Why Modern Life Is Making Real Connection Harder | Barnet Bain

The first story is what happened to me. I was born with a silver spoon. I was born with no spoon. Then there is the second story. And the second story is basically how I got over the first story. And this is basically the, the subtext of the American dream. The American dream is you can do anything here. You can overcome your past. So the first story, the bottom line is, am I getting enough? The second story is, am I enough now?

Well, hey everybody, we're going to get right back to the podcast, but I want to share something with you that is very personal. Uh, you know, for decades I've been a practicing neurologist. I've been asking a single question: what makes a good brain go bad? More importantly, obviously, what can we do about it? And that question has led me to write my new book, which is called Brain Defenders. It's now available for preorder, and in this book, I'm going to take a hard look at where we are today and offer up some challenges as to where we are today in terms of what we're being told. You know, despite all the attention on targeting proteins, misfolded proteins like beta amyloid for Alzheimer's, we still don't really have any meaningful treatments for diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease per se, and we certainly can treat symptoms, But as it relates to treating the underlying issue, we're falling short. Many of these approaches manage the symptoms at best, but without really addressing what's driving the underlying process. And this science is evolving, but what's really exciting is the emerging research on what I've called the microglia. These are the brain's immune cells, and when they're balanced, they are protecting, they are repairing. Well, when they're dysregulated and and we can talk about why that happens, and we do talk about it in the book. They can drive inflammation and lead to brain degeneration, often long before symptoms appear. And here's the empowering part: these microglial cells are deeply influenced by your day-to-day lifestyle choices— your nutrition, your sleep, your environment. And in the new book, Brain Defenders, I share both the science and provide a practical roadmap that'll help you calm inflammation, support supportive microglia, and really ultimately take control of your brain's destiny. And if you preorder your copy today at braindefenders.com, you can receive some special bonuses like a sneak peek at chapter 1, the full glossary for the book, and curated offers from my favorite brain health products, many of which I've discussed here on the podcast. This is a new way of thinking about brain health. And I truly believe that this book hopefully is going to change everything. I can't wait for you to read it, and I think you're going to be as excited as I am about the information you're about to receive. That said, let's get right back to our podcast. Hello everyone, and welcome again to the Empowering Neurologist podcast. I'm Dr. David Perlmutter, and today's conversation is about something that profoundly shapes brain health, like many of our podcasts are, but this also shapes what we call emotional resilience, and even has a role to play in terms of our overall health and longevity. Yet it's rarely discussed with the depth that it deserves. And this is the idea of friendship. My guest is Barnett Bain, a Canadian filmmaker, author, and educator whose work spans psychology, spirituality, and the whole notion of what is considered to be human connection and the value of, of human connection. His film credits include the Academy Award-winning What Dreams May Come, Milton's Secret, Homeless to Harvard, and The Celestine Prophecy. I know those names are going to ring bells for many of you. He's the author of the new book, How to Be a Friend in an Unfriendly World. That's what we're going to be talking about today. It's a deeply thoughtful exploration of what it truly means to show up for others and to show up for ourselves in a very fractured and distracted time. This is not a book about social hacks or networking. It's about safety, presence, listening, boundaries, and healing, and why friendship may be one of the most powerful tools we have for emotional and yes, even neurological well-being. I'm thrilled to share this conversation with you. My guest is again Barnett Bain, and the book is How to Be a Friend in Unfriendly Times. In an Unfriendly World. Let's get right to our podcast. Barnett, welcome to the podcast.

I really appreciate the invitation. It's wonderful to see you online as well as it is in person.

Yeah, you know, I'm going to have to start with a story. My dad used to always say, I got a story to tell you. But the book is How to Be a Friend. And my wife says to me, oh, we're going to go up to Malibu and I want you to meet Some people. And, you know, I hedged and hawed. I don't know exactly what that means, but I kind of, you know, meet some people, whatever. I went, and it was to meet you and your wife for lunch. And the funniest thing was that— 2 things were actually funny. First, that I heard that you weren't all that excited about going either, and that, uh, we had an amazing time together and became, uh, became friends. Yeah. And, you know, that's central to our time together today. So, we're going to jump right in. Wonderful book. Very meaningful. I have to say that I was visiting our mutual friend, Brian, the other day, and there was your book on the coffee table. And the fact that he had read it cover to cover and it meant so much to him as it meant to me, that was really meaningful to me because Brian, as you know, a very special friend for both of us.

Sure is.

Let's get started, as if we haven't already. And you're in, you're at Columbia University, and you're teaching a course for psychologists. Ultimately, this book is an outgrowth of that course that you taught. So first, tell us about the course, and then how that ultimately led to the manifestation of this book.

So the, the course was at Teachers College Columbia. And It was called Artistry and Personal Spirituality. It was directed towards clinicians. They were pursuing a master's degree in clinical psychology. And the dean of the college approached me and said, well, we have all these wannabe clinicians and they They're very unsure of themselves outside a clinical setting. So they want to be able to be present with the practice, but they also don't want to have to turn it on and turn it off during the week. How can they— do you have any ideas about how they can become more grounded in their worldview so that they don't— put on and take off masks during sessions. And I said, well, you know,

so interesting. What you're saying is that these psychologists, clinicians, seemed comfortable in the,

in the

session, in the clinical setting where they had a particular role, but may not have been so comfortable outside of that clinical setting.

Yes.

In terms of dealing with the world. Got it.

They were operating in the head, All the time. And, you know, in a clinical setting, you really want to be embodied so that you can have a felt sense of what is going on. But, and they were reasonably adept at that. But outside in the world, they still, they treated as people at McKinsey used to refer to themselves, they treated themselves as heads on a, as brains on a carrying device. And they had no sense of being with themselves. So I said, well, you know, this is— being in relationship with another person is a creative act. And so I do know a thing or two about the mechanisms that are involved and the mechanisms that interfere with that. And so I was asked to put together a curriculum, which I did. And I taught it for a few years. And I fell in love with both the teaching and what emerged from it. Because, you know, they say you, the cliché is you teach what you most need to learn.

Wow.

Yes. And I very much developed an insight into my failings, my shortcomings, and also my strengths vis-à-vis being with other people, being present with other people, learning to make a distinction between what was going on in my head, the constant assessing and judging on one side, and then narrating the color commentary on the other side. The degree to which that interferes with any kind of relational connection. So all of this came out of the teaching of this course. Now, I have to say, I'll pat myself on the back for a minute. It was one of the more successful courses there and much loved. And filled up. Instantly. And I just, I just love doing it. So at the, at the end of when it came to, to time to wind it down, I just was busy with all kinds of other things. It occurred to me that it deserved to, it deserved to have a life as a, as a book and that I could distill down what was most valuable to me, in the hopes that if it was valuable to me, that it might resonate with others.

So I'm thinking that here you are, a wildly successful film director. And as a film director, you're creating imagery that is touching on people's emotion, eliciting emotion. And at the same time, you're teaching these psychologists how to relate to the world around them. How does this interplay? How do these 2 seemingly very disparate ideas—

It's very much the same bucket. So every story is about connection, whether it's romantic or spiritual or human. And friendship is the form of love that asks nothing in return. Now, I need to qualify that because most often our ideas about friendship almost always are hand-me-down ideas. We're never taught. No one ever teaches us how to do it. We just sort of simply take it for granted and fall into it like, you know, like a pothole usually. And but in an aware relationship, and we'll get into some of that in this conversation, Nothing is asked in return. It is one of the more, it is maybe the most rare kind of relationship in that there is an obligation, but no indebtedness. And I'm talking about a particular kind of very sophisticated relationship when it's very It's very much like this little garden I have outside my office. And I have an obligation to tend to those roses. But there's no indebtedness. The roses don't owe me. I don't owe the roses. It's just a gift freely given and received.

So it's not transactional.

It is not transactional. And we are not taught, we have no models for what these kinds of non-transactional relationships So in cinema, it is much more— it's much easier for me to investigate that, to see what does that look like? Because it's a make-believe world. I don't have to live it. I don't have to live up to it. So there I can explore what is that? What does friendship look like as a form of love that asks nothing in return? And it occurs to me that we do see it modeled in cinema before passion, before family, before community. There is a quiet willingness to see and to be seen. And the other part of it, maybe a more direct response to your question, is that every scene on screen or in life, it's always about relationship. No matter how subhuman or how transcendent the relationships are, it's about who's listening, who's not, who's awake, who's asleep. And so the book grew as much as the Columbia course. They both grew out of decades of exploring how we direct our own stories, usually without realizing that we're in charge, and how friendship becomes both the plot and the backdrop for the whole thing.

Well, you begin the book by talking about how the framework by which then we judge those things around us is really laid down by things happening when we're 4 to 7, something like years of age. about our self-worth, our self-image, our value. And then we spend a lot of time later in life trying to— I don't mean absolve ourselves of those, but to make right those—

Yeah.

The ways that we have perceived ourselves by— I mean, you talk about how people who felt that they weren't going to achieve anything, never going to amount to anything, these have become the company presidents and the big boss of this and that. And then, ultimately, we— and I'm connecting to this even as I recount your book to you. What happens as we get even later in life where we realize that we spend a heck of a lot of time trying to contextualize in a way that's functional for us those early life missed guidance signals, and then finally realized that all that effort, it was not really that necessary and isn't meaningful. That's what I took away, I think, the take-home message from the book, aside from the incredible value of connecting to others. And let me get back to that. I had to share that with you because that became the most important part for me of the book. And, you know, this isn't about me and my session here with you, but it kind of is that, again, we achieve a certain level of success, whether it's monetary or through our influence of other people. And you get to a point where you realize that didn't really do it for me. Now, what really matters most is my connection and my friendships. So, good. We're circling back to the central theme of the book. And how valuable that really is. Friendship with others, friendship with myself—that's what seems to matter most. I think it takes people an awful long time in their development to really get their arms around that, recognize that's that's fundamental. I mean, you see people who do that earlier in life, and I think that we are seeing some people getting that message earlier in life. But you know, others seem to be pretty self-absorbed. But so let's just. Let's go there then. What is it about friendship that we're not getting, that we're misunderstanding? And why is friendship so undervalued in an unfriendly world? And I think we can agree that's where we are right now.

Well, that's a can of worms. So, let me thread back to the beginning. Out of my experience of being a storyteller and a filmmaker, I basically It comes down to, for me, to there's essentially 3 stories. And you alluded to them. The first story is what happened to me. I was born with a silver spoon. I was born with no spoon. I was overwhelmed. I was inundated. I was abandoned. I got too much. I got too little. This is the first story. And the subtext of the whole first story is, Am I getting enough? Enough milk, enough strokes, enough toys, enough sleep, enough food? Am I getting my diapers changed? Am I getting enough, enough, enough, enough? Then there is the second story. And every movie, there are only 3. And the second story is basically how I got over the first story. The second story is this kind of phase shift, this paradigm shift. It's psychologically, a psychological developmental shift. From, am I getting enough, to, am I enough? And it's a strategy to heal these wounds. Am I getting enough? So the PhD, the entrepreneur, the, you know, if I marry well, if I lose the weight, if I gain the weight, and You know, the paradox of it is sometimes being, you know, being the biggest winner means being the biggest loser. Can I be the biggest loser? Can I at least have some impact on the world by failing spectacularly? So, it is all about, it's all about compensatory drive to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Am I getting enough? And this is basically the subtext of the American dream. The American dream is if I really work hard and if I overcome and if I crush all the competition, it's very competitive, then I will prevail and I will be successful. And the American dream is you can do anything here. You can overcome your past. So that's the second story. I can be anything. I can— the sky is the limit. That's all that sort of human potential stuff. I can fulfill my potential. So the step—

Just to be clear, that second story is to deal with the first story, right? Yeah. It's importantly.

Yeah.

And I have to tell you, going back to the first story, there's nobody watching the podcast that, you know, can think about their first story and not feel it. I mean, we all think about our childhood and what could have been and what didn't happen.

And we all have a wound, a trauma that follows us, that haunts us all through life. And if our listeners take one second and they just, they just Bring to mind the body feeling that you have when you're either embarrassed or you fail or you're humiliated or you're shamed. And it can be the most subtle thing. It's always the same flavor. And it's always, I'm not enough, or, you know, I'm not lovable, or I'm too much, or I'm— there's always the same flavor. flavor. So, the second story is really about overcoming that. It's all the strategies we do to become, quote unquote, successful in life. And success really means to obliterate the damage of the first story or the legacy of the first story.

Make it right.

Make it right. And it's all about, am I enough now? So the first story, the bottom line is, am I getting enough? The second story is, am I enough now? Now am I enough? So now I have this, I did that, am I enough now?

Hey everyone, we're going to get right back to the podcast, but I have an important message for you. If you're caring for somebody with Alzheimer's, any other form of dementia, or even what we call mild cognitive impairment, or maybe you've received one of these diagnoses yourself, Or, if you're focused on preventing cognitive decline, I want to speak directly to you for just a moment about some serious research that's going on looking what we call 40-hertz light and sound simulation. We've been actually talking about that on the program. Here's the challenge. Not all 40-hertz light devices are the same. Most use what's called stroboscopic light, and that's the type of light that flashes, then you can see the flashing. And, that can cause nausea, it can cause headaches. And, if you can't tolerate that, you won't use it. So, there is a company called OptoCeutics. They've solved this problem with a patented technology that still gives you the 40 hertz light flashing but through light that looks and feels quite normal. It's the device I actually have on my desk when I'm working. And, that's why this company sees a 94% adherence rate and significant improvements across Various metrics including mood, energy, focus, sleep, and memory. And the light is called the EVY light. E-V-Y. You can use it as I do when you're working on your computer, when you're reading, when you're watching TV, eating breakfast, whatever. It becomes really part of your day, not just another burden. It's kind of passive in the background. So I recommend giving it a try for 90 days. And if you and your family don't see value in it, then you can return the device for a full refund. They cover the shipping. Both ways. And you can learn more about OptoCeutics at optoceutics.com/Perlmutter. You can use the code to get a $200 savings. The code is Perlmutter, my last name, 26. This is a device that really is risk-free in terms of getting involved with 40-hertz stimulation. Important information. Let's get right back to our podcast. Well, interestingly, we're talking about the second story. You talk about an experience you had with your daughter. Yeah. Where it wasn't just about you, but you were, may I say, perpetrating this, right? Kind of this mentality or this notion. It insinuated itself into an interaction you had with your daughter. Can you unpack that for us?

And this is what we do. So, my daughter had gone away to college, first time away from home. She came back and we went out to dinner and she was excitingly unpacking and sharing with her dad her new life. And I kept coming at her with all these questions. And I'd love to say that they were curious, they were informed by curiosity, but that is not— that's just not the case. They were hostile. It's like they were freighted with judgment. Did I like who she was hanging out with? Did I approve of her course load? And then more and more and more until finally she dug in and she said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what is going on here? This is not how you showed up for the first 16 years of my life. And this really hurts. And I realized in that moment, I realized that I wasn't coming at it with curiosity. And I realized I had an agenda around this. And when I peeled back all the layers of it, it became plain to me that my interest was not really about her, but how it reflected on my own values.

I hope that when people read your book, they dwell on that section because as parents, You know, but you take a deep breath and you move through, you try to reduce self-judgment. That was very compelling for me to read that. I mean, frankly, I think many of us have been there.

Yeah, it was brutal. And I realized I had been there before, but I had always numbed it out. I thought, this is too much of a third rail for me to admit about myself. You know, there's this, there's this feeling that I have, and I used to share this with my students and they resisted it mightily, that when you say, I would hate to think that I am fill in the blank, you can almost assuredly own that you are that.

Oh, there you go. That's an important point. I have to go back to the metaphor of third rail because I didn't get it. What do you mean? The third rail on the train is the electrical rail, right? Yeah. Yeah. That's the one. That's the one.

whether it'll fry you.

I got it. But you use it and I don't— I didn't get the context. So sorry to break the flow here. But you know what, it's our time together. So tell me what the— how you use it in the context, because I'll use it moving forward.

So I understood suddenly that my hostility in the way that I was asking these questions, these were judgments, and they were— and I was saying, you're not enough, You're not doing it right. And I was not seeing her. I was not being with her. She had finally gone off to begin to live an independent life. And I realized that, well, I don't really want her to live an independent life as long as she reflects my own values and my, my own conditioning. Then I'm fine. And I can pretend that, you know, there's this very childish trope that we all see. I certainly used. I used to say, you know, I love you unconditionally. Well, you know, the moment she started living her own life, the conditions showed up. Clearly, there were many, many conditions.

Oh my gosh.

And the reason that there are conditions is, you know, this is the narcissist story, the the Greek myth of the young man who saw his reflection in a pond and fell in love with himself, not realizing that it was his own reflection. We all live in these bubbles. And I, you know, I alluded in the book to a situation that happened to me not long after the incident with my daughter. I was walking near, in a park near my home. And I came across a street performer. And he had these two sticks with a length of yarn in between and a bucket of soapy water. And he would create these incredible, incredible soap bubbles and make all these shapes. And it was wondrous. And I stood and watched him. And my, you know, it was just delightful until his pièce de résistance, his big finish. He created this enormous bubble and he wrapped it around himself, stepped fully into it, and he was encased in this shimmering soap bubble.

Wow.

And I had this sudden gestalt. I realized, oh, this is what I do. This is possible. This is probably what we all do. I'm not going to speak for other people, but it's certainly what I—

Oh, yes, you are. That's okay.

That's why you

write a book. You're speaking for others, or at least to them.

That's true. I'm speaking to them. I created this bubble built of my beliefs and my thoughts and my choices, my fears, and now even algorithms that keep me comfortable. And as long as I'm with my daughter and she is a reflection of my bubble, we're cool. But whether it's my daughter or anybody else that I meet, If they are more or less aligned, if there's a Venn overlay of my bubble, we are to a degree cool. If they are too different from my bubble, and all of this is unconscious, if they're too different, I have judgments, I have resistance. And if they're very different, I perhaps worst of all make them invisible.

Well, could this not be part of our hardwiring in terms of early life, Friend versus foe kind of programming?

It's, I don't know that it's hardwiring. It is first story stuff.

Okay, so it emanates from those first stories.

It's all baked in from the first story. And then, you know, we double down on it. And as we're trying to prove that we're enough, we make a unilateral contract with ourselves. If I can't be omnipotent, godlike, if I can't just make it happen this way or this way, this way, then I'll be omniscient. And I'll pretend that I'm all-knowing. And anybody that comports with my all-knowing worldview, we're cool. But if there's too much variance, the problems come up. Now, all this is, it starts in the first story, it gets baked into the second story, and we begin to live our life We begin to live our life doubling down on this cocktail of thought and belief and choice and decision. Now, the beauty of a friend is that— and now I'm not talking about the 5,000-plus friends I have on my social media. I'm talking about The garden friend. I can't have 10 acres of garden because I can't tend that. I can have this little patch that I can tend. Likewise, a friendship, I can have a number of friends that I'm able to tend, that I'm able to garden. And in the context of that relationship, I'm able to— I'm able to witness what I'm carrying. I'm able in there to be able to rehearse the small acts of self-discovery, of catching my belief system, of catching my conditioning, of slowing it down, of feeling uncomfortable, of being willing to be, to feel uncomfortable, as well as all the beautiful and good stuff. It's an opportunity for me to grow. And, you know, I suspect that most of our listeners are mature because friendship is developmental. And, you know, how I showed up as a friend in high school is not really what I'm talking about. It's not about the camaraderie. All of this is developmentally appropriate. But, you know, it's not about driving fast and, you know, and risky living. I'm really talking about a more mature kind of friendship that isn't about usefulness. Its foundation is a shared integrity. And particularly in midlife and beyond, there's an intimacy that other relationships might not have. It offers us a kind of love that, as I said before, without duty, But in midlife, when roles shift and kids grow, parents age, friendship can be the one place where we're not required to be anything other than who we are. And in that relationship, we can be reminded of the parts of ourselves that existed before, before what I call the cleanup, those messy parts. I don't have to deploy my hostility against my 17-year-old daughter. I can allow it to show up in the context of a relationship, knowing that the relationship is committed enough that it can emerge and I can I can put it in neutral and I can witness it and it can be witnessed. The bottom line of this kind of a relationship is that it is a crucible for self-aware, becoming self-aware and for growing.

Crucible.

It's a crucible.

I get it. You know, for our viewers right now, I want to just kind of go back to what's going on here. So you and I only met one time before, and I think it's fair to say we became friends. And, uh, interestingly, as we're talking about things like we're talking about now and, um, getting to know each other, I thought it was so fascinating that here you are, you know, a Canadian. I grew up in, in South Florida, and yet you and I were born in the very same hospital. Do you remember that moment? Yeah. I mean, it was interesting. So I think what you're saying is that friendship isn't really something we do, but it's more of a way of being. And having said that, if we can just extend that, because I think the subtitle of the book is In an Unfriendly World. And it seems to me that at least nationally, or, you know, as nations can be, that we're missing that part of the importance of this connectivity these days, of the importance of these relationships and how they can be certainly mutually beneficial beyond the economics of it all. And that we do seem to be a bit locked into this phase 2 of achievement of me, not you. So how do we extend this from the person, from the N of 1, to, you know, a larger context?

Well, first of all, the first story and the second story, they're developmentally appropriate. So it's not that they're bad or wrong. They're developmentally appropriate. You know, I like to think my greatest teacher, or one of my greatest teachers, is this garden out here. The bulb of the rose plant, the thorns of the rose plant are no more or less rose than than the bloom. So the bloom is simply a developmental expression of that being. So the first story, the second story, they're developmental expressions of what it is to be a person. It's a little harder, I think. I'm speculating here, but it seems to me it's a little harder To these days, for one big reason. We are all operating inside our bubbles of conditioning. Every human being on the planet is inside our bubbles of conditioning. The value of a friendship is that it allows us, it's a moral teacher, it allows us to witness our conditioning and to dismantle it and integrate it. A beat at a time. Nowadays, on top of all of our history, we have algorithms to further sort us. So the bubbles are, if anything, they're more rigid. And the other great thing is we move through life at a pace that You know, it's heretofore unimaginable. So the modern challenge isn't that we don't care about connection because we do. I'm convinced. That's the part that's hardwired into us, connection. It's in our limbic mechanics. But it's that our nervous system is so overstimulated that we forget how— we forget to slow down. And often we don't know how to slow down enough to actually feel connected. So these bubbles don't help. Busyness is now a badge of honor. And that's also baked into the second story. We nobelize objectifying ourselves, you know, overworking, no sleep, go without food. We nobelize this in the second story. And if we treat ourselves as an object, we will treat others as an object. So the biggest threat, it seems to me, to meaningful connection today is the loss of unhurried attention.

Well, what about safety? I mean, you describe why safety is so foundational for connection. What does that mean?

Well, I think that I cannot be a better friend to you than I am to myself. And if I don't know myself, you know, nobody can drop anchor in a storm. So I can't offer safety to you or to others until I befriended my own inner weather. Again, the speed of life today mitigates against me having insight into myself. When we become steady with ourselves, others feel it. The inverse is also true. The more fragmented we become, the more estranged we become from ourselves, others feel that too. And I think it speaks to the frantic nature of what community looks like these days. Safety is not a promise. It's a presence. It's a being state. If I'm with you and you don't feel safe with me, then forget the rest. You know, safety doesn't mean bubble wrap. It means that I am aware enough and principled enough not to weaponize your vulnerability. As we become more and more intimate, I mean, we became friends very quickly for a number of reasons, mostly because our Our bubbles of conditioning are fairly consistent overlays. So I already, I come into the relationship already.

And you don't even know me.

I don't know you, but I know the feeling of you. I know the feeling of you. And I think vice versa. I mean, there's, there's enough that is consistent there that we feel safe with each other. I don't feel that I'm dealing with a reptile. I don't feel that I'm dealing with an erratic human being. So we have the benefit of having— I'm really overusing this metaphor, but I can't think of a better one. We have complementary bubbles. Our life experiences—

I hear you. I understand.

So from birth,

from birth

on, birth on, from this, from literally from the delivery room.

Hey, we're going to get right back to the podcast, but I do have an important message. You know, for decades we've been told that our genes, uh, are basically our destiny as it relates to health, and that everything's locked in place predicting even our future brain health. But let's be clear, your DNA isn't a verdict, it's a roadmap. And I'm talking to you today about 3x4 Genetics. I actually described them in the new book Brain Defenders, and this is a company that helps you understand your genetics what you've inherited, and I think more importantly, how your daily choices can influence how those genes are actually expressed. In other words, how you can control your own genetic expression. And, you know, that matters for your health, and it really matters for brain health, including things like memory and mood and cognitive resilience. You may carry genetic markers associated with cognitive decline, like as we've talked about, APOE4, But possession doesn't equal expression. Your lifestyle, your nutrition and metabolic health, all the things that we talk about here on the podcast can powerfully influence which genes are turned on and which stay quiet. The 3x4 Genetics Test looks at how your genes impact brain function at a cellular level, and which then, through the 3x4 Health Journey, which they provide you, guides you through a clear and a science-backed program Focused on inflammation, methylation, oxidation, oxidative stress, things that we routinely discuss here on the podcast that are the key drivers of basically what makes a good brain go bad. And we have spoken with the team at 3x4 Genetics, and they were able to get a special offer for our podcast community. So head on over to 3x4genetics.com/drperlmutter and get that special offer and start really your personalized brain health journey today. Let's get your genes working for you, and let's get back to the podcast. I'm perseverating on one thing you mentioned a moment ago, and that is this sort of badge of honor that you're really busy and you're engaged and you're on the treadmill. And I have to say, it's so interesting to me the number of emails that I get where the preamble is, I know you must be incredibly busy, but— and then there's the pitch. As if that's the entrée of making me feel good, because yes, I'm really busy. And, you know, I kind of pride myself on trying not to be that busy, because if I get that busy, I can't really dedicate to things that I think are really important. One thing that you make clear is actually valuing and the importance of boundaries, setting boundaries of heart in relationships, that that's actually a good thing. That, you know, we shouldn't recoil from the notion of acceptable and meaningful boundaries to cultivate better relationships. Can you explain that a little bit?

Well, it's part of this becoming close and tender with oneself. If I have no idea what I stand for. Oh, let me back it up one step further. If I have no idea where my values are and where they came from, then I can't have borders. I can't have any boundaries. And what occurred to me as I began to investigate this is I had this uncomfortable insight. I asked myself the question, what thoughts What original thoughts have I had vis-à-vis my values? And I realized awkwardly that I couldn't come up with an original thought, with any thoughts that were not hand-me-down. And then I realized that the question, that realization is perhaps the first original thought I ever had.

Wow. Well done, young Jedi.

Exactly. So, To create a boundary, it begins with understanding what do I really stand for and why and where did I get this? So it ties in very closely with this idea of honoring. And for me, honoring, you know, it goes, The 10 Commandments have it, they, there's an injunction about honor thy father and thy mother. And, you know, I used to believe, much like these correspondents that come to you and think they're honoring you by presuming that you're too busy, you know, they're buying into, where did that come from? They're buying into a second story, you know, We normalize people that are busy and are self-abandoning themselves and have no boundaries. We think this is fabulous. So that is a kind of a flattery. And there is no flattery in honoring. Honoring is not about flattering. To honor another person means I'm willing to be changed by you. When I honor my—

Again, again, to honor another person is to indicate that you're willing—

I am willing. Doesn't mean I will. I'm willing. I have the humility to be changed by you, by you. So I honor my mother and my father because I have the humility to be changed by them. That doesn't mean that I slavishly replicate their lives and take on all of their values. But what it does mean is that I I am considerate. I consider who they are. What is it about them that works? And I'm willing to make a— to lean into that. What about them maybe is messy, has some loose ends, or maybe I could let go? I honor them by being willing to be changed by them. That doesn't work for me. And I let it go. So it has to do with, with, again, this crucible we talked about. I honor you by seeing who inside the relationship, I discover more of who I am. And I allow myself to make changes on that basis. A true friend, Or parents that you honor, they call you upward. They may not consciously be calling you upward. They may be subhuman. But the experience, when I honor them, I allow myself to create a boundary about what is valuable. And ideally, it calls me towards courage, towards generosity, towards wisdom. And in a really, in a mature friendship, Often not the case with parents, but in a mature friendship, certainly a midlife friendship, not through criticism but through their example.

Well, let me respond to that, if I may. And that is that, um, you set a, a wonderful example in your book by your transparency by being along for the ride with the reader, with me, uh, in terms of the things that you struggled with, uh, and continue to work through. Uh, and I— and, you know, the friendship part of the story, uh, you know, it should not be lost that a lot of that is friendship with thy— love thy neighbor as thyself, right? That it's, it's fundamental, should be fundamental, that we reach out to thy neighbor, without qualification, I might add, that it's not contextual in terms of who thy neighbor is, but that ultimately, as thyself, you know, those are 2 words I think that are really very important because, you know, there's a lot of forgiveness that needs to happen in the 3rd story. I think that, that again, you know, by way of example, we bind to you and are bound to you in the storytelling of your book that makes it, you know, that gives it a lot of gravitas in terms of what we're all trying to do, you know, with our lives to find meaning and to be better humans. So, and I thought the subtitle, In an Unfriendly World, was So important because, you know, I think it's an N of 1 again, that ultimately these multiple Ns of 1 that change this unfriendly world. It seems like it's going to take a lot of work. So I just wanted to share with you— that sounds like concluding remarks, but again, you know—

Oh, it's not because I'm loving this.

Yeah, I know. I know. But I wanted to share that with you because that's the part that really amplified my, uh, honoring of you. And I think my friendship with you is reading this work on our second date. So, uh, anyway, uh, very, you know, because this is the— I think you very did a great job in distilling down what goes on in our lives from early childhood experiences, both positive and negative, through working through those experiences by creating these bubbles And then ultimately realizing the bubbles don't mean anything. That the sooner we can dismantle those bubbles and be confident with how we respond to the challenges of our world, and most importantly, our interactions with others by not having the bubble, but allowing them to interact with our souls, that's the true meaning of life. And I can't say I came up with that. I'm going to have to say you did. So add that to number 2 in terms of things that you've come up with spontaneously.

You know, something you just said that I had not thought about in this way until this, this is in real time. You know, you're talking about you treat others as you want to treat yourself. this Golden Rule thing. Yes, of course. Of course, there's the 2 meanings that, you know, you're treating others. There's the conventional understanding of that.

Right.

And then there's the, you know, there's the kind of Eastern understanding of that, that you're— the other is literally yourself. We don't have to go into that right here and right now. We could, but we're not going to. Not right here. that the other is yourself, you know, that it's all dream stuff. And, you know, we pretend that at night when we're dreaming, we pretend we're in a subject-object universe and we're walking through dreamscapes. And then we wake up in the morning and we realize the whole thing was of our creation. And I just set the camera up in a particular point of perspective so it looked like subject-object. There are There is a whole tradition that holds that that is what life's about, that it's the same thing. So when we approach it from that, you're arguing with yourself. And the degree to which we can be lucidly living, it sort of mitigates some of, takes some of the edge off of things. But then, you know, when you, when you spoke about as yourself, the other meaning that is clear to me, although it wasn't obvious when I wrote the book, is that—

The revised version's coming up.

Exactly. I already have to do an appendix. So you, you, you can't treat somebody better than you can treat yourself. And so there, if you don't know, if you can't discover who you are and what your boundaries are, I'm not talking about your chosen boundaries. I'm talking about the conditioned boundaries that you're totally unaware of, that they arise when, for example, a friend says something to you that is messy and Can you hear it without flinching or fixing? And if not, it's a growth edge. And the core idea for me of what a friendship is, is this place that allows us to discover our growth edge and to facilitate the discovery of somebody else's growth edge. And then you are able to treat others as you treat yourself because you've just added capacity, self-

Well, I think that, you know, the— it sounds a bit transactional as opposed to a more Eastern philosophical view on it. And here's another one, judge not lest ye be judged, right? I'm okay with judge not.

Yeah.

Without any issue with that, if I do judge negatively, then I might be judged negatively. So again, being transactional and having a consequence It's all second story

stuff, because if you

judge, you're going to get it. I'm okay with judge not. And it's not, you know, the golden rule. You brought up the golden rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I just think do unto others. It's enough. Just do right by others.

Do right by others. But you have to know what right is. Again, that's the honoring piece. And you have to know You know, doing right is attached to fixing for me. So, you know, we have a— this is also baked into the culture and is also something that becomes clear in a relationship. The greatest gift that we can give to each other as a friend is presence. Yeah. It's simple. It's just presence, full stop.

Yeah.

It's not, it's not, I'm going to fix you. So if somebody comes to me, you come to me and, or, you know, men are more guilty of this, I think. It's anecdotal. I'm just revealing my own biases here, my own bubble. But men are more guilty of this than women. And my wife for 40 years has kept saying, I'm not asking you to fix it. I just want you to listen to me. I don't need you to fix it. I don't, I don't, it's not broken. I don't need you to fix it. I want you to listen to me because as I empty the reservoir, things happen for me. But your tendency, your inclination, your habit is to step on that because it makes, because my discomfort makes you uncomfortable. This is about you. This is your stuff. So I need you to grow so you can just be with me. Be and really be with me. Not you're with me, I'm speaking, I'm emoting, I'm having feelings and you're uncomfortable and you are numbing them out with your internal dialogue. You're judging, you're going, or you're, you're rearming with, with your next bon mot. Yeah. I mean, just, I just want you to be with me. Your presence is the greatest gift that you can give to me. That is a lesson that can be learned inside a friendship.

Well, you brought up the male-female dichotomy here as it relates to this ability and a skill that can be learned. What is it about this that makes— that genderifies it, do you think?

I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I have some hunches, but I'm not sure. Some of it, again, is second story. You know, in the second story, we elevate— you know, it's Cartesian. I think, therefore I am. Well, that's BS. It's really time we move beyond that one. But the culture has not quite gotten past that. So I am more than just my ability to think. And when I am, and there's a certain chauvinism about that, that doing trumps everything else, that doing trumps being, it trumps presence, that taking action in the second story is everything. So we have a certain kind of chauvinism that is born out of that, that makes a hierarchy out of doing acts as opposed to presence acts, that dismisses feeling states as feminine and And is very dismissive about that. And we have—

Yeah. And in reality, it's much easier to do.

It's easy to do. It's super easy to do. You don't have to

do your homework.

You don't have to suffer the impact of this messy thing called feelings. And so when the feelings come up, people, you know, the gender that is more more conditioned, psychologically conditioned by the culture to take action in the world and to show up as strong and silent.

So I feel, therefore I am.

Exactly. Exactly. But for men to feel, we feel threatened. And we do not have a nervous system that is conditioned to handle too much feeling. What happens is we handle too much feeling, just as if you take too much breath, you oxygenate, we go to sleep. Now, not everybody goes to sleep after 5 breaths or after too much emotional in the body. But untrained, and you can train yourself to have capacity astoundingly quickly, but untrained, we go numb or we shut down. Almost instantaneously. And for, as an example of that, you know, try listening to a cable news station that's off-brand for you. Just see how long you can handle it.

Very diplomatic, off-brand.

Off-brand, not bad, right?

I actually do it. I actually do it. I have to say that I look upon this as a test for me. Going to the off-brand input and just seeing how I can deal with it and tolerate it and move through it and not inculcate it into my operating system, actually.

Yeah. Yeah. But it's not— it's no simple task. I mean, the— and what is more challenging, I'm speculating here, but correct me if I'm wrong. What is more challenging than the thought stream, which suddenly becomes, you know, wild horses running through your, your, your, your thinking. What's more challenging than that is the, the somatic discomfort. It feels awful.

Yeah. And, and I think that it does feel awful because if you put yourself into this experiment, you realize that what you're doing is you're just abutting against your, again, your operating system. And that's very uncomfortable. But I think that it's almost like a hormetic stress that ultimately it builds resilience. So, yes, that's why—

You have just given me the perfect blurb for my book because it is about, it is a, it is about an operating system and building resistance so that your operating system gains more capacity.

Not resistance, resilience.

Resilience, resilience, excuse me. Yeah, it is about building resilience so your operating system gains more capacity. You can show up for more.

Right. We call that a hormetic stress in biology.

A hermetic stress? I'm writing that right

down. Hormetic stress that, you know, it's why we cold plunge, we sauna, exercise, et cetera, because that level of stress actually builds resilience. When you exercise a muscle, you tear the muscle fibers. They build back stronger, and that's how you gain muscle mass. So it's the concept of hormesis, of the good side of stress

or

challenge.

Okay, that's also going into the

really we better start work on on the re on the revision on at least the appendix. Barnett, I I've enjoyed our our friendship immensely. Thus far, it's who, you know, who's to think at this stage in life you gain a new, a new pal? And I sure appreciate that.

Yeah, it's wonderful. Well, I'm looking forward to seeing you again soon. Hopefully you'll be out here or maybe I'll be out there.

Yeah. And I will say that the book taught me a lot. I mean, it, and it wasn't didactic in a sense. I mean, it wasn't, it was The sense that we are learning this together, uh, and, and, you know, that there was work to do. And, and I appreciate how you did that, um, and that was very effective, uh, you know, that we're all in this together and, you know, we're doing our best. So that was very well done. So, you know, in a way, your film directorship kind of skills, uh, came out a little bit. Because I felt like I was being guided through a story. And so that's how I appreciate the book.

Thank you so much. Thank you.

Okay. Well, thanks for joining us today. And I hope we get together soon.

Really appreciate the invitation. Love the conversation. And give a big hug to Lise. And yeah, I do hope we see each other soon. Be well.

Okay. All the best. Thank you. Many thanks to Barnett Bain again for this wonderful book and for this thoughtful and timely conversation. His book again is How to Be a Friend in an Unfriendly World. It's a reminder that connection isn't accidental. It's intentional. It's practiced. And it's deeply human. If our discussion today resonated with you, I encourage you to spend time with this book I found it to be very, very helpful. It's one to keep close and certainly a book that you want to share. As always, thank you for joining me here on The Empowering Neurologist. Until next time, take care of your brain and certainly take care of each other. Bye for now.