Why being at peace doesn't mean pushing down painful feelings
If you find yourself experiencing a deep sense of dread about the future, even at times when life seems okay, you’re not alone.
If you’ve been listening to this show lately, you’ve heard about more than a few reasons to not feel great — an election that has a lot of people on edge, wars overseas that don’t seem to end, a gureling job market, deep feelings of loneliness and isolation.
Dr. Robert Waldinger has spent his career thinking about pain. He’s a psychiatrist and he directs the Harvard Study of Adult Development, one of the longest-running studies of human well-being ever conducted.
He’s spent decades studying what makes people’s lives go well, and he argues that the frenzied pursuit of happiness can make us less happy. We talk to him about why being at peace doesn’t mean pushing down painful feelings.
