Sonja Lyubomirsky (A.B., Harvard, summa cum laude; Ph.D., Stanford) is Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Riverside and author of the bestselling The How of Happiness and The Myths of Happiness, which have been translated in 39 countries. She has received numerous awards for her work and has been featured in a wide range of media, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and The Atlantic and on the Today show, NPR, and CNN. She lives in Santa Monica, California, with her family.
ABOUT THE BOOK
How to Feel Loved
The Five Mindsets That Help You Get More of What Makes Life Worth Living reveals the simple yet powerful shifts that can transform how we experience our closest relationships.
Why, in an age of constant connection, do so many of us still feel lonely, anxious, or unseen? Sonja Lyubomirsky, the world’s preeminent expert on happiness, and Harry Reis, one of the world’s leading experts on relationships and connection, argue that the problem isn’t the number of friends we have or how busy our social calendars are—it’s that too often, our interactions don’t leave us feeling genuinely loved. We may worry that if people really knew us—our flaws as well as our strengths—their affection would disappear. Or we may think we’re just not lovable enough.
This book offers a liberating alternative. You don’t need to reinvent yourself, impress others, or bend over backward to earn love. Instead, the key lies in shifting how you approach your next conversation!
Blending cutting-edge science, timeless wisdom, and compelling stories, Lyubomirsky and Reis introduce five practical mindsets that can change the way you relate to others. With practice, these habits will help you create relationships where you feel deeply known, valued, and—most important—loved.
David Rock
D.Prof., CEO, Neuroleadership institute, and author of Your Brain at Work
Everyone wants to feel more loved. It’s remarkable that no one thought to study such a central driver of human happiness before. Lyubomirsky and Reis have done a beautiful job combining real science with compelling stories to show us exactly how to make this happen. Their approach is non-obvious, fruitful, and evidence-based—an important body of work.
Dan Buettner
National Geographic Fellow and #1 New York Times bestselling
author of The Blue Zones
In How to Feel Loved, Sonja Lyubomirsky and Harry Reis identify the five mindsets that show love isn’t something you wait for; it’s something you help create through small, everyday choices. This book is a gift to anyone who wants to live with more joy and connection, which will also help you live longer.
Arthur C. Brooks
Harvard Professor and
#1 New York Times bestselling author of Build the Life You Want
Science and ancient wisdom have shown that the secret to happiness is to love—and to feel loved. If you struggle with the latter, Sonja Lyubomirsky and Harry Reis have the solution. How to Feel Loved is a deeply researched and beautifully written guide to finding what we all need for true happiness. This book might change your life.
Margaret S. Clark
John M. Musser Professor of Psychology at Yale University
It’s about time an expert on happiness (Lyubomirsky) and one on relationships (Reis) came together! In How to Feel Loved, they show that the true key to happiness lies not in being perfect, nor in finding the ideal partner, but in learning how to relate to others so as to feel loved. Through research and stories, they outline simple but powerful mindsets—sharing openly, listening with curiosity, embracing complexity, and keeping an open heart—that anyone can practice. Their 'Sea-Saw' metaphor reveals how love grows through a back-and-forth process of mutual lifting up, offering readers both inspiration and practical guidance.
Eli J. Finkel
bestselling author of The All-Or-Nothing Marriage and host of the Love Factually podcast
This is the book we’ve been waiting for! Lyubomirsky and Reis marry the best happiness science with the best relationship science to identify the five mindsets for building a life filled with love.
Angela Duckworth
Rosa Lee and Egbert Chang Professor, University of Pennsylvania, and author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance
To love and to feel loved—if this is what you want out of life, what does science have to tell you? There aren’t two scientists in the world I trust more to deliver research-backed, actionable recommendations on how to improve your relationships, from intimate to casual. Not only are they world experts on the subject, they’ve written a playbook that applies the evergreen principles of love to the dilemmas of modern life.
James Pennebaker
Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin and author of Opening Up by Writing It Down: How Expressive Writing Improves Health and Eases Emotional Pain.
Thousands of books promise to teach us how to be rich, thin, beautiful, charming, or smart. But beneath these aspirations lies a simpler motive: most people want to be loved and appreciated by others. Imagine, then, the audacity of publishing a book that claims to show us how to be and feel loved. Two world-famous psychological scientists, Sonja Lyubomirsky and Harry Reis, have just done exactly that—with a profoundly important new book.
How to Feel Loved is one of the most compelling works of popular psychology I’ve read in many years. Drawing on research in psychology, neuroscience, anthropology, and philosophy, the authors trace the foundations of what it means to feel loved. More importantly, they offer a practical roadmap for helping people feel loved and appreciated in their everyday lives. This beautifully written book is both personal and scientific—sometimes funny, sometimes painful, and always thought-provoking.
Harry T. Reis
Harry T. Reis (B.S., City College of New York; Ph.D., New York University) is Dean’s Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Rochester, which honored him with the Georgen Award for Distinguished Achievement and Artistry in Teaching in 2009. He has received many other awards, and his work is frequently featured in the media, including NPR’s Hidden Brain, Scientific American, Psychology Today, and the New York Times. He lives in Rochester, New York, with his family.
Excerpt
Don’t Change Yourself—Change the Conversation
According to our surveys, the reason many people don’t feel as loved as they want or as much as they think they “deserve” is because some believe they’re fundamentally unlovable. They suspect that if the person who is trying to love them ever discovered who they truly are inside—rather than the idealized or polished version they have presented to the outside world—that person will love them less or love them differently. Others do feel loved—at least in some of their relationships—but would welcome more love in their lives.
If you don’t feel loved enough, we have a profound and empowering message for you: Feeling loved is not out of your control. For some, it will require a radical shift in how you orient toward conversations with loved ones. For others, it will simply call for more practice of the muscle that enables you to deeply know another person and become deeply known by them.
We’ve been conducting behavioral-science research for decades. We’ve won awards for our research on happiness (Sonja) and close relationships (Harry). Over the years, drawing from different perspectives, we’ve both come to the same conclusion: People feel happiest in moments when they believe that others understand and respect them for who they truly are—for their deepest, unvarnished self.
This book brings together well-being science and relationship science in a way that no one has quite done before. By putting our heads together, we offer a new perspective on the ingredients that make life worth living. How to Feel Loved presents these insights, backed by a feast of cutting-edge empirical research. What we offer is a new way of seeing and relating.
Because the secret to feeling more loved is not about changing yourself or about changing the other person—it’s about changing the conversation.
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