The Psychology Of Feeling Loved | Dr Sonja Lyubomirsky
Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais
Dr. Michael Gervais
4.6 • 1.8K Ratings
🗓️ 20 May 2026
⏱️ 75 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Why is it that so many of us are loved... and yet don’t actually feel loved?
Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky is a Professor of Psychology at UC Riverside and one of the world’s leading researchers on happiness. Her newest book, How to Feel Loved, co-authored with relationship scientist Harry Reis, lands at a strange moment: a time when more people than ever say they are connected, and more people than ever say they don’t actually feel it. In this conversation with Dr. Michael Gervais, Sonja offers a quietly radical reframe. After 36 years of studying what makes a life happy, she has come to believe the answer lies in this: Feeling loved.
And here is where it gets interesting. Sonja’s research is showing that feeling loved is not something we have to wait for. It’s something we can help create. Most of us, when we sense the absence, default to one of two strategies. We try to be more lovable. Or we try to change the person on the other side. Sonja argues that neither one actually works. What changes a relationship is changing the conversation.
She walks Mike through the five mindsets at the heart of the book: the sharing mindset, listening to learn, radical curiosity, open heart, and multiplicity. Along the way, they explore why most of us are listening to respond instead of listening to learn, the three words people actually want to hear (hint: it’s not I love you), and why ‘tell me more’ might be one of the most loving phrases in the English language. Sonja shares her foggy glass metaphor for why being known is the prerequisite to being loved, the Michelangelo effect, and a striking line the Dalai Lama once said to her about how we hold each other.
The conversation also gets honest about the harder edges. Bridging political divides at the dinner table. Staying curious about a partner of 30 years. Navigating the modern questions around AI companions, monogamy, and what it means to really go deep with another human. And the research on what tiny acts of kindness, including the impact a 10-second compliment can have.
If you’ve ever been surrounded by people who love you and still felt unseen, this conversation is a gentle invitation back in. The good news is that feeling loved is under your control, more than you think. Sonja’s research will show you exactly where to start.
Most of us are waiting to feel loved. Sonja shows us how to create the conditions for it... starting today.
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Links & Resources
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Book: How to Feel Loved by Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky and Harry Reis. Learn more and take the mindset quiz at howtofeellove.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I've done 36 years of research on happiness. |
| 0:03.0 | And after all those decades of research, |
| 0:05.0 | I realized that the key to happiness is... |
| 0:08.0 | Why is it that so many of us are loved, |
| 0:11.0 | and yet we actually don't feel loved? |
| 0:13.0 | If you want to feel more loved, |
| 0:15.0 | you need to become known. |
| 0:17.0 | You need to be known to the other person |
| 0:19.0 | and to really know the other. And most of us have these sort of walls around us. And that means I don't really know you and you don't really know me because you can barely see through. Welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast where we dive into the minds of the world's greatest thinkers and doers. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Jervais. A high-performance psychologist named Michael Treveig. |
| 0:37.8 | Who head coach Mike McDonald and former head coach Pete Carroll brought into work with the |
| 0:41.5 | Seahawks. |
| 0:42.1 | Famous for his work with Felix Baumgartner when he jumped out of space in the Stratos |
| 0:46.2 | project. |
| 0:46.9 | Olympic athletes depend on something more than just training and talent. |
| 0:50.3 | They have to stay mentally tough. |
| 0:52.7 | Today's guest is Dr. Sonia Lubermerski, |
| 0:55.0 | professor of psychology and one of the world's leading researchers on happiness, |
| 0:58.8 | whose decades of work have helped shape how we understand what it means to live a happy life. |
| 1:03.5 | When people get wrong is to get more love in their life or to feel more love. |
| 1:07.0 | The more money, fame, power, beauty that we have, the more we'll have. And that we |
| 1:12.1 | know from lots of research that that's not the answer to happiness or to feeling loved. |
| 1:17.0 | In her latest book, How to Feel Loved, Dr. Sonia explores a powerful and often overlooked idea that |
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