>> From WXXI News.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour is made in the source of happiness.

And consider this question.

This is a fill in the blank.

Truly happy people tend to blank.

Tend to what?

Truly happy people tend to know how to avoid conflict.

Maybe truly happy people tend to be financially secure.

Truly happy people tend to have all the luck.

Maybe.

Well, a new book combines the fields of happiness, research and relationship psychology.

And here's the answer.

Truly happy people tend to feel loved.

That's it.

And that's it.

But it's not as simple as it sounds.

Unfortunately, feeling loved is not a surface idea, and it can fall apart if we have not really revealed our true selves or really given ourselves to others in a lot of ways.

And it's it's not easy.

A book takes you through it.

It's very detailed.

It's this brand new book that we're going to be talking about is called How to Feel Loved.

The five mindsets that get you more of What matters most.

I really enjoyed it, and I'm glad to have one of the coauthors with us this hour.

Dr.

Harry Reis is professor of psychology and Dean's professor in arts and sciences at the University of Rochester, the coauthor of How to Feel Loved.

Welcome.

Thanks for being here.

>> Glad to be here, Evan.

>> And it's great to have with us.

Dr.

Bonnie Lee.

Bonnie is assistant professor of psychology at the University of Rochester.

Welcome to you.

Thank you for being here.

>> Thanks for having me.

>> And Bonnie, very talented and own right, but does not happen to be the coauthor of this book.

And I want to give Dr.

Reese a chance to shout out your coauthor who's not with us.

>> My coauthor is Dr.

Sonja Lyubomirsky, who's a faculty member at the University of California, Riverside.

>> Okay, so, doctor Lee, you're standing in, and it's a tall task, but and I love how you ended up coming together here, Harry, you, you know, from your field, you know, you would maybe naturally think, well, that's sort of happiness research, but it is a separate field, and you end up in this marriage of authors.

How did this happen?

How did you come together?

>> Well, the interesting story about it is that we were at a conference one day and Sonia and I were just chatting as as colleagues tend to do.

And she's one of the world's leading experts on happiness.

And I've been studying relationships here in Rochester for about 45 years.

And we started talking and we realized that every happiness researcher knows that social connection is the key to happiness, but they don't know.

What about social connection?

And we have all this relationship research, and we know that relationships make people satisfied, but we don't know how that happens.

And there was this magical moment where we looked at each other and said, we should write a book.

And literally it popped out, as these things sometimes do.

And that led to several years of talking and thinking and researching that ultimately produced the book.

>> So this is a subject that if you're a regular listener, Connections, you might go like, well, this is a little far field for you.

Listen, we cover everything on this program and also a lot of books get pitched.

Dr.

Reis happens to be legit in his field, very, very well respected.

And the book is really good.

that's my personal opinion.

I've really appreciated the themes.

There are five mindsets that we're going to talk about.

And I told Dr.

Reese before the program, we could probably do an hour on each of the different individual mindsets described in this book, but it has helped me be, I think, a more mindful participant in both a romantic relationship but also other relationships that I am a part of.

And we're going to talk about that coming up here.

I want to start with one of the repeated themes in this book, which is a common mistake we make when we first get to know somebody either in a romantic setting, but not always.

We tend to think that we should hide the parts of us that we think might turn somebody off or bother somebody.

and only gradually do we reveal those things over time, usually through gritted teeth, hoping that they don't blow up the entire relationship.

And I'm going to start with you, Dr.

Reese.

You advised us to maybe think about this a different way.

Why?

>> Well, one of the things that is central to the idea of feeling loved is that it's not just our best self that we want to be appreciated, it's our whole self that we want to be appreciated.

So if I show you the curated image of all the wonderful things that I do, just like people do, for example on their dating profiles, you may appreciate that, but I've always got this negative feeling feeling in my head that when you find out that I, in fact leave my clothes lying around on the floor in the bedroom.

You may be turned off.

So I have this fear that if you knew the real me, the full me, that that would take away from this building relationship.

So it's very important to get the whole self, you know, the multitudes of the positives and the negatives and not necessarily in the first minute.

You know, we've all had the experience of sitting next to someone on an airplane who, after two minutes, starts telling you about their traumatic childhood.

>> Too much.

>> Yeah, that's too much and it's too soon.

But this is more of a gradual process of opening up to the full self.

>> And never with the intention of hiding anything.

>> And certainly not with the intention of hiding spontaneously, bringing up things, as you know, as the moment may fit.

>> Now, let me at least try to challenge one aspect of this.

I don't know if challenge is the right word, but let's take the example you gave, which a lot of people think of.

Let's say someone is very messy and they're worried that, well, if this date ever comes back to my place, it's a mess there.

I'm going to look like a slob.

I'm going to be really picked up and clean.

To the extent that a friend might say, well, what are you picking up for?

This isn't you?

I would argue it's possible that that's not hiding my true self.

That's me being pushed to be the better self that I want to be by a potential partner.

And isn't that a good thing?

>> And and I would, you know, I'm a messy person so I can resonate exactly to what you're describing, Evan.

And I would say, you know, the first time I had somebody over, particularly someone I want to impress, I would clean my house to.

The question is, what do you do on the fifth and the sixth and the seventh time they come over?

And if you continually try to do that, then you're doing something that's very uncomfortable for you.

Now, if it turns out that it allows you to become a neater person and that you're comfortable with that, that's great.

No one's arguing that you shouldn't try to improve yourself, but if you're cleaning up every time the person comes over, but then when they're not over you, you let your house be a mess.

You're you're creating a this is not the natural me kind of thing.

And eventually you have to get there.

>> Well, and doctor, Lee, on that note, let's go beyond sort of the the messy person.

Let's go to the sort of the messy personal life and background that you might be concerned would be a deal breaker.

And I understand.

I mean, everybody's got something that they're either not proud of, they wish were different, different about themselves, habits they don't like.

How do you go about pursuing true honesty in a relationship from the beginning, knowing it might be it might feel harder?

>> Yeah, that's a great question, Evan.

And kind of going off of what Harry doctor was saying, I think we should really question our assumptions of how negatively people may perceive the truth.

That's oftentimes in our heads.

And what we're finding is we often overestimate how negatively people receive the truth.

Or maybe they will be hurt from the truth if we're sharing hard truths with them.

So these are assumptions that we have that may be a barrier to being honest, when in fact people like the truth.

They like knowing that we are imperfect people.

It shows a sense of vulnerability.

and I think we often don't think about the opportunities that those truths create.

So maybe you have you know, something difficult in your past that you don't want to share that's difficult for you, and you think maybe you'll put the other person in an uncomfortable situation, but it may actually open a dialog to share your vulnerabilities, to come to know one another and build closeness.

>> And it maybe it's not as simple as the Seinfeld episode where George decides to do the opposite and approaches an attractive woman at the diner and says, hello, I'm middle aged, bald, unemployed, and I live with my parents, and it opens the door immediately.

And she said, ooh, you know, maybe it's not that simple, but part of what you describe and part of what we're going to talk about, Dr.

Reis about, is the idea that for every insecurity that we have, a potential partner also has insecurities.

And when you are vulnerable in a very real way and lets them know that they may feel accepted too by you, if they can be vulnerable, is that a fair way to describe it?

>> Right.

That is an exchange between two individuals.

And that is kind of that process of becoming closer.

I mean, Dr.

Reese has talked a lot about in his research self-disclosure and coming to know one another.

And honesty is an avenue by which we do that.

and so it's effortful to hold secrets or not be our true selves, that requires a lot of self-control.

so pulling those layers back and creating comfort and closeness is what honesty and those kind of disclosures allow us to do.

>> We're talking about the book How to Feel Loved the five mindsets that get You more of what matters most.

And I do need to ask, as we kind of get into this part of the subject here, you know, you've had a career that you've done a lot in your career.

You decided that this is a book that needed to be written.

Now we're really struggling in our relationships right now, aren't we?

What's going on?

>> Well, one of the things that's been quite striking in, in, in our field is something that most people know as the loneliness epidemic.

Yeah, there's, there's a trend in in not just in America, but in many parts of the world where people are feeling lonelier and lonelier and lonelier.

Now, there are a lot of causes of that.

And it's not just one thing that that makes it happen, but part of it is that our relationships are our closest.

Relationships have been more and more difficult to navigate.

You know, the divorce rate has been around 50% for the last 30 years or so.

And, you know, think about that.

That's one out of two marriages are not going to work.

And that process of not working is painful for people.

>> But now fewer younger adults are even getting married.

There's the marriage rate is dropping.

The attempt to even start a lifelong relationship that appears to be changing culturally.

>> That's true, but it's also the case that many people who are not getting married are still entering close romantic relationships.

And if anything, the breakup rate in those relationships is even higher than it is in marriages.

>> And so part of the reason I wanted to start with this idea of how we think about revealing ourselves and honesty is because I feel like it undergirds so much of what is in this book.

And we're going to talk about the different, the five different mindsets coming up here.

But I do want to ask both of you if we are in a perhaps an era technologically that seems to run against us having successful relationships, I think about, number one, addiction to social media.

Part of the challenge is really being present for somebody and not being distracted all the time, and then how frustrated we feel when we're trying to be vulnerable with someone and they're distracted, they're not fully present.

But then what?

We are distracted by is a set of algorithms that encourages us to present this sort of glitzy, shiny, perfect life.

Everybody can think of someone on Facebook who has the most perfect looking life that you've ever seen, and the pressure on.

There's research, especially on young girls, but on all of us to, to to be more attractive, to show your quote, unquote best self to chase all of these different ideas and metrics and standards.

And I don't know that that dovetails at all with what is in your book, Dr.

Reis does it?

>> Well, it dovetails in the sense that we wrote the book to be a cure for exactly what you're describing.

Yeah.

You know what?

You know my view of smartphones and social media is that it's it's it's it's a mixed situation.

The positive of them is that it enables you to maintain contact with people who are not in your proximity.

My daughter lives in North Carolina.

We text several times a day.

I feel like I'm involved in her life.

That's a good thing.

Without question.

The bad part, and this has been documented in many, many studies, is when people use them to substitute for what you get when you're in a room with somebody talking to them face to face.

you know, I'm sure many of our listeners have been in the situation where there'll be a group of adolescents in the room and they're texting each other while they're in the same room, rather than actually talking to each other.

And it's the process of conversation and interaction that makes relationships grow and that promotes well-being.

>> And I was digging through my notes because what our guests are talking about triggered for me something that I jotted down from the book the authors, the coauthors catalog a lot of quotations from a lot of interviews with people who are either in relationships at different parts of their lives to kind of help figure out what is wrong with with a lot of us right now.

And here's a quote that jumped right out.

Here's the quote I have plenty of friends, and I spend a lot of time socializing, but honestly, I don't know if anyone deeply loves me.

I mean, Dr.

Le, that's the person with 2000 Facebook friends, but no real deep relationships, right?

>> Right, right.

And, you know, kind of dovetailing with what Dr.

Reese was saying, it's not only replaced our relationships in that that's when social media is most harmful, but it's changed the nature in which we communicate, even with our close others.

So we're living in a time now where we can wait to respond with a text message where we've, you know, taken some time to think about what we want to say, or we can edit an email as much as we'd like before we send it.

So I do think that that has allowed us to sometimes curate our responses or self present not just to individuals, but but to audiences in a way that can compromise, sharing our true selves.

It's certainly harder to share our true selves or our vulnerabilities with 1000 followers on a social media account.

versus in a in a conversation one on one.

So not only can these technologies, there are certainly benefits.

I don't mean to say they're not beneficial, but in the times when they do compromise our relationships, not only do they replace important relationships, but they can change the nature in which we communicate in genuine or authentic ways, which can be a barrier to building a true type of closeness.

>> Yeah.

Dr.

Reis, I mean, I, I go back and I'll try to be a student of yours for a moment here.

I go back to one of the lessons early in the book is this idea that if you are trying to present this sort of social media, scrubbed up, perfect version of yourself in a relationship, you, even if it's quote, unquote works, even if you are in this budding relationship, the way that you feel might not be as good and as deep and as truly loved as you think, because you're aware that the person is responding to sort of a projected image of yourself that you want, as opposed to the fully authentic self.

And that's not what you want to aim for.

If you want to feel truly loved.

Is that is that right?

>> Oh, that's totally fair.

You know, some people refer to this as the impostor phenomenon.

The idea that if if I present this perfect image of myself and, and and you respond to it, I have to start worrying.

What?

What if he finds out that I'm not that smart?

What if she finds out that I'm not that friendly?

What if she finds out that I'm a terrible lover all of a sudden you're worried about acceptance?

And if you never let those things out, you can never feel totally comfortable.

>> So let's talk about, if we could, some of the mindsets here and as we talk, work our way through some of the five mindsets, I'll say again, we could probably do an hour on each of them.

The book is called How to Feel Loved The five Mindsets that get You more of what Matters most, and some of what Dr.

Reis and his coauthor did for this book is, you know, sit together, sat over coffee, talked about a structure of a book, and I want you to describe why you landed on five mindsets that you want people thinking about as they seek to develop true relationships and eventually feel real love.

Why these five mindsets?

>> Well, we we spent a lot of time talking about what are the essential ingredients, what we tried to do was figure out in the most abstract way possible, what what actually is going on.

When people feel truly loved.

My favorite of the mindset is one that we call listening to learn.

I'll tell you a story about how we got to that.

we everyone knows that listening is important.

We we worked that.

We had that idea pretty quickly, and then we went to a workshop in Israel that was a listening workshop run by some of the world's leading experts on listening.

I went into that workshop thinking that I was a really good listener.

I came away from that workshop realizing I had a lot of work to do.

the idea of listening to learn is that when we talk to another person often we're we're preparing our response.

We're not listening to what they're saying.

We're not encouraging them to go deeper.

Instead, we're thinking, oh, here's what I'm going to say when they're quiet.

Maybe I'm going to change the topic.

Maybe I'm going to talk about myself.

Maybe I'm going to try to get out of the conversation and go talk to somebody else.

All of that is counterproductive to really developing a connection.

The idea of listening to learn is that you listen to somebody as if you really wanted to learn what makes them tick.

Why did you think avatar was such a fabulous movie?

Why did you live in the why do you live in the neighborhood you live in?

Why do you believe what you believe?

And you can say to somebody the simple three word phrase, if you can't think of how to dig in is to say, tell me more.

that encourages people to speak.

And usually if you do that, the other person's response is, huh?

They're really interested in what I have to say, and that allows them to begin to feel loved.

So the idea of listening to learn dovetails with another one of the mindsets that we call radical curiosity, the idea of radical curiosity is you're not just listening to learn you know, to, to make the other person feel, that you're interested.

You're also doing this to really be curious about to learn about them.

this is not a new idea.

Dale Carnegie in the 1930s wrote a book called How to Win Friends and Influence People, second best selling book of all time.

And guess what?

It was about showing genuine, authentic curiosity about another person.

>> So a couple questions related to this.

By the way, my notes on radical curiosity as a mindset is five words surface.

Listening is not enough.

>> Absolutely.

And one way you can think about radical curiosity is enthusiasm.

All of us can remember a teacher that we had who was really inspiring.

I'll wager that what was inspiring about that teacher is that they were enthusiastic either about the process of teaching, or about what they were teaching.

When you're talking to someone who's enthusiastic about what you're saying, you get this feeling of, wow, they're really interested in me.

And that is what builds the sense of feeling loved in the other person.

>> And so what I wanted to ask about this specifically was if surface listening is not enough, if it is an act of enthusiastic listening, of of true curiosity, but you're not practiced at it.

And I say that not cynically, but to say that, you know, can you sort of fake your way into that?

Can you, can you push yourself to be the better listener and to actually develop a focused curiosity?

If that's not sort of your typical mindset?

>> Well, well, there's a quote that I love from Groucho Marx which says sincerity is really important.

And if you can fake that, you've got it made.

>> sincerity and genuine interest is something that's hard to fake.

you can't just spontaneously, all of a sudden be wildly enthusiastic about someone who you're not wildly enthusiastic about, but what you can do is build little bits of interest and enthusiasm.

So one of the things couples often do at the end of the day is you come home.

And so how was your day?

Now there's multiple ways you can respond to that.

You can respond with, oh, that's nice.

And here's what I did.

Or you can say, wow, that's really interesting.

How did you feel when that happened?

And that's a way of showing interest and sticking with the topic for a little bit.

And it doesn't have to be a heavy duty kind of.

Let's talk for 25 minutes about lunch you had with somebody.

It's an incremental kind of thing.

>> Here's a here's the conversation I have every day with my 13 year old.

How's school today?

>> Fine.

>> Good.

Yeah.

Usually for him it's good.

Fine.

Maybe one word.

And I'm always.

Yeah, I allow him as a 13 year old to get away with that.

But there are times where I should probably press it or also just say, no, no, I really would like to know.

I mean, how are you feeling about your classes?

How are you learning?

Are you are you engaged with it?

Are you challenged by it?

He takes it as a I've got to say something.

I will say good.

Right.

Check the box.

>> But but research with adolescents and parents and their relationships will also show you very clearly that adolescents are most happy with their family relationships and most healthy emotionally when their parents are genuinely interested in what's going on for them.

>> Yeah, that's what I want to ask doctor Lee about.

So again, on the theme of honesty and relationships, I'm thinking of this, you know, so Catherine O'Hara passed away recently and a lot of people are sharing clips.

And I saw a clip from Curb Your Enthusiasm where Larry, David's friend says, you know, my sister is just out of the hospital.

And Larry says, well, if there's anything I can do.

And his friend says, well, actually, there is something if you can come over today.

And Larry said, no, I didn't mean that.

That's just something you say.

And he says, well, you made the commitment.

You're coming over today.

When we say, how was your day?

Even if we don't mean to to a spouse, to a significant other, it's often feels sort of perfunctory as opposed to invested or interested.

How do we kind of retrain ourselves to ask, like, honestly, like, how is your day?

What's going on?

How do we set aside time to really delve into that?

>> Yeah, I think we need to just think about, you know, in the example you give.

This is a social script we have.

And so he followed the social script and got in a little bit deeper than he wanted to.

And it goes back to your first question of, you know, if I'm not naturally this enthusiastic person, can I can I fake it?

I think there's a difference between faking it and developing that skill.

As doctor was saying, we start with small steps, but we could even think about the work on the way we control our emotions.

So you know, no matter how good of people we are or how responsive there are qualities or feelings that we may not have in a moment that we want to have, or we want to express something that we don't.

and we find that if we just simply fake it that tends to be a disservice to both myself, who's not acting authentically in the other person who asks for your help.

And now they're not receiving it like, oh, no, you're not as good of a friend as I thought you were.

but there's also something that we've called deep acting.

And so it's not quite acting, but, you know, trying to develop those true feelings.

So there's got to be something about another person's day you're interested in.

Maybe not globally.

What are those things?

so there are ways to to listen or respond to a friend that maybe don't commit you to a big act that you wanted to do, but are there genuine things that you're interested in?

So can you align that that listening and that responsiveness to things that you, you want to do?

You know, maybe not getting yourself into a situation where there's a big ask, but starting little and not just simply falling to the social script of what it means to ask how someone's doing, what it means to listen.

Because I think that's what we're often doing.

that isn't isn't building the relationship in a way that we genuinely want it to go.

>> I also should say that one of the really, I think, important parts of exploring these five mindsets that the book instructs us to think about is that when we embark on a relationship with someone, all the pressure that we feel, all the insecurity about some of the things we've talked about.

What if I reveal too much?

you know, I'm divorced.

Can I even talk about that?

It's painful.

How do I feel about that?

What if what will this person judge me for?

Pick any number of things that people can have a really good piece of of really advice and instruction from the book is calm down and just do more listening than talking at the start anyway, because what you're going to do is be disarming enough to let someone else be vulnerable, and then you will be accepted for your vulnerability.

So I appreciated that too.

Harry.

We think a lot about like, what do I say?

When I was in seventh grade and calling a girl for the first time on the phone, my my son thinks it's hilarious.

There were landlines connected to the wall, and you'd have to dial a number and hope that their parents didn't answer.

I would write down subjects to talk about because I'm like, what if I run out of things to say.

>> I did the same?

>> Okay, so there we are.

I mean, like, you always feel like you had to fill the silence as opposed to just being comfortable saying, I want to hear from you, and I want to get to know you.

I want to know how you are.

That's not only maybe it's actually an easier approach if you can do it, but it's really sort of this beautiful way of opening doors.

>> Well, there are a couple of things to say about that.

one is that if you can't think of the the right question to dig in, there's a simple three word phrase that you can use.

Tell me more people.

Like when you say that, it's like, you want me to elaborate?

Wow, we're not just telling you the news of the day.

Yeah, but the other thing is one of my colleagues from the listening workshop has done some really nice papers about the idea.

You know, it's not it's not saying I like you six times and smiling four times, and, you know, curating the conversation a great way.

It's digging into the person.

It's finding out not about.

I don't care how your day was, I care about how it felt to you and what it meant to you and what's important to you because you're interested in the person and that's what you want to communicate, not, you know, I think Dr.

Le made an important point.

Is everything that someone else is doing isn't going to be interesting to you.

I may not care about, you know, the you know, your your feelings about a football team.

but there's going to but there should be something about the other person that you want to know more about.

And so you want to sort of find, you know, you explore in early in a conversation and as you find out what that thing is, that's what you dig into.

>> I'm again, I'm, I'm, I'm pushed to find another quote that came from the book because there's so many great ones and I now I can't find it.

I have too many notes.

Oh, no, here it is.

Yes.

Okay.

Related to this, sorry, this is a really good interview.

I'm off the rails, but there's so many great parts of this that I'm scribbling down.

You know, Dr.

Reis is talking about how we interact day to day with people we love, or we're developing relationships with.

And one of the things that I began thinking about, I think about a lot of the mistakes I feel like I've made in relationships.

And the book really pushes you to ask yourself, like, how are you doing on the sharing mindset?

How are you doing on listening to learn?

How are you doing on Radical Curiosity?

And the second half I were going to get to multiplicity, the hardest one, you know you really do a lot of self examining.

There's a quote there that I thought was really powerful.

Someone told you, I know my husband loves me, but sometimes I just don't feel it.

It's like I know it intellectually and have to remind myself.

That's probably a lot of people who feel like in the day to day grind, there's so many things to do that once you're in a relationship, you're past the early phase.

You feel like you're established in some form, whether you're married or whatever it is, and it can be easy to just say, how is your day?

I'm with the day.

Do you have to be intentional about saying, hey, every day is radical curiosity?

I mean, maybe not all day, every day, but you've got to set aside time for that.

Otherwise, you feel like this person.

>> Well, that's such an interesting and important point, Evan.

couples, especially long term couples who know each other very well, often fall into this trap of, in a funny sort of sense, I don't need to hear what you say.

I know what you're thinking.

I know how you react to stuff.

It's not that I can read your mind.

It's just I know how you are.

Typically, that's the worst trap that a long term couple can fall into, because it's not me knowing what your experience is, it's us sharing the conversation about what that experience is.

one of the things that goes on in couples therapy often is, you know, one partner will say this is how I felt when you did.

Well, you don't have to tell me.

I know what that is.

and that is the worst thing they can do.

What's important is to let the other person say it.

And then to respond to what they're saying in the moment.

This is a concept that in our field is sometimes called minding the relationship.

making the relationship a priority so that you connect with your partner in some respects, in the same way you did when you were first dating.

I have a couple friends who've been married for over 40 years, and they've had a tradition all those 40 years of Friday night being date night on Friday.

And this was true when they had young kids.

This is true when they have work that needs to get done on Friday nights, they go to dinner, they do something, and they really relate to each other and talk to each other.

Absolutely.

You can't do this all the time.

There's no question, you know, there can be days when you can't do it.

but making sure that there are times when you do this kind of thing is one of the keys to keeping the relationship vibrant.

>> There's someone I know very well who has really struggled with relationships throughout his life, because after 2 or 3 years, he feels like they have to feel like they did the first month, and if not, they blow it up.

and I have tried to say over the years, you know, like, that's not the first month is fun if it's good, but it's not necessarily what you should expect for the rest of your life.

And it may be not what you should be building for this book doesn't contradict that idea, but this book does for me at least, say, hey, don't expect the dopamine hit of the first 30 days.

However, if you let things atrophy just because you feel like you're in a routine, or I know this person well enough and you're not attentive, that's dangerous too.

If you're not figuring out where you are in these individual mindsets that the book gives you, that runs a risk as well, of saying what you thought was a healthy relationship could crash here.

Is that fair, doctor?

>> Yeah, yeah.

I mean, the way you described the time trend is absolutely right.

there's a every longitudinal study that's ever been done has shown that those passionate feelings decline over the first few years of marriage.

I think one of the secrets is to think about it in the same way that you might think about a roller coaster, you know, there's ups and there's downs and you you can't feel that way all the time.

If you felt that way all the time, you wouldn't get anything done.

but if you.

But you want episodes.

So, you know, vacations, anniversaries.

>> Date nights.

>> Date nights.

Just times when you are prioritizing the relationship.

You know what many couples put put their relationship in the worst possible spot.

You relate.

You you come home, there's dinner, there's kids to be fed, there's pets to be fed.

There's litter boxes to be cleaned.

There's emails to be answered.

There's bills to be paid.

It's 1130 at night.

Finally you finished all that and it's time to connect with your partner and you're exhausted.

Make the relationship a priority.

Not every day, not every moment, but some of the time is the way to have those moments of of intimacy and connection.

>> When we come back from our only break, we're going to dig into what I think I mean, the book identifies as the most challenging mindset.

We're going to talk about that multiplicity and why it is and how to see all of us, how to see yourself, but how to see a possible partner as not a caricature of one thing, and accepting that and celebrating that in many ways, and understanding that that's okay.

Even the parts that aren't quote, unquote perfect, that it sounds so easy, but the book is so smart and it's really hard to maybe do that in practice.

So we're going to come back in just a moment with doctor Harry Reis, who is the coauthor of How to Feel Loved the Five Mindsets that Get You more of What Matters Most.

Dr.

Bonnie Le is with us, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Rochester.

Dr.

Reis is also a professor of psychology and the Dean's Professor in Arts and Sciences at the University of Rochester.

We're coming right back on Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson Friday on our next Connections.

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What's going on with staff shortages and why?

International nurses degrees.

We break it all down for you in our second hour, our Friday News roundup with the WXXI News team Gino Fanelli talking about what's going on with Peace Village in Rochester, Jimmy Vielkind on the governor's race, and Joe Lester talking about rom coms to close the week.

Talk with you Friday.

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>> This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson the hour is flying by.

And the book is, I think, a great prescription for a lot of if you feel like you're struggling with relationships or you're struggling to connect deeply and meaningfully, if you're someone who's sort of in the dating world and dreading it, you know, I've been there, done that.

It's really, really I know can be really, really challenging.

And I know that a lot of people feel adrift.

And Mary Wright wrote in to ask if loneliness, which we've talked briefly about, she says, is loneliness the same as not feeling loved?

I'll start with Dr.

Reis.

>> That's a great question, Mary.

I think the simplest answer I can give is that there are multiple kinds of loneliness.

there's the loneliness you feel when you're not feeling loved enough.

There's also the loneliness you feel when there's nobody to spend time with.

when you want to watch the Super Bowl and you're sitting alone watching it, there's the loneliness you may feel.

If you're feeling isolated from the culture that you're part of.

So.

So there are multiple kinds of loneliness.

But I I'm pretty convinced that not feeling loved is the most essential kind of loneliness.

Not feeling like there are people who get you, you know, the essence of not feeling loved is not feeling seen, not feeling understood, not feeling cared for.

And that is the heart of what most people experience as loneliness.

>> And then you want to add Dr.

Le.

>> Yeah, I think that the only thing I'd add on that is it really gets back to the importance of how you're perceived, how you're listened to, because you can be loved by someone and not feel loved.

so it is this interactive process where of course there's being isolated, not having, friendships, relationships, but you could also have relationships and have that subjective feeling of of still feeling lonely.

>> Can you both talk a little bit about this?

This is, I think, really important.

And this is where if you have a couple and one says, I don't feel loved and the other person says, I love you, what are you talking about?

You know, how do you how do we typically end up there?

And what do you do about that doctor?

>> Yeah, I mean, I think that circles back.

I mean, there could be a lot of reasons for that, of course.

But coming back to that idea of being listened to and I think just thinking about what we find in psychology in general, tying back to our conversations about how your day was not assuming you know how someone feels when we look at people in general, in relationships acquaintances, we don't understand people as much as we think we do.

We think we understand their emotions.

We think we know what they're thinking, and we're probably wrong more often than we're right.

and there's one study I love where it compares being empathic, trying to take someone's perspective versus simply asking them, what are you feeling?

And you're better able to know them by simply asking, asking them, what are you feeling?

And going one step further and really listening to them.

So that example you give is there's a some level of breakdown of that, you know one person feels like they're loving and the other person doesn't feel loved.

Perhaps they don't feel listened to.

>> that there, there hasn't been that shared intimacy.

So love can be there from one perspective, but you could still feel lonely if some of these important processes of being honest.

listening aren't aren't there.

>> Anything to add there, doctor?

>> Yeah.

Well, I would certainly agree with everything that Dr.

Le just said.

sometimes in in a couple, it is a question of, you know, I might feel that I love you, but I'm not showing it.

I'm not doing things that will help you feel that way.

Sometimes it's a question of the person's experience.

You know, there is this concept we have called attachment style, which is basically based on your early experiences.

And do you feel secure in your connection with other people, or are you constantly pushing people away, or are you sort of what you might call a bottomless pit of endlessly needing to be reassured?

And I think it's important.

>> That would be me.

I think.

>> well I'm sorry to hear that.

>> Me too.

>> You know, I think and I think if that's the case, then there may be some work that the individual has to do to to get to the point where they can experience it coming from the other person.

But I think one of the things that's important to realize is that, you know, sometimes people think about these kinds of individual differences as you know you know, I need to surgically remove that part of my personality.

And, and I think that's a very unhelpful way to think about it, a much more productive way to think about it.

Is that, okay, this is something that I live with.

If I can make little incremental changes in it on a day to day basis, that will be enough to make my life better.

So if you know, if I'm feeling worried, does my partner really love me every time?

You know, my partner's watching television as opposed to talking to me, I can remind myself of that.

And then I can start conversations with my partner occasionally, and gradually get to be more comfortable.

>> Chronic insecurity is terrible, by the way.

Anyway.

Yes it is.

>> Yes it is.

>> It can be really terrible.

and maybe related here.

Patrick Patrick wrote in to say, it helps to know your love languages.

This book disappointed me so much to find out that the love languages thing is not all it's cracked up to be.

Dr.

Reese, what are you going to say about love languages?

>> Yes.

I'll get myself in trouble here.

>> here comes.

>> You know, the love languages idea was an idea that originally sounded great.

It sounded totally intuitive.

And, you know, in our science you know, we often get disappointed.

You know, our beautiful ideas turn out not to be true.

And in the love language, there are different love languages.

To be sure, there are many ways to express love.

The love language idea suggested that if people agreed on the way to express love, that they would somehow be better matched.

And that idea is not borne out.

>> It's been studied.

>> It's been studied extensively in at least a half dozen studies that I can think of.

And, and the problem is that there are two love languages that everybody does better with quality time and words of affirmation.

Everybody does better with those love languages.

And if you don't have them, everybody feels worse.

The other love language is are are perfectly nice.

And they're, you know, the five love languages that Chapman talks about are not the only love languages.

There are many more.

you know, encouraging your partner's autonomy, supporting them in what they want to do.

so, you know, the idea that, you know, that if if acts of service is the one that you really value, you have to find somebody who wants to do that is has just not borne out by research.

>> Okay.

Dr.

Lee, anything to add there?

Yeah.

>> I think you know, I think when we learn that these love languages aren't true, it could often kind of shatter people's ideas about love.

But I'll go out on a limb and say, like, love and relationships are more fun than that.

It's not simply a puzzle where you like this, and I'm going to match that.

>> And I have a very narrow dating pool that it's got to be this, and it's only going to work if it's this.

>> Exactly.

Everyone's different.

And that really opens up opportunities.

Of course, there are fundamental keys like quality time, but the way we enjoy spending our time is different for every single person.

So not every single person, but many people.

so I think just connection is more fun than that.

We're not puzzle pieces to be put put together in that way.

>> Did you want to add something?

>> Well, I was going to say one of the things I really don't like about the idea of, you know, going to a dating profile and finding somebody who has the same love language as you, is that it implies that, that you want a relationship with your clone.

and, you know, we don't we don't grow from that kind of relationship.

One of the things that's so good about relationship is that you find out things you didn't know that you liked, or you get, you develop skills you didn't have, and that kind of growth can often make you a happier and more well-rounded person.

>> All right.

Patrick.

So anyway, when you pick up the book, don't be surprised if it's going to take down your ideas on love languages.

But there you go.

Thank you for the email.

so I want to talk a little bit about the the most challenging mindset that the book talks about, which is multiplicity, requiring us to see beyond one dimensional caricatures that people are complex, that they should be seen as having many qualities and sides.

And one of the things that encouraged me to do is I if anybody listening right now, just think about wherever you work, wherever you spend a lot of time.

If I said, well, stereotypically, who's the jerk of your office, can you think of someone who's the nicest person in your office?

You know, who's the hardest working?

We kind of pigeonhole people, and I do it into very narrow ideas and what they are.

So if you're in a developing romantic relationship and you start to assume someone is just these things, or they may think of you that way, it's not helpful, and it can make it really hard to grapple with complexity when it arises.

When people start to be more vulnerable.

but why do you think, doctor is this is the most challenging of the mindsets?

>> well.

Well, there's a let me start with a quote that I really love from Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative.

in I believe it's Alabama.

And his quote is nobody is as bad as the worst thing they have ever done.

>> I love.

>> That you know, we all have multiple, multiple sides when we pigeonhole people, we make it impossible to learn about their complexity.

The other things they do so, you know, when you describe someone who's the office jerk, well, maybe there's a reason that they're that they're nasty to other people.

>> Yeah.

Like, what do we know about them outside of that?

>> You know, there's a story there for sure.

And maybe when they're outside of the office, they turn out to be rather sweet people.

I have one colleague who shall we say, was very harsh with other staff.

His kids would come into the office and he would be the sweetest person you could ever want to see.

we all we all have multitudes.

We all have positive things.

We all have negative things.

When we pigeonhole people.

Because when we get to know somebody, when we first encountering somebody, we're trying to figure out, what's this person like?

How do I have to interact with this person to have a good a good conversation with them?

And so we grab on to something that we see about them.

And so we form an inference about what they're like based on what we've seen.

And then we stick with that.

We we get rigid in a sense.

Maybe we're stereotyping them by, by their gender or their race or some physical characteristic that we see.

And we don't go any further when we realize that people are complex, we start to open the door to the possibility, well, they just did something that wasn't so nice.

Maybe they had a good reason to do it.

Let's find out why they did that.

Let's explore it.

Curiosity.

Again.

This idea, by the way, applies to oneself as well.

People will often feel a sense of shame because they did something really bad in their life.

All of us have done something that we're ashamed of in our lives.

If we pigeonhole ourselves as I'm a bad person because I did that thing, that also makes it harder to to enjoy life, to feel good about oneself, and to connect with other people.

>> So doctor Lee, taking this concept into this budding relationship where we're going to have the multiplicity mindset that says, I'm going to encourage vulnerability, I'm going to be a good listener.

I'm going to be a radical listener, and I'm not going to overreact.

If there are thorns that show up in this person because I have my own thorns, that doesn't mean that it says, like when they tell you I am the serial killer the police have been looking for for 20 years.

You go, well, look, people are complex.

I mean, you have to draw a line somewhere.

How do you decide this is a fair line for me to draw?

And this is not just me shutting down because I don't accept multiplicity, complexity versus, you know I can be a little more giving here.

I can be a little more graceful or generous.

>> Right.

of course there are going to be extreme circumstances where there are qualities that are not going to be conducive to a close relationship, like I'm a serial killer.

but by and large, in our day to day lives you know, the transgressions we make are things that we think are bad about ourselves, often humanize us.

And so maybe one way to open that door is, again, questioning our assumptions of how negatively people perceive information or qualities about us, and reassuring people about the same thing, too.

so of course, you're, you know, you're going to draw the line at qualities that are harmful to other people.

But that's not true of most of us aren't serial killers, you know most of us are ashamed of how messy we are, how messy our rooms are.

but, you know, people like vulnerability.

And it it allows a door for you to open.

And let me help you out.

Let me.

Let's do something together.

it opens the door to be able to be a unit together.

>> And so as we get ready to wrap here.

Oh, my gosh, the book is.

Where can people get the book, doctor Reese, by the way?

>> it's available at everywhere that you like to buy books.

You certainly can be purchased on Amazon, but most bookstores seem to be carrying it at this point.

>> How to Feel loved.

The five mindsets that get you more of what matters most toward the end.

You get this idea that you can actually pick this up as a kind of a manual and apply it.

Ask yourselves, how am I doing?

You know, when I go through the mindsets open heartedness, listening to learn, curiosity, sharing, multiplicity.

Am I showing up?

How is that happening in my relationship?

And you can kind of use it to do a little improvement.

>> Well, as a matter of fact, if you go to the website for the book How to Feel Loved, there is a diagnostic test where you can take out and find out where your strengths are and where your weaknesses are, and there will.

And when your weaknesses are identified, there are a few simple suggestions about what you might do.

>> I mean, I found that really practical, very straightforward.

the book is kind of a great combination of scholarship, experience, anecdote, and data.

And then just logic.

And it's really, really well packaged.

I thought you and your coauthor have done a great job with this, and I suspect you're going to hear from a lot of people when it's out in the world.

do you expect the same doctor?

>> well, the book was officially published two days ago, and I will tell you that my email is flooded.

>> Already.

Already?

Yes.

I mean, it says something about where we are as a society that people feel.

I mean, maybe this adrift and and this frustrated, but sometimes you just need a little bit of a reset.

So I'll close with this.

Do you think we are at in your professional career, the lowest point in terms of emotional intelligence and relationship building?

Or is this, I mean, have we always had challenges like this?

>> I don't think we're at the lowest point in emotional intelligence necessarily, where I think we are is at a low point in using that intelligence.

I think we have boxed ourselves into corners based on social media and electronic Connections and all that kind of thing, so that we don't get to go out and connect with other people in some of the ways that we used to.

>> Well, congratulations on the book.

Thank you for sharing the hour with us.

And thanks for coming in.

>> Well, thank you for the kind comments.

>> How to feel loved.

The five mindsets that get you more of what matters most.

Dr.

Harry Reis.

And now you know more about the book.

But we've really kind of just scratched the surface, I got to tell you that.

And Dr.

Bonnie Le, who is a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester, thank you for your expertise as well.

>> Thank you for having me.

>> From all of us at Connections.

Thank you for watching.

Thanks for listening.

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