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Have you ever noticed how easy it can be to connect when you're complaining with someone? There's a reason for that, and it's not because you're a negative person. It's the nature of the brain. Let's talk about it. You're listening to Relish, the podcast for people ready to stop chasing self-improvement and start savoring their lives. If you're tired of the hamster wheel of healing and hungry for more joy, presence, and meaning, you're in the right place. Hey my friend, it's Alysia and welcome back to Relish. Relish is about living more fully, feeling more present and alive and connected. And that does not mean feeling good all the time. It does
not mean bypassing pain or pretending everything's fine. But it does mean becoming aware of the subtle patterns that pull us away from presence and authenticity and real connection. And today we're talking about one of those subtle patterns, one that's incredibly common, incredibly human, and often completely unconscious, as of course many of our patterns are. That pattern is bonding through negativity. Before we dive in, if you've been enjoying the show, I'm going to ask please follow, download, uh, leave a fivestar rating and review on Apple Podcast and Spotify. It is the best way you can support the podcast right now. I truly love reading your reviews and feeling this community
take shape. So, thank you. Okay, let's get into it. There's something that happens in relationship that is really familiar in our culture, but we rarely pause to look at it. And that is when we often connect through what is wrong. We connect through what's negative. Sometimes that can look more obvious like complaining, venting, gossiping. Sometimes it's a little quieter. You know, it might sound like gh today was a lot. people are so exhausting. Can you believe they did that? Everything feels so hard right now. And none of that is inherently bad. It's not that you can't say that. The issue isn't the negativity itself. It's when negativity becomes the primary way that we know to connect. When shared
frustrations or dissatisfaction or criticism becomes like the glue that's holding our relationship together. Bnee Brown names a specific version of this common enemy intimacy. And that's when closeness is built by bonding over a shared dislike of someone or something else. But I want to zoom out a bit because common enemy intimacy is one expression of a much bigger pattern. At the core, a lot of us learned that connection comes from focusing on what's wrong. And I want to explore this gently without judgment because this pattern didn't come from nowhere really. It came from your nervous system trying to belong. So let's talk about why this kind of negative bonding can feel so satisfying. First, there's that
negativity bias. Of course, our brains developed it. They evolved to prioritize negative information because historically that's what kept us alive. Threats needed attention right now. you know, if something went wrong, you had to notice it really quickly. You didn't really have to notice what was good. So, because of that, the negative information grabs our attention more strongly and it feels more urgent and sticks in our memory longer than positive information. So, sometimes this gets described as like negative social bonding or negative affinity. That's not like a diagnosis or formal concept, but
it's a way to name what's happening. Humans have a long history of bonding through shared threat and shared fear and shared dislike. From a survival perspective, it makes sense. If you and I agree on what's dangerous and who can be trusted or what's wrong, our nervous systems register that as alignment. It becomes like a form of safety. In social psychology, studies have shown that discovering you share a negative attitude about a third party can increase feelings of closeness between you. Sometimes even more than discovering a shared positive attitude. Going through something hard, for instance, can connect us more. So shared dislike can become a kind of social glue. And it's not because it's healthy, but it's because it's efficient.
And then there's gossip. Neuroscience research suggests gossip is processed as intrinsically rewarding social information. It activates the reward related brain circuits. It's remembered more easily, not because it's good or because it's moral, but because the brain treats it as valuable social data. It's information about who is safe and who's not, who belongs and who doesn't. So when you combine all that, the negativity bias, the reward-based social information, and our natural avoidance of vulnerability, bonding through negativity becomes the path of least resistance. It's familiar. It's predictable. And very importantly, it does not require us to reveal ourselves. So at a nervous system level, it can feel safe. In psychology,
this doesn't usually get a neat label, but the research corroborates that humans often bond through shared negativity. This is where common enemy intimacy can come in. Common enemy intimacy creates a sense of us. But often it's at the cost of creating a them. So it sounds like, you know, we are close because we see the same flaw. We belong because we agree on what's wrong. We're safe because we are not the one being judged. So there's this immediate sense of alignment of like you and me on the same side. And that can feel really connecting. But if we look more closely, common enemy intimacy has some recognizable characteristics. It's connection without the vulnerability.
It's intimacy without the risk. closeness without any openness. It does tap into belonging, but it's without actually being seen. So instead of saying here's who I am, here's what I feel. The bond is formed around at least we're not like that. And again, I want to normalize this. Almost everyone's participated in this at some point. Okay? It doesn't mean you're mean or immature or living like an unconscious judgmental life that you're a bad person. And it usually means you learned consciously or unconsciously that this was a reliable way to connect, a way to feel aligned without having to expose yourself, a way to belong without risking rejection, a way to feel safe
without being vulnerable. So from a nervous system perspective, it makes sense. But there is a cost. Of course, when negativity becomes the foundation of connection, a few things can start to happen over time. For one, you reinforce your own insecurities because your mind stays trained to focus on what's wrong. And with that, you strengthen comparison patterns and complaint. Those become kind of your default lenses. You might also feel heavy and drained and depleted after social interactions. I know I have become very aware of that. Um, especially since recognizing this phenomenon and investigating it. In my experience, I have noticed I have some friends that really lean on this and it
is so depleting to me. Becoming aware of that depletion was really helpful for me to see I needed to make some changes. And something else important is that when we're bonding through gossip and negativity, trust becomes tricky. it becomes complicated because if someone talks about other people with you, it is likely they're going to talk about you with other people too. And on a neural level, every time we're bonding through negativity, we are strengthening those same neural pathways. We train the brain that connection becomes or equates to criticism, dissatisfaction, comparison. So yeah, there can be a feeling of belonging, a surface level feeling, but you're not actually being seen. It's safety with your patterns, not intimacy
with your truth. And often the belonging that you're going to find is still going to be dualistic, especially if it's like a co-created criticism of someone else. So now it's not just me versus you, but it's us versus them. What I've noticed is that relationships built primarily on negativity like this, they eventually stall out because there's nowhere to grow. And growth requires vulnerability. So I'll share an example because when I first dove into this work about a decade ago, this was one of the first patterns I started to see very clearly in my own family system. And this example feels subtle, but I think that can be helpful to see how elusive this can be. Whenever someone asked in my family, "How was
your day?" I noticed the response always had some kind of disclaimer. There was like a butt. How was your day? It was fine, but I slept terribly. But work was exhausting. But traffic was awful. But someone annoyed me. It was like it wasn't okay to just be okay. That was the conditioning. That was how we learned and knew to interact. There always had to be some problem. And so that negative energy was always kind of hanging there in the room. It made it really hard to like celebrate anything or acknowledge anything good. There's all these like repercussions because of that. So when I became aware of this, I wanted to shift that within myself and I started experimenting. And when someone
would ask me how my day was, I'd say, "Hm, my day was fine. It was good." And then I just let it be. And wow, especially at first, I could feel discomfort in the room in myself and in other people. Sometimes there was like silence. Sometimes I felt the urge to pull the conversation back into a complaint or give a disclaimer just to kind of smooth over the awkwardness. And this makes sense because we did not know how to connect without the negative. And when I stopped feeding that old dynamic that our relationship depended on, there was this kind of in between space where the old pattern didn't work anymore, but the new one wasn't formed yet. This is common. And this is what often happens when one person in a dynamic
tries to show up differently or more authentically. That different new way of being is unfamiliar and can feel threatening. But over time, something shifted and my family started to adapt. I think we all started to feel the benefit. It's like kind of nice to pay attention to what's good. And then now it's been a decade and we actually don't rely on that kind of negativity to interact or feel close anymore. Not to digress too much, but I think this is important and relevant as an example of how we can't change other people, but when we do our own work and change how we show up, it can ripple out and impact others. So your way of being has power. A lot of times I know it can be easy to think like I need other
people in my life to change. But you have more power than maybe you give yourself credit for. So what do you do if you start noticing this pattern in your relationships? First the step to any change is awareness. We got to be aware. Just noticing it and doing that without judgment. So it's like naming it. Oh, here it is. We're connecting through comparison right now. This is gossip. This is shared frustration. That kind of noticing is mindfulness. And you might not necessarily need to say it out loud to the person, just to yourself, acknowledge it. The second thing I like to use a reframe that I got from Byron
Katie. I find this incredibly helpful. She asked this question, whose business? Whose business is this? So, she says, "There are three kinds of business in the universe. Mine, yours, and God's." So, if I'm talking about someone who isn't here, their choices, their behavior, that's their business. my feelings, my reactions, my values, my needs. That's my business. So an example, let's say I am talking to a friend and I start criticizing someone who's not there, their choices, their relationship, their like timeline. That's not my business. That's their business. But if I say, I'm noticing I feel anxious watching this person make this choice. This brings up fear for me.
I'm realizing this is hitting on my own insecurity. that's my business. And sometimes the line can feel like kind of blurry and we rationalize our gossip by saying, "Well, this affects me." So, it gets tricky. We can convince ourselves it is our business. We'll say things like, you know, I'm just concerned. I'm just being honest. I'm just venting. We try to justify our actions. So, we got to be honest with ourselves. And I think a good question to ask is like what's my intention here? Am I sharing this to understand myself and share my experience and my emotions and meet my own needs? Or is this to bond by expressing judgment of someone else? So get clear about whose business it is and then practice just gently bringing
the focus back inward. Recently, a friend said to me, "Our mutual friend, I'll call her Cindy. Um, you know, she's only known her new boyfriend for a few months, and they're already getting married." And she shared this with me with this tone of judgment. It was kind of a familiar tone. And I had that thought pop into my head as she started to verge on gossip. And I know like it's enticing, but I had that thought, okay, this is not my business. And instead of joining the criticism, I decided to ask her like, "What does that bring up for you? What does it make you feel that Cindy is getting married so quickly?" And it was interesting underneath the judgment, she expressed that she was
worried. She was afraid. She had seen Cindy get hurt before. She'd helped her through her last breakup. It was really challenging. And once we named that, the energy of the conversation and the direction of it really shifted. So, it then became this totally genuinely curious conversation and I asked, you know, have you ever felt a love that strong or that fast? Like, what do you imagine that feels like? I'm kind of curious to feel that. And suddenly, we weren't talking about Cindy anymore. You know, someone who wasn't there. We were talking about us and our fears and hopes and experiences of love. So, this is where real connection lives. So if you can try to redirect to authentic
connection by practicing curiosity and inviting vulnerability, bringing feelings into the conversation. And you can also intentionally try to connect on what you both value and love rather than what you reject. cultivating relationships where you feel safe to be your truest self rather than just fitting in with the group's negativity. That is what's going to lead to genuine connection and a sense of belonging. And I often say this about relationships. We want connection. Connection is an emotional exchange. And so if we really want to feel connected, we have to be clear about what we feel and be willing to share that. That's why relationships are vulnerable.
An important nuance I do want to acknowledge is sometimes we do need to discharge energy. Okay, that's human. It's okay to vent. The difference is how we do it. So instead of centering judgment of another person, can we center our own experience, what we are feeling emotionally underneath that complaint? You know, maybe it's the need we're having or that we're asking to be met. So acknowledging that, naming what we're feeling, that requires vulnerability and not everyone is willing or able to go there. So in this conversation, you also have to hold this truth that if someone needs you to complain in order to connect, that's important information for you. In some relationships, people are willing to grow together and to do the work to
shift the dynamic. In others, they might not. I have had some friendships where I've tried to express the sentiment like, you know, I'm really trying not to engage in gossip. I know it's fun and feels good, but it just doesn't feel aligned with me. And they cannot go there. They do not want to get uncomfortable and go into their feelings. And so when that happens, I have to grieve that this is a part of it. Outgrowing certain dynamics can be a part of becoming more authentic, but it's still really hard, especially when it's people that you've had a relationship with for a long time. So things might need to shift. But the takeaway today is negativity.
It might be an easy place to meet, but it is not a place where we're going to build deep authentic connection. And you deserve relationships where connection comes from honesty, vulnerability, truth, not just shared frustration. And shared frustration might be there at times. Shared pain might be there at Common enemy intimacy might be a doorway into this pattern, but the deeper work is choosing relationships where you can really fully be seen, not just mutually irritated. All right, so if this episode resonated, please share it with a friend that you've grown with, maybe someone you feel safe enough to be honest with. And please follow the show. Hit download. Leave a fivestar rating and
review if you have found anything from this show helpful. You taking a minute to leave that review. Um I know that's actually a big ask for me to make, but it really helps us grow more than anything so that we can keep doing this and keep this work moving. All right, so go and connect about what's true for you. Go relish your beautiful life and all your relationships. And I'll see you soon.
