Why Nobody Feels Loved Anymore - Sonja Lyubomirsky - #1115

21:56Sonja Lyubomirsky: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 it was one out of a hundred times and yet they now don't want to reveal anything ever about themselves um and we kind of over generalize from that 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 confidant.

22:32And it was such a painful experience for them, but like, that is the 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 rob henderson my friend told me this idea where he said if you if you get rejected by one goal but you've gone up to a hundred even if you get rejected by a hundred getting rejected by one is just another drop in the bucket but if you've only ever gone up to one goal 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 going to 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.

23:13Sonja Lyubomirsky:Yeah, exactly. But bad is stronger than good. So we remember those bad events. It also suggests that maybe a parenting, something that parents should emphasize is like to model kind of sharing and 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. 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 so it really starts with curiosity um and genuine curiosity is so rare really when you think about it how often that people really really care about what goes on in your inner life and like, you know, ask you a lot of questions.

24:06Sonja Lyubomirsky:Anyway, so that's where really I'm coming from is that someone asks another person a question that you genuinely are interested in getting an answer to, and then you share in response. You don't just kind of, you know, share out of the blue. Okay. So sharing mindset, stepping into an interaction with the understanding I'm going to put more of myself across than I might naturally tend to. and that's going to happen. It's going to unfold over time. I'm not going to trauma dump immediately. And what else just on the sharing mindset? Are there any other sort of pitfalls that people need to be aware of?

24:40Yeah, yeah.

24:40Sonja Lyubomirsky:So like go slow. 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. On average, people like us more. It's interesting. Why do you think that's the case? So we think, yeah, we're so focused on the bad. Like I reveal some kind of, I don't know, like bad habit I have. And other people, 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. But actually something happened to me a few weeks ago where I really I totally bombed giving a talk.

25:17Sonja Lyubomirsky:Like 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 to say. And it was mortifying. And I can't tell you how many people came up to me later and were like, Sonia, like 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 acute human failure. I mean, that was an unvolunteer. Are you familiar with the Pratt fall effect? Do you know this? Yes. 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.

25:53And it's a British study, the word Pratt. I don't know whether the word Pratt has come over to America. Anyway, we like people who show their human side, which is strange, right? Because there's an assumption that we just want everybody to be as perfect as possible.

26:08Sonja Lyubomirsky:There's a great line from a famous screenwriter who said, if you want to write a character that no one connects with, make them perfect. All right. So we actually don't want perfection because it's not human. It's not interesting. It's not complex. 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. Just watch this video. Okay.

26:36Daddy, I'm scared. I'm not brave. I'm scared.

26:46Sonja Lyubomirsky:Hey. I'm scared. Hey, hey. You are brave. I'm not brave. Hey, stop saying it brave. You are brave. You do things that no one else has ever done. You are doing skills that are insane to even adults. You have more courage in your little body than a thousand people have in all of their bodies combined. You are mine, and I am yours. 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. I am not going to let you talk down on yourself. I'm not going to let you give up on yourself.

27:40And I'm not going to let you quit because something might be scary. You can quit if you truly don't love something. But you cannot quit because something might scare you. 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. 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. because at the end of the day, this is something you have told me you want to do.

28:26Now, 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

28:53Sonja Lyubomirsky: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 What do you think, Deb, when you say that? Okay, a couple things. Well, it was beautiful that he could go underneath what her fear was. Not just she's afraid of doing this flip, but she's afraid that if she fails it, maybe her dad won't love her, which is really beautiful. He gets under the fear. And I do have one critique.

29:35Sonja Lyubomirsky:That was beautiful, obviously, what he said. But I do have one critique of this dad. well hey if anyone is open to feedback something tells me that it's anthony the dad and it is that the what what therapist i'm not a therapist what therapist says 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 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 you get a bit of validation in the emotions Yeah, yeah, yeah.

30:08Sonja Lyubomirsky:First validate, yeah. Is that important, do you think, when receiving love and trying to give it as well? It's so interesting. So one thing we talk about, right, 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 the one study showed 25 % of the time when we're listening, our mind is wandering. And I bet it's higher than that. Because we have this inner chatter, we're like distracted, or we're mostly we're rehearsing what we want to say next, right?

30:41Sonja Lyubomirsky:How I want to respond to you. And we also want to sort of fix or give advice, which I do all the time, instead of just simply making the person feel heard, which is what we're just talking about, and just validate it, right? 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. I do think the pendulum has swung a little too far on like validating over fixing. You know that nail in the head video that's so popular? The woman who has this nail in the head.

31:13Sonja Lyubomirsky:Oh, you've got to watch this. Okay. So she has a nail in the head and she's like, oh, I'm in such pain and all my sweaters are shredding. And the guy's like, well, you have this nail in your head. And she's like, and basically the point of the video is she just wants to be hurt. And then once he says, I'm so sorry, it must be so painful for you to have a nail in your head. And she's like, ah, right. And that's the point of the video, whereas he keeps trying to give her advice. You should take the nail out of your head and then you won't feel so much in pain and you won't shred your sweaters. And I just think like, yeah, it's like the, again, the pendulum has swung so far, like sometimes people kind of need like fucking need advice, right?

31:51Sonja Lyubomirsky:They need to be told, take the nail out of the head. But I agree that at first you want to validate and then give advice later. Most people don't realize how much being dehydrated impacts their performance, which is why for the last five years, I've started pretty much every morning with Element. Element is a tasty electrolyte drink mix with everything that you need and nothing that you don't. This orange salt in a cold glass of water is like a sweet, salty, orangey nectar. And I really tell the difference when I take it versus when I don't. It plays a critical role in reducing muscle cramps and fatigue, helps to optimize brain health and regulate your appetite while also curbing cravings.

32:30Best of all, there are no questions asked refund policy with an unlimited duration, so you can buy it and try it for as long as you want. And if you don't like it for any reason, they'll just give you your money back. Plus, they offer free shipping in the US. Right now, you can get a free sample pack of Element's most popular flavors with your first purchase by going to the link in the description below or heading to drinklmnt.com slash modern wisdom. That's drinklmnt.com slash bottom wisdom. I understand what you mean about therapy speak, maybe going mainstream to an extent where validation is given when it shouldn't be.

33:01A 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. while it's really important to just follow your body and to just do what feels good for you, as opposed to I'm going to sit in the muck with you. I'm going to sit in the discomfort. You know, yeah, the validation thing. Good point. I'm sure Anthony will take it on board. But he's sitting in the emotion with his daughter, right? He's holding that space.

33:41It's unfortunate that holding space has kind of been memefied into...

33:44Sonja Lyubomirsky:I hate that phrase. yeah but it's what it what it means is so good it's just a shame that the phrase has become a cliche of itself in a way um but well there's one kind of therapist 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 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 non-violent communication and the tldr of that is i statements not you statements 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 know, overburdened when you don't wash the dishes when you do this.

34:54Sonja Lyubomirsky:You know, I'd like to talk about, I'd like to understand what's going on. Maybe you're really stressed out at work. And then you have a, and the hard part is the request. It's like, what do you actually, it's easy to criticize. It's harder to kind of ask. the ask is the hard part you know why i would it's vulnerable um to sort of ask to say i i yeah it's hard to ask that's a 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 um so yeah i statements yeah i i guess criticizing somebody else puts the ball in their court it also makes your displeasure known and like 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?

35:52It's like, I'm going to 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 that you could reject this request.

36:06Sonja Lyubomirsky:That's why it's vulnerable, because you're risking rejection. And that's life. Sometimes you'll be rejected. 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 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? I mean, part of my advice is just to go for it, take the leap. So many 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.

36:46Sonja Lyubomirsky:But before they take that leap, I would go slow, right? So maybe the first time just you, yeah, reveal something smaller and then take a step, baby steps, I would say. Okay. So listening to Lunn. Yeah. people are not just playing the game of tennis waiting to hit the ball back yeah uh genuine curiosity what else we talked about sharing so curiosity let's say 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 us, I'm curious about you.

37:32Sonja Lyubomirsky: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, he's going to think I'm prying, that I'm being a little nosy. And sometimes that happens, but on average, people crave to be seen, right? They want to be known. I have an example for my daughter who has a roommate who's having a lot of problems and her family was coming over.

38:13Sonja Lyubomirsky:They were crying. There were all these sort of sessions and they're 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 couldn't do that. She'll think I'm prying. And I think, you know, she could be right, but I think most likely she's wrong, that this roommate probably would feel really supported and loved if she was asked about it. So we usually think, yeah, so we don't ask enough questions. So ask your friends, colleagues, and partners those deep questions.

38:48Okay. And that's radical curiosity.

38:50Sonja Lyubomirsky:That's part of radical curiosity. And part of listening because listening is a back and forth. And then there's two more mindsets we talk about. One is called open heart. And it's almost like an obvious one. I think open heart is basically warmth, kindness, believing in the other person, wanting them to be happy, wanting their dreams to come true. I say it's obvious because I would think most stable relationships have that mindset. It's the other mindsets that often people don't necessarily have. So I actually, we sent the book to a few early readers and two of my male friends said they're like, we love the book, but they broke up with their girlfriends after reading the book.

39:30Sonja Lyubomirsky:And I was really surprised because I thought it was prescriptive, like, oh, do this, listen better, 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. And so those are really important and need to be worked on. The open heart, I think, is one that I would hope most relationships already have. Okay. Yeah. But the last one is my favorite.

40:05Sonja Lyubomirsky:the last mindset it's 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 they were 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 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?

40:38Sonja Lyubomirsky:And so use that multiplicity lens to turn it on the other person. So when you're revealing your story and 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. And then when you actually give specific examples, it's really hard, right? People will say, oh, what a jerk, right? What an asshole, like he did that or she did that. So that's a really hard one. Yeah, I think it's difficult. So few people want to sit in a discomfort zone, a tough emotion, and their solution is to just fix it, to just say, if I just come up with the solution to this thing, we don't need to worry about it anymore.

41:31Sonja Lyubomirsky:What would be the solution to someone reveal something negative about them? About themselves. I don't want you to feel that way anymore. Allow me to minimize it. Allow me to tell you what you can do. Like 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 it. 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.

42:13What'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 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

42:44Sonja Lyubomirsky:fix it minimize it or make it go away 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, Sonia, just stop it right now. And he said, skip right over the rumination and the justification, the rationalization and right onto sadness. Go straight to sadness, 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.

43:20Sonja Lyubomirsky:But the rationalization, like, you know, there's a fine line between kind of condoning, justifying and compassion, right? What is a 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 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.

43:56Sonja Lyubomirsky: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 is really helpful. What do you think of the things in a relationship that makes people feel unloved the most? 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, or even we talked about that, stops being curious about you. We often stop being curious about the people we've known the longest, right? Because we think, oh, I know everything about them.

44:31Sonja Lyubomirsky:And of course you don't, because every day we're having new fears and dreams and self-doubts, right, and regrets. So stopping being curious. But the other thing is, yeah, just kind of feeling, yeah, like that you're invisible. 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, I remember being at a party and friends would bring me a piece of fruit or water or a blanket. And before I even knew I wanted those things, they're like, Sonia, you need this water. You need a blanket because you seem cold. And I'm like, oh, I didn't even know I needed a blanket.

45:05Sonja Lyubomirsky:And so when you feel loved is when you feel loved when people are noticing you and they're noticing things that you need before you even realize you need them. So those little things when your partner or your best friend sort of stops noticing those things, you don't feel loved. Have you looked at whatever the strongest predictors are of long-term relationship satisfaction? So I partnered with a love scientist to write this book because 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?

45:40Sonja Lyubomirsky:You come home and you say, hey, honey, I got laid off or something bad happened. The car broke down. And everyone kind of knows how to respond to bad news or sort of something bad that happened. But what if you come home and you say, hi, honey, I got a new job offer in New York, right? So it turns out how we respond to good news is a better predictor of relationship duration than how we respond to bad news. Because it's not easy, right? You got a job offered 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 with the kids?

46:18Sonja Lyubomirsky:Maybe you might even be envious that my career isn't going as well as yours. And so what research shows is the best, well, the reaction that is predictive of relationship duration is truly celebrating good news with your partner, right? Like, that's so amazing. 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. 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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48:01That's join.whoop.com slash modern wisdom. It's interesting how much easier it is to sort of care for somebody who's struggling than it is to celebrate somebody who's winning many ways.

48:13Sonja Lyubomirsky:Yeah. And you know what? How many people are the list of people that you share your wins with is a small list. Is that right? Right. Because we, we learn not to be boastful. Right. And I remember like I would come home and tell my family about some, 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 what is going on yeah 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 to to those wins what about in the relationship if you're doing everything right and the other person just doesn't show it in return great question and I get asked that question a lot where let's say I'm doing all the right things.

49:03Sonja Lyubomirsky:So I'm sharing, I'm listening, I'm curious. I'm seeing you in the multiplicity lens. 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. 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 say, right? Bluntly. And I'll just say bluntly, maybe you need to walk away maybe you've made a poor choice if it's a family member yeah probably you can't walk away but just accept that you're not going to feel as loved as you want to feel by this person um i mean obviously keep trying but if you've kept trying and it's not working 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.

50:04If 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 like different species so okay guess what thanksgiving and christmas you're going to 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

50:46Sonja Lyubomirsky:to keep people afloat who refuse to swim exactly although you know you try curiosity by the way with the brother or the uncle, right? Like, why do you believe that thing that, you know, you think it's pretty good? Shut up, Sonia. I don't need to hear that. Well, if that's the response consistently, and I completely agree with you, but there's this tension because I hear all this advice, like, you know, people in our society, in our individualistic society, they kind of break up too often. You know, they kind of end relationships too often. Like, certainly on dating apps or, you know, you're like, oh, this person isn't working for me.

51:17Sonja Lyubomirsky:I'm just going to go to the next person. 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 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 it is absolutely the both can be I've got this idea called advice hyper responders. So advice doesn't distribute evenly.

51:48It distributes more like alcohol than medicine. 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 imbalance, but to over exaggerate something that already exists. Another one of the person who permanently feels like they're not working hard enough will take on the David Goggins, Jocker Willink message of just get up at 4.30am, you've got to crush it, dude.

52:31As opposed to going, I actually need to listen to the advice that tells people to chill out a little bit more. Meanwhile, 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 went all the way to the other they decided they were like i knew i was too much already i already thought i had this so interesting and this is how advice lands in groups that already are moving in that direction it confirms calling this advice hyper responders So you throw advice down and the people who already do it pick it up first.

53:08It often doesn't correct over. It doesn't correct imbalances. It just exaggerates predispositions. And 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 different kinds of people. Bingo. Bingo. And then when you give 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.

53:47It is believing in the little guy. It's grassroots. It's spit and 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. Okay.

54:24Sonja Lyubomirsky:But let's talk about, I think one concept that can kind of unite what you're talking about is the idea of dosage, right? So Aristotle's golden mean, right? So there's an optimal dosage for everything. Like there's somewhere in the middle, there's an optimal weight, 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 the happiness research, right? Can you do too much acts of kindness? Absolutely, right? You can be too kind to others. You can neglect yourself.

54:54Sonja Lyubomirsky:You can do too little. Almost everything should be done in moderation, including moderation, of course. so that's how I think about things is sort of in the optimal dosage but sometimes you're talking about things that sometimes aren't in the same continuum it has to be in the same continuum the same spectrum to figure out what the optimum dosage is well ideally people are going to take some of the advice from the opposite side of the spectrum and unfortunately people don't usually want to hear that so yeah it's an interesting one so tactically what are the most powerful habits for implementing this The more I think about feeling loved and these mindsets, the more I think they apply to almost everything.

55:36Sonja Lyubomirsky:You know, like when you study something, you see it everywhere. But seriously, like it applies to 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, actually, research has shown 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 going to be more productive they're going to be more engaged they're going to be less likely to quit pretty amazing right uh it's not that hard to implement.

56:22Sonja Lyubomirsky:And then sharing too, there's a study that came out maybe a year ago that had people who are literally like wearing different hats on the political spectrum, no pun intended, 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. That reduced prejudice and reduced polarization. Just sharing more of your humanity with someone who's really different from you. but I would stick with those three but especially curiosity and listening okay what's something if you were to say this technique or this habit this one thing that you can do tomorrow that would improve your ability to feel love what would it be well first of all have a conversation with the person that you want to feel loved by and actually this is my number one kind of happiness tip if you want to be happier tomorrow, have a 15-minute conversation with someone, at least 15 minutes.

57:22Sonja Lyubomirsky: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. There are a series of conversations. And so when you think about, I want to 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 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.

57:52Sonja Lyubomirsky: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. So you're saying that life is just one big podcast. That's the main thing. Yes, absolutely. But also I'm kind of biased because I'm a talker. So my oldest daughter once said to me, mom, you talk so much, I can't think. So I do like to talk, but, and also in our culture where we're actually, there's some research on this, you know, individualist cultures are more talking cultures. Collectivist cultures, like Asian cultures are more listening cultures.

58:27Sonja Lyubomirsky:But, you know, 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. Across all of the studies that you've been a part of, what's your favorite one? Like what's the, the most fun or interesting or novel study that you've done? I think my favorite one is that we ask 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. I think we said sociable, energetic, talkative.

59:02Sonja Lyubomirsky:And then for the week after, we asked people to act more introverted. Again, using different words like deliberate and quiet and vice versa. 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 improved. 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. So even people who were already extroverted, increasing their extroversion improved their happiness.

59:40Sonja Lyubomirsky:But, well, it's interesting that you thought that was the surprising part. No, no, no. The introversion is the surprising part, I think, to me. That the introverts, you know, Susan Cain wrote this great book 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 writes that, you know, introverts get exhausted by trying to act social. 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.

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1:01:26Does this still hold true or has this been replication crisis?

1:01:29Sonja Lyubomirsky:So I love the definition, again, that Susan Cain made popular. It's a sexy definition, but if it's inaccurate, then we need new one. 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, talks about this. I think that the evidence is not quite there. So I don't know, maybe again, absence of evidence is an evidence of absence. But the studies, I think there's only with one exception, studies are showing that introverts that are asked to act more social do not feel depleted or exhausted. But again, maybe we need more research.

1:02:02that's interesting it wouldn't surprise me i think a lot of the time what introverts are doing is finding a home base or finding a situation that feels comfortable and familiar to them but you can get detrained 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 for instance we have every friday And this is one of the best, this is one of the two best things, three best things actually, that 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.

1:02:43And I'm like, hey man, just thinking of you, hope everything's good or whatever. But the third one, we've got a standing dinner reservation at 6 p.m. 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 the fact that you've got that, it means 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.

1:03:18That was worth it.

1:03:19Sonja Lyubomirsky:I love it. I love it. I love it. Very important point that you just raised, right? So in these studies, 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. So an introvert is going to do different things. So they might call up a friend. They might chat a little bit more during lunch. I was super shy when I was young and when I was in college. I can't imagine that. And I really was. my parents told me that before age 10, I did not speak to other adults other than teachers and family members. And then I really kind of pushed through it.

1:03:56Sonja Lyubomirsky:But okay, here's one way I did it. In college, we had sections. And I forced myself to say one thing in each section. And it was terrifying. 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 going to try to say one more thing. But I love your three habits. I'm going to 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 your text and then, you know, you get busy and then you're like, oh, how about next week?

1:04:31Sonja Lyubomirsky:And that doesn't work out. He said, you do not leave that interaction without making a firm plan to get together, you know, a specific time and place and date. And that really works. I heard a really Machiavellian way to work out if someone actually wants to hang out with you. 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. I don't know whether, I think you'd probably need you reading into that a little bit much. People are just busy, but I thought that was an interesting I like that.

1:05:05Sonja Lyubomirsky:Tell me when you want to reschedule for. Yeah. Yeah. Just tell me when like, Hey, especially if you recancel if you cancel dude like it's on you okay you fucked it i was gonna go yeah um you know there's a new yorker cartoon and it's like how about never is it never good for you yeah but that's what someone says if they don't come up with a date or a time yeah what's something about happiness that almost everyone believes but is wrong well the one that's kind of boring is that people think well okay it's maybe it's not boring i have a book about this called the myths of happiness. I'll be happy when.

1:05:38Sonja Lyubomirsky: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. 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. And this is, by the way, humans probably would never progress if we didn't have adaptation because then we would just kind of sit on the mountain and do nothing, but we always want more. And you bring your same self with 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.

1:06:16Sonja Lyubomirsky: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 going to make you happier. But if you're kind of normal, comfortable circumstances, then changing them is going to make you happy temporarily. Is there a way to hack hedonic adaptation? Yes. Through variety, novelty, surprise, and gratitude. Okay. Right? So we adapt to constant stimuli, right? So when things are the same, like you buy a new car, at first you're like, I love this new car. And then, you know, for the eighth time you sit in the car, you don't notice the car anymore, that it's new.

1:06:52Sonja Lyubomirsky:And so novelty variety sort of maybe, yeah, so you have novel, create novel circumstances. this. So actually a relationship is a better example. We don't want to adapt to our new spouse. So you do different things with them. I mean, 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. 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 going to be things that are surprising, right?

1:07:22Sonja Lyubomirsky: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. Because 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. So truly expressing gratitude, but it's not easy, right? I mean, how often can you sort of express gratitude for your car or even for your spouse? um but i i'm a big especially given that the uh stimuli is the same yeah so you're expressing gratitude for something you've experienced previously exactly you know uh something we don't adapt to uh is a view a view like a beautiful view for that's interesting is that interesting so actually i have a beautiful view i did 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 with the weather, with the seasons.

1:08:26Sonja Lyubomirsky: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 and enemies. Safe, big vistas. And also, by the way, water and mountains. We are hardwired to want to see water and mountains for kind of obvious reasons. 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. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's interesting. Okay. Let's say that you met a 20-year-old today.

1:09:00What would you tell them to prioritize if they wanted the highest probability of being happy when they were 50?

1:09:08Sonja Lyubomirsky:Relationships. Relationships. Relationships, 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. So have conversations, spend time with people. Don't spend time alone in the garage on the 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. Make a habit of it. Learn to listen, be curious, and share.

1:09:47Sonja Lyubomirsky:Yeah, those would be my top. my top habits okay well I uh speaking of which oh my gosh I have something for you thank you can I open it yeah you can it's a card with my name on it okay it's a thank you card okay

1:10:14thank you

1:10:15Sonja Lyubomirsky:I love Arthur by the way he's the man And since Arthur Brooks, we were in an almost plane crash together. I have a fun story about that. Wow. We were in a plane and it was going to crash. And I was sitting next to him. I started holding his hand. And he's very confident. So it turns out it's very good to be, if you want to be in a plane crash. Arthur's about as Christian as you can come. So he was probably hoping it crashed. Well, no, no, no. He was just, it's very useful to be sitting next to you. A very confident, very masculine Christian person. you know i'm literally holding his hand and he's like sonia is it gonna be okay everything is gonna be okay and then later on he's like sonia i didn't realize because we had lost an engine actually fell out of the plane um what was it india where the fuck i know we were in india in the middle of nowhere he's like sonia i didn't realize how bad the situation was um anyway you've you've got tens of thousands hundreds of thousands of people to write gratitude letters and i don't know whether anyone's done it to you on a podcast i figured that it would be nice not on a podcast i certainly have beautiful letters from my students.

1:11:17Sonja Lyubomirsky:I love it. Consider me a student. Thank you. Sonia Lubomirsky, ladies and gentlemen, where should people go to check out everything that's going on? Howtofeellove.com, which is the title of my book, howtofeellove.com. And we also, 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. Sonia, I appreciate you. Thank you. All right. See you next time, everyone. Bye. oh my god thank you thank you oh my god