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Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Exploring Nature to Improve Mental Health With Mya-Rose Craig [INTRODUCTION] [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 411 of Live Happy Now. We know that getting out in nature is good for us. But this week's guest understands it better than most. I'm your host, Paula Felps, and this week, I'm sitting down with Mya-Rose Craig, a 20-year-old birdwatcher, environmentalist, and diversity activist. Mya-Rose Craig formed the Black2Nature organization at the age of just 14 to engage other teenagers of color with nature. She has already been awarded an honorary doctorate by Bristol University for her pioneering work in this area, and her memoir, Birdgirl: Looks to the Skies in Search of a Better Future, looks at the power of nature in birds, as well as the important role they have played in dealing with her mother's mental illness. She's here today to share her compelling story about what she's learned from nature. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:55] PF: Mya-Rose Craig, thank you so much for coming on Live Happy Now. [00:00:58] MRC: Hi, there. Thank you for having me. [00:01:01] PF: You have written a fantastic book that we're going to talk about today that’s so unique, and I think it's something our listeners are just going to love hearing about. I think, I want to start, your memoir is named Birdgirl. So, can we start by talking about how you earn that nickname? [00:01:18] MRC: Yeah, I think the funny thing, because I started calling myself Birdgirl when I was about 11. Oh, no, possibly slightly younger. And at the time, it was because I had just set up a blog because that was in 2013. That was the thing that people did when they wanted to socialize. I wanted to meet other kids my age that were into like birdwatching and nature because it was a bit nerdy and known at my school. I was sort of having a thing, and I came across this like very cheesy, like sixties, seventies superhero that was in like an old cartoon called Birdgirl. The whole thing with the silly superpowers and the crazy outfit. I was just like, “That's such a cool name.” I thought it sounded really cool for the name of a blog. I think like going back if you told, like, 10, 11-year-old me that at the age of 20, lots of people know me by Birdgirl and not my real name. I think she would have been very surprised by it. Considering as a kid, I made a pretty good decision. [00:02:22] PF: Yes, you could have done a lot worse with the nicknames, when you think back to that at that age. So, you're known as Birdgirl. Obviously, birds became a huge part of your life and your interest in birdwatching really started with your father. Can you talk about how that came about and how you found such a deep connection with nature? [00:02:42] MRC: Yes. I think this is the reason I find it really difficult to explain where birdwatching came for me because I've always been very, very passionate about birds and nature and the outdoors. And especially, when I was younger, it was considered quite a weird hobby for a teenage girl to have, basically. It was just really hard to explain. But you're right, it did all come from my dad, and that he has also been obsessed with birds since he was very, very young. And then he met my mom, and she was a city girl and she went – you can be a bird watcher if you want. But I want nothing to do with that. I'm never going to be doing that with you. But eventually, over the course of a few months, and I talked about this in the book, he sort of slowly dragged her into it until she had her sort of eureka moment where she went like, “Wait, I love birds as well.” So that meant like, by the time I was born, I had two parents who were crazy obsessed with birds and birdwatching and an older sister who was really into birdwatching. I don't know what they would have done if I hadn't also fallen into the trap. But I did, thankfully, and I just spent my whole childhood being taken around outdoors. For me, it was never like a light bulb moment where I realized I love birds in the outdoors because I always have, but more like as I got older, the slow realization that everyone else wasn't also obsessed with birds. That was, I think, as a kid quite weird for me to wrap my head around. [00:04:07] PF: Yeah, I guess if you've grown up in an environment where that's what you know, and everybody is into it, then you meet people who aren't and say, “Well, what is wrong with you guys?” [00:04:17] MRC: Exactly. It seemed very strange to me at the time. [00:04:19] PF: Well, it wasn't just the birds that you connected with. You found this really deep connection with all of nature. And how did that kind of unfold? Starts with the birds, but then you took it next level. [00:04:32] MRC: Yeah, I mean, I think it was a few different things coming together. Again, it did start from the birds, and I feel really lucky looking back on childhood. A lot of my key memories are sort of my parents just letting me run free and sort of woods and fields and rock climbing at the beach and things like that. So, I always just loved being outdoors. But I think it was sort of that combined with as I got a bit older, and you start going to like secondary school or high school or whatever, and you stopped being stressed about life, and for me, it was nature that I always used to turn to. I talk a lot in the book about struggling a lot in terms of my mom being very unwell. She was struggling with very severe mental illness, and it was sort of nature and the outdoors that I would turn to sort of be my version of self-care or mindfulness, I guess. And I think, because of that, it wasn't just a place that I love being, it sort of became something more than that, for me, I guess. [00:05:28] PF: What really struck me is just the fact that you recognize that, because there are a lot of adults don't recognize just how valuable that time in nature is, and how much it gives back to them. So, do you recall there ever being a time when you started consciously realizing that was what you needed? Or was it always something that was just innate, that I've got to get back to nature to kind of get grounded? [00:05:52] MRC: I think a bit of both, and I think when I was younger, my dad knew that very consciously, and so as a family, we'd spend a lot of time outdoors. It was only as I got a bit older, and I was a teenager, and I started sort of going like, “Birdwatching is really uncool.” But I sort of was having to make this decision about how much time I actually wanted to spend outdoors. I kind of didn't – I was sort of torn in some ways. I was like, “Oh, this is so weird and so nerdy, and I don't want people to spot me out birdwatching, and stuff like that.” But the other part of me and the part of that one, I guess, was the one that felt this very deep need to spend time outdoors. And I think especially the period, which again, I do talk about in the book, like after my mom was sectioned, she became very unwell for a period and my parents had already booked this birdwatching holiday away to Ecuador. And they sort of had this moment where they sat down and they had to go, “Is this a wise thing to do to be going on holiday right now? To be going into the middle of the jungle right now?” They sort of went like, “Yes.” It was just this amazing three-week experience where we were sort of away from everything that was sort of stressing us out for the most part. I think, I know, because I was sort of taught at a very young age that going outside is what has helped sort of as an adult, that's what I've turned to. [00:07:15] PF: You didn't wait till adulthood to do that. Because you were 14 when you founded Black2Nature. Can you, first of all, tell us about that organization? Because, okay, when I was 14, I was doing nothing like that. I was doing no good for the world. So, can you explain what that organization does? Tell us how that all came about and what made you want to start that. [00:07:36] MRC: Yes. I think Black2Nature is my charity, that at the time, it all felt very reasonable. And then, I look back, and I'm like, “That's crazy. I was 13, 14 years old.” It felt very necessary to me and it came out the fact that like I said, I spent a lot of time in the countryside and nature and outdoors growing up, and I'm also half Bangladeshi. So, I'm not white. My mom's not white. My sister isn't either. I never saw anyone who looked like me or my family outdoors. There was just a complete lack of diversity and engagement and just in a very basic way, as a kid, that made me really sad. Because I wanted other children to be getting those opportunities that I had. Also, in terms of sort of the conversation with my Asian part of the family, that attitude was always very much like, “Oh, that's very much like a white hobby”, basically, and I always thought that was so stupid. So, I reached an age, and when I was about 13, I also found out that in the US, you have all these summer camps over the summer for basically like every hobby under the sun, including, I found out, nature and bird camps. We don't have that in the UK and sort of eventually, I decided I was just going to organize one for myself for the weekend and I would invite other kids and it was really popular and loads of people signed up. And then, I realized that the only other people apart from me who had signed up, were all like, white teenage boys, like middle-class teenage boys. I think because it was something that I had organized, it felt much more personal and much close to home, I suppose. I sort of went, “I'm going to go and find some kids from the city where I'm from, and I will bring them on this camp, and I will let them engage with nature. I will make them like nature.” But at the time, I already had a bit of a profile online. I remember people kept on going like, “Oh, there are just certain groups of people who you can't engage with the outdoors.” I was like, “But that's stupid.” Because I know from my own family that that's not true. Very long story short, the camp was really successful. These kids had a really good time. They engaged with nature, they had never really left the city before and they loved it. Suddenly, I had all these big organizations writing to me going like, “What was the secret? How can we hear from you?” I was like, “I'm 13. I feel like if I can figure it out, you can figure it out.” But eventually, I decided what I would do, instead of giving them advice, was I would bring them all into one place, and I would get actual experts from the Black and Asian communities to come and talk to them. And my parents were just sort of like, “Mya, that's a conference.” I was like, “Right. Okay, I'm organizing a conference.” It was so successful, it was so good. I sent all these organizations off with like, a list of things to do. And like 14-year-old me was so pleased, I was like, “I fixed it. I've solved the issue.” And then obviously, nothing happened, and it was about six months after that conference that I was like, “This wasn't like a one-off thing. This is becoming a project.” I ended up setting up my charity, Black2Nature, and we still run lots and lots of events with kids, sort of taking them out into nature, or doing camps, or tree planting days, and stuff like that, spending a lot of time actually talking about mental health and mental wellbeing. We also do a lot of campaigning in the environmental sector, in the nature sector, trying to make a bit more diverse, and essentially a bit less racist. It's one of those things that I'm sort of looking back. That's kind of crazy. [00:11:06] PF: It's amazing that you're able to put that together even more amazing that it continues today. Can you talk about some of the changes that you see in people who go to the camps, and are able to participate? [00:11:18] MRC: Yes, absolutely. Sorry, this is one of my favorite things. Obviously, there is a lot of campaigning and stuff, but I love actually working with the kids, and especially at the start when we had less of like a reputation locally, we'd have so many kids turn up. I mean, actually, on the very first camp, I ran with these kids. I remember the boys turned up and they were like, “I don't want to be him. My mom made me come. This is going to be so boring. This can be awful.” I was just like, “What have I done? I've invited these kids out here, and they're going to hate me by the end of this weekend.” But it was like, actually, so many of them, I'm essentially just watching kids and teenagers fall in love with nature all the time. There's always a different thing. It's always a different aspect of it that interests people, but there are just so many, just like little moments that really stick with me. I think one of my favorites was we were out looking for a nightjar, which is like a nocturnal bird. The sun had just set and the stars had just come out. Instead of looking at the bird, this group of boys were looking up at the sky. They sort of called me over and they're like, “What's that? Is that a satellite?” I looked up and I was like, “No, that's a planet. That's Mars.” They literally thought I was joking. They thought I was tricking them because they didn't realize that you can see the planets with your bare eyes from Earth, and they may just get all the telescopes. We went back to camp, and they're looking at the stars. It's just little things like that, where you can sort of see kids sort of falling in love with the place that they live and the planet they live on, and it's really beautiful. [00:12:47] PF: Especially now because we are so connected to digital devices, it's so much harder to get kids away from that. It's hard to get adults away from them, too. So, how does that camp really help them kind of reset? [00:13:00] MRC: It's always fun when we get to a location, we set up the tents and the kids suddenly realize there's no phone reception and there’s no Wi-Fi, and they realized they’re in like two to five days of no internet. I like that zone. I'm sure everyone is, slightly too addicted to your phone and it is difficult. But I think it just feels so good. I mentioned earlier, we also spend a lot of time talking about mental health and well-being and stuff like that. Part of that is because ethnic minority communities in the UK are very disproportionately affected by mental illness. One of the things I do is essentially talk to kids about how they can look after themselves, especially with younger kids, it's literally just on the level of like, if you're feeling sad or angry or upset, just go to the local park and chill out with some trees and some grass and you will feel better. So, there's that kind of thing. But also it is like teaching, especially the older kids the benefit of even if it's just a day trip, going and doing something, and sort of being surrounded by nature and not being on your phone and just actually how good it feels. Because maybe the first day for the kids is really difficult. But by day four, maybe we've driven them up to the main road so they can send a few messages, so they'll go completely insane. But they realized that it feels quite nice sometimes. [00:14:19] PF: I'll be right back with more of my interview with Mya-Rose Craig. But while we're talking about nature, I wanted to share a great way that you can enjoy nature anytime and anyplace. [MESSAGE] [00:14:30] PF: When you can't actually get outside, I've found that listening to sounds of nature is the next best thing. So, I was really excited to discover the Water and Nature Sounds Meditation for Women Podcast by the Women's Meditation Network. I kind of feel like I found my own private Shangri-La in my headphones. You can choose your natural getaway whether you want the sounds of birds, water on the beach, or even the sound of just a gentle crackling fire. With almost 500 episodes to choose from, you can find the hour-long nature break you're looking for. And trust me, you'll feel many of the same relaxing mental and physical benefits as if you just spent an hour in the great outdoors. These amazing meditations can help you find your happy place, no matter where you are. Check it out for yourself, follow the Water and Nature Sounds Meditation for Women by the Women's Meditation Network for free, wherever you listen to podcasts. Or visit the womensmeditationnetwork.com. Now, let's hear more about what nature does for us from this week's guest, Mya-Rose Craig. [INTERIVEW CONTINUED] [00:15:33] PF: There's so much science behind what you're saying, have you studied the science, like a biophilia? Or is this just something that you have learned along the way and know intuitively what it is doing for mental health? [00:15:45] MRC: I think a lot of it, especially when I started because it was like, seven years ago that I started doing this campaigning. It was just, for me, very much a gut feeling. Like, I feel like as animals, because I think we forget sometimes that human beings are animals. I just knew, good for us to be outside. I think since then, so much more research has come out in the UK, medical services have started literally prescribing going outside to people, and things like that. So, much more stuff has come out. But for me, it's always been very intuitive. I think one of the really interesting moments actually was the original lockdown in the UK. There was a really difficult moment where the decision was made to essentially lock up all of the urban green spaces. So suddenly, there were no parks in the cities. There was nowhere for people to go. I think for a lot of people, there was a realization of, even though they wouldn't consider themselves like outdoorsy people, and they wouldn't consider themselves the kind of people who want to go like hiking or birdwatching at the weekend, suddenly, there was a sort of very deep-rooted desire for them to be able to be outside. So, you saw loads more people go into the countryside, and that has actually sort of continued post-COVID, which I think has been really interesting and really exciting. [00:17:01] PF: I think the fact that we had it taken away really made people, like many things, appreciate that a lot more, appreciate being able to be out in nature. As we've talked, you've already referenced mental illness. And throughout the book, your mom's bipolar disorder really plays a key role in the whole story that you tell. It struck me because for one, it’s approached so well and I wondered how difficult it was to write about that part of the story. Could you tell your story without including that? [00:17:36] MRC: That's such a good question. Because when I was first coming up with this book, I suppose, and sort of sketching out the chapters, I had no intention of talking about my mom's mental illness. I had no intention of sort of delving into family, in the way I ended up doing. And I was sort of looking at it, and I realized the story literally didn't make sense without it. It's essentially the story of two parents and a kid traveling and looking at lots of birds, which I do personally, love the idea of. I suppose the trigger of all of that was missing. So, I had this moment where I realized it was going to be included, and I remember going and talking to my mom and saying like, “Would you be comfortable with that?” And I was feeling very apprehensive. Weirdly, she was more down for it than I was, and she was more down for sort of very explicitly laying out as well. So, we had lots of conversations about it and as a family. I think, it sort of went from this terrifying thing. There are lots of things I hadn't really thought about or revisited for years, to sort of becoming a very cathartic experience. I remember first talking to my editor, actually, and she sort of made reference to sort of how in the last chapter in the epilogue, I sort of needed to, and they lived happily ever after sort of way to tie it up. I went like, “But no, that's not how mental illness works.” I think in the end, it's sort of much more like, “We're okay. It's not perfect, but we're dealing.” I think that's much more true to life and much more true to how it is to live with someone who was struggling with mental illness. Also, one of the really lovely things about writing it is, like I said, there were lots of things I hadn't thought about since I was 10, or 11 years old and I ended up just having a much deeper understanding of what my mom and my dad actually was struggling with and what they've gone through, and sort of having a much broader picture of it all, I suppose. So, I'm just basically, I was terrified but I'm so glad I did it. And I hope as well, sort of telling all the good bits and bad bits are helpful to people out there. I think someone said to me, recently, like, out of me and my parents, none of us sort of come across as perfect people. At any point, we all have our bad moments. But I think, again, that is very true to life. [00:19:54] PF: Yes. How long did it take you to write the book? [00:19:58] MRC:  Basically, I took a year off before uni, which happened to be COVID year. I was intending to be birdwatching during my gap year. And instead, I sat at my desk writing. I think it took me about a year total. But I think, because of COVID, it was a much faster process because I was – [00:20:15] PF: Fewer distractions, for sure. [00:20:18] MRC: Yes, like, I couldn't leave my house, and I was getting very bored of looking at the birds that were just in my garden. So, I think, sitting down and remembering all of the stuff that I'd already seen around the world, and sort of revisiting all of these birds was just, yes, so good for me. I loved it. Actually, it was amazing. [00:20:35] PF: Can you talk about how the time that you spent traveling helped you and your father better deal with your mom's mental illness? Did it make it easier being on travels, than if you had stayed home and tried to manage it? [00:20:50] MRC: I suppose there's a few different layers to it. I guess, for me, the main reason it was so helpful when I was younger, in particular, was because by the time we started traveling together, my mom had been really unwell for a few years by that point, essentially, from the end of what I described as our big year, which sort of this year where we're running around trying to see as many birds as possible. She became very depressed at the end there and essentially spent the next three, sorry, two years or so being very unwell. So, I had lost a lot of my relationship with her, and so on a very basic level, sort of dragging her out of her depression, and spending like a very solid period of time together was just amazing. We both talked about how we were essentially using this to rebuild our relationship in circumstances that were much easier than it otherwise would have been. As I got older, even though I then did have that relationship with her, these moments when we're traveling were just so important in terms of sort of maintaining and building that, and birdwatching sort of very intense as well, like you are with everyone all the times. There really was no escaping. It was great. I think, for my dad, like, he's always birdwatching as a tool, just – I don't know, he's the kind of person who starts climbing up the walls when he isn't able to go outside every single day. So, I think for him, it was the combination of birds and essentially running away from all our problems, that was really helpful. Because we acknowledge, that's what it was, we were running away from everything. And when we had to go home again, it was really difficult every time. But I think that was him having an awareness of what worked for our family as well, because we'd spent so much time when I was younger, together as a unit birdwatching. That was the thing that we needed to return to, I suppose? And I can imagine, birdwatching probably wouldn't do that for a lot of people, because you are up at dawn every day and its late nights. That's very difficult. I'm so glad that my parents were able to recognize, I guess, that that's what we needed because it was very rogue. I'm not sure any doctors would have been very happy about us taking her out of the country for three weeks. [00:22:54] PF: Yes. It really is an amazing story and you tell it very well. It's so interesting to me how you have become an advocate for mental illness through this. You're an advocate for nature and the environment. Did you ever expect that you were going to be such an advocate and activist for these different areas? [00:23:14] MRC: No, not really. I always find that strange when this kind of stuff happens. I've been doing a lot of environmental campaigning for a long time now, essentially, since I set up that blog I mentioned earlier, Birdgirl, nine years ago. But yeah, like 10 years, oh, my God, 10 years ago. [00:23:31] PF: It goes fast. [00:23:33] MRC: There was never an expectation of gaining a platform or people listening to me there. That was more just a very opinionated 11-year-old, having lots of strong feelings about lots of things going on in the world. It turned out, people were interested in that. And that became campaigning and activism. I think from, when I was a little kid, I was always slightly too opinionated. So, it made sense. But I think, in some ways, I suppose having entered the space around mental health and mental illness has actually been just like a very healing thing for me on a very personal level. I think, the relationship between people who are dealing with these things, and the people who are looking after them, their carers, it's one of those things that maybe isn't talked about enough and it is a really difficult relationship. I guess, I feel very honored that I'm able to speak for people and hopefully give representation again, of the good and the bad, because that's life, and help people come to terms with things maybe going on in their own lives. For me, I think destigmatization is always just so important. That's how people end up getting help and realizing it's not the end of the world, they can still live their life. [00:24:52] PF: Absolutely. So, what is it that you really hope to see come from publishing this book? And as people read it and again, you touch on so many different ways that we can benefit from nature, what do you hope happens? [00:25:05] MRC: I mean, the original, when I was first thinking of the book, I wanted to write a book about birds for people who weren't into birds. It was essentially, like I said earlier, I've spent, like, my whole life being asked the question of, but why birds? Like why birdwatching? I wanted someone to be able to read the book, and even if they don't magically become a passionate bird watcher themselves to read it and go, like, “I get it. I understand.” And hopefully, maybe to fall in love with birds and nature a bit themselves. So, I think that was always the main goal for me. But I think, contributing to sort of opening up these conversations around mental health and mental illness, and the ways that that impacts people and families and communities and stuff like that, I think, just feels incredibly special to me. But I think, also, one of the things I spend a lot of time telling like people now is just how easy it is, try and work to make things better. I talked to so many people my age who feel so pessimistic and so despondent about the future and feel like they can't do anything, and it's like, yes, maybe things like climate change, and destruction of biodiversity and things like that, they are really really big issues. But I think, realizing that doing something is better than doing nothing and it does make a difference, and it does make you feel better, and it builds communities of people who become stronger together, and all of that sort of thing as well. I think, if people could see that from my own experience, that would be really special. [00:26:44] PF: Yes, you certainly lead by example and you've shown that what one person can accomplish, it's going to be really exciting. I mean, you've done this in the first 20 years or so. I'm really excited to see what you have in store for the next 20. I thank you for coming on the show and for talking about your book, and we're going to tell our listeners, how they can find the book, where they can buy it, and how they can find out more about you and follow you. But thank you for the good that you're putting out in the world because you're on an incredible mission. [00:27:12] MRC: Thank you so much. It's been really lovely speaking with you. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:27:19] PF: That was Mya-Rose Craig, talking about the power of nature in her memoir, Birdgirl: Looks to the Skies in Search of a Better Future. If you'd like to learn more about Mya-Rose, buy her book or follow her on social media. Just visit our website at livehappy.com and click on the podcast link. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for all new episodes. And until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: What We Learned from the World Happiness Report with Deborah K. Heisz [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 410 of Live Happy Now. Is it just my imagination? Or is the world getting happier? I'm your host, Paula Felps. This week, I'm sitting down with Live Happy Co-Founder and CEO, Deborah Heisz, to talk about how we're doing when it comes to happiness. Every year on the International Day of Happiness, the Sustainable Development Solutions Network releases its World Happiness Report. Deb's here to talk with me about some of her takeaways from this year's report and why it appears that our happiness is improving. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:38] PF: Deb, thank you for taking time from down under to come on and talk to me about the World Happiness Report. [00:00:44] DB: I am actually excited to be able to do this. This comes out every year on the International Day of Happiness. I had a weird experience this year, Paula. [00:00:52] PF: I love this. [00:00:52] DB: I got on an airplane. I got on an airplane on the 19th of March, and I got off the airplane on the 21st of March because of the timezone changes. So I actually missed the entire International Day of Happiness because I was on a flight to Australia this year. So this is my way of celebrating. [00:01:07] PF: That’s so funny. Yes. Because we were talking about that I was in Dallas with the rest of the Live Happy team, and we were talking about the irony of Deb Heisz missing the Day of Happiness, not just not being able to participate. I mean, completely missing that day. [00:01:23] DB: I had no International Day of Happiness. So talking to you today about the World Happiness Report is my way of celebrating the International Day of Happiness. I'm super excited about it. [00:01:32] PF: This report we really waited for every year. It's something that, I guess, we're a little bit of happiness geeks, and it's very exciting to us to be able to sit down, see what's going on. This year's report, it's the 11th year of the report. It's really showing that even though we had some really tough years, the last three years have been tough on us. But around the world, people are showing a remarkable amount of resilience. I think what struck me so much of the news, and we've had so many discussions about it too, is about how anxiety and depression have really increased during the pandemic and since then. So honestly, I was surprised to see how well we're doing. I wanted to get your takeaway on that. [00:02:14] DB: So, Paula, I do think that there is an increase in anxiety and depression. I think, well, number one, we hear a lot about it because the news focuses on it. News is always negative, always the negative outcomes of things. But I also think if you look at various groups, the lack of social interaction, we know how important relationships are to overall happiness, the Harvard study that's been going on where they talked about how relationships are really the most important thing. But when people are isolated and they aren't able to get together, of course, it fed their anxiety and depression. If you look at young people, people who missed their high school graduations or their proms or had to start university classes in their house and their mom's office because universities weren't doing in-person classes, of course, there's more anxiety and depression, and the world's changed a little bit. But we have to remind ourselves that isn't really what the Happiness Report is about. It isn't really what happiness overall is about. It's about overall well-being. Particularly, the Happiness Report is about population’s well-being. There's a lot of things that changed during the pandemic, that I'm not surprised that we're resilient. People went to the office less. People spent less time in traffic as a result. [00:03:25] PF: That will cheer you up right there. [00:03:27] DB: Absolutely. There are definitely some positive outcomes. But, really, when we're talking about happiness, we aren’t talking about this essentially an absence of anxiety and depression. We're talking about overall well-being. Are you living the life you're meant to live? Of course, we hope that comes with less of those negative things. Really, when you're talking about it as a population or as about a community, it's very different than on an individual basis. So I don't find those two things to be in contrast. [00:03:54] PF: Can you talk about that a little bit more? Because the happiness that people think about, typically, is a lot different than what we often talk about when we are talking about well-being. [00:04:05] DB: So I think a lot of people are short-term outcome-based in a lot of things. They think about, “Oh, if I get that, I'm going to be happy,” or, “When that happens, I'm going to be happy.” Then they define happiness. It’s things like, “I went to that concert last night, and I got to see Taylor Swift, and that was my lifelong dream, and I'm so happy.” That’s fleeting because the next day you go back to the office, you go back to the classroom, and you're right back in whatever your life was like. That gave you a momentary pleasure. You know what they call hedonic happiness, really, where you have this momentary pleasure that brings you excitement and elevates your oxytocin and you feel good about it. That's not what we talk about when we talk about happiness. The type of happiness we talk about is typically called eudaimonic happiness. Not typically called, but I know people that study it that know those big words. [00:04:57] PF: Those science-brained people. [00:04:59] DB: Yes, those science-brained. Not us right-brained creative types, but those science-brained types. Yes. So what they're really talking about is are you living a happy life. Does your life have the meaning that you expect? Are you congruent in what you're doing? Or is your overall well-being happy? That's really what they're talking about. They're not talking about this fleeting emotion. We don't tend to talk about that because that's momentary. What you really want is a life that you feel like is well-lived. The best way I’ve heard this described is – well, I'm going to use two definitions. Number one is the definition that I've heard Shawn Achor use, and I think he's gotten this from Martin Seligman. But what we're talking about is the happiness that you feel when you're striving towards your potential, which, to me, describes fulfillment. Then the other way I've heard it described is when you get to the end of your life, are you going to look back and say, “Did I live a happy life?” That's the life we're talking about. That's what we mean by happiness. [00:06:00] PF: Right, right. Not that day in, day out because we all have up and down. We have good days and bad days, and it doesn't mean we're unhappy if we're having a bad day. [00:06:10] DB: Well, bad things happen to all of us. I mean, no one goes through life without bad things happening to them. No one expects you to be happy in the traditional way you think about it, the hedonic way you think about it, when you're attending a funeral, right? [00:06:22] PF: Right, right. [00:06:24] DB: We all have negative things that happen. We all lose. Well, those of us who are dog lovers, we all lose pets. We all have challenges in our lives. Some are huge, and some are not huge. But it doesn't mean you're happy in the hedonic sense every day. But it means that you're living the life you're supposed to live. [00:06:43] PF: Right. Do you think the pandemic actually helped us become more aware of that? Because I hear people expressing gratitude more and being more aware of just the fact like, “Oh, my gosh. I can get out, and I can be around people, and I can do all these things.” So do you think that has helped made us more content? [00:07:01] DB: I have an interesting way I've started thinking about the pandemic, and I'm going to use the words the great timeout, right? [00:07:08] PF: Oh, I don’t know that. You should trademark that. [00:07:11] DB: Maybe I should. Maybe we should cut it from the podcast, so I can trademark it later. The pandemic was the great timeout. You know I'm a sports fanatic, right? [00:07:21] PF: Yes. [00:07:22] DB: But I have my children playing sports. So they're very into ice hockey. Well, my older two are. So the coaches emphasize that ice hockey is kind of a year-round sport. But one of their coaches emphasizes, “I want you not to do anything hockey-related for two weeks. It's the great timeout so that you can evaluate what it is that you need to work on, what it is that you want to change.” I think if you look at the pandemic as this great timeout, it allowed people to re-examine how they had been spending their time, reexamine what they had been doing with their time. Yes, they were missing a lot of those things. But I think there's a lot of those things they weren't missing. It allowed them to look at what impact they were having what they really wanted out of life in a way that for generations probably had not presented itself. [00:08:19] PF: I'll be right back with more of my conversation with Deborah Heisz about the World Happiness Report. But right now, it's time to bring back Kate Vastano to talk about the adventures of Kittles. Kate, welcome back. [00:08:31] KV: Thank you, Paula. [00:08:32] PF: Well, as we told listeners last week, we hook Kittles up with a gorgeous cat tree from Mau Pets. So how's he like it? [00:08:39] KV: He absolutely loves it. We've had other cat trees before where he's kind of lost interest after a couple days, wasn’t super into them. He loves snuggling in the thing, and it is his favorite. [00:08:51] PF: I love hearing that. So what do you love most about it? [00:08:54] KV: Oh, I love, first of all, the design. But I also love that it's made from sustainably sourced wood and has natural wood branches. So it doesn't look manufactured. It doesn't look like something you'd buy at like a generic pet store. Plus, all the parts are replaceable. So if something happens, it's easy to swap them out. As you know, I have three kids, two large dogs, and a cat. So our house is crazy sometimes, and I know it's a matter of time before something gets broken. Or a kid climbs into it and breaks it. I love that there's a replacement aspect to it as well. It's not one of those ugly-looking ones that you want to tuck away somewhere. It literally looks like something you'd find in a museum. It's so beautiful and modern-looking. [00:09:33] PF: If you're ready to upgrade your pet’s furniture, visit maupets.com. That's M-A-Upets.com and use the code Live Happy Now to get a five percent discount. Now, let's get back to my conversation with Deborah Heisz. There's one chapter that we both really like. Not that we didn't like the rest of the report but chapter four. Just to be clear, chapter four talked about altruism and how practicing kindness not only has it increased. But we've done just become more aware of the need for it. Obviously, that's something we at Live Happy have been talking about our entire existence, volunteering, donating to charities, helping others, and how good it is for you. Now, this behavior has increased. Do you feel like that is tied back to the fact that we weren't able to do it for a couple of years? [00:10:25] DB: Yes and no. I don't know that it's that we weren't able to do it for a couple of years, as much as it was, I think, when we started to recognize the need to give back in ourselves. Because we talk a lot about gratitude, about being thankful. Well, when somebody does something for you, and you're grateful. But part of that is the joy of giving. It really is people that rediscovered, okay, they had a little bit of loneliness. They had a little bit of – I think. This is what I believe. They had a little bit of loneliness. They had a little bit of extra free time. They wanted to do something to improve the world. The way they do that is by giving back. You see this a lot in young people, their overarching drive to make the world a better place. I think more people, because of the pandemic, they created an awareness in them that they needed to be doing something. Or they felt like they should be doing something. We don't want to ‘should’ all over everybody. You've heard that phrase before. But they wanted to do something to make the world better because it did create a lot of anxiety. It did create a lot of uncertainty about the future. I think in that uncertainty, a lot of people found solace and a place of belonging in giving back to the world around them. I also think, in some ways, it really highlighted need in a way that when you're in the car an extra two hours a day, you might have missed a little bit. [00:11:48] PF: Yes, that makes perfect sense. Of course, we don't have crystal balls. But do you think this pro-social behavior is going to continue increasing? Is this something that we overall are learning? Hey, not only is this good for my fellow man. It's good for me. What are your thoughts on that? [00:12:06] DB: I think a lot of this – I have kids, right? So Generation Z and beyond. I really think that that generation is more pro giving back, more pro-environmentalism, more aware of the economic disparity and resolving that for people. I think that they are more – so I think that because that generation will lead in the future, which always happens. The younger generation ends up leading. I think it will be there. Or more immediately, I think that people have gotten a great benefit from doing more for their fellow man. I mean, we talk about this all the time. You said we've talked about this from the beginning of Live Happy. Yes, the person you did something for is appreciative, and you've done something to share with somebody. But when you go do something like donate blood, which is on the up, by the way, more people are donating blood and things like that, you don't get an immediate impact on who did you help, right? But it helps you. You get an oxytocin boost. You get a sense of accomplishment. You get something out of doing that charitable activity, whatever it is, even if you don't interact with the person who ultimately benefits. So, yes, handing somebody Christmas presents at Christmas time, which is a big deal in the United States. We do all these Christmas tree angel drives, and you can meet at a church, and you get to and stuff out there or Thanksgiving dinners and things like that. I volunteered at a lot of turkey dinner giveaways, that sort of thing. Yes, it's great to be able to give something to somebody and see them, their thankfulness. But a lot of the giving we're doing, you don't ever meet the beneficiary. But you get the positive impact of it. I think as people recognize that it makes them feel good, we're going to continue to see more of that. [00:13:55] PF: I love that because you know I've talked about that, like I said, for years about how – if people would catch on to how good it feels to make others’ lives better, people would really be jumping on that bandwagon. Something that I found surprising in this report, I guess I had never even thought about it. But it said that science shows that even watching someone perform an altruistic act, watching them do something for someone else can boost your happiness. Then it'll encourage them to do their own act of kindness. I didn't even think about that. So from a science standpoint, you are great at the science of this. It's like why. Why does just watching someone do something for someone else give us that same hit? [00:14:39] DB: Well, I'd like to equate it with this is an unscientific answer, Paula. But I like – [00:14:43] PF: Are you going to say it's like a contact high because we can't use that? [00:14:46] DB: Well, yes, a little bit. But I'm going to say it's kind of like when you go see that movie. Or take movies out of it since most people don't have long-form attention spans anymore. How many news reports do you see that show people giving back and doing good in the world? People want to believe there's good in the world. It makes them feel good to see other people doing good. I had something happen to me yesterday. I got out of a cab and left my phone. I'm in the hotel lobby, trying to check in, when I realized my phone's gone. I go into an immediate panic. While the hotel desk was trying to figure out which cab I got out of, the cab driver comes back around the block, has a passenger in the car, gets out of the cab, runs into the lobby, and hands me my phone, and leaves. You could kind of see like the hotel desk was like, “Oh, my gosh. I can't believe he did that. That's so great.” They felt good about the fact that he did that, right? [00:15:37] PF: Yes. [00:15:37] DB: I felt good about the fact that he did that. Of course, I was the beneficiary in that regard. But we feel good when we see other people doing good. It reaffirms there's good in the world, and it creates a positive outlook for us is what I think. I don’t know. [00:15:51] PF: That makes sense. [00:15:52] DB: How many movies have you watched where somebody did something great, and you're like, “Wow, that's amazing.”? It just gives you that good, elated feeling and seeing other people good. But the other thing I do think it does do is it motivates you to recreate that good feeling by doing something yourself. If they did that, what can I do? I think that that is a benefit of things that we do like our Happy Acts campaign. That’s the goal with other people out there doing good things so that people see it. [00:16:22] PF: So there's so much in this report that we could dig into. We could just do like a whole year-long series based on it, but we're not going to. I wanted to find out what you thought the most interesting takeaway was from this volume. [00:16:37] DB: I think a lot of people will be shocked. My most interesting takeaway, and I think from talking about it with you, it's probably yours as well, that happiness in the Ukraine actually went up. Isn't that crazy? [00:16:51] PF: Yes. When I saw that, honestly, I went to the charts. I kept going back because I'm like, “I cannot be reading this right.” [00:16:59] DB: Right. [00:17:00] PF: It was. [00:17:01] DB: It’s startling. Ukraine actually moved up a few spots. I don't want to believe it's because the rest of the world moved down. You could take that negative approach to it. [00:17:09] PF: Everyone else is just sadder. [00:17:13] DB: But that's really not what the report showed. What they attributed it to was really interesting. It's that even though they're in a war-torn region, and certainly that would have an effect on overall well-being, specifically, in the people who live in the areas that are where the conflict is. Our news makes us think the entire country is completely in conflict all the time, and it's not. But what they’ve – yes, it's horrible than it's tragic. It's a horrible thing going on, and people are certainly negatively impacted. But why they are overall up, the report attributed really to the fact that they are united in a common goal at this point, which is really interesting that, once again, we're talking about population well-being, not individual well-being. But it really is interesting how that feeling of being united has put them in a higher position. I correlate this back to why do the Scandinavian countries typically dominate the top of this report. It's always been because there are homogeneous populations that look at the world the same way. So there's very little social conflict in those regions. In Ukraine, there's a ton of conflict but not among the Ukrainians because they're very united in their outlook right now. So I found that really interesting. [00:18:28] PF: Yes. The other thing about Ukraine because I went – I'm just geeky enough to go look at the actual little graphs in the report, and it showed that one of the areas where like they had dipped down prior to last year, they had dipped down in their confidence in their government. We know that's one of the measures that the council uses when they're doing the report is like your faith and your confidence in your government. Well, in the past year, their confidence in their leadership has escalated. So you think that's got to affect their happiness as well. [00:19:01] DB: It does, and it's interesting. I think it's interesting to point out that when we're looking at the Happiness Report, we are looking at the well-being of the overall society. Certainly, confidence in your government, your feeling of security that nothing is going to surprise you from your government. A lot of that is important. They do look at that, so yes. But that is interesting, and it's particularly interesting in our country, the United States. I know that people outside the United States listen to this podcast. I've met a few of them this week in Australia, and it's wonderful. Conflict that we see in our government, I think, and I think it shows in those geeky graphs you're talking about, negatively impacts overall well-being in the United States, the fact that we don't trust our government right now. We're very untrusting of where it's going. That shows up in these reports, and it's something that we struggle with because it's in our face every day. It's on the news every day. You and I have talked about this before. Regardless of where you are on the political spectrum, you can’t deny that there's a huge gulf and there’s polar opposites going on right now. That does impact where the US ranks on this report. [00:20:10] PF: So do you think we as a country can become happy if we don't heal that divide? [00:20:15] DB: I think that there's a lot of factors that contribute to it. I also – I'm Pollyanna optimist. You should know that by now. [00:20:22] PF: I like the way the rainbow sprouts over your head every once in a while. [00:20:25] DB: It does. It does. But I think that like everything else, I think that we will come back together at some point in time. I don't think it's unhealable. I think that you do see some steps towards healing all the time. It's just not overwhelmingly obvious to everybody. But there are things that people agree on that are better. But there's also a lot of conflict. I think that overall, it will always impact our sense of well-being as a nation, until we can get some of that resolved. I don't see how it wouldn't. But I do think that family conflict and more immediate conflict has a more significant impact on us as individuals. So it's one of those things that we're going to struggle with. When you have free thought and free speech, sometimes you really didn't want to hear what the other person thought. [00:21:12] PF: Yes. We’re finding that out a lot. [00:21:14] DB: Yes. It is challenging. But what's interesting is despite that, the US has moved up a spot, again, for the second year in a row. [00:21:22] PF: Yes, we're climbing that ladder. We're going to be in the top 10 like in three years. [00:21:26] DB: If we keep going that direction, which I think the first time I looked, we started at 17th. So we're getting there. [00:21:33] PF: This is great. I wish you had been in Dallas for International Day of Happiness. We could have celebrated it together. But we'll get it next year. [00:21:40] DB: So there’s more on the World Happiness Report we probably need to discuss in future podcasts. We have to geek out every now and then on the science. I'm always excited to be able to do that with you. So thank you for everything you do for us. [00:21:51] PF: Well, thank you. Thank you for letting me and thank you for geeking out with me today. [00:21:56] DB: All right. You take care, Paula. [00:21:58] PF: You too. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:22:02] PF: That was Live Happy Co-Founder and CEO, Deborah Heisz, talking about the 2023 World Happiness Report. If you'd like to read more stories related to the report or read the report itself, just visit our website at livehappy.com and click on the podcast link. As we wrap up the month of March, we'd like to thank everyone who was part of our annual Happy Acts campaign. Just because the campaign is ending, it doesn't mean that your daily acts of happiness have to end. Follow us on social media or visit our website to be inspired with ideas to make your world a little bit happier every day. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: How Pets Improve Your Brain Health as You Age With Brittany Derrenbacher [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 409 of Live Happy Now. We know that pets and happiness go hand in hand or maybe hand in paw. But did you know that your pet could also be improving your brain health as you age? I'm your host, Paula Felps. Today, I'm once again talking with Brittany Derrenbacher, a mental health counselor and certified grief and pet loss specialist to talk about how pets can change the way we age. Today, Brittany explains what pets can do to keep our brains and bodies healthy, as well as how we can use our pets to create happiness for the older people in our lives. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:41] PF: Brittany, thank you for coming back on Live Happy Now. [00:00:44] BD: Hi. It’s so good to be back. [00:00:46] PF: We have so much to talk about today because brain health, super important for our happiness and our well-being. Now, there's a new study that talks about how pets affect that. But before we get into the pet portion of that, I wanted to find out from you. Can you talk about what the connection is between brain health and cognition and our happiness and well-being? [00:01:08] BD: Yes. So it's kind of like the neuroscience of happiness. I feel like happiness is – it's so difficult to define and measure because it is subjective, right? [00:01:21] PF: Right. [00:01:22] BD: But what I will say on a personal level is that we feel joy in our bodies because of the release of dopamine and serotonin and those two types of neurotransmitters in the brain. Both of those chemicals are heavily associated with happiness. So our brain health, just by virtue of that, is usually linked to our mental health and well-being. That's our happiness. [00:01:48] PF: There you go. What are some of the things that are scientifically proven to improve our brain health and help with our cognition? [00:01:57] BD: Yes. There's a handful of things. A recent study on older adults identified particular habits that are shown to improve cognition in humans and basically slow down the rate of memory decline. Some of those habits are exercising. I feel like these are going to be really self-explanatory, and we will go into those more in-depth. But basically exercising, socializing, healthy eating, no smoking and drinking, brain exercises, things like that, just to name a few. But essentially, what we're saying here is that intellectual engagement, social interaction, physical activity, and having a sense of purpose in our lives slow risk factors for cognitive decline and things like Alzheimer's and dementia. [00:02:47] PF: Interesting. Again, we talk so much here on the show about nature and biophilia. Does that help our brain cognition as well? I mean, I know it makes us feel good, and it really helps us mentally. But does it help with our actual cognition? [00:03:02] BD: I would imagine that it does just by virtue of when we're out in nature, we are living in our conscious mind, rather than our subconscious. So we're really bringing that mindfulness intentionality. We're basically bringing our brain back online. So we're – [00:03:18] PF: I love the way you put it. [00:03:19] BD: Yes. We're actively bringing it back online and bringing it out of autopilot. So there's a lot of power in that. It's building new neural pathways, just by going out into the woods and being more present. [00:03:32] PF: Yes, especially if you get lost in the woods, and you're being chased by someone. [00:03:35] BD: You got to use that big brain. [00:03:39] PF: You got to run. So pets help us in so many ways. When you look at the things that you just mentioned about exercise, well, obviously, they can't help us with not smoking or drinking. But there are several points that they could help us with. Can you explain some of the ways that they're encouraging better physical and mental health for us? [00:03:58] BD: Yes. In one of our last conversations together, we talked about the power of pets in our lives. Not only is pet owning scientifically shown to improve our well-being, our socialization, and decrease stress. Now, through research and data, we can see how pet owning has brain-boosting benefits as well. So this conversation that we're having today really allows us to dig a little bit deeper into those layers and consider the long-term benefits of being a pet owner. I say long term because I feel like a lot of the studies that we're going to be talking about today really explain that it has to be consistent years of pet owning, right? You can't just go out tomorrow and adopt a dog and in a couple of weeks, show all of the benefits, right? So this really has to – [00:04:45] PF: Just like any other health habit, right? [00:04:47] BD: Yes, yes. So this is really a lot of what we're going to be talking about today. I do think it's important to acknowledge that this is about long-term benefits of being a pet owner. It's also like a PSA like, “Go out and get you your animal,” [inaudible 00:04:58], right? What really stood out to me is just how many of the healthy brain habits mentioned earlier are covered by being a pet owner, so exercising, socialization, stress reduction, brain exercises, routine. This really suggests that our relationships with our animals, our companionships with our pets itself can increase connectivity in the brain and become a protective agent against aging. I feel like that's pretty amazing. [00:05:33] PF: Yes. So as if pets aren't doing enough for us. Now, they're slowing down our aging process. So that's – oh, my God. That's amazing. So I wanted to ask you. You mentioned stress reduction. How do pets help reduce our stress? Because sometimes, they are stressors, like when my two guys are like fighting or something like that. But how do they help us? [00:05:54] BD: Yes. First and most importantly, owning pets reduces anxiety and combats feelings of loneliness. So our pets tend to help us self-soothe. They stabilize our nervous systems. That activates oxytocin in our bodies and reduces cortisol level in our brain. So that's what I mean by the stress reduction. So, yes, our animals can stress this out. But our relationship with our animals is so reciprocal that like we're talking about something a little bit bigger here. That this activation of the oxytocin in our bodies consistently and the consistent reduction in cortisol levels in our brains. This is alone known to improve our cognitive health as human beings because chronic stress and anxiety has such negative effects on our brain health. That’s what I see in my field in mental health is that long-term kind of chronic stress that has really built up in our bodies and have a negative effect on our brain health. [00:06:54] PF: That's incredible. One thing you and I had talked about was the study that was recently published in the Journal of Aging and Health, and it specifically focused on people over the age of 65. It was pretty narrow in its focus because not only was it people over the age of 65. It really looked at their cognitive scores and word recall. It showed that people who had pets and had had that pet for more than five years, to your point, it's an ongoing thing. If they'd had a pet for more than five years, they had much higher scores. One thing the study did not show was the cause and effect. So I get so much about what you're saying was stress reduction and helping in that way. Do you have any insight into why that would help with the word recall and that cognition in our brains? [00:07:42] BD: Yes. I want to focus a little bit on the word recall because I think that goes under the category of brain exercise and routine. Pet ownership is so good for working our verbal memory, our memorization in general, orientation to time in place because we're consistently learning how to adapt with our animals and build these kind of new neural pathways through training, right? Through just by virtue of having to take care of them, remembering to feed them, to walk them, to groom them. We have to constantly engage in critical thinking, planning for the future, practicing self-regulation. With patients, you were talking about that, right? With our pets, like for example, I want you to think about how much you have to remember to care for your pets. How much planning and preparation you have to go through just to prepare for a storm. [00:08:39] PF: Yes. In particular, storms take a lot of prep at this house. [00:08:44] BD: Yes. Do you want to talk about that? What do you have to do to prepare for that? [00:08:45] PF: I would love to. We went through it last night. Yes. When we know that a storm is coming in and we don't know, obviously, how bad it's going to be. So it's like we've got to make sure that we've got Josie’s is hemp treat that's going to help calm her down. We make sure that her thunder shirt is nearby. It even affects how we schedule things. If we have a thunderstorm predicted, we might have to change our plans because she really is terrified. You know Josie. You've seen the level of trauma that it creates for her. Last night, we had storms, and we tried something new. We went down into the basement, which is not as horrific as it sounds. It's a finished basement. But we just wanted something that would reduce the sound of thunder because the thunder started. She was shaking. We had her in the thunder shirt. Everyone's huddled together, and it wasn't working. So we go down to the basement. We turned on the television, put on some music that was not going to be jarring for her, and just really did a lot of things to – we were using a lot of brainpower trying to figure out what else we could do to make this situation better, and it did work. Ultimately, it was one of our better storm knights. But, yes, it takes a lot of thought and, as you said, preparation. [00:09:54] BD: That in and of itself is critical thinking. It's memory. It's routine. A huge part of cognitive health in human beings is our structure, is our routine, is our memory. So feeding, exercising, caring for our pets can really help us kind of establish this routine, which it’s just grounding, focusing. It's achieving its purpose. So just these two things alone, the brain exercise and the routine, check so many boxes. [00:10:26] PF: I'll be right back with more of my conversation with Brittany Derrenbacher about how pets can help us age better. But right now, I'm bringing in my friend, Kate Vastano. We recently hooked up Kate and her cat, Kittles, with an amazing cat tree from Mau Pets. Now, we're introducing the adventures of Kittles to find out how it's going. Kate, how are you doing today? [00:10:46] KV: I'm doing great, Paula. Happy to be here with you. [00:10:46] PF: Well, last week, Kittles got the most amazing cat tree. I mean, I was so impressed by the design of this. I actually thought about going out and getting a cat of my own. [00:10:57] KV: Right. The one I got, it's called the Cento, and it is gorgeous. It basically looks like a piece of art, and I'm so happy that I finally found a cat tree that actually makes my home look better inside instead of being an eyesore. It is so modern-looking. It's not an ugly cat tree, which is refreshing. [00:11:15] PF: Yes, it is. It is really, really beautiful. One thing I thought was really cool about it is that every purchase also gives back because five percent of the proceeds are donated to animal welfare and environmental conservation. For every product purchased, Mau Pets plants one new tree. [00:11:31] KV: It’s so beautifully made, Paula. I will never put another ugly cat tree in my house again. It’s just gorgeous. [00:11:38] PF: If you want to upgrade your kitty’s furniture, visit maupets.com. That's maupets.com to check out their amazing selection of stylish, contemporary cat furniture. Now, let's get back to my conversation with Brittany Derrenbacher, as she dives into how pets help improve our cognition as we age. [00:11:56] BD: I'd like to dive into this idea of routine a little bit too and kind of go back to that study about folks that are over the age of 65. I’d like to use my grandma as an example because she's now currently in a memory care facility for Alzheimer's dementia. But about 15 years ago, when she was diagnosed, we knew as a family pretty immediately that we wanted her to have her sense of purpose and routine and structure and stay in her home as long as possible. I can tribute her ability to be able to stay in her home as long as she did because of her cat, Tigger. He was such a huge part of her routine. She might forget my name, and she might forget how to work the coffeemaker that day, but she was not going to forget how to take care of him. [00:12:45] PF: Oh, my gosh. That's amazing. [00:12:47] BD: I truly like – I associate that time that she was able to really stay in her home for as long as she was with that routine that she had with her cat. [00:12:56] PF: That's such an important point because, obviously, you are involved in rescue. You've seen these situations where people are reluctant to adopt another pet because they're of a certain age. To me, that's kind of crushing because, oh, man, they can do so much for you. They would be so helpful. I understand that concern. So can you address it? Because you've dealt with it from both sides, both adopting the pet and then seeing a pet that outlives its owner. So can you speak to that point? [00:13:27] BD: Yes. I think in rescue work and something that I hope that it's not unique that just our rescue does, I hope that other rescues embrace this as well, is that we never turned an elderly applicant down. We would work with them to make sure that they had a support system and that they did have a plan. I feel like having an honest conversation about that is the best way to go into it. Like, “Okay. What would your plan be if you passed? Who would take care of your pet?” So having open conversations like that. But also, like we never ever, ever shamed any families that came forward with animals because of having a family member pass away. An elderly family member passed away or, say, a parent. But the reason that we truly believe that these elderly applicants should not be turned away is because they're the best pet owners. They're the ones that are really focusing all of their time and energy on these pets and giving them everything that they can. Also, it's reciprocal. We know that these animals and these dogs that they adopt are going to add years onto their life. So as long as we can really work with them to have a plan and make sure that like that animal is going to be taken care of or returned to us, we would never turn them away. [00:14:44] PF: Yes. It gives so much just in terms of the socialization because as we age, people are less mobile. They're less able to get out and socialize. Loneliness is a huge problem among older people. Can you talk about that and how the pets can help with that? [00:14:59] BD: Yes. Exercising and socialization is a huge part of this conversation. Exercise is the most underrated antidepressant and it's free, right? [00:15:09] PF: You don't even have to join a gym. Come on. [00:15:10] BD: Yes, it's free. Physical exercise is it increases blood flow and oxygen delivery to the brain. It’s also directly linked to synaptic integrity and especially in older adults. So that strength of communication between our neurons in our body. So if you think about it, you're out walking your dog every day. This is good, consistent exercise. It's movement outdoors. But it also encourages us to meet other people, right? As a dog owner, you stop. You chat with other people. You run into people at the dog park. You're constantly kind of meeting other people. Other pets can really be a part of this conversation too because pet shops, right? You're meeting people, training classes. You're meeting people. Online groups are huge for pet owners. So this is really good socialization for older folks. Dog agility. We've talked about this before. My mom owns a training and agility facility here in Louisville, and a huge part of the population there is older ladies. [00:16:12] PF: Really? [00:16:13] BD: Yes. They’re there with their dogs. They're working on all of the things that we're talking about; exercise, socialization, the brain games really, the constant movement, the stress reduction. They're doing all of those things, just by attending an agility class with their dogs. [00:16:29] PF: So what about someone who has a cat? Cats are – they're active in their own way. How does someone get the benefit of exercise? Obviously, the socialization comes because of the cuddling with your cat. But how do they incorporate exercise into cat ownership? [00:16:46] BD: Yes. Cats are still mobile creatures. You can get up. You can move around. You can be on the floor with them. You can be sitting with them and moving around. I love seeing those little catnip toys and all the – [00:16:58] PF: Ah, the little ones with the stuff on. Yes. [00:17:01] BD: There are games that you can play with your cats. It's not just dogs that have puzzle games. It can be reciprocal with your cats too. Cats love to play games. They're very engaging creatures. I know we have a lot of assumptions, and there's a lot of stereotypes with cats. But cats come second on the list in these research studies for really improving cognition in humans. So – [00:17:22] PF: We have a relative, and she was wonderful with cats. She always had a lot of cats, rescued all these cats. In the last few years, as they died, she did not get any more because she knew that she was getting older. She's now in hospice care. One thing that's been very hard on her is not having animals around. Unfortunately, she's in a facility where you can take your pets. I thought this was amazing because we were in Cincinnati to visit her, and we took our dogs in there. The dogs got up on the bed. She's able to love on them. We talked to her a week or so ago, and she was saying that, yes, they still talk about when Rocco and Josie came to visit. It was such a big thing for them. They've also even had people bring cats in to visit. Talk about it from that perspective. If you know an older person who doesn't have a pet who is no – and loves them. Let's make sure they love the pet. But if you have an older person in your life who doesn't have access to a pet, how important is that to be able to provide that experience for them? [00:18:24] BD: Oh, huge. We've talked about this too on some of our past episodes that there are service animals for everything. That is literally their purpose is to go and bring joy to other people and provide comfort. I hope that it becomes more routine to establish these type of connections in these places. Not only do we, like with Luna Bell’s, love to do that with our animals, taking them into senior living facilities and things like that. I just think it's such a beautiful reciprocal thing to have happen to be giving to someone while also be giving to yourself and be giving to your pet. It's kind of this beautiful, powerful, energetic exchange that's happening. [00:19:05] PF: Yes. What does the pet get out of it? Because I know Rocco and Josie had a great time visiting there because they got so much attention. It took so long to get to her room because every person stopped and wanted to pet the dogs and see the dogs. What does that do for the pets? [00:19:20] BD: That's confidence building, right? [00:19:22] PF: Ah, okay. [00:19:23] BD: Yes. That’s socialization too. That's just expanding joy for them. It's putting them to work. They love that. They love having purpose. So we've talked about that a lot in this episode too. It's not just important for human beings to have purpose. Our animals need to have purpose too. So I think for them to go into these places and to feel joy and build confidence and connection and both give and receive, that's just so powerful for them. It's huge. [00:19:50] PF: So even as an owner, you might decide like this is really something I want to continue doing with the pet and be able to become a service animal that they can visit and see people. How does that increase that bond between you and your pet when you do something like that? [00:20:06] BD: I don't know. I just feel like we're essentially doing some multi-focused empowerment work here by doing that, helping others while helping ourselves while helping our animals. It just builds this beautiful connection of both giving and receiving. I just think there's just such a unique power in that that we don't get in other relationships. [00:20:24] PF: Yes. Yes, that's so true. We know now from the studies and from what you were just telling us that pets are so good for us. Can you talk about how we can leverage that benefit? [00:20:35] BD: Yes. I think that our lifestyle factors plays such a huge role in our brain health. So having this conversation really, it helps us realize, I think, that why wouldn't we be pet owners? Why wouldn't we actively be wanting to pursue these lifestyle shifts to create a better holistic lifestyle for us? I think that genetics do have a role in determining our health and longevity, obviously. But we do have more control over our future than we previously thought. So implementing healthy lifestyle habits can have a major impact. I think pet owning proves time and time again that it checks all these boxes. We talk about intentionality a lot when we're together, and we talk about the human bond a lot, obviously. But I think just the power of knowing that taking care of our pets can so positively change not only the way that we think about ourselves but our mental health, our physical health, our spiritual health, our emotional health. There are so many benefits just from being a pet owner. So it's a constant return in our investment. For a lot of people, the most reciprocal relationship that they will ever know in their life is with their pet. So our relationships with our pets are just consistently filling up our cups and allowing us to experience this love and this bond that really is amazing for our mental health. It fosters resilience, and it empowers us to really thrive and live our best life physically and mentally, cognitively. [00:22:14] PF: Yes. That makes sense because I know when you and I talked about grief, and sometimes people have this after the loss of a pet, they kind of feel guilty because it affected them more than, say, the loss of a parent or the loss of a human in their life. One thing that we talked about is like that pet never judged you. Well, maybe if it was a cat, they did. But like they didn't openly judge you. It didn't cause you harm the way the humans that we love and who love us sometimes do it. [00:22:45] BD: Yes. It’s so much more powerful than we give it credit for in our society. I think it's definitely shifting. These conversations contribute to that shift. But owning an animal, being a pet owner, having the bond with our pets, like this deep bond that is really changing over time so beautifully, it affects us in so many powerful ways. I love like this idea that – I don't know. It's like owning pets is really the holistic health care that we need. [00:23:24] PF: It really is. That's a great way to look at it. It's the month of March. It's our happiness month. You're one of our happy activists. So we're really excited about that, and we thank you for that. But there are also several holidays in March to celebrate our animals. There’s National Puppy Day. There’s Cuddly Kitten Day. There's National Terrier Day, which I know you and I think is a very holy day. There's Respect Your Cat Day. Yeah. I know that's actually a thing. What is your favorite way to celebrate your pets and why? [00:23:54] BD: I love this question. I think my favorite way to celebrate my pets, my dogs is by experiencing life with them, living in the here and now, not taking life so seriously, embracing childlike joy, just literally being with them. Because I think our animals are our best teachers when it comes to joy and loving presence. When we actually stop to lean into that, it can be such a beautiful thing. [00:24:27] PF: I love that. Brittany, thank you for once again coming on and talking about this. We're going to tell people as always how they can find you, how they can learn more about all the work that you're doing, and follow you on all the channels. But thank you so much for sitting down with me today and talking. [00:24:43] BD: Thank you. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:24:48] PF: That was Brittany Derrenbacher, talking about how pets improve mental cognition across our lifetime. If you'd like to learn more about Brittany and the work she's doing or follow her on social media, just visit our website at livehappy.com and click on the podcast app. Just a reminder that we are still celebrating the month of March with our Happy Acts campaign. Follow us on social media or visit our website to be inspired by a different happy act every day. While you're there, be sure and visit the Live Happy Store to find the perfect shirt that shows the world how you live happy. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Happy Tunes for Happy Kids With Allegra Levy [INTRO] [00:00:04] PF: What’s up, everybody? This is Paula Felps, and you are listening to On a Positive Note, where I sit down with a songwriter, recording artist, or music insider to learn how music can lift our spirits and heal our hearts. Allegra Levy was a rising star on the music scene when she took a little detour. The acclaimed jazz vocalist began noticing that the lyrics of children's classic songs didn't really fit in today's world of equity and inclusion. And she also didn't want to raise her child with songs that had been musically dumbed down. So, she began writing her own jazz tunes children's music with a positive spin on mental wellbeing. And the result is a new album, Songs for You and Me, that drops April 7th. While you have to wait just a couple of weeks to hear that music, you can hear all about how it came to be and what she hopes to accomplish with this fresh take on children's music right now. Let's take a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:59] PF: Allegra, thank you for joining me On a Positive Note. [00:01:03] AL: Thanks so much for having me, Paula. I really am happy to be here. [00:01:06] PF: You are doing such amazing things and we're going to get into what you're working on now and the work that you're doing with children. But you really have built your career, up until this point as a jazz performer. I was interested in finding out what is it that drew you to jazz? [00:01:22] AL: Oh, gosh, what is it that drew me to jazz. I grew up in this town called West Hartford, Connecticut, where the public school program had this amazing jazz program, and I went to see the show when I was like five or six. They put on this big show in town. I think I just saw the singer up there and was inspired. And then, my older brother started playing saxophone really young, and I grew up listening to John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins and Charlie Parker records in the other room. So, it just was part of the fabric of our family. [00:01:56] PF: That's terrific. So, at what point did you know that you wanted to pursue music as a career? [00:02:02] AL: Well, I have to say I've always had a lot of eclectic interests and I still do, which is always hard to balance. But I think I really was debating I either wanted to be a human rights activist, a human rights lawyer, or I wanted to be a jazz singer. [00:02:19] PF: Those are kind of ways apart. [00:02:21] AL: They are and they aren’t at the same time. They're both about getting a good message out there, hopefully, to try to make change for the better. And somehow, they converge constantly in my life. But yeah, I think I wanted to do music at a pretty young age. I was singing way before anything else and it's a beautiful practice. [00:02:42] PF: You're doing very well at it, because you can 2021 the DownBeat’s Critics Poll named you a top 10 rising star among jazz vocalists. [00:02:53] AL: I was honored to be in that list. It was an amazing list that year. I'm always honored to be included in any kind of thing like that. But I was also surprised. There's so much talent out there. So, you are being recognized, and probably I would think you thought your career was going to go down the jazz path. And then you had a daughter during the pandemic, and things kind of changed. Can you talk about how that changed your musical focus? I mean, I'm trying to bring the two together, I think. And basically, actually, before I had my daughter, we were all quarantining with my niece who was 18 months at the time, and there were six adults, an 18-month-old, two dogs, and a cat all in one house over the pandemic. [00:03:44] PF: Yay. [00:03:46] AL: It was quite a wild group, and I had my ukulele with me because I was trying –I couldn't play with anybody. I was just coming up with little songs for her and trying to help her not feel too worried about things. So, I wrote this little wash your hand song. And then I realized that I really loved the simple, funny little songs that you could write. And then when we – my husband and I started thinking about having a family, I started getting songs in my head. And then when she was born, it just kept happening, kept growing, kept growing, and she's constantly singing now. She'll be two in April. So, it was really just a natural occurrence. I've always written music about what's happened in my life. I've always have – all my albums are kind of autobiographical in a way. I can't do anything but write what I know. So that's what happened. [00:04:35] PF: At what point did you think, okay, I'm really going to do something with this beyond singing it for my child? [00:04:41] AL: I think after a while, I had had almost 15 songs together that were felt like I wanted to share them, and I started listening to the music that we had options for and you're so tired as a parent and you're just like, “Hey, Google play” – [00:05:00] PF: Anything for a child. [00:05:01] AL: Play anything for children. Please help me with this scenario. And you don't even have the wherewithal to really curate something. The stuff that I was hearing was very eclectic, and constantly, I hate to say it, but there's a lot of stuff. It was disappointing. And there was a lot of stuff that I didn't really know the history and I went back and I dug out the history. And I was like, “I don't know if this should be played for my kid. And I don't know if this is the best thing to play for our family.” So, yes, when I started to have a real book of songs, I thought, well, this could be something great and I want to try to push out a more positive mesh message if I can. [00:05:38] PF: I'm glad you brought that up. Because I know we grew up with nursery rhymes, and we'll talk about it now. That is horrible. The whole ashes, ashes, we all fall down and you go back in here, like the meaning of it, and down will come cradle baby and all. We're singing to this and being joyful little children singing about these things. And you really got into the meanings of the songs. What was it that really made you go, “Okay, I need to look into this.” [00:06:07] AL: There was a situation where I was at a school and somebody was having the preschoolers sing, Jump Jim Joe, which is a historical Jim Crow song. And a lot of the nursery rhymes are from those Jim Crow days. There are a lot of nursery rhymes where the meaning might not be connected to race at all. But it's connected to socio and economic status, or servants of some kind. It's really not necessarily a history that we want to be teaching our children in that context of this is music. This is your exposure to music. It's important to teach the history. It's important to say, okay, this music was a part of history, and this was what people were singing, but music is our culture. We really have to think very, very diligently about what we're teaching our kids and what we're singing to our kids. And yes, when I started looking into the history of some of the songs, the more I do, the more horrible it is in terms of not teaching diversity, equity and inclusion. Not teaching, just equality in general. I really wanted to be a part of a new situation where we're actually looking into a better future and making music for a better future together. [00:07:29] PF: Did it help you during the pandemic to be able to be writing the uplifting, joyful, happy songs, because that wasn't a great happy time for most of us? [00:07:38] AL: I mean, as a new mom, and during the pandemic, I definitely suffered a lot of mental health issues along with everybody. I was definitely like struggling with depression and anxiety and who wasn't? I think it was really important to keep things positive and try to have an outlet, especially because I couldn't play very often with other people the way I was used to, and having collaborators. So, it was important to have some positive music come out of that. [00:08:11] PF: And then also, as a musician, you probably have a really good understanding of how music affects our development in early years? [00:08:18] AL: Yes. [00:08:19] PF: Can you talk about that? And what music does for child development? [00:08:24] AL: Well, I think music does a lot for child development in regards to processing emotions. But I also think it's just healthy – music is the best thing for the brain. But something that I can talk a lot about is what you do as a kid really shapes who you are later in life. So, the music that you hear as a family, all that music that you hear together, that shapes who you are later. If I hadn't listened to jazz as a young child, I wouldn't necessarily be interested later. And it really can grow your mind exponentially. [00:09:02] PF: As you did that, were you thinking, “Okay, I've got to make something that parents will want to listen to.” Because it is a very cool family record. And I don't have children. I don't listen to a lot of children's music, but I got to say hip, hip hooray, it's an ear worm, and it sticks with you. And it's like, okay, I can sing this without shame. I doesn’t matter that I don't have children. [00:09:25] AL: Yes, for sure. I mean, part of what I set out to do was to create something for the whole family for everybody. Because the truth is, is that my husband and I are singing these songs all the time. Whatever song she's listening to, we're listening to, and I think I wanted to talk a lot about music being a family experience. Music should be a family experience. It shouldn't just be this is music for kids and this is music for adults. It's like we're all listening to this. This is part of our family life. So, yes, I wanted to grow beyond Baby Shark, although my kids still loves Baby Shark and she loves Cocomelon. But I wanted to try to enrich her ears with slightly more complex harmonies, but also listenable fun things to sing that are positive and good and not just repetitive mind-numbing, blah. [00:10:21] PF: Right. And something that if someone gets in your car, or gets in their car, and they've got your music on, their friends won't be berating them for having that. They'll be like, “Oh, that's pretty cool.” [00:10:34] AL: Totally. I think it's hard, because I don't know how much crossover there is. But I think there is. I think we ended up listening to – there's so many like, nursery rhymes that aren't so bad that have turned into regular pop songs that we listened to. We just don't even realize it, and that you hear at parties and that you dance to. That was kind of part of my goal. Also, some of it is for moms. One of the songs is called, It's So Hard to be You. That is maybe more for the parents than the kids. I mean, it is empathetic to kids, because there's so many moments where their whole world is crumbling. But it's also for – and you want to take them seriously. But it's also for the moms who just feel like, “God, this is so impossible. This is so hard.” Not only moms but everybody. I mean, who doesn't feel that on a day to day basis? Especially, if you have kids, but also, everybody goes through a lot of struggles. So, there's a lot of catharsis there in that song. [00:11:33] PF: Yes. There's so much joy on this album. One of the things that you talked about is that you really wanted to create something that reflected today's environment that has diversity and inclusion and equity. So, we know how important that was to you. But how did you go about incorporating big themes like that into playful songs? [00:11:54] AL: It's a tricky task. Some of it is how you live, right? Some of it is, if I’m writing this music, this is based on how I'm living, so I'm trying to model this life for my daughter, and then I'm trying to write these songs for everybody. It was it was a tricky task. I always feel like there's more I could do. I mean, it's actually true story that I was sitting in the room in the studio, and I felt like God, there's a lot of white men in here. I always try to be intentional about hiring people who I want to work with, but also hiring people of diverse backgrounds, because I think it makes the music better, and it makes the room have a better energy when you have lots of different perspectives. But I think in this case, I felt like, somehow, I ended up with a lot of new dads. I had a couple of really amazing new moms too, which so essential. But yes, I reflected later on that. And I was thinking, “You know what, I could have done better in that situation.” I'm always kind of thinking that way. I'm always trying to see where I can improve. Hopefully, the music, it might not be perfect, maybe years from now people will find fault there, too. I was trying to think about who is this for? In Hello Song, I was thinking about, that song is kind of like a vibe of it's a small world to the modern age. My husband speaks five languages. My daughter is being raised with three so far, and I just wanted to try to include as many different languages as I could there. She's also growing up with Spanish in the house. So, I wanted to do a song in Spanish and not just have everything from the same perspective. [00:13:40] PF: Yes. That’s great way to approach it. And then from an age standpoint, what age did you want to write this for? [00:13:45] AL: That was a hard test, because I honestly didn't really– I was writing for my daughter at the time, so she was pretty young, early, early, early years. But I wanted to imagine that this would extend to five or six or even seven. I did play a lot of the music for my nieces and nephews and my nieces go from age right now. My nieces and nephews are a baby to nine. And there's a four-year-old and seven-year-olds, and they were all singing it and they were getting it in their bodies and in their ears and giving me suggestions. So, I was hoping that this audience would be a pretty wide range. [00:14:24] PF: Yes. So, are you taking it out? Are you doing live performances with it? Or how are you delivering it? [00:14:30] AL: I am. I'm doing a big CD release show on Mother's Day, actually, which is – [00:14:36] PF: Awesome. [00:14:36] AL: – here in New York at the historic Third Street Music School. They have a really great educational program and one of the background singers on the album works there as a music educator. So, we thought it would be a great place to start. And then, I'm taking it to my hometown at the Jewish Community Center where I grew up, and we're going to do a show on June 4th there. It's a big project. I mean, the band is like 13 people. [00:15:00] PF: Oh, my gosh. How do you get 13 people assembled in one? That's a trick. [00:15:05] AL: I'm working on it. I’m working on it. It's very hard to do. And then, we're hoping to do more widespread shows, once things are released, and everybody knows about it. But it's new territory for me. [00:15:19] PF: So, how does this fit in with your jazz career? I mean, you're talking two different, very different audiences that you'd be appealing to. [00:15:29] AL: It is and it isn't. I mean, I think the only way for jazz to survive is if we get the youngest members of our society involved. And some of this, a lot of the record is jazz based, and everybody on it is a jazz musician. So, it's hard to get the jazz out of me. I think, it's so part of who I am, that it just comes out no matter what. But I really want to encourage improvisation and jazz to young children and young people and families. So, I think that's part of it. But it is definitely different in terms of like, where you're going to see these performances. I tried to get some jazz clubs. I was like, “Hey, do you want to do this kids thing?” [00:16:19] PF: They're really great for the bar tab. Lots of milk. [00:16:23] AL: I mean, I’m a bit surprised. Nobody was like racing for it. But I think they're wrong, because I think the only way they're going to keep butts in seats, if I can say that, the only way you're going to keep people coming to their club, is if they really invest in the younger generations. [00:16:40] PF: Build habit early on. Especially, if you're making it a family thing, that's terrific, because parents are looking for ways to go out and enjoy. If they can do it, and not have to pay for a sitter, and their kid can be entertained, winner, winner. [00:16:53] AL: And they hear the sound of it either. I'm hoping that there will be some likeminded people who will get the idea. It is very different, and I do worry – I have worried that maybe it will impact the critics or my colleagues and music, maybe they won't take me seriously. But I took the music seriously, and I really put a lot of time into it. So, I'm hoping that people will hear that and it will be a positive thing. [00:17:20] PF: Because they're not little ditties. If people are thinking they're just little songs that are made up. That's not it at all. The musicianship is there. The songs are there. It's quality writing. I think that's really what anyone who loves music is going to lock into. I used to listen to the group Trout Fishing in America, and they would release both kids and adult albums. As I was learning more about you, I really thought about them, and how they were able to craft this career that had two very different age groups. But then what happened is the kids grew into their adult audience. I can see how that would work with the music that you're doing. [00:17:59] AL: Yes, I think that’s definitely the goal. Some of the songs on there aren't even entirely just kids’ songs. I don't know. I mean, I hope that it will grow an audience. That is the hope, for sure. [00:18:13] PF: So, do you have more songs that you're working on? Or where are you at now in your process? I know you're working on shows. You're getting your live shows together. But also, as a writer and a musician, you probably always have new things percolating. [00:18:27] AL: Always. I always am writing new stuff, either in my head or otherwise. Right now, I am trying to spend time to just get this music out there and really make sure that that it gets a good, give it its all, I guess. But I am potentially going to record other jazz albums soon. I also have a dream to do kind of like it an all moms big band. [00:18:53] PF: Oh, my gosh, that would be so cool. [00:18:55] AL: Yeah, I think it would be awesome and I I've been dreaming it up for a while, kind of back to the days of, I don't know if you're familiar with it. But there's this, all this Ella Fitzgerald big band arrangements of things like Old MacDonald and they're just incredible. I would love to recreate something like that for live audience. [00:19:16] PF: That would be really exciting for people, because you take that familiar song, you give that kind of orchestration to it, I think people would get really excited about that. [00:19:23] AL: Sure. I mean, I think it's the best way to teach about improvisation. It's the best way to really get this more rich harmony into people's ears. Also, I just like the idea of all these women on the bandstand, of all different backgrounds and ages, and just what would it be like if you showed up to a concert as a young person and you were inspired by that? How would that change your worldview and your future? Because it's so much as impacted at a young age and if you didn't just see like the guys doing it. [00:19:58] PF: Right. Yes. See what you're opportunity is as a female to be able to get up there and do that. [00:20:03] AL: Yes. I mean, I also do a lot of work with the women in jazz organizations. So, that is part of my mission all the time and part of what I'm working on thinking about. [00:20:15] PF: That is so much fun. This is a fun journey. I'm going to be very excited to see where it goes, and how it unfolds. I appreciate you coming on this early in the game and talking to us about it. [00:20:25] AL: Yes. Thank you so much for having me. I hope that the people listen to it and enjoy it. And if anything, it just makes people happy. [00:20:33] PF: That's what it's about. Thank you so much for being here. [00:20:36] AL: Thank you. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:20:44] PF: That was Allegra Levy, telling us how she is literally changing the tune of children's music. If you'd like to learn more about Allegra, check out her music, or follow her on social media. Just visit livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. I hope you've enjoyed this episode of On a Positive Note and look forward to joining you again next time. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Bounce Back from Burnout With Dr. Mary Sanders [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:03] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 408 of Live Happy Now. Do you ever feel like you've hit a point of burnout that nobody else can fully understand? Well, today's guest knows exactly what you're going through and what to do about it. I'm your host Paula Felps. And today, I'm sitting down with Dr. Mary Sanders, who specializes in energetic healing with an emphasis on positive psychology. Dr. Mary is on a mission to empower women over the age of 40 to bounce back physically, emotionally and energetically from the stresses of balancing work and life. Today, she talks with me about how burnout affects women? What warning signs we need to be aware of that indicate we might be burning out? On what steps we can take to reclaim ourselves from burnout? Let's take a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:54] PF: Mary, thank you for joining me on Live Happy Now. [00:00:58] Dr. MS: Thank you, Paula. It's my honor, sincerely, to be a guest of yours. I am so looking forward to today's conversation because I have a feeling that you and I are going to tap into some really interesting topics. [00:01:10] PF: We are. And I've been looking forward to having this conversation too. Because, oh, my gosh, there's so many things that you and I could talk about. And I guess that's why you have a podcast because you have so many things that you can teach us. But today, I really wanted to focus on the topic of burnout because that's something that you address, something that you handle. And I know that burnout can mean different things to different people. So just make sure we're on the same page, can you talk about the clinical definition when you are describing burnout? [00:01:42] Dr. MS: Sure. Sure. It's a great place to start. From a scientific perspective, I follow Maslach's Burnout Inventory. And this researcher has done a phenomenal job breaking down burnout in into essentially three different categories. And the first category is what we are most familiar with, and that's called emotional exhaustion. You hear people – you hear women specifically saying, "I'm so tired of being tired. I am just – I feel like I have no get up and go." That's the physical exhaustion. The second component to burnout, clinically speaking, is cynicism, where somebody is experiencing a distrusting feeling. Or they're, overall, just feeling really pessimistic about what is happening within the traditional work environment. That's another category for burnout. Then the last category is all of revolving around the professional efficacy. And what I mean by that, Paula, is are the women working for organizations in which they feel valued for their skills, and their strengths and how they contribute to the overall success of the corporation? When you look at this – and I know, Paula, there are many, many listeners that are saying, "Yeah, but I'm not in the corporate world. How can I still experience burnout?" You absolutely can. Ladies, we are the primary caretakers of our entire families, whether that'd be our aging parents, or whether that be our children, or our spouses. It is very easy to experience burnout on a personal level as well as professionally. But characteristically, people identify burnout as being something related to the work environment. Those three categories that I just talked about can be measured independently. Meaning that you can be experiencing the physical signs where somebody is completely exhausted. They have reoccurring illnesses. Their central nervous system is not firing up. Their immune system is compromised. Maybe they're experiencing blood sugar issues. All of those physical symptoms are associated with the first category, being the physical exhaustion. When you take the survey, if you're reading high within this one category, then we know how to address those issues. We know to bring it right back to the physical body. You may be a person who is rating really high on the cynicism and the pessimism. And so, then maybe we need to be working on the mindset. Maybe it's something that we need to be working on finding more pleasure, joy and happiness within your life to decrease the level of pessimism that you're carrying on a daily basis. Then that's another category. Third category is the professional efficacy. If we know that somebody's reading really high or really low within this category, then maybe we're addressing, "Hey, if you don't feel valued as a team member, maybe we just need to find a different department within our organization that you align with. Maybe we need to find you a different team in which you feel like you can show up in your strength N." That's why I always use the Maslach Inventory to kind of get a baseline, "Where are you? How can we be of assistance?" [00:05:07] PF: That's important. Because I think a lot of times when we feel burned out, we don't even have the skills to say in what area I feel burned out. It's exhausting. And if you're burned out at work, it's pretty impossible to be there for your family. It's just this big overall feeling. Can you talk about how big, how prevalent a problem burnout is right now? And have you seen it since the pandemic? How has it changed? [00:05:31] Dr. MS: Huge, Paula. Huge. Right now, with the pandemic and going through what we're calling globally the great resignation, people are now awake. They're saying, "Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Time out. Time out. You mean I don't have to do a nine-to-five job every day? You mean I don't have to do my commute every day? You mean I don't have to do face-to-face engagements anymore? Plus, I didn't really like that. Maybe I want to do something different with my life of all." Because there's a greater purpose that they want to align with. Absolutely. The trend right now is that over 50 – and again, depending upon the statistics that you look at, 50% to 60% of people at this given point in time are going to say, "Yep, I feel like I am burnt out on some level." And if they're not currently in that position, they can honestly say, "You know what? I resonate with that because I have been through burnout." And Paula, when I went through burnout – and, again, my greatest – the peak of my burnout was 15 years ago. And I'll be honest with you. I was so embarrassed that I was experiencing burnout that I didn't want to share it with anyone. [00:06:42] PF: You have an interesting story. Let's talk a little bit. I was remiss in not asking sooner. This is something you know firsthand. Tell us your journey into burnout and why you're so passionate about helping others with it. [00:06:55] Dr. MS: Yeah. And you know what, Paula? I'll share my story for the sake of it being received in a light that I have learned a lot of information from going through this life experience. I do believe that we have divine timing. And I do believe that I received these lessons at the time that I did in my professional career in order to really motivate me to shift and to pivot. I'm going to share the story. And goodness gracious. I was a practicing chiropractor. And to make a long story short, I had a large practice, a central practice. And then I also had a satellite office. I was managing not only my current patient load. I was also managing various different doctors and a big staff. I went into chiropractic because I knew that I wanted to have my hands-on people. I believed in the healing modality of the physical adjustment. I believe that the body had the innate ability to heal itself. And because I had such a strong philosophy, and a good set of hands and a lot of perseverance and resilience, I created a successful practice. It looked beautiful on the outside. Aesthetically, it was gorgeous. But what was happening underneath the surface that people didn't realize is that I was thinking miserable. I was so unhappy. I literally put myself in a complete adrenal exhaustion. The one thing that I I did for my stress management at that time was exercise. I could no longer exercise. What I could do was wake up. I could get down to my office. Treat the number of patients that I had for that day. Come home and fall asleep. That's all the energy that I had. And that's not a life. There was no work-life balance. There was no vitality. There was no spark in my world. It was really dull. And so, I used food. I used alcohol. I used sleep. I used all the coping mechanisms of avoidance. I withdrew from my family and my friends. I isolated myself even more. And I know this doesn't paint a pretty picture. But that was my world. And my husband sat me down, and I was notorious for starting a conversation over the dinner table and then forgetting that I was having a conversation and stop and just like space out for a moment because I couldn't really complete a sentence, complete a complete thought. And he looked at me and he was like, "Mary, how long are you going to do this?" And I'm like, "What do you mean how long am I going to do this?" And he's like, "Well, if you don't make a change, you're physically going to go down a downward spiral. You're going to get worse. You're going to create some kind of a life-threatening illness. If adrenal exhaustion is not enough for you, then the universe is going to create something more." And he's like, "Furthermore, I don't know if our relationship is going to survive." And so, I was like, "Okay, you have my attention. I'm listening. What do I need to do?" And he said, "I have a question for you." And I said, "What's that?" And he said, "Do you think that you could leave all of this?" I'm like, "What? What do you mean leave it?" And he's like, "Do you think that we could leave everything that we have created and move to the other side of the world?" And I said, "Oh, no. No. No, that's not happening." Because, I mean, really, I have put all of my blood, sweat and equity into growing this practice. I was miserable but I didn't want to leave it, right? Time passed and my husband acquired a position in Ho Chi Minh City and he says, "Are you on board?" And I said, "Okay." We sold the practices. We sold the home. We sold everything that we had. And I ended up on the other – waking up in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, on the other side of the world, wondering, "Paula, who am I? What am I here to do? What's my purpose in life?" And I went through these huge identity crises and tremendous amount of depression. I did what any logical person would do. I ran away from my husband in Ho Chi Minh City and I ran down to Bali, Indonesia and I finished up my yoga teacher certification. [00:11:04] PF: Oh, that's fantastic. [00:11:05] Dr. MS: I know. I know. But for the first time, Paula, I was able to think for the first time in my life. I had time on my hand. I learned to meditate. And let me tell you something, I was like, "Wow. Wow. Let me wrap my head around this." I know the human body incredibly well from the neck on down. Obviously, as a chiropractor, I was very familiar with the neurology. And then I'm like, "Okay, something really magical is happening with the space between my ears, the space within my head. What's happening mentally as the result of doing meditation?" The curiosity got the best of me, and that's when I went and studied with Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar because I wanted – [00:11:47] PF: We love him. [00:11:47] Dr. MS: Yeah, I know. And he has such a beautiful way of just breaking down the neuroscience behind meditation. Now I had the experience of what meditation was doing. And then I also had the intellectual knowledge. And so, then, as fate had it at that time, my husband and I decided to create a non-profit organization in order to support teachers and the tools of positive psychology so that they can embody them and role model them into the classroom. We left Ho Chi Minh City. Went to Bogota, Colombia. And that non-profit organization went gangbusters. We thought we were producing a product for the United States. And then, once again, I'm finding myself in kind of a stressful situation. How fast can I produce? As fast as I was producing, it was being translated into Spanish and then it would put into the classrooms in not only Colombia, but in Peru as well. I was like, "Okay. Okay. Okay. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Let me wrap my head around this." So then, I'm now running the same neurological pattern that I was running when I was in my business. I haven't learned a darn thing. Even though I'm meditating and taking good care of myself, something's happening here energetically. We left our Bogota, Colombia. Went to Bali, Indonesia and spent a year. And it was kind of a sabbatical. And so, again, here I am doing yoga and meditating every day, eating vegan. I was just really just wanted to clean up and I wanted to get online energetically. And then that's when I started my training at the Academy of Intuition Medicine. I was like, "Okay. Well, I got the body. I got the mind. And now I need to understand the energetics." And so, here we are combined now – Paula, I literally could not have planned the sequence of events that I just outlined for you. It had to happen because I had to go through burnout and I had to blow up my world in order to hit rock bottom in order to come out in a full holistic 360 perspective as to how the human body and the spirit operates as one. [00:13:57] PF: What happens to women who don't have the resources you do? Who don't have a husband that pulls him out and says, "Hey, you've got to save yourself?" What do you see when women – we'll just use women because I know they seem to be more prone to burnout. What do you see with the women who come to your practice who are just past what you had gone through? [00:14:20] Dr. MS: I believe that every woman that is listening to this audio right now, this beautiful podcast, who is somewhat aligned with the idea of burnout. Chances are there's a high probability. I'm talking about 90%, 95%, 98% of these women have received signals. [00:14:38] PF: Do we recognize those signs? [00:14:40] Dr. MS: Yeah. And I can talk about these signs. And that was the second part of your question. And I alluded to some of the physical signs. We know that you can literally have a hormonal shift within your body physically as the result of long-term stress. And that comes from the adrenal glands, which are small little glands that sit on top of the kidneys. And the adrenal glands are responsible for producing – when you really truly are in a fight or flight demand, they are responsible for producing epinephrine, norepinephrine, cortisol, DHEA to name a few. And when we are under long-term chronic stress, those hormones create – they get produced on a continuous basis and they create what is called a negative feedback cycle that travels through the entire endocrine system. And the endocrine system is essentially the system that governs all of the hormones that you produce. I'm talking about serotonin and melatonin. How are you sleeping? You know? [00:15:50] PF: Yeah, because that's one of the first things people lose, right? I know so many women who say, "I cannot get to sleep. I'm exhausted. And I go to bed and I cannot sleep." [00:15:59] Dr. MS: Or they pass out before their head hits the pillow, right? And then three o'clock in the morning, like clockwork, they wake up possibly due to a sugar burn off from the wine that they drank the night before or some kind of sugar imbalance. I believe that the hormones and the physical body talk to us in beautiful and mysterious ways. Maybe their metabolism slows down because their thyroid is not working. Maybe they're starting to feel sluggish and that they're having weight gain. Maybe the pancreas is out of balance and they're starting to see blood sugar issues. Maybe the hormones that they're producing – and it's a precarious time for women as they are going through perimenopause, and menopause and post-menopause. But you add those changes hormonally and couple it with the chronic stress, then you're really feeling a little whack-a-doodle, Paula. Just your body talks to you in so many beautiful ways. And those are the signs and the symptoms that I'm inviting the women listening to really pay attention to. [00:17:06] PF: Isn't it often the case you might go to your doctor and they say, "Well, it is just hormones." Because that often happen. Women, they're not being listened to by their doctors. They're told, "Well, it's just hormonal. You can't really do anything about it." Or they give them a prescription for something that's going to help them sleep or help them not be depressed. And then they're sent on their way. [00:17:26] Dr. MS: We live in a society, Paula, that we have been taught from our mother's generation that when we go to a physician, that they are empowered to tell us what to do and they are empowered to tell us what's happening within our body. And I'm here to say that, I'm sorry, there's no other physician that lives outside of your body that can possibly feel as to what's going on in internally for you. Really, the power needed to be given back to the women to be able to understand that there needs to be an integrative approach. Very rarely is a low back pain just a low back pain. There's going to be a physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, chemical foundation to that low back pain. And very few physicians have the knowledge skill set to treat from an integrative standpoint nor do they have the time. I really encourage women to take that power back and to really say, "Timeout. Timeout. I know that my weight gain could be hormonal. Yes, I think that there is a chemical portion to the hormones. But I'm telling you that I live in my body and these are other symptoms that I'm experiencing simultaneously. And, oh, by the way, do you have a referral for a good psychotherapist? Or do you have a referral for a good nutritionist or somebody that can talk about the elements of food?" I believe that we as women got to really empower ourselves. I keep coming back to that word empowerment. When we are, unfortunately – and I'm going to go into another branch of what possibly might be showing up as signs and symptoms for women. And maybe you might understand a little bit more clearly why the challenges for women to advocate for themselves, is that when somebody is going through a burnout, I don't care if it's professional or personal, it really messes with their sense of self-worth. [00:19:26] PF: Nobody brings that up. [00:19:28] Dr. MS: Oh, my goodness. Self-worth, there's a component of learned helplessness. Thank you, Dr. Seligman, for educating us on learned helplessness. There is a lack of motivation. People just energetically and emotionally just feel flatlined. Okay? And this creates a trigger, an emotional trigger, which is very similar to a trauma response within the body. All of this, neurologically speaking, there's an imbalance as to the get up and go kind of sympathetic dominance. And then there's a lack of function within the parasympathetics to auto-regulate the central nervous system from the emotional standpoint. We absolutely are not thinking clearly. And now here I am saying we need to be empowered to ask for what it is that we need. It's hard to do that if you're not thinking clearly. Behaviorally, you're like isolating yourself. You're withdrawing yourself. You're not reaching out to your girlfriends and your support team. You don't have your cheer squad on your side. I see how it happens. I understand and I have so much empathy for people that are going through burnout. [00:20:44] PF: And you take an integrative approach. And we're going to talk about that in a second. Before we do it, what is someone to do when they know intrinsically there is so much more going on? And they go to a doctor and the doctor says, "It's just you're stressed. Or it's emotional. Or it's hormones." Where do they then go? [00:21:01] Dr. MS: Yeah, that's a legitimate question. Quite honestly, Paula, that's why I have created my signature program. Because there are very few people that are truly taking an integrative approach. And I believe, and I know and I'm thankful that there are integrative physicians that can address the bulk of the problems. But most of the integrative physicians are not taking in the energetic and the spiritual component. I do think that there are people that can help serve, support and help facilitate the healing journey. But from my perspective it really does require an integrative approach. [00:21:37] PF: Yeah. Tell us what you mean by an integrative approach and then what that looks like? [00:21:44] Dr. MS: Yeah. In my world, an integrative approach is incorporating the mind, the body and the spirit. When I'm talking about the mind, I'm talking about mindset behavioral and conditions, limiting belief patterns, tapping into the subconscious through meditation. That is the mind. The body, we're all very familiar with the body. And so, sometimes that's the chemical component of the body. Is it something structural that is happening? Oftentimes, I have women go through a functional blood chemistry analysis. From a functional standpoint, we look at the biomarkers, we look at the indicators and we look and compare highs, and lows, and medians and average. And then we compare whether it'd be three months, or six months, or year down the road. And then we look at your pre and post blood markers to see where normal is for you. [00:22:46] PF: Yeah, it's so important to point out. It is. Each person is different. And you have to find out what's right for you. [00:22:52] Dr. MS: Long gone are the days where medicine is cookie cutter. I believe that the next evolution of medicine, literally from the integrative standpoint, is to transition into energy medicine. The energy medicine that I'm alluding to takes into consideration that, within all of us, there is an electromagnetic current. And surrounding our physical body is also an electromagnetic current. And we're going to call that the subtle energetic body. It's known to some people as the aura or is known to others as the bio field. And so, essentially, this energy that surrounds this is like the layers of the onion. It's intended to be protective. Protective of the energy that come at us within our environment. I mean, energetically, we have so much information coming at us at all times, it's hard to live in a dense boundary type of way to reflect all of these energies either way. I'm talking about 5G energies. I'm talking about energies from other people. I'm talking about frequencies, X-ray frequencies. You name it, those energies are coming into our bio field once it enters into our bio field. Depending upon the direction, it will enter into an energy center, also known as a chakra, within our energy body. And these chakras have themes. They have life themes. They have emotional themes. They have nerve plexuses that are associated with them. They also have an endocrine gland that is associated with them. You can see where, energetically, if we're not protecting the field coming into our physical body, it then can turn into an emotional disturbance, or a physical disturbance, or an endocrine disturbance. That integrative approach, the mind, body and spirit gets to address all three of those systems simultaneously. And to provide you, the consumer, with the tools, the resources so that you can empower yourself to do your own personal healing. You start to look inward for support instead of outward. [00:25:20] PF: That's so powerful because that's not a prescription you're going to get from your doctor. And you are just really big proponent of meditation. You talked about that earlier. How big a role does meditation play in all of those things, in the mind, the body, all of it? [00:25:36] Dr. MS: Paula, I can almost feel some of the ladies listening to the podcast cringe. I can feel their toes curl, "There's that meditation. That word meditation. I've tried it. It doesn't work for me. I simply just cannot relax my mind. I have too much going on in my world. How can I possibly take the time to meditate?" And I am an advocate. I do believe in a formal sitting practice. But I also believe that mindfulness can be bought into various different daily tasks, such as washing your dishes at night, loading your dishwasher, making your bed, or gardening, or taking the dog out for a walk. I'm not saying that those activities are not grounding. But what I'm looking to do in meditation is to shift the various different brain waves so that you can then start to access the subconscious. So that you can leave the space of the ego and transcend into the place where the ego does not exist. Because I believe, Paula, that as women, as human living or spirits living in a human body, I believe that all of us have the capacity to receive information above and beyond our traditional five senses. Information that is valuable to our own personal healing. And meditation opens up those channels for receiving information. [00:27:01] PF: And then once we start receiving that information, we're going to act on it, how does it start changing the way we look at life? Changing the decisions we make? Tell us that bridge between I'm burned out, and I started meditating and now things are clear. What is that link that takes us there? [00:27:21] Dr. MS: Sure. Well, first and foremost, I'm going to openly admit that just because you're burned out and you start meditating doesn't mean that there's going to be an overnight shift. It's not a quick pill. It's not a pill. It's not a quick fix. This is something that takes time, and repetition and commitment to really see the benefits. But in my own personal experience, I started meditating receiving information intuitively. I didn't trust it. I still didn't trust the information. I just kind of ignored it. You ignore it once. Yeah, yeah. You ignore it twice, oh, maybe there's something to this. You ignore it the third time and you're like, "What am I doing? I clearly am receiving signals about what path, or direction, or decisions I should be making. And I'm not even following the own internal advice and wisdom that's coming from within." I think that most women have to go through that distrust period before they completely can surrender. And what I have heard over and over, Paula, is women saying, Oh, my God, Mary, you wouldn't believe it. I have boundaries now. I feel full of myself. And not from a really standoff-ish place. I'm coming from it from a really heart-centered, heartfelt way." It's like these transitions that women are learning to say, "No. No. Thank you. Let me think about. It I'll get back to you. I'll circle back with you." Once women can understand that they have this power, this life force energy surging through their physical body and their energetic body, they blossom. Blossom into something magnificent. [00:29:03] PF: If women are listening to this and they're saying, "Okay, I know I'm burned out. This all makes sense. But I don't know where to start." Where do they start? I know you offer some great resources on your site. You've got a wonderful podcast that people can tune in and listen to. But what is the next step? After listening to our conversation today, what is their next step? [00:29:23] Dr. MS: Ask for help. [00:29:25] PF: And who do you ask? [00:29:26] Dr. MS: Well, I would love to be a resource. I would be honored to be a resource. If I find that I am not the right match or intuitively that the woman is like, "Okay, you're nice. But you're not giving me exactly what I need." Then I'm going to help find that person that provides you with exactly what you need. One of the things that I really do enjoy about being a podcast host in the field of energy medicine is that it is developing and widening of my referral base. I've got a lot of cool friends and a lot of cool places. [00:29:59] PF: That's terrific. As we wrap up today, what is the one thing that you hope everybody that hears you today will take away from our conversation? [00:30:08] Dr. MS: I really want people to embrace the fact that they're not alone. And that there are people that are experiencing burnout all – it can be a different facet of burnout. But they're not alone. That nothing is permanent. And it that if you are experiencing burnout, whether it'd be depression, anxiety, physical discomfort, know that all of those symptoms are transient. They too shall pass. [00:30:35] PF: That's excellent. I thank you so much for being with me today. We could talk for hours. But I appreciate this conversation and everything that you're doing to help get us through these phases and these difficult times in our lives. [00:30:47] Dr. MS: Thank you again, Paula. Sincerely, it is my honor to be here today. Thank you, listeners. [OUTRO] [00:30:57] PF: That was Dr. Mary Sanders, talking about how women can manage burnout. If you'd like to learn more about Mary, download her free Boost Your Energy Guide, listen to our podcast or learn more about what tools she offers, just visit our website at livehappy.com and click on the podcast link. And just a reminder that the International Day of Happiness is just around the corner and we would love you to celebrate it with us. You can do that by hosting a happiness wall in your home, office, church or school on March 20th. And if you'd like to learn more, just visit our website, that's livehappy.com, and click on the happy X tab. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all new episode. And until then, this is Paula Felps reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Celebrate a Month of #HappyActs With Live Happy [INTRODUCTION] [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 406 of Live Happy Now. It's almost March and here at Live Happy, it's our favorite time of year, and not just because of St. Patrick's Day. I'm your host, Paula Felps, and this week we are talking about happiness month, and how you can help celebrate it. Today, I'm being joined a Live Happy CEO and Founder Deborah Heisz, E-Commerce Marketing Manager, Casey Johnson, and Marketing Manager, Laura Coppedge, to talk about why we're so excited about this time of year, and how you can be a part of it. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:35] PF: I'm so happy to have all three of the ladies here at Live Happy. It's really exciting to talk about happiness month. We've been doing this for a while. And I'm so glad that we can sit down and tell everybody what all we have planned this year, because I feel like we're back for the first time in like three years. One thing people may not know about if they haven't been following Live Happy earlier, and we forgive them for that. They may not know what happy acts are and what this is all about. And Deb, I don't think anyone can explain it better than you can. [00:01:04] DH: Oh, thanks, Paula. Yeah, this is something we have been doing for quite a while. I think this is our ninth year of doing some sort of a Happy Acts campaign. I could be wrong. But I think it's year number nine. We better figure that out before it's year number 10. Really what we do is we take the month of March, and the reason why we selected March is because in 2012, the United Nations declared March 20th, the International Day of Happiness. So, March was kind of declared for us, but we take the month of March, and we use it as a month to share happiness and try and make the world a happier place through something we call our Happy Acts. That's Happy A-C-T-S campaign, and that's really composed of two different things. One is an online social media, people doing happy acts and sharing happy acts and pointing out the good things they see in the world, but also being intentional. And the other one is a walls project, which is walls that we put up. And we call them walls, but they're anything from a bulletin board to something stuck on your refrigerator, to a large wall in a public place like a park or a mall, more people make a commitment to do something to make the world a happier place. And we've been doing this for a while and every year it gets bigger. What we really want to use the month to do is to get people focused on the idea that they can take action, that people can actually take action to improve their communities around them and prove their own wellbeing and make a difference in the world. So, it's a lot of fun. We have a lot of fun around it. But also, it's a way of giving back. [00:02:40] PF: Can you tell us more about the 20th, which is the International Day of Happiness, and maybe some of the ways that people celebrate that? [00:02:46] DH: Well, the kingdom of Bhutan, actually, there was a study done a long time ago, they were kind of the happiest country on Earth. They petitioned the United Nations to declare that the International Day of Happiness. So, a lot of days, there's everything from International Donut Day to, National Take Your Dog to the Park Day, whatever it is, there's all sorts of days that are declared. But when we found out about that, it's about the same time that Live Happy was founding. So, we actually partnered with the United Nations for a couple years. I mean, we did presentations and got a group of speakers together to address the United Nations on happiness. And we did that for a few years. And then there are a lot of other organizations similar to ourselves that do some sort of social, or charitable reach out to celebrate internationally of happiness. But really, the concept of happiness is not – we've talked about this a lot, Paula. We're talking about happiness. We're not talking about taking that roller coaster ride that makes you have fun. We're not talking about whatever it is that makes you like jump for glee. We're actually talking about personal wellbeing. Being the person who you're supposed to be, being where you're supposed to be in your life, really being congruent in the choices that you make. And that's really what they mean by the International Day of Happiness. It's a day of how can we improve human wellbeing. And there's other organizations, like I said, that do similar things to what we do. But really, it has been a part of Live Happy from day one. We just think it's important for the wider world to know that you too, can make the world a happier place. You're not dependent on other people to do it for you. And so, it's International Day of Happiness. There's a lot of stuff going on around it. I know the World Happiness Report comes out on that day. I think this is the sixth one of those World Happiness Report, looking at which of the world's happiest countries and why, once again, happiest being a measure of wellbeing, population wellbeing. There are a couple of conferences that are held every year, but I really feel like we own the day because you don't have to do a lot to participate and anybody, anybody anywhere can participate in our Happy Acts campaign. It's super easy. It's super simple, but you have to take action and do something. You have to be intentional about it. And that's what I love about it. It's accessible to everybody. But it actually can make a difference and we have thousands of people involved every year and it's a wonderful experience. [00:05:12] PF: What I love about the happy acts is, if you're going to believe that it takes 21 days to build a habit, well, we have 31 days in March, and each of those days, you're giving us a happy act to perform. And I think it really gets your mind started of thinking of how am I going to do this? What am I going to do? I can see by the end of the month, where it's like, why do you need to quit? You're going to come up with your own ideas, your own thing that you could do to make somebody else happier, and we know that makes you feel happier. So, that's one thing that I really love about the whole Happy Acts approach. Casey, you always do an amazing job of putting together our happy acts for the month. You've done that again this year. Can you talk about the campaign, how it's carried out, and what some of the happy acts that you're encouraging people to do will be? [00:06:00] CJ: I would love to. So, as you mentioned, you know, we have 31 happy acts for the 31 days of March, every day in March. So, to make things easy, we offer a downloadable Happy Acts calendar that anyone can access for free at livehappy.com/happyacts. So, we encourage you to – you can follow along with our daily happy acts or you can make up your own. There's more than just 31 ways to spread happiness in the world. And we would love for you guys to share the way you're spreading kindness and happiness in the world by tagging us on social. We're basically on all social channels. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, we have a TikTok channel now, LinkedIn. And some of my favorite happy acts this year, just to give you guys a little sneak peek. They're small things like we've talked about, just small ways to make someone's day a little brighter, or even your own. But anyway, so for example, if you see like a cashier at the grocery store, having a tough day, buy them their favorite candy in the checkout line, and you'll see their face brighten up or make a funny TikTok with your friends or your pet, volunteer at your favorite charity or donate. They're small little things that make a huge impact. [00:07:14] LC: I think the one – this is Laura. I think the one that I love that’s new, because some of these we have been using for nine years, Deborah, if you wanted to clarify that. We've been doing him for a year as. I love that Casey, one of the ones you came up with this year was to plan an errand date with a friend. I mean, how great is that? It's making – and that's part of this too is like looking at our perspective of how can we make even our own day a little bit better. It's our mindset on it. We have to run errands, and it's drudgery, but we take a friend along, it's a whole different experience and I love the simplicity of that. [00:07:51] PF: I think it's really important that we start learning, it is small steps that move us into wellbeing. There are the big steps that everybody talks about making these huge shifts, and that seems overwhelming. But moving into a space of happiness and wellbeing really is about the small little habits that you build on every day, that you look back after a while and realize that you have changed your perspective, you've changed your mood, you've changed your life, because of those small changes. [00:08:16] DH: I think it's really important to point out something you said just a minute ago, Paula, which is some of the habit forming. Doing positive things, taking action, doing happy acts, can become a habit, but it only takes 21 days, really, to build the habit. A lot of studies say that that's the optimum time. And once you've done something for 21 days, it's easier to do than not to do. So, these happy acts, take this month and build happy acts into your regular every day. Form that habit. Form that habit of being optimistic. And these are not huge things. I mean, it is, buy a coworker a cup of coffee. Write a thank you note. Make a call to someone you haven't talked to in a while. Check on a neighbor. There are all sorts of things and the calendar that we've got out there on social media, great suggestions. It's wonderful to take March to do that. But after that, continue the practice, because our goal is not to have a really happy March. Actually, move the needle, right? [00:09:18] PF: Right. It’s the setup. [00:09:20] DH: It is the setup. Yes. [00:09:23] PF: Casey, where do they get that calendar? Where should they look for that? Because I've seen it. It looks terrific. It makes it fun. It's something they could print out, put up on their wall, put in their cubicle, whatever they want to do. Where do they go find that? [00:09:34] CJ: Yeah, they can find that on livehappy.com/happyacts, and we're really excited. We have a new format this year. So, we hope you guys enjoy it. [00:09:42] PF: And then each day on social media, they can look and see what the happy act for the day is, correct? [00:09:48] CJ: Yes, yeah. If you're following us on social, we'll be posting every day, so you can repost ours and make your own, just anyway, spread the word and just celebrate happiness. [00:10:00] PF: Very cool. [00:10:00] DH: Please follow us on social. Both social and then our email newsletter which goes out every other week. It's just content to help you improve your life and wellbeing and a lot of stuff that we put out there should make you smile. So, it'll make you pause and think. I mean, it's all good stuff to see in your feed. Right? I'd rather see something from Live Happy in my feed, than whatever the hot thing is that's being purchased, that's being pushed on you to buy right now or politics or vote for this or whatever it is. I'd rather – I mean, wouldn't you rather have your feet filled with stuff from Live Happy? [00:10:32] PF: I would. [00:10:33] DH: I would. [00:10:35] CJ: I would too. Maybe we're biased. [00:10:40] DH: Maybe a little, Casey. Maybe just a little. [00:10:43] PF: Well, Laura, you're really leading the charge on these happiness walls. And these are so cool. You and I actually really bonded over the very first happiness wall that we did in Chicago. We'd never met before. Brand new to Live Happy. [00:10:56] LM: 2014. So, yeah, 2014 in March 28th in Chicago, became my best thing. [00:11:05] PF: Yeah, so happiness walls have a special place for me. But you're leading that. Now, talk to us about what to do with them, how you can do it. Because what I do love is how you've really expanded the definition of what a happiness wall can be, and made it accessible to literally everyone. [00:11:19] LM: Right. When we first started out, they were these big, kind of – and they still are a very – it's just a social interaction campaign. We're not asking anybody to give us anything. We're not giving anybody – it is very much social awareness of what are you doing and what can you do to share happiness. How will I share happiness? In what Casey was talking about on social media, we're talking about 31 suggestions of doing it. When we really talk about the wall interactions we have, it's really kind of a pledge of what will I do. What little thing will I do, can I do, did I do today to share happiness.? The great thing about that, and Deborah started talking about that, is they can be. We've had these big orange walls of the Bean in Chicago and various places around the world, honestly, when we were really doing international interaction there for a while before the pandemic kind of slowed that down. But it's also like, it's a bulletin board. It's a wall in the middle of your mall. But it's also, we have a poster that you can get that talks about how you're going to share happiness and asking different people how they'll do that. One of the ways that we have been doing it in my house, and I know at Deborah's house, with our kids is we have one that we put on the refrigerator, and do every year. My kids, every year, we have done the paint positivity on a rock and leave it around the neighborhood somewhere. They still love that. When we started this campaign, Deborah and I, both of our kids were young, elementary school kids, and now we have teenagers. That's one of those things that the art on and the messages on the rocks have greatly improved, for sure. [00:13:01] PF: They’d come a long way. [00:13:03] LM: The sentiment is still been the same and they look forward to that interaction. And I think, talking about it being a social awareness campaign, our kids growing up with this concept, and knowing this is, like they know Valentine's Day is coming. They know that Easter is coming. For our kids, they know that the International Day of Happiness is coming and March is coming. That I think, has made them much more intentional with how they're doing small things that are good for the world, and still saw confidence in them. That's been a wonderful thing to kind of watch and see and how they ask deeper questions over the years about why they're doing this and what it means to do it. So again, Casey said that all of our resources are on livehappy.com/happyacts and we have on there. But what we really ask people to do, because we're interested in where people are doing this, is to go on and register your wall. And if you plan on doing something at your school or at your community, that's wonderful. We have some lesson plan guides for schools to use, for elementary schools to kind of talk about what the International Day of Happiness is, and talk about how they can do things for the world and people around them. But also, if you're just going to do it in your cubicle work, or at your home, let us know the name of the city and these of where you're going to do that. Let us know where we are spreading that joy in the world. We have walls in Mexico and Canada and across the pond in England and France and it's a wonderful thing to see. Again, for us largely too, the work that we do day in and day out makes a difference and people are paying attention and wanting to better themselves and wanting to better the lives of their communities. So, on the website again, there's like we have all sorts of has pictures of walls, like if you're like, “Okay, this sounds like a great idea”, but I'm not a Pinterest-y creative person. We have inspirations. There are all sorts of like, creative ways that people have done that. So, there's a whole page that can give you some ideas and inspiration on that. And again, we have the calendar, you can download. But we also have just a simple wall that you can place on your fridge that you can download that the kids can fill in, that you can fill in, that your coworkers can fill in at work. [00:15:31] PF: But all you're doing is telling them how you're going to share happiness. It's not – [00:15:35] LM: Yeah. It's kind of the flip side of what I want to do going forward, what I want to bring out to the world. Even if it’s, I'm going to be more mindful of parking streets, so I don't take it to places in the grocery store. I mean, it can be such a small thing, or I'm going to volunteer more of my time in the coming months. I'm going to reduce my carbon footprint. That's one of our 31 apps this year. It's taking that today and moving it forward in our lives. [00:16:10] PF: Yeah. And what's really cool about doing it is if you don't have any ideas, you can steal someone else's from the wall. [00:16:16] LM: Absolutely. Yes. [00:16:19] DH: So, I think it's interesting to talk about that this is what we're doing. But if you haven't done this before, this is the way a wall works. Wherever you are, it's a wall. We like it to be orange, for branding, and then there's a card that says, “I will make the world a happier place by”, and someone writes something down, and he put it on the wall. Now, if you haven't done this before, it's kind of an interesting experience. Because if you see someone in a mall or something like that, and there's a bunch of people walking around, you're thinking, they're trying to sell me something. And so, people are like, “I'm not interested.” And it's like, “You're not interested in happiness?” And then they kind of go, “What?” You go, “No, we're not selling anything. We just want you to fill out a card, make a commitment to make the world a happier place.” And they're like, “Oh, what religion are you?” “No, no. We're not a religion, either. We're just out here, it’s International Day of Happiness.” And you'd be surprised to how people engage. In order to have them engage, we've had that experience the grumpiest person will stick around for two or three hours and join in asking people to fill out cards. It's the craziest experience. Those are our big public walls. And it's phenomenal, because it really is good to be able to stop and go, “Hey, there's something good. I can do something.” But we made it – I'm going to say it's a huge change. But it's only a huge change, because we haven't made any changes in the past. We made a change to our in-home wall this year. And I think it probably sprung out of it fact that Laura and I have teenagers. So, teenagers and accountability don't really go well together. This year's downloadable wall is seven days, it's got seven spaces, so that every day, your teenager, or your child, or you, or your spouse, or whoever it is, can fill out for a week, one week, what did they do to make the world a happier place that day. So, this is a change for us. And I think it really kind of comes out of the fact that our families are getting older, and we start seeing it engaged and not a desire to change it up, but a desire to make it more meaningful. Because if everybody writes down what they did today, you can have a conversation about it. It's that dinner conversation that we try and have around our table. What good happened today? Well, as opposed to what good happy today it's, what good did you do today? So, I think it's going to be an interesting take on it. I encourage those of you who would love to host a public wall to find out more about that. Go to livehappy.com/happyacts. Or go to live happy.com, there's a Happy Acts on the navigation that you can see. Go there, read about happiness walls. If you're a teacher, we do them in schools, classrooms. I think pre-pandemic we had more than 2,000 walls in 37 countries, the last year pre-pandemic. It's a huge boost in the classroom to get kids thinking about it. I know our principal puts it on the calendar and asks us what day we're going to come in and do it. So, it makes a difference if you're a teacher. If you are a manager in an office, put one up on a bulletin board. If you own a small business, put one up where people can come in and see it. I think the person hosting the wall, the person doing it and taking the effort actually gets a ton out of it. Because you get to spend your day talking about happiness, and making the world a better place. And it really does give you that feeling of accomplishment, that feeling of I did something, but also you get to engage with a lot of people that you might not ordinarily get to engage with. So, check it out. Once again, live happy.com/happyacts. There's a lot of information there. Register your wall. We'll be doing a bunch of giveaways during the month of March. People who register their wall or share happy acts, random giveaways, would just like to spread some share by randomly giving away some Live Happy gears. So, check it out, register your wall, join us in celebrating Happy Acts. It's something we do for the month of March every year. But really, it's something we should be doing all year round. [00:20:14] PF: I love it. So, as we wrap it up, what looks like success for this year's Happy Acts campaign? [00:20:21] DH: Success looks like more people sharing on social media their happy acts and getting a lot – I mean, my goal is, we haven't really talked to number yet. I guess we probably should. But my goal is to get at least a thousand home walls, at least a thousand people to do a home wall, and add that to the schools and the businesses that we already typically. Get Happy Acts walls going forward, and just to grow this. That would be my goal. But also, sharing on social media. Wouldn't it be great to see in your feed all the happy acts are doing? Well, to do that we need more people participating, and we need more people to just go ahead and create videos, make your Reel about the happy acts you did that day. What about the happy act someone else did that day? Or something that makes you happy. Make your Reel, your TikTok, whatever it is, your Insta. Let's just flood social media with as many happy acts as possible for the month of March. We’ll have a larger impact that way. [00:21:16] PF: I love it. Well, Deborah, Laura, Casey, I appreciate you, as always, sitting down with me. You're doing such wonderful things to make the world a happier place. I'm excited to get going on this year's Happy Acts. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:21:32] PF: That was Deborah Heisz. Casey Johnson, and Laura Coppedge, talking about our Happy Acts campaign and the International Day of Happiness. If you'd like to learn more about how to join us for a full month of celebrating happiness, share your happy acts with us on social media, or post a happiness wall in your home, office, church, or school, to celebrate the International Day of Happiness on March 20th, just visit our website at livehappy.com and click on the Happy acts Tab. We’re for excited to see you there. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all new episode. And until then, this is Paula Felps reminding you to make every day a happy one [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Connecting to Nature Through Yoga With Rebecca Wildbear [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 405 of Live Happy Now. Today, we're going to take a walk on the wild side. I'm your host, Paula Felps. And this week, I'm sitting down with Rebecca Wildbear to talk about connecting with nature through a program she developed called Wild Yoga. We know that being in nature is good for us, but Rebecca takes it to the next level and shows us how we can deepen our connection with the earth to better understand ourselves. Her new book, Wild Yoga: A Practice of Initiation, Veneration & Advocacy for the Earth, takes a deeper dive into how we can connect with the earth and what it will do for us. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:44] PF: Rebecca, thank you so much for joining me on Live Happy Now. [00:00:48] RW: Thank you. Thanks for inviting me. [00:00:50] PF: This is a perfect time to talk to you. People don't know we're recording this on the book launch day, so that's kind of exciting. It gives a great feel. This overall is really fascinating because I'm familiar with a lot of types of yoga. This was the first time I had heard of Wild Yoga and discovered this is something you developed. So let's start back at the beginning. Can you tell me what Wild Yoga is and how you created it? [00:01:16] RW: Yeah. Thanks for asking. It's the kind of yoga that involves loving ourselves, stretching our consciousness, connecting to the earth body as much as we might connect to our own bodies, delving into the mystery, listening to dreams, letting our yoga kind of take us back to the larger meaning of yoga, which is about our relationship to ourselves and our relationship to the whole world. So oftentimes, yoga is synonymous with asana, which is the physical postures and practices, which Wild Yoga definitely includes. But it also has the larger expanse that I think is rooted more in the depth of the original meaning of yoga, to route us in relationship with the depths in our bodies and our souls and also with the wild earth around us as part of our own body. [00:02:06] PF: So is it more of a meditative yoga or a physical yoga, or what can participants expect from it? [00:02:12] RW: Well, it has an asana practice that like doing a physical asana practice is part of it, and it includes a lot of imagery and poetry and metaphor to connect us to our bodies and nature. Kind of some of my yoga classes feel like a little bit like a journey, and sometimes they have different themes like connecting to our wild natures, connecting to our wholeness, connecting to our soul, courting our muse through movement. You can see in my yoga practice the poses have descriptions, which include imaginative practices, as well as the physical postures. Then there's a whole philosophy with teachings and stories just about motivated to bring us into relationship with our bodies, not only on the yoga mat, but all the time to promote a deep kind of listening to our body as an intelligent source that we can learn from. Also really opening us up to a broader spans of all intelligences including listening to the intelligence of nature and the earth and trees and listening to the intelligence of our dreams, listening to our souls, connecting to the sacred and the spirit, connecting to our muse, and sourcing all of that and how we relate and act into the world. I say that I use a term often, living amused directed life or living an earth-centered life, those kinds of things so that our life purpose and meaning expands beyond just our own individual selves and egos. [00:03:34] PF: How big a role does that nature connection play in self-discovery? Because we've gotten really away from nature, and I want to dive into that with you. But can you address how important it is to connect with nature in order to connect better with ourselves? [00:03:49] RW: Yeah. I mean, I think it's absolutely essential, and I think people might have noticed that if you've spent any time in nature or if you spent long times in nature, obviously, a lot of people seem to love nature connection. Like if you've noticed, if you go sit by the ocean for the day, or if you go out into the woods for the day, how it affects your body naturally, like you feel better inside yourself. You oftentimes can feel more like yourself. I always say the natural world is inherently itself. It has no confusion. A tree is a tree. It knows it's a tree, and it's a tree. Everything in nature is so much itself. Human beings, we have the thinking mind, which can often get us lost in this self and this self and that self, divided perspectives. It seems to me like being in nature, at least it’s been my experience with myself and others, brings us back into a connected place with ourselves because we're in good company. We're in an intelligent company. We're sitting with beings that are fully themselves and can engage fully with everything else around. So a lot of the practices that I offer in Wild Yoga are rooted in having a conversation with nature, beyond even just as a healing source and even a part of ourselves, but as an animate world, which is what most of our ancestors believed the earth to be, something that we can relate to and talk to and that has feelings and perspectives. So I take people back into that relationship as part of Wild Yoga. [00:05:17] PF: How surprised are they by maybe the emotions that come up, the relationship they start feeling with the earth? Because I love how you're really taking us back to something very primal, something we have gotten so far away from. So I'm just wondering, as people go on this journey, how do they respond to it? [00:05:35] RW: Well, my sense is they love it. I mean, it's surprising. Like you don't often know. You can't anticipate what exactly is going to happen if you go out and have a conversation with nature. Sometimes, if you haven't had done it before, it can be frustrating because there's like, “Oh, gosh. I’m trying to have a conversation, and nothing's happening.” But it takes kind of a patience and persistence. When people stick with it, they become so surprised and enlivened by the stories and connections that happen for them that they have, like who shows up to talk, what they say, what they learned, the new perspectives that come through. [00:06:12] PF: So let's talk about that. What does someone do when you say, “We're going to go out. We're going to talk to nature,” just as if you're walking beside me out there? What am I going to do? [00:06:21] RW: Well, a lot of it involves bringing like your child's self back in, the one who knew how to play and particularly the one that knew how to imagine. Imagination is a really big key in being able to talk and listen to the earth. It’s hard to communicate that idea at first because people in our culture have often been taught that imagination is kids’ stuff, and it's not real. When you're done with kindergarten, you just kind of move on to like what you know and what you can think. When I work with people, we really come back to play. We come back into the imagination and understand that the imagination is a really important way of knowing, maybe even more important than thinking. So even if you're not sure about it like, “Well, gosh. Is the world really alive? Can I really talk to trees,” what if you could just play and imagine that was the case? What might happen? That's often how I invite people into having a conversation with nature is not trying to think too much about like, “Oh, is it real, and did the tree really say that,” and letting them play with it. You can always decide later what you think of it. But right now, just be in it and play and go out. It involves a lot of attending to the natural world too, getting out of your thinking mind, getting out of your figuring out planning mind, which is very hard for people. A lot of times, when people go into the wilderness, especially for short times, it's almost like they never arrived in the wilderness. They might be sitting there, but their head is elsewhere. So you really have to come in and be present. It's so beautiful that it's a wonderful thing to be able to do and to get to do is to even just be present with the beauty and the magnificence of the life in the wild world around us. Then when you're pulled into that sense of looking at the relationships trees have with ants and wind have with leaves and soil has with roots, we're already pulled into the other. Then we can lean in with our own imaginations and join the conversation and see where our curiosities might be, where our passions might be. Introduce ourselves and then listen. There's all sorts of ways nature responds. It could be in synchronicities. It could be in encounters that come, weather changes. It could be in images that just arise inside of us, dream images or other images, memories that come up. It could be even in words that just arise into our mind that we know we didn't think of because they're just so different than anything we would think is they’re surprising. [00:08:47] PF: How difficult is it for some people to disconnect like that? Because we've become so connected to our devices. We've become so chained to our constant always on world. I recall a few years ago, we went to King Pacific Island up in Canada, and they told us we had to get on this whole puddle jumper, and they said, “Okay. As of now, you will no longer have phones. So for the next 10 days, it's going to be quiet.” One guy, you would have thought they had just told him, “We were going to cut your arm off.” I mean, it was like, “No, this can't happen.” So do you see that? Do you see where people are like, “I got to connect with nature, but I still need to be connected with the world.” [00:09:26] RW: That's definitely a way a lot of people think. I guide programs where I invite people to be in nature, and we highly recommend that they don't bring cell phones or other connective devices that they're offline for those days. In some ways, that's the best shot that we have a really did kind of listening. Sometimes, even going out for a couple hours, people want to bring their devices. Or even if it's only a couple of hours, sometimes it can be hard to disconnect your mind and really land in nature. When you know that you're off of those devices for a period of time, when you've committed it, when you've set a boundary, then there's a lot more possibilities for listening that can emerge. [00:10:04] PF: Is there a process that you see unfold regularly and people, as they start leaving that connection with electronics and the busy world behind, and they start getting into nature? Is there a certain step-by-step thing you see, “Ah, there you go. Next, this will happen.”? [00:10:20] RW: Well, gosh, it's all so very different. People are very different. So some people who get offline and go out to nature, there can be almost like an immediate connection, and it can be easy. It's almost like something in them was waiting for something like this to be able to happen, and things just start happening really automatically, and they're at home. Maybe they're remembering childhood or past connections to nature that were significant, and they're establishing new connections while they're out there. Then sometimes, if people come and they're just arriving, it can feel like a little bit of a slow start like, “Oh, gosh. I'm thinking about back home, or I can't connect to here. It seems like maybe I'm not doing it right, or nothing's happening.” Those kinds of like more fear-based thoughts. People can go and have a very deep conversation for several days. Then sometimes, they hit something that is like a material that feels scary or uncomfortable from the past or difficult feelings coming up. Then at that point, they might have been very open for days, but then other parts of themselves come to shut down. But I would say the one thing that I see across the board is nature in general, overall, most of the time, it has a very loving and nurturing quality. So I wrote about this in my book in chapter five, receiving the love of trees. But in general, whether it's trees or other places in the natural world, the natural world is very loving. We humans crave love and to be held. There's usually never enough, a sense of that, never quite enough. So going to nature is often a place that we feel renewed and loved and held. [00:12:02] PF: You talk about something I had not heard of before, and that is earth grief. That was very interesting to me. I wondered if you would explain the premise of earth grief, what it is, what it feels like, and what we need to do with that. [00:12:17] RW: Great. Yeah, that's a wonderful thing. Thanks for inviting that. In many ways, there's a sense in earth grief that feelings that are uncomfortable or unpleasant might arise in us. Grief can show up in many different forms, whether it's depression, or apathy, or lethargy, or just kind of feeling dull or feeling rage, or just despair or grief, crying. It can show up in all sorts of emotions. A lot of times, when humans have difficult emotions, we go to, “Oh, my gosh. I shouldn't be feeling like this. How can I fix it? How can I make myself feel better? It must be something I'm doing wrong in my life. Maybe I got to change something, so I can feel better.” But the idea of earth grief says that there are things happening on the planet right now that are just so sad and hard to be with that we might be actually having feelings come up that are difficult, and they might not totally even be just our feelings. They might be from the heart of the earth. It might be that if we're very connected to the earth and especially if we might be near places that we love that might be being harmed or destroyed, that there can be feelings that come up in us. Sometimes, we might not even know what that connection is. We just have these feelings, and we can't quite tell what it is, and it's important to be with that. But that it's important to attend these feelings that related to earth grief and to see what they are because they actually can be like portals themselves, transporting us into new imaginal or visionary possibilities. They also can awaken our hearts and change our actions in the world and change what we do. I just heard a story of somebody who was able to protect a land that they love because they were very connected to it. Sometimes, that can be the result. If we're actually feeling sad about ecological devastation and the harms that we see, the violence that we see to the earth is bothering us, it can motivate our actions. Those actions can change the state of what happens for the earth in particular places and then cumulatively. [00:14:18] PF: A lot of people feel like there's so much going on, so much destruction, both the people and the earth. There's a lot of bad stuff going on right now. But they also feel like there's really nothing that I can do that's going to stop that, that's going to change that. How does starting to connect with nature through the Wild Yoga, through really communing in nature, how does that change how you view what your role is and your ability to do something about it? [00:14:44] RW: Yeah. Thank you so much for that question. I think having a relationship with the earth, just listening and talking to nature and feeling with nature, brings us back into our inherent connection with earth's body and also what I would call right relation with earth of the world around us, where what happens to the earth impacts us, and we see and sense that our health and our wellbeing are not disconnected from the planet. They're actually very connected. I might try very hard to attend to my individual health and wellbeing, and there's definitely things that I can do as individual to improve my individual wellbeing. But there's also sort of a stopping point, like my individual health by itself is only going to be so well if the planetary and the others around me are being harmed. I will be limited. I can't be healthy if they're unhealthy on some level. I can't be as healthy as I would be if they were healthy. So we're linked in what happens to the planet happens to us. Feeling is a very big part of turning ourselves into having this right relationship, where we are related. Just like if our relatives are sick, that hurts our feelings. If our friends are hurt, we feel that too. The earth is our friend and our relative, and so what happens to it impacts us. So it brings us back into right relationship. It can be overwhelming and hard to feel. But that right relationship can take us places we can't even envision right now. There's a lot of reaction to the state of the planet, which is very understandable. That can lead to giving up. I always joke that the mainstream culture seems to have gone from, “There's nothing wrong. I don't have to do anything,” to, “Oh, my God. It's too big and too bad now. I can't do anything. It won’t matter.” [00:16:22] PF: It’s too late. Yeah. [00:16:24] RW: Both of those lead to inaction, both of those philosophies, which are seemingly opposite, but they're all related to. Really, we don't know the outcome. The future is uncertain. We do know what's going on now and that humans, overall, aren't in right relationship with the earth. We can change that. I mean, that is possible to change. Humans have been in right relationship with the earth before. It might be a huge change, and I think it will be. But it's still possible to change ourselves individually, to collectively join with other people and bring ourselves back. Is it too late? Maybe it's too late. I don't know. I'm not here to predict the future, and I don't necessarily think that trying to figure that out and decide my actions based on outcome is the relevant action. It's more about the relationship now. If I have a relationship now with the earth and that motivates what I do and how I respond, then the future will unfold as it unfolds. I imagine approaching the world that way. It will be a better unfolding than it will be if we're not in right relationship. [00:17:30] PF: Absolutely. So how often should people be out in nature? Is that something you think should happen daily, multiple times a day? [00:17:38] RW: Well, as much as possible. That would be great. I mean, it's nice. It depends where you live. Some people I work with live in cities and have very little nature contact. So we do a lot of imaginal connections to nature or connecting to the nature in city or the connecting to the nature beneath the city where nature once lived, connecting to the river or the trees that live in the city, or connecting in your imagination to wild places you've ever been. Fortunately, a lot of people in the United States still have a lot of access to wild places. If you can have access to outside and wild places, definitely. If you can go out every day and sit with trees, sit next to the river, why not? They're one of the wisest and most healing energies you could deal with. So I think regular immersion in nature or outside where you live would be the best, definitely. [00:18:33] PF: So is there like a minimal amount of time before you start feeling the effects of it? Or can just a few minutes of walking in nature have a difference? What's the prescription here, doctor? [00:18:46] RW: Well, I think a little bit of time in nature can go a long way. I mean, for me, even just going outside and taking a walk for 30 minutes or an hour, and if you can bring your attention, really bring your attention to the others around you. It’s a big shift. I take breaks often throughout the day, go outside, and look around, connect to who is around me. Also, it's great if you can take extended periods of time in nature. I take those two, were some of the year you're planning times where maybe for a weekend or a week you can be camping or out in nature more, where you can actually spend a lot of times listening. [00:19:29] PF: How do you see that changing people as they come back, when they do take those breaks, when they do get away? What’s their reentry back into city life? [00:19:36] RW: Well, I think there can be a renewal and a new perspective. When I take people out into the wilderness on journeys for a week or more, there's been a time of deep listening while they were out there, a time of actually going out in the land and having conversations and listening. So when they go back, they have, you could say, new instructions from their conversation with nature. Or they have had visions while they were out there with nature. They were given guidance. So when they go back, they route their lives in a new way, redirecting towards the new enlivened connection and the instructions and visions that they received. [00:20:17] PF: That's excellent. We mentioned earlier, it's the book launch of Wild Yoga. It's almost 300 pages. It is so comprehensive. How did you go about putting all of this together? Because it was really mind-blowing to see how much you've been able to include in that book and really takes us completely through it. [00:20:37] RW: Yeah. There's a lot of breadth and material. I mean, I probably could write a whole book sometimes on one of the chapters, instead of just [inaudible 00:20:42]. Maybe one day I will, but I wanted to include a book that included a lot of perspectives because one of the things that I see that can happen sometimes in spiritual platforms and personal growth platforms, yoga platforms, is that there's a limitation. Like just do this little thing and only this, and then it misses the comprehensive possibility. So I included everything to just show that there are so many. There's such a broad perspective of possibilities and practices to bring us into right relationship with the wild dimension of life, with dreams, with our nature conversations, with the spirit and the soul, with darkness, the dark night of the soul, with playing our part in the symphony. What is our individual role, and what is it to connect to the whole? With the idea in the last chapter of beloved world, that service is also a big part of personal growth that personal growth isn't necessarily for me to just go and receive. It is a big part of that because nature and dreams, they give us so much. So I do receive so much. That receptivity is also meant to be an offering to the world service and that helps bring the circle complete when we offer back in service what we were given. [00:22:00] PF: That's excellent. Look down the road five years from now. What do you hope Wild Yoga has accomplished in the world? [00:22:07] RW: I think some of the things I hope would be a greater listening. Listening is like one of the main words I associate with the whole book, that we're listening to these greater intelligences, rather than just our own human mind and ego. That we're listening to nature, muses, dreams. That that listening also takes us into a way of being, in a way of living and acting that communal and tender and vulnerable and that also protects our land base. In our reconnecting to the land base of the earth, that builds a natural instinct to protect also, and that that possibility expands. That through doing Wild Yoga and connecting to ourselves and being bold, personally and imaginally and connecting to our visions, that can also lead to actions that protect land and species, more ecosystems, restore ecosystems, so that the earth can also be in a better state for the future generations of all species. [00:23:01] PF: I love it. Rebecca, thank you for your time today. This was a wonderful conversation. You're doing some marvelous things. We're going to tell people how they can find you, how they can find your book, how they can find your website, and even go on one of your experiences. I just – I wish you the best of success on this because it's such important work that you're doing. [00:23:19] RW: Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:23:25] PF: That was Rebecca Wildbear, talking about how to connect with nature through Wild Yoga. If you'd like to learn more about Rebecca, watch a video of a Wild Yoga practice, buy her book, or follow her on social media, visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. March is just around the corner, which means it's time for our annual Happy Acts Campaign. Throughout the month of March, we're offering a full calendar of daily suggestions to help you make your world a happier place. Of course, we want you to share your happy acts with us on social media. Visit the Happy Acts section of our website at livehappy.com to learn how you can be involved and how you can host a happiness wall in your home, office, church, or school to celebrate the International Day of Happiness on March 20th. That is all we have time for today. We will meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Playing It Forward with The Accidentals   [INTRO] [00:00:04] PF: What’s up, everybody? This is Paula Felps, and you are listening to On a Positive Note, where I sit down with a songwriter, recording artist, or music insider to learn how music can lift our spirits and heal our hearts. Sav Buist and Katie Larson were shy high school students when a music education presentation changed the way they saw their future. A decade later, they front a trio called The Accidentals, and have earned glowing album reviews, while packing venues with their live shows. But because they've never forgotten how that high school presentation changed their lives, they also host and lead workshops around the country to inspire young musicians to find their voice and use music to improve their mental health. They're here today to talk about all those things and how they are changing young lives one song at a time. Let's take a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:53] PF: Sav and Katie, thank you so much for coming On a Positive Note. [00:00:57] SB: Thanks for having us. We're excited. [00:00:59] PF: You have such a fascinating backstory of the way that you got into music as your lifelong career. Can you talk about how you met and how that grew into your career? [00:01:12] KL: Yes. Sav and I met, what, 11 years ago now. [00:01:16] SB: Oh, goodness. [00:01:17] KL: It’s been a lifetime, and we were both really shy high school students interested in music. The thing that brought us together was our high school orchestra program in Traverse City, Michigan. Our public school had a great strings program, but most importantly a conductor who was really interested in alternative styles and opportunities for young musicians. So Sav and I were in a quartet together at one point, but we also were in the alternative styles for strings club, which was this really dorky group where we'd get together after school and play sheet music arrangements of Coldplay and Led Zeppelin on our cello and violin. So we do our little pop and rock music and and folk tunes and jazz tunes, and make our own arrangements sometimes too. There is a duo called The Moxie Strings, who came in to teach a workshop on improv. That also kind of opened our eyes to musical opportunities, and there's not just one way to carve your path in the music industry. Like you can be in a band. You can write music. You can produce and record and tour and teach. So that really inspired us. From the beginning, Sav and I just started playing tunes together around our hometown in Traverse City, Michigan, and writing music, and recording, and touring. 10 years, 11 years later, we're in Nashville, Tennessee and still playing music full time. We see each other like every day. Yeah, so still making music. [00:02:56] PF: That's terrific. So prior to having that experience with Moxie Strings, did you see yourself having a career in music? Or did you know how much that you could do with it? [00:03:05] SB: We did not I don't think. I mean, we definitely knew music was always going to be a part of our lives, but I don't think those dreams would have come to you as much fruition have we not had role models not just in The Moxie Strings, but in the Michigan music community as well. Both sets of our parents are musicians. So that kind of told us it was possible for sure, and they were super supportive once we decided that's what we wanted to do. I definitely had like all kinds of passions, and Kate does too. What's nice about the career that we have is that we've been able to get to a point where we can pursue all those passions and have music as a full-time job, which is pretty amazing. We're really, really lucky to be able to do that. [00:03:48] PF: One of the things that's so impressive is how big you are on music education and giving back to youth. Do you think that was inspired by the experience you had as high school students? [00:03:58] SB: Oh, definitely. Yeah. Because we wouldn't be a band had it not been for our high school orchestra program, like a public music program. That's the thing is that Kate and I were also introduced to sort of unorthodox instruments from the time we were 11 because there was like a local public music program that helped kids come up from like age 11 to the end of high school, just playing instruments, saxophone or violin or cello or any of those instruments. Not every public school has one of those programs. Or sometimes, they'll have an orchestra but not a band or a band but not an orchestra. I even heard one instance where the school no longer had a budget for musical instruments, and so they threw them away. So there are some really – I mean, we can acknowledge that we're really lucky to have grown up in that program because we literally wouldn't be a band without it, and we wouldn't have been shown these instruments and gotten the chance to do something really new on them. But also, it's important to us that every kid has the opportunity to try something new and to find a way to like vocalize or, I guess, verbalize their emotions through music. [00:05:08] PF: That’s a great point I wanted to bring up because when someone who's not musically inclined or doesn't put a value on it the way that we do, they hear music education, and they think, well, they're taking band classes, and they don't really think about all the things that you learn through music education. Can you talk about what students are getting emotionally when they start going through a music education program? [00:05:31] SB: Totally. We like to joke that music is cheaper than therapy. That's like how we opened – [00:05:37] PF: [inaudible 00:05:37]? [00:05:38] SB: Yeah. We're [inaudible 00:05:38] because it's true, though. Like we use music and writing lyrics or sometimes even just writing instrumental pieces as outlet because we're both really introverted. Especially back in high school and middle school, we were really, really shy and didn't make friends easily and playing music in an orchestra for kids who don't want to play a sport. It’s really nice to have that community, and you can start forming friendships, without even talking that much. Because music is sort of its own language, and it sometimes can do all the talking for you. So, yeah, that’s really important for us. Go ahead, Kate. [00:06:12] KL: Yeah. I was so bad at sports. I tried every single one. I think what it came down to, for me, I'm definitely a perfectionist. I'm competitive with myself, but I don't do well in other competitive settings. Whenever we play sports in gym class, I would just feel like, “Let me get out of here.” I think it took like extra math classes to get out of gym once. [00:06:37] PF: That's hardcore. [00:06:39] KL: What I liked about music was I was having a hard time like solidifying an identity in school. When I picked up the cello, like it just felt like something that I instantly bonded with, and it was a portal to songwriting. Like I can strum chords on the cello. I could write music on the cello. I could play my favorite songs. I could – It was almost like meditating, practicing sometimes. So that was really good for me personally. But like Sav said too, when you're playing in an ensemble, like you're learning all sorts of teamwork skills. You're learning listening skills. A lot of improv is really 90% listening and then, I don't know, 10% being fearless and jumping right in, which I took jazz band for two years at our public school, and that taught me like just keep going. Even if the tune is flying by, if you get lost, like just keep going. Just so many skills. We both were in the pit for our musical theater production. Later, we went to an art school called Interlochen, and we took like choir classes and poetry classes, and learned how to incorporate things like history and current events and art into our songwriting and music. So there's a lot of education where music is like a really good portal. [00:08:03] PF: Then how did you start becoming involved in music education? Because it's a lot of work just to be a recording artist to be writing songs, to be touring, doing all that. Then you've added this whole other dimension to it. How did that start? [00:08:17] SB: Well, it's actually kind of been around for a while for us, simply because like when we're touring, oftentimes, we'll be in a town for like maybe six or seven hours, mostly at the venue. But there's like a little bit of time before that, where we can probably go into like a elementary school or a high school and do a workshop. Oftentimes, we'll just ask teachers like, “Hey, what's your curriculum currently like right now? Like what are you guys struggling with?” They’ll be like, “Oh, we need kids to like find an emotional outlet, or we need them to like learn how to take chances and be fearless.” We'll go in and kind of structure workshop around that. But that's something that's always been really consistent with who we are, and we've kind of had that almost since the beginning of the band. [00:08:59] KL: Yeah. I think almost there's certain benefits of going into schools, while you're still 17, 18, 19 years old. I think when we were first doing that, a lot of the first opportunities were us just coming in and playing songs and doing a Q&A or just talking to other students about what we did because we were basically their age or a few years older. [00:09:23] PF: Right. And they're going to listen to you. [00:09:26] KL: Yeah. I noticed. So we've definitely like shifted our approach. Now, I'm 26, and Sav is 27, and we've evolved and adjusted but definitely feel a distance growing every year from us when we go into the schools. So the very early stuff, I mean, it was us just talking and performing. It was a lot less formal. It doesn't always need to be really structured, I think. [00:09:53] PF: That's great. Then is that the Play It Forward, Again and Again initiative? [00:09:57] KL: So Play it Forward, it kind of combines two different things that we were passionate about, and we finally got nonprofit status in 2020. That was one of the benefits of – [00:10:06] PF: Congratulations. [00:10:07] KL: Being off the road is that we were able to get the paperwork done for that. But really what we've been working on prior to that was one part is getting instruments in the hands of young students and also mentorship. Because we've seen so many students who've had to give up playing like viola or another instrument because it's too expensive. So before the nonprofit, we would do fundraising campaigns. Like one time, we did a kick starter for a young girl. I mean, it was instantly funded by – [00:10:39] PF: Oh, my gosh. That's amazing. [00:10:41] KL: And she got an instrument right away. So part of Play It Forward, Again and Again is based on that. Another part is to get more musicians and more bands into schools to do performances and workshops, sort of like what The Moxie Strings did for us and what we've been trying to do for students who were on the road on tour. [00:11:03] PF: How hard has it been to get other musicians involved? [00:11:07] KL: There's definitely a different approach. You kind of have to get your feet wet in it because I think a lot of time, touring musicians, we get into like our flow. We do like a show every night for a similar audience. Then when you get in front of a school, like a group of students at any age range, it's like a totally different experience. Like a group of five year olds, they're going to be honest with you. If you're not entertaining, you'll know. But in a way, that's like the most pure form, I think, because they're not there to judge your technique or to think about your – Overthink the lyrics or anything. They're there to have a very pure musical inspirational experience. So anyone that we've talked to who has gone into a school, like they've gotten out of it with like just such an appreciation for music. [00:11:59] PF: What do you consider a success when you're walking out of a classroom situation? [00:12:04] SB: Honestly, I think it's just successful if somebody takes away even a little piece from it, which oftentimes one of the songwriting workshops that we do is we like pass out a bunch of books, and then we'll ask students to pick a sentence out of every book. Then we'll go over to the wall to like a whiteboard, and they'll read off the sentences. We'll write them down, and then we'll show how you can change a couple of words and start to put together an actual verse, even from widely different material. I think we used like an RV Cookbook once. [00:12:33] PF: Oh, my gosh. [00:12:35] SB: We've used like all kinds of crazy books, and we always get something out of it. Then we'll ask students to finish the songs. Oftentimes, we'll get like these songs through our email that are like completely finished, like either lyrics. Or they'll like pick up some chords and start putting it to that. That, to me, is like peak success from a songwriting workshop or from a workshop in general is just seeing them be excited about it and take it home and like apply their own creativity towards finishing it. Because just knowing that somebody believes you can do it, I think, is a huge aspect of actually finishing something. Not everybody believes that they have the ability to do something. There are lots of times where we go to a town, especially like a smaller town, and we'll teach a workshop, and the kids will be like, “Yeah, that was great. But I don't think I could ever do that.” So we've really had to restructure to make it like, “No, this is something everyone can do,” and made it really inclusive because that's what art is supposed to be, and that's what art is to us. [00:13:32] PF: In doing that, you're completely changing the way they're thinking about it, right? [00:13:36] SB: I hope so. [00:13:36] PF: Now, they're going to – Their mind is going to start seeking that out like, “What could I do with that? What can I do with that phrase?” You're like really opening up the way that they think about how they discover their creativity. [00:13:47] SB: Yeah. Like there's a song we have. A friend of mine, a childhood friend, passed away really suddenly, and I didn't have any closure. So I was trying to figure out how to write it down because that's sometimes the first step towards acknowledging and healing. I was having a hard time describing what grief actually felt like, and so I started looking around at household objects. The line ended up being “Grief’s a sheet of tin foil that I crush inside of me.” So I tell kids about that line because it's like you might think it's stupid on paper when you first look at it, but somebody is knowing exactly what you're talking about in that moment. Most importantly, you know exactly what you're talking about. That's helping sort of unravel some of these things that are super hard to find the words for. Sometimes, it's easier to sing it. I'm really interested in neurobiology too, not to go on a big rant. But like there's some really interesting stuff about music that pulls people who are having sort of debilitating memory issues. It's almost like an entirely different aspect of memory that music is attached to, and I think it also is attached to an entirely different aspect of emotions, where sometimes it's easier to express how you feel through music rather than having like a full hard conversation. [00:14:57] PF: Absolutely. Right now, with kids having gone through such a difficult last three years, and they're not able to process – Adults aren't able to process what all has happened and how it's affected us. So do you see that coming out through music? Do you see them being able to manage their emotions better and deal with what they've been through? [00:15:17] SB: I hope so. I think it's important that we try. It's important that we keep workshops like this going and initiatives like this happening and not to bring it back to public music programs. But I really think that's a huge aspect too is accessibility and belief and having the right tools is important. [00:15:35] KL: Yeah. We just did a collaboration with a youth studio orchestra in Cleveland called the Kaboom Collective. [00:15:42] PF: That was my next question, so good. I'm so glad you brought this up. [00:15:46] KL: I think that was a really good example because we had to stop touring in 2020, like everyone else did, and we were doing upwards of 200 or 250 shows. That tour with the Kaboom Collective was really one of the first big tours we did back and, exactly what you're saying, was the experience of a lot of students, who they were between the age of 15 and 25, and a lot of them had missed out on their high school graduation, prom, like – [00:16:17] PF: Turning 21. [00:16:18] KL: Yeah. Senior trips, college, like freshman year. These are all things that they kind of had to experience in isolation. I know for sure like a few of them were having maybe a difficult relationship with music at the time and nothing quite like being on a stage. We had one show on tour that was in Grand Rapids, Michigan at the Frederick Meijer Gardens Amphitheater and performing in front of 4,000 people live and feeling that energy. I thought that was really cool to talk to the students after that show and see a lot of them say like, “Wow, I didn't know this was part of music. I didn't know this connection was part of music.” That was a really good feeling. [00:17:06] PF: Tell us a little bit more about that collaboration because you had the album with them. What was that like, both for you and for the students, to have this entire experience together? Honestly, you could have done it yourselves. For you to bring along a student orchestra was just incredible, and what a ride that you gave them. [00:17:26] SB: Well, what's funny is I think we really couldn't have done it because they did all the arrangements. The students did. Again, they're like 15 to 25-year-olds, who took the initiative to like completely figure out our songs and then the emotion behind the songs and what it should be and how they could amplify that beat arrangements, which is a super amazing skill set to have at 15 years old. To have your name on a record at 15, to have like your name in an old music guide, it's just ridiculous to like be able to actually do that. I mean it in the best way. It's completely amazing. So I wish like I had done this when I was their age. [00:18:05] PF: I know. It's like you wish you had been there for you when you were that age, right?   [00:18:08] SB: Yeah. But like, tangentially, we're so honored to just be able to work with them because it really was like kind of a treat for us, as much as it was for them. Touring together, yeah, the logistics of taking like 40 students on the road with like all their instruments, including like upright basses and tubas and everything we had, that was quite a process. It took like a whole amazing team of people to put it together, including our manager, Aryn Madigan. But, yeah, it was just a wild time. So we're really excited that it happened and panned out. We learned a lot, just by being around them. They're all like so nerdy. They knew like every classical piece that you could name. Then also, we're like listening to these cool punk indie bands, and it gave us a lot of not to say like hope for the next generation because there's always something good in every generation to find. But it's really amazing to hang with the future of music and to kind of see where that's headed. Both of us were just really excited about it. [00:19:12] PF: That’s terrific because your music is – It's not just about the music. You are about spreading joy, and you are really working to make this world a better place. Why is that so important? [00:19:24] KL: It helped us. I think that's a big piece of why we keep doing it. I mean – [00:19:31] SB: Yeah. It’s a selfish aspect of our – [00:19:36] KL: I mean, music is not always – It's like a long-term relationship. I mean, it's a way to express creativity. It's something that, I don't know, we live and breathe, and it sounds kind of cliché. But we see it impact people day-to-day. We also have that experience with people who are not musicians. We have like a page on patreon.com, where people support us, and we do just random things. Like we do a tour blog every week, but we also interact with our patrons on Zoom, doing like book club, and we review favorite albums that everyone submits. Having that relationship, we see and we hear stories from our patrons about like how music totally changed their lives, even if they're not a musician, and just like listening to music or seeing a show how maybe changed the relationship with their parents or their children or relationship with themselves. So I think that those little things inspire us because some days, you go online, and you're like, “Why am I making music? TikTok is – I just spent like three hours on TikTok and like five people viewed this thing.” You know what I mean? But then when you hear a story like that where you see the impact, then it's like, “Hey, we should keep doing this.” [00:21:04] PF: Yeah, because you're making such a difference. Now, you're in Nashville, which is where I'm located too, and it's such a great songwriting community, such a nurturing community. Has that changed your relationship with the music? Has it changed your songwriting? What has it done to be here? [00:21:21] SB: Yeah. So what's funny is that we have kind of shifted to another side project. So we have The Accidentals generic rock band, and then we have Kaboom Collective and like collaborations and workshops and use music initiatives like that. Then on top of that, we have a co-writing project, where it's a series of EPs that we write and record. We write them with people who inspired us to become writers. So these people include Tom Paxton, Gary Byrd, Georgia Middleman, Maia Sharp, Beth Nielsen Chapman, Gretchen Peters, Mary Gautheir, Jaimee Harris. Like the list kind of goes on and on. But we basically write songs of these people, and then we compile those songs into EPs that we self-record and engineer right here in my very messy studio, Crooked Moon Studios. Yeah, so that's been going on for the past couple of years. It kind of started right before the pandemic hit, and one of our first co-writes that really kicked off the idea of putting them into a record was with Kim Richey, and it was over Zoom. We just love the song so much, and we love the idea of writing over Zoom so much during a time of isolation, we'd say, to keep it going. So a lot of the songs were written in isolation. Now that we live in Nashville, luckily, we can actually be in the same room with the people who inspired us to become songwriters in the first place, as we write the songs together. So it's just a really amazing experience. I like to joke that co-writing in Nashville is like the equivalent of getting a cup of coffee everywhere else. Or it's like the first thing that comes up half the time is like, “Oh, yeah. I've heard about you. We should write a song together.” It's happened so much while we – Since we moved here. That's been a really great aspect, and we've also done a ton of session work this year. Kate and I, we played violin, cello, viola, and upright bass. We essentially serve as our own quartet or orchestra if we're doubling parts. So we've done a ton of session work this year. We've gone to a lot of studios. We've recorded a lot remotely here at Crooked Moon Studios, which is our studio here in Nashville. Yeah, it's just been a really awesome time living in Nashville and getting to actually hang with the people who inspire us. [00:23:23] PF: That is terrific. So looking down the road because even though you've been doing this for 10 years, you're young, and you've got a lot of highway ahead of you. What is that future going to look like? What is your legacy that you want to leave behind, as you do so much good with the next generation? [00:23:42] SB: Man, I think we just want to leave something behind that continues to sort of unite people's emotional platform. Not everybody knows how to find what works for them emotionally. I think like leaving songs behind shows that – It sounds like cliché, but like you're not going through something alone. People have experienced the same kinds of grief or the same kinds of pain. Just having a song that speaks to you sometimes helps unravel that not. So I think that's why we write songs. That's why we put music. But it just does a lot of the really difficult work of sort of untangling what's hard to verbalize, and it’s like an initial step to healing. That’s like sort of the intangible part of what we want to leave behind. I think our idea of like physical success is just to be able to do this for a living and to continue to record or continue to write, continue to do workshops, and continue to put out albums of music that speaks to us, whether we've written that collaboratively, or we've written that therapeutically for ourselves. [00:24:43] PF: That is terrific. Katie, do you have anything to add to that? [00:24:46] KL: Like Sav said, that hopefully some of these students that we're teaching when we're retired, and Sav is like studying wolves in Alaska or something, and I'm like on a goat farm. Hopefully, like the animal life that there'll be more music and people stepping in our shoes and continuing to try to make the world a better place. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:25:14] PF: That was Sav Buist and Katie Larson of The Accidentals, telling us how they're inspiring the next generation of musicians while living their dream. If you'd like to learn more about The Accidentals, check out their music, or follow them on social media, just visit livehappy.com and click on the podcast link. I hope you've enjoyed this episode of On a Positive Note and look forward to joining you again next time. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Unleash Your Creativity With Steven Kowalski [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 402 of Live Happy Now. Creativity is a driving force of innovation. But have you thought about how it can change your life at work and at home? I'm your host, Paula Felps. And this week, I'm being joined by Steven Kowalski, a leading voice in the global movement for conscious creativity. In his new book, Creative Together: Sparking Innovation in the New World of Work, he explains that all of us are creative, whether we think we are or not, and he tells us how to find our own creative style. Then use that to find greater satisfaction, both on the job and at home. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:44] PF: Steven, welcome to Live Happy Now. [00:00:46] SK: Great to be here. [00:00:47] PF: This is such a great topic to talk about because we talk about creativity in our lives, but you are really taking it into the business space and looking at how it affects us at work, at home, and all these different ways. So I'm excited to talk to you. I guess before we dive in, can you tell us what you mean when you talk about conscious creativity because this was interesting to me. [00:01:09] SK: Yeah, super. I think conscious anything, conscious leadership, conscious capitalism, conscious creativity, we're hearing a lot of that these days. What that really means to me is that we're bringing attention and intention to what we're doing. So there's a component of self-awareness. There's a component of being clear about what I'm aiming for, reflecting on how results are mapping to my intentions. Intention and attention is probably the shorthand. [00:01:36] PF: Yeah. How does one start giving more thought to that? Because I do think in the past, we've been like either, “Oh, I'm creative, or I feel creative,” and not really thinking about our control over it. [00:01:49] SK: Yeah. So in the book, Creative Together, I talk about how most of us are walking around with what I call an ability-based definition of creativity. What that means is we think it's an ability that we have or don't have or have to some degree, and we just kind of settle into – In some ways, maybe that's even comfortable to think, “Well, maybe I'm not that creative. So I shouldn't expect it that much for myself.” But we all have the opportunity to move to this different way of thinking about creativity, but it's a potential. So I talk about this in Creative Together that shift is really critical. Because when I approached my life and my work as if creativity was an ability, I may or may not realize all the opportunities that I have to bring it forward and bring it into work, into the teamwork that I do, into the business. That's the first part about paying attention and bringing more intention, more conscious creativity is understanding that we're operating in this old story of what creativity is, and the first thing we need to do is to change the story. Then we can change the story of who we are as creators and then create more effectively with others. [00:03:01] PF: Right. Because that is one thing, and you bring it out so beautifully in the book that we've kind of been taught, when we think of creativity, we think of artists and writers and musicians. So someone who is in a business space, someone who's an accountant doesn't think, “Gosh, I'm a creative person.” We've been told that our entire lives. So how do we start thinking about creativity differently and seeing how it is being used in our daily work so that we can tap into it? [00:03:33] SK: Yeah. I like to think about creativity and propose this definition. Creativity is really this potential that we have to invent new solutions to problems we either face. So pandemic – [00:03:47] PF: Oh, is that a problem? [00:03:48] SK: Flooding, job losses, whatever, right? Problems we face or problems that we designed for ourselves. Like I have an aspiration to write a book. I'd like to start a business. When I call them problems, it's really opportunities, right? [00:04:03] PF: I love that. [00:04:04] SK: That's a big part of the switch. But creativity is just our potential to invent new solutions, new approaches, new in the face of these challenges and opportunities we might face or design for ourselves. I think that's critical as a starting point because then, anytime we face a challenge or an opportunity and an accountant or a scientist, or an IT professional, or an HR professional, or an engineer, or anyone from any industry at all, in any domain or line of work, is going to face challenges and opportunities, some of those we’ll design for ourselves, and some of them will be impinging on us. If we pay attention, we start to see evidence that our creativity is there every day, moment to moment, as we need it. That's, I think, the critical piece. In the potential definition, it shows up when we need it. In the ability definition, it's supposed to be there all the time, and some people just have less, and some people have more. [00:05:08] PF: So what do people need to do to kind of start changing their mindset and realizing, “I am creative, and this is creativity at work.”? What are some of those little baby steps to start looking at that? [00:05:20] SK: Yeah. In the book, I talked about the GIFTED methodology, G-I-F-T-E-D. So I'm going to use the first couple of letters as some of the answer to your question. So the G stands for greet the unknown with passion. I know I often greet the unknown with dread. [00:05:38] PF: Yeah. Or fear, terror. [00:05:41] SK: I try to control against it. So greet the unknown with passion, with faith in my creativity. So greeting the unknown is like one of the most important steps. There's uncertainty. There's volatility. There's complexity. We've heard this VUCA thing for many, many years now, right? There's ambiguity. What we need to do as a first step is not shy away from this because that's where our creativity will get activated. That's the G in GIFTED. I is ignite creative potential, and it's important to know what kinds of conditions give rise to creativity and to work those conditions. I call it the intersection of purpose, possibility, and constraint. All three of those things are essential ingredients for our creativity to show up. Maybe just at the very start is to think about like what are the unknowns in my life? Where are the arenas in which my creativity might show up? Maybe I'm getting a divorce. Maybe I'm looking for a new house. Maybe I'm starting a business. Maybe I'm recovering from a challenging illness, whatever. What are some of those unknowns, and how is my creativity showing up there or not? Or how can I bring more conscious awareness to how it is showing up and then work it a little bit more? [00:06:59] PF: You are really a fan of actually working on your creativity in terms of it's not just like becoming aware that I’m creative. They need to do some exercises, and they really need to do things to nurture and cultivate that. [00:07:13] SK: Yes, we all do. It's the most sustainable, inexhaustible resource we have, our creativity. I call it CDD, creativity disruption disorder. We're walking around, not realizing the amazing potential that we have and how to use it more consciously. [00:07:31] PF: Another thing that you say, and I love this, it's once we discover our creativity, we must have profound faith in it. That was just a really powerful statement. Can you explain what you mean by that? Then tell us why we need to have that much faith in it. [00:07:49] SK: I can and I'd also love to hear what went through your head maybe after when you read that, and it had that impact on you. When we rely on our creativity as an inexhaustible, sustainable resource, we can face these unknowns, this ambiguity, this uncertainty that where – It seems to me – I don't know. I don't think I'm unusual in this way, but it seems like there's more and more of it, and it's coming from every direction. I don't know how many inboxes I have now, with all the email inboxes that I have and the – Forget the mailbox. It's like old school, right? There's all these inboxes. There's all this input. There are so many demands. There's obligations. There's things I want to do, that time is running out. How am I going to manage this? There are so many unknowns that I'm facing, and I think that's critical. When I have faith in my creativity that it's going to show up, it's less overwhelming. These things are less taxing. I see them more as opportunity as opposed to trauma and adversity. [00:08:49] PF: That makes absolute sense. [00:08:51] SK: Was there anything that came into your awareness as you read that? [00:08:54] PF: Yes. Because I think it's almost like two sides of a coin because on one hand, I do take that creativity for granted, and that is doing what I do. I write. I write stories. I write books. I do a lot of things, in addition to podcasting. So I kind of take it for granted. But then on the other side, it’s almost like realizing I don't have enough faith in that creativity that it is always going to be the thing that I lead with. That's what I want to get into as well. I think sometimes, I need to lead with the idea and let the creativity catch up to it. You talk about that in the business sense of we're focusing on innovation, when we should be focusing on creativity, because that's the spark that drives it. The way that you put that all together, it's like, okay, I'm doing kind of the reverse. I've reversed engineered the way that it should be done. That is, as you said, so many businesses are doing that, placing the emphasis on the wrong thing. So can you talk about that, why it's important? We’re all talking about innovation and disruption, and this is how we lead, and you're saying like, “Hang on. That's not where it starts.” [00:10:04] SK: Well, I see innovation as a type of creative result. It's a creative result that yields value, new value. The interesting thing you could ask is like, okay, value for whom? What kind of value, like constructive, destructive? I don't know. But innovation at its core is about new value, new markets, new customers, new benefits, new whatever, new value. As a creative result, if I'm not working with my creativity and my relationship with my creativity is kind of in the closet or – In Creative Together, I say where is your creativity? Is it out in the lobby checked out? Imagine you're in a theater. [00:10:48] PF: It's waiting in the trunk. [00:10:49] SK: Out on the balcony, like unreachable or – Where is it? So I don't have that daily connection. If I'm not leveraging it, if I'm not drawing on it, if I'm not stepping into the unknown with faith, I'm kind of disadvantaging myself. [00:11:05] PF: So what should leaders be doing to foster that creative thinking and to really encourage it in employees? [00:11:14] SK: First thing I'll say is clarify the purpose, the reason why people's creativity should show up. Because if it's just about the routine or if it's just about delivering business as usual, creativity won't show up. The thing about that is it's so sad to me when people are in jobs, or their work is sort of routine day to day, and they start to think, “I'm not creative.” The truth is the work that I'm doing, I'm not being asked for that. My manager, my leader is not being asked for that. He’s not asking me for that. So I say the first thing that leaders need to do is to clarify the purpose, the reason why people's creativity should come up, come forward today. Why do we need something different than the status quo? So that's number one. The second thing is we all have a tolerance for ambiguity in our self, and I find that leaders often limit the degrees of freedom that they allow for folks to do their work. So if I'm a leader, and I've got a low tolerance for ambiguity, and I don't give degrees of freedom, I need to see results right away. Creativity needs room. There's exploration that's part of it. There's prototyping and things that work out and things that don't work out, right? If I'm micromanaging or if I'm stuck in having it done my way or the way I think it should be done, I'm not getting the degrees of freedom that are necessary for creativity to emerge. So those are two things I might answer in a short answer. We could talk about that. [00:12:49] PF: Exactly. That could be a whole episode right there. So what then happens to the individual, as we're allowed to use more creativity on the job? How does that make us happier? How does that make us more productive at work? [00:13:03] SK: Yeah. I immediately go to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and I think self-actualization is kind of at the top of that pyramid. It starts out with things like safety and security and just getting my basic needs met. At the top of his pyramid is self-actualization, and I think creativity is part of our feeling like we're self-actualizing. We're making a difference. We're learning. We're transforming in ways that we're seeing changes in our lives. So creativity is intimately intertwined with some of these processes that make life meaningful and help me connect with others. [00:13:40] PF: Then as we become happier, we're going to take those feelings home. There are so many studies that show if it's not working out on the job, you're taking that home. You're not going to feel great when you get home. So obviously, the reverse is true. So what happens? What have you seen in the people that you work with, as they begin implementing more creativity in their work? How does that spill over into their home life? [00:14:04] SK: Sure. I'll share a story about an IT professional, a leader in the IT department of a company that I worked with. We were talking about the voice of judgment and how that inner critic that we have – Arianna Huffington calls it the obnoxious roommate. There are so many names for it. We were working in this concept because the inner critic can really stifle the expression of creativity. The inner critic is there to keep you safe, right? So we were talking about the inner critic, and we weren't focusing in on business, and what are some of the declarative statements that stakeholders are making, that customers are making, that we're making about what's possible and what's not possible? Sure enough, the next time we got together, she said, “You know, I went home, and I really reflected on my relationship with my 15-year-old son, and I realized there was so much critic operating and running in my head. The stories I was telling, the questions I was asking him, that I was shocked and stunned at how this was getting in the way.” So the practices that help us access our creativity and bring it forward more effectively also can help us in our relationships, and in our communities, and the work we might be doing with nonprofits and all kinds of things. I think that's some of the ways that people can see this interchange between work and life. [00:15:26] PF: Yeah, because you can't really compartmentalize creativity. Once you let it out, it's going to take over. Let's talk. You mentioned someone with their 15-year-old son. What is it that we as adults, as parents can do to bring up children to nurture that creativity, so they don't have to wait until they're on the job, and they're in their 30s or 40s and trying to figure out their creative side? How do we nurture that creativity as they're growing up? [00:15:51] SK: I'll tell a story. When I was young and I was expressing my creativity through art and I would take what I was working on to my parents. It was only partially done, or I had just started. They will say, “Well, bring it back to me when it's done.” Now, of course, if anyone who's familiar with agile and agile methodologies, right? One of the tenants of agile is early and frequent customer input. So in a way, I was there looking for input early and often, and I was getting shut down or like, “Don't come to me till it's done.” So sometimes, we don't even realize how we may be setting up weird assumptions and rules for our kids by just the simplest behavior or not even being aware. But I would say encourage exploration. If a kid comes to us with something that they're working on or something, provide some input. Ask them questions, instead of giving answers. These are maybe a few things that I think we could do in response to your question. [00:16:49] PF: I like that. Then the more you practice it at home, you're also going to keep doing it work. [00:16:54] SK: Mm-hmm, asking questions is one of our – [00:16:55] PF: It’s an upward spiral. [00:16:57] SK: It is. It is. Asking questions is one of our four superpowers that I talk about in Creative Together, and asking questions is such an important part of encouraging creativity, not just in ourselves but in others, whether it's business colleagues or kids or elderly parents or whoever it is. [00:17:15] PF: Yeah. We get caught up in the talking, especially we're in a high-output society. We got to tweet our opinions. We got to make our posts on Facebook, Instagram, and we don't ask enough questions. We don't listen enough. So I love the fact that you really emphasize that and show us the value of doing that. That's a big part of it. Now, let's talk about creative styles. I really enjoyed this part of the book because it's fun to say, “Oh, I can see myself in that one and that one,” but then find out like, “Okay, yeah. I definitely skew toward that, over it.” Let's talk about the three creative styles and that fourth thing with the styles. [00:17:52] SK: That's great. So this came out of my doctoral research at UCLA. During my dissertation, I saw in the work that I was doing in the research I was doing these different styles showed up. Because I was at the Department of Education, I was looking at teachers in a very bureaucratic school district most of them are. So how do teachers in that context express their creativity in relationship to this social system that they're in? That's all of us. Me and my job, I'm in a social system. Anyone in any industry, anyone in any, whether you're a nonprofit or healthcare or corporation or whatever, we're all in a social system. So the styles that showed up then that have stayed true over the years, the soloist, the soloist said – You're saying – You're putting your hands up. [00:18:42] PF: Yeah, yeah. That's me. [00:18:44] SK: I'm a soloist at my core too, and soloists love to sort of create within the sphere of influence that they have and share the products of their creations. I'll just say our creations because I'm there too. Once they're done or pretty far along, so that other people can benefit. But it's not really like a co-creating kind of thing. I have my space of creative in that space. I share with others. But let me do it in my space. So that's a little bit about the soloist. The second style that I talked about is the rebel. The thing about the rebel is the rebel’s motivated. The rebel’s creativity gets activated by the gap between what is and what could or should be. There's this sense of like what's right and just. So we saw this in any number of folks in the school system, and I see it in myself as well. When something's not right or words don't match actions, there's a part of me that gets activated. I want to deliver solutions or help solve that. My creativity gets activated there. But the thing about rebels is that right can sometimes turn into righteousness. If I go on a crusade, I’m going to alienate the folks I very much want to join me, right? So that's a little bit about the rebel. The entrepreneur, there's a lot of us that can relate to the entrepreneur, and anyone starting a business and anyone sort of initiating things inside of a business also might relate. We have this strong vision for what could be some kind of solution, a new service, a new product, a new marketing angle, a new market base. So the entrepreneur sees these opportunities, looks kind of broadly across the system. Okay, how am I going to work politics and resourcing and investments and all kinds of things to make this happen? The trick with the entrepreneur is that sometimes the vision that I have is so strong that it's hard for people to join me. When that vision may need to evolve or change, as it meets the real world and the realities and constraints of the real world, I may become disengaged or not lose interest. That's a little bit about the three styles. One of the things all three styles share in common is they believe that the ideas that they're having are mine, my idea, my idea to arrange the classroom this way, my idea to fix an injustice, my idea to start this company. You mentioned that fourth style that I suggest in Creative Together that we all need to bring forward a little bit more. The collaborator doesn't have the same sense of ownership of ideas. It doesn't matter who has the idea. From the collaborator’s perspective, it's like, “Let's move it forward. I'm playing a part. I'm contributing. We're co-creating.” You're not creating over there and then sharing it with me. We're actually making it together. We're jointly tangibly producing something together that we couldn't produce alone. So that's a little bit about – That was kind of long-winded. Sorry, but that’s – [00:21:59] PF: No. No, it wasn't. [00:21:59] SK: Talking about the four styles. [00:22:01] PF: That was great. So why is it so important for us to understand our creative style? Once we do, once we know that, what do we do with that information? [00:22:11] SK: Yeah. So I talk about developing a practice plan for bringing the collaborator forward because that's what I see in this new world of work, where things are so interdependent, where what I do here today impacts all sorts of possibilities for others and other parts of the system today and tomorrow. So bringing that collaborator forward is really critical, and first step is to understand my style, and maybe challenge some of the beliefs and assumptions that are behind that. For example, as a soloist, I may think that it's possible to create alone. But creativity is actually meant to be shared, and it's kind of an illusion that we can create alone. Even if I'm sitting in my room, and I'm doing something, I cannot separate myself from all the influences that are around me every day, the entire world that's around me. I'm taking fragments of ideas and fragments of conversations and pieces of information from something I read. I'm connecting them, right? So it's an illusion that we actually create alone. It’s also an illusion that the idea is mine, right? Okay. So maybe I realize that. I've come to terms with that. I want to develop some practices to you know, to help me open up, to help me join others sometimes, instead of having others just join me. [00:23:34] PF: I like that. I like that. There's so much wisdom in this book, and it's also fun. I was surprised like how fun it was because I thought it would feel more scholarly. This is something that everyone can really dive into. I wondered, as the author, what is it that you really hope that readers take away from this book? [00:23:54] SK: I think the big message is in this new world that we're in post-pandemic, with the pluses and minuses of how we're all connected with through technology, all of these kinds of things, in this new world that we're working in, strength will come from creating together. But it's not something we're schooled in. It's not something we're practiced in. It's not something we've been conscious about. So the book is organized as a journey to first change the story of what creativity is and who I am as a creator. If I had left it there as the author, I would feel that it was incomplete. Because the reason to do that inner work, the reason to reflect on what gifts I bring, what challenges I face, what tests I face, what my superpowers are, all those things that are in the first part of the book. The reason to do that work is so that I can create more effectively with others in business, in life through my communities, through my social activism or advocacy. Whatever ways I might want to express that, that's where the strength is going to come. So that's my core message. In the new world of work, we have to get creative together. [00:25:08] PF: That’s so excellent. Steven, I appreciate you taking the time today. This was a wonderful conversation. It's a great book. I've really, truly enjoyed this book, and I think our listeners are going to get a lot out of it as well. [00:25:21] SK: That's great. Thank you so much, Paula. [00:25:22] PF: Thank you. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:25:27] PF: That was Steven Kowalski, talking about how to discover our creativity. If you'd like to learn more about Steven and his book or follow him on social media, just visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. While you're on the website, I'd like to invite you to check out our new podcast channel, Live Happy Presents. This sponsored podcast sees us partnering with like-minded brands to bring you information about products or services that can help improve your well-being. For our first episode, we talk with Megan McDonough of the Wholebeing Institute and learn how times of uncertainty often are the best opportunity for bringing positive change into our lives. We hear Megan's own story of how such an inflection point led her to leave corporate America and pursue inner peace and how that led to creating the Wholebeing Institute. Then we'll tell you about their program to help you take the next step toward personal happiness. You can find that episode called Take the Next Steps to Happiness with Megan McDonough on our podcast tab under Live Happy Presents. That is all we have time for today. We will meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]