Relationships is one of the themes that runs through Nectar of Time. Below is everything in the Nectarium that touches on it.
Where it comes up 11
Within this theme 101
Concepts 23
- Ghosting
Being cut off by friends without explanation. Tyler calls it harder to rationalize than a romantic breakup because we're taught 'friends forever'; it is the episode's most personal enigma…
- Sleep as surrender
Samantha's central claim: sleep is the ultimate surrender. You can only fall asleep if your body feels safe, so trouble falling asleep reflects a hyperactive, fearful nervous system and a…
- Cutting People Off
Tamir's critique of treating cutting people out of your life as progress. Bypassing the conversation to protect yourself is avoidance, not growth; it's fine to cut someone off after they've…
- Compromising vs adapting
Colin's distinction, from Tamir's car-music story: playing music a passenger likes is adapting, a kind gesture from someone who knows what they're doing. Losing your own preferences to…
- Need-based relationships
Sheela's diagnosis of most relationships: built on need, which turns into a bargaining point and a business. Both partners lose their freedom, feel captured, and fall into a dependency they…
- Holding Space
Mia's term for being a 'clean mirror' who listens, observes and asks questions without shock or judgment. She argues most people outsource their therapy to hairstylists and Uber drivers who…
- Self-trust
Samantha says the point of all her work, and of her dream, hypnosis and sleep-paralysis experiences, is to build self-trust. You build it by keeping small promises to yourself until you…
- Equal freedom in relationships
What Sheela learned from Bhagwan: don't be possessive, and give both partners full, equal freedom. She calls negotiating loyalty after one week together creating a prison.
- Love as free fall
Sheela's image of falling in love: shutting down all other senses and going into free fall, which teaches trust. Love and trust 'are part of one another', and entering a relationship full…
- Projection
Seeing and blaming in others what we can't see in ourselves. Nev says unintegrated shadows make people more reactive and more prone to projection, as when someone blames avoidant partners…
- Double life in Murakami
The recurring motif of protagonists living two lives, in the real world and another universe, including sex 'without touching' (Tengo and Fuka-Eri, Killing Commendatore's impregnation).
- Prayer as presupposition
Samantha, who isn't religious, thinks prayer is powerful because asking presupposes an answer exists. That breeds faith and trust, and so a feeling of safety in the body.
- Preemptive agreement
One of Tamir's pet peeves: people agreeing with a statement before it's finished, a kind of tacit approval that shows they aren't listening. You don't know whether the sentence will end in…
- Scapegoating
Attaching your problems to someone else, then 'killing the goat', from the biblical ritual. Tamir says people do this daily and call it progress; Tsukuru Tazaki is his friends' scapegoat.
- Listening
Colin says real eye contact isn't staring someone down; it's listening, thinking about what they said and responding. People now hear only the bits they want to hear. He cites the old…
- Living vicariously through characters
Tamir's hypothesis that Murakami, married young, explores alternate life timelines through protagonists who stray from troubled marriages and keep partners in both the real and unreal…
- Murakamian
Someone who deeply resonates with Murakami's worlds and joins the online ecosystem of channels, groups and podcasts devoted to them; the episode's self-description for both speakers.
- Portal conversations
Tamir's name for Murakami's one-on-one scenes (a drink or coffee between two people) that feel like slipping into another universe, where incredible anecdotes are about to be dropped.
- The ick
Modern slang Tamir explains: suddenly falling out of love with someone because of something they did. He asks whether Sheela 'got the ick' with Bhagwan; she says no, leaving was about…
- Subpoena of the Soul
Tamir's superpower wish, as it is named in the conversation: the emperor's power to summon anyone in the kingdom and get an answer, ending the enigma of why people act as they do.
- The Pilgrimage
Taken from Tsukuru Tazaki: when someone cuts you off, you must decide whether to go on the pilgrimage for answers or swallow the bitter pill and move on. The hard part is choosing which…
- Radical Acceptance
Mia jokes that two neurotic partners cancel out, and that love lets radical acceptance take the place of neuroticism.
- Attachment styles
Ian says you don't need to read a book on attachment styles when you feel needy; just sit with the feeling and name it.
Books 7
- The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Grant loves the opening (which grew from a short story) but quit caring once the narrator sits in a well and astral-projects, which he calls cheating.
- 1Q84
Tamir calls it Murakami's only real romance: unrequited love from page one.
- Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
Tamir loves the scene where a friend tells Tsukuru a strange story about a man his father met at a mountain inn, an example of Murakami's one-on-one conversations that feel like portals.
- Slaughterhouse-Five
The only Vonnegut novel Colin has read, and one he loves. What he takes from it is how the protagonist, despite the firebombing of Dresden, learns to make friends in the course of the story.
- South of the Border, West of the Sun
Salih's example of Murakami pushing the double-life theme to its limit as the protagonist nearly leaves and betrays his wife. Also the book at the center of the Literarisches Quartett row…
- Men, Women and Other Adventures
A handmade anthology Tyler gave Tamir for his birthday, assembled by cutting stories out of other collections and rebinding them with Bible onion-skin paper, with images and captions…
- Masks (poem)
Short poem (from Falling Up) about two people with blue skin who each hide it, search their whole lives for another blue person, and pass right by each other. It is used to show what we…
People 4
- Colin Gerrard
UK-born entrepreneur who built companies and led sales teams around the world (Belgium, the UK, sourcing in China). He also directed the award-winning short film 'Eli', made the earlier…
- Samantha Chung
Life coach, mindset and manifestation expert and podcast host (Simplifying Sam) who does what she calls 'thought work', helping clients see the imagined walls that block them. Tamir met her…
- Marc Harris Silverman
Sheela's first husband, whom she still calls by his sannyas name Chinmaya ('Shin Maya' in the captions). They met at school in the US; he had Hodgkin's disease and was given a year and a…
- Joe Rogan
Before the recording Colin watched podcasts such as Joe Rogan's to compare, and he tells Tamir he'll do great because he gets the best out of people.
Quotes 12
When the moment is there to be in love, I didn't waste it with too much mental masturbation. I don't doubt, which saves me from negativity. And we are so prone to judge and define and cancel things out. Suddenly now being in love has a darker side.
We heal in kind of a field of connection. There's really a field of healing that's created when people share in a group.
Everybody has a justification. Anger is its own justification.
Just by asking for it presupposes that it's there. Just by you doing that, you birth an answer. You may not know what the answer is, but you birth the existence of one.
People think they're making progress in their life because they're cutting people out of their life. This is not progress. This is the equivalent of Joe Pesci digging a hole in the desert and putting a body in there.
Everybody has it. Everyone's life makes sense to them. That's the thing.
This falling in love is to shut down all other senses and just go for a free fall. And that free fall will teach you trust. Love and trust are part of one another.
People have so much problem with relationships because most of the relationships are based in need. Then this need becomes a bargain point. It becomes a business. And neither partner is happy with it, because you lose your freedom.
People who have a bad relationship to sleep often have a really strong relationship to control and fear, because sleep is the ultimate surrender.
When you're angry you don't have to think, and you don't have to admit fault. The self-righteousness is an easy exit off the highway: you're a dick, so I don't have to deal with you, goodbye.
You are so vulnerable in sleep. Look at a person sleeping: even a Hitler is innocent in sleep. To release yourself into sleep is to trust.
It's okay to cut people off after they've had their day in court. But it's another thing to go and just execute someone willy-nilly.
Insights 17
- Get to know someone before you motivate them
Generic motivation can backfire badly, because what fires up one person breaks another. To find someone's authentic self and motivate them, you first have to know their story.
- Ask 'What about me?'
Relationships and lives fall apart, sometimes ending in divorce ten years later, when people forget to ask 'what about me?' Asking what you yourself want is the start of being real.
- Doubt, not love, creates love's dark side
To Sheela, love has no dark side of its own. The darkness comes from a culture that judges, defines and cancels, and from entering relationships full of doubt, which guarantees there is no…
- Neutrality under triggers measures integration
How reactive you are when triggered shows how much of your shadow is unintegrated. An integrated person doesn't need to react or project; they make a simple yes-or-no choice based on their…
- Grief is not only about death
We grieve lost friendships, ghostings, divorces, pets and miscarriages (the hopes and dreams planted in a future), not just the dead.
- Responsibility for what we share
People cut ties over polarizing posts during wars and elections. If you later realize you no longer believe what you posted, you may have lost friends for nothing, so sharing takes work and…
- What you attract mirrors what you deny
Painful experiences that keep recurring are mirrors of a repressed self that wants to be integrated. The trait you blame in a partner is often the one you can't see in yourself.
- Authentic complainers are more likeable than optimizers
Tamir would rather have a friend who is authentic and speaks from the heart but isn't on a track to success than someone optimizing every area of life, who may 'recalibrate around you' and…
- Avoidance compounds with life's stakes
Cutting and running might work at 20, but once there's a marriage, kids and a career the consequences grow; if you don't face the music now, you'll face it later.
- Everyone thinks they're the victim
In a falling-out, both sides usually believe they are the victim. That is what makes it an enigma, and what makes getting through it without bitterness such a hard skill.
- Falling asleep easily signals safety
The body can only fall asleep when it feels safe, so taking more than 5 to 15 minutes to drop off points to a nervous system on guard. Insomnia often reflects not trusting yourself or life…
- Need turns love into a business
Relationships built on need become a negotiation. Each partner loses freedom, feels captured, and ends up trapped in a dependency of their own making.
- Friend breakups resist rationalization
Being dropped by friends hurts more bewilderingly than a romantic breakup, because romance is volatile and easy to rationalize, while we're raised on 'friends forever'.
- Openness creates higher-fidelity conversations
Not hiding anything, even something as small as admitting to Botox when asked, builds trust and makes conversations higher fidelity. In sales too, connecting with people means openness, not…
- Stories grow when ping-ponged
People often realize how strange or profound their own story is only when they tell it aloud and see someone react; batting it back and forth through two lenses draws out more meaning.
- The simplest answer is usually right
When people vanish from your life, it often isn't because you did something horrific: cutting and running is simply easier for them than having the conversation.
- We feel bad because we don't have our own backs
Much of our unease comes from expecting that when something goes wrong we will turn on ourselves ('see, I didn't do it again'). Self-trust is the antidote.
Practices 15
- Grief Dinner Parties
Mia's first pilot of grief support groups: hosting dinners in her West Point Grey home where people cook, eat and share their innermost pain, because 'we heal in a field of connection' and…
- Ask 'What's in it for you?'
In interviews Colin told candidates exactly what he was after, then asked what they were after, to judge whether they were too ambitious or not ambitious enough. Asking yourself the same…
- Build handmade anthologies
How Tyler made Men, Women and Other Adventures for Tamir.
- Orient your life around serving
Get clear on the few things you truly care about and commit to the process of serving them (e.g. giving your partner utmost presence regardless of how they respond), rather than to an…
- Use trigger reactivity as a gauge
When triggered in a relationship, notice whether you react and project or stay neutral. Strong reactivity marks an unintegrated shadow to explore. In conflict, reduce the decision to a…
- Be a clean mirror
When someone shares grief, reflect it cleanly by listening, observing and asking questions, rather than reacting with shock ('Oh my god, really?') or telling them how they should feel…
- Dinner without business
To find out what makes an employee tick, take them to dinner and don't talk business at all. Ask about their life, and only at the very end ask about their goals for the year.
- Full, equal freedom for both partners
Don't be possessive and don't set unequal rules. Give both partners full freedom if both want it, schedule time together openly, and end it if jealousy takes over, rather than negotiating…
- Honor the dead by not fighting the living
When there's no will or the wishes are unclear, the best way to honor someone is not to fight with the people still living, and to ask what they would want for you.
- Listen before you agree
Let people finish before you agree. Real listening means hearing the whole thought, thinking about it and then responding, not nodding along preemptively.
- Share short stories instead of books
When recommending fiction, Tamir rarely gives whole books now, because people seldom finish them. He sends a PDF or link to one short story from an author's collection that the person will…
- Sit with the trigger instead of masking
When you notice a shadow pattern (e.g. neediness when a partner is away), name it to yourself and sit with it rather than reaching for a cigarette, your phone, or a book on attachment…
- Evaluate your relationship to sleep
If exploring dreams feels like too much, simply ask how you relate to sleep: can you surrender into it, or do you dread the night? Use the answer as a read on how safe you feel.
- Keep tiny promises to yourself
Build self-trust with very small, keepable commitments. If you want to sleep earlier, go to bed just five minutes earlier tonight and prove to yourself you can deliver.
- Monthly roommate meetings
Tyler learned this from Roland. As a 'typical Canadian' who says 'it's fine' and then flips out later, he uses it to train the skill of addressing conflict early.
Stories 21
- SAS soldiers wearing American flags
Colin recounts an interview with a Navy SEAL who, as a newcomer, saw British SAS soldiers in the chow line wearing American flags. Asked why, they said, 'You've got to blame it on somebody…
- The salesman who didn't want to be manager
In one of Colin's offices in Belgium, during a struggling telecoms campaign, one salesman was the only one hitting numbers. Colin pulled him aside and praised him lavishly as his next…
- Car music on dates
In his twenties Tamir always switched the car music to whatever the woman he was driving liked. An article made him ask why he was bending over backwards, and whether she might want to know…
- Drop both lovers if they're jealous
Sheela told her lovers plainly that none of them could compare with Bhagwan, 'a category of its own', and they loved him too, so they understood. If her lovers grew jealous of one another…
- Ghosted by three close friends
About three years earlier, three of Tyler's nearest and dearest friends cut him off. He was bewildered and feared something about him was 'too much'. What finally smoothed him out was…
- How can we be against marriage unmarried?
Every evening Sheela and Chinmaya ate sitting back to back on the floor of her little room, talking and philosophizing, as long as it was logical. One night they agreed they couldn't be…
- Motivating people by knowing them
Colin says daily 'sell, sell, sell' meetings are the worst thing you can do, because you don't know what motivates each person. Some of his staff did brilliantly after he screamed at them…
- The Rock and Kevin Hart on Ellen
On Ellen, Kevin Hart kept needling Dwayne Johnson. When it came up that Johnson had just had another baby girl, Hart joked about him not producing boys. A visibly annoyed Johnson replied…
- The handmade anthology
When Tyler loves a short story, he cuts it from the spine of its book with a carpenter's knife and rebinds his favorites with Bible onion-skin paper, which acts like book glue. He built a…
- Women who call in avoidant partners
Nev describes a pattern she often sees in clients. A woman says she is fully open to love but keeps attracting emotionally avoidant partners. Underneath, unresolved trauma has closed her…
- Arguing a dying man into love
Sheela's first husband, Chinmaya, had Hodgkin's disease and a year and a half to live, so he refused to get involved with her because it would be unfair to her. Both loved logic, so she…
- Calling her partner twenty times
Mia's relationship is securely attached, but if her partner doesn't say goodbye in his usual way and something feels hidden, she might call him 20 times: 'me going from investigator before…
- From turbulent reactivity to neutrality
Nev says she began her journey very turbulent and reactive in romantic relationships and friendships, set off 'at the drop of a dime' by comments. After years of shadow work, conflicts now…
- Stepfather's Apple shares
Colin's late stepfather joked that Apple would 'come knock on my coffin' to tell him the stock was finally up. Colin uses it to show that small investors trust what they invest in, and lose…
- Divorcing couple at grief group
The quietest attendees shock Mia most. People going through divorce have brought their ex-spouse to discuss it together in the group, with tears, screaming and yelling.
- Small-town loyalty that slaughtered him
In a small community you can't cut anyone off; they'll be at your cousin's wedding and at school the next day. Tyler entered the wider world extremely loyal and sentimental, unwilling to…
- Tamir's superpower: summoning anyone
Asked what superpower he'd want, Tamir skips invisibility, flight and infinite money: he wants an emperor's power to summon anyone in the kingdom, so he could end the enigma of why people…
- Falling asleep in 30 seconds
Samantha can fall asleep in any position or place within 30 seconds, her 'superpower', which she credits to genuinely trusting life and not experiencing the world as hostile. She notes she…
- Ian's wife's 'If' tattoo
When Tamir brings up Kipling's 'If—', Ian shares that his wife has an 'If' tattoo and has the whole poem memorized.
- Married over a lost bet, and mid-flight
Of her two later marriages, Sheela says she married once because she lost a bet, and once because she fell in love again, with the wedding performed by the pilot on a flight to India.
- Met in a high-school play
Tamir and Mia first met in high school while acting in the same play, the root of their shared love of fiction and storytelling.
Films, music and art 1
- Interstellar
Tamir: time dilation in Interstellar is a frightening enough phenomenon without added fantasy.
Organizations and movements 1
- Special Air Service
British special forces. Colin recounts a Navy SEAL's interview praising the SAS for always finding something to lighten the mood even in firefights. It's his example of soldiers who took…