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

1. Cultivate Your Life Force (Eros)

Understand “eroticism” as life force, creativity, engagement, aliveness, vibrancy, vitality, and imagination, not just sexuality. Actively seek experiences that make you feel alive, vibrant, and connected to life’s intensity.

2. Reflect on Your Aliveness

Regularly ask yourself, “When’s the last time I felt alive?” and “What lights me up?” Focus on subtle experiences of deep immersion and feeling, not just big excitements, which can include nature, art, music, laughter, or simple tactile activities.

3. Prioritize Interpersonal Connection

Actively seek and engage in connections with other people, as these relationships are crucial for alleviating stress, overwhelm, anxiety, and despair. Recognize that healing and well-being are fundamentally relational.

4. Practice Co-Regulation Techniques

Engage in non-verbal and verbal methods to regulate emotions with others, such as physical touch (hand on knee, shoulder), breathing together, singing, eye contact, and offering consolation, empathy, and reassurance. Remember to pace interactions, allowing others to regulate at their own speed.

5. Reframe Relationship Narratives

Challenge the cultural premise that being with people or having relationships is inherently painful or depleting; instead, view isolation as the true challenge. Adopt the perspective that relationships, while sometimes messy, are vital for human flourishing.

6. Cultivate Meaningful Daily Rituals

Create symbolic habits imbued with creativity and intention to mark beginnings, endings, and transitions in your life, such as a morning practice to ground yourself or an evening reflection. Rituals provide structure, meaning, and a sense of sacredness, helping to regulate time and space in a 24/7 connected world.

7. Build Community Through Micro-Moments

Actively create community by initiating small interactions like making small talk in public, using pets or children as social ambassadors, joining groups based on shared interests, and inviting people into your home.

8. Expand Your Social Circle

When inviting someone to your home, suggest they bring a friend, and you do the same, as this “each person bringing someone new” approach helps organically grow your social network.

9. Practice Social Resilience

Be prepared for potential rejections when reaching out, understanding that a “no” is not a massive personal rejection. Persist in reaching out to others, recognizing it as an act of courage in modern life.

10. Embrace Responsibility in Belonging

Redefine “belonging” to include not just acceptance, but also duty, obligation, and responsibility to the group or other individuals. Actively ask, “What do I need to do? What am I responsible for?”

11. Use Boundaries for Connection

Understand boundaries as clarifications of roles and frameworks for interaction, rather than solely as acts of self-protection or reasons to cut people off. Use boundaries to regulate relationships and stay connected, unless in violent situations.

12. Engage in Volunteering

Actively volunteer your time and energy to help others. Giving to others provides a sense of meaning and connection, and you receive something back from the act itself, fostering a sense of contribution to the collective.

13. Adopt Open, Curious Mindset

Lean into ambiguity, serendipity, curiosity, exploration, and discovery in your daily life. Constantly seeking certainty is the enemy of change and numbs the erotic, which thrives in mystery and surprise, making you feel alive and eager for what each day holds.

14. Maintain Open Body Posture

Pay attention to your body posture; an open chest and arms are indicative of feeling alive, while slouching or looking down can reflect deadness or disengagement.