Esther Perel: The Modern World Can Sap Your Life Force. Here's How To Recapture It.

10% Happier with Dan Harris

10% Media, LLC

Health & Fitness, Mental Health

4.6 • 12.2K Ratings

🗓️ 5 January 2026

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The legendary psychotherapist unpacks the concept of "hostile dependency" and explains why cutting people off doesn't always work.

Psychotherapist and New York Times bestselling author Esther Perel is a leading voice on modern relationships, known for her widely viewed TED Talks, bestselling books and the hit podcast. She runs a New York–based therapy practice and advises global organizations and platforms on the complexities of contemporary relationships.

Follow Esther Perel's podcast Where Should We Begin? on YouTube, Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and subscribe to Entre Nous with Esther Perel on Substack for exclusive bonus content.

In this episode we talk about:

What Esther Perel really means by eros
How modern life quietly depletes our sense of feeling alive
Why aliveness can coexist with grief, pain, and difficulty
The danger of numbness
Introverts, extroverts, and the many non-social ways we experience vitality
Vital sources of connection and meaning
Co-regulation, touch, presence, and why words alone aren't enough
"Hostile dependency" and the paradoxes of long-term relationships
Why loneliness has become normalized, and why it shouldn't be
How to rebuild community through small, practical acts
Rituals as a way to mark time, create meaning, and feel grounded
The tension between individualism, belonging, and responsibility to others

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris.
0:19.4	Hello, everybody. How we doing? Today I'm talking to a frequent flyer on this show.
0:24.6	One of my favorite repeat guests, Esther Perel, the legendary author and podcaster and psychotherapist.
0:30.7	We're going to talk about how modern life can sap your life force and how to get it back.
0:36.7	Just in case you're unfamiliar with Esther, she's the
0:39.2	bestselling author of several books, including mating in captivity and the state of affairs.
0:44.9	She's also the host of the hit podcast, Where Should We Begin? And she's got a new substack, which I
0:50.8	highly recommend. This conversation, we talk about what Esther means by the term
0:56.5	eroticism, which she says is often used way too narrowly, the danger of numbness. She introduces me
1:03.8	to the term hostile dependency, which I'd never heard before and is totally fascinating. We talk about
1:09.5	how loneliness has become normalized, how to rebuild
1:12.5	community, which everybody's always telling us how to do, but how to actually do it. Rituals as a way to
1:19.0	mark time and create meaning in your life, the tension between individualism, belonging, and responsibility
1:24.3	to others, and why cutting people out of your life does not always go
1:29.0	the way you think it might go. Before we dive in, just a super quick plug for my new app,
1:35.8	which is called 10% with Dan Harris. Today is the start of our free New Year's meditation challenge.
1:42.8	It's seven days with the legendary meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein,
1:47.0	who gives a kind of master class, an on-ramp to Buddhist meditation.
1:52.0	This is good for both beginners and experienced meditators.
1:55.0	I was in the room meditating along with Joseph while he recorded the guided meditations.
2:00.0	I got a ton out of it.
2:07.3	Sign up at Dan Harris.com to download the new app and join the challenge. There's a free 30-day trial for the app if you want to try before you buy. We'll get started with Estere Perel
	...

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