Passion Struck with John R. Miles - How to Feel Loved: The 5 Mindsets That Change Everything | | Sonja Lyubomirsky & Harry Reis – EP 730

Episode Date: February 17, 2026

What if the key to true happiness isn’t more achievements, more connections, or even more love poured your way, but actually feeling loved in the moments that matter?In this powerful episode of the Passion Struck podcast, world-renowned happiness expert Sonja Lyubomirsky and the preminent relationship researcher Harry Reis join John R. Miles to discuss their groundbreaking new book, How to Feel Loved: The Five Mindsets That Get You More of What Matters Most (Harper, February 10, 2026).Their radical insight: Feeling loved isn’t about becoming more lovable or chasing extrinsic rewards. It’s about showing your full, vulnerable self and inviting others to do the same—through intentional shifts in how we converse and connect.They introduce the Relationship Sea-Saw, a dynamic of reciprocity where one person lifts the other through curiosity and warmth, sparking a virtuous cycle of being truly known and valued. Through stories, science (from attachment theory to the costs of secrets), and even insights from their meeting with the Dalai Lama, they unpack why “going first” changes everything and how five practical mindsets can transform relationships of all kinds.If you’ve ever wondered why love sometimes feels like it’s missing even when it’s present or how to make it land more deeply, this episode offers a science-backed, hopeful roadmap.Passion Struck is the #1 alternative health podcast and personal growth podcast dedicated to human flourishing and the science of mattering. It is ranked #1 on FeedSpot’s list of the Top Passion Podcasts on the Web, and Interview Valet ranked it as one of the top 20 podcasts for business and mindset.Check the full show notes here: https://passionstruck.com/how-to-feel-loved-sonja-lyubomirsky-harry-reis/Download a Free Companion Reflection Guide:Connect with John Keynote speaking, books, and podcast: https://linktr.ee/John_R_MilesPre-Order the Children’s Book You Matter, Luma: https://youmatterluma.com/Learn More About Sonja Lyubomirsky: https://sonjalyubomirsky.comLearn More About Harry Reis: https://www.sas.rochester.edu/psy/people/faculty/reis_harry/How to Feel Loved: The Five Mindsets That Get You More of What Matters Most is available wherever books are sold.In This Episode, You Will LearnWhy being loved doesn’t always translate to feeling loved—and the painful "mattering gap" it createsThe 5 powerful mindsets: Sharing (vulnerability), Listening-to-Learn, Radical Curiosity, Open-Heart, and MultiplicityThe science of responsiveness: How genuine curiosity and presence make others feel seen—and lift you in returnAttributional ambiguity: Why extrinsic pursuits (money, status, beauty) often fail to deliver the warm glow of true loveLessons from the Dalai Lama: Love as a decision—treating others as "each other’s mothers" and sending loving-kindness even to those you dislikeHow feeling loved becomes a safe haven, fueling exploration, creativity, and a more psychologically rich lifePractical first steps: One 15-minute conversation to start remaking how love lands in your relationshipsSupport the Movement. Every human deserves to feel seen, valued, and like they matter. Wear it. Live it. Show it. https://StartMattering.comDisclaimerThe Passion Struck podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Passion Struck or its affiliates. This podcast is not a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment from a licensed physician, therapist, or other qualified professional.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Coming up next on PassionStruck. People will pursue the goals of being famous, of making a lot of money, of being the most beautiful person on the planet, that sort of thing. When you pursue those extrinsic goals and other people admire you for that, it isn't experienced as the real self. You can never have enough money because there's always somebody who makes more money. There's a wonderful study that showed that something like two-thirds of the millionaires in America feel like they don't make enough money.

Because there's always someone more beautiful. There's always someone more powerful. There's always someone with higher status. There's always someone who's won more awards than you. And so when you're pursuing those more and more, it's not the real self that's coming through. Welcome to Passion Struck. I'm your host, John Miles.

This is the show where we explore the art of human flourishing and what it truly means to live like it matters. Each week, I sit down with changemakers, creators, scientists, and everyday heroes to decode the human experience and uncover the tools that help us lead with meaning, heal what hurts, and pursue the fullest expression of who we're capable of becoming. Whether you're designing your future, developing as a leader, or seeking deeper alignment in your life, this show is your invitation to grow with purpose and act with intention. Because the secret to a life of deep purpose, connection, and impact is choosing to live

like You Matter. Hey friends and welcome back to episode 730 of Passionstruck. Over the last several episodes in the You Matter series, we've been examining a quiet but consequential truth. People can be surrounded by others, embedded in relationships, and still feel invisible. With Barry Schwartz, we looked at how modern systems of endless choice and rational calculation exhaust our agency, turning decisions into optimization problems instead of meaningful acts of judgment. Last week with Rebecca Goldstein, we examined the mattering instinct and explored how the mattering map helps us see where we stand in relationship to it. And then last Thursday with Daniel Coyle, we discovered how flourishing emerges when people are treated as necessary contributors rather than replaceable

parts. Today, we turn to the relational core of that question. We can be loved and still not feel love. And when love fails to register in the nervous system, something deeper than happiness arose. the felt sense that our presence has weight. My guest today are Sonia Lubomirsky and Harry Reese, two of the most influential scientists shaping how we understand happiness, love, and human connection. Sonia is distinguished professor of psychology at the University of California Riverside

and one of the world's leading researchers on well-being and the science of happiness. Harry is a dean's professor at the University of Rochester and a pioneer of relationship science, whose research on responsiveness transformed how psychologists understand intimacy, trust, and emotional safety. Their work reveals what I often describe as the matter and gap, the space where affection exists in theory, but significance fails to land in practice, where people become valued as reliable, helpful, or agreeable, while their inner signals, needs, fears, truths, quietly disappear.

As we move toward the February 24th launch of my upcoming children's book, You Matter Luma, I've been reflecting on how early this gap begins. Children, into it, whether their signals land long before they can explain it. Adults often spend years paying the cost of relationships where their full self never quite arrives. In today's episode, we explore why feeling love is an active relational experience. How responsiveness serves as the forensic proof that a person truly matters. into the relationship seesaw and how mutual significance is built moment by moment.

While polishing ourselves for acceptance often produces invisibility instead of connection, and how five conversational mindsets restore presence, agency, and belonging. This episode is about restoring signal integrity in our closest relationships and reclaiming the experience of mattering where it counts most. Let's continue the You Matter series with Sonia Lubomirsky and Harry Reese. Thank you for choosing Passionstruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating a life that matters. Now, let that journey begin.

I am so excited today to welcome Harry Reese and Sonia Lubber Mierski to Passionstruck. Welcome. It's such an honor to have you both. Pleasure to be here. Great to be here. I think we have to start this out where we have the preeminent expert in the world on relationships and the preeminent expert in the world on happiness, how did the two of you come together to decide to write this brand new book,

how to feel loved, the five mindsets that get you more of what matters most? I'll turn it over to you, Sonia. Oh, sure. I feel like we have this sort of act that we take charge of answering questions. It was really at conferences that Harry and I met. We've known each other for actually quite a few years. I think we actually met 21 years ago, like where we had a really long conversation. I still remember that.

I don't know if you remember in D.C., but we started talking about, we realized actually that happiness researchers and love researchers don't talk to each other as much as they should. And so about seven years ago, we started talking about writing a book actually called How to Feel Love.

We had the title before we had, I think, the content. I would add to that, just that we were talking about that. And at first, we didn't have the idea that coming together would produce this unique synthesis of ideas. And then at some point, it was like a light bulb went up off over our heads where I said, my God, we could put this together and do something really interesting and creative. And that's when we started really sitting down and getting serious about writing. Everything clicked. The way that I like to tell a story is I've been doing research on happiness interventions for since 1998, actually, for 27 years or something. Well, at that time it would be for 20 years. And at some point, it clicked that almost all of the interventions, work to make us happier, right?

Like doing acts of kindness or writing gratitude letters or being more social, work because they make us feel more connected to and loved by each other. So really like it's hit me. And then Harry, I think, had a different epiphany that was really parallel that the key to happiness was feeling loved. Harry, a lot of your research focuses on responsiveness. In layman's terms, is responsiveness simply the proof that when I speak, speaker act, it actually changes the weather of the relationship? Or is it something different?

Absolutely. You nailed it. Responsiveness is the idea that when you're talking, the other person isn't just sitting there passively taking it in, but that the other person is interested and that they're beginning to get what you're all about. So you begin to feel that they understand you and they appreciate you and that you can really feel seen when the other person is being responsive to you. And Sonia, I know, as you just mentioned, you've spent these decades now studying happiness, and it's hard for me to say decades because I've been doing my stuff for decades now, too. But I think when I read the book, what it really is about is, and I want to use this word, quote unquote, feeling loved. For many, I think there's a painful gap where they know they're loved

in theory, but they don't feel it in practice. Do you think this is the primary happiness that we face in modern relationship? Yeah, I don't know if it's a, it might very well be. I often refer to the show called couples therapy, which is this great, I don't know if you've ever seen it, where you see real couples in New York and they're fighting and they're fighting about whatever they're fighting. You said this to me or you never do this for me. And then you realize that at the root of their problems is not feeling loved. It's like no matter what she does, he's not feeling loved and vice versa. And so I do think that not feeling loved is the root of so many relationship problems.

And also you could argue at the root of loneliness or like lack of belonging. You can think of a moment where you don't feel lonely. It's very much overlapping with not feeling loved or not feeling loved enough or as much as you'd like to in your relationships. So yeah, it's a huge issue, huge problem, I think. Yes. Yeah. Hair, did you want to add to that at all? Well, I would just say to that it's important to realize.

that what we mean by love is not the sort of passionate, hot feelings that you feel when you fall madly in love with somebody. Rather, we're talking about the sense of being cared for and warmth and comfort. And when you feel loved, you feel like another person really gets you, that they're concerned with your welfare, that they want you to be happy. And as a result, you feel like you belong. In the book, we make a major point about the connection between feeling loved and feeling like you belong with the other person, that they accept you and that they get you. And that you matter. And that you matter to them. So I'm going to turn this back to you, and I'll initially send it back to you, Harry.

But in my research, and I have just turned in a manuscript for a new book that I wrote on mattering, I have seen that many people suffer from what I'm calling the mattering gap, space where they're loved in theory, but feel invisible in practice. And I think in the book, you have a tremendous metaphor, the seesaw model. So how does your seesaw model provide the forensic proof needed to close that gap? Well, the idea behind the seesaw is that there's this reciprocal diatic exchange that goes on where you can begin the process by lifting the other person up. So what does that actually do? The metaphor we have is that there are parts of ourselves that are hidden or in metaphorical terms underwater.

When you're responsive to another person, you lift them out of the water so they can be seen and appreciated. That, in turn, kicks off the process of them doing the same to you. And so you all of a sudden become known and seen. And it's a process, it's a dynamic process of interaction that goes back. and forth. We realize we matter when the other person starts doing the same for us. Don't necessarily get the feeling of mattering if you're only doing for the other person but they don't reciprocate. It's the reciprocity that really makes a difference. I'm sure reciprocity is one of the most

powerful rules of social life that we have. I scratch your back, you scratch mine. And the same thing applies to this idea of helping the other person feel loved. We help the other person. We help the other person feel loved, in turn they help us feel loved. I think what you read up, yeah, Harry, is really important because when I was studying this, reciprocity kept coming back up. It's something that's prevalent in all world religions and some of the most longstanding myths and rules that kind of governs society. It's amazing we don't talk about it more.

And the research suggests that kind of feeling loved is a virtuous cycle. So my question for this is, how does going first on the seesaw help a person move from what I think of being a resource to being a source in a relationship? Well, first I wanted to mention that reciprocity is highly evolutionarily adaptive, right? And we probably wouldn't have survived and thrived, right, if we didn't reciprocate when people helped us. Yeah, this is for context. Before I answer the question, I just wanted to reiterate that really you can think of as the key to feeling loved or feeling like, you matter is being known to the other person, right? If you really are not known, if you're hiding yourself, you'll always wonder, would the person still love me if they knew me, right? So the seesaw

really is about when we talk about lifting someone up, they're lifting them so that we can know them better, right? So they're showing not just the positive size, like the tips of their self, but more of their full self. So that reciprocal exchange about being known. But the first step. And first, it seems a little bit counterintuitive, but it's actually not really that if you want to feel loved, if you want to feel like you matter, the first step is to make the other person feel loved, is to make the other person feel like they matter. And so if you're on the seesaw, the first step really is showing genuine curiosity in the other person, in their inner life, in their inner world, their thoughts and feelings, the details of their day, right? We all want

people to know and care about sort of the details of our days, what's going on in our heads or our bodies. And so showing genuine curiosity and the idea is that, John, if I'm really curious about you, and amazingly, it's actually pretty rare when people show genuine authentic curiosity, right? They're so excited to hear your story. Maybe as a podcaster, you're good at this, but most people are not. And so I'm showing genuine curiosity in you, and that helps lift you up. It makes you feel like, like motivated, but also just trusting and safe to reveal a little bit part of your story. And then when you do start revealing that part of the story, that I'm really listening. I'm not just waiting for my turn to speak.

I'm really listening. I'm present. I'm quieting my inner voice. And I'm asking questions. And another thing that we don't do often enough is ask each other deep questions about the other person's what's going on inside of them. Because that's what makes us feel loved and like we matter. like the other person really cares even about the details of our day or the details of how we feel

about something this morning. And just to add to what Sonia said, one of the reasons for going first is that you can't control the other person. You can't make the other person do something, but you can change your approach to the conversation. So going first is something you can control so you can start the cycle. And so that's the way to kick it off. rather than sitting back and waiting for the other person to approach you, which might never happen. I did an interview with Allison Woodbrooks, you probably both know, and we were discussing her book, Talk. And we got into this really deep conversation about what you guys are talking about here. We were talking about how when we are truly present in a conversation and we're really listening to that person,

we're actually holding a mirror back to ourselves. because when you start seeing a person through their experiences, you also see yourself in it. And I think in modern life, that is something that seems to be degrading more and more in the connections that we're having. Do you guys have a theory for why this seems to be happening and what seems to be a faster pace? Well, I can certainly speak to a little bit if you're talking about kind of the polarization of our society and sort of the divides between people. I think, yeah, one of the, I don't know if it's a symptom or a cause that we're not showing curiosity in the other person. We're not really listening to the other person.

So if we're talking to someone that we really hugely disagree with and they have these beliefs that we think are crazy and they're supporting people, someone who we think is crazy to support, we just stop listening, right? It's like we shut it off or we yell at them or we just walk away. I was on a podcast where the podcaster was saying that she has these family members that have beliefs that are totally. totally different from mine. She's like, I love them. And so I just don't talk to them ever about politics, which is a solution. What we talk about in our book about feeling love completely applies to these situations, like showing genuine curiosity. Why do you believe what you do? Maybe there's a history behind that and then really listening instead of shutting down and also sharing. A study just came out that if we share vulnerably with someone very different from us and they share

with us, that will actually help bridge that divide. Right. And maybe a good metaphor for this is to think about the difference between a real conversation and an exchange of text messages. So I speak, you speak, I speak, you speak. And that doesn't promote connection. It gets you information. And if you need that information, okay, fine, good. But as our conversations become more like that, they become much less like what you described, John. It becomes much less of a real connection and seeing myself in your response, seeing what you grab, seeing what you respond to positively and what maybe doesn't produce such a positive response. When you're really having chemistry with another person, the flow back and forth is a very natural, spontaneous thing.

You don't even realize that time is passing. And as we become more like textors, we take away from that essence of connection. Same with social media too, of course, that. And social media, of course, also, right. Yeah, you went where I was going to ask you. I was going to ask you when a relationship feels like maintenance rather than presence, what's happening underneath that attachment circuit, and you just answered it. No one's saying that maintenance isn't important. Maintenance has a role in a relationship.

My wife and I exchanged text messages several times a day about something that's going on, or can you pick up a dinner on your way home kind of thing. So those things are important. also. But if those are the essence of it, the relationship is going to feel hollow, whereas those things are complementing real interaction is what matters. So, Sonia, your research found that happiness is a strenuous pursuit. And I had Shige Aishi on the show last year where we talked a lot about his theory on psychologically rich life involving kind of complexity and perspective shifting experiences, which I know you're familiar with,

how does strenuous effort of truly feeling loved add to the psychological richness of a person's life? Well, first of all, I love Shigay's theory of psychological riches. I actually think it's my favorite kind of new theory in well-being science. I don't usually use the word strenuous. It's not necessarily inaccurate. Is that when it comes to happiness,

when it comes to relationships and love, that some people just think, oh, it just come naturally, right? So happiness is something you either have it or you don't. or if you're not happy in a relationship, if your sex life isn't great, then there's something wrong. Like as though naturally it should happen. But actually, we know better, right, that all of these things take effort and energy and intention, deliberate action. It doesn't have to be hard.

Like, it doesn't have to be painful. Sometimes it doesn't even have to involve a lot of time. When you think about like a brief interaction with your romantic partner or your best friend or your colleague where you really are paying attention to something that they said and you ask them about it and then, or you smile. And it's like a, by the way, curiosity and listening is a gift, right? It's an act of kindness. And yes, it does take some effort.

I wouldn't call it strenuous necessarily. But it does take effort. But it's a good kind of effort. And then the more you do it, I think that it becomes more of a habit or a ritual. And so that it actually becomes, quote, easier to engage in. I want to go from where we were to going through some of the repairs that you all bring up in the book, which I call like repairing the broken matter and circuit. And one of these, Harry, is this idea of sharing.

For someone who's listening, who spent years being the strong one or the reliable one in a relationship, why is sharing a raw kind of unedited truth so vital for their own happiness? I love that question. The reason why not sharing is such a burden is that it ultimately leads you to not feel known. If you want to be known by another person, and indeed we feel that all of us want to be known by another person, you have to show them not just the public parts of your personality and not just the things you're proud of, not just the things that everybody knows about you, but also the deeper, more inner truths, the what makes you human, the shortcomings, the worries that you have, the things that you're concerned about.

Those are the things we don't normally tell people. those are things we tend to keep private. And we often don't reveal those things because they make us vulnerable. And indeed, they do make us vulnerable. So we're reluctant to share that information. Maybe we think it's going to make us look silly or inept. But the cost that goes with that is that you simply can't feel known. The irony is that when people reveal these weaknesses, these inner selves, usually other people respond positively. We all have these kind of shortcomings and weaknesses, and when you open up to another person,

that gives them the freedom to realize, wow, you put on your pants one leg at a time also. And that allows you, in turn, to open up, and that's what allows for a real bond to take place. It's really evident sometimes in a first meeting, whether it's a professional colleague or a first date or something like that, where we mostly are trying to impress the other person. And it's very human, it's very normal.

to do that. We're getting to know each other right here in this podcast. I want you, John, to think that I'm smart and that I'm interesting and I'm funny and I'm kind. It's a very human. And so I might succeed in impressing you, but I'm not necessarily going to forge a connection, right? What forges a connection is actually breaking that fourth wall a little bit and being a little bit more vulnerable, right? I have a memory of a professional Zoom I had where I was trying to pitch a talk that I was going to give in Europe. And the guy, it was, it went well. It was in a really good meeting. And I was talking to him actually about our new book.

And then he suddenly shared something. He said he had just had a baby with his girlfriend and it was really hard. And it really changed the tenor of that whole conversation. It suddenly brought us to a new level of like understanding and bonding. Right. I felt bonded with him. And I think actually I got the job, I think in part because we reached this new level. So yeah, we all have those experiences.

Right here. Yeah. Absolutely. And just to put a little caveat on this. that nobody's suggesting that in the first five minutes when you meet someone that you should start trauma dumping all these terrible things that happened to you and their child it's a process that's gradual that you build up the metaphor that researchers have used for a long time is the idea of peeling an onion that you start at the superficial levels and gradually you release each level

and you work your way into the central core so it's a gradual process that should take place and also that should be reciprocal. And it's really hard. You have to really read the other person. You have to read the room. You have to have emotional intelligence. And I often say I wish every like high school in college had courses in emotional intelligence, although it's hard to learn and teach. It just takes time. Like how do you gauge the other person's curiosity so that you know how much to reveal or whether to reveal anything at all? And obviously you could test the waters. So you might say, instead of saying, oh, I'm fine. You say, oh, I'm struggling a little bit today. I'm having a rough day. how they respond. If they don't seem interested, maybe you don't continue. Yeah, like practicing that

sharing at the right pace, I think, is really important. Before we continue, I want to pause for a moment. One of the insights running through this conversation is that feeling loved is learned through experience. It forms when a person sees that their signal changes the emotional weather of a relationship. That truth begins early. My upcoming children's book, You Matter Luma, launching February 24th, is designed to help children feel that truth in their bodies. Before they learn to earn belonging through pleasing, performing, or disappearing. UMatter Luma is now available for pre-order at Barnes & Noble. Links will be in the show notes.

And inside The Ignited Life, each episode in the UMatter series includes guided reflection prompts and a workbook to help you examine where your relationships circulate care and where they quietly extract it. You can find those reflections at theignitedlife.net. Now, a quick break for our sponsors. Thank you for supporting those who support the show. You're listening to PassionStruck on the PassionStruck Network. Now, let's return to the conversation.

I was in a long-term relationship for many years, and when I was in it, I had this feeling after a while that I was like a fixed utility, meaning if we want to use like a home, I was kind of like the water heater. I was this invisible appliance that was working. but it didn't need much care. And I just felt I wasn't appreciated after a while. And I don't know why this thought occurred to me, but it tied into this listening to learn mindset

that you all suggest in the book as a way to move from that invisible appliance type of feel in the basement if you're the person experiencing it to a more fulfilling existence. Am I thinking about this correct? Yeah, absolutely. I was thinking, we all want to be seen and heard and valued. And so when you're being taken for granted, right, you're really not being seen.

If your partner showed some curiosity about, or if you shared what you were actually feeling or he or she showed curiosity and really listened to you, right? And then you were really known what was happening to you. That would really, yeah, I think that would have really transformed the relationship. I would agree that when you're the, I like the metaphor of the invisible water heater. of a family. When you are that invisible water heater, you don't feel seen, you don't know, you don't know if you're appreciated. Everyone would miss you. If there's no hot water, all of a sudden, you know, that calls for a major remediation. But while the water's there, people act like you're unimportant. And that makes you feel like you don't matter,

but it also makes you feel like you're not being seen. And you don't get to experience the idea of being loved. Yeah, and in that relationship, I found that after a while, when I was trying to express myself, the other person just kept just not caring. And so after a while, I became less and less vulnerable with them because it just didn't seem to make any sense to share. And one of the big ideas from your book is the importance of being vulnerable. And sharing the real self, I think, allows love to land.

where it's most important. What does your research show about this? Well, our research shows that when the parts of yourself that feel vulnerable are hidden, you begin to worry about what would happen if those parts came out. If I am not letting you know what I think my weaknesses are, and I would begin to start worrying, well, what's going to happen when that comes out? Are you going to reject me when you found out this terrible thing that I did when I was 18 years old? Are you going to reject me because I'm actually no good at certain things? And so you begin to worry about acceptance simply because you don't know how the other person is going to respond to that information as it will surely come out. There's the interesting story that was in the

news recently about the man who had committed several murders. And he, he, He never talked to his family about that, never told his wife about it, but he left her a note for her to read after he died in which he confessed all these things. Now, the interesting thing, so obviously he wanted to tell her these things, but at the same time, he was afraid of how she would respond while he was still there if she had known these things. So the need to be known is a very powerful one, but sometimes it just keeps us. hidden within ourselves, and that has consequences.

And you wonder if he ever really felt loved by his wife, if he truly ever felt love because he probably always wondered, well, she loves me now, but she doesn't love me unconditionally because she doesn't know about this past behavior. I also want to add a caveat you had mentioned with your relationship, not feeling appreciated even when you did reveal how you felt. And once in a while, that is going to happen. And once in a while, you're going to try everything that we talk about in the book. book, you show curiosity, you listen, you share, you show warmth and acceptance, and the other

person is just not going to respond. We've had some early readers of the book actually break up with their partners, realizing the person is not sharing and they're not curious and whatever they've tried is not working once in a while. Maybe you need to accept that or pause or maybe even walk away. So that will have to work on. Yeah. Sonia, maybe a follow on to that would be in that relationship, there's a hidden cost when we stay safe in a relationship. How does that deplete our overall capacity for happiness? Yeah, yeah. Well, I'll just say one thing, one of our friends and colleagues, Mike Slepian, studies secrets. And he wrote a great book called The Secret Life of Secrets. You might know about it. And you interviewed him. It was great. I figured, yeah, I figured you interviewed

him. But anyway, he talks about the toll that keeping secrets to take son on our mental health, but also our physical health even. And so like when we're not revealing all of ourselves. And a secret could be defined, I think, very broadly, something that we just don't want people to know about. And so, yeah, that's one way that I could cost our happiness. But a lot of people, we all have walls around us, right? We all have walls around us.

They're there to protect us. When you realize that you really see it everywhere, people walking around with these walls. And so they're functional, but a lot of people just feel they keep things so close to the vest. They really are so private. that they don't reveal much at all. And I actually worry for people who are too private

because I think it's going to be hard for them to ever really feel loved as we are doing in our book. All right. Yeah. Harry, I spoke to Richard Ryan about 18 months ago, and we were talking about self-determination theory, but we were really talking about the equality

of the three components of it. Would he, could you explain self-determination theory, maybe through the lens of your book. And specifically, what happens when our autonomy comes to cross with the relatedness aspect of it? That's such a wonderful question. And it's one, Rich Ryan and I go way back. So it's something I've been thinking about for a long time. I don't think they're incompatible at all.

And I would say that when they do come into conflict with each other, it's really a barrier to relatedness rather than choose one or the other. The notion of autonomy is, of course, the idea that we want to do behaviors that feel authentic and real and personally meaningful to us. But the idea of relatedness is that we want to be connected to other people, but it's that real self that we want to be connected. So I think of relatedness in its pure form as being what we want our autonomy. to do. That is what we want our autonomy to be the stimulus for. When we're not behaving autonomously,

so for example, one of the non-autonomous things people do is pursue extrinsic goals. So people will pursue the goals of being famous, of making a lot of money, of being the most beautiful person on the planet, that sort of thing. When you pursue those extrinsic goals and other people admire you for that it isn't experienced as the real self. You can never have enough money because there's always somebody who makes more money. There's a wonderful study that showed that something like two-thirds of the millionaires in America feel like they don't make enough money. There's always someone more beautiful. There's always someone more powerful. There's always someone with higher status. There's always someone who has won more awards than you. And so when you're pursuing those more and more,

it's not the real self that's coming through. And Rich and I have actually done research together that shows that when people feel like their autonomy is being respected and valued by other people, that's when people really start to feel happy and really truly satisfied in a genuine way. Yeah, I just want to add something to that. I used to be a senior executive at a well-known technology company and our CEO. At the time, I think his Forbes had his net worth at about $19 billion, and I would hear him complain sometimes that it was going down, and then he bought another technology company and restored it back to $30 billion. And it just makes me wonder sometimes with what you were just saying, how that plays out,

like when is enough sometimes? One of the problems that with pursuing extrinsic goals is that we're never quite satisfied. We keep moving the finish line. I think I have this sort of image of the finish line. It just keeps moving farther. And you can argue that's evolutionarily adaptive, right? For humans to never quite be satisfied when they reach a certain goal, like whether it's $19 billion or writing a book or getting married.

And yet if we were always just satisfied with our goals, like we reached the top of the mountain and then we just stay there, we would never make progress. We wouldn't make advances. We would stagnate, right? So it's adaptive for us to keep wanting more, but there's a cost to our happiness. Right. And to riff on a popular metaphor, nobody on their deathbed ever said, I should have made more money.

I don't agree with that, actually, because not having much money can actually really harm your happiness. Yeah. Yeah. But it's, well, another thing, this is a little bit of a, what's the word of a little bit of a paradox, is that research shows that if you pursue money or you pursue extrinsic goals, you're not happy, right? So that's associated with unhappiness. But actually, having achieved those things is associated with happiness. So richer people are happier, more beautiful people are happier, people who are more popular, are happier.

But pursuing those things is associated with unhappiness. But having them is good. Since we're talking about money, I'll bring William James into this for a second. What is, and I'll let you both answer this, what is the cash value of a relationship where both people feel they truly matter inside it? Priceless. Yeah, I would totally agree. Yeah. Yet, why, if that is the case, is it absent in so many?

That's what really drives me crazy. When you think of how many divorces and breakups and everything else that there are, when the opposite side of this has such high, high value for both people. All right. Well, I'll start. Or Harry, do you want to start? No, go ahead. Well, there's lots of reasons for that.

Sometimes we choose poor. We don't choose the right person for us. Sometimes it's attachment style that can get in the way. And we use this metaphor of like a cup of love. This is our cup of love. And the other person, we're in a relationship. Maybe they're a good person. And we chose well.

And they're pouring love into the cup. But if you're anxiously attached, it's like you have a leak. And the love is leaking out. If you're avoidant dismissive, it's as though there's like a very small opening in the top. And so it's not really getting in. That's one reason that people don't feel loved. Or they're doing the wrong things to feel more love. there, they think that to feel more love, they need to make themselves more lovable and pursue

those extrinsic goals, right? If I were more successful, if I were more beautiful, if I had more money, right, I'd feel more loved. If I hid my shortcomings, kept those secrets, I would feel more loved. It turns out that those are not the right way to pursue feeling loved actually might actually backfire. So those are some of the reasons why we have the epidemic of not feeling loved enough. And I would totally endorse everything Sonia just said. And I would add to it, The idea that our culture is teaching us to value all those extrinsic things and not teaching us to value our relationships. They're parts of the world where people are taught from an early age to value their relationships to a much greater extent. And interestingly enough, those are the parts of the world where when you look at world happiness surveys, people are actually happier.

And instead, we do things to, I don't know if I would say that we do. discourage it, but we certainly don't encourage it. And as a result, people simply don't pay enough time and attention to it. One of the examples I like to use of this is the homeschooling movement. Now, homeschooling is wonderful, and I understand that people have good reasons why they may do it. But what do you lose when you do homeschooling? You lose the socialization with peers who you didn't initially know and learning to get along with groups and work with groups of people that have different beliefs and different opinions of you. That's a major part of what school is all about and a major part of preparing people to become adults in our society. You know, it's really

interesting. I was just at this dinner last night with a number of people who are really deep in the AI world and you guys probably have heard this idea, this thought that college education is going to really change. That's one of the predictions is going to change from being about learning and information, which is something that you could get with the really good AI chatbot, but about community and connection, right? You go to college, basically, to make those connections to network, to learn how to work in teams. We still have that, but that would be really the focus. So it's not interesting. That's the opposite of what the homeschoolers are doing. I mean, when I think about that, I remember less from my undergraduate and more when I was pursuing my MBA, how important those

group studies were. In fact, so many of the projects we did throughout the MBA was working in small teams and having huge debates and things like that. That really, for me, strengthened the whole academic experience because you were challenging each other and learning and growing. And I feel when you use AI repeatedly, I feel like I don't challenge myself as much. And I love to write. And so one of the things I try to do outside of the, of AI is to write because I think the more you rely on something to do it, you lose as we were talking about earlier some of that curiosity and creativity. Yes.

I know. It's like putting your brain like in a wheelchair. And let's say we all use the wheelchair even though we didn't need it. Our muscle are going to atrophy. And that's basically what we're doing is we're putting our brain in a wheelchair. Anyway, a whole different topic of a conversation. But it is relevant, by the way, we have a whole section about AI chat bots and how they might influence how people feel loved. And so something we've been thinking about. So that relationship I was in

that I mentioned where I felt like I was the utility. In my marriage now, it's the complete opposite. I feel very much loved all the time and supported. And for me, that feeling of being loved has created a safety net or a safe haven that I feel like now it gives me the strength to go out and live a more adventurous, complex life. Is that what you all have found as well? Totally. And Safe Haven is a well-chosen phrase. Sonia mentioned attachment theory before,

and an attachment theory, one of the primary functions of a secure base is that it allows you to go out and explore the world. If you're unsure about how loved you are, you've got to always be watching your behavior, making sure, up, I don't do something to offend other people. If you feel genuinely loved for who you are as a person, you can be confident that if I screw up, I might have to apologize, but it'll be okay.

And it allows you to go out, to be creative, to be experimental, in attachment theory terms, to explore the environment is what it allows you to do. I agree 100% with what Harry just said. I just want to add that a feeling of not feeling loved, and by the way, we talk about them terms of moments, right? So it's not like it's a trait or a characteristic or part of your identity. So sometimes we have moments. We don't feel loved or we feel lonely. It's a really important evolutionary signal, right? That something is off, that we need to repair a bond, that we are lacking something in our relationships, which back then in our ancestral times could have meant death, right? So actually, that's why it's so aversive to be, to feel lonely, not to feel love,

because it almost feels like a death because along in sort of our genes quote remember how dangerous it could be. So it's an adaptive signal. It's a healthy signal for us to go do something about it. And so our book is actually about what people can really do like starting today to feel more loved in their relationships. If you're a person and they're in a relationship where it's not where they want it to be, there's this idea of doing remaking conversations. I think, How much does a single deep perspective shifting conversation help to move a relationship? That's a tricky question to answer because I would say sometimes it moves a relationship enormously and sometimes it doesn't move a relationship at all.

Those kinds of conversations at the right moment, on the right topic with the right person can literally be life-defining and life-creating for that matter. On the other hand, we often have those conversations, and they feel great when you're having them. And later on, it's just another nice conversation that I had. So it's going to vary tremendously. And I think there's no good way to know that in advance. I think you have to have those conversations and you have to enjoy them in the moment. The spontaneity of enjoying these kind of interactions in the moment is really important.

if you're thinking about them more in terms of ultimate goals, that may actually be something that keeps you from getting involved deeply in the conversation. So that might actually interfere with it long term. It's the involvement in the other person that's really important. Right, the responsiveness. If I might just reframe that question a little bit, and this is really a take-home message of our book, it's about conversations. You can think about a relationship as a series of conversations, right, even when we're not talking. And one of the take up messages of our book is that if you want to feel more loved, you don't have to change yourself. It's always good to work on yourself, but it's not about changing yourself. You don't have to change the other person. You have to just change the conversations

that you're having. And so when you change your approach to conversations when you're, again, showing curiosity, listening, sharing, asking questions, showing warmth, showing acceptance of people's flaws and weaknesses. Those are ways they can really move their relationship forward and make you feel more loved. And all the other conversations could be fun and fulfilling and enjoyable. Don't necessarily move it forward. Right. So Harry, I want to go back to extrinsic goals for a second. In the book, you guys write one reason that striving for extrinsic goals doesn't always lead to feeling loved is that people want to be loved for who they are rather than what they have. And Sonia, one of the things that you brought up earlier was, and I remember going on a first date one time years ago, where it became like a competition that we were having like when we were sharing.

And it almost got to the point for me that she was being so competitive that it became like intimidation. And it was like pushing me away. So you go into the book discussing attributional ambiguity, and I was hoping maybe you could talk about this because it's probably something that outside of social psychologists don't really understand. Well, attributional ambiguity is the idea of not knowing why somebody likes you or appreciates you. The classic study of this area is a study that was done by our colleague Brenda Major, who at the time was at the University of Buffalo. And she did this wonderful little study where attractive women would hand in an essay to an instructor, and then they would get feedback on the essay.

And the instructor would tell them this is a great essay. This is really wonderful. And the interesting thing that happened is that if the instructor could see them, women didn't feel that the feedback was genuine. But if the instructor couldn't see them, then they felt that the feedback was genuine. So the message, of course, is that what attractive women are concluding is that the positive feedback they're getting is because they're good-looking. It's very nice to be good-looking. It's very nice to know that people think you're good-looking, but it's not as nice as knowing that people think you're smart. And I want to know, I want

people to believe that I'm smart, that I'm a good person, that I'm a kind person, that I'm a virtuous person, all these kind of intrinsic characteristics. It's perfectly fine to want other people to like you for your extrinsic characteristics. No one's saying that's a bad thing. But it doesn't produce the warm glow of being valued, of being loved, that knowing that other people appreciate your intrinsic qualities. Right. For being seen for. Be being seen for who you are. And again, we've mentioned this before, right? To feel loved, you really need to be known. And so when you believe that the other person sees who you are, and there's not really a true self, like some of those layers of the onion, and they still love you and they appreciate you and they

value you and they understand you, when you feel understood, that is incredibly powerful. Right. Yeah. I've heard you guys both talk about this whole idea of small talk in previous episodes that I've listened to where you've talked independently. And in the book, one of my favorite quotes was an Albert Einstein one. The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. When I think about love, love has many different forms. There's the deep intimate type of love, but there's also love for your friends,

et cetera. And I find that as I've gotten older, more and more of the deeper types of conversations I'm having with friends seems to be changing, and a lot more of it tends to be around small talk rather than asking questions to simplify it. Why does this whole practice of asking questions matter so much? Well, I'm going to start with a beautiful set of studies by Nick Epley from the University of Chicago,

where he shows that people are afraid to ask deep questions, that we think it's going to be uncomfortable to over on average. We think the other person will think that we're nosy and prying, and maybe being too personal. And yet, on average, people want to be asked, right? We want to be seen. We want to be heard. We want to be witnessed.

Of course, maybe not ask at the right pace, right? Maybe not ask the most personal question right away. And so that's actually a lesson for all of us. It's interesting. As I get older, I feel like my friends and I are actually sharing more. And we say to each other, life is too short for small talk. Like, I am done with small talk. Like, honestly, I'm done with small talk.

I understand sometimes it's a good. social lubricant to get started. But anyway, I think it's a great lesson is to remember, like, when you don't ask that deeper question to think, the other person actually might want you to ask. Yeah, I'll take a slightly different view than what Sonia said. I think Smalltalk has its place. It's certainly a social lubricant, but it's also a way of beginning a conversation. It's also a way of connecting with other people about, so, you know, what's new in your life? life. When Somal talk is all that you do, that's when you start to feel the holes that Sonia was describing. We're okay with small talk, but we want the deeper conversations. When all you do is small

talk, it's superficial. It's not much of a relationship. You could just as well not have had the conversation. Two days later, you won't remember it. It won't mean anything to you. So when it's a substitute for deeper conversations, that's when we get into trouble. I can't do a conversation with the two of you and not to ask you what your experience was like with His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. And how does that experience lead to what you have in the book is an open heart mindset? Okay. Well, can I start? We weren't allowed to bring, so this was we went to India and Darm Sala to meet with a Dalai Lama in a small group led by Arthur Brooks.

And we weren't allowed to bring phones or anything like any devices into the meeting. So we could just have a pencil and notebook. And so looking back on my notes is really interesting because there's two quotes that really resonated with me. And the night before, Arthur Brooks gave this talk and he said, you guys are probably looking for some kind of answer that he's going to deliver. Right. And he's not going to do that. But there's going to be a moment where it's just going to come to you while you're here and you're going to realize it. And so that happened to me at one point where he was talking about love, his holiness.

And he was talking about this beautiful idea that he said, I'm your mother and you're my mother. We're all each other's mothers. He said, how can we ever hurt each other when we're each other's mothers? This is this Buddhist concept. I actually mention this all the time. And I'll say to my kids, I'm your mother, but you're also my mother. And I wrote in big letters in my notes. And I wrote, I said, love is the answer.

That's our book, feeling loved. I'll add to that. I'm one who tends to be skeptical about the great person idea. And so I went into this with curiosity, with intense curiosity, but also with a little bit of skepticism. And I have to tell you that when I was in his presence listening to him, I totally lost that feeling. I felt an aura that this was a person who was totally loving, totally present in the moment. and he's elderly and having physical difficulties at his age, and yet he was still able to communicate all that.

And the idea that Sonia mentioned, when he talked about we are all each other's mothers, it really resonated to me. He said we should always think about the people that we're interacting with as if they were our mother. And how would you treat someone differently if they were your mother? And that idea is really stuck with me, and I've been using it. One of my favorite parts of the book was where you wrote,

if His Holiness the Dalai Lama is right, that love is a decision, then the best way to begin cultivating the open heart mindset is by deciding to act with love starting today. If he's right about the power of cherishing others' well-being, then the best place to begin is by deciding to nurture, I love this, the happiness of the people around you. So my last question for you is someone hears that. How do they begin to have an open heart mindset? I would give a very simple answer to that.

You do it. Showing warmth. Yeah, you do it. You start by just doing. You're showing warmth, believing in the other person. And we also talk about something called the Michelangelo phenomenon. The Michelangelo effect, this idea that you see something in the other person that they're trying to achieve. So maybe they want to be a writer or they want to be a marine.

biologists or they want to be a track runner and you believe in that when you help them realize their dreams and that's a big part of the open heart mindset you want them to be happy you want them to be well it's actually a common like meditation loving kindness meditation technique right you walk around and i've tried this actually people i don't like i'll say to myself i want them to be happy i want him to be happy and i do i want them to be happy because in fact often the reasons that i'm not liking someone is that they're behaving in a way that's probably rooted in unhappiness or not feeling loved, right? So if the world, if everyone was happier, the world would be a better place, right, Harry. And one of the things His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, said to us was to think about

the person who you most dislike and send loving thoughts their way. And admittedly, that was very difficult. But many Buddhists will pray on sending loving kindness towards other people and practicing it towards the person you most dislike is one of the challenges of that meditation. Wow. Well, last question and almost a lightning round for you. If the reader takes one small step today to ensure that their partner feels that they matter, what should it be? Have a conversation with another person. At least 15 minutes, make it deep. and when you're talking to that person, really listen to them. Gather the facts, help them explore.

Don't think about what your response is going to be. Think about what they're telling you and what it tells you about them as a person. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, both of you for coming on. It was such an honor. I followed both of your work for so many years. So it truly was a career highlight for me to not only have one of you, you, but both of you in a conversation. So thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, John.

And I love your questions. You asked questions that we've never been asked before. Maybe it never will be asked again. Thank you for that. Yeah. We really appreciate talking to you. I'm happy to hear that because I, you don't want a person to come to a podcast and have it be the same podcast that they heard. They were very informed questions. Yeah. But I was like, I don't know. There was one that Harry answered. I was like, I did not know how to answer that question. I'm really glad you took that one. Thank you very much. That brings us to a close of today's conversation. If this episode stayed with you, it's likely because it's named something familiar, the exhaustion of being useful without feeling known, and the quiet ache of being loved

without feeling felt. Here are three reflections to carry forward. First, feeling loved is a lived experience. It forms when a person sees that their presence changes the relationship. Second, responsiveness is the proof of mattering. When our signals are noticed and responded to with care, we experience ourselves as having weight. Third, relationships thrive through circulation. Energy returns when people act as a source, not a resource. Sonia and Harry reminded us that love becomes real where attention, curiosity, and care move back and forth, restoring the relationship seesaw, and allowing people to inhabit the space fully. If this conversation resonated, consider sharing it with someone who may feel invisible in a relationship or leave a five-star review on

Apple Podcast or Spotify. It's one of the most meaningful ways to support the show. You can watch full conversations on our YouTube channels at John R Miles or Passion Struck Clips and explore intention-driven apparel at start mattering.com. On Thursday, we continue the You Matter series with psychologist Paul Eastwick, where we'll explore attraction, dating, and how early impressions shape who gets a second chance to matter. I think it's easy. It's easy. to underestimate how important support is in a relationship. That is often one of the central things that people look for in a relationship partner and one of the central things that relationships provide. It's not like this even exchange of goods and services. Thinking about relationships is like,

I don't know, a tradeoff between like sex and money. These are bad metaphor. Good metaphors are about support. This is the key thing that differentiates happy relationships from unhappy relationships. Until then, remember, you matter when your presence is felt. You matter when your signals land. And love grows where attention circulates with care. I'm John Miles, and you've been passion struck.