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3 Steps to Lasting Change with Tal Ben Shahar

Tal Ben Shahar, Ph.D., is an author and lecturer who taught Harvard University’s most popular course on positive psychology and its third most popular course on the psychology of leadership. Tal is also a serial entrepreneur and the co-founder of the Wholebeing Institute, Happier.TV, Potentialife and the Maytiv Center for Research and Practice in Positive Psychology. In this episode Live Happy COO, Co-Founder and Editorial Director Deborah Heisz talks with Tal about the three steps to lasting change and what you can do to help make your resolutions succeed. We also listen in on a conversation from our recent cover shoot with Jillian Michaels about her keys to living a happier life and share what's inside the February 2016 issue of Live Happy magazine. What you'll learn in this podcast: Rituals or practices you can use to create lasting change Why failing at your goal the first time can actually be a good thing A preview of Live Happy magazine February 2016 issue Links and resources mentioned in this episode: Visit TalBenShahar.com Visit Happier.TV Thank you to our partner - AARP Life Reimagined!

Practice

7 Steps Back From Depression

When I was in my 20s, I just wanted to stay in bed and cry. I had a journalism degree but worked as an administrative assistant and a waitress. A rough childhood with an alcoholic mother made me think I couldn’t do any better. I had an apartment that I shared with a friend, but depression left me feeling lost and hopeless. Desperately wanting to feel differently, I made an appointment with a psychologist. My psychologist was funny and blunt. After a long psychological assessment, he described me back to me: “Chronic depression; fear of abandonment; angry but you have a difficult time expressing it; people pleaser.” That hurt, but it also hit home. Talk therapy helped me because I finally felt heard and understood what was happening inside my head. I’d drive home from those appointments and write down everything I could remember. I wanted to study my way out of depression’s dark grip. Slowly, I started to feel strong. My solution wasn’t a quick fix, but I came away from therapy with an emotional toolkit that has stood the test of time. Here are some of the things I’ve learned: 1. Practice self-compassion Would you treat a friend the way you treat yourself? When I was depressed, I condemned myself for normal human flaws. Start treating yourself in the same compassionate way you would treat a child or close friend. Give yourself a soft place to land when things don’t go right or something doesn’t work out. Take our quiz: Are You Sabotaging Your Self-Esteem? 2. Make decisions that make you feel good about you Every decision you make can impact how you feel about yourself. Sharing a kind word, acting with integrity or facing a fear can all make you feel good about yourself, even in small doses. 3. Decide what you want your life to look like I learned in therapy that our relationships are often a reflection of how we feel about ourselves. When I was depressed in my 20s, my relationships were a mess. As I worked on me, I watched every aspect of my life improve: relationships, work, health, finances and personal goals. I made a list of what my life looked like in each of those areas, and what I wanted my life to look like. This simple step of jotting things down in a notebook was life-changing because it gave me a road map to follow. Inaction fuels depression. Action builds confidence and dissipates depression. Read more: 10 Questions That Will Change Your Life 4. Spend time with your strengths and assets If you are tough on yourself, spend some time doing the things you do well. Your strengths are your guideposts for who you are. My self-worth used to feel like an empty tank. Today, I keep it full by focusing on my strengths instead of dwelling on each flaw. Notice and be grateful for your positive traits, skills and abilities. Now I even laugh a little bit about the things I’m not so good at. 5. Sleep on it If you have a down day, wait it out and see how you feel tomorrow. Sleep can magically change your outlook and give you a fresh perspective. 6. Write it out I used journaling from the time I could write. It was my escape and my place of solace. Journaling is a cathartic and healing practice. As you write, your mind has a safe place to express thoughts. You connect with your authentic feelings. Writing can be incredibly illuminating and can help lead your mind out of its darkest place. 7. Take risks When I started going to therapy, I had an intense fear of being alone and not having a boyfriend at all times. Boyfriends were mirrors for me and if I didn’t have one, I didn’t think I had value. Facing my fear of living alone gave me the courage to realize I determine my own value. My choice to seek talk therapy put me on a path to fight depression and win. I still struggle from time-to-time with the ghosts of old issues, but I now see my battle with depression as a resilience builder that gave me the tools to be an incredibly happy adult. Read more: Top 10 Natural Remedies to Calm Your Anxiety Sandra Bienkowski is a regular contributor to Live Happy and the founder and CEO of TheMediaConcierge.net.

Practice

Why Forgive?

Tense, heavy, weighed down. We can all relate to the feeling of holding onto anger, resentment, grudges and things that don't serve us well. Withholding forgiveness “is bad for our health and creates increased risks for cardiovascular, immune system and other problems, including depression, anxiety, anger, and PTSD disorders," says Everett Worthington, professor of psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University and a leading researcher on forgiveness. A difficult skill to learn The good news is forgiveness is a skill that can be taught. "People can learn to forgive better and the amount of forgiveness experienced is related to time spent trying to forgive," says Everett, who has dedicated more than two decades to studying the concept. Recently, Everett found that married partners made relationship gains when trained in communication and conflict resolution but within a year lost about half of the gains, whereas those trained in forgiveness and reconciliation made gains and retained them a year later. Two kinds of forgiveness While forgiveness can sustain and strengthen our most cherished relationships, it is often easier said than done. Everett's REACH forgiveness model is designed to help people learn to forgive. It depicts two types of forgiveness: “decisional” forgiveness (a decision to act differently toward the offender in the future), and emotional forgiveness (transformation from resentment and anxiety to positive emotions such as compassion and empathy). While decisional forgiveness is more important for restoring relationships, emotional forgiveness is vital to our physical and mental health. The five steps of REACH: R = Recall - Remember the hurt as objectively as possible E = Empathize - Try to put yourself into the shoes of the person who hurt you A = Altruism - Give the person the gift of forgiveness C = Commit - Publicly forgive the person H = Hold onto Forgiveness - Remind yourself you made the choice to forgive Listen to our podcast: The Slow Medicine Approach to Forgiveness Forgiveness becomes personal Everett doesn't just study forgiveness, he has lived it. He has experienced first-hand how to forgive others and himself after two tragic experiences: his mother's murder and his brother's suicide. While he was remarkably able to forgive his mother's murderer; it was his brother's death that challenged him on another level and propelled the direction of his research. Up until that point, he had done a couple of studies on self-forgiveness, but they were not as central to him as studying forgiveness of others, he says. "When my brother committed suicide, I felt guilt over not being able to help him more... I also had a deep emotional experience with self-condemnation that helped me understand more deeply what people were going through when they struggled to forgive themselves," says Everett. Read more: 9 Steps to Foregiveness The hardest person to forgive “Self-forgiveness is not just about feeling better about ourselves,” Everett says. "We also must do things to restore the moral damage we might have inflicted on ourselves by harming others, and we must do things to repair the damage done socially, and we need to deal with our offense against God, nature, other people or whatever we think is sacred. If [we only work on] moral repair, we are left with remaining guilt and shame for what we've done. If [we only work on] positive self-regard, we just let ourselves off the hook." While the process is tough, letting go of resentment while holding onto forgiveness—for ourselves and others—lightens our load and lifts us all up in the end. Read more: 33 Ideas on Forgiveness Suzann Pileggi Pawelski is a contributing editor and regular blogger for Live Happy. To read more about forgiveness, see the feature article "Forgive to Flourish" in the December 2015 issue of Live Happy magazine.

Practice

Happiness of the Holiday Table

There are a few things you can always count on during family holidays: kids showing up a foot taller since last you’ve seen them; Aunt Lisa nailing the perfect sweet-potato-to-marshmallow ratio in her signature dish; and roof-raising joyful chaos that leaves you flopped out on the couch once everyone hits the road.And there’s another part of families’ gatherings that’s taken so for granted that we don’t even think about it: the tales that get retold so often that they become part of the very fabric of your family’s identity. But these stories aren’t just idle ways to fill the silence between forkfuls—they serve a real purpose in making our lives richer and more meaningful.Family narratives bring us togetherRobyn Fivush, Ph.D., a psychology professor at Emory University in Atlanta, studies family narratives. These reminiscences contribute to a young person’s formation of her identity and her understanding of her place in the world, Robyn says. For older people, sharing family stories allows them to satisfy what psychologist Erik Erikson termed generativity, or the desire to impart your wisdom and legacy to the next generations. “There is some anthropological and sociological research that suggests that these kinds of stories become kind of a family motif,” says Robyn, “like ‘We’re a lucky family’ or ‘We’re a family that struggles but overcomes.’ ”What that means, says William Dunlop, Ph.D., a University of California, Riverside, assistant professor who studies personal narratives, is that these stories can affect a person’s entire worldview. A listener comes away with a sense of collective identity. “These stories say, ‘This is my kind of family,’ ” Will says.Holiday sharingWhile holiday time is not the only time family lore gets shared—car trips, dinners and other less formal moments are terrific opportunities to recount and listen—the gatherings offer a unique opportunity. “The thing about a holiday is it’s a chance to ask questions that a lot of different people might have answers to,” says Linda Coffin, the executive director of the Association of Personal Historians, an organization that encourages the preserving and sharing of people’s life stories.“If you ask your mom about crazy Uncle Harold she’ll have her perspective, but with 12 people at Christmas, you’ll get a lot of different perspectives.” You come away with a richer, more three-dimensional picture of your family’s history and the people who formed it.Read more about how family stories enrich our lives.A hero in the familyThere are many other life-enriching benefits to family stories, perhaps the most overt of which is imparting values to young people. “Sometimes they’re moral stories, or admonitions or warnings—what not to do,” says Marshall Duke, Ph.D., Robyn’s Emory colleague who also studies family narratives. Other times, they’re stories of what Marshall calls heroism. “In this case, heroism is doing something the listener thinks he would never do, such as picking up and leaving Europe and going to a new country, or overcoming some political and social obstacles.”The idea that you are part of a group of people who are capable of such heroism—which almost everyone in a nation of immigrants is—is a source of pride to people of any age, but especially to teens and children. In his research, says Marshall, “we’ve found that heroic stories give strength to kids. The fact that they are related to someone who did this, it becomes ‘That’s what we do in our family, our family rises above.’ It teaches resiliency.”A story worth retellingStories of her mother’s heroism had a big impact on Marisa Fox-Bevilacqua, 52. Her mother, Tamar Fromer, was a soldier in the Israeli underground. Marisa heard again and again how Tamar fled Poland alone at age 13 to Palestine, which was then under British governance before the state of Israel was established, just before World War II. “My mother told me how she and other girls smuggled [goods past the gates] in Jerusalem” to aid the Israeli statehood movement, Marisa recalls. The British guarding the city were too formal and polite to check women, Tamar recounted. “She’d just walk by with this big innocent smile on her face.”Tamar also told her daughter of the pain of leaving her mother behind in Poland, where she died in the Holocaust. “Growing up with that story—you, too, can be severed from your mother—filled me with a lot of anxiety as a kid,” Marisa says. “But I think what she was trying to tell me was that you can’t walk through life with fear—you get over whatever it is that you’re afraid of, that you must adjust, that life is random and you have to make the best of it.” And while Marisa knew her mother as a homemaker, not a soldier, “I learned from her stories that girls can do anything,” she says, and that breaking the rules for a worthy cause was an admirable thing to do.The past is prologueTales of events that took place before we were born don’t just help people understand their places in their families but also the families’ places in the larger world. “Because by listening you are now included in these stories, they become part of your history,” Will says. And especially when the story is being told by an older person to a younger person, the listener experiences what Marshall calls an “extension of the self.”“When a 10-year-old knows about how his grandparents lived 60 years ago he feels a part of something that has been going on longer than he’s been around.” He is woven into an ongoing family narrative and on some level may feel a responsibility as a participant in the story, which, says Marshall, can help guide his choices in the future. The child, says Will, “is aware that his behavior affects the family in a broad sense.” CJ McKiernan, 48, of Somerville, Massachusetts, says she grew up hearing her dad tell a story about his own father that, while primarily humorous, nonetheless had a strong message about what was expected in their family.“When my dad was young, he ran out of money in California and so he called my grandfather for help. Grandpa says, ‘They have buses, don’t they?’ ” she says. “So my dad takes a nine-day bus trip back to Massachusetts from California and finally arrives all dirty and tired and calls his father from the bus station to pick him up. Grandpa says, ‘They have buses, don’t they?’ It was rush hour and he wasn’t about to go pick him up at the station.” The moral of the story, CJ says, is “You are responsible for your own mistakes—your family is not going let you get hurt but if you do something idiotic, you take responsibility for yourself.”Read more: 33 Ideas on FamilyBut these family stories, experts say, do not have to be positive, funny or even have a happy ending to confer the same benefits of family identity and values on the people hearing them. In Marshall and Robyn’s research, adolescents who knew many details about happy and unhappy aspects of family history tended to have higher levels of self esteem, lower levels of anxiety, fewer behavioral problems and greater resilience. “They learn that bad things happen to good people, and we can overcome obstacles,” Marshall says.They also learn that failure is not the end of the world. “Sometimes you work as hard as you possibly can and things still don’t come out well—it helps people accept that there are times like that.” The stories don’t even need to be true to bring the good stuff. In fact, says Marshall, they are often hardly true at all. “They have a certain ‘truthiness’ about them, as [Stephen] Colbert would say. They’re often embellished or the edges are softened.”The joy of storytellingMarisa and CJ both took away valuable lessons from their parents’ stories, but the upsides of family storytelling aren’t just to the listeners—the teller, too, gains a sense of meaning, which is often tied to generativity. Northwestern University narrative researcher and psychologist Dan McAdams and his colleagues have been studying storytelling and generativity for decades.“Generativity,” he writes, “is an adult’s concern for, and commitment to promoting the well-being of future generations through…a wide range of endeavors aimed at leaving a positive legacy for the future.” “It’s kind of like, ‘I’ve gotten me figured out, now what am I going to give back to the world?" Robin explains.Dan’s research reveals that highly generative people find happiness in telling these stories. “Not everyone achieves that generativity, but those that do report higher levels of life satisfaction and a sense of meaning and purpose,” Robyn says. People who are more generative, Dan’s research shows, also report telling more of these family stories, particularly ones with the themes of suffering, growth and human kindness.Linda, who helps clients put their life stories into book form to give to their loved ones, has seen what telling personal narratives can do for her clients. “In sharing these stories, people get a sense that they’re passing on something that’s significant in a way that’s not always true of an estate that consists of things,” she says.“It’s a personal legacy that they’re passing on.” Even if an older person is not particularly concerned about the next generation or needs to be coaxed to tell their story, “I find that people who tell their own stories have a sense of looking back through their lives and feeling a sense of accomplishment,” Linda says. “Like, wow, you know, I’ve had a life! Even if they didn’t do something ‘big,’ ” she says.The tales that bondIn some families, stories are sheer entertainment, and the ritual and repetition of the same stories—with the same sometimes corny punch lines that families recite in unison—are what binds members together, even more than the specific content. One family classic of CJ’s is the tale of how her dad got lost driving to Logan airport. “Oftentimes the whole story won’t get told, because we’ve already heard it. It’ll be just one sentence, and it’s like hearing the whole story,” she says.“Whenever there’s mention of someone getting lost while driving, we say, ‘You gotta go into New Hampshire to turn around,’ ” CJ says. “It’s the same joke over and over again, and the four of us think it’s funny. I’m sure it’s not as funny to other people, but it binds us together as a family.”Of course, not all families have delightful (or even hilarious-in-retrospect) memories to share and some family gatherings are strained, but the stories we tell in those circumstances can also serve a positive purpose.Sharing makes it hurt lessSiblings sharing gallows humor about a difficult parent, for example, is healthy and positive and bonds them together in a different way. “These stories cement the relationships,” Will says. “Nothing is better than not feeling alone. It doesn’t make the stories less terrible, but it does make you feel less isolated.”What’s more, if a sad story is told during the holidays, around food and gifts and loved ones, the message is, “This terrible thing happened in our family history, but look how nice everything is now,” Marshall says. “Things pass and people overcome.” So don’t worry if it appears that the younger folks in your family aren’t obviously enthralled with your anecdotes that illustrate your years of accrued wisdom.“You just want to put the story out there,” Marshall says. When your kids are adults and you hear them repeating your meaningful stories to their own children, you can sit back, enjoy Aunt Lisa’s sweet potatoes, and know that what you said did, in fact, make a difference.

Self-Care

Are You Headed for an Energy Crisis? [QUIZ]

How many of the following statements are true for you? Body I don’t regularly get at least seven to eight hours of sleep and I often wake up feeling tired. I frequently skip breakfast or settle for something that isn’t nutritious. I don’t exercise enough (cardiovascular training at least three times a week and strength training at least once a week). I don’t take regular breaks during the day to renew and recharge/I often eat lunch at my desk. Read more about how to recharge your body. Emotions I frequently feel irritable, impatient or anxious at work—especially when work is demanding. I don’t spend enough time with my loved ones, and when I’m with them I’m not always fully present. I have too little time for the activities that I most deeply enjoy. I don’t stop frequently to express my appreciation to others or to savor my accomplishments. Read more about balancing your emotions. Mind I have difficulty focusing on one thing at a time, and I am easily distracted by stimuli such as email. I spend much of my day at work reacting to crises rather than focusing on activities with long-term value. I don’t take enough time for reflection, strategizing and creative thinking. I work in the evenings or on weekends and rarely take an email-free vacation. Read more about unplugging and being present in the world around you. Spirit I don’t spend enough time at work doing what I do best and enjoy most. There are significant gaps between what I say is important to me and how I actually allocate my time and energy. My decisions at work are more often influenced by external demands than a clear sense of my own purpose. I don’t invest enough time and energy in making a positive difference in the world. Read more about finding your purpose. How is your overall energy? Tally up the total number of statements that were true for you: 0-3: Excellent energy management skills 4-6: Reasonable energy management skills 7-10: Significant energy management deficits 11-16: A full-fledged energy management crisis SOURCE: theenergyproject.com Read more about The Energy Project and well-being at work.

Practice

The Gift That Changed My Life

Some gifts offer effervescent delights, lasting no longer than the bubbles in a glass of champagne. Others—a cashmere sweater, a handbag—provide pleasure for a season or two. More durable gifts, like jewelry, are an everlasting reminder of friendship and love. And then there are those rare gifts that alter the courses of our lives. They transform the way we see ourselves, leading us to pursue dreams, ambitions and daily happiness in radically new ways. Below, 10 people share the gifts that changed their lives. Emily Wise Miller Dallas, Texas Live Happy web editor GIFT: BICYCLE Two years ago, surgeons opened my sternum, stopped my heart and replaced a faulty aortic valve with a mechanical one. Before this surgery, I’d been pretty active: running, doing yoga, training with weights. During the recovery, I felt like I’d been hit by a truck; I couldn’t cook, I couldn’t drive, I couldn’t even reach for a bottle of milk on a high shelf. After a couple of months, I felt well enough to go on walks and short, easy hikes. It would be another six months before I could do yoga and almost a year before I returned to running and weights. Even then, a deep sense of fatigue persisted. I could barely go half a day without napping. Then, in February 2014, after years of working freelance, I joined Live Happy as the web editor. I was thrilled, but the added stress of starting a new job gave me less time for exercise. I gained weight and developed lower back pain and even high blood pressure. I knew something had to change. Once I started seeing a trainer and exercising again, I began daydreaming about the years my husband and I lived in Florence and traveled everywhere by bicycle. There is nothing like the feeling of riding across the Piazza della Signoria at night, almost empty except for the towering replica of Michelangelo’s David. My husband and I would look at each other on our one-speeds thinking, “We’ll never see or feel anything like this again.” For my birthday last March, my mother bought me a bicycle—a silver hybrid Trek small enough for my 5-foot frame. It was cute, cool and sporty. I was ecstatic! At first I just rode around the neighborhood with my kids. Then I moved on to nearby trails. Soon I was riding seven miles, then 10 and 15. I was hooked on the feeling of being on a bike. It’s both meditative and fun, a kind of energetic flow state. I began pushing myself in ways that I never had, even before surgery. Now, two or three mornings a week, I go for 20-mile rides, traversing the urban creeks and forests of Dallas while the city is still half-asleep. The gift of a bicycle pulled me out of my a negative spiral. When I get back from a 20- or 30-mile ride, I feel competent and strong, happy and free. Listen to Emily discuss her bike and how it affected her life on our podcast, HERE! Chandra Yarter San Antonio, Texas Wedding photographer GIFT: CAMERA My grandpa has always been the unofficial family photographer, and every week from the time I was 6 or 7 until my grandfather passed away when I was 16, I’d go with him to the local Kodak store to get his film developed. When I was 8, my grandparents bought me a camera—a small, wind-up Fuji. From the moment I got it, that camera was strapped to my hip. I’d take it to school, to the grocery store, to the playground. I’d take pictures of everything: my dog, my two sisters—we’re identical triplets—coke bottles. I got pretty good at taking photos, and when people started offering to pay for my services, I began thinking that maybe I could turn something I love into a career. Today, I have my own business as a wedding photographer. I shoot with a fancy top-of-the-line Canon these days, but it all began with that Fuji. Heather Rae Johnson Oakland, California Journalist GIFT: RED VELVET CHAIR In 1995, my boyfriend, John, fell to his death down a freight elevator shaft. That Christmas our friends got together in the apartment that John and Warren, his roommate, had shared. There were about 12 of us. We had gotten each other silly inexpensive gifts, like art deco ashtrays and beer mugs. Since there were so many gifts, we decided that each person would sit in the middle of the living room, blindfolded, while we piled the gifts around them. Then, they’d take off the blindfold and open them all. My friend Blair and I did a lot of antique store shopping that year. One afternoon I came across a gorgeous red velvet chair. It was $125. I passed it by because I had gifts to buy for others. The next week Blair said, “I went to that same store and your chair was gone.” Sadly, it wasn’t to be. At the party, it was my turn in the hot seat. When Warren took off the blindfold, there in front of me was a single gift: my pretty red chair! Everyone had pitched in, and Blair had gotten it for me. I cried. After going through something so terrible, losing someone I cared about so much, that little red chair reminded me, and still does, of the value of friendship and how good friends can come together and help each other through the absolute worst. Judith Viorst Washington Author of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day and many other books GIFT: FRENCH LESSONS Back in the late 1960s my husband, Milton, who speaks flawless French, gave me the very expensive gift of a week of total immersion at Berlitz. He was determined to spur me—who spoke zero French, flawless or otherwise—to share his knowledge of this beautiful language. As I recall it, the course involved five days of private, intensive lessons all day and all in French, with the hope that it would give me a jump-start in learning French, after which I would continue to study in more conventional ways. During that total immersion week I worked harder than I’d ever worked in my life…but, alas, got nowhere. At the end of the course I was called into the Berlitz office. And there I was told, more in sorrow than in anger: “ ‘Madame Viorst, you have remarkable stamina. But’...long pause followed by a sigh...‘no talent for languages.’ ” Freed by this verdict from my husband’s nagging and from ever having to study French again, I decided that I would concentrate on English, in which I now have written 43 books. Tom Broecker New York Emmy-winning costume designer for Saturday Night Live GIFT: MY BOOK ABOUT ME BY ME, MYSELF I was 6 years old when my father gave me My Book About Me as a Christmas present. I was already drawing a lot, and this book gave me focus. I’d go through the pages and with a bright orange crayon I followed the directions to do things like trace my hands and my feet. I’d pay close paid attention to myself, noticing things like which foot was bigger. There were also pages where you’d write about yourself. I wrote, ‘I am 6. I’m right-handed. I have straight blond hair and a long nose.’ I also kept a list of things I wanted to be when I grew up. My list included plumber, fireman, chef, astronaut and fashion designer. I was growing up in small-town Indiana with three brothers, a father who was a corporate lawyer and a mom who was a nurse. There weren’t many kids in Carmel, Indiana, who wanted to be a fashion designer, but that book helped me claim my own identity and my own ambitions. I went on to study costume design at the Yale School of Drama. I’ve been the costume designer at Saturday Night Live since it began in 1975. I’ve also been the costume designer for 30 Rock, House of Cards and lots of Broadway and off-Broadway shows. A few years ago I rescued My Book About Me from my parents’ basement and brought it home to my New York apartment. Every now and then, I look through the pages. As you get older, the self-doubts become louder and louder, but seeing my childhood drawings and notes in that book reconnects me with how filled with possibilities we all are as children. It’s a good reminder that it’s never to late to become what you want to be in life. Donatella Arpaia New York Chef/Partner, Prova GIFT: AN UMBRELLA ROD When I was 15, my family was in Puglia, Italy, where we typically spent our summers visiting family. I was sitting in the kitchen watching my Great Aunt Rosa make pasta by hand. This was something I’d seen her do many times, but in this instance she grabbed a thin metal, square-shaped rod out of a drawer. She started twirling it in the dough, making these gorgeous pasta shapes. I had never seen anything like it and asked her what the rod was called and where I could buy one. Aunt Rosa laughed and informed me it was a rod from her mother’s umbrella. She said the square edges made perfect pasta shapes. I continued cooking with her all summer, learning more of her great techniques. The day we were flying back to America, Aunt Rosa gave me a gift wrapped in simple paper: It was her precious umbrella rod, or rather “pasta maker,” handed down from her mother. James Strejc Houston Pre-schooler Kayla Hammergren Boston Account manager for digital ad agency GIFT: BONE MARROW Four-year-old James Strejc will tell you that the best present he ever got was his red Lightning McQueen bicycle. His parents, Stephanie and Nick, would choose another gift: the life-saving bone marrow that was donated by a stranger, Kayla Hammergren, a recent Boston College graduate. “Without Kayla,” Stephanie says, “we might not have this healthy, happy child.” When James was about 18 months old, he developed a troubling set of symptoms: He stopped eating, would sleep about 20 hours a day and had unexplained bruises. For weeks, doctors said James had just a garden-variety ear infection, but after Nick and Stephanie brought him to the emergency room with a raging fever he was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. “It was heartbreaking,” Stephanie says. “We were in pieces.” Treatment would be six rounds of chemotherapy, with a 30-day hospital stay for each round. Nick and Stephanie, who pretty much moved into Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, marveled at their toddler’s resilience. “Just a couple of days after each treatment,” Stephanie says, “he’d be riding around the hospital on his scooter while Nick and I followed with his IV pole.” Right before his second birthday, James relapsed, with leukemia cells showing up in a brain tumor. He would again need chemotherapy, this time followed by radiation. And if he were to survive, another step was critical: a bone marrow transplant. Neither Nick nor Stephanie, or any of their friends or family who stepped forward as possible donors, turned out to be a match. “We knew we’d have to depend on the grace of a stranger,” Stephanie says. Meanwhile, Kayla had registered as a bone-marrow donor her sophomore year in college. One of her best friends, Michael, had lost a brother to leukemia, and he was organizing a donor drive for the Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation. “I thought ‘What if someone I loved got sick, and there was no one there to help them?’ ” she says. Five months later, Kayla got a call from Gift of Life. A 2-year-old boy was suffering from acute myeloid leukemia and she was a potential match. A week before Christmas 2013, Kayla was wheeled into a surgical suite at Boston’s Dana Farber Hospital. A few days later, James received her bone marrow. In April, Kayla met James and his parents at the Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation Walk for Life 5K in Boston. “They brought us up on the stage first,” Stephanie says, “and then I saw this young woman in the front of the crowd starting to cry. I nudged my husband and said, ‘That’s her.’ When Kayla came up she gave us all big hugs, and we were all crying happy, grateful tears. James immediately took her hand. He knew she was the someone special who had gotten a big poke and given him something that had made him better.” Kayla says she’s received a gift every bit as remarkable as the one she gave: “Seeing how happy James and his family are was just the greatest feeling in the world. They’re going to be in my life forever and that brings me amazing joy.” Read more about people who have found that giving back is the greatest reward. Danielle Montalvo Hesperia, California Founder of talvodesigns.com GIFT: SEWING MACHINE I was 22 and shopping for Christmas gifts for my 1-year-old son at Wal-Mart when I saw a Brother sewing machine. I was into collage and scrapbooking—I’d just started teaching a scrapbooking class—and I thought, “Oh, I’d love to learn how to sew.” I bought the sewing machine as a Christmas gift for myself, but a day later, I felt guilty—money was tight—so I returned it. I told my mother about it; saying it was just not the right time for me to be buying things for myself. My then-husband, son and I were staying at my parents’ house that Christmas, and on Christmas Eve a big box appeared under the tree. I knew immediately what it was and my eyes filled with tears. When I got pregnant at 20 I’d given up a lot of my dreams; this was the first time in a long time I had something that was just mine. Then in 2011, when I was going through a divorce, I started a company making eco-friendly toys for special needs children. It was a way of my regaining the confidence I’d lost and also helping not just myself and my child, but the community. I’d never really thought of my sewing as much more than a hobby, until it was the only thing I could rely on. A couple of years ago I started a new online store, Talvo Designs, where I sell custom-made bowties—my son loves them!—and handmade men’s grooming products. That first sewing machine gave me a way to express myself; it gave me strength; and it gave me a career. Michele Tremblay Philadelphia Paper sculptor GIFT: A PAINTING My mother died at the beginning of my sophomore year in college, and I transferred to Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia so I could commute to school and help my dad take care of my 10-year-old sister. One of the professors who most influenced me was the painter Roger Anliker. When he was teaching us egg tempera painting, he brought in an example of his own work. The painting, called Millay, was a portrait of a young girl looking out a window. It was only about 9½ by 10 inches and the theme was a simple one, but I immediately fell in love with it. When I graduated a couple of years later, my dad handed me a beautifully wrapped box and inside was Millay. I burst into tears. I moved into a tiny apartment after college, and I remember thinking, “I’m going to wait until I have a really great place to hang this painting.” The painting stayed in the box for two years and then late one night I hung it. Instead of waiting for the perfect time and place I decided that night and that apartment, humble though it may have been, was perfect enough. Millay hangs in the living room of my home today, and it’s still the most beautiful piece of art in my small collection. More importantly, it taught me how living with art can elevate one’s everyday life. Today, I’m a working paper sculptor, and I seek to help people achieve the same joyful experience that Millay has brought to my family and me for so many years. Read more: Give Happy Shelley Levitt, editor at large for Live Happy, is a journalist living in Southern California.

Self-Care

90 Days to a Happier You

We could have resolved to eat more leafy greens or to add another spin class to our weekly workout schedule. But when a team of us at Live Happy made it our mission to become happier this year, we dug deeper to identify the behaviors, interactions and attitudes that were sapping our energy, productivity and joy. Our issues, it turns out, are pretty universal: anxiety, troubled communications with a loved one, an inability to unplug from work, poor sleep, a lack of long-term goals. To help us tackle these challenges we’ve enlisted a squad of top experts who have agreed to coach each of us. And because we know that the most effective way to implement new habits is with deadlines and accountability, we’re putting both in motion. We’ve decided to bare our souls and write about our goals, struggles, setbacks and—we hope!—triumphs in frequent blog posts over the next 90 days. All of the experts agree that in three months, each of us should be able to achieve a significant happiness reset. We’d like to invite you to take this journey along with Susan, Kim, Chris, Donna and me (I’m the cranky, sleep-deprived member of the group). We’ve assembled everything you’ll need here. Along with our own blogs, which we will continue to publish as the 90 days progress, you’ll find regular posts from our coaches detailing the programs and strategies they’ve put together for us. They’ll be writing about what we can expect each step of the way, including how to get around roadblocks, bounce back from setbacks and maintain the new happier-you habits for a lifetime. You’ll also find podcasts with the coaches, links to resources and other helpful tools. Check the web page frequently for updates, and add Live Happy to your Facebook and Twitter feeds. We’ll have ongoing news for you, including the scoop on great giveaways and information on how to connect with our coaches through Twitter chats and more. And, in the June print issue of the magazine, I’ll be writing about what each of us achieved in our 90-day happiness makeover. We expect the changes will be transformative, for us and for you! 1ST CHALLENGE: CAN'T UNPLUG FROM WORK Subject: Donna Stokes, Live Happy managing editor Expert: Christine Carter, Ph.D., sociologist and senior fellow at University of California, Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center; author of The Sweet Spot: How to Find Your Groove at Home and Work. What Donna says From the moment I wake up until the moment I go to sleep, I’m checking my work emails every 10 minutes, including when I’m stopped at red lights or in line at the supermarket. My husband and I both have our laptops or tablets propped up during dinner. At midnight I’ll see 15 new emails in my inbox and my blood pressure spikes, even though there’s nothing I can do about it until I’m back in the office the next day. I’m lucky to have work I love, but I worry that this compulsion will lead to burnout. It’s also keeping me from doing other things I enjoy, like reading short stories at night or spending more time with my husband and dogs outdoors. What Christine says I love coaching people around unplugging because it’s so simple but it’s life-changing. I’m going to teach Donna some little techniques, which we’ll practice together, and her life is going to be so different and so much more fun. Unplugging does something really wonderful. It brings ease into our lives. That means we operate from what I call our “sweet spot,” when your greatest strengths overlap with the least resistance. There’s nothing wrong with making a powerful effort; we just can’t do it all the time. As human beings we’re part of nature, and all of nature ebbs and flows. To focus on pushing forward without ever allowing yourself an ebb is a very stressful and exhausting way of living, and neuroscience teaches us that it keeps our brain from functioning at its peak. We have this idea that if we’re just standing in the grocery line or staring out the window when we’re stopped at a red light, we’re wasting time. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. There’s a heck of a lot more brain activity while you’re daydreaming than there is when you’re focused on a task. While you’re “wasting time,” your brain is actually forming neural connections between things that it did not previously see as being related, and that’s where creative insights come from. If you’ve noticed that you have all your best ideas when you’re in the shower, that’s probably because the shower is the only time you give yourself a chance to daydream. There’s a very high cost to being plugged in all the time. Not only are you thwarting creativity, you’re also undermining your relationships." You can’t fully be present for another human being if there’s a screen between you. Research shows that even if a phone is turned off and face-down on a table, it lowers the quality of the conversation that takes place. I struggle with unplugging, too. I have a hard and fast rule that I never use a device when I’m doing something with my kids, and sometimes I slip. When I do, I’ll go on what I call a digital cleanse and bury my email or texting app deep in a folder so I really have to hunt for it. It’s a two-minute intervention that makes it a lot easier to change a behavior that’s become automatic. Get ready to tackle unplugging from work along with Donna For three weekdays and one weekend day, jot down every time you could have allowed yourself to daydream or be fully present for another person, but you allowed your device to get in the way instead. For example, you checked your texts while waiting in line to get into a movie with your daughter (and, yes, you’re allowed to make these notes on your phone). Read Donna's first blog about her unplugging challenge, here. Read Christine's 6 Steps to Unplug From Work, here. 2ND CHALLENGE: OVERCOMING ANXIETY Subject: Kim Baker, Live Happy art director Expert: Karen Cassiday, Ph.D., president of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America and managing director of the Anxiety Treatment Center of Greater Chicago. What Kim says All my life I’ve dealt with anxiety that’s driven by worry. I can work myself up to the point where my heart is racing and my palms are sweaty because I’m thinking, “What if something happened to my daughter or my husband? What if my migraine is really a brain tumor?” These thoughts are distractions that take me away from living in the moment. It’s really important for me to be fully present for my family and my friends, so I want to learn better ways to manage my worry and anxiety. What Karen says Worry makes people really miserable. Ifyou’re a worrier, and a great many people are, you live your life in high idle; your mental motor is always turned up. Worriers tend to have trouble with their sleep, they have digestive issues, they have headaches and sometimes even chronic pain because their muscles are so stiff. Persistent worriers, who are twice as likely to be women, have literally forgotten how to relax. The irony is that worriers think they’re being responsible by preparing themselves for the worst. What’s really going on is that they can’t tolerate uncertainty. Psychologists know that faced with an uncertain situation, non-worriers will assume all is OK until they hear otherwise. Worriers, onthe other hand, focus on a few catastrophic outcomes. They'll spend hours searching online for all the life-threatening things those abdominal twinges might be. And they’ll constantly seek reassurance from other people. They may experience quick drops in anxiety when their doctors tell them, no, they don’t have cancer or co-workers assure them they’re not going to lose their jobs. But before long their anxiety returns, and it’s even stronger. Then, they’ll do another Internet search, re-read the information they’ve already read or replay conversations that they’ve had. It can be hard to recognize that worrying doesn’t solve problems; it doesn’t improve your ability to cope. It does, however, make you irritable, unpleasant to be around and more likely to feel overwhelmed. But don’t worry! The good news is that worry is very treatable. Here’s the catch. The treatment for worry, which includes techniques of cognitive behavioral therapy, is counterintuitive. When I work with someone who has issues around worry, I’ll expose her to uncertainty and then put a complete ban on seeking reassurance. That can feel uncomfortable, even reckless. To ease that discomfort, I also do mindfulness training, so runaway worriers can learn to stay in the present as opposed to the awful futures they’re imagining. Exercise is also an important part of the program. It helps mechanically loosen your muscles and also helps metabolize the chemical byproducts of anxiety such as stress hormones. The biggest hurdle for worriers to overcome is to recognize that what they’re worrying about isn’t the problem; the problem is the worry itself." It’s important to acknowledge what a detriment worry is to your well-being and that it’s something very much worth trying to overcome. Get ready to tackle worry along with Kim Keep a diary of your worry. The way to identify a worry, Karen says, is that it’spreceded by “what if,” such as Kim’s “What if something happened to my daughter?” thoughts. Jot down every “what if” rumination, from “What if I speak up at the meeting and everybody laughs at my ideas?” to “What if I have a panic attack when I’m driving across the bridge?” Read Kim's first blog about her anxiety challenge, here. Read Karen's 6 Steps to Win the War Against Worry, here. 3RD CHALLENGE: SETTING LONG-TERM GOALS Subject: Chris Libby, Live Happy section editor Expert: Caroline Adams Miller, MAPP, author of Creating Your Best Life: The Ultimate Life List Guide What Chris says I sometimes think I walk through life like Forrest Gump. I don’t really plan things; I just kind of let them happen. I’ve always believed that if you work hard, good things will come your way, and, in my life, they have. I spent 15 years at a local newspaper and a couple of months after it folded I got a call about a new magazine that was starting up. That magazine was Live Happy. As well as things have turned out, I do have a nagging sense that if I want to continue to nourish in my career and life, I need to be more proactive and begin thinking about where I want to be in, say, five or 10 years and what steps I might start taking in that direction. What Caroline says I get an incredible amount of pleasure out of helping people come up with goals that are closely aligned with meaning and purpose for them. Often they’ve never articulated these goals to anybody else or even to themselves. So it takes what I call “forensic coaching” we walk through their strengths and their values and explore their appetite for risk-taking. People like Chris, who are already happy and thriving in their careers, have a head start on setting and pursuing goals. Success flows from being happy first, not the other way around. If your job is bringing you joy, as Chris’ is, it’s the ideal time to aspire to be the best you can be by identifying some big dreams. Take your emotional temperature: If you’re feeling blue and pessimistic, you’ll want to do a mood intervention, with daily habits of gratitude, mindfulness and savoring, before your work on long-term goals. Life is transformed when people set hard goals. Yes, it can be uncomfortable. Nobody changes and grows by playing inside their comfort zone. But if 2016 is the year that you want to explore risk-taking and you’re up for some hard work. Far from being selfish, setting bold goals for yourself is a mitzvah, Hebrew for a good deed or an act of kindness that you put out into the world." I’d encourage you to step outside your comfort zone to pursue a goal that’s big and intrinsic, meaning it comes from your own genuine desires, values and interests. Playing bigger and bolder is what happiness, purpose and fulfillment is all about. When you set these long-term goals, you move into an expansive way of thinking. Your eyes aren’t on your feet, they’re on the horizon. Audacious goals are energizing and inspiring, and they’re contagious. The people around you will “catch” that vibrant energy, too. Get ready to set some long-term goals along with chris Identify your signature strengths by taking the VIA Character Strengths Survey. A key tool in the field of positive psychology, the free survey assesses 24 different positive traits, such as persistence, open-mindedness, leadership, vitality and social intelligence. Research shows you’ll make more progress on your goals, and be happier pursuing them, if they’re aligned with your signature strengths. What’s more, as you move along on your three-month goal-setting program, you’ll find new ways to apply your unique strengths to whatever goals you do set. Read Chris's first blog about his goal-setting challenge, here. Read Caroline's 6-Step Goal-Setting Challenge, here. 4TH CHALLENGE: COMMUNICATING BETTER WITH A LOVED ONE Who: Susan Kane, Live Happy contributing editor Expert: Michele Gravelle, communications strategist with Triad Consulting Group What Susan says My daughter, Coco, and I had always been very close and loved spending time together. But that changed this year when Coco turned 13. Just my saying hello when I get home from work seems to annoy her. If I try to get anything more than a couple of words out of her, she’s rude and surly. Even though I recognize that this may be normal teenage rebelliousness, these interactions leave me swamped with sorrow. I’d like to learn more effective ways to respond to Coco so her guard comes down and we’re able to connect in more positive ways more often. What Michele says I’m thrilled to have the chance to coach Susan on improving her communications with Coco. And the reason why goes back to Labor Day 2013. My then 23-year-old son dove off the back of a boat into water that was too shallow. He broke his neck and suffered a spinal-cord injury that’s left him paralyzed from the chest down. I took a six-month leave of absence to be with Sam in the hospital, and when I came back I decided that I only wanted to do work that really matters. Giving people the tools to show up in their lives and talk to the people who are important to them is that kind of work. After all, what brings us happiness boils down to relationships and relationships are really just a series of conversations." It’s easy for conversations between family members to go off the tracks. Nobody knows how to push your buttons better than family. Your sister says something that hurts your feelingsor makes you angry and your knee-jerk reaction is to lash out in return. Part of choosing happiness is choosing a different way to respond. You’ll want to pause and take a moment to say to yourself, “OK, I don’t like what she said, but let me try to put myself in her shoes and see if I can understand why she said it.” When you practice that kind of empathy it makes it possible for you to have a more compassionate, respectful response. Curiosity is also key to improving communications. If someone has dug in his heels on an issue, you might say something like, “Help me understand why this is so important to you.” That really gets to the heart of things. Often the impact that we have on people is invisible to us; it’s our blind spot. To shed light on this we may need to ask them the question: “What am I doing that’s getting in your way or making your life more difficult?” That’s a hard question to ask, but it’s also an incredibly healing one that helps clear the air so you can begin to address things in a more neutral way. Working to keep communications strong with someone you love can be a lifelong project. But, by demonstrating empathy, curiosity and asking the right questions, you can expect less tension in the relationship, along with deeper and more meaningful conversations, in just 90 days. Get ready to tackle troubled communications with a loved one along with Susan Choose one person who really matters to you and with whom you’d like to improve communications. For two weeks keep a journal of your conversations—both the ones that went well and the ones that didn’t. Take notes on what you were feeling and what your internal voice was saying during these chats. Often, what causes a conversation to derail isn’t what we say, Michele points out, but what we were thinking and feeling. Read Susan's first blog about her communication challenge, here. Read Michele's 6 Steps to Healthier, More Productive Conversations, here. 5TH CHALLENGE: TACKLING CHRONIC INSOMNIA Who: Shelley Levitt, Live Happy editor at large Expert: Michael Breus, Ph.D., author of The Sleep Doctor’s Diet Plan: Lose Weight through Better Sleep What Shelley says I’ve never been someone who slept straight through the night. But over the past few months my sleep has been declining to the point where I’m up more hours than I’m snoozing. I’m constantly fatigued and irritable, and I’m so groggy by late afternoon, it’s hard for me to get through the rest of the day without taking a nap, which sets me up for another lousy night of sleep. On those rare occasions when I do get a good night’s sleep, my energy, confidence, productivity and optimism soar. I want to go from that being a rarity to being the everyday me. What Michael says You can’t live a happy life if you’re not getting good sleep. The more sleep-deprived you are the less likely you are to have positive relationships, whether we’re talking about marriages or business relationships. Lack of sleep compromises your resilience, making you less capable of bouncing back after a setback. Insufficient sleep even affects your sense of humor; you’re less likely to get a joke and more likely to take offense at neutral comments. We also know that inadequate sleep can lead to or worsen anxiety and depression. You can certainly live a happy life if you suffer from depression or anxiety as long as you’ve figured out how to manage it, but lack of sleep will dramatically undermine those strategies or treatments. Everyone has the occasional bad night’s sleep. But if you’re having sleep problems—either difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep—for three or more nights a week for a month or longer, you’re suffering from chronic insomnia." Keep in mind that good sleep is about not just the quantity of your sleep but the quality of your sleep. You need to move beyond the first two stages of light sleep and spend ample time in stages 3 and 4, deep or delta sleep, and in REM (rapid eye movement) sleep to feel physically and mentally restored. How much sleep we need is variable; my wife needs a solid eight hours; I’m good with six-and-a-half hours. Sleep is largely regulated by the brain’s suprachiasmatic nucleus [a tiny region in the hypothalamus], or what I call “the sleeper.” Very few people have a broken sleeper, which means that very few of us have an inability to sleep well. Good sleep comes from good habits. I can’t promise everyone that they’re always going to have a perfect night’s sleep—life with all its challenges and stressors can get in the way. But by changing your sleep habits and patterns over three months, the great majority of people can dramatically improve their general level of sleep. Fair warning: The first few weeks of the program may feel like torture. That’s because people who are chronically poor sleepers have an internal body clock, or circadian rhythm, that’s out of sync with their sleep drive. Getting these two systems aligned requires sleep restriction, often to just five or six hours a night. It’s a tough intervention but the eventual payoff—deep, restorative sleep —is huge. Get ready to tackle poor sleep along with shelley Keep a sleep diary for two weeks. Note the time you went to bed; the approximate time you fell asleep; the number of times you woke up during the night and how long you stayed awake; whether you took any sleep medication; how many naps you took and how long they lasted; and how many caffeinated beverages you had during the day. Read Shelley's first blog post about her sleep intervention, here. Read Michael's 6 Steps to Better Sleep, here. Go to 90 Days Home Base to follow our "subjects" on their 3-month journey. Find more information about our amazing coaches, here. Shelley Levitt, editor at large for Live Happy, is a freelance journalist living in Southern California.

Self-Care

6 Steps to Win the War Against Worry

As part of Live Happy’s special series 90 Days to a Happier You, we’ve gathered experts from around the country with unbeatable advice about how we can change habits and live better in 2016. Below, in the first of a series of blogs, anxiety expert Karen Cassiday, Ph.D., walks us through the steps of how to win the war against worry. At some point, most of us have felt that surge of panic when a worry invades our mind. Worry is the anxious response to uncertainty; it narrows the field of infinite possibilities down to a few worst-case scenarios. For example, a worrier has a headache that won’t go away and thinks, “What if I have a tumor?” The worrier looks up all the symptoms of brain cancer and asks several friends about the headaches. A non-worrier, on the other hand, might just take an aspirin and assume nothing serious is wrong. Worriers constantly seek reassurance (WebMD anyone?). The irony is that this kind of inquiry makes worry much worse because it is a form of negative reinforcement—an attempt at a quick escape from worry and often an entry into a rabbit hole of increased worry. Worriers forget to do things that promote wellness. They spend their days in constantly trying to prevent bad things from happening instead of enjoying the present. The six steps: Follow these six steps to help you address irrational thoughts, beliefs and behaviors that keep you in a cycle of worry. 1. Download the app, get the books, and look around the website Start by downloading the free app “Self-help Anxiety Management–University of West England” (“SAM”), as we will do much of our work using the various tools on this app. Start by getting familiar with the tools and information available on the app and begin tracking your anxiety in the "How's my anxiety right now" section." Meanwhile, start reading the book Women Who Worry Too Much or The Worry Cure; these books will fortify the six steps and give you more information for keeping worry at bay. You will also find excellent resources on the website for the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (full disclosure: I am the incoming president of this organization). 2. Keep a daily anxiety diary and do worry exposure Use the app to begin worry exposure in the section titled “Mystical Monitor.” Record yourself talking about your worst worries and then play the recording repeatedly until your anxiety level decreases by about half. This may take 20 to 30 minutes of repeated listening. Do this worry exposure listening daily for at least 20 minutes, or until your worries no longer make you anxious. (This may take several days to several weeks until you become immune to your worst worries.) 3. Stop seeking reassurance This is a tough one, because in the worrier's mind, his or her attempt to seek reassurance is a way to stop or postpone an imagined catastrophic future. It may take some time, but make it a daily goal to slow down and eventually stop seeking reassurance about your worries. Don't seek advice and reassurance from friends in the form of conversation or internet searches. This habit may take up to several months to break. 4. Challenge your thinking Use the app section called “Thinking and Anxiety” to challenge the way you think when you worry. For example, you may not realize that you have traits of a perfectionist (many worriers do). Perfectionism increases worry by making you believe that there is only one narrow option for success instead of many flexible solutions. Your goal would be to finish the day with at least two to three mistakes and to discover that nothing terrible happened even when others noticed. 5. Decrease intolerance of uncertainty You can start to decrease procrastination and intolerance of uncertainty by doing daily uncertainty exposure practice. Look for uncertain situations that trigger your worry and then expose yourself to these situations without engaging in reassurance seeking, procrastinating or over-planning. Keep a list of your successes. For example, your boss says very little when you talk about your work, and you begin to worry about being fired. Exposure practice would consist of talking to no one about the boss or the quality of your work and just going about your job. 6. Improve self-care Read the “Health and Anxiety” section of the app. Make a list of things that you can do each day that promote your well-being and start doing them. Keep track of your successes in a daily journal. One important form of self-care critical for people who worry is relaxation and meditation. Use the “Relaxation physical” and “Relaxation mental” portions of your app or any meditation or relaxation technique you like. Try practicing daily for about 15 to 20 minutes, or whatever amount of time fits your schedule. Read Karen's second blog here, and her final blog here. To see Karen's recommendations in action, read coaching "subject" Kim Baker's blog "No Worries." Listen to Karen discuss how to Manage Negative Thinking on our podcast, Live Happy Now. Karen Cassiday, Ph.D., is president of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America and a leading expert on the treatment of anxiety.

7 Expert Tips to Survive the Holidays With Your Dysfunctional Family

relationships

7 Tips to Survive the Holidays With Your Family

While we all might desire the kind of holiday perfection we see in a TV movie or all over Pinterest, we will inevitably fall short. We live in the real world, after all, not in the movies or someone’s whitewashed home-crafting highlight reel. It can be even harder to make holiday magic when you know you have a truly dysfunctional family. We turned to a few of our experts to find out how you can enjoy your holidays without letting the humbugs ruin your plans. Ask the experts “Holidays are tough,” says Connie Podesta, author of Life Would Be Easy If It Weren’t For Other People. “You’ve got high expectations, childhood memories we either want to duplicate or totally forget. And we have family members that literally drive us crazy, all smashed together at a table eating lots of carbs and sugar. It’s a recipe for disaster.” And Pat Pearson, clinical psychotherapist and author of Stop Self-Sabotage, says it’s important to remember that, come holiday time, no one has changed. People on the whole stay who they are. So, what do you do? 1. Don’t expect to heal old wounds Don’t use holidays as a time or place to repair old childhood wounds, Connie suggests. With difficult family, keep conversation simple. Don’t start a debate or get drawn into their drama. If you can't answer without wanting to lash out, then just excuse yourself from the conversation and don’t come back. Don't apologize, defend yourself or make excuses. Just hang near the people you like and that like you. Also, don’t forget to breathe. 2. Don’t expect people to change Don’t expect people to be any different from who they are, Pat says, whether it’s the relative who drinks too much, the couple who exudes tension or a family curmudgeon. “Whatever (or whoever) irritated you last year, will probably do so this year, so be prepared,” says Pat. Going into your holiday hoping people will be different this year just sets you up for disappointment. 3. Put the “fun” in dysfunctional Pat says you can use a positive attitude to put the “fun” in dysfunction. “If there is lots of unstructured time, that’s when the old dysfunction can arise.” She suggests watching a favorite family movie, playing a game for all generations like Balderdash or planning a fun activity such as encouraging everyone to share their best Christmas memory. 4. Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries If someone tries to put you off balance, remind yourself not to personalize it. How people act and behave is a reflection of who they are and has nothing to do with you. Even though it can be tough, try not to personalize hurtful comments. Pat says remind yourself not to take the bait and rise above the clamor by mentally sending love to everyone before you walk in the door. Read more: 9 Steps to Forgiveness 5. Plan ahead Do you want to lose your mind when your father says, “You don’t need those chips”? Set limits ahead of time about things like how long you might stay at a family function. Rent a car if you are flying in so you have the freedom to come and go. If you’re stuck in the house, take a walk or call a friend. Try and have some go-to coping strategies in mind before you get there. 6. Control what you can control Whether your family has profoundly hurt you or regularly offends you, use holiday time to become an even stronger person. No one can touch your thoughts, so think what you want, laugh to yourself and give yourself tremendous amounts of compassion as you navigate your complicated family landscape. When you meet dysfunction with incredibly healthy functioning on your part, you don’t hand over your emotions to anyone else. 7. Look for joyful moments Give yourself a healthy reminder that this is life, not a sparkly Christmas movie. Toss out all notions of achieving perfection, but try to create moments that are special to you. Maybe that is sitting in front of the fire in cozy winter socks sipping eggnog when everyone has left. Or just enjoy the simplicity of your family members’ presence without expecting a lot. Sandra Bienkowski is a regular contributor to Live Happy and the founder and CEO of TheMediaConcierge.net.

Man holding out a small wrapped present.

Giving

When Gift Giving Goes Wrong

I once counseled a couple named Jill and John. For Jill’s birthday, John decided that it would be really special to surprise her with a fabulous dessert. Her birthday was close to the Fourth of July, and the local market was featuring a huge display of cherry pies. John thought, “I don’t want to be predictable. I’m not going to get her the standard birthday cake; I’m going to get her something special. I am going to buy her a cherry pie! Little did he know that not only did Jill not like pie, she hated cherries. A gift as sweet as cherry pie John was so excited because he thought outside of the box and was already envisioning this as the start of a tradition. He came home with the pie hidden inside a huge beautiful tissue-filled gift bag. Jill looked at the package with joy and excitedly reached inside the bag. When she saw the pie, her face fell. “What is this?” she asked. “A cherry pie!” John said proudly. “I hate cherries, and I hate pie! Who would ever choose a pie for a birthday gift?” Without asking any questions or being open to his explanation, Jill ran into the next room and slammed the door. Jill reacted based on her (high) expectations and lashed out. If she had heard the story, she would have realized how sweet and well-meaning John was. She found out two weeks later when they came to see me about this conflict. It really is the thought that counts With a little bit of patience and a strong desire to connect, Jill and John learned about one another’s gift-receiving style. The irony of it is that John still gets Jill a cherry pie every year (it’s a tradition). She still doesn’t eat the pie, but she shares it with family and enjoys her favorite vanilla ice cream with one cherry on top. I share this story with you because even though gift giving and receiving can bring with it lots of pleasure, the challenges and expectations that come along with it can sink the experience—even when laden with the best of intentions. Read more: Give Happy Gifts come loaded with expectations According to one survey by the National Retail Federation, about $60 billion in gifts are returned in the course of a single calendar year. (Obviously this dramatic statistic does not include the number of gifts that were politely kept in a back closet.) Gift giving and receiving can come loaded with a great deal of psychological and emotional baggage. It often provides a window into how we feel about one another. It can send a nonverbal message that lets someone know his or her value; it can be used as a means of building a bond; it is a way of showing gratitude or appreciation; and it can even impact the quality and stability of a relationship. Both material and sentimental gifts can be mood-altering. Despite the lofty notion that all gifts should be received graciously, and all gifts should be given with love and thoughtfulness, there are far too many circumstances in which the exchange falls short of our ideals. Part of what makes gift giving such dangerous territory is that it isn’t just about the gift, it’s about the perception of how much or how little you understand the person’s wants and needs. ADVICE FOR THE GIVER Put yourself in the receiver’s shoes. Ask yourself what type of gift is meaningful to the recipient and what he or she might think and feel upon receiving a certain gift. Always keep in mind that there may be an underlying meaning to a gift and ask yourself what message you might be sending. Understand the social context of a gift exchange (a birthday, wedding shower, roast, holiday, etc.) and the acceptable price range based on previous exchanges with this person. Know the recipient’s general likes and take into account age, gender and taste. I’ve found that women tend to prefer gifts that are sentimental and have extra thought and meaning put into them. Men tend to prefer gifts that are practical and functional. A man might be truly surprised when his wife reacts negatively to the new microwave oven he got her for Mother’s Day! Keep your eye out for hints that the receiver may not even realize that he or she is giving, such as a subtle comment like, “I rarely spend the money to get myself a massage.” If you know that a family member finds gift cards impersonal, pick out an item from a store that has a liberal return policy. Read more: 9 Great Gifts That Are Experiences ADVICE FOR THE RECEIVER To help others find just the right gift for you, spend some time wandering through stores, looking at catalogues, or researching classes you might take with family or friends. Discuss your favorite things year-round, so that you can always have ideas when the subject of gift giving comes up. Find subtle ways to steer the giver in the right direction so that both of you get the most happiness and best experience out of the exchange. When receiving any gift, whether you like it or not, be outwardly gracious, express appreciation for the gesture and send a thank you card. It is one of those social skills that parents spend an enormous amount of time teaching their children, especially when they open up gifts in front of others! Stacy Kaiseris a licensed psychotherapist, author, relationship expert and media personality. She is also the author of the best-selling book,How to Be a Grown Up: The Ten Secret Skills Everyone Needs to Know, and an editor-at-large for Live Happy. Stacy is a frequent guest on television programs such asTodayandGood Morning America.

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