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Junior football team stacking hands before a match

7 Tips for Creating Confidence in Kids

Self improvement doesn't necessarily mean we'll always win, but it does give us the opportunity to thrive. The most consistent finding in peak performance literature is the direct, positive relationship between confidence and success. Research doesn’t say success causes confidence, but it clearly tells us that outstanding performers are confident. Confidence is all about believing in ourselves. It’s having realistic faith that we can make anything happen, fulfill our dream, and reach our goal. Society teaches us we need to have successful results to become confident and it’s natural to pass that belief on to our kids and youth sport team members. But what if I said confidence can be created through an intentional process and doesn’t have to be solely based on winning the game, match, or tournament? Brain science tells us that confidence is a choice. Helping kids choose to create their confidence doesn’t guarantee they’ll always play great, but it does give them the best opportunity to perform closer to their potential (and have more fun). Apply the following seven tips for creating confidence in kids and youth sport team members: Reinforce and reward effort. Sometimes it’s easier to reinforce effort during practice than during competition when we naturally tend to focus more on outcomes, like making a goal in soccer. By creating a plan to emphasize effort during competition and reward effort after competition, you will increase levels of motivation and fun. HOW? Pre-determine regular intervals – like the end of a quarter or half-time – to check in with kids and ask them to rate their effort. Develop a system to reward effort, like a hustle award, and not just outcomes, such as stickers for making touchdowns. On the car ride home, ask younger kids if they tried their hardest and ask older kids to rate their effort on a scale of 1-10. Focus on self-improvement. One of the top three reasons kids play sports is to improve. To help kids improve, we need to create a mastery-oriented environment where they feel successful when they learn something new or experience skills improvement. A mastery-oriented environment is about “me vs. myself” rather than “me compared to others.” When kids improve skills, they also build their confidence. We can help kids accomplish both by creating optimal levels of challenge – or opportunities requiring them to stretch one level beyond their current skill or aptitude. We can model what we do after the video game industry, which gradually increases levels of challenge to keep kids engaged and builds skills and confidence in the process. HOW? Track and celebrate progression by charting and sharing important statistics in your sport. Ask kids to set up a practice activity, or game, to create their own level-up challenge. Record videos of kids swinging, throwing, shooting, etc. to show them visible skill-improvement over time. Celebrate the good and great. Emotions are like a highlighter on the brain. We best recall experiences attached to strong emotions, whether positive or negative. The more we help kids store positive memories by celebrating the good and great, the more they’ll be able to recall those positive memories the next time they need them. Keep in mind that celebrating may be visible “on the outside” in the form of a high-five or fist-bump, but it also happens “on the inside” through positive self-talk and imagery. HOW? Ask kids how they plan to celebrate the good and great. Have them show you how they plan to visibly celebrate and, for older kids, help them determine what they plan to imagine or say to themselves to help store positive memories. At the start of each practice, have team members show you how they’ll celebrate the good and great. During practice, or throughout the day, catch kids doing something right. Model and develop a growth mindset. Dr. Carol Dweck coined the phrase and wrote a book about the growth mindset, which is seen in kids who believe new skills can be developed through practice, embrace challenges as opportunities to learn, and think effort is essential. On the contrary, kids with a fixed mindset think skills are something you’re born with, avoid challenges out of fear of failure, and believe effort is something you do when you’re not good enough. Her research shows young people with a growth mindset continually outperform young people who have a fixed mindset. HOW? Be intentional about modeling the use of the phrases “YET” and “not YET.” Teach kids to use these phrases as they’re developing skills. For example: “I’m on the right track, but I’m not there YET.” “I may not be good at biking YET. But I will keep improving with practice.” Practice confident body posture. Research tells us our physiology can affect our psychology. That is, how we sit and stand, as well as our facial expressions, can trigger chemicals in our body which affect how we think and feel. For example: sitting up straight in a chair gives us more confidence in our thoughts; two minutes of power poses a day can boost feelings of confidence; and choosing to smile can help us feel happier. HOW? Have your child, or team members, create their own “power pose” – a physical position they stand in when they feel confident. Challenge them to use their power pose throughout practice or their school day. Lead an activity where kids experiment with different facial expressions. Ask them to notice how they feel. Encourage them to incorporate a facial expression into their power pose. Help team members develop and practice a confident walk. Ask them to think about a performer in their sport or activity who is confident – and then not confident – and walk around the room like they are that person. Give specific, skill-based feedback. Coaches tend to give a different type and frequency of feedback to players they perceive to have different levels of ability. When we have expectations that a young person is good or has the potential to be a high performer, we tend to give improvement focused feedback more often. On the flip side, when we believe a young person is not very good or doesn’t have potential, we give less feedback and it’s usually “good job” feedback that doesn’t help them improve. How we give feedback can contribute to a self-fulfilling prophecy where good performers get better, and poor performers don’t. HOW? Be intentional about giving specific, skill-based feedback in similar doses to each of your kids, or team members. Increase your awareness of how you give feedback by asking your spouse/significant other/coaching colleagues what they notice. Also, if you’re a coach, videotape yourself coaching in practice. At the end of a class or practice, take five minutes to get feedback from students, or team members. Ask what they learned today and what feedback you gave them that will help them improve. Listen to what they say and provide specific, skill-based feedback, if needed. Based on the day’s objectives, create a coaching/teaching cue card to carry in your pocket. Look at the card as a reminder to provide specific, skill-based feedback to each kid, or team member, regardless of their current skill level. Re-frame mistakes, or losing, as learning. There are countless stories about great performers who have failed, messed up, or lost hundreds or thousands of times. They’ve been coached, or learned on their own, that failures and setbacks are essential for growth and development. The more we can support kids as they make mistakes and help them reframe losing as learning versus losing as failing, the more they’ll persist and improve. Helping kids separate who they are from how they perform can increase their motivation and retention. HOW? Share examples of well-known athletes, artists, or musicians who “failed” before they become highly successful. For example, Hall of Famer, Michael Jordan, was cut from his high school basketball team; Thomas Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb; and Oprah Winfrey was once demoted from co-anchor to a writing and reporting position. Challenge kids to think about other sports or areas of life they’re currently good or great at. Ask them to share how good they were when they first started and what they’ve done to improve. Make the connection between effort, practice, and skill development. After every performance, tell your kids, or team members, how much you enjoyed watching them play, regardless of the outcome. Getting confidence from winning games, or hearing positive statements from others, is great when it happens. However, it’s almost always outside of our circle of control. By intentionally and consistently applying these seven tips for creating confidence, you can help your kids and youth sport team members CREATE CONFIDENCE today rather than WAIT TO GET CONFIDENCE that may never arrive. Beth Brown, Ph.D., is a life-long educator on a mission to inspire families and kids to have fun, become more active and learn life lessons through sports in her children’s book series Adventures with Divot & Swish. After picking up a basketball at age 2 and swinging her first golf club at age 8, Beth was hooked on sports. Her youth sport participation paved the way for her collegiate success as a member of the University of Oklahoma basketball and conference champion women’s golf teams.

relationships

Transcript – The ‘FUN’damentals of Connecting With Scott Novis

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: The ‘FUN’damentals of Connecting With Scott Novis [INTRODUCTION] [00:00:02] PF: Welcome to Episode 347 of Live Happy Now. If you're looking to lead a healthier life this year, it's important to make sure you're getting your recommended daily allowance of fun. And today, we're going to tell you how to do that. I'm your host, Paula Felps, and this week, I'm joined by Scott Novis, a former Disney executive and founder of Bravous, a company that helps businesses improve employee experiences through live and virtual games. He's here today to talk about how he uses fun and games to create happier workplaces, and how you can use those same ideas to deepen connections and create more fun at home. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:39] PF: Scott, welcome to Live Happy Now. [00:00:41] SN: Hey, thanks for having me. [00:00:43] PF: We are excited to have you. This is going to be a really fun conversation, but also very meaningful, because you are all about those two things, really, connection, which is meaningful, and having fun. So, as we get started, tell us a little bit about what it is that you do? [00:01:00] SN: Well, it turns out those two things are related, very strongly related. What we do is, basically we help people play together, our experiences that I've done a lot of research into, particularly for adults, is how do we form friendships? And the way I like to think of it is that we want to host an event where you could make a friend. How do you do that? And so, a lot of, particularly with the number of companies that have gone to remote work, we're seeing people feeling more disconnected than ever. So, what we do is we host fun workshops that improve your culture and help you create healthier teams. [00:01:38] PF: Oh, that's fantastic. That's such a necessary component right now, because it is getting more and more difficult to connect. And it seems really odd that we live in a time where we can connect virtually with anyone, anywhere in the world, and we have never felt so disconnected. How do you start bridging that gap? [00:01:58] SN: That's a great question. So, some of it has to go back to the fundamentals, like how do we see connection? What is it and where's this coming from? And I love this great quote about loneliness is a sadness that comes from a lack of connection. So, we talked about people feeling disconnected, it's really kind of the sadness, like feeling alone. And what we've noticed is that, particularly in the remote work environment, because it's happening in my company. We went remote, like, “Okay, that's it.” COVID hit, everybody got home, got rid of the office, we're like, “This is great.” And then it was all tasks work all the time. The problem with that is, while we were productive for a while, one of my top employees left, and the thing that hit me in the face was none of this has anything to do with me, and it was that lack of personal interaction. I thought about the offices are like engineered to cause people to bump into each other. And the key psychology term that I've learned is called unstructured conversations. It's when we share, when we get to know each other, when we feel like somebody sees us and cares about us. And when we're just busy doing task work, you don't have those opportunities. So, we started setting out like, what do adults need for that environment? How do we create that environment online? What does it look like? And it was this awesome quote, my wife gave me the other day that said, “It's not enough to belong, you need to do things together, so your belonging has meaning.” Right? [00:03:31] PF: Yeah. [00:03:31] SN: So, you're like, well, we're doing housework, but are we really like working together? Here's the big thing, is it safe to fail? [00:03:42] PF: I love this because we did have the watercooler conversations, we had ways of interacting and we had micro moments. Barbara Fredrickson, in her book, Love 2.0 talks about the value of micro moments says, just walking to the cashier, talking to the person in the parking garage, talking to your coworker, just as you pass their cubicle office, whatever it is. And we took all that away and didn't think about what a void that was leaving. [00:04:10] SN: Huge. So, that gets down to like, how do you feel in a micro moment? You can’t, so you can just be yourself. You can relax. But in a work environment where it's task oriented, it's the number one thing and all the surveys of all the companies we've worked with, I'll go through, is your work meaningful? All these other things. And it was a yes, yes, yes. We've gotten really good at those things. They go, “What happens if you make a mistake?” Boom, it's like, “Oh, that's career ending. Nobody can make a mistake.” What happens in an environment like that is you can't be vulnerable. As Brené Brown said, “Vulnerability is the past connection flows along.” So, we need to create a space where you either can't fail, or it's utterly irrelevant, which is what play is about when we play and we can be open. And there's a really interesting thing about play. If I was going to teach you a class, all the science says that you're going to adapt your behavior to my expectations because I'm the teacher and you’re the student. We all got indoctrinated to that. We all went to school, we all grew up with that. But when we play, you can only be yourself. So, when people get together in teams, all of those impressions and that armor goes away, because you're so busy playing, you forget who you're trying to impress, you're just caught up in the moment. And that creates that openness, where people can participate. And so, we really try to focus on games that are either cooperative, collaborative, or really, really try to minimize competition, because competition, and this is probably where a lot of your listener stress comes from, is, we're so focused on excellence and competition and everything else. Well, that is kryptonite to vulnerability, that is kryptonite to openness. And so, we're trying, when we create our workshops in our programs, we do things where it's like, “Hey, we got to have a safe place for you to not worry about the outcome.” That's one of the reasons like we do a lot of stuff with video games, because like, who's going to take that seriously? [00:06:07] PF: Well, this is really an exceptional approach to things because as adults, we naturally start distancing from play. It just is something we decide. We're adults now we have to get serious. And, you know, I know in the past in live happy, we've talked about the importance of play and it's really difficult for a lot of adults to grasp how important that is because we think we're supposed to be serious or we think there's this amount of time for play. Okay, now, let's get back to work. So, tell me about your approach to it and how you've developed your programs for us to interact with one another in a fun way? [00:06:45] SN: I love it. Thank you. And I think for your audience, in particular, women have particular challenges in the workplace today, because they're hit with a couple of different things about expectations of like effortless perfection. So, you have this, I can't make a mistake. Play feels fruitless, I want to be taken as a serious person that can make a difference. And then you're supposed to be perfect. Where's the stress, right? So how do we do it? So first, like one of the number one thing, if your audience takes nothing else away from this would be try to form a fun committee at your office. I've heard it called different things, love enjoys, connection committees, I try to stay away from overly corporate names something just a little silly so people don't think they have to come in with a checklist and a bunch of stuff to do. But what we do is what's embodied in that is we want to create a safe space, where developing better relationships with the people we work with is a priority. And so, when we move that to the front, now, what we're moving ourselves into, and I find this is really effective for a lot of people, especially if they have a nurturing mentality, if they're oriented to taking care of others, the fun committee becomes about how do we help our people connect? What's magic about that is the first people's needs are going to be met by that committee, or the people that most need to connect, that's who's going to volunteer, that's who's going to want to be on it. If their needs are going to be met, because now they're actually spending time not working, but getting to connect with each other. The next layer of that is there's increasing numbers of tools. I could talk about each one, but like you're seeing Zoom is starting to do this now where they've added games to the Zoom calls. How about that? To companies like us where we do a complete turnkey service with professional commentators. Because look, even executives, sorry, you can't host your own trivia. It's too stressful for you, the employees. It's like there's all these complexities of instead of it being this fun things, it becomes this weird, stilted like, “Do I really want to reveal to my boss how ignorant I am about this stuff I don't care about?” Bringing in a host, it's about creating a safe space. The term is psychological safety. We want to create a space where it's safe for you to make a mistake. And we understand that adults need permission to play. They need time. You've got to give them space to sort of gradually walk their way in, it's a progression. Because it's risky. Do you know what everybody else is saying? Other people? Am I going to be judged? How's this going to go down? What's going to happen? And so, the committee is that great step, the best things that can happen because an organization is endorsing. We care. We care about our people. And honestly, it makes business sense, because people are not loyal to companies. They're the people that work with. The people have relationships with. [00:09:36] PF: What does a fun committee consist of? How do you pick one and who's going to be on it and what do they then do? [00:09:42] SN: Great question. So, we had to do this internally. Because we realized we were losing people like what's going on and it’s all about connection, like how do we miss this? So, we started asking our employees. Step one, survey your team, and you probably don't even have to survey them to know who are the extroverts? Who are the people that just love? Like at the water cooler? Or that imaginary water cooler? They would stay on the Zoom call for 10 extra minutes to find out your kid, your dog, what did you do this weekend? When you put the call out, you're going to find somebody who's going to be a champion for this because they're craving that interaction. And then the next step is making sure it's cross department across discipline, is if you're doing it for – if you’re a giant company, it's obviously probably too much. But you know, it goes pretty far, right? So, like our fun committee is from sales and operations and finance, it's about six people cut across the whole company and their focus, and I have a monthly meeting and their agenda is planning quarterly events that will bring the staff together and get them to engage and share. And again, our goal is to create these unstructured, unplanned conversations. So, we're all doing something together. But during that time, it's not so – we’re not trying to hit the dopamine, I got to check a box, get a task done. We're trying to create that environment where there's enough space for people to chat, and people to talk. One piece of advice I strongly encourage is get everybody a camera, got to have cameras. We need to see each other's eyes. And what's so different than Zoom and why we use games, we play games. So, we have a whole host of games that you don't need to install anything on your computer. They're super trivial to play, like, what we tell our people is like your mom has to be able to play this. Right? [00:11:34] PF: That simple or? [00:11:36] SN: Yeah, that's simple, because the game isn't – both, right? Is it's got to feel inclusive, like inclusivity is like our highest value, we say yes, you can play. So, the number one answer to the question is, can I play? Yes. We thought about it, we worked on it. So, your team that's doing this, like one of their next objectives as they're sort of planning events is to start thinking about how does everybody participate, and there's huge opportunity and room for growth, but there's already games and platforms out there. Some of them are a little silly and goofy, but that's okay. The more important thing is, and this is what's different than Zoom, and Zoom, we don't know where to look, and that's a weird thing for humans, like our capacity to see our eyes like we're the only animal scholar, white to the eyes. We watch each other's eyes to know what's important to look at. We're constantly broadcasting nonverbal cues back and forth. And in Zoom, everybody's looking in different directions. [00:12:33] PF: right. Mostly, they're looking at themselves to see like, “Oh my god, can you see that?” [00:12:37] SN: Oh, for sure. And there's a whole unhealthy narcissistic thing about that – when we play a game, I now am directing your attention at an activity, especially if it's a video game, because the graphics are going to fill your screen. And now you're doing something together and you're in sync. Once you get in sync, now the conversations become more natural, they become more, “Oh, alright.” Now, I'm lucky, I work at a video game company. Everybody in my company has a Nintendo Switch. So, we can play really cool games. We can play things like Overcooked or we can play Mario Kart. We could get into these things. The way I rationalize it is, I am in a video game company, and two, do you know what it costs to fly anybody anywhere today? [00:13:25] PF: This is a much, much more affordable way of connection. [00:13:31] SN: Yeah. It's like, “Hey, let's find a way to do this.” Like our tech support supports your game console. How cool is that? If you can’t get in the game, we'll get you in the game. [00:13:40] PF: Some leaders are saying, yes, I know, we've got to do this. We've got to bring people together. But playing games. Yes, it's important, but then we're going to cut it off. It's like, I've worked with a company that does something very similar. They have a monthly meeting. And it's like that one hour is fun. It's done. And so, what about that? How do you continue that keep that kind of mindset going? Where things are yes, we're working, but it does need to be playful, and it does need to be fun and we do need to have some sort of emotional release valve. [00:14:14] SN: So yeah, it's certainly the capstone is a hosted event, right? When you're doing an event, everybody’s like, “Yeah, we're playing, it's fun, we cut it off.” What we are big believers in is habits. One of the things we do at our company and big advocates is the standing Friday coffee meeting, make it if you can. We have basically a dedicated time for people to check in with each other and we're not – work comes up, but what we're trying to do is we've human connection through our communication channels. So, for example, we're a big Slack company. Two super important channels for us are people headlines and raise a hand and I, as an owner, love the raise a hand channel, because they're not like giving me suggestions. People are reasoning and going, “I need help, something's broken.” And it takes a lot of courage, that goes company wide. It takes a lot of courage to stand up in front of every gun, “Hey, there's a problem.” And our behavior is we're going to swarm it and fix it. The person's not the problem. There's a situation that's the problem. Then the person needs help. So, that becomes another way that we support each other. And then the flip side is the headlines channel, as like somebody did an outstanding job, employees can give shout outs that go across the whole company with all these cool reactions and things people do. We're now getting a flavor, a slice of what's happening, what we used to hear in the office like, it boils down to one word, intentionality. Offices were designed and engineered to create social interaction, the watercooler, open planning, yeah, we hated tubes. But what was going on? Those were unstructured conversations that we got to know people's preferences and what they were about and what they did. And so, what we're talking about is, these are some of the tasks that the fun committee can begin to look to be intentional saying, where else can we create opportunities for awareness and connection. So, people feel like, not only they belong, but they are doing something together. The fun activity is a great one. Weekly coffee, share time, and you know, it can be 15 to 20 minutes, it doesn't have to be a lot of time. It's that water cooler time, you can call your water cooler meeting, “Hey, we're having a water cooler meeting show up.” And I really encourage leaders make the time, because there's so much you can't hear through headphones. I mean, just through the work grind, through the meetings, meetings, meetings, meetings, like sometimes you just want to sit back and eavesdrop and listen to people talk to each other, how often do you actually get to hear people talk to each other anymore? [00:16:48] PF: Because when you are working remotely, it does feel like you're just checking off like, “Okay, I just got to get through my to-do list.” And you don't have that natural break in activity and little shift in your mindset that we received when we were working in an office. [00:17:03] SN: And here's the real risk, we're in the middle of the great resignation, is companies are now converting their entire work staff to Fiverr and Upwork employees. Because if I really spend no time with anybody else, and all I'm doing is task work, then I'm happy to do that task for a little more money and slightly better benefits somewhere else. I literally saw that play out is after we had kind of gone through this process and really work through it. Somebody came after our marketing director, super awesome. We'd love him, didn't want to believe. And it came down to the people, is like the team he had built and the connections he had, he just couldn't imagine doing that at the other company and he decided to stay with us. And that was just like, it was such a huge, like vote of confidence and everybody, was a lift for everybody like, wow, we we really do like each other like we really do get along, we really do believe in what we're doing. And how do you put a dollar value on that? I know what it cost me to lose that person in terms of salary and everything else. And if you took just that budget, go pick one of your key people and delete them. There's your budget, what are you going to spend to make sure that doesn't happen? I know that that's easy to say for me, because I can make a decision like that. But a really small level, one of the things that anyone can do, anyone can do is I think make the suggestion, form a fun committee. Do it on our own time, we're happy to do it during lunchtime, and think of other ways to create these channels for people to interact. Especially if you can have events where you get people doing activities and fun things even if they're not fun together. Sometimes even a bad experience could be like, “Hey, we talked about it. Don't do that. That was a dumb game.” We played some awful games. We have sampled a lot of stuff and there are somethings where – [00:18:56] PF: This isn’t working. [00:18:57] SN: They’re like, “What? What were they thinking? They’ve just stolen all of our life, we can’t get it back.” That's one of the resources we love to make available to your office is what's available out there and what they can do, and a playbook for forming the fun committee. [00:19:11] PF: So, I love what you say about like anyone could do it. Because not everyone who listens has a company or is in a position to be like, passing down, here's what we're going to do. So how do you do a grassroots fun committee? How can you start that, whether you're working remotely or working face to face right now? [00:19:28] SN: So, I have to speculate a little bit because in my company, actually, here's what happened. They brought it to me. Right? They're like, we need a fun committee. So, after that first experience for somebody left that felt totally disconnected, and we were all like looking at each other, it was one of my rank and file employees came and said we need a fun committee. We were in a video game business so they were like, “Yeah, fun of course.” We can't be in the fun business and not know what fun is. That would really hypocritical. But we ended up there. It's easy to get there for all the reasons you pointed out. So, bringing a proposal, so I'm an owner, this cost me nothing. It addresses a core concern in the business and the people that are really most affected by it are the people that want to be on this committee and do something about it. That was an easy, “Yes.” Sure, there's times where we've done a lot of things that we're afraid, there's times that come and ask for a budget, but it's always been, I go back to my rule of thumb, what would it cost me to fly one of my employees from Virginia, Kansas City, or Minneapolis to Phoenix for a face to face meeting? Okay, if I use that budget, I can engage my entire team, in a fun activity, done. Why is it so easy to buy plane tickets? We’ll buy plane tickets all day long, maybe it's because it's an expense category. But what about, hey, I'm going to use that expense to create connection. And the part I think some leaders struggle with, and maybe it's because this would be the biggest advice I give to the fun committee, because they did it for me, is the leader doesn't have to do anything, they just have to show up. So, that's where having somebody else has somebody else, why do we hire outside facilitators, it's really hard to be on the team and manage the team. And so, when you do these fun events, is you want to factor that in, is putting the burden on a team member to lead everybody, you can do it. But if you can find somebody outside the organization to do it, it pays bonuses, because people can just relax. They can just kick back and enjoy themselves. [00:21:33] PF: That's awesome. We know that play and fun is good for you. Can you address that a little bit? What does it do for us emotionally, and with our productivity? [00:21:43] SN: So, what I know about play is that it triggers internal motivation. So, we call intrinsic, not extrinsic. Dan Pink wrote a great book on it called Drive if you want to know more. But what play really allows us to do and it turns out, there's actual neural circuitry in our heads to facilitate play. So, this evolved for a very important reason. Play is the system where we find the boundaries of our capability. It really boils down to something Amy Edmondson talked about called impression management, is it's a natural outcome. We want to know what to do, we want to know how to do it. So, what happens when uncertainty hits us, and time pressure? We may not know what to do, and we may not be able to do it, but we clam up and we just get stiff, we choke. Play takes that pressure off and allows us to experiment and explore it. That's actually the space for most creativity flows from it. So, play lets us find the edge, lets us find the boundaries. Play lets us go would it be dumb if – well, let's try it. Where you get in that space is when you get back to play, it really engages that little thing in the back of your head that gets you all stressed out. Because well wait a minute, relax. There's nothing at stake here. Once we're in that relaxed space, our cognitive capacity shoots through the roof along with that our creative ability. We're able to think laterally. There are two types of intelligence and they're orthogonal. They're not related to each other. Linear, this is your classic school fix test. I think Ken Robbins talked about. There's one answer, it's in the back of the book. That's your linear intelligence. But in today's work environment where things change constantly, we need opening or that like, what else could this be? Where else could we go? There's not one answer, there's many answers. Play is the door we walk through to open up into our more divergent, as opposed to convergent intelligence. We're suffering from too much convergent intelligence is that we get tied in a little box, we can't get out of it and stressful. We go into play, we can diverge, and try lots of different things, and that carries over into the work we do. [00:24:08] PF: And this has so many great benefits for us, it helps our work. But it seems like this is something we could also use to bring our friends and family together. Like we could apply this same kind of mentality to connect with our loved ones that we're not seeing. So, how can we translate that into our personal space? [00:24:28] SN: Oh, 100%. I would tell you that what we found and it seems so silly, but it's real. Planning events is hard. And it sounds like, “Oh, we'll just get together.” But what you can do is take the leadership. So, one of the bonuses for like a fun committee is once you start researching what tools are out there to bring people together that do things together, you can take them home because they're not expensive. Some of them are free. And planning a call, setting up a call, and saying we're going to play a game together, we're going to do this together, we're going to structure something we can all share in, I think the big thing that is isn't obvious. Adults actually need permission to play and they get it from their peers. So, one of the other things that you can do is if you can make it safe for me to play, then I can make it safe for you to play. Setting that up being the host and leading that, my experience is people really appreciate it. It makes a huge difference for them and it creates the connections we're creating. [00:25:33] PF: This is terrific. I'm really excited that you're doing this. This is something that we can share with our listeners, I know that you're giving us a download to help them create a fun committee and understand how to do that. Scott as we wrap up, what do you wish for each person out there listening? [00:25:50] SN: The one thought I'd really like to leave your audience with is, you can make a difference, because you care about the people you work with. You can make a difference because you understand how important it is for people to play and get to know each other. You can make a difference because it only takes one person to stand up and be brave, you can make a difference. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:26:20] PF: That was Scott Novis talking about how to improve your life by adding fun and games to the mix. If you'd like to learn more about Scott, download a free fun committee toolkit or follow him on social media. Just visit our website at livehappy.com and click on the podcast link. A reminder, we still have some great deals on our exclusive Live Happy merch. Through January 14, you can visit the Live Happy store and get 20% off everything in the store. Just enter the code happy2022. 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]

relationships

Transcript – Creating a Pandemic of Love With Shelly Tygielski

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Creating a Pandemic of Love With Shelly Tygielski [INTRODUCTION] [00:00:03] PF: Welcome to Episode 344 of Live Happy Now. When the pandemic began last year, traditional ways of volunteering and helping others completely disappeared. But today's guest found a way to bring people together by creating a pandemic of her own. I'm your host, Paula Felps. And this week, I'm joined by Shelly Tygielski, a meditation teacher and mom, who started a movement from her kitchen table in March of 2020. As she read through her messages and emails about the ways people were being affected by COVID-19, she saw people filled with fears of losing their jobs, not having enough food, and not being able to pay their bills. But she also saw many people who wanted to help, and she came up with a plan to connect the people who need help with the people who were able to give help. Her efforts went viral, kicking off what became known as Pandemic of Love, a global grassroots mutual aid organization. By March of 2021, Pandemic of Love had matched more than 1.5 million people and had allowed donors to directly give $54 million to those in need. Shelly is here today to talk about how this movement caught fire, how it changed the lives of those who were able to help each other, how it's still thriving today, and how you can be a part of it. [INTERVIEW] [00:01:24] PF: Shelly, welcome to Live Happy Now. [00:01:26] ST: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so happy to be here today. [00:01:29] PF: Well, we have so much to talk about, because you got two big things that I’m really excited about. And so I wondered if, first, we can talk about Pandemic of Love. [00:01:40] ST: Okay. [00:01:41] PF: All right. Well, this is something that is so incredible. People say that 2020 was such a horrible year. And you really found a way to make something beautiful come out of it. So can you explain to us what pandemic of love is? [00:01:54] ST: Sure. So Pandemic of Love, in its simplest iteration, is a mutual aid community. It happens to be global in nature. And what mutual aid is, is it's basically a way for individuals within a community, whether it's a small community or a large one, to transact, and provide access and information to other individuals within that community so that people who are in need can have that need met by somebody who has that piece of the puzzle that they need, so to speak. And people who have excess are able to find people that they can give to. So it really creates this beautiful redistribution of wealth. And we see this in nature all the time, in natural ecosystems, whether it's in a rainforest, or coral reef system, etc., how there's the symbiotic relationships. And for some reason, humans, we used to do that really well when we had that clan mentality, when we were nomadic, when we sort of really communed with nature. But as we became more and more industrialized, as we moved to the suburbs, as we move to the cities, as we became technological creatures, we sort of started getting away from this reliance on one another. So mutual aid really is a fantastic way to get back to the basics, the reality that humans need each other. That we need each other to survive, and we always have. But that, really, in this age of our discussions around self-care, that human beings need something. They need to lean on each other in order to thrive, not just survive. So that's really the framing of it. [00:03:42] PF: Can you explain what it is and how it's set up? [00:03:45] ST: Yeah. So it's simple. There're two forms, if you go to the website, which is pandemicoflove.com. And there's two simple forms, give help, get help. That's it. It's that simple. So if you're in a position, if you're a person that is in a position to fill somebody's gas tank this month, or buy groceries for a week for a family of four, or make sure that somebody doesn't lose their heat this winter. If you're in that kind of a position where you have enough, or a little bit more than enough, and you're able to give, you click on the give help form. And we connect you to somebody that's most likely within your community, sometimes within your state. And if there's no micro community within your geographic area, then it might be somebody that's out of state. But basically, we connect you to somebody that has that very specific need that you've identified that you have the capacity to fill. And the beautiful part about Pandemic of Love is that there's no sort of middleman. In other words, our volunteers are over 4000 volunteers, don't connect you or take the funds and then distribute it to the person in need. But rather, we connect the individual in need and the individual that is willing to help them directly. So they have to have a conversation. They have to have a human connection. And I think that is really what resonated with a lot of people during the pandemic, especially when this organization started, because so many people, of course, wanted to be able to help. But the traditional ways of being able to volunteer were not available to us. And people just didn't know how they could help. But also, it was a time of disconnection. So the fact that we were able to connect people did really more than just pay people's bills. It helped to create friendships and reduce loneliness, and really allow a person who may have not been as affected by the socioeconomic impacts of the pandemic, walk a mile in somebody else's shoes that may be living just a few blocks from where they are, and really understand sort of the plight of many Americans and many people all over the world who are just really struggling to survive on a day to day basis. [00:05:58] PF: So how did you set it up and get it rolling? Because there were so many obstacles during that time. As you said, we weren't able to do the traditional methods of just going out and doing things. So how did you get this whole ball rolling? [00:06:14] ST: Well, I didn't overthink it. And that's really the key here. I think a lot of times we overthink things and prevent ourselves from actually ever launching or doing anything. I basically just looked to the people in my community. I didn't set out to say like, “Hey, I'm going to build this giant mutual aid community that's global. And we're going to do this.” No. I basically said, “Look, I know that there are people within my local community that have needs. And I know that there are people who have more than enough.” And so I really just want to connect the two of them. How can I do that most efficiently and not get in the way? And I thought, “Okay, I'll just create two simple Google Forms, which is what I did. And the forms, again, were give help and get help. And they just had very simple questions. And as the forum started to come in, I started to recruit volunteers, people who had extra time to give, to help to connect people, to read through the forms of the people in need and connect them in a very respectful manner to people who were able to fill that need, and make sure that that transaction took place. And what happened was, is that once I posted those two links, those two links went pun intended, but they went viral. And they went all around the world and came back. And people like Maria Shriver, and people like Kristen Bell, and just a lot of different influencers began to repost the links. And before I knew it, something that I had just started for the local community became a movement, a movement that is now in 280 communities around 16 countries, and that has connected over 2 million people, and that has transacted over $16 million amongst those people directly, which is pretty amazing. [00:08:00] PF: That’s incredible. [00:08:01] ST: Yeah. [00:08:02] PF: Why do you think it caught on so well? [00:08:05] ST: I definitely think timing was one part of it. I think the fact that I started this on March 14th, while people were still sort of scrambling to figure out like, “What is this? And how long is this going to happen? Are we going to be in lockdown for a week?” I was already in that mode of like organizing and mobilizing, because I had done it so many times before, post-natural disasters for my own community as a community organizer, after mass shootings, and so forth. So I already had sort of those tools in my toolbox. And so I think timing was a really big part of it. The fact that we were, if you will, first to market was huge. And I think that because it was like organized well. I think that my 20 plus years in the corporate world certainly did me some favors in terms of helping me figure out how to organize data, and efficiently connect people, and manage processes, and scale things, right? So that was certainly very helpful as well. [00:09:05] PF: Now, I know that you have a lot of stories from people who benefited from receiving. What about the people who were giving? What did it do to the people who are able to offer something during a time when we really needed to connect with one another? [00:09:21] ST: Well, I think it gives you a certain measure of gratitude and a reality check. Because I think so many of us spend most of our lives living in a bubble. We really get to this point where we want to just create a life of comfort for ourselves. And I don't mean necessarily comfort like in riches. But I mean, we just want to avoid, as human beings, as much discomfort as possible, right? And so we don't make the effort to say go into places that we may feel are not for us, or are beneath us, if you will, or that we wouldn't be welcome. Or we tell ourselves these narratives and these like stories about why we wouldn't want to have a difficult conversation with somebody or probe the neighboring community and understand like what is really going on there and how can we change the systems or effectuate change in those communities. And so I think that it gave people a lens into what other people's lives are really like, other people's lives that are in their ZIP code. And I think for many people, it was an eye opener. It was really just a shift. An opportunity to shift and to lean into the fact that, “Yes, I'm lucky. Yes, I should have an immense amount of gratitude. But also, I really need to be more aware about what is happening in my own community, and how I can actually, yes, effect change, and make the difference in the life of even one person.” And that is enough. If we all just did that every single day, we made a difference in the lives of just one person a day. The toll of that is huge. [00:11:06] PF: Yeah. What an incredible ripple effect it can have. And speaking of ripple effects, did you anticipate that it would still be going on this later? And that it's going to continue to go on? [00:11:18] ST: Yeah. Well, because I think that the way that we designed it was that we wanted to make sure that there are community leaders and that people are really building community. Like they're building connections with each other and creating true safety nets that can be long lasting. Typically speaking, mutual aid organizations tend to rise up like after natural disasters, and after like pandemics, obviously, but after like something harrowing happens within a community and then they sort of fizzle away. And the idea that we could possibly always have this notion and this beautiful system for giving and receiving without the stigma of feeling like we're lacking, or that we aren't enough, or that we have issues with asking for help, which are all associated with the culture that we live in. If we can kind of build that safety net within our own micro-communities, then yes, it could be something that is sustainable. So it has surprised me in a way that it went on this long. But I also recognize that people were finally receiving something and enabled to give something in a way that they weren't ever able to do it before with just the traditional structures that have been put in place for giving, like nonprofit organizations, or religious organizations, etc. [00:12:41] PF: And I know for myself, my giving shifted with the pandemic, because I really did feel that sense of I want to help people in my own backyard. I know on a level there's always been that need there. But this really magnified it for me. And so how has it changed entire communities for people to do that instead of maybe – Well, maybe they're still sending money to overseas or other causes that they support, but to really look at what's going on in their own community and realize how great the need is. How has that changed things? [00:13:14] ST: Well, there's a beautiful Buddhist proverb that says, “Tend to the area of the garden that you can reach.” [00:13:19] PF: Oh, I love that. [00:13:21] ST: And really, I think that's where it hits home for most people. They realize, “I'm so busy tending to gardens that are not even within my vicinity, and that I'm so busy also looking at what other people are doing in their own gardens, instead of looking at my own wilting garden. And if I could focus on making sure that the people within my ripples within my circles of influence are okay, that they have enough, that they have their needs met, that they are not struggling to survive, then everybody within my circle of influence can have the opportunity to thrive. [00:14:02] PF: That's such a fantastic mindset to adopt. And so where is it now? Where's Pandemic of Love at? And what are you seeing for the future? [00:14:11] ST: So Pandemic of Love is we have an incredible advisory board. We are still very active, as I said, in micro-communities around the world. And kind of where we're shifting on a macro level is we want to be just the experts, if you will, or the go-to for people about mutual aid. So what we're working on is creating these templates that are replicable and exportable, and sort of mutual aid in a box if you will, so that people could just come to our website and download very simple instructions and best practices and then be plugged into communities that can continue to share best practices, etc. And essentially just continue to build out what the mutual aid structure could look like if it existed in all of our communities. And if it was formalized, if it was institutionalized even within municipalities. Like just like we have a city hall, and a fire department, and a library. Wouldn't it be wonderful for every single community to also have a formalized or institutionalized mutual aid community in a way for people to be able to just give? [00:15:26] PF: That's terrific and a wonderful vision you have. That's so impressive that you're able to just unfold all this and let us walk into it and help one another. [00:15:34] ST: I mean, it's a collective vision, really. It really has been like this beautiful building block process. Again, it started with just the proverbial throwing a pebble in the water and seeing what kind of a ripple it can generate and the contribution of so many other pebbles that have been thrown into the water at the same time. So that's the beautiful part about this, is that we've been learning how to fly the plane as we're building it. [00:16:03] PF: And you're flying it very beautifully, and building it so well. So I know, yeah, we will put a landing page on this and let people know how they can participate and take them directly to your site so that they can do more with it. [00:16:16] ST: Thank you so much. I appreciate that. [OUTRO] [00:16:21] PF: That was Shelly Tygielski, talking about the movement she launched called Pandemic of Law. Next week, we're going beyond the Pandemic of Love movement and talking to Shelly about her new book, Sit Down to Rise Up: How Radical Self-Care Can Change the Community. If you'd like to learn more about Shelly, be part of Pandemic of Love, or follow her on social media. Visit our website at live happy.com and click on the podcast link. And if you still have some holiday shopping to do, we've got you covered. Visit our store at livehappy.com and check out our new Live Happy beanies and hoodies so you can give the gift of happiness to everyone on your list. We offer free shipping on orders of $75. And if you use the code LIVEHAPPYNOW, we’ll give you 10% off your entire order. That's 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]

relationships

Transcript – Harnessing the Power of Your Breath With Josh Trent

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Harnessing the Power of Your Breath With Josh Trent [INTRODUCTION] [00:00:02] PF: Welcome to Episode 343 of Live Happy Now. No matter where you are right now, we're all doing the same thing, breathing. And this week, we're going to teach you how to do it better. I'm your host, Paula Felps, and this week, I'm joined by Josh Trent, the founder of Wellness Force Media, host of the Wellness Force podcast, and creator of the BREATHE: Breath & Wellness Program. Josh has spent the past 19 years as a trainer, researcher and facilitator, discovering the physical and emotional intelligence we need to thrive in today's modern world. He's here with me to talk about how our breath affects our physical and mental well-being, and offer timely tips for using your breath to get through a hectic holiday season. Josh, welcome to Live Happy Now. [00:00:48] JT: Thank you for having me, Paula. [00:00:51] PF: We are talking about something that we think we all know about, which is breathing. But even though it's something we do from the time that we're born, I was surprised as an adult to find out how little I actually knew about breathing. So before we dive in and get our master class from you in and breath work, can you explain what it is? [00:01:12] JT: So breathing is a lot like meditation. But the difference between breathing and meditation is breath, work and breathing, it's this skill that you cultivate over time. But unlike meditation, really what breathwork is, is, it's an active form of clearing your mind and centering your body that is going to produce immediate feedback. And this is the key differentiator. So this is what lets go of stress and to calm the monkey mind is really important to literally change the way that your body responds or reacts to stress coming in. I like to say that breath work is the only autonomic or automatic lever that we can pull that actually can modulate our stress. [00:01:51] PF: And it's such an incredible tool, because we're using it whether we realize it or not, when we start rapid breathing in anxious situation. So we're kind of doing it in the dark side of the breathing. So we're using our breath regardless of whether or not we realize it, is that correct? [00:02:07] JT: Absolutely. The challenge that we all deal with is that most of us – And if you look at many of the PubMed studies and scientific research, most of us are breathing incorrectly. And I know for first audio, people might be like, “Wait, what do you mean I'm breathing wrong? I breathe all day long.” [00:02:22] PF: I've been doing it for years. [00:02:24] JT: Yeah, I'm breathing right now. But the key is, we are adaptive creatures. We are adaptive human beings. And so whether you're spiritual or scientific, you don't need a report card to know that when you do breathing and breath work properly, you feel different. You are more happy. You have less anxiety. You have less depression, right? Anxiety is a focus on the future. Depression, rumination on the past. So what brings us to the current moment doesn't mean that we're on a cliff, wearing a white robe, chanting. What brings us to the current moment is the way that we can modulate with our autonomic nervous system, and we can get into that, how our breath can help us modulate our stress and really melt away the stress, because stress is essentially energy. And emotion is energy in motion. So when we have energy that is stuck in the body, literally and figuratively, the best thing we can do is breathe. Because we can actually start to modulate and remove, let go have that stress without having to take a pill, without having to do something unhealthy. So it's a really wonderful tool that I personally have been using for the past seven years. And there is a deep, rich scientific body about the benefits of breathwork as well. [00:03:31] PF: Yeah. I want to dive into that. But I'd like to hear more about your journey as well. How did you discover this? What was it that drew you to it? [00:03:39] JT: You know, what drew me to the breath was my own anxiety. So I was actually born, and my mom struggled with manic bipolar. And so for anyone that's dealt with that personally or even familiarly, when you have a headquarters as a child that is not safe, or maybe vacillates, or changes, the challenge is to feel safe in your own body. And so breathwork is a very somatic practice. And when I found it, I was actually working with a guy named Mark Devine. He's an ex-Navy SEAL commander. And I was doing some breath work with a bunch of special operations people at a conference. And I could not imagine seeing this with so many tears as I had. I started crying. I didn't know what was going on. It was just like a tremendously surreal experience. And I later found out that our tissues literally store energy. And you can look at Bruce Lipton's work, or even Joe Dispenza’s work. Our issues are where we store – Really, they're stored in the tissues. Our issues are stored in the tissues. So when I was moving that chi, or that prana, that energy that we call here in the West, through breath, I actually was able to have a cathartic process in the breath, and I was hooked. That was 2015 or so. And since then, it's just been a deep dive for myself personally and for my global students as well. [00:04:53] PF: Yeah, you've done a tremendous job of building this up in such a short time, and you're such an excellent presenter of what it does. So let's get into that. Let's talk about and start with our physical state, and talk about what using our breath can do for our physical well-being. [00:05:09] JT: So one of the best ways that I describe this, maybe if somebody is just starting their breathwork practice. Your diaphragm – So we'll go to the physiology first. The benefits of breathwork, starting with the physical state, is that when it comes to well-being, we have a very ancient system, and it's called the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve attaches all the way from the back of the cranium, all the way down the spine, and it innervates around what's called our enteric nervous system. And also, it has nerve endings in our diaphragm. So the beauty of doing conscious connected breathing, which is what we teach in our BREATHE: Breath & Wellness Program, when you breathe properly, with the right muscles, the right technique and the right posture, you start to do what's called vagal toning. You tone your vagus nerve. The primary function of the vagus nerve – It has many functions, but one of its primary functions is to modulate our parasympathetic and our sympathetic branches of that autonomic or that automatic nervous system I was talking about. So whether you're a scientist or not, basically, there's two sides of this nervous system. One of them is fight and flight, one of them is rest and digest. So when we have a proper use of breathwork, through the diaphragm, we are literally physically pushing on those nerve endings that tone our vagus nerve, which allows us over time to have what's called more vagal tone. The higher we have vagal tone, the more adaptive we are, the more resilient we are as human beings, as men and women, to stress. And so that's just the primary function of breathwork. But the ancillary benefits are so beautiful. Not to mention just being in the current moment, which is the best place ever. But there are certain things that breathwork can do like increasing nitric oxide. Respiration, by the way, 70% of how we cleanse the body of toxins is through breath. The other 30% is bladder and bowels. So this nitric oxide stimulation, this also helps protect the cells from oxidative stress. Now, this is a type of stress that's oxidative for the reasons that our body ages faster when it appears in larger quantities. So reducing oxidative stress through breath holds. This is what has been shown to reduce this process, to literally slow the aging process. And then the last thing I'll mention is it's really freedom from the stress of the default mode network. The default mode network is a very ancient system that's also tied in to the amygdala. The amygdala communicates with that vagus nerve that I mentioned before. So when we're doing our conscious connected breathing, and we're pushing on those nerve endings, and we're doing our diaphragmatic breathing and our belly breathing, essentially, the default mode network gets turned down. The volume of that mental access in our brain gets turned down. Now the default mode network is it's a part of our brain, it's the prefrontal cortex, the posterior cingulate, and also the amygdala. This is what activates when you're trying to do a myopic task. So if anybody out there has ever felt like, “Gosh! I literally can't focus. I have brain fog. I can't seem to finish my report. Or I can't seem to focus at work.” Promise, from me, and 1000s of people that have done this breathwork for a program, it's the only way to really send to yourself without caffeine, without drugs, without all these things that really aren't always needed in the current moment. So those are some of the physiological benefits, the default mode network, the vagal toning. And really getting us here right now, which is where all the good things happen anyways. [00:08:36] PF: And what is the proper way to breathe? If someone's saying, “Okay, I'm in my car right now, and I'm breathing wrong.” And maybe they're feeling a little tense, or maybe they just know they're going into a meeting and they're going to feel tense. What is the proper way to breathe? How do we start this? [00:08:52] JT: So I'll give an analogy and then I'll go right to your question. The analogy is this, if anybody out there is parents – And, Paula, I don't know if you have children, or if you have maybe cousins, or nieces, or nephews at all. [00:09:03] PF: I have nieces and nephews. [00:09:04] JT: Great. So you know that when a child is very young, children are very happy. They haven't had a lot of life that is experienced for them to believe that they're not safe or that they're not happy. Look at how children breathe. The answers are always found in nature. When you have a child and that child is two years or less, they naturally breathe through their nose. Now why is that? Right? Why is it when a child breathes through their nose that they're happy? It's because that is how nature designed us to breathe. And I tested this, by the way. I have a five-month-old son. I plugged his nose really quickly and he started to choke. And it validated – Of course I let go after a second. [00:09:46] PF: Yeah, I’m assuming. [00:09:46] PF: I wasn't choking my son or anything? But I noticed that because it validated all the scientific literature that I had researched in creating the program and I thought, “Wow! If it's good enough for my child, it's good enough for me.” And when we breathe properly through our nose, everyone should be inhaling smoothly through their nose. And we can try this right now. If you just release your jaw, wherever you are – It's totally safe to do this while you're driving. We're not going to do a deep cathartic process. Wherever you are, roll your jaw around five to six times. So roll your jaw around five to six times and just release any pressure you feel in your jaw. We carry a lot of stress in our jaw. Roll your neck around a few times, keeping your eyes on the road, being safe. And just feel for a moment that all the stress you carried on your eyes, on your cheeks, on your jaw, and your neck and shoulders, just let that go. Take as much time as you need. And I want you to practice doing with me right now six, circular, conscious, connected breaths. Imagine there's a balloon behind your belly button. Every time you breathe in through your nose, I want you to fill a balloon behind your belly button. So let's just do one together now. Inhale through your nose, fill a balloon behind your belly button. And let it go. When you let it go, you obviously naturally let it go through your mouth. Let's do two more together. Watch your belly go out as you breathe in through your nose. Inhale, belly goes out. Exhale, belly falls. One more time. In through your nose, and breathe out. Now doing that six times without a stop at the top or bottom, that is called a conscious connected circular breath. When you breathe conscious and connected, and you fill your belly, like there's a balloon inside of it, you actually are pushing on those nerve endings that we talked about when it comes to the vagus nerve and vagal toning. So that is the number one way that we can all learn how to breathe. Now from there, that's the baseline, obviously. And there's lots of postural techniques, and training, and training the right muscles, and training the right posture, how you sit, how you stand. But the beginning of it all is actually identifying, “Am I a horizontal breather? Or am I a vertical breather?” Or this is the third, am I a reverse breather? So I learned this from Dr. Belisa Vranich. She is a very renowned specialist. She wrote Breathing for Warriors. I was one of her students. And in my journey, I found that a lot of the clients I would work with, they actually had, Paula, a reverse breathing pattern. Now the best way to know that is remember when I was guiding us there through those circular breaths, if you take a breath in, if you're breathing in through your nose, and your bellies going flat, you're a reverse breather. [00:12:29] PF: Oh, no. I'm a reverse breather, Josh. [00:12:30] JT: Okay. Well, then we would need to work on that if you're one of my students. So what we want to do is when we breathe in through our nose, as we inhale through our nose, we want our belly to fill. So inhaling through the nose, belly fills. Exhaling through the mouth, belly collapses. And it doesn't matter your state of health. Everyone can do this slow conscious connected breathing. So that's a great place to start. And then also, what we talked about in the program, is identifying if you're a vertical or a horizontal breather. Vertical breathers, they raise their shoulders when they breathe. They're breathing into their neck in their collarbones. They're literally bypassing. They're shutting off all the health benefits of doing that belly breath and really breathing through the diaphragm. So that's a really great starting place as far as how do we breathe correctly? And I'll tell you, I guarantee somebody said, “Hmm, I'm probably not breathing correctly right now.” So that's a good starting place. [00:13:22] PF: And how much time do we need to spend on this? Is it something we like to have a practice if we're going to do a breathwork practice? Because, honestly, let's face it, it's like, “Okay, if I can choose learning to breathe versus learning to meditate, this is way easier and faster.” So how much time do we need to invest in it? And is this something we work on daily throughout the day? How do we do this? [00:13:46] JT: I found that when I traveled the world, I went to Copenhagen for 30 days. I trained heavily for a month there. I went to Sedona. I went to Costa Rica. I went to Arizona. I mean, I traveled around. And I learned from all these masters, both ancient styles and contemporary. And what I found was, you can do breath in 3, 5, 7 or 10 minutes a day. That's all you really need to start getting these benefits. A lot of what has been popularized, Paula, is this cathartic breathing. And I'm sure maybe we've seen it online where there's people like breathing really heavy and their bodies are flailing around. That's fine. I think there's a time and a place for that. And I definitely recommend that people do it with a qualified practitioner. But when it comes to the other two phases of breath work, one of them is acute breathwork and the other one is meditative, or proactive. Acute breathwork can be done in one to three minutes. You do not need more than one or three minutes to do a very specific style of breathing. And there's many, many, many that we talked about in the program, because so many people deal with different varieties of stress, anxiety, stage fright, relationship, things like this. There's breathing for sleep. There's breathing for creativity. There's breathing to ground you. There's breathing to bring you up into your creative center in your brain. But everyone, everyone can do the acute style breathing in about one to three minutes. Obviously, that second phase is a little bit longer. Some of the practices that we have guided in the program are more around seven minutes. And then some of them lead up to actually 21 minutes. And I'll say this, if you have trouble meditating, the best and most powerful thing you can do is learn how to breathe properly for three minutes with the acute, and for maybe 7 to 10 minutes with the proactive, or the wellness breathing. That's the most powerful thing you can do for people that can't meditate is actually learn breath work first. Because as you learn the breath work, you'll be able to be more still, and you'll be more clear, and then you can meditate. [00:15:40] PF: And so we know it's doing great things for us physically. And we know in that moment, it releases that stress. What does it do for us long term? And how does that affect our emotional state? [00:15:52] JT: So the major impact of this is we'll go back to the default mode network. And there was actually a study done, and I can link this for the show notes here, and it's titled Default Mode Network, Meditation, and Age-Associated Brain Changes. What can we learn from the impact of mental training on well-being as a psychotherapeutic approach? And what they found was the default mode network showed a high level of simultaneous activation during rest, while their activity diminishes during the performance of goal-directed tasks. In other words, we were able to be in the present moment when we're consciously practicing this breath work over time. As you know, the default mode network is a scanning mechanism. And so if we are constantly in a state of stress, we're constantly scanning. We have elevated cortisol. We're in that sympathetic branch of the nervous system. And the default mode network is totally lighting up. So what we all have to realize is not only does the science show us that, obviously, increased presence over time will lower cortisol. It'll lower blood sugar. The number one thing that I've seen in my practice, and also in almost 20 years now in the wellness industry, it's not that people want to be losing weight, and letting go of weight both emotionally and physically so they can be happy. It's actually about gathering all the tools to be happy first, and then the weight, it just melts away. It literally goes away on its own. So to paraphrase, you don't lose weight to be happy. You first cultivate happiness to let go of weight. And that is the biggest long-term health benefit of breath work. It lets go of physical. And most importantly, it lets go of emotional weight. [00:17:31] PF: We've had so much focus on health in the last couple of years, people really being concerned about how to improve their health. And this is such a simple, but effective and meaningful way to improve your physical and your mental well-being. [00:17:46] JT: It really is. And honestly, it's tattooed on my body. It's “Se posso respirare, posso scegliere.” And what that means in Italian is, “If I can breathe, I can choose.” And I got that tattoo because when I was struggling with my anxiety back in 2015, 2016, I really needed something that didn't come in a pill. I wanted something more natural. And I was like, “Well, what's it going to be?” I too, went down the path of meditation, Vipassana meditation, sitting for 10 days in silence. And these are great things, but they're not accessible for everyone. Every human being, once they learn the fundamentals of how to sit, the muscles involved, the posture, the breathing techniques. Once you learn it, it's yours literally forever. And I guess that's the most powerful thing that comes from learning the breath, because the breath is your ally. It's your friend. Whenever we can breathe, we can choose. We can choose to show up loving. We can choose to show up happy. But what do we do, Paula, when we're stressed? We hold our breath. We go “Hmmp!” right? And we stopped breathing. So when we're not breathing, we can't choose anything, because all we're focused on is the feeling of stress inside of our body. [00:18:52] PF: Yeah. And I feel like a lot of us have been holding our breath for about two years now. [00:18:57] JT: Exactly. [00:18:58] PF: And that brings up another point, where we're in the middle of the holiday season. And there's, once again, a lot going on. And already, holidays were already stressful enough. This is kind of adding another layer. So your advice, people who are facing the holidays, whatever it is they're going through, what's your advice for them to be able to take a breath and get through this feeling better. [00:19:20] JT: Find a space in your home, where you live, on your land, in your car, somewhere. find a space that you create a little nook for yourself. It could be in your master bedroom, It could be in your kid’s room. Well, maybe not in your kid's room. But it's going to be somewhere where you know when you go there, that you can sit, you can be with yourself, and you can melt away what you're feeling. Because what you're feeling, and I'll say this from my own personal experience, you are not your anxiety, you are not your depression. You are experiencing anxiety. You are experiencing depression. But energy in motion is described as emotion. So if your experiencing an emotion of depression, or sadness, or anxiety, it's the pain teacher. It's you yourself. It's the lessons of life of a higher power, if you hold on to one, wanting to wake you up. Wanting to point you in the right direction of your own healing. So don't run from these feelings. The worst thing we can do, Paula, is to run from our feelings. The most powerful thing we can do is create a safe space in our home, create a little nook, and start to do this breath work once a week, then twice a week, then three times a week, then maybe seven days a week and multiple times depending on your level of stress. That is the number one thing you can do in this holiday season. I've done it myself, right? In-laws aren't always the easiest to deal with. Go into the next room, find your space, use a guided practice, like we haven't – There's many guided practices in the program. They are for different emotional states. One of them that I find is the number one that people write in about is the feeling of overwhelm. And overwhelm is actually you just needing a break. It's just you needing a rest? Well, if you don't have a lot of time, and maybe you only have 20 minutes or less, or maybe three minutes, you find that space in your home, you find that safe space, and you go there and you give yourself that gift of breathing properly. So you can start to increase your vagal tone, all these physiological benefits we talked about. And I guarantee you, when you're done, you will feel so much better. And you'll be able to live more happy. I mean, that's really what your show and what this movement is all about. [00:21:25] PF: I appreciate you sitting down and talking with me today. You have so many great resources we're going to direct our listeners to. You've got a fantastic website. As you mentioned, you've got your own podcast. And I know that we all have a lot that we can learn from you that we could never fit in a 30-minute podcast episode. So thank you for sharing this time with us and helping us start on this journey. [00:21:45] JT: Paula, it's been a pleasure. And I know we're at holidays. And for a lot of us right now, we've had a lot of changes. So I just want to offer this gift. If anyone is feeling inspired, just use a code, use a discount code. It's a holiday code. It's holiday25. And holiday25 will get you 25% off of the program at breathwork.io. So that's my gift to everyone. [00:22:07] PF: Thank you. [00:22:07] JT: I'm doing that because it's really important that we all use this tool. And I want to make it more applicable to everyone. I'll tell you, it's already inexpensive enough, but you're going to love the extra saving. So holiday25 at breathwork.io. [00:22:20] PF: That's terrific. And we'll put that code on our page as well. So if someone's in their car and it's like, “Oh, what was that?” They can just hit the landing page and use that. [00:22:30] JT: Wonderful. It's been a pleasure to talk with you. Thank you for the beautiful questions. And I trust that we all will breathe easier after this conversation. [00:22:38] PF: I know I will. Thank you so much. [00:22:40] JT: Thanks, Paula. [OUTRO] [00:22:45] PF: That was Josh Trent talking about how to use breath work to improve your physical and emotional well-being. If you'd like to learn more about Josh, listen to his podcast, get a free wellness guide, or learn more about his program, visit our website at live happy.com and click on the podcast link. And as we continue this holiday season, Live Happy wants to make your holiday shopping easy. Visit our store at livehappy.com and check out our new live happy beanies and hoodies, because giving happiness is always in style. We offer free shipping on orders of $75 and more. And if you use the code LIVEHAPPYNOW, you'll get 10% off your entire order. So check us out and start checking off that gift list. 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]

relationships

Transcript – Overcoming Social Anxiety in a Post-Pandemic World With Rachel DeAlto

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Overcoming Social Anxiety in a Post-Pandemic World With Rachel DeAlto [INTRODUCTION] [00:00:03] PF: Welcome to episode 342 of Live Happy Now. It's time for celebrating the holidays. And for many people, that means walking through a minefield of social gatherings. I'm your host, Paula Felps. And this week, I'm joined by relationship and communication expert, Rachel DeAlto, who you might recognize from appearances on programs, including Good Morning America, The Today’s Show, or one of her popular TEDx talks. She's also the author of the new book, Relatable: How to Connect with Anyone, Anywhere (Even If It Scares You). Rachel is joining me today to talk about how to navigate social settings in a post-pandemic world and offer tips for easing social anxiety during the holidays and into the new year. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:48] PF: Rachel, welcome to Live Happy Now. [00:00:51] RD: Great to be here. [00:00:53] PF: This is such a timely topic for us. It's actually a universal topic. But it's particularly timely right now with the holidays coming up. Because we're going to talk about relatability. And when we talk about relatability. Or more importantly, when you talk about relatability, what is it that you mean? [00:01:10] RD: When I talk about relatability, it's our ability to truly make connections with each other and to inspire people to want to invest their energy in you. Because I think it's a big distinction between someone being likable. Likeable, it's like I like that person. Relatable is, it's really I can see myself in them. I want to invest my energy and getting to know them. So it's kind of that next level. [00:01:32] PF: And it seems like this is something we should know, because we grew up, we had friends, we got along with people. So it almost feels like, “Oh, I should know how to do this.” But yet, a lot of us don't. And that's becoming more and more common. Is that correct? [00:01:47] RD: 100%. It’s one of those things that was really eye opening for me. So I've been in the relationship space and talking about relationships for a decade. And I kept seeing similar patterns showing up. And a lot of times, it has to do with worth issues, and identity issues, and confidence challenges. But then in the last five, six years, I've just seen this incredible rise in social anxiety. And it really is getting in the way of people making connections. And it just keeps on compounding. And then you add the pandemic into it, and isolation, and all these things which were already on the decline, are getting so much worse. And that's why my focus really started shifting towards really helping to resolve that. [00:02:29] PF: So you saw this happening before the lockdown. Obviously, we're going to get into that big time in a little bit. But what was causing that? Is it a generational thing? Is it because of our connection to technology? Or what is causing this decline in relatability and connectedness? [00:02:45] RD: So it's a really interesting question. And I don't think anyone has identified one root cause. I think it's a multitude of things that are impacting us. I believe that it's really that disconnection that has come from the way that we change as a society. And yes, social media is an absolute part of that. And it is a generational thing. You see, there's an enormous rise in anxiety and social anxiety amongst Millennials and Gen Z's. And so it's getting worse as those generations are coming up. And you look at that and you think, “Okay, what is the difference?” And I'm a young Gen X, very old Millennial, depending on how you're looking at the numbers. I’m like, “I think it's a Xenial.” I don't know. But I wasn't raised on social media. I wasn't in a place where I had to see all my friends doing things without me. I didn't know what I was missing out on unless someone told me what was the difference of staying home versus going out. And so I believe it's that comparison. It's that FOMO. It's that all of those things that we now have to see. And these younger generations aren't handling it as well. Because who can handle that? When you're raised on it, it's anxiety from the moment that you start engaging in it, which is why my daughter is not allowed on it. [00:04:04] PF: And there's so much comparison, and that makes us feel not worthy on so many levels when we see like, “I should be doing better in my career.” “My kids should be cute.” Or, “My life should look better.” And that comparison factor is making a shutdown. [00:04:21] RD: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And listen, we did have that. It's not like older generations didn't compare ourselves to each other. We just had to do it in person, or we did on the magazines. I was raised in the Kate Moss era. So when a magazine came in the house and you saw these stick thin fingers, that was how we compared it. But it was isolated versus celebrities. And I think that our psyche can handle that better as opposed to your peers, where you're like, “Wait a second, I'm not doing this right.” [00:04:51] PF: Yeah, and it holds such a mirror up to us and makes us feel like, “Okay, do I even need to go out right now?” [00:04:59] RD: Yeah. I might as well just stay home, I’m already losing. [00:05:02] PF: And that brought us into the lockdown in which we had to stay home. And now I've talked with several people who are now less comfortable in social settings. And one friend in particular is very anxious about the holiday season, because he has to go out and be at holiday parties. And it has nothing to do with the pandemic. It has everything to do with his own awkwardness that he feels he's developed through a year of quarantine. [00:05:27] RD: Yeah. Well, I mean, it's kind of one of those things where if you're not using it, you can lose it. And just like our muscles in the gym, if you go back to the gym after not working out for a year and a half, it's going to hurt. And so I liken that to social skills. If you're not in it, and you have gotten comfortable – And a lot of my introverts out there, they're thinking, “Well, I don't want to go back out. This has been awesome.” Those have been socially anxious, they've been able to kind of take a minute, and it probably felt good. It's not good overall for your psychology of your system. But it's definitely given them that pause of like, “Wait a second, now I'm even more out of practice. If I was anxious before, now, I don't even know how to handle this new world that we're in.” And there's so many different rules now. So it can feel really, really intimidating, which is leading to this next level of anxiety. It's a vicious cycle. [00:06:19] PF: And a lot of times they’re developing that anxiety way before they get out the door. Because just the fear of what it's going to be like is exacerbating how they're going to feel. So what are some things that they can do when they know they have to go out? Not have to. When they know they get to go out and interact with people, how can they offset some of that anxiety and start dealing with it? [00:06:44] RD: Yeah, there's a lot of things that they can do. And actually, you kind of caught yourself on one of the things that they can do, is be intentional, be intentional with how you're thinking about it. So I have to go out versus I get to go out is a very different mindset. And so prepping yourself of, “Okay, this is going to be great.” Even if you have to remind yourself, fake it till you make it until you're in that position of I can put myself in this place. It might be a little scary. But I can set the intention to enjoy myself to the greatest extent possible. And then really focusing on taking baby steps. And this is something I talk often times about, because I think, so often, people are like, “No, no. Just throw them in the deep end and trust me [inaudible 00:07:24].” [00:07:26] PF: They'll be fine. [00:07:27] RD: It didn’t work. I was traumatized. Listen, I learned to swim, but I hated the swim school. I hated everything about it. I had PTSD forever. And so it's not necessary. You can baby step into it. You can take those little moments where you do have a little bit of anxiety, and then take the next one. Don't jump into something that's going to shut you down, because then you're just starting at square one again. [00:07:46] PF: So how can they kind of practice and do little test runs before having to go out to say a large holiday gathering? [00:07:55] RD: Yeah, so I would say – Well, it depends. So different people have different triggers in terms of the level of anxiety. For some people, one on one is more anxious producing than having a holiday party where they can kind of have small talk and bounce around. So figuring out where do you have different levels, and then really focus on engaging in a way that's kind of at that one to three level versus, “Oh, my gosh, this is a seven to nine, and I'm going to be sweating, and my heart's going to be palpitating.” So figuring out where those are for you. And then focus on doing one of those things. Maybe one on one is more comfortable for you. And find a friend that you can go have coffee with and set a time limit and be like, “Hey, I have like 30 minutes. Let's get together and chat for 30 minutes.” Versus I'm going to engage in a way that's really overwhelming to me. [00:08:43] PF: And your book gives great narratives about certain situations and examples. And one that you tell very early in the book, and I really like, and it's a guy that's going into a social setting for work. And he's all excited about it. But then he kind of gets overlooked. And he reverts to scrolling through his phone in the corner. And that struck me because that is so easy to do. It is so easy to have one slight or feeling like you're slighted and then you just retreat. You think, “I'm doing good,” and then suddenly you're not. So how do we keep from reaching in the pocket, into the purse, getting that phone and letting that be our default companion for the night? [00:09:25] RD: Yeah. Well, part of it is that I talked about negative thought tornadoes in the book too, where once we're in that negative situation or something happened like that where we were rejected for all intents and purposes, we can either focus on that or we can allow ourselves to reset our mindset. And it's not easy all the time. Sometimes you're so far in that spiral that it's like we need a complete reset button. But oftentimes it's, “Okay, I'm going to stop. I just realized I just started focusing on this negative stuff. I need to get myself out of it. Where's another interaction I can have they can improve this wrong?” And that's really getting yourself out of that negative thought process. Because another challenge with social anxiety is we're constantly feeling like people are judging us. There's a constant feeling of judgment. And there's a constant reflection of what did I do wrong. And so it's so important to get yourself out of that before you've gone too far into it that it feels insurmountable to overcome. [00:10:26] PF: And I've dealt with anxiety quite a bit in my life. And I know the importance of developing a strategy for, “When I feel this way, this is what I need to do.” Because if I wait until I'm in that moment, it's too late. I'm a goner. And so how important is it beforehand, before going into a social situation, to have a strategy in place? [00:10:46] RD: Oh, my gosh, it's absolutely essential. And it's really important to give yourself some sort of safety mechanism, whether that is excusing yourself to go to the bathroom to breathe for a minute. No one's trapping you. This is a social situation. [00:10:59] PF: It's not a hostage crisis. [00:11:01] RD: Yeah. But, I mean, sometimes it can feel like that. So give yourself an out. Practice that out of like, “It was so great talking to you. I'll be right back.” And you don't have to come back. No. If you're in a social situation, no one's going to track you down and find you. So you want to make sure that you are giving yourself permission to have calming mechanisms in place. So whether that's taking a step outside, getting some air, separating yourself from conversations that give you anxiety that you cannot handle. And a lot of it comes down to that self-awareness of, “This is what's going to work for me. This is not what's going to work for me.” And making sure that you're taking care of yourself. [00:11:39] PF: And how important is it to realize that we're probably not the only person in the room feeling that way? [00:11:46] RD: Oh, my gosh, it's essential. I guarantee, all of us think, “You know what, I'm the only one going through this. I am wrong. I am going to make myself wrong, because clearly, I'm the only one who's suffering here.” Yet, I guarantee you, if you walk into a room, and there's more than five people in there, there is going to at least be one other person who's doing exactly what you're doing. And oftentimes you saying hello to someone is relieving them of the pressure that they have within their chest and their head. So recognizing this is an enormous challenge for so many millions of people. I think we're at like 23 million people in United States suffer from social anxiety, which is different from anxiety. It’s huge, right? So you're not alone? [00:12:31] PF: Yeah, I think that brings us to your tips on – You have such great advice for how to – Once you're in that situation and once you're talking to someone, how you connect with them and become more relatable. And I love the fact that you emphasize the importance of sharing good news or discussing something positive. So I guess to begin, why is that so important? Because you really emphasize it, and you do it so beautifully. [00:12:54] RD: Yeah, positivity, it's such a necessary element of conversation. It's such a necessary element of keeping your own joy and happiness levels up. And really focusing on those things allows you to elevate not only the conversation, but allows you to elevate your own feelings. And the more that we really kind of – Again, I feel like everything does come back to that self-awareness. The more that we're aware of how we are presenting ourselves, what's coming out of our mouth, how we're engaging in conversations, the more that we can control it in a way that benefits us. [00:13:26] PF: Well, if you're caught in a conversation that starts getting negative, because right now, we hear a lot of that. I mean, it's always been around us. But, oh my gosh, right now it's a minefield. So if you're talking with someone and it's going negative fast, how do you kind of turn that around? [00:13:43] RD: Well, I think it’s really important to validate like, “Yeah, I totally understand where you're coming from. Tell me about what has gone in your life that's good lately. What's the trip that you've had that you've enjoyed? Where are you planning to go? Tell me about your last job you did?” Whatever it is, I mean, obviously, the context will change based on the connection. But redirection is so powerful. And I think that's where some people get caught up is they don't feel like they have the power to change the direction. You feel like you're on a boat, that boat is set, those coordinates are in. Those coordinates can change in any minute, and you are part of the captain of that ship. It's a joint effort, but you're definitely – You have a hand on the wheel. So take the power into your own hands and steer it in another direction. And you can do that, like I said, in a very respectful way. It's not like, “Alright, I don't want to talk about that anymore. Let's talk about this.” That's probably not going to make the person talking feel really great. But you can definitely start to steer it into a different direction just by asking questions. People love to talk and they love to feel important. And something I said all the time is the person who talks the most and the conversation rates at the highest. And research have shown that again and again. And so if you can just get people talking, you can ask them a question about something else and completely change the direction of a conversation. [00:15:00] PF: And How can you kind of practice this? See, I kind of feel like I have a cheat sheet because I read your book. And so it's amazing all the little tips and exercises that you offer. And I hadn't, I guess, really thought about the need to practice things like this. So how can you kind of practice redirecting? And how important is it to be able to practice that ahead of time? [00:15:24] RD: Yeah. Well, I mean, it's part of the reason why I did include those exercises, because it's one thing to talk about something. It's a whole other ballgame to actually implement. So I think practice makes perfect, or at least close to perfection in terms of communication. So I think, really, awareness is key. And I liken this, and something I say often is, if you shop at Marshalls or T.J. Maxx. I do. And I get really anxious when I walk in that store and I don't know what I'm looking for, because it can just feel overwhelming. There's stuff everywhere. If you don't pay attention to what you're buying in there, you'll end up with like shampoo, a chair, a sweater and a pair of socks. [00:15:58] PF: And maybe a dog dish. [00:16:00] RD: Maybe a dog dish. Yeah, the dog stuff there is great. But it can be really overwhelming of a store, unless you know what you're looking for. And so if you go in there and you say, “I'm looking for a blue shirt.” All of a sudden, all the blue shirt stand out to you and you're able to focus. And it's the same thing with anything that we're doing with our mind, the more that we focus on it, the easier it is. So if you set the intention to be aware of the positive conversations that you want to have, be aware of what comes out of your mouth, you're going to naturally focus on it more. And then you're able to be aware enough to say, “Okay, now I'm going to practice. Let's practice redirecting.” If I'm going to set that intention that this is going to be my focus, is I'm going to work on my redirection, then it becomes something that's easier to do. It's the way our brain works. So it's even as simple as just saying to yourself before you enter in to conversations of, “Hey, I'm going to practice doing this.” And so I could ask you right now, like, “Paula, how was your holiday?” And shift that focus of like, “Thanks for that question.” But like, “Tell me about you. What's going on with you?” And just being aware of it allows you that power. [00:17:08] PF: Oh, that's excellent. And you said something else that I really like. And that is about setting an intention for, say, that event or that evening, because that's something we do. My partner and I, when we're going out, she'll always say, “What's our intention for tonight?” And when we started doing that, we noticed a big shift in the outcomes of our evening, because we did go in more aware whether it was to deepen friendship, or to make new connections, whatever that was. We then talk at the end of the night, like, “Did you accomplish your intention?” And it's amazing how it changes that whole experience. [00:17:42] RD: Yeah, the goal that comes with that. Just how that affects everything. It is such a powerful way of living life, of just really living with intention. And you can incorporate that just like you did going out or a conversation or anything in your world. If you set that intention, things start to shift differently. And they’re just far more efficient, I got to tell you. [00:18:06] PF: And we all love efficiency. [00:18:08] RD: I love efficiency in my life. [00:18:10] PF: And positivity, you're so big on positivity. And of course, Live Happy Now, we love that. But you also have exercises in your book for improving personal positivity. And so not only does that help you overall, but how does it help you in social situations to improve your positive mindset? [00:18:29] RD: Yeah. I mean, I always say, people aren't looking to connect with miserable people. [00:18:34] PF: Hey, that guy looks awful. Let’s go talk to him. [00:18:38] RD: I can't wait to have a conversation with him and hear about how awful his life is. How many times have you been in that conversation where you're like, “I just can't wait to end this, because it's draining me.” And so negativity is a very powerful emotion. And I'm not a toxic positivity person. I think there are times where you can let it out, “I want you to be angry. I want you to be sad.” I want you to have all those – That range of emotion is so important. But as a whole, it's really about that balance. And positivity, in terms of who you are and your communication, is really just allowing you to be more magnetic, and allowing you to really have more opportunities to connect with people. So that's a huge part of it. And as a whole too, it really does change – It changes who you are. It changes your makeup. And there's actual physical implications of positivity in terms of your health, your wellness, and your heart, your nervous system, like all of these things play into it. So it's really impactful on so many different levels, which is why I'm a really big fan of it. [00:19:38] PF: Yeah. And you have these great exercises that people can do. Can you maybe give a couple of tips of things that people can do to start improving their positive mindset? [00:19:47] RD: Yeah, and one of them I had alluded to before, which is really recognizing when you're in that negative thought tornado. So I call it that, because I know many of us. When we have those moments when you’re like, “Oh, why? Why did that happen?” Whatever those thoughts are, and you just start to spiral. And it feels like, “Oh my gosh, how do I get out of this?” And it feels like you're in this tornado. And it just gets worse and worse and worse and more powerful. So how I have people really focus on that is becoming aware of them. Because again, we're just talking about with intention. The more that you're aware of your thoughts, the more that you can recognize how negative they are at times, and then really starting to reframe them. And so I have people do negativity journals where they start to write down those negative thoughts, become aware of those repetitive ones, because typically – And people come up with these BS numbers of how many thoughts a day and how many negative thoughts there are in percentages. It’s all BS. [00:20:43] PF: Yes. Everyone just guesses. [00:20:44] RD: Yeah. I was like, “It's a lot.” That's the very scientific term for it. But once you're aware of them, you can start to shift them in your own mind. So if you have a recurring thought – For women, it's oftentimes related to their appearance, their weights, their aging, whatever it is. I always say, “Listen, you have this reoccurring thought. Maybe you can't go from I hate my body to I love my body.” But maybe we can go from I hate my body to I accept where I am. And maybe you're working to change it. Maybe you're just working to accept it forever, which is amazing on both levels. But really recognizing that you can take that step and start to reprogram your brain to be a more positive reflection of whatever those thoughts you're having. [00:21:29] PF: That's excellent. And again, your book has such wonderful exercises to walk them through it. And I highly recommend to anyone who's going through these feelings of social awkwardness or just not feeling relatable. I really highly recommend they pick it up, because your exercises are so fantastic. That was really an added bonus to the book, in my opinion. [00:21:50] RD: Thank you. They were really intentional. [00:21:53] PF: Yeah. [00:21:53] RD: Had to bring intentional back. [00:21:54] PF: Yeah. And it's also very funny. That's what I think is probably one of the most entertaining, helpful books that I've read. [00:22:03] RD: Oh, that makes me so happy. Normally, I just laugh at my own jokes. [00:22:08] PF: It always helps to have someone else laugh. [00:22:08] RD: Yeah. When other people other than my mother find me amusing, it’s always a benefit. [00:22:14] PF: Oh, that's great. And one thing, I know we're getting close on time, but I wanted to talk to you because you say that curiosity is a superpower. [00:22:21] RD: Yes. [00:22:22] PF: And so can you tell us how asking questions will make us so much more relatable and comfortable in social settings? [00:22:30] RD: Yeah. And it goes back to what I was saying before where people who talk the most in the conversation rate at the highest. And I'm like, “Why are we spending so much time thinking about what to say?” Just think about what to ask. You get somebody talking, you're golden, because it gets them talking the most. And then you don't have to say anything. And I find that if you can get curious about something, it could be so small. Something they say something, they're wearing something they're doing. Whatever it is. Asking questions about that. Because active listening is one thing. But curious listening means are actually paying attention with a drive and a desire to know them better. And so, curiosity, definitely one. It keeps you from thinking about what to say as a statement, and you can turn it into a question and let them lead the conversation. But at the end of the day, curiosity about somebody makes them feel important. And if there's nothing else that we do, if you allow another human being to feel heard and seen by you, you have absolutely hacked the system. Absolutely hack the system. They will think that thoughts about you. They will have all the warm and fuzzies. And it will change the dynamic of that connection. [00:23:41] PF: That is terrific. So Rachel, as we head into the holiday season, it's here, and we get out there and interact with others. What do you want everyone to remember? And they can practice it during the holiday season and then let's carry it right on into 2022. What's the thing to keep in mind? [00:23:57] RD: Anybody can be relatable. This is not insurmountable obstacles in your way. You can take those baby steps. Wherever you are too, we can always improve. I mean, I learn every day. And so I think just understanding like we can always evolve and grow. And there's just so much power in connection. So all that growth and all those growing pains are 100% worth it. [00:24:19] PF: Rachel, thank you for coming on the show. This was so fantastic. And I really appreciate you sitting down and having this conversation with us. [00:24:27] RD: It was awesome to be here. I really enjoyed it. [OUTRO] [00:24:31] PF: That was Rachel DeAlto, talking about how to manage social anxiety in a post-pandemic world. If you'd like to learn more about Rachel, follow her on social media or buy her book, Relatable: How to Connect with Anyone, Anywhere (Even If It Scares You). Just visit our website at livehappy.com and click on the podcast link. And speaking of the holidays, we're celebrating at Live Happy with 12 Days of Giving on Instagram. Through December 14th, we're giving away Live Happy gifts, and all you have to do to be part of this is visit My Live Happy on Instagram. 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]

Podcast

Practicing Gratitude for Your Health with Greg Hammer, M.D.

This week we’re celebrating Thanksgiving, and of course, that makes it a fantastic time to talk about one of our favorite subjects here at Live Happy Now: Gratitude. In this episode, Dr. Greg Hammer, a professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine, pediatric intensive care physician and author talks about how practicing gratitude can help improve your physical and mental wellbeing. Then Live Happy’s own Casey Johnson joins us to talk about our ongoing Gratitude Challenge and what’s new in the Live Happy Store! In this episode, you'll learn: What the GAIN approach is and how it improves well-being. Examples of gratitude practices you can do in less than 5 minutes. How to be part of Live Happy’s ongoing Gratitude Challenge. Links and Resources Website: GregHammerMD.com Facebook: @greghammermd LinkedIn: Greg Hammer Book: GAIN without Pain: The Happiness Handbook for Health Care Professionals Don't miss an episode! Live Happy Now is available at the following places:

Practice

Eight Years Later and We’re Still Making the World a Happier Place

Live Happy continues to be your guide on your journey to finding authentic happiness. In 2013, Live Happy launched with a mission of promoting and sharing authentic happiness through education, integrity, gratitude, and community awareness. As we celebrate our eighth-year anniversary this month, we are continuing to bring the happiness movement to you by keeping you informed on the science of happiness and well-being as well as providing you with the tips and tools to live a flourishing life. Founded in 2013 by veteran entrepreneur Jeff Olson and CEO Deborah Heisz, Live Happy has accomplished many milestones over the years, including being the first mainstream lifestyle magazine based in the science of positive psychology, the opportunity to address the United Nations on the importance of happiness, multiple industry awards and garnering more than 1 million downloads of our Live Happy Now Podcast. While we are certainly proud of everything we have achieved (and achievement is important to happiness), it’s not so much what we have done that is important, it’s what we have learned over the years. We have taken the science of happiness out of the halls of academia and shared it with you. Here is a list of happy practices you can do every day to make your world a happier place: Be Kind Kindness is the goodness glue that holds us all together. When we practice kindness, we are telling others that they matter. Kindness is also associated with other important character strengths, such as gratitude, leadership and love. It takes very little to make someone's day a little brighter. The next time you see someone, try viewing them through kind eyes and less judgment. You don’t even have to be verbal about it. You can just wish them well within the confines of your own mind. Of course, random acts of kindness are great, too, because it creates a ripple effect of niceness that spreads happiness. Be Grateful Practicing gratitude is more than just saying, “thank you,” it is a mindset of thankfulness that is quite possibly the magic elixir to happiness. According to science, when practiced regularly, gratitude can improve your mental and physical well-being. Gratitude strengthens relationships, improves life and work satisfaction and increases happiness. Once you get into a groove, it can even keep those happy vibes going for weeks and even months. Best of all, gratitude doesn’t cost a thing, so the emotional investment is well worth the return. Be Humorous Humor is a strength that literally lightens your mood. That’s what it is designed to do. Humor brings out a playfulness that eases our stress and lets us know we are in a safe place. What’s more, a good belly laugh can release all the happy hormones in your body, such as oxytocin, endorphins, dopamine and serotonin, and opens up the reward centers in your brain. You don’t even have to be inherently hilarious to benefit from humor, you just have to look for the funny. Studies also show that you can even fake your laughter and you’ll still get the same benefits. Eventually, your fake chuckles will turn into real bonafide yucks. Don’t believe us, give it a try. We’ll wait. Be Resilient The global pandemic has surely tested our mettle. Stress levels have been pushed to a tipping point, isolation has made us lonelier and many have experienced extreme grief from losing loved ones to COVID-19. If there was ever a time in your life when you needed resilience, it’s now. Resilience is the ability to persevere through adversity, no matter what obstacles stand in your way. People who rely on resilience find hope in dire situations, view setbacks as challenges and not a failure and oftentimes end up being stronger for having prevailed. If you are a resilient person, then odds are that you have overcome adversity in your life and have developed the skills to get you through it. Be Happy The most important lesson we have learned at Live Happy is that happiness truly is a choice. While it does take work, you can choose the happiness you want in this world. Happy people find more positive outcomes in theirs lives, enjoy higher life satisfaction, find more success at work, and are generally healthier. We at Live Happy have spent the last eight years giving you the information you need to live a happier life. We will continue to do so because whether you are living in a small village at the end of the earth or in a large booming metropolis, we believe everyone deserves more authentic happiness in their lives. For more on our conversation about what we have learned about happiness, check out our latest podcast on Live Happy Now.

Podcast

A Grumble-Free Life With Amy Parker & Tricia Goyer

As moms, Amy Parker and Tricia Goyer were no stranger to “the grumbles.” As writers, that led them to team up on the children’s book, The Grumbles: A Story About Gratitude. Find out what inspired this book, how it changed their families and how it can help your family learn to live in gratitude. In this episode, you'll learn: How (and why) to identify your “grumble style”. What you can do to adopt a more grateful mindset. Why it’s important to teach children a gratitude practice. Links and Resources To celebrate World Gratitude Day (9/21), we're giving three lucky winners a copy of The Grumbles: A Story About Gratitude and a Live Happy t-shirt of choice on store.livehappy.com. Enter to win on Instagram! Don't miss an episode! Live Happy Now is available at the following places:

Podcast

In the News

Home » In the News August 9, 2017 - Live Happy mentioned on Yahoo Entertainment re: Anna Faris and Chris Pratt. August 9, 2017 - Live Happy mentioned on Standard Republic re: Anna Faris and Chris Pratt. August 9, 2017- Live Happy mentioned on ABC7 Chicago re: Anna Faris and Chris Pratt. August 8, 2017 - Live Happy mentioned on Celebrity Insider re: Anna Faris and Chris Pratt. August 8, 2017 - Live Happy mentioned on E!news re: Anna Faris and Chris Pratt, again. August 8, 2017 - Live Happy mentioned on FOX News Entertainment re: Anna Faris and Chris Pratt. August 8, 2017 - Live Happy mentioned in Cosmopolitan.com re: Anna Faris and Chris Pratt. August 8, 2017 - Live Happy mentioned in IBTimes.uk re Anna and Chris. August 8, 2017 - Live Happy mentioned in News.com.au re Anna Faris and Chris Pratt. August 8. 2017 - Live Happy mentioned in Page Six re: Anna Faris and Chris Pratt. August 8, 2017 - Live Happy mentioned on CNN re: Anna Faris and Chris Pratt. August 8, 2017 - Live Happy mentioned on ET online re: Anna Faris and Chris Pratt. August 7, 2017 - Live Happy mentioned in IMDB.com news re: Anna Faris and Chris Pratt. August 7, 2017 - Live Happy mentioned and magazine cover shown on Exttra! TV online re: Anna Faris and Chris Pratt. August 7, 2017 - Live Happy mentioned on Entertainment Tonight online re: Anna Faris and Chris Pratt. August 7, 2017 - Live Happy mentioned on E News! regarding Anna Faris and Chris Pratt. July 31, 2017 - Live Happy and Michelle Gielan mentioned in article in Inc.com. July 21, 2017 - Live Happy Editor at Large Stacy Kaiser and Live Happy are mentioned in an article on SheKnows.com about body image. July 20, 2017 - Live Happy Editor at Large Stacy Kaiser featured on KTLA newscast to discuss the Netflix film To The Bone. July 19, 2017 - Live Happy Editor at Large Stacy Kaiser featured on Good Day L.A. July 18, 2017 - Live Happy Editor at Large Stacy Kaiser featured on FoxLA.com. August 30, 2016 - Live Happy Editor at Large Stacy Kaiser featured on KTLA Newscast re: Making the Best of Your Empty Nest. March 16, 2016 - Live Happy and Happy Acts featured in the Kansas City Star. January 12, 2016 -SheScribes.com featured Live Happy in a piece on how to be happy in the New Year, which included reference to the magazine, website and magnetic chalkboard, recipe sign and water bottle January 5, 2016 -Good Morning Texas had Live Happy COO, Deborah Heisz, in-studio for a LIVE segment January 1, 2016 -DFW.CBSlocal.com interviewed Deborah Heisz for article "Ask a DFW Expert: 5 Best Snow Day Activities" December 30, 2015 - TODAY Show revealed online coverage of Live Happy Editor-at-Large, Stacy Kasier, TODAY show segment "How to Hang On To Holiday Joy" (Even After the Holidays) December 29, 2015 -TODAY Show aired segment with Stacy Kaiser on the topic of “joy” related to the season and carrying on into the New Year December 18, 2015 -MariaShriver.com featured article by Stacy Kaiser, "When Gift Giving Goes Wrong…7 Things You Can Do" December 11, 2015 -WPTV NewsChannel 5 at 5 NBC mentioned Live Happy's tips on giving "redeemable" gifts December 11, 2015 -MariaShriver.com posted "3 Secrets for De-Stressing The Season & Enjoying the Holidays" December 9, 2015 -Twitter.com/ToTheMotherhoodtweeted a picture of Live Happy Nov/Dec issue cover and subscription December 9, 2015 -WSVN Channel 7 News FOXMention’s Deborah Heisz's tip on giving adult coloring books December 8, 2015 -KPTV More Good Day Oregon, FOX Portland featured Deborah Heisz's clip on returning gifts December 8, 2015 - WGHP Fox 8 News (FOX) mentions Live Happy magazine in segment about subscription gifts December 8, 2015 -Greatist.com featured Stacy Kaiser's expertise in "The Best Way to Respond to Passive Aggressive People" December 4, 2015 -WSVN 7 News Miami (FOX) picked up Fox News Edge, introduced Deborah K. Heisz as Live Happy director and featured gift clip December 3, 2015 -Fox 13 News Salt Lake City (KSTU) mentioned Deborah Heisz and Live Happy magazine in a piece on gift giving this season December 3, 2015 -GQ Magazine Mexico featured article on Jeff Olson and mentioned LiveHappy.com Mexico launch December 2, 2015 - Prevention.com featured Stacy Kaiser's thoughts in article "The 2-Second Relationship Fix That Works" December 2, 2015 -The Hoda Show (Sirius XM radio) had Stacy on LIVE for her ongoing monthly segment in which she discussed holiday gift giving November 30, 2015 -Healthzette.com featured Stacy Kaiser's thoughts in article, "When Bad Habits are Good" November 30, 2015 -MariaShriver.com posted "5 Tips to Get Fit" article from magazine November 23, 2015 -ABCNews.go.com featured Deborah Heisz's tips on a piece about how to MAINTAIN HAPPINESS during the Holidays November 23, 2015 -Just Jenny (Sirius XM) interviewed Live Happy COO, Deborah Heisz, live on November 20th to discuss gift guides and happy gifts November 18, 2015 -DivorcedMoms.com featured Stacy's advice in article about domestic disputes after divorce November 18, 2015 -WomensRunning.com featured Stacy Kaiser's thoughts for a piece on "Holiday Fitness Hacks Straight from the Top". November 18, 2015 -iWayMagazine.com featured Live Happy in article about Jeff Olson in conjunction with visit to Mexico November 17, 2015 -Radaronline.com featured Dolly Parton's cover story in celeb slide show, "When Celebrities Go Out They Go All Out!" November 16, 2015 -The Steve Harvey Show introduced Stacy Kaiser as Live Happy Editor in Chief , included in her lower third, and showed the Nov/Dec issue cover in single-mom panel segment on Nov. 16 November 14, 2015 -TasteofCountry.com featured Dolly Parton's cover story in "Dolly Parton Shares Her Secret to Happiness" November 11, 2015 -Dr. Michelle Robin's Radio Show interviewed Deborah Heisz on November 9 at 12pm CST on the Nov/Dec issue and Live Happy overall November 11, 2015 -BlogTalkRadio.com featured Dr. Michelle Robin's interview with Deborah Heisz on November 9 at 12pm CST on the Nov/Dec issue and Live Happy overall November 5, 2015 -MarthaStewartWeddings.com featured Stacy Kaiser’s insight in a piece on “10 Ways to Calm Your Nerves Before You Walk Down the Aisle” November 5, 2015 -YourTango.com featured Stacy Kaiser’s thoughts in a piece on fall dating do’s and don’ts November 4, 2015 - The Hoda Show (Sirius XM) interviewed Live Happy Editor in Chief, Stacy Kaiser, for her monthly ongoing segment Link: Stacy talks about forgiveness on The Hoda Show November 3, 2015 -Twitter.com/NBC shared Dolly Parton’s cover story and image to help promote her cover story and her NBC movie, Coat of Many Colors October 30, 2015 -ScarySymptoms.com featured Stacy Kaiser’s thoughts in an article on whether it’s wrong for childless people to give parenting advice October 30, 2015 -ScarySymptoms.com featured Stacy Kaiser’s thoughts in a piece on why parents should be popular with their kids and teens October 29, 2015 - Live Happy COO, Deborah Heisz, quoted in USA Today story about clearing clutter October 25, 2015 - Editor at large Stacy Kaiser quoted in story about divorced moms October 23, 2015 - Stacy Kaiser is quoted in this article on 10 Ways to Boost Confidence August 15, 2015 - Mediapost.com Link: Interview with Live Happy Editorial Director Deborah Heisz August 1, 2015 - Inc.com Link: Deborah Heisz's advice is included in this article about vacations July 25, 2015 - The HodaShow Link: Stacy Kaiser on Hoda'sSirius Radio Show July 25, 2015 - The Kim Pagano Radio Show Link: Interview With Deborah Heisz, LH Co-Founder July 24, 2015 - Healthy Talk Radio Link: Deborah Heiszdiscusses Traveling With your Kids July 24, 2015 - Healthy Talk Radio Link: Deborah Heisz discusses Ways to Find Your Happy Place July 9. 2015 - LadyLux.com Link: Mentioned in article about The Benefits of Play July 6, 2015 TODAY ShowEditor-at-large Stacy Kaiser and contributors Adam Shell and Nick Kraft were featured on the TODAY show July 1, 2015 The Jane Wilkins Radio Show Link:Deborah Heisz Discusses Live Happy and Happiness June 29, 2015 MotherhoodDefined.com Article: Deb Heisz:Kickstart Your Day With a Dose of Positivity June 25, 2015 HuffingtonPost.com Article: Stacy Kaiser: What to Do If Mom and Dad Have Different Parenting Styles June 23, 2015 HuffingtonPost.com Article: Stacy Kaiser: How Grandparents Can Help During a Divorce June 21, 2015 HuffingtonPost.com Article: Summer Travel Round-Up (Gratitude Journal) January 23, 2015 People.com Article: Why Is Scott Foley Hiding Under the Covers Every Morning? October 31, 2014 JustJared Article: Kristin Chenoweth Gets Into Holiday Spirit for Live Happy Mag October 31, 2014 celebuzz.com Article: Kristin Chenoweth'sWickedly Happy Holidays for 'Live Happy' Magazine August 19, 2014 mydevotionalthoughts.net Article: Celebrating 31 Days of Friendship August 18, 2014 washingtonpost.com Article: Stay Happy, and You May Live Longer August 7, 2014 semmessavers.com Article:Get Positive with Live Happy Magazine (Review) August 7, 2014SheScribes.com Article:Learn how to Live Happy August 4, 2014 nypost.com Article: Replace your therapist with these psych magazines August 4, 2014 mydevotionalthoughts.net Article: “Live Happy” Magazine Review July 30, 2014 lovetoknow.com Article: Why Are Jobs Stressful? July 28, 2014 mamalikesthis.com Article: Live Happy Magazine Subscription July 9, 2014 Pblcty.com Article: Miranda Lambert Talks Life, Community, and Staying True to Her Roots July 9, 2014 CountryMusicRocks.net Article: Miranda Lambert Featured in Live Happy magazine July 3, 2014 Guitar Girl magazine Article: Miranda Lambert Graces the Cover of Live Happy and Discusses her Credo to Happiness June 30, 2014Dadofdivas.com Article:Be Part of the Movement to Live Happy #giveaway May 13, 2014 Everyday Health Article:Why You Should Make Every Meal a Happy Meal April 16, 2014YeswareArticle:The Exercise Effect: How Exercise Can Boost Your Sales Performance April 10, 2014 DailyWorth Article:4 Steps to Find Your Happy March 21, 2014 — Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Article: Pitt Celebrates Happiness with Wall of Positivity March 20, 2014 — Dallas Morning News Article: March 20 is International Day of Happiness March 20, 2014 — Forbes.com Article: Why the World Needs a Happiness Campaign to Live Better March 19, 2014 —USA Today Article:Happy, happy, joy, joy: Books, apps bubble it up March 19, 2014 —Houston Chronicle Article:Houston, Are You Happy? March 19, 2014 —Positively Positive Article:What Successful People and Happy People Have in Common March 19, 2014 Article:Happiness is the Thing March 4, 2014 — Huffington Post Article: Happiness Gets its Day January 10, 2014 —Des MoinesRegister Article: Iowa editor of 'Live Happy' magazine looks beyond bullet-point platitudes December 28, 2013 —Mr. Magazine Article:Live Happy Magazine: Happiness Finds Its Way to Print. The Mr. Magazine™ Interview with Editor in Chief Karol DeWulf Nickell. December 23, 2013 —Albuquerque Journal Article:Positive psychology focuses on what makes us happy December 13, 2013 — MyFox4 Video:Good Day Dallas December 13, 2013 —95.9WATD Article:SSMN: Wednesday December18th, 2013 December 2, 2013 —Washington Post Article:What’s so bad about feeling good? November 25, 2013 —Good News Planet Article:Live Happy Magazine – 25 Ways to Give Happiness at the Holidays November 19 2013 —Wisconsin Public Radio Articles:25 Ways To Give Happiness Over The Holidays November 19, 2013 —Biz Mommy Article:If You're Happy and You Know It... November 18, 2013 —Complete Herbal Guide Article:The Most Important Secrets You Must Learn In Order to Live a Happy, Healthy & Productive Life November 13, 2013 —The Overwhelmed Brain Article:Episode 0001: Jeff Olson: The Slight Edge – The Compounding Effect of Daily Progress November 9, 2013 — Examiner Article:Read celebrity profiles in the new Live Happy magazine November 4, 2013 —EternalLizdom Article:LiveHappy November 1, 2013 —Dr.Oz Video:How to Stop Worrying October 30, 2013 — Networking Witches Article:Live Happy Magazine October 30, 2013 — The Shelly Wilson Show Article:The Shelly Wilson Show with Jeff Olson October24, 2013 —Media DailyNews Article:LiveHappy Launches

Self-Care

Finding Joy Again

How to recover from loss and live happier now. The search for happiness is often a journey that’s filled with hurdles and detours. But, what happens when you find that life, profession or person that brings you joy—only to have it taken away? “Loss is an inherent part of the human narrative. We have to experience loss to experience the joy,” says Randi Waldman, a professional counselor and educator who specializes in helping patients rediscover happiness. “By working through the pain, we have the opportunity to grow, find purpose and, ultimately, live a fuller life.” Randi knows firsthand how daunting that journey can be. She was a divorced, single mother of three children, one of whom was severely disabled, trying to survive on a teacher’s salary when she decided to go to graduate school. Ultimately, the loss of her marriage and the need to provide for her kids were the catalysts that lead her to her true calling. “I think it’s human nature to want one, big answer to emerge right away. But, recovery typically happens with little shifts,” she says. “It’s much like weight loss. There’s real value in starting small, making incremental changes every day.” Although everyone has a different timeline, finding your way after loss means venturing into the unknown. “It’s important not to attach yourself to one outcome, as this will morph throughout life,” Randi says. “Instead of saying, ‘I will be happy when I do X, Y or Z,’ be open to the possibilities. You can’t go back to the life you had, but you do have the opportunity to add to that life—sometimes in extraordinary ways.” From Devastation to Life Purpose There’s no better example of that concept in action than Dana Donofree. In 2010, at the age of 27, she seemingly had it all—a great job as a director of design and merchandising, a fabulous fiancé and a very bright future. Then, the day before her birthday, two months before her wedding, she was diagnosed with ductal carcinoma. After a 14-month blur of treatments, including a bilateral mastectomy, reconstruction and a grueling chemotherapy regimen, Dana tried to regroup and get back to normal. But, even the most basic things were no longer normal. Including lingerie. “I remember pulling out all of these wonderful things I received at my bridal shower, only to discover that nothing worked with my new body,” she says. “The only bras that actually fit were these matronly, institutional things sold at the mastectomy shop.” She had her life, but she felt like she lost her femininity in the process. “As cancer survivors, we were supposed to just be happy that we were alive. But, no one was actually thinking about us actually living our lives post-surgery,” Dana says. “I realized that I was letting this dictate the way I felt about myself, the way I was acting, everything. The more survivors I talked to, the more I was inspired to do something about it.” Dana parlayed her background in the fashion industry into AnaOno, a company that creates beautiful lingerie designed to fit post reconstruction bodies. Was she scared? Absolutely. “Being scared and facing those fears gives you some of the best opportunities to grow, expand and become the person you want to become. I didn’t want to end my life wondering what if,” Dana says. “I wanted whatever amount of life I had left to have meaning.” For the past six years, she has not only made AnaOno a success, but has also used that platform for advocacy, fundraising and, in the process, has become a go-to resource on life after breast cancer for women worldwide. In business, as in passing her own cancer-free milestone, Dana continues to beat the odds. “For all of the darkness of my cancer, there’s been five times more brightness that’s come out of it all,” she says. “I have met incredible people. I’ve learned how to live a happier life. And, I know I’m making a difference.” The Ability to Cope Why do some people thrive after setbacks while others struggle? Are some people simply born made of tougher stuff? Yes and no. “About one-third of the qualities that make people resilient are grounded in their DNA. But, two-thirds of those characteristics are acquired throughout their lifespan,” explains Rick Hanson, Ph.D., psychologist, best-selling writer and author of the new book Resilient: How to Grow an Unshakable Core of Calm, Strength, and Happiness. “It’s important to know that resilience is more than recovering from loss or trauma. People who are resilient are also able to pursue opportunities in the face of challenges.” Joey Anders has always been one of those people. By age 11, he wanted to go to college. But, as the son of a single mother working two jobs, he knew that the onus was on him to find a way there. So, he decided to excel at basketball. Joey was athletic, but definitely not a basketball prodigy. “I believed, if I worked harder than everyone else, that I could become as good as any player,” Joey says. He was right. At just 6-foot-1, Joey earned a college scholarship, with pro potential. Then came the severe ACL injury at all-star camp the summer after his freshman year. Just like that, his basketball career was gone. “Sure, I cried. But then, I had to figure out how to survive,” Joey says. “If you’re in a burning house, you don’t crawl under the bed. You start knocking out windows until you find a way out. So, I started looking in every crevice of my being for any talent I thought I could develop if I worked hard enough.” He decided to pursue golf. Although he never played before, he believed that with his natural coordination and ability to solve puzzles, he would be good at the game. He started hitting balls on the driving range and logging hours on the course. In just one year, Joey accomplished the near-unheard-of feat of going from novice to pro-level golfer and was accepted into the golf management program at New Mexico State University. The thing is, he wasn’t surprised. “I think most of us are capable of more than we’re doing with our lives. We have so many more possibilities than we realize,” Joey says. “You just have to believe in yourself, and give yourself permission to dream.” Now, 19 years later, he is one of the top junior golf instructors in the country, making an impact on myriad young hopefuls every year. One of his original students was the then 8-year-old Jordan Spieth, now a top-ranked superstar on the PGA Tour. Although he still feels a rush when basketball season begins, Joey has nothing but gratitude for the way his life turned out so far. “Joey is a classic example of what Carol Dweck calls the ‘growth mindset’; he sees himself as someone who can learn, rather than someone with a finite amount of talent. He knew he could get better at things if he plugged away at them,” Rick Hanson explains. “He stayed focused on the opportunity, instead of avoiding the pain of being knocked down again.” In short, Joey achieved incredible outcomes because he was willing to take on the risk of dreaming big dreams. The Strength to Love Again Perhaps the most profound reality of human life is the fact that we all will lose someone we love. As Thomas Attig, Ph.D., wrote in The Heart of Grief: Death and the Search for Lasting Love, “The central challenge for mourners is to move from loving someone who is present to loving them even though they’re absent. Death ends a life, but it doesn’t end the relationship.” Honoring that love while still moving on is a challenge that Julie Huỳnh-Ruskunderstands all too well. From the moment she met Liam, she knew that this striking Green Beret was “the one.” Two years later, the couple was engaged with a wedding planned after he returned from a six-month deployment in Afghanistan. Yet just weeks before his deployment ended, Liam was killed by an Afghan soldier the U.S. was training. Her first day alone, Julie couldn’t get out of bed. Then, she used her love as the catalyst to move forward. “I spent a lot of time thinking about Liam, and how he might want me to recover from this,” Julie says. “He lived life with such fervor that he never had a down moment. To honor him, I had to try to make something meaningful out of it all.” She did everything she could to heal: books, therapy, grief seminars and connecting with military peer mentors who had suffered a similar loss. “I realized that, even with all the support around me, I had to find my way myself,” Julie says. Julie decided that the best way to honor Liam was to fulfill the dreams they had together. So, with an urn of his ashes in tow, she went solo on hikes, climbs and excursions, scattering a little part of him as she worked her way through their bucket list. Every adventure brought a little more healing, a little more independence. She got a new job, and in time, even became open to the idea of dating again. But, it was difficult to talk about Liam with people outside the military, or the fact that he would always be a part of her life. On a skydiving trip to mark the second anniversary of Liam’s death, everything changed. That’s when she met Shane, a skydiving expert and Green Beret who accompanied her on the jump. “He was so easy to talk to. He understood what I went through as only someone in the military could,” Julie says. The two never stopped talking. Ultimately, honoring Liam was the very thing that led Julie back to love. “So often, people are afraid that if they stop grieving for someone, they’ll forget that person, so they stay stuck in sadness,” Randi says. Julie found a way to work through her grief without ever giving up her love for Liam. She honored his life by also moving on with hers. We All Have It in Us Loss, trauma and setbacks are inherent to the human experience. But, we also have the capabilities to grow from the pain, rediscover joy and live a happy life. “We are resilient creatures, we Homo sapiens. Deep down inside, we are tough critters,” Rick says. “If you tap into your own natural sturdiness and strength of character, and look for those little things you can do every day that help you recover, heal and redeem yourself, life will gradually get better.” Sometimes, better than you ever imagined.

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