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Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Musicians on Call with Katy Epley [INTRO] [00:00:04] PF: What’s up, everybody? This is Paula Felps, and you are listening to On a Positive Note. Music has the power to help us heal, and that's why one organization is delivering music where it might be needed most, the hospital. Musicians On Call is a volunteer organization that connects musicians with hospitals to provide live and recorded music to patients. Its volunteers have performed for more than one million people in health care facilities throughout the US. Today, I'm talking with Katy Epley, executive vice president at Musicians On Call to learn more about how this program started, and how it has changed the lives of both patients, and the musicians who perform for them. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW]   [0:00:47] PF: Well, Katie. Welcome to On a Positive Note.   [0:00:50] KE: Thank you, Paula. I'm so happy to be here. [0:00:52] PF: We're ecstatic to have you on the show. Musicians On Call is an organization that I've been aware of, following for quite some time. It just does such great things. To kick it off, for people who aren't aware of what you do, tell us about the organization.   [0:01:06] KE: Okay, great. Yes. Musicians On Call is a nonprofit organization. We started in 1999. So this is actually our 25th anniversary this year.   [0:01:15] PF: Congratulations.   [0:01:16] KE: Thank you. We are very excited, and have lots of things planned. But Musicians On Call is a nonprofit, and we bring live, and recorded music to the bedsides of patients, and families, and caregivers in healthcare environments. The primary way we do that is we have volunteer guides who escort volunteer musicians from room to room inside hospitals. The volunteer guide is trained to know which rooms to go into, which rooms not to go into. And they are going to the hospital room doors, knocking on the door, and going in, and saying, "Hey, I'm Katy. I'm here as Musicians On Call. We have a volunteer in the hallway that all come in and play for you if you feel like hearing music." So that way, the patient has the choice whether or not they want the musician to come in. Nine times out of 10, they say yes. And the guide brings the musician into the room, and we try to play something that the patient would like. So we sometimes ask, "Do you want something upbeat, something slow? What kind of music do you like?" Then, we perform a song right there at the bedside of the patient. I can tell you about it all day long, but until you're inside that hospital room, and can just feel the difference that music is making for the patient, their caregivers, or their family, it is just magical. We do that and we play a song. Usually, the patient says, "Oh, this is the best part of my day. I wasn't expecting this. This is amazing." Sometimes there's happy tears, sometimes there's just emotional tears, you just never know. Then, we go to the next room, and the next room, and the next room. We do that for about 90 minutes, and we try to see as many patients, families, and caregivers that we can play for within that 90 minutes. That's what we call MOC bedside. That's our MOC bedside program. Obviously, with the pandemic, we had to stop doing that in person, so we switched everything to virtual. I would say those are our primary two programs that we offer. [0:03:11] PF: Now, how did you get involved with it? [0:03:13] KE: I was so lucky. I was so lucky I had moved to Nashville, and Musicians On Call was in New York. Our founders started Musicians On Call in New York, and they were ready to expand to Nashville. I was working at the Songwriters Guild of America, and one of the attorneys for Musicians On Call in New York was also the attorney for the Songwriters Guild of America. He's like, "Ooh, you should come meet with Katy" because I was writing articles for musician, songwriters, the newsletters that they were receiving every month. So he was like, "She can write an article for the songwriters, and that will help you get volunteers." As soon as I saw the videos, if anybody's ever has been to Musicians On Call website, and been hooked via video, I was hooked. I was so lucky to meet with our executive director then, and she sent me the job description, and said, "If you know anybody, here's the position we're looking for." I actually sent it to so many people. I was like, "Oh, you'd be so good at this. This organization is fantastic." It took me like a minute before I was like, "Wait a minute, I want to do this job." [0:04:16] PF: It's like, can I unsend those emails. [0:04:19] KE: Yes. I was lucky. I was 24 years old, and they selected me to run the Nashville branch of Musicians On Call. I was our only employee, and that was 17 years ago. I'm still here and I'm still loving every minute of it. [0:04:32] PF: That's amazing. What made the founders choose hospitals. There's many different settings. You can do nursing home, there's so many different settings, where music can be beneficial. What is it that made them identify patients in a healthcare setting as where they wanted to focus? [0:04:49] KE: It's actually a really great question. Our two founders, Michael Solomon, and Vivek J. Tiwary. Michael, 25 years ago, his girlfriend was Kristen Ann Carr, and she had cancer. Her mother was actually Bruce Springsteen's manager. So as she was in the hospital receiving treatments, Bruce would actually come in and play music for her, and she'd be like, "Oh, go play for some of the other patients." When Michael, after, sadly, Kristen Ann Carr passed, his friend, Vivek also had a similar story where he lost someone that he loved. Together, they started bringing musicians into hospital lobbies to perform for patients, or patients in group settings. This was at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. One day, the nurses asked if they could come play music for some of the patients who were not able to come to the common area. When they did that, they just saw it was magical, and that they wanted to bring these experiences to more patients who can't leave their beds. That's when Musicians On Call was born. [0:05:51] PF: I cannot imagine the amount of emotion that is involved. For one thing, a lot of times, people in hospitals feel forgotten. We also, as we touched on music is such a healing force. Then, you bring those things together. What do patients do when this happens for them? When someone walks in and says, "May I play you a song?" [0:06:12] KE: Really great question. It is so emotional. We can go to the same floor every single week, and every single week, it's different, because it's different people in the hospital. I think – it really depends what unit it is too. If it's acute care where people are in and out of the hospital, for like a planned reason, it's maybe a little less emotional. But if there's someone, like the trauma unit, where something traumatic has happened, and you're in the hospital, and we've seen music, lower blood pressure, it improves your outlook, and your overall mood. I think, it's again, very emotional, but you can see – sometimes, I remember being in the hospital one time. It was at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital. We went in and it was a small child. They said, yes, you can play some music. The dad was hunched over on his chair, with my hands folded, clasp tight. Just by the course of a song, you could just see him, like lean back in his chair and relax just a little bit. To see how music can really transform the environment is just amazing. I've been there 17 years, I could tell you a thousand stories.   [0:07:20] PF: I bet you have a few stories.   [0:07:22] KE: But I think the biggest thing is just helping improve the stress levels for patients, and the caregivers. We've seen caregivers tell us like, "Oh, I request to work on Thursday nights, because I know you'll be here."   [0:07:33] PF: Oh, that's great.   [0:07:34] KE: It does bring this uplifting experience for everybody involved. [0:07:39] PF: And is there ever reluctance on behalf of the hospital? Especially when you're trying to approach a hospital, and we're going to bring this program in, re they hesitant? Or are they, "Yes, we've heard about you guys, let's go"? [0:07:51] KE: Yes. I think in a little bit olden days, they were a little hesitant because it was just a little bit unknown. And music was this kind of like a nice thing to do. But I think now, all of the studies and the research shows that music really does have a direct effect on people, and it can improve patient's experience in the hospital. It can improve caregivers, their experience in the hospital. I think now, because there is such a scientific connection with the healing power of music, and how it can have such a positive effect on people. That now, people are welcoming us with open arms, and we're not able to expand fast enough to keep up with the demand for our programs. [0:08:30] PF: That's a really great problem to have.   [0:08:32] KE: It really is. [0:08:33] PF: How do you get the artists and what level do they have to be? Or let's talk about the criteria for an artist that wants to be part of Musicians On Call? [0:08:42] KE: Sure, absolutely. We have a volunteer musician application, where you can go to our website, musiciansoncall.org, and you can click on the volunteer button to then apply to become a volunteer musician. So a local musician, they would need to have a soothing sound. We're not going to bring in any like crazy, heavy metal artists, so yes. An acoustic soothing sound is what we're looking for. We have musicians of all different genres, and we provide the training. So as long as a musician has the talent, we can then tell them what songs are appropriate. We're not going to sing anything about loneliness, dying, all that kind of stuff. We provide all that training. [0:09:24] PF: We probably stay out of the country song book pretty heavily. [0:09:28] KE: Yes, there's quite a few that we probably shouldn't play. But we do have a song database that's like, these are the songs that work well in a hospital environment. So we have a suggested list to pull from. That's really like our local musicians. Those are the people who are tried and true, volunteering once a month, and giving back to their community. Then, occasionally, we'll have the artists such as like Darius Rucker, or Kelly Clarkson, or someone that just you hear about, that's a celebrity that comes in, and performs. That helps so many ways. Because one, if you're a patient and Darius Rucker walks into your room, it's like a once in a lifetime thing, and he's amazing. That is obviously fantastic. Then, also the buzz that that creates, then people hear about us. It really spread the message of Musicians On Call. But we also can't do that with just one or the other. We need these celebrities to spread the word, but we also need the local musicians. That way, we can keep our program running on a weekly basis. It takes both. [0:10:27] PF: Especially, Nashville, so many artists, so many people working to make it and great songwriters, and that's going to help them to. It's probably beneficial for the musicians because they're trying something new. They're honing their craft, but in a very different setting. [0:10:44] KE: Absolutely. I've had so many musicians who are like, "Oh, man. I can play in front of 5,000 people. But like, oh man, to be right in our hospital room is so intimidating." Which to me is just baffling, because I'm like, "You can get up there on stage and play for like so many people, but this is what you're doing." I mean, I think it's true, because you're being vulnerable. You're right in someone's hospital room at one of their scariest moments sometimes. But I think, the musicians get so much out of it. The volunteer guides, haven't really talked a lot about the guides, but the guide is the one that's escorting the musician. They know what to do, they know what to say, they're there to support the musician if there is a situation that they don't know what to do. So anybody can be a volunteer guide. I mean, you just have to have a love of music and a love of people, because you're the one knocking on the door of the hospital room, not knowing what's going on on the other side. So you know, as long as you can be comfortable in that environment and be the one communicating with the patient, anybody can be a volunteer guide. Then, I think for both the guide and the musician, you both just get so much out of it. Because when you leave that hospital, you're like, "Oh my gosh, we just made a difference." You remember each of those rooms that you went to, and you have those stories that you carry with you. [0:11:59] PF: That's fantastic. You've seen it affect patients. How do you see the artists who participate be touched, and change. I cannot even imagine, because as you said, it's so different than getting up on a stage and playing. They're sitting there, and they're watching this person really being moved and changed by the music. What does it do for the artist? [0:12:18] KE: I think it's so meaningful, because they're getting to use their gifts, and their talent in a way that's helping others. I think in the music industry, you can become so jaded by all of it, and the rollercoaster ride of the highs, and lows of success, and all that. For them to just be able to give back to people who want to hear – their captive audience, they're in there, and they're loving it. It's a way to connect, it's that point of connection between the artist and the musician. Then, we have folks like Charles Aston. I don't know if anyone's familiar with Charles Aston.   [0:12:48] PF: Oh, yes.   [0:12:49] KE: Deacon Clayborn from the show, Nashville, and now he's on the Outer Banks. But I mean, he is one of the most amazing human beings, he so giving. He started doing our program several years ago. Now, he's a board member and serves on our board of directors. I think that you can see someone like that where he could do anything he wants with his time and his talents, and he gives back so much to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, because he had a daughter that battle that when she was a child. To think that he has been so moved over the years to join our board, and to serve us in that way, I think is a real testimony to say how much it does for musicians. [0:13:30] PF: How many musicians would you say you've had through your program over the years? Do you have any calculation of that? [0:13:37] KE: I know before the pandemic hit, we had 800 current volunteers. Those were volunteers that were actively volunteering with us once a month. That was volunteer musicians and guides. But if I were to look back, like historically over 25 years, that's a really good question. I don't know how many people have volunteered as a total.   [0:13:55] PF: There's an infographic that needs to be made. [0:13:58] PF: Yes. Now, you have another program I'm really interested in. Wanted to talk to you about, and that's your songwriting program. I think this is incredible. We've done some things on songwriting with soldiers, and there's some other things. Tell us the Musicians On Call songwriting programs about. [0:14:13] KE: This one is really cool. I would love to tell a story about this if it's okay.   [0:14:17] PF: Please.   [0:14:18] KE: It would have been probably 12 years ago, and was my first time doing this program. There used to be a facility in Nashville called Bordeaux Long-Term Care. It was a place where people went to live basically probably for the rest of their life because they needed long-term care and they weren't going home. We wanted to go there, and we did this as – you can do it in different time. You can do it all in one day, or you can do it in different periods of time. But this one, because it was a long-term care facility, we wanted to do it over a course of six weeks. Once a week, or I think, once or twice a week we would come and meet with the same group. The hospital selected a group of residents to come and write songs with us. The first day we showed up, everybody was like – the people were just walking in, they are like, "What are we doing? What did we sign up for?" Then we explained. We said, "We're going to write songs." Harlan was our volunteer musician, and we were going to come together as a group and write a song. So, they were like, "Okay. Yeah, you know." Then the next time we came, everybody was on time. Then the next time we came, they were there waiting for us.   [0:15:25] PF: Oh, wow.   [0:15:26] KE: It was so cool to see just the change in attitude by the end of it. But basically, what happened is, we got together and said, like, "What do we want to write about? How are we feeling and all that?" The group decided they wanted to write about things that they were grateful for.   [0:15:42] PF: I love it.   [0:15:42] KE: One man had a long ponytail braid, and he was in a wheelchair, and he didn't have any legs. So he was grateful that he still had his hair, and he was grateful that he had a chance to dance before. Then, there was just a variety of things like that, that they said. There was one woman who was probably in her eighties. If you've ever been to Nashville, you've probably driven down Music Row, and you see the banners that are on Music Row, that's like number one song here, number one song. This woman had said that she moved to Nashville, and she – it was her dream to see her name on one of those banners on Music Row. That just kind of stuck with us. Anyway, they wrote this song called, I Am Grateful. By the end of the six weeks, we came in, and we brought in recording equipment. And some of the nurses came and joined us, and we recorded this song called, I Am Grateful. So then, back then, it was a CD release party. We had pressed it onto a CD, and we had pictures, and art, and all that, and then we have a CD release party. So we came back, and we had the group perform and sing at this long-term care facility, and we passed out CDs, they got to autograph it. We had a banner made with everybody's name on it, with the song on there. It was just the most incredible experience for everyone that participated for the musicians helping to write the song, for the patients. They got to have this experience that they otherwise wouldn't have been able to have. For that six weeks, they are different people, talking about like the power of music, what it can do. It was just really, really amazing. That's MOC songwriting, I would say in a nutshell, but that was probably a really long story to tell. [0:17:23] PF: No, that's a great story. I love that. How often do you do that now? Is it by special request or – because that's some intensive process? [0:17:34] KE: Yes. Yes, it is. That's not one of our ongoing programs. We do that one on a case-by-case basis. But we did that during the pandemic, with a VA hospital in Phoenix, actually, where an artist was on Zoom. The patients at the VA were in a group setting, and they actually wrote a song together through Zoom. It doesn't have to be a six-week period, and it usually isn't anymore. But we can go in with recording equipment and write a song in a hospital room with a with a patient nowadays, just record it right then and there. It's not a program that's on an ongoing basis, but it's one that we do when we have a special request, or a grant, or something like that, that makes sense. [0:18:13] PF: How cathartic is it for the patient to be able to work on this song, and get their emotions out through lyrics. [0:18:21] KE: I think it's magical, really. I think the one thing, though, I will say is that we don't do music therapy. There's a music therapy process by which their therapists are pulling out those emotions and helping people work through them. Where we're providing entertainment for the patients and providing like a therapeutic activity. If it does kind of get into the more emotional – we always have somebody like a recreational therapist, or child-life therapist or someone there that can kind of handle those, the raw emotions that might come up through it. But I think, regardless of the type of activity, I think that it is one that is helping people express their emotions. I was just telling a friend, I didn't grow up in a household where we talked about our emotions, and thought deeply about where do they come from, and what am I actually feeling. That's not normal. I think it's starting to be normalized, but I think, any working on like your emotions, and it's kind of digging deeper, and being curious about what you're thinking, and feeling is helpful for all of us. [0:19:24] PF: I love it. What's next for Musicians On Call? What else is going on? And then, also, what are ways that people can get involved, people who aren't musicians? Can we talk about that too? [0:19:35] KE: Yes, absolutely. As I mentioned earlier, it's our 25th anniversary of Musicians On Call. So we have a big 25th anniversary campaign coming up, where we're going to have different celebrity hospital visits, and new cities that come on board with Musicians On Call. We're expanding to Tampa this year. We're expanding to Orlando, which is really exciting. We're going to be having events in Nashville and New York to celebrate the 25th anniversary. Those are some upcoming things that we're looking forward to. Then, we are – what else is going on? We're looking for volunteers. That's the biggest thing. Yes, the volunteer guides and the volunteer musicians that want to go into the hospital, or they want to volunteer virtually. Like I said, anybody can be a volunteer guide, and the volunteer musicians just need to have a really soothing sound. They can go on our website to fill out a volunteer application. [0:20:27] PF: I think this is such an incredible program. So grateful for the work you're doing and thankful that you had time to sit down to talk with me about it, because I think it's something more people need to know about. [0:20:38] KE: Oh, thank you, Paula. Thank you for inviting us to come and share Musicians On Call with you and your listeners who are so grateful for this opportunity. [END OF INTERVIEW] [0:20:49] PF: That was Katy Epley of Musicians On Call, talking about the healing power of music in the hospital setting. If you'd like to learn more about Musicians On Call, follow them on social media, or see how you can be a volunteer. Just visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast link. 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: How Animals Help Us Heal with Dr. Joanne Cacciatore   [INTRO] [0:00:08] PF: Welcome to Happiness Unleashed with your host, Brittany Derrenbacher, presented by Live Happy. In this episode, Brittany is joined by Joanne Cacciatore, better known as Dr. Jo, a professor at Arizona State University and Director of the Graduate Certificate in Trauma and Bereavement. Dr. Jo also is founder of Selah Carefarm near Sedona, Arizona, which offers 20 acres of farmland where grieving family members can heal amongst rescued animals that have been abused, neglected, or discarded. Dr. Jo is here to explain how animals and humans can help each other through their painful journeys as they recover from their grief. Let's have a listen. [INTERIVEW] [0:00:48] BD: You're doing something really unique and profound out in Sedona with animals. You've created an intentional community where people can come and heal from trauma and grief surrounded by animals and earth-based practices. Can you tell us more about that? [0:01:06] JC: Sure. Selah Carefarm, we have been around literally seven and a half years, but in planning about eight and a half years, and we have 20 acres here, and we are on what's called Oak Creek, which is more like a river. The headwaters are in Flagstaff. So, we have 2,000 or so feet on Oak Creek, and all of our animals are rescued. So, they've all been rescued from varying levels of abuse, or torture, or homelessness, or starvation. We have goats, and sheep, and cows, and pigs, and horses, and donkeys, alpacas. I mean, dogs and cats, of course, and I'm sure I'm missing somebody. But we have a lot of different animals here. They are profoundly meaningful for the people who come here. That's one of the things, I'm a professor at Arizona State University, and one of the things in my research that we have found is that people love the counseling they get here, because everyone is trained in traumatic grief, and everyone has their own – all of our counselors are required to have their own practice and do their own deep work, which is not something that you see across the board with therapists, right? So, people love coming here for the animals and they love – I mean for the humans, the counseling and the nature and each other. But over and over and over again, in the research, the animals emerge as the number one most transformative thing for people. I didn't expect that. I mean, I knew the animals would be meaningful for people. I just didn't know how meaningful it would be for them to interact with animals, who also have known loss, and terror, and trauma, and grief, and sadness, and loneliness, and despair. It's this sort of connection in capital O, Oneness that creates kind of almost – it is. It's a magical, albeit painful interaction. [0:02:54] BD: Have you always had a special relationship with animals in your life? Is there a reason that you chose to bring these two communities together? [0:03:03] JC: Oh, man, that's a great question that I don't get a lot. Yes. I always have had a special thing with animals. When I was one and a half years old, a wild blue jay – we lived in Manhattan. My parents were immigrants. So, we lived in Manhattan and this wild blue jay flew into my house. I was one and a half. I have no cognizant memory. But a wild blue jay flew into our house and attached herself to me, and was with me, I think several days. So, my father called a reporter and they came out and took a picture. So, I have a picture of me, I believe, it was the New York Times, in the New York Times, with his wild blue jay sitting on my little dress. I have always had a soft spot for animals. I haven't eaten them since 1972. I have always known that they had some kind of existential self or soul. I've always seen in them deep emotions, and not just sort of the primal things that you would think of, and not just the domestic animals, but even in my limited interaction, because before the Carefarm, I had limited interaction with farm animals. But even before we had the farm, and I and I interacted so much with farm animals, which people kind of think of as these blobs with no personalities. I had a sense people were wrong about them. I had a sense that they knew. Of course, I saw some videos early on, which is what converted me to stop eating animals. I was only seven years old when I did that. As I watched these videos of these animals, to be honest, in slaughterhouses, I could see the fear in their eyes and I thought to myself, “Oh, when I'm afraid, that's what it feels like to me.” Those eyes, the wide eyed, all the whites around your eyes showing. The look of terror on your face. And I had been afraid. I remember being afraid as a child. I was raised in an interesting religious cult, and they talked a lot about Armageddon. I remember being very, very afraid of Armageddon. So, I really related to these animals who also had this look of fear and terror in their eyes. So, there was just always something in me that knew they were more than just blobs, and it wasn't just dogs who had feelings, and emotions, and attachments. But it really wasn't until we got the farm animals and we started rescuing them, because farm animals until they feel safe, they're not free to be who they really are. That's the interesting thing about them. So, like our goats, when we first rescue them, they run around terrified of you. So, you can't see their personalities. All you see is fear. Same thing with human beings, by the way, who have been abused, right? Human beings who have been tortured or abused, you can't see the full fruition of their character, their personality, because all you're seeing is fear and terror. All you're seeing is the flight, fight freeze response, and it's the same thing with these animals. So, once they started to feel safe, then they could become who they really were. So, now, we know that Gretel, the goat, is very timid and very shy, but also loves affection and warmth. And we know that Kurt loves affection and warmth too. But if food is available to him, he'll take food over affection and warmth. Now, we know that Captain von Trapp, we call him Mr. Loverboy. He gets very jealous when another goat is getting more affection than he is. So, he'll come and push the other goat away. All of their personalities and character illogical propensities come out when they have the freedom to be who they really are. Again, which is the same thing as human beings, when we're free to be who we are, and we're accepted, and we're liberated from coercion and pressure to be someone we're not, then we can experience the full manifestation of what our true character is. [0:06:42] BD: Both spectrum self. The name for the Carefarm in Hebrew, Selah means to pause and to reflect. I'm assuming that's intentional. [0:06:52] JC: It's quite intentional. It's an intentional space to pause and reflect on grief and those we love who died. It's a word that I found many, many years ago, probably two decades ago. I always knew like something special has to come from this word, because it's such a powerful word. So, it was quite intentional. It was quite intentional to give a nod to the poetry of feeling our feelings. [0:07:18] BD: Yes. That's beautiful. How do the animals at the farm teach us to live again? [0:07:24] JC: Well, I think it's a less direct path than that. Right? I think what it is we – our farm is built on a principle called Ahimsa, which is oneness, literally, and oneness and compassion, non-violence for all beings. Once we create this space where we can recognize that there is no capital O, Other. As Chief Seattle said, “What we do to the web of life, we do to ourselves.” And many religious and mystic traditions have always recognized this. But once you realize that, and you have an experience of oneness, it's very hard. It's like taking the red pill. You can't undertake it. It's very hard to see the world through the lens of an anthropocentric view. So, when people come here, and they have this experience of this animal we've just rescued, who won't let anyone within 12 feet of his space, because he's so terrified. Then, they see him six months later getting love and cuddles, and opening his heart to the possibility of trusting in the world again, people start to see themselves reflected in this creature, who without any effort. I mean, I think that's the beautiful thing about it. Animals just by being who they are, show us the way, because they're non-coercive. They just do it naturally. If we can connect with that inner animals, we're all animals, human beings, or animals, we're just human animals, as opposed to non-human animals. So, we're wired very similarly. If we can see ourselves resonated in an animal who has been on death's door, and literally had given up hope, for life. We can see that animal flourish and watch it flourish, watch him or her flourish, and deeper than that, maybe even be a part of that flourishing. Wow. I mean, it's a profound connection for people. So, they start making these little linkages between what did that animal need, and what did that animal do to get where he or she is? Needed good support, tenderness, care, love, non-judgement. The animals don't walk around judging themselves about their feelings. The animals don't walk around going, “Oh, my gosh. I can't believe I'm so fearful. I can't – why am I so anxious.” They just work with what they have and people start making those linkages and it is incredibly profound when you see it happening. It's beautiful, really. Many of our clients in the outtakes surveys call it magical, what happens here. [0:10:04] BD: Explain to the listeners what can clients expect coming in? What can participants expect coming in? What would a day at the farm look like? [0:10:17] JC: Most people come here and average of four or five days. It's a residential facility, so they stay on-site. If they come for an actual program, then it's reasonably structured. So, they wake up in the morning, there's yoga. They don't have to participate in the program, but most people want to. So, there's yoga. There's time with the animals. Usually, a few hours with the animals taking care of the animals, brushing the animals, meeting the animals. They can do more with the animals too, if they so choose. If someone has horse experience, for example, and they want to go spend time with the animals or pick the horse's hooves or something, then we can accommodate that. A lot of people who come here don't have farm animal experience, though. Then we have an art therapist on staff. We have group meetings. We have individual counseling in some of our programs. We have yoga. We have meditation. So, it depends on when they're coming and what their needs are. [0:11:10] BD: What's some of the biggest lessons that you've learned in your time at the farm? [0:11:14] JC: I think getting back into your body, especially if you've had traumatic grief is one of those things that is very difficult for people, because we can't get back into a body that doesn't feel safe, or we're much more reluctant to get back in a body that doesn't feel safe. How do you feel safe in a body when everyone around you is telling you there's something wrong with you? Because that's always the intimation about grief. You're grieving too hard. Not doing it right. You're grieving too long. You should feel better by now. There are all these intimations that surround grieving people constantly, that create a feeling of unsafety and loneliness. So, why would they want to be back in their bodies? Not to mention the trauma alone creates a sense of heightened fear and terror in being in our own bodies. I do think it's a combination of things for sure, as you said, and I also think the animals are tantamount. They're the centerpiece of everything that we do here. [0:12:13] BD: How do the animals on the farm model that safety to feel? What does that interaction look like? [0:12:21] JC: I just think there's a spaciousness about them. They're not in a hurry. They don't hand you a Kleenex and say, time to move on. They just accept people for who they are and how they feel in the moment. If we have somebody on the farm and they go sit underneath the willow tree, and they're crying, Gretel or Captain von Trapp, some of our more affectionate goats will just go and sit next to them and lay next to them. Or a dog will do that. The horses are incredible beings. Horses, there have been several studies that show that horses more accurately interpret and predict human emotion than even our closest relative, non-human animal relatives which is primates. Our horses help people be more aware of themselves, and themselves in space, and their own emotions. For example, Chamaco, my horse, he's the whole reason the farm exists. He can tell when someone is extremely anxious. And if someone is very fearful around him, or is having high anxiety, which is the same thing as fear, he'll back up, he'll take several steps back away from them. Not toward them, but away from them to give them space. Then they noticed that he does that, and then usually what happens is, they'll look to me, and I'll say, “Just notice how you're feeling.” And they're saying, “My heart's beating really fast. I'm having a lot of fear. I'm afraid of horses, or I'm thinking about my son and his love of horses, and I'm missing him. And I'm having a lot of fear come up.” Or whatever. But it helps raise their self-awareness of their own current emotional state in the moment, emotional state. And as they talk about it, and process it, it starts to dilute it or dissipate. And as it does, Chamaco will come toward them. So, I mean, and the beautiful thing about it is it says without any words at all. Words get human beings in trouble. Brittany, I don't know if you notice that. But word get human beings in a lot of trouble. We have way too many words, that when we should just, “Sshh, sshh.” Animals just naturally communicate compassion and care, and also boundaries without any words at all. [0:14:28] BD: Animals show up for us so differently than humans do, which is, I mean, it's humbling, right? Because as a therapist, I can watch my emotional support dog, Violet, go lay on my client and sooth them in a way that I cannot. [0:14:45] JC: Myself and colleagues conducted a study and we asked – we wanted to find out who was providing the best grief support subjectively from the experience of grievers. I mean, there's all kinds of talk about grief support in the empirical literature, but very few studies allow grievers to define what good support is. So, we asked about the actions and actors of good grief support. One of the first things that we found was that emotional acts of caring and emotional support were the types of support that grievers most often wanted. They also appreciated practical support, like meal trains, people cleaning their house and help with childcare. Those were helpful. But by far, in the data, emotional support and emotional acts of caring were significantly more important than any other kinds of support. That was the action. And then we asked, who are the people who are providing the best kinds of support? You name it. We asked about every human group there was. Then, just before we were getting ready to hit publish on the survey, I had a thought. I said, “You know what, I'm going to throw pets and animals in there. Just to see what happens.” I can tell you that pets and animals blew every human group out of the water, blew every human group. They came in at 89% satisfaction. The next highest group, the second highest group came in at 67% satisfaction and that was support groups. That's one of the things I say when it comes to good grief support, be an animal. Just sit and stay. [0:16:11] BD: Yes. That's beautiful. How has your work with animals empowered you in your grief journey? [0:16:19] JC: Oh, wow. Well, there's somewhere out there as a video, where someone was interviewing me and I said, pretty much every adult around me abandoned me. That's how it felt. They all wanted me to be who I was before, they wanted me to be better. They wanted me to stop crying. They thought I was going on and on and on. Just have another child, it'll be okay. You can't interchange kids, guys. That's not how it works. [0:16:45] BD: It doesn’t work that way. [0:16:47] JC: So, I remember that my dogs, I had two dogs at the time, and they were amazing for me. I would just be in a moment of absolute utter despair, sobbing on the couch, and my dogs would come up, and just put their heads on me and just sit with me. They didn't say, “Oh, you should stop crying or you should feel better by now.” Or, “You're taking this too far.” They just sat with me and accepted me. And the other being who sat with me was my three-year-old who is smarter than every adult around me. I remember the time when she sat on the arm of the – I was crying and it was a hard morning. And she came and sat on the arm of the couch with me. She said, “Mommy, it's okay to be sad. And it's okay to cry because babies aren't supposed to die.” I just looked at and I go, “You're a genius. You're a genius. All the adults around me are idiots, but you are a genius.” So, I guess I realized, I mean, I've always had a love for animals. But I guess I realized in that moment, that the smarter people, the more sophisticated people around me didn't really know what was happening. We’re not emotionally intelligent, and that animals and children seemed to be much more emotionally intelligent to me. My dogs played a really key role in helping me feel a little less lonely in the grief experience. And then fast forward to eight years ago, going on nine years ago, I met a horse named Tumaco. His video is out there as well. He's sort of a famous horse. He was the most tortured animal we have on the farm. His entire back, had bones protruding from his skin. He was 600 pounds underweight. He had huge, this big, gaping wounds on both of his sides, where the metal of the saddle was strapped against his bare muscle. He was tortured, literally tortured beyond anything I've ever seen. And people just wanted to go on their vacation. They just wanted to have fun. And they walked past him over and over and I just came upon him. But people literally were doing this as they walked by, so they didn't see him. They were averting their gaze, literally averting their gaze, because they wanted to have fun. I remember thinking to myself, that's what it felt like when my daughter died. People averting their gaze. They didn't want to see my pain because it made them sad. Because it ruined their holidays, or their good time, or their football game, or whatever was happening. I knew I was going to have to fight to rescue him. I did. It was quite a fight to rescue him. But I did because he was worthy of rescuing. And also, because he was me. I am that horse and that horse is me. We are no different. He was on death's door, and hopeless, and terrified, and uncertain he could live, and I was the same way in 1994, 1995, 1996, right after my daughter died. I was the same way. No one wanted to look at him. No one could bear to really see him and many others could not bear to really see me. So, rescuing him, saving his life, very worthy life, was saving my own life. My decision every day to live a compassionate life, and to make choices that don't harm others. Others broadly defined, both human and non-human animals. Both the planet that we live on. My decision to live that way, is a decision to also take care of myself, because I am one with everything, and they are one with me. I think animals taught me that. Again, I've always had a soft spot for them. But I think they taught me that. I think they helped me awaken from this very human-centric model of the world and see that what we're doing to this planet, we're doing to ourselves and our descendants, and all beings with whom we share this planet. And what we do to a baby cow and her mother we're doing to our own babies, and to ourselves. That, for me, is the only way I can live my life. I can't live my life any other way. So, I would say animals probably have played more of a role than anything in my life more than spirituality, my spiritual practice, more than my academic studies, more than friendships and family relationships even, because it's helped deepen all of those things. It's helped me really stay awake. [0:21:12] BD: We've spent a lot of time talking about how animals show up for us. How animals can teach us mindfulness. How they can teach us to feel. How they can support us through our trauma and grief. How can we show up for them? How can we better show up for them? [0:21:28] JC: Well, I'll be honest. We have to stop exploiting them. We have to – so, here on the farm, for example, we don't ever say use animals. We engage our animals. We invite our animals, but we don't use them. The animals are never haltered and never forced to interact with anyone they don't want to except for the vet. They don't love the vet, but they have to get their health care, and they don't always love it. But they're never coerced, they're never forced. This is an egalitarian model. Egalitarian is built into our model. It's called the attend model. And it's an acronym and, the E stands for egalitarianism. That means that we balance power. The humans here are not more important than the animals. So, the animals well-being is prioritized just as high as the human well-being. We try, we make every effort never to exploit our animals, and to give them free choice, and free will around with whom, and when they interact. If they're tired, and they don't want to come out, they don't have to come out. Having said that, this is a unique place. So, how do we live in accord with nature and in a way that respects the autonomy of our animal brethren? That's a tricky thing, because our agricultural system is set up in such a way, our research system is set up in such a way, our beauty system is set up in such a way that animals are routinely exploited for human benefit. That's a tough thing. It's a tough system to crack and all we can do is vote with our dollar and change. So, what I tell people is just start educating yourselves. Just start slowly. We move mountains. The Chinese have a saying, “We move mountains one stone at a time.” And so slowly, slowly start to learn about the agricultural system, about big agriculture, and how animals are exploited and what they do, for example, to ducks for down. Or what they do to sheep for the wool. Yes, of course, sheep need to be shorn because they're bred to have too much wool. But the ways in which we do it matter. There are several videos that people can watch. Start with something like what, the health. The beautiful thing about animals is when we treat animals with respect, our bodies end up benefiting from it. The same beauty that we give to animals, if we choose with our dollar, to eat differently, to put our makeup on differently, or do our hair differently, or wash our bodies differently. It happens to also benefit us. [0:23:58] BD: Dr. Jo, thank you so much for coming on Happiness Unleashed. This has been an honor to talk to you and thank you so much. [0:24:07] JC: Thank you for having me. [END OF INTERVIEW] [0:24:08] PF: That was Brittany Derrenbacher talking with Dr. Jo Cacciatore. If you'd like to learn more about Selah Carefarm, follow Dr. Jo on social media or discover her book, Bearing the Unbearable. Visit our website at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. Of course, Brittany will be back here next month to talk more about how pets can bring us joy, help us heal, and be some of our best teachers. 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: Take an Inner Field Trip With Leesa Renee Hall [INTRODUCTION] [0:00:01] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 449 of Live Happy Now. If you're looking for an adventure to start the new year, why not take an Inner Field Trip? I'm your host, Paula Felps, and today I'm sitting down with Leesa Renee Hall, a mental health wellness advocate and author of the Inner Field Trip Workbook, which helps us explore what drives us, what oppresses us, and to recognize our personal biases. Armed with that information, Leesa says, we can change the way we move through the world and transform our relationships, which seems like a great way to start the year. Let's find out more. [INTERVIEW] [0:00:38] PF: Leesa, Happy New Year. [0:00:40] LRH: Happy New Year, Paula. Thank you. [0:00:43] PF: It is. It's a shiny, brand-new year. We're all excited about that. We wanted to kick it off with you, because you've got this terrific workbook that really helps us explore a lot of things inside. This is a time when people are looking at new beginnings, and your workbook fits so well into that. To get started, tell us what an Inner Field trip is. [0:01:06] LRH: The Inner Field Trip, it's a way to go internal within, and ask yourself those deed questions about the internalized messaging that you have, that you hold, that you've been socialized to believe that hinders your personal growth. The way I conceptualize the Inner Field Trip, I'm a hiker, I hike all the time. The way I conceptualize the Inner Field Trip is like a hike. We go, we hit the trail, and we go along a rugged, rocky terrain, get to the lookout, and then circle back to the trailhead. The Inner Field Trip is similar to that, but instead of going and driving to a trail and trudging along the rugged terrain, instead we go inner, internal, and we traverse our internal rugged terrain, and see what sights and sounds are along the way. [0:02:03] PF: What's so interesting is a lot of times, even if we think we know ourselves, we might be surprised at some of the pitfalls, some of the uneven terrain that we encounter when we go inside. [0:02:15] LRH: That's one of the reasons why doing the Inner Field Trip, or any introspective work, is so difficult for people, because it's Amanda Palmer, the musician said in an interview once that, it's like you go in to confront your inner part of yourself, and they're in the dark basement lifting weights. You confront them, and they're like these big, muscly things, and it's like, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa. So, it can be scary to go within and ask yourself those hard questions. [0:02:51] PF: Well, tell me how you came up with this idea, because it's very – I've seen a lot of work books I've seen – there's so many ways that you can approach self-discovery and awakening and change, and yours is truly unique. So, tell me how you came up with this. [0:03:04] LRH: I always held a diary, but I hadn't written in one for a long time. I had one when I was young. The typical pink with a nice fuzzy exterior and a lock on there, when I was a teenager. I wrote in them a lot. You fast forward decades later, and I had a few personal setbacks, and I started journaling. I found that it was very therapeutic. At the time I didn't even know it was a thing. I didn't know that one can journal to improve their mindset, to improve their thought process, to improve their health. There's a lot of study around it. It's called expressive writing. There's a doctor or psychologist who's done almost 25 years' work of research into this. So, the time I'm journaling, and I'm just working through these personal setbacks. I was sharing my journey, or my log book, my dispatches, on Facebook at the time when I was using it quite regularly. People were asking me, “Oh, wow. I love what you're discovering. Can you help me out, too? Could you take me on this journey as well?” I started a group on Facebook in 2015, and I offered some writing prompts that came out of my own experience, and people started doing the same thing, journaling. A couple of years later, I wrote a blog post with some writing prompts. I had a very problematic interaction with a person who holds skin color, and gender privilege, and wealth privilege as well. So, I said to him, I said, “You seem so angry. Why are you so angry? Maybe take these writing prompts and sit for 15 minutes and journal.” He told me all sorts of terrible things about who I am. [0:04:54] PF: Oh, wow. [0:04:55] LRH: Yeah. It was terrible. It was awful. I threw the writing prompts in a blog post, and in the first three weeks, it was shared 10,000 times. [0:05:03] PF: Oh, my gosh. That says a lot. [0:05:05] LRH: That says a lot. Then people were sending me small gifts, financial gifts, $5 here, $50 here, through PayPal, saying, “This is such a gift. Thank you so much.” That's when I started a paid community to offer more writing prompts to those who like the process of journaling and being introspective. Then that's how Inner Field Trip was birth. [0:05:32] PF: I love that it was so organic. How it started as your own journey, and then just became you, wanting to share it with others. Then others really clamoring for it. I mean, I love when it evolves like that. [0:05:42] LRH: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then it was during the pandemic when I started adding art exercises, because many in my community were sharing with me that their inner oppressor, and the inner oppressor is who we meet on the Inner Field Trip. This is a part of ourselves that bullies us and pressures us into aligning with the status quo. So, what we do is we use the writing prompts to meet our inner oppressor, as we go on our Inner Field Trip, and we capture the ramblings of our inner oppressor through the journaling. Many during the pandemic said to me, many of my members in my community said, “My inner oppressor has become raging, angry, or nonverbal.” That they would sit down to journal to meet their inner oppressor, and nothing would come out. That's when I started adding expressive arts. There's a lot of research around the power of expressive arts and helping us to heal. Helping us to give language to what we don't have words for. Now, the Inner Field Trip combines the power of self-reflective journaling, along with expressive arts or expressive doodling to help us to have a holistic encounter when we go on our Inner Field Trip to meet our inner oppressor. [0:07:00] PF: Yeah. That was something I wanted to ask you about, because you do use so many different approaches, like you have the journaling, there's drawing, there's music, there's movement. Why are those different creative approaches so effective in that self-exploration? [0:07:15] LRH: A lot of what we tackle through the Inner Field Trip is, as I said, internalized messaging, but also internalized biases. So, growing up in a culture that tells us that we need to be self-reliant and pull up your bootstraps, and all these messages of individualism. It can be quite harmful to some people who don't have sheer – where sheer willpower is not enough for them to be able to create and maintain habits. There are environmental factors that prevent them from doing so. There are systemic barriers that they face. Some people are experiencing generational poverty. When you don't have enough time or money to create a space to create new habits, that's going to affect whether or not you can go and do these things, whether you can go on an inner field trip. The power of using all these different modalities is to meet people where they are. If you're experiencing generational poverty, well, maybe you can pick up a marker and sketchbook or even a piece of paper and just do it all for five minutes, and see what happens. There's people in my community who have been diagnosed with different mental health disorders as they've gotten older. I have a lot of my community that got a late-stage ADHD diagnosis or autism. If that is the case in how they learn and interact with content is going to be different. So, being able to do the dancing, or listening to music, or doing the doodling or journaling, helps again to meet people where they are. [0:09:01] PF: I think the book is so well laid out as well, because you build in these what you call active rest stops. I love that. Going back to the hiking thing. They put little things in the trail where you can sit and drink your water and catch your breath. You do that same thing. Talk about an active rest stop and what that is. Because to me, as I was going through your workbook, I felt like, boy, this is something you could do, even if you're not doing the workbook. You could build in like an active rest stop day where I do this. Tell us what it is. [0:09:30] LRH: When I hike, I usually go out. I usually do day hiking. I'll be out on the trail for two, three hours. As I'm marching along and hiking along, I will take a rest here and there. It's a long enough rest, so that I can grab a snack, and check the maps to make sure I'm going the right way. [0:09:52] PF: Important. [0:09:53] LRH: Right. So very important. What I'm not doing is I'm not going to pitch a tent and throw up in a sleeping bag and set up overnight. So, the active rest stop is the same idea within the Inner Field Trip. When it comes to creating and maintaining habits, we often try to do too much too soon. Then we end up burning out along the way. In fact, there is a study or something or stat that says, that most people will abandon their New Year's resolutions by February 12th. I believe that's the date. Then you start a cycle again in the next New Year, where you say, “I'm going to do this on January 1st.” Then by February 12th. It's done. It's abandoned and you spend the next 10 months not making the change. What's important to add to this pathway of trying to create new habits is to incorporate rest and pleasure and play. I recently held a gathering with workbook participants, people who bought the workbook, and we're doing what I'm calling a three-day jumpstart to help them get motivated to do the 30-day challenge in the book. One person said that as they've gotten to know themselves through the Inner Field Trip, they understand that they have this fun, dorky side. Then they said, “I'm a dork.” Then others agreed with them. Having the active rest stop means that we can slow down, rest, have some play, incorporate pleasure, so that we are nourished, nourished enough, so that we go ahead and we meet our inner oppressor again. It can't be all work, because rest is not a reward for the work. It's part of the work. [0:11:46] PF: I love that. That is something that is so often overlooked. I love that you've integrated that, and made it such a central part of this whole journey. That is so well done. Now was there a reason you chose 30 days? [0:12:00] LRH: It takes 66 days to form a new habit. 66. At least the inner field trip will get you half way. [0:12:09] PF: What do you do? You bring up a great point. We need this to be a habit. We need to change our way of thinking, but we get half way there. Do you go on the field trip again, or what do you do for that next 36 days? [0:12:23] LRH: Yes, yes, yes. So, yes, going on a field trip again is a great idea. Some people will repeat the book and keep repeating it over and over and over. Another thing to do is to get into community with others, where there's a chapter in the workbook that gives you some tips on how to form a book club, if that stuff interests you. You could do the first 30 days by yourself, do the next 30 days in community with others, and then that will get you closer to that 60 days. You see, the problem, one of the problems with habits and the forming of habits is that it teaches us – most of the advice out there says that if you don't have the willpower to stick to this habit, then you just need to change your mindset. Here's some mindset work for you to do. As I had shared before that people are experiencing systemic issues, which are preventing them from using sheer willpower alone in maintaining habits. A de-colonized approach to habit forming is to get into communion and/or community with others. Because it's when we are with others that we are more accountable, we're more likely to stick with the habit and we're with individuals who are also working towards the same goal. Doing this alone is not fun. [0:13:48] PF: Right. There's also a lot of research that shows just how good community is for our mental health. Just being with others and sharing that. That in itself, do you see changes in people when they're able to, instead of writing – I love journaling, it's such a valuable tool, but if instead of journaling, they're able to sit in a group and say, “This is how I felt and this is what I said.” Then someone else is saying, “Oh, my gosh. I didn't know someone else felt that way. I have the same thing.” What does that do for them? [0:14:18] LRH: Exactly. When I do the inner field trip, either in my community, virtually or in person in a workshop room, not only are we meeting our inner oppressor through the journaling, not only are we meeting the inner oppressor through the arts and the expressive doodling, but we also dance. After we journal and everyone's in their emotions, I throw on Madonna's Material Girl and we prance around the room until that song ends. [0:14:47] PF: I love it. [0:14:48] LRH: It's interesting, Paula, because some people, there's tears dripping down their face, because of the journaling has brought up things, and then you'll see them with their shoulder slump down, their hands hanging at their side, like spaghetti noodles, but yet, and they're still weeping, but they're prancing about the room with everyone else. It is so funny to witness. We do this, we do the music after such an intense journaling, because not only are we doing it in community with each other, but it helps us to discharge some of that energy that might be trapped within. So, that when we sit back down in community, we now feel more freedom in sharing what has come up in the journaling and the expressive arts. [0:15:34] PF: That's terrific. Can we talk a little bit about the effects that you've seen for people going on this journey? What happens when people start looking at their unconscious biases and really drawing those out? [0:15:46] LRH: Yeah. Oh, my goodness. It's so magical, Paula. It's so magical. I love it. I love it. I love it. The inner field trip itself was developed in community. People will pick up the workbook, do it on their own and they're great. Some people are like that. I'm a solo hiker. I prefer to go hiking by myself than in a group. Sometimes I want the group, because it's all about the socialization and all that. Some of the things that I've seen happen with people who've gone through the inner field trip is that people's relationships improve, so you can call me a relationship fixer. [0:16:21] PF: Now, there you go. [0:16:24] LRH: But also, for some people their relationships don't improve. I know that sounds weird, right? [0:16:32] PF: Is that because they recognize that they've been putting up with things that – [0:16:37] LRH: Ah, yes. [0:16:38] PF: - they shouldn't? [0:16:39] LRH: Yes. That's what happens, right? There's an awakening that they have that, wow, look at all this toxicity I put up within this relationship. Whether that relationship is personal, or whether that relationship is professional, like in a workplace or so on. Others have, for example, I've seen a few people in my community who have boldly come out and said, “The gender, or the sex assigned at birth is no longer the gender I identify with.” I've watched over several months, or years how they've transitioned and have become more confident and more assured of themselves. Perhaps, that's not going to be your story. Maybe your story is that you found your voice. I have a lot of people pleasers that come through my community. Weak boundaries, porous boundaries. Then they go through the inner field trip and they're able to have much stronger boundaries. Not rigid barriers, but stronger boundaries. [0:17:39] PF: Is that because they have a stronger sense of self? [0:17:41] LRH: Yes. They have a stronger sense of self and they're able to – they're able to find their voice and use it in a much more effective way. Again, it's not about creating rigid barriers. It's not like, they come out with a much more angry, stern voice, but now they're able to advocate for themselves. Ultimately, when we do this work with the inner field trip, it's about holding compassion for ourselves. It's about recognizing our own humanity, that we are messy, that we will stumble along figuratively on this path, and then when we can see how messy our own humanity is, then we can look at someone else's humanity and treat it with grace and love and compassion. [0:18:30] PF: What are some of the stories? Is there any one that stands out of this incredible transformation that you never would have anticipated would happen by someone going on this field trip? [0:18:43] LRH: Yeah, there's several. There's someone who used to be in my community, and unfortunately, she passed on. Just a wonderful advocate for the inner field trip. When she first came across the inner field trip, she was very timid, very timid, and broken as well. As I got to know her, she shared more about her experience, her life. Over and over, just many people taking advantage of her kind spirit. Once she went through the inner field trip, and she'd been in part of the community for many, many months, and she, in one of our gatherings, in one of our circles, she shared that she was able, finally able to communicate with her ex-husband, what her needs were around the co-parenting. She broke down in tears with us, because she said she had never before stood up to him that way. She thought he was going to rage, or get upset. But instead, he accepted her boundaries. She said, “Wow, who knows how different our relationship would have been,” had she known how easy it would have been to express her boundaries around co-parenting. [0:19:58] PF: That's amazing. [0:19:59] LRH: We cried, yeah. [0:20:01] PF: It sounds like, going through the field trip doesn't just change internally. It really changes the way these people are moving through the world. Then they are having an effect on the people that they come in contact with, because they're interacting with them differently. [0:20:19] LRH: Exactly. When people go through the inner field trip, one of the things that comes out is that they recognize that how they take direct action, whatever that looks like, that they feel more confident doing so in a way that aligns with their personality and their uniqueness. There are a lot of causes that we care about. Whether it's about saving the trees, or saving the pets, or maybe there's a conflict happening around the world where you really care about the plight of those who are suffering. Whatever that cause is, we each have something that we care deeply about. The way that people believe direct action should take place is you've got to go up there and march. You have to hit the – bodies on the line, boots on the ground is what I often hear. For some of us, that's not a form of direct action that we can take. Either, maybe you have a disability and you're not able to put those boots on the ground. Perhaps, you're not able, maybe you're time deficient or under-resourced in terms of time and you can't get to these marches and sit-ins, and so forth. When you can understand yourself better and you're able to work through your internalized issues, that confidence builds because now you know that, hey, my form of activism is writing letters, or my form of activism is holding space in a therapy room, in a session with someone who's gone through some trauma. If, as a therapist, you can sit there and provide compassion and help that person heal, that's your form of activism. Activism, taken direct action, doesn't have to look like this. There are so many different ways that we can show up in the world to help those who are suffering. [0:22:11] PF: I love that. I love that. Again, your workbook really lets people discover what's right for them. They're going to run into some uncomfortable characters on rough terrain inside that field trip. Again, what's so wonderful is there is a community that you've built, that they can reach out to and they can become part of and they can help process it with someone else. [0:22:34] LRH: Yes, absolutely, absolutely. [0:22:37] PF: As we start this new year, what is your wish for the people who are listening to this? What do you hope that they can do and accomplish by going inside themselves? [0:22:49] LRH: What I wish is that we stop trying to become allies. Instead, we look at becoming better ancestors. My wish is that we stop passing on pain and we start to pass on healing. That even if you don't have biological children, or you're estranged from your biological children, we each have something that we can pass on to the next generation. That's what I would like to see us do, that we look ahead and we take on the Iroquois Nation thinking, which is all about looking seven generations ahead and asking ourselves, “What decision am I making now in terms of the habits I'm going to form that I can pass on healing that will resonate seven generations from now?” I wonder how much different we would all be if seven generations ago our ancestors did that. They looked ahead and said, “Okay. I don't know what their faces will be. I don't know what their names will be, but I want to make sure I make a decision now in terms of the habits I develop, so that seven generations from now, my descendants look back and say, “Well done. Well done.”” I think a lot of the things we focus on and the things that are grabbing our attention is a distraction. A distraction away from the work that we need to do, so that we become better and we pass on better things to our descendants. [0:24:23] PF: That is so well said. We are very fortunate to have you in this tumultuous time on our planet – [0:24:29] LRH: So tumultuous. [0:24:31] PF: Yeah. To be able to guide us through this. I mean, this is – your timing on this and obviously, you were put here at this time for a reason and this workbook is such a wonderful way to help us navigate it. I thank you for doing that and I thank you for joining me here today. [0:24:48] LRH: Thank you, Paula. [END OF INTERVIEW] [0:24:53] PF: That was author and mental wellness advocate, Leesa Renee Hall, talking about her Inner Field Trip Workbook. If you'd like to learn more about Leesa, follow her on social media, or learn more about the Inner Field Trip Workbook, just visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. 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]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Practicing Forgiveness for the Holiday Season With Barbara J. Hunt [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 445 of Live Happy Now. Studies show that our world is becoming less optimistic, but this week's guest believes we can change that. I'm your host Paula Felps. Today, I'm talking with Dr. Emily Bashah, a psychologist whose private practice specializes in mental illness, collective trauma, grief, and relationship dynamics. She's also co-host of the Optimistic American Podcast, where she and co-host, Paul Johnson, strive to create space for a positive and hopeful view of America and help us feel more optimistic about the future. Emily's here with me today to talk about why we're feeling less optimistic these days, what we can do about it, and importantly, how we can make it through the holiday season with our optimism intact. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:53] PF: Emily, thank you for joining me here today. [00:00:55] EB: Thank you so much, Paula. I'm really excited about your mission, and learning more about you, and what you're contributing to positivity and optimism through your podcast. So thank you. [00:01:07] PF: Well, I'm excited about everything that you have going on, and we're going to talk about the Optimistic American movement and also how this relates to the holidays. But I wanted to know, in your private practice with everything that's going on in the world today, how do you see that affecting, say, your client's optimism? [00:01:26] EB: I see people going in one of two directions. Either they're totally closing themself off from the world and shutting people out and really focusing on living a day-to-day existence with what am I trying to accomplish today and really in a survival mode. Then to the other extreme, absorbing everything, impacted by everything, very distressed, highly anxious, more and more paranoid and concerned about what is happening in the world today, feeling more despair, a sense of hopelessness. Helplessness is quite big and grief-stricken, honestly. [00:02:10] PF: So is it more than you had seen in the past? [00:02:14] EB: I think it's kind of this continuation that we've seen from COVID and rising impacts of extremism that is happening nationally, ever-changing polarization in politics that's happening in our nation. That's creating more of a rise of tension and hate and a divide and trying to classify people into these groups of are you my friend or my foe because you can't – you have to be an either one of those two categories. There isn't any – [00:02:49] PF: There's no in-between anymore. [00:02:51] EB: There's no in-between anymore, and it's wild to me just to see that people are even allowing themselves to force people into those categories, where really they know nothing about different issues, aren't educated about the different issues, don't really care to be more educated about the different issues, and yet are willing to go that extra mile in forcing people into these real black and white categorizations and allowing themselves to be skewed and misinformed by propaganda. That really is concerning for me, especially for young people today. I think that a lot of it adds to this rise of despair and a sense of victimhood or fear and wanting to make sense of things that just seem so senseless. [00:03:50] PF: What you have described is such a true depiction of what our society looks like today, and that's it's bleak. When you lay it out like that, that just feels really, really bleak. I know your Optimistic American movement is meant to counter that. So before we kind of dig into how it's doing that, tell us what it is, and please tell me how it started. [00:04:13] EB: Yes. So my partner, Paul Johnson, was the former Mayor of Phoenix. Him and I co-authored the book called Addictive Ideologies: Finding Meaning and Agency When Politics Fail You. We were really inspired by this book and wanted to really help people focus on how can they preserve their own agency and power and a sense of control in their life in taking responsibility and accountability for what is within their own power. There's so much more there than I think people in general are willing to see and practice. So we used a lot of psychological theory and things that I've learned throughout my private practice in clinical and forensic work that I've done, how people facing death penalties or facing life sentences have found ways to completely transform their lives, knowing that there's no hope in getting out of prison. But yet we compelled by finding meaning, purpose, and value in the life that they had, despite facing a life of incarceration. We looked at my parents’ story surviving persecution out of Iraq as Jews. We studied genocides across the world and really searching for answers and trying to understand what are the main tenets behind extremism and terrorism. So the latter half of our book, we really highlight these seven ideals and finding meaning, not necessarily happiness. Looking for the we, not necessarily the me. We co-host these podcasts where we've branched out some of these different teachings and looked at different social issues and dissected them and talking about how people can remain optimistic, hopeful, and practicing agency in their lives today. [00:06:19] PF: So why is optimism important. Like from a mental health perspective, what does it do, and why do we need to really focus on regaining that optimism? Because I know a lot of people who are really not optimistic right now. [00:06:33] EB: The doom and the gloom and the terror and the grief can be so overcoming. I think you don't have to look too far on social media or the news to feel really overcome by despair. So we have to really work even harder at protecting optimism. Of course, there's so much research there on stress and how that affects one's mental health, especially if it's chronic and prolonged. If people are feeling helpless and there's no way out. Or they have a sense of a victimhood. That has detrimental effects on cardiovascular disease, on the way that your brain operates, and how neurons are firing, and also chronic fatigue, and how you're sleeping and whether or not you're self-medicating with substances or other cognitive distortions that are impacting you from really being able to think clearly and reason, think sensibly. There's something called the amygdala hijack. I think it's really important to know if you're allowing yourself to be viewing or seeing a lot of imagery, and you're – that's making you go into this fight, flight, freeze response. It's activating your limbic system in the brain. It's a very primitive part of our brain. It's necessary for survival. But if you're operating on that or allowing yourself to be manipulated by social media and things that you're watching, that you can't really utilize your frontal lobe to the best capacity at that point because your reasoning is being overrided essentially. You can't think clearly about consequences of your decisions. You can't make good, rational, sound judgment. You're going to be more impulsive. That can be okay in the short term, especially when you have this heightened sense of threat that you need to protect yourself. But when that is chronic and it's prolonged and it's chronically activated, that's going to lead to all kinds of physiological, mental, and emotional dysfunction and have some really serious long-term consequences. [00:08:51] PF: The holidays are coming. So we know that adds more stress, a little bit more anxiety. A lot of that anxiety that I'm hearing about now is because people are going to be dealing with family members who are also divided. So as we enter this holiday time, first of all, how do we just remain optimistic for ourselves? Before we even get to the dinners that we have to sit down and survive, how do we do that? How do we have an optimism practice, if you will? [00:09:22] EB: Yes. I would say be courageous and have faith and belief in yourself that you're going to be able to get through it. Rather than looking for the doom and gloom, look for things that inspire you. Look for the opportunity to learn something new from someone else that you disagree with, while still remaining open to them. That can be challenging, but you're also going to be building your struggle muscles and being able to tolerate the discomfort as you're hearing a different opinion or something that you disagree with, and that's okay. What it's doing and saying is you're strong enough to have some difficult conversations and in a respectful way and still preserving the peace and joy and prosperity and gratitude, which is what the holidays are about. I would say think really intentionally about what you are, one, really grateful for. Really practice and embody that in your life, and commit to doing something that is uncomfortable, whether it's opening yourself up to learning more about a family member that you just have a difficult time accepting or you have a different point of view. I mean, if it's really bad and you think, “Okay, this – we shouldn't be having these conversations at the dinner table because this is just going to get into a full-blown extremist ideological rant,” and that can happen. I would say equip yourself with some knowledge or maybe go-tos. If a person is really radical in their beliefs, know what is off-topic or try to put those topics off the dinner table. You could say, “Hey, I really respect and appreciate your opinion on this. Can we get together maybe for coffee and talk about it more?” Or just shift the subject to something that you know is going to bring you and that person more together like their children or their new job or their pet or a hobby or interest that you share. Something else that you know is going to get them off that topic. So you might have to be really strategic here. Know who you're speaking to and going into those events, knowing what you're wanting to get out of. If it's peace, love, harmony, connection, gratitude, open to learning something new, open to doing something difficult, open to leaning in and assisting and helping when possible. You're probably going to be the better person and get something so much more wonderful out of the holidays that you didn't really anticipate. I know a lot of people struggle with control, or they see themselves as like, “Oh, if I give in and I don't argue my point, then I'm not standing up for myself, and that makes me a weaker person.’ I say you might want to re-evaluate what you're telling yourself about that. How is that even helping you? [00:12:37] PF: Yes. I was – I did. I wanted to ask you about that because one of the worst things in my opinion that you can do is engage someone who has a very different belief because you're not going to change their mind. All you're going to do is upset yourself and the people around you. So getting involved in a debate, discussion, whatever you'd like to call it, it's not beneficial for anyone, truly. [00:13:00] EB: Yes. If you're getting in it, and you see it as like a win-lose, and you just want to have the last say and prove your point and where you see that person has that kind of rhetoric or radicalization, then, yes, absolutely. You're not going to change an extremist at a dinner conversation. You're not going to change their ideology. In fact, they're quite immune at that point to any kind of facts. Challenging on them directly on the ideology is just going to further push them away. Now, if you are talking to somebody who has agency which is ideal, that is aspirational, that is what we all should want to strive for, I hope, then that's going to be more of a fun conversation. You don’t – you're not going to feel like you have to self-monitor as much. You've already got the trust and respect and the rapport established with that person. You can try and really push that intellectual edge without feeling like this is a moral superiority challenge, where somebody's going to end up being inferior, and somebody's going to be superior, and I don't want the inferiority one to be me. So how do I just dominate this person because, yes, that's just not going to be helpful. I would just say it's a trap. I would just say avoid it. Now, someone in-between, we call them tribalists. So these are people who maybe identify with a particular group. They're not totally bought into to the extremist, and you can still have conversations with them. They still might move and be open and quite flexible and adaptive to having a different flow and be challenged. I'd say just be conscientious because cognitive dissonance tend to be at play for people who are more tribalist. Meaning, they're going to be more prone to defend their group if they feel like their group is being threatened or challenged. Then they'll go to the point of absolving their group of any wrongdoing because they want to defend their group at all costs. So that's when you start – they start to get pushed in that us versus them or the victim versus the oppressor mentality. Then it gets hard to really have some of those more open conversations and dialogues. So just be aware of those three different kinds of ideologies; the person with agency, the tribalist, or the extremist. Then gauge your conversation based on that. [00:15:35] PF: How important is it to as you go into the holiday, like beforehand? Say you're hosting. Or say a parent is hosting, and you say, “Hey, Mom. Let's make sure that everyone knows we're not going to – these topics are off the table. We're not going to discuss these things, and here's what we want to focus on.” What about that? How does that work in terms of keeping it peaceful and making it more enjoyable for everyone? [00:16:01] EB: Yes. I think it's great to have allies that are also proponents in preserving the peace and the harmony during the holidays and maybe some other family members that might say, “Hey, come for a walk with me. Let's walk the dogs. Or let's take a stroll after the meal,” because that can be helpful to have some people that are just observant and mindful and conscientious of where things are going to maintain the peace and calm and not spiking the anxiety and that tension. I think that can be really helpful. Again, the best way to go in is really thinking about how do I want to feel about myself leaving. You can't control everyone. You can't control outcomes. But I think if you're flexible and, in general, people want to experience some peace and joy and happiness and celebration and but also adaptive if things don't entirely go their way that that's also okay. They don't have to control everything or everyone at all times. Really, the most important thing is being in control of yourself. [00:17:15] PF: Yes. So what are some ways like not just for the holiday season but going on? We know we're born with a negativity bias, so optimism can be difficult, and it's – we have different levels of that, depending on our personal makeup. So how do we fight our negativity bias or overcome it and become more optimistic? [00:17:34] EB: Yes. I think one of the things that I personally practice, and this even extends to some of the forensic or clinical work that I do, is I don't take things personally. Somebody can say something directly to me, and it could be a direct threat. I think it says more about them than it does about me. I don't need to defend myself to them. I mean, I'm not talking about anything physical, like if it's a physical threat, obviously. But if it's not physical and there isn't a risk of violence, I just see that as me practicing self-protectiveness and resilience. If I'm not amplifying the threat in my mind, I don't need to be reactive to that person, which is probably what they're wanting you to do anyway. Sometimes, the best response is no response or just say, “Huh, okay. I'll think about that.” [00:18:35] PF: But that's a gift. That's a mindset that takes a while to cultivate because people's words hurt, and we do take things personally. It's hard to learn not to. [00:18:45] EB: Yes. Especially if it's somebody whose opinion of you matters. That's when probably it can hurt more. Like this is a person who should love you, who should be there for you, who should defend you, who should protect you, who should die for you. Sometimes, we find out that it's not necessarily the case. It’s okay that people think differently than you, and it doesn't mean that they necessarily reject you as a person. That could be your own interpretation of it, even though it feels so personal. But there could be more opportunity there to really build some resilience and courage and leaning in. [00:19:28] PF: As we go into the holiday season, what's the number one thing that you want everybody to keep in mind about optimism? [00:19:35] EB: I think there's a lot of like frantic energy that's out there. Everybody feels rushed to like do everything and get everything done. It can feel like a lot, and I think it's okay that some things fall off your plate. I would say know what balls are made of glass and which balls are made of rubber, so you know which ones to allow to drop. Obviously, the relationships are the ones that are most fragile and most important. Really thinking about that we, not me. What do what do I have that I can contribute that can be helpful to my community, helpful to my family, make me a better partner, make me a better parent? What are those things that I want to commit and set my intention on that take me out of myself into a sense of belonging and a commitment to something bigger than myself in this shared humanity and this experience that we have all together in the small world that we live in? [00:20:47] PF: That's great. That is a great way to approach it. I thank you for spending time with me today. I’m going to tell our listeners how they can find you, how they can find your book, how they can learn more about the Optimistic American movement. I hope you'll sit down with me again, and we'll talk some more. [00:21:01] EB: Absolutely. Thank you, Paula. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:21:08] PF: That was Dr. Emily Bashah, talking about optimism. If you'd like to learn more about Emily, check out her book, Addictive Ideologies: Finding Meaning and Agency When Politics Fail You, follow her on social media, listen to her podcast, or download free worksheets for self-improvement, just visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. 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 happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: The Joy of Senior Pets With Dr. Julie Buzby [INTRO] [00:00:08] PF: Welcome to Happiness Unleashed with your host, Brittany Derrenbacher, presented by Live Happy. November is Adopt A Senior Pet Month, and that makes it the perfect time to talk to Dr. Julie Buzby. Julie is an integrative veterinarian with a special place in her heart for senior pets. She's here to talk with Brittany about some of the misconceptions we often have about senior dogs and why, in many cases, a senior pet may be the best option for adoption. So listen in as she and Brittany talk about what senior pets can do for us and what we should be doing for them. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:41] BD: November is National Senior Pet Month. So let's just dive right into this topic that is near and dear to my heart. Dr. Buzby, why are you passionate about helping senior dogs? [00:00:54] JB: Oh, man. I just love senior dogs for so many reasons. I am an integrative veterinarian certified in animal chiropractic and veterinary acupuncture. So the majority of my patients at this point in my career are senior dogs. People are coming for mobility management, pain management. So I get to spend my day with them. I mean, just inherently, they just are so sweet. They've lived through so much. They've seen so much. Their little sweet, gray muzzles, like they just have such an expressive unconditional love oozing out of every hair follicle. But I think the other thing that is in the back of my mind is they have, for the most part, lived with these families for a long time, a decade or more. I've heard so many stories over the years of how they have been there for their person through a bad divorce, through the loss of a spouse, through the loss of a child, through whatever tragedy life might bring. That dog was their rock and provided unconditional love. Whenever they were – whatever emotional state they were in, they could count on the dog to be there for them. I just respect that, and they just play such an important role as a family member. I just appreciate and love them for everything about them. [00:02:16] BD: For the purposes of this conversation, just so listeners have background on many of the topics that we're going to be covering, what age are dogs considered seniors? [00:02:27] JB: That's a fabulous question, and the answer has evolved over for the years. So when I graduated from vet school, there was this big senior at seven campaigning, going on by one of the major companies in our industry. We now know there was just, I think, a study out of the Texas A&M University Vet School, I think, in 2019 that really kind of put things in perspective. There's this linear – well, there isn't a direct linear correlation that just kind of always goes up on this trajectory evenly, this line that goes up on a graph. We now realize there's more of a line that goes up, and then it plateaus off. So it's not just, hey, multiply by seven, and you have your dog's age. Of course, we all know that larger breeds, giant breed dogs tend to have a shorter lifespan than smaller dogs. So to answer the question, I would say small dogs, maybe 10-plus. For a senior medium-sized dogs, eight to nine. Large breed dogs, giant breed dogs, six maybe and seven for large breed dogs. So it just varies by the dog's height, weight, breed. [00:03:33] BD: Right. When we're talking about integrative vet care, how do you describe that? How would you describe what integrative and holistic approach for our pets? Like what does that mean? [00:03:48] JB: Yes. So I'm not sure this is the appropriate universal definition, but I'll give you my definition. So holistic care, for me, is alternative. It's alternative to Western medicine, chiropractic, acupuncture, Chinese herbs. The list goes on. Then, of course, Western medicine, we think of the traditional medications, surgery, just everything that the standard veterinarian trained by a US or even foreign veterinary school probably delves into. So as an integrative veterinarian, I like to integrate both. So for my patients, so many times, my patients come to me, and I'm “the last resort.” Like, “Can you help our dog? We've already done what we can do.” So I don't throw Western medicine out the window. A lot of my patients are still on medications. Or let's say I have a dog that has a cruciate tear. I still consider surgical therapy, like a surgical correction of that knee to be like the gold standard treatment. Not everybody opts for that based on budget, the dog's age, the dog's status. I respect that, and we work around all kinds of parameters because every single dog and every single family is different. But I still do recommend medicine and surgery. That's the point. Then I integrate all the additional wonderful tools that I am blessed to have in my toolbox and kind of craft the best thing for each individual dog using the best of all the worlds. [00:05:24] BD: I love that this is becoming a more normalized conversation for our care for animals. In the therapeutic work that I do with humans, I believe in a holistic mind-body-spirit approach. So I love that this conversation is extending out into our fur babies. We have a special needs dog here named Samson Supernova, and he goes every month to get acupuncture and laser. He’s on a bunch of different like Chinese herbal supplements, all supplemental care that helps with his congenital breathing problem. So it supports his system holistically for the entirety of his life, and I view it as like a upstream prevention method. [00:06:05] JB: Well said, yes. I mean, one of the things I learned in my chiropractic training is we've got like an iceberg of symptoms, and the tip of the iceberg might only be 10%. So 90% of the iceberg is under the water developing, and maybe we don't even – well, we don't. Maybe a very in-tune pet parent might see little glimpses and, hopefully, bring them to the attention of the veterinarian. There’s so many times that I couldn't even begin to count them of where someone has said to me like, “You know, I don't even know what to make of this.” Or, “This is probably silly but –” Then they tell me something that's like a really big clue for me, especially thinking in the traditional Chinese medicine box. So any change, anything you note, it's worthwhile to bring to your vet's attention. But back to our analogy, if we wait until we're at the tip of the iceberg with symptoms, it's so much harder to successfully treat and address, manage, possibly reverse that. So when we're working in the preventative realm, that is 1,000% for human and veterinary health where we want to be. [00:07:16] BD: Why do you think that this is so important and unique for caring for senior animals? [00:07:23] JB: Well, I do think it's appropriate across the whole spectrum. However, senior dogs tend to have the issues with pain management, with mobility management. I'm a huge believer that mobility is a dog's greatest asset. They're made to move. They're pack animals. They travel. So I just think those are the dogs that we see more commonly for it. Also, these modalities just really can work wonders for pain and mobility. They just seem to be really perfect for those conditions. Ideally, vast majority of situations don't have any side effects as well, which is really nice compared to maybe more traditional Western medicine. [00:08:05] BD: Yes. This month being all about adopting a senior pet, what are some of the unique rewards that we as humans can experience from adopting a senior dog and for caring for senior pets as a whole? [00:08:21] JB: Right. So what I tell people when I recommend adopting seniors is you know what you're getting. If you get a puppy, you don't really know what you're getting, both in terms of like size and look and personality. Things aren't fully developed. So you might get an idea. But when you adopt a senior, you get what you see. For so many of us that have busy lifestyles, with family travel outside the home, working outside the home, I think just a senior dog slips right into family life so much easier than a puppy or young dog that you may have to still house train and keep them from chewing your furniture. They’re just so much more high-energy. I mean, that's its own reward in and of itself. Don't get me wrong. They’re so much fun. But a senior dog is like more of your ready-made pet, ready to go. I think senior dogs – I just was having a conversation last week with someone who said that they adopted this senior. Well, it was a middle-aged dog, but it had been in the shelter for a long time. He said, “My wife and I had agreed that we were not going to sleep with this dog. We have other dogs.” They have a bunch of dogs. “We had other dogs we slept with. This dog we were going to train to not sleep with us.” The wife came home from a late-night work shift, and the dog was under the covers, like snuggled in on the pillow next to the guy. She said, “What happened?” He said, “He just looked at me with this look, and he was like – it was gratefulness. Like you could see the gratefulness on this dog's face, and I just scooped him right into bed.” All my animals have been adopted. It seems a little crazy, but I truly think like they're grateful and senior dogs all the more. So there's this altruistic piece as well. Yes, here's all the benefits for the people. But if we just think about senior dogs who've maybe been in a home their whole life, that's what they've known. Then for whatever tragic reason, they now found themselves homeless in a rescue or a shelter. Just to say, you know what? I'm going to give this dog a life. For whatever many months or years they have left, I'm going to just adopt this dog and give them that security of living out their golden years in a home full of love. [00:10:38] BD: I'm so glad that you use the word grateful. I really wanted to pick your brain about this because this is November. What a time to be talking about gratitude and thanks. I believe that senior animals can uniquely teach us. Teach us about gratitude and thanks. Why do you think that senior animals are able to uniquely model that to us, this gift of gratitude and thanks? [00:11:05] JB: I keep ascribing these human traits to animals, and I'm not sure that's a wrong thing. I mean, we just talked about gratefulness. So now, I'm going to bring up wisdom. I feel like senior dogs have – just like people, when they get gray, and they've got some inherent wisdom just from living life. I feel like senior dogs might get that, too, where they're just like older and wiser. That can translate, I think, into that gratitude. So I don't know that I know the answer to your question. I just know that I have experienced it personally. [00:11:37] BD: Yes, yes. We used to have a house full of seniors. They all recently over the last couple years crossed over the rainbow bridge. But that period of time in my life where we had seven, eight seniors in our house was the calmest, most peaceful, loving container that I have ever experienced. Now, we have a lot of younger dogs, and the energy has shifted. But I love this conversation that we're having because there is – often, the seniors are overlooked in shelters. They're overlooked in rescues. I think this conversation kind of shifts that narrative. What can we expect differently from adopting a senior dog that maybe has been a misconception? [00:12:27] JB: I think people assume maybe even subconsciously it’s too painful to adopt a senior dog because they're going to die soon. I mean, I think that's in the back of people's minds, and that's too painful to go through for myself or maybe for my kids. I mean, one of the things that we laugh about as veterinarians is like for the most part, dogs don't come in with perfect records. So you don't even know their age. I mean, we don't really know. I've had so many people adopt what they thought was a senior dog and just have many, many, many, many, many more years together. For the most part, in my experience, I've been a vet for 25 years, people adopt a dog, a senior even, and have years together. So granted it's not an entire lifespan, but there's no guarantee in buying a puppy or adopting a younger dog that you're going to have all those years together anyway. So I think dogs live in the moment. It's one of the best things about them, and we can learn from that. I think it would just be great if people didn't just worry so much about the future and just embrace the present and say whatever time we have left, and I'm just going to say in the majority of cases, I do believe that that's years, we're just going to soak up the love and time together. I just can't ever – I can't think of a case where anyone's ever done that and regretted it. [00:13:50] BD: Right. Never. Talk about imparting wisdom, that loving presence and being present in the moment with our animals is something that is just uniquely modeled to us and those reciprocal relationships. But, also, like what a gift? What a karmic gift to give back to an animal in that way and care for them in their last years of life and make sure that they are given the most love that they could experience. I want to shift a little bit into the care perspective because this is something that you know a lot about. What is your advice to folks that might go to a shelter, adopt a senior dog? What are some of the biggest tips you have in caring for a senior pet? [00:14:34] JB: Thank you for letting me talk about this because it's important. So number one is veterinary care. With younger animals going to the vet, once a year is probably fine, unless they instruct you otherwise. Senior pets, you need to be there at least twice a year because things change. I mean, even if it's not senior at seven, and we do the multiplication times seven, still the lifespan is accelerated. The years are passing by, accelerated compared to human life. So you wouldn't go to the doctor every five years or seven years. Important to go to the vet, so they can get a tip-to-tail complete exam and blood work at least every six months. That's just a way that we can be ahead. We talked about preventive medicine. We can be ahead of changes. We can stay ahead of concerns and always more likely to have successful outcomes when we catch things early versus late. So that's number one We may need to make some changes in the home for senior dogs, depending on their ability or special needs status. This can be everything from using a nightlight at night for a dog. I think that's a real help for senior dogs who might struggle at night if they're up and about. One thing that senior dogs can experience is a little bit of doggy dementia with age. One of the ways this manifests is like a disturbed sleep-wake cycle, so they may be a little bit more up at night, and nightlights can help with that. If they struggle on steps, I like to recommend putting a strip across the front of steps to really demarcate. Sometimes, depth perception can be an issue. So putting a strip, a brightly colored strip, a white strip, maybe even a strip with a little grip on the front of each step can be a help. I've had clients like remove the legs off of their couch or put the [inaudible 00:16:24] on the floor to help them get up and down more easily. Certainly, ramps and steps. So those are some potential home modifications. Then finally, use it or lose it. Like these dogs need to be out. They need to be getting the stimuli to their brain of life in the outdoors, the smells, and the sights, and the noises. So even if the walks have to get shorter and doing like more frequent really tiny walks, really short walks, that's fine. But they still need to be in the outdoors. They still need to get their exercise to maintain whatever mobility and muscle mass they have. [00:16:59] BD: Yes. Going off of mobility, there's a product that we've used in this house over the last couple of years, and you developed that product. Can you tell the listeners more about that? [00:17:12] JB: Yes. So ToeGrips is my passion because as a veterinarian, I get to help one dog at a time. Because my appointments are very comprehensive with the holistic medicine added into the Western and the exam, they're usually like an hour-long. So there's only so many hour-long appointments I can get in in a week. But ToeGrips have allowed me to really have an impact on senior dogs around the world, and I'm so thankful for that opportunity. They are non-slip nail grips that go on the tips of dogs’ nails and give them traction on hard surface floors. The biggest thing we deal with is skepticism. People see them and think like, “Oh these little things, what could they possibly do?” But if you understand that a dog's natural mechanism for traction is to engage the nails like soccer cleats, that's why you don't see dogs slipping on carpet or on grass because that works. But hard nails can't grip hard floors. So just by giving them a little grip on the nail tips, voila, we have dogs that can get up off the floors and walk on the floors with traction and confidence. [00:18:16] BD: Our holistic vet recommended this product to us a few years ago, and one of our younger uniquely able dogs uses it as well. He's actually afraid of hardwood floors and transitional spaces. They have really helped boost his confidence and his mobility when he's running around the house. So, yes, thank you. [00:18:36] JB: I love that. Yes, confidence. I mean, we've talked about doggy wisdom and doggy gratitude. Doggy confidence is a very real thing. Early on in the development of this product, I was talking to a veterinary colleague whom I love. She's like a brilliant veterinarian and wonderful bedside manner. But I was talking about how ToeGrips have really impacted my patients’ confidence. She kind of laughed, and she's like, “Confidence? Why would I care about my patients’ confidence?” It broke my heart because it's a real thing, and confidence directly ties into quality of life. So these dogs that have to live in fear in their homes because they're afraid of slipping, they're afraid of getting like a slip and fall injury, especially if they've experienced that, and they're like afraid for it to happen again. We'd need our dogs to be able to live in a fear-free environment, and slipping is a very real part of that, so. [00:19:29] BD: I love to hear that you experience the confidence. Yes. I mean, and that's part of the holistic care, right, is to think about more of those outside-the-box supplemental things that we can do for our dogs to have the best quality of life, the best joy in life. I mean, mobility, that's been a huge part of this conversation, especially with senior dogs. In your experience with senior dogs and with folks that adopt them and bring them in, can you talk about the special benefits senior citizens can receive from adopting a senior pet? [00:20:03] JB: That is something that I just find fascinating to pair that up, right? So first of all, I think they can identify, right? I mean, there's some sort of root hope that comes from saying like, “Here's the senior dog, and I'm going to rescue them.” But it comes to – it begs the question that I've seen on bumper stickers like, “Who rescued whom,” right? So senior citizens often are more associated statistically with loneliness, and a pet is the best solution for that issue. I mean, you've got a 24/7 unconditional love in fur living with you. Also, we know that people with pets are more likely, especially dogs, to be active. So it gives them a reason to get up in the morning. They've got to get the dog out. It really can give them a purpose in life that may be flagging for a senior citizen who's retired and maybe not as engaged as they once were with a community. Now, they have a reason to be engaged, and that dog can even help them make friends, break into friend groups in their neighborhood or community. So it's the perfect win-win. [00:21:11] BD: I love the language that we're using in today's conversation; gratitude, thanks, confidence, purpose, loving presence. It just so illuminates the gifts that animals bring into our lives but, uniquely, in this conversation, senior dogs. [00:21:29] JB: Then there's the physical benefits, right? So we know statistically that having a dog in your life provides some distinct physical benefits. One of which is lower blood pressure, which can be good for people. So I was thinking about my Chihuahua who's a little terror, but we love him to death. So my mom is a senior citizen. She's turning 78 this month, and she has high blood pressure. My son and the Chihuahua stayed with her for a week, and the Chihuahua just wanted to be on her lap, and she was like petting the dog all week. At the end of the week, she had a routine wellness exam, and her blood pressure was the lowest it had ever been. We're all like, “It was Beanie.” So for sure, physical benefits as well for all of us and especially senior citizens. [00:22:12] BD: Every episode, I like to ask our guests, and this is probably a difficult question for you because you've had so many animals in and out of your life, both personally and professionally. But we like to share a story of an animal that has done magic or healing in unassuming ways in your life. So could you please share your favorite story of an animal that has helped transform your way of seeing animals and interacting in the world? [00:22:41] JB: Yes. So I could really go on with lots of them, but I will pick Zeke, who was a black lab. Well, he was – he looked like a black lab mix. We DNA-tested him, and he didn't have any black lab. He had Chow and Shepherd and all. He had like nine things. We adopted him years ago for one of my sons who has ADHD and is just like a restless – like he's just a ball of energy, and he had night terrors, and he would sleepwalk with that. We adopted Zeke not thinking like, “Oh, let's solve the night terrors with the dog.” That wasn't the plan at all, but it just happened that we adopted Zeke. Zeke bonded with Daniel, and he started – it was like the other story I told. By like the third day, he was in bed sleeping with Daniel, and Daniel's night terrors stopped. They stopped like instantly, and he never had them again. [00:23:37] BD: What a gift. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Let's say we have listeners at this very moment that are considering going to a shelter and adopting a senior dog or a senior cat. What's your call to action for them? [00:23:53] JB: My call to action is I'm going to go on out on the limb and say I stake my reputation and name on the fact that you would not regret it. You will not regret it. [00:24:04] BD: You heard it here. Dr. Buzby says go out and fill your life with so much joy by adopting a senior pet this month. Thank you so much, Dr. Buzby, for coming on the show, and imparting so much wisdom, and sharing such beautiful stories about your work and all of the magic that you bring into your community. [00:24:25] JB: Thank you for the opportunity. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:24:27] PF: That was Brittany Derrenbacher talking with Dr. Julie Buzby about the joys of adopting a senior pet. So, Brittany, I really enjoyed that conversation. I know this is a topic that is near and dear to your heart. As I was listening to this, I'm like I have to know what resonated most with you. [00:24:44] BD: Well, first, I have to share that I was so excited to even like say her name, Dr. Buzby. How fun is that? All week, I was like, “I can't wait to say her name.” [00:24:54] PF: That's terrific. [00:24:56] BD: But the biggest part of the conversation for me that stood out is just, and this month is so important to talk about, the gratitude. Senior animals bring so much gratitude into our lives and are so thankful for just being given a space to feel safe and to feel cared for and loved and seen. I think that is such a magical gift. So any opportunity that we have to illuminate that I love senior and special needs animals, that is, obviously, our specialty here at Luna Bell’s. But any opportunity that I think we have to encourage people to go out and bring that gift into their homes and continue like bringing that good karmic energy into the universe, let's do it. [00:25:43] PF: I love it. I love it. Yes. That's – it's such a powerful thing to bring in a senior pet. I know you and I have talked about when I first got involved in rescue, that's what I did. I did the seniors, and I saw a lot of dogs over to the other side. It was heartbreaking, but there was also something so rewarding, knowing that this animal, oftentimes, they've been dumped because families don't want to deal with the decline of a dog. Or who knows what led to that situation. But to know that that dog died with love, and that's how I feel. Like no animal should have to just die alone and unloved. I know that as heartbreaking as it was for me, there was a satisfaction and a joy in knowing that that animal was being ushered over properly. [00:26:28] BD: It costs a little bit upfront for senior animals. Yes, there is maybe a shorter time that we're spending with them. But the gifts that they bring into our life far outweighs any type of vet care or monetary situation that you might be in with senior pets. I look back at all of the animals that have been in our lives that have lived long senior lives, and I don't think about any of that stuff. I just think about how much I loved them, how much they taught me, how much they brought into my life, how much joy they brought into Matthew and I's lives. That outweighs everything. [00:27:04] PF: Absolutely. Well, that was a great interview. There was so much to take away from it. If our listeners want to learn more about you, the work that you’re doing, learn about Dr. Buzby, we're going to have all of that on our landing page. They can follow you on social media and learn more about the ways that pets enhance our lives. So anybody can go to our website at livehappy.com. Click on the podcast tab, and you will see Happiness Unleashed there. Just click on that, and you can join us. Brittany, thank you, again, for another fantastic episode, and we will see you back here next month. [00:27:35] BD: See you soon. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Finding Happiness in Hard Times with Rabbi Matt Derrenbacher [INTRODUCTION]   [0:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 440 of Live Happy Now. In difficult times, sometimes we're left wondering if it's selfish to focus on pursuing happiness. But this week's guest is here to explain why right now is more important than ever. I'm your host, Paula Felps, and this week I'm talking with Matt Derrenbacher, Solo Rabbi at Congregation Beth Shalom in Columbia, Missouri. In the face of violence and uncertainty in the Middle East that have affected many of us here in the US, Matt sat down to talk with me about the importance of seeking happiness in hard times and what we can do when we're not sure what to say. He also gives us some great tips for managing the anxiety and overwhelm that accompany uncertain times. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [0:00:51] PF: Matt, thanks for being with me here today. [0:00:54] MD: Thanks for having me. [0:00:55] PF: We needed to have a conversation because I reached out. I know you've been doing a lot of interviews. And I've seen you in the newspaper. You're doing some radio, some TV. This is just a really difficult time. There's horrific violence going on in the Middle East. We have the conflict in Ukraine continuing. I wanted to know from your perspective, how do you start the conversation with people who are struggling with all the things that are going on right now? [0:01:22] MD: Thank you. That's a very important question. A lot of times, the conversations already started with so much access to information through social media, through news, through conversations, it's something that – especially with things going on in the Middle East right now for the Jewish community in particular, we think of like three degrees of separation. But for a lot of communities, it's one degree of separation. Someone knows someone or has family members. One of our charter members, one of the founding members of our congregation, his daughter and son-in-law were killed a little under two weeks ago. For a lot of people, the intensity of all of the conflicts across the globe, there's already an internal dialogue going on. For me approaching these conversations, it's trying to discover where each person is at in that internal dialogue and picking it up from there. [0:02:23] PF: And that's a great way to approach it. Because sometimes we as individuals don't even know what to say. It's like I find myself stammering a lot right now. I don't know what to say. Because we can't make sense of everything that's going on. Instead of trying to make sense of it, what path should we be taking instead? [0:02:44] MD: The path that myself and my congregation have been going on is the path of peace and holding space. Last week, we held a vigil. And it wasn't a vigil for one particular group or another. It was a vigil to remember those who were killed and to hold space for a hope for peace. In approaching these conversations, our society and social media has gotten so fractured, so fractured where it's you have to pick one side or the other. And there's not a lot of room in the middle for growth, for learning, for healing. And I think that's an important thing to remember is that middle space where the real conversations are being had is where the greatest amount of healing can happen. And that's where compassion is found, right? On both ends of whatever spectrum you may fall in for whatever issue it may be, there's this sort of tendency to pretend like compassion is a finite resource where we can only use – [0:03:49] PF: I'm not going to spend it on that. Yeah. [0:03:53] MD: I can only spend it on the group that I care about. And we miss the entirety of the human experience, right? That there are lots of people facing a lot of loss right now. And to hold compassion, and to hold space and to hope for peace and healing, that's where we ourselves can begin to heal and figure out where we really fall interacting with any of these big issues. [0:04:16] PF: And where do you have people start with that? Because finding compassion can be difficult when you're outraged, when there's so much chatter around you that is venomous. As you said, it's one side or the other. These are no longer human humans. They're parts of a group. And so, where do you start looking for that compassion and toning down the noise? [0:04:37] MD: I think the best thing we can do is take a step back. Because when we're on social media constantly, it is unfiltered information, right? And so, anyone with any sort of perspective or agenda can put something out there that will upset someone. And that misinformation will continue to grow and to spread and cause more anger and more violence. And by taking a step back and recognizing the humanity of each one of the situations, we can hope for better conversations. Honestly, just better conversations where we can recognize the pain that everyone is feeling. [0:05:17] PF: But how do we talk with someone who has very strong feelings that don't include compassion? That don't include the humanity aspect of it? [0:05:26] MD: That's the hard part, right? I mean, I will say, even being a part of a community that has been deeply affected by the events going on, especially in the Middle East. I mean, Shabbat and Simchat Torah, one of our supposed to be happiest holidays where we're celebrating finishing the completion of a Torah cycle, it was the deadliest 24/48 hours for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. With that, there's deep pain, there's deep mourning, but there's also a lot of deep anger too. Speaking from my own context, my own community, it can be really easy to jump to that place of anger, of betrayal and being able to take a step back from some of that and to just wade through the feelings. Wade through the feelings of loss, of betrayal, of pain. And to really sit with that and then to recognize that we have community. That we have one another. And that we can support one another. During our vigil at Thursday night, I was talking about the holiness of the oneness of community, right? Regardless of where an individual sits on any particular issue, coming together as a community can sort of help soften those edges. [0:06:45] PF: And I think you bring up a really good point about people having to sort through their feelings. We're not asking or saying that people should deny the anger, and the outrage and all the other feelings, the sense of betrayal that comes with that. I think you do have to wade through all those before you can reach that sense of compassion. And you're kind of the guidance that they get. How do you navigate people through those emotions? Because we know that if you don't feel those emotions, if you don't deal with them, they will come back at another time and it won't be convenient. [0:07:21] MD: Right. [0:07:21] PF: How do we do that? How do we walk through some of these feelings that people are having right now? [0:07:26] MD: Right. Well, and it only won't be convenient, but they can also intensify over time too, right? And then they can be misdirected. A lot of times when we push those emotions down and then they start to come out, they come out at people who we don't necessarily want them to come out towards or in situations we're not particularly upset about. By really leaning into those feelings, leaning into the anger, the pain, the mourning, the loss and being able to transform those into sort of conduits for fighting for a better future, I think that's how we can really honor those feelings. In the Jewish Community, memory is one of the strongest things. And one of our greatest values is Tikkun olam, which is to repair the world. And so, at the end of every service, we list off the names of those in our lives who have died in this season and years past and we say Zichrona Livrocho, may their memory be a blessing and a guiding light along our journeys. So that we continue to fight for a better future in their honor. [0:08:35] PF: That's really powerful. And someone doesn't have to be part of the Jewish community to participate and to be part of these rituals and start understanding. And how does that help them heal? Even if we're not of the Jewish faith, how does that help us heal when we can participate in something like that? [0:08:55] MD: Oh, absolutely. A lot of Jewish values can be boiled down to universal values, right? And so, I speak from my own context as a rabbi. And so, I use a lot of the language that is familiar to me. But taking a step outside of that, the idea of memory. Cultures around the world, religious traditions around the world plays a very heavy focus on memory, right? Memory is how we learn from the past. It's how we bring the joys, the pain, the complications, everything that life has to offer, all of those past experiences. If we allow them to be honored in a beautiful way, then they can help us to grow into better people. Into the people that our ancestors would be proud of. And then we can then hope that the future generations will look back at us and say, "Hey, they did a really good job laying a foundation for us." [0:09:46] PF: I like that. I like that a lot. How do you help people with the uncertainty right now? Life is always uncertain. It is filled with uncertainty. And we've learned that very well through the last three years. And now things are very tumultuous, very disrupted. What techniques or what practices do you encourage to help people deal with the uncertainty? Because uncertainty breeds anxiety. And then we know that can take you all kinds of places. How do people deal with what's going on right now? [0:10:17] MD: Someone who is both generally anxious and Jewish, I've learned to really lean into and love questions and certainty. Uncertainty can be very scary. It can be very daunting. There can be a lot attached to it. But it can also be an opportunity, right? If there's uncertainty then we can create a new direction. If things are going terribly wrong and we see no way forward, well, then maybe all we have to do is turn right or turn left and a new opportunity opens for us. I think the biggest thing that I can say is just learn to be friends with uncertainty. Uncertainty doesn't have to be scary. It can be an opportunity. It can be an invitation. I would say be friends with uncertainty and be okay with taking a step back. I know I have to – even though in the position I'm in people, expect me to know what's going on and when so I can have an informed opinion about whatever. Taking a step back is very important, right? Because it's the cliche of the oxygen mask in the airplane, right? You got to put yours on. Take care of yourself; mind, body, spirit. And then you can walk with someone else in that conversation that you're having. And whoever you're speaking with, you may not agree, you may not even get along that well, but you're doing the work together. And that's the important thing is that connection, that community building. It's not about agreeing. It's about growing together. [0:11:52] PF: Yeah. And I do want to get more into the idea of community here in a moment, but I also want to say that not everyone understands the people who do feel a sense of loss. Some of us are more removed from it than others. And we're at different spaces and different places. If we are one of those people that feels removed from it, what are some things that we need to be keeping in mind as we talk to other people? [0:12:19] MD: I'd say one of the biggest things that we can do actually is to reach out to other people. Think about those in your life who this may be affecting and just say, "Hey, how are you doing?" Because chances are, regardless of how they're affected, the level of loss, the degrees of separation from loss, there is that uncertainty, right? And so, in order to become friends with that uncertainty, we need to know that we're supported. [0:12:45] PF: That's right. [0:12:46] MD: One of the greatest things we can do is just be there for one another and questions. I would say one of the most meaningful parts of this whole experience has been people that are not affiliated with the community or are pretty far removed from the situation, reaching out and saying, "Hey, I know there's a lot going on. I don't quite understand it. But are you okay?" And that means the world. And that's where those connections and those opportunities for education and just beautiful growth can happen. [0:13:22] PF: I love that. Because that is one challenge. Even for myself, it's like I don't want to say the wrong thing. I don't always know what to say. I'm at a loss for words. And so, being able to – I love that. Just asking if someone's okay. Just checking in. [0:13:38] MD: Mm-hmm. Yeah. A lot of times, if we don't know what to say, we can ask a question or we can just be. Just letting someone know, "Hey, I know there's a lot going on right now. I'm here for you if you need anything." That's it. [0:13:51] PF: I love that. I love that. And so, one thing that – at Live Happy, obviously our mission is always about our well-being, living a happy life. And for some people right now, it can seem selfish. It can seem counterintuitive to be prioritizing our own happiness right now. Because it's a very difficult time. Can you talk about why it's important for us – no matter what is going on in the world, it's important for us to still be pursuing our own well-being and pursuing our own happiness. [0:14:20] MD: Pursuing our own happiness and our own well-being is sort of the key to the better future that we're hoping for, right? If we aren't taking care of ourselves, then we're going further and further down whatever rabbit hole we're already in. We're feeling worse about ourselves. We're feeling worse about the situation. And so, being able to take that step back to take care of ourselves and recognizing that honoring ourselves is actually honoring the situation. Because then we can approach it from a more positive viewpoint, right? We can ask tough questions. Have meaningful conversations. And we can have that growth happen within ourselves. And that sort of becomes contagious, right? If someone sees, "Hey, okay. Maybe there is a little bit of hope in this really terrible, horrific situation." Well, then we can use that to drive towards that better future together. [0:15:13] PF: I like that. Because you are always – you are a ray of sunshine wrapped around a rainbow. I mean, you are. You're just always, always happy. And what are some things that you do to keep yourself positive and hopeful throughout everything that's going on? And you've got kind of double pressure because you've got whatever is going on with you. And then you also have people who are depending on you to inform them, to enlighten them, to encourage them. What are your practices? And how do you stay so dang cheery? [0:15:48] MD: No. I appreciate that a lot actually. I think I stay positive because life is more fun that way. And I know that's a very, very weird thing to say in a conversation like this. But we need to hold things in tension, right? We need to recognize that the human experience is very messy, it's very complex, where we can experience the greatest joys in life and we can witness the greatest horrors in life. I think the greatest example that I can think of – sorry. It's coming from a specifically Jewish context. But at the end of a Jewish wedding, there's the smashing of the glass, right? And so, we break the glass. Everyone shouts mazel tov, which means congratulations. And it's a moment of recognition of the complicated nature of life, right? It's this beautiful moment where two souls are coming together. They're embarking on a new committed life together. And we break the glass to recognize that there is suffering in the world. That our world is incomplete. At this very beautiful, joyous moment, we break the glass to recognize that there's still work to be done in our world. And both things can be true at the exact same time. I choose to face the complexities of the world with joy in my heart. Because otherwise it would be completely overwhelming, right? [0:17:21] PF: Yeah. I love that. [0:17:24] MD: Thanks. [0:17:25] PF: How do you do that? How do you maintain that in the face of negativity? In the face of overwhelm? What are some of your go-to practices that help you do that? [0:17:36] MD: For me, it's all about connection. I find joy in connection. In like deep and meaningful connection, right? Whether it's with a person. Whether it's with one of our furry friends. Whether it's with nature in general, right? Sometimes being alone in nature going for a walk to clear the head, get the body moving, get the spirit engaged with the organic, natural world, it can be a very, very moving experience, right? A lot of people say like, "I found God outside. I found God in the breeze. I discovered my spirituality when I was out in the forest." Things like that. And then I experience incredible connection anytime I give one of my doggies a hug. [0:18:24] PF: Exactly. And all this is scientifically proven. Being in nature has incredible scientifically shown benefits. Same thing with petting a dog, hugging a dog, looking at a dog. I mean, pet. I'm not being exclusive. I'm not dogist. [0:18:39] MD: Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. I am a little bit. I'm very team dog. But I appreciate all the beautiful critters on the earth. Well, and with other people too, right? I really do find something so sacred about just being in community with one another. Whether it's friends. Whether it's family. Whether it's a wider group of people that just want to come together to be. I find each one of those very sacred in their own way. Connection with people. Connection with animals. Connection with the natural world. I really rely on those connections. Because there's beauty in connection. [0:19:22] PF: And we need it. As humans, we need that. We crave that and we thrive on it. That's really important. And I did want to ask you about something else, and that is obviously news coverage. We have news coverage everywhere we turn. And if we try to get away from the – I think some people still watch it on TV. But it's like our phone is constantly going off. Everything in our computer is coming at us. Can we talk about the difference between staying informed and being consumed by the news? Because what's going on is horrific. And the images are haunting and you cannot unsee that if you watch that. What kind of advice is there? Some people feel like if I don't watch this, it kind of reminds me of 9/11 where people felt they needed to be glued to it. It's like I've got to watch this tragedy unfold because I'm part of it. That's also very dangerous to our psyche. Tell us how you approach that. [0:20:20] MD: Yeah. It can get – I really like the way you phrased that. It can get very dangerous very quickly, right? And there is a very fine line, especially with all of our access to information and misinformation. There's a very fine line between staying informed and being consumed. Staying informed means that we interact with what's going on. We consume news where we are the ones doing the consuming, right? We, as the individual or the community have the agency on what we consume rather than it consuming us. Because when all of the information and misinformation come together and consume us, then we're reacting to a reaction to a reaction, right? It's not even – there's so many degrees of separation that it becomes just easy to be fueled by anger and to feel disillusioned and to not know what to do. And at that point, we are consumed. If we're able to take a step back and reclaim our agency as individuals consuming the news and consuming what's going on, then we are approaching the situations intentionally. We're approaching them thoughtfully. And we have more capacity to approach them with compassion. [0:21:43] PF: Yeah, I love that. I love that. Because one thing that I've stopped doing is watching live news. I do not watch live images. I do not watch video images. Because those are generally intended to be – grab your attention. And they're often very explicit. And so, that is one way that I kind of shelter myself from the atrocity of the news is to I choose to consume it by text and read only about the news. That way, I can kind of control what's coming into my head and I don't have images that I then have to live with and try to figure out where I'm going to place them now that they're stuck in my head. [0:22:23] MD: Yeah. Well, and that's the hard part about algorithms, right? On one hand, if you only follow cute animal accounts, it's going to keep pumping out cute animals, right? You're going to see a pig rolling in the mud and you're going to laugh and you're going to feel great. Or the algorithm can go the other way too. If you interact with particularly political material or any sort of content that is related around a specific viewpoint on, a conflict on something that's going on in the world, then it's going to keep pushing that. And then we're going to start reacting emotionally in ways that we wouldn't normally do, right? [0:23:05] PF: And I think the danger of that too is we start seeing the world through that lens. Because if that's all we're being fed – to your point, if we think it's just the world is full of cute little barnyard animals rolling around, the world's a wonderful place. But if it's just this constant stream of bad news and horrific pictures, the world feels unsafe. We're going to angry. We're going to be anxious and overwhelmed. [0:23:30] MD: Well, and it perpetuates violence, right? Generally, when anything happens with Israel, synagogues get targeted. Whether it's bomb threats. Or in Tunisia a couple of days ago, there was a synagogue that was burned because of events that are happening related to the Middle East. And the same thing can be said for the Muslim community too, right? If something happens, Islamophobia skyrockets, anti-Semitism skyrockets, things related to Israel sometimes. And it can be a very, very difficult thing to mediate because we have complete access to information and misinformation. And that leads to anger. And that leads to more cycles of violence. And I think reclaiming our agency as individuals who consume the news rather than are consumed by the news can help us break those cycles. And then we can lean into community. We can lean into hope and peacemaking rather than anger, and violence and destruction. [0:24:35] PF: I love that. Matt, you are always insightful, always wonderful to talk to. I really appreciate you sitting down with me and talking about this. It is a hard time, but it's also important to keep in mind that we can keep pursuing our happiness during this time. And we can keep reaching out to others and kind of be that light that other people need to see. [0:24:56] MD: Mm-hmm. And I appreciate you creating the space so that we can have these conversations and we can push out the noise for just a little while and remember the core of humanity at the heart of all of this. [0:25:08] PF: Yeah. It's still intact. [0:25:10] MD: Absolutely. [OUTRO] [0:25:16] PF: That was Rabbi Matt Derrenbacher, talking about finding happiness in hard times. If you'd like to learn more about Matt or follow him on social media, just visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. And until then, this is Paula Felps reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]