level, the cosmological level, everything is in motion. It's changing.
And

Speaker 3 when you start really embracing that, you see that

Speaker 3 the difficult moments in life, like they're going to change at some point, that no storm in the history of the universe has lasted forever.

Speaker 3 These, you know, storms have a beginning and they have an end.

Speaker 3 So that means the tough times in your life, the dark moments in your life, they'll have a beginning and an end, which when you really embrace that truth, it makes it a little easier to move through the storm.

Speaker 3 Similarly,

Speaker 3 All good moments also have a beginning and an end.

Speaker 3 And what that does, instead of scaring you and making you feel fearful that everything good that you like will go away, it actually should inspire you to be more present.

Speaker 3 Because, you know, the moments that I have with my parents, the moments that I have with friends, like, I don't, those moments are not infinite.

Speaker 3 So if I'm with them, let me be very aware and present with them so that I can really enjoy that connection. And

Speaker 3 I think with like in terms of like a daily example, my wife is also like, we're a team together. So a lot of life has just become problem solving together.

Speaker 3 So if we have some issue with the car or something happens, and instead of just reacting with anger, it's like, okay, let's slow down a second and let's see.

Speaker 3 Let's like calmly figure out what we need to do to like move this situation forward. Like, who do we need to call and find some solution where we would have done that anyways?

Speaker 3 But instead of like rolling in anger and rolling in tension, we solve it with a little more peace.

Speaker 1 What do you do though, or what what do you recommend people do though?

Speaker 1 Because this must happen even to you who works at this, clearly has a plan, where you're just disagree. You just disagree that, you know, you want this and she wants that.

Speaker 1 And it isn't like we're working on it together. We're in opposite ends of the spectrum here.
Now what?

Speaker 3 I think what we try to do is we check in with

Speaker 3 like, how important is it to you? You know, it could be something minimal where it's like do you want to watch this movie do you want to watch that movie

Speaker 3 and it just depends on who wants it more and who cares about it more and usually we let that person take the lead and if it's something really oppositional you know if it's like a big work decision or something like that i think we try to find a middle ground that actually feels good to the both of us.

Speaker 3 And if there's something that like, you know, she totally disagrees with, then like, I trust her wisdom and I will like really take into account and sort of examine in myself, like, am I missing something here?

Speaker 3 And we'll have longer conversations about it. But normally, if it's something small, we let whoever cares about it more take the lead.

Speaker 3 And if it's something big, you know, we'll, we'll just, we don't, we don't mind slowing down before we make a final decision.

Speaker 1 How do you decide who wants it more?

Speaker 3 I think it's, it's easy. It's like, um, I check in, I check in within myself if it's, um,

Speaker 3 you know, if she really wants to watch Pitch Perfect, like it's not my favorite movie. But if that's what, if she, she really feels like she wants to enjoy it, then it's fine with me.

Speaker 3 I think we both just sort of check in, like, how is my sort of inner resilience today?

Speaker 3 And I know that this will give my partner great joy. And then, you know, see if you can actually just support them and giving them that hour and a half of joy that they want.

Speaker 1 So you talk to people about this a lot. And I'm wondering, like, what do people say to you,

Speaker 1 yes, but,

Speaker 1 and then here's my problem. Here's, here's the big thing.
And, and, and something that perhaps you hear over and over again that people get stuck on.

Speaker 3 Yeah, the biggest question I get is, should I break up with my boyfriend? And my answer is, I don't know. Like,

Speaker 3 you know, we just met. I have no idea.
Yeah, I think a lot of these things are, you know, people like we live in a culture where

Speaker 3 so much of it is designed to make life easier for things to be faster. Like we live in the culture of Uber and DoorDash, right? Like everything is just super fast and easy.

Speaker 3 But relationships are not like that. Personal growth is not like that.
These are things that are gradual. These are long journeys.
So I try to remind people that

Speaker 3 just you have to throw away the attachment to perfection because even the most like like epic, beautiful relationship that you could have is going to have down moments. It's going to have challenges.

Speaker 3 There are going to be moments where it's very trying

Speaker 3 and you have to see if it's, you know, right for you to continue.

Speaker 3 And I just think, you know, the most beautiful things of life, like if you want to build inner peace, if you want to build harmony in your relationship, if you want to build better connection with friends, These are all things that are gradual.

Speaker 3 They take time.

Speaker 1 Really, the biggest question you get is, should I break up with my boyfriend?

Speaker 3 It's very consistent. And the former question that I used to get, you know, back in like,

Speaker 3 probably from like 2017 to 2020, it was like, how do I let go? Which I'm glad we talked about.

Speaker 3 And then, but lately, I think in the past four years, that's been the number one question is like, you know, my boyfriend does X, Y, and Z. And I'll get like a big paragraph about it.
in the DMs.

Speaker 3 And I just, I have no idea. Like, I don't, I don't know.
You know, I'm, and I'm, if anything, I'm only seeing one side of the story. I have no idea.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I, I, I would think you'd say, if you're asking me, yeah, probably so. Yeah, I would, I would think so.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 If, if it's gotten to the point where you're asking me, um, yeah, I'd, I'd break it.

Speaker 3 Yeah, we, we, we've never met. Like, yeah, it's, that's really funny.
But, um, I think I'm always trying to, you know,

Speaker 3 my hope is to inspire people to take back their power, you know, so like ultimately, like I've written articles about it and pieces about it, but you have to get comfortable with leading yourself.

Speaker 3 You have to get comfortable with, you know, checking in with your intuition, checking in with your values, you know, checking in with how you feel next to a person. Like, do I feel calm around them?

Speaker 3 Do I feel safe around them? And then make the answer for yourself.

Speaker 1 Well, you said the question you used to get was, you know, how do I let go? Which, you know, I think

Speaker 1 we did talk about it before, but that, but that, that, that is so key because it is so, I think, so hard in a relationship to truly let go as opposed to, yeah, I'll let this slide, but I'm really marking on the scorecard here

Speaker 1 that, you know, won for me.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 And I think what I've learned that's really key in letting go is simply acceptance.

Speaker 3 It's, you know, oftentimes we'll have a very very tumultuous relationship with the past, especially if someone made some, you know, egregious error or hurt us in some way.

Speaker 3 But when we can really fully just accept what happened, you know, and you'll notice this, whether you're,

Speaker 3 you know, working with a therapist or, you know, working with in a meditation tradition or something, but

Speaker 3 peace becomes available to you after you accept what is.

Speaker 3 And there may still be more to do, but this acceptance aspect is just fundamental and being able to open up to a new chapter.

Speaker 1 And to accept what is is to do what? Is to just say,

Speaker 1 well, that's the way it is. And

Speaker 1 breathe it and eat it and sleep it and just move on? Or I mean, what is it to accept what is?

Speaker 3 Yeah, it's not necessarily like forevermore intellectually ruminating on it. That's not quite as helpful, as helpful.
It's more like, you know, a feeling tone where you,

Speaker 3 you know, when the memory comes up, you've realized that you have gained enough,

Speaker 3 you know, you're no longer fighting it. Like whether you like it or not, you're just like, okay, this was part of my history.
This was part of what helped form me, but life is still okay.

Speaker 3 I'm still able to move forward. I'm still able to have good relationships.
I still have, you know, there's so much to be grateful for. And

Speaker 3 it hasn't broken me. It hasn't stopped me.

Speaker 3 So I think developing a good relationship with what happened in the past, where it's not like accepting as in, like, you're becoming passive, but it's just like, this is something

Speaker 3 immovable in my history. And it's not going to stop me from thriving.

Speaker 1 Well, within this conversation, I think everyone listening. has heard themselves in here somewhere and gotten some ideas on how to do love better.
Young Pueblo has been my guest.

Speaker 1 He has been featured on Good Morning America, The Today Show, CBS Mornings, and other media outlets.

Speaker 1 And his latest book is called How to Love Better: The Path to Deeper Connection Through Growth, Kindness, and Compassion. And you'll find a link to his book in the show notes.
Young Pueblo, thank you.

Speaker 1 Thank you for being here.

Speaker 3 Yeah, thank you so much. This was really fun.

Speaker 1 So, if you or your kids have allergies or eczema, it could be, it could be your dishwasher's fault. Here's the theory.
Dishes washed in a dishwasher are sanitized.

Speaker 1 Dishes washed by hand are less effective in reducing bacteria. So children in homes without a dishwasher are exposed to more microbes.

Speaker 1 This plays into the idea that growing up in a squeaky, clean environment can increase the risk of autoimmune conditions like allergies allergies because the immune system doesn't doesn't have anything to do.

Speaker 1 Exposing your children to many different types of bacteria is what keeps the immune system working properly.

Speaker 1 And a survey of parents of over 1,000 children between the ages of 7 and 8 support this theory.

Speaker 1 The risk of developing an allergy was further reduced if a child ate fermented foods like sauerkraut or produce that had been bought directly from a farm.

Speaker 1 Fermentation of food is a bacterial process, and food from a farm is likely going to have more bacteria than processed food. And that is something you should know.

Speaker 1 A successful podcast can only succeed if listeners help spread the word. So we need you to tell other people about something you should know and get them to listen and help us grow our audience.

Speaker 1 It's the best way to support this podcast. I'm Mike Carruthers.
Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.

Speaker 1 Next up is a little song from CarMax about selling a car your way. You wanna sell those wheels? You wanna get a CarMax instant offer.
So fast. Wanna take a sec to think about it.
Or like a month.

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Wanna have CarMax pick it up from your driveway.

Speaker 1 So, want to drive? CarMax. Pickup not available everywhere.
Restrictions and female play. The Infinite Monkey Cage returns imminently.

Speaker 1 I am Robert Ince, and I've sat next to Brian Cox, who has so much to tell you about what's on the new series.

Speaker 3 Primarily eels.

Speaker 1 And what else?

Speaker 1 It was fascinating, though. The eels.
But we're not just doing eels, are we? We're doing a bit.

Speaker 1 Brain-computer interfaces, timekeeping, fusion, monkey business, cloud, signs of the North Pole, and eels. Did I mention the eels?

Speaker 1 Is this ever since you bought that timeshare underneath the Sagasso C? Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.