What is the key to happiness? A growing body of research points to a deceptively simple answer: relationships. The Harvard Study of Adult Development, one of the longest-running studies of adult life, has found that strong relationships are central to health and happiness. And healthy relationships often require one having a good relationship with themself. But healthy relationships — with friends, family, partners, classmates, colleagues and ourselves — do not always come naturally. They require work.
That is the idea behind Learning Sustainable Well-being, a UC San Diego course and campuswide program that teaches students practical skills for building a better relationship with themselves and others.
The program was created by Karen Dobkins, Ph.D. '92, a professor in the UC San Diego Department of Psychology in the School of Social Sciences, who spent much of her career as a successful, visual neuroscientist. After earning her Ph.D. in neuroscience from UC San Diego, she went on to run a thriving lab, publish papers and earn major grants. But about a decade ago, she realized something had shifted.
“I started to feel like I wasn’t acting like a scientist anymore,” Dobkins said. “I went into science for the joy of discovery.”
She was still asking strong research questions, she said, but no longer because she was “dying to know the answer.” So she made what she calls a “crazy scary” decision: she shut down her lab and started over in a new field.
“I literally started from scratch, establishing a new lab and with zero reputation in a new field,” Dobkins said.
That new lab became the Human Experience and Awareness Lab, or HEALab, which focuses on how people function, flourish and struggle. Around the same time, Dobkins created Learning Sustainable Well-being: Compassion for Self and Others, a one-unit, pass/no-pass course designed to help students practice the kinds of skills that are rarely taught explicitly: emotional awareness, self-compassion, honest communication, conflict resolution and compassion for others.
In a way, the course is radical because it makes well-being simple and accessible: instead of asking already overwhelmed students to navigate myriad resources, it meets them inside a structure they already understand. “The thing that they know how to do: sign up for classes,” Dobkins said.
In a 2023 paper published in Frontiers in Public Health, Dobkins and her co-authors found that students who took the course showed significant improvements in several measures of well-being compared with students who were interested in taking a well-being course but had not taken LSW. These included gains in self-compassion, mindfulness, psychological well-being, compassion for others in difficult situations and body trust, as well as decreased loneliness. In post-course surveys, 97% of students who responded said they agreed or strongly agreed that the course improved their well-being.
The course has grown so popular that UC San Diego is scaling it by training instructors from departments across campus to teach it, a model that is distinctive in higher education because it embeds well-being into the academic curriculum rather than keeping it separate from students’ coursework.
1. Stop assuming you know what someone else meant
Humans are built to infer what others are thinking. In real time, that can be useful: if someone looks distracted, pauses or changes tone, we adjust. But Dobkins says problems arise when people walk away from an interaction convinced they know another person’s intentions.
“You have some interaction with somebody, whether it’s a stranger, or a close friend, or somebody in your faculty meeting,” Dobkins said. “And you have no chance to get feedback on your assumptions, but you walk away thinking you know what they meant.”
Those assumptions can quickly harden into resentment. A key lesson in the course is to pause and recognize: you are not a mind reader.
“It’s not about being nice,” Dobkins said. “It’s more like, I’m going to not assume anything because I’m being logical, and I realize I don’t know.”
2. Ask instead of mind-reading
One alternative to assuming is simple, but often difficult: ask.
If someone says something confusing, seems distant or behaves in a way that stings, students practice moving from interpretation to curiosity. Instead of “She ignored me,” try: “When you turned away while I was talking, I felt ignored. Is that what was happening?”
“You can ask somebody, ‘What did you mean?’” Dobkins said. “Doesn’t mean that they’re going to give you the truth, but at least you can say, at least I asked.”
3. Share yourself honestly — but with boundaries
Sharing how you feel, honestly and in a boundaried way is something we often never learn.
“It’s a skill like any other,” she wrote, “and the lack of it causes a LARGE portion of unrest in our lives.”
In class, that means learning to speak clearly from one’s own experience. Rather than accusing someone of being uncaring, disrespectful or selfish, students practice naming what they can actually know: 1) what happened (“when you were looking at your cell phone during dinner”), 2) how they felt (“I felt disrespected”), and, then, if they want to, 3) ask for the other person to do behave differently (“can you put away your phone at dinner time?”)
“The only truth I know is what’s happening inside me,” Dobkins said. “That’s the only thing I can report on faithfully. I can’t say ‘you don’t respect me’ because I have no way of knowing whether you do or not
4. Don’t get mired in the details — figure out what’s really bothering you
When people are upset, Dobkins says they often pile on details to convince someone else that their feelings are justified. But too many details can obscure the real issue.
“Stop with all the details,” Dobkins said. “You’re upset about something. Instead of convincing me that this other person did this and then they did that… why don’t you just first say what is really underneath all of this?”
That might sound like: “I felt rejected,” “I felt lonely,” or “I felt not loved.” Once the core feeling is named, the conversation can become more honest and more productive.
“Then we get somewhere,” Dobkins said.
5. Treat emotions as information
A major part of the course focuses on emotional resilience. Students learn not to rush away difficult feelings or push them down, but to become curious about them.
“Emotions are information, they need to be felt,” Dobkins said.
She references a long body of literature on the matter. From Carl Jung to Sigmund Freud who once said "unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways."
Dobkins clarifies that it doesn’t mean we need to act on every emotion or let feelings take over. Instead, students practice noticing emotions in the body, asking what those emotions may be signaling and learning to respond with more awareness.
6. Accept the “good, the bad and the ugly” parts of yourself
The course asks students to look honestly at the parts of themselves they may prefer to deny: jealousy, selfishness, judgment, insecurity or resentment. Dobkins draws from the idea of Jung’s “shadow” work — the practice of bringing hidden or disowned parts of the self into awareness.
“If not, it’s in the shadow, and it’s running the show,” Dobkins said.
Students are not asked to shame these parts of themselves. Instead, they learn to understand what purpose those traits may be trying to serve. For example, a judgmental part of the self may be trying to create a sense of superiority or safety.
The goal is not perfection. It is awareness. And all humans have traits they may not be proud of. “But that's what makes us human,” Dobkins said.
7. Remember that comparison is the thief of joy. Hello, Instagram.
Social media did not invent comparison, but Dobkins says it has amplified the size of the stage. Students are constantly exposed to other people’s achievements, appearances, relationships and curated lives.
“I think that we live in a world where we have been brainwashed to equate accomplishment with worth,” Dobkins said. “And that’s getting more and more, because the stage is getting bigger.”
In class, students discuss how comparison can make people feel either “less than” or “better than” others. Neither brings lasting well-being.
Dobkins says she does not teach students that they will never compare themselves to others again. Instead, the practice is to notice the comparison and let it go more quickly.
“I’m doing the best I can with what I have,” she said. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
8. Practice compassion for difficult people
Compassion, in the course, is not about pretending harmful behavior is acceptable. It is about recognizing shared humanity, especially when someone is difficult.
“We’re a lot more similar than we are different,” Dobkins said.
Students practice considering whether they, too, have behaved in ways they criticize in others: being inconsiderate, judgmental, defensive or convinced they are right. That shift can soften blame and open the door to more productive conversations.
The 2023 paper notes that the course specifically focuses on what people often struggle with most: “how to be compassionate in difficult situations.”
9. Look for the unmet need behind conflict
When conflict erupts, Dobkins encourages students to ask: What need is not being met?
She compares it to a crying baby. Most people do not assume the baby is being manipulative or rude. They assume the baby needs something — food, sleep, comfort, a diaper change.
Adults are more complicated, but the principle often still applies.
“A lot of conflict comes from something that’s just — you haven’t expressed the need, or vocalized, or the other person hasn’t vocalized it,” Dobkins said.
Instead of blaming, students practice identifying the behavior, naming the feeling and making a request.
For example: “When you turned your back while I was speaking, I felt ignored. Would you be willing to face me when we’re talking?”
10. Take responsibility for your part — even if it is small
The final section of the course focuses on everyday conflict and apology. Dobkins is careful to distinguish this from trauma, which she says requires different kinds of support. But in ordinary conflicts, students are asked to consider how they may have contributed, even if their share feels small.
“Even if it’s just 2%, own that,” Dobkins said.
Often, she said, students realize their contribution was not speaking up. Not saying how they felt.
“They didn’t say anything,” Dobkins said. “They expected the other person to be a mind reader.”
Learning to apologize, take responsibility and communicate more clearly is part of the broader goal of the course: helping students become more conscious, resilient and connected human beings.
The point, Dobkins said, is not to replace therapy or clinical care. The program, which is funded by the Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and the Sanford Institute for Empathy and Compassion, is not designed to treat acute mental health concerns or trauma. It is designed to teach students skills they can use to manage everyday stress, conflict and self-criticism and societal pressures.
“Where else do you get a class on how to be a human?” Dobkins said.
For those interested in learning more about the course, visit Learning Sustainable Well-Being.
