Search Results for: reading

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Making Time for Kindness With Dr. Michelle Robin  [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 386 of Live Happy Now. World Kindness Day is just a month away, but there's no reason not to start observing it right now. I'm your host, Paula Felps. And this week, I'm joined by Dr. Michelle Robin, Founder of Small Changes Big Shifts, the Big Shifts Foundation, and the 31-Day Kindness Campaign. Launched in 2019, The Kindness Campaign is a free inspirational email adventure that begins October 14th. When you sign up, you'll receive a daily email suggesting an act of kindness that you can do that day. Michelle is here today to explain why kindness is so good for our wellbeing, how the campaign came about, and what it can do for you. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:47] PF: Robin, thank you so much for coming back on Live Happy Now. [00:00:50] MR: Thank you for having me. I love the mission. [00:00:53] PF: Oh. Well, I love your mission, and it aligns so well with everything that we do at Live Happy Now. So you've got a wonderful campaign we're going to talk about, but I've got to know, why is kindness your jam? Like why is it such a hot thing for you, and how did you get so involved in it? [00:01:09] MR: Well, it's kind of a funny story. So my background’s around wellbeing. I’ve been around the space about 40 years. As I replay my life, which you tend to do the older you get, you got to kind of see where people have enriched your life. So in my second book, The E-Factor: Engage, Energize, Enrich, I really talk about getting engaged in the wellness journey, and then you have more energy. Then once you do that, you try to just enrich. So part of my mission right now is to enrich other people's lives and make an impact. As a kid, my mom was married four times. By the time I was 17, I had a little bit of sexual trauma and a little bit of alcoholism trauma, and just really didn't feel like I mattered, especially to the people that you think you should matter to. But by the grace of God or universe, there are people that came along in my life that were kind to me. You don't really see it until you can reflect older and realize what has happened and what has sustained you through some of those tough moments. But this Kindness Campaign is pretty funny. One of my friends, Ann Koontz, who's in our wellness movement in Kansas City, she's a mental health advocate. I happen to be working with her daughters when they were teenagers about 15 years ago, and she knows that I have other online programs that we do around sleep and around posture. She said, “You know what? You really need it.” You know when somebody says, “You really need to do something around kindness. You need to do a 21-day kindness program.” Paula, I don't know about you. But sometimes, it's like, “Really, you want me to do one more thing. I'm already running a practice. I'm running a movement. I do a podcast. I've got seven books.” [00:02:37] PF: Like, “Sure. Let me just tack that on to my to-do list.” [00:02:40] MR: One more thing, it happened to be the fall of 2019. Thank God that she kept insisting that I do something. She said, “I'll even help you. But we need to start it, and we need to end it on World Kindness Day with Lady Gaga’s movement.” I said, “Okay, Ann. You win.” She kind of wore me down. I believe in being kind. I'm the person that holds the doors for people. That's just kind of who I've become. Interesting enough, I talked to one of my friends, Dr. J. Dunn, and she's a genetic specialist, and she said, “Michelle, you actually have the kind gene.” Some people actually have this kind gene, which is pretty fascinating. So that was put inside of me, and then Ann kind of poke the bear. Then we know what happened in March of 2020. Thank goodness, we'd already built The Kindness Campaign. [00:03:22] PF: Let’s go back to that for a minute. When you talk about the kindness gene, one, if there's people out there saying, “Oh, crap. I don't have it,” let's talk about how they can develop this like a muscle. But what is that? What do you think that does, the kindness gene, and how does that change how you're interacting in the world versus how someone else might interact in the world? [00:03:42] MR: Yeah. We all have a genetic roadmap called the genome, and that genome has different – I like to call it divisions. So like if you were, let's say, in a Walmart or a Target, they have different divisions. They have a toy division, and they have a home goods division, and they have a food division. They may have an auto division. Well, you have these different divisions in your body that make your systems work because we're chemistry. We work because of chemistry, right? Those divisions sometimes have hiccups, whether it's in the way your liver detoxes or in the way your body – In my case, I have a vitamin D receptor defect, and so my body has trouble keeping my vitamin D up. So I have to work really hard at that. It could be where I have trouble with the thyroid genes. It could be where I have trouble with the genetics that go along with neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine. I mean oxytocin. So what we have found out through the work of, especially, Dr. J Dunn, who's a chiropractor by training as well, but she specializes in kinesiology, in genetics. So there's a way to start to, in a sense, hack the genes in a positive way through chemistry, not necessarily pharmaceutical. Sometimes, that's necessary, but more through the right supplementation because those – I think about them as wheels. Those cogs in the wheels move because of chemistry, whether it's a cofactor like vitamin D or a B vitamin or B12 or B6 or magnesium or calcium or boron, whatever type of maybe nutritional supplement. For myself, personally, I got my genetic genome. The cheapest way to do it is through someplace like Ancestry. There's some places that don't give other people access because they're not owned by Big Pharma. Then I have a functional medicine doctor who practice kinesiology that will actually help test through and compare to my blood work what I can be doing. So some of us have this cup half full, and some of us have a cup half empty. If it's half empty, you got to work really hard to make it full. Paula, for me, I suffer from anxiety, and I believe after caring for people for 30 years that most people have a level of anxiety. Some people manage it through music. Some people manage it through medication. Some people manage it through alcohol. Some people manage it by maybe playing a video game. For me, I actually manage it by being a connector. That's probably one of the biggest ways I manage my anxiety is be of service for people. [00:06:06] PF: That's so interesting because your mission and kindness has been – You've created something so incredible and so big. It started with your Big Shifts Foundation. Can you talk about what that is? Then we'll get into The Kindness Campaign. [00:06:20] MR: Sure. Big Shifts Foundation is a foundation to make generational change for 30 and younger. You can say, “Michelle, why 30 and younger?” Think about a pond. If a pond has a bunch of dirty fish, you probably don't want to be fishing in that pond, right? Because you don't want toxicity. [00:06:35] PF: That's a great point. Yeah. [00:06:37] MR: So if you have a child who has autoimmune disease, anxiety, depression, maybe some cancers and allergies, how could you clean up their pond because their pond got toxed out? In our medicine, we believe people are sick because of two reasons. They're toxic or they're deficient. Toxic in, let's say, gluten. Deficient in vegetables. Toxic in hate. Deficient in love. Toxic in medications. Deficient in the right supplementations. Toxic in sitting around, being an office potato too much, versus movement. So the foundation's job is to really pour into young people, ideally, before they have babies, so we can clean up their pond. Because our parents, they did the best they could. If you really look at our parents did the best they could, but their training was by – In my case, my grandparents and my great grandparents and my great, great grandparents. Sooner or later, you go back to evolution and whatever your beliefs are. Something got messed up. Because as we talked earlier on a previous show is that we innately are pretty designed to be well. Some people come in with a few hiccups, but innately we come in. We're happy. We're cooing. We have this ability to bring smiles to some of the hardest people as a little baby, and then something changes, and what is that that changes? Is it the thoughts we were told? Is it the food we're fed? Is it that we sit on a device too long? Is it that we're not sleeping because we're scared? So the foundation's job is to pour into young people to help them realize that they were designed to be loved, and they're designed to be well. So we teach them about posture, we teach them about sleep habits, and we teach them about labs. We actually do their functional medicine. As I'm sitting here, one thing that we've not done yet, this will be our third year doing a scholarship program with them, is we've not talked about their genetics. So I'm going to add that to the program. We have a six-month discovery program where they get to go to therapy, and they get functional medicine, blood work, and they get a wide membership, and they get to get massage and acupuncture and chiropractic. We just love them. Or they get Reiki. Can you imagine being an 18 to 25-year-old? Some 18 to 30s are arranged for our scholarship program. All of a sudden, you have a bucket of money to really take care of yourself. They do they do the Hoffman weekend experiments. Experience was really how do you start to heal your heart for some of the bullying you've had done too. [00:09:01] PF: That’s so important because I've been doing some research. I just did a report on Gen Z and how different they are. This generation, more than any previous generation, is interested in mental health. They're concerned about their wellbeing. They will put their mental health above a work situation. It’s like they're not going to tolerate some of the things. I think it's such a huge generational shift. The fact that you're giving them the tools to be able to do some of these things is really going to help propel that forward. [00:09:34] MR: I think the word – When you look up the dictionary wellbeing, it means happy. I think people want to be happy, and it's hard to be happy when you have a bellyache, or you have a headache, or you are nervous of what somebody's saying about you, or you're in pain. So how do we help them really make that shift to be happy? It's a super fascinating time that these young people are forcing us to really look at mental health, and they're forcing parents to really identify and think, “You know what? I've had depression my whole life, and I've not sought help for it.” So it's time. There are so many tools to living your best life that don't cost a lot of money. Of course, some do. But there's a lot that don't. Being kind is one that doesn't cost a lot of money, getting sleep. But how do you do – I mean, I understand that some people don't feel safe enough to sleep. So how do we try to address that? But for the average person, at least in America, we can put down our device. We just don't. [00:10:27] PF: Yeah. Right. We’re connecting. [00:10:28] MR: So there's all those little things that we can do to try to help ourselves, and that's what we're on a mission to do. We're on a mission to reach a billion people that the small changes they can do can lead to big shifts in their life and that our foundation, Big Shifts Foundation, ultimately, is really how do we help 30 and younger, not that we don't want to help the people that are older. I mean, this campaign is for everybody. But we do know that if we change a person before they have kids, they change their genetic makeup for the future generations, and it's going to take 2.5 generations to change what we're in right now. We can do it inch by inch, wellness is a cinch. [00:11:03] PF: I love that. Absolutely love that. So let's talk about The Kindness Campaign. 31 days and it's not a challenge. Tell us why it's a campaign, not a challenge. [00:11:12] MR: Yeah. So one of our friends here in Kansas City came to me. One of our corporate clients said, “Okay, Michelle. We've talked about building rhythm and resilience through this whole thing called COVID.” I know resilience is kind of a buzzword for people, but the word I was hearing when this came on like COVID, and I've heard before, even when I had a bad accent is, “Michelle, you got to develop a rhythm or consistency so that you can have resilience.” To me, resilience – I know a lot of people are super resilient, but it's hard to be resilient when you are dehydrated. It's hard to be resilient when you are having irritable bowel syndrome and just like I talked about being happy. So they came to me and said, “Michelle, you know, we're at August of 2020. We know mental health is at all time high right now. What do you think we should do?” Who wants to hear how to not to have anxiety? That doesn't sound like a great class to go to, right? Not that we all don't need it, but I said, “Well, you know what? We have this Kindness Campaign.” In the back of my mind, I'm thinking, “That Ann hounded me about doing it.” “Why don't we do that?” They said, “Yes. But we don't want it 21 days. We want it 31 days.” They actually made that call because we used to do our online programs for 21 days. They said, “Because we are in this nasty 2020 election cycle,” like we're in a nasty 2022 election cycle and the 2023 and 2024, probably, they wanted to overlap that. But I wanted to end on World Kindness Day. That's important to me. [00:12:27] PF: I love that. [00:12:28] MR: So that's what we did, and they helped us take it around the world. We just have grown it, and another company helped us take it last year around the world. Then we went on a listing tour to some of the schools, and they said to my team, they said, “You know what? We love what you're doing. But can you make it more specific for kids? Because kids are really suffering.” They said, “Can you not only make it? But can you make us a curriculum for the whole year?” We said, “What we can do this year is we can make a specific deck. So we have seven kindness acts for elementary, seven for middle and seven for high school. Then we have the 31-day deck and campaign for anybody who wants to do that. So we said okay. So we thought, “Well, wait a minute. This fits with our foundation's mission.” The reason why it started is that's why once again and kind of kicked it off. Then some other corporations got behind us. Now, we have 11 sponsors. [00:13:24] PF: So tell me how this works. People sign up, and then what happens? [00:13:28] MR: Go to bigshifts.org, bigshifts.org\kindness, and you can just sign up right there. Then all of a sudden, on October 14th, you're going to get an email that says, “Hey, Paula. Thanks for joining us. Here's what this is about.” We have this fun thing that my team – I've got a great creative team, Desiree and Zach. They said, “You know what? Why don't we give people an opportunity to kind of keep track of which ones make them feel the best?” Because I believe we all have medicine inside of us, that the creator put medicine in me that says, “Michelle, you're able to be a connector.” Paula, it may say that you have a singing voice. I don't have a singing voice. Or you have a writing voice, right. So you're a good writer. I personally am not a great writer. I have great ideas and thoughts. But sometimes, I forget even how to spell the – So that's not my skill set. But I do believe that once we start practicing these acts of kindness, that we’ll realize, “Well, wait a minute. I am really great at this act,” and that we start to realize that's one of our secret sauce. That's some of the magic that makes us who we are in the medicine. So you're going to get an email every day for 31 days. That's going to say, “Hey, here's an act of goodness today.” If it feels right to you, execute it. Why we called it a campaign is people were already challenged. We don't want people to be challenged more. We want them to be inspired that they can not only shift their lives but they can shoot somebody else's. [00:14:49] PF: I love that. So what are some examples of the kind of acts of kindness that’ll get recommended? [00:14:54] MR: Well, it could be smile at somebody. [00:14:55] PF: That’s an easy one. We can do that. [00:14:57] MR: That's an easy. It’s easy. It could be to wave at somebody in the car next to you. We all have on our forehead an MFI, make me feel important, and we just want to want to know we matter. Last year, we got a chance to talk to the YOU Matter team, which was fabulous. This gal actually had signs in her car that she had put on boards, and she had pulled them up. “Hey, nice smile,” or, “Nice color of car,” whatever that would be. Or, “You matter.” It could be that you write a note to a friend, maybe a snail mail or a card. It could be where you send a text to somebody and say, “Hey, I'm thinking of you.” So many little tiny things, and I'm excited to see what people love, and I want to hear new ideas, so we can continue to always freshen up the content. [00:15:38] PF: I love that. So you're a health practitioner. So what is it that you see about kindness that is so crucial to our overall wellbeing? [00:15:48] MR: That is a wonderful question. I want to tell you, I would not have known that answer four years ago. [00:15:53] PF: Really? [00:15:53] MR: I would not have known it. I mean, I would have intuitively known it was good for you. But I would not have known the science behind it, probably much like the work you do with Live Happy Now, you find out the science. This is a soft skill. But this is a soft, soft skill that the research and the science proves is beneficial. So the science shows that by doing kindness to yourself, for yourself, or your pets. I’m a dog person too. I know you are too. Or somebody else, it changes your neurotransmitters. We talked about neurotransmitters just a little bit, but you've got the oxytocin which is what helps you feel like you belong. We do know that people are disconnected more than ever, and they don't feel like they matter, and they're lonely. So people want to matter, and they want to feel like they belong. Then it also – You've got the serotonin and the dopamine that'll give you some motivation and also just help your brain think more positive. So kindness actually shifts those brain chemistry. It is a natural drug to shift your mental health, and it's one of the greatest tools you can use. [00:16:54] PF: Let’s talk about what's going on in our brain when we start practicing kindness. What is that – How is that changing the way that we think? [00:17:03] MR: Well, you think about a couple things. You think about there's something in the brain called the amygdala, and the amygdala helps control the anxiety control centers in the adrenal glands. If you're able to help down regulate that, so instead of kind of – You know when you have caffeine, and you've had nothing else, and you've had maybe three cups of caffeine too much, and you're jittery, and you're kind of on edge. So kindness kind of takes that down a notch. [00:17:26] PF: Then as we start practicing it, how does it then become part of our daily being? Because it is kind of – You and I have talked about this. It's not – I wouldn't say it's addictive, but it does become a pattern if you do it consistently. [00:17:41] MR: I think people start to pay attention. Once again, sometimes it's harder for young brains to get that. Under 25-year-olds, they don't see the patterns yet. But as you get more age, you get more wisdom, and you start to see the patterns, happiness and kindness, if you start to just practice those tools on a regular basis. Sometimes, people forget. I have moments where I forget. I wouldn't say I had days I forget. But sometimes, I get tripped up maybe to an old pattern of some of those negative thinking that we all have. The committee that gets tripped up and you're like, “Gosh, where did I go from there?” I can almost pinpoint the minute where I'll be like, “Michelle, at 10:00 AM, you were fine. And at 10: 20, you weren't fine. What happened between 10:00 and 10:20 AM? Did you forget to eat today? Did you get a phone call that you're processing, and you're thinking it's the end of the world?” So I believe for myself that the more I practice this lifestyle. To me, kindness is a lifestyle. [00:18:38] PF: I like that. Yeah. [00:18:38] MR: Eating vegetables is a lifestyle. Moving is a lifestyle. Listening to positive music is a lifestyle. Reading affirmations is a lifestyle. So when you practice this lifestyle, you have more life in you to share with the world. [00:18:53] PF: Then how do we remind ourselves even after the campaign ends? How do we kind of remind ourselves to make this part of our daily routine? [00:19:01] MR: Well, it could be you printed off a few of the ones that you absolutely love that really spoke to you. Once again, I believe we all have medicine inside of us, and that is what was planted inside your soul for you to find. That is your gift for the world. I don't know what it is, and I hope that people will find something in this campaign that they say, “Oh, wow. That is it. That is what gives me juice and gives me jazz.” So you might post it. We’re seeing each other live by camera right now, and other people are listening to us. But I'm looking to my right, and I know you probably see me look to my right occasionally. I have a board over here to my right in my studio, and it says, “Thank God for this moment.” Underneath it, I have some affirmations, but I also have some of my people in my community that have poured into me. So when you say, “What's my why,” this kind of can be, “I am just pouring it back to the world.” Because people have cared enough to pour it into Michelle Robin, this young woman who, to be totally transparent, is living the best life she could have ever imagined because people poured into me. I wasn't meant to succeed. I wasn't – I grew up poor. I grew up abused like a lot of people. For some reason, I'm sitting, and I have a home, I have a car, I have my health, and I've got community. It doesn't get much better than that. So I think that if you start to plant stuff around you to remind you, “Oh, you know what? Today's the day or this moment I could choose another way to be.” I could be grumpy at that person who pulled out in front of me, or I can bless them. I could send them love. That's – I think it just becomes who you are, almost moment to moment. [00:20:38] PF: I love that. Thank you so much for all the work that you're doing and for sitting down with me today and talking about it. [00:20:45] MR: Well, thank you for getting behind the movement. Like I said, I love what Live Happy stands for, Live Happy Now. I love following your show. You have brought on some really insightful guests through the last 380-some episodes. That – [00:20:58] PF: Yeah. Number 386 right here. [00:21:01] MR: The last 386 episodes. It matters, and you just don't know what a person's life is tuning in today that’s going, “Wow,” that maybe make a different decision, and maybe it's to stay alive. [00:21:12] PF: That’s terrific. Thank you again. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:21:18] PF: That was Dr. Michelle Robin, talking about the 31-Day Kindness Campaign. If you'd like to learn more about Michelle, sign up for The Kindness Campaign, or follow Michelle on social media, visit our website 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. 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: Discover Live Happy’s Halloween Happy Acts  [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for Episode 385 of Live Happy Now. Now that it’s October, it’s time to start looking at how to make this a truly happy Halloween. I’m your host, Paula Felps, and this week, I’m joined by Deborah Heisz, CEO, and co-founder of Live Happy, and Casey Johnson, our ecommerce marketing manager to talk about our all-new Halloween Happy Acts Campaign. If you’ve been with us for a while, you already know that every March, we encourage wellbeing with a month of intentional activities that we call happy acts. This year, we’re combining happy acts with our favorite holiday to create an entire month of happiness while celebrating the spirit of Halloween. Let’s hear what it’s all about. [INTERVIEW]   [00:00:45] PF: Deb and Casey, welcome back to Live Happy Now. [00:00:48] DH: It’s such a pleasure to be here. As usual, always excited to get on a podcast, Paula. I know we have a lot of fun stuff going on. [00:00:55] PF: This one, I’m particularly excited about because Halloween is my favorite time of year. I absolutely love Halloween. When Casey told me about the Halloween happy acts, I got super-duper excited about it. I guess the first thing we need to do is talk about what happy acts are. Since Deb, you’re pretty much the originator of the happy act, why don’t you tell us what happy act is and where those came from? [00:01:19] DH: I’d love to. But also, everybody, say hi to Casey. Casey, say hi.   [00:01:23] CJ: Hi, guys. [00:01:25] DH: She has come up with some great ideas for Halloween happy acts.   [00:01:28] PF: Oh my gosh! Yes.   [00:01:28] DH: I am excited to have extended it out of the month of March, which is when we typically do happy acts. Because they really should be an all-year thing. They shouldn’t be confined to March where the International Day of Happiness is, but of course, putting some attention on it and doing it at that time of year, we get a lot more coverage, we get a lot more people participating. Because it’s something you can hang your hat on and say okay, “In March, I’m going to make sure I’ll up my happy acts game. But doing it in Halloween is great because like you, it’s one of my favorite times of the year, one of the happiest things for me at Halloween is Halloween specials for whatever reason. All the shows that just run specials that are Halloween themed, I think back to Roseanne when it was on in my childhood and how the family got dressed up in elaborate costumes every year. It was just a lot of fun. One of my happiest times a year and I’m an October baby.   [00:02:20] PF: Oh, you really.   [00:02:21] DH: Yes, and my mother’s an October baby, and my older daughter and I actually share a birthday in October. So October is like my month, it’s great. [00:02:28] PF: That is the month. It’s like the whole month off to celebrate. [00:02:33] DH: I think it really works that way, but you asked me what happy acts are. Happy acts are little things that you can do or big things. But things you can do intentionally with intention to make the world a happier place. It’s as simple as, you always hear about the pay it forward, buy somebody a cup of coffee when you’re in the Starbucks line or something like that. But it’s also donating a book to a library, reading to your kids’ class, it’s checking on a neighbor, it’s making a phone call to someone you haven’t talked to in a long time, it’s sending a thank you note because you know how big I am on gratitude. [00:03:10] PF: It comes up once or twice. [00:03:11] DH: It has a few times, but it’s sending a thank you note to someone for making a difference in your life. It’s something that you’re doing actively and intentionally to help make the world a happier place. It doesn’t have to be for a person either. It could be picking up litter, it could be donating time at a pet shelter. It doesn’t have to be anything massive or significant. In fact, we do the happy acts walls in March. That’s where we put up walls, challenging people to commit to doing a happy act. We do a lot of them in schools, because kids come up with things like, “I’m going to smile more. I’m going to eat my vegetables my mom tells me to.” Whatever it is, but it can be something simple. But the point here is that, you’re doing with intention, you know that you’re doing it. It’s not just, “Oh, I held the door open for somebody and I didn’t give it a thought because I always hold the door open for somebody.” Doing something with intention to make the world a happier place, because we know the science says that whoever you’re doing whatever it is for is likely to feel happy. It’s likely – we always say happy, but what we mean is likely to feel grateful or have an elevated sense of well-being. But the reality is that you are going to have a greater sense of well-being by doing happy acts, doing things with intention, with positive intention really does affect your overall mood, you overall – how you perceive the world. All of those things are improved when you do happy acts. That’s what happy acts are. [00:04:38] PF: And they’re a wonderful thing. Then when Casey said, “Hey, we’re going to do Halloween happy acts.” I remember that call because I was like, “I love this idea.” Casey, I mean, that was such a great idea. What made you want to tailor these happy acts tradition to our Halloween? [00:04:38] CJ: Yeah. So kind of like what Deb was saying earlier. Happy acts aren’t just for March and International Day of Happiness on March 20. We encourage people to practice happy acts all year round. Halloween and Christmas, I read this earlier, I heard it somewhere, someone defined them as like gimme holidays. Getting rather than giving. I just thought it would be a good chance to kind of practice maybe some like reverse trick or treating and tie in some happy acts to that month. [00:05:27] PF: I love I, because, as I said, you’ve done such a great job of coming up with happy acts. There are times when you’ll send out, “Hey, these are happy acts. This is what we’re going to do.” I’m like, “Wow, how do we –” like the fact that you can come up with so many new things each time, that always impresses and amazes me. How did you come up with, here’s how we can celebrate it for Halloween? [00:05:47] CJ: Well, thank you. First of all, it’s definitely a team effort. It’s not just all me. But yeah, you know, just Halloween happy acts, there’s so much you can do to spread kindness in October and still kind of celebrate that spooky holiday. Though, I guess I’ll just kind of jump into some of our Halloween happy acts. [00:06:02] PF: Yeah. Tell us what we’re going to do.   [00:06:04] CJ: So we’re kind of thinking of making it a competition, right? We want to spread the love. The plan is to highlight a different happy act every week. If people want to participate, they can tag us in a post, a reel, a story, as long as they tag us of them performing a Halloween happy act of the week, or they can get creative, and it’s not our Halloween happy act of the week, and they’re still out there spreading kindness that works as well. But so, I’ll just kick it off. So week one, we encourage people to donate blood. Deb and I actually went and donated blood together, which was amazing. Week two, trick or treat with UNICEF. Every year, UNICEF, they encourage people to kind of do that reverse trick or treating, donate candy to people in need, who don’t have the luxury of being able to go trick or treating. Week three, paint a pumpkin, we always encourage people in March to paint positivity on rocks. In October, we’re encouraging people to paint pumpkins. On week four, we’re encouraging people to wrap someone in love. So basically, give someone a big old bear hug. Or if you’re someone who doesn’t like hugs or like to be touched, you can – [00:07:15] PF: Are you talking about me now?   [00:07:17] CJ: Of course not. [00:07:18] DH: She might be, Paula. She might be.   [00:07:20] CJ: I might be. Wink wink.   [00:07:22] DH: No, I’m just kidding.   [00:07:24] CJ: But yeah, so I mean, not everyone likes to be touched and that’s okay. You can wrap yourself in like a warm blanket, or we’ve also got some awesome Live Happy hoodies on the Live Happy store, and they’ll make you feel nice and cozy. [00:07:37] DH: Shameless plug there, but they do. They’re awesome. [00:07:41] CJ: I’ve got like two Live Happy hoodies. They’re my favorite. Then week five, so that’s the actual week of Halloween, so we’re kind of going big that week. We’re going to have two Halloween happy acts. The first one is to bake a healthy treat for your class or office. I’m kind of thinking of baking like some pumpkin muffins, or some zucchini bread for our office.   [00:08:02] DH: Let me know what day. I’ll make sure I’m there. [00:08:02] PF: I can fly in. [00:08:07] CJ: I’ll make sure you guys are in the office. Paula, I’ll send you some zucchini bread or pumpkin muffins.   [00:08:11] PF: All right. Okay. That’s a good deal.   [00:08:14] CJ: Then on Halloween, we encourage people to create a Halloween card for your neighbor. So like maybe like –   [00:08:21] PF: I like that.   [00:08:22] CJ: – picture of a Halloween pan or just something, spread the love. [00:08:25] PF: Yeah, I like that a lot. Because especially making a card, or doing something, or even painting a pumpkin, and giving it to them, giving it to a neighbor. I think that’s so important right now, because I feel like we’re still a little bit disconnected from each other. We talked about getting back to normal, but it still feels disconnected in so many ways. I think these are great ways. Go ahead. [00:08:46] DH: No, you know, you’re talking about that getting back to normal. But if you think back, before what we’re all talking about how we didn’t know our neighbors, maybe we are back to normal, and we just realized that we didn’t know them anyway. I bring that up, because it’s not just getting back to normal, it is a proactive activity or asking somebody to do. It’s not just being in your comfort zone, it’s reaching out just a little bit to somebody that you wouldn’t ordinarily be having contact with, and helping them have a happier day or a happier Halloween. I love the idea of the reverse trick or treating with UNICEF. These are all things that are super easy to do. I love them. Thank you, Casey.   [00:09:25] CJ: Of course. [00:09:26] PF: Yeah, they’re fun. Then, how are we going to turn this into a challenge? [00:09:31] CJ: So, it’s kind of like our gratitude challenge if any of our listeners remember when we did that a few years ago. Say week one, you donate blood, post a picture, video, whatever on your story, tag us and also, tag a friend and encourage them to keep the momentum going. [00:09:49] PF: I like that a lot. Because really, that’s the way we’ve seen that with other challenges, where that’s really what makes it take off. People were like, “Hey, I just didn’t think about doing that.” I think that’s what’s so wonderful about the happy acts. It’s not that we don’t want to do them, we just didn’t think about it until someone says, “Hey, this is a great idea” and then they start – next thing you know, you’ve got a movement. [00:10:09] CJ: Exactly, or a new Halloween tradition. [00:10:11] DH: Yeah. Well, and the guinea holidays are something I’d never heard of before. I’m glad that you brought that up, but you’re right. I think that’s especially true of kids. They really look forward to Halloween, and they look forward to Christmas, based on the gimme, right? And you can even throw Valentine’s Day in there. I think it’s important to involve your kids in something like this. I mean, certainly, if I painted a pumpkin, it might look like my 10-year-old did it. But I could actually –   [00:10:35] CJ: No one has to know that.   [00:10:37] DH: I could actually –actually, in this particular case, but my next to her, she’s quite artistic. You’d probably think I painted hers and vice versa. But I mean, involve your children, and teach them as well. But giving back to others, or doing things for others, or taking the time to do something to make the world a happier place is worthwhile and not just a march. [00:10:57] PF: Yeah. How does this kind of set us up for the holiday season? Because I do like the fact that so oftentimes, we kind of rush through October. Well, not this group, because we love October. But many people kind of rush through October so they can get to the start of the holiday season, which starts now apparently. the day after Halloween. But how can we kind of shift our thinking, because of the way we’re approaching October, and maybe even approach the holidays differently? [00:11:25] CJ: I just think a bit more of as – so Halloween, Christmas, it’s all about kind of like what we touched on earlier, it’s about getting, so it’s – this shifts your mindset into – okay, rather than getting, I’m going to give back. [00:11:40] DH: Well, we spend a lot of Thanksgiving. Thank giving, right? It’s the, you should be thankful this day, whether you are or not holiday. [00:11:51] PF: Sorry, if you’re having a bad year, find something to be thankful for. [00:11:54] DH: There is always something to be thankful for. We talked about that a lot. But you know, you go into Thanksgiving with the, “I’m going to be around some of my relatives, I don’t want to be thankful for them.” But others I’m wonderfully thankful for. I just think that setting up the concept that life isn’t about getting something, and your happiness isn’t about getting something. Very rarely will a gift truly change your life. You can ask my kids what they got last year for Christmas, I guarantee you, they probably don’t remember. Every now and then, you’ll get that life changing, “You know, I got my first 10-speed bicycle on my 12th birthday kind of gifts.” But it’s not, it’s not usually about getting, but giving and creating positive relationships, and being a larger part of the community, and doing things that are within your control to make the world a happier place, and frankly give you greater positive well-being is something kicking out off in October is great. Because as we all know, and we all read every year, the holidays are some of the most times a year when people are most depressed. I think starting that in October, and leading into it and remembering to be thankful for Thanksgiving, and for the month of November, and right into the holidays. You might see some marketing from Live Happy during that timeframe about being thankful and giving.   [00:13:09] PF: It’s possible.   [00:13:11] DH: Because it’s thanks giving. It’s not thanks taking, right?   [00:13:17] PF: I like that.   [00:13:16] DH: I should do some stuff on that. But I think it sets us up in the right mindset and the right frame of mind for the rest of the year, where we’re doing something positive every month. We don’t have to wait all year for that. [00:13:28] PF: Oh, there we go. We can start doing happy acts every month. [00:13:30] DH: Well, you know, you can. In fact, I want you to do them every day. But as marketing campaigns go for those of us who’ve got degrees in marketing, it’s better if you coalesce everything around a particular time of year. But it doesn’t mean we don’t want people doing happy acts every day, it doesn’t mean we don’t do happy acts every day. It simply means that we just run a really large advertising campaign to get people involved in March. So now we’re doing the same in October, but it’s something you do every day. I think it’s a good reminder, particularly this time of year where the weather starts changing and people start feeling more isolated, to just get out in front of that and start a little bit early this year. [00:14:10] PF: I like that. Casey, how are they going to know about the campaign, and how are they going to know what to do, and how to keep up with what’s going on? [00:14:17] CJ: So we will be sharing each happy act on our social channels. So if you’re not following us, make sure to hit that follow button. We’ll also be sending out an email that highlights each of the happy acts and how you can participate and join in on the challenge. Excellent. [00:14:37] PF: What do both of you, each of you want to see out of this? What would make you just go, “Wow! I’m so glad we did it because –”? [00:14:43] DH: I’d love to see a lot of social engagement. I want to see a lot of people flagging Live Happy, and discovering the content that’s on there, and hash tagging, and liking us, and sharing what they’re doing. But you know, it really is about – I want to see people actively doing something. I want to see hundreds of pumpkin pictures, painted pumpkin pictures. Because the reality is, it doesn’t matter how many people you involve, how many people you touch, just knowing that some people are making a difference, and it’s making a difference in some people’s lives is really the most rewarding thing for me. Running into somebody and having them share some of their experience, which does happen is just a phenomenal, humbling experience for me. I think everybody who works at Live Happy know that while we’re talking into a computer screen, what we’re saying, or putting on a computer screen eventually has a positive impact in the world. So for me, I just want to see activity, I wanted people out there doing stuff.   [00:15:42] PF: I like it.   [00:15:43] DH: Tag us, tag me. By the way, I’m the only Deborah Heisz on Facebook or probably in the universe. You can find me; I promise on Facebook or Instagram. Tag me. I’d love to see it.   [00:15:58] PF: That’s cool. That’s cool. How about you, Casey? What do you really hope for this because you’ve kind of masterminded this campaign? [00:16:04] CJ: My hope, and Deb and I, we were kind of talking about this a few weeks ago. I just want to see people being assets to their community, whether it’s donating blood, painting a pumpkin, donating their candy to a food shelter, or like a senior living home, no happy act, big or small. It makes a huge difference. [00:16:25] PF: Yeah. What if people come up with their own happy acts. Can they call it a happy act? The #halloweenhappyacts? [00:16:32] CJ: Absolutely. Yes. So I mean, we’re only highlighting about five or six happy acts that we can do in October. But there are so many that people can go out and do their own. So like donating candy to a food shelter. I don’t think we have that on our list. Donating Halloween costumes. There are kids out there who can’t afford Halloween costumes. So donating materials or just old costumes, that makes a huge difference in kids’ lives. [00:16:57] PF: That’s great. I saw one thing where there’s a group, and they do this anyway, they paint rocks, and it’s like abandoned rocks, they call it. They paint them, and then they go around, and they put them in neighborhoods, and they have positive messages on them. I saw that they were doing that for Halloween. They’re painting a bunch of stones, like orange, and black, like pumpkins, and then putting a positive message on the back, and sharing them. I thought that would be cool. But again, I fear that I paint even not as well as Deb, so I shouldn’t be doing that. Well, thank you guys both so much for coming on and talking about this. I’m really excited to see this happen. I know it’ll get bigger each year and we’ll keep it going. But thanks again for making it happen and then come in and telling me about it. [00:17:41] DH: Well, thanks for being the hostess with the mostest, as usual. [00:17:46] PF: Thank you. [00:17:49] CJ: Thank you, Paula. Happy Halloween everyone. [00:17:51] PF: Oh yeah, Happy Halloween. [00:17:53] DH: Happy Halloween. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:17:57] PF: That was Live Happy’s own Deborah Heisz and Casey Johnson, talking about our all-new Halloween Happy Acts Campaign. If you’d like to learn more, you can follow Live Happy on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, or visit our website at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. While you’re on the website, why not pop into the Live Happy store and checkout are brand spanking new, Choose Happy tote bag. This cool and useful bag is great for work and play. Oh, what the heck, it can even double as a trick or treat bag. Check it out in the new merch section at store.livehappy.com 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: Discovering Your Fall Yoga Practice With Kassandra Reinhardt  [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 384 of Live Happy Now. Now that we've officially entered fall, it's a great time to turn inward. I'm your host, Paula Felps, and this week I'm talking with author and yoga instructor Kassandra Reinhardt, whose Yoga with Kassandra YouTube channel has attracted more than 1.9 million subscribers and amassed more than 190 million views. Wow. That's because Kassandra is on a mission to help people connect with themselves through yoga in whatever way most appeals to them. With her new book, Year of Yoga: Rituals for Every Day and Every Season, she helps experienced and novice yogis alike move through the seasons, using affirmations and intentions that coincide with the time of the year. Let's hear more. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:50] PF: Kassandra, welcome to Live Happy Now. [00:00:53] KR: Thank you so much for having me. [00:00:55] PF: Well, it's Yoga Month, and you're such a great evangelist for yoga. So I want to hear a little bit about your backstory. Like, first of all, why are you so passionate about sharing it with others? [00:01:06] KR: Well, it's good question. I kind of just stumbled into it. I came from the world of dance. That's really what I did growing up. That was my big passion. I love doing ballet and all of that. When I was about, I think, around 18 or 19 years old, someone recommended to me, a friend recommended, maybe I should try a yoga class. I had never been to one before. Even though I was dancing a lot, I was actually not very flexible. That's always been something I've struggled with. So they thought, “Try yoga. Maybe you'll get more flexible.” I went and I thought it was okay, like I had a good time. It was nice, but I didn't fall in love with it or anything right away. But I guess there must have been something to it because I kept going to classes irregularly. After doing it for, I don't know, maybe three to six months into it, I found a style of yoga that I really liked, and I found a teacher I really resonated with. Then that's really when I started to really dive deep into the practice and fall in love with it and really recognize everything that it had to offer. Of course, at that time, I wasn't even thinking about being a yoga teacher. That would come quite further down the line. I really loved how it gave me a way to move my body. But it was also much deeper than that. It gave me a real sense of spiritual connection, a great way to connect to my mental health, emotional health. A few years later, I decided to get certified, and I really didn't hesitate. I was always eager to teach, always eager to get out there and spread the word. Yeah. Here I am many, many years. [00:02:50] PF: You’re spreading it on our grand scale. [00:02:53] KR: Yes, yes. [00:02:55] PF: There's so many different reasons that people get into yoga. Some people want to be more flexible, like you talk about. Some want to get in touch with their spirituality. Some just want a better butt. So how do you meet each person where they're at on their journey? Then, okay, two-part question, how do you meet them where they're at and then do those other components? Say you're going into it for one thing. Are those other components going to enter into that practice, even though you're not seeking them? [00:03:21] KR: Yeah. I mean, I think people will take what they need, and they'll leave the rest. As is the case with a lot of other healing modalities and even just forms of movement or anything that has to do with the wellness space, not everything is going to resonate with everyone. That's the same for me even. Although I'm a teacher of yoga, I am, first and foremost, a student of yoga. That means that I will connect with some teachings and with others not so much. I will resonate with some instructors and others not quite. So I just tried to teach in a way that is authentic to me, without trying to be someone that I'm not. I do try to meet them where they're at, in the sense that I'm not too heavily focused on one aspect more than the other. I really like to give people the opportunity to find things out for themselves. I think yoga is a really beautiful practice of deep inner connection and has great potential for personal transformation. [00:04:20] PF: Sometimes, it's just a case of after you've received one gift from yoga, and you then just keep opening that door a little bit wider and wider. [00:04:28] KR: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. [00:04:31] PF: So you incorporate breathing and meditation into your teaching, which is just phenomenal. How important have you found that to be as part of your yoga practice? Because we know not everyone does. How important is that to you? [00:04:45] KR: I found that it has varied throughout my life. Like there are certain phases and seasons of my life where I am relying primarily, I would say, on my meditation practice and physical poses. The asana kind of falls off to the side. Alternatively, there will be other seasons of my life where I need the physical movement more than I need the stillness of meditation. Breath work also enters the mix, where there are some times where it feels like it is all I can do and also all that I need. So I try to be very flexible and to meet myself where I am and to really honor what it is that I need at this time. There's a lot to be said about discipline and about simply committing to structure. But I find that if I get too narrowly focused on discipline, I end up just putting pressure and expectation on myself. It completely sucks the joy out of the practice, and it kind of negates the purpose of the practice. In practice, I’m try to connect with myself. I'm trying to feel good physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. So that means that some days, I need something that tomorrow I'll need something completely different. So it really, really varies for me. It really does. But I mean, the great thing about breath work is like it's impossible to do anything without breathing so – [00:06:13] PF: I think that’s true. [00:06:14] KR: Hard to avoid. Whether you like it or not, you will have to be mindful of the way that you breathe when you are moving on your yoga mat. There's really no way to avoid it. It is the pathway to being present in the now and to really tuning in with how you're feeling. So thankfully, that one is pretty constant. [00:06:34] PF: You've got the basics down. You just know how – [00:06:36] KR: Right. [00:06:37] PF: You've been doing this. So you also have created this incredible library on YouTube, and you have so many resources for people. They can start really anywhere they want to start. How do you recommend that they go about finding something that's going to work for them? [00:06:55] KR: Yoga is tricky, especially in this day and age, because it can mean so many different things. This is also one of the great gifts of yoga is that there are so many styles of yoga and so many teachers who are presenting the practice with their own personality, their own perspective and lived experience. So this can actually make it a little bit hard for people because maybe you went to a local studio, you tried a yoga class, and you didn't like it. You might, “Well, yoga just isn't for me.” But actually, it might just be that that teacher is not for you or that particular style of yoga is not the right fit for what you need at this time. We are lucky that we have a lot of free resources online with sites like YouTube where I primarily teach. So for people who are interested in the practice but maybe find it a little bit daunting or maybe they've tried it before and for some reason or another it just didn't really click, I think you can use the Internet to your advantage by trying a variety of classes online and maybe just try a 20-minute yoga class. You don't need to commit to these huge 90-minute practices starting out. You really need to try it out. I mean, even for me, like I said, when I started by practicing, I didn't fall in love with it. It took me a good six months of experimenting with different styles and different teachers before I really found the connection that has now guided me 14 years later. So if people can be just a little bit patient and really tap into their curiosity, they might be pleasantly surprised with what they find. [00:08:42] PF: Yeah. One thing that we've been talking about a lot on the show lately is how stressed and anxious people are feeling right now because anxiety is such high level. So let's talk about how yoga can be used to help with emotional healing, how it can help people who are feeling stressed. [00:09:00] KR: Yeah, for sure. So I primarily practice and teach two different styles of yoga. One is called Vinyasa yoga, and the other is called Yin yoga. Vinyasa is a little bit more dynamic in its essence. So physically, you're going to be moving in and out of poses, flowing them with your breath. It's a more activating style of yoga, a beautiful, beautiful practice, can be a little bit more energizing in nature. Then I also practice and teach the style called Yin Yoga. As someone who has spent a long time suffering from anxiety or living with anxiety, as well as insomnia, Yin yoga was really that pivotal point in my life that really things started to click, and this is where yoga became more than just a physical practice for me, and it really shifted things. So Yin yoga is a passive style of yoga where we hold poses for an extended period of time. So you are primarily either sitting or lying down. You're not using any strength or any effort, and you're holding poses for three to five minutes. So it's wonderful for your joints, for your ligaments, connective tissues. Great for flexibility. But more than anything, there is a great challenge that comes with just doing the same thing for three to five minutes. [00:10:24] PF: Oh, my gosh. Yeah. [00:10:26] KR: It's tough. Like it is tough. People think, “Oh, I'm just going to be laying down. I'm just going to be sitting, easy-peasy.” No. I mean, maybe for some it will be. But for me, it was an extremely triggering and confronting style. But it is exactly what I needed. I found that as an anxious person, I always felt like, “Oh, I'll feel better if I go for a run, if I do a really big workout, if I tire myself out with like this power yoga class or Vinyasa yoga class.” But really, all I was doing was exhausting myself. I wasn't actually processing anything because it was a lot easier for me to stay distracted by just kind of flinging my body back and forth to one another, whereas with Yin yoga, there's nowhere to go but in. As you're in a yoga pose for an extended period of time, you're slowly releasing physical tension from your body, and this makes it a lot easier to access emotional and mental tension that you might have been holding on to. So it's not uncommon for people who practice in yoga to have some kind of emotional release, and this can be feelings of anger. This can be feelings of sadness. They might burst into laughter. It's very common if it happens. You're totally fine. It's very normal, and it's normal if you don't experience any of that. But for me, when it came to stress and anxiety, Yin practices where I had no choice but to slow down and to really face myself in a really profound and deep way, that's where I found the most amount of healing. [00:12:09] PF: Sometimes, you might not know what it is that's coming out. It's just an emotion. [00:12:14] KR: That's right. Yeah, that's right. [00:12:16] PF: Because I remember I had an instructor once who talked about when she was taking her training, and they would teach that the camel pose is a very vulnerable position, and people often get emotional during that. She was like, “I've never had that experience.” So she was actually teaching a class one time and has no idea what came over her but just burst into tears and – [00:12:36] KR: That's exactly right. Yeah. [00:12:37] PF: Yeah. So it's like, yeah, people do need to know that you might not even know what it's about. You're healing something. [00:12:46] KR: That insight might come to you later on maybe as you're leaving the studio, maybe a few days, a few weeks, a few years later. You'll start to piece things together. But sometimes, it's really just there's something stuck and something about the way that you were giving yourself permission to slow down, to feel, to tune in, to check in, allowed for this emotional release to happen. So there can be a little bit of pressure, I think, also around emotional releases. I've heard students who say, “Well, I've never experienced anything like that. Is something wrong with me?” You’re not. If you've never cried in a yoga class, like don't worry. That's totally fine. You don't have to have some big experience for your experience to be valid. I just like to talk about it because I think it can take people – It can catch them off guard if it happens, if you're finding yourself just struggling, and you don't know what the heck is going on. It happens. Because of language, we separate things a lot. I have my physical health. I have my mental health. I have my emotional health. We have these labels that keep them separated. But really, it's all like this one big soup of who you are. [00:13:56] PF: Exactly. Yeah. The wonder of this journey is you just keep unwinding and unpeeling the onion, getting to that next layer. With yoga, you can just keep going deeper. [00:14:07] KR: Absolutely. It's never done. You're never ever done. I will always be a student of yoga before I am a teacher. [00:14:13] PF: Let's talk about how people can learn to incorporate yoga into their daily lives. Because as you said, it doesn't have to be this 90-minute experience. How do we make time for it, and how do we work it in? [00:14:25] KR: Yeah, absolutely. Listen. For some people, if the really long sessions are you know what gets you motivated and help you stay consistent, that's absolutely wonderful. If you're someone who maybe has a hard time committing to something, I prefer a bite-sized approached. Again, I enjoy discipline. I have to have a very careful relationship with it because if I'm too rigid, then I put pressure and expectation on myself. Then it leaves room for shame, judgment, and guilt to enter, and I don't want that. You want your yoga practice to be something that is meaningful to you, and that can, hopefully, bring you a sense of peace and introspection and healing. So I am a big fan of recommending to people, use the Internet. The Internet is your friend right now. You can start with just a 10-minute morning yoga class and see how you feel. There's something really beautiful about taking just a little bit of time to yourself in the morning to not only check in physically with how your body's feeling and what you think you're going to need to be comfortable throughout your day and to be energized. But beyond that, there's something really powerful with actually taking a few minutes to ask yourself, “What do I want out of this day? What is important to me? What is my intention today?” So a lot of people know me for my 10-minute morning yoga classes, and I think that's wonderful. The one thing that I stress the most in those classes is that we set an intention for the day ahead, just by choosing one word. We really don't need to reinvent the wheel or to complicate our lives more than they already are. It's very simple. You can move and breathe and be very mindful for 10 minutes. By the end of that time, that we've flowed together, really taking a second to ask yourself, “What is my one-word intention for the day? How do I want to feel?” Especially if you're someone who spends a lot of your day caring for others, having a high output, really tending outwards, it's nice if you can at least have a little bit of moment to just have a little bit of time to just remember that you are your own person and like you are the one who has to live through this life. Like what is it that you want to do? It’s so simple. 10 minutes a day, every day, you'd be surprised how much you can actually do and how big of an impact it can actually have on your life. [00:17:01] PF: I wanted to ask you about the setting intention because what kind of a difference does it make when you go into a practice setting an intention and go through your day then that way, versus when you just do your 10 minutes, 15 minutes of yoga? [00:17:16] KR: Oh, man. I can remember when I was teaching at a studio class. Studio classes, for the most part, they're usually like 60 minutes. So I'd be teaching this group of people for an hour long. By the time we're in shavasana, we're doing our closing meditation, everyone looks so connected and so at peace. Then I'd see them rush off. [00:17:41] PF: Yeah. Okay, that’s – [00:17:42] KR: In the locker room. It would take 10 seconds for the mood to shift and for them to already be back. They're in traffic. They're honking their car. You know, honking their car. It’s like, “What have we been practicing for? Like how can we take this beautiful work that we've done on a yoga mat? How can we take it out into the world?” That’s a big conversation. That's a big topic. That's big in scope. So I was like, an intention is one way that we can actually begin that process of like, okay, all this work that you've done on your yoga mat, like don't leave it when you close the door and get impatient at the checkout line. So I was like, just choose an intention. For me, that was the simplest way to get people to say like, “Listen, it's not over. I want your goal to continue throughout the day. This is not a yoga practice. This is not something that is confined to the four corners of your mat. It shows the way that you show up in the world. How do you treat others? How do you treat yourself? How do you stay mindful and present, even when things are totally chaotic and out of your control?” So that was always – I would kind of just want to bang my head against the wall. I was like, “No, you were so calm 10 minutes ago. What happened?” [00:19:04] PF: That’s so true. Yeah, yeah. That's very true. You have a book, Year of Yoga, and this is so great for people who want to implement yoga into a daily practice. Can you tell us what that book is about and what we can gain from it? [00:19:19] KR: Yeah, absolutely. So the book is called Year of Yoga, and we've separated it into the four seasons. So it's meant to be a book that you can carry through with you throughout the year, throughout the many years of your life as a way to help you connect and align your practice and yourself with the natural rhythms, with nature's rhythms. This is a way that I like to practice, in the same way that I like to do a more energizing practice in the morning and something more restorative at night, the same way that I like to have something more energizing around the full moon and whereas the time of the New Moon is a time of slow and introspection. The same kind of applies with the seasons for me. I find a lot of healing and a lot of connection by doing it in this way. It’s also like this really beautiful permission slip that reminds us that not every day, every week, every month, every year is meant to be this crazy, abundant, energetic, productive output time. We need these periods of rest, these periods of stillness in order to fill our cups and really show up and begin the cycle again. So Year of Yoga for me was a way to like give people that permission slip to be like, “It's okay if you're doing things a little slower, if you're moving a little slower, and it's okay if you want to make the most of this vibrant energy that you have.” So we separated it into the four seasons. Within the book, there are like five yoga sequences per season, as well as a meditation. There are some affirmations and a whole bunch of other goodies that can really help support you into really figuring out how best you can align your yoga practice with the natural rhythms around us. [00:21:17] PF: That's excellent. Now, as we move into fall, what sequences and what affirmations should we be focusing on? [00:21:24] KR: So fall symbolically and thematically is associated with letting go. So if you think about it, fall is the time where the trees are shedding their leaves. They're letting go of what no longer serves them in order to prepare for a period of deep rest so that they may begin and renew once more in the spring and bloom in the summer. So fall, we're really dealing with asking ourselves, what is actually important to me and what is just weighing me down? What is time for me to drop, to let go of so that I can focus on the essence and really refine? A lot of us, I think, do maybe set New Year's intentions or New Year's goals. Or we'll really like craft and dream up of what it is that we want around the time of New Year's. I always find that around September or October. It’s kind of go time. I'm really like, “Okay, where am I at? What is actually important to me, and what's just fluff? What is just excess?” So in terms of like practices, I tend to do a lot of hip openers because, again, I'm focusing on releasing tension from my body, releasing what no longer serves me, and trying to cultivate a little bit of a sense of balance. I mean, I love affirmations. I've always been a deep lover of affirmations. I was such a big fan of Louise Hay. She passed not long ago, but I've always admired her. So if I'm just thinking now like affirmations that I would use for fall, it might be I am good enough exactly as I am. Or I easily handle whatever comes my way. I release all worries. Tomorrow is a new day. Or I release all physical, emotional, and mental tension. That could be a really great one. [00:23:27] PF: That is excellent. People have so much going on right now, and just having that kind of guidance to take us into the fall is such a great perspective. I really appreciate you sitting down with us today. We're going to tell the listeners how they can find you, learn more about you, find your Year of Yoga book. But as we let you go, what is the one thing that you really hope everyone takes away from listening to you today? [00:23:50] KR: That yoga does not have to be complicated or overly strenuous to be effective. [00:23:58] PF: Very good. Kassandra, thank you again for sharing your time and your wisdom with us today. [00:24:03] KR: Thank you so much for having me. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:24:09] PF: That was author and yoga instructor, Kassandra Reinhardt, talking about how we can use yoga as we move into the fall season. If you'd like to learn more about Kassandra, follow her on YouTube or discover her books, visit our website at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. Right now, in the Live Happy Store, we are promoting happy reading. I'd like to invite you to visit us at store.livehappy.com and check out our popular book, Live Happy: Ten Practices for Choosing Joy. It is a great way to learn about some of our favorite practices and make them your own. 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: Sound It Out With Dr. Regina Miranda  [INTRODUCTION] [00:00:05] PF: What’s up, everybody? This is Paula Felps, and you are listening to On a Positive Note, where I sit down with a songwriter, recording artist, or a music insider to learn how music can lift our spirits and heal our hearts. Today, we're talking with Dr. Regina Miranda about the Sound It Out campaign, which uses the power of music to help parents and caregivers support emotional wellness in young people. This remarkable program uses songs and lyrics to help kids open up about their feelings, as well as giving them tools for handling difficult emotions. Regina, a professor of psychology at Hunter College, is one of the advisors for the program, and she's here to tell us more. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:43] PF: Well, Regina, thank you for being our guest on On a Positive Note. [00:00:47] RM: Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here. [00:00:49] PF: You are part of something that is so fascinating. When I found out about this campaign, I immediately had to dig in and learn more. Sound It Out campaign uses music as that entry point for talking about emotions. Can you tell us how that program works? [00:01:06] RM: Yeah. So we know that mental health problems have been increasing in the US and including among children. Some kids and families tend to have less access, particularly youth of color, to mental health treatment or mental health care, health care in general. So Sound It Out is a program that uses music to help parents and caregivers have conversations with their kids about mental health and emotional wellbeing, with a specific focus on middle schoolers and youth of color. But really, it's meant to be broader for all middle schoolers. But it targets the audience of middle schoolers. [00:01:43] PF: How did this program come about, how it was developed? Then can you tell us how you became involved in it? [00:01:49] RM: So it's a partnership between the Ad Council and Pivotal Ventures. The way that I became involved, actually, I was referred by a colleague, Dr. Alfiee Breland-Noble of The AAKOMA Project. So she got me hooked up with the Ad Council for the campaign, and it was an amazing opportunity. [00:02:06] PF: Can you build out for us what all this campaign entails? Because there is so much to it. It has so many offerings. I was just blown away as I delved into it. Can you really explain how it's set up and what all it offers? [00:02:19] RM: So we know that learning to navigate our emotions is a fundamental part of being human. But it can be hard to have conversations and to really check in with our kids and know when to check in with our kids and how. So the idea behind Sound It Out is to use music, which is the universal form of expression. We know that even when people who speak lots of different languages, when we can't communicate verbally, we can certainly have similar experiences when we listen to the same music and to the same songs. We also know that kids listen to music, and music is a part of their lives, is a part of their experience. So the idea is to help caregivers have conversations with their kids by using music because it can be hard to know how to approach the topic. It can seem like a big deal to start talking about emotions and mental health. So sometimes, by starting small, with something that you can both relate to, that can open up bigger conversations about emotions and mental health. The campaign features songs by four artists and lyrics with notes to the lyrics that the artists wrote. So kids and parents can go to the website, listen to the music, talk about the lyrics. It also features guides for parents to start conversations with their kids, games that they can play with their kids. So there's music that they can listen to without lyrics and write their own lyrics, for example. Also, resources, if parents need additional crisis or mental health-related resources, they can find that information on the website. More recently, Sound It Out launched a Conversation Starter Pack, which is a game that parents or caregivers and their kids can play together. It provides prompts and guides to talk about things like anxiety, stress, emotions, family support, racism, social media. So things that are relevant to the kids targeted by the campaign. [00:04:15] PF: That Conversation Starter Pack, that will sometimes have them reference a song or a lyric that explains how they're feeling. Can you kind of tell us what that's all about? [00:04:24] RM: So you can ask kids things like what's a song that expresses how you were feeling today? What's a song that makes you feel better after you have a hard day? Or what music are you listening to now? Why do you like that song? So this is just a way to get the conversation started, to find small moments with our kids and use that to open up bigger conversations. [00:04:48] PF: How does that work? How can parents who are listening to this, how do you use music to really help children identify and to explain their emotions? Because, obviously, middle school, that's a crazy time, and you've got things going on. You don't understand. I mean, as adults, we don't understand our emotions all the time, either. So how does music become this tool for helping them name and clarify their emotions? [00:05:13] RM: Well, sometimes it can be hard to describe how we're feeling. Sometimes, when we – I think many of us have had that experience that we were feeling a certain way, and then we listen to a song, and someone's describing exactly how we're feeling in the moment. So it's interesting how the experiences that we have come to be associated with music, and music is such a part of our – It’s either in the foreground of our lives, or it's like the soundtrack to our lives. That's what makes music so powerful as a form of expression and a way of relating to each other to talk to our kids about, “Okay, what is it that you like about that song?” For my daughter, for example, she doesn't like the popular Taylor Swift song. She likes the more folksy, the slower ones. So expressing curiosity, what is it about that song that you like? [00:06:04] PF: I think that's what's – Because songs are such an emotional touchstone. When we overlook that, we're overlooking this huge opportunity for ourselves and, really, for all our relationships of learning more about that person, and what is it that appeals to you about it, and how does that express what you're feeling. But especially, as you've discovered with Sound It Out campaign and the work that you're doing, it is so powerful. What do you see happen when children and adults start connecting with that music and using it as a tool, not just as background music? [00:06:38] RM: It’s really about starting the conversation. It may not be music. It may be something else that they can relate to. So it could be a show on television. It’s just about starting that conversation. [00:06:52] PF: What about adults who are non-parents? Like how do you reach a child? So let's just say not all children have terrific parents, and not all children are receiving the love and the attention that they need and deserve. So what if you're an adult who has a child like that in your circle? How do you then use some of these same talking points and use some of the music to be able to help them because there's a little bit of a different area that you're treading into? [00:07:20] RM: Well, it's geared towards caregivers. So not only caregivers who are parents, but it can be an adult in the person's life. Even as a parent, it may not be the goal that your child speaks to you about what's going on. Maybe there's another adult in their life that they feel more comfortable talking to. But it's about modeling and normalizing talking about our emotions. Even if it's a niece or a nephew or a friend, I think that one could use similar strategies. It's really about being in the moment together and starting the conversation, finding an opening, and starting small. Then as you build that relationship, build to the bigger things. [00:08:01] PF: I think you're giving adults such great tools for using this to meet children where they are. [00:08:09] RM: Sometimes, I wonder if the tools – I think the tools are just as helpful for parents to learn about themselves, and it is to learn about what's happening with their kids and for kids to learn about themselves. The more we learn about ourselves and process our own feelings as parents, I think the more we can model that for our kids and then help them process what they're going through and really normalize that what we're going through, especially now. So it's an interesting time that we're in because the pandemic is a collective stressor, and there's a lot going on that's tough for kids. It can be tough for kids to process. But at the same time, it's made us more attentive to the importance of mental health. So it's really a time when it's become more acceptable to talk about how we're feeling and when we're not doing so well. [00:08:54] PF: Yeah. That’s one reason this campaign is so effective and so perfect for right now. Because to be able to seize the moment of when everybody is going through something, whether it's anxiety, depression, just outright fear that they've got going on. To your point earlier, I think adults will benefit from it too because even if you're listening to your child, you're looking at this – You’re going to answer it like, “Okay, this is what comes to mind for me, and this is what I think, and this is how I feel.” I think it's a terrific tool for everyone to be able to use at any age. You mentioned about facilitating the conversation between a music star and teens. Tell us how that whole process worked. [00:09:36] RM: So these were musical artists and teens who had never met. There was a national search for these teens. I'm not sure exactly how the search happened, but these teams were selected, and I met with them first. I've met with them and their mothers first, and then I also met with the artists, and then we had conversation together. These conversations happened in English and Spanish. Then the artists turn those into original songs, and the songs are on the website as part of the campaign. [00:10:08] PF: Then with the game aspect of it, where you have music without any lyrics, and parents and children can work on that together, how does that work? Because if you have parents who are like, “I don't know how to do this. I'm not sure. I'm not a writer. I'm not a songwriter,” tell us how they can actually use that. [00:10:27] RM: So it can be awkward. Sometimes, when you're trying new things that you're not used to trying, it can feel kind of artificial or like you're faking your way through it. But I would encourage people to work through the awkwardness. If you think about it, trying a new thing that you've never done, like trying to write a song, it's kind of like trying to talk about emotions that you're not used to talking about. It's really trial and error. At first, it'll just feel weird doing it. But I think as you get comfortable, something always comes out of it. Whatever it is that comes out of it, at least it'll be a conversation starter, and it may be that like, “Ah, I'm not really – Nothing really comes to mind.” But it's really about the experience of doing an activity together. [00:11:09] PF: Yeah, that's wonderful. Then what does the Ad Council hoped that the overall outcome of this campaign is? [00:11:17] RM: So decreasing the stigma about talking about our emotions and mental health, and really normalizing talking about mental health and our emotions, and also encouraging people to seek help if they need it. Learning more about what some of the warning signs are when kids may need additional help and then encouraging help seeking by parents. [00:11:36] PF: You give a lot of resources on the site. So I think that's what's so wonderful about it, too, is you open this door and give them all these different entry points through music and then also lead them into here's where you can get help. Here's where you can go for more information. [00:11:52] RM: Yes, exactly. [00:11:53] PF: I think it's so well done. All this month at Live Happy Now, we've been talking about going back to school and the hectic pace that it's added to us and the additional emotional stress. So based on your experiences, how can we use music to kind of help us get through this really crazy time, as we settle into our new routine and going back to school? [00:12:15] RM: It's okay to be nervous and maybe excited at the same time. So talking about what are some things that you're looking forward to about the start of the year? What are some things that are kind of scary about the start of the year that you're not looking forward to? Is there a song that you've been listening to that reminds you of what it's like to start school or what it's like when you don't know what to expect? Or is there a song that helps you feel comforted when you are anxious or when you're afraid? What is it about the song that you like? [00:12:47] PF: That's excellent. Well, thank you so much for coming on and talking about this. Again, this program is just fantastic. I was really excited when I learned about it. Really excited to sit down and talk with you. Thank you for all the work that you're doing to help make this happen. [00:13:02] RM: Thank you. I'm happy that I had a chance to come on, and I appreciate your time. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:13:09] PF: That was Dr. Regina Miranda, talking about the Sound It Out Campaign and how music can support emotional wellness. If you'd like to learn more about the campaign or download a free Conversation Starter Pack, just visit livehappy.com and click on the On a Positive Note podcast link. If you'd like to work on some song lyrics of your own, why not do that in Live Happy’s On a Positive Note journal? This 250-page notebook offers inspiring quotes and tips, along with plenty of room for you to add your own thoughts. You can find it on sale now at store.livehappy.com. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of On a Positive Note and look forward to joining you again next time. 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: Learn How to Ditch the Devices With Florence Ann Romano  [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 380 of Live Happy Now. As we go back to school, it means kids are spending even more time on their screens. So, what's a parent to do? I'm your host, Paula Felps. And this week, I'm talking with childcare advocate and author, Florence Ann Romano, about the importance of balancing time on devices. Florence Ann is a big fan of ditching the devices and discovering off-screen play. And she's here today to talk about how parents can get a handle on their children's screen time, and maybe improve their own screen habits in the process. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:39] PF: Florence Anne, welcome to Live Happy Now. [00:00:42] FAR: Thank you for having me. [00:00:44] PF: We are headed back to school. And this makes it the perfect time to sit down and talk with you. Because as we head back, it makes managing our children’s screen time even more challenging than maybe during the summer. So, I guess to start, do you have any different guidelines for different age groups about like how much is too much time? [00:01:05] FAR: It’s really going to depend on the circumstances of the family. You don't have to follow these parameters necessarily and be like, “Okay, if you know they're three-years-old, it's only going to be 30 minutes a day.” I think it depends on what you need to use the technology for. And I've never been someone who is a stickler for rules consistently necessarily. I know that may sound funny. But what I mean by that is you have to be flexible. Depending on the day, depending on what's going on with the kids, you may need a little more screen time than less. And that's okay. I think people get caught up in this idea that it's balance, balance, balance. And every day is not going to be balanced the way you may define it. Certain days may be more balanced than others. And I think giving ourselves a lot of grace with that is important. Because if you don't, then you're really setting yourself up for failure. So, seeing what the needs of the day are, I think that's the first way to try and vet it. [00:02:11] PF: Oh, that's a great approach. I was talking to someone yesterday, and we were talking about Gen Z. And he was bringing up the point like when he was growing up, if he wanted to research a paper, he went to the library. If he wanted to talk to a friend, he used to telephone. If he wanted to take a picture, he used a camera. And he's like, “Now, that is all in one device for these children.” So, when people complain about too much screentime, he's like, “They're doing some of the same things we did. They're just doing it all on one device.” [00:02:39] FAR: Mm-hmm. And isn't that amazing, right? In terms of – [00:02:41] FAR: Oh, yeah. Yeah. [00:02:43] FAR: I know. It feels like there's so much. There's so much that we're technology-wise being inundated with in our face. And it's a lot to sort through. But the idea of having technology is not necessarily a bad thing. It can be educational. It can be very useful. And I think that knowing that we can use it in ways that can be beneficial, that's also a good way to approach it. Because if you're only looking at it as entertainment and not educational, then you can be really hard on yourself about allowing technology. It's just the idea that you're using it as needed. And you're using it in ways that are going to, again, be beneficial to kind of the rhythm of the day. And if you're just sticking your kids in front of the TV or their iPads all day long, then yeah, I would say there's a problem with that. But that's not what we're talking about here. We're just talking about the idea that there needs to be regulation, and then also finding the space for where it can be educational and entertaining. [00:03:53] PF: Right. And how do you get a handle on screen time when it is? It's not might be anymore. It is required for school. We had a situation in our family where a certain niece was allegedly doing her homework, and it sounded a lot like video games. And turned out that’s what we were doing. And so, how do parents work with that situation? Because, yes, you want to send your child. Go to your room. Do your homework. That's great. How do you make sure they're doing this? [00:04:23] FAR: Making sure that they have a routine I think is what it comes down to. You want to be able to give them consistency in that sort of way, because I think it helps them become more disciplined. It helps them become more responsible. It also helps them be able to deal with the day. And I think even as adults, we see this. When we're in a routine, when we're productive, when we're –We feel like we're operating at our best selves. And children feel the same way too. So, if there can be some structure where, “Okay, chores, and homework, and some screen time, and some reading time, those are things that they can depend on then.” And as long as they have the expectation, they're going to be set up for more success in that way because they get used to it. They know. They know what is expected of them. And so, you're teaching them a lot of responsible lessons there. [00:05:24] PF: That's a really great point, because you can look down the road and see how teaching them to balance these things is going to have effects on their careers and on their relationships down the road. [00:05:35] FAR: Exactly. And I think it's important for us to remember that we're raising our children because they're going to be adults. They're going to have to have professional relationships. They're going to have careers. They're going to have romantic relationships, all of these things. And so, we're setting them up for success as adults. And they need to learn about critical thinking, and all of those different things, when they're younger, because that's going to inform how they are as, hopefully, a very operational adults. [00:06:13] PF: That's a great approach. I love that. And one thing that you've talked about, too, are the implications of spending too much time on a screen. And so, I want to deal with in a few ways. And let's start with what it's doing to young brains, if they are just on devices, that they're constantly on a screen, how does it affect their brain development? [00:06:30] FAR: Well, you want people to think outside the box. Not just children, right? We all see these people that come up with all of these inventions and unbelievable breakthroughs, things like that. It's that’s because they're thinking outside the box. And you go back to what was childhood like for them? What did they learn? How did they play? How are they creative? And that to me is so interesting, because that I think is the real sweetness of it all, is this imaginative play part, where you are allowing the creative juices to flow. You are allowing a child to imagine, and create, and inspire. And the way they do that sometimes is through boredom. The way they do that is by having those tablets taken away from them. Playing with people. Socializing with other kids. Learning how to share. How to be empathetic. All of those different things. I think that leads to a lot of – Shapes the person in a really significant way as they grow up because they were allowed the chance to imagine. And I think we can't de-emphasize that in our lives today, where there's different ways to raise kids, right? Now, versus then, old school, new school. But I think one thing that is evergreen is that we do need to continue to be able to raise our children with the emphasis on figuring out how their brains work. What they know? What they're passionate about? And then giving them the chance to really express that. [00:08:11] PF: And are there any tips on play that you can give? So, when you take that screen away, after the screaming stops, what are some ways in play that you can engage them that will really start those brain synapses firing? [00:08:26] FAR: Well, you can do things that maybe don't necessarily feel like learning. Tricking kids into learning. Maybe you're going to bake. You're going to bake a cake, or cupcakes, or do something like that. You're going to be teaching math skills to them. They don't know it, but they are going to be doing that. And that's fun. It's helping their brains work. It's creative. It's tactile. It's really about kind of masking it sometimes for them. And also, the option. Giving them options. Making kids feel like they have a little more control than perhaps they think they do. So instead of just saying, “Give me that iPad, and you're doing this.” You could say, “Okay, how about we can either read a book? We can make a pizza? Or we can go swing on the swing set?” Give them options for things that you want them to do that they're all healthy options, get them off their iPads. But make them feel like they're involved in the decision making. [00:09:25] PF: Oh, that's terrific. I love that. And one thing that you mentioned was empathy. And can we talk for a minute about what too much screentime does for emotional regulation? And how we can start offsetting some of that? [00:09:40] FAR: The idea of emotional regulation has always been interesting to me, because I think we see a lot of meltdowns happen because of overstimulation. And I grew up with a brother with autism. And Michael still has autism today. But him, as an adult even, we see him being overstimulated and he can be on his iPad a lot, non-technology a lot. And he plays this game called Angry Birds that, oh my gosh, he goes crazy when he loses. And sometimes we have to take that iPad away because it makes him too upset. And I see this even with neurotypical children. It's not going your way, or you’ve just been binging a show. Or you're on social media, and it's starting to make you feel bad about yourself because you're comparing everyone you see on social media. Sometimes you need that break. And I think we can all feel ourselves being overly stimulated by technology sometimes and seeing that sometimes it really is affecting us negatively. And it takes stepping back from it to sometimes realize that that's what's happening. I know for me, if I've been on the computer all day, or I've been on social media too much. And I can sometimes feel a little depleted. And I'll wonder where that feeling is coming from. And I'm like, “You know what? It's because I've been plugged in too much today. I need to go for a walk. I need to get outside. Or I need to call a girlfriend and have a chit chat,” or whatever it is. But it's about removing yourself from the situation. Changing it up and changing the environment. And you do feel better when you do it. [00:11:16] PF: 100%. I did that yesterday. I had four-hour-long Zoom calls during the day. And by like five o'clock, I'm like, “I'm going outside. I don't care what I do.” I'm not just – I will walk around in circles. It doesn't matter. [00:11:30] FAR: Exactly. Right. And that's important, though, for your brain, for your heart, for all of it. [00:11:35] PF: Yeah, and it's hard with kids. Because when they get into that mode, we know these apps and the games get really addictive. And they just hunker down, and they don't want to go outside. I think that's a big difference. We wanted to go outside. There were three channels, let's face it. I didn't want to stay in and watch it. That was a thing. Like, we wanted to go outside and play and do all these things. But when kids are resistant and reluctant to do that, how can we get them engaged and make it something that they do voluntarily that they start looking forward to? [00:12:05] FAR: Again, it's about giving them options. It's about allowing them the opportunity to do things that are going to give them some sort of sense of purpose, and entertainment, and joy. And again, giving suggestions, I think is also important too. Parents will say to me all the time, “I can't stand hearing from them that I'm bored.” I’m so tired of hearing that. And I also don't want to have to entertain my kids all the time. And that's very fair. You don't want to have to entertain your kids all the time. And you shouldn't have to. But, for example, there are these great sensory kits that you can buy, you can make, you can do. Montessori moms like them a lot. And you could set it up for them in the kitchen and bring them in and say, “Here you go. Now, figure out how it works. Create something. Here's a puzzle.” You can give them the tools, but then you can walk away and you can say, “I'm going to come back in 20 minutes. I want to see how you're doing. And show me your great work or whatever it is.” You don't have to sit there with them unnecessarily oversee it. Depending on the age, of course you don't give them anything that's a choking hazard or something like that. But you certainly can walk away and come back and check in and allow them that independence. [00:13:21] PF: Now, what kind of joy do they have when they start getting the sense of accomplishment offline and start finding these other tactile ways to experience life? [00:13:31] FAR: It seeing the confidence come from them, where you feel like they're able to figure out a little bit more who they are, and see that their personality is coming through and their interests are coming through. And acknowledging that with your children I think is important too. I would see some of my friends’ kids. They would be on stage at a recital or something like that. And they'd come off and give them flowers. And you'd say, “Oh my gosh! You were smiling so big. You looked like you were having so much fun.” And then that opens the conversation with them for them to elaborate on the fun that they were having. How it made them feel. And you'll always be excited to hear them say – Even if you say to them, “I'm so proud of you. That was so brave. That was so beautiful.” Whatever it was. And hearing them reflect back to you sometimes saying, “I'm proud of myself too.” That's the holy grail there. Allowing a child that moment of self-awareness. [00:14:34] PF: Oh, that’s beautiful. So, obviously, you're an expert at this. Do you see differences in children who are spending less time on screens and those who are always plugged in? [00:14:45] FAR: I see that the combination of those things. I always say, everything in moderation. I do find that children that are exposed to a little bit of everything, it makes for a much more fragrant popery in life. You want them to be able to have a lot of different life experiences so they can pick and choose the things in their life that are going to interest them and the ways that they can make a difference in the world. And so, yes, I think that by just limiting, and also compartmentalizing, and also exposing them to all sorts of different things culturally in society, environmentally, all of that, it just makes for a more well-rounded individual. And us as adults should constantly be challenging ourselves like that, too. We should always be learning and growing. And we should expect the same from adults that we do from children. [00:15:39] PF: And that's a great point that I wanted to talk about. Because as parents limit screen time for their children, they do kind of need to take stock of their own time being spent on screens. And you talk about how children or even our spouses feel when we are constantly on our devices. Can you talk about how our screen usage affects others? [00:16:02] FAR: I think it can significantly decrease our social skills. I think that – Look at what happened during COVID. I think we saw – When we were no longer a part of the village. When we weren't with people anymore. And all of a sudden, life started to open up again. And all of us were kind of like, “I kind of liked being in my yoga pants and watching my Netflix, and not having to go to that party.” And even me, who was a very social person, found myself struggling coming out of COVID having to be social again. Not that I didn't know how to talk to people. But I did find that maybe my skills were a little rusty. Making sure I was being an active listener. Making sure I was being present. And I think that I noticed those skills. Again, they didn't go anywhere. They're still there within me. It's just I didn't have a chance to practice it in a while. We saw that with children too, when they weren't in school. When they did finally go back to the classroom, it was harder to concentrate. Maybe an already shy child now was even more shy because they were able to isolate. They were able to kind of de socialize in some sort of way. So, I think you could see this in many different capacities. And COVID actually was a really good example of how when we do stop socializing, how it can impair you. [00:17:30] PF: For adults who are in the situation where now they're spending a lot of time on their devices, how can we kind of correct that and become more aware of how much time we as adults are spending on devices? [00:17:46] FAR: I think it's always difficult for us to preach to our children about getting off technology when we as adults have a really hard time doing that ourselves. Ad walking the walk and talking the talk. I've seen a lot of families be very successful, where they actually use a timer, where all of them have to put their devices away. And it's maybe during dinner time. Or maybe it's after everyone's done with homework, and they're going to have a little family time. And they're all maybe not even going to talk to each other. They're all going to do like a family reading session. Everyone picks up their book. They all gather around, get real snuggly, and read. Again, it's about understanding that it's not the quantity of the time. It is the quality of the time and also leading by example as adults. Showing them, “This is something I do myself.” Instead of, “When I have some downtime between meetings, or between Zooms, or whatever it is, I pick up my book instead of my phone, and I read maybe a couple chapters. Or I go outside. Or take a walk around the block.” It's showing our spouses, showing our partners, showing our significant others that you also are prioritizing them in that time. You have a half hour free. How about during that half hour, we take a walk around the block together? Or we're going to have lunch together real quick. Or whatever it is. Again, it doesn't have to be the quantity. Because it's very difficult in life to be given quantity of anything when we are all such busy people. But those small moments lead up to big results. [00:19:19] PF: Yeah, and sometimes we have those great intentions and we say, “That's what I'm going to do.” It's like, Florence Ann is right. I'm going to do that from now on.” And then you get the work text, or things like that happen. So, how do we maintain those boundaries? Because I know so many people who are like, “I've tried. Like, I tried to just set it aside.” But then you're concerned about your mother. You're concerned about work. You're concerned about all these things that you might be missing. So, how do we chill our minds out and except the boundaries that we need to set? [00:19:51] FAR: Boundaries are hard. Because people assume when you say the word boundaries, that all of a sudden it means that there's rejection or that they're wrong. Or that it’s a dirty word when you say that. People get like their shield up in some sort of way. Communicating, that's the first rule of any good relationship, friendship, romantic relationship. Asking for what you need instead of waiting for the person to fail, because you're expecting them to read your mind. And so, making your wants, needs, desires aware to the other person, that is going to help you tenfold. Because you're not going to just be sitting there waiting for someone to pick up on your mood, or pick up on your vibe, or again, wait for them to fail you in some way. Ask for what you need. Ask for what you want. But then also, be open minded, enough to hear what they also need. It can't be one sided. And that's every relationship that we have in this world, even with your children. It cannot be one sided as a parent. If you mess up, you need to be able to say I'm sorry to your child the same way you're going to say sorry to your spouse or your friend. [00:21:03] PF: I know that you have so much great advice. Your website is a wonderful resource. What would you say like the one thing everybody listening out there, if they can just remember one thing from all this? How do we make the school year and our work more about human connection than Internet connections? [00:21:18] FAR: Well, my favorite line is a quote from Maya Angelou, “People will forget what you did. People forget what you said. But people will never forget how you made them feel.” And that to me is life right there. And I think we need to teach our children that from a young age, that the way we make people feel is important. The way that we're kind. The way that we're compassionate. And the only way that we're really going to be able to do that is if we do unplug from those devices and we are aware of what's going on around us, and who maybe needs help, and how can we be helpful? And so, that's my last message, I suppose, as we go into this new school year that we as adults as well as children should be abiding by. [00:22:01] PF: I love it. Thank you so much for sitting down with me today. Like said, you've got a lot of wisdom to impart upon us. We're going to tell people where they can find you. But I appreciate you taking the time to talk with us today. [00:22:12] FAR: Thank you for having me. It was such a joy. [OUTRO]   [00:22:17] PF: That was Florence Ann Romano, talking about how to create a balance with screen time. If you'd like to learn more about Florence Ann, watch her Windy City Nanny YouTube series, listen to her podcast, Finger Painting the Future, or follow her on social media, visit our website at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. And if you haven't hit our back to school sale yet, make sure you get in on the special deals we're offering. Right now, you can get 20% off our back to school merch when you use the code Happy Learning at the Live Happy Store. Grab some of our bestselling mop top pens, our cheerful coffee mugs, or our fun buttons with positive messages, and get it all at 20% off. Just visit our store at livehappy.com and remember to use the code Happy Learning. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all new episode. And until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Embracing the Power of Nature with Laura Allen and Courtney Crim  [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 373 of Live Happy Now. It’s summertime, and if you're listening to this indoors, it's going to make you want to step outside. I'm your host, Paul Felps, and this week I'm talking with Laura Allen and Courtney Crim about the power of connecting with nature. Laura is a Professor, and Courtney is an Associate Professor at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. Together, they developed a course called The Natural Environment and Well-Being, and they're here today to talk about why it's so important to get outside every day and what nature is doing for your mind, body, and spirit. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:40] PF: Laura and Courtney, welcome to Live Happy Now. [00:00:43] CC: Hi, thanks for having us. [00:00:45] LA: Yes, thank you. Glad to be here. [00:00:47] PF: This is such an excellent topic, and it's something that I really wanted to address. We've talked about this before, a little bit about nature and the power of getting out in it. But it's rare for us to be able to talk to people who are such experts in nature and getting outside. So before we really jump into what that does for us, can you tell me what made you decide to start studying both the power and the benefits of the natural environment? [00:01:12] LA: Well, we both teach child development, and we've noticed over the years the changes in the levels of stress, anxiety, depression, suicide, all things that are concerning in our students. So the ages of emerging adulthood, which is a new stage that most people in Western cultures go through, it's defined as ages 18 through 25. We also know that is a key window for the onset of mental disorders such as anxiety and depression and psychosis and substance abuse. The combination of those things concerned us. Plus we, Courtney and I, both have children who are emerging adults, so we saw some parallels there. Then we connected with some research. We found a book, I think it was 2017-ish, called The Nature Fix by Florence Williams, and read that, and started looking into this. There's just become more and more studies. The studies, while a lot of them are correlational, they're a lot stronger correlations. Now, we're actually even getting some causal effects that we're finding. It’s sad that you need research sometimes to know. I think we know that going outside and being in nature is good for us. But having that solid research base really convinced us that this is something that can be effective, not just for college students but for everyone. [00:02:32] PF: Yeah. It really does start from the time you’re little kids and when you're used to going outside and playing and enjoying nature. It kind of feels to me like we're getting away from that. Like I don't see – I understand safety issues and things like that. But also, I seem to see more and more kids staying inside, sitting on a screen, doing things like that. Whereas when we were kids, we couldn't wait to get outside. Is that true? [00:02:57] CC: Yes. I think we're just seeing – Well, COVID certainly didn't – [00:03:01] PF: Didn't do us any favors there. [00:03:02] CC: Yeah. It didn’t help with that, as everybody became much more comfortable being on a screen a lot of the day and being indoors most of the day. But we are seeing a shift, and we are seeing as people I think 80% of the US lives in an urban setting. As the numbers of people who live in an urban setting grow, fewer people are spending that time outside, so yes. [00:03:26] PF: That's alarming to think about. That we're not going in the right direction. [00:03:30] CC: Yeah. We’re not. [00:03:32] PF: Oh, great. So now, we've talked on the show and in the magazine about the importance of getting outside. So what has your research found? What does nature do for us physically, emotionally, all the ways? [00:03:46] CC: We're standing on the shoulders of a lot of other researchers around the world who have been looking at this for decades. Japan is one of the leaders in this and since the early ‘90s have really been putting a lot of effort into looking at what the benefits are. I think we sent you our chart. So hopefully, your listeners can see that. But we broke it up when we were trying to look at it as different areas because it does so much in so many ways. But one of the areas that the research shows a lot of benefit in is physical, and that's with your immune support. In Tokyo, at the very early onset of looking at forest bathing and forest therapy, they did this wonderful study where they put people in hotel rooms, and one of the theories that underlines why nature is good for us is the phytoncides, and that's a chemical that trees produce to protect themselves and to communicate with one another. If one of them was getting sick or ill, or if there's a parasite, they will send these chemicals out to protect themselves, as well as trees around them. So they were pumping phytoncides into these hotel rooms and they thought, “Well, maybe it's just because they're in a hotel away from their family for the weekend.” They actually did it with a comparison study. They had a control group. So they had some in a regular hotel room for the weekend. Then they had some where they were hyping in these phytoncides through the air conditioning system, and they did find a very significant difference in these certain white blood cells that our body makes, and they're called natural killer cells. In the research, you'll see them as NK cells. These white blood cells move through our body and seek out, I guess, things within your body that are not supposed to be there, a disease, specifically cancer cells from the onset, and kind of move through your body as a deterrent, as something that's proactive rather than reactive of getting your body into a better physical space. Cognitively, we see so many things. One of the theories also is attention restoration theory increases your ability to focus on a task that you may need. So that's going to help your attention, your memory, all of those things. Also, rumination falls under cognitive. It falls under a couple of these, but rumination studies show that if you're thinking over and over in your head, these negative thoughts, that's really going to contribute to depression and anxiety, which is what we're wanting to decrease. The rumination studies that we're finding are actually one of the areas where we're finding a causal link. It's not just correlational, using high tech, which we're not doing. The portable MRIs, they're able to show that there is a causal link with decreasing the rumination, which is also going to help you cognitively be able to focus on what's in front of you and what's important. [00:06:49] PF: Now, do you know why? Do you have a reason for that? Like what is it about being out in nature that changes that rumination? Because I know that's been a huge issue for a lot of people, especially as we've been isolated and locked down and then listening to the news. [00:07:03] LA: So most of the research now is focusing on the mechanisms that is trying to understand what causes all these benefits, and it's probably a synergistic effect of lots of things going on. But the theory that Courtney mentioned, the attention restoration theory, does probably one of the best jobs of discussing why rumination is decreased. So basically, what that means is in the 21st century, our frontal lobe, which is where all of our executive function and decision making is housed, is pretty much on all the time. Then you can just feel it. You just feel that mental fatigue a lot. [00:07:35] PF: We do not shut down. [00:07:37] LA: Right. We just don’t. So the theory, it's more complicated. But basically, when you go outside, it allows that frontal lobe to rest and recharge, and it replenishes that glucose that we need because nature does a lot of different things. That's one of the main reasons that they feel like you're letting yourself recharge. So that decreases your rumination. You're thinking about other things. You're not constantly focusing on all of the task at hand. [00:08:07] CC: Then socially as another area that we see a lot of benefit, there's a really great empathy study that came out of Stanford, where they went out to a forest. The other half went out to an urban area, and they had the participants look up at the trees or look up at the tall buildings. Then the researcher kind of “accidentally,” and I'm putting the quotation marks around that, dropped their box of pens. It was like, “Oh, no. I dropped my pins.” Those that have been looking at the trees for one or two minutes all stopped and helped pick up the pens. Those that were in the urban setting were just kind of like, “Oh, too bad.” [00:08:46] PF: At least I didn't steal the pens. I mean – [00:08:48] CC: I didn't. I didn’t take off with them. But we do see increased empathy out – [00:08:52] PF: That's interesting. [00:08:53] CC: Yeah, which is prosocial actions, cooperation, all of that kind of going together. Then emotional, we see a lot of good outcomes, and this is where we see this in the research that's out in the field, as well as what Laura and I do with our students quite a bit. What I love about this is that we show them how their own body reacts, but we see a decrease in tension, in anxiety, depression, confusion, hostility, fatigue, which is another one we see increases in self-esteem-related effect. Then overall mood, we use as the profile of moods survey – [00:09:33] LA: States. [00:09:34] CC: States. [00:09:34] LA: Yeah. [00:09:35] CC: Profile states. [00:09:36] LA: Sorry. [00:09:37] CC: So it's used in a lot of the literature, and we use that, again, with our students and all of our outcomes for like correlate with what we're seeing around the world. But that emotional piece is something that we're focused highly on. [00:09:48] PF: Well, let me ask you something, and this could be too off the wall. But one thing, I have a lot of friends who have had COVID. Now, they're having like brain fog, and they're having some other like lasting fatigue. I realized it's too soon to have research on it. But anecdotally, is there anything that you have seen that would say, “Okay, this could be something worth trying to offset some of those,” because I'm hearing a lot of complaints from people. [00:10:16] LA: I don't think we've actually seen a study on that. So we would be hesitant to say yes. But given what we know about the benefits of nature, I certainly don't think it would hurt, as long as someone doesn't have asthma or allergies. It’s one of those Ozone Action Days or something like that. As long as you – I certainly don't think it would hurt, and I think it very much might help. If I had that myself, I would definitely spend even more time outside. [00:10:45] PF: If nothing else, it's going to help your mood, right? It’s going to do that little pick me up. [00:10:50] LA: Yes. [00:10:51] PF: That's terrific. Now, you ladies have been studying this a lot. Is there anything that's really surprised you that as you've done this research, that was really unexpected for you to discover? [00:11:03] CC: Our findings match the research literature on the effects of the natural environment on various aspects of health. We have found that we match pretty well. One thing that was interesting is we think we're finding. We're in the stages of analyzing some data right now, but it's looking as if the impacts kind of strengthen over time with this age group. At the beginning, they're kind of like, “Oh, you want me to go sit outside. I've got a biochem exam coming up, and you want me to sit without my phone.” Then a couple weeks later, we're seeing this, “Oh, we're so glad you're making me do this. This is really something I look forward to.” Then by the end of this semester, they were very much reporting that they needed this time. [00:11:43] PF: That was excellent. [00:11:44] CC: Yeah. It’s kind of interesting. It took them a little bit of time to see the benefits, and they aren't very egocentric. They're supposed to be. That's their job at this. But seeing how it personally helped their own mood with these measures was also very telling. I had written down some of their quotes on the sit spots that I'll share with you. One of them said, “Sit spots are hard at the beginning but because they're so cool and have truly helped me manage my stress and the demands of the human world.” Another said, “I learned the most from our sit spot assignment. I learned how to take time to check in with myself and improve my well-being. I was able to lower my stress levels, improve my mood, increase my productivity after I completed my sit spot.” So it was kind of interesting to see that it took them a while [00:12:27] LA: We didn't really describe our. We teach a class in this. We started out with our interdisciplinary research team that we teach it. We were able to offer a class, and our commitment is more than 50% of the class will be outside in natural spaces. So field trips out to natural spaces, while we read the research literature. We also give students – We have them collect data on themselves and compare it to the literature so that they can see if it's really – It’s great to say somebody else is getting these effects, but what's happening to you? That’s really powerful for them to realize that, yes, it's not just somebody else somewhere else, but it's actually I'm having the same benefits for myself. [BREAK] [00:13:15] PF: So we're going to take a quick break from our talk with Laura and Courtney, and I'm going to bring in Casey Johnson, our favorite. She's our ecommerce marketing manager and always does such a great job. Casey, welcome to the show. [00:13:28] CJ: Thanks for having me. [00:13:29] PF: Now, Casey, you discovered a great product called Organifi. You brought it to me. I was already a huge fan of juicing, so I got really excited about partnering with them. Then what happened is it showed up in my house the same week I caught that little virus thing that's going around. So the timing could not have been better. I started using the Organifi green, and that has like 11 super foods and all the benefits of the leafy green veggies without the chewing, which I did not want to do right then. Then so I had like all these benefits of juicing, and all I had to do was scoop it in my glass and just stir it up. I loved it because it was organic, and it had like chlorella, spirulina, beets, tumeric. It tasted really, really good. It was a great way to get my nutrition and when I didn't feel well. But now, I've found it's a great morning drink to start my day, and it’s making sure I get my vitamins and antioxidants in. Casey, why don't you tell our listeners how they can enjoy the benefits of Organifi? [00:14:24] CJ: Sure. They can go to organifi.com/livehappynow. That's Organifi, O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I.com/livehappynow, and they'll get 20% off their first purchase. If you go to organifi/livehappynow, that code is automatically applied at checkout. Or you can just go to organifi.com and use the code Live Happy Now to get that 20% off. [00:14:51] PF: Super cool, and I totally recommend it. I hope people check it out. Now, speaking of green things, we're going to go back to Laura Allen and Courtney Crim because they're talking about the healing power of nature. [INTERVIEW RESUMED] [00:15:05] PF: You talked about where they didn't want to go outside at first, and it really struck me. We're like that too as grown adults, where it's like, “I don't want to leave my desk. I have this work to get done. I don't want to do it,” and we kind of have that same resistance. How do we get past that and get to that point? Because we don't have professors like you saying, “Hey, give me your phone and go outside.” We have bosses that say, “Sit at your desk and get your work done.” So how do people find that within themselves and do you create a schedule to go outside? Like what's a great plan to get started in doing this? [00:15:41] CC: Starting in small steps. Having like – If Laura and I are going to have a quick meeting, we can go sit outside, or we can walk somewhere on campus, kind of like a walk and talk. That's a very easy way to start. We have these great Adirondack chairs on our campus. So if I'm reading or grading, I'll just go sit outside. I have moved my standing desk to my window. So when I'm standing and working, I'm actually looking out over a green space area. [00:16:09] PF: That reminds me. Let me ask you because I have seen a lot of studies about how, say, patients in a hospital who have a window that look at a park fare better than someone who has no window or is looking at the parking lot. You talk about how just seeing nature outside our window or even in a painting, like the beautiful one over your shoulder. How does that affect us? [00:16:29] LA: Actually, there are quite a few studies that show that just looking at images of nature compared to images of built environments improves some of these things we've been talking about. Typically, it's better to be outside. But, yeah, if you can just have the images and the pictures or if you can – I know our daughters at school, they have beautiful windows in their apartments and dorms with trees outside, but they don't ever open them. I’m like, “Oh, my god.” So like when we're FaceTiming, I'm like, “Is your window open? Show me.” I'm like, “Open your blinds.” Just simple things like that. But I try to take breaks during the day. I know a lot of us are working at home sometimes and I'll just – When I kind of feel like I'm fatigued and stopping place on something, I'll just take a short walk, and I just kind of get that recharge I need to be able to do that. Plus, I don't know, I think Courtney are both very good at taking vacations intentionally that are in nature. My family just – We got back from the Rocky Mountains. We just went last week, and we went specifically for hiking and to spend time outside, so just being a little bit more intentional. Yeah, it's fun to go to New York City. But is that necessarily the best for us? [00:17:38] PF: Yeah. That's a great thing to think about as parents of where you take your children. Have you seen, I guess, kids get used to spending more time outside? Will that become more natural, no pun intended? Will it become more natural to them to be out in that environment? Or is it always going to be a struggle with the screens? [00:17:57] CC: I think it does. I think the language that we tend to use a lot is kids are naturally curious, and they're at one with nature. They thrive in that unstructured, natural environment, and we kind of tame it out of them. The more that they are in schools that keep them inside or don't have outdoor learning environments available to them, so I think keeping them focused. It becomes like typical, expected part of what their family does. If friend groups and peer groups continue to find ways to be outside. In San Antonio, we had an initiative at the 10-minute walk where every family would be able to walk to a green space within 10 minutes of their home. You may not do that with your family, but you may do it with a group of peers. So you've got that access. I think all of that's going to continue to benefit, as far as keeping children curious about nature and their green environments. [00:18:56] PF: You bring up a great point because what about urban areas? Not everyone is 10 minutes away from a green space. So what are some solutions for people? [00:19:04] LA: A number of the studies that we've found benefits are done in urban parks. So it's not that you have to go out to wilderness settings. The key is to get outside around green space, blue space that we call it. There's even a recent study that came out about people going out into the desert, and just being out in the desert was more beneficial than being in an urban context. So it's not – You do not – I mean, obviously, it's lovely to go out to the mountains or to the river or something like that, but you don't have to. The key is to get outside, just maybe eat your lunch outside under a tree in a green space. [00:19:44] PF: This is so interesting, and it's so important. It's so simple and so effective. It’s like truly all you have to do is go outside and be still, and it makes changes for you. So what is the one thing that both of you, you really want people to know about this and hope that they discover? [00:20:00] LA: I think it's a much more powerful source of wellbeing than we have understood. I think our ancestors, we evolved in natural spaces. It's only been recently. Actually, it was 2008, that the whole world lived more in urban environments than in rural environments. So what we're seeing is the effect of urbanization on us. We know that urbanization is correlated with mental health disorders. So just how easy it is, and it's much more powerful. It certainly is no substitute for seeing mental health professionals or things like that. But I think that we do not realize the impact of staying indoors and especially staying on screens as often as we do. One thing I just wanted to mention is that there's a lot of research now into the dose and exposure effect. In other words, how long do you have to do this? Like how long do you have to be outside to really get those benefits? The most recent research shows that about 120 minutes per week is a good amount, and that can be done like all at once. But it can also be done cumulatively. Like if you can't go outside for 120 minutes today, those can add up. They kind of found a sweet spot between 200 and 300 minutes a week. So after 300 minutes a week, you really didn't get any additional benefits. So just kind of – I think for us, we kind of keep that 120 minutes in our head. All of it matters and all of it helps, but I just think we need to realize that it's probably the simplest thing we're not doing to improve our wellbeing. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:21:43] PF: That was Trinity University's Lauren Allen and Courtney Crim, talking about the power of connecting with nature. If you'd like to learn more about their work or schedule a virtual group forest therapy walk, visit our website at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. Throughout July, we're celebrating Live Happy’s summer of fun month. As part of that, we're giving away some prize packs that include great Live Happy merch, The Happiness Workbook for Kids by Maureen Healy, and some other very cool family friendly gifts, including Sunny Sunglasses made just for kids, and Yipes plant-based face and hand wipes to keep those little hands and faces clean while you're outside enjoying nature with the family. Visit our website or follow us on social media to learn more and find out how to enter. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]