Why Feeling Loved Is the Biggest Predictor of Happiness | Harry Reis

Transcript auto-generated from the episode audio; formatting has been cleaned up, but wording is verbatim.

I'm Cynthia Marks and I head up the Holistic Psychoanalysis Foundation, established by my late husband, Doctor Bernard Bail. Welcome to And Now Love. Our guest today is doctor Harry Reis. Doctor Reis is a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester. His research has been and continues to be focused on intimacy and understanding in close relationships, as well as the implications for health and emotional well-being brought forth by intimacy and understanding. Along with Sonya Lubomirski, he is the coauthor of How to Feel Loved The Five Mindsets That Get You More of What Matters Most.

And I know that that's love. Most of us would like to feel more love real love. We may feel love toward another, but not really feel it coming back to us. We may be reluctant to even enter into a relationship for fear our true self, and maybe our self perceived unlovable self will be discovered. We might think that in order to feel more loved, we have to remodel who we think we are almost create an avatar of sorts. We may think if I make myself more attractive or desirable, the other person will definitely see how great I am. Really though. Doctor Rhys tells us that it's not about changing yourself or the other person, it's about changing the conversations.

It ends up that forging a real connection does not come from showing off how wonderful we are. Welcome. Thank you so much for being here. Across the country you are. Oh, it's great to be here with you. Thank you, thank you. So I just want to start with this big question. How do you define love? Well, you know, there are many forms of love. You know, one of the things that always amazes me is love may be the most ambiguous word in the English language. You know, we can talk about, you know, loving the Los Angeles Dodgers. We can talk about loving chocolate ice cream, and we can talk about loving our mother and father.

And of course, we can talk about being in love with a romantic partner. So when we talk about love, what we're talking about is a feeling of warmth and compassion and genuine concern for another person. So we're very much talking about what researchers call the compassionate form of love, as distinct from things like, you know, the heat of romantic passion, which also people will also talk about that as a form of love. And that's not necessarily excluded, but we're focusing more on the compassion side of love. So that is different than loving a piece of toast with honey on it.

Yes. It is interesting that we use that word so widely. Yeah, that that's always fascinated me. And I've actually done a little research into the etymology of the word, and I don't see any way in which it makes sense. But I think what we're doing is talking about, you know, a feeling of strong attacks, a strong attraction and a feeling of of strong, positive sentiments. And so we use love as a metaphor, as a way of saying, there's something special about that piece of toast with honey. Okay, that makes sense. That makes sense. So in this book, you're offering up all sorts of fabulous ways for us to have a better attachment to others via love.

How did you and Sonia decide that writing this book was as important as it is? Well, there's actually a wonderful story about that. I've known Sonia for many years. You know, we're in the same profession and we would, you know, see each other at conferences and meetings and such. And, you know, we would chat not with any agenda in mind, but just as friends and colleagues. And then one day we had a conversation. Now Sonia is a happiness researcher. She's one of the leading happiness researchers in the world. And if you ask a happiness researcher, what's the number one thing that leads people to feel happy?

They will tell you it's their relationships here. I've been studying relationships for many years, and if you ask me, what's the number one benefit of people having successful relationships? I would say it's being happy. And so we we had this conversation where we realized that both of our fields were zeroing in on the idea that one of the fundamental groundings of, of happiness is relationships. And here are these two disparate fields, and they're both pursuing that question separately, and they're not coming together at all. There was literally no interfacing between these two different these two fields.

Happiness researchers couldn't tell you what kind of relationship makes happiness emerge. And relationship researchers couldn't tell you what is it about the relationships that makes people happy. And so we we literally looked at each other one evening and said, we need to put these things together. And that's where we got the idea that we would write this book. Well, you do bring those two things together. And at the core of happiness, is it love. Using love in the sense of compassion that we mean it? I would say absolutely. You know, I mean, you know, there are many factors that contribute to happiness.

Relationships are certainly not the only factor that that contributes. But when you, you know, look more closely at what kind of who's happy and who's not happy. The number one distinguishing factor is that happy people have relationships that make them feel loved, make them feel like they belong, make them feel like they have other people that they're special to. And conversely, unhappy people don't feel like they belong, don't feel like they're special to anybody else and they don't feel loved. And so, you know, in technical terms, we would say that that love accounts for the most variance in happiness.

And what we mean by that technically is simply that if you boil happiness down to its constituent elements, feeling loved is going to be the biggest chunk. And this is not just about romantic relationships. It could. Be quite the contrary. Although relationships, certainly romantic relationships are important. But we know now, without much doubt that many other kinds of relationships can fulfill that function as well. You know, there are many people who are single, who don't have romantic relationships, but who feel loved because they have warm, fulfilling friendship networks, family connections.

And those connections can do just as well. They can account for happiness just as well. But there are even other kinds of relationships. For example, feeling loved at work. I mean, people often don't like to use that phrasing, but when we feel valued, when we feel understood, when we feel like we're making a connect, a real contribution, a connection to an organization or to a mission of an organization that contributes to our happiness as well. So there are many kinds of relationships that that help people feel happier. And I dare say that none of them is superior to the others in the most general sense.

So your idea of these five mindsets, which you share with us in your book, is, I think a lot of us might, as you're going through them, as one is going through them, might think that it's about the best way to achieve happiness and feel love and a romantic relationship. And I would love to hear you describe each of these mindsets, but I'd like us all to keep in mind that while it applies to a romantic relationship, certainly it applies to all these other relationships that you've just mentioned. Yes, I totally agree with what you just said, Cynthia.

You know, the idea is that these mindsets can be used in any kind of relationship. And in fact, in the book, we have a whole chapter where we talk about applying the mindsets to relationships with your children, to friendship, to colleagues, even even to, you know, your connection with, you know, people in your neighborhood. They can, they can and should be used generically because they're not unique to romance and passion. So let's hear about them. Well, you know, where shall we start? I like to start talking about the mindsets with the one that's most controllable, meaning the one that if I decided that I wasn't feeling very loved right now, that I could go out tonight and use it.

And that's the mindset we call listening to learn. So the idea of listening to learn mindset is that when we when we talk to other people, when we engage in a conversation, we often are not really listening fully. What we're doing instead is preparing our next response. So, you know, you're talking about something and I'm thinking, G. What am I going to say about that? You know, how can I change the conversation? How can I, you know, bring it back to me? How can I move on to something else as opposed to listening to you? We like to use the metaphor, you know, as if there was a quiz tomorrow.

You know, if I was going to be asked, you know, what is. What did Cynthia say about her last vacation? When we listened to learn. And when we engage the other person in a way that makes them feel like I'm really interested in what you have to say, and I'm going to show you that I'm really paying attention, and then I'm going to dig deeper. I'm going to ask you questions that allow me to find out more about what that experience was like. So you might be talking about Betsy's vacation in Greece, and Betsy might present something pretty surface, and she might say something like, wow, you know, the best part of the vacation was being on that beach.

And I remember, like, the color of the water and, and you could then say, oh, that's, you know, tell me more. What's the what about the color of the water? Well, you can go two ways, of course. One way you can go is to be specific and you say, well, what are the color of the water remind you of? Or, you know, how did it feel to be in water? There was almost bathtub temperature. You know, as a way of showing that you're really digging into the idea. Now, sometimes we can't think of specific things. So then you, of course, can rely on the generic.

Tell me more. I really want to know more about that. Our three fabulous words to use. And if you remember the movie grease, there's a wonderful song about where where they do exactly that. That's right. Oh, that's that'll make it easy to keep in mind. Yes. And, you know, there's more to it than that. Of course. You know, it involves, you know, making eye contact with the person and involves, you know, showing the right emotions. If somebody's telling you something happy, it's smiling at the right moment. If they're telling you something sad. It's showing compassion and empathy for them.

But it's simply the idea of engaging the person and digging deeper. This mindset goes along with the second mindset, which I think is very closely related to this one that we call radical curiosity. The idea of showing the other person that you're really curious about what they're saying, that you have some, that you have some interest in them, that you're enthusiastic about it, that you, that you really want to learn about it because you think it's kind of interesting or you know, that it's like, you know, going to the going to a movie where you just want to know what's the next thing that happens, what's the next scene?

What if that's not the case, though? What if you're not interested really, in hearing about Betsy's vacation? Well, well, there is the the paraphrase of a of a of a joke from Groucho Marx. You know, a comedian of my parents generation. And one of these said, it's really important to be authentic. And if you can fake that, you've got it made. So, you know, one of the things about enthusiasm and curiosity is if you can fake it, it's just as good. But, you know, if if somebody is talking about something that you're not curious, that you find yourself just not very interested in, ask them about something else that you might be interested in.

That everybody has something interesting about them. And and are we using these mindsets with individuals who we already are interested in? I mean, it's not just somebody who's sitting at the coffee shop with you that you've never engaged with before. Are we attempting to create more of a relationship with somebody we already like? Well, I would actually say both. You know, you can certainly use these with people you know, a little bit about, and, you know, you want to get a little closer to them. You can use it with people that you're deeply involved with.

You know, one of one of the things that I get asked about a lot is, you know, what about a long term marriage? So your partner tells you about something that happened today. And you know, when when people date, they were asking each other questions. They're digging to you. They're really getting to know each other. And that's part of what makes, you know, the development of a new relationship. Exciting. Well, you know, flash flash forward 35 years. And people's heads are in a different place. You know, you're thinking about, you know, the work you have to do, what you're going to do this weekend, the work assignment that you haven't finished yet.

Getting the kids to bed. Helping them do their homework, paying the bills, maybe shoveling the snow off the steps if you live where I live. And your partner tells you about some encounter they had and the response is, oh, that's nice. And here's what happened to me today. One of the things that long term couples often do is forget to dig in to those experience. Well, how did you know? How did you feel when the checker in the supermarket actually gave you this warm, funny smile and really digging into those kinds of things. So in a in a way, it may be equally important to do this with people that you're close to.

But to get back to your question, you can also do this with new acquaintances. You know, you know, you are sitting in the coffee shop, you just got your coffee and there's somebody at the table next to you, and they make some kind of an offhand comment. Now you can give them kind of a perfunctory, yeah response, or you can ask them something about what they said and start a real conversation. I wouldn't say that that's going to produce the feeling of being loved in, in the same long term sense as a, you know, a deep, compassionate relationship.

But it will but it will be likely to produce sort of a temporary little good feeling. And those temporary little good feelings turn out to be really important. You have a brief conversation with your barista. You talk to the person sitting next to you on the subway. Those conversations can give you a, well, you know, my day is going well kind of thing, and it can produce this little instantaneous burst of feeling love that is also a valuable feeling. I think sometimes it is enlightening. It's even fun if at the end of the day, you can sit down and say, well, who did I engage with today?

And I think that brings about some happiness, even if it is, you know, 35 seconds with the barista. Yeah. You know, we there's a growing appreciation among researchers for what are called weak ties. You know, the importance of the connections we feel with people that were not close to the person in your office who's three doors down from you, who you say hello to in the hall but don't really know the barista, the person who works at the nail salon. And if you really talk to these people, you can often develop a sense of connection that contributes to well-being just just as much as some of our closer connections do.

And it could be just the thing that the other person is needing at that moment. Well, yes. Absolutely. You know, one of the things that our listeners may be wondering about is how does that how does all this make you feel loved? You know what? By listening to learn and showing curiosity, we're helping the other person feel loved. And so the the natural question is, how does that come back to you? And to to make that point clear, we bring in the the metaphor of a seesaw, the idea that we're lifting the other person up and temporarily that makes the other person feel good.

And it doesn't necessarily make us feel all that much more special. But what it does is it motivates the person to reciprocate. And so all of a sudden, they show interest in curiosity in you, and they give you an opportunity to respond. And that's where the third mindset comes in, which we call sharing. Often the person will respond, but we won't particularly say that much about ourselves. But when that opportunity arises, it's really important to share the genuine self, to share parts of you that are, you know, quote unquote, real things that are meaningful to you, things that may not be particular strengths.

You know, it's important when you're getting to know another person to share things that you're good at, strengths, things you're proud of, accomplishments you're proud of, but also your shortcomings, the ways in which you wish you, you know, had been better in some situation, things that you don't feel particularly confident about because those things make you vulnerable. It's true. But those are the things that define who we are as a person. And when we receive support and encouragement from another person, if it doesn't take those vulnerabilities into account, it's never going to be fully satisfying.

Right. And I think a lot of us are living on that plane. I think it's it's a big leap to be able to share our more vulnerable aspects. And in fact, I'm not even sure that all of us are aware of what they are. And how do we how do we express something or share something that we ourselves are afraid of? And as mentioned earlier, you know, we like to present our best selves, which is probably not our genuine self. Here's what I'd like you to see about me. And if you see this, you're going to love me. You're going to think I'm wonderful. But I think a lot of us have convinced ourselves that we're not more than that.

And it's kind of a protective device. If I look at those things about myself, I'm not going to feel good. It scares me, I'm afraid, and I can't look at it. I can't share it with someone else. So is there some amount of work that we need to tend to before we can get to the place where we can honestly share those vulnerabilities? Yes. And before I answer that, let me put it in a caveat. I'm certainly not saying that when you sit next to the person in the coffee shop, that you immediately should start talking about your traumas and the, the, your shortcomings.

It's it's a graduated process. You know, you should gradually as you're getting to know a person and as your connection is deepening, be sure to share the vulnerabilities as opposed to the strengths. So we're talking about a slow developmental kind of process. Now if you're not aware of these kind of in yourself, of course it's difficult to share them. But most of us have some awareness of the things that are that we feel unsure about, the things that we feel could have gotten better, or things in our past that we've done that we may not be particularly proud of.

We may not have a deep understanding of the, you know, the motivational significance and you know, why they happen and all that. But we have some awareness of them, and all you can share are the things that you're aware of. Many of us believe that we make that information available to other people, that they'll turn away. They will, you know, they'll decide. Oh, I don't like you. You know, you're not my kind of person. And what the research shows is quite the contrary. What the research shows that when you open up in this way to other people, they usually appreciate it more.

You know, they appreciate the fact that you're sharing. They appreciate the fact that you're letting them see you as a whole human being. You're also opening the door for them to be able to share their vulnerabilities with you and people like that. I can't say that that will happen 100% of the time, but I will say that it will happen the the large majority of the time, and that will give people an opportunity to really to, to really feel known. You know, one of the sort of deeper motives involved in all this is our desire to be seen and heard and understood in our true self.

And you can't do that if the good and the bad of, of, of yourself doesn't come through. And I think you're so right on. I know in my own life I, I had an instance in my life that was really hard to get through, really a big deal. I didn't sort of admit to it at the time, but I came to understand it over time and and but yet I was very uncomfortable with it. And I knew if I shared it, I would be shunned or I would lose my friendships. And I began to work up the courage to tell a friend of mine. And it took a long time, and I finally did. And she was not just gracious, she was enveloping.

She, you know, sort of took me in in a different way. And she said, I can't believe I've known you all this time. And I didn't really know you all this time. And not only was there that, but she asked questions about me, about my experience. And it went deeper and deeper. And I then asked her questions and come to find out, she wasn't even able to have she wasn't able to be her authentic self with me either. And till we had this back and forth, this seesaw. And I will presume that you felt more loved at the time. Yeah. And a big sense of security and safety in that I wasn't that thing that I was so ashamed of.

I was who I was, and I had this experience which I wasn't proud of. Yes. And, you know, there's a quote that I really like that that's in our book that said, nobody is the worst thing that they have ever done. We have all done things that we regret. And one of the things involved in accepting yourself as well as other people, but also and accepting yourself, is acknowledging and accepting the fact that you did this thing. It's certainly helpful to understand why you did it. But the most important thing for for in this context is not trying to say that's not the real me.

That's not, you know, it's not trying to distance it, but just accept that you did this thing and that's that's part of your history. Yes. And it doesn't define you. And it doesn't define you. Now, some people have done worse things than others, and sometimes those particularly bad things can make it especially challenging to come to an acceptance of it. But part of the healing process is accepting that one did something that one wishes one had not. Yes. And how do you manage that? Recover from that, move on and live a life? Well, you you that's a great question.

And you don't move on by trying to block it out out of your mind. You know, you don't move on by repressing it, by trying to forget it. You know, the the forgive. The phrase forgiven forget I think is just wrong. I don't think forgiveness involves forgetting. I think forgiveness involves accepting and accepting the fact that, in a non-judgmental way, that one did this and becoming a better person so that one would not do the same. And that is a self-acceptance and an acceptance from others. It applies to either situation. Yes, self-acceptance and also acceptance of another person.

You know, one of the ways this comes up, if we're talking about romantic relationships, is when one partner has an affair. There's a story in the book about about a good friend of ours who showed up at our back door one day, hysterically crying because she had just found out that her husband had an affair. And not. And not just a sexual affair, but, you know, an emotional affair as well. She was she was devastated 35 years later or so. That's one of the happiest marriages I know. It's a really good marriage right now. Turns out that affairs aren't necessarily relationship crushing events.

When we were writing the book, I tried to find some good statistics on how many marriages last after the revelation of an affair. Interestingly enough, I could not find any good statistics on this. It's quite, quite compelling to me that we don't have good numbers, but I will conjecture that it's well, more than half that stay together and are satisfying. The question is, how do you get to that point? And one of the things I would say is you can't get to that point if you don't forgive. And forgiving means understanding. It means atoning. Certainly the person who had the affair certainly has to take responsibility and apologize.

But then, you know, working on the underlying motives, the underlying conditions, and then accepting the fact that one is going to move forward from that. You know, accepting the hurt and in a as non-judgmental away as possible and then moving forward from it. And I think a lot of couples have have found that have found that out. That's surprising. You would think that maybe it would be, I don't know, 1 in 10. I mean, it's it's such, you know, a crush. It's such an intimate relationship you've established with this person you're living with, sleeping with.

And and it feels like such a betrayal. It seems so hard to come back from. Well, I'm certainly don't mean to say that it's not hard to come back from. It's definitely a challenge to come back from, you know, moving forward from these kinds of things is one of the things that is essential to having a true, trusting relationship. So in this seesaw effect, I'm hoping that the seesaw effect occurs. But are there times where a person is kind of presenting some of their vulnerabilities, telling their true story to another, and it's not reciprocal? Is is that also a valuable experience?

Can one kind of take away from that, that okay, I'm not going to likely be able to have the relationship I was hoping to have with this person. I don't mean after one attempt, I mean after sort of giving it a really good effort. Is that a lesson? Well, that's a really important question, Cynthia. One of the things I would say is not every relationship is going to work in the way we've described. And in those circumstances, one of the things you have to the person has to do is make a decision. Is this agreeable to me? Can I live like this? For whatever reason, this person doesn't seem to want to play on the seesaw with you.

If the relationship is important for other reasons, you may need to simply accept the fact that you're not going to get that beautiful feeling of being loved from that kind of connection. And there still might be other things that you get from the relationship that would make it perfectly worth continuing. Alternatively, you may decide, well, it's not worth it to me. I'm going to move on. You know, certainly the process of dating, you know, the acquaintance process is like this. I like to think about the story of a good friend of mine who was found himself single again in his 50s, and he talked about going on 325 dates, first dates in a year.

Seriously, you know, all from online dating, of course, those 325 first dates led to seven second dates. And his point was that that he thought that was an incredibly good success rate because he had gotten seven possible relationships that he wouldn't have gotten otherwise. There's a lot of experimentation that goes on in, in romantic life, in, and you can even think back, you know, to high school. There's a lot of experimentation that goes on when we sort of play with the idea, is this somebody I want to be friends with or not? And sometimes it clicks and sometimes it doesn't, and it's perfectly okay that it doesn't always click, because we're not meant to be friends with everybody who's out there.

You know, it depends on the mesh of personalities. It depends on context. That depends on where you're at at a particular point in time, you know? So when you are having these conversations, sometimes you'll find that it just doesn't work with that person. And then you can decide, well, are there other reasons to want to still be connected with this person? So so maybe this is a cousin that you see at Thanksgiving every year. And okay, you just don't have that kind of intimate connection with them. That's fine. They're still family. There's still stories to share.

And, you know, you can still be friendly and congenial with them. You're just not going to get the kind of depth that you'd really like with that person. But it doesn't need dismissal as an order. Right. But if it's, you know, if it's if you're looking for that kind of connection and, you know, trying to decide, is this someone I can really be bosom buddies with, or is this somebody that I want to get serious in a romantic way with them, or is this somebody at work who I'd like to have more than just a working collaboration with? And you can, you know, you can test, you can test the waters and see how it develops.

I think it's a good tool either way. Yes. Yes. Right. It's. And as long as you don't feel resentful when the other person doesn't reciprocate, you know, there's a certain sense of the sometimes when the other person doesn't reciprocate, we may feel resentment, we may be angry at them. And I think that's not really a particularly constructive response because, you know, you don't know where the other person is at at that point in time. Yeah. And it's hard to go to that place. It's, you know, here you are. You've given up some part of yourself, you've shown some vulnerability.

And and now that person has it, you know, from you and you're not getting anything back. I could see how you might go that route of resentment. Yeah. And and that's one reason why I like to think of this as something that you do in a graduated way. You know, you don't just open up with your deepest, darkest secret. You know, you test the waters, so to speak, by sharing, you know, little things that might not be all that problematic, but are just sort of, you know, hints at something. Hey, I don't that report I wrote last week, I feel like it wasn't my best work, you know, and see how the person responds.

Yeah, that's that's and even the simplest things, I mean, you might finally want to say to someone, you know, listen, I, I really like to have a stick of butter with my popcorn. And I do that every night, and then I pour a lot of salt on it. And, you know, that's not healthy, but it's a little thing that you could share. Right? Right. Yeah. I mean, there's all kinds of little things that, that, that one can share, you know, and you know and, and see, see what the response is. And by the way, I don't do that every night. No, I, I. Otherwise your cholesterol levels would be through the roof I would think.

Right. So I don't think we've gotten through all your mindsets. Well we've actually touched on the other two indirectly, but we might as well make it explicit. Right. So mindset number four is one that we call multiplicity. And that is the idea that we none of us is the worst thing that we've ever done. We all have multiple size. We have we've we've done things we're proud of. We've done things that we're not so proud of. We have positive features. We have negative features, we have skills and we have shortcomings. It it's important both both for our view of ourselves, but also for how we connect with other people to be non-judgmental about, about the things that aren't so positive, so that the other person can feel accepted for who they are fully.

You know, one of the one of the things I like to think about is the imposter phenomenon. You know, the imposter phenomenon is the feeling that we have that if they found out what I was really like, they would hate me, reject me, fire me, not want to be my friend. You know, people, sometimes people feel this at work, you know, if they if they found out that I really don't know how to do that thing, they would, you know, they would take away my job if my wife found out what a mean person I really am. Feel inside. She would reject me if my kids knew about the things I had done when I when I was an adolescent, they would not respect me.

The problem with that is that it makes it impossible to feel truly known, to feel truly seen, to feel truly appreciated. And so we sooner or later have to make ourselves known in those full ways, so that when you get praise or when you get love or you get respect, it feels genuine. It feels like it's the real you. Imagine yourself as a person who, let's say, doesn't feel that they have the skill to to do some task at work and as a result, you get somebody else to do it. And then that report gets praise. Well, it feels it feels false. It feels hollow.

We want to be we want to get the good feedback for who we believe ourselves to be. We want to be loved and appreciated, not in spite of our shortcomings, but because of our shortcomings. One of the stories we tell in the book that I. That I really resonated with me, was a man who lived his life with a family, seemed happy in Australia when he died, he left a letter for his wife that explained how, when he was 17 years old, he had murdered his parents and and buried them in the backyard. Now he never got caught for that and, you know, managed to live, you know, the outward appearance of a good life in Australia.

But we, you know, we can ask ourselves, why did he feel compelled to write that letter? And it's pretty parent to me that he wrote the letter because he felt that he had this secret that had not that had made it impossible to feel like his new family really knew the full person that he was. And in that letter, he asked for their forgiveness. You know, we want to be forgiven for that. And what he really wanted to know was that they loved him, even though he had done this terrible thing at an earlier point in his life, you know, and it's very sad when we carry around a secret, you know, all of us have secrets.

There's some interesting research that shows there's nobody who doesn't have a secret that of something that they're shamed of, wish they hadn't done, you know, whatever. And and one of the things is that we we want to be forgiven for those things. And again, we want to be loved in even though we have done those kind of things. But our expectation is that there is, I mean, stereotypically is that there is no forgiveness, that that whatever we've done does not deserve forgiveness. How did we get to this place of of that being the go to, you know, that what happened to people to become that, to be so sure you're going to be unaccepted?

Well, that's an interesting question. And to be honest, I don't know where that belief comes from. It's certainly a very common belief. We present this curated image of ourselves. You know, that we believe we have to be successful, attractive, strong, perfect human beings in order to, you know, to in order to be loved by other people. And the irony is that it's exactly that's exactly the opposite. People may be attracted to us at first blush because of our positive qualities. So again, I'm not suggesting that you advertise your weaknesses. You know that when you put your dating profile on Bumble, that you talk about all the terrible things you've done.

I'm not suggesting that at all. But if you only present this positive, curated view of yourself, you may be admired, you may be respected, you may be adored in some sense, but you're not going to be really loved. There's a quote from Rita Hayworth. You know, the actress from the 60s and 70s, I believe, you know, she she was quite the vixen, you know, very attractive woman. She'd been married five times and was quite an unhappy. And when she, she had played this character named Gilda, who was this gorgeous bombshell of a woman. And when asked why her marriages had failed, she said men went to bed with Gilda and woke up with me.

And I think that kind of summarizes it, you know? We want to be, you know, seen not for the person with, with the makeup, but for the person who is the real inside, the real person inside. Yeah. Well, and that really speaks to sort of our work here at and now love and that according to Doctor Bale's theory, we start that process of creating this curated self so early on actually in utero. And we're we're being taken care of, supported by our mother. We're absorbing her feelings whatever, wherever she feels inadequate, you know, not just to physically but also emotionally.

And we come to earth now as babies already with this imprint. You are to take care of me. You are to be silent. You are not to cry. And then that gets compounded and not to even begin the conversation about, you know, where we are generationally. What did our ancestors feel about the plight of this or that, and how did they adjust their lives accordingly? And what kind of package are we then delivered as individuals? And and how do we have time to be who we really are? How do we have time to sort ourselves away from our trauma or the uncomfortable experiences?

We just want to walk gently, have some a semblance of safety. We don't want to upset the system. And when we think about doing so, sometimes it's too big a challenge. If if I figure out what is me relative to the trauma I carry, I'm used to that. I'm used to this life where I'm hiding all of these things, or I don't even know what they are, what fills those spaces when I figure out a way to let go of them, when I figure out a way to be authentic, what does that mean? It's it's an unknown. It's it's a leap to go there. Oh, I couldn't agree more.

You know, one of the ways in which our early experiences are so important is the message that our parents give us, you know, about, you know, what's called contingent love. The idea that I will only love you if you are a good child, if you are a perfect child, if children get the message that the only way they can get love is to be perfect, that's a horrible message for a child to learn because they go through. Then they go through the rest of their life believing that they need to be perfect in order to in order to be loved. Yeah. And they're really giving away who they are in pursuit of that.

Right. And, you know, and and of course, every child does bad things. You know, every child misbehaves, fails or does something awful at some point in their life. And the question is, what are the messages that they get? You know, I the I'm very much taken with, with the, with the school of parenting that says that it's important to criticize the behavior and not the person. So yes, you did something bad, but that doesn't mean you're a bad person. When I was, I don't remember exactly, but let's say I was 6 or 7 years old. I sold a candy bar in a store from a store.

My parents made me take it back, but at no point did they say, you're a thief. You know, at no point did they make then yes, I felt bad. They made me feel bad about it, to be sure. But they didn't send give me the message that I was a bad person in any way. And you didn't feel like love had been taken from you. In the moment. I probably did feel that way, but not in any, you know, any lasting sense. And I contrast that with a cousin of mine who's parents repeatedly gave him the message that he was a bad person. And I will tell you that he became a drug addict, and his addictions eventually led to his death.

So, you know, so, you know, I mean, I saw that happening. And it's such an important message that we get early in life that, you know, you are deserving of love and, and security, no matter what you do. No matter what you do. And I think to the message that you spoke of a few minutes ago about being able to share our vulnerabilities and talk about some of the mistakes we think we've made in life, is so important for our children to hear. I think we often just go to the place where I have to present to my children that I'm a really perfect, good person, so they'll do exactly what I'm doing now and not following my footsteps.

When I tell them the story about the candy bar I stole. But I think showing those vulnerabilities to our kids makes us real. Makes gives them a space to be real. Applying your methodology? Yeah, absolutely. I think it's important to let our kids know about things we've done that may not have been so good. You have to apply a lens of developmental appropriateness to it. So I would not, you know, tell a four year old child about sexual escapades, for example, you know. Right, there is an appropriateness to it. But I think a lot of this, a lot of us want to just keep the palette absolutely pristine.

Exactly that we are perfect, that we believe that we are perfect. And you need to be the same way that I never got a grade other than a in school. That message is a horrible message for a kid. Yeah. And I mean, I learned that if I got A's, that was the best way for me to feel loved, even though it wasn't, you know, really genuinely love. If that was all it took for sort of that perceived kindness to come through. And that's not love. Right, exactly. We've not talked about number five, which kind of sort of over, over sort of encompasses all of these.

And that's the mindset we call the open heart mindset, which is simply the idea of adopting a compassionate mindset or approach to other people. The idea of always approaching any situation with another person with the most compassionate, generous crouch you can think of. You know, when somebody when somebody does something bad, what's the most benign interpretation you can make of it? You know, you find out somebody cheated on an exam. Well, maybe they were really stressed and under so much pressure that they just couldn't, you know, couldn't face it, having compassion for other people and not just for your friends, but even people who you don't like, even your enemies, is something that comes through and can create warm connections if you have a critical mindset, if you always think of you know what can go wrong?

What's the worst interpretation of what someone else does that sabotages relationships? That undermines connections. Many people practice something called a loving kindness meditation. Loving kindness meditation means meditating on well-being for other people. But one of the things you can do is do that for your enemies. So to meditate on good things happen and hoping for the benefit of people who you don't like, maybe people who've wronged you. It's a very generous thing to do, and it promotes the idea of feeling loved as well. It may not get your enemies to like you, but it will lessen the burden.

You know, one one of the old aphorisms that I really like is the idea that when you carry anger towards another person who hurts from that you or them, and the answer is you pay more, you hurt more than they do because, well, they may not like that you don't like, but you know, they also may not care, but you're carrying around the burden is like a, you know, a big sack on your on your back. And if you let go of the anger, it's you who are going to benefit from it. So I love this idea of this meditation. What are some other good ways? What are some other tools?

Because I think that that is so important to be able to come from a place of compassion and empathy. Well, one of the ways is when when something bad happens, to think about the most positive interpretation for why that may have happened, you know, to to come up with an attribution that is as generous as possible. So they did this thing. What what's a reason for why I may have it may have happened that is relatively benign, benevolent, kind, and that allows you to approach the other person in a very positive sort of way. There's a little exercise that couples can do that we that we lay out in the book.

And I just love this exercise. It's deceptively difficult, but it's also deceptively effective. And that is think of something in your in your marriage that really annoys you. Preferably something minor but still annoying. And then make the decision for the next month. You're not going to let it bother you no matter what it is. You're not going to let it bother you. That sounds hard. It it is hard. But it, letting go of petty grievances is one of the ways you can make everyday life in, in a, in a marriage or roommates that or even an ongoing work situation, letting go of those kind of grievances.

Such. I remember once somebody told me that they had gone to see an advisor of some sort before they got married, and the advisor had said, make a list of ten things that you're not going to let bother you in the marriage, and they make a list of things. Then someone asks this person, well, what do you what do you do when somebody does something bad that's not your partner does something annoying that's not on the list. And she said, oh, I just revise my list. So, you know, I think letting go of of those kind of little petty grievances can, can play a big part in making just everyday life go more smoothly.

And they do kind of build on each other two, don't they. If you if you find a particular thing super annoying and you are annoyed, I feel like it makes it more likely that you'll be annoyed by something else. Yes, yes. Because because if you're feeling annoyed but you don't want to bring up that you're annoyed because your partner left their socks in the middle of the living room, but you're feeling annoyed. The next thing they do that isn't necessarily all that bad may sort of trigger an annoyed response. And, you know, and there you go. You got a whole list going.

There, and you're then you're at each other's throats. So if you were to practice this, say, for a month and find one simple but annoying thing that your partner does or your workmate, whatever the situation do, if you're taking this little quiz, let's say do you or this experiment, do you say to them? Do you involve them in the process? In terms of what that annoying thing is? I think the best way to do it is to not involve them in the process. But then at the end of the process, I think it might be good to talk about it and then decide if you've really let go of it and it doesn't matter anymore.

Or alternatively, see if you can get your partner to agree not to do those things. And that, of course, will depend on the kind of if it's something like leaving your socks or in the living room, that's probably relatively easy to fix. If it's if it's something like snoring, that might be more complicated. So it's going to depend. But I think the what's good about this technique is then you're in a position to negotiate about it that doesn't have the anger and annoyance factor. Right? I think you've been paying attention to it. You've been thinking about the feeling that you have when the socks are in the middle of the room.

And letting go of the feeling. Right? So, you know, in a lot of times when conflict occurs in these relationships, it's not the thing itself per se. It's the conflict building up on top of it. That is is the problem. And whatever the thing is might actually be relatively easy to resolve. But then you've gotten so into the battle, you know, well, I'm not going to I'm not going to give in. And it's, it's that buildup of, of of tension and stress and anxiety that is the problem more than it is the thing itself. And you're right, it's an opportunity to build a monster out of it.

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So I'm just curious about loneliness. We have a big loneliness epidemic. Right. Well, some of this help. I would think that there may be a group of people who are lonely, but. But can't see their way out of it. Or don't even think they want to live differently. Is loneliness and okay place for some people to be? It's important to make a distinction between loneliness and solitude. There are some people who are perfectly okay with solitude. Solitude is certainly okay some of the time. One of my students is who's not not my student anymore, but she's doing a lot of research, talking about how solitude can be an opportunity to build strengths and to become more comfortable with oneself and to explore oneself and all that.

So there's nothing wrong with solitude, both temporary and even over the long term. So solitude could be a situation where you are. That's consistent, where you don't have relationships with people really at all, and you could still feel comfortable. Or is solitude more intermittent? Well, that's why it's so important to make a distinction between solitude and loneliness. Loneliness is the feeling of being dissatisfied with one solitude. When one feels lonely, one feels that one social life is not meeting the needs that one has and wants. That's an unpleasant feeling.

I would say it can be constructive in the sense that evolutionary theorists think about why does loneliness existed in the first place? And one of the reasons loneliness exists is that it motivates us to seek out connections. When you feel lonely all not always, but sometimes you say, I'm going to call my friend. I'm going to go over to the social hall. I'm going to go make a dinner date with somebody. When loneliness motivates connection, it's a constructive emotion. It's not pleasant when one experiences it, but it motivates connection. And one of the things that I like to talk to students about is the idea that as a momentary feeling, there's nothing wrong with loneliness and it's not something to be avoided.

What's a problem? And the reason we talk about the loneliness epidemic is the idea that long term or chronic loneliness can have all kinds of debilitating effects. We know that long term loneliness makes people ill. We know that long term loneliness predisposes people to die prematurely. We know that long term loneliness is painful. It's connected to most every form of mental health or mental illness, I should say. And and when people feel lonely for a long time, they begin to see themselves as incurable. They begin to say, the reason I'm lonely is that I'm no good with people.

The reason I'm lonely is that other people just don't like me. The person that I am. The reason I'm lonely is I can't find ways of connecting with other people, and I never will. When people think that way, they start to undermine themselves. So when they feel lonely, they don't seek out other people. They don't do things to build connections. And that's where the the serious mental health consequences come out. When you're working with someone like that, one of the things you have to do is is try to counteract those feelings. One of the things about one of the things that I think is interesting about lonely people is that when they do find themselves with other people, they become very self-conscious, you know, how am I coming across?

Are they liking me? Are they are they wanting to be in my presence? And of course, that's the opposite of the mindsets that we're talking about. Because instead of listening to learn what this other person is about, you're thinking about it yourself and not really trying to connect with the other person. So you begin to have this vicious cycle of loneliness that can be very difficult to break out of. And you certainly can easily get to a place, I would assume, where there's no chance of you sharing the more vulnerable side of, you. Know, and in fact, one of the things that lonely people do is that they often share inappropriately.

So, for example, we have some research where lonely people just in, you know, literally in the first or second date with somebody will just start opening up about how low, how terribly lonely they feel and how anxious they are and how difficult they find life. And usually that turns people off. So is that out of desperation in looking for that loneliness to go away or. It's it's not. I'm going to tell you this because I'm too afraid to have a relationship with you. Well, I think that I suppose if we think about it, psychodynamic, that might actually be there, you know, underlying everything.

But I think the more immediate feeling is probably, you know, I desperately don't want to be lonely. Maybe you're the cure. Maybe you're the solution. I would think that coming from a very lonely position, if you are finally sitting across the table from someone who's having a conversation with you, which is almost alien, you would take the opportunity to say, you are my savior. That's right. And and nobody wants to be somebody else's savior, at least, at least at first. Right? Yeah. That because of that self-perpetuating cycle breaking through with people who are chronically lonely can be really, really difficult.

And what would you point to as the creator of this epidemic? Yeah, what an interesting question that is. My colleague Jonathan Haidt has a book where he blames all of this on social media. I think that's a little bit facile, but I think there's truth to what he says. The idea that and there's good data to back this up, that people are so that that adolescence, the loneliest generation, the loneliest generation are adolescents. You know, there's this myth that elderly people are the the people most at risk of loneliness. And certainly some elderly people are lonely.

But if you look, generationally speaking, elderly people are the least lonely generation of people alive today. Adolescents are the most lonely generation that we have today. It relates. It follows a very neat linear pattern with age. One of the things that social media has done is that it keeps people from having face to face connections with other people. Instead of having a conversation with someone at lunch, I'm going to sit there and text away. There are ways in which texting can help people maintain close connections, but certainly not in the way that adolescents will use it.

And when it's a substitute for face to face interaction, it's empty. It doesn't allow people to build connection. You know, there's a fascinating experiment going on in a number of school districts now where the students have to put their phones in lockers at the beginning of the day, and they don't get them back till the end of the day. And the interesting thing is to look at what goes on in the lunchroom and what is going on in the lunchroom is that all of a sudden they're chattering away and, you know, they're talking to each other. They're teasing each other.

They're playing with each other, and they're interacting in the way that you and I did when we, you know, we were that age and we didn't have phones to do that. You know, there's something to be said for the idea of limiting access to phones at that critical developmental stage so that people can really, you know, it's not just the fact of interaction. So also the skills that are developing, you know, you're you're learning how to relate to peers. Adolescents can be vicious, but they can also be incredibly rewarding. And many of us will tell you that the best friends we have are the people that we went to school with, you know, and it's developing those skills and developing those connections.

You know, I think if a person is chronically lonely, this two things they need to do. One is that they need to be in a therapy relationship situation to figure out what's going, you know, what their experience is. And the other thing is that they need to, you know, go out and socialize and, you know, you can't go out and say, I want to be your friend, but you can join the church choir and you can join a bowling league, and you can volunteer at a local animal shelter. You can you can do a lot of things that will bring you into social connections with other people.

There's always pickleball. And there's always pickleball, except it's bad for your Achilles, okay? And it makes a lot of noise. Yeah, exactly. I also think to for these youngsters, you know, there's these experiences you have that you don't understand where where maybe you're bullied or something happens in your made fun of and you assume you don't like those people, they don't like you. And you've got a great friendship going over here, going on over here with someone else. But it may end up that through the course of interaction, this person that you said you're uncomfortable with becomes your friend.

And part of the discomfort of the experiences of adolescence is learning how to be social, how to find the people that you care about. Absolutely. I, I think the major, one of the major tasks of adolescence is to learn how to live in a world with other people. I happen to be someone who is totally against homeschooling. I think homeschooling is the worst thing that parents can do for their children. And yes, I recognize that there's a lot of terrible things that go on in schools. But what you learn in school is how to live in the world of peers, how to live and love and work in the world of peers.

And to me, there's nothing more important than that. I mean, the plan is you're going to grow up and live and love and work in the world of peers. That's right. And and if if the only person you have interaction with is your sibling and your mother and father, who are, you know, you may you may well learn the three Rs. You may well, you know, be smart, but if you don't have the kind of social experience that goes along with school. Now, to be fair, a lot of people who are homeschooled, their parents do create other social opportunities, you know, like like Cub Scouts and, and team teamwork and all that kind of thing.

And in that case, I'd say fine. But when you isolate a child from anyone but their immediate family, I think you're taking away one of the most critical developmental experiences because, you know, look at our species. How did our species evolve? We lived in groups. We worked in groups. You know, we didn't have a nuclear family living in a cave by itself and not interacting with other groups. We lived in extended groups with aunts and uncles and cousins and friends, and that's what our species is primed to do. And we need to pick up the pace or sort of get back to that a little bit.

And I should say, we're not the only species like that. Most mammalian species are like that. I'm fascinated by I just read the reports of one of the biggest groups of chimpanzees in Africa. I don't remember which country they're in. Has all of a sudden ruptured. It was a group of chimpanzees that for years, you know, got along well and all that. And all of a sudden there's been warfare there where there's I think they're called the East Group in the West Group, and they're actually killing each other and establishing borders and boundaries and all that.

And the anthropologists are studying them are trying to figure out what caused this. Why did why did this troop that for, for years and years was healthy and well-functioning all of a sudden rupture into these two groups? And it's a fascinating problem. So no explanation yet. The only explanation they had, which I think is not entirely satisfying, is that the group just got to be too large that the group was thriving and and it was and it was getting bigger and bigger, and it may have reached the point where it was too large to be, you know, to be effective.

And as a result, it had to split. And that's certainly is a possible explanation. Fascinating. I'd like to hear more about that. Yeah, it really is fascinating. But but that's also a really good case in point, because what you know, one of the things that the chimpanzees had to, had to figure out is, you know, who's an ally and who's an enemy, and you know, who can I feel safe with and who do I have to guard against? How do I protect my food from the enemy group? And how do we protect our territory? And that's that's what you know, being a primate is all about.

We have to allow our children to learn that, too. Yeah. Yeah, that's a very human experience, too. How do I make sure there's food on the table for my kids? So if you wanted to share something with our audience today, that would be an important takeaway when it comes to love. What would that be? We've touched on so many themes. I would say the. You know, the important takeaway is that feeling loved is not just a nice feeling, it's an essential component of living. I'm reminded of the movie Annie Hall where Woody Allen is is talking to his therapist, and he's talking about a family member who, who, who thinks he's a hen and is just, you know, constantly talking about protecting his eggs and all that.

And, and the therapist says to Woody Allen, what, you know, why don't you tell him that he's not a hand and says, we need the eggs? Yeah. You know, the idea that we need to feel loved, and if we don't feel loved, we're not going to be able to do all of the other things in life that are so important. Agreed. Well said. We definitely feel that around here. Love is a fantastic tool and without love we're not moving forward. I'm sure of it. So we can buy your book everywhere. I it's it it should be in every major bookstore. I know it's in all the Barnes and Noble's.

I know that a lot of local bookstores are carrying it. You can find links. We have a website for the book called How to Feel Love. It has a little quiz on it. If any of our listeners are interested in sort of seeing where they stand, where their strengths and shortcomings might be, they can take the quiz and their links to various different places where you can buy the book. That's great. Thank you. And thank you so much for putting all of this information out there for all of us, and really important to read your book, and we so appreciate your time today and keep on doing what you're doing.

Thank you. Cynthia, it's a pleasure talking to you. Thank you. Please follow, rate and share our podcast and pass this episode along to someone who might need it. That's probably all of us. This is. And now, love, listen to your dreams and live from your heart.