Why Nobody Feels Loved Anymore - Sonja Lyubomirsky

Chris Williamson 0:00 You've been studying happiness for thirty-six years

Sonja Lyubomirsky 0:02 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 0:02 Is there a commonality between all of the most effective happiness interventions that you've found?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 0:08 Yes. Well, thank you for aging me. But yes, thirty-six years. So actually, it was nineteen ninety-eight, my lab pioneered happiness interventions. So ninety-eight, a long time ago, twenty years ago, Bill Clinton was in the White House. Um, and so I've been doing research on these interventions, testing whether practices like, uh, expressing gratitude or doing acts of kindness or being social makes people happier. So interventions are like clinical trials, but instead of testing a vaccine, we're testing like a happiness strategy. And then one day it finally hit me that what all these interventions had in common is the ones that worked, the reason they worked is because they made us feel more connected to and loved by others, right? So when I write a gratitude letter to my mom, it makes me feel more loved by her, right? When I do an act of kindness for a colleague or a friend, makes me feel closer to him. So almost all happiness practices, maybe not all-

Chris Williamson 0:57 Hmm

Sonja Lyubomirsky 0:57 ... like maybe if you run on the beach or meditate, it's not about connection-

Chris Williamson 1:00 Mm-hmm

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:00 ... but almost all of them are about feeling connected and feeling loved.

Chris Williamson 1:04 Why?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:07 We-- I think the human species wouldn't have survived if we did not feel connected and loved, and it's a, a extremely strong signal. And so what I concluded is the key to happiness is feeling connected, which sounds like a cliché, right?

Chris Williamson 1:20 Mm-hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:20 But... And when you think about, like, in our ancestral past, if we did not feel connected and loved, we wouldn't survive. We wouldn't find mates, like we wouldn't pass on our genes. So it's just, it's incredibly important. It's one of the most important tasks of human beings is, is to sort of maintain connection.

Chris Williamson 1:36 Okay.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:36 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:37 So to take a bit of an evolutionary lens-

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:38 Yeah

Chris Williamson 1:39 ... uh, if you are not belonging to the tribe, mattering to the tribe, understood by the tribe, uh, and a part of that, a human on its own twenty thousand years ago isn't going to last very long. Therefore, it's important for you to get back into connection. It doesn't seem to me, though, that unhappiness necessarily drives people back to connection and love. It can often make people behave in ways, have habits and a demeanor that actually makes them kind of hard to love.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 2:05 Right. So it's not really unhappiness that drives them back to connection. It's not feeling loved-

Chris Williamson 2:09 Hmm

Sonja Lyubomirsky 2:09 ... or feeling lonely, which actually is very d- very similar to feeling unloved. I think actually a lonely moment and a moment where you don't feel loved are, are almost identical. And, and they're, again, they're a signal to, to us humans that something's awry, something's amiss.

Chris Williamson 2:23 Hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 2:24 I need to m- you know, regain, reconnect that connection. I actually was feeling a little lonely a few weeks ago, and I actually, I don't usually feel lonely. I have lots of friends and family who love me. And I left a message for a friend, and she just actually just left me a message back yesterday. And she said, "Oh, I feel so, so sorry for you, like, so, feel so bad. I wish I were there." And she's like, "Sonja, feeling lonely is a signal that, you know, you need to kind of put more effort and energy into reconnecting." So-

Chris Williamson 2:50 Hmm

Sonja Lyubomirsky 2:50 ... um,

Sonja Lyubomirsky 2:51 yeah.

Chris Williamson 2:51 Lots of people spend their entire lives trying to be lovable. Is that the wrong goal entirely?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 2:58 Yes. Well, there's a part of it that's, that's not a, a bad thing, which is if you want to be a better person, right? We-- working on yourself, wonderful, right? But I think the-- I, I think when you don't feel loved, to conclude that, oh, I don't feel loved, I need to make myself more lovable, like I need to sort of somehow broadcast how wonderful I am, or maybe I need to get richer or more famous or more beautiful so people would love me more, that's the part that's a myth, and it does not actually get you to feel more loved.

Chris Williamson 3:29 Is it a supply of love problem or an acceptance of love problem?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 3:35 Hmm. I think it's an ac- or a not necessarily acceptance, but s- it's not a supply of love problem. So many of us are loved, but we still don't feel loved. So why is that? Maybe somehow we don't trust it. We don't see it. Um, you know, it's not somehow getting in, you know?

Chris Williamson 3:50 Yeah.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 3:50 I think of it as like a cup of love. You know, this cup of love-

Chris Williamson 3:53 Hmm

Sonja Lyubomirsky 3:53 ... and you're pouring love. You're showing love to me, but maybe it has a leak in the bottom, and the love is sort of leaking out. Or maybe it has a lid, it doesn't have much of a place to get in. That's one way that that happens. Um, um, but okay, so the idea is that when we think, when we think we're not loved, we think, oh, I need to be, m-make myself more lovable.

Chris Williamson 4:14 Hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 4:15 And so I sort of show you how wonderful I am, and what does that accomplish? It might lead you to admire me, right? I might impress you.

Chris Williamson 4:23 Hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 4:23 And it happens all the time. Like, here I am sitting here talking to you, Chris, and I want you to think that I'm smart and interesting and funny and kind. And I might succeed in impressing you, and I might succeed at you admiring me, but it's not going to forge a connection.

Chris Williamson 4:37 Hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 4:38 So that's not the answer to, to real connection.

Chris Williamson 4:41 What's the difference?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 4:42 So I think admiration is like, it's like an influencer who has a lot of followers, and they might be admired, but the followers don't really know them. And w- my co-author of the, of my book, How to Feel Loved, Harry Reis and I, believe that really the key to feeling loved is being known. Because if you don't really know me, if I, if I'm just broadcasting my, my positive qualities, hiding my weaknesses, you don't really know who I am on the inside, what really matters to me. And if you don't really know me, I can't truly ever feel loved, because I'll always wonder, if he knew me, maybe he wouldn't love me.

Chris Williamson 5:18 Hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 5:19 Right?

Chris Williamson 5:19 Mm-hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 5:20 So-

Chris Williamson 5:20 That fear of being seen.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 5:21 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 5:22 What-- Just definitionally, what does it mean to feel loved?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 5:26 Hmm. Feeling loved means that I believe I make a difference in your life and that I really matter in your life. It really comes down to that. I mean, love, of course, is about affection and care and intertwined goals, but I think it really comes down to, like, I matter to you and you matter to me. And it's much broader, by the way, than, of course, romantic love. And while we talk about feeling love, we, we're talking about feeling loved at work, by your neighbors, by your family, by your friends. So it's not just, uh, about your partner.

Chris Williamson 5:55 Hmm. Forty percent of people say they don't feel as loved as they want to be by their partner, and nearly two-thirds of young men feel that nobody truly knows them.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 6:04 Isn't that terrible? Yeah. It's, it's really a... It's sad. It's a problem. I actually think those numbers are probably understatements. I bet people, you know, are-

Chris Williamson 6:13 Feel embarrassed about admitting it

Sonja Lyubomirsky 6:14 ... Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. So yeah, we did a survey expressly for the book, right? Found there was at 70% said they don't feel as loved as they want to be in at least one significant relationship in their life. So that's 70%. Um, and why is that? I think many of them have love, they have connection, they have friends, and somehow, yeah, they're not, they're not feel... It's not getting in. It's not getting internalized.

Chris Williamson 6:36 What are the big ways structurally, tactically, literally, what are the big ways that people don't accept love?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 6:43 Hmm. Well, I was talking about the cup of love. I think if you're anxiously attached or avoidantly attached, I think that's a huge barrier somehow. Again, if you're anxious, it's like you're watching for signs of rejection, signs that the person doesn't love you. If you're avoidant, maybe you're not even noticing those signs of love. Um, I mean, it could even be... It's funny, we... The idea of the love languages, we actually debunk [laughs] the idea of the love languages in the book. We have a whole section on it. We didn't do it, someone else did it.

Chris Williamson 7:10 Hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 7:11 Um, but there's, there's a truth to it. I mean, it's a good heuristic that if someho- Like, I actually was dating someone who kept sending me gifts, like in the mail with, like, little handwritten notes. It was actually really cute, and yet didn't do the things that I actually really wanted him to do, which is really, like, saying something to me or, you know. My love, quote, "love ling- love languages" are, are words of affirmation and physical touch, which were-

Chris Williamson 7:32 Well, hang on a second.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 7:33 Uh.

Chris Williamson 7:33 Have you debunked it?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 7:34 Uh-

Chris Williamson 7:34 Or are you, like, uh, subject to it?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 7:37 What, what we've debunked is that there's not just five languages, there's, there's many, and that it... What we've debunked is... Not we. Uh, other people have debunked the idea that matching in your love language, uh, predicts, like, how good or how strong or how stable your relationship is. It does not predict it. It turns out everyone cares about two love languages: words of affirmation and quality time.

Chris Williamson 7:59 Hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 7:59 It also turns out that the more love languages your partner shows love to you, the better. So it's not about the matching. That's the matching idea that really we've debunked, but I think it's a great heuristic, so I like to talk about it.

Chris Williamson 8:10 Hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 8:10 So I'll bring it as... It is funny, like, I'm, like, bringing it in, and yet I've debunked it. [laughs] A little, uh-

Chris Williamson 8:14 Pick a direction.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 8:15 I know, exactly.

Chris Williamson 8:16 Yeah.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 8:16 But, um, but yeah. Anyway, the, this example, I was dating someone who was sending me gifts, and that was his love language. Um, and I just wasn't reading it.

Chris Williamson 8:26 Hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 8:26 Like, I wasn't seeing that. Like, I wasn't seeing that that's an expression of love. So that does happen sometimes when the... You're just not... Yeah, you're not taking it in, whatever the person is doing. Their love language is different from yours.

Chris Williamson 8:36 Okay.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 8:37 [laughs]

Chris Williamson 8:38 What else? What are some of the other ways that people are rejecting love, not accepting it?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 8:42 Yeah. If you don't love yourself very much, uh, it's hard to see signs of other people's love as genuine. Now, everything, everything we talk about is really much more nuanced than, like, a simple explanation. So for example, a lot of people think if you don't love yourself, you can't really love other people. I think that's a, that's a myth, and I s- I think Esther Perel actually was a f- was pr- was someone I, I heard talking about that. She said no, you learn to love yourself also in the context of relationships. It's a bidirectional kind of thing. Um, having said that, if you really don't love yourself, if you low self-esteem, you're not gonna believe other people's expressions of love. You're not gonna be aware of them. You're not gonna see it as genuine. Furthermore, if you don't love yourself, you literally are gonna be, quote, "less lovable", right? People, people... It leaks out, right, that your, your self-image is, is poor, and o- you're not gonna be as likely to receive love. So, um, so I think that's another barrier. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 9:39 What have you learned about building self-esteem and self-love?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 9:42 Hmm.

Chris Williamson 9:42 'Cause it sounds here like, hey, we're on the receive-

Sonja Lyubomirsky 9:45 Yeah

Chris Williamson 9:45 ... but in the context of self-esteem and self-love, we are both the recipient and the giver.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 9:50 Yeah. Uh, I would say nothing. [laughs] Um, that is the one thing I don't know. I'm an interventionist. I'm an experimental social psychologist. I don't know of any good interventions to increase people's self-esteem.

Chris Williamson 10:01 No way.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 10:03 Well, interventions in the lab, you know-

Chris Williamson 10:04 Mm-hmm

Sonja Lyubomirsky 10:04 ... that have been actually, like, evidence-based. I mean, of course I can ar-

Chris Williamson 10:07 Well, we can do anything off vibes, right?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 10:09 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 10:09 I can come up with something that sounds good. That's the reason we need you. We need you-

Sonja Lyubomirsky 10:13 Exactly

Chris Williamson 10:13 ... to test whether or not my vibe coding of a-

Sonja Lyubomirsky 10:15 Yeah

Chris Williamson 10:15 ... an intervention is actually good or not.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 10:16 But remember, evidence of... or absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, right? So just because there aren't interventions doesn't mean that they wouldn't work. I mean, I could, I could speculate, you know, like, based on years of experience and, you know, expertise that, you know, like for example, just, um, pursuing goals, passions that, that are important to you, you know, and having successes in, in those things and practicing your social skills. Like, that's gonna build your self-esteem.

Chris Williamson 10:41 Mm-hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 10:41 I just don't know any... Maybe they're out there, but I don't know any successful interventions that have, that have actually boosted people's self-esteem.

Chris Williamson 10:49 That's interesting.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 10:49 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 10:49 I wonder whether... And this is complete... In fact, I'm gonna take this off, and I'm gonna put this one on for the time being.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 10:55 [laughs] Love it.

Chris Williamson 10:55 Um, this is the bro scientist hat.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 10:57 Love it. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 10:59 I wonder if part of self-esteem is kind of like an aggregate, a lagging measure aggregate for how your local ecosystem socially and emotionally seems to be feeding back to you in a positive way, that self-esteem can be built up on your own, but you need to be very deluded if you were able to hold self-esteem when the world was giving you no evidence that you should hold onto it, right? Because that would be incredibly maladaptive. You, you are, as a social creature, you're actively ignoring signals that you should pay attention to. If everybody else in the tribe is going, "Sonja, you, you can't behave like that. You can't keep behaving like that. We're not giving you positive reinforcement. We're not giving you love. We're not giving you belonging. You're not mattering. We're not listening. We don't care because you're being an asshole. You're being an asshole, and that's maladaptive to the group as, as, as a whole," presumably the opposite of that would be, "This is good. Keep going. More of that. This is helping us. You are a good person. You are contributing. We care about you," and over time, that would help to build up. Now, people can have self-esteem that is self-generated, but a- again, you need to have Nerves of steel or basically no, no I's and D's if you're going to ignore the, the feedback from everybody else.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 12:18 Yeah. All right. So-

Chris Williamson 12:18 That's my bro scientist theory

Sonja Lyubomirsky 12:19 ... no, no, that is actually, and I'm not just flattering you, that is actually a brilliant idea, and you've just reproduced some [laughs] ... You've changed hats. You've just independently developed some really solid theories in psychology about, about how self-esteem is kind of a measure, like a, like a metric, a meter of what's happening-

Chris Williamson 12:39 It's a little thermostat

Sonja Lyubomirsky 12:39 ... exactly.

Chris Williamson 12:40 It's a thermostat.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 12:40 Like a sociometer, I think-

Chris Williamson 12:41 Yes

Sonja Lyubomirsky 12:41 ... is what someone calls it. One of my colleagues calls it. Abso- we're, we're social animals, right? We, we don't live in isolation. We don't, we don't... Man does not live on an island, right?

Chris Williamson 12:50 Yeah.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 12:50 Um, um, and so that also means, so if I were to build a, a, a self-esteem intervention right now, I would say go out, and this is actually very similar to my happiness interventions, go out and help other people, right? Contribute to community. Well, actually, the three buckets of that, that contribute to hap- the three buckets that contribute to happiness are, um, uh, anything to do with connection, so go and connect with other people, right? Uh, spend time with others. Listen. You know, we'll get back, we'll get to that later. To, um, contribution to society, to community, right? Helping others. When you help others, you're gonna get positive feedback from the world. And then the third is personal growth, right? So work on yourself.

Chris Williamson 13:28 Mm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 13:28 But it also can be just, like, learning to garden, learning a new language, going to travel, um, having experiences that you can talk about to other people that gives you, um, this gives you esteem, right? If you sit home in a, in your garage all day, right-

Chris Williamson 13:41 Mm-hmm

Sonja Lyubomirsky 13:41 ... you're not gonna build that very easily.

Chris Williamson 13:44 Is the person that you're dating the most important relationship for providing this sense of love?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 13:51 Well, interesting, in, in Western society, most people have romantic relationships, and actually a far majority end up getting married at some point. I think something like 85% by age 56. Um, I would say for a lot of, a lot of people would report that that is their most important relationship. I personally think that friends are what makes life worth living. Um, that's more of my kind of personal theory, that you get m- more of it from friends. But it's also a very gender-based theory. So it turns out that men-

Chris Williamson 14:20 Mm. Mm-hmm

Sonja Lyubomirsky 14:21 ... derive more happiness from romantic relationships than women. You probably know this.

Chris Williamson 14:24 Yeah, that's why men suffer more through divorce-

Sonja Lyubomirsky 14:27 Exactly

Chris Williamson 14:27 ... because so much of their social belonging was tied up in the other person-

Sonja Lyubomirsky 14:30 Exactly, put the one true-

Chris Williamson 14:30 ... whereas women had distributed it.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 14:32 They put all their eggs in one basket, whereas women have, you know, very close, uh, friendships-

Chris Williamson 14:36 Yeah

Sonja Lyubomirsky 14:36 ... uh, social, social support networks. Um, but again, I think friends are what makes life worth living, and, um, yeah, so really maintain those friendships.

Chris Williamson 14:45 Did you read, uh, Friends by Robin Dunbar?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 14:48 No, but I know about it, yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 14:50 G- g-

Sonja Lyubomirsky 14:50 Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm, yeah

Chris Williamson 14:50 ... interesting idea. He, he talks about, um, you know, the concentric circles of, of friendship, and I think he talks about you have room in your life-ish for about five, five very close friends, but that a partner takes up two of those slots. And I thought that was really interesting to think about, you know, you're, you're, um, uh, distributing this around, but what's the, the, the most common answer to the question how many close friends do you have to call on in an emergency is zero. It's not the, the median, but it's the most common answer. More people have no friends to call on in an emergency than any other number. And, uh, I wonder whether people who aren't in a relationship don't realize, hey, you need two additional close friends to compensate for your singleness, and that might help to fill in some of the gaps. Now, yeah, there's, there is a category of love and intimacy obviously that can't be replicated by friendships that is available in an intimate partnership, right? Obviously.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 15:45 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 15:45 But more isolation means that maybe people are placing even more pressure on romantic relationships to fulfill all of these different needs, and when they're not in a romantic relationship, they're not supplementing that with more friends.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 16:00 I mean, I love that idea, the two, two for one. Um, but our, and, but we also have the, the false belief that our partner needs to fulfill all of our needs.

Chris Williamson 16:09 Mm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 16:09 So like Eli Finkel's book, The All-or-Nothing Marriage, right? That... And so we know this to be true, and yet we still think that, right? That they... Yeah, so one person needs to fulfill, you know, sexual, spiritual,

Sonja Lyubomirsky 16:20 emotional, intellectual needs, and that almost never happens. And so, which is why-

Chris Williamson 16:25 Mm

Sonja Lyubomirsky 16:25 ... uh, delegating those to, to friends and family is great idea. [laughs]

Chris Williamson 16:29 Are there more important words to hear than I love you?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 16:33 Yes. So on Valentine's Day, right, almost all the cards say I love you, right? Almost all of them. I would say 99%. And so we had the idea that they should say, uh, maybe it's more important or as important to say, "I feel loved by you. You make me feel loved."

Chris Williamson 16:48 Mm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 16:49 Which is really more about what they're doing, the gift that they're giving you. 'Cause again, like, that's what mat- you could be loved. If you're, if you are loved, but you don't feel loved, it's, like, almost doesn't matter. Like, it's like you could be beautiful, but you don't feel beautiful. You could be smart and you don't feel smart, then, you know, that's a problem.

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Chris Williamson 18:10 checkout. Is there a skill to accepting love, do you think? Is that something that can be developed over time? You know, uh, to use a more flippant example Everyone's got that friend that when you pay them a genuine compliment, they dismiss it. This is kind of like the British approach to receiving a compliment. "Oh, d-d, you know, you, you must be ni- you, you, um, you look really good today." "Well, if you had nothing else to do with your life other than get ready for a party, you too would look great." And you go, "Hey, dude-

Sonja Lyubomirsky 18:36 [laughs]

Chris Williamson 18:38 ... I've just worked really hard to try and give you something. Uh, that's an opportunity for you to feel good and for me to feel good for making you feel good, and now neither of us feel good, so congratulations." But yeah, uh, it makes me think about that, but at a much deeper level, right? The skill of accepting love.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 18:53 Right. And absolutely true. And actually, your example is great because I've noticed that as my friends and I get older, we are better at receiving compliments or just sort of receiving, receiving generosity.

Chris Williamson 19:04 Mm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 19:04 It's like, it's just the practice. We practice and practice and practice. Um, and I see that, like, there's more of a focus on kind of self-development, um, you know, at least in certain circles, and people are really working on themselves, and, uh, yeah, I see that everywhere. So yeah, I, I think almost everything can get better with practice, even when it feels really unnatural at first.

Chris Williamson 19:24 Mm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 19:25 Right?

Chris Williamson 19:25 Why is having a sharing mindset so important?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 19:28 Mm. We were talking about how the key to feeling loved is to be known, right? So if you don't know me, I'll never really feel loved by you. 'Cause, right, 'cause I'll always wonder, "Would he love me if he knew me? How do I get to... How do you get to know me?"

Chris Williamson 19:40 Mm-hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 19:40 I need to share more of myself. It doesn't have to be, you know, trauma sharing or oversharing. It has to be done at the right pace. And also, I need to really have some emotional intelligence, like read the room. So I might like... So I need to share more of myself, right? Not just the highlight reel, but more of myself. But again, not like to spill all my, you know, weaknesses. So but, but I would want to test the room, right? So when you ask me, "How are you?" You know, most of the time I say, "Fine." Uh, maybe I might start with, "Oh, I had... You know, I was sort of struggling today with something. You know, I had a rough morning." And then I look at your reaction and see like, are you really interested to hear about my rough morning? And that's kind of the toe in the water, and then you can share more and more. So I just want to, like, make sure that people understand that it's not just like oversharing-

Chris Williamson 20:24 Mm-hmm

Sonja Lyubomirsky 20:24 ... I'm talking about.

Chris Williamson 20:24 Mm-hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 20:25 But it's showing, like, who are you... Who do you believe to be on the inside? Like, showing more of that. You know, what matters to me. It doesn't have to be something negative. It could just be like my opinion about that movie that maybe everyone likes, but I don't like it. [laughs]

Chris Williamson 20:41 Mm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 20:41 Um, you know, showing something genuine about me, um, you know, that, yeah, that shows you who I am.

Chris Williamson 20:48 It's an interesting bi-directional relationship here too, right? It... I, I think about the UK as well. Um, there is a good culture of mocking in the UK, especially as you're a kid growing up. There's a, a piss-taking banter back and forth. One of the interesting things there is if you try to put a slightly orthogonal opinion forward, I'm gonna say something that's a little bit different to what most people expect. Typically, that's not met with, "Oh, that's really interesting. Now, that's, that's... I've never thought about stuff like that before. That's really cool. I'm really glad that you brought that up." It's, "Why would you say that? That's so strange." And I think if you think about that in the context of a relationship, the fact that this is going back and forth between two people means that the less it is encouraged and received, wow, that thing that you said that was evidently surprising to me, that might have taken a little bit of effort for you to say, that wasn't received and encouraged in the way that might make you want to continue to do it more. That means that you do it less and are less encouraged to do it, which means that I know you less, which means that I don't get the opportunity to do it, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 21:55 So it's a vicious cycle. And actually, someone was just telling me like they had one time they were vulnerable, and they really got punished for it. They got judged for it. It was used against them, and it was one out of 100 times, and yet they now don't want to reveal anything ever about themselves. Um, and we kind of overgeneralize from that.

Chris Williamson 22:12 It's a formative experience. Like, I mean, how many times... I see this online a lot, and I'm aware people use the most extreme examples when they talk on the internet. But how many times do you see some story online about a person who really tried to open up to a partner, to a, to a parent, to a close friend, to a, a, a confidant, and it was such a painful experience for them that, like, that is their formative experience of what opening up, of what asking to be loved, of what asking to be known feels like? And, um, yeah, that's, that's ruthless. There's a, um... Uh, Rob Henderson, my friend, told me this idea where he said, "If you, if you get rejected by one girl but you've gone up to 100, even if you get rejected by 100, getting rejected by one is just another drop in the bucket. But if you've ev- only ever gone up to one girl and you get rejected that one time, it's the biggest event in your entire life." And the same thing goes for, hey, maybe this is an example for if you're gonna open up to somebody, make sure that the first one has got a high hit rate of at least not being an asshole to you.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 23:14 Yeah, exactly. Exact- But bad is stronger than good, so we remember those bad events. It also suggests that maybe, uh, parenting, uh, something that parents should emphasize is like to, to model kind of sharing, sharing and listening. And I should say that, you know, we really can't talk about sharing without talking about how the person responds, as you say.

Chris Williamson 23:31 Mm-hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 23:31 And so actually feeling loved, for me, I would argue, starts with curiosity, right? So it starts with really you being curious about me and asking deep questions. And then I know I can share. I feel safe. I feel inspired to share. So I'm not just sharing out of the blue, and I'm, I have to guess whether you care or not or whether it's gonna be uncomfortable or whether you're gonna judge me or use it against me.

Chris Williamson 23:52 Mm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 23:52 So it really starts with curiosity. Um, and genuine curiosity is so rare. Really, when you think about it, how often do people really, really care about what, what goes on in your inner life and like, you know, ask you a lot of questions?

Chris Williamson 24:05 Mm-hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 24:06 Um, anyway, so that, that's, that's where really I'm coming from, is that someone asks another person a que- a question that you're genuinely are interested in, in getting an answer to, and then you share in response.

Chris Williamson 24:15 Mm-hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 24:15 You don't just kind of, you know, share out of the blue.

Chris Williamson 24:18 Okay.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 24:18 Mm.

Chris Williamson 24:18 So sharing mindset.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 24:19 Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 24:19 Stepping into an interaction- With the understanding I'm going to put more of myself across than I might naturally, uh, tend to, and that's gonna happen. It's gonna unfold over time. I'm not gonna trauma dump immediately. Uh, and

Chris Williamson 24:35 what, what else just on the sharing mindset? Are there any other sort of, uh, pitfalls that people need to be aware of?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 24:40 Yeah, yeah. So, like, go slow. Um, well, the vulnerability paradox, which we're kind of hitting on without naming it. So vulnerability paradox is that we think being vulnerable will lead other people to like us less.

Chris Williamson 24:50 Mm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 24:51 On average, people like us more.

Chris Williamson 24:53 That's interesting.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 24:54 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 24:54 Why do you think that's the case?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 24:56 So, so we think, yeah, we're, we're so focused on the bad. Like, I reveal some kind of, I don't know, like, bad habit I have. And the oth- and other people... And we-- I think it's so terrible. People will judge me, and I'm embarrassed, and other people just think it's human. Or maybe they have the same habit. Um, actually, something happened to me a few weeks ago, where I really, I totally bombed giving a talk. Like, I, I al- I usually never do, but I just completely blanked out, and I was just standing there on stage, and I'm like, "I don't know what comes next." I literally said, "I don't know what, what to say."

Chris Williamson 25:26 Hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 25:27 And, uh, it was mortifying. And I can't tell you how many people came up to me later and were like, "Sonja, like, I, I, I loved it. Like, it just made you more human." You know, they-- So the thing that I thought was mortifying, other people thought was, like, a cute human failure.

Chris Williamson 25:41 Mm-hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 25:42 I mean, that's, that's, that was an un- volunteered.

Chris Williamson 25:44 Are you familiar, are you familiar with the pratfall effect? Do you know this?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 25:46 Yes.

Chris Williamson 25:47 So it's when somebody gets all of the answers right in a test, but they drop their pencils on the way up to hand their paper in. And it's a, a British study, the word prat. I don't know whether the word prat has come over to America. Anyway, um, we, we like people who show their human side, uh, which is, which is strange, right? Because there's an assumption that we just want everybody to be as perfect as possible.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 26:08 There's a great line from a famous screenwriter who said, "If you wanna write a character that no one connects with, make them perfect."

Chris Williamson 26:16 Hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 26:17 Right? So we actually don't want perfection, 'cause it's not human, it's not interesting, it's not complex.

Chris Williamson 26:21 Hmm. I want to show you a video. Jared, can you pull up that video of that gymnastics girl? So there's this-- There's a... Look at this.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 26:29 Okay.

Chris Williamson 26:29 Just wa-watch, watch this video.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 26:30 Okay, okay, okay.

Speaker 26:31 [upbeat music] Wait. Daddy, I'm scared. [crying] I'm not brave. [crying]

Speaker 26:50 Hey. Hey. Hey. You are brave.

Speaker 26:57 I'm not brave. Daddy, stop saying I'm brave.

Speaker 27:01 You are brave. You do things that no one else has ever done. You are doing skills that are insane to even adults. Okay? You have more courage in your little body than 1,000 people have in all of their bodies combined. You are mine, and I am yours.

Speaker 27:21 Wow.

Speaker 27:22 Nothing you can do will ever make me stop loving you. Nothing you will do will ever cause me to give up on you. I'm going to let you know when I think you're making a bad choice.

Speaker 27:35 Okay.

Speaker 27:35 I am not going to let you talk down on yourself. I'm not going to let you give up on yourself, and I'm not gonna let you quit because something might be scary. You can quit if you truly don't love something. Okay? But you cannot quit because something might scare you. Okay? You are not failing me. And if I have made you feel like you are not good enough or that I don't care about you, then I have not done my job as a father. I love you very much. Okay? And I don't think that you're bad. I don't ever want you to think that I wouldn't be there and do whatever it takes to make sure that you can be successful doing whatever you want to do. 'Cause at the end of the day, this is something you have told me you want to do. Now, if you truly do not love cheer, guess what? You don't have to do cheer. If you truly love doing cheer, then yes, I'm going to let you know when I think you are making a silly decision because you don't think you're good enough or because you think something is too hard or too scary. The only limits that you have are the limits that you put on yourself. If you keep telling yourself you are incapable of doing something, guess what? You will prevent yourself from doing something. If you tell yourself that you can achieve something, even if it doesn't happen right away, guess what you will eventually end up doing? Achieving it. But we have to be able to be strong here, okay, to make this do what we are capable of doing. It starts with this. Okay?

Chris Williamson 29:15 What do you think of when you see that?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 29:16 Okay, a couple things. Um, well, it was beautiful that he could go underneath w-what, her fear, was not just she's afraid of, you know, doing this, this flip, but she's afraid that if she fails, that maybe her dad won't love her, which is really beautiful. Like, he gets under the fear. And I do have one critique. He-- That was beautiful, obviously, what he said.

Chris Williamson 29:37 Mm-hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 29:38 But I do have one critique of this dad. [laughs]

Chris Williamson 29:40 Hmm. Well, hey, if, if anyone is open to feedback, something tells me that it's Anthony, the, the dad.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 29:44 Yeah. And it is that the f- what, what therapy... I'm not a therapist. [laughs] What therapists say is that you want to first, um, validate what she says, right? So she kept saying, "I'm scared," and he's like, "No, you're not scared." And, and I guess the, what you're supposed to do is kind of s- not supposed to do, right? Ideally, you want to kind of validate, like, "I, I understand you feel scared right now," or something like that, and then go and talk about and give the speech that he gave.

Chris Williamson 30:06 Yeah. A bit of validation in the emotions.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 30:07 Yeah, yeah, yeah. First validate. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 30:10 Is that important, do you think, when receiving love and trying to give it as well?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 30:12 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It's so interesting. So one thing we talk about, right, let's, let's say you're sharing more of yourself because you want to feel more loved, and so you are sharing more of yourself, and then I'm listening. So listening is so critical. Most of us are not very good listeners. And so what we do when we're trying to listen, turns out one s- study showed twenty-five percent of the time when we're listening, our mind is wandering. [laughs]

Chris Williamson 30:32 Hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 30:33 And I bet it's higher than that. 'Cause we have this inner chatter- We're, like, distracted or we're mostly we're rehearsing what we want to say next, right? How I'm going to respond to you. And, and, and we also wanna sort of fix or give advice, which I do all the time. Instead of just simply sh- making the person feel heard, which is what we're just talking about, and just validated, right?

Chris Williamson 30:54 Mm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 30:54 Which is like, "Wow, that must have been really hard," or, "That must have been really inspiring. You know, how did that feel?" And again, that sounds like therapy talk, but you can put in your own words. Um, I do think the pendulum has swung a little too far on, like, validating over fixing. [laughs] You know that-

Chris Williamson 31:10 Mm

Sonja Lyubomirsky 31:10 ... nail in the head video that's so popular? The woman who has this nail in the head. Oh, you gotta watch this. [laughs]

Chris Williamson 31:15 Okay.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 31:16 So she has a nail in the head, and she's like, "Oh, I feel... I'm in such pain, and all my th- all my sweaters are th- are shredding." And the guy's like, "Well, you have this nail in your head." And, and she's like... And basically the point of the video is she just wants to be heard.

Chris Williamson 31:28 Mm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 31:29 And then once he says, "I'm so sorry, it must be so painful for you to have a nail in your head," and then she's like, "Ah." Right? And that's the point of the video. Whereas he keeps trying to give her advice. "Can you... You should take the nail out of your head."

Chris Williamson 31:41 Mm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 31:41 "And then you won't feel so, so much in pain, and you won't shred your sweaters." And I just think, like, uh, yeah, it's like the, again, the pendulum has swung so far. Like, 'cause sometimes people kind of need, like, fucking need advice, right? It- they need to be told, "Take the nail out of the head." But I, I agree that at first you want to validate and then give advice later. [laughs]

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Chris Williamson 32:54 I understand what you mean about therapy speak maybe going mainstream to an extent where validation's given when it shouldn't be. A, a lot of people do need some tough love. I don't know whether good therapy speak has been widespread yet though. I get the sense that in a lot of these conversations it's still quite performative. It's people saying the thing that they've heard is kind of cool. "Well, it's really important, like, to just follow your body and to just do what feels good for you," as opposed to, "I'm gonna sit in the muck with you. I'm gonna sit in the discomfort." You know? Yeah, the validation thing, good point. I'm sure Anthony will take it on board.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 33:34 [laughs]

Chris Williamson 33:34 Um, but he's sitting, he's sitting in the emotion with his daughter, right? He's holding that space. It- it's unfortunate that holding space has kind of been memeified into-

Sonja Lyubomirsky 33:44 I hate that phrase.

Chris Williamson 33:46 Yeah, but it's... The, what it, it, what it means is so good.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 33:48 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 33:48 It's just a shame that the phrase has become a cliché of itself-

Sonja Lyubomirsky 33:51 I know

Chris Williamson 33:51 ... in a way.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 33:52 I know.

Chris Williamson 33:52 Um, but-

Sonja Lyubomirsky 33:54 Hm. Uh, well, there's, there's one kind of therapy speak that I think is, is so amazing and effective, and it's non-violent communication, right? It's using I statements, right? So, so I feel hurt when you do this as opposed to why do you always do this, you know? What's wrong with you?

Chris Williamson 34:08 Mm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 34:08 And so, um, and that, yeah, I... It's, that is just so effective. Has been shown to be effective in so many contexts. And people are doing it more. Again, instead of accusing the other person, it's about you. So, like, it's not like you're doing this. It's like I feel this way when, when I see this, or it's my understanding, or the story I'm telling myself is that you're... Um, and then you, and then you ask, and then you have a request. Um, so, um, I'm a big believer in, in non-violent communication. [laughs]

Chris Williamson 34:34 And the TLDR of that is I statements, not you statements.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 34:39 Yeah. There's a whole process to it, but it's sort of I feel this when you... You know, so let's say, yeah, like let's say the person never cleaning up. You know, I feel, you know, I, I don't... Overburdened when you don't wash the dishes when you do this. Um, you know, I'd like to whatever, talk about it. I'd like to understand what's going on. Maybe you're, you're really stressed out at work.

Chris Williamson 35:00 Mm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 35:00 Um, you know, s- and then you have a re- and the hard part is the request. It's like what are you actually... It's easier to criticize. It's harder to kinda ask. The ask is the hard part, you know?

Chris Williamson 35:08 Why?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 35:09 I would... It's, it's vulnerable, um, to sort of ask. To say I, I... Yeah, it's hard to ask. That's so funny. It's almost obvious to me why. Maybe it's not so obvious. I would love for us to come up with an agreement about how you split, how we split chores.

Chris Williamson 35:25 Mm-hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 35:26 Um, so yeah, I statements.

Chris Williamson 35:30 Yeah. Uh, I guess criticizing somebody else puts the ball in their court. It also makes your displeasure known and, uh, like, uh, absconds you of having to take responsibility. But putting yourself forward and going, "I would really like it if you did that," is another opportunity for this person to hurt you, right? It's like I'm gonna request this thing. Not only have you done this thing that pissed me off that I've now had to tell you about. I've had to tell you that it's hurt me, but I'm now going to, like, offer you this thing-

Sonja Lyubomirsky 36:03 Yeah

Chris Williamson 36:03 ... that you could reject this request.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 36:06 That's why it's, that's why it's vulnerable because you're risking rejection.

Chris Williamson 36:10 Mm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 36:11 And that's life. Sometimes you'll be rejected.

Chris Williamson 36:14 What's your advice to people who when they get to the precipice of vulnerability of exposing a little bit more of themselves and they feel like they should, that, that sort of fear comes up and the tightness in the chest and the ringing in the ears. What is your advice to them in that moment?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 36:31 Mm. I mean, part of my advice is just to go for it. Take the leap. So many th- Great things in life involve taking risks. Almost everything, right? Like having a baby, you know, going for that job that, you know, moving to a different city. Um, but before they, they take that leap, I would go slow, right? So maybe the first time just you, yeah, um, reveal something smaller and then take a, yeah, take a s- baby steps, I would say.

Chris Williamson 36:59 Mm-hmm. Okay.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 36:59 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 37:00 So listening to learn.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 37:01 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 37:02 People are not just playing the game of tennis, waiting to hit the ball back.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 37:06 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 37:06 Uh, genuine curiosity. What else?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 37:10 We talked about sharing, so curiosity, listening. So, so you start with curiosity, like, "I'm really interested in you." And curiosity, by the way, has a enthusiasm component, right? Like, "I'm really-- I'm excited to hear what you have to say." That's why it's such a gift, right? Like, how often does that happen when someone's so excited? Charismatic people are really good at this, right? That's why we flock to them, because they're so excited to hear what you have to say. So it starts with curiosity, then you tell... So, "I'm curious about you," then you start sharing, which is hard. And, but I'm, I'm validating and I'm supporting your sharing by, like, really listening and asking questions. So question asking is not talked about or even studied that much. So important. We don't ask each other enough questions. So research shows that we think that, especially asking deep questions, if I ask you a deep question, I'll think, "Oh, uh, he's gonna think I'm prying, that I'm being a little nosy."

Chris Williamson 37:58 Hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 37:59 And sometimes that happens, but on average, people crave to be seen, right? They want to be known.

Chris Williamson 38:06 Hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 38:07 Um, I have an example from my daughter who has a roommate who was having a lot of problems, and her, her family was coming over. They were crying. There were all these sort of sessions, and they were speaking Spanish, so she didn't know-- my daughter didn't know what they were saying. So I said to my daughter, "Why don't you talk to your roommate and ask her what's going on?" And she said, "Oh mom, I, I c- I couldn't do that. She'll think I'm prying."

Chris Williamson 38:28 Hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 38:29 And I think, you know, she could be right, but I think mo- most likely she's wrong, that this roommate probably would feel really supported and loved if she, uh, if she was asked about it.

Chris Williamson 38:39 Hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 38:40 So. But we usually think... Yeah, so we don't ask enough questions. So ask your friends, colleagues, and partners those deep questions.

Chris Williamson 38:48 Okay. And that's radical curiosity?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 38:50 That's part of radical curiosity and part of listening, because it's-- listening is a back and forth. And then we-- there's two more mindsets we talk about. One is called open heart, and it's almost like an obvious one. You know, I, I think open heart is basically warmth, kindness, believing in the other person, wanting their, them to be happy, wanting their dreams to come true. It's, it's... I say it's obvious because I would think most stable relationships have that mindset.

Chris Williamson 39:14 Hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 39:15 It's the other mindsets that often peop- people don't necessarily have. So I actually-- we sent the book to a few early readers [chuckles] and, um, two of my male friends said they-- they're like, "We love the book," but they broke up with their girlfriends after reading the book.

Chris Williamson 39:30 Hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 39:30 And it turn-- And we were-- I was really surprised because I thought it was prescriptive, like, "Oh, do this. Listen better. You know, show curiosity." But they actually used it to hold a mirror to their relationships. So they had the open heart. They had kindness and warmth and belief in the other person. But one person said, "She's not really sharing, and I'm not really sharing." Another person said, "My girlfriend is no longer curious about my work. She never asks about it." Um, and so those are really important and, and need to be worked on. The open heart, I think, is one that I would hope most relationships already have.

Chris Williamson 40:02 Okay.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 40:02 Yeah.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 40:03 And the-- but the last one is my favorite. [chuckles] The last mindset is called multiplicity. So the term multiplicity, I'm told, comes from trauma research. The idea, if you have a trauma, it doesn't define you. It's like you're a quilt of many, many things. Of course, you had the trauma. You can't take it away, but it doesn't define you. And we're all, we're all multi-- You know, the Walt Whitman quote, you know, "I am multitudes. I contain multitudes." Um, so I'm like a quilt of both positive and negative qualities and traits and behaviors, right? So sometimes I'm kind, and other times I'm selfish. Sometimes I'm loyal, and sometimes I'm narcissistic. And we're all like that, right? And so use that multiplicity lens to turn it on the other person. So when you're revealing your story and something-- you say something I might disapprove of, makes me uncomfortable, I use a multiplicity lens and see you as a human in all of your complexity. And what's interesting about that is that when I tell this to people, everyone nods, and they're like, "Oh yeah, of course." [chuckles] You know? And then when you actually give specific examples, it's really hard, right? People will say, "Oh, what a jerk," right? "What a, what an asshole. Like, he did that," or, "She did that." Um, so that's a, a really hard one.

Chris Williamson 41:15 Yeah, I, um, I think it's difficult for m-- So few people want to sit in a discomfort zone, a, a, a tough emotion, and their solution is to just fix it. To just say, "Hey, if I just come up with the solution to this thing, we don't need to worry about it anymore."

Sonja Lyubomirsky 41:30 Mm-hmm. What would be the solution to, uh, so someone reveals something negative about them?

Chris Williamson 41:36 About themselves? I don't want you to feel that way anymore. Allow me to minimize it. Allow me to, uh, tell you what you can do. Like, um, "This person at work keeps mistreating me in this way, and every time that they do, it makes me feel really small, and I'm worried that they don't like me, and I think that I don't really belong there anymore." Well, she's a bitch anyway, and you shouldn't do this. And you're like, "Hey, dude, you're not, you're not in this with me. What I want to hear from you is, damn, that must be, that must be really hard to go through. What, what's that been like over the last couple of months?" Or, "What are you, what are you worried this means?" Or, "What's the emotion just after that happens?" Like, oh, okay, like I'm-- someone cares. Someone cares enough to do that. And, uh, yeah, I, I just think people's-- It comes from two, two directions. It comes from, "I don't want this person who I care about to suffer anymore," and also, "I don't want to be in this discomfort anymore." And both of those things together can be wrapped up in a I'll just fix it, minimize it, or make it go away.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 42:48 Um, uh, I had a coach once, and some, a friend did something that I was really upset about. And so I'm talking to the coach, and I'm doing that. I'm minimizing. I'm thinking, "Oh, well, because of this and this reason, they must have done it." And the coach said, "Sonja, just stop it right now." And he said, "Skip right over the rumination and the justification and the rationalization and right into sadness. Go right st- go straight to sadness."

Chris Williamson 43:13 Hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 43:13 Which is just be sad that your friend did this, right? Which is kind of like what you're saying, sort of sit in it, and then you can, you know, rationalize. But, but the rationalization, like, you know, there's a fine line between kind of condoning, justifying, and compassion.

Chris Williamson 43:26 Hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 43:27 Right? When is it compassion where you see someone and they do something kind of terrible, and you can see... Like, this happened once with my friends where this guy said something really terrible in a text, and we're like, "Oh, what a jerk." And one of my friends said, "You know, when I read that text, I see the little boy inside of him," or, "I see the teenage boy-

Chris Williamson 43:47 Hmm

Sonja Lyubomirsky 43:47 ... who used to be rejected by girls, and so whatever. He got triggered." It's not excusing or condoning or justifying, but it's having compassion. Uh, and, and I don't know, it really helps me to see people in this sort of more complex light. Again, it doesn't mean I want to hang out with him, but I, again, I think that compassion, um, is really helpful.

Chris Williamson 44:07 What do you think are the things in a relationship that makes people feel unloved the most?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 44:14 I think when people kind of feel a little... Like, I guess when they start to feel invisible, and the other person stops noticing, well, stops asking questions. We already, we talked about that. Stops being curious about you. We often stop being curious about the people we've known the longest, right?

Chris Williamson 44:29 Hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 44:29 'Cause we think, "Oh, I know everything about them." And of course you don't, 'cause every day we're having new fears and dreams and self-doubts, right, and regrets. Um, so stopping being curious. But the other thing is, yeah, just kind of feeling, yeah, like the, that you're invisible. They don't, they're not noticing the little things. You know, when we ask people what makes them feel loved, a lot of them were those little things like, like I remember being at a party, and friends would bring me like a piece of fruit or water or a blanket. And before I even knew I wanted those things, they're like, "Sonja, you, you need this water. You need a blanket 'cause you seem cold." And I'm like, "Oh, I didn't even know I needed a blanket." And so, like, when pe- when you feel loved is when people... You, you feel love when people are doing... They're noticing you, and they're noticing things that you need before you even w- need, before you even realize you need them.

Chris Williamson 45:15 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 45:15 So those little things when... And when your partner or your best friend sort of stops noticing those things, you, you don't feel loved.

Chris Williamson 45:22 Have you looked at the whatever the strongest predictors are of long-term relationship satisfaction?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 45:28 Hmm. So I partnered with a love scientist [laughs] to write this book 'cause I'm really more of a happiness scientist. I don't think I can answer this question. But I will tell you a really interesting finding that we do talk about, which is how do you respond to good versus bad news in a relationship, right? You come home, and you say, "Hey, honey, um, uh, I got laid off." Uh, or you know, "Something bad happened. My car, the car broke down." And everyone kind of knows how to respond to bad news or sort of something bad that happened. Um, but what if you come home and you say, "Hi, honey, I got a new job offer in New York."

Chris Williamson 45:59 Hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 45:59 Right? So it turns out how we respond to good news is a better predictor of relationship duration than how do, how we respond to bad news 'cause it's so... It's not easy, right? You got a job offer in New York. I mean, it could be threatening. Does that mean we have to move? Does that mean you're going to work harder so you don't have time to, you know, with the kids? Maybe you might even be envious that like, "My career isn't going as well as yours." And so what research shows is the, the best... You know, well, the, the, the reaction that is predictive of relationship duration is truly celebrating good news with your partner, right?

Chris Williamson 46:34 Hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 46:34 Being like, "That's so ama-," being enthusiastic, right? "That's so amazing. Tell me what happened. How did..." You know, "What did they say?" You know, "How did you feel?" Um, maybe later you can deal with some of the insecurities that come out of that, right?

Chris Williamson 46:45 Hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 46:45 But so, so anyway, that is one factor that predicts relationship strength is, is celebrating. It's called capitalizing. Celebrating good things.

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Sonja Lyubomirsky 48:13 Yeah. And you know what? How many people... The list of people that you share your wins with is a small list.

Chris Williamson 48:22 Mm-hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 48:22 Is that right? Right?

Chris Williamson 48:23 Mm-hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 48:23 'Cause we, we learn not to be boastful, right? And I remember like I would come home and tell my family about some ma- some great thing that happened, maybe an award I got, and my kids would say, "Oh, Mom, you're boasting." And I'm like, "If I can't share this with my family, like who can I share with?"

Chris Williamson 48:36 Yeah. What the fuck is going on? Yeah.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 48:37 And so we're, we've sort of trained like not to boast, and yet of course, like, we want to celebrate those things, right? So and so, um, yeah, and so we, we don't have as much practice both sharing and I guess reacting-

Chris Williamson 48:49 Mm-hmm

Sonja Lyubomirsky 48:50 ... to, to those wins.

Chris Williamson 48:52 What about in the relationship if you're doing everything right and the other person just doesn't Show it in return?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 48:59 Great question. And I get asked that question a lot where let's say I'm doing all the right things, so I'm, I'm sharing, I'm listening, I'm curious, I'm seeing you in the multi- multiplicity lens. I'm, I'm exci- with... I'm, I'm listening with warmth and acceptance, and the other person just does not respond. They don't return. They don't reciprocate. They're not curious about you. They're not listening. They're not sharing.

Chris Williamson 49:18 Yeah.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 49:19 What do you do? So I'm not a therapist. I mean, therapists are very like, you know, they'll never sort of say exactly directly what they really think, I think, right?

Chris Williamson 49:26 Yeah.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 49:27 Bluntly, and I'll just say bluntly, maybe you need to walk away. Maybe you've made a poor choice.

Chris Williamson 49:32 Mm-hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 49:32 If it's a family member, yeah, probably you can't walk away, but just accept that you're not gonna feel as loved as you want to feel by this person.

Chris Williamson 49:39 Mm-hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 49:40 Um, I mean, of course, obviously keep trying, but if you've kept trying and, and it's not working...

Chris Williamson 49:45 Well, so much of it, I think the discontent that people feel in situations like this is I, I feel an incompatibility here, and I'm continuing to push up against it, and you know how when you see a bridge and a bridge twists like this, it's because one side is going in one direction and another isn't moving with it. If you just did that, it's just a bridge that's rotating, right? But the tension occurs in the flexing like this, and I wonder how many people, if you were to just say, "Hey, dude, this just isn't working," and you're continuing to try and put this square peg into a round hole is where the discomfort comes from. And if it's you got an uncle that you just cannot resonate with or a younger brother who just you and him are com- like different species. So okay, guess what? Thanksgiving and Christmas you're gonna see each other. You wish him happy birthday. You keep on top of it. But the tension and the pain is coming from you wanting a thing which is not accessible, and I don't think it's your job in life to drown trying to keep people afloat who refuse to swim.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 50:48 Exactly. Although, you know, you, you try curiosity by the way with the brother or the uncle, right? Like why, why do you believe that thing that, you know, you think it's worth anything?

Chris Williamson 50:55 Shut up, Sonja. I don't, I don't need to hear that.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 50:57 Right. [laughs] Well, if that's... Right. If that, if that's the response consistently, and I, I'm, I completely agree with you, but it is... there's just this tension because I hear all this advice like, you know, people in our society, in our individualistic society, they, they kind of break up too often. You know, they kind of end relationships too often.

Chris Williamson 51:13 Totally.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 51:13 Like especially on dating apps or, you know, you're like, "Oh, this person isn't working for me. I'm just gonna go to the next person."

Chris Williamson 51:19 Mm-hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 51:19 So there's sort of this advice you hear that maybe we don't work hard enough, um, to sort of fix our differences and then there's all those people, and I'm thinking romantic relationships, and they're together forever, and they're just clearly not right for each other.

Chris Williamson 51:32 Yeah.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 51:32 And they're clearly unhappy, and I feel, I really feel for them, right? Like life is too short. Um, so I don't know. I don't know what's... But I guess both can be true at the same time.

Chris Williamson 51:42 Well, it is absolutely-

Sonja Lyubomirsky 51:42 Yeah

Chris Williamson 51:42 ... that both can be true. I've got this idea called advice hyperresponders. So, uh, advice doesn't distribute evenly. It distributes more like alcohol than medicine. Uh, the people who could really benefit from loosening up and having a drink remain abstinent while the people that are already drinking too much, they take it on board. So for instance, the person who has the fear, "I am emotionally inadequate," will absorb the message, "You should open up about your emotions wholesale," because it confirms their fear that they already weren't good at doing emotions and that will cause them not to rectify the, uh, imbalance but to over-exaggerate something that already exists. Um, another one of the person who permanently feels like they're not working hard enough will take on the David Goggins, Jocko Willink message of, "Just get up at 4:30 AM. You've got to crush it, dude," as opposed to going, "I actually need to listen to the advice that tells people to chill out a little bit more." Meanwhile, the, the place I first saw this was after Me Too. So Me Too told guys, "Don't be pushy with women," and the dudes that were blowing through boundaries didn't pay any attention to it. Meanwhile, nervous guys that could do with a little bit more of a, a, a pushing hand-

Sonja Lyubomirsky 52:51 Went all the way to the other way

Chris Williamson 52:51 ... they decide. They were like, "I knew I was too much already. I already thought I had this."

Sonja Lyubomirsky 52:54 So interesting.

Chris Williamson 52:55 And this is how-

Sonja Lyubomirsky 52:56 Mm-hmm

Chris Williamson 52:57 ... advice lands in groups that already are moving in that direction. It confirms-

Sonja Lyubomirsky 53:02 Wait, what are you calling this?

Chris Williamson 53:02 Advice hyperresponders.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 53:04 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 53:04 So you throw advice down and the people who already do it pick it up first. Uh, it often doesn't correct over... It, it doesn't correct imbalances. It just exaggerates predispositions and, um, I think it's true and that's how you end up in situations like this. How is it the case that people are both cycling through relationships too quickly and staying in ones that they shouldn't for too long? Well, it's because pe-

Sonja Lyubomirsky 53:26 Different kinds of people.

Chris Williamson 53:28 Bingo.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 53:28 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 53:28 Bingo. And then when you give-

Sonja Lyubomirsky 53:30 Yeah

Chris Williamson 53:30 ... a piece of advice, this is the thing that's like interesting and pernicious about it is that typically one side of the fence sounds like a more pro-social and noble piece of advice. So for instance, the idea work harder and ignore your emotions sounds upward aiming. It is believing in the little guy. It's grassroots. It's spittin' sawdust. It's zero to hero. That tends to be more popular to talk about online even if it increases the disposition of the type A person that can never switch off. The idea of don't let good relationships fall away, you should work through them and try hard sounds pro-social in a world of atomized transactional swipe dating. But it worsens the situation for the people who already burden themselves way too much with psychological strength that makes them powerful in the boardroom but silent at the kitchen dinner table.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 54:23 Mm-hmm. Okay, but let's talk about w- I think one concept that can kind of unite what you're talking about is, is the idea of, is the idea of dosage, right? So Aristotle's golden mean, right? So there's a, there's an optimal dosage for everything. Like, uh, there's somewhere in the middle there's an optimal way, like amount of time you should stay together before you break up, et cetera, et cetera. And I'm a huge believer in dosage. I think it applies to almost everything, right? And so in terms of happiness research, right, can you do too much ac- acts of kindness? Absolutely, right? You can be too kind to others. You can neglect yourself. You can do too little. Almost everything, uh, should be done in moderation-

Chris Williamson 54:58 Yeah

Sonja Lyubomirsky 54:58 ... including moderation of course.

Chris Williamson 55:00 Mm-hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 55:01 So that's, uh, that's how I think about things is sort of in the optimal dosage. But sometimes you're talking about things that sometimes are on the same continuum.

Chris Williamson 55:08 Mm-hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 55:08 Right? It has to be on the same continuum-

Chris Williamson 55:09 Mm

Sonja Lyubomirsky 55:09 ... the same spectrum to, to figure out what the optimum dosage is.

Chris Williamson 55:13 Well, ideally, people, people are gonna take some of the advice from the opposite side of the spectrum, and unfortunately, people don't usually wanna hear that. So yeah, it's, it's an interesting

Chris Williamson 55:24 one. Okay. So-

Sonja Lyubomirsky 55:25 Yeah

Chris Williamson 55:25 ... tactically, what are the most powerful habits for implementing this?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 55:30 The more I think about feeling loved and, and these mindsets, the more I think they apply to almost everything. You know, like when you study something, you see it everywhere.

Chris Williamson 55:39 Mm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 55:39 Um, but seriously, like, it applies to, um, uh, reducing polarization in our society, right? When you're curious and really listening to people who are on the other side of the political spectrum, it... Actually, l- see, research has shown it's reduced... it reduces prejudice. It reduces differences. And so I think out of all... everything I've talked about, I think curiosity and listening are probably the two habits that can really change your life. Like, if we all became better listeners, more curious... Research shows that if you're a leader or a manager or a supervisor, and if you're curious and really listening to your employees or your followers, they're gonna be more productive, they're gonna be more engaged, they're gonna be less likely to quit.

Chris Williamson 56:17 Mm-hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 56:18 Pretty amazing, right? Uh, it's not that hard to implement. Um, and then sharing, sharing too, there's a study that came out, uh, maybe a year ago that had people who are literally, like, wearing different hats on the political spec- spectrum, no pun intended, um, sharing. And so I might share about, like, I'm struggling with my son, and the guy in the other hat is sharing, "Oh, you know, I'm also struggling with my son."

Chris Williamson 56:41 Mm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 56:41 That reduced prejudice and reduced polarization, just sharing more of your humanity with someone who's really different from you.

Chris Williamson 56:47 Mm-hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 56:48 Um, so but yeah, but I will, I will... I would stick with those three and... but especially curiosity and listening.

Chris Williamson 56:54 Okay. What's something, if you were to say this technique or this habit, this one thing that you could do tomorrow-

Sonja Lyubomirsky 57:03 Yeah

Chris Williamson 57:03 ... that would improve your ability to feel love, what would it be?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 57:07 Well, first of all, have a conversation with the person that you want to feel loved by. Um, and actually, this is my number one kind of happiness tip. If you wanna be happier tomorrow, have a, a f- a 15-minute conversation with someone, uh, at least 15 minutes. And then when you're having the conversation, share, listen, show curiosity, listen with acceptance and warmth. When you think about relationships, they're really a series of conversations. Even when you're not talking, right, you're communicating. That's how I think about relationships. They're a series of conversations, and so when you think about, "I wanna feel more loved," it seems very overwhelming. Like, "What do I do? I need to make myself more lovable. I need to change your mind and, and get you to love me more." But really, all you have to do is change the next conversation or change the next series of conversations.

Chris Williamson 57:52 Mm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 57:52 So that would be my number one tip is show up differently in your next conversation with that person by sharing more, listening more, showing curiosity with warmth and acceptance.

Chris Williamson 58:03 So you're saying that-

Sonja Lyubomirsky 58:03 Yeah

Chris Williamson 58:03 ... life is just one big podcast. That's your main... That's the main takeaway.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 58:06 Yes, absolutely. But also, I'm kind of biased 'cause I'm a talker. So my, my oldest daughter once said to me, "Mom, you talk so much I can't think." So I do like to talk, but, but... And also in our culture, we're, we're... Actually, there's some research on this. You know, individualist cultures are more talking cultures. Uh, collectivist cultures like Asian cultures are more listening cultures.

Chris Williamson 58:26 Mm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 58:27 Um, but you know, it, it... We can adapt these mindsets. You know, you don't have to talk a mile a minute. You know, it's just, it's just communication that matters.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 58:34 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 58:35 Across all of the studies that you've been a part of, what's your favorite one? Like, what's the, what's the most fun or interesting or novel study that you've done?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 58:44 I think my favorite one is that we asked people to act more extroverted for a week. So we said to both introverts and extroverts, we said, "For the next week, act more extroverted." We didn't actually use the word extroverted because it has connotations in our culture.

Chris Williamson 58:57 Mm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 58:57 I think we said, you know, sociable, energetic, uh, talkative. And then for the week after, we asked people to act more introverted, again, using different words like deliberate and quiet, um, and vice versa.

Chris Williamson 59:11 Mm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 59:12 And we were shocked at what we found. So we found the biggest effects we'd ever found in any of our interventions. People in the week that people acted more extroverted, they were so much happier, and sort of everything i- improved.

Chris Williamson 59:23 Wow.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 59:24 In, during the introversion week, surprisingly, sometimes people actually got less happy or kind of no change. And the second surprise was that this effect was the same for introverts and extroverts.

Chris Williamson 59:35 So even people who were already extroverted, increasing their extroversion improved their happiness?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 59:40 But well, it's interesting that you, you thought that was the surprising part. No, no, no, this... The introversion is the surprising part, I think, to me.

Chris Williamson 59:46 Mm-hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 59:47 That the introverts... You know, Susan Cain wrote this great book, right, called Quiet. Love the book, and I'm a big fan of introversion. I think there's a lot of benefits to being introverted, but she c- she writes that, you know, y- introverts get exhausted by trying to act social.

Chris Williamson 1:00:00 Mm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:00:01 I don't nece- I actually don't quite believe it. Like, the evidence is now showing that it's actually the extroverts that get exhausted by social behavior. It makes sense because they're social much more of the time.

Chris Williamson 1:00:09 Okay.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:00:09 Um, yeah, so, so the introverts also got happier acting extroverted.

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Chris Williamson 1:01:17 at checkout. What do you make of the Where you get your energy from on your own versus with other people is the best definition of introversion versus extroversion. Does this still hold true or has this been replication crisis?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:01:28 Well, that's the thing. So I love the definition, again, that Susan Cain made popular.

Chris Williamson 1:01:32 It's a sexy definition, but it, if it's inaccurate, then we need a new one.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:01:35 I believe that the evidence is not really holding up. And actually Nick Epley who wrote a book called A Little More Social, great book, um, talks about this. I think that the evidence is not quite there. Um, so I don't know, maybe again, absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. Um, but the studies, I think there's only with o- with one exception, studies are showing that introverts that are asked to act more social do not feel depleted or exhausted. Um, but again, maybe we need more research.

Chris Williamson 1:02:02 That's interesting. It wouldn't surprise me. I think a lot of the time what introverts are doing is finding a home base or fi- finding a situation that feels comfortable and familiar to them. But you can get de-trained out of your social muscle an awful lot. Like if you don't lose it, use it, you lose it. And if you don't get into the rhythm of seeing fri- for instance, we have every Friday, and this is one of the best, this is one of the be- two best things that, three best things actually, that, uh, from a habit perspective that I've done. First one is sleeping with my phone outside of my bedroom. Second one is when I think about a friend that I haven't spoken to in a while, I just text them immediately and I'm like, "Hey man, just thinking of you. Hope everything's good," or whatever. Uh, but the third one, we've got a standing dinner reservation at 6:00 PM every Friday, and it's just an open invite for between six and eight people. And no matter how good or bad your week's been, you always turn up and if you're in town, you're there. Sometimes people bring new friends, sometimes people it's just you and it's been me and one other guy. And, um, the fact, the fact that you've got that, it means re- some people have got more introverted days and more extroverted days. On my most introverted day, I'm still at dinner and I leave and I'm like, "That was fine. That was worth it."

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:03:19 I love it. I love it. I love it. Um, very important point that you just raised, right? So, so when in our, in these studies, when we asked in, when we ask introverts to be extroverted, we don't ask them to go to a party and be the life of the party. They can choose how to be extroverted, right?

Chris Williamson 1:03:35 Mm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:03:35 So an introvert is gonna do different things. So they might call up a friend, they might chat a little bit more during lunch. You know, I was super shy when I was young and when I was, when I was in college-

Chris Williamson 1:03:44 I can't imagine that

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:03:46 ... [laughs] I... And I really was. I, my parents told me that before age 10 I did not speak to other adults other than teachers and, and family members. And then I really kind of pushed through it. But okay, here's one, one re- one way I did it in college, you know, we had sections and I forced myself to say one thing in each section and it was terrifying. Like I, it was really, really hard. But then the more you do it, you know. So anyway, that's the kind of thing that introvert might say. Like, at lunch I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to say one more thing.

Chris Williamson 1:04:14 Mm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:04:14 Uh, but I, I love your three habits. I'm gonna add one more to it that one of my friends introduced me, is when you meet someone or you're talking to someone, they say, "Oh, let's get together." You know, this happens all the time. And what happens is you don't get together. You know, you start, you text and then, you know, you get busy and then you're like, "Oh, how about next week?" And that doesn't work out. He said, "You do not leave that interaction without making a firm plan to get together."

Chris Williamson 1:04:38 Mm-hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:04:38 You know, a specific time and place and date and that, that really works.

Chris Williamson 1:04:43 I heard a really Machiavellian way to work out if someone actually wants to hang out with you. Uh, if you propose a date and they cancel and you say, "Tell me when you want to reschedule for," and they don't reschedule, it was basically reverse engineering whether or not this person is genuinely busy or just doesn't like you. Uh, I don't know whether, I think you'd probably need, you're reading into that a little bit much. People are just busy. But, uh, I thought, I thought that was an interesting one.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:05:05 But I like that, tell me when you wanna reschedule for.

Chris Williamson 1:05:07 Yeah.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:05:07 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:05:08 Yeah. Just tell me when. Like, hey, especially if you recancel- if you cancel dude.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:05:11 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:05:11 Like it's on you. Okay?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:05:12 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:05:12 You fucked it. I was gonna go.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:05:14 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:05:14 Um.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:05:15 You know, there's a New Yorker cartoon and it's like, "How about never? Is never good for you?" [laughs]

Chris Williamson 1:05:19 Yeah. It's... But that's what someone says if they don't come up with a-

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:05:22 Exactly

Chris Williamson 1:05:22 ... a date or a

Chris Williamson 1:05:23 time.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:05:23 Exactly. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:05:23 What's something about happiness that almost everyone believes but is wrong?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:05:27 Hmm. Well, the one that's kind of boring is that people think, well, okay, it's, maybe it's not boring. I, I have a book about this called The Myths of Happiness. Um, I'll be happy when. I'll be happy when I have a baby. I'll be happy when I move to New York. I'll be happy when I get that tech job I wanted to get. I'll be happy when whatever. Um, and the truth is you are happy when those things happen, but then what happens is, it's called hedonic adaptation. We adapt to that new goal.

Chris Williamson 1:05:55 Mm-hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:05:55 And this is by the way, humans probably would never progress if we didn't have adaptation because then we'd, we would just kind of sit on the mountain and do nothing. But we always want more. And, uh, and you bring your same self with you when you, to the new relationship or to the new city or to the new job. And so sort of putting all your eggs in changing your life circumstances to be happier.

Chris Williamson 1:06:16 Mm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:06:16 Now there's a caveat. If you live in a war zone, if you're poor, if you're in an abusive relationship, absolutely changing your circumstances is gonna make you happier.

Chris Williamson 1:06:24 Mm-hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:06:24 But if you're kind of normal, like, you know, m- uh, comfortable circumstances, then changing them is gonna make you happy temporarily.

Chris Williamson 1:06:33 Is there a way to hack hedonic adaptation?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:06:36 Yes. Uh, through variety, novelty, surprise and gratitude.

Chris Williamson 1:06:41 Okay.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:06:41 Right? So we adapt to constant stimuli, right? So when things are the same, like you buy a car, a new car, at first you're like, "I love this new car." And then, you know, the, for the eighth time you sit in the car, you don't notice the car anymore, that it's new. And so novelty, variety sort of maybe, um, yeah, so you have novel, create novel circumstances. So actually a relationship is a better example. We don't wanna adapt to our new spouse. So you do different things with them. I mean, it, it seems obvious, right? You do exciting activities with them. You learn new things with them. You see new friends. I mean, people are endlessly fascinating and dynamic, right? So they're not constant.

Chris Williamson 1:07:14 Mm-hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:07:15 Um, and then surprise. Open yourself up to surprises, right? So if you go to a lot of, I don't know, social events, there's gonna be things that are surprising, right? If you take risks, there'll be things that are surprising. I should say surprise in a positive, not a negative way. And then finally, gratitude is the antidote to hedonic adaptation. 'Cause when you think about it, when you adapt to something, you start taking things for granted. And when you're grateful, it's like you don't take it for granted anymore, right? So like if I'm grateful for my health, I'm not taking my health for granted.

Chris Williamson 1:07:45 Hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:07:45 So truly expressing gratitude, but it's not easy, right? Like, I mean, how often can you sort of express gratitude for your car-

Chris Williamson 1:07:51 Mm-hmm

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:07:51 ... or even for your spouse?

Chris Williamson 1:07:52 Mm-hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:07:53 Um, but I, I'm a big-

Chris Williamson 1:07:54 Especially given that the, uh, stimuli is the same.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:07:57 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:07:58 So you're expressing gratitude for something you've experienced previously.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:08:00 Exactly. You know, uh, something we don't adapt to, uh, is a view. A view, like a beautiful view from your home.

Chris Williamson 1:08:08 That's interesting.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:08:09 Is that interesting? So actually, I have a beautiful view. Uh, I did it and I got it for a reason. Like, I think it's worth paying for the view. No one really knows why. I think one reason is novelty and variety. Well, variety, right? It's always changing-

Chris Williamson 1:08:23 Hmm

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:08:23 ... with the weather-

Chris Williamson 1:08:24 Hmm, hmm

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:08:24 ... with the seasons. Um, I also think there's an evolutionary reason that humans are hardwired to like to look at things, to have a view, right? Because you can see like, I don't know, friends-

Chris Williamson 1:08:36 Safe

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:08:36 ... and enemies, right?

Chris Williamson 1:08:37 Big vistas.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:08:38 And also, by the way, water and mountains, we are hardwired to want to see water and mountains for kind of obvious reasons, that they, they're going to help us survive and thrive, and so that's why views of water and mountains are most... Like Vancouver is supposed to be one of the most beautiful cities. Water and mountains together.

Chris Williamson 1:08:53 Hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:08:55 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:08:55 That's interesting.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:08:56 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:08:56 Okay.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:08:56 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:08:57 Let's say that you met a, a 20-year-old today. What would you tell them to prioritize if they wanted the highest probability of being happy when they were 50?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:09:05 Hmm. Relationships. Relationships. Um, relationships, but, but it's really everything we were talking about today. Like really put effort into maintaining relationships. Learn social skills. I wish we could take classes in college and high school, right? Everyone can learn some social skills, how to have a conversation.

Chris Williamson 1:09:27 Hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:09:27 So have conversations. Um, spend time with people. Don't spend time alone, you know, in the garage on a screen, right? Because it's not going to give you practice with those social skills. So relationships in person ideally, face-to-face, like you said, like those dinners. Uh, make a habit of it. Learn to listen, be curious and share. Um, yeah. Those would be my top, my top habits.

Chris Williamson 1:09:52 Okay. Well, I, uh, speaking of which-

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:09:54 Well... Oh my gosh

Chris Williamson 1:09:56 ... I have something for you.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:09:56 Yeah. Thank you. Can I open it?

Chris Williamson 1:09:58 Yeah, you can.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:09:58 Yeah. It's a card that... It's a card with my name on it. Okay. It's a thank you card. Okay. Thank you. I love Arthur, by the way. That's like-

Chris Williamson 1:10:17 He's the man

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:10:18 ... mentioned Arthur Brooks. Uh, we were in a almost plane crash together. I have a fun story about that.

Chris Williamson 1:10:23 Wow.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:10:23 We were in a plane and it was going to crash, and I was hold... I was sitting next to him. I started holding his hand. [laughs] Um, and he's very confident, so it turns out it's very good to be... If you want to be in a plane crash, to be sitting-

Chris Williamson 1:10:33 Arth- Arthur's about as Christian as you can come, so he was probably hoping it crashed.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:10:36 Well, ha ha. No, no, no. He was just... He is very... It's, it's very useful to be, yeah, sitting next to a very confident, very masculine-

Chris Williamson 1:10:44 Yeah

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:10:44 ... Christian person.

Chris Williamson 1:10:45 Yeah.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:10:46 You know, I'm, I w- I'm literally holding his hand, and he's like, "Sonja, it's going to be okay."

Chris Williamson 1:10:50 Hmm.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:10:51 "Everything's going to be okay." And then later on he's like, "Sonja, I didn't realize..." Because we had lost... An engine actually fell out of the plane. Um-

Chris Williamson 1:10:58 What?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:10:58 It was in India.

Chris Williamson 1:10:59 Where the fuck were you flying?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:11:00 I know. We were in India-

Chris Williamson 1:11:01 All right, okay

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:11:01 ... in the middle of nowhere.

Chris Williamson 1:11:02 Yeah.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:11:02 He's like, "Sonja, I didn't realize how bad the situation was." Um, well, thank you so much.

Chris Williamson 1:11:06 Anyway, you've-

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:11:07 Thanks

Chris Williamson 1:11:07 ... you've got tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people to write gratitude letters-

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:11:11 Yeah

Chris Williamson 1:11:11 ... and I don't know whether anyone's done it to you on a podcast, so I figured that it would be nice to do that.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:11:14 Not on a podcast. I certainly have beautiful letters from my students. I love them.

Chris Williamson 1:11:17 Well, consider me a student.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:11:18 Thank

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:11:19 you.

Chris Williamson 1:11:19 Sonja Lyubomirsky, ladies and gentlemen. Where should people go to check out everything that's going on?

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:11:23 Uh, howtofeelove.com. Just the title of my book, howtofeelove.com. And we also have, by the way, we have a quiz where you can take and it shows... It will tell you, just five minutes, it will tell you which mindset is your strongest mindset and which is your weakest mindset, and I think it could be very useful. [laughs]

Chris Williamson 1:11:39 Heck yeah. Sonja-

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:11:40 Yeah

Chris Williamson 1:11:40 ... I appreciate you.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:11:40 Thank you.

Chris Williamson 1:11:41 All right. See you next time, everyone.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:11:42 Thank you.

Chris Williamson 1:11:43 Bye.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:11:43 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:11:44 So good.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:11:44 Oh my God. Thank you.

Chris Williamson 1:11:45 Nailed it.

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1:11:45 Thank you. Oh my God.

Chris Williamson 1:11:46 [outro music] Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode, another one that I know you'll love is just here.