What is the key to a happy, fulfilling life? Dr. Bob Waldinger, MD, director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, cofounder of the Lifespan Research Foundation, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Zen master, and author has been leading an extraordinary scientific endeavor that has tracked the same individuals and their families for over 8 decades to determine what really makes a good life. He shares why relationships play such an important role in our health and wellbeing, how to strengthen your connections with other people, what misconceptions we’ve been taught to believe about happiness, and how to embrace both the joys and difficulties that make the human experience so rich.

– Join Cathy’s free 5 day challenge! Cathyheller.com/workshop

– Get your copy of Bob’s book, The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness
– Watch Bob’s TEDTalk “What makes a good life?” 

TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODE:

1. Take care of your relationship health. It helps you be happier and live longer.
2. We’re going to move in and out of moments of joy and moments of great sorrow and despair. That’s an integral part of what makes life rich. We grow from the challenge of learning to be with the difficulties as well as the joy.
3. It’s so amazing that we’re alive that you would think we would never stop dancing.
4. The best things in life are free.
5. The most valuable gift we have to give to anybody else is our undivided attention. It’s the most basic form of love.
6. Take care of yourself and learn to receive. If you want to have the strength to care for other people, you have to start with yourself.
7. Have genuine curiosity. When you’re doing something you’ve done a thousand times, ask yourself, “What’s here that I’ve never noticed before?”
8. Be active in your social fitness. Reach out to the few people who you always want in your life. Make sure those connections stay strong.

Thank you so much for listening!

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