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Follow along with the transcript below for episode: The Healing Power of Hugging Cows With Ellie Laks [INTRODUCTION] [0:00:08.6] PF: Welcome to Happiness Unleashed, with your host, Brittany Darrenbacher, presented by Live Happy. If you’ve never thought of cows as intuitive healers, this episode just might change your mind. Ellie Laks is the founder of The Gentle Barn Foundation, a national organization that rescues and rehabilitates abused and discarded farm animals. She is the creator of Cow Hug Therapy and as she explains in her book by the same name, she has learned amazing lessons from these animals about life, death, and everything in between. She’s here today to share some of those lessons with us. So, let’s have a listen. [INTERVIEW]   [0:00:47.3] BD: Ellie, welcome to the show, I’m so excited you’re here. [0:00:50.9] EL: I’m so excited to be here. This is going to be the best conversation ever. [0:00:54.6] BD: I met Ellie recently. I went out to The Gentle Bar, my husband and I took a road trip to Nashville and we got to check this space out. This is a big question, like right out of the gate. [0:01:06.7] EL: I’m ready. [0:01:07.5] BD: You talk a lot about how growing up, you did not feel connected to other humans in the way that you did with nature and animals, and I just resonate with that so deeply and I know that our listeners feel the same way. Why do you think that is, that animals and nature just so innately feel like home and like safety to people like us? [0:01:31.1] EL: I love that question and I have spent a lifetime trying to figure that out because I had very loving parents. They took really good care of us and they loved us and so, you know, I’m not sitting here thinking, it’s anyone’s, you know, main fault. I just – when I look back in my childhood, I felt completely at home in the woods and lakes by my houses. I felt completely at home with my dog and my bird and the animals that shared our home that I brought home. I just felt like they saw me, they understood me and they accepted me as I am. I didn’t feel like I had to be someone else, I didn’t have to edit my speech, I didn’t have to modify my actions. I could just simply be me and I was a hundred percent accepted and somewhere along the line, I didn’t feel that way about people, and I don't know if it was the kids at school. I just saw so much bullying and so much judgment and criticism and so much cruelty that maybe that made me feel unsafe. But somewhere along the line, I felt like I had to always be an edited version of myself around people but a completely free and pure version of myself around animals, and I have a beautiful family, a husband, I have kids, and grandkids, I have beautiful, wonderful friends and coworkers that I love dearly, but they’re just something very special still, being beside an animal that I feel like the best version of myself, and I just feel home. [0:03:03.8] BD: I wanted to ask this question first because I think this really informs the conversation that we’re about to have, and it clearly informed your life’s work. Tell the listeners about The Gentle Barn, how this began, where they can find it. [0:03:18.1] EL: So, The Gentle Barn is a 25-year-old national organization located in Los Angeles California, Nashville Tennessee in Saint Louis Missouri. We very specifically taken animals that have nowhere else to go, because they’re too old, too sick, too injured, or too scared to be adoptable. We bring them in and put them through a very extensive rehabilitation program, and once they’re healed, we partner with them to heal people with the same stories of trauma. So, eventually, if the animal chooses to, they can partner with us to really hearts and change minds to who these animals are and to really do incredible work with people that are suffering from depression, anxiety, grief, trauma. People that are really suffering and words and talk therapy is just not cutting it, they can come and then they embrace of our beautiful animals, they can really find themselves. [0:04:08.2] BD: Yeah, and these are farm animals, and so for many people, and you know, I live in Kentucky and I was raised on farms where these animals were not considered sentient beings, were not considered equals, were not even looked at in the way that our dogs or our cats were, and so I just wonder what wisdom and insight you might be able to offer to our listeners that maybe grew up in like, similar scenarios that are really interested in being around animals and learning more about what farm animals have to offer and that it’s not a hierarchy, right? It’s – animals are not in hierarchy and we shouldn’t be them as such. [0:04:52.9] EL: Yeah. If anything, I think that animals are far superior to us. Far superior, and they have so much to teach us and so many ways to heal us, and if we could just stop doing what we’re doing to them and pay attention and listen, they would change us all, and at The Gentle Barn, they are changing humans every single day. It’s hard to connect with animals that are in survival mode, right? Like on animal agriculture, like on working farms, those animals know what’s going to befall them, they know that their babies are being taken away, they’re in survival mode every single day. So, it’s harder to connect with animals like that because they don’t know who to trust or how to trust but I mean, I would say, oh my God, find a sanctuary near you because there are so many sanctuaries popping up all over the country, or plan a trip to The Gentle Barn and come see who these animals really truly are. The way they celebrate birth, the way they grieve death, the way they get married and fall in love and break up and have fights and have drama and just like we do, who they really are when there is no trauma, when there is no fear when they’re safe and loved and respected to see who they are with each other and see who they are with us, oh my God. I mean, I filled a book with it, right? [0:06:06.8] BD: My husband and I, we came out to The Gentle Barn in Nashville and we’re animal lovers. We’ve experienced a lot of healing atmospheres with animals but that trip out there was incredible and to be able to experience Cow Hug Therapy, which we’re going to get into in a minute was next level but the animal that stands out to me the most, and you’ll have to remind me what this turkey’s name is, it’s mostly like a white, a beautiful white color. And I would just put my hands out and the turkey would walk up and just push its like chest, like its breast like, into my hand, and just stare at me, and it was a really profound moment of connection with this turkey that I’ve never had in my life. [0:06:51.5] EL: Was her name Spirit? [0:06:53.0] BD: Yes, yes. Spirit. [0:06:55.0] EL: Spirit’s very special, very-very-very special, and she takes people by surprise because people don’t think of turkeys a cuddly but in all three states, we have these remarkable cuddle turkeys who are all female and they will literally, just like you said, they will look in your eyes, they will just stand in such a humble, sweet way in front of you, they’ll put their wings out, and they will welcome you to cuddle them. And if you feel comfortably, you can sit on the ground in front of them, put one leg on either side of them, scooch up real close to their right here, kiss their little fuzzy pink heads, slide your hands under their wings, and stroke them and I’m sure she fell asleep in your lap, right? [0:07:34.6] BD: Yeah, it was pretty wonderful. [0:07:36.0] EL: Yeah, turkeys are remarkable. Male turkeys like to show off and be called handsome but female turkeys, once they feel safe, oh my God, they are such wonderful cuddlers, and I like to say that we have not lived life ‘till we’ve hugged cows or cuddled turkeys. [0:07:51.6] BD: Yes, cow hugs. Let’s talk about hugging cows. Wow, what is Cow Hug Therapy? [0:07:58.8] EL: So, Cow Hug Therapy is when hurting humans, no matter what they’re going through or what they’re feeling or what they’re struggling with, they can come to the gentle barn and book an hour-long Cow Hug Therapy session, where they get the cows to themselves for an entire hour, and they can either be gravitated to one particular cow and rest in their embrace or cry in their embrace for an entire hour. They can hug them all, they can ask us questions or they can just sit in the stillness and the quiet beside these gentle giants and find themselves. Cows, I think, all animals have so much for us but cows are very, very special in that they weigh 3,000 pounds. So, you don’t really ask them or train them, or teach them to do anything. It’s who they are organically. From the time that they have forgiven and let their past go and decided to trust humans, they incorporate us in their family. And they are so nurturing and gentle and kind to each other that when they incorporate us, they just extol the same beautiful energy, the beautiful healing, the embraces that they do for each other to us, and so when we’re infants, we can rest against our caregiver’s chest and hear their heartbeat, which slows down our own, rise and fall with their breathing, and eventually, our breathing can match theirs, and we feel tiny, small and vulnerable in a huge protective embrace. When we grow up, there’s really nothing that models that, except for Cow Hug Therapy. We are full-fledged adults, but we can go and we can feel like infants against these cows and hear their heartbeat and rise and fall with their breathing, and they wrap their necks around us and hold us. We can feel the energy of their love and their nurturing, without uttering one single word, closing down our left brain and opening our right brain. It’s a connection, it’s an energy and it’s a nurturing, that feels like we’re safe, that we’re whole, that we’re loved, that we’re not alone and we leave those embraces feeling healed and hopeful, in a way that I really can’t articulate with enough words. I just – people have to try it. When you come and you embrace these beautiful cows, and they rather embrace you, it’s a special brand of healing that’s unlike any other and you leave changed, and when I’m having a bad day, I’m really lucky to live at The Gentle Barn California location. [0:10:26.2] BD: Yeah. [0:10:26.9] EL: When I’m having a bad day, I go straight to the cows and they make everything better. They clear our minds of thought, they immerse us in present time, we feel grounded and centered and loved, and it’s just remarkable. [0:10:40.3] BD: How did you begin doing Cow Hug Therapy? Like, how did you coin the term and how did you get into this practice and like, writing this book, you know, bringing this to a broader audience? What’s the story behind that? [0:10:56.0] EL: Well, I was the very first recipient of Cow Hug Therapy. Back in 1999, we got our first cow, Buddha, and she was adorable and she was a fuzzy, red, and white cow and long white eyelashes and she was absolutely adorable, and we all fell instantly in love with her but very early on, I was doing my bedtime checks, just making sure that everybody was okay before I went to bed, and I pass by Buddha and kind of looked, kiss at her. You know, pat her on the head to say goodnight, and there was something about the way that she looked at me and she was like, “No-no-no, you need to stay a while.” So, I said, “Oh, okay.” So, I sat down beside her and I leaned against her just to kind of – for that camaraderie, and she wrapped her neck around me and held me, and I burst into tears because I didn’t realize how stoic I had been that day, and how much stress I was carrying on my shoulders. But I was also so incredibly touched by that unexpected show of affection. Animals have loved me my entire lives, they’ve saved my life when I was seven. I mean, I can’t say enough good things about animals, but I’ve never had an animal reach out and hug me for me. Like, she saw how much stress I was carrying, she saw how much I had done that day, and she was literally giving me a mom hug, and it changed my life. And I came to need those hugs every single solitary day and it wasn’t long before I realized there were other people in the world that needed those hugs too, and so I opened the phone book and I started calling around to drug and alcohol rehab centers, domestic violence shelters, war veteran centers, homeless shelters, really any agency that catered to hurting humans, and said, “You’ve got to bring your residents, you’ve got to bring your clients.” And they did. And we always started off by bringing the group to Buddha and everyone hugged Buddha, and she did the same thing. She either held still to kind of invite them to ground and center or she wrapped her neck around them and held them and she brought people to tears. She cracked the most offensive, the most cold, the most hardened people because of their stories and their life experiences. When they came in tough as nails, hardened, and cold and tough, she would crack them wide open and just expose them into vulnerable humble people. She changed so many lives and in her lifetime, she gave out 300,000 hugs. So, we’ve been doing Cow Hug Therapy for hurting humans since the day she hugged me 25 years ago but when we reopened after the pandemic, we realized that it wasn’t just hurting humans at facilities that needed this healing. It was all of us individuals, we were all affected, we are all impacted, we are all lonely or scared or stressed, or whatever we were doing and so, when we reopened from the pandemic instead of just working, I mean, everyone that came to The Gentle Barn, whether it be a private tour, field trip, or open to the public Sunday, obviously hugged Buddha, and all our subsequent cows but after the pandemic with the entire world hurting as individuals, we allowed anyone on their own by themselves to come out and experience Cow Hug Therapy. [0:13:57.9] BD: What can cows uniquely teach us? [0:14:00.7] EL: So, like I said, all animals are wonderful, all animals have something to teach us, and ways to heal us but there is something very unique about cows and I happen to believe that cows are literally who we should be when we awaken to love as a nation, as a people, there’s a lot of different animals and they’re all amazing, but I wouldn’t say, “Oh, people should be more like dogs” or “People should be more like horses.” But I am going to say us, as human beings, we need to be like cows. They are matriarchal led by the oldest and wisest female who uses her intuition, her sense of collaboration, and communication to really connect with her family and lead them to safety and care for them. They are vegan, so they harm no one. They are environmentally friendly, leaving a pasture better off when they leave than when they found it. They face their challenges head-on, they don’t run, they don’t fight, they just very peacefully lower their heads, look their challenge in the eye, and try to figure out how to work their way around it. Family is their most treasured and valued ethic. They would do anything for each other, they come together as a circle when someone gives birth. They come together in a circle when someone is passing away to pay their respects. They come together in a circle when someone is grieving. That community, that circle, the way they support one another is unlike any other species that I know, and they are a hundred percent inclusive. All the other animal species, their instinct when a newcomer comes in is to reject that newcomer and even drive them off violently. Cows are the only species that we have at The Gentle Barn that I can take a new cow anywhere any day, put them in the middle of the pasture, and the cows will say, “Oh, hello.” And the matriarch will say, “I’m the boss.” And then the newcomer will say, “Okay.” And then the youngsters will come and say, “Hey, you want to play?” And the newcomer will say, “Okay.” It is a totally peaceful transition with no introduction necessary. They are a hundred percent inclusive. They’ll avail of themselves to each other, they are there for each other, they are wise, they are intuitive, they trust their instincts, they practice self-care. They meditate every single day and they connect with one another every single morning after breakfast. It’s who we’re supposed to be and if you look back hundreds of years ago, we were more like that. We were matriarchal with the shaman and the medicine women leading tribes. We lived off of plant medicine and of the earth. We supported each other, we came together as community, we had ritual for birth and death. We were much more like cows then and we need to return to that now. [0:16:38.7] BD: I’d be curious what you would suggest to someone that maybe isn’t close to a Gentle Barn location but wants to learn more, wants to get involved, wants to be a better human, and learn more about animals in general, like what would you suggest their first steps be? [0:16:54.2] EL: Oh, I have so much to say about that. I mean, first of all, find a sanctuary near you and try to find a way to connect these majestic miraculous animals who have so much to teach us. Follow The Gentle Barn on all social media platforms, including YouTube, we have videos on YouTube of certain rescues and certain rehabilitations that will change your life just by watching them. And I would recommend that we all kind of try on or consider the idea that even though our Western society has put animals into certain boxes, here’s a box of animals we love, and here’s a box of animals that we eat, and here’s a box of animals that we wear, and here’s a box of animals that it’s totally okay to kill them. We’ve got all boxes and things for but the truth is that we’re all the same, though we come in different forms. And we all are the same and there is a way to connect, where we can really see the gifts, the talents, and the blessings that each of us are without seeing the separation, and when we look through that lens of love, oh my God, we grow, we evolve, we fall in love, we learn, and we become better for it. [0:18:06.5] BD: And I love the way in the book you describe the work that the cows are doing as really paying it forward when humans come in to see them, like alchemizing their pain into being of service to tend to humans and their pain. How can we as humans be of service to animals and pay it forward to them? [0:18:25.2] EL: I love that question. I think that the biggest most impactful, most powerful way that we can be of service to them and pay it forward to them is to go vegan. When we go vegan, we save 200 animals every single year, we save 1,100 gallons of water a day, which will end the drought. We save an acre of trees every year, which will combat deforestation, and we reduce our own risk of every western disease by 90%. So, I mean, it’s so impactful and powerful when someone makes that step. That’s the biggest way we can honor every living being on this planet and the planet itself, not to mention our own bodies. Volunteering at a sanctuary to help out is always a great idea, or to shelter, and if you can’t volunteer, then donate to a place like The Gentle Barn, where you're sponsoring an animal or enabling The Gentle Barn to save more animals, that literally are out there begging for help and having nowhere else to go. I think those are the top three, just doing those top three things. You know, a lot of people come to me and say, “Oh my God, it’s so amazing what you’re doing, I wish I could have my farm animal sanctuary, I wish I could start a sanctuary.” But you know, I live in an apartment and I have kids or I work and you know, it’s not possible, and I say to them, “Look, the people that actually do have the space, the time, and the wherewithal to start a sanctuary, great.” I mean, it’s great that I do this. I’m grateful every single day but if every one of us started a sanctuary, we’d all go under. It takes the people that are rolling up their sleeves in the trenches and then it takes the people that support them, it takes the people that volunteer with them. It takes the people that fund them, it takes the people that follow them. So, we would be nothing without the people around us that donate or volunteer or work here and lift us up that way. [0:20:08.5] BD: What do you hope that your life’s work with animals can teach those in future generations to come? Like, what impact imprint do you hope that The Gentle Barn and your life’s work will have on the future? [0:20:21.0] EL: The truth is that we are covering the earth up in cement. We are building buildings and cutting down trees and we’re removing animals from our neighborhoods, and so whereas hundreds of years ago, everyone pretty much lived on a farm or in nature. Most of us now don’t. We live in cities and we are estranged from animals and from nature, and future generations that don’t have that connection to nature and animals they’re going to continue destroying it, and we’re going to end up in real trouble. We have to maintain those connections, we have to create future generations that love animals, and that want to protect nature. We’re not going to have a planet if we continue destroying it. We will only have this home to live in if we continue protecting it and we can only protect her in future generations if those future generations are connected to animals and so, that’s why I started The Gentle Barn and why we keep going because it offers a space where the biggest city person can come and can be reminded who these animals are. Can find a connection with these animals and common language, and bring back to the city, the love and reverence for animals in nature and we need future generations to be able to advocate for this planet and for all her creatures, and we’re only going to do that if these future generations have a connection to these animals, and I’m really hoping that by visiting The Gentle Barn, hugging cows, cuddling turkeys, holding chickens, giving pigs tummy rubs, patting goats and sheep. Hearing these remarkable stories of resilience and creating those connections will once and for all, allow us as humanity to realize that we really are truly all the same and so, stop being so divisive, stop being so ostracizing, and start being more inclusive, more loving, more supportive, more collaborative. Let’s protect one another, let’s defend one another, let’s be each other’s voice, and let’s lift each other up so we can all thrive and we can all live, and we can all have that sense of well-being that we all deserve. [0:22:27.3] BD: Ellie, thank you so much for coming on the show. This conversation means so much to me and I love every ounce of knowledge that you have to share. [0:22:36.3] EL: Well, thank you so much for having me, I already feel so sad that our conversation has come to an end and I hope you all have me back sometime soon so we can connect again. [0:22:45.1] BD: Please, please. [END OF INTERVIEW]   [0:22:47.7] PF: That was Brittany Darrenbacher, talking with Ellie Laks, about Cow Hug Therapy. If you’d like to learn more about The Gentle Barn, check out Ellie’s book, Cow Hug Therapy, or follow her on social media, just visit our website at LiveHappy.com and click on this podcast tab, and of course, Brittany will be back here next month to talk more about how animals bring us joy, help us heal, and can be some of our best teachers. So, until then, for everyone at Live Happy, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one.   [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: How Music Shapes Your Mind With Renee Fleming   [INTRO] [00:00:04] PF: What’s up, everybody? This is Paula Felps, and you are listening to On a Positive Note. Renowned soprano, Renee Fleming has performed on some of the world's biggest stages, performing in operas, concert, theater, and film. And she was the first classical artist ever to sing the national anthem at the Super Bowl. But now, the five-time Grammy award winner is using her voice to help improve our wellbeing. For her new book, Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness, Renee has curated a collection of essays from leading scientists, artists, musicians, creative arts therapists, educators, and healthcare providers about the powerful impact of music and arts on health and the human experience. She's here to talk about how this project came about and why she is so committed to sharing this message. [INTERVIEW]   [0:00:53] PF: Renee, thank you so much for joining me today.   [0:00:56] RF: Thank you, Paula. It's great to be with you.   [0:00:58] PF: Oh, it's such an honor to have you on the show. Most of us know you as an acclaimed and accomplished performer, but what our listeners may not know is that you are also an incredible advocate for the healing power of music. So, I was curious to know how you began discovering that.   [0:01:14] RF: It was basically, I'm a performing artist, so I've known my whole career that it has a powerful effect on people, the music. I've gotten so many letters and met so many people who have said, "Your music got me through cancer, or lost, or any number of things." But I was surprised to find that researchers were studying music in the brain. I was following all of that kind of armchair, newspaper reading bits about this type of research, because I had somatic pain that I was trying to unravel, and understand. Like, "Why my body was producing pain so that I wouldn't perform?" It was kind of a connection to stage fright, but a connection to performance pressure overall. So, that's how I stumble across this and then I met, Dr. Francis Collins at a dinner party, which he outlines in the introduction of the book. But it was extraordinary, because I had just started as advisor to the Kennedy Center, and I said, "You know, I think the audience would be incredibly interested in this. Do you think we could provide a platform for the science?" Because he had a new brand initiative at the National Institutes of Health, and he said, "We're discovering that music, and incredibly powerful, it activates all known mapped areas of the brain when we engage with music."   [0:02:34] PF: Do you think that it helps that you're coming from as a performer versus a scientist? Are people more willing to maybe listen to you or attend something that you're doing than if it was going to be an academic who is presenting on it?   [0:02:50] RF: Well, when I perform, doing a wonderful National Geographic program now, then I'm touring around, certainly the US, but I hope to get to other countries as well with it. I'll be in Paris with this project. So, they made this stunning film, and it goes with an album that I won a Grammy for last year, called Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene. But as I tour and perform, I offer to these performing arts venues, and programmers a presentation on Music and Mind. I bring the audience and they're actually cast with finding local researchers, healthcare providers, therapists, music therapists, art therapists. It's broader than music, although music has probably, I would say, the most research at this point. Because it was easier to measure than dance or visual art, but they're all powerful.   [0:03:41] PF: Is it a challenge to make it accessible to a general audience, or do you find that's pretty easy to do?   [0:03:47] RF: I would have thought so, but I'm the general audience. When I sat for two days at the National Institutes of Health, and heard ten-minute presentations in panels, two days of it by all the scientists and researchers. I thought, "I'm not going to get any of this" and I loved it, I ate it right up. I think we know intrinsically, and we know kind of instinctively that the arts have power. But now that science is vetting it, validating it, bringing a body if rigorous research to back it up, and paying for it. So, the NIH spent $40 million just on music and research, mostly neuroscience. It's incredible. And they're going to continue to spend money because there's a there there, and it is healing, and especially for a specific – at this point, we have some very proven tracks of the research. Then, they'll continue to kind of build on that.   [0:04:45] PF: Do you think that's going to help with funding arts in schools, because right now, that's a big challenge. I know I live near a small community that just got its band program cut, because they had to choose between football and band. So, do you think as we see more research and funding goes into that, is that going to change how schools and educators view it?   [0:05:04] RF: Well, there's a whole section on education in this, because research has studied the benefits of it. It shows that it improves focus, it improves attention in terms of kind of tuning out extreme noise. We know about self-discipline, obviously, and some of the things that come just with practice. But it also help kids with identity, with the sense of building their own individualness, and creativity, frankly. Steve Jobs wrote an incredible book on – actually, it was Walter Isaacson about him and creativity is all through it and the arts. All that all came from the arts. So, I definitely think that not only do we need arts education back in schools, because also, truancy is a huge issue. We're having real problems after the pandemic with kids not coming back to school. But if it's only S, and not STEM, you'll find that a lot of kids will just check out, because they need to be engaged in things they enjoy. So, yes, I feel strongly about that.   [0:06:07] PF: That's incredible.   [0:06:08] RF: I also think, frankly, the creative arts therapist would be a huge benefit to schools, to add them as adjunct to the arts educators. Because they're trained in pro-social training, they're in pro-social behaviors, they're trained in a very different way from, say, arts educators, and they would work really well together, and also lift morale for the whole thing.   [0:06:29] PF: Yes, because we talked so much right now about Gen Z and anxiety. Gen Alpha is going to be an extension of that. As your book really shows, there's so many ways that music could be the bomb that treats a lot of those issues.   [0:06:45] RF: Absolutely. I saw turnaround arts at work in DC. That was the initiative that uses all the arts. The class that I witnessed was visual art. What the teacher said to me – first of all, the kids were so quiet because they were so engaged in learning – this was second grade, learning about photosynthesis. They were drawing and it comes to life for them. If you marry the two things together, education works well. A couple of the teachers said to me, it really works for trauma, for kids who have all kinds of different kinds of trauma. Visual art therapy is extremely helpful. Music therapy is more of a one-on-one activity, or a therapist with a group. Of course, choirs. A lot of science now showing an incredible benefit by singing in choirs.   [0:07:32] PF: One thing that you did during the pandemic was your Music and Mind Live with Renee Fleming. That was an amazing program. We're going to include a link to that on the landing page for this, because it's still out there. People can still go. As you said, music helps with trauma, and COVID, the pandemic, the lockdown, that was a trauma for us collectively.   [0:07:55] RF: Definitely.   [0:07:55] PF: What is that? You received almost 700,000 streams on that program. I really encourage our listeners to go check this out. What do you think it was that resonated so well with everyone? Because I know it resonated with me, but what were you seeing?   [0:08:10] RF: It was viewed in 70 countries, so that was exciting too. I think it was the lockdown, actually that prompted people's interest, because we found out immediately that everyone's response to COVID and to isolation was to try to reach out creatively in all different kinds of ways, rooftops to windows. So, that was a real aha moment, I think for people, so this all really made sense, it hit home. People had to stop and kind of remember our roots.   [0:08:41] PF: As you studied it, is there anything that you found particularly surprising? What has been like the main learning point for you about what music is doing for us and can do?   [0:08:51] RF: Well, there were couple of things. I mean, one is, a researcher in the Midwest, Jacquelyn Kulinski, who discovered that singing two or three times a week improves vascular health in people with, to some degree of cardiac failure. That really surprised me. But the analysis is that, for this population who are often sedentary, they're probably not well enough to be running on a treadmill, singing is exercise. The pulmonary benefits of singing for lung COVID. That's sort of a no brainer, I get that, because we're all about breathing. Another recent one that surprised me was that, a study in the UK on post-partum depression. They found that, actually singing in a choir is more beneficial than any other activity to treat post-partum depression. The worst depression, the more it works.   [0:09:42] PF: Oh, interesting.   [0:09:44] RF: The countries in Europe are adopting this now. The World Health Organization is working on an initiative to get this adopted in other countries as an actual treatment.   [0:09:52] PF: That's amazing. We need to overhear. Less drugs and more music, right?   [0:09:57] RF: Absolutely, yes. Absolutely.   [0:10:00] PF: As you've learned all this, has it changed your relationship with music at all? Has it change how you perform or has it change what you listen to when you're not performing?   [0:10:08] RF: The answer is yes. This year, come January 1st, one of the last chapters in the book is about the NeuroArts Blueprint. I work very closely with them. Susan Magsamen and Ruth Katz have created an extraordinary visionary initiative that blends in all kind of aesthetic experiences. So, nature is number one. Nature, music is one of the large research areas, but it's also architecture, visual art, and dance, and more. I think the encouragement in her book, Your Brain on Art, that was a bestseller last year, is that we all can engage with art forms, whether it's doodling or watercolor, we can do anything. We can sing to ourselves. January 1st, I just said, "This is going to be a rough year. I am not going to get sucked into looking at my news feed all day. I am going to live in the NeuroArts Blueprint." So, I'm reading one novel after another. I'm going to plays. I'm going to concerts, opera, of course. I'm walking out in nature every day and I can't tell you how much happy I am. It really works.   [0:11:14] PF: That's amazing. That is something I think, well, Live Happy should be just sharing that like every week.   [0:11:20] RF: Thanks. Absolutely.   [0:11:21] PF: Because that is a big concern for people, the climate right now. By that, I mean, of course, the political climate, and the news that we're getting, and the division that's going on. And so, yes, to understand that within your book, there's actually a blueprint that tells us how we can avoid this is an incredible gift, like, run don't walk, go find it.   [0:11:42] RF: No question. The idea is that, of course, we want to be active and activate the things that we can that each of us as individuals are capable for any of those things that we care about. But you can't live it all day long. Most of us are not in a position to be able to do this. It's not our job, it's not our family. So therefore, you have to create some balance for yourself. Anyway, that's working for me.   [0:12:06] PF: That's incredible. Let's talk more about the book, because it is an incredible volume of work. It's essays from musicians, researchers, writers, educators, healthcare experts. How did the idea for the book come about? Because this is massive and I'm just trying to imagine sitting down and saying, "I'm going to have 600 pages, and it's non -academic."   [0:12:26] RF: So, I was inspired by David Rubenstein, who's the chairman of the Kennedy Center, who has a couple of TV shows and he decided at some point to take his interviews and publish them. He would edit them. I'm in his first book, which was about leadership. I thought, that is a great model. Forgetting the word out even more about the intersection of arts, and health, and the benefits of it. So, that was the idea. Of course, in my naive thinking, I thought, other people, they're going to write their chapters, and so, this will be easy. Took almost three years. It was a huge amount of work. Jason, who's on with us now, I couldn't have done it without him. I'm so proud of it. It's a really magical and unique book because there's nothing else like it. My publisher said, he was just so moved because he had no idea any of this was happening. There are stories of young people who are visionary, who've seen need in their communities, and they create incredible programs. Like Francisco Nunez in New York, who created a choir program to mix kids of different social strata. There's one in Philadelphia too, that's based on El Sistema, which is this incredible group, it's called Play on Philly. Then, you have all the artist chapters, Rosanne Cash's chapter [inaudible 0:13:47], an undiagnosed brain disorder that had to be operated on. And of course, for 10 years, people were telling her, "Well, I think you have headaches. I think it's probably hormonal." This is women in healthcare. So, her chapter is incredible, but they're really interesting. You can kind of just drop the needle on things that interest you. It's not a book that you would ever need to read cover to cover, unless you're that kind of person.   [0:14:12] PF: That's what I loved about it, because you can choose what speaks to you at that time and whatever kind of approach you want. If you want it to be sciency, we can certainly go find that. It's really something for everyone and meets the reader where they're at.   [0:14:28] RF: Really, if you're interested too, because some of the chapters are about movement disorders, really relate to people who have friends and family dealing with that, and/or Alzheimer's and dementias. It's fascinating to learn about the science. It starts with Evolution, Ani Patel, and then Dan Levitin, who also has a new book coming out in August, who does neuroanatomy for us. And Nina Kraus does hearing, why everything you wanted to know about how sound affects us. That sets it up, and then you can pick and choose your kind of subjects.   [0:15:01] PF: So, how did you decide who would participate in the book? Because you have an all-star cast there.   [0:15:06] RF: Some of its availability too, especially for the artist chapters, but everyone had to be related to this in some way. But I wanted to present a wide variety of – show the breadth of the field as it is now. In fact, if I were to do it now, I would probably make it even broader, and include more of the other art forms, because I know more people now. Every year, as I present and am involved, I meet people in different sectors who, again, are related. Health and wellness is so important to us right now, pain, some of the research on pain. I have a friend, actually, this is not in the book, but she had a type of aneurysm, a bleed in her brain, and was in excruciating pain from it, and couldn't – n lights, no looking at screens. The doctor said, "Listen to music." She discovered that the only music that helped her was Jimi Hendrix as loud as she could possibly play it. The minute the volume came down or it turned off, the pain came flooding back. So, I sent this, I thought that was surprising. I sent this to some of the neurologists who were working at the NIH. I said, "What do you make of this?" They sent me a study that had sort of brain photos, FMRI photos of excruciating pain in the brain, which was like circles, and red, and thick. Then, same person listening to music, and all the red was gone, all of the symptoms had subsided. So, to what degree, I don't know, but it was right there. There was a visual representation of how listening to music can affect pain.   [0:16:43] PF: I think people would be just absolutely amazed to find out how many different areas it affects. I think we all maybe have our own interests. I used to write about heart disease. I know some things about how music affects hearts. But with your book, it's almost like there is nothing that music doesn't affect.   [0:17:03] RF: It's kind of remarkable, but I can only – the thing that – I had a hard time understanding it when I first was exposed to all of this, even as a musician, but it was evolution that really gave me the way in to understanding why it is so powerful.   [0:17:18] PF: So, what would you consider music's best kept secret to be?   [0:17:23] RF: Well, those are definitely some things. But when you think about what's in the future, for instance, there is a 40 hertz vibration study at MIT that is showing with both light and sound that a very specific speed of wave can clean up plaques in the brain. So, imagine you'd go to CBS someday and step into a booth and practice hygiene for your brain. You could also embed that in music because it's not a very attractive sound, the 40 Hertz, which a composer at or MIT did, I performed this piece. Again, you could go to a concert hall, and come out, and be that much kind of fresher, cognitively. So, there are some amazing things in the future, I think.   [0:18:07] PF: I love that. As people listen, they're like, "Well, music can do all these amazing things for us, but how do we start?" We see how scientists can do it. We see what researchers are doing. How does an everyday person who's listening to this, how can they start using that power of music?   [0:18:21] RF: I would say, we do it already, we all use it. We use it to work out, we use it – we kind of use it as a tool to help us do something. For instance, when I walk on flat, I don't enjoy it. I like hiking in hills, but I don't care for walking on flat as much. So, I have trouble keeping my tempo up. But if you audiate, which is a musical term, if you imagine a song with a brisk tempo, and beat like This Land is your Land, you'll keep your pace, and you don't even have to play it out loud. So, that's useful because I can still talk to people and kind of have that in the background in my head. Then, the other thing is definitely for anxiety. I highly recommend that people use music for anxiety and depression. So, Dr. Vivek Murthy, our Surgeon General talks about this now. Music is really powerful for depression, and we have natural opioids in the brain that can be released with this. There's no question that it's beneficial. Now, here's the trick. It's all taste-based. It's what you like, what speaks to you. I can't tell you, "Here's a playlist with 10 pieces. They might work, but you might find something better." So, that's something that's always interesting to explain, because people assume, because it's me, it's classical music, but it's not. It's really individual.   [0:19:38] PF: I remember attending a brain health seminar in Cincinnati several years ago, and they had been working with brain injury, and there was a teenager who was in there with a bunch of non-teenagers, and he only wanted to listen to heavy metal. They're like, "That's going to fry his brain." So, they finally were like, "Let's try it." That's what he responded to. He had a TBI, and he responded well to heavy metal music.   [0:20:04] RF: I had a music therapist, actually, tell me in Atlanta who works with veterans that when she wants to calm down, she listens to Metallica. So, the whole room just went, "What?"   [0:20:15] PF: Enter Sandman, okay.   [0:20:18] RF: Right. Yes. So, yes, there's no question about that individuality. There's a beautiful chapter by a music therapist named, Tom Sweitzer, who has a kid come in who is really almost becoming a danger to himself and the people around him. His way in was heavy metal. This kid has stayed with him and continued all his therapy. But this is a really creative therapist who's built the largest, I would say, private music therapy organization in the country. It's in Middleburg, Virginia. He serves the whole community. So, that's a picture that shows what can happen.   [0:20:52] PF: It has so many blessings for us. It has so much hope for us. We're going to tell our listeners how they can find this book and how they can find your Music and Mind Live series. But as I let you go, what is your biggest hope for this book? What do you want people to get from it, and what do you hope it does to be part of the language about how we view music in mind?   [0:21:13] RF: Well, I hope people share it. I mean, I hope – it would be a great birthday or holiday gift for any music lover in your family or arts lover. Frankly, my whole purpose for doing this is because I am passionate about the work. It has affected me tremendously. It's not my field, it's not what I do, but I've become sort of the chief advocate. I love the people that I meet through the world, the scientists, and the researchers, and the therapists, and the whole ecosystem. I will say, it is growing very quickly.   [0:21:46] PF: Well, that is fantastic news for us, because we need it, I'd say, more now than ever.   [0:21:51] RF: No question, no question.   [0:21:53] PF: Well, I so appreciate the work you're doing. I appreciate your time with me today. Again, I really look forward to sharing this with our listeners.   [0:22:01] RF: Thank you, Paula. Wonderful interview. Thank you so much. [END OF INTERVIEW] [0:22:07] PF: That was Renee Fleming, talking about how music and the arts can improve our physical and mental wellbeing. If you'd like to learn more about her book, Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Wellness, follow her on social media, discover her music, or access her online resources, just visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. I hope you've enjoyed this episode of On a Positive Note and look forward to joining you again next time. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Mindful Flower Arranging With Talia Boone [INTRODUCTION] [0:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for Episode 477 of Live Happy Now. We've all heard the advice to stop and smell the roses, but this week's guest also wants us to take a moment to arrange them. I'm your host, Paula Felps. This week, I'm joined by Talia Boone, a social entrepreneur whose work has centered around human and civil rights issues. As you're about to learn, she discovered flower arranging as a form of meditation and self-care. In the height of the pandemic, she launched Postal Petals to help others relieve the anxiety they were feeling. Today, her company's mindful approach to flower arranging is being used by companies, individuals, and community groups who are discovering just how life changing her workshops can be. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW]   [0:00:48] PF: Talia, thank you for joining me on Live Happy Now. [0:00:51] TB: Yes, absolutely. Paula, thank you so much for having me. [0:00:54] PF: You are doing something that is truly different. As soon as I read about it, I was just like, oh my gosh, I can't believe, it had never crossed my mind before. We talked so much about the benefits of nature here at Live Happy Now, and you are using floral arranging as a form of healing. So, I wanted to know, you've got a very interesting story. Can you tell us when you first realized that that could affect your mental health? [0:01:21] TB: Yes. So, the interesting story came to me very unexpected way. So, I have a really good friend, and she and I, whenever we get together, we're really intentional about doing things that we've not done before, always trying some new activity, never like, "Oh, let's go to lunch, or let's go to dinner." That's boring. Always, let's do something different. For one of our friend hangs, she actually suggested that we try flower arranging. I was like, "Cool, I haven't done that before. Let's do it." I liked it, not just because I was really proud of what I've made, but just something about the experience I just enjoyed in a different way that I had other activities. I ended up doing it again, I thought – because I live here in LA, we had the second biggest flower market in the world. I just was like, I'm just going to go down to the flower market, and grab some flowers, and come home, and arrange them, and just kind of see what happens. I went home, and I arranged them, love the flowers again, did it again, did it again. I just liked the way it felt. What I started realizing is that, I would go down to the flower market, just pick whatever feel good to me. I never knew the names of anything, except for the basic like roses, and calla lilies, and things like that. But I just would go down and just pick whatever felt good, whatever colors felt good, whatever shapes really spoke to me. Then, I would go home, and pour a cup of tea, and I would just arrange, and I would just feel like all of the worries of the day, the week, the anxiety, the stress would just dissipate while I arranged flowers. Even the process of just like prepping them, and pulling the stems off, and the thorns, all of those things, I just found it really, really therapeutic. Without really having the language for to call it that then, it became my go-to form of self-care. So that, you know, fast forward a couple of years later, whenever I feel stressed, that's what I would do. I would instinctively go to the flowers. So, fast forward to the very early days of the pandemic, I was starting to get very stressed out as they kind of – as two weeks went to four weeks, went to six weeks, and then it just looked like an endless amount of time that was going to kind of consume us in the home. I started to get really nervous, as I'm sure most of us did, with the uncertainty of what it meant for ourselves, our livelihoods, our families, all of those things. My therapist, we've kind of we're trying all these different things to see how I could kind of calm myself down. I'm very much a person that's into what I call lifestyle medicine. I believe diet and exercise, the right kind of food, the right kind of serving your body in the way that it actually needs it natively is what I kind of will always gear towards. I'm very, very cautious about medications and things like that. So, those kinds of things weren't options for me, and she didn't really recommend them, but that's not a route that I wanted to go. I know that prescriptions for medicines that calm your nerves were at an all-time high during the pandemic. [0:04:11] PF: Pharmacists are banking, right?   [0:04:12] TB: Absolutely. She actually said to me, she's like, "You know, Talia, I haven't heard you talk about arranging flowers in a few months. Why don't you try that and see if that helps you feel better." That ultimately started the journey for what is now Postal Petals. So, that's how I got the love of flowers, how I understood the kind of healing benefits. But then, once she suggested that I arranged them as a way for me to deal with what I was going through in the pandemic, that ultimately ended up being the one suggestion that led to starting Postal Petals. Because when I started looking for a company that could ship me fresh cut flowers to the house for me to arrange, I just couldn't find it. There were so many options to ship me ready-to-use arrangements, but there was nothing that allowed me to arrange them myself. That journey is ultimately what led me to recognize that there was a hole in the market, being that, what I was looking for did not exist. I just felt like, if I was looking for this, there's got to be other people who are as well. Then, I just saw an opportunity to enter into the flower industry. It was a time when events weren't happening, weddings weren't happening, people were hoarding toilet paper. They were definitely not buying flowers at the grocery store. Nobody was really thinking about flowers in that way. So, I took a chance, and decided I'm going to start this company, and we're almost four years later and Postal Petals is the best thing that could have happened to me professionally. I'm in love with this company, I'm so honored, privileged to have been chosen to build and run this company. [0:05:44] PF: That's amazing. For novices, what are we talking about when we talk about flower arranging? Because I'll be honest, the only flower engine I do is take it from the paper around it and put it in a vase. That's about as fancy as I get. So, what does flower arranging really entail? [0:06:03] TB: You know what it entails? It entails patience, it entails you allowing for the time to do it, it entails you allowing yourself to express yourself creatively. So, we are quite conditioned as a culture, particularly here in America. I think in other cultures, I know that they do a lot of flower arranging, and in Japanese, historically in Japanese culture, they arrange flowers specifically as a form of self-care, and meditation, and mindfulness. So, we're just kind of catching up to where flowers had been for many for quite some time. But, the actual act of flower arranging is, realizing that flowers don't always come as perfect as they come in these ready-to-use arrangements. You have to realize when those flowers show up to your florist, they've got leaves all over them, they've probably got bugs crawling in, and there's probably petals that are wilting and dying. So, it entails you being willing to work with those flowers in the same way your florist would, to kind of strip through all of the muck, or all of the waste to really hone in on the beauty. Then, once you hone in on the beauty, really put attention into thinking about where you want to place each stem. So, it's this idea of slowing down to get through that process. So many of us, it's so easy to your point, Paula, around just grabbing a bouquet from the grocery store, running some water in a vase, and plopping it into a vase. But when you stop, and you spread that bouquet out, and you decide that you're going to rearrange it. Now, you see, "Oh, there's leaves in here, let me pull those leaves off the water, off the stamp so that they don't poison the water. Let me adjust the height a little bit, because I want it to look a little bit more full. I think this petal, this bloom would look better over here next to this bloom." So, it's just that process of prepping the flowers, which is trimming them, removing leaves, removing thorns, removing what we call guard petals. But then also, kind of thinking through stem by stem where do those flowers best show up in the arrangement that would bring you the most joy. Then, really take your time to go through that process. I think once you kind of lose yourself in that experience, when you come out of it on the other side, experiencing a piece that I just can't even explain it. I think it's very similar to the way that people talk about gardening, and how they find it just so therapeutic. Most people who haven't done it would say like, "Why do I want to get my hands in the dirt, and do this, and do that? I don't want to do that. I could just buy my vegetables at the store. I could just have a florist deliver my flowers." But there's something about engaging with nature, whether it's in the dirt of a garden, or flower stems, as you're arranging. There's something about that process that is just so incredibly calming and therapeutic. [0:08:45] PF: This seems like such a mindful activity. You can't really be looking at each one, and deciding what you're going to do with it, and be thinking about, I've got to go pick up the kids from school, and I need to stop at the grocery store, and all these other things, you really have to focus. Is that a big part of the therapy side of it? [0:09:03] TB: Yes, it is, because it really forces you to just be present on what you're doing. It's interesting, because we offer our boxes as, you can get them on demand, but we encourage people to, as we say, kind of schedule and regulate self-care as a part of your routine. So, we do subscriptions, where you can get them every week, every other week, or once a month. The reason I say, kind of center your wellness, kind of schedule your wellness is because, when those flowers show up, you have to get them out of the box right away. So, whatever other things you're stressing about, whatever other things are pulling on your time or your attention, you're going to have to make time to pull those flowers out of the box, get them in some water, get them hydrated, and then go through that experience of arranging them. So often, we're in this hustle and grind culture, where we all are wanting to multitask, and do so many different things at the same time. Whereas, it really does in this way force you to pay attention, to be present, to not allow your attention to be diverted. Because if you're looking at work emails, and trying to arrange flowers at the same time, chances are, it's not going to turn out as beautiful as you want to. You're going to cut something too short; you're going to – there's something's going to happen. So, it's just an opportunity for you to design. It's also one of those things, I find that even people who are reluctant to try it, once they start their focus, they're dialed in. One of the things I love most about workshops is that, people come in all excited, and with all this energy, and they think it's going to be like a party. Once they start arranging, the noise dies down so much, because people just – they zone out, they just really, really get into it. It's a similar feeling to me. Result is different, and the experience and the textile is a little bit different. But kind of like when you're fixing puzzles, which is relaxing. You can be doing other things while you're fixing a puzzle, but it's going to take you a lot longer, because you're not going to be paying attention to what goes where and what makes sense. Flower arrangements really are a puzzle, they're your puzzle. It's for you to decide how you want them to turn out, but you have to give them the attention they deserve in order to know exactly where you want them to go. So that when you're done, and you twirl it around, you're going to be like, "Wow, I've made that, that's amazing." You definitely want to be present for that. Otherwise, the other side of that experience, if you're not present, is you're going to be, the whole week that you have them up, you're going to be noticing all the things that you would have changed if you would have been paying attention. [0:11:29] PF: So, I think you brought up to really great points without maybe even realizing it. So, when someone knows they're going to get these flowers. So now, you have this anticipatory savoring where it's like, they're really looking forward to this experience. Then, you have the experience itself, which we've talked about. Then, you have that, as you said, that week afterwards, where you're looking at these flowers. I think that probably brings back a lot of wonderful feelings, calming emotions, just by looking at that. [0:11:58] TB: You're absolutely right. I thank you for noting that point, Paula, because that's exactly it. We talked about or starting to talk more and more about self-care, we're offering them something that's really, at the end of it, they have this really beautiful reminder of that experience. You want to repeat that, because it just feels so good. There's nothing about flower arranging that you come out of, and you're like, "That was terrible. I'll never do that again." [0:12:23] PF: That flower bit me. [0:12:24] TB: Yes, they're so beautiful, like you absolutely love them. Then, also too, throughout the week, you have an opportunity to continue to engage with them. You want to keep trimming them and changing the water to extend their vase life. If one flower starting to fail, you pull that guy out. Sometimes, I even will, midweek, I'll take the whole arrangement out, lay it out, and design it again. Because sometimes, you just need a little bit of a, "Oh, I did a little bit of a huzzah. Let me give me myself a quick 15 minutes and I'll redesign this." It starts to really change the way that you think about flowers. Instinctively, even now, people when they see flowers, it brings a smile to their face that makes them happy. But when you're also able to add to it, that you were able to release anxiety or release stress, that kind of really changes even the way that you feel when you even see flowers. Because now, you've attached this really calming experience to it. Now, you've attached this kind of this mindful, and therapeutic experience to it. It really goes to elevate the relationship that we have with flowers. I think it's a missed opportunity when we allow florists to have all the fun, but we don't take on that experience ourselves. [SPONSOR MESSAGE] [0:13:37] PF: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Most of us are feeling a lot of stress these days, and one thing that can add to that stress is comparing ourselves to others on social media. It's so easy to start feeling like your life doesn't measure up. But with help from therapy, you can learn to focus on what you want, instead of what others are doing. Therapy can improve your coping skills and change the way you look at your world. BetterHelp is a great place to start. All you have to do is fill out a brief questionnaire and you'll get matched with a licensed therapist. You can always change therapists at any time at no extra charge to make sure you get a therapist who's right for you. It's completely online, so it's flexible, convenient, and works with your schedule. Stop comparing and start focusing with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com/livehappy today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp.com/livehappy. We'll be right back with the show, but now, Casey Johnson, Live Happy marketing manager and cat owner extraordinaire is back to talk more about her adventures with PrettyLitter.   [0:14:46] TB: Paula, as you know, I'm a proud cat mom of three adorable cats. But, let's be honest, no matter how cuddly they are, those litter box odors are not so cute. Before PrettyLitter, it felt like no matter how much I scooped, our place always smelled like a litter box. With PrettyLitter, I found a product that is the perfect blend of beauty and functionality. That pretty crystal masks the smell at the litter boxes, and now, you don't even know I have three cats until they sit on your lap. So, to all the other dedicated cat parents out there, I highly recommend trying PrettyLitter. [0:15:17] PF: We're going to make it easier for them to try. They can go to prettylitter.com/livehappy and use the code LIVE HAPPY to save 20% on their first order and get a free cat toy. That's prettylitter.com/livehappy, code LIVE HAPPY to save 20% and get a free cat toy. Again, prettylitter.com/livehappy, code LIVE HAPPY. [INTERVIEW CONTINUES]   [0:15:39] PF: You have turned Postal Petals into an entire movement. So, if someone's listening to this, they might think, "Oh, she sells flowers." It's like, "No, that's not what's going on here." You are doing community workshops; you even do online workshops. Talk about the workshops that you offer, and kind of what you see happen through the course of these workshops. [0:15:59] TB: Yes. So, thank you for asking that. We absolutely are not just flowers. I always say flowers are their tool. We are here to help introduce people to an attainable form of self-care, and mindfulness, and mental wellness. So, we do a series of free community wellness events where we incorporate movement, meditation, and then mindfulness with the flower arranging. So typically, it'll be maybe it's hiking, maybe it's walking, or like a restorative yoga session, followed by a breathwork session, or a guided, or sound bath meditation. Then, we take that really, once the body's already in a calm state, your mind has already kind of started to settle, we bring that energy right into a truly peaceful floral design workshop. We kind of guide people through, here's the flowers, and they walk into the space with the flowers, and it's just flowers everywhere. They can pick whichever flowers they want, and they go back to their stations, and we guide them, in a really kind way through the design process. We're really careful around not telling people where to put each stem. But instead, giving them tricks and tips like, "Cut the stems at a 45-degree angle, make sure you don't allow any leaves to fall below the waterline, because it'll poison your flowers. Be conscious of where you cut based on where you want the blooms to fall on the arrangement," things like that. The most rewarding thing after we do the free community wellness events, and then some of the corporate stuff that we do as well, is really the way that people without fail will comment about how unexpectedly good they feel after having gone through the experience. Because most people will say, I never thought about flowers in this way. I loved flowers. I've always loved flowers, but I've never, I've never experienced flowers in a way that I'm leaving feeling so relaxed, and feeling so centered, and feeling so calm, and feeling like I've addressed, I paid attention to my mindfulness today. That's really what we appreciate most. Then, even when we do our corporate workshops, or our workshops with – we do that private, we call them Petal Riot for design workshops. But we'll bring them in, and they'll say like, "Oh, there's going to be men in there, are men going to want to do this? We have come to find out that the men love it. They absolutely love it.   [0:18:11] PF: That's amazing.   [0:18:13] TB: Yes, the men love it. Many times, they are far better designers than they ever thought they were. I have been wowed so many times by the arrangements that some of our male workshop attendees have put together. They sometimes are dragged, kicking, and screaming to that workshop. But by the end of it, they're among the best, and typically, at the top of the class, it's really interesting. It's funny, because, I'll tell you, Paula, a trend that I was starting to notice when men would be in the workshops, whether they were the virtual workshops or the in-person workshops, is that they would naturally become very competitive. They would always want to make their arrangement better than everyone else. I would see this over, and over, and over again. I was thinking like, geez, I don't understand what that is. I really want this to be relaxing. I don't want it to feel like a competition. I was talking to a male friend of mine, and he was saying, he's like, "Talia, I think what you're not realizing is that for most men, competition is self-care."   [0:19:08] PF: That's a great way to look at it.   [0:19:09] TB: Yes, exactly. That's why they love watching games. That's why they love going to sporting events. Because for man, a lot of that is self-care. I never thought about it like that. But it also really helped me to kind of also even understand how to reach men, and how to, really, instead of discouraging the competition, encouraging it for those who need it, because everybody's journey is their own. While competition for me is not self-care, being able to be sensitive to, and to pivot, and adjust on the ways in which we're addressing each person in the class to make sure that we're meeting them where they are. So long as they leave with an experience of feeling exactly the peaceful and mindful experience that we want them to have. That's what we want. So, I say all that to say, it's a different experience for everyone that comes in, but collectively, regardless of the way that they get there through their flower arranging experience. Whether it's through the joy and peace of it all, or the competition of it all, they all leave saying that they never thought in a million years that they would have that kind of experience, or that they would leave feeling as good as they felt after arranging flowers. It really, it's a beautiful thing, and it's my favorite thing of doing workshops. At the end, I'll say, "How was it?" And they're just like, "This was amazing." [0:20:25] PF: How rewarding that must feel. [0:20:27] TB: Really. It really is, because it's, to your point as we were talking around this really being something that hasn't really been done before in the way in which we're doing it. It really is a unique offering, and it's validating every time I get that response. Because sometimes, people who have not had the experience find a hard time understanding why they would want to have the experience. Because we've been so traditionally conditioned to experience flowers as this ready to use product from florists. They just deliver them to your door, maybe you take some pictures, throw them on the ground. Then, you don't really engage with them again, until you're tossing them out into the trash because they died. The whole time you've had them, you've missed all that opportunity to really engage with them, those flowers, and those stems in a really, really meaningful way. So, I get it, why people don't understand it. But it's so rewarding when they do get it because they don't – once they get it, they don't do it just once, they keep coming back for it, and I love that. They're hooked on it like I am, and I love it. [0:21:26] PF: There you go. You did something really interesting and profound with Amazon. I want to hear about this. I was reading about this on your website, and I thought, oh my gosh. I'm not going to say anything more, because I want your words to describe this. [0:21:42] TB: Yes. Oh, God. Paula, thank you for bringing that up. That was actually one of my favorite events, very special to me for a number of reasons. But that event, Amazon had Amazon Studios, put out a film back in 2022, called the TILL movie, which was the Mamie Till-Mobley story about the lynching of her 14-year-old son, Emmett Till in the south, while he was there visiting family. It's a story that growing up in the African-American community, you've always been very much aware of, as well as stories just like it that happened, that have been happening for generations to our ancestors, men and women in our family who have come before us. When that film came up, and they were releasing it, they reached out, and they said, "Hey, we're doing a series of screenings and talks about, we want to have you there." This particular screening that we did was a screening for black mothers. It was a screening of the project, and they never meant to have like a panel discussion about that film, and what it brought up for them being mothers, and the way that they protect their children in general, but their sons, their black sons growing up in this country, in particular. When they came to me, I just said to them, the themes in this film, in other films like it, incredibly traumatic for us in our community. These bring up very negative feelings, very real vulnerabilities, and threats to our livelihoods, even today. So, I said to them, "I would love to work with you all, but I want to be really careful about the way that we engage in this type of space. Since we know that these things can be incredibly traumatic to our community, I want to make sure that we don't send them out into the world with that trauma from the screening and from the conversation that we can instead make sure that we're really intentional about the ways in which we can start to relieve some of that pressure before we leave." So, the idea that we came up with was to do one of our make and take bloom bars, after the screening and after the panel discussion. So, what happened was, the ladies went in, they did the screening, they had their panel discussion, and we were in a separate room in the back. You could kind of see, yes, they were coming out of that room, the weight of the film on them. But then, when they saw the flowers, and they got closer, and start to realize that the flowers were for them, you could visibly see the weight of the film starting to break away. As they were gathering up, and starting to pick the flowers that they wanted in their arrangements, and we started kind of fixing them up and wrapping them. Then, they started to converse with each other about the flowers that they were creating, and the flowers they were choosing, the arrangements that they were creating, it completely changed the spirit and the energy in the room, where the ladies were able to use the flowers as a way to decompress, and to kind of level set kind of their energies, and the spirit of kind of how they were feeling coming out of it. It just completely changed it, where they were talking about the flowers, and they were talking about the beauty of the flowers. As they were able to continue to have some of the conversation about the film, their perspective was very much shifted based on the fact that they were able to look at it from a different way, because their energy had been shifted. Then, they took those flowers, and we had a whole portrait studio set up for them. So, we were able to kind of memorialize the moment with those flowers, and with those women in the portrait studio, and to think that they were able to go from watching that screening, and really taking in those really heavy, heavy messages at the film. To ending with being given flowers, and smiling in a portrait studio was just really beautiful to see. Also, just a true example of the absolute healing powers of flowers. In real time, we were able to see how these women went from carrying the weight of this movie and their lived experience relating to the movie. And seeing the flowers being able to decompress that, and allow them to leave feeling less heavy than the film. [0:25:45] PF: As I read about that, I was thinking how it's really helping heal a traumatic experience for them. So then, I wonder, I know you have so much research on your website. I love the fact that you just have research that says, "Hey, it's not just me." There's science behind this that shows how good this is for us. But what do you see being able to do in terms of helping people work through trauma? [0:26:09] TB: Again, thank you for asking that. That's another thing that we're actively doing now, is beginning to partner with licensed mental health practitioners to start to develop floral healing curriculums that speak really specifically to various ailments. Mental and emotional health ailments that people may be going through. So, we're now really thinking about in addition to what – as our curriculum start to be formalized, really very intentionally beginning to partner with the social institutions that sit at the centerpieces of our communities. Thinking about schools, and community organizations, even rehab facilities, correctional facilities, aging, and caregiving facilities. Seeing how we can begin to take our flowers into those spaces and help with things like self-esteem, emotional intelligence, mindfulness. When you're thinking through rehab, and things like that. But even, people who are in facilities where they're having to find more healthy ways to express themselves, as opposed to coming angry or, or taking on substances, or anything that's not healthy and saying, "Well, let's put that energy into the flowers, and really being able to have curriculum that's very intentionally crafted to help people use the flowers in that way. The way that I love to describe this is, we are really giving people an attainable way to achieve, to reach for their mental, and emotional wellness. For some, they require that to be done in concert with professionals, in concert with medications, just kind of depending on what their unique condition is. But for many people, just the act of tending to your emotional and mental wellness, tending to acknowledging the anxiety that you're feeling, acknowledging the stress that you're feeling, and giving yourself 30 minutes to an hour each week or every other week. Just to kind of put that energy into the process of arranging flowers works wonders for your total emotional health. [0:28:04] PF: That's incredible. I'm so excited to see where this goes, because I know you've been at it for a while. But I also realized this is just really the beginning of what it can accomplish, and like I said, I hope you'll stay in touch. I hope we can watch and see it grow because you're doing a lot of amazing things. [0:28:20] TB: Thank you so much, Paula. I really, really appreciate that. Thank you. [END OF INTERVIEW] [0:28:28] PF: That was Talia Boone, talking about how mindful flower arranging can relieve anxiety and improve our wellbeing. If you'd like to learn more about Talia, follow her on social media or check out her Postal Petals workshops. Just visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. While you're there, be sure to sign up for our weekly Live Happy newsletter. Every week, we'll drop a little bit of joy into your inbox with the latest stories, podcast info, and even a happy song of the week. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one.   [END]