After 36 years studying happiness, Sonja Lyubomirsky has come to see feeling loved as central to our happiness and well-being. She explains why being loved isn’t necessarily the same as feeling loved and shares practical ways to strengthen connection across relationships with partners, family, friends, colleagues, and even strangers.
Key Takeaways:
- Feeling loved may matter more than chasing the next milestone: Lyubomirsky explores hedonic adaptation, explaining why things we expect to make us happy, such as a better job, a bigger house, or good looks, can bring only short-lived rewards, while connection plays a deeper role in happiness.
- Five mindsets can strengthen connection: Drawing from How to Feel Loved, she introduces approaches including Radical Curiosity, Sharing, and the Multiplicity Mindset, designed to help us feel more loved and build better relationships.
- Happiness can shape other areas of life: The conversation examines why happier people may become more successful, rather than success simply producing happiness, as well as research connecting happiness with physical health and immunity.
- Curiosity and conversation can bring us closer: From the Fast Friends exercise to forgiveness and seeing people as multifaceted, Lyubomirsky offers practical ways to move beyond surface-level interactions and create greater closeness.
