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Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Learning to be a Kind Traveler With Jessica Blotter  [INTRODUCTION] [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 375 of Live Happy Now. Now that we're taking vacations again, have you thought about how to bring more kindness to your travels? I'm your host, Paula Felps, and this week, I'm talking with Jessica Blotter, a speaker and journalist who specializes in sustainable and regenerative tourism. After witnessing extreme poverty on a vacation to Belize, Jessica launched a movement in 2016, called Kind Traveler, which allows travelers to positively impact the communities they visit, and enjoy incredible experiences as well. She's here today to talk about why it's so important to travel kindly, and how you can make every trip you take, make a difference. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:48] PF: Jessica, welcome to Live Happy Now. [00:00:50] JB: Thank you so much for having me, Paula. It's such a pleasure to be here. [00:00:54] PF: It's exciting to have you on the air. We've had you on our website. We had you when we had the magazine. And you have such an incredible mission, because you are all about sustainable tourism and giving back. So, before we dig into what you're doing, let's start by explaining what sustainable tourism even means. [00:01:11] JB: Sure, happy to. So, sustainable tourism is really about asking the question, how one can maximize, their, perhaps, positive impact when they travel and minimize their negative impact when they travel. We're really looking at the entire cycle of the traveler journeys. So, from how you get there, your transport, the type of lodging that you choose, the behavior and activities that you have on the ground, and throughout all of those, that travel cycle, looking at that question, and how can I maximize positive impact as a relates to communities and the environment, and the actual destination that you're, in minimizing things like your carbon footprint, or preventing food waste, or things like in that nature. So, that's the essence of what it is. [00:02:09] PF: Why is it so important for us to not just continue those practices, but really to step it up when we're going to go on vacation? [00:02:15] JB: Right. Well, when you look at the volume of travelers taking international trips, especially if we look at pre COVID, you have 1.4 billion travelers traveling around the world, right, and then you have 1.8 or more billion projected by 2030. So, the power of the travel industry can actually be a force for good, or it can be a force for the negative. You see things on the negative side, such as over tourism. You also see things like communities adversely being affected. Whereas on the on the positive side, if travel dollars can be situated and manifested in such a way that it can actually do a lot of good, it can support communities, it can support the environment. So, it's just really important to think about how one can vote with their dollar, and perhaps choose things that are good for the planet, because of its sheer impact that it can make on a global level. When you look at the amount of people that are traveling in today's world. [00:03:24] PF: It's so interesting, because I know a lot of friends who travel, have come back and said, “Oh, man, it was horrible. Because to get to our resort, we had to go through this village.” And they would talk about the poverty that they saw on. I used to go to Cabo a lot and it was that same kind of thing where you're staying in a very opulent place, and you're surrounded by poverty. So, doing this, we don't really think that we can make a difference in that community. Like it doesn't even register with a lot of us. How do we make sure that that is happening and how do we become a part of that? [00:03:57] JB: It's great that you say, that because that's actually how Kind Traveler began is that my co-founder and I, we were actually on a vacation and witnessed a lot of poverty. We saw a lot of emaciated dogs roaming the streets, families living in shacks next to polluted swamps. And we had a really hard time sort of turning away from those experiences and getting excited about the vacation itself. We had been and still are, animal rescue volunteers, and for us, it was virtually impossible for us to turn a blind eye to these rib protruding dogs begging for food. So, we decided to feed them, not knowing really what else to do. And we unintentionally inspired other travelers to get involved with this small act of giving back. When we walked away from this experience, the mood had really shifted and see how the other travelers went from this feeling of sadness and despair and helplessness to one have a little bit of hope and joy and laughter. We just started to think about how perhaps we could create a way to make it easy for travelers to give back and make a positive impact in the destination that they visit, specifically through giving back. And we realized that there are so many wonderful nonprofits that are on the ground that are supporting animals, or supporting the environment. They're helping lift local communities out of poverty. Not everybody wants to volunteer necessarily on their vacation. They might not have time. They don't want to do it. And it's also earned a bad reputation over the years, frankly, in some other countries. That act of giving back and when you're traveling, seemed like something that was very important to help create a sustainable future for the travel industry and utilizing the potential power of those 1.4 billion trips that happened, at least pre COVID. That was actually that story just described, was something I think a lot of people have experience. They're often left with this feeling, something that's called travelers guilt. And when it's not easy to do something and they don't know how to do something, it can be quite frustrating, and lead to someone perhaps not feeling quite satisfied or happy even on their vacation. [00:06:23] PF: What you did was different, because a lot of people go through that. You have that travelers’ guilt, and you hear like, “I wish I could do something”, and then you go home and you get on with your life. That is not what you did. [00:06:34] JB: No. No, we did not do that. [00:06:38] PF: So, tell me how you went about this experience and how did that become a movement? I mean, I think that is so fascinating to me. [00:06:46] JB: Yeah, thank you. Yeah, so when we had that experience, keep in mind, both Shawn and I, we were at this point in our careers in our lives, where we both were entrepreneurs and involved with other businesses in the past. And we're kind of very comfortable in this space of entrepreneurialism, and we were very passionate about travel. We were both doing a lot of volunteering at that time. I was also a travel writer at that time. I was doing some freelancing with travel writing. So, our hearts and our minds were really in this very special place when we had that experience. Our hearts were definitely in an open place where we were actively kind of looking to find certain gaps that that existed. We saw this gap. We started just asking ourselves like, “Wow, what if we could use our passion for travel, and for helping nonprofits? What if we could use that passion to create a pathway and make it easy for travelers to give back to the destinations that they visit?” That got us so excited. We came back, we started doing research after the trip and we realized, and there are research that a lot of travelers, in fact, at that time, it was 70% of travelers want their travel dollars to make a positive impact in the communities. [00:08:10] PF: That's so great to hear. [00:08:11] JB: Yeah, but then we saw that the challenges were, that about half of travelers find this completely confusing and don't know necessarily what that means or how to do it. So, we started talking to hotels as well and we decided that we wanted to build a platform that would essentially make it easy for travelers to give back to the communities that they visit and in turn, be rewarded for special offers from hotels that were also committed to the same values within the community and the environment. Because of that trip, Kind Traveler was born. We launched it in 2016 and it was the first and only, I should say, socially conscious give and get hotel booking platform that empowers travelers to give back and make a positive impact on the communities that they visit. The way it works is really quite simple. It's a $10 minimum donation to a locally vetted charity that is in the community that you're going to, and that donation or more will unlock an exclusive offer that we've negotiated with our hotels, and they even offer whether it's an exclusive rate or some special perks. Through that booking, we see a triple win happens because the traveler is winning, they get to have this amazing offer they give back, the charity is winning, and the hotel is winning. 100% of donations are given back to the charity through this model. And a couple other things that make it special is that we measure the impact across the entire site. So, whether you're giving back to a local wildlife group or an environmental organization, whatever it is, you're going to learn about that charity, specifically. Why it's important? What your $10 donation will do? And become very educated about your impact that you're able to make. [00:10:12] PF: That is so cool. And as you said, you started this in 2016. What have been some of the challenges to launch it and get it up and scale it, so that you can start really giving people these offers? [00:10:27] JB: So, in 2016, I think that we are definitely ahead of the curve. Today, in 2022, a lot of folks are really starting to think about sustainable tourism. Regenitive tourism has become quite popular. But back then, we found ourselves doing a ton of educating to everybody about why this was so important. I feel like it was just starting to – sustainable tourism was really becoming slowly more popular over the years in terms of a topic that the media wanted to cover and such. But we started out with 20 hotels on the platform, just based mostly in the US and the Caribbean. And today, we have 140 hotels in 22 countries around the world, and represent around 125 nonprofits around the world. All of the nonprofit goals are aligned with something called the United Nations Global Goals for Sustainable Development. And it just ensures that all of our impact goals are essentially working to either fight poverty, advance education, and communities, create equality in communities. And then on the environmental side, it's largely about addressing the climate crisis and working with environmental groups that are protecting biodiversity and wildlife, or working to advance ocean conservation. So, that kind of gives us like a framework around that. But it's been a really rewarding journey, and now that people are talking more about how to do this, I think that the timing of our platform really becomes more important. [00:12:05] PF: Sure. And obviously, we went through a time of not traveling much in the last couple of years. [00:12:11] JB: That’s true too, of course. That was a huge challenge. [00:12:13] PF: Yeah, oh my gosh, I can't even imagine what it looked like from your end. But do you see, as we come out of this a little bit, do you see a difference in the way people are approaching travel and, in their willingness to give? [00:12:25] JB: Absolutely. I mean, we took that time during the pandemic, to actually launch a new platform. So, we launched a brand-new platform in January of this year of 2022, and we wanted to create some additional things that would make it even easier for travelers to use the platform and added several dozen new properties during that time as well. But I do think that yes, that the pandemic has indeed created a greater appreciation for travel, because we all stayed home, and we got to see what destinations look like when there aren't any visitors, and there were lots of great stories around that time, around wildlife being regenerated, and communities that became better, in fact, because they weren't dealing with the plagues of every day. Over tourism, even. Since then, we've seen destinations come back and, and take measures to even prevent some of those things that were less desirable from happening, like certain places like Venice, cruise ships aren't allowed anymore. And certain destinations, you have to now pay environmental fees to access. So, we're seeing the destinations and governments really double down on sustainability, which I think raises the bar for everybody to start thinking about it more, and there's an overall raising of consciousness that is happening around this topic. You have a climate crisis that was officially declared, The Cop 26 Summit. So, you have a lot of conversations going on right now in a time where our world is at a critical point, to embrace positive change if we want to create a sustainable future for it. [00:14:21] PF: I think, as you mentioned, the climate crisis, it's now we can't deny it anymore. And how then does this affect how we raise our children to be sustainable travelers and how does having a way to give back change the travel experience that they grow into? [00:14:38] JB: Absolutely. I mean, family travelers really see this as an educational opportunity to teach their children about the importance of giving back and even the feel-good associations that come with giving. Making that connection early on is so important, but there's also so much insight out there about the younger audiences, like Gen Z, who, at the oldest right now is 25. But they've listed that one of their number one concerns is the climate crisis. And millennial audiences have also listed this as one of their top concerns as well. So, you see these younger generations being very concerned about these topics and actively looking for ways to become more sustainable, responsible traveler, but also in their everyday lives. What you do in your everyday life should be no different than when you travel as well. There's this movement taking place, and there's a lot of interest with it with younger generations as well. The goal for brands like Kind Traveler is to make it easy, essentially, for these choices to be made that create a sustainable future that we can all thrive in and feel good about. [BREAK] [00:16:00] PF: We're going to take a break from the show right now and bring back Casey Johnson, our ecommerce marketing manager. Casey, how are you doing today? [00:16:07] CJ: I'm great. How are you? [00:16:10] PF: Fantastic. We've been talking about Organifi the past couple of weeks, and how we love being able to just take a scoop of it and add it to water and have a super healthy beverage during the day. And Organifi has this whole line of products that meets a variety of needs. One that we haven't talked about that is great for wrapping up the day is Organifi Gold, because this has like all the things our bodies need to recover like turmeric, ginger, lemon balm, mushroom, and I personally like it mixing hot water, but you can also do it with more milk or ane alternative to hot chocolate. Casey, how about you? How are you enjoying the Organifi Gold? [00:16:51] CJ: First of all, I just want to say the Gold is – [00:16:53] PF: The bomb. [00:16:56] CJ: Yeah, but seriously, I love it. And you know, contains nine superfoods. You mentioned a couple of them, and this specific juice is meant to promote rest and relaxation. Who doesn't love that, right? I personally like to drink this with warm oat milk. I like the milk alternatives and it's like a hug in a mug. Caress all day. [00:17:16] PF: Oh, that's awesome. But it really is. I love it. So, how can our listeners learn more about it and start enjoying the benefits of it? [00:17:25] CJ: So, our listeners can go to organifi.com/livehappynow and they'll save 20% off automatically at checkout. Or you can go to organific.com, and use code Live Happy Now to save 20% off. [00:17:42] PF: That sounds awesome. I hope people check it out. And we're going to go check out more of our Organifi Gold. Right now, we're going to go back to the show. [EPISODE CONTINUES] [00:17:54] PF: Doing good and giving back does release endorphins, and people feel good about themselves and they just feel good. Can we talk about that? Like what it does when you give back to local communities as you travel? How does it help you as a traveler? And how does it increase the way that the satisfaction that you feel with that experience? [00:18:15] JB: There are a few great studies out there that actually link trip satisfaction to giving back. And it's because when you give a donation or you volunteer or you just help somebody, endorphins are released in the brain that allow you to feel happier, healthier, and even more connected. We feel that that really is the perfect storm for the traveler who's looking to build purpose and meaningfulness in their vacation experience. That feeling when we're trying to get the most of our vacation, if we think about how we can optimize our travel dollars in a way that gives back and makes a positive impact within communities in the environment, not only are we doing good for the world, but we're also going to feel really good about our decisions and in fact, have a better vacation experience. I love just making that connection so clear for people and that opportunity that it exists for those that want to get the most out of their vacation. [00:19:21] PF: And then how does that change how they look back at that experience? [00:19:24] JB: There's lots of evidence around how you're giving back, how this also creates a more memorable experience. So, the way you look back and remember, your experience might even be more vivid. Also, on Kind Traveler, I want to mention that beyond just giving a donation, a lot of these charities actually offer really unique experiences. There's a little section when you click on the charities on our website, it's called How to Travel Kindly. If the charity offers unique experiences, which like I said, many of them do, you can also go and visit them and have a very memorable experience that also gives back and supports these nonprofits that are on the ground, doing the good work in destinations. So, that is a sure way to also create a memorable experience that gives back and creates a memory that will be very different than perhaps other trips. [00:20:23] PF: What I love about this is children that are growing up this way and going and having these incredible experiences are more likely to then, as they become adults, not only will they continue doing that, but then they're going to raise their next generation of children who see that as part of the travel experience. [00:20:40] JB: Yeah, absolutely. It's a cycle. So, it's a great way to have fun with your family and teach them a very powerful, meaningful lesson of what it looks like to in fact, live a fulfilled life through giving back, and how that looks, perhaps, when you travel. [00:21:00] PF: That's terrific. You show so many different ways to do it. So, I think that's what's cool, too. People might even be inspired to do things on their own when they're out there as they travel. [00:21:10] JB: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we have a few examples I can share on the website. I mean, we do a lot of work here in California, where we're based in, up in Northern California is Sonoma County, which is such a sustainable destination. 99% of their vineyard acreage is certified as sustainable. So, that in itself says so much about the destination. But we have a variety of hotels out there that you can visit, such as the farmhouse and vintners and so many others. But we have at least six different charities out there that are so unique that you can give back to, but also that you can have experiences with. So, charities like farm to pantry, Charlie's acres, the Russian River Keeper, the Sonoma Land Trust, just to name a few. And for an experience with a charity, one of the ones I love so much is with Charlie's Acres Farm Animal Sanctuary, which is a nonprofit that's dedicated to rescuing farm animals who were abused or destined for the dinner table. This organization offers unique ways to connect with these animals that are recovering from different situations, and they offer like sheep meditation. [00:22:29] PF: Oh, wow. [00:22:31] JB: Yeah, or even like goat yoga. It's just a way to kind of slow things down a bit, enjoy the sounds of nature, and learn more about animals. So, that’s one experience that you can have that, is directly with a nonprofit that really goes back into supporting the community. [00:22:49] PF: Oh, that is terrific. That sounds like so much fun. [00:22:52] JB: Thank you. Yeah, I have another one. I'll share with you if you’d like. [00:22:55] PF: Yes, please. [00:22:56] JB: Over in Florida, we do a lot of work with Fort Myers, and over there, we have a couple of hotels that we work with from the Western Cape Coral Resort, Diamondhead Resort and the Pink Shell Beach Resort. But our local nonprofit that we support is the Crow Clinic, The Center for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife. When you book on Kind Traveler, of course, and you support Crow Clinic, a $10 donation, and we measure this on the platform, but it can provide up to five days of care for an eagle with a broken wing as an example. So, that's the other thing that a lot of people ask, “Well, what can a $10 donation do?” Well, it can go a really long way and do a lot of really cool things. And we tell you, all of that on the website when you book. Another thing it can do is provide two weeks of antibiotics for a gopher tortoise that was hit by a car. So unfortunately, they have a lot of that happening there. But this organization is there, doing a lot of the wildlife rehab. And you can also go to the Crow Clinic as a visitor. They're very child friendly. You can go and visit these rehabilitated animals, those that can be released in the wild or released those that cannot be, we'll call it a sanctuary. But it is a great way to engage, learn and support a nonprofit that is really vital to the health and wellbeing of that destination. So, that is in fact, sustainable tourism right there. [00:24:29] PF: This is terrific. I love the work that you're doing and the way that it continues to spread. On our website, we're going to tell people how they can find you, give them more information. We'll share the previous stories we've run on you and just let them know how they can get in touch with you. But as we're entering these final weeks of summers and families are trying to squeeze in those last-minute trips, what do you recommend? What can families do differently to make a difference as they get in their final travel of the summer? [00:25:00] JB: Think about a couple of things. I say it's easiest to look through a lens of kindness when you make your travel planning decisions. And the lens of kindness I look at is a quadrant of four pillars. So, it's kindness to communities, to the environment, to animals, but also to oneself, to one's looking at individual wellness. So, when we kind of look through this lens of kindness, we can ask ourselves that question in the beginning, how may I maximize my positive impact and minimize my negative impact? So, with transportation, for example, because we know that both aviation is a – the aviation industry, for example, contributes to 8% of all carbon emissions. And the ground transport industry is responsible for 26% of all carbon emissions. So, we might want to look at how the word traveling. Can we look at slow travel? Can we travel perhaps by a train as a very slow way of traveling that reduces carbon emissions up to 55%? So, looking at ways that we might be able to travel in such a way perhaps, it's with an electric vehicle, or it's with public transport, it's by carpooling, perhaps. Looking at some of those ways that we can reduce our carbon footprint specifically, then, of course, choosing a hotel that is also abiding by not just environmental sustainability initiatives, but also community impact. And so, choosing the type of hotel that you would stay at, that would in fact, embrace all those values. And then, of course, the activities that you choose. Are there nonprofits that you can go visit and support such as little local sanctuaries or classes that you could take offered by different nonprofits? Doing your research, right? You have to spend a little bit of time asking these questions, doing your research, voting with your dollar, while looking through a lens of kindness. [00:27:09] PF: Fantastic stuff. We have so much to learn from you. You are doing so much good in the world. It's truly appreciated and you are making a difference. I appreciate you coming on the show and telling us about it. Again, just thank you for everything that you're doing. [00:27:25] JB: Paula, thank you so much. It was such a pleasure. I so enjoyed being here and talking with you. Thank you for the opportunity. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:27:36] PF: That was Jessica Blotter, CEO and founder of Kind Traveler, talking about how to make a difference by changing the way we travel. If you'd like to learn more about Jessica's work, check out Kind Traveler or follow Jessica on social media. Visit our website at live happy.com and click on the podcast app. 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 Paul Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: How Humor Can Save the World With Shepherd Siegel  [INTRODUCTION] [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 374 of Live Happy Now. We know that laughter and humor feel good, but did you realize how much good they can do? I'm your host, Paula Felps, and this week I'm talking with Shepherd Siegel, a musician turned educator whose recent research has centered around the idea of play, playfulness, and humor as a driving force of change. His latest book, Tricking Power into Performing Acts of Love: How Tricksters Through History Have Changed the World, looks at the trickster archetype and the role it plays in social change. Shepherd’s here today to talk about the importance of finding fun and humor in our lives, and how to reclaim those habits as adults. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:43] PF: Shepherd, welcome to Live Happy Now.   [00:00:47] SS: Thanks very much. It's a real pleasure to be here, Paula. [00:00:48] PF: You are all about fun, and humor, which is really in short supply right now, for a lot of people. One thing that really stood out about your messaging is that you say laughter, humor and playfulness can get this world back on track. Big question, how are we going to do that? [00:01:07] SS: I've written a couple of books about this, and I do look at playfulness and play and how it connects to culture and how it connects to politics. Play is something that all animals do all the time, except humans. So, a lot of us have kind of lost – I mean, there were there are playful humans, but they stand out. They're the exception rather than the rule, and I really got into investigating the play of very young children, children under the ages of four and five, because that's when we are most like other animals and they have this intrinsic sense of playfulness, and so forth. But as my research progress, I went to this conference about play, and I met someone there, and she talked to me about the trickster archetype, and realize that the trickster archetype was this personality type that represents a more grown up person who's playful. And of course, archetypes can be semi divine, they're semi divine, but people can aspire to them. So, to get to your question, our personalities are made up of, we all have all the archetypes in us, but different ones are stronger. Like in Star Wars is all about the hero and the warrior, and when someone has a lot of that in them, we go The Force is strong with them. So, I really got into looking into tricksters, because I feel that part of what's wrong with our society today is that we're infatuated with the warrior. So, many of us believe that our problems can be solved through conflict and war and argument and just defeating our adversaries. Now, you can't kill an archetype, you can't get rid of them. You have to have them there. We've become hyperbolic about the warrior to where we're not giving the other archetypes whether it's the mother, or the true hero, or the sage or the magician. Or in the case of my research, the trickster, giving them enough play in an in enough to say. So, tricksters can really I think, be part of the magic elixir to make our society a better place. Tricksters just one to have fun. And as tricksters stumble through life, just having fun, playing tricks, just for the fun of it, eventually, they get to a place of moral discovery, and that's why I think they can kind of be a refresh and a reboot for our society, if we would listen to them more. So naturally, when you look at comedians, and people who trade in humor, and even people who make comedies in film and TV, very often the trickster force is strong with them. [00:03:51] PF: How do we use this humor in this trickster mentality to get the world back on track? [00:03:56] SS: Yeah, I mean, I can't give you an exact a blueprint. But I do believe that comedy is part of it. I can give you like a contemporary example of satire. Satire is what helps us get there. One of the things that people have really enjoyed, and they've said back to me about my book is I write about slapstick. And they go, “I never really liked slapstick. But when I read your book, I appreciated it more because slapstick of one thing that connects the playfulness of the young child to the grown up, and for another, slapstick is always pulling a prank on the ruling class and bringing the rulers down to the ground.” Charlie Chaplin famously said, if I dropped a scoop of ice cream from a third-story balcony, onto someone on the street. If I drop it on a poor person, no one's going to laugh. It's going to arouse sympathy for that person. But if I drop it on a rich person, everybody gets that and everybody laughs. So, that’s how we bring it into today's world. That's why Sacha Baron Cohen and the kinds of things that he does are so funny. So, satire is a way of kind of overturning the power structure, and I think that's part of what we have to do. So, let's start with the personal. I walk around a lot, I walk around my neighborhood a lot, and I have this little discipline, some days, I'm better than others. I say hello to five to eight strangers every day. Now, if they're wearing earbuds, it doesn't count. If they're very deliberately avoiding eye contact, doesn't count. But anyone who otherwise walks near me, I'm going to greet them. And I'm going to say hello to five to eight strangers. Now, why five to eight? Well, if you don't do it with five strangers, you're not really trying. But if you try to do more than eight, it's going to kind of bring you down, because people, at least in my town are afraid. There's too much fear in the world, and they're afraid of the human contact. So, we have to build community. And that's like the very basic building block that I do to build community, and you have to build trust. So, it starts with greeting people and getting to know the people in your neighborhood, and just say hello to folks, and maybe it leads to something. Now, what does that have to do with humor? Well, if I'm going to joke around with you, you have to trust me. Otherwise, if I tell a joke, and you don't trust me, you don't really even know whether I'm joking or not, especially the kind of humor that I trade in. And so, building trust is kind of the groundwork, it's the prerequisite, if you will, for humor, and also for community as well. That's more than a coincidence. The second thing that I think folks can do is you have to join a movement, that for your heart and your mind is making the world a better place, and where you are in contact with other people and working with them. So, it could be feeding the hungry, it could be fighting racism, it could be fighting war, it could be fighting for human rights. Set aside all the things that are taking us down right now, and look for the folks who are working to build us up and to make the world a better place. You got to do more than click on your computer, although do that, make your donations. But get out there and make a circle of friends and colleagues, and then find the joy and the humor that will inevitably come as you work with those folks. [BREAK] [00:07:33] PF: We're taking a quick break from talking with Shepherd Siegel about how humor can save the world. And we're going to bring in Casey Johnson, our lovely ecommerce marketing manager. Casey, welcome to the show. [00:07:45] CJ: Thanks for having me. [00:07:47] PF: We've been talking about a product called Organifi, that you and I are both really, really high on and I've been drinking the green Organifi, but you have really taken to the red Organifi. Tell us about that. [00:07:59] CJ: Yeah, so I really liked the Organifi red juice. It has 13 superfoods that work together. I personally really like it just because it's, it naturally boosts your energy throughout the day. What blows my mind is that it contains zero caffeine, I love to drink the Organifi red juice, typically in the mid afternoon when I start to feel a little sluggish or don't have any brain power, or even right before a workout, or if I'm going for a walk. So, all I do is I drop a scoop and a glass of water and boom, it tastes so good and that's really all it takes. [00:08:31] PF: Yeah, it gets the job done, because I love the fact that it is so nutrient dense. So, Casey, why don't you tell us how our listeners can find out more about it and get some of their own? [00:08:41] CJ: Yeah, so they can go to organific.com/livehappynow. That's organifi.com/livehappynow, and that 20% discount will be automatically applied at checkout. Or you can just go to organifi.com, and use Live Happy Now at checkout and you'll still get that 20% off. Who doesn't love that? [00:09:03] PF: All right. We love it, and what else we love is talking about humor. And so, we're going to go back, talk some more with Shepherd Siegel about how humor can save the world. [INTERVIEW CONTINUES] [00:09:14] PF: So, one of the things that you talked about earlier, it was really interesting where you talked about how you study like four-year-olds and five-year-olds, because that's where they're most playful. We do we start losing our ability to be playful, and is that something that gets taken away from us or do we give it up? Why does that happen? Why we get so serious? [00:09:35] SS: Yeah, so my mentor on this was a gentleman named Fred Donaldson, and he wrote a wonderful book about playfulness and he goes out there and he plays with dolphins he plays with wolves. He also had does forms of therapy in a way where he uses play to help young people who have been damaged or abused and help them reconnect to their lifeforce, so to speak. So, what he calls the state of playfulness that comes very naturally to all animals, and to children, say under the ages of five and four, is what we call original play. If you have children or grandchildren who are that young, you can connect with this. So, instead of always being the grown up around them, you create a safe place on the floor, and you get on the floor with that little kid, and you roll around and you wrestle. It's a very physical thing. There's no biting. There's no clutching. [00:10:32] PF: Ideally, there's no biting. [00:10:36] SS: Yeah, no biting, no clutching, no tickling, it's not sexual, obviously. But you're wrestling around, and what will happen is, little games will start to emerge. But then the games dissolve just as quickly as they emerge. So, there's no winners and losers. There's no competition involved. It's just strictly playfulness. So, this is a very physical thing and it's very refreshing, and for a lot of us, grownups, it's really hard to get into that space. I would also suggest that the artist, the person who's creating music, who's a painter, or a poet, or an actor, that they are also engaged in a cerebral analog to this stuff called original play. So, then what happens as about the ages of four, or five, or six, is the grownups start, they start putting rules around play. And they start saying, “That's really neat what you're doing Johnny, and you can keep score and you can have winners and losers.” You can go for your personal best, whatever. We can turn this into a sport activity or a game that you play. That's called cultural play. So, there's nothing wrong with cultural play. That's what we need in order to – when you go to see the doctor, you want the best doctor, you want the doctor who's competed and succeeded and achieved. When you hire any kind of professional, that's what you want. So, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with cultural play. But I am saying it's kind of gotten out of hand, and we become so enamored of winning, and playing games that we can win with the most toxic form would be this war. The sort of war, you've got politics, and a lot of the politics is so competitive, that it has overshadowed and blotted out that ability to have original play. So, I do believe in trying to bring that back. Now, I invented this third form of play. We've talked about original and cultural, this third form is called disruptive play. Disruptive play is the algebras, very simple, with you take original play, and you introduce it into the arenas of cultural play, you will create a disruption that hopefully done well, is going to kind of raise people's consciousness and make them think maybe we do take this competitive side of ourselves too seriously and we're not playful enough. [00:13:16] PF: So, what about as adults now that want to –there's a real importance in reconnecting with our playful side. But honestly, a lot of people aren't sure where to start, especially if your kids are already grown, or they're out of the house or you don't have access, you can just steal the neighbor kid. You get in trouble for that. So, how do people reintroduce play? Because it's not we don't value that as something. We say, “Okay, I need to work on my mindfulness or I need to work on this, or I need to work on my physical fitness. But we don't say I need to become more playful and here's how I'm going to do it.” [00:13:52] SS: Right. Well, I'm more of a writer. But I love working directly with people, and I haven't yet chosen to create play shops. For example, this guy talked to earlier, Fred Donaldson didn't do workshops he did play shops. He did this with a bunch of us where he set off the mats, and he kind of trained us on how to do this. I don't have the name of his organization right now and he's getting on in life, but he has enough followers that have continued to do these play shops. And then the other guys I'm interested in are these guys called he Yes Men. And the Yes Men actually also do trainings and they call it the Trickster Academy. They tell you how to pull pranks and some of these have a political edge to them. But they're guys who really believe in the playfulness of the adults, and that this can be done, so I'd encourage folks to look up the yesmen.org, I believe is what it is. [00:14:59] PF: I know if I let you go, but before we do, like for parents who say, “Alright, I want to regain my playfulness, but I also don't want my children to ever lose theirs.” How do we prevent that? Because there's got to be a way to say, as children are growing up, to help them retain that playfulness. I think there's so many great character strengths that are developed through humor and through teaching them playfulness. So, what can we do to keep our children playful instead of relinquishing that? [00:15:29] SS: I'm so glad you asked me that, because it's probably a little bit less more, what can we stop doing? [00:15:36] PF: That's usually the case, isn't it? [00:15:38] SS: Right, that when we get our kids overly scheduled, when we press them so hard to great achievement, every time you do that you're squelching their ability in their time for unstructured play. And there is this – she'd be a great person for you to have on, from New York. And what does she call it, free range children, and she even lives in New York City. When I was a kid, I get home from school, and my folks said, “Go play, see you at dinner.” It was easier in those days, I guess, to just roam the neighborhood, and have adventures and be playful. And to the extent that parents today can still do that, and I contend the world is not as dangerous, as we often think it is. It's sometimes the dangerous nasty things, if it bleeds, it leads. So, we're saturated with news media, that's always talking about these terrible things that are happening. But maybe the percentages of that are actually not much higher than they've ever been, in some cases, enough so that you can let your kid have that unstructured playtime, and ensure if that you want him to learn how to become a great musician, or a great athlete or a great scientist, there's time to do that. But it doesn't have to completely squelch that unstructured playtime that children need to have. [00:17:05] PF: Should you schedule that? I mean, that sounds like an oxymoron to schedule on structured playtime. But it seems like it would be important. [00:17:14] SS: Yeah. I think the good test would be that as the kids approach teen years, is there still part of them that wants to be playful. Dare I say that, that word is silly. To even be silly as they grow into their teen years. I think that's a really healthy thing. I think our society would just be a much more fun place to be, if we could all retain that. [00:17:40] PF: Before I let you go, what is it that you hope people start to figure out about humor and fun, as we kind of march through – as we're trying to come out of a pretty dark time? So, what do you hope that they can discover? [00:17:55] SS: Well, discover the humor. Discover the comedy. This is not the first time that we've been in dark times. If you look to the people in our in our own nation who have historically suffered not just recently, but historically suffered, and look at the comedy that they come up with. I write in the book one time, sometimes the tougher it gets, the funnier the humor, and that even if you find yourself addressing what you think is a terrible wrong, try not to take it overly seriously. It is serious and do the serious work, but laugh too. Also, Paula, I just want to say it's okay to imagine a better world, and it's okay to talk about utopia. When people talk about utopia, they're usually dismissed and kicked out of the room and they're laughed at. But I think the darker times get, the more important it is that we go ahead and have the courage to have that discussion. Okay, you're unhappy. What do you think a perfect world would look like? Whether we get there in this lifetime or not, we've got to have a North Star and that's what gives me hope. I've never stopped talking about that. [00:19:06] PF: I like that. That is a great way for us to wrap it up. Shepherd, I appreciate you spending the time with us today and teaching us a little bit more about how to have fun. [00:19:16] SS: Well, thank you so much. It's been a real pleasure to be here and I look forward to hearing more from you, Paula. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:19:24] PF: That was Shepherd Siegel, talking about how fun humor and playfulness can save the world. If you'd like to learn more about Shepherd’s work, check out one of his books or follow him on social media. Visit our website at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. Remember throughout July, we're celebrating Live Happy’s Summer of Fun Month. And as part of that, we're giving away some prize packs that include great Live Happy merchandise, the Happiness Workbook for Kids by Maureen Healy, and some very cool family friendly gifts including sunny sunglasses made just for kids and Yipes plant-based face and hand wipes. Keep those little hands and faces clean while you're out having fun this summer. Visit our website or follow us on social media to learn more and find out how to enter. 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]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Embracing the Power of Nature with Laura Allen and Courtney Crim  [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 373 of Live Happy Now. It’s summertime, and if you're listening to this indoors, it's going to make you want to step outside. I'm your host, Paul Felps, and this week I'm talking with Laura Allen and Courtney Crim about the power of connecting with nature. Laura is a Professor, and Courtney is an Associate Professor at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. Together, they developed a course called The Natural Environment and Well-Being, and they're here today to talk about why it's so important to get outside every day and what nature is doing for your mind, body, and spirit. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:40] PF: Laura and Courtney, welcome to Live Happy Now. [00:00:43] CC: Hi, thanks for having us. [00:00:45] LA: Yes, thank you. Glad to be here. [00:00:47] PF: This is such an excellent topic, and it's something that I really wanted to address. We've talked about this before, a little bit about nature and the power of getting out in it. But it's rare for us to be able to talk to people who are such experts in nature and getting outside. So before we really jump into what that does for us, can you tell me what made you decide to start studying both the power and the benefits of the natural environment? [00:01:12] LA: Well, we both teach child development, and we've noticed over the years the changes in the levels of stress, anxiety, depression, suicide, all things that are concerning in our students. So the ages of emerging adulthood, which is a new stage that most people in Western cultures go through, it's defined as ages 18 through 25. We also know that is a key window for the onset of mental disorders such as anxiety and depression and psychosis and substance abuse. The combination of those things concerned us. Plus we, Courtney and I, both have children who are emerging adults, so we saw some parallels there. Then we connected with some research. We found a book, I think it was 2017-ish, called The Nature Fix by Florence Williams, and read that, and started looking into this. There's just become more and more studies. The studies, while a lot of them are correlational, they're a lot stronger correlations. Now, we're actually even getting some causal effects that we're finding. It’s sad that you need research sometimes to know. I think we know that going outside and being in nature is good for us. But having that solid research base really convinced us that this is something that can be effective, not just for college students but for everyone. [00:02:32] PF: Yeah. It really does start from the time you’re little kids and when you're used to going outside and playing and enjoying nature. It kind of feels to me like we're getting away from that. Like I don't see – I understand safety issues and things like that. But also, I seem to see more and more kids staying inside, sitting on a screen, doing things like that. Whereas when we were kids, we couldn't wait to get outside. Is that true? [00:02:57] CC: Yes. I think we're just seeing – Well, COVID certainly didn't – [00:03:01] PF: Didn't do us any favors there. [00:03:02] CC: Yeah. It didn’t help with that, as everybody became much more comfortable being on a screen a lot of the day and being indoors most of the day. But we are seeing a shift, and we are seeing as people I think 80% of the US lives in an urban setting. As the numbers of people who live in an urban setting grow, fewer people are spending that time outside, so yes. [00:03:26] PF: That's alarming to think about. That we're not going in the right direction. [00:03:30] CC: Yeah. We’re not. [00:03:32] PF: Oh, great. So now, we've talked on the show and in the magazine about the importance of getting outside. So what has your research found? What does nature do for us physically, emotionally, all the ways? [00:03:46] CC: We're standing on the shoulders of a lot of other researchers around the world who have been looking at this for decades. Japan is one of the leaders in this and since the early ‘90s have really been putting a lot of effort into looking at what the benefits are. I think we sent you our chart. So hopefully, your listeners can see that. But we broke it up when we were trying to look at it as different areas because it does so much in so many ways. But one of the areas that the research shows a lot of benefit in is physical, and that's with your immune support. In Tokyo, at the very early onset of looking at forest bathing and forest therapy, they did this wonderful study where they put people in hotel rooms, and one of the theories that underlines why nature is good for us is the phytoncides, and that's a chemical that trees produce to protect themselves and to communicate with one another. If one of them was getting sick or ill, or if there's a parasite, they will send these chemicals out to protect themselves, as well as trees around them. So they were pumping phytoncides into these hotel rooms and they thought, “Well, maybe it's just because they're in a hotel away from their family for the weekend.” They actually did it with a comparison study. They had a control group. So they had some in a regular hotel room for the weekend. Then they had some where they were hyping in these phytoncides through the air conditioning system, and they did find a very significant difference in these certain white blood cells that our body makes, and they're called natural killer cells. In the research, you'll see them as NK cells. These white blood cells move through our body and seek out, I guess, things within your body that are not supposed to be there, a disease, specifically cancer cells from the onset, and kind of move through your body as a deterrent, as something that's proactive rather than reactive of getting your body into a better physical space. Cognitively, we see so many things. One of the theories also is attention restoration theory increases your ability to focus on a task that you may need. So that's going to help your attention, your memory, all of those things. Also, rumination falls under cognitive. It falls under a couple of these, but rumination studies show that if you're thinking over and over in your head, these negative thoughts, that's really going to contribute to depression and anxiety, which is what we're wanting to decrease. The rumination studies that we're finding are actually one of the areas where we're finding a causal link. It's not just correlational, using high tech, which we're not doing. The portable MRIs, they're able to show that there is a causal link with decreasing the rumination, which is also going to help you cognitively be able to focus on what's in front of you and what's important. [00:06:49] PF: Now, do you know why? Do you have a reason for that? Like what is it about being out in nature that changes that rumination? Because I know that's been a huge issue for a lot of people, especially as we've been isolated and locked down and then listening to the news. [00:07:03] LA: So most of the research now is focusing on the mechanisms that is trying to understand what causes all these benefits, and it's probably a synergistic effect of lots of things going on. But the theory that Courtney mentioned, the attention restoration theory, does probably one of the best jobs of discussing why rumination is decreased. So basically, what that means is in the 21st century, our frontal lobe, which is where all of our executive function and decision making is housed, is pretty much on all the time. Then you can just feel it. You just feel that mental fatigue a lot. [00:07:35] PF: We do not shut down. [00:07:37] LA: Right. We just don’t. So the theory, it's more complicated. But basically, when you go outside, it allows that frontal lobe to rest and recharge, and it replenishes that glucose that we need because nature does a lot of different things. That's one of the main reasons that they feel like you're letting yourself recharge. So that decreases your rumination. You're thinking about other things. You're not constantly focusing on all of the task at hand. [00:08:07] CC: Then socially as another area that we see a lot of benefit, there's a really great empathy study that came out of Stanford, where they went out to a forest. The other half went out to an urban area, and they had the participants look up at the trees or look up at the tall buildings. Then the researcher kind of “accidentally,” and I'm putting the quotation marks around that, dropped their box of pens. It was like, “Oh, no. I dropped my pins.” Those that have been looking at the trees for one or two minutes all stopped and helped pick up the pens. Those that were in the urban setting were just kind of like, “Oh, too bad.” [00:08:46] PF: At least I didn't steal the pens. I mean – [00:08:48] CC: I didn't. I didn’t take off with them. But we do see increased empathy out – [00:08:52] PF: That's interesting. [00:08:53] CC: Yeah, which is prosocial actions, cooperation, all of that kind of going together. Then emotional, we see a lot of good outcomes, and this is where we see this in the research that's out in the field, as well as what Laura and I do with our students quite a bit. What I love about this is that we show them how their own body reacts, but we see a decrease in tension, in anxiety, depression, confusion, hostility, fatigue, which is another one we see increases in self-esteem-related effect. Then overall mood, we use as the profile of moods survey – [00:09:33] LA: States. [00:09:34] CC: States. [00:09:34] LA: Yeah. [00:09:35] CC: Profile states. [00:09:36] LA: Sorry. [00:09:37] CC: So it's used in a lot of the literature, and we use that, again, with our students and all of our outcomes for like correlate with what we're seeing around the world. But that emotional piece is something that we're focused highly on. [00:09:48] PF: Well, let me ask you something, and this could be too off the wall. But one thing, I have a lot of friends who have had COVID. Now, they're having like brain fog, and they're having some other like lasting fatigue. I realized it's too soon to have research on it. But anecdotally, is there anything that you have seen that would say, “Okay, this could be something worth trying to offset some of those,” because I'm hearing a lot of complaints from people. [00:10:16] LA: I don't think we've actually seen a study on that. So we would be hesitant to say yes. But given what we know about the benefits of nature, I certainly don't think it would hurt, as long as someone doesn't have asthma or allergies. It’s one of those Ozone Action Days or something like that. As long as you – I certainly don't think it would hurt, and I think it very much might help. If I had that myself, I would definitely spend even more time outside. [00:10:45] PF: If nothing else, it's going to help your mood, right? It’s going to do that little pick me up. [00:10:50] LA: Yes. [00:10:51] PF: That's terrific. Now, you ladies have been studying this a lot. Is there anything that's really surprised you that as you've done this research, that was really unexpected for you to discover? [00:11:03] CC: Our findings match the research literature on the effects of the natural environment on various aspects of health. We have found that we match pretty well. One thing that was interesting is we think we're finding. We're in the stages of analyzing some data right now, but it's looking as if the impacts kind of strengthen over time with this age group. At the beginning, they're kind of like, “Oh, you want me to go sit outside. I've got a biochem exam coming up, and you want me to sit without my phone.” Then a couple weeks later, we're seeing this, “Oh, we're so glad you're making me do this. This is really something I look forward to.” Then by the end of this semester, they were very much reporting that they needed this time. [00:11:43] PF: That was excellent. [00:11:44] CC: Yeah. It’s kind of interesting. It took them a little bit of time to see the benefits, and they aren't very egocentric. They're supposed to be. That's their job at this. But seeing how it personally helped their own mood with these measures was also very telling. I had written down some of their quotes on the sit spots that I'll share with you. One of them said, “Sit spots are hard at the beginning but because they're so cool and have truly helped me manage my stress and the demands of the human world.” Another said, “I learned the most from our sit spot assignment. I learned how to take time to check in with myself and improve my well-being. I was able to lower my stress levels, improve my mood, increase my productivity after I completed my sit spot.” So it was kind of interesting to see that it took them a while [00:12:27] LA: We didn't really describe our. We teach a class in this. We started out with our interdisciplinary research team that we teach it. We were able to offer a class, and our commitment is more than 50% of the class will be outside in natural spaces. So field trips out to natural spaces, while we read the research literature. We also give students – We have them collect data on themselves and compare it to the literature so that they can see if it's really – It’s great to say somebody else is getting these effects, but what's happening to you? That’s really powerful for them to realize that, yes, it's not just somebody else somewhere else, but it's actually I'm having the same benefits for myself. [BREAK] [00:13:15] PF: So we're going to take a quick break from our talk with Laura and Courtney, and I'm going to bring in Casey Johnson, our favorite. She's our ecommerce marketing manager and always does such a great job. Casey, welcome to the show. [00:13:28] CJ: Thanks for having me. [00:13:29] PF: Now, Casey, you discovered a great product called Organifi. You brought it to me. I was already a huge fan of juicing, so I got really excited about partnering with them. Then what happened is it showed up in my house the same week I caught that little virus thing that's going around. So the timing could not have been better. I started using the Organifi green, and that has like 11 super foods and all the benefits of the leafy green veggies without the chewing, which I did not want to do right then. Then so I had like all these benefits of juicing, and all I had to do was scoop it in my glass and just stir it up. I loved it because it was organic, and it had like chlorella, spirulina, beets, tumeric. It tasted really, really good. It was a great way to get my nutrition and when I didn't feel well. But now, I've found it's a great morning drink to start my day, and it’s making sure I get my vitamins and antioxidants in. Casey, why don't you tell our listeners how they can enjoy the benefits of Organifi? [00:14:24] CJ: Sure. They can go to organifi.com/livehappynow. That's Organifi, O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I.com/livehappynow, and they'll get 20% off their first purchase. If you go to organifi/livehappynow, that code is automatically applied at checkout. Or you can just go to organifi.com and use the code Live Happy Now to get that 20% off. [00:14:51] PF: Super cool, and I totally recommend it. I hope people check it out. Now, speaking of green things, we're going to go back to Laura Allen and Courtney Crim because they're talking about the healing power of nature. [INTERVIEW RESUMED] [00:15:05] PF: You talked about where they didn't want to go outside at first, and it really struck me. We're like that too as grown adults, where it's like, “I don't want to leave my desk. I have this work to get done. I don't want to do it,” and we kind of have that same resistance. How do we get past that and get to that point? Because we don't have professors like you saying, “Hey, give me your phone and go outside.” We have bosses that say, “Sit at your desk and get your work done.” So how do people find that within themselves and do you create a schedule to go outside? Like what's a great plan to get started in doing this? [00:15:41] CC: Starting in small steps. Having like – If Laura and I are going to have a quick meeting, we can go sit outside, or we can walk somewhere on campus, kind of like a walk and talk. That's a very easy way to start. We have these great Adirondack chairs on our campus. So if I'm reading or grading, I'll just go sit outside. I have moved my standing desk to my window. So when I'm standing and working, I'm actually looking out over a green space area. [00:16:09] PF: That reminds me. Let me ask you because I have seen a lot of studies about how, say, patients in a hospital who have a window that look at a park fare better than someone who has no window or is looking at the parking lot. You talk about how just seeing nature outside our window or even in a painting, like the beautiful one over your shoulder. How does that affect us? [00:16:29] LA: Actually, there are quite a few studies that show that just looking at images of nature compared to images of built environments improves some of these things we've been talking about. Typically, it's better to be outside. But, yeah, if you can just have the images and the pictures or if you can – I know our daughters at school, they have beautiful windows in their apartments and dorms with trees outside, but they don't ever open them. I’m like, “Oh, my god.” So like when we're FaceTiming, I'm like, “Is your window open? Show me.” I'm like, “Open your blinds.” Just simple things like that. But I try to take breaks during the day. I know a lot of us are working at home sometimes and I'll just – When I kind of feel like I'm fatigued and stopping place on something, I'll just take a short walk, and I just kind of get that recharge I need to be able to do that. Plus, I don't know, I think Courtney are both very good at taking vacations intentionally that are in nature. My family just – We got back from the Rocky Mountains. We just went last week, and we went specifically for hiking and to spend time outside, so just being a little bit more intentional. Yeah, it's fun to go to New York City. But is that necessarily the best for us? [00:17:38] PF: Yeah. That's a great thing to think about as parents of where you take your children. Have you seen, I guess, kids get used to spending more time outside? Will that become more natural, no pun intended? Will it become more natural to them to be out in that environment? Or is it always going to be a struggle with the screens? [00:17:57] CC: I think it does. I think the language that we tend to use a lot is kids are naturally curious, and they're at one with nature. They thrive in that unstructured, natural environment, and we kind of tame it out of them. The more that they are in schools that keep them inside or don't have outdoor learning environments available to them, so I think keeping them focused. It becomes like typical, expected part of what their family does. If friend groups and peer groups continue to find ways to be outside. In San Antonio, we had an initiative at the 10-minute walk where every family would be able to walk to a green space within 10 minutes of their home. You may not do that with your family, but you may do it with a group of peers. So you've got that access. I think all of that's going to continue to benefit, as far as keeping children curious about nature and their green environments. [00:18:56] PF: You bring up a great point because what about urban areas? Not everyone is 10 minutes away from a green space. So what are some solutions for people? [00:19:04] LA: A number of the studies that we've found benefits are done in urban parks. So it's not that you have to go out to wilderness settings. The key is to get outside around green space, blue space that we call it. There's even a recent study that came out about people going out into the desert, and just being out in the desert was more beneficial than being in an urban context. So it's not – You do not – I mean, obviously, it's lovely to go out to the mountains or to the river or something like that, but you don't have to. The key is to get outside, just maybe eat your lunch outside under a tree in a green space. [00:19:44] PF: This is so interesting, and it's so important. It's so simple and so effective. It’s like truly all you have to do is go outside and be still, and it makes changes for you. So what is the one thing that both of you, you really want people to know about this and hope that they discover? [00:20:00] LA: I think it's a much more powerful source of wellbeing than we have understood. I think our ancestors, we evolved in natural spaces. It's only been recently. Actually, it was 2008, that the whole world lived more in urban environments than in rural environments. So what we're seeing is the effect of urbanization on us. We know that urbanization is correlated with mental health disorders. So just how easy it is, and it's much more powerful. It certainly is no substitute for seeing mental health professionals or things like that. But I think that we do not realize the impact of staying indoors and especially staying on screens as often as we do. One thing I just wanted to mention is that there's a lot of research now into the dose and exposure effect. In other words, how long do you have to do this? Like how long do you have to be outside to really get those benefits? The most recent research shows that about 120 minutes per week is a good amount, and that can be done like all at once. But it can also be done cumulatively. Like if you can't go outside for 120 minutes today, those can add up. They kind of found a sweet spot between 200 and 300 minutes a week. So after 300 minutes a week, you really didn't get any additional benefits. So just kind of – I think for us, we kind of keep that 120 minutes in our head. All of it matters and all of it helps, but I just think we need to realize that it's probably the simplest thing we're not doing to improve our wellbeing. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:21:43] PF: That was Trinity University's Lauren Allen and Courtney Crim, talking about the power of connecting with nature. If you'd like to learn more about their work or schedule a virtual group forest therapy walk, visit our website at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. Throughout July, we're celebrating Live Happy’s summer of fun month. As part of that, we're giving away some prize packs that include great Live Happy merch, The Happiness Workbook for Kids by Maureen Healy, and some other very cool family friendly gifts, including Sunny Sunglasses made just for kids, and Yipes plant-based face and hand wipes to keep those little hands and faces clean while you're outside enjoying nature with the family. Visit our website or follow us on social media to learn more and find out how to enter. 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: Your Happiest Summer Yet With Maureen Healy  [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 372 of Live Happy Now. Summer should be all about fun and happiness. So this week, we're looking at how to make this your family's happiest summer yet. I'm your host, Paula Felps, this week I'm talking with educator and children's emotional health expert, Maureen Healey. Her new book, The Happiness Workbook for Kids, looks at how to navigate the difficult times we're in and create fun, positive experiences for children. She's here today to talk about some of the things we all can do to make this summer happier and healthier for the whole family. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:39] PF: Maureen, welcome to Live Happy Now. [00:00:41] MH: Thanks for having me. [00:00:43] PF: Well, we want to have you on the show because we're kicking off a month-long summer of fun here at Live Happy. You're all about fun and happiness, so perfect fit. I wanted to talk to you because summer is, obviously, all about fun. That's why we're doing this celebration. But the past couple of years have been so tough on everyone. Why does that make it even more important for us to get really intentional about having fun, not just for our children, but for ourselves this summer? [00:01:12] MH: Well, I think you we're all in the process to differing degrees and for different reasons for bouncing back and becoming resilient. I think that that resilience is sort of the foundation for emotional health and a happier life. We all want to become happier. It's just a natural inborn urge. The more we do that, it seems like every other piece of our life goes well. [00:01:33] PF: That's very true. But it can be difficult sometimes because there are people who still feel hesitant or feel like they're just not in a space where fun is really on the books right now. What would you say to them? [00:01:46] MH: Well, I mean, I think they are correct. Life has cycles. Sometimes, we want to learn how to expand the cycles that are really joyful and fun. If we're in a challenging cycle, I mean, we don't necessarily just put a motor on it and fly through it. But we want to move through challenges as rapidly and properly as quick and easily as we can. Knowing that, whoever's listening, you have power over your thoughts, right? You have power over when you think of that. You have a feeling, and that feeling could be, “I'm learning from this. I'm moving in a better direction today.” [00:02:17] PF: Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that you talk about is positive emotional health and how that's a route of becoming happier. I love that because that's exactly what we talked about here. So can you talk about that for children? Where can parents start, and what does it mean for children to have positive emotional health? [00:02:36] MH: It's a great question. We could spend hours on that. Let's see. What can I say? Well, I wrote a book The Emotionally Healthy Child for parents. Then my recent book, The Happiness Workbook for Kids, is really for children, so they can have their own emotional ahas. Because we really want to help them early on understand their emotions and how they work and discover what they can do to express them constructively versus destructively screaming and slamming doors. We've all done it, but having to make smart choices and then like helping them figure out what direction happier is in, right? So you really can't become happier until you, on a consistent basis, know how your emotions work and what you can do with them. You have the appropriate relationship to your emotions, knowing that you're bigger than your feelings. When I work with little kids, and they say, “Oh, I’m so angry,” I say, “Did the anger feel bigger than you?” They're like, “Absolutely.” So helping them understand they're bigger than their emotions, that gives them the power of choice and what does emotional health look like. I mean, it can look different. But I guess a good way to think of it is emotional health is a skill of balance, and it's learning how to get back to your center and get back on balance. It has to do with flexibility versus rigidity. You want to be able to have that flexible thinking. Things happen in our life that are challenging. How do we get back to center and make a good choice in the next moment? So emotional health is being able to find your balance once again and having that emotional toolbox and the thoughts and the people around you that can support you and help move you in the right direction. [00:04:07] PF: I know some parents are like, “Well, how can I help my child do that? Because I'm a mess right now.” A lot of people are very off balance right now. They're still trying to deal with what's happened and the uncertainty of what's going on right now and the greater uncertainty of the future. So how can parents who don't feel like they're in a good space help their children discover that positive emotional health? [00:04:29] MH: Yeah. It's great. I mean, that's why I wrote the book The Emotionally Healthy Child or the latest one, The Happiness Workbook for Kids. The biggest feedback I get from parents is like, “Forget my kids. These are good for me,” because it's true. Emotional Health is a lifelong endeavor, right? It's not a box we check. One week we're learning forgiveness. The next week we're learning like anger management. The next week we're learning tolerance. It’s learning together as a family or as friends. That is really helpful and that it's true. Everything does begin in the family and the more that parents can learn alongside their kids. That's why I really love giving kids like an activity from my workbook and saying, “Why don't you teach that to me,” and having them be the boss. Because all of a sudden, they don't even realize that they're learning, and it puts them in a position of power, so they feel all jazzed up. So there's creative ways to work with kids so that you can learn as well. [00:05:22] PF: Oh, I really like that. Because I think everybody wants a really good summer this year. Everybody feels like we've earned it. We've put in some really rough times. We want this to be something that feels better again. For you, what's a great starting point for such a summer? [00:05:39] MH: Well, I think it's like anything in the world. Like if you're flying a plane from New York to LA, you need to know where you're going. So it's kind of like envisioning in your mind. You’re creating some sort of like playful map or something. I would say to a child, “Like what would be the most fun summer? Like what would we be doing?” Maybe you can't do everything like Disneyland in Paris, but maybe you can put some things on the list that you can do and have things to look forward to. What's exciting to me may not be exciting to you. But having things that you do together that create positive memories, that you can take photographs and put around the house, and also things that just sort of are joyful, I think, fill your happiness bucket. [00:06:21] PF: I love that because the art of planning gives you that anticipatory savoring as you have things to look forward to, and that just elevates you way before the event ever happens, no matter how big or small that event is. [00:06:36] MH: Then if you take pictures of that event, maybe go to the zoo or Safari or something local. Afterwards, you can see. You remind yourself of that event and how much fun you had. That immediately boosts your happiness mood too. [00:06:48] PF: Yeah. I've seen a lot of articles, a lot of information about people. Just leaving pictures from your vacation in your cubicle at work can improve your work day because you think you'd be like, “Oh, I wish I was there.” Which you are but you also have that instant like, oh, those great emotions that are associated with it. [00:07:06] MH: Absolutely. [00:07:07] PF: So how can parents still help children bounce back from the challenges of the past couple years because they have been under stress, and we do want to move forward? But there's a lot of processing that needs to be done, and we've had some horrible events happen in the last couple of weeks as well. So what are some tips that parents can use as they move into a lighter mood? But how can they help children process some of the grief, some of the anxiety they might be going through? [00:07:34] MH: Yeah. I don't think it's a magic wand, but I do think there are a few key ideas. One of them is if – Depending on the age of your child. But oftentimes, if it's a scary topic, whether it's a school shooting or something else that's worrying your child, talking about it relieves that stress. So talking about scary things helps lower the stress, and you're going to want to do things, like you mentioned, that lower the stress, lower the anxiety, lower the worry, lower any of the challenging emotions so that they can come back to center and feel calm and make good choices. Part of that is not putting additional stress. Not that parents are, but some parents are like, “Oh, we're going to set you up with Kumon.” Not that Kumon’s bad, but you don't want to over schedule the summer either. Do you know what I'm saying? [00:08:17] PF: Right. Yeah. [00:08:18] MH: You want to actually just play and have fun and learn new things. Maybe we garden. Maybe we learn how to cook a new meal. We do something that's more organic and joyful, and helps us remember that we actually liked each other, and this can be fun. [00:08:34] PF: Kids are different. So how do you discover what is going to make each child happier at different stages in life? Because I know, as a child, what worked for me one summer certainly didn't work the next summer, and I was very different from my sister. So how do you kind of break that down? [00:08:50] MH: It's such a great question. It’s funny because as I look at my own life and look at the kids in my life, we're always given clues, right? Like we're always saying – Allowing kids to wear many different hats. Like you said, maybe one summer it's Girl Scout camp. Maybe the next summer it’s zoo camp. Maybe the next summer it's no camp but allowing us to try different things and to also explore. I oftentimes will ask someone, “Hey, make a list of all the different things you want to do this summer,” and get their own input. Have them decide what it is that's going to “ring your bell.” Like what is that going to be really cool this summer? Is it doing Lego camp? Or is it robotics or a Maker Camp? Or is it no camp, and you want to learn how to write a book or you want to learn how to design a website or you really just want to sit in the hammock in the backyard? I mean, giving them options. But I do think certain things, exercise, being in nature, having a creative outlet, something they really love, allowing them to have that free time to do something they love is really important. [00:09:52] PF: How important is it for us to get them outside this year? Because we've been kind of cooped up for a while, but I see now, what I'm hearing from parents is the kids don't necessarily want to leave indoors now. They've got games. They've got a lot of social online things that they're addicted to and don't necessarily want to explore the outdoors. So how do we get over that? [00:10:13] MH: I think there's a two-part answer to that question. [00:10:16] PF: Multiple. [00:10:18] MH: I think one part is we have to be really careful as adults because oftentimes children and kids mimic us. I'm saying that because I'm at fault too sometimes. I want to do work or I want to watch a movie or I want to – But when I get myself out hiking, oh, I love life. I feel free. There's an ease. So really making an effort and intention, and I don't think it's about forcing kids per se. But I think it is – I'm a big person, and I believe in family meetings. Everyone should have a voice. Maybe one child just doesn't like to be outside. They like to go to the mall or like to be on the computer. But for the sake of the family, everyone gets a day, and they pick something, and we all take turns. It's important to be cooperative, and it's important to step away from the computer, especially if you have a child that has a hard time or you have a hard time unplugging. I know that our nervous system really gets amped up when we're hooked into whether it's media or online or screens. So getting away, whether it's forest bathing or whatever we want to call it and just relaxing our nervous system really does so much good for us for our physical, mental, emotional health. [00:11:28] PF: Yeah. So oftentimes when – It was funny. I was interviewing some parents yesterday, and they talk about how they have four children and say three of them will be in agreement on, “Yeah, let's go do this.” Then one is like, “No, I don't want to do it.” She said, “So they'll just go ahead and start it. Pretty soon, that fourth child comes around because he sees they're having fun. Now, all of a sudden, that FOMO kicks in. It's like, “Well, wait a minute. Maybe what I'm doing isn't as great as I thought. Let's get out there and do it.” [00:11:54] MH: That's great. [00:11:55] PF: But let's talk about some of your strategies because, obviously, you have a whole workbook full of ideas. One thing I really wanted to jump on is your creativity. You say creativity is a great way to increase happiness, and I was so glad to see that. I've got a very good friend in Cincinnati who teaches creativity for kids’ classes. One thing she said is that she sees kids coming out of the pandemic with a lower creativity level. They've been sitting in front of screens, they haven't been interacting, and she's really having to do a lot more work. So kind of a two-part question is, one, how do we get children’s creative juices flowing again? Then why is it so important to practice creativity? [00:12:40] MH: So I'm a believer that creativity – We have to be courageous to be creative because you have to be okay with failing. Because when you're creative, there are things that work out and things that don't work out, and that's okay. But you really have to be okay with not always getting it right. So that's important to nurture that not only growth mindset but that mindset of progress, not perfection. Then the idea of why is creativity important, it's important because it gives us an outlet to express our emotions. That's one. But in another sense, creativity is important because on the very mundane level, like people think they're in competition, right? But when you get to the creative level, it's like there's more than enough space for everyone. Everyone's different. Everyone's unique. Everyone has unique talents. It allows for that joyful expression of who we are. So that's important. Also, creativity, if you can trust your instincts, you can trust your creative instincts. You can become a little more intuitive. You can get good instincts. You can be in the right place at the right time. Although it's not directly scientifically tied to happiness, most people who are uber successful have learned how to have. They trust their instincts, and I think that makes them happier. [00:13:52] PF: So what are some of the things that parents can do to help nurture that creativity and bring it out in their children? [00:13:57] MH: It depends on the child. I think you can be creative in any field. So you can be creative designing your website. You can be creative in the kitchen, cooking. You can be creative sewing. You can be creative outside. Like right now, I'm doing some landscaping. I had some friends and some other kids come by, and I said, “Well, how would you design this? Like let's map it out?” So there’s – [00:14:18] PF: Oh, I like that. [00:14:19] MH: Yeah. So I'm a big believer. Like ask kids what they want to do and nurture their interests and allow them to be creative. I think sometimes, as adults, we get used to this thing should be done this way. Or this is the only way. But look at the world. Adults have gotten us into a few little hiccups here. [00:14:38] PF: Track records are not great lately. [00:14:40] MH: Right. So we really need the creative, innovative solutions from this younger generation. Not that they're going to solve all these big problems of adults right now, but they are able to come up with creative solutions if we ask them and if we give them freedom, if we allow them to – Sometimes, they'll fail. Sometimes, they'll succeed. But give them the freedom to come up with new ideas on how to do something. Even if you help them and say, “All right, let's decide. You're going to have I don't want to say a vacation day or a fun day off. We're all going to go somewhere.” Think of different options and present it to the family. Like allow them to really get excited about things they think is important. [00:15:17] PF: Yeah. I love that idea because it feels like there just hasn't been enough to get excited about lately. I think having even small things that they can really, really get excited about is going to be huge. I think what a great emotional boost that's going to be for them. [00:15:32] MH: Yeah. It doesn't have to be a grand gesture. I just saw someone. They have a butterfly exhibit. Well, that's fantastic. It can be something local. It doesn't have to be enormous. [00:15:41] PF: Right. It can be a little day at the theme park or whatever you need. Another thing that you talk about is helping others as a way to boost happiness. One, this is such a great lesson to teach children. Just everything about this aspect is fantastic. So can we talk about that? Like why is it so important to teach our children the happiness quotient of helping others? [00:16:05] MH: Yeah. It's a good question. Well, first of all, I think we're all interconnected, right? We're ultimately – If the pandemic has shown us anything, it's shown us that we're in it together. But I would say that the me, me, me self-centeredness experience that we all sort of start out with as a young person, that just brings us unhappy feelings. But when we begin to extend ourselves, helping your friend with the homework, walking the dog for mom or dad, or doing little things to bigger things, we naturally feel helpful. We feel happier. It just gives you that boost. So recognizing the we, we, we idea of like we’re in it together is really something that can help boost mood. As soon as you help someone else, you forget about your own problems. Like you forget what you were worried about, what you were anxious about. So it takes you out of that thing that's been troubling you. It can even be something small like, “Mom or dad, what can I do around the house?” It can even be – Some kids are motivated by money. I remember when I was little. This is a silly story, but my parents knew that I always needed a project. I had a lot of energy. I did. I had a lot of energy. They're like, “We’ll give you a penny for every weed you pick in the backyard.” I'm like, “All right, I'll take them all.” So you can harness what motivates someone, and they can be helpful, and they can learn, “Oh, I actually enjoyed doing that.” [00:17:26] PF: Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's a great way to do it. Then what kind of skills are you setting them up for the rest of their life? Like when they discover, “Wow, if I'm doing something that's helping others, and it makes me happier,” I think how is that going to change the trajectory of their life? [00:17:42] MH: It also allows them to realize like, “I can choose a career later in life, or I can choose something to do with my life that feels more fun, more playful, and I can actually get paid for it.” I like that idea because we do need more people who are excited and interested about their work. [00:17:58] PF: At Live Happy, we talk a lot about gratitude. So you also talk about gratitude. I was so interested that you talk about starting a child on a gratitude journal because we've only ever discussed it in terms of adulthood, and I think maybe teens. But, wow, how do you start with a child, start doing a gratitude journal, and start them thinking about gratitude from their perspective? [00:18:23] MH: Yeah. It's a great idea. I mean, we can certainly harness technology as well. Sometimes, they want to take pictures of things they're grateful for. But, I mean, I really love Martin Seligman’s three good things every night, where every night before you go to bed, you think of three good things from the day. Oftentimes, we'll get up to 10, 15, 20, and it's really awesome and really feel those. But other days, it's like, I'm like, “Okay, I got one,” and I'm like waiting and waiting. I’m like, “All right, two. I'm alive. Three, I'm healthy.” So I think it's the practice. It's those little habits that help plant the seeds, moving your mind in a more optimistic positive direction and also the idea of being grateful. It’s really feeling the feelings of gratitude, really feeling thankful, and then taking it to appreciation, which is demonstrating that gratitude. But I think with kids, it's really not just writing thank you notes and not thinking about it but feeling the feeling and saying, “Mom, I'm really thankful for this.” Or saying to your friend, “Thank you for your help, for lending me your pencil,” like really meaning it. I think those are important lessons because they are lifelong seeds that get planted. Like you said, the more grateful you are, the happier you are. It’s not about – I guess what I'm trying to say also is like kids really mimic us. So for us to do the best we can to develop a gratitude practice. It could be a journal, but it can also be something out loud, driving to school, driving and go get a cup of tea together in the car. You can say, “All right, what are we grateful for today?” “Oh, I don't want to do this.” “All right. Well, do it for me. Help me.” You know what I mean? Do it. Make it fun. [00:19:54] PF: Yeah. I was going to ask. So what if you have a child who's too young to write and that's a great age still to instill this practice in them? How would you go about that with younger kids? [00:20:05] MH: Well, I would make it really playful. Like what are the five things we can be grateful for that are purple? We can come up with – [00:20:11] PF: Oh, I love that. [00:20:12] MH: Do you know what I mean? With something that's just they can hold on to that's just silly. But they're beginning that practice. [00:20:20] PF: Then you just through the years move them into a bona fide gratitude practice. [00:20:24] MH: Yeah, and to the best of their ability. I mean, I'm not a fan of forcing things. But I do believe that when kids like start to do something, something even simple like three good things, eventually they feel like – Or even I've had parents do it like around the kitchen table. Everyone pick one nice thing or good thing they can say from the day. It starts to open up the dialog. Oh, you did that today? Oh, I did this today. Oh, you did that today. It starts to feel good. Like you have a voice in the family, and that's special too. [00:20:50 PF: Yeah. I have one friend who he and his wife started this, and now they have two young children. It's called what went well. So every night at dinner, that's what they would do, instead of – Because that dinner is a place where you sit down. It's like, “Oh, my god. You wouldn't believe what happened today.” Instead, it's like they sit down and go, “What went well today?” Each person tells what went well. He says after doing that, suddenly whatever didn't go well, unless it was really big, you kind of feel silly bringing it up. [00:21:20] MH: That's beautiful. Because I think that those are the small little low-hanging fruit practices that make a mighty difference for a child and actually for an adult too because I think if you don't have, I would say, control. But if you can't focus your mind where you want it to go, our minds are – They’re like little monkeys. They'll go anywhere. They'll go to, “What went wrong today, and this went wrong, and that went wrong, and I'm afraid of that. What if this happens?” It's like, “No, no, no, no. Let's focus on what went well.” Then your mood boosts up, and then you had the courage to handle the challenges. [00:21:50] PF: Yeah. Then also, you spend your whole day thinking about, “Okay, what am I going to say tonight?” So you are going through the day kind of looking for what is going well. [00:21:59] MH: Absolutely. [00:22:01] PF: You give so many great tips and practices in your book, and it all speaks to your point that becoming happier as a skill. Can you talk about that? How do we start looking at happiness as a skill and taking it on just as if we were going to improve any other skill in our life? [00:22:17] MH: Yeah. I guess I would say an important point that happiness isn't static. It's dynamic, right? We have days that are lemons, and we can make lemonade some days, and other days they’re just lemons. The idea of becoming happier, which would be better than before and improving our mood is a skill. So it's just like we said, with your friend who did the what went well. It’s like we can intentionally and consciously make choices on what to think, and even when things are really stinky. You can say, “Oh, well. I won't do that again.” We can learn. I remember years, decades ago. I showed up somewhere, and I had one shoe was brown, and one shoe was blue. I was like, “Oh, my goodness.” So, I mean, we all do silly things. Just focusing our mind that happier is a skill. It's a practice. Learning how to do the things that if you think of your emotional toolbox that you put in your toolbox, when you need to feel calm, you do X. You have a whole bunch of tools there to get calm. When you're feeling angry, this is what lowers your anger. When you're feeling sad, maybe you write in your journal or talk to a friend or just take a nap and wake up and feel better. You know what I mean? You do things that allow emotions to go through you and that there are no bad emotions. It's just really what you do with them. They're sort of all signposts to what's going on inside. Beginning to understand how those emotions work is really why I wrote The Happiness Workbook for Kids because it is a skill. It is. I know from my own life, you do certain practices, think certain thoughts. Allow yourself to realize that you do have the power to become happier, and then you become happier. [00:23:51] PF: That's fantastic. Can you tell us a little bit about the workbook? Because we are doing a giveaway. People can – After the interview, I'll tell them how they can go sign up to be part of the giveaway, and we'll also put it on our website. But tell us about the workbook and what it's like and what parents can expect from it. [00:24:06] MH: Great question. So I divided the workbook into three sections. The first is understanding your emotions. The second is expressing your emotions, meaning like expressing them constructively, making smart choices with them, even the tricky ones. Then the third section is becoming happier. So really, like we talked about gratitude. Lots of different practices that help you become happier. The Happiness Work for Kids is interesting because it helps children go through it and have their emotional ahas. But it's also something that parents can go through and get some ideas. The other thing that I was so excited and interested is a lot of teachers have been using it in the classroom. [00:24:45] PF: Oh, that makes sense. [00:24:46] MH: So that I love because there are certain activities, whether it's a smart choice, which I explained is it's good for you and good for others. For example, a choice for you to get your anger out is screaming, but it's not good for the whole class. So it's learning how to make smart choices. Oftentimes, parents had to help the younger kids. Like what are some smart choices at school if you feel big emotions? Or what are some foreign choices at home? Because I do believe that if you can pre-pave the path and help children identify the choices they have, they can make better choices. But sometimes, they're not thinking and they're reacting so quickly that it's just knee-jerk reactions. So it's helpful to go through the activities. The book that works with this book, I wrote before this book, was The Emotionally Healthy Child, and that's for adults. This is really the translation of that book for children. It's really how to give kids the ideas directly that can help them have those emotional ahas and realize that they're powerful co-creators. They can choose to become happier if they want, and it may take some practice like teachers and books and assistants. But I'm a big believer that nearly anyone can do it. [00:25:55] PF: It's so encouraging. I love hearing that. This is a skill that we just do not talk about enough. I love that teachers are picking this up. But I think what a great way to change the world is by teaching the children this skill of how to become happier. So thank you so much for the work you're doing, for creating this book and this path. I think a lot of us adults are going to take it because we need the ideas, and we'll use them for ourselves. But, again, thank you for coming on the show and talking about it. [00:26:24] MH: Thank you for having me. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:26:30] PF: That was Maureen Healy, talking about how to make this summer happier for your entire family. If you'd like to follow Maureen on social media or learn more about her books, visit our website at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. Throughout July, we're celebrating Live Happy’s summer of fun month. As part of that, we're giving away some prize packs that include great Live Happy merchandise, Maureen’s new book, The Happiness Workbook for Kids, and some other very cool family-friendly gifts. Visit our website or follow us on social media to learn more and find out how to enter. 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: Building Better Relationships With Eric Barker  [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 371 of Live Happy Now. This week, we're talking about relationships, and you might be surprised to find out how little we actually know about them. I'm your host, Paula Felps. This week, I'm talking with bestselling author, Eric Barker, whose newest book Plays Well with Others, takes a deep dive into friendships, marital relationships, and every other kind of relationship to explore what we're doing right, where we could improve, and how the pandemic has changed the way we look at our relationships. This is such an enlightening conversation that we all have plenty to learn from. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:40] PF: Eric, welcome to Live Happy Now. [00:00:42] EB: It's great to be here. [00:00:43] PF: It is great to have you. You have a new book out called Plays Well with Others. I just told the listeners a little bit about it in the intro. This is about relationships, but it's about all types. It's not your typical relationship book. So starters, how long has it been in the works, and where did this idea come from? [00:01:03] EB: Well, it's been in the works. It was funny because my first book was basically looking at success and all the maxims that we had around success, and then looking at the science and testing them. So I thought, hey, for my second book, I'm going to look at the maxims around relationships like love conquers all, a friend in need is a friend indeed. So I'll look at the social science, and I'll test those maxims, and I thought that'd be pretty straightforward. Well, two weeks after I closed the deal for my book, like California, where I live, locked down for the pandemic, and I realized, “Oh, geez. Relationships are going to be an even bigger issue than I thought. This isn't just an abstract investigation. People are people are going to need this.” So I felt like this was really going to be something. I've personally struggled with relationships. I'm a pretty introverted guy and I'm not – It’s never been my specialty. So I was like, “Hey, this will be good for me to research. I'll learn a lot.” Then I realized with the pandemic hitting that I wasn't going to be the only one who might need some help here. [00:02:02] PF: Yeah. The pandemic was such a game changer for many relationships. I know people who got married. I know people who got divorced. I knew people who wanted to kill their spouses and sometimes their children. It was just such a big game changer in relationships overall. So did that change how you were researching and writing the book as the pandemic evolved? [00:02:24] EB: I mean, definitely, I started thinking about – Because most relationship books are generally very love-focused, and one of the things I write about in the friendship section of the book is that friendship is so powerful. I mean, you look at the research from Nobel Prize winner, Daniel Kahneman. Friendships make us happier than any other relationship, even more so than spouses. Even in a marriage or a partnership, the friendship is actually the most powerful part of that relationship. Yet, as you kind of point to, friendships – If you're having trouble with your marriage, you go to a marriage therapist. If your child's having a problem, you go to a child therapist. If friendships having a – It’s like we don't really have a kind of, “Oh, well. It’s going to die like a pet goldfish.” You’re just not – Yeah. It’s like, “Oh, well. Too bad. Better get a new one.” It's like we don't really give them the respect they need, and yet they make us happier than anything. [00:03:18] PF: I'm so glad you bring that up because there are friendships that have ended in my life, and I'm kind of like I don't even know what happened. Because of the way our world is, it seems awkward to be like, “Hey, can we go talk about this? Can we find out what this was all about?” That you're right, we don't do it. We're just like, “Yeah, there goes another one,” and here's hoping somebody else comes along. So why do we approach that so almost cavalierly when they are so important? [00:03:46] EB: It's a great point because the real issue here is that friendship is the one major relationship that basically doesn't have any institution behind it. It doesn't have a proverbial lobbying group. Somebody doesn't stop being your boss because you stopped liking them. Someone doesn't stop being your spouse because you stopped liking them. Someone's certainly doesn't stop being your four-year-old child because you stopped liking them. But friends is 100% voluntary, and that means that the upkeep of that relationship has to be very proactive and very deliberate. If you don't talk to your spouse for two months, expect divorce papers. If you don't talk to your friends for two months, like there's no lobbying group there. That's the downside, the positive side, and this is the reason why friends make us happier than any other relationship is because it is 100% voluntary. You don't have to. Because you don't have to, that fragility of friendship means it's pure. You're only there because you like them, and they're only there because they like you. That's why it comes up not only the health data – I'm sorry, the happiness data, but also the health data. When they did a broad study of both men and women, women who are dealing with breast cancer, a spouse had zero effect on health and happiness. A number of friends correlated with recovery, men recovering from a heart attack. Spouse had zero effect. Number of friends was strongly related to whether they came back. Friends are really, really important. Sadly, they don't get enough respect. [00:05:20] PF: No. Was it difficult to find research on that? [00:05:23] EB: You don't know how much you saying that means to me. I mean, because I'm sitting there and I'm like, “Oh. A friend in need, a friend indeed. That'd be a great maxim to explore. Oh, God.” I mean, no, you totally hit the nail on the head. There is more information on love and marriage. Just each chapter had its own challenges. Like love and marriage, it was sifting through the mountains and mountains and mountains of research studies. Friendship was the exact opposite. It was like panning for gold. I mean, it was like I needed a Geiger counter, like trying to find real research, and it really hasn't been done. Again, it's reflective of that sad neglect. A friend is the relational term most used in the English language. In other words, we use the word friend more than mother, more than father, more than brother more than – The most used, and yet it gets so little respect. It's crazy. Yes, it made my life very, very hard. But luckily, I did find plenty of research. [00:06:23] PF: So basically, we're saying to researchers out there, “Here's your niche. Go figure this friendship thing out.” [00:06:29] EB: We definitely need more help here. No doubt. [00:06:32] PF: Well, so what should we be doing to improve our quality of friendships? Because clearly, we're not going to go read a book on it, unless it's yours. So what is it that we can do differently? Because, to your point, friendships are so important. [00:06:48] EB: I mean, the thing here is it was really funny. 2,000 years ago, Aristotle defined a friend as another self, which is like a very heartwarming notion. [00:06:58] PF: I like that. [00:06:59] EB: Yeah. It took science about 2,000 years to catch up. But now, over 65 studies show that it's like that's actually pretty accurate. When you test people in an MRI, when you look, when people say their friends’ names in a brain scan, the areas of self-processing in the brain light up. If I ask you, “Is this trait, this quality, is this true of you or your best friend,” it will take you longer to respond than if I say, “Is this quality true of you or a stranger?” The closer we are to someone, where close is actually very accurate, the more they blend. It's like a Venn diagram. A friend is another you. It's like they're a part of you in the brain, and that's what's really so powerful, so wonderful about friends. Because if you think about it from a Darwinian evolutionary perspective, it's like, “Hey, they don't have my genes. From a biological point of view, why should I care?” That's the fun little trick that our brain plays is we see our friends as part of us, and that leads to what do we need to do. In the book, I go down the rabbit hole on Dale Carnegie's book, How to win friends and influence people, which largely is very accurate. Social science has largely proved most of what he said is very accurate. The only one that was inaccurate was he said like to put yourself in the other person's shoes. Think from their perspective. The research actually shows we are really terrible at that. But overall, yeah, we correctly read the thoughts and feelings of strangers about 20% of the time. For friends, we hit 30%. Oh, yeah. For spouses, we only hit 35. So whatever you think is on your spouse's mind, two-thirds of the time, you're wrong. [00:08:43] PF: So we need to stand down is what you're saying. [00:08:46] EB: We need to ask. We need to stop thinking that we're mind readers because we're really bad at it. But in terms of improving friendships, most of what Dale Carnegie recommends are good for the early parts of relationships, but it's not good for those deep friendships. Creating another self, like Aristotle said, we need to focus on more costly methods. By costly, I mean time and vulnerability. We need to spend the time, and we need to really share things that might be a little bit scary to show people that they mean something to us. Those are the two big secrets to it. I can talk more about it, but those are the two big secrets. [00:09:22] PF: But do you think the quality of our friendships increased or declined during the pandemic, during the lockdowns? [00:09:29] EB: I think it inevitably declined because that issue of time is huge. [00:09:34] PF: It seems, though, it would have done the opposite. I concur with you because I've – Just from talking with people and some of my own experiences, it seemed like that would have been the perfect time for us to really nurture and deepen our friendships. [00:09:48] EB: I would love to think that was the case. I think for some people, that's probably true. I think for other people, it was a very stressful time. We had a time we had a lot of transitions. All of a sudden, a lot of people were homeschooling. All of a sudden, a lot of people were trying to adapt to work from home. I think we got busier in a lot of ways. We got scared. I think with a lot of that going on, it probably just distracted us, and I think a lot of people became much more reliant perhaps on social media or television or other things that aren't as fulfilling. I think for our closest friends, maybe. But for those more tertiary, I think they may have got lost in the mix. [00:10:31] PF: So is there a way for us to correct that? Do you offer tips on how to take those steps to deepen friendships? [00:10:38] EB: I mean, first and foremost is those key things of time and vulnerability. Notre Dame did a study of eight million phone calls and basically saw that the people who talked to each other at least every two weeks over the course of the study, I think it was a year or more, they saw those were the relationships that were more likely to persist. Also, research shows that one of the biggest arguments that people get in with their friends is over time. Making time for one another is really tricky, especially in adulthood. Especially as we get to later years, we just get more responsibility. Then the other thing is vulnerability, and here's a point where I think the pandemic can actually help us, in the sense that we've all been through some difficulty here. We've all had some real challenges. I think some people might be reluctant to discuss that. They might be reluctant to acknowledge the difficulties they've had, being afraid, being scared, being alone. I think we've all felt it. It's okay. It's safe and to mention that, to discuss it. By giving up a little bit, by showing vulnerability, we let people know that we trust them. The key to having people trust you is to first show the trust in them and to say it's a safe place. By giving somebody something that could make you look bad, that could make you look weak, you're saying, “I trust you.” You're saying that, “This is important to me.” That trust in them usually makes them trust you more. Vulnerability is critical not only for the relationship. Research has shown that, basically – Friendships go on. If there's more small talk later in the relationship, that's a negative. If we don't open up, it increases the chance of minor illnesses, it increases the chance of a first heart attack, and it increases the chance that that heart attack will be lethal. We need to have a release valve. We need to be able to share things. If you can't share the difficulties you're going through with friends, then how good a relationship is it? [00:12:36] PF: Yeah. That's really great insight, and I think people will kind of take a step and go like, “You know what? I haven't been doing that since 2020.” [00:12:45] EB: For years now. [00:12:46] PF: Yeah. Another thing that we saw, like loneliness was already epidemic before the pandemic, but it's even worse now. But you – I found your research really interesting because you're saying that lonely people actually spend as much time with others as non-lonely people. So can you talk about that, and tell us what the difference is? [00:13:08] EB: This shocked the heck out of me. [00:13:10] PF: I mean, that – I stopped. I just was like, “How? I can't be reading that right.” [00:13:15] EB: Well, I mean, what's crazy is you hear that that can't be possible. But the thing we forget is that loneliness is not the mathematical absence of a number of other people. Loneliness is a subjective feeling. Loneliness, because we have all – The great insight, wherever people go, that's impossible. The thing I mentioned is have you ever felt lonely in a crowd? We all have. I mean, hey, face-to-face contact is fantastic. I highly recommend it. Two thumbs up. But if it's just the presence of other people, then we wouldn't ever feel lonely in a crowd. But we do because loneliness isn't just the absence of other people. It is a subjective feeling. It's how you feel about your relationships. Well, when I really dove deep into the data, Fay Alberti is a historian at the University of York, and what she found is before the 19th century, loneliness barely existed. Now, again, were people alone? Yes. Did people experience solitude? Yes. But the thing was we were tied into communities. People were strongly – They were part of their religion. They were part of their nation. They're part of their tribe. They're part of their group. They were part of a team. They had an extended family. So you may have been alone, but that feeling of, “I'm a part of something. People care about me. I'm not with them right now, but they care about me,” that feeling was always there and it was – After the 19th century, the rise of individualism, which produced some very great things in many ways, but in other ways, we stopped feeling like we are part of a team, part of a tribe, part of a religion. Our brain says our brains – Loneliness is correlated with pretty much every negative health metric. [00:15:04] PF: Right. Yeah. It's worse than smoking now. [00:15:07] EB: Exactly. What's interesting, though, is, and this is quoting Vivek Murthy, the Surgeon General the United States, solitude is a positive. So, again, we get to that subjectivity. Being by yourself is not necessarily good or bad in short periods. The issue is how do you feel about your relationships. If you feel good, “Hey, I'm traveling. I’m not with my family right now. I'm not with my group right now. But I know people love and care about me,” that's more like solitude. But when you feel, even if you're close to people, “But these people don't care about me. These people don't know me. I don't matter to them,” that's loneliness, and that can happen even when people are there. [00:15:48] PF: So knowing how bad loneliness is both for our emotional and our physical health, what should we be doing differently if we are experiencing loneliness? [00:15:58] EB: That’s the interesting part is the knee-jerk response, and it's not wrong. But the knee-jerk response is, “Oh, spend more time with other people.” Hey, you could certainly do a lot worse. But what's really important there is feeling a part of something. There was some – Another really interesting piece of research I found was that if you have five friends, that's above average, five close friends, that's really good. You know what's even better? Five friends who all know each other. Same number of friends but five friends – If it's like hub and spoke where you're the center, and you're the only line connecting to each one of those friends versus a community. I have five friends, but all those five friends know each other. Now, all of a sudden, everybody's looking out for everybody. Everybody's talking to everybody. Hey, Eric. You know what? One friend says, “I'm a little worried about Eric. He's not doing so well.” The other four friends say, “Hey, you know what? They’re right. They can coordinate. They can work together.” There's more support. There's more caring. There's more thought and involvement than five separate friends. So it's one thing to say spend more time with people, which like I said, is very – It's a good idea. But it's having a feeling of community, of connection, taking those friends and introducing themselves to one another, joining a group, going to your local church or synagogue, going to any kind of a movement or organization, volunteering, doing something where you feel like you're a part of something, you're contributing to something, people would miss you, you add value, you are needed and necessary. That's a step above and beyond simply seeing other people more often. [00:17:34] PF: That is terrific advice, and I'm so glad that we talked about that. Because, again, as you noted in your lack of research that we just don't talk about it. I think those are such great guidelines for us to have to go forth and start really working on improving our friendships. [00:17:51] EB: It's really important because we don't talk about it yet. The backbone of so much of our lives is our friends, especially at the office where most likely your spouse, your kids, if you have them, are not going to be there. But we can have friendships at work, and those can be critical. People have just a handful of friends more than average at the office, report being 96% happier with their life. That's not 96% happier with their job. That’s 96% happier with their life. When you look at relationships overall, relationships overall produced a happiness equivalent of an extra $131,000 a year, which when we typically think, it's like try asking your boss for $131,000 raise and see – [00:18:38] PF: Let me know how that works out for you. [00:18:40] EB: Exactly, exactly. Yet friends accomplish that, and it's something relatively easy to do. We just need to make the time and effort. [00:18:49] PF: So we got to talk about the big relationships. That is marriage, long-term relationships. I love your cover because it boldly says that everything we know about relationships is mostly wrong. You get our attention right away. So what are we doing wrong? What's the number one thing we're doing wrong with these romantic relationships? [00:19:13] EB: Well, I mean, there's a number. I have a warning before the love and marriage section of the book because I don't want people getting angry at me, where I discuss a lot of the hard truths that some people wouldn't like to hear. But we need the facts so that we can address them. One thing that I think surprises a lot of people is that, basically, 69% of long-term issues in a relationship never get resolved. So those ongoing issues, 69% of the time, they don't get solved, and that can be very distressing to people. But I think if you look at it through another lens, it can actually be a big positive when we realize that for happy couples and unhappy couples, more than two-thirds of these things they don't get solved, and don't have to in order to have a happy partnership. What you have to do is it's more about the regulation and the resolution of conflict. That some things you're just always going to differ on and that's okay, as long as you handle it in a compassionate and thoughtful way. Some of these things, they're not going to get fixed, and they don't have to. You just have to be a little bit more polite, considerate, compassionate about how we deal with them. Because one of the biggest insights from John Gottman, who's probably – He’s really the king of marriage and love research. This is something that people can put to use immediately, and it's relatively easy to do. He found that just by listening to the first three minutes of a marital argument, he could tell you with 96% accuracy how that conversation was going to end. In other words – [00:20:52] PF: Really? [00:20:53] EB: Yes. Just the first three minutes. If it started harsh, it was going to end harsh 96% of the time. If we just take a second, calm it down, we don't have to give them both barrels immediately. [00:21:09] PF: Save some for later. [00:21:13] EB: Instead of making it an accusation and finger pointing and you, if we just dial it back a little bit, we can change that. But when it starts harsh, it's going to end harsh. Not only were those first three minutes being harsh correlated with the end being harsh. It was also correlated with divorce. It was immediately jumping on the attack. Nobody responds well to that. Nobody. It’s – [00:21:36] PF: Yeah. No one's like, “This is my favorite fighting style.” [00:21:39] EB: Exactly. I'm so glad you mentioned that so viciously. We're going to deal with this so much more effectively, now that you've called me names. [00:21:53] PF: Did you learn anything about your own relationships, while you were doing this research? Was there anything that you went, “Oh, maybe I should do that differently.”? You don't have to tell us what it was, but did it change you? [00:22:03] EB: Yeah. I mean, so much changed me. I know, personally, in terms of the friendship arena, I'm sure I've spent many years striding around like a big tough guy. I'm not good at being vulnerable, and I don't think most guys are. You look at the research in general, and women have much better friendships than men do. It’s one of the reasons why after a spouse passes, women live longer is because they still have friendships, and that's because women put in the time, and they give up the vulnerability to sustain those. For a lot of men, their wife is the center and primary source of their social life. When she's not there, they don't have anything, and it can be very hard for men to be vulnerable. I realized that there were a lot of friendships that – A lot of acquaintances that could have been deeper friendships, but I didn't open up. Or a lot of friends I may have lost because I held back and things. It’s a tough thing to navigate. But when you see the research, both in terms of duration, depth of relationship, but also what effects it has on your health, it’s like – Robin Dunbar, who was a professor at Oxford, looked at all the health data, and he basically said – He put it in a very funny way. Basically, what he said was that one year after a heart attack, what determines whether you're alive or not, and he said, “Basically, whether or not you smoke and how good your friendships are.” He's like, “Yeah, there's other stuff. It did matter. What you eat matters. Whether you exercise matters.” He's like, “But those two things are so heads and tails above everything else. Don't smoke. Have good friendships. Those are the two biggest determinants of whether you are alive a year later after a heart attack.” That's really sobering, really sobering. [00:23:50] PF: Yeah. So important. I think we just don't put enough weight into what all of these relationships are doing for us. Whether it's a friendship or a marriage relationship, it's like learning what they're doing for us is just an incredible discovery, and there's so much to take away from this book. Well, first of all, is there hope for us? Is there hope for our relationships? [00:24:14] EB: There's plenty of hope for our relationships. I feel in every arena – The book’s got four sections. I talk about judging a book by its cover. So like reading people, understanding people. The second section is a friend in need, a friend indeed. The third section is does love conquers all, love and marriage. Then the fourth is, is no man an island, the issue of loneliness and community. With all four, there's hope for us. We’re just a little out of practice because of the pandemic. We just need a little bit of insight from science, and we can all be much better, and we can be better than we were before the pandemic happened. [00:24:50] PF: That's terrific. Thank you so much for writing this book. Who knew that your timing was going to be so spectacular? I really look forward to having our listeners learn more about it. We’ll tell them about it in the show notes, how they can get a copy of it. Thank you so much for sitting down and talking about this. I've truly enjoyed this conversation. [00:25:08] EB: Oh, thank you so much. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:25:14] PF: That was Eric Barker, talking about relationships and how we can improve them. If you'd like to follow Eric on social media, learn more about his book, Plays Well with Others, or just find out more about Eric in general, visit our website at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. As a reminder, as part of Pride Month, we're offering 20% off the entire Live Happy store right now. Check out our great pride t-shirt, as well as our mental health buttons, and our Live Happy hats. Just enter the promo code LOVE IS LOVE and claim your 20% discount. 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: Making Friends With Your Anxiety With Liza Kindred  [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 365 of Live Happy Now. Not to sound like a broken record, but May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Here at Live Happy, we're using this time to take on some of the tough topics surrounding mental health. I'm your host, Paula Felps, and throughout the month we're focusing on tools for better mental health. This week, I'm talking with Liza Kindred, author of the fabulous new Calm Your Anxiety Journal. Liza is a licensed minister, Reiki practitioner, and meditation teacher whose work has been featured in publications around the world. She's here today to talk about why we're so anxious and how making friends with her anxiety can help change the way it affects us. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:46] PF: Liza, welcome to Live Happy Now. [00:00:49] LK: Hi, Paula. I'm really excited to be here. Thank you for having me. [00:00:53] PF: This is a great conversation that I'm really looking forward to because what you have done with your book, Calm Your Anxiety Journal, is mind-blowing. I have read many books on anxiety. This is hands down the best book on anxiety I’ve ever picked up. [00:01:07] LK: Oh, my gosh. [00:01:09] PF: So before we dig into what it's all about and how important this is, let's talk about you. You teach meditation and you use a lot of Buddhist principles. Can you talk about what led you down the path and how you got to where you are? [00:01:22] LK: Yeah, thanks. Like so many people I think who end up in this space, I had kind of different careers before. I worked in technology, and I worked in fashion, and then I worked in fashion technology, so wearable tech for a while. I was designing and helping people build these, well, wearable tech devices. At the same time, in my personal life, I had started studying Buddhism, going to retreats, trying to live this kind of uninterrupted life. Then at work, I was really like designing devices that actually interrupt, like they're designed to be disruptive. After a while, I was like, “This isn't adding up. I'm not living my values to be like working.” I think we can all kind of see now with a lot of the downsides are to big technology. I was just starting to feel like that's not what I want to be putting out into the world anymore. So I kind of have shifted to focusing on the things that are near and dear to my heart and have given me so much benefit, which are things like meditation and mindfulness, which stems from my Buddhist path, and also doing things like helping people with anxiety, like we're going to talk about today, and just a variety of different healing modalities. It feels like a really special way to be able to live my values and put that out in the world. So hearing you say those things, it's like it makes my heart just like sore and like, “Oh, my gosh. I'm doing it, I think. I’m putting some good into the world, so thank you.” [00:02:49] PF: You're doing so much good. How did you make that transition in a career sense? A lot of us might start applying these principles and using these practices, but it doesn't mean that we can parlay that into an actual career like you've been able to do. [00:03:03] LK: Sure. Yeah. I mean, it is difficult, but I kind of took some baby steps. I initially stepped back into focusing on mindful technology, so kind of just baby stepping a little bit out of technology, trying to bring it. I was doing keynotes around the world, talking about how to bring the principles of mindfulness and the practices of mindfulness into technology and really trying to help people to be very cognizant and thoughtful about the tech that they're building. That was a good baby step into a different zone, but I still felt like I was serving our tech overlords in a way that didn't feel right. So I’ve kind of taken another step out. But at the same time, I have not ever been a monk on the side of a mountain. I very much live in this world, in the world of tech, in the world of stressed out deadlines, anxiety. Just recently, I'm not a New Yorker anymore. So my first book about meditation called Eff This! Meditation and this book about anxiety is really meant to meet people who are like, “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.” But I'm a caregiver. I have a job. I have to do all this stuff. So how do we actually fit this stuff in in like the real world? [00:04:13] PF: Yeah. I think that's what's so amazing about it because you do show us that it can be done with this balance because I feel like sometimes books on anxiety are too academic. It's like, “Okay, that's great. But if I'm not a researcher, who's spending my life hold up studying this, how am I going to actually live this way?” [00:04:31] LK: Right. If you have to like look up what the words even mean. It’s nice to have like an academic foundation. But, yeah, how do I apply this? It's like, “Okay, I wrote all those big words, but like now I'm feeling more anxious.” Something else I found out there was like I also just – I looked at like everything out there, and there are some great books about anxiety. No offense to anyone but I haven't found any other good journals about anxiety. In fact, one of them I found, one of the practices, was like, “List all the things that make you anxious.” I'm feeling more anxious just thinking about listing. What? [00:05:04] PF: Yeah. Because like what you focus on is what is going to grow. [00:05:08] LK: Right. Right. Like this need isn't big enough. I'm already anxious. 00:05:14PF: I'm going to need another journal. So how did anxiety become such a central focus for your messaging? [00:05:20] LK: Yeah. Well, I mean, we all have it. Increasingly, a lot of the time that I'm spending with my meditation students, it's like when we're sitting down on the cushion, and we're trying to meet ourselves where we are, so often where we are is like super anxious, and it's for really good reason. Like that's something else that I really want to be able to get across to people is just how much like anxiety makes sense, looking at what's going on around us. One of my favorite quotes was – It’s almost 100 years ago. Indian philosopher and poet named Jiddu Krishnamurti said, “It’s no measure of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society.” [00:06:04] PF: That needs to be on my coffee mug. [00:06:06] LK: Yes, yes. [00:06:07] PF: That's really good. [00:06:08] LK: Isn't it? 100 years ago he said that. So I'm like, “Well, of course, we're feeling anxious and all kinds of disease and struggling with mental health. Look around us.” But yet when it comes to like my anxiety and my problems, it's like we kind of blame ourselves for not coping. But it's like, “Oh, my gosh. We're coping great compared to what's happening.” [00:06:32] PF: All things considered. Yes. Did you start this book pre-pandemic, during the pandemic, or kind of what was the – [00:06:40] LK: Totally during. Yeah. It was totally during, and I had the opportunity, I mean, during quarantine to go really, really deep into it and really try to create something. Take like the most helpful pieces, the most solid pieces of things like cognitive behavioral therapy, CBT, and ABT, and mindfulness, and really like go deep into what is actually the most helpful for anxiety in the long run. So I'm really grateful that I actually had the opportunity to do that, like spend some real time and do a real deep dive, because I feel like then the journal and all the practices in the journal and even the order that the practices go in, are very intentionally designed to make a difference in the long term. Like not just in the short term. I think there's awesome vagal system, nervous system practices we can use to help calm ourselves down in a short term, but like we got to kind of get out of the anxiety cycle for it to make last long term. [00:07:34] PF: Well, and this is so comprehensive. Like it addresses so many different aspects of how anxiety affects us and how we deal with it. How did you make sure that you were covering so many bases? Because I think that’s what was mind-blowing too. Yeah. I was like, “Man, she just really left no stone unturned here.” [00:07:52] LK: Thanks for saying that. I mean, I read all. I got very, very academic. Like I really got in there and reading these like six 800-page academic books about stuff and trying to really understand that. It does cover a lot. But I also feel like to really make changes to our anxiety, we have to kind of understand all those different things. Like we were talking just before we started recording. We were talking about how anxiety is actually biological. It's physical, and that's not like a metaphor to say it like lives in the body. But it's actually like physically resides in there. It resides in our tissues, in our nervous system and the way that our synapses are firing. So I think that's really important. [00:08:34] PF: Yeah. I think it's important to there's been a lot of studies coming out very recently that talks about intergenerational trauma. So my family has a huge history of anxiety, and there was up until this point. I think a lot of people just felt like, “Well, it's just because your mom was anxious, so you learned anxiety. So you grew up anxious.” But now, you see, it is truly like an intergenerational thing that happens as well. [00:09:00] LK: When we're born to someone who was anxious when we were gestating. We're in the womb. That affects us. That kind of stuff really does pass down. As far as what genes are turned on or turned off, and yet I still feel like so many of us still, yeah, blame ourselves or like maybe blame another person like, “It's on me,” or, “It’s on my mom,” or whatever. But it is so much more complicated than that, like you're saying. [00:09:21] PF: Would you see less shame around it? Because I know, say 20 years ago, you wouldn't walk around and say, “I'm having issues with my anxiety.” You just didn’t. You could not. [00:09:30] LK: That’s so true. That’s so true. Yeah. Yeah. [00:09:34] PF: Now, I see people being a little bit more willing to talk about it. I think that has to help with the healing of it too. [00:09:42] LK: Oh, my gosh. Yes. Like to be able to – If we're experiencing something in our body, like we're in a room or a conversation, and we're feeling anxious, to be able to say, “I feel anxious,” is the first step of in dissipating the anxiety. To stop fighting it and when we just like let it be, then we are actually do start calming ourselves down. So being able to do that in the moment or even, yeah, in the broader picture. Someone's like, “How are you?” It's like, “Oh, man. I've been anxious lately.” The response is like, “Oh, man. Me too.” [00:10:13] PF: Yeah. I don't think anyone's like, “Really? I've just been chill.” [00:10:16] LK: Yeah. Why? What's wrong? Is something wrong? Is something stressful? [00:10:21] PF: With the Calm Your Anxiety, I guess, I really want you to explain kind of the format a little bit because it's unlike most books. It's kind of like a workbook. It's kind of like a journal. It's kind of like a study guide. It takes all these different elements. It's also like having a really good friend walk you through it because the tone of it is not academic, even though it's very instructional and helpful. But you just kind of walk us through this. [00:10:47] LK: Thank you so much for saying that. I'm cherishing what you're saying. I’m so glad that that comes across. I kind of alluded to this, but anxiety is for sure something I've struggled with too. In fact, I feel like there's quite a few meditation teachers who struggle with anxiety. Not all of them feel comfortable talking about it I think because maybe that seems a little bit – It's like, “Oh, your meditation isn't working." But you can see from the book, it’s like there's eight sections. Mindfulness is one of them. So it’s like we have more to do there. But it really is about like, first and foremost, understanding what anxiety is. I feel like it's so important that people understand that, also, anxiety is something that like we're anxious about something because something went wrong in the past. We're not making it up. It might not be happening now, but anxiety always stems from a truth. So it kind of hurts my feelings sometimes to see – Not my feelings but I get a little like sad when I see people posting things like your anxiety is lying to you because it's not. Our anxiety is telling us a truth. It's just like maybe exaggerating or bringing it up at the wrong time. But understanding that I think is key. [00:12:00] PF: Yeah. Because it's kind of like a warning system that your body created to tip you off because of past trauma. [00:12:06] LK: And to keep us alive too. [00:12:08] PF: Yeah. That too. [00:12:10] LK: There’s like a lion coming. You should run. It’s like the same system. So it is giving us helpful messages, and that's part of why you can't just like shut it down because your body's like, “I need you to hear what I'm saying, or I can't go away.” So during these practices of like sitting with it and making friends with it, which is kind of where the journal goes next, is like how do we actually listen to our anxiety without like being mad at it. Or maybe we're mad at it, whatever. But if we're listening because that can actually start the physical process of our parasympathetic nervous system kicking in and us being able to actually calm down because we all know that we can't just be like, “Okay, Liza. Just relax. Just relax.” [00:12:48] PF: Stop it. [00:12:49] LK: Yeah. Calm down. It's like that doesn’t work. So we have to actually do things that will work, which is working with our bodies and working with our nervous system, which are all things that the journal covers as well. It’s like how do we make friends with that? How do we understand it? Then how do we step out of the cycle? [00:13:06] PF: What does it do when we befriend it? Because I love that, the way that that whole chapter walks you through it. It’s like then I started seeing in my head this whole little play of like your anxiety sitting down. You hate it at first, and then you're like, “Oh, it's not so bad.” That’s really what that chapter made me do. So tell us what that does when you make peace or make friends with your anxiety. [00:13:27] LK: Yeah. Or even just the beginning stages of that, like just like paying attention to what it's saying, like acknowledging, “Oh, did you have something to say?” It's like a really does – We can't actually get rid of anxiety totally. Like there's not like a cure, and that's because it is the same biologically wired system that's keeping us alive. It's like danger. It's our danger schema. It's like, “Hey, there's like something going on here. You might want to pay attention.” If it's bad, then we're like – We go into the different responses like fight, flight, freeze, fawn, collapse. But before that, we're just like, “Hey, pay attention. Hey, pay attention.” There's something going on here. So if we're able to just like, “Hey, pay attention,” if we could just like sit with it and be like, “Okay, hang on. What's going on?” By listening to it, it gives us the opportunity to then say like, “Okay, I've given my signal. I've been heard.” When we're pushing stuff away, it’s like, “Stop being anxious. Stop being anxious.” Like we're giving all this power to it. So it's kind of like, “You know what? Fine. You can sit down. Sit on the couch. What do you need? Okay, got it. I can hear you. I heard you. Got it. Thank you.” It’s like someone that loves us, like overbearing like parents that like, “Hey, be careful. Be careful.” [00:14:42] PF: I’m just trying to keep you safe. [00:14:43] LK: Yeah, yeah. Totally. It’s like that's our anxiety right there. I'm just trying to keep you safe. [00:14:51] PF: That's so good. I love what it does in your brain when you start thinking about it differently. Because then instead of when you start feeling your individual triggers kicking in and instead of being like, “Oh, crap. Here we go,” you can react differently to it. [00:15:05] LK: Yes. For me, I'm always like, “Oh, here we go again. What's wrong with me? Why is this making me anxious? No one else is anxious,” da, da, da. If we could just like stop that. In Buddhism, we call that the second arrow. So it's this idea of like we've been like hit with an arrow, and that hurts. But then when we like beat ourselves up for being hit by an arrow, that's kind of like sending a second arrow. So if we can avoid that and just not be like, “What's wrong with me? Why do I have anxiety?” If we could just be like, “What up anxiety? Okay, what do you need to say,” that creates a sense of ease, where before that it was maybe like all tension. That’s the beginning of it. That feels good. It can feel good. [00:15:44] PF: Yeah, yeah. It takes a minute I think when we’re good. [00:15:46] LK: Right, right. No guarantees. It takes a while. [00:15:51] PF: One of the things that I really liked it, anxiety isn't one size fits all because we all have our thing, but there are familiar patterns within it. So what really struck me with Calm Your Anxiety is how it personalizes each person's individual struggle with anxiety and give so many different ways to manage it. So was that designed to let each person find what works for them? Or is it do you want them to use all the things that were – How does this work? [00:16:19] LK: Yeah. In both of my books, I’m like, “Just take what works and like leave the rest, always.” It's like everything is so personal. Especially in wellness, there are so many people that are like, “I have the answer. It worked for me, so it will work for everyone.” It's like we're all so different, and we all need different things. The way we experience it is different. Where it came from is different. One of the things I was really fascinated to learn through the research of this book was the different ways that different cultures talk about anxiety. The language that they use is really different. Some cultures, and I'm sorry, I'm not remembering where right now, but in some places, the focus on anxiety is having a hot face is how it's described. In some other cultures, it's talked about like a rising wind, which I think must be like a tornado kind of. Even the way we talk about it, how we experience it, how we talk about it is all really personal. So what's going to work is personal. So I would just love for people to just try something. If it doesn't work, it's like, “Thank you, next.” There’s plenty to do. [00:17:24] PF: Yeah. That is – It’s like this little toolbox where you can just choose which one is most appealing to you and seems like most reasonable fit into your life. [00:17:35] LK: Exactly. Yeah. Because people are busy, and we have ups and downs, and highs and lows, and busy times and slow times. If people can just like work through the book as quickly or as slowly as it feels right, there is real change by the end. [00:17:51] PF: I love how you end it with a graduation certificate. [00:17:54] LK: A certificate of completion. Thanks for saying that. My publisher was like, “Well, how are they going to know if they've earned it?” I’m like, “Even if they just slipped through the book and just see it, they've already earned it. So I'm signing it already.” [00:18:08] PF: Yeah. It just gives you that – It made me smile because it's like, “What a great reminder.” If you're having an off day, if you're having a struggle with anxiety, where you can look at that and be like, “I got this because –” [00:18:19] LK: Right. I've practiced. I've got the tools. [00:18:21] PF: Yeah, absolutely. So one of the things I wanted you to explain to us is about morning meditation. Can you talk about how starting your day with a morning meditation can help us change our anxiety? [00:18:34] LK: Yeah. I mean, we all have anxiety at different times. But a lot of people do have it in the morning, waking up and just like the day starts, and we start – [00:18:44] PF: Well, and then we have to go to work. That doesn't help. [00:18:46] LK: Yes. I rush. A lot of times, I have to rush, right, which is like the worst for anxiety, rushing. So being able to take some time to like check in and see. Not try to change where we're at, but just see where we're at and just be where we're at. That's all we're really trying to do is like, “Hey, Liza.” I talk to myself a lot like, “Hey, self. Hey, me. How are you doing,” and being able to just start the day, checked in, and it was a mindful breathing and a little bit of mindfulness practice in the meditation. We're really setting the day up for success. If we can even bring an intention into it before, during, or after the practice where we can kind of come back to that throughout the day like, “Okay, I have this intention,” or, “I had this experience that I know that even if I'm not feeling calm right now, I know that calm exists, and it exists in me, and I can get back there.” It helps us to build confidence in getting back to that place. [00:19:45] PF: Yeah, definitely. How does it work to set an intention for the day? Because I know on days when I do that, there's a huge difference, and I don't know why I don't do it every day because I see the results. [00:19:56] LK: Because we're busy. [00:19:58] PF: Yeah. Talk about that. When you can set an intention, how do you do that? [00:20:03] LK: It’s almost like dropping an anchor. It's like I've seen some people, when they set intention, it’s set like pretty long sentence or a couple sentences about like, “Today, I'm going to be calm and open.” We always want to state what we want, not what we don't want. So we don't want to say like, “I won't get angry.” We're not trying to put our energy or use our words there but saying like, “I will be calm.” So really like giving it some positivity. I mean, we don't – We’re not going into like overly, “Everything is great. Everything is great.” But we’re just setting a positive intention, leaving room with a reality of what is, which is all the highs and lows. But like, “I'll meet things with calmness as best I can.” Or we can list a few things. Or for me, a lot of times, it's just a word that comes to me when I'm meditating. Sometimes, it's like the same word peace for a week or – Recently, it was clarity. I was just getting the word clarity again and again. Throughout the day, I would know if I'm starting to feel stressed out or struggle or just have a quiet moment, just coming back to that intention, whether it's clarity or it's a longer thing. It's like coming back home to yourself. [00:21:14] PF: I love how you say that. That's a beautiful thought. [00:21:16] LK: We dropped that anchor and the weather could get choppy. The boat could go around. But it's like but we can always kind of pull on that anchor and know that like, “All right, I put this here for myself.” Like, “Okay.” [00:21:28] PF: That's great. Yeah. Because we know that we can pull back to it and get there and make it through that day or just through that moment if we have to. [00:21:35] LK: Yeah. I have a lot of people tell me that they do it in the bathroom. It's like, especially at work, if we're in a busy office, just like kind of go into a stall or something and just like have a minute of like, “Okay, I'm coming back to myself, where I am.” [00:21:47] PF: Yeah. Yeah. That's so important to do, and we've been seeing a lot of material about how high our anxiety levels are, the increase in mental health problems. There was one stat that I saw a couple of weeks ago that talked about if all of the therapists practicing in the US today saw 3,000 patients a year, they would not be able to get through everyone that needs mental health assistance right now. So we look at it, and that's just overwhelming to look at that kind of a need. As we think about that, and I know that we get a lot of feedback, and people are dealing with so many different things, so what are the things that you would recommend right now to the people who are listening to where they start to reclaim better mental health? [00:22:34] LK: Yeah. Thanks for that lead in too because one of the things that that I feel like that really kind of like shocking statistics speaks to is how much more systemic help we could really use. I want every person who wants a therapist to have a therapist. Everyone should have that, and we don't. So what we're left with a lot of times are these tools, like personal tools for us to try. Tools like this journal, tools like some practices. So we kind of have to rely on ourselves in a way that we really should be able to be relying on the mental health system. [00:23:12] PF: That's a great point. Yeah. That is a really great point because not everyone has the resources to see a therapist. Even if they do, they may not be able to get in. It's – [00:23:22] LK: Yeah. It takes a while to find a good fit. Yeah. I mean, I have a therapist I love and I'm so grateful for that because that's hard to get. We all deserve good help. But I appreciate that lead into the question because I want to share some tools and some practices that people can do. I feel like it's really important that we all know that like we shouldn't have to be doing this on our own. To the extent that we can get help and support from other people, I wish that for you. Please fight for it if you can. But there are things we can also do for ourselves, and so that's where this book comes in and things like – My absolute favorite, this is the most simple thing that we can do, which is that when our exhale is longer than our inhale in our breathing, so if we’re breathing out longer than we're breathing in, that triggers the parasympathetic nervous system response and starts to calm our heart rate. It's a physical message that we send to ourselves. Calm down. It’s okay. It doesn't work to say it in our heads, but we can actually talk to our nervous system. Especially doing deep belly breathing, where if we put like one hand over our belly and when we inhale, we really try to fill our bellies up with air, and make them like big and beautiful. Then exhale slow, long and slow. A few cycles of that is one of the most powerful ways to shift the response and to start to be able to calm ourselves down in the moment. Some of the other practices that I like are like self-soothing, like just taking our fingers and gently rubbing our other arm. It's self-soothing. It feels a little bit. It can feel a little childish kind of. It's like the thing we do to soothe a child. But we're doing a bilateral movement, so we're engaged in both sides of our brain. We're coming back into our body. We'll go as fast or as slow as we feel that feels good. So we're always kind of doing it right for ourselves. It is actually self-soothing. If you're in a meeting, it's something you can do like under the table. Or like whatever. It just looks like you're kind of mindlessly using your thumb to stroke your arm or something. But these kinds of things where we can actually just really start to just break that like, “I'm freaking out,” cycle coming back to ourselves, coming back to our body, coming back to the present moment. Because anxiety, we spiral out of our body. We spiral out of the here and now. So these really simple practices can help just bring us back to the here and now. [00:25:50] PF: You have several great free resources on your site. You've got some meditations. You've got some other little goodies on. [00:25:55] LK: Heck, yeah. Thank you. Yeah. We’re building a whole resource library. We're feeling like really good about it. Most of it's free. Yeah. We have all kinds of meditations, meditation scripts, different journal prompts, things like that. One of the ones that I especially recommend for people who are interested in working with our anxiety is the body scan meditation, which we have on there for free, where we can do a shorter or a longer body scan. That can really help us to take that brief moment of coming back into our bodies and extend it out for even longer, and it can be very relaxing. [00:26:28] PF: Terrific. You have given us so much to work with, so much to help us manage our anxiety better. I'm really excited for our listeners to discover your site, all those great resources. [00:26:40] LK: Thank you. [00:26:40] PF: I hope they check out the journal. As we let you go, what's the one thing you hope everybody takes away from this talk we've had today? [00:26:49] LK: Yeah. This is it. You are complete. You're just not finished. [00:26:54] PF: Love it. [00:26:55] LK: You are whole. You have everything that you need. You are unbroken. Everything that you need already lives in. You're just kind of refining it still. You are complete, just not finished. [00:27:07] PF: I love that. Liza, thank you so much. Promise me you'll come back and talk to me again. [00:27:10] LK: I would love that. Thank you, Paula. Thank you to everyone for listening. I'm sending you the very, very best. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:27:20] PF: That was meditation guru, Liza Kindred, talking about how to make friends with our anxiety. If you'd like to learn more about Liza, follow her on social media or learn more about her new Calm Your Anxiety Journal. Visit our website at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. While you're on our site, remember you can get 20% off anything and everything in the Live Happy Store this month when you use the code SELF-LOVE 20. That's SELF-LOVE 20. 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]