The Harvard Health Study On Happiness With Dr. Waldinger

What makes for a good life,

A fulfilling and satisfying life?

That's what we're going to explore today with Dr.

Robert Waldinger on Your Life in Process.

There is a study that you likely have heard about called the Harvard Study of Adult Development,

And it is the longest scientific study of happiness that's ever been conducted,

And it shows that strong relationships make for a good life.

Good relationships keep us healthier and happier.

Whether it's your marriage or your friendship or your family or your work colleagues,

Your connection to the barista that you see every morning,

Good relationships matter.

And today we get to talk to the director of the Harvard Study of Adult Attachment,

Dr.

Robert Waldinger.

He's a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and co-founder of the Lifespan Research Foundation.

Dr.

Waldinger received his bachelor's from Harvard College and his MD from Harvard Medical School.

He's a practicing psychiatrist and psychoanalyst,

And he directs a psychotherapy teaching program for Harvard psychiatry residents.

He is also a Zen master,

A Roshi,

And teaches meditation in New England and around the world.

His new book is The Good Life,

Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study on Happiness.

It was such a delight to talk with Dr.

Waldinger.

He has one of the most watched TED Talks of all time.

It's like millions and millions of views,

And there's good reason why.

It's just a pleasure to be in his presence.

He makes you feel happy being around him.

And he has a deep understanding of what living well means from both his own contemplative personal practice and the lives of hundreds of folks that he studied over time.

The Harvard Health Study has been going on for over 82 years,

And it's had an 84% participation rate.

This data is very,

Very rich.

So take a listen to Dr.

Robert Waldinger on The Good Life.

I turn the tables a bit in this episode where I ask him some of the questions that he's been asking in the Harvard Health Study.

And as always,

On the other side,

I will give you some practices based on our conversation to try out this week to build your satisfying and meaningful life.

I am going to be teaching a regular meditation class at Yoga Soup.

It's hybrid,

Online and in-person.

I would love for you to join me.

I hope to see you there.

And you can sign up for that at yogasoup.

Com.

And while you're there,

Go ahead and sign up for my February 19th live in-person workshop at Yoga Soup,

Body Image Flexibility,

Finding Freedom in the Body that you have.

We're going to be using ACT,

And it's going to be experiential.

And then April 15th to 22nd,

I'm in Costa Rica,

Blue Spirit,

Come with me.

I just have like two spots left,

And I know that you're on the fence about it.

Get off the fence and come with me to Costa Rica.

It is a life-changing and life-enhancing and life-lengthening experience.

So I hope to see you there.

I got your book,

The Good Life,

About maybe five days ago.

It just came out.

And this is the challenge of your book.

So I listen to your book when I'm running,

And then I read it when my kids are brushing their teeth and I just have a few moments before bed.

And what ended up happening was I'd start listening to your book,

And as soon as I'd start learning more and more about the benefits of relationships,

I'd want to call my mom,

And then I'd call my best friend.

Yeah,

Yeah.

That's great.

And then I'd turn off the book and I'd call a friend,

And I'd feel like I was procrastinating on doing this important thing of reading your book.

But it already,

In just a few days' time,

Has really shifted my perspective on my life and what's important and what is really rejuvenating and important to me.

So I want to thank you for that.

I am thrilled.

I am thrilled to hear that.

That's what we want.

I mean,

More than anything,

We want this to help people think differently about their relationships and their lives.

So I'm so glad to hear that.

I think many people have heard of,

They just call it the Harvard Health Study at this time.

They don't even use the full Harvard Study of Adult Development.

Many people have heard of it,

And I think many folks are skeptical about it,

At least folks in my world of psychology,

Because they ask the question,

Well,

What does a study about white men from Harvard say about me as a woman or say about me as a person of color,

Me that's not heterosexual?

So the book doesn't just focus on the Harvard Health Study.

It incorporates other studies,

And you've really tackled that concern head on.

So I just want to start there,

Because before we even look at what's in there,

We need to look at what are some of the barriers to maybe people even wanting to listen to this information.

Exactly.

I really appreciate you doing that,

Because at first glance,

It can look like,

Well,

This is just all white guys,

So white straight men.

But it's not.

First of all,

We soon brought in the spouses of the original 724 men,

And then we've brought in all their children,

More than half of whom are female.

So we have quite a bit more gender balance.

The other thing is that one third of our original participants were Harvard students,

And two thirds were from Boston's poorest neighborhoods and specifically from the most troubled families.

Over half of those families were immigrants to the US in 1938.

And so what we have is much greater diversity than just a bunch of privileged white guys from Harvard.

And you're looking at your study in addition to other longitudinal studies as well.

Absolutely.

You talk about a study that's been done in Hawaii,

A longitudinal study,

A study from Chicago,

A number of other projects that you're incorporating.

This is the idea of research,

Right?

Not to be in your own little tiny silo,

But to incorporate lots of information from places.

No.

Exactly.

And in fact,

No study in our kind of research proves anything.

What you want is many studies pointing to the same findings,

And then you begin to have confidence in those findings.

And so what we present in the book and what I'll talk about here are findings that other studies have found as well.

So other studies,

Including studies of people of color,

Studies in different parts of the world.

So more diverse groups of people.

It's called the Harvard Study of Adult Development.

What was it originally designed for?

And then how has it evolved over time?

Because this study has been going on before you were born,

Before I was born.

You are one of many.

I think you're the fourth director of it.

So there's a lot that's happening before you came on board,

And then that will continue to evolve even after you're gone,

I'm sure.

So tell us a little bit about the story behind it.

How did it start and how has it evolved?

Well,

It started in 1938,

And it started as two studies that didn't know about each other.

One was started at Harvard Student Health Service,

268 sophomores,

19-year-old kids,

Who the deans thought were fine,

Upstanding men.

And it was meant to be a study of normal young adult adults,

Adolescent to young adult development.

And the other study at Harvard Law School by Sheldon Gluck,

A law professor,

And Eleanor Gluck,

A social worker,

Who were interested in the problem of juvenile delinquency,

And particularly the question of how do some children from really disadvantaged families and troubled families stay on good developmental paths,

Stay out of trouble,

And do well?

And that was their question.

So both of these studies were studies of thriving.

Most research up until that point had been about what goes wrong in human development,

Understandably,

Because we want to know how to help.

But this was a study of what makes people thrive.

And then the two studies were brought together.

We studied them as two contrasting groups,

Now with entire families over three generations.

And research has evolved too.

So early on,

It sounds like there was a lot of paper and pencil questionnaires,

And there continues to be.

But if I were to follow someone,

Say I were to follow one of these handful of folks that are 90-plus years old right now,

What would they have experienced in this study?

What would it look like to be them participating in this study?

Would researchers be coming to their house?

Would they be doing different biomarker studies?

Yeah,

What would it look like?

Well,

It started out with people coming to them,

Especially in the inner city group,

Workers coming to their homes.

And first of all,

Doctors doing physical exams,

Psychologists doing psychological exams.

And then the researchers visiting the parents,

Talking to the parents about their discipline style,

Taking notes about what the family was eating for dinner,

All these kind of sociological things about their lives.

And so the notes,

As you can imagine,

From 1938 are incredibly rich.

And then they began to fill,

We asked them to fill out questionnaires every two years.

But then about every 10 years,

We went to their homes and interviewed them for three to four hours.

And then we began to audio tape them and videotape them,

Videotaping them talking to their intimate partners about their biggest fears.

We began to draw their blood for DNA.

And that was really cool because in 1938,

DNA wasn't even conceived of.

And here we were in the 2000s,

Measuring DNA.

We started bringing them into our lab and deliberately stressing them out and then seeing how quickly they recovered from stress.

All of these as different ways to get a window on well-being and thriving.

And how are you defining that now,

Well-being and thriving?

What is,

Yeah.

Sure.

Well,

Do you want to know about me or do you want to know about science?

I want to know about both.

And actually,

Before we do that,

Your book goes through and it gives little vignettes of some of these people,

But actually gives some of their written responses to the questions that you asked all the way back from the 50s to even more current.

And I wrote down some of those questions and this is a psychologist that wants to talk to a psychiatrist.

I want to ask you some of them first.

And then we can talk about what you mean by thriving on a personal level,

But also what the science says about thriving.

And you're asking,

You want to ask me for myself to give you my personal answer?

Are you in for it?

You've done this to hundreds of people.

Yeah.

I know.

Turn about.

Turn of the tables.

I won't go too deep on these,

But the first one is a true study question that you asked folks,

Or you didn't ask,

They asked early on,

Which is,

Are you ticklish?

I am.

I am really ticklish.

We can talk about whether or not that predicts anything in a moment.

But okay.

And the next question is,

What is the secret to aging well?

Well,

I would say being engaged in activities you love with people you care about and who care about you.

And I imagine that's based on your personal experience,

But also from what you see from the research.

Both.

Exactly.

Exactly.

So for example,

I'm doing this.

I mean,

I'm in my early seventies.

A lot of my friends are retired,

But I love this.

And so I want to be out there doing this work because it energizes me.

Absolutely.

Okay.

I'm going to ask you two more.

One is who can you really count on to be dependable when you need help?

Yeah,

We did ask everybody that.

So I can count on my wife,

Who we're married almost 37 years,

And she's really,

Really my best friend.

And so I know I can count on her.

I could count on my kids who are now young adults,

Two sons.

And I have quite a bunch of friends,

Including Mark Schultz,

My coauthor on this book.

I mean,

Mark's been my friend for 25 years,

Not just my collaborator.

So a lot of my Zen colleagues,

I teach with other Zen teachers and several of those people I'm really close to.

So just the length of that response says something about you,

Right?

Yeah.

And then the last question I have is how often do you feel lonely?

Never?

Some of the time,

A lot of the time,

Or all of the time?

Some of the time,

More like rarely,

Because I'm not alone a lot.

I mean,

Again,

I'm lucky enough to have a partner and she's around,

Or if she's not around,

She's coming back.

And that's a wonderful situation for me,

And many people don't have that.

So I don't feel lonely very much,

But I certainly know what it's like to feel.

And some people feel very lonely in their partnerships,

Which is interesting.

Absolutely.

You can have a black partner and feel very alone.

So why these questions and what do the answers to these questions tell us that when people start answering them,

Tell us about what we were talking about in terms of what it means to live well or to flourish or have vitality?

Yeah.

Well,

What we do is we distill down all these answers and we put them into numbers,

We crunch those numbers,

We do data analysis.

And what we found,

And that's the major thrust of the book,

What we found is that the people who were happiest,

But also healthiest and lived the longest were the people who have the best connections with other people.

And that was a very powerful finding.

In fact,

It was a finding we didn't believe at first.

It began to come out in the 1980s and then it's gotten stronger and stronger.

We didn't believe it because we thought,

Okay,

If you have good relationships,

That will make you happy.

That makes sense.

But how could good relationships make it less likely that you'd get heart disease or type two diabetes?

How could that be a thing even?

And then other studies began to find the same thing.

And so the last 10 years of our research has been trying to understand how exactly that works.

How do our relationships get inside our bodies and change our physiology?

So how does that work?

Well,

It's complicated,

But probably the best hypothesis for which there's good data is stress,

That relationships can be stress reducers.

So all of us have stressors in our lives,

Of course,

And stressors are coming at us all day long.

And if I have something upsetting happen in my day,

I can feel my body rev up,

My heart rate revs up,

And the body goes into fight or flight response.

That's normal.

We want that to happen.

But then when the stressor is removed,

We want the body to go back to equilibrium.

And I know that if I'm upset during the day about something and I go home and I can talk to my wife or I could call a friend,

I can literally feel my body calm down if that person's a good listener.

You know,

You go to a therapist and you could,

You,

I'm sure you've seen this,

Many of your clients will,

You can see them literally calm down as they have the experience of talking to you about something upsetting.

If you don't have that in your life,

What we think happens is that you stay in a kind of chronic fight or flight mode.

And what that means is your body is slightly revved up all the time.

And you have higher levels of circulating stress hormones,

Higher levels of inflammation.

And we think we know that those things break down body systems gradually over time.

And that's how,

You know,

Relationships or the absence of relationships could affect your heart and your joints and your pancreas.

That's how we think it works.

Right.

Yes.

So inflammation and cortisol are sort of the things that age us,

Age our cells.

And I had Stephen Porges on recently.

Yeah.

Oh,

You did.

Oh,

I know him.

About this.

And he's similar to you,

Just listening to your voice,

You kind of soothe us,

You have a soothing prosody and kindness,

Like sort of an inherent kindness.

And we sense that in people and it puts us at ease.

Right?

It's true.

He's a lovely person.

And so our relationships can be the source of ease and comfort and joy and all sorts of wonderful things.

But they also,

It's sort of one of these double-edged swords because the paradox of relationships is that they also cause us the most pain.

They cause conflict.

And one of the exercises that you did in the book,

Which I have been trying out with a few clients is did this little diagram called your social universe.

And it's wonderful where you plot people in your life based on how depleting they are to you and how energizing they are,

And then how much time you're spending with them.

So if you're spending a lot of time with someone who is depleting,

It's going to deplete you.

And what's interesting is I think many people just want to think,

Oh,

I'm just want to cut that person out of my life,

Which sometimes you may need to do.

Right?

But oftentimes the people that are depleting to us,

We actually need to relate to them differently so that we can increase their energizing factors.

Right?

And it's really up to us,

Right?

Not to the other person.

So I was curious about that,

A little bit about our social universe and how we can maybe adjust our relationships so that they are more energizing and less depleting.

Yeah.

You know,

What you're saying is really important because we don't want to give the message that if there's difficulty in a relationship,

You should get out of it.

That yes,

Some relationships we know are so toxic and so hurtful that they need to be stepped away from.

But every relationship has conflict.

Every relationship has disagreement.

And so what we find is that the people who do the best are the people who find ways to work out disagreements and conflicts with other people.

You know,

You can't do it with everyone,

But it's something that we can learn to get better at.

And we can learn to do it in such a way that both parties come out feeling okay.

Nobody's won and nobody's lost.

And often when we work out the disagreements,

I mean,

I find this when I do psychotherapy with people,

That when we work out a disagreement,

Our relationship becomes stronger.

And certainly that's the case with romantic partners,

With friends,

With work colleagues.

What are some of the things that you observed over the lifespan of folks that were successful at that in terms of conflicts and disagreements and how they navigated that?

What were the successful folks,

The happier folks,

What were they doing?

Well,

The most successful folks were first of all,

People who didn't bury it,

Didn't just say,

I'm just going to pretend this isn't going on.

Because usually what that means is that disagreements build,

Resentment builds,

Unhappiness builds.

So facing toward a problem rather than than trying to bury it.

Also not reacting.

So letting your emotions come up and using them as information,

But when you can,

Not acting right away on a strong emotion,

But letting it just sit for a little while and spending some time kind of living with the feeling,

Maybe it's anger,

Maybe it's sadness,

And then seeing how your feelings evolve toward this other person with whom maybe you've had a disagreement,

Giving it time and then coming back and saying,

Okay,

How would I like to respond?

If we respond immediately,

We're likely in many cases to do things that we wish we hadn't done,

To respond in ways we wish we hadn't.

And so slowing things down when there are disagreements can be really helpful.

The other thing I'm learning is that in this era of online communication,

So texts,

Emails,

Chats,

Posts,

Take disagreements offline,

Take them in person,

Or call people on the phone.

Do not try to work out a disagreement in an email or in chat.

It is very difficult because those forms of communication filter out emotion.

And it makes such a difference when you can talk to someone and say,

Boy,

That was upsetting to me when you did that.

And you can hear them respond and say,

Oh,

I didn't mean to upset you,

Or just hear how they feel about it,

Not just what they think about it.

And so all that said,

Don't work out disagreements online.

Well,

Yes,

I think Stephen Porges would agree with that,

Given all of the nonverbal cues that get lost when you're using text messaging.

And I've personally had that happen to me,

And also see it all the time in my practice where people come to me,

Read a text from their mother with so much tone to it that is not even necessarily in the text,

Right?

Yeah.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Yes.

You're alluding a little bit to some Zen practices there of the pausing and the stepping back and investigating rather than being completely enmeshed in the emotion itself.

How has your own Zen practice informed the way that you view this data and view people in your research?

Oh,

It's been so important.

You know,

Because Zen,

Like all meditation,

Is a way of getting to know the self in the world,

You know,

To sit there and know what it is to breathe,

To sit there and know what it is to watch knee pain come and go and disappear and come back again,

You know,

Just becoming,

As we say,

Intimate with the experience of being alive.

And that has really informed the questions I ask in my research.

It's informed the questions I ask and the way I talk with people in my psychotherapy practice.

Because these are all different lenses on the experience of being human.

And so I find that Zen has been just a wonderful way of expanding my understanding of human life and certainly my understanding of myself.

Well,

It's a true practice of curiosity,

Isn't it?

And such a nice parallel with researchers,

Because you ask a question,

But whatever answer you get just leads to another question.

It doesn't really.

.

.

There's no end point here.

And the same thing with being a therapist,

You ask a question and then there's another question that's just percolating up.

And Zen may give you a little bit more practice with that,

With having questions that are not necessarily answerable in a concrete way.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Exactly.

And that human life is like that.

It's not answerable.

It's not quantifiable.

So here,

I'm a researcher,

But believe me,

Most of human life,

You can't put numbers to.

You can't describe in any particular way.

A lot of human life is indescribable.

It can only be experienced.

One of the really beautiful things about longitudinal research,

That first longitudinal research is so much harder to do because people drop out.

And so few people have dropped out of your study.

So that's interesting in itself,

How you're conducting it in a way that people want to stay engaged and they're getting something out of it.

But something that's so interesting about longitudinal research is that you're not getting just a snapshot in time.

You're getting this,

It's almost like reading a book from the beginning all the way to the end and all the ups and downs of this one character over the course of their lifespan and their different developmental changes over time.

Tell me just a little bit about the,

For folks that aren't coming in from the angle of research,

Why this type of study is so beneficial above and beyond what a lot of other views into happiness are telling us.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm so glad you asked because it isn't obvious why.

Why would we spend,

We spent millions of dollars of taxpayer money doing this work.

Why would we do this?

Well,

The thing is that,

That most research is kind of one point in time research,

Like taking a snapshot.

So let's say we want to study depression over the lifespan.

Well,

I could study a group of 20 year olds right now,

And 40 year olds and 60 year olds and 80 year olds.

And I could from those snapshots right now,

Right now,

Assume that I know how depression changes and goes along through the lifespan.

But what we know is that that ends up making connections that some of them are not real.

The best way I can illustrate that is with a joke.

So Claude Pepper was a Senator from the state of Florida.

And he loved to quip about South Florida and all the retirees there,

And all that young Cuban immigrants.

And at one point,

He said,

When I look at South Florida,

I would have to believe that you are born Cuban,

And you die Jewish.

And that's his way of pointing to that if we just take snapshots right now,

We can get the wrong impression of how life proceeds for most of us.

And that's why studying the same people,

And the same families over 85 years is so precious.

And that's what we tell each of our participants.

We say you are giving a gift to science.

Every time you answer a questionnaire,

Every time you talk with us,

You know,

Every time you let us draw your blood.

Yeah,

Giving us a sort of an insight into the commonalities of being human.

And some of that is you talk about the different developmental periods,

And the tasks and challenges of each,

Sort of what are the challenges of adolescence versus the challenge of being a young adult,

And being at midlife,

And later in life.

And that's been helpful for me,

Even in just this past week of viewing some of my clients,

Having that list.

You had one here,

The list of challenges for young adults were asking questions like,

Who am I?

What am I capable of?

Will I ever find the right person?

Finding this balance between work and love.

And so I heard one of my young adults coming in asking some of those questions,

And through your lens,

I was able to say,

These are exactly the questions,

And exactly perfect that you don't have to answer.

That you don't have the answers.

You're not supposed to have the answers right now.

And this is your developmental task.

And then,

You know,

Two hours later,

Talking with someone in their 40s,

Who's talking about,

Do I even matter?

What,

Am I a good parent?

What am I doing with my life?

Should I,

Am I going to make an impact on the world?

And I'm like,

Exactly.

So this is helpful.

These are the things that emerge from studying people over time.

Yes.

And it's really,

I'm so interested to hear you say that,

Because I find that I do that too,

In my work with people,

That I help them see,

These are normal questions.

And this is just what you ought to be asking and working with right now.

And it helps people,

I think,

Because often we end up feeling like we're kind of a loner,

And we're one-off where,

You know,

I'm the only one who doesn't have it figured out.

And so to remind people,

No,

No,

This is just what happens at your time of life,

Can be a relief to people.

They feel less alone.

So there's that common humanity that we experience.

Yeah.

And then there are differences.

There are differences amongst people who experience early childhood trauma,

Neglect,

Really adverse circumstances early on.

What is the course of their life?

And is it possible to change that course based on some of what you've seen with your research?

Well,

We see a lot of people who were traumatized as kids,

Because it is unfortunately so common.

And trauma,

In addition to the actual harm that's done,

It also changes your view of the world and other people.

It takes you from a place as a child where you want to believe that the world is safe,

And that you can turn to grownups,

And they will be good to you and take care of you,

And you can rely on them.

And what trauma does is it makes the world seem unsafe,

And it makes people seem unreliable,

And it makes it seem dangerous to get close to people.

And it's one of the greatest harms of trauma.

And so what we find is that for many people,

It's possible to have healing experiences.

It's possible to have corrective experiences when you choose the kind of people who you can rely on,

And the kind of people who are kind and not mean,

And are trustworthy.

If you can make friends,

If you can find a partner like that,

It can go a long way to healing those negative expectations that you developed in childhood because of how you were treated.

Yeah.

I often will share with clients that it's like,

As an adult learning a new language,

And the language of attachment and secure attachment.

And it's a lot easier to learn the language of secure attachment when you're two than it is when you're 42.

So it's going to take a lot of your partner being secure over and over and over and over again before you feel like,

Okay,

This person's secure.

And it's so hard as an adult to learn to develop that secure attachment,

But I've seen it happen.

And it's a beautiful thing when you have someone that's not had that and they start to experience it in a relationship,

Whether it's a friendship or with a mentor or with a partner,

That it can change the way that you see the world and then most likely change your physiology and your health and all the good downstream effects of that.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

There's a study that you referenced that was also really applicable to both couples and therapy work,

Which had to do with when you're interacting with someone,

Seeking to understand versus seeking to get it right.

And that was a really,

Really important nuanced study.

Can you talk about that a bit?

Yeah.

I love that study because we had couples,

We brought them into our lab and we asked them to argue about things they normally argue about and we videotaped them having an argument.

And then we asked them to watch their own videotapes and report on what they were feeling at different moments.

Like they're watching their tape and saying,

Yeah,

This is what I was feeling here during the argument.

And they report on what their partner,

What they think their partner was feeling so that we can look at what I said I was feeling and what my partner thought I was feeling at a particular moment and how often did I get the right answer?

So getting the right answer,

We call it empathic accuracy.

And then what we found,

What we asked our raters to rate also was how much do you think this person is trying to understand what the partner is feeling?

So how much effort do you think they're making?

And what we found was that if I think my partner is trying to understand me,

That's better almost than whether my partner gets the right answer.

So if my partner makes it clear,

Look,

I don't know if I'm understanding this,

But I really want to know how you're feeling.

I really want to know what's going on for you right now.

That goes a long way to keep relationships strong and satisfying.

So you don't have to be so good at guessing the right answer.

Some of us are better at that than others,

But we can learn to show the people we care about that we're making an effort,

That we're trying to understand.

Well,

In some ways,

When you're so caught up in getting it right,

It may even prevent you from asking the questions or from sticking with it because it's that.

.

.

I see this with couples where someone wants.

.

.

They're afraid they're going to say the wrong thing or they're not going to be accurate,

And so they don't say anything at all,

And then their partner's left there not feeling supported or understood or even they're making.

.

.

So just the attempt to.

.

.

The curiosity and desire to understand someone is what is most important,

Which lends to some of these keys that you talk about in healthy relationships that you've seen,

Sort of the threads that help people stay connected and healthy over time.

One of them is curiosity,

And the other two that you talk about are generosity and attention.

So can you speak a little bit to those two?

Sure.

Well,

Generosity refers to this idea that we often catch each other being bad,

Right?

Because the things that annoy us or anger us,

They call our attention,

Right?

So my partner,

The things that annoy me,

I'll really feel them,

But I'll often overlook all of the things all day long that I'm so grateful for or that at least I take for granted,

Right?

All the things she does well and right and she does for me,

Right?

That I just have come to take for granted.

So what we talk about is the generosity of catching your partner being good or catching your friend being good,

Being helpful,

Being kind,

And then showing them that you appreciate it,

That you don't just take it for granted.

So that's the generosity part.

And then the attention is really important.

I mean,

You and I think about this a lot as meditation practitioners,

Right?

Where meditation is a lot about paying attention to the present moment,

Bringing yourself back away from distraction,

Away from dwelling in the past or thinking about the future,

But just coming back to what's here right now.

The problem right now with our technology and this wonderful revolution of screens that are so helpful to us is that they also keep us from giving each other our full attention.

So my wife and I will get up in the morning,

We'll come downstairs to the kitchen and she'll be on her email and I'll be reading the news on my phone and we won't even make eye contact.

We won't even be speaking to each other.

And then if one of us asks a question,

The other goes,

Huh?

And you know,

One of my colleagues has written about what she calls continuous partial attention,

Which is a lot of what we end up giving each other by accident.

So one of the things we write about is how incredibly valuable it can be to give someone your full attention,

That that's the most precious thing you have to give.

And that means when someone talks to you,

Stop,

Turn away from your screen,

Make eye contact,

Give 100% of your attention in that moment to someone else.

And that is the best thing you've got to offer.

In the stories that you write about,

These beautiful stories of people's lives,

Which are,

It's touching to read them in a lot of ways,

The ups and the downs,

You know,

And it's not,

They're totally complex.

There's no like pretty thread that you,

You know,

Perfect person.

It's just- Exactly because life is like that,

Right?

And in those stories,

You hear the wisdom of what really was satisfying for them.

And it's ordinary things.

It's like,

You talk about like going on a hiking trip with their family or being a school teacher and spending time with their students.

It's not these big,

Extravagant experiences or even having a ton of money or it's really the ordinary that creates true happiness for folks.

When our folks got to be in their eighties,

We asked them to look back on their lives.

And we said,

Tell us what you're proudest of and tell us what you regret the most.

And the most common regret by far was I didn't spend enough time with the people I care about.

I spent too much time at work.

The other regret that was really common,

Especially for women,

Was I wish I hadn't spent so much time worrying about what other people thought.

And then the thing that people were proudest of was always to do with other people.

It wasn't,

You know,

As you were saying,

It wasn't I made a fortune or I became the CEO or,

You know,

I became famous.

And some of our people did all those things.

It was never that.

It was,

I raised good kids.

I was a good partner.

I was a good friend.

I was a good boss.

I was a good mentor.

It was always about,

You know,

The pride was always in how I behaved in my relationships.

This is why I put down the book and started calling my friend.

I'm reading this.

You know,

If you want to turn off the podcast now and go call someone,

Please do.

And it related sort of taking time to reflect on our lives.

One of the benefits of participating in this study is these folks got to do that.

What a gift to them.

They got,

You know,

This little tune up every few years to take a moment and reflect.

You give the assignment,

Which I am ever a good student.

I will do all your assignments in your book,

But you did give us assignment of finding a picture from 20 or so years ago.

And I'm going to share it here.

It's this little,

It's totally ratted,

But it's a picture of my husband had this in his wallet for over a decade.

And then he took it out because he wanted to preserve it because it was getting so damaged,

Right?

This is an artifact.

And it was the first and last backpacking trip that I took with him.

I was 19.

He was 20,

Whatever.

And you ask us to take this picture out and look at it and remember like,

What was I feeling?

What was I thinking?

What was it like to be me?

What was important to me?

And then also,

What do I regret?

And you know,

Once you get over,

Like I have the same hairstyle 20 years,

I really need an update.

I got over that.

But I was just,

I remember that trip and playing cribbage with him.

We spent hours and hours in the tent playing cribbage together.

Cause that's about what you can fit in your backpack is a game.

And I remember thinking,

We're going to go on so many backpacking trips like this.

I can't wait.

And we never did.

We had kids.

It's too hard to backpack with kids.

And then I remember being really worried about my body.

I had no makeup and I was like,

Oh my gosh,

He's going to see me,

Like really see me.

There's nowhere to hide when you're in a tent.

And I regret that.

So it was such a powerful exercise to think back on that.

And it informs me now,

Like I want to play more cribbage with my husband.

Yeah.

Well,

That's what we want to do.

That we really,

That what you did,

You're such a good student.

Let me just say,

And like,

Cause we wanted that kind of process to go on where you thought,

Oh,

I didn't need to worry so much about whether I had makeup on or not.

That when I look back on it,

That meant nothing.

What was wonderful was being with him and playing cribbage and having this experience together.

And,

And the,

And the other thing we hope it will do is get people to think,

Okay,

Life really is short.

Time passes quickly.

What do I want?

What do I want most?

And who do I want to be with?

And what do I want to do?

And,

And yes,

You might have some regrets about not having taken as many backpacking trips as you wanted,

But right now,

Maybe it gives you a little more energy to say,

Let's do these things before it's too late.

Like I'm doing that with my wife.

So,

You know,

We're both really busy.

We both work full-time.

She's a clinical psychologist and she has a very full-time practice.

And now as these opportunities to travel come,

I've been saying to her,

Look,

We don't have that many years left when we're able-bodied and when we can travel together,

Let's not let work push this,

This opportunity aside.

And,

And that sense of kind of urgency comes from looking back and saying,

Okay,

What do I wish I had done a little more of?

And what could I do while there's still time?

And that awareness of,

I mean,

The thought of,

Oh,

I'm going to have many backpacking trips like this.

If I had the awareness of,

No,

This is the only one like this,

Then I savor it differently.

Like there isn't going to be another one that's like this.

And that's also really important because I have that tendency to think,

Oh,

This will happen again.

So I don't need to,

You know,

My kid will ask me again to play a game or to go in the garden or do whatever,

But we don't know when our last time is.

And that is so important to,

Then we treat it as if our last,

This is our last time and we savor it.

You know,

We have an exercise in the book where we ask people to do a calculation.

We say,

Okay,

Pick a friend or a family member and think about how much time you spend with them now.

Like let's say each year,

How many days a year?

So maybe I have a best friend I've known since kindergarten.

How many,

I probably spend a day,

A year with him now.

He lives in,

You know,

In New York and I'm in Boston.

So then when we take you through the calculation,

Well,

How many more years optimistically,

How many more years optimistically how many more years of life do you have?

And when you calculate how many,

How much more time I have left with my friend,

It's tiny.

And when you calculate that,

It makes you say,

Oh my gosh,

We have to,

We have to see more of each other.

There's actually a Spanish commercial.

It's on video,

You can get it.

And it's got subtitles.

It's for actually a liqueur,

But I think the title of the commercial is something like we have to see more of each other where they ask people to do this calculation and then they bring them together with a friend they haven't seen in a long time.

And it's just so moving to watch people say,

Oh my gosh,

Time is short.

We have to spend more time together.

Yeah.

Those precious friends.

Is there a number?

Because some people feel like I don't have enough.

What if I have two friends or one friend,

Or maybe I have 20 friends.

There's this always comparison that folks tend to do of like,

I don't have enough friends or I'm not good enough.

What is it about friendship in particular,

Like the sweet spot?

There's no number.

There's no number.

I repeat,

No number.

Because one size doesn't fit all.

Okay.

So some of us are on the shy side.

And that's,

There's nothing wrong with that at all.

That's just fine.

So that means some of us need a lot more alone time.

And being around a lot of people is exhausting.

So for those people,

They might need just one or two really good,

Warm relationships,

And that might be all that's right for them.

Whereas other people might be more extroverted and want more people in their life.

And so it's really a very personal matter that each of us can check in with ourselves about.

Do I feel as connected to other people as I want to?

If I don't,

Perhaps I can do more in that regard,

But maybe I have what I need right now.

One of the things that technology has changed is not only our friendships and how we're connecting with people,

Maybe we're connecting more or less or differently,

But also the weak ties.

You can order your Starbucks,

Walk in,

Pick it up without even giving eye contact to the person that made it.

And gosh,

You're on your way and isn't it much more efficient and get your Instacart delivery.

And I was just talking with a client this past week and she said,

My five-year-old loves going to the grocery store so much.

So I buy 90% of my stuff on Instacart because she's a busy working mom.

And then 5%,

I take my five-year-old into the grocery store so she can still pick out items.

And that was,

For me,

Grocery shopping,

Seeing people interacting,

The little conversations that you have with someone on an airplane,

Which tend to be big conversations when you're a psychologist,

People tell you everything when you're on an airplane,

But these things are meaningful.

And they're getting lost over time.

What is the research on that,

On our weak connections and our weak ties?

Are they important?

Yeah,

They are very important.

And that's why the researchers have used the term weak ties,

But that's not a good term because they're not weak.

I like to call them casual ties.

But just what you're saying,

Like the person at Starbucks or Dunkin' Donuts,

Well,

That person is a person.

That person is someone you could make eye contact with.

You could look at their name tag and call them by name,

Right?

And what we find is that if you do that,

That you get these little hits of well-being,

That we give each other hits of well-being.

It's like a little friendly exchange actually makes us feel better.

It makes us feel a little more connected to the world.

It's a little bit of pleasant emotion that gets exchanged,

And that that has real positive effects on our life.

It makes us feel safer and actually does make us safer because a number of years ago,

We had to evacuate because there were fires and mudslides here in Santa Barbara.

And I have a weak tie with Island Seed and Feed,

Which is where I buy all my chicken feed and all my plants.

And I go and get my baby chicks from them,

And Catherine always gives me good advice on baby chickens.

And we evacuated,

And the first person that I called was Catherine because we left our chickens.

And I said,

Hi,

Catherine,

We left our chickens for two weeks.

She crossed through the fire lines,

Through the firefighters,

Driving a good 20,

30 minutes to get to my house to feed my chickens.

And this was a weak tie.

This was just someone that I knew that had a love of chickens,

Who I talked to over the years about every six months or so getting new baby chicks.

So we see ourselves as so separate,

But we are so much more deeply connected than we ever even can imagine.

And that is actually our support and in some ways our health,

Because it gave me peace of mind that my chickens were going to live,

And they did.

Absolutely.

And that's a really important example,

Because what we know is that what relationships do for us is that they build a kind of safety net.

They build a bedrock of well-being.

So it doesn't mean that relationships are going to make us happy all day,

Every day.

It means that relationships are going to help us weather the hard times.

Just,

You know,

The fire.

Suddenly you had a need that this person was willing to step in and help you with.

Wow,

What a gift.

And so that if we have those relationships,

We're often better able to weather the storms that are always coming our way.

Well,

I want to ask you a question that you ask your participants at the end of their questionnaire.

And this was the last question that you asked them.

And you write in your book,

Use the last page to answer all of the questions that we should have asked.

Like if we asked about the things that matter to you,

What should I have I asked?

And can you answer that?

So any questions that I haven't asked that you would like to have been asked,

And can you answer them?

Probably the most important thing would be the question,

Can somebody be happy all the time?

Because I think that's important to speak to.

We can't be happy all the time.

No human being on the planet is happy all the time.

Every life has struggled.

Every life has times of low mood.

And the reason why that's important is that we can give the message accidentally that if you just do the right stuff,

You can be happy all the time.

And that's not true.

And often when we look at other people's social media feeds with their beautiful pictures of nice parties and beautiful beaches and all that,

We can imagine,

Oh,

Other people are having great lives all the time,

And other people have it figured out,

And I don't.

And I just want to name that because nobody has it all figured out,

Not one person.

And nobody has a life without difficulty.

That's why we include all these stories in our book,

These real life stories that include hard times and good times.

Yeah.

That's part of the complexity of the life,

And what makes a beautiful life is the.

.

.

And even within a day,

Or even within an hour.

And within a day.

That we may,

Right now in this moment,

I feel good.

I feel connected to you.

I'm happy to have this conversation with you honored.

And I know that in the course of today,

I'm not going to feel that at some point.

Exactly.

I'm going to feel bored.

I'm going to feel irritated.

I'm going to be self-critical.

All of it will come.

And yeah.

And that does not mean you're doing anything wrong.

Yeah.

That does not mean you're doing anything wrong,

And nor should we expect that of ourselves.

And that's a little bit of the danger of the happiness research is that we think that that's what happiness is.

But we're talking about a different kind of well-being,

A eudaimonia,

Or a psychological richness that is more bigger than that,

Ups and downs.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Twists and turns.

Yeah.

Well,

Thank you.

Thank you for your work on this project.

I'm excited to see where it's headed.

You're a Harvard graduate,

And now at Harvard University.

And now you're working with.

.

.

This is like Harvard,

Harvard,

Harvard all the time.

I've been at Harvard since I was 18 years old,

But I grew up in Des Moines.

Yeah.

And you mentioned that your wife and you are thinking about maybe something different.

So are you going to switch things up and travel and go somewhere new?

Well,

Our sons live elsewhere,

And our older son is about to get married.

And if we have a grandchild,

We might well want to rearrange our lives at least in some way with time,

Because it's way more important to have that kind of connection for us than to just spend one more hour working,

Or one more year working full-time nonstop.

So we're just thinking about it.

Yeah.

So you're in the perfect stage.

That's exactly what you should be thinking about at this stage of development,

Dr.

Waldinger.

Thank you.

Yes.

Exactly what you should be thinking about.

Good.

Well,

Wonderful.

Thank you for taking this time.

It's been an honor and delight to spend the hour with you.

Well,

It's been a real pleasure.

What an enlivening conversation.

Thank you.

Isn't Dr.

Robert Waldinger delightful?

I want him as my therapist.

He's so kind and easy to be around.

I want you to try out some of the things that I tried out in reading his book.

And I do recommend you go and pick up his book and read it,

The book that he co-authored with Mark Schultz.

So first,

I'd like for you to create a social universe.

Make a list of all the people in your life that you interact with and start to look at them through the lens of,

Are they depleting me,

Or are they energizing me?

In his book,

Dr.

Waldinger has us chart them on a graph,

But you can also just go through each one and kind of do a mental scoring of like,

Hmm,

My cousin Susan,

Super energizing or whatever.

And the folks that are most energizing to you,

Increase your contact with,

Nourish that relationship.

When was the last time you talked to them?

When was the last time you gave them your full attention?

Increase your attention,

Your time,

And your energy in your relationships that are energizing.

It's like investing your money in something that is incredibly worthwhile.

And for the folks that are very depleting to you,

Ask yourself two questions.

Can I either reduce the amount of time that I'm around this person,

Or is there a way I can shift my relationship with them?

Is there a way that I could hold them more lightly or be more curious or be more generous so that it becomes less depleting?

The second thing that I'd love for you to do this week is to take a moment to reflect on your life by going and finding an old picture of you 20 years ago,

Depends on how old you are,

10 years ago,

And take a look at you,

Really look at yourself.

And after you get over your outfit and your bad hair or your great hair and whatever was going on for you,

Ask yourself,

How was I feeling in that moment?

What was important to me?

And what do I regret now about that time?

That type of reflection of looking at your life,

Zooming out from time to time and looking at what really matters can help inform you in the decisions and the choices that you make.

And then finally,

I want you to think about who is in your support system,

Nourishing friend circle.

Trudy Goodman has this meditation she calls the jelly roll,

Where you imagine like a jelly roll,

Really sweet.

You imagine the people in your life that are happy when you do well,

People in your life that are happy for you when you do well,

People in your life that want the best for you.

And it can be some of these ties that are casual ties.

It can also be people that are very strong ties for you.

But who's in your jelly roll?

Who are those people?

And those are the people that I want you to invest in,

Check in on,

Remember,

Use in your memory when you're having a hard time,

Think of them as supporting you.

All right,

So that's your practices for this week.

First,

Make your social universe list.

Who are the people that are energizing,

Who are depleting?

How can you make some shifts to spend more time with your energizers and less time with your depletors?

And then reflect back on your life by getting an old picture out.

You can share it with a friend.

And finally,

Who's in your jelly roll?

All of you are in my jelly roll a bit.

You know,

The supporters of this podcast,

You make my life better,

Even though it can feel one way at times.

I know that you are out there listening and hopefully benefiting from some of these conversations in the way that I'm benefiting from them and create a sweetness to life.

It is sweet when we take the time to savor the good.

Alrighty,

See you next week,

You all.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Your Life in Process.

When you enter your life in process,

When you become psychologically flexible,

You become free.

If you like this episode or think it would be helpful to somebody,

Please leave a review over at podchaser.

Com.

And if you have any questions,

You can leave them for me by phone at 805-457-2776,

Or send me a voicemail by email at podcast at yourlifeinprocess.

Com.

I want to thank my team,

Craig,

Ashley Hyatt,

And thank you to Ben Gold at Bell and Branch for his original music.

This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only,

And it's not meant to be a substitute for mental health treatment.