Secret #92: Why Don’t You Understand Me? with Yael Schonbrun
Recommended Episodes
Have you ever walked away from an argument convinced you were right, while the other person felt completely misunderstood? Clinical psychologist and author Dr. Yael Schonbrun returns to Life's Dirty Little Secrets to explore why misunderstanding isn't simply a communication problem. Our brains constantly fill in missing information, reinforce existing beliefs, and convince us that our interpretations of other people are accurate, even when they're not.
Drawing from her new book, Why Don't You Understand Me?, Yael joins Emma and Chris to unpack the psychology of overconfidence, self-righteousness, and the stories we create about people who hurt us. They explore why feeling understood matters as much as being understood, how curiosity helps interrupt cycles of conflict, and why understanding someone doesn't mean agreeing with them. Along the way, they reveal how we can maintain boundaries, hold people accountable, and still recognize their humanity.
Highlights:
We tend to overestimate how accurately we understand other people while feeling misunderstood ourselves.
Communication and understanding aren't the same thing. Our perceptions shape the meaning we take from someone's words.
Feeling genuinely understood and valued is an essential part of relationship satisfaction.
Self-righteousness and victim-villain narratives can trap couples in cycles of mutual hurt.
Understanding someone's perspective doesn't require agreeing with their beliefs or excusing their behavior.
Curiosity and intellectual humility help us question the stories our brains automatically create.
We can choose to walk away from harmful relationships while still treating others with dignity and respect.
TIMESTAMPS:
00:41 Why communication isn't the same as understanding
02:20 Why we think we understand others better than they understand us
05:39 An unlikely connection between a KKK leader and a Black activist
07:50 Naive realism and the biases that distort perception
10:38 How couples misunderstand each other
12:25 Why feeling understood matters more than we realize
16:18 Understanding someone without agreeing with them
17:56 A detective's surprising approach to a serial killer
21:34 How self-righteousness clouds our judgment
22:26 The victim-villain cycle that keeps relationships stuck
29:04 Why we excuse our own behavior but judge others
31:41 How negativity bias shapes relationships
33:54 Why better conversations require intentional effort
37:27 The power of curiosity in understanding others
40:21 Building tolerance for people and ideas we dislike
44:59 Choosing understanding while maintaining boundaries
MORE ABOUT DR. YAEL SCHONBRUN:
Learn more about Yael Schonbrun
Listen to Psychologists Off the Clock Podcast
Read Why Don't You Understand Me? The Surprising Science Behind Connecting in a World of Missed Signals
Read Work, Parent, Thrive
Dr. Yael Schonbrun is a clinical psychologist, Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown University, and author specializing in the science and practice of close relationships. In her private practice, she works with individuals and couples, helping them navigate the challenges of connection and understanding. She co-hosts the Psychologists Off the Clock podcast and regularly writes for The Washington Post, with work also appearing in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Greater Good, and Behavioral Scientist. Her books include Work, Parent, Thrive and Why Don't You Understand Me?, which explores how perception, bias, and the stories we tell ourselves shape our relationships.
Follow us on Facebook @lifesdirtylittlesecretspodcast and on Instagram @lifesdirtylittlesecrets
Reach out and let us know you are listening and what you would like to hear on the show - email:lifesdirtylittlesecretspodcast@gmail.com
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Secret #92: Why Don’t You Understand Me? with Yael Schonbrun
[00:00:00]
[00:00:41] Welcome and Big Idea
[00:00:41] Emma Waddington: Welcome to Life's Dirty Little Secrets. I'm Emma Waddington.
[00:00:46] Chris McCurry: And I'm Chris McCary. Have you ever been completely sure you knew what someone meant and been completely wrong? Most of us assume that when we're misunderstood, the answer is to explain [00:01:00] ourselves better or louder. Today's guest says the problem is happening somewhere we rarely think to look, inside our own heads.
[00:01:10] Meet Dr Yael Schonbrun
[00:01:10] Chris McCurry: Dr. Yael Schonbrun is a clinical psychologist and clinical assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University. In her private practice, she works with individuals and couples. Her work focuses on the science and practice of close relationships. She co-hosts the podcast Psychologists Off The Clock, and she's the author of Work, Parent, and Thrive, behind her there from Shambhala Publications, 2022.
[00:01:40] Chris McCurry: She writes regularly for The Washington Post, and her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Greater Good, and Behavioral Scientist. Her new book, Why Don't You Understand Me: The Surprising Science Behind Connecting in a World of Missed Signals, argues that misunderstanding is a problem of perception rather [00:02:00] than communication.
[00:02:01] Chris McCurry: She lives in Boston with her partner and three sons. And today's dirty little secret is that communication is not the same as understanding, although we often conflate the two. So welcome to Life's Dirty Little Secrets. And Yael, why, why this book and why now?
[00:02:20] Yael Schonbrun: Yeah.
[00:02:20] Why Misunderstanding Happens
[00:02:20] Yael Schonbrun: Well, s- this book is really my bread and butter clinically, and the origin story of it is that I was working on something totally different about problem-solving, and the idea wasn't really gelling.
[00:02:34] Yael Schonbrun: And I was on a walk with my family and venting to my husband about how the project really wasn't coming together, and I said something like, "Ah, I should just chuck it all and write about how everybody thinks they understand everybody else perfectly, but nobody understands them, and how that math really doesn't add up."
[00:02:49] Yael Schonbrun: Because it's what I have done academically, but it's clinically what I deal with all day when I'm treating partners in the therapy room. And my husband turns to me and he says, "Yeah, write that [00:03:00] book." but the origin story of the book really reflects how prominent this problem is, that we all walk around feeling pretty confident that we understand the people we're close to, and even people we're not particularly close to, that we have the sense that we're reading other people right, that we're generating a pretty comprehensive and, and and complete story about what's motivating them, why they're behaving the way that they do, why they're saying the things that they're saying, where their beliefs come from, what they- W- we anticipate what they're gonna say and do next, and we feel pretty confident that our read is accurate.
[00:03:39] Yael Schonbrun: And yet we, most people also have a persistent feeling that the people that are close to them and that the people that are not so close to them are misreading them, either their words or misunderstanding their more fundamental character. And so if you kinda think about this mismatch of we think we understand others really well, but we feel really misunderstood, [00:04:00] something's off.
[00:04:01] Yael Schonbrun: And when you really dig into the social science, which I do in this book, you can understand why. F- one is that we have an overconfidence bias in our head, but the other is that understanding is really complicated, and we tend to think about understanding through communication, and there's a lot more to it.
[00:04:19] Yael Schonbrun: And so when you really dig deep, beyond the surface of what understanding involves, it makes more sense why we feel like we understand others when we don't, and why we often feel misunderstood by others in, in relationships
[00:04:36] Emma Waddington: Maybe we can go there. I'd love to unpack this. Like, your book is a phenomenal read, and I really recommend anyone that is listening to this to get a copy. I know it's not out. Actually, it will be out by the time our episode is out, but yes, rush. Order it now if you want to learn about how to communicate, and in a way that actually [00:05:00] leads to understanding and to start to be a little bit more suspicious about your idea of understanding.
[00:05:07] Emma Waddington: So if you wouldn't mind, I'd love to unpack some of what you talk about in the first part of the book of how hard it actually is- Yeah ... to understand others. Why is, why do we find it so difficult even though we are so overconfident? I think that fallacy is really remarkable,
[00:05:25] Yael Schonbrun: yeah. So the, the first part of the book, the, the book has two parts, but the first part is really all about the mechanisms of misunderstanding. Mm. And I say that and it, it sounds a lot more science-y and technical. It's actually a lot of stories.
[00:05:39] KKK Dialogue Story
[00:05:42] Yael Schonbrun: And I actually start the book with a story of a, an exalted Cyclops leader of the KKK in Durham, North Carolina, and a Black activist who knew each other and had had dialogue, and believed they understood each other quite well.
[00:05:56] Yael Schonbrun: And this was in the 1970s in Durham. Desegregation had [00:06:00] already been passed federally, but the schools in Durham, North Carolina hadn't yet been desegregated, but there was a move to do so, and people were worried about violence happening in the schools. And so they brought together leaders from the various communities to talk about how they could manage that.
[00:06:16] Yael Schonbrun: And two of the leaders were this exalted Cyclops leader of the KKK and this leading Black activist. And they did not think that they would get along, but they also did not think they misunderstood one another. And one day the second day of the dialogues that were happening about the high school- The Black activist Anne Atwater was sitting in the high school auditorium resting, and the Exalted Cyclops, C.P.
[00:06:40] Yael Schonbrun: Ellis, just wandered in and saw her. His kids were on his mind, and he, he said to her, "You have kids too, don't you? How are they doing?" And she said, "Not that well." And, and she admitted to him, actually they're getting made fun of because people think their mother is a sellout for talking with a KKK leader.
[00:06:59] Yael Schonbrun: And [00:07:00] C.P. Ellis had this moment of, oh my gosh, everything I thought I knew with great confidence about Black people, about this person in particular, through the conversations we've had, through the analysis that I've engaged in by watching her and her community, is dead wrong. Because it turns out she is more like me than I realize.
[00:07:22] Yael Schonbrun: His kids, too, were getting made fun of because people were seeing him as a leader in this KKK organization as a sellout for talking with a Black activist. And as they started talking more, he realized, oh my goodness, we're more alike than I ever could've imagined. My understanding of her was entirely wrong, but it wasn't because I didn't see her, I didn't hear her, I wasn't taking in information.
[00:07:47] Yael Schonbrun: There's something much deeper happening.
[00:07:50] Biases That Distort Us
[00:07:50] Yael Schonbrun: And so the first part of my book really goes into what are those deeper things, and one of them is that we're overconfident. And social scientists often talk about this as naive realism. It's this idea that what we perceive feels like the objective truth. But actually, our social realities, I mean our reality in general, but certainly our social realities are so complex, so there's just no way that we can access all of the information that exists.
[00:08:17] Yael Schonbrun: Not to mention that there are certain things happening inside of people, their histories, their physiological signals, they're hungry, they're tired, that we just don't have access to because it exists inside of them and there's no way to know what's happening inside of somebody else. And yet we feel pretty confident, and part of that is because our brains have evolved to be pretty confident so that we can navigate through our very complicated social worlds with a level of confidence.
[00:08:42] Yael Schonbrun: Because if we knew that we were absolutely missing so much information, imagine how scary it would be to speak up, to im- you know, confidently guess at what somebody is thinking. And so we do have this tendency just evolutionarily wired in [00:09:00] to believe we know a lot of information, some of which we can't know.
[00:09:06] Yael Schonbrun: Our brains kinda fill in the gaps And so there's, there's all these ways that overconfidence plays in. But I, I think of overconfidence is really, like, the bias that rules them all. There are other things happening too, which is which includes the, the reconstructive nature of memory the way that our physiology shapes our social perception.
[00:09:26] Yael Schonbrun: So for example, when we're hungry, we're much more likely to interpret social cr- neutral social cues as more threatening than they actually are. The nature of finite attention which doesn't feel finite, and that kinda gets, a bit into the overconfidence bias as well. And then our tendency to self-justify.
[00:09:43] Yael Schonbrun: Once we have a story that makes sense, our tendency is to confirm it rather than absorb new information that might contradict it. And then our tendency to develop really oversimple stories because it's easier to kinda hold in our minds [00:10:00] even though most of our social world, and certainly people themselves, are really complex and multifaceted.
[00:10:08] Yael Schonbrun: So there's all these ways that we feel sure that we understand, but we're just kinda skimming the surface. And without s- taking a step back and engaging in curiosity and intellectual humility, it's hard to update our understanding. And, and yet that is, in relationships, what we need to be doing 'cause relationships are complex and they're ever-evolving, and people have more layers than meets the eye
[00:10:38] Couples Misread Each Other
[00:10:38] Chris McCurry: I know Emma works a lot with couples and I- I'm wondering if either, either one of you could come up with a just an example or a scenario where this plays itself out.
[00:10:50] Chris McCurry: But, a sample dialogue between two people that demonstrates this misunderstanding
[00:10:57] Emma Waddington: So many. when I think of my [00:11:00] conversations with, my partner or my children, the reality is often in conversation we're trying to understand.
[00:11:07] Emma Waddington: Or actually, no, I believe that our number one priority is trying to be understood. And so we are justifying, explaining, coercing, whatever it takes to get the other person to understand. So I think this is, this is why it's so important to have this conversation because I think, as you've so beautifully put out there, there are so many ways that we have these inside biases that make that process really difficult, the process of understanding.
[00:11:41] Emma Waddington: And also, even when we're talking about our reality how can we help our partner really understand our reality? Depends on how we also deliver that message.
[00:11:53] Yael Schonbrun: absolutely. Yeah, and I think part of what you're getting at, Emma, which is so important to [00:12:00] articulate, is that understanding is going on in both directions, right?
[00:12:05] Yael Schonbrun: So we're trying to understand the other person, they're trying to understand us, and then sometimes we feel like we understand the other person, but they don't feel understood. And so that's a lot of what I see in the couples therapy room, where one person will say to the other, "No, I, I know exactly what's going on for you."
[00:12:25] Feeling Understood Matters
[00:12:25] Yael Schonbrun: But the other person will say, "I don't- that's not how I feel. I don't feel understood." There's actually this construct that is researched by this s- scientist called Harry Reese of, that's called perceived partner responsiveness, and it's that feeling of like m- my partner gets me, my parent gets me, my friend gets me.
[00:12:43] Yael Schonbrun: And that feeling of being understood in a particular way, which is you're intellectually understood, but you're also seen with positive regard. Like, people look at you and they say, "That's a good person," right? You're seen in the way that you want to be seen, whi- whi- which ha- in- is [00:13:00] infused with some positivity, and there's this intellectual understanding.
[00:13:04] Yael Schonbrun: And that tends to predict relationship satisfaction even more than the accuracy of understanding. That feeling matters more. Of course, they're related. It's hard to feel understood if somebody really doesn't get you. But it's that feeling that we're going for. So it's not just do you understand the other person, it's do they feel understood?
[00:13:27] Yael Schonbrun: So, a- a common example is a couple who is really frustrated about their intimate life, and one person really wants to engage with more intimacy, and the other feels objectified. And so the person who is really looking for intimacy really wants to be understood in how they feel disregarded and undesired by the, by the other person.
[00:13:53] Yael Schonbrun: And the person who is less receptive to intimacy wants their partner [00:14:00] to understand how objectified they feel and how pressured and, and how they feel like- They're constantly letting their partner down in this, in this really important way that doesn't work well for them. And both people are understanding intellectually like, "Okay, you want more sex?
[00:14:18] Yael Schonbrun: Okay, you want a little bit less pressure to have sex?" Like, there's nothing super complicated about that intellectually. But the feeling of do you get that I'm desperate for you to feel like you desire me, and do you get that I just wanna be accepted and given the space to be me without feeling like I always need to fulfill your desires?
[00:14:42] Yael Schonbrun: That's the feeling that we're going for beyond the intellectual understanding. So that's just a really common example that crops up often in the couples therapy room. But it kinda gets at this idea that the why don't you understand me feeling isn't just do I understand the words and the concepts that you're trying to [00:15:00] communicate to me.
[00:15:00] Yael Schonbrun: It's do you feel that sense of I get where you're coming from and I care and, and it makes sense to me and you have every reason to feel that way. That's where we often fall short
[00:15:15] Emma Waddington: And that's a great example and, and a really common one. And I think that part of that sort of getting to that place where you wanna listen to those feelings, like, and you want to actually understand is actually quite a big leap.
[00:15:32] Emma Waddington: So in the therapy or even in, in, in, in the work that we do for ourselves when we're having these hard conversations, because of these biases, these defaults, it's actually quite hard to do that, to get to that place, because we're so defended, for want of a better word, right? One of the things that you talk about in the book is that if I listen too well or too [00:16:00] intently, or if I start to really connect with what my partner is saying, am I going to stop believing in what I believe is true, right?
[00:16:09] Emma Waddington: And that's a big, I think it's a big barrier to doing, to, to getting better at understanding
[00:16:17] Yael Schonbrun: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:16:18] Validation Without Agreement
[00:16:20] Yael Schonbrun: Carl Rogers famously said, that, I'm gonna butcher the quote exactly, but it's something like, one of the things that we worry about most is change, right? And if we really understand someone, will it change me?
[00:16:32] Yael Schonbrun: And that, that makes sense, right? So you can even see that if you think about politics as like if I- Yeah ... really try to understand my political opponent, like in a, in a validating way, without agreeing, and we can talk about there's a difference between validation and agreement. But what if I say to them, "Okay, what you're saying makes sense."
[00:16:52] Yael Schonbrun: A, are they gonna think I'm condoning it when I don't think it's right? But B, is it then gonna leak in and change how I feel, and will I [00:17:00] then move away from my moral values, right? There's that fear. And what I talk about in the book is you can hold on to what you think and still be open to understanding somebody else, a different perspective.
[00:17:17] Yael Schonbrun: And, and that is not an easy thing to do, but that's absolutely possible to do. And also, if somebody does convince you of something that adds or changes how you think, you have, the opportunity and the agency to decide whether or not it's a good idea to evolve in your thinking, but, but often it, often it is, right?
[00:17:37] Yael Schonbrun: You don't have to take all of what somebody thinks to heart and, and make that a part of your belief system, but can you expand and be willing to do that? But I do think it requires us to recognize that understanding somebody else does not mean that we agree with them, does not mean we condone their beliefs or their actions.
[00:17:56] Detective and Serial Killer
[00:17:56] Yael Schonbrun: And in fact, I tell this really amazing story, and I, I had the [00:18:00] opportunity to interview this detective who extracted confessions from a serial killer. And I picked up this book randomly in the library. I was, deep in the research for this book, and I was just, perusing the true crime section.
[00:18:13] Yael Schonbrun: I picked up this book, and I was like, "Oh, this book is, this story is so perfect for what I'm trying to communicate in terms of can you understand somebody who has done terrible things and hold onto your morals and still hold them accountable?" And that's exactly what this detective did. So this guy had been arrested after a woman that he had kidnapped and assaulted for several days had led police to the house where he had been keeping her restrained, and he was arrested.
[00:18:46] Yael Schonbrun: And this detective, Kim Mager, was brought in to interview the victim, and then as was the way that things worked in her unit, she then went and interviewed the perpetrator, this s- this ser- rapist and it turns [00:19:00] out serial killer, Sean Greet. And she started off by saying, "Are you okay?" And then she removed his handcuffs, and then she told him You know, my goal here is to understand not just what you did, but, your heart.
[00:19:12] Yael Schonbrun: And, and we don't take anything at face value. And she was kind to him, and she called him out. At one point he said, "I didn't rape her. I just, I just held her." And, and she pushed. She said, "No, I, I don't think so. I think, I think the the evidence suggests otherwise." And he said, "No, you're right.
[00:19:30] Yael Schonbrun: I did." Right? He felt a sense of s- safety because she was able to say, "I, I think you're a person with humanity who has done bad things, and you're more than the bad things that you've done." And that gave him permission, and he told her that very explicitly, that her kindness to him gave him the space to be able to share what really happened.
[00:19:53] Yael Schonbrun: And, when she came to the court to testify, and she was a part of what landed him in death row [00:20:00] because she was able to extract all of these confessions, he- when she walked into the courtroom the first time, he showed emotion. He started crying when he saw her. And he knew that her testimony was a part of what was going to, seal the deal in terms of the conviction, but he still felt really connected to her.
[00:20:18] Yael Schonbrun: So we can strive to understand people, even people who hold objectionable beliefs, who have done heinous things, and still strive to see their humanity without giving up on our moral code or on holding them accountable. We often see them as mutually exclusive, but they're not
[00:20:42] Emma Waddington: No, that's quite an incredible story. Really? In the book, I
[00:20:45] Chris McCurry: think you did it
[00:20:46] Emma Waddington: really it's... Because most people reading that will really struggle to be in that detective's role And we'll struggle to find the compassion for somebody who's committed, [00:21:00] especially as a female because we will identify with the victims and, and fall into this righteous, trap that, some of the people that I read about in your book, we have had the immense privilege of interviewing thanks to you. And one of them is Kurt Gray, who we adored.
[00:21:18] Yael Schonbrun: His writings are just so cool, and he's just an... And he is so- And I interviewed both him and his wife, who also- I didn't know she was- Yeah.
[00:21:25] Emma Waddington: Yeah, when I was reading the book I was like, "They're married. Wow." Yeah. Imagine sitting in some of those conversations. I- I know.
[00:21:32] Yael Schonbrun: I know ...
[00:21:32] Emma Waddington: being a sort of fly on the wall.
[00:21:34] Righteousness and Villain Stories
[00:21:36] Emma Waddington: But this idea of the power, the, the, the impact that righteousness has on our thinking, the, the, the fact that it's like a cloud on our judgment.
[00:21:45] Emma Waddington: And also how good it feels to be righteous. Like, it's such a, some of us really like being right. And we'll sit on, ride that horse for as long as we can. But that it changes the way we see the people [00:22:00] that we're being righteous about. It, it, to such a huge extent.
[00:22:05] Emma Waddington: So when we're in that sort of righteous I don't know, throne, for want of a better word with our partners or those that we love, we will also see them in a inferior light. We will see them as, less than, less able to form a good argument. And that can also keep us incredibly stuck.
[00:22:25] Yael Schonbrun: Yes.
[00:22:26] Yael Schonbrun: Yeah.
[00:22:26] Kurt Gray Victim Villain Cycle
[00:22:26] Yael Schonbrun: And I mean, I'm so glad that you raised Kurt Gray, because one of his studies is, is a study that I go back to all the time when I think about the cost of misunderstanding, because it creates this self-perpetuating cycle. And-
[00:22:41] Emma Waddington: Mm ...
[00:22:41] Yael Schonbrun: in essence, what his research showed is that we tend to drop into these villain-victim narratives.
[00:22:47] Yael Schonbrun: When we're hurt or when somebody that we consider to be in our in-group is hurt, harmed in some way, leg- in, in some, like, physical way but also emotionally, we tend to identify that person as the victim [00:23:00] and the one who caused harm in, in the story that we develop as the, the villain. And then we do something extra interesting, which is we assign the victim the sense that they don't have much agency, but they're able to have immense suffering.
[00:23:18] Yael Schonbrun: So they hurt and, and the hurt is big, and, and they don't have a whole lot of power to stop it. So that's how we see the victim. With the villain, we see the villain as having a tremendous amount of agency and as being incapable of suffering. So they can't suffer in our minds when our minds drop into this villain-victim narrative.
[00:23:39] Yael Schonbrun: So imagine yourself, and saying this to y- the two of you, but to listeners too, you're in a situation and somebody says something that deeply hurts your feelings, and you think, "That jerk," like they're the villain in the story. "I didn't do anything. I-- And now all I can do is suffer with the pain of your words, and I'm s- ruminating about it."
[00:23:59] Yael Schonbrun: [00:24:00] And in that moment, you might say something that if you had somebody else who was very sensitive would hurt their feelings. But you think that person is never, doesn't have any feelings to hurt. They're absolutely incapable of suffering. And I see this all the time in the couples therapy room. One person is hurting very badly, and so they say something that is really painful for the other person.
[00:24:25] Yael Schonbrun: But in their minds, there's no way that the, that their words would hurt, because in their minds they can't imagine. They're hurting so much, so they can't imagine their partner would experience pain at the words or the actions that they might engage in. And then you end up in these cycles, right? Where, okay, now the other person legitimately is hurt, even if their partner didn't imagine that they could hurt, and now they too see themselves as a victim and their partner as a villain incapable of hurting.
[00:24:53] Yael Schonbrun: So they're gonna strike back, not imagining how deeply wounding their words or actions can be. And you can see [00:25:00] it ricochet back and forth in close relational systems where each person identifies as the hurt person, and the other person is the person who isn't able to hurt as acutely as they are. And they're accidentally hurting one another over and over, back and forth, without recognizing their role in it.
[00:25:21] Chris McCurry: Well, yeah, I've seen this play out in divorced families where, the children are the victims harmed, traumatized by the other parent. And I think getting a Klan leader and a Black activist together is probably easier than getting some divorcing parents- Yeah ... to see one another's humanity and, and position as being legitimate.
[00:25:47] Chris McCurry: It gets, it gets really nasty. But yeah, people, people need to be right.
[00:25:53] Yael Schonbrun: Yeah.
[00:25:53] Chris McCurry: And the, and more importantly, they don't wanna be wrong. I remember in my training, my, my therapy [00:26:00] mentor Steve Hayes used to ask his clients, "Who would be made wrong if your life were to get better?" And, the answer is, well, me.
[00:26:10] Chris McCurry: And so people are often unwilling to make the changes they need to make because, what does that say about, the 10 years that I spent, drinking heavily and if I just get sober, ugh. It means I really wasted those 10 years, and I could've gotten sober and saved myself and all these other people a lot of misery.
[00:26:30] Chris McCurry: So, it's a hard thing to face.
[00:26:33] Yael Schonbrun: It's a really hard thing to face. And I, I mean, I think I talk about this in the context of self-justification and cognitive dissonance because, self-righteousness feels good for sure, and then the c- the converse, Chris, as you're saying, feels so terrible, right?
[00:26:48] Yael Schonbrun: And this idea that we might be a part of, what we would classify as, like, the bad people, right, because we've done hurtful things, is really hard for, for most [00:27:00] individuals. I mean, research on, in criminal justice settings demonstrates that most people who have been found guilty of criminal activity don't see themselves as guilty.
[00:27:09] Yael Schonbrun: Like, it's really hard for us to see ourselves as bad. And, and our brains are just amazingly good at justifying things that are immoral, that we and somebody else would say, like, "That is immoral. That is unacceptable." But we find ways to excuse our own behavior, and that's a bit of what my pie-in-the-sky fantasy is for this book, is to help people recognize that when we fail to see the humanity in other people that we have identified, like, their beliefs are objectionable, they've engaged in behaviors that feel absolutely, h- harmful And if we allow ourselves to say, "Well, that person is irredeemable, that person is not worth understanding," that we then become a part of this cycle of misunderstanding that increases the dehumanization that exists in the [00:28:00] system.
[00:28:00] Yael Schonbrun: It makes it easier for others to dehumanize us. It makes it more likely for us to behave in ways that are immoral, even if we justify it. And it becomes a part of this perpetuating s- self-perpetuating cycle that none of us wanna be in, right? Because we all wanna see ourselves as good, as, as decent, good people who, who put good out into the world.
[00:28:23] Yael Schonbrun: And yet there is this way that our brain helps us justify behaving in ways that we, in other people, would find absolutely unacceptable. And so if we can begin to see that glitch for what it is and make it a practice to see the humanity in others, even people we don't like, even people who, hold beliefs that we find extremely problematic, but choose to say, "They're people too.
[00:28:47] Yael Schonbrun: They have goodness, even if it's hard for me to see. And I'm gonna treat them with respect and dignity and, and try to, where and when I can, understand them just a little bit." And, and yes, even my ex-partner [00:29:00]
[00:29:01] Chris McCurry: Well, I mean-
[00:29:02] Emma Waddington: But, go ahead. Sorry, Chris ...
[00:29:04] Attribution and Negative Bias
[00:29:04] Chris McCurry: I was just gonna say that the, what they call the fundamental attribution bias fits in here- where, if I do something that's, that's bad, it's because I'm having a bad day, I'm tired, I'm stressed, I'm, hungry. But if you do something bad, it's because you're a bad person.
[00:29:20] Yael Schonbrun: Totally.
[00:29:21] Chris McCurry: Yes. And, and we don't consider other people's contextual factors, their upbringing, the stresses that they're under that are influencing their decisions, their behavior.
[00:29:32] Chris McCurry: I mean, that's, that's ... I consider those things to be very important in my l- my life. But, somebody else is just, a jerk.
[00:29:40] Yael Schonbrun: Totally. Yeah, I give the example in my book of, if I fail to do the dishes, it's because I've had a really hard week. If my husband failed to do them, it's because he's a careless, thought- thoughtless, selfish partner.
[00:29:51] Yael Schonbrun: And, and that's, just a thing our brain does. Mm. Yeah. It's, it's w- so reflexive, and we ... It, but it [00:30:00] feels true, right? It feels ob- Yeah ... objective.
[00:30:04] Chris McCurry: Right. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a lens that we're looking through- Yeah ... that, and we don't even realize that w- we're looking through lenses.
[00:30:12] Emma Waddington: Yeah. And it's ... And as you were talking about this the Kurt Gray research, which I
[00:30:18] Emma Waddington: fascinating and so powerful, and you can see that ricocheting. I can be in a, in a room with a couple, or I myself can be in that moment where I'm like, "I can't believe he just did that. I mean, I didn't know you were so selfish and thoughtless, and what was I thinking when I married you?" where if I can this sort of this, this, this place of doom and gloom and catastrophe, and all I see is everything terrible you've ever done, and all the positive has been, forgotten, and I'm now seeing myself as a victim, and you're the, the monster.
[00:30:51] Emma Waddington: And then maybe 10 minutes later It's like that's gone. We're in a better place. And so I can't even remember all these [00:31:00] awful things. Like, it feels like almost like an illusion. When you're outside of it, you go, "Oh, well, that was, that was then." Yeah. Now we're fine. And I see it in my couples. One week it's a terrible week, and then they come back and we're expecting things to be just...
[00:31:13] Emma Waddington: And suddenly they're better. Because that's what happens- Yeah ... because of all these biases and, well, visual illusions that we get stuck in that feel so true that reinforce in our minds. And they can... If we, if we start to notice that this is just what brains, minds do, they can have perhaps less of a hold on us.
[00:31:39] Emma Waddington: Yeah.
[00:31:41] Chris McCurry: Well, and also, we, we, we w- weight negative and positive things differently.
[00:31:48] Yael Schonbrun: Yes. Mm.
[00:31:48] Chris McCurry: So, spouse can do, like, 10 kind things in the course of a week, but damn if they do one negative thing- Mm ... that, that, that gets [00:32:00] scored and remembered. It's like parents and their kids, too.
[00:32:03] Chris McCurry: I mean, there's lot, lots of times when the kids are compliant and doing what they need to do- But the parents are complaining to me that, the kid's, disobedient because they're not, they're not noticing when the kid's being cooperative. But-
[00:32:19] Emma Waddington: Yeah ...
[00:32:19] Chris McCurry: they certainly are- Bias ... you know-
[00:32:21] Emma Waddington: Yeah
[00:32:21] Chris McCurry: very n- on top of the kids when they're not doing the thing they need to do. So, same with spouses or parents- Mm ... or whomever.
[00:32:30] Yael Schonbrun: Yeah, totally. And, and when we have struggled in our, inside of our relationships, that bias grows even s- stronger because we develop these schemas, these sort of mental structures that organize how we take in the information.
[00:32:44] Yael Schonbrun: We basically start to filter out the good stuff and really hone in on the bad stuff. I mean, we have a negative bias anyway. Mm. But when we've been unhappy, it's really hard for us to see how hard our partner is trying. And so sometimes in couples therapy, w- what the work is, [00:33:00] is to actually get your filters to turn.
[00:33:02] Yael Schonbrun: Mm. So I have people actively look for things that they appreciated, and to have the partner who's doing a kind action to be very explicit about it. "Hey, that, the intention was to, I don't know if it landed, but here's what the intention was." Because left to its sort of more automatic ways of unfolding, we may totally miss it because we're so cued in to the negative.
[00:33:28] Yael Schonbrun: So yeah, we, we generally have a negative bias, but when we are unhappy in a relationship, it really, like, the volume gets turned up and our attention really hones in on the things we don't like, and we have a hard time really even detecting the thing, the efforts and the things we might like.
[00:33:45] Chris McCurry: Yeah.
[00:33:45] Chris McCurry: We're in survival mode, so we, we do have that lens now. Mm. So what do we do?
[00:33:52] Emma Waddington: Just one, just before- Go,
[00:33:53] Chris McCurry: go ahead.
[00:33:54] Effortful Curiosity Practice
[00:33:54] Emma Waddington: Well, yeah, I just wanted to say that as I was, as you were just saying that Yael, I wanted to [00:34:00] reflect on the fact that that's effortful. Mm. That it's effortful to notice the positives, that because of all these biases and these sort of reflective ways of thinking, That are so automatic, and they can feel so good and so correct and so accurate.
[00:34:15] Emma Waddington: It's actually quite effortful to work against them. And that simply going with... Like, I remember talking to my husband once, and we were having a good old argument, and I said, "Just sometimes it's so effortful to, like, think about how I say things. Sometimes I just wanna say it." And, and I thought that was so on point, and I said, "Yeah, I get it, but then if you just say it, it might hurt me.
[00:34:42] Emma Waddington: And then I'll want to just say it, and then we're just stuck in this just say it space." And he goes, "I know, but can I just sometimes just say it?" and, and so I think that that's such an important piece that, That in order to do, have a [00:35:00] good conversation, have a useful conversation, you have to be quite intentional, but it is quite effortful.
[00:35:07] Emma Waddington: It is quite effortful.
[00:35:09] Yael Schonbrun: Yeah, and there, there we kinda get back to the core dirty little secret, which is that, communication is not the same as understanding. And if we just say what we wanna say, it may or may not- ... land. And- Yeah ... if we can be aware that there are processes of taking it in, decoding it, and making meaning that matter m- just as much, if not more, than the actual words, then w- it calls us to be thoughtful about, like, what else is going on beyond the words?
[00:35:44] Yael Schonbrun: And sometimes we, we can just say the words and check in, like, "Hey, how did that land?" 'Cause sometimes it's fine, right? I, I think sometimes, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Sometimes a word is just a word, and we get it and it's fine. But when we land in this [00:36:00] place where I said a thing and now you feel terrible, and I have no idea why, and I feel misunderstood, and you feel misunderstood and hurt, then it's useful to draw back and say, "Huh, like, what was the meaning that you took?
[00:36:15] Yael Schonbrun: And, and why? Like, what was going on for you? And, and can we get beyond the words?" Because th- clearly the meaning intended wasn't the meaning that landed, right? There's something more that's happening beyond the words. And so, sometimes communication is straightforward, but when things unfold in an exchange that surprise us, it is useful to look beyond the words, right?
[00:36:41] Yael Schonbrun: It is useful to get curious about what are the internal processes of perception, decoding, and meaning-making that are happening in a surprising way for each, for each side, rather than just say, "Well, the words were clear," right? "I don't know why you would go there." [00:37:00] Because it, it is about more than the words, right?
[00:37:03] Yael Schonbrun: Feeling understood, feeling gotten, feeling understood is about more than our words.
[00:37:14] Chris McCurry: Yeah, and that is effort to unpack it and to inquire and but to be curious i- is, is such a shift. Yeah ... it, it, it, it just changes everything.
[00:37:27] Yael Schonbrun: Yeah I think curiosity- Yeah ... is absolutely magical. And I mean, I think about this sometimes with my kids, like, I made them, so I should understand them really well, but I don't.
[00:37:38] Yael Schonbrun: They constantly baffle me. They say thing... They, they have words and language that I don't understand at all. Like, their minds go to places that are totally surprising and bizarro to me, and that could frustrate me, or I could lean into curiosity, and in my case, like, just awe. Like, how cool, like, these people that I basically made [00:38:00] are these mysterious, surprising, delightful, sometimes horrifying creatures that never fail to, like, keep me on my toes.
[00:38:10] Yael Schonbrun: And, and how interesting that I'm constantly understanding anew some piece of them because they're ever-evolving. And not just because they're young, but because they're human, right? So they're gonna have experiences that are gonna shape them in ways that I didn't expect and they didn't expect that make them a continual mystery to me that is interesting and worth understanding more deeply each day.
[00:38:36] Yael Schonbrun: And, some days I have more or less energy for it. But if we can step into curiosity and wonder about the people we love, and, and just people in general. Like, I, I don't know, I think this is where I really lean into Carl Rogers' ideas and theory, and I just love the idea of positive regard. Can we see people- Mm
[00:38:59] Yael Schonbrun: as [00:39:00] interesting and worthy of being understood, and is having goodness? And can we, when it's hard to see that goodness, strive to try? So I think that's the call to action, is that we often give up on trying to understand because it is effortful, and we justify it by saying, "Well, that's not worth it. It's a lot of work, and I don't know- Yeah
[00:39:21] Yael Schonbrun: if that person is worthwhile." Sure. But... And, and I'm, I don't think everybody needs to be understood all the time, but, but it's often more worthwhile than we allow ourselves to think because it is easier not to. It is less work. But we lose a lot in, in the giving up on the trying.
[00:39:42] Chris McCurry: Mm. Yeah, I mean, it, I'm not sure why this popped into my head, but loving kindness meditation came to mind, where we wish people to be well, to be safe.
[00:39:54] Chris McCurry: Couple of other things that I'm forgetting. But but even people, like, we can't stand [00:40:00] and, and it is, it heals us when we can take that s- that stand toward other people rather than... You, you, it's... You have some, some line about, taking the poison in small doses. Can you- Yeah. Oh, yeah
[00:40:18] Chris McCurry: reflect on that?
[00:40:20] Yael Schonbrun: Yeah.
[00:40:21] Taking the Poison Inoculation
[00:40:21] Yael Schonbrun: I have, I have a chapter called Taking the Poison, and it, it really is about this practice of turning towards ideas and people that we find ob- objectionable. And this, the story that I tell in that chapter is a little bit similar to the story of the KKK leader and the Black activist, but in this case it's a white supremacy leader and just a, a, on a college campus and a social justice advocate.
[00:40:46] Yael Schonbrun: And they avoided each other. They didn't think it was worth making contact with one another until one day they were forced into a boat and had a little bit of contact, and the social justice advocate realized that this white [00:41:00] nationalist was kinda quirky and funny and sweet. And she was horrified with herself.
[00:41:04] Yael Schonbrun: How could I think that somebody who held such views was funny and sweet? But what they decided, and this was her idea, was to have one conversation that was evidence-based about white nationalism for every four, five conversations that they had about other topics that were just easier to tolerate.
[00:41:22] Yael Schonbrun: And it's very similar to the idea of inoculation, of, of taking substances like peanut exposure and it kinda dates back to, prehistor- not prehistoric, but like really early times with this guy called Mithridates who was this Tur- Turkish king, and he took small amounts of arsenic to build his immunity.
[00:41:43] Yael Schonbrun: And we can do that with ideas and people that we find objectionable. I mean, to get back to the point that you guys were making, it is effort, right? It's effort to inoculate yourself against peanuts if you are allergic. It's difficult to build resilience to ideas that you don't like and to tolerate people that you find [00:42:00] difficult to be around.
[00:42:02] Yael Schonbrun: But we expand ourselves. In the, in the case of this social justice advocate and this white supremacist, they fell in love, and also he left white suprem- the white supremacy movement. And that was costly for him. He had to give up his community. But we learn and we grow and we heal, and we're better able to collaborate on projects we care about, and we build our resilience.
[00:42:25] Yael Schonbrun: Like, the temptation in our modern society is you can, you can drop yourself into an echo chamber of only hanging out with people who think the way that you do, who feel the way that you do about issues, about various topics going on. But then you become very narrow in how you understand the world.
[00:42:45] Yael Schonbrun: And the opportunity to Speak across beliefs, to speak with people who have different upbringings, different cultures broadens you. And, and that is good for our resilience, and it's good [00:43:00] for our perspectives, and it's good for collaborative projects that all humans are gonna care about taking care of our Earth, taking care of our vulnerable population, right?
[00:43:09] Yael Schonbrun: There are things that if we can't learn to tolerate one another, and, and I think we see this, it becomes very hard to be collaborators even on things that we do fundamentally agree on.
[00:43:24] Chris McCurry: Final
[00:43:24] Emma Waddington: thoughts?
[00:43:28] Emma Waddington: I was thinking as you were talking about this, this, the complexity between that, that place where we have that intellectual humility, where we have that willingness to listen to perspectives that we find very hard to hear. And it could be, incredibly politically polarizing perspectives, or it could be how we load the dishwasher, right?
[00:43:53] Emma Waddington: The, the, the, the difficulty can be wide and what's the word? Mundane. What are your [00:44:00] thoughts briefly, 'cause I know we're running out of time, just on, inside of us, that willingness, whether it's that being more in touch with the values around the kind of person we wanna be, if we wanna hold this positive regard for others, which I think is really important to me too.
[00:44:17] Emma Waddington: How do we make that decision that I'm going to be open t- to truly understanding my partner even when I'm in the throes of, my confirmation biases, my confidence about knowing exactly what they need? What do you
[00:44:36] Chris McCurry: advise- Especially, especially when
[00:44:39] Emma Waddington: Yeah, especially when.
[00:44:41] Emma Waddington: Especially when my brain is betraying me in a way, holding me up against this value that I have positive regards, telling me that, "Don't do it, don't do it." "They're not worth it." what, what do you recommend? How do we do this incredibly difficult thing that you know, every cell in our body is telling us not to do?
[00:44:59] Choosing Understanding Boundaries
[00:44:59] Yael Schonbrun: [00:45:00] Yeah. I think-
[00:45:01] Chris McCurry: You have five minutes. Yeah.
[00:45:03] Yael Schonbrun: Okay, let me solve the hardest problem out there. Yes. And let me just start by saying, like, I too have those feelings. I wrote the book. But, like, none of us gets to escape those moments where we just- Mm ... think to ourselves, like, "This person is toxic and painful, and I'm not gonna get anywhere, and why would I bother?
[00:45:23] Yael Schonbrun: It's so effortful, and they're definitely not gonna meet me part way, and I don't think that I need to have this in my life." So I do strongly believe, like, understanding is a choice. It's not an obligation. I don't think you need to do it with everybody. And, like, there are some conversations and relationships that w- we probably should walk away from.
[00:45:46] Yael Schonbrun: But when you walk away, I think we keep our own humanity a little more intact if we can say, "That person is hard for me to be around. [00:46:00] It doesn't feel worth it right now for me to put in the effort. But they're not irredeemable, right? They're a human with, humanity inside of them that deserves dignity and respect, and I can't engage with it right now, but I don't need to- Put them down and dehumanize them because that dehumanizes me, right?
[00:46:20] Yael Schonbrun: That makes me less of the kind of humanizing person that I would like to be. So I think we can walk away from interactions and relationships that are really hurtful to us, that are not going anywhere, that don't nurture us. I am an advocate of that. I, I mean, I don't think that there's any reason to stay if, if it feels really unhealthy.
[00:46:42] Yael Schonbrun: But I do think that there's an opportunity when you walk away, including like if you're divorcing somebody who's been really terrible to you, to say, that person is not good for me, but they're a person," right? "And I can treat them as respectfully as I can while taking care of myself," right? I can [00:47:00] do both, and that might mean walking away, but can I walk away without diminishing them in a way that I would never want someone to diminish me, right?
[00:47:09] Yael Schonbrun: And so I think that's, that's a part of what I think is really important. But I do think in the conversations that you can stay in, asking people to share the project with you of, "This, this hasn't gone well. I don't feel like we're understanding one another. I don't feel great. I can tell that you don't feel great.
[00:47:26] Yael Schonbrun: I wonder if we can try together," right? And any time you can invite somebody and, and through the invitation elicit their willingness to participate with you, that's amazing, right? That's, that's where growth happens. That's where resilience gets built. That's where collaboration becomes possible. That's where connection that is healthy and satisfying can start.
[00:47:51] Chris McCurry: Excellent.
[00:47:52] Emma Waddington: Yes.
[00:47:53] Wrap Up and Book Plug
[00:47:53] Emma Waddington: And we've got everybody excited about your book, and you can read much more about this and know more about the tricks [00:48:00] and wonders of this journey in Yael's latest book, Why Don't You Understand Me?
[00:48:05] Chris McCurry: And we'll have that- So thank you ... and we'll have that in the show notes. And if there's anything that you think we should include in there, like links to some of the research or send, send them our way and we'll- Okay
[00:48:16] Chris McCurry: include those in the show notes.
[00:48:17] Yael Schonbrun: Yeah, I can send you- Like
[00:48:18] Emma Waddington: maybe
[00:48:18] Chris McCurry: David Gray's stuff or whatever it may be.
[00:48:22] Yael Schonbrun: Yeah, I can send you, I'll, I'll, I'll send you an email with some of the links to stuff that I talked about.
[00:48:29] Chris McCurry: Excellent.
[00:48:30] Emma Waddington: Yeah. Amazing.
[00:48:32] Chris McCurry: Cool.
[00:48:33] Emma Waddington: This has been fantastic. As always, third time guest, Yael Shonbrun.
[00:48:37] Emma Waddington: We had a couple of episodes with you that, our listeners should have a listen to. The first was about your first book, Work Parent Thrive. That is a fantastic narrative on how we can thrive in both work and in parenting, and actually how they can really support each other's roles. And then The Power of Disagreements, that feels like a prequel to [00:49:00] this conversation today.
[00:49:01] Emma Waddington: So thank you so much for the brilliant work that you do, Yael.
[00:49:04] Yael Schonbrun: Thank you guys- Yeah. Thank you ... for the brilliant work you do and for honoring me- Thanks ... with a third invitation.
[00:49:10] Emma Waddington: Yeah. Yes. It's well, the honor is ours.
[00:49:13] Chris McCurry: Any time. Take care.
[00:49:14] Emma Waddington: Absolutely. Yes.
[00:49:17] Chris McCurry: Okay.
[00:49:18] Emma Waddington: We're out. How exciting.
