YouSaid · the spoken record

Sue Johnson

lines on the record: 149
first: 2019-07-23
most recent: 2019-07-23
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“And he says I'm scared to tell my partner I said Ah let's talk about that Let's talk about that and we help people reveal secrets and my experience has been that's perfectly manageable What isn't perfectly manageable is what happens when the bomb goes off and somebody finds out that you've been deceiving them see if I can have an intimate relationship what I think is an intimate relationship with you and then I find out that you have been able to hold back from me and deceive me and that you are not who I think you are just think about how that messes the safety and the relation It messes it's secrets are toxic”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Bomb in the basement redecorating scheme. And he said, What do you mean? I said, Well, you want me to help you rebuild your relationship house, but you have a ticking bomb in the basement. Would you really try to rebuild your house with a ticking bomb?”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I'm always trying to manage how you see me and what you see. I'm sorry? Then I can dance with you and listen to emotional music and tune in and let myself be carried away in the interaction with you. Of course I can't. I'm holding this secret to my chest, it's between you and me, and people are afraid to speak secrets, but they don't see the toxicity that comes from keeping them and how they're between them and their partner. They really are. And in a relationship, I think I share with you an image where a man once said to me, well, I don't want to tell my, I don't, I finished the affair. I don't want to tell my partner. And she doesn't ever need to know. She's never going to know. And I want to rebuild this relationship now, so I'm not telling her. And I said, you know, let me share with you. That's what I call the...”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Very hard because I think in images, and I always think of it like you're holding this secret to your chest, you're careful, you're keeping, you're making sure you don't tell this secret, you're keeping this part of you out of the relationship, and that means that you're not fully engaged, however. And your partner's gonna feel that. It's deception secrets are very toxic in love relationship. Accessibility responsiveness and engagement are the variables in research that predict the safety of a bond, any bond between any two people of any age. And accessibility is messed up by secrets. I'm hiding basically, I'm hiding from you and I'm being careful around you and there's a part of me that I don't want you to know. And I'm always worried that you're going to know it. And that takes energy glucose going to your brain to hide.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You can grow and shift and shape a relationship and you can repair it when it goes wrong if you understand the drama. If you don't understand drama, we just dance blind. We're just dancing blind. We don't even know the music we're listening to. We don't even understand our emotions, you know? It's time for this to end. It's time for us to learn how to connect. Surely if we can go to the moon, we can we have the key to love relationships now. I do hope that we're going to put it in the damn door and open the door.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It comes, you know, it's like you don't have any control. Whereas we see in therapy and even in our Holmey Tai group, we ran hold me tight weekends all over the world. It's our educational program. And, you know, they blow us away. The reason why therapists adore EFT is because it blows their mind. It still blows my mind after 35 years, right? It blows their mind. And you see these older couples, for example, whose, I've had couples come in and say, oh, we have a pretty good relationship, but, you know, we just thought we'd come to a hold me type weekend just to a little tune up and just for interest because you're an interesting speaker. And I say, oh, jolly good. And then they come to me at the end of the weekend and say, thank you so much. We just reached a whole new level of closeness. We've been married for thirty five years and we've never touched that. Thank you so much. I didn't even know that I could feel this for my husband.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I get the chance to hurt me like that again. That's how the conversation starts never again. And there's good reasons for that. If you understand the drama in a relationship, and certainly if you understand it as a therapist, what you understand you can shape. If you understand love, you can shape it. If you understand the attachment drama, you can shape it. Most of us see love as something random that comes along and hits you in the head and then disappears and we don't understand. We don't have a concept in our society. You can shape the most important relationships in your life. Just think about that as a shift. We say you fall in love. And then you fall out”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“is the way I've just described. People try to stay in control and stay out of the emotion and heal them. You can't. You can't have a cognitive conversation and heal them. They don't heal, right? People try to put them on the shelf for years and have a less close relationship. And then somebody needs to take a risk and they come roaring out of the, it's like you start to take a risk to create your closeness and your brain says, wait a minute, don't you remember? This was damn dangerous last time you were vulnerable and people say never again. Often this conversation starts with Well, we've talked about it a thousand times basically, you know, now when I start thinking about risking with you and trusting and putting myself in your hands, really, really I'm going to do that I promise myself never again.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I have to speak my pain. I have to look into your face and see that my pain hurts you. This is not a cognitive conversation. This is an emotional drama. It has to be in the emotional channel or it doesn't work. And I see that my pain hurts you, and you express care and remorse for hurting me in a way that moves me. And this shifts everything. It's an antidote and it's not just about forgiveness. Forgiveness is the booby prize. It's about forgiveness that leads to reconciliation. It's about forgiveness that turns into the willingness to risk and trust again. And it's a bonding conversation. It's a bonding and it's highly emotional. And when people have it, they can forgive injuries. They can forgive all kinds of injuries. But the only way I've ever seen it happen and work and laugh.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then you have to be able to help me understand how come my pain didn't matter at the time. What was happening for you? It's not about giving me reasons. It's about being predictable again. You have to be able to give me a coherent narrative of what happened to you so that I can start to tune into you and you can be predictable, just not the enemy where this can happen again anytime. Right? Then I turn and I tell you my pain and my hurt in a very clear way and what I need from you to help that hurt. I tell you how you can help with that hurt and you respond. It's an antidote to the original injury. You respond and you respond to me.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is that the really difficult thing is people try to apologize and in hold me tight, I think I've got a list of 10 apologies that don't work. You know, people say things like, I'm sorry, okay. No, that doesn't work. People give long reasons why it happened. No, it doesn't work. We've only seen one thing work. And it's a form of whole me tight conversation. What works. Is that I have to be able to really speak my pain in a way that it impacts you. I can't fudge it and be vague. I have to be able to speak my pain in a way that moves you, that you connect with.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A special kind of homie tight conversation focused around the injury. You know, you have to go look at your negative dances that you get caught in, the demon dialogues, you have to understand how you got so distant from each other in the first place, how there wasn't safety and connection in the relationship. You have to be able to at least create some safety and balance in the relationship. You have to create some sort of security. That's the end of stage one of EFT. You de-escalate the negative patterns of disconnection and conflict in your relationship. You create certain safety. And then you have to be able to go into risking and creating positive cycles of connection, which is bonding situations. And most couples need to do that around the injury. So they go back to the injury. And what we see”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Salvageable if you work on it, and often you need help because you're lost at that point and we don't educate people about relationships. We teach some trigonometry in school, but heaven forbid we teach them about the most important thing of all, which is relationships. So people get lost and they start to protect themselves and it gets worse and worse. But if they come into therapy with us, people say, you know, can we heal this? I say, yes, you can heal this, but you have to work at it. It's not going to be easy. You can heal it, and we know how to do it, and we've done research study on it. We know how to do it, and we know that the effects last three years down the road, right? But you have to be able to work on it. Healing and injury.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When I come home, the extra bit is when I come home and I try and talk to you about that, you say, I don't know what you're talking about. You were fine, weren't you fine? In other words, I dismiss it. We can't heal it. When I come to you to try and repair it, you don't tune into me. You dismiss my need. That's an attachment injury. It won't go. People think, people say things like time will heal that it will not. Your brain holds on to it. It's significant survival information. When you need it, your partner wasn't there. They're no longer safe. You can't count on them. Your brain will hold on to that. And the next time you have the opportunity to risk with that partner, you won't. You'll hold back. You'll keep them out. So these injuries redefine the relationship. And affairs can be like that.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Are other examples? Oh, I'm going for my chemotherapy the first day and I say you will be there, won't you? And you say, of course I'll be there. Don't ridiculate yourself. I'll be there. And then five minutes before I'm going, you say, listen, you'll be fine. I know your sister's going with you. You don't really need me there. I've got to be at this big meeting.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think a lot of it has to do with the level of trust that you had in the relationship and how important the relationship is to you and how much you're willing to work at it. We've done, we have a whole thing about we call it relationship injuries. They're not necessarily affairs. There can be other injuries in a relationship.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's right. And it's about deprivation, not about, you know, how lust takes us over all the time. That's just a big story. And it's true of a few of us, but mostly it's not. That's a big story. And so people turn to other people because they can't get their attachment needs met with their partner. And that's the truth. And they're hungry for that connection.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They feel rejected or abandoned by their partner, they're getting in terrible fights, they feel alone and scared, they feel unloved, unwanted and helpless. And the secretary brings them a coffee. And she smiles at them. And they suddenly notice how pretty she is. They've worked with her for three years, but they suddenly notice she's terribly pretty. And they notice that she seems to like them. And when they take her for coffee, she listens to them and she acts like they're the most important person in the world and their whole nervous system starts to respond. It's like the sunshine. They've been in the dark and there's a sunshine and they start to respond.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I've heard those guys say Oh well, you know, I just had the affair because I'm just into different women and I just got to have this adventure and I got to like, right, very, very avoidant people who don't trust people at all say things like, it wasn't an affair. I just had a one-night stand. It's no big deal. That's just what I do. It was just sex, okay? There was nothing. And there are some people who totally cut themselves off during sex, and it really is just a form of mutual masturbation, and they don't understand where their partner's upset with it. So there's different things here, but in general, the overwhelming thing is people do not have affairs because of sexuality or sexual frustration. They have affairs because they're emotionally disconnected and alone.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so right there he basically says there's something more important than sex actually. You know, we can get obsessed with it at certain points in our life, but there's other motivations. And that really plays out because when I talk to people about why they have affairs, I would say in all my thirty five years, and I supervise lots of therapists as well. In all my thirty five years I've made be heard one, two people who are a certain personality type high risk taking needs to climb Everest three times, drive fast cars, is obsessed with high stimulation, right? And let's not talk about what that's about, but it's a whole personality type.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The myth out there in society, in the magazines, is that we have affairs because we're a massively sexual beings and that one person can't possibly read enough for us and one way that attachment science is revolutionary and one reason it was so unpopular for so long is because it is revolutionary, it challenges us, our thoughts, was that John Bolby, the father of attachment theory, said, sex is not the most important motivation in human beings, and neither is aggression Freud was wrong. The most important motivation in human beings and the one that carries the huge clout is the need for a connection with another human being.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And what they've both done is they both freaked each other out at that point. That's what they've done. I mean, lovers scare the hell out of each other. Of course they do. You're more vulnerable to the person you love than anyone in the world, right? That's part of being in love. On the other hand, if it's a good relationship, you're safer with this person than anywhere else in the world. So that's the kind of paradox of love. But, you know, things interfere with things interfere with sex. As a society, it's fascinating to me. We seem to be obsessed with sex. And we separate it from relatedness, which is bizarre to me.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“How we were lusting after this woman in France and ran, we survived. So, you know, when people are getting anxious and scared and feeling rejected and abandoned, they're not good lovers, and they can't focus on their partner and they can't tune in, they can't dance together. They're just self-obsessed with sex. So after what happens is women will say in a distressed relationship, you don't want me, you just want an orgasm. I'm instrumental. Right. And the man doesn't know how to connect. He doesn't know how to create emotional connection. So he says you want to make out? And she says, no, not really. Stop.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Dance is endless every time you dance, it's different, it can change, and you can deal with stuck places in the dance, and it can always be a safe adventure. So the best recipe for great sex is emotional connection. When emotional connection gets lost, when people get angry, resentful, they feel hurt, they feel rejected, their ability to really physically engage and be erotic just goes away. You are not wired to deal with threat and to be turned on at the same time, by the way. That ended years ago. Those of us in the mists of time who saw a sabre-toothed tiger coming through the bush as a big shadow and stopped to masturbate or to get turned on, we got eaten, okay? We didn't pass on our genes. Okay, we just didn't. Those of us that saw a shadow in the bush and forgot all about how desirable.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Best recipe for great sex life throughout your life is safe emotional connection. Practice makes perfect. If you're good at dancing with somebody and you're good at tuning into the emotional and physical music that they play,”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Bonding is all about giving people their emotional balance. When you're not alone, when somebody's with you and supporting you, you can deal with so much, you have your emotional balance, problems are solvable, scary realities are manageable. That's what secure connection with another person gives you. And the same happens in sex. So lots of things can get in the way of sex. But the main thing that gets in the way of sex is emotional distance. People say If you're a New York journalist, you always ask me, you know, what's the best recipe for great sex life? Boring question for me. And they don't want my answer. They want to hear something like, oh, it's the new sex position from the joy of sex, you know, wailing monkey, climbing tree. If you can do that, you're fine. This is such nonsense. So I say what they don't want to hear.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then they start joking and playing over coffee, and then the play starts to turn into eroticism, and then they go out and make laugh. So again, it's about whether you shut down with this kind of, where you get caught in shame and fear and turn away from your partner or whether you stay with your partner and your partner is able to help you.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it becomes a playful conversation, right? And then they tell me a wonderful story about how they start to make love and everything goes wrong. Their kid comes home early and bangs on the door. Their dog gets into the bedroom. I can't remember what else has happened. At some point the candle started to set the curtains on fire. So they're like everything went wrong and George kept taking a nap, right? And then they gave up and they went down and had coffee. See, they went down and had coffee. They were together.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And he says Oh, it doesn't matter whether you've had a heart attack or not, it's normal. It's normal? I said, Yes, normal. You just have this big idea that you're supposed to be with a penis with as long as some monument and as hard as a rock like you did when you were 19. You think you should stay that way till the day you die. And that's not normal. So it doesn't usually happen. It's normal. And so we take the sting out of it that way and they start talking about the fact that sometimes George is going to take a nap. That's very different from the shame, huge shame thing. And they start talking about how when George takes a nap, she knows how to wake him up.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“About the fact that never mind his personal thing, which is he's had a heart attack and he's on certain drugs, for most men of a certain age, if they are going to try and make love to their partner for, I don't know, forty minutes. Basically he calls his penis George, okay. George is going to take a nap occasionally. Lot of it is about process, not about how the problem starts, it's what you do once the problem started and whether you do it alone, right? And we talk about how George takes a nap. And that's normal.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“With a guy, you know, we talk about his shame and how he doesn't feel like he's a man. And we help him have conversations with his wife where his wife comforts him and he's able to take that comfort in. Because she starts to try and comfort him and he knocks it away. He says, no, I don't want to talk about this because I'm not a man anymore. So, you know, that's how people also block comfort sometimes. They block it. They say, no, you know, I can't take it in. I don't know what to do with it. I don't need it. There's something wrong with me if I need it, right? But we help him take it in. And we start talking about the fact. And we normalize things. When you can talk about something with somebody and make it specific and get support, everything calms down. And you can sort of look at things in specific terms rather than big general catastrophic terms, right?”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because I'm not a man anymore, and this is, and he's just saying this is just too difficult for me. I'm not doing it, right? And so then his wife feels shut out and he's not talking to her about whether she misses this. She's irrelevant. He's basically saying, I'm not doing it. And he's all by himself with all this, right? And so that cuts off sex. What you see is that when people can get together and help each other with their vulnerable feelings, that shifts. And my favorite one is a man that I've got in the Hobby Type book, which was a delightful conversation.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Program which we did with the Heart Institute in Ottawa, that we did. And I remember working with one couple when the man said, well, he was very big, he was a manly man, you know, like her, right? Well, you know, since I had the heart attack, you know, my penis doesn't always work. And so I'm not doing it.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sex stops for lots of reasons. Sex stops, it's like every other dance you do with your partner. Things get in the way and block it. And if you can't talk about it together and help each other with it, you get stuck. Sex stops because a sexual problem comes up. And if the couple can't deal with it together, the classic one that I talk about in Hold Me Tight is erectile dysfunction as a man gets older. You know, the man, and it's not the erectile dysfunction itself. That's often manageable. What isn't manageable is the way people deal with it. The way people deal with problems, the way people protect themselves or their relationship from problems backfires and becomes a prison, right? So, you know, men are humiliated. I'm not a man anymore. I remember we did do a lot of work with heart attack couples. We have a program called Healing Hearts Together, which is an education.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm starving to death. You won't talk to me about your emotions. You don't touch me, I can't touch you there's no I'm starving to death. Help me, I'm starving to death and he basically says we'll suck it up. My response to that as a therapist is she can't. And it's not about how much she loves you or how mature she is, it's about the fact she's a bonding mammal. She can't suck it up.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“His wife had accommodated to this for years, and, you know, he liked to be in control and not touched. And their relationship worked while they were making love. But then he got a little bit older and he got erectile dysfunction. And he found that amazingly humiliating. And his way of dealing with the humiliation rather than talking to his partner and letting her help him with it, which I have seen work really well. His way of dealing with it was to totally shut down. So then there's no physical contact between him and his wife, and there's not much emotional contact either'cause he's shutting down. And suddenly this marriage which has been viable for years is in deep, deep trouble, and he's enraged'cause he's used to calling the shot, so he's enraged, like, you know, this is what's comfortable for me now. And you must accommodate, and she's basically saying.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I just want to be held. You know, I just want to be close. But, you know, our culture doesn't encourage men to say that men, our culture tells people a lie that somehow you're not vulnerable and you don't have a need for that connection when you're male. That's nonsense. Such nonsense. But yeah, I think touch plays a big part. Sometimes when a couple when they don't know how to connect emotionally explicitly emotionally, when they don't touch very much outside of sex, when the sex goes wrong. They're in deep trouble. You know, I can remember one particular couple where he was. He had a pretty horrendous childhood and he had an adulthood full of all about power. He's a very powerful man, very A lot of control in the world, and he was used to that, right? And he basically didn't like to be touched.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And before a big talk or after a big talk, he usually takes my hand. He's got very big hands, so my hand feels kind of small inside his. And I've had this flash several times that I'm walking down this hall at this huge conference and everyone knows who I am. And I suddenly feel sort of shy about the fact that my husband is holding my hand. I'm this big expert, right? My husband is holding. And I feel sort of shy about it. But the truth is, yes, my husband's holding my hand. That's right. And because that's what our relationship is. And I think people are starving for touch in our society and they turn it towards sexuality. Whereas I've heard men say a number of times, I just want to be held.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, I think it does because you're reaching for each other and your physical touch is the basic way we have with human beings of soothing each other. I look around me and people touch their children. But even that can be different. I went to Assisi in Italy for a while and I was watching fathers with their children. My God. It was so different from North America. I mean, everywhere you looked, there was these Italian men picking up their children, caressing their children, holding their children, reaching for their children, stroking their children's arms, touching their children's leg. Oh, it's really, really interesting. So, you know, culture has a certain amount to do with it, but touch is so powerful, and if you watch a couple who have just bonded or who are feeling close, they touch each other. You know, it's so interesting because I talk at all these big conferences and sometimes I have this flash. I mean, my husband comes with me to a lot of these conferences, and I really appreciate him coming. I appreciate the support.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think of what people do during sex. They stare into each other's eyes, they touch each other. For most adults in North America, that's the only place they get touched, which is something we should look at. I can't remember who did the research, but it's in one of my books for the public. But basically this lady did this research and she said, we are the least touching culture anywhere on this planet in North America. We don't touch each other.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Can let go and be with you, we can play, we can be open and erotic with each other, we can tell each other our fantasies, we can play as lovers, and then in the next minute we can hold each other and be safe havens, secure base for each other, which is what a secure bond is. That's secure attachment. The other kind of sexuality is like imagine how much you're likely to really let go and totally get engaged and absorbed and completely enjoy it if you notice just before you kick off that there's a crack in there in the line. Well, you might get a little thrill out of that. Oh my god, there's a crack in the line. Oh wow. But in fact, you know, you're not really going to let go and enjoy the ride. That's how I see it. I mean, it's securely attached people report better sex. So sex is a way of connecting is a bonding behavior.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Places and let it be thrilling and unusual, and you play with somebody in each dance time you dance, it's different, you have to feel safe. It's the opposite of novelty, actually. You need novelty when you're numbed out and shut down, and you need more and more novel sensation to have you get turned on. That's the way I see it. Novelty is about how we've numbed out our sexuality, not how, no, it's not about freedom. So, you know, the way I always say it to my students is imagine that you're going on a zipline. And you test the zipline before you let go. And the zipline's strong, and you're belted in and you feel good, then you let go on the zipline, you go, whee! And it's exciting and thrilling and interesting, and you're not quite sure you're going to end up, but who cares because you're okay? That secure attachment”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, as far as I can see, you know, passion is the longing for connection. There's a longing in there. You might not say it's for connection, but there's a longing, right, to be with this person. This person's desired. It's a longing, there's an emotional component. And then it's put together with the ability to play, to play erotically, to be unpredictable, to have a safe to turn going to bed together into a safe adventure. It's put together, you know, and that fits for me when I talk to securely attached couples. They're not in love all the time, but over a lifetime they can fall in love again and again and again because they know how to have homey-tight conversations. But, you know, sexuality, if you're going to really get into it and let yourself go into it and let yourself fall into it and let it take you over and let it take you to different”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not from any moral issue or any not from any stance of coming from shoulds, okay, I don't have any issues around that. It annoys me because it's not true. It annoys me because it's misinformation. It annoys me because it's not what I see and what I've experienced in all my years of working with couples. And Laumann's research basically says the people who have the best sex are the people who feel safe and connected with each other and who have exclusive relationships. And that makes sense to me. It makes sense to me on lots of levels, mostly of which come out of bonding science. What is passion? And I think we should all be asking ourselves this because Hollywood gives us nonsense and porn gives us nonsense and journalists who say they're experts in relation to... Relationships give us nonsense. What is passion?”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The world out there tells us some very funny things about sex. One of the things that I really object to that really annoys me because it's like misinformation as far as I'm concerned and it can hurt people is that people say things like, well, long-term relationships, you're bound to lose your sexual charge. Dissex has a best before date, you know. Familiarity is deadening and secure connection makes, you know, is the enemy of eroticism. And what you need to keep your sex life alive is novelty. You either need lots of strange positions or you need lots of sex stories or you need other people. You bring other people in. And this is very popular point of view out there, all kinds of journalists are pushing it. All kinds of people are making money on books, pushing it. It annoys me.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That sex therapists don't know anything about relationships. That's ridiculous. And it's ridiculous that relationship therapists don't learn anything about sex. It's like, are you kidding me? It's like, so but sexuality is important and for a secure couple, it's a bonding activity and it's about closeness and connection as well as about the release of tension or pleasurable sensation.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, basically, pornography teaches us that. But if you listen to men, and I've listened to a lot of men, if you listen to men talk about in a more emotionally open level. What men talk about is not that different from what women talk about. Men in the end will, I can't tell you how many times this has happened, men will say, well, you know, I can give myself an orgasm if I really want an orgasm. What I want is to be desired. I want to be desired. And the most concrete way of feeling desired is for you to desire me to come close and for us to make love. I want to be desired. You know Our society is a bit insane about sex. I mean, my feel is insane about sex. We have one discipline called sex therapy and another discipline called relationship couple therapy. How ridiculous is that? I mean, that's ridiculous, okay? What I'm talking about is actually attachment science helps us understand sex and relationships. And for goodness sake, we need to put those two things together. It's ridiculous.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's certainly a huge bonding element. It's not accident that an orgasm we're flooded with oxytocin, which is a bonding hormone, you know. And if you look at securely attached folks, they'll say, oh, well, sex is fun and it's about eroticism and it's about being pleasured physically and sensation, but it's also about being close to my partner. I like being close to my partner. The interesting thing about that one is the cliche out in the world is men only want an orgasm. Well, if that's true, you know, I mean, masturbation is a much more efficient path to that and it's simpler and you don't have to deal with anybody else.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sex plays an important role in I think the tricky part is sex can be different at different times. You know, sex can be many things at different times. Sex can be purely about the release of tension. Sex can be erotic play. Sex can, it can change in a relationship. There's flexibility. It can mean different things at different times, right? In general, if you listen to people in happy, healthy relationships, they'll talk more about sex as a bonding activity. It's not just about release. It's not just about orgasm. It's not just about eroticism. Human beings make love face to face. It doesn't have to be face-to-face, but you get the idea. We make love face to face.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know how to contain that conflict by sort of recognizing what's going on, hey, we're caught in a dance, we're caught in a dance here. It's not that you're a bad person or a terrible husband or a mean man or a mean woman. It's that look at what's happening to us, what's happening to us. If you can take that kind of perspective and you have enough trust then to turn into talking about your emotions and helping each other with them, you can deal with that transition. You'll have bad times, but you can deal with it. But often what is it like reveals the stress, reveals the cracks in the relationship, you know, where people don't trust each other and the sexuality disappears, which people often rely on those moments to create connection, then everything starts to go wrong. Everything starts to go wrong.”
2019-07-23 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #62 Dr. Sue Johnson: Cracking the Code of Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT