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Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Processing Grief Through Music with Morgan James [INTRO] [00:00:04] PF: What's up, everybody? This is Paula Felps, and you're listening to On a Positive Note. We know that listening to music offers a soothing emotional experience. But what can it do for the person who writes that song?   Today, I'm joined by Morgan James, a Juilliard-trained singer, whose diverse talent has taken her from performing on Broadway stages, to working with symphony orchestras, to writing and recording soulful R&B music. While working on her latest album, she and Doug Wamble, her husband and co-writer, both were grappling with devastating illnesses of dear friends. They put the tangled emotions of uncertainty, grief, and loss into a song called I’ll Be Holding On, which also has become the album's video centerpiece. In this interview, Morgan shares how writing and performing this song has helped her come to terms with grief and how performing music helps her heal. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:01:00] PF: Morgan, thank you so much for sitting down with me today. [00:01:03] MJ: Thank you so much for having me. [00:01:05] PF: You have an incredible body of work. Just first of all, we're going to tell our listeners how they can discover all the different types of music that you've done because you've done some amazing projects. The reason we're here today is to talk about a song I'll Be Holding On. This is such a powerful piece of music, and we need to start by letting our listeners know the story behind it. Can you talk about that? [00:01:27] MJ: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me and for listening to the song, the song I wrote with my husband, Doug Wamble. When we were working on the album, we were going through a pretty traumatic period of time with our respective best friends. My best friend, Richard, was going through a health crisis. Doug's best friend, Lanie, was also going through a health crisis. We didn't know if they were going to make it, and we wanted to write something to help ourselves through the feeling of helplessness, of not being able to save them, not being able to help them. We wanted to write something that might reach them and help ourselves at the same time. I don't normally write something inspirational, so I really wanted to dig in and write something that felt like it could speak to our friends in our particular stories but also to everyone. What exacerbated the emotion of the song was the fact that Lanie passed away in a very, very tragic way and unexpectedly at the end of this journey. So our kind of worst fears came true that we had to say goodbye to someone we couldn't bear to say goodbye to. That was how the song came about. When it came time to make the video to go with the song, my director, Jonah, really wanted to create a detailed story of friendship and love, and tell something that was so specific and so detailed and yet could be universal. I think that he really hit it out of the park. [00:02:57] PF: Yes, he did. That's an amazing video, and we are going to talk about that. But I wanted to dig in a little bit about what it was like for you and your husband. You're already frequent collaborators on songs. But how was it working on something that was so intensely painful and personal? Did it help? Did it sometimes hurt? What was that like? [00:03:19] MJ: Every time we've written something really personal, I've written songs about breakups from the past. We've written songs about breakups. We've written songs about things we've gone through with our family, with our parents, things we've gone through with friends. Every time that we write something personal, it's painful because it is the best and most specific tool that we have to process everything in our life is our art. It feels painful sometimes still to sing things that are deeply personal. But that's my job. There were a lot of tears because we really wanted to reach them. They both felt very unreachable in these moments, and we felt like we couldn't save them. So we cried and cried and cried, and we didn't know another way to try to reach because this is the only thing I know how to do is make music, is make art. It's incredibly cathartic as well. So it's painful but it's also freeing. [00:04:15] PF: So how did that come about? What made you two look at each other and say, “We need to write a song about this.”? What was that process like, the genesis of that decision? [00:04:24] MJ: Well, I knew I wanted a song on the album with a choir because I've always wanted to record with the Morgan State University Choir. It's been a dream of mine. Okay, well, we need to write a song for the choir. I hadn't even written it yet when I secured the choir. [00:04:37] PF: Really? [00:04:38] MJ: Yes. [00:04:38] PF: That’s safe. [00:04:39] MJ: Yes. I knew that I wanted a song. I wanted a song like Mariah Carey, Anytime You Need a Friend. I love that song, and I think that it's incredible. The way the choir functions in that song is pretty powerful. That song is very inspirational, and it's hard to write an inspirational song without being cheesy, without being trite. It's hard to write something personal that feels real. We sat down. It was a big challenge, but I said, “What should we write about?” Doug said, “We need to write this about our friends. We need to write this pain that we feel, the fear that we feel. We need to put this in this song.” So we started talking about, okay, well, what would we want to say to them. For instance, with my friend, Richard, sometimes it's hard for him to accept help, right? So these two people, Richard and Lanie, they're the ones that are always helping others. They're always doing something and neglecting themselves sometimes. How do you say that to someone kindly? How do you say to them, “I'm here. Reach out to me. Take my hand.” Accepting help is one of the hardest things to do. [00:05:44] PF: So as you were working on it, was it different than your usual collaboration? Was there a different vibe to it? Or how was that? [00:05:51] MJ: I think it's a different vibe of a song than I've ever written. I really went out on a limb and tried to write something a little different and challenged myself. It felt vulnerable. It felt a little scary. I think that we were – so often with songs, especially because they're from my album, sometimes Doug will defer to certain things that I want from my album. I think this really felt like we both had something we wanted to accomplish emotionally. Yes, I definitely think that it was extremely difficult and cathartic process writing the song. [00:06:24] PF: It's interesting because on this show, we talk a lot about how music heals and soothes us as listeners. But we have never really tackled it from the aspect of how it heals and soothes the songwriter. [00:06:37] MJ: The writer. [00:06:38] PF: Yes. So can you talk about how does it change the experience for you as you're able to write about it? Then after that, let's talk. You said that sometimes it's still painful to sing these songs. So I'd love to explore that a little bit more as well. [00:06:53] MJ: I think that every single song, there have been times that I've been writing something that I won't be able to get to the end of it in therapy or in my own process. Sometimes, a song gets me to the end of it. There are songs that I write that I'm trying to express something I can't tell a person, whether it's my mother or my father or my friends or someone in my life that has hurt me or someone I've hurt. Sometimes, the only way to get through it is in a song because songs are so unique because they're poetry, they're a journal entry, and they're also a painting. I read a great quote about paintings are how we decorate space, and music is how we decorate time. [00:07:37] PF: Ooh, I love that. [00:07:39] MJ: Music is – sometimes, a song will come on, and we'll start weeping because it will take us to a moment that no words could ever describe. It will take us to our eighth-grade dance. It will take us to a funeral. It'll take us to a wedding. It will take us to a memory. It's transformative. So when I'm writing songs, I don't always hit them out of the park, but they're always about something real. I don't write songs about nothing. When I've gone on co-writes, let's say in Nashville or Los Angeles, sometimes people will want me to write songs about nothing, just to get a song done. It's just not how my mind works. It has to be about something that I have seen or known or experienced. How lucky am I that I get to process my memories that way. [00:08:22] PF: Right. Does it change the way you see those memories sometimes? [00:08:27] MJ: It does. Sometimes, when I sing songs, I have a song about someone who left me, right? Now, the hurt is gone, but I have put in a capsule the way it felt to be there. So I'll always remember. Even though my memories of it have softened, it's almost like it marks time. Songs mark time. There have been a few songs that have been so cathartic to me that they actually – I get over them. I get over the hurt or over the pain because the song takes me over the hump. The song helps me heal in a way that other things could never help me heal. Just talking about something could never help me heal the way a song could help me heal. [00:09:10] PF: Do you have that moment where you kind of look back at it and say, “Oh, my gosh. I completely changed the way that that feels within me.”? [00:09:19] MJ: Yes. I think it's over time. It’s a process where all of a sudden you look back, and you’re further along than you thought you were, these moments of healing. There's a couple songs that I'm very proud of that that I look at them and I say I was able to capture exactly what I wanted to say in that. That's the hardest thing about songwriting. Sometimes, you miss. You miss a lot. You write a lot of bad songs, songs that don't really hit the nail on the head. Then there are a couple that you are able to say, “I said exactly what I wanted to say, and I was able to satisfy myself and others.” I mean, that's really hard. You want to write something so specific that it is in turn universal. Like the best songs everyone can relate to, and yet they're specific to the writer. That's the biggest challenge of songwriting I think. [00:10:08] PF: Oh, yes. At what point in your life did you start using songwriting as an outlet? When did you realize just how much power it had for you and that that was what you wanted to do? [00:10:19] MJ: Oh, my gosh. I came to it so late. I came to it so late. I still consider myself a new songwriter because John Lennon said, “You can't call yourself a songwriter until you've written 100 songs.” I came to it very, very late. I didn't know that I was going to be a songwriter until I was in my 30s. [00:10:36] PF: Really? [00:10:36] MJ: I probably didn't write my first song until my late 20s. Even at that, I was tiptoeing because I was very intimidated because I am in awe of songwriters. I thought that it was such a difficult task and such a high art. So I think that what has helped me is writing a ton of songs and understanding that it's okay that a lot of them will be bad or won't fit somewhere. It’s okay if they remain orphans or if they don't find a home because the art of it is actually the doing. [00:11:07] PF: Right. [00:11:07] MJ: Yes. I came to it very late in life. [00:11:09] PF: So what brought you into it? At what point did you say, “Okay, I'm going to try this.”? [00:11:14] MJ: Well, when I started my first band, I started playing shows out in New York, and I got a music manager, and I started trying to get a record deal. A lot of people around me were like, “You need to have a stake in your music. You need to sing something that's from your heart that's original. You need to have original music. I think that's the way that you're going to break through.” I've always sung covers, and I always will. But I started being encouraged by my management to write. So they would send me on co-writing dates, which is like speed dating, which is hilarious, where you sit down with a stranger and try to write something from your deepest depths. I started just trying it. I think a real breakthrough for me was my manager sent me to Nashville for a writing week, and I did two writing sessions a day for a week. So I did 14 writing sessions with 14 different collaborators. I realized, okay, I can do this every day. Also, I was always kind of intimidated. They’re an experienced songwriter. I'm not. But then I realized, oh, I know more about this. I'm better than I think. I should be confident. I should lean in. I should celebrate my ideas more. That was really liberating. [00:12:29] PF: Oh, that's amazing. So if – your music, do you usually know, hey, this is a great one, and this one's not as good? Or is it they all feel the same or they're all your babies? How does that work for you? [00:12:42] MJ: Doug and I have been writing together for 10 years, and we know if a song doesn't come together and kind of get finished within an hour or two. We give up and walk away and start again another day. So I think that a good song will show itself to you really quickly. We'll write in in a couple hours, and then like we have the general sculpture, and then we'll chisel away at the details. I tend to think if it's taking too long, it's not right. If you're on hour 7, 8, 9, 10 and you still don't have a song, something is not right. Some songs just don't – I have a couple songs I love that just never fit anywhere, never found a home. I call them like the orphan songs. [00:13:22] PF: You can do the orphan album one day. [00:13:24] MJ: Exactly, like the B-sides, like we used to do B-sides. So, yes, some songs I love and other people don't respond to. Then some songs I think are fine and other people love. So the longer I write and the older I get, I get more picky and scrutinizing with my lyrics to really fine boil things down to the finest point. Doug can play anything. So our problem is narrowing down and getting very, very specific because I can sing most things. He can play most things. So we have to use our critical thinking and really get hard on ourselves. Is that good enough, right? Is what you played good enough? Is what you sang good enough? Is that lyric good enough? That's a really fun part of the puzzle. [00:14:06] PF: So at what point did you know I'll Be Holding On was good to go, like that's what we wanted to say, and it's ready? Did it take a lot of polishing? Or did you pretty much put it out there together, and it came together quickly? [00:14:18] MJ: Usually, when we write, we'll write a song, and then we'll step away from it. Within a few days of writing, it will make a demo. We'll sit with it and see if it feels cooked. When we started putting together the instrumentation, we recorded it with just vocals and the whole band. Then when we took it to – there were lots of layers that we started adding. But the chorus, to me, I think we had to work a lot longer on the verses than the – the chorus, to me, felt right right away. We wrote the chorus first, and then we had to go back and through and write the verses. I think that you kind of feel when a song is cooked. Then adding the choir just felt like that was the final glaze. [00:15:01] PF: Yes. So the video, we got to talk about this because I can't even call it a video. It's a film. It's a short film and incredibly well done. How did that come about? Was that your vision? Was it Jonah's vision? Was it a combination? [00:15:16] MJ: So when I sent the entire album to Jonah, I said, “Let's make a video together. Pick a song, any song.” He picks the longest, most dramatic song on the entire album, and I'm like, “Wow, okay.” He goes, “Tell me what it's about,” because he just listened to the song and didn't know the story. I told him the story, and he was like, “Well, now, I really want to do this.’ He sent me a screenplay. He sent me a full – [00:15:38] PF: Wow. I'm going to interrupt real quick because we should tell people. I know who Jonah is, and you know who Jonah is. Why don't you tell our listeners who Jonah is? [00:15:47] MJ: Jonah Z. Helms is my friend, my incredible filmmaker friend. He also directed my video for Give You Up, which was totally different vibe, completely inane and wacky and fun. He's an incredible empath, like one of the most heartful, thoughtful people I've ever known. I really trusted him to tell this story. He wanted to tell a story of taking a friend, a terminally ill friend, on a road trip to see the ocean one last time. He wrote this beautiful screenplay with like so much detail and so much thoughtful ideas. Everything in the video, from the car, everything in the car, it was set dressed. Everything that you – the crowns. His partner made the crowns that we wear. Every detail was so thoughtfully executed, and the ideas were so clear and beautiful. I don't have that visual storytelling mind. I just think it's genius. I wish I had it. But when you are around someone who's that's their gift, it's just so amazing. We did it on a shoestring budget over three days in the desert. We actually did a road trip. We drove that ‘72 Bronco, the two of us, and they filmed it. [00:17:06] PF: First of all, where did you all even find that Bronco? Because that was like, “Oh, my God.” [00:17:11] MJ: Oh, my God. It's a character in the little film. [00:17:14] PF: It is. [00:17:15] MJ: He found it. He rented it from a place that rents exotic or interesting cars. He rented it in LA. We filmed in Southern California. Then we drove up to Pismo Beach to go on the dunes. Yes, we filmed for three days straight in the desert with a very, very small crew. I think there were only six of us, including Pearl and myself, a very small crew. What we got done in the time that we had, I mean. We also shot so many other scenes that we couldn't include. So it was incredible. [00:17:48] PF: So when he gave you that vision, were you immediately like, “This is everything.”? How did that land with you? [00:17:54] MJ: We got on Zoom, actually. Pearl, Jonah, myself got on Zoom and went through every single scene and talked about every portion of it, just like we would. We had like a rehearsal, just like we would for a film and all the beats, everything. The second I read it, I sent it to Doug to read, and he just fell apart crying, just reading it. That's how I knew it was right is that it was really important to me to capture because Doug lost his best friend. It was really important for me to capture that deep love that you have in a friendship that is inexplicable. I wanted to capture the helplessness, and I wanted it to be cathartic for him to watch. [00:18:35] PF: It is. It’s so tender. It's joyous, but it's also heart-wrenching. As I was watching it for like the fourth time, I was wondering how it was for you to film that because you’re not just an actress. You have lived this, and this is part of your story. [00:18:53] MJ: It was so painful. I cried for three days straight. I mean, the tears are, obviously, real. Pearl and I bonded so much in the filming and in the road trip that we shared things that we had never shared with anyone else before. So the grief is also her grief. It's mine. We were like channeling things that we needed to process in a deep way, and we had this vehicle, which was – it was also exhausting. The day on the dunes, like we were physically exhausted, and he was pushing us to our physical limits. It was one of the most fascinating and challenging experiences of my career, and I just needed to cry for three days. We just ended up filming those three days of crying. [00:19:42] PF: So what kind of response have you had since its release, the song and the video? [00:19:47] MJ: I've had a pretty amazing response to the video. A lot of people sending me selfies of themselves crying, which I think like really touches my heart. I mean, the biggest compliment I could ever receive is that someone is moved by something I create. I think it's also people aren't watching it saying, “Oh, I'm sad for you,” or, “Oh, what an interesting story.” They're watching it and saying that felt like I was there. It felt like I felt my mother, my sister, my father, my friend. I remembered a moment with my best friend. I remembered a moment with my sister. People are feeling connected to it for their own personal life, and that is the goal. That's the goal. [00:20:27] PF: Yes. It's beautifully done. It does give a voice to something we've all felt at one time or another. I think that's why it just pulls us in and makes it our own story. So it's just incredibly well done. What do you hope it accomplishes? [00:20:42] MJ: We recorded a few versions where I'm lip-syncing like a traditional music video. In the end, we didn't use any of those, and I'm so glad because it's a powerful story with no words, right? It shows the power of our imagination and our eyes and our minds and what we can say without speaking. I hope that people watch it, and it puts voice to something that they have not been able to articulate in their own grieving. I think that so often, it's just so hard to explain how we feel. It just feels so painful, and it feels locked up inside of our throat or our heart. I want this to speak to that. [00:21:22] PF: So it's beautiful. It's so well done. Morgan, thank you for coming on and talking about this. We're going to tell our listeners where they can find the video, where they can find you, see more about the music that you're doing, and just get to know you a little bit better. [00:21:36] MJ: Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having this conversation about something that's important to me, and it means so much. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:21:47] PF: That was Morgan James, talking about how songwriting has helped her manage loss and grief. If you'd like to learn more about Morgan, listen to her music, or follow her on social media, just visit livehappy.com and click on the podcast link. While you're there, be sure to check out our very cool perfect-for-summer tie-dye Live Happy Now t-shirt in the Live Happy Store. I hope you've enjoyed this episode of On a Positive Note, and I 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: Using Travel to Boost Well-Being With Dr. Andrew Stevenson [INTRODUCTION] [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for Episode 419 of Live Happy Now. With Memorial Day behind us, our thoughts are turning to summer vacations. We know they're fun. But do you know how good they are for us? I'm your host, Paula Felps, and this week, I'm talking with Andrew Stevenson, a social anthropologist, filmmaker, and senior lecturer in psychology at the Manchester Metropolitan University. Andrew’ s new book, The Psychology of Travel, looks at what travel can do for us, and he's here today to talk about how we can approach it differently to get the most out of it. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:38] PF: Andrew, thank you for joining me on Live Happy Now. [00:00:41] AS: Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here, and hopefully we can have a good conversation about travel and health. [00:00:48] PF: Yes. Oh, it's such a wonderful – first of all, it's timely, because audience doesn't know until right now, that on the day we're talking, it's the day your book is being published. It's a very great day for you. [00:01:02] AS: It's a good day. This is a project which really came out of the pandemic, I supposed, when we had the lockdown imposed upon us and there was no opportunity to travel. I was thinking about travel a lot over about a year or 18 months and decided to put some of my interests in psychology alongside my interest in travel. I was quite surprised how many different directions – [00:01:25] PF: I do want to dive into that answer just a little bit. What made you decide to look at it through the lens of psychology? Can you tell us a little bit about your background and why that was the natural path for you to go down? [00:01:35] AS: Yes. Well, I, in my day job, I'm the professor in psychology or lecturer in psychology at Manchester Metropolitan University, here in Manchester. My specialist subject in psychology is culture and space and place and I'm really interested in the way that places affect the way that we feel and think and act. Of course, that's never more relevant than when we're actually experiencing new places. Travel is – I mean, somebody said that travel is the best bits of our lives, isn't it? It's the bits that we tend to remember. Of course, not being able to do it for a couple of years, you brought this into sharp focus. I was missing it. I wanted to think about it and use some of the psychological concepts that I had worked with every day. [00:02:25] PF: Yes. You've delved into it so well, in your book. I was curious how you go about studying this. We have a lot of travel books. We have a lot of different ways to look at travel. How do you actually study the psychology of travel and how that affects us? [00:02:42] AS: That’s interesting. I think, it was combination of bringing together some of the areas that I personally have researched. Some things I’m interested in include things like, migration and movement, and the way that movement across borders affects our perceptions of people, that kind of thing. I’m also interested in social psychology and the way in which people behave differently in groups. Of course, when we travel, we're thrust into all sorts of groups, people we don't know, surrounded by people. As well as some of my own personal interests. I also was aware that quite a lot of people have written about things like fear of travel, wellbeing and travel, mindfulness, and travel memory, and those types of things. I decided, I also was aware that there isn't really a book about the psychology of travel, even though there are lots of academic interests and academic articles, which are quite inaccessible for most people. So, I thought, well, my job here is to just take some of the most interesting articles and topics that I've looked at travel from a psychological point of view, and put them into a coherent collection that we can all enjoy. I tend to write in a slightly more accessible way than some of the articles I've been reading. That's not a criticism. It's just the way that things are, I think. [00:04:04] PF: Yes. I think that is important to know, because when you hear about the psychology of travel, it sounds heavy. But it's really not. As you said, it's a very accessible read, and very engaging. [00:04:16] AS: I think, travel is something that we all enjoy doing. Psychology is really just about people and how they behave and think differently. Bring those two things together, you're bound to get some interesting things. [00:04:28] PF: Yes, and one of the things that you talk about, you say it's virtually impossible to travel alone. Can you explain that and then talk about how other people affect our travel experiences in the way that we see travel? [00:04:41] AS: Yes. It's something that dawned on me really, is people often say, I'm going traveling alone.” But of course, I defy anyone, really, to genuinely travel alone. Because whenever we move from one place to another, whether it's on foot or across the city or by air, we're surrounded by people, and we're surrounded by people, most of which we don't know. We may travel without our own family. But our decisions, even if it's down to things like which restaurant shall I go to? Which beach shall I go to? Whose are these footprints? We can even be influenced by people who aren't even there anymore. But the idea of a crowd will affect our destructive decisions. We may visit, for example, a monument or a gallery, because other people are doing it. We may be tempted to stay in that hotel because TripAdvisor says, “You've got lots of good reviews, and those people are affecting us.” If on the other hand, you'll be anti-social like me, you might be more likely to go to a place where it’s practically empty because you quite like to get away from the crowds. But these are both – whatever direction you're interested in, whether you want to do things that are conforming, or whether you want to be a rebel, you're doing it in relation to what other people have either done or not. [00:06:07] PF: Then, I know from my experience, you can make incredible friends and strike lasting friendships with people that you meet while traveling. I've got people that I met 20 years ago, and we've stayed in touch and it was one encounter. We haven't seen each other since then. But we have stayed in touch. How does that shape our lives too? We're getting all these experience with people from other cultures and other walks of life? [00:06:32] AS: Yes, it's fascinating. There are so many different ways to answer that question. I mean, first of all, there's the social aspect of traveling with somebody we already know, and having been on a journey with somebody who you may have known a bit before you went traveling together, that can really draw you together. Because what you're doing there is you're experiencing, not everyday life. You're experiencing a particularly intense part of your life, but the best bits of your life. You're traveling with somebody and two weeks with somebody who was a friend before or an acquaintance before, then you really become a lot more friendly with within those two weeks. You get to know about all their characteristics and so on. That can really propel a friendship forward into the future. There's that aspect. How it affects the friendships we already have with the acquaintances. But the other thing is as well, how does traveling to a different country, for example, affect your attitude towards the people who already live there. There's that whole thing about hosts and visitors, isn’t it? It's a bit – it could go either way, and a lot of researchers found that when you interact with cultures who you may not have met before, the most meaningful way of doing that, and the way that produces the best relationships is the way you interact with people on an equal footing, that can often mean meeting people socially. So, if you go to Mexico, for example, and you meet people who are from Mexico, and you meet them as colleagues, or you meet them as equals, then your attitudes towards that entire group of people is likely to be a lot more positive than if you only ever meet people who are for example, serving you coffee, or cleaning up after you. To me, so there's that status issue. But there's also, there's no doubt. But just being around people from different cultural groups, means that you've got much more firsthand experience of people that you may otherwise only read about in the press. We all know that that can lead to some kind of prejudice. [00:08:48] PF: It also, for myself, it has created such a deep appreciation for the life that I lead, and where I have so much gratitude. We'd spent some time in Canada up with the indigenous people a by the polar bears. We were there to see polar bears, and it's an indigenous culture up there, and seeing how they live and how challenging their lives are, what they have to go through to get food, to get water, things like that. It just instilled in me such an incredible appreciation for the simple things of being able to walk to a tap and turn it on and get a glass of water. [00:09:23] AS: In the whole – I identify without a lot because the whole idea of appreciating cultural diversity and realizing that the way that we live in our bubbles in our day to day existence is just one way of living, isn't it? In a way, the ideal of travel is to highlight the commonalities that we have with other people that we may not have met, before but also to appreciate distinct challenges that they may also face. I do a research project in Central America and we have collaborators in Guatemala City and we do a lot of work with young people there. One of the things that we're looking at is the concept of resilience and how people overcome challenges that they face in their everyday lives. It's never anything other than surprised and impressed by the way that people cope with things that often we don't cope that well here. The traffic in Guatemala City, is to me who live in Manchester, in England is incredible. But I would say the level of stress that the traffic causes is much lower. People just accept it as part of the everyday life. Here in Manchester, where I live, often the level of what we call road rage is quite a lot higher. The differences, the way that we cope with – the way that people cope with everyday challenges, we can understand that a lot better through travel, I think, and learning about different cultural groups. [00:10:56] PF: That is so true. Obviously, not everybody loves to travel. Some people, you mentioned it, they have fear of travel. There's travel anxiety. Where does that come from? How does leaving our comfort zone help us manage that? [00:11:10] AS: Yes, that's interesting. I mean, we talk about travel anxiety. Psychologists talked about travel fever, travel, fear, travel, anxiety, worry about travel. Think about that, they're all challenges, but some of those challenges are actually quite useful. If we take something like travel worry, it's actually quite a good idea to be slightly worried about traveling because that can heighten your defenses, and it can help plan the journey a little bit more thoroughly. It's not a bad thing to be a little bit concerned and worried so that I can help you plan. The challenge that's a bit more difficult to explain is what you might call travel phobia, where sometimes people have a – they might have an irrational fear of something like flying. In fact, statistics suggest that the chances of coming to harm in an airplane are a lot less than they would be just crossing the road or riding on a bus, for example. But some psychologists have pointed out that when you take a flight to another country, you're not just participating and potentially worrying for transport. You're actually leaving all your familiar objects and people and land. And it's that almost that fear of losing contact with things that you're attached to. So, it's almost like an attachment anxiety. Sometimes that can be one of the reasons for something like fear of flying, because the statistics don't bear out the amount of irrational fear that sometimes people have with flying. But the other thing, of course, is about anxiety and travel, is that there's this concept that we call eco anxiety. Now, I know that many people think about global warming, and the climate crisis a lot. During the pandemic, one of the perhaps, one good thing that came out of that is that – I don't know what it was like where you were living, but where we were living, we were able to take an hour of exercise every day, and we were able to go for our walks in the local community. Through that, many of us discovered green spaces and little treasure troves of green spaces that we didn't know about before. Those types of things could really help us with our mental health a little bit. It also helps us to understand that we can experience some very precious travel moments without flying across the globe. I think people are – well, figures suggest that eco anxiety is this genuine, understandable anxiety about the state of the planet. People are starting to modify their travel a little bit more now and maybe take fewer long-haul flights. Or maybe when you do take a long flight, stay in the place you're going for a little bit longer, rather than making four or five shorter journeys. I don't know about you. But the pandemic opened my eyes a little bit to the beauties in my own country. [00:14:29] PF: Absolutely. [00:14:31] AS: I'm not going to give up flying, but I'm maybe starting to think a little bit more that there were some great things to see that are on my doorstep as well. [00:14:39] PF: Yes. We had that shift in mindset of where before we take another big international trip, let's really start looking around the US because there's amazing things here that we haven't discovered yet and we've constantly said, “Oh, we want to go there, we want to go to Big Ben. We want to check out Red Rocks.” We want to do these things and we haven't so it's like, when we start getting that travel it, instead of saying, “Hey, let's jump on a plane and hop across a pond.” Let's discover what's in our backyard, because it's a big backyard. [00:15:10] AS: That's true. Quite often, quite often that the most wow moments or the great travel moments often called through some of the more mundane things that we see in our everyday lives and mindful to everyday experiences. Mindfulness is something we are encouraged to practice in our everyday lives, isn't it? The idea is that you try to appreciate the world in a constant childlike state of wonder and you can enjoy the simplest pleasures like a cup of coffee, or a walk, or stroking a stray cat and those types of things can be appreciated, not necessarily only on the other side of the world. It's about recognizing that travel, enjoyment, and pleasure, aren't exclusively on a set list of destinations that we’re told to do. [00:16:07] PF: Right. Yes, I think it can probably open your eyes to your everyday world a little bit more, and the things that, as you're talking, just the things that you can appreciate that are around you every day. [00:16:19] AS: Yes. That's right. I mean, one of the key things about mindfulness is being able to appreciate your surroundings but without making too quick of judgment about whether it's good or bad. Sometimes when we suspend judgment, we give ourselves the time to enjoy whatever it is we're doing a little bit more with taking a breath or savoring the moment a little bit. In the era of five-star reviews, and TripAdvisor, there's often a quickness to try to say yes, this is five stars, this is two stars. It might be a better idea just to be with that travel moment a little bit more, and not be in such a quick rush to keep it a certain number of stars. Because sometimes we don't realize how satisfying an experience is until we've spent a little bit more time doing it. [00:17:11] PF: Another thing that I've noticed with myself, you mentioned savoring, and I've noticed that oftentimes, when I get home, I enjoy that trip experience more than I did in the moment. I wanted to know what that's about, because there's been so many times like, especially on a long trip, by the end of it, you're like, “Okay, this is great, but I'm ready to go home.” When you do get home and you really have time to sit with it, I don't know, I just feel like I appreciate it so much more after the fact even than I do when it's happening. [00:17:41] AS: Yes, that's interesting. It relates to the idea of wellbeing and travel. I suppose one of the reasons we're talking today is just to think about whether travel makes us happy or not and it's something I've discussed in the book is the relationship between happiness and travel. Psychologists have come up with this idea of different types of happiness. One of them sometimes known as hedonistic enjoyment, hedonistic travel, which is all about pure, physical joy in the moment. We often get this experience through, I don't know, skiing down the mountain, or windsurfing, or something like that. Then the other type of enjoyment is sometimes are viewed eudaimonic happiness or wellbeing. That's the kind of wellbeing that accrues through something like developing a skill, learning a language, understanding a culture, and it's a little bit more of a marathon rather than a sprint of your life. I think that what you're referring to there is the way that the skill, let's just say, of learning a language when you visit a place or learning a little bit about a local artist that can visit Mexico City and learn about Frida Kahlo, a fascinating historical figure. Those types of eudaimonic enjoyment, are often the ones which research suggests stay with you longer after the visit. Whereas if you visit a place and you purely want to live in, maybe just live in the fast lane and purely want to have hedonistic enjoyment, that's great while it's happening. But there may be a bit of a holiday hangover when you get back and the enjoyment may not be such so long lasting and memorable. To be honest, I think, the secret really to a good visit is to try to do a little bit of both of those, so that you can have, let's just say there's a cliché, travel can broaden the mind. That would be the longer lasting enjoyment, but you might want to party a little bit as well, but I think it's being able to combine those. [00:19:54] PF: I was having a conversation with a friend a few days ago and she was talking about how her in laws always go back to the same place. They do not want to travel to other places. They find things that they like, and then they just go to that over and over. She, of course, wants to try something new every time. Does that affect us differently? Or is it just a personality type? What makes us tick that way? [00:20:18] AS: Well, that is interesting, and again, you're going to have those people who are quite habitual, and who get a lot of enjoyment through developing routines. I think there are other people who struggle with sameness, and struggle with repetition. I think, there are good and bad aspects to both of those in terms of the experience of travel, because I think there's a lot of value personally in immersing yourself a little bit in the place, and trying to find a little bit about how it ticks. If I visit a city, for example, let's just take, I don't know, Los Angeles, or Mexico City or something. If I'm there for a week or so, there's an awful lot going on there a place like that and I would be reluctant to spend a day there and then jet off to New York to see what that's like for a day, and they jet off to Washington to see what that's like for a day. Because the richness of experience that is available in any city or town or county or whatever it is or region is really inexhaustible, I think. So, it's not so much about having routines. It's about having the commitment to explore in a little bit more depth and have that mindful approach. I mean, I think the reason for this, we always talk about bucket lists, don't we? People talk about a list of things I'd like to do before we go away. I often think – or while we're away, as you say. I often think that the itineraries that we make for ourselves or develop for ourselves when we travel, sometimes there are things that are coming from our own interests. But sometimes we follow an itinerary, which is almost been presented to us, and I think we often fall victim to this travel guide. We become slaves to the travel guide. [00:22:22] PF: Absolutely, yes. [00:22:23] AS: We can often have the experience of taking the same photograph that everybody else is taking, and that kind of thing. I think there are people who are quite happy to just take the commodified view of travel and take the photograph. There might be a queue of people taking the same photograph. Well, the people are more likely to try to be a bit more immersive and find out a bit more about what's going on in an everyday sense about a place that they visit. [00:22:52] PF: Yes. We're running this as summer is kicking off, and people are starting to think about travel. Well, it is based on the book, everything that you’re studying, what's your recommendation for travelers to keep in mind this season? [00:23:07] AS: Well, I think, first of all, we need to think about who you're going to travel with, and think about what social situation you want to put yourself in. But I think my number one piece of thing to think about, really, is when you travel, are you thinking of yourself as a traveler, or as a tourist? I've got a nice little quote here from the novelist Paul Bowles, who wrote The Sheltering Sky. It’s all about difference between travel and tourism. And he says, “The difference between a traveler and a tourist is, whereas the tourists generally always back home at the end of a few weeks or months, the traveler belongs no more to one place than the other, moves slowly over a period of years from one part of the earth to another.” For me, the traveler is somebody who's following their own dream about discovering something about themselves, trying to be mindful, and developing their own relationship with cultural diversity and finding something interesting about themselves. The tourists may be experiencing hedonistic travel. Maybe they're having the same holiday that everybody else is having as well. I think you've got to decide which of those you want to be really. It's not that one's better than the other, but they aren't quite distinct. [00:24:27] PF: That is so interesting. Andrew, you've given us so much to think about. I love this conversation. We're going to tell people how to discover your book because it's such an important and accessible read and thank you for writing. [00:24:38] AS: But also, to say, it’s not a big book, either. [00:24:40] PF: I know. It goes quick. It's a very slim volume. You can read it on a plane. [00:24:46] AS: Exactly. [00:24:47] PF: Andrew, thank you again. I appreciate your time today. [00:24:50] AS: Thanks for having me on Paula. Have a great summer. [00:24:53] PF: You too. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:24:58] PF: That was Andrew Stephenson talking about why travel is so good for us. If you'd like to learn more about Andrew, follow him on social media or check out his new book. Just visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. While you're there, remember there's still time to swing by the Live Happy Store and take advantage of our spring special where you can get 25% off storewide just by entering the code Spring 25. 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: Navigating the Parenting Map With Dr. Shefali [INTRODUCTION] [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 416 of Live Happy Now. Mother's Day is just around the corner, and whether you have one, are one, or hope to be one, you don't want to miss today's conversation. I'm your host, Paula Felps. This week I'm talking with Dr. Shefali, a New York Times bestselling author who blends Western psychology with Eastern philosophy to create a groundbreaking approach that she calls conscious parenting. In this episode, she shares her insights on why most of what we think about parenting is wrong, and how we can all become more conscious, not just as parents, but in all our relationships. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:43] PF: Dr. Shefali, thank you so much for coming on Live Happy Now. [00:00:47] DS: I'm so happy to be here. Thank you. [00:00:48] PF: Well, I could think of no one better to have for our Mother's Day episode. Because parenting is your jam, and what I think is so interesting, you're so respected for your blend of Western psychology and Eastern philosophy. How do you think that's given you a different kind of insight into parenting? [00:01:08] DS: I think Eastern philosophy is so rich in wisdom-based technique of how to manage Western based stresses. When I say Western, I just mean a westernized way of thinking, which has been so overly emphatic about competition, and striving, and achievement, and domination, which have gotten us great advancements, but they create high cortisol in us. Eastern spirituality is such an amazing antidote to create that presence, that slowing down, coming into the inevitable impermanence of life, reminding us that that constant striving, and achievement, and competition that we're putting our children through and ourselves through, is not the pathway to wellbeing. Eastern spirituality teaches us a direct pathway to wellbeing. So, when I talk to my clients, I understand the Western obsession with power. But then I teach them how to create an antidote to that, to bring about greater wellbeing. [00:02:24] PF: Wellbeing is so important. We know that it's such a huge indicator for success, but we're not taught that. How difficult is it for parents to make that adjustment? Because you still have to live in this western world, and you're adopting a different kind of mindset than most of the people around you. [00:02:44] DS: Yes. But the predominant mentality is this competition, domination, achievement mentality, which is why most of us are medicated, and obese, and diseased, and unhappy. Obviously, that is not the way to wellbeing. How to create that balance? Or I mean, there's no utopic balance, anyway. But how to create that wisdom, where you are part of this world. Listen, I'm super successful, but there is a way to live in that successful driven world, success driven world, without being eaten alive by it, and without making our children feel eaten alive by it. That's why I'm successful is, because I teach people, yes, you can live in this world. But you got to live in this world with sanity. I think we've become a little bit insane in striving for this power, and competition, and success. [00:03:43] PF: I agree with you. I think we're seeing so many of the effects that play out with the anxiety of children and young adults now who have grown up in this environment. You have such tremendous insights. What made you decide to apply that to family and parenting? Because as I read your works, and I read more about you, it’s like, you could help us in every area of our lives. Why parenting and family? [00:04:10] DS: I am trying to help people in every area of their lives, but they're so resistant. I finally said, “Okay, at least help your children. You don't want to help yourself, and you're so messed up in your own obsessions.” Maybe, I thought to myself, that if I could show people how badly they are damaged from their childhood, and help them deal with their children, maybe the big fat ego will burst, and that's how I actually came to it, was like, “Maybe, you’ll bloody listen to me if I show you in terms of your own childhood, and in terms of children”, and that's what struck a chord. That's one reason. But the other reason really, is that because everything really starts with the early parent child dynamic. Okay, we are messed up. We got screwed by our parents. Fine. But let's not do this to our children. I really make a plea to parents. Please, yes, you are messed up. Yes, your parents weren't conscious. But I'm giving you a way to unravel your childhood in a way that doesn't pass on to your children and helps your children become who you could never be. I think, parents hear that, because they hear my begging and my pleading. They remember their own pain from childhood. Then, they finally acquiesce and go, “Okay, we don't want to pass this on to our children.” But let me tell you, it is still hard for me to do, because it's such a deep conditioning. I mean, I'm banging my head on the wall, getting parents to see their own ego, because it's so difficult for us humans. We are good at complaining about other people's ego, but it's very hard to see our own. [00:05:58] PF: Yes. We live in a world that's becoming more and more egocentric, because of things like social media. It turns it inward, those spotlights on us, instead of looking outward, so much of the time. What really burst you on the scene was your book, The Conscious Parent. I know other things we're going to talk about build on that. I guess for a baseline, let's talk about what you mean by conscious parenting. [00:06:21] DS: To understand conscious parenting, you have to first understand that the predominant way we were all raised is the traditional parenting model. That model was based on hierarchy of the parent. The parent knows best. Control, shame, fear, guilt, punishment. That's how we were raised. The parent was glorified in their authority and superiority. If you're a parent out there, a mother right now, listening, you need to understand you were raised with this attitude that you know best, that you're supposed to know best, that you're supposed to control your children, and you're supposed to raise perfect, super happy, super successful children. First, you have to own that as a parent. “Yes, dammit, I was raised like that. Yes, I think my child belongs to me. Wow. Yes, she's right.” First, we have to agree on that. Otherwise, we cannot agree on the second part, which is what is conscious parenting. Conscious parenting is for the parent to realize that they're coming to the dynamic with their children full of their own parental expectations. They believe good parenting is to control the child. Conscious parenting is for the parent to become aware of that, to realize that that is complete unconsciousness. That they need to raise themselves. They need to heal themselves. They need to stop using their children to fill their own inner longing. They need to stop asking their children to be happy, because that makes them happy, or be successful, because that makes them feel good about themselves. And begin to raise their children as the children need to be raised. Yes, maybe your child will be a gardener. Maybe your child will be a baker. Maybe your child will be a mechanic and nobody's child will be an Olympian. Yes, maybe so. That is completely okay. See, we're not okay with that. [00:08:20] PF: What's so interesting is if you ask a parent, when they have a child, it's like, “What do you want for your child?” They’re like, “I just want them to be happy.” That's what an answer we hear a lot. But then the actions would tell us otherwise, because children are being, in many times, pushed into activities or academics that they're not even interested in. [00:08:39] DS: Yes. I'm not talking about this [inaudible 00:08:41] pleasure that we all have to indulge in. But I tell parents, you cannot ask for your children to be happy, because that's coming from your idea of what happiness is. Why should they be happy? They're allowed to be sad. They're allowed to be angry. See, we were not allowed our big emotions, so it's very frustrating for us when we see our children's big emotions, even though our children are being human. This whole idea of I want anything from anybody is really our own ego talking. Right? We can say, “I want this for myself.” We can't say I want somebody else to be happy. Why? They can be whatever they want to be. We are so into this controlling mindset, that we don't even realize how far reaching and deep this mindset of control is and we have to stop. Read my books and examine our need for control in a very deep way. Not a superficial way. [00:09:42] PF: That’s so interesting, because your books have done wonderous things for people. Incredible. That has all led to your new book, The Parenting Map, and this one, you really smashed toxic patterns. You look about how to create authentic connections. Tell us how this book came about. You're just building on everything you've already created. [00:10:01] DS: Yes. I always say after every parenting book that it will be my last. But really, Paula, you can catch me on it, it's my last parenting book. Because the other books were the what and the why, because I so needed to explain the what and the why, because people didn't understand. This one is the how. So, this one is the 20-step how to become a conscious parent. If anyone out there listening, is intrigued by my philosophy, and wants to dare, it's a daring task to be a conscious parent, and dares to be conscious. They can pick up my book, The Parenting Map. It's 20 easy steps with exercises. Listen, we have to take parenting more seriously than we are, because we are not realizing how toxic our current parenting practices are. Then, we want happy children. Then, we want secure children. Then, we want leaders, when we are the most toxic influences often in our children's lives. So, if you're a parent listening, and you want to be brave to change the parenting in your home, to become an enlightened parent, then my book will help you. I give practice exercises. We have to practice. My child is 20 years old, I am still practicing every day. It's something we have to cultivate. It's not something that we are born knowing how to do. [00:11:26] PF: We think that we should. We think, I was raised. I was a child. I know how to be a child, so I know how to raise a child. Where does that mindset come from that, like, we just are all equipped to do it? [00:11:37] DS: From extreme ignorance and stupidity. Really, because – and our ego, right? Our ego is so ignorant that it thinks it's fine. It's such blasphemy that we need to learn how to take care of – if you want to become a dog groomer, we need to pass a test, a license. If we need to drive a damn car, we have to take tests and licenses. Why do we think that we need to know and should know how to raise a child that we've never met? Never taken a psychology course. Because you know why? Parents are infused on steroids with this grand ego, that these people belong to me, and because they come from me, I will own the hell out of them. It's ownership. It’s blind, absolute control. It's like saying, “I married you. I know you, and now you belong to me.” Right? But it's even more crazy, because I didn't even court this child. The child didn't even have a choice. Now, I'm owning this child. It's arrogance. It's blind stupidity and arrogance that allows us to think that we should know it, because they come from us. See, we mistake biology for psychology. Just because they biologically come from us, doesn't mean we psychologically know who they are. We need to learn. We need to become humble. No one wants to be humble. I saw in my own parenting how arrogant I was. I was brought to my knees. That's why I did this whole work. Because I was like, “Wow, you are so not good at this. Clueless.” I was humble enough to say I'm clueless. See, we're so arrogant we don't want to say we are clueless. [00:13:14] PF: Right. I think it's hard for people to acknowledge like, I don't feel I'm very good at this, and I don't feel like I'm in my element. [00:13:22] DS: But why is it so hard? Because we have a damn big ego. We should be like, off the bat. I don't know what to do. I remember when the nurse left my room, like she just left the room, and I was like, “Please come back. Don't leave me with this” – [00:13:35] PF: With this little person. I don't know what to do. [00:13:38] DS: I was happy to see I didn't know because I was not so proud. See, it's this false pride. We do not know what we're doing. Nobody knows what they're doing, including our parents who told us we should know what we're doing. They are the culprit. Let's blame them. Let's admit we don't know what we're doing. [00:13:59] PF: How does it change things when people are brought to their knees, as you say, and they start recognizing I do have these toxic patterns and what I'm doing isn't working. When they're able to acquiesce to that and accept that, how does it start changing their parenting mindset? [00:14:15] DS: Oh, my God. It's a huge floodgate of first, humility. Then, you begin to shut up. You stop blaming your child. Do you know what a huge paradigm shift that is, just you becoming aware that it's you? You won't open your mouth with that much grandiosity anymore. You'll be like, “Oh, my goodness. Let me learn. Let me stop. Let me observe.” The other day, a parent came to me and said, “Dr. Shefali, where is the fine line between mentoring my kid because I want to coach them and pushing them?” I said both of them are wrong. How about ask me where is the line between observing my child and observing them some more, and learning from them, and learning from them some more?” You see, we just refuse to believe we should be the students as much as we should be the teachers. I'm not saying don't be the teacher, but be the student too. Can you learn from your child? So, this humility opens a floodgate of wisdom, and it just takes you off the pedestal. Your children feel it, your children approach you like a human being, and now they're willing to learn. No one wants to learn from a dictator. [00:15:33] PF: Right. That's so interesting. You also talk about how our childhood wounds were playing out in our parenting role. Is that just our unresolved trauma that we end up bringing into our parenting? Then, what is that doing to our children? [00:15:51] DS: Yes, yes, and yes. So, in my book, The Parenting Map, the second colored part of the book is all about breaking your parenting paradigms and patterns by recognizing your ego faces. Once you begin to become aware of how your ego is showing up from your childhood, then you begin to realize, “Wow, I learned this from my dad. I'm doing the same thing to my child and it's so toxic. And my child is feeling unheard, and unseen, and unworthy. I'm creating low self-esteem. Do I want to keep doing this? Or do I want to break my pattern?” I teach people, step by step, how to break their childhood patterns. [00:16:34] PF: This affects your relationship with your child, obviously. But how does it change relationships between partners, between spouses, as they break down some of these walls? [00:16:44] DS: Because you become aware of your own ego, as I show you in the book, now you have awareness of your partners and your parent’s ego, and you begin to see how they have developed their ego phases. You have compassion. It doesn't mean you need to stay, but you can at least have compassion, and realize it's not personal. This just creates so much compassion in the world, so much upliftment in the world, so much radiance in the world, rather than bickering, and fighting, and domination in the world. [00:17:17] PF: Have you seen a change the children of the people that you work with? [00:17:22] DS: Well, my goodness, parents come and tell me, “My child just said to me to thank Dr. Shefali.” Or they say, “Go to Dr. Shefali. Read more about her books.” They get it. They're like, “Do you see? Do you see? Finally, do you hear? I've been telling you all this time, mom, and you haven't heard me. And now you're listening to Dr. Shefali.” I actually used to keep my own teachings away from my daughter, because she would kill me. She’ll be like, “You need to listen to you more.” But I do tell my daughter, and she'd be like, “Mom, you're such a hypocrite. You don't listen to Dr. Shefali.” She killed me. She'd be like, “See, you, yourself don't listen to yourself.” But what I'm trying to say is that children feel so heard and they feel so excited and they feel so happy and they flourish. My goodness. That's why my work has become so popular is because parents see the effect. I get feedback all the time. It makes me so happy. I know what I'm saying works, because I've seen it work over and over again. [00:18:30] PF: When we talk about parenting and talk about it on this level, we tend to think about young children. So, what about if you're a parent of a teenager or even a young adult? Or if you're a grandparent? Is this still going to apply to you? Can you still change your ways? [00:18:45] DS: Of course. You can always be a better human. You can always break your patterns. You can always show up differently. I'm telling you, my daughter's 20 and I'm doing it so much better today than I did 10 years ago. There's no end to this growth. But you have to be willing to want to show a better. Who doesn't want a better, more enlightened grandmother? I would love that. [00:19:08] PF: That’s a great point. [00:19:09] DS: I would love my grandmother to come right now and tell me, “I can see your mother is writing you for your grades, or writing you for your beauty, or writing you for your food, and this is how I want you to look at it, and give me an enlightened perspective.” Who doesn't need a more enlightened perspective? [00:19:26] PF: I love that. You've given us such a great body of work to build our lives on and to really recreate the idea of parenting. What is it with The Parenting Map that you most hope happens for people? [00:19:37] DS: It's just my plea and my offering to let's do this work to end generational patterns of unconsciousness and toxicity, and make it different for our children. [00:19:49] PF: What kind of world is that going to create? What is that going to look like as opposed to now? [00:19:53] DS: Well, it'll take a long time, but it's person to person, human to human. It will start creating less suffering. Imagine, on every block, one house does conscious parenting. That can eventually become a town, right? Then, it can become a city. Then, it can become a nation. But it starts with this one parent at a time. I've been doing this way before Instagram came, and way before podcast, horse spreading this message, one barren at a time. Now, it's become a movement. Now, conscious parenting is out there. That's what I need. I need it to become like more, so that we have more enlightened parents and children feel safe to be children. What an amazing thing that would be. [00:20:35] PF: I love it. Dr. Shefali. We have so much to learn from you. Thank you for spending your time with me today and I look forward to hearing more from you. [00:20:43] DS: Thank you so much. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:20:49] PF: That was Dr. Shefali, talking about conscious parenting. If you'd like to follow Dr. Shefali on social media, learn more about her books, or discover how you can get free recordings of her Parenting Summit, and the Parent Reboot Workshop, just visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. While you're there, be sure and stop by the Live Happy Store to take advantage of our spring special where you can get 25% off storewide just by entering the code Spring 25. That is all we have time for today. Well 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: Rediscover Your Sense of Wonder With Monica Parker [INTRODUCTION] [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 413 of Live Happy Now. We're all born with a sense of wonder, so where does it go? This week, our guest is going to tell us and help us rediscover it. I'm your host, Paula Felps, and this week, I'm sitting down with world-renowned speaker, writer, and authority on the future of work, Monica Parker. Monica has spent decades helping people discover how to lead and live wonderfully. Now, she's sharing what she has learned in her new book, The Power of Wonder: The Extraordinary Emotion That Will Change the Way You Live, Learn and Lead. Monica reminds us of the wonder we once felt, explains why it's so important, and then gives us great tips on how to reclaim it. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:51] PF: Monica, thank you so much for joining me on Live Happy Now. [00:00:55] MP: Thank you, Paula, for having me. I'm delighted to be here. [00:00:56] PF: You have written such a remarkable book, and I'm really excited to dig in and talk to our listeners about it. So, I make sure that we're on the same page. Can you explain what you mean, when you say we're talking about wonder? [00:01:09] MP: Absolutely. So, wonder has a couple of different meanings. It's sort of a shapeshifter as a term. We have wonder as a verb, to wonder, which is sort of curiosity. But then we also have wonder as a noun, which would be, a wonder, which might be something that would cause us to have awe. So, what I did is I wanted to link those two into an emotional experience. So, the way I describe wonder is it's an emotional experience that starts with openness, moves into curiosity, then into absorption, and then into awe. It's actually almost like a cycle. So, the more that we experience any of these different components, the more likely we are to experience them in the future. [00:01:51] PF: It's something that's very overlooked, and it's undervalued. One of the first things that struck me as I was getting into this book is wondering what made you decide that you wanted to study it. Can you take us back to why this topic? Because next we're going to talk about why it's so difficult to study. Why? Why did you want to do this? [00:02:12] MP: Sure. So, my whole life, I have been helping people manage big change, existential change. My work as a homicide investigator, obviously, helping people deal with the fact that the state wanted to deprive them of their life. Working with parents who have children with disabilities, and that is a big change in their expectation of raising a child. And then even working in corporate environments where people are losing their job. That is an existential change. It’s a huge ego blow. So, I actually set about to research and to write a book about change management, which in retrospect, is pretty freaking boring. So, I'm glad I didn't do that. And then when I started doing the research, and also reflecting on my own life, I don't think I had the language for it when I was observing it through time. But I realized that people who held their world in a sense of wonder, were more buoyant. They were more resilient and able to handle what life threw at them. So, that just sent me down wonder rabbit hole, and four years later, here we are. [00:03:08] PF: Well, it was four years that was well spent, because this is a wealth of knowledge, and you touch on it in ways I had never even thought of. We'll get into that later. But one of the things you do bring up is why it's so difficult to study wonder. I found this really interesting. Can you talk about that? Because that might explain why no one else is – I'm not saying no one else is doing it. But there's not a lot out there about it, and tell us why? [00:03:35] MP: Well, for starters, because it's a component emotion, right? It has a lot of different elements. Most people, if they wanted to study, say wonder, would just study awe. but I felt that that was too narrow. Because in fact, awe, it feels like something that is brief and fleeting. But more research shows now that we can have awe in everyday life. The other challenge is that just to study the catalyst of big wonder. So, awe, it's very difficult to find something in a lab that will give somebody a sense of actual awe or wander. In these lab environments, either they're putting somebody through an MRI machine, which is like the big doughnut where you have to stay totally still, or they put on this tentacle helmet for an EEG. So, it’s all very stilted. It's very difficult to study. What you end up studying is people's perception. So, they report to you how they feel. Of course, that's how a lot of psychology research is run, but it just becomes quite difficult to pin down the detail of why people are feeling these things, the intensity that they're feeling, the consistency. So, it's really difficult, in fact, a study any emotion and particularly difficult to study one that is meant to have such a grand reaction in our brains. [00:04:56] PF: Right. I love how you put it in the book, because you say, wonder is part science, and part soul, and I absolutely love that. Can you help us understand how you came to that conclusion through your research? And then what does that mean to us? [00:05:12] MP: Absolutely. So, there were a few questions through the research where the scientists would either demur and say, “That's not something that's really in my purview.” And some of them would just say that's not an answer that a scientist can answer. That is for the philosophers. I talk about the big questions, so we can answer something like, “Why do I feel pain when I put my hand on a stove?” But we can't answer using science at least, why does matter give rise to consciousness? Why, as humans, are we conscious? That's when we start to get into philosophy, religion, that's the soul part. And I was really conscious that I didn't want this book to be woo. I grew up in a household. It was great. But I wanted there to be enough science that people understood that there was something real here. But there is a point at which the science just doesn't explain everything that we experience, and that's when we get into the soul. [00:06:08] PF: Yes, and I think that's something that's so important about this book, because live happy as always science base, and there's so much science in it, but it is such an enjoyable read. It's very funny. I love your friend in the first chapter. He was amazing. So, it is. There's a lot of levity to it. But it's all backed up by science, and I really love that about the book, just as an aside. So, when we're talking about wonder, are we all born with a sense of wonder? Because I think about – I really thought back to childhood when everything was new, or when I'm now with, like a friend's children or grandchildren, and everything's exciting. Is wonder something we all have when we come into this world? [00:06:48] MP: Absolutely. Wonder is a universal emotion. The scientists have proven this. It is something we've all felt, and absolutely, when we're born, babies are little wonder machines. I mean, you can see, their eyes are wide open. It looks like they're tripping out all the time or just absorbing, and what's really happening as they're doing that, is they're building what's known as schema. So, schema are the building blocks of how our brains react to the world. It's basically the lens through which we see the world. As the schema build up, then our brains start to say, “Oh, I've seen that. I understand that.” And they try to put it into a box and explain it away. But when you’re children, everything is new, and so everything does create a sense of wonder. Everything does re-path your neural pathways and build the lens through which you see the world. But the problem is, is as we become older, we get a bit calcified. We feel that we don't have as much to see that has wonder in it. And that's one of the challenges is getting people to really be present enough to see through the eyes of a child, to see like a beginner. I love – [inaudible 00:07:52] says that, “Always be beginning.” [00:07:56] PF: So, are there people who maintain that? Because some people seem to have a greater sense of, “Oh, my gosh, look at that.” Even though they've seen that sunset hundreds of times, and they've seen things, but everything sparks them. So, is it kind of like a character strength? Or what is it? [00:08:11] MP: Within the wonder cycle, you've got openness, which is an openness to experience, which is a personality trait. Openness to experience, as a personality trait, one of the big five is going to be half set by your genetics, and half set by your experiences, by the time you turn 25. That latter set is really important. It's why the way we teach our children, literally forms their brain, et cetera. But by the time we're about 25, our personality is pretty set. Curiosity is both a state and a trait. So, what that means is that it can be dialed up based on what we're experiencing in our environment, or it is also – it has some elements that are just who we are, as in our personality. Absorption and awe appear to be just a state. So, it's what happens in our environment. There are certainly people who are more prone. But one of the messages that I want to deliver is that wonder is not about a moment. It's about a mindset. So, there are some people whose mindsets are going to be more naturally wonder prone. They're going to be much higher in openness to experience. They're going to be higher in trait. Curiosity will say, but certainly we can build a mindset that makes us more wonder prone. [00:09:25] PF: Let's talk about that. How do you create a wonder mindset? And how do you know if you have one? [00:09:31] MP: Well, there's actually an assessment that people can take on my website to see how wonder prone they are. It's based on the science, but it is just for fun. So, it will give you an indication. I haven't been able to test it and do all of that yet, but it is based on, and you'll be able to see the different scales that it's based on from different scientists. How can we build a wonder mindset? One of the first ways and the ways that is really primary is through what I call slow thought. This is any way that we can slow down our minds to be more present, to be more observant, in our environment. Those are things like meditation, narrative journaling, gratitude, nostalgia, any of the things that get your mind out of the rumination and into the present moment. That is one key element. We can practice novelty and trying to grow our openness to experience. Now, I say the openness to experience knowing that our personality is set, but the subset of openness to experience that actually is connected to wonder is openness to new ideas, to new thinking. So, if we can expose ourselves to new ideas, new thinking on a regular basis, that's very helpful. Novelty, just going to new environments, meeting with new people, taking a new route. I love to talk about museums or wander factories. Those are great environments. Reading, so exposing yourself to new thinking that way. So really, novelty is another great way, and then priming ourselves. So, priming is a very powerful mechanism, very easy. It's sort of when people talk about like, the secret or manifestation, a lot of that from a scientific point of view is just that you're telling your brain, I want to find this, and therefore it does. So, priming can be as simple as a one sentence. I'm going to find three things to make me feel wonder today. And now you've told your brain, there's a reward for this. I want you to go find it. It's just a little bit like, a bloodhound, go find it. Go, fetch. That’s what it does. It's now been told that it's something worth finding, and it will. [00:11:34] PF: And then as you do that, well, most people hit a point where their brain automatically starts looking for that, because I know that's how gratitude is so effective. When you start writing down, what you're grateful for, your brain starts looking for gratitude moments throughout the day. Does the same thing happen with wonder? [00:11:50] MP: Absolutely. There is an expression that says that when neurons fire together, they wire together. So, the reality is, is that any activity you do with enough practice will then become a neural pathway for good or for bad, right? This is how we have habits. So, it's really about just building that habit, building that muscle, in order to have your brain react in that way. We know that, we can see that from master meditators, how their brain has actually changed. It literally changes the structure of their brain. So, we know that with slow thought, with novelty, these things when practiced enough, and with priming, then we can actually change our brain and it becomes a mental rut that we follow, and a positive one. [00:12:36] PF: One of the challenges that, I think, people will have with slow thought is most of us feel like we don't have five minutes of silence and getting away. I know one of your tips for experiencing wonder is to let yourself be bored. So, I love that tip. I want you to explain why that's important, and then how do we hit that point? Because we're so inundated with information, with noise with everything, right now. [00:13:05] MP: It is a noisy world and our lives are noisy. It's really interesting. I spoke to one scientist who was doing research on happiness, initially, and then she started doing research on awe. She says she doesn't want to research happiness anymore, because she doesn't believe it's very attainable, because people don't know what makes them happy. They miswant what makes them happy and so that's a challenge. But she went to a kite festival. It’s a beautiful day. Everybody was flying these kites and she asked them, on a scale of 1 to 10, how busy do you feel right now? People were like seven and eight, at a kite festival, on a weekend. [00:13:38] PF: Really? [00:13:39] MP: She’s like, “This is a problem.” She says, “Because in our brains, we just think we're busy all the time.” Even though you know with technology and everything, we really don't need to be as busy. So, some of this is that we fill our life with a lot of activity. One of the challenges is as well, we have that expression to twiddle our thumbs, right? The idea of being bored. Well, it's almost anachronistic now. We don't twiddle our thumbs. We use them quite carefully on our phone, right? Pick up our phone the second we feel bored. I remember as a child sitting, and I'll probably date myself, sitting in the doctor's office and like flipping through the Highlights magazine to try to do the different puzzles. We don't have that anymore. So, I think just feeling a sense of boredom and letting that uncomfortable sort of itch, creep up our spine, and then questioning how we react to it. Instead of reacting to it with the way many of us do, which is to pick up our phone, instead react to it in a way that is going to fill our brain with something that gets us closer to wonder, with something that makes us epistemically curious, or with something that helps us with slow thought. But I want to be clear, I'm not good at this. So, I know, physician, heal thyself. I'm not good at it. I know what I need to be doing. But I'm still also on the journey with every other wonder seeker. [BREAK] [00:15:00] PF: I'll be right back with more my conversation with Monica Parker. But right now, it's time to bring back Kate [inaudible 00:15:05], to talk about the adventures of Kittles. Kate, welcome back.   [00:15:09] K: Thank you, Paula. [00:15:11] PF: So, how is Kittles loving his cat tree from Mau Pets? [00:15:15] K: He absolutely loves it. [00:15:17] PF: I wanted to talk to you about style because you have a really beautiful home, and sometimes it's hard to work a cat tree into your home decor. [00:15:26] K: I will just say, this cat tree, I cannot tell you enough how gorgeous it is. It just worked so well with our decor. We love neutrals and whites and it's not obnoxious looking. It looks like a work of art you would never even guess, “Wait a second. That's a cat tree.” It is so beautiful. But I also love that it gives back to animal welfare and environmental conservation. [00:15:53] PF: Oh, that's right. Yes. Mau Pets gives 5% back for every purchase, and it also uses sustainably sourced wood. [00:15:59] K: That's really important to me, Paula, and they also plant a tree which is incredible for every purchase. So, it's such a good way to give back. [00:16:07] PF: If you want to upgrade your kitty’s furniture, and save 5% off your order, visit maupets.com/livehappynow. That's maupets.com/livehappynow. Now, let's get back to my conversation with Monica Parker. [INTERVIEW CONTINUED] [00:16:24] PF: Yeah, it's such an incredible challenge. Because even if we go out and we say, “I'm going to seek wonder, and I'm going to look for three things that make me feel wonder.” For myself, I feel like still in my brain, it's like, “Okay, get that list checked off, because you have stuff to do missy. Get back to the computer.” How do we kind of balance that, because we want this, but shutting off that busy timer in our head? [00:16:51] MP: I think, carving out time for it. I mean, there's a lot of evidence around the power of wonder walks. So, what makes a wonder walk, a wonder walk, you decide it is. I mean, it's simple as that. There was research where they sent people, two groups of people on a walk. One group just said, “Go on a walk in nature that is beautiful.” The other group, they were primed with one sentence, find things that make you feel wonder during this walk. And the wonder walkers came back having not ruminated about their life. So, they had carved out that time just to feel wonder, whereas the other walkers were ruminating about I've got a pack for a trip. I have this project. And the wonder walkers experienced benefits that the regular walkers didn't. So, stress reduction that lasted for a week, lowers stress hormones, yeah, all of that. So, there are a lot of benefits. But how do we carve out the time? Well, there's sort of an interesting irony or paradox to wonder, and that wonder actually makes us feel like time is stretched. It actually gives us a sense of time slowing down. So, we can make the time for it, it will actually make us feel like we have more time. It really becomes an additive process. If we allow ourselves that time, then it will give us that time back in our own brains. [00:18:02] PF: That's terrific. It’s kind of like when you make time for exercise, you actually have more energy, so you get more hours in your day. So, that’s same of kind of – I guess, maybe we've convinced ourselves like, “Hey, if you want your time to last better, then go experience wonder and we’ll come back and do that.” That's great. One thing that you talked about that I'm really interested in, I don't know if this is something you develop, because I'd never heard of it before, and that is wonder bringers. [00:18:28] MP: That is my word. I definitely had to add to my dictionary when I was typing it. [00:18:34] PF: I love it. I love this whole idea and it makes it so simple. So, explain to us what wonder bringers is, and then how we find them in our lives? [00:18:45] MP: Absolutely. So, wonder bringers come in many shapes and sizes. What we know is the different elements that bring us a sense of our curiosity. They can come as nature. Nature is one of the chief areas where we feel a sense of wonder. They can also come socially. So, social wonder bringer would be like watching your child take their first steps. And then, we can have cognitive wonder bringers. And that's the idea of like, maybe studying the folded universe or something like that. Or the question I said, why does matter give rise to consciousness? That can be a cognitive wonder brainer. Then, under that, there's so many different strains of the way that we can find wonder and they may overlap. You and I might go to the Grand Canyon, and for you, it'd be a natural wonder bringer. And for me, maybe it'd be cognitive, because I'd be thinking about the geology and the first people who saw it. These are necessarily discrete categories. But one of the things that I encourage people to do is just to consider what gives them wonder, and one of the ways to know that is what gives you goosebumps? Or what gives you those little tears that spring to your eyes? William Brown called them tears of wonder joy and I love that. These little tears that start to – and you think, “Well I'm a little bit clunked.” So, that kind of idea and what are the things that do that to you, and then do more of them. I also want people to feel comfortable using the language of this brings me wonder, because I feel that so much of what brings us wonder, we may be put in the category of like a hobby, and I don't think that that's fair. It doesn't give it enough gravitas. So, if you and your partner. We’ll use an example, I think it can almost be like a love language. If you're a person who for you, your wonder bringer is going on long hikes in the woods, and your partner's idea of a wonder bringer is going to the opera. If the two of you say that, and you don't share that, then you're going to think, “Oh, that's just a hobby. They like the opera. Oh, they just like to be outside.” Whereas understanding that it's more than that is fundamental to who they are as a human. I think that that, understanding that, giving it the respect and the gravitas that it deserves to say, “No, this is a wonder bringer. This is actually what builds my mind and helps me see the world through the lens, through which I do.” [00:21:02] PF: Is this something people should sit down and consciously examine and say, “What are my wonder bringers?” And really identify them? [00:21:09] MP: Absolutely. Because I think the more that we identify it, then we can say, “Okay. I only have so many hours in a day. I have this much time. I have one night to go out. What am I going to do with it? Am I going to go out and have some margaritas? I love margaritas. Or if I know that music is my wonder bringer, am I going to try and go see a gig?” In that prioritizing, then you get the benefits of it. And it still can be obviously a pleasurable activity, most of the time. But recognizing that I think – and sharing it. Wonder shared is wonder multiplied. So, sharing it with your friends, even telling the story of something that brought you wonder with someone else will then amplify that experience. So, I think it's really about using the language of wonder bringers, sharing that with other people and then prioritizing it in your own life. [00:21:56] PF: Yeah, as you mentioned, if you share it with others, I think what a great weekend experience to have like a wonder weekend and you're going to go out and you're going to all do these things that bring you wonder, either individually or collectively. [00:22:09] MP: And then sharing it. I think that would be amazing. I'm talking with a friend about even trying to put together some small like wonder weekend trips that help people find that, and tap into it, whatever that might be, maybe a cultural one, a natural one. Because I think that we get so busy. And sometimes we don't honor those things that give us wonder. We think that they're just nice to have as opposed to being fundamental to our spirit. [00:22:36] PF: Yes. Or we think, well, you know what, I'm going to put that on the shelf for now and I'll do it when I'm older. I'll do it later. I'll do it whenever it loses its magic. [00:22:45] MP: Absolutely. [00:22:46] PF: So, we talk a lot about like, how we find it, and what to do with it. But you have some amazing research on all the ways that benefits us. I mean, this book, if you sit down with this book, you can't not want to explore wonder, because it changes everything. That's what amazed me, like all the different areas of your life that it affects. I wanted to start by talking about health. And can you talk about what wonder does for our health? [00:23:14] MP: It's really incredible, physiologically, and I think this is probably one of the things that struck me the most in writing the book was the physiological impact. I think I understood cognitively that it would have an impact psychologically. But physiologically, it decreases our stress hormones. It decreases our pro inflammatory cytokines, which is fascinating. So, I'll talk a little bit about that. So, when we're sick, our body releases pro inflammatory cytokines to try to make us well. It's a protein, and it releases this, and then our body counters with anti-inflammatory cytokines, and the two of them balance out, and that helps heal us. But the problem is, is that when we're not injured or sick, and our body releases pro inflammatory cytokines because of stress, or because of some condition in ourselves, then it actually creates problems for us. So, too high pro inflammatory cytokines have been linked to Alzheimer's, to heart disease, to diabetes. This is a mechanism for balancing these pro inflammatory cytokines in your body, and it's really – this is not junk science. This is really founded, fascinating work. There's also evidence around the connection between wonder and biophilia and what biophilia does for pain management, for helping in recovery after surgery. So, a lot of healing that can occur from the wonder of nature as well. [00:24:42] PF: That was so interesting to me, because first of all, I thought, “Oh, my gosh, if more people had had – if we had had this during the pandemic, people could have been exploring the world so much differently, because that was so difficult.” And also, as we're looking always, we're inundated with news about like, okay, Alzheimer's, and how to prevent this, and have to present that. It's so much simpler that without taking a pill, without having to do with these other things, like you have a very compelling argument for using wonder as a wonder drug, type of thing. [00:25:15] MP: Yes. I think, obviously, I'm not saying that wonder is going to cure Alzheimer's, but I think it opens a door into understanding. So, what we do is say, “Okay, there's some disease, we just don't really understand. We do everything. We can we know exercise is going to be good for us. It's always good for us. We know that meditation really helps our brains.” And I think that wonder is another way that we can just say, “All right, this is calming the reactive systems in my body. And we know that it's connected to the vagus nerve, which really manages that rest and digest, as opposed to the fight and flight.” So, if we are able to activate the vagus nerve, and we're able to calm our reactive systems, then that's good for us, and that will certainly help stave off certain diseases. There's no promises that this is going to cure anyone. And I say that. I say, “This is not going to fix everything. But what it does is, I believe, it opens a window for us to have a discussion about different methodologies and approaches to healing.” [00:26:15] PF: Yeah. Overall, it's a pretty easy arrow to put in your quiver, because it's not like, you know, meditation is challenging for a lot of people. Exercise, people don't necessarily want to be doing that as much as they should. Eating right, same thing. And wonder, is, you're getting an incredible benefit and an incredible experience out of it. [00:26:37] MP: Absolutely. I think it's so accessible, and I know that your podcast is about happiness. But I do keep going back to it's so accessible, even in dark times. This is one of the things that I found most heartening about it, is that happiness really is hard for a lot of people to find. There's this thing called affective forecasting. It's where we miswant what we think will make us happy. We're not very good at knowing what makes us happy. Frequently also, our goal, and our desire for happiness gets wrapped up in consumerism, and stuff and the idea of hedonic happiness. Whereas wonder, we can feel in the dark times and in the light. We can maybe look at the war in Ukraine and say, “That's terrible, I can't feel happy about that.” But you can be in a state of wonder. You can be in a state of wonder at the resiliency of people. You can be in a state of wonder at the people that are helping. You can even be at a state of wonder at the magnitude of what's happening there. And that, I believe, holding – I know, the research shows that holding mixed emotions, the positive and the negative, the yin and yang together, at the same time, is incredibly helpful for our resilience, and it really helps us manage traumatic experiences. So, holding wonder, I think, especially during difficult times, like COVID, and the war, and all of that is really helpful. It's really ameliorative for us. [00:28:02] PF: One of the points that you bring up is to stop chasing happiness. And I really love that, because the kind of happiness that we talk about at Live Happy is not the happy, happy, joy, Joy. It's the long term. It's our wellbeing. It's how content are you, overall. So, talk about how the pursuit of happiness is not making us happy. [00:28:23] MP: There's a term that I learned happychondriacs and I think that’s a really – [00:28:28] PF: I need a minute for that one. [00:28:29] MP: Yes. I think that that was – I read that and I was like, “Oh, my goodness, I know these people. I probably grew up with some of these people.” Or they're like, “No neggies and everything's positive.” It's like, no, everything isn't always positive. The world sucks sometimes. It's just the reality. When we engage in toxic positivity, we are losing out on the richness of our full emotional spectrum. So, we know that people who have greater emo diversity, which means they're able to call up a number of different emotions, so it's not just happy, sad, angry, you a really robust multivariate number of emotions that that's very good for resiliency, we also know that mixed emotions. So mixed emotions, like wonder, like curiosity is a mixed emotion We've sometimes are driven to be curious about things that aren't very positive. Nostalgia is another mixed emotion. Gratitude can be a mixed emotion. Sympathy. So, any of these mixed emotions where there is bitter sweetness. What's known as existential longing. Susan Cain wrote a book about that. Anything that combines the happy and the sad together, the positive and the negative, that dual experience we know is very, very good for us and it's much more attainable. So, I found it fascinating that this researcher, Melanie Rudd, who I talked about at the kite festival, she said I just don't study happiness anymore. I study awe, because I think that it just makes more sense to study that. It's more achievable. So, I thought that was really fascinating and the benefits are significant when you look at it. The quantum of benefits for people who experienced wonder are much higher. In fact, sometimes the scientists will compare happiness to wonder when they're testing it. They'll compare happiness to awe. And awe has a quantum of benefits that's greater than happiness. [00:30:13] PF: I think that's great for people to hear, because we put pressure on ourselves, the whole, I should be happy. I have this wonderful home. I have this life. [00:30:21] MP: Ad then, you feel guilty. When you put guilt on top of it, it's not helpful. [00:30:27] PF: Yes. Exactly. I would love to talk about, as well, how wonder affects our relationships, because that's the biggie for everybody. When we start practicing wonder, we experience wonder, how is it going to change our relationships, both romantic relationships, relationships within our families, and our relationships at work? [00:30:48] MP: So, that was one of the things I started to study as well. And I think of wonder, almost like a love language. I think that it's something that we should be talking about with our friends, with our partners, to say, this brings me wonder, so that that is something that then we value, and that we protect, and nurture within our relationships. I think that having wonder in the workplace can be really powerful. It makes our teams more bond in a different way. It makes them more inclusive. So, we know people that experience wonder are more welcoming to outsiders. Inclusion becomes easier. Leaders who are more wonder prone or who lead in a wonder way, are more communicative. They're more empathetic. They're more humble. They're more ethical. They're more authentic. So, all of these elements that we know we seek in the workplace, and frankly, in friendships as well, there is a fascinating piece of research that showed that people when they experienced wonder, not only did they feel more humble, but their friends thought they were more humble. So, it actually changes are an affect. I thought that was fascinating. Or people who are genuinely curious. So, if you show genuine curiosity about another person, which really is the basis of empathy, right? Empathy is being genuinely curious about the human condition about someone else. People who are genuinely curious and ask questions in that curiosity, the person that they're asking questions of will find that person more friendly, and also more attractive. So, anybody out there who's dating on the dating scene, ask genuine questions to someone with authenticity, and they will find you more attractive. [00:32:25] PF: I love it. So, we're going to give our listeners a free chapter of your book, and we're also going to, on the website, we're going to direct them directly to the Wonder Quiz. But where else can they start? If someone's listening to this and decide, “I need more wonder in my life.” What are a couple of things I can start doing right now, to make that change? [00:32:46] MP: Number one, you can take a wonder walk. Really, again, what's the wonder walk? You decide it. You try things that help you find wonder. A new route, anything that gives you a sense of vastness. So, anything that makes you feel like a smaller component part of a bigger system. And then also, slow thought that's just even taking five minutes to allow yourself to be bored, and just question what's happening in your brain. That's another great way. And then, I love nostalgia or gratitude or prayer. Any of those, just five minutes to reflect back on a happy time, to think about that, to journal about it, also helpful, narrative journaling. So, any of those. Just start with five minutes and see what it does and how it makes you feel. [00:33:32] PF: Hat's excellent. Monica, thank you so much, first, for writing this book. It's a book that we need. We needed it sooner. But that's all right. But it is remarkable. [00:33:41] MP: It’s here now. [00:33:41] PF: You are here now, and it is remarkable. I really hope people check it out. And thank you again. Thank you for coming on the show and talking about it. [00:33:50] MP: Thank you so much, Paula. I really appreciate the kind words and it's been delightful chatting with you. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:33:59] PF: That was Monica Parker talking about wonder. We invite you to check out her new book, The Power of Wonder: The Extraordinary Emotion That Will Change the Way You Live, Learn and Lead. When you visit our website at livehappy.com, we'll tell you how to download a free preview of the book, as well as a free wonder walk poster. You can also take her Wonder Quiz or sign up for Wonder Bringer newsletter. We'll also tell you how to find her on social media. To add more wonder to your daily feet. Just visit our website at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tap. 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: Exploring Your Senses With Gretchen Rubin [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for Episode 412 of Live Happy Now. When's the last time that you really experienced the sights, sounds, and smells of the world around you? Well, this week's guest is here to help you do that in a whole new way. I'm your host, Paula Felps, and this week, I'm so excited to welcome back New York Times best-selling author, Gretchen Rubin. Her latest book, Life in Five Senses, looks at how we can tune into our five senses to become happier and healthier. In fact, Gretchen shows us how by dialing into our senses, we can reduce anxiety, boost productivity, spark creativity, and learn to live in the present moment. That's just the beginning, let's find out more. [EPISODE]   [0:00:49] PF: Gretchen, welcome back to Live Happy Now. [0:00:51] GR: I'm so happy to be back. Thanks for having me. [0:00:54] PF: It has been a minute since we last talked with you and you've been busy. [0:00:59] GR: I have. I've had a lot going on. That's true. [0:01:02] PF: One of the things is the reason we're talking today, and that is your new book. This book has just been such a great surprise for me, because it's one you start reading, and it's like, "Oh my God. Why has nobody written this book before?" Because it's such a wonderful experience of diving into our senses. Your story of why you wrote it is really compelling. That's a great place to start. Tell us the journey that brought us into this book. [0:01:27] GR: Well, it started on a very ordinary moment. I woke up with pinkeye, which I'm one of these people who's prone to pinkeye. Usually goes away in a few days, but this didn't. So I just got myself to the eye doctor. And yeah, I had pinkeye, he gave me some drops. As I was walking out of his office, he said to me very casually, "Well, you know, be sure to come in for your regular checkup, because as you know, you're at much greater risk for losing your sight, so make sure you come in." I was like, "Wait. What? I did not know I'm at greater risk for losing my sight. Why?" He said, "Well, you're extremely nearsighted, and that means you're at greater risk for getting a detached retina, and that can affect your sight. So if it starts, we want to catch it right away." As it happened, I had a friend who had recently lost some sight from a detached retina. That, I mean, I really – that really resonated with me. So I walk out onto the street, I live in New York City. So I was walking home from the eye doctor, and it just hit me that I could lose all this, you know, and I wasn't appreciating it. I realized, like, "Now that I was threatened with the loss of it, I just realized I'd been taking it all for granted. Of course, I intellectually knew that, that at any time, we could lose whatever. I also knew intellectually, that I would still have a rich, meaningful life, even if I did lose my sight or one of my other senses. But still, it was just – it hit me, I was stuck in my head. I wasn't appreciating the richness of the world around me. As I had that realization, it was as if every knob in my head just got jammed up to high volume. I saw everything with crystal clarity, I heard every separate sound, I could smell every smell. New York City is pretty smelly, I could smell so many smells, I could feel everything. It was just coming through in this kind of super high intensity. It was just the psychedelic experience. It lasted for until I got home. It was just – this experience showed me that the way to get this feeling of connection and vitality was through my five senses, was to stop taking it all for granted. Get out of the fog of preoccupation, and really engage with the world, and with other people, and with myself through my five senses. [0:03:48] PF: You do a wonderful job of painting that picture for us of, we feel like we are in your head as you are watching the world just like blossom around you. What's interesting to me is, for someone else, it might have been, they would have focused on the fact that, "Okay, it's my site, and they would have worked only in that area." But you being you took this on as a massive research project and really tackled all five senses. Why was it so important for you to look at not just sight, but for all five of our senses. [0:04:21] GR: During that walk, I just felt it all coming in through everything. I felt how they were working together, the sensorium, all five working together. I just realized, you know, I paid a lot of attention to my sight relatively, even though I wasn't that tuned into it. But then there were other things I felt like I very much neglected. I thought, if I could bring all of these up into that level, and appreciate them for everything they really do for me, I just couldn't wait to learn more. It was like, once I saw that it was my five senses – and it was funny because I've been studying happiness, and human nature for more than a decade. I had, had the feeling that I was neglecting something, that there was some piece that I was missing, that there was some element that I wasn't tuned into. When I realized it was the five senses, it was sort of that intellectual gratification and being like, "Oh, this is it. This is what I've been missing." Then I could look back on other things that I'd written. I had bits and pieces of it. In Happier at Home, I wrote about smell. Now, it was like, "Oh, if I pull in all five, I can see how it fills out the picture in a whole new way." [0:05:26] PF: As you go through the book, it's very clear to see how this unfolded for you. But for someone who's listening and hasn't picked up the book yet, talk about how you decided to dive into this, how did you outline the way that you would explore each of these five senses. Because you are not a casual observer, you deep dive into every one of them. [0:05:48] GR: Well, I'm very systematic. My view is like, I'll do all the research, so you don't have to.   [0:05:51] PF: And you did, thank you.   [0:05:53] GR: I also am very interested in sort of the practical consequences of information. I'm fascinated by sort of transcendent ideas and scientific principles, but then I'm always like, "Okay. Well, if that's the case, how might I put that to use in my own life." So we did several things with each of the senses. One is, I just learned more about the functioning of the senses, which was absolutely fascinating. I just had no appreciation for the complexity and sophistication of just the plumbing in our heads, how the brain work, and how the brain is such an editor. It's not an objective reporter at all. The brain is tinkering with the view. Then, I also gave myself a lot of exercises. Sometimes I would do – I think the more we know, the more we notice. So I did a lot of things to learn more to educate a sense, like going to flavor university, or taking a perfume class. I would sometimes deprive myself. Sometimes you get more tuned into something if you deprive yourself of something. I did dining in the dark, which is when you eat without your sight. I tried the sensory deprivation tank, which these days they call sensory enhancement tanks. I think that's very on trend. I would find little ways to indulge with a modest splurge. Like money can't buy happiness, but sometimes you can buy a little something that does bring you a lot of joy. I bought – I was like, "Why am I writing with these black and blue felt tip pens?" Like I saw this in an office supply store, I saw a bunch of big pens, and all these kinds of cool colors like caramel and oxblood. So now, I – so just little things that could be fun. I did a lot of things with other people. One of the big themes of the book is how we can use our senses to help us draw closer to other people. I did a lot of exercise. I had a taste party with my friends where we did taste tests and compared varieties of apples and potato chips. I gave them a mystery drink to see if they could guess what it was. It was Red Bull and they did not guess. [0:07:46] PF: But they were very energetic about it. [0:07:48] GR: Oh, yeah. Yeah, they were like, "What is this?" If you don't know what it is, you're like, "This is bonkers." But all of it was so fun. There is just this energy that comes to us through our senses, and then it brought so much to me. I got so much out of it, just part of the fun of it, and the learning of it, but then also all of the benefits that we get from our five senses. [0:08:08] PF: Obviously you are known for your research and studies in happiness. What is the correlation that you found between being aware of our five senses and living in happiness? [0:08:19] GR: There's so many different directions and kind of ways. It's sort of like going for a walk outside? It's like, how long do you have for me to describe why that's going to make you happier? There's so many reasons. One of the things that I really seek as part of my happy life is to connect with memories. I do not have a good memory for my own life, so I'm always looking for ways to evoke memories and capture memories. So often, the senses tie us to the past, whether it's like the smell of our grandparents' kitchen, or the taste of our family Thanksgiving stuffing, a song from a particular time. So many of our senses can pull us back. Part of it was the memories. Part of it is deeply connecting with other people, really – I did a five senses portrait of my husband. Really like, what are the sights smells, taste, touch, sounds that I associate most with him. That was like a beautiful way to just like really tune into my husband. It was interesting. Then when I finished the book, and I handed it into my editor, you write a little like about the author. She said, "I think you should do a five senses portrait of yourself." I thought, "Well, I just wrote a whole book about life, my experience, and yet it never occurred to me to do that about myself." That was actually a very interesting kind of self-knowledge experience, like, what are the five smells that I'm most associated with myself? That was interesting. [0:09:33] PF: Yeah. Let me ask you about that for a minute, because what does it do for someone else to do that, like if they sit down and do that? [0:09:39] GR: It's an amazing process how much it like makes it evokes that person, it makes you remember. It's harder than you might think to come up with the perfect examples. But what I like about it is, it's pretty easy to write them down, like it's not arduous to actually physically create it. I have a podcast, The Happier with Gretchen Rubin podcast. We talked about this idea in the podcast. What was really interesting is how people played with this idea and used it in different ways to connect with people in their own way. One person immediately emailed and said, "I'm going to do this for my grandparents. Both my grandparents recently died, and I want to do this to hang on to those concrete memories before I forget them. Also, I have very young children who will not remember these family members who have died." This is a way for me to like, and I'm like, "That is such a great way to –" you learn a lot from somebody of like, what were the five signature tastes that this person is associated with? It's such a delightful way to capture someone's essence. Then somebody else said, "Oh, I did it for my two children as like a present for them. Then, my husband was so wistful. I could tell he wanted one of himself, so I made one for him." She made it into sort of this beautiful book, so she really like took the time to write it, but then also turned it into kind of this beautiful object to give. She said like – we talked about wanting to feel seen. This is a way that not only do you feel seen, but you feel heard, felt – like you feel like someone's completely tuning into you and getting you. My in-laws are having a big milestone wedding anniversary. As my toast, I did five senses portraits of both of them to read as my toast. Because again, it's just such a fun way to capture someone's essence. You can put it on one page, and yet in that page, you can convey like – it's like a highlight reel of your experience with this person. It's like all the things that you remember best, the inside jokes, the happiest memories. Maybe some of the most unpleasant memories, but sometimes, the things that go wrong often make the best memories. It's kind of like the time you burned the pan of brownies before the really important party or whatever. That turned out to be like an exercise that people are interpreting in a lot of different ways, and taking it in a lot of different directions to suit their own aims. [0:11:51] PF: I think that is such an interesting way to create a portrait and a memory for families. As you said, there's so many different applications. When people do that, how does it change the way, say that they look at that other person or even look at themselves? You're really opening up your eyes in a whole different way. [0:12:09] GR: As you're talking, I'm thinking this could be a really fun thing to do like around a family dinner.   [0:12:13] PF: I was thinking that.   [0:12:14] GR: It's like New Year's Eve and like, "Let's go around and do it. Let's do it as like a table exercise for each of us and like come up with it. That can be so fun." It forces you to focus on someone, to really think about what do they like, what do they not like, what are the funny memories that we've shared? It's a way to cast back your mind, unless I say, "I'm really bad at sort of pulling up memories." But there's a specificity to this that I think helps kick up those memories you forgotten you remember. I also did something, a taste timeline where I did a timeline of my life through tastes, like for different epics of my life, what were the tastes that were – my favorite taste or the most distinctive taste. So it's doing that, and it was so much fun. So then I called my sister so we could reminisce about our childhood. We had so much fun just kicking it back, like what do we eat on long car trips? And like, what was some junk food that our grandparents would buy for us that like our parents wouldn't? She used to drink pickle juice out of the jar. I mean, does anybody in the world know that other than me. And yet, I'd forgotten about that whole thing, or she used to do this thing. She would put butter on saltine crackers, and then toast them in the toaster oven. Periodically, the toaster oven would burst into flames. We just had so much we're just laughing about it. The fact is, I just forgot about that whole thing, because it's like – [0:13:30] PF: It's not something you would bring up. It's not something you normally think about. [0:13:33] GR: Yeah, you just don't cast your mind. You're not setting – you don't put the fishing pole into your mind. This is just a way to dredge up these things from the bottom. But in a way that's very fun and very playful. And then it's very easy to memorialize that and capture it. It's a fun, creative, and yet it connects. It creates these feelings of deep connection. It's a reminder of shared memories, and shared experiences. It's also kind of sort of a family identity. If it's a family member or whatever, it's sort of a family identity. [BREAK] [0:14:05] PF: I'll be right back with more of my conversation with Gretchen Rubin. But right now, I'm bringing back Kate [inaudible 0:14:10], to talk about the adventures of Kittles. Kate, welcome back.   [0:14:14] K: Hi, Paula. [0:14:16] PF: Well, it's been a minute since we talked about Kittles the cat, and his amazing cat tree from Mau Pets. Is Kittles still loving it?   [0:14:23] K: Oh, absolutely. He just loves climbing to the top of it, being high above the chaos, hiding up at where our dogs can't reach him.   [0:14:33] PF: That's a plus.   [0:14:35] K: Exactly. He just loves his little tree. [0:14:39] PF: Well, it is so pretty. We've talked about how beautiful it is. But one thing that I thought was super cool was that, it's so easy to clean because it talks about, the cushions are all machine washable, and you can use different fabrics. Have you had the chance to wash it, and use it, and see how that goes.   [0:14:54] K: Yes. It's so nice to be able to take the cushions off, actually wash them, and the fabrics are just beautiful. We have a white faux fur one right now. But if I ever move his cat tree to another room, I'll probably change out the cushions to get something that matches within the other rooms as well. [0:15:10] PF: I guess it's safe to say that Kittles will never settle for anything less now.   [0:15:14] K: Neither will I.   [0:15:15] PF: Well, there you go. If you want to upgrade your kitties' furniture and save 5% off your order, visit maupets.com/livehappynow. Now, back to my conversation with Gretchen Rubin. [INTERVIEW CONTINUES]   [0:15:34] PF: I think anybody who reads this book, there's no way that you can keep your mind from going down your own story. Like in every sense, like you just have to apply it in your own life. It really invites you to take this in and do the experiments. We do live in a world where we're so involved in social media, we're so caught up in our own heads, we are not seeing the world, failing the world around us. How can this help us get back, and normalize ourselves, and be more in tune with ourselves, with our family, with the world around us? [0:16:06] GR: Right. You're right. I think there's just a hunger now for direct contact. I mean, I think that's one of the reasons that you see so many things billed as immersive, whether it's an exhibit, or it's like a museum show, or a store that's having some kind of class, or display that's inviting you to come in, and smell, and taste, and touch. Because we have such a hunger for that. I think it's because as you say, we're behind screens. I think there's sort of two things that point in the opposite direction that from both directions make us want to connect with our five senses. On the one hand, I think things are kind of, like you say, thin and drained, two dimensional. They're coming to us through screens. They're not full, and so they're sort of thin. But then on the other hand, some things are kind of like hyper processed, and ultra-saturated. so it's like this food is hitting every bliss point at one time. It's like – and yet, at the same time that it's like engineered to hit every bliss point, I picked it up to go. I don't have the drifting smells of baking, and caramelizing, and grilling that are going to fill the air and kind of awaken my senses and prepare myself to taste this delicious meal. It feels kind of like, on the one hand, kind of like too much at the same time, too little. I'm going to a movie and the images are huge and vivid. The music, the soundtrack is like enriching and all beautifully. Yet at the same time, I'm not feeling air on my face, I'm not smelling anything. It's kind of too much and not enough at the same time. That's why I think the physical – we'll talk about the metaverse, it's like, let's connect with the universe. It's right there. There's just an energy that kind of – it kind of an almost an excitement, and a cheer that comes from that feeling of just like digging your hands in. Like all these metaphors, you realize, they're so focused in the body. You want to dig in your hands, you want to follow your nose, you want to stick out your tongue, and taste everything, and really experience it for yourself. [0:18:05] PF: It's an incredible form of mindfulness. For people who say mindfulness is tough, all they have to do is apply some of the things that you're doing, because this is mindfulness. This is being in that present moment. [0:18:17] GR: Yes. I was thinking, especially about smell, because the thing that's fascinating about smell is like, you can't let yourself on smell. You can't bookmark it, you can't save it for later. Like you can experience it right now, and you can't even keep experiencing. It's not like a song that you could listen to on a loop for three hours. Because of odor fatigue, it will fade out. You can only experience it right now. You have to appreciate it right now, because in a few minutes, it's going to fade out, and you're going to lose it. I think it is this call to what is happening to you right now, in this moment. You can listen to a recording of a sound bath, that is nothing like the experience of lying on the floor with your eyes closed, while someone is actually striking, singing bowls in your presence. It's not that there's anything wrong with the recording of a sound bath, but it doesn't at all replace what the actual, that moment, the mindfulness, and the intensity that that moment would have kind of in real life. [0:19:13] PF: Yeah. One of your most interesting, I'd say experiment, was that you went to the Metropolitan Museum every day for a year. First of all, what an incredible commitment, because I don't think there's anything other than going to the bathroom, and eating, that I can do every day. I can say, definitively, I'm going to do that. First of all, what made you commit to an entire year of that, and what happened as a result of that experiment? [0:19:40] GR: Well, the thing is, I keep doing it. I love it so much. I have never stopped, so that years long over, and I'm still going every day. And I have to say, of course I recognize that I'm so extraordinarily fortunate that I have the time, and the freedom, and I live within walking distance. Because I'm a member, I live in New York State, I can go for free, though I did join as a member to support the museum, given that I was going all the time. But, you know, I'm very drawn to repetition and familiarity, like I'm very interested in how experience has changed through repetition and familiarity. I also, I find it easier to do something every day than to do it some days. I'm kind of an all or nothing kind of person. Then, that also to me, I don't know if there are things like this in your life, where it represented to me kind of this treasure trove that I wasn't reaching out this experience that I could have. But that just sort of out of neglect, or inattention, or whatever, I just wasn't availing myself of it. It was really exciting to me to think like, "I'm really going to make the most of it." I'm so incredibly fortunate. Why am I not doing it? If I moved away from them, I knew I would be full of regret, thinking, "Why didn't I go to the Met every day when I live within walking distance?" I didn't do it. I was very excited about it. Indeed, the experience changed dramatically over time, as I became more familiar with the Met, and it continues to change to this day. I mean, I think that's why I sort of have never stopped, because it never feels like it's over. It still feels like, oh my gosh, I'm still in the middle of this experience. This experiment. I want to keep going. I don't think I'll ever reach the end of it. [0:21:17] PF: I think, someone who hasn't done that, the fear might be, "Well, I'm going to just start seeing it like I see the rest of the world." Like, "Oh! Here I am at the Met again. That's not the case for you. Why is that?", [0:21:29] GR: Well, you're exactly right to point that out, right? Because anything that's familiar can just fade into the background wallpaper of our life. I think that is a great challenge. One of the things that I do do is like, when I'm there, as I walk through the doors, I'm like, "I'm here now like." That's part of what is a beautiful relief about it, because I really – I'm like – it lets me step out of myself. It's a time – if I'm in a really bad mood, I love going to the Met, because it's just sort of like, I just put it aside. It's not like meditation, where you're really disciplining your mind and your attention. It doesn’t mean this is recess. I'm not making any attempt to discipline my mind. I do just sort of say like, "Well, I'm just here. I'm just going to explore. I'm just going to play around. I'm not going to think about my to-do list, or like that annoying email that I have to answer, or anything like that. Just going to let my mind go into this building." It gives me sort of a respite from my day, kind of a quiet, and sort of the cacophony of my inner chatter. It really is a relief, and I always leave just feeling very energized, much calmer. And just a sense of perspective, I think looking at beautiful artworks, it just gives you a sense of perspective, just this vast history. One of the things that was interesting to me, as I thought maybe like this was a very idiosyncratic thing. But I think some people really are drawn to this, I heard from many people who did their own version of it. A lot of people will take the same walk, like they will do exactly the same neighborhood loop, or the same hike. Part of what's fun is like, if you look at the same tree every day, you really notice the season's changing. Or if you're watching a build – somebody said like, "There's a building was being built." That's interesting. Like, "I've seen the building being built." Sometimes people like to take a picture, like sunrise over the river every day at 7am. Like there's something fun about having that collection. Somebody told me that he goes to the CVS drugstore every day. I thought, I totally get it. There's a lot going on. [0:23:19] PF: CVS is like a disco or something. [0:23:22] GR: I mean, what's going – there's always, you're like, what are they selling here? Who's buying this? What's the holiday display? What's on sale? There's a lot happening. There's a lot of people doing odd things. There's a lot to see. He said, he got to know the people who work there. For him, it was also kind of a point of connection. I think that this idea of doing something every day, the world reveals itself in a different way. I think you're exactly right. You can't let it just become a checklist on your to-do list where you're racing through it. Like in your mind, you're packing for your weekend trip. You have to say, this is about the experience of what do I see, hear, smell, taste, touch along the way. I'm really going to sink into that experience and use it as a way to connect with myself through my five senses. [0:24:06] PF: That's terrific. As we tune into our five senses, you really bring out the fact that we each have different dominant senses. I was so happy to learn that it's actually feasible. It's an actually reasonable thing to turn down the stereo when you're driving the car and you want to see better.   [0:24:23] GR: Yeah. Want to see the road, yeah.   [0:24:26] PF: I felt vindicated. If you're going to tune into your senses, do you go for one that's already dominant and refine that? Or do you go for maybe something that's a little bit weaker, and try to build that up? [0:24:38] GR: Well, I think you can do both. I think we all should do both, because there's so much fun to be gained. But I do think there's a special power in thinking about your neglected sense. I'm going to have a quiz to help you identify your neglected sense if you're not sure, so stay tuned for that. I can't wait to unleash that. Because with the neglected sense, you have all this low hanging fruit, because it isn't a sense that you have typically been exploring, or learning about, or talking to people about, or looking for ways to broaden your experiences with it. You might be more tuned into kind of the negative of it than the positive of it. You're really aware of loud noises, and clatter, and racket, but you're not thinking about like, "Well, how can I cultivate silence, or beautiful sounds, or music." There's a lot of potential, because it's something that you have neglected. I think it's great to go deeper into what you already love. Like I love to go deeper into my sense of smell, which is one of my most appreciated sense, and it always has been. But I was – it was really exciting to have kind of that atmosphere of growth, around feeling like, "Wow, I really had not been dialing much into my sense of taste." But even someone like me, who's not really a foodie, and never really paid that much attention, there really is so much beauty and appreciation by really spending time on that sense that before I kind of overlooked. [0:25:59] PF: When people start tuning into their senses, what is going to happen to them? How is the world going to open up and change for them? [0:26:07] GR: Well, part of it is just fun. I mean, that's the thing that I think is interesting is like, just think about sensory experiences. If I was like, "Hey, I'm going to come over to your house, and let's make Jiffy Pop popcorn." You'd be like, "That sounds so fun." Or like, "Let's make a non-Newtonian fluid out of cornstarch." You'd be like, "Yeah, bring it on. What is that?" And you're like, "That is bonkers." I think it's just the pure fun and the pure delight. I do think it's this, I mean, [inaudible 0:26:30] memories, of course, the senses are famous for their ability to spark memory. I think you do that. It's a great way to connect with other people. So if you're looking for a way, like maybe you have a grandchild, or you have a friend, or you have a team at work, and you're thinking like, "How can I draw closer to these people in a way that feels fun and intimate? But maybe not personal and revealing? Or, maybe we're a very different ages, and so what would be fun for both of us? Or, we don't know each other that well." It's like, tuning into the senses, it gives us something. We're sharing this right here, right now. It gives us a lot in common, a lot to talk about, a lot to engage with, a lot of – I think that's why you see people going out to meals together, visiting historical sites together, because sharing a sensory experience is a great way to connect with other people. It's a great way to get energy, like we get energy through the body. You just walk through your kitchen and take a big whiff of vanilla, and you're just going to feel good. Oh, here's a drive by hack, by the way. I mean, you're talking about the big things people get. Here's a little thing. One of the things about the sense of taste is, this is a sense, where a lot of people feel a lot of temptation, right? They don't complain about like, "Oh, I really over indulge in my love of hip hop, right?" But people will be like, "Oh, I really do over indulge in my love of like doughnuts." If you're a person who, that's kind of your go-to treat is, you know, you walk into the kitchen and you open up the fridge or a cabinet. Try instead of satisfying your sense of taste, think of a different sense, and do something to really like overwhelm and delight that sense. Let's say you're a person who loves music, too. Well, you might say, "Oh, instead, I'll listen to new music. I love listening to new music. I'll try some new music. I'll have a playlist of my favorite songs. I'll go listen to one of my favorite songs instead of having a treat." Or maybe you love beautiful texture, and you're like, "Oh, I'm going to go – like feel some of my amazing yarns that I love to put my hands through. I'm going to use therapy dough, and really work it in my hands and get that feeling." What I found is, that a lot of times, when another sense is very stimulated, then the desire to snack kind of fades away. Because you given yourself that jolt of energy, that kind of that boost that you need through a different sense. So you can replace that weight with something that's a healthier treat, if that's something that you want. I mean, you mentioned this earlier. I do think this is a way for us to know ourselves better. One of the things that astonished me was how little I knew even about my own likes and dislikes. You'd think, of course you know what kind of tea you like. I mean, what can be more obvious, but I truly did not know what kinds of tea I liked and didn't like, because I never paid attention. There were clothes in my closet. I didn't even know what color they work, because I've never really looked. When you know yourself better, you can suit yourself better. This is really important because people really live in extremely different sensory environments. This is really – I found it's hard to wrap my mind around how different people's sensory experiences, because you think – well, the world is the world. We're all experiencing basically the same objective reality is just not true. Which is why it's really important for us to show consideration for people who are having different sensory experiences. Just because I'm like – that smell is no big deal. Maybe for someone else, it's intensely uncomfortable to be smelling that smell. So we really want to show consideration for each other. But also, when you know yourself, I've got an email from someone who said like, "Well, my son was diagnosed with autism, and I made kind of a to go pack for him with all these things to help him manage sensory overload." Then I realized, I need this for myself. Why am I doing this? I need one just as much. So she said, "I created something for myself, because I realized I need noise cancelling headphones because I get overwhelmed in loud places. I need peppermints to crunch, because that helps me feel grounded in my body. I think, when we tune into ourselves – oh, here's a great question. Okay. When you're focusing, what kind of sound environment do you like? Do you like music with lyrics? Music with no lyrics? Silence?   [0:30:22] PF: Nothing.   [0:30:22] GR: Busy hum. Ohm silence? [0:30:25] PF: Yeah, which is crazy. Music is my go-to thing. but when I'm working, when I need to focus, I have to have complete silence. [0:30:32] GR: But do you think that maybe you find music distracts you because you tune into it, you love it? [0:30:35] PF: I do. I start thinking about work, and I'm going down, then I'm like, "Oh. Now, I gotta go listen to Take On Me, and then I got to – [0:30:42] GR: I'm exactly the same way. I need to have silence. But then I know people who – they'll listen to different music, depending on what kind of work they're doing. I just was talking to somebody who listened to the same song over, and over, and over, and over for a whole day. That was the way he focused. My brother-in-law needs like busy coffee shop. He needs that kind of like bustle and hum. Once you know that about yourself, you can really seek out that environment, because you're like, "You know what. I work in an open office plan, I really need silence. I need to get myself someplace where I can get what I need to work effectively. Rather than thinking like, "Well, everybody else can work in this environment, so I should be able to too. There's no right way or wrong way. But the more we understand ourselves, the more we can suit ourselves, the silliest things, it is by tuning into our own universe of sensations. We can really try to suit ourselves whenever it's within our control. [0:31:33] PF: This is such a fantastic book. I can see it being a great thing to do as a book club project, or as a family where you really take each sense, and you dive into it. Because it's not something that you can just kind of read through and go, "Oh, that's great, and put aside." I mean, I think because you walk us through how you did it, you just as a reader want to get involved. It's like, "Well, I got to try this too." [0:31:57] GR: I'm so happy to hear you say that, because in all my work, that's what I aim for. I'm like, "It's not that what I did is so important. It's more like, somebody said, "There's something about reading about you that makes me think about myself." I'm like, "That's exactly what I want." It's supposed to be like, I want everybody jumping out of their seat to be like, "Oh my gosh, I have to go play with some tinfoil right this minute." Or like, "Oh my gosh, I am so excited to have my own daily visit." I know exactly what – "I'm going to visit this fountain every day, and I can't wait. It's like, "That's what I –" I'm so happy that you had that response, because that was truly my hope, is that it would make people like excited with all the possibilities for exploring their own sensory experiences. [0:32:36] PF: I truly don't see how you can read it and not have that feeling. Are you going to have more resources for people? I know you have your podcast. Are there other ways that they can continue this journey with you? [0:32:48] GR: Absolutely. If you go to my site, gretchenrubin.com, I have a lot of articles there about sort of different, how can you use your senses for productivity and focus? How can you use your senses to calm down? Or all kinds of things like that. This neglected sense quiz that I'm very excited about. I have all kinds of resources. If you go to gretchenrubin.com, that's really the clearinghouse. I'm on social media all over the place, just as Gretchen Rubin. I love to connect with listeners, and readers, with people. I feel like the world is my research assistant, because people give me so many ideas, and observations, and questions, and resources to check out. I love to hear from people about happiness and the five senses. You can get to everything through the website. [0:33:31] PF: All right. We'll make sure our landing page is going to have links, and it's going to take them directly to your website, so they will be sure and connect with you. But Gretchen, thank you for sitting down with me. This is incredible book, as I said when we started, like I can't believe it's taken this long for somebody to say, "Hey, we need this book." I'm so glad you figured it out. It's truly eye opening. I don't mean to pan on that. It is, it is such a fantastic addition. [0:33:59] GR: Well, thank you so much. I so enjoyed having the conversation. [END OF INTERVIEW]   [0:34:06] PF: That was Gretchen Rubin, talking about the power of our five senses and how we can explore them better. We invite you to check out her new book Life in Five Senses: How Exploring the Senses Got Me Out of My Head and Into the World. When you visit our website at livehappy.com, you can download a chapter and even better, you can register to win a free copy of this groundbreaking book for yourself. We'll also tell you how to find Gretchen's podcast, website, and follow her on social media. Just visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. That is all we have time for today. We’ll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. 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: 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]