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Follow along with the transcript below for episode: What’s New in Season 9 With Deborah K. Heisz [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 428 of Live Happy Now. It's a new month. And for Live Happy Now, it's the start of a brand new season. I'm your host, Paula Felps. This week, as we launch season nine, I'm talking with Live Happy CEO and Co-Founder, Deborah Heisz, about some of the great new things that you can expect. We're rolling out some new ways to help you discover happiness, and we're excited to share these with you. So let's get to it. [EPISODE] [00:00:30] PF: Deb, always a pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you so much for sitting down with me today. [00:00:35] DH: Well, I wasn't going to miss it today. It's the first episode of our ninth season, which either means that we're really old or we're having too much fun, one or the other. [00:00:43] PF: I think it's a little of both. [00:00:44] DH: Yes. [00:00:46] PF: Yes. I mean, it's amazing when I sit down and say, “Oh, my gosh. Yes, we're starting our ninth season.” Because when we started this, we didn't know if anyone was going to tune in. Lucky for us, they did. [00:00:55] DH: Yes. You know, podcasts were just getting started. I think we had the serial podcast, which really took off. It was like right after we started this one. So that was really interesting. We got into podcasting originally as a way to expand on the magazine and do some interviews because we always got to interview these great people. We’ve been getting to do those interviews on tape, so to speak. That really shows my age. We’ve been getting to do interviews live and then share those. That's really why we started the podcast. Then, of course, the whole podcast thing took off. It's still the most fun and my favorite thing that we do. [00:01:27] PF: Yes. If we can just figure out how to combine true crime and happiness, we're going to have the biggest hit podcast of all time, so. [00:01:34] DH: Yes. Speaking of serial, true crime and happiness. Yes, it's interesting. The true crime genre is certainly the one that I think most people think of when they think of podcasts. Or if they don't, they at least are aware. Either that or business help podcasts, self-help personal podcasts. A lot of those are really successful. I guess we kind of fit into that. Happiness will certainly help business. We don't fit into true crime, but I kind of look at it as us as the antithesis to true crime. [00:02:01] PF: Yes. That's true. [00:02:02] DH: Yes. We talk a lot about paying attention to what you put in your head. You and I were talking before the podcast about how people who listen to true crime to decompress may not be processing their stress well. [00:02:17] PF: Not judging. We're not judging. [00:02:18] DH: Not judging at all. [00:02:19] PF: That was an actual study that was done. [00:02:21] DH: Yes, true. But it is hard to be bombarded with everything we've got going on in the world. We've talked about this before, all the political stuff, all the war in Europe right now, and all the negativity. Then you add true crime on top of that. You add your news feed on top of that. It's very easy to look at the world as a dangerous and unwelcoming and not fun place. We are the antithesis of that. Listen to Live Happy Now. Listen to it. Go online and look at our website, livehappy.com. Subscribe to our newsletter. Fill up your inbox with the opportunity at least to get something positive out of your day. I love that because for me, sometimes just putting that in my head makes me think about the world a little differently. A lot of the stuff that we share that research is being done just changes your perspective and kind of puts you back on course because I'm still a little more than a glass half full. I'm kind of a glass overflowing person in regard. I think the world’s a wonderful place with tremendous opportunities and beautiful things and a lot of joy out there. I like to be exposed to that, and it's so much fun to share with everybody else. [00:03:26] PF: Yes. Filling your brain with good stuff since 2013. [00:03:30] DH: New tagline. [00:03:31] PF: Exactly. There we go. And which is crazy to think. Now, that means we're going to – in October, we turn 10 years old. Like Live Happy has been around for 10 years and been active. I think that's really exciting just to see that people have embraced it and are hanging with us. [00:03:45] DH: As you know, we've had millions and millions and millions of downloads of the podcast. A hundred thousand of people hit our website. It is humbling to realize that something that we really started working on about 11 years ago has morphed into this positive force in the world, and it's great. But 10 years, wow. My youngest child is 11. So it’s her entire life. [00:04:11] PF: All she knows. [00:04:12] DH: Yes, all she knows. [00:04:14] PF: That’s cool. We're doing some new things. We were talking about this. So we have Live Happy Now podcast. That's done obviously very well. Last year, I added On a Positive Note, which looks at music and how it affects our happiness. We look at it through the health and well-being, a lot of different aspects of music. So now, this year, we're going to add the Happiness Unleashed, the new pet podcast. Now, you know as well as I do that pets are such a huge thing not just for Live Happy but in the world. So let's kind of talk about why we believe so much in pets and what they can do for us. [00:04:48] DH: We've always been a family-oriented podcast or a family-oriented property. Not all of our content is suitable for children. That's not what I mean. I mean that we're always about building families, building relationships in the community. Pets are a part of our family. They're a part of our lives. They are something that we integrate, that we care about. There's so much research out there on how they improve your overall well-being, everything from lowering your blood pressure to being a companion in stressful times. They are part of our families, and we know that there's a lot of people that can't imagine not having their pets in their lives. I think it's a really good thing. It's an important part of our lives, and I just don't think there's that much out there about it. I think people are really interested in it, so I'm super excited to be adding that, kind of our repertoire. [00:05:37] PF: Yes. What's great too is they don't have to listen to me. It's going to be Brittany Derrenbacher, who has been on here frequently. She's been our pet expert. She is so well-versed. She is a therapist. She does deal with things like pet loss, grief, compassion, fatigue, things like that. She's in the rescue space. So I think she's going to bring some incredible insights into how pets help us heal and what good they can do for us. So I'm excited to see how that one unfolds. [00:05:59] DH: I am too. It’s great to add another voice to Live Happy. Yes, she's done a fantastic job on the podcast in the past. You and I have talked about how they’re some of the most downloaded and most listened-to podcasts we have. [00:06:10] PF: They are. It's like maybe we should pay attention to that. [00:06:13] DH: I would call that a clue. I'm taking the clue, and we're super excited to have Brittany on. She's just got some fantastic insights. I just think this is something that people are going to be really interested in. [00:06:24] PF: I do too. I'm excited to see that play out. Another thing that we just added, we did our first episode with Dawn McMullan as a Happy Activist. You originated the Happy Activist idea back with our Happy Acts. We would spotlight people on the website who were doing amazing things. Somehow, as the magazine went away, we kind of got away from that. With this Happy Activist segment, we're bringing that back once a month to be able to spotlight someone who's doing amazing things in their community. So tell us a little bit about what you perceive a Happy Activist to be. [00:06:57] DH: When we started Live Happy in general, we really wanted to focus on the science and the fact that there are things you can do that you can actually do proactively to make your world a happier place for yourself, your family, your community, all of that. But there are people out there in the world who are doing it as their way of life. There are people who are doing things that truly make a difference in the lives of others. They truly do things to improve the well-being of themselves, their community and families in a very public way and sometimes not so public. They aren't as sung. It’s not that they’re unsung heroes. It's more like I don't think they even realize, as many of these people don't even realize, the impact they're having and to be able to celebrate that and to be able to share the stories of people who are truly, truly putting their heart into the well-being of others. It brings me joy that we can tell those stories because I don't think we see enough of those stories. There are so many people in the world that that's their mission and their purpose, and they found it, and it's just really important to share that. So a Happy Activist, to me, is someone who's out there improving the well-being of their community as a personal mission. [00:08:08] PF: What I love about it is it gives our listeners more participation in the content of the podcast. It's our listeners who are going to be bringing their Happy Activist to us and recommending people. We're going to be doing some things on social media, on the website, in the newsletter to promote that, so they know how to reach it. But they can just send us an email to editor@livehappy.com and tell us about their Happy Activists. We'll look into them and see about getting them on a future episode. [00:08:33] DH: Yes. We really want our listeners and our readers and the people passionate about happiness the way we are to share the people in their lives that are making a difference. We don't know who they are, but we know they're out there, and we know that you know who they are. A little bit of recognition goes a long way. But I think that we need to spotlight the people that are doing good in the world. The people who are not, have true crime podcasts about them. [inaudible 00:08:56]. [00:08:59] PF: Go back to the anti-true crime podcast. We’re the true good podcast. That's what we are. [00:09:05] DH: There you go. [00:09:08] PF: Yes. What's wonderful too is someone else hears that and discovers new ways to give back. So like with Dawn and the work that she's doing in Congo to help women give them a future was just amazing. She just gave so many ideas for how you can get involved in ways that you can give back, stuff that I had not even thought about. [00:09:28] DH: Well, and I think that's important because I think so many people hear those stories, and they think, “Wow, that's huge. I could never do that. That's great. I'm really glad they're doing it, but I could never do that.” That's not what it is. There are little things you can do in little pockets of time. Don't take dedication of going to the Congo to just – [00:09:48] PF: We don't all have to go to East Africa. Okay. [00:09:49] DH: We don’t have to go to East Africa to make a difference in the world. That is one of the great things about her perspective is she knows that. But something the other Happy Activists are doing things that you can do in your backyard that don't take heroic full-time effort to do. Share their stories. We want to hear about them. They make a difference. [00:10:07] PF: Yes, they do. I'm excited to meet these people. One more thing I think that we should talk about today is a newsletter because we've had this for a while, and we're doing a lot of great things with it. I think we know it's there. Like I know it's there. You know it's there. We kind of take it for granted. It's like that middle child. Like we just, “Yes, they're doing good. We love them. It's great.” But we don't really talk about all the things that the newsletter has to offer, and I'm really excited about some of the ways that we're pumping it up and making it even bigger and better, a weekly free in your inbox. Get that great news delivered. [00:10:39] DH: Well, one of the ways of making it better you just hit on, weekly. In the past, we've done it monthly, which is great. We've got a couple hundred thousand subscribers. We want more. Really, it is that little burst of joy, happiness in your inbox once a week. It will give you information on the next podcast episode. It'll have some of that news in the happiness space. Yes, there is news in the happiness space. There's happiness. There's other news in the happiness phase. It'll give you a little taste of the type of content we have on the website without you having to go like intentionally seek that out, although we want you to go intentionally to seek that out. When we talk about filling up your mind with positive stuff, fill up your inbox with positive stuff, and give yourself the best opportunity to brighten your day, and find out a little more about how you can make yourself and the community around you a happier place. [00:11:27] PF: Yes. One thing we've added to the newsletter, and it's my personal favorite passion project, and that's, of course, music. We've had the Live Happy Now playlist for a long time. Sometimes, we'll talk about – we'll do special playlists for Mother's Day, Valentine's, things like that. Haven't been talking about the playlist lately, so each issue of the newsletter is going to have a song that fits the theme of that newsletter. Then we'll direct you back to the Live Happy Now playlist, so you can just put on some tunes, change your state, make your brain happy, and maybe do a little bit of dancing in the kitchen. [00:11:58] DH: Well, we really are looking at things that are in our everyday lives that make us happier. You start talking about pets. You start talking about music. I mean, all these are things that most people listening to the podcast, the families. Most people understand that this is where the key to happiness is. I love the music piece because you’re music. I’m film. I'm passionate about movies. There's not as many movies that make me happy as there are songs. But dancing in the kitchen is one of my favorite pastimes. [00:12:29] PF: It's a universal skill because you don't have to be good at it. [00:12:32] DH: So we just want to expose people to things that really enhance their lives. Music is absolutely one of them. I'm super excited we're doing that. [00:12:40] PF: Yes. So those are some of the new things that we have coming up for this season. Gosh, 10 years. So what are you excited to see? As this new season, this New Year unfolds for us, who are you most excited about or looking forward to? [00:12:52] DH: Well, I'm going to divert the conversation a little bit here because one of the things I'm most excited to see is a picture of you with a chicken on your shoulder, getting ready for this particular issue we were talking about. Paula lives in a rural area. [00:13:07] PF: Let's tell. During the pandemic, I moved from a top floor apartment in downtown Nashville to six acres on a lake about an hour away from Nashville. To say it was a culture change is kind of an understatement. [00:13:20] DH: I am certain it was a culture change. I think what you were telling me earlier was like you went from music to chickens. [00:13:27] PF: Yes, pretty much. Concerts to chickens. There we go. [00:13:31] DH: Tell us about your chicken project, just because I think that they gave us a nice chuckle earlier. But it's also really interesting to me what you're doing with chickens. [00:13:38] PF: First of all, I have to tell you, we were going to get 15 little baby chicks. Then my partner was in charge of buying them. They're very cute on the website, and so somehow we ended up with an order of 25. Shortly after that order had been placed, a friend came and had three grown chickens that needed re-homed. So we took those in. Now, we have like – basically, with the little chicks getting here, we've raised them. They’re like 12 weeks or whatever. So we now have a chicken farm. But, yes, one of the things behind us, one of the driving ideas behind it is our ability to give back and that with chickens comes eggs. There are many people who are not able to access the food that they need. Being able to have that many eggs produced gives us the opportunity to help people who maybe wouldn't have access to that. We also have a very huge garden, and that's what we – our intention behind it is to be able to help other people who aren't having the food that they need, the nutrition. There's no reason in the world in America today that people are going to bed hungry at night. Food scarcity is a huge concern of mine. So that's what we want to be able to do is help eliminate that in our own area. If it's only with three families, if it's only with three people, then that makes a difference to those three people. That's kind of where it all started. [00:14:53] DH: Well, now, you have shared what a Happy Activist is. Paula, my favorite things about doing this podcast is the team we have working on. We were on earlier with Laura and Casey and where we're going. It is a joy in my life to see the people who are at Live Happy. They're genuinely Happy Activists in their own life. I'm really glad you shared that because I think that's something that people need to realize. I mean, you have a job. You work. You do everything else. But you've also – something you're very passionate about. You're taking time out of your day and your life and your lives to really support that, in addition to your dogs and cat and rabbit and – [00:15:33] PF: The whole freaking zoo that I got out here. [00:15:36] DH: I'm so glad I asked you about that. I wanted to share it. But what I'm excited about for the podcast this year really is the expansion and the integration. By the expansion, I mean, I love that we're adding pets. I love that we're going back to put more of the happy playlist in. But I like the integration. The newsletter is kind of going to tie it all together and just continue to expand the number of people we're reaching, continuing to share that. One of the things I'm most proud of Live Happy is that everything that we do is free to you in terms of content. It's just a joy to be able to give back to the world in that way. So I'm super excited about that. I know we've got some podcasts coming out about what happened at IPPA, the International Positive Psychology Association event. I know we've got more podcasts about pets and people and Happy Activists and the science behind happiness. I just hope everybody turns in and fills their mind with good stuff 20 minutes a week. Let's make a difference in the world. I hope they become Happy Activists like you. 00:16:36] PF: Oh. Well, thank you. To be honest, Live Happy has changed me by making me so aware how I can help, how I can be of service. It's literally impossible to interview someone every week, a different person every week who is putting good into the world, who is telling us how to be better humans, how to be happier humans. You have to change your life. There's no way that you can just say, “Okay, on to the next thing.” You can't do it. It affects you. It has made a profound difference in my life and, therefore, is making the difference for other people because it's changing the way that I walk in this world. [00:17:10] DH: I think if you listen to it, it's the same way. If you listen to it every week, it's just that reminder that you don't have to accept things the way they are. You can make a difference. You can make a change. Change starts with you. You can be happier. We always say happiness is a choice, and we don't really mean that entirely. I mean, obviously, there are things in the world that impede that for people that are very real. But you can choose to do things to make yourselves incrementally happier. You can choose to do things that give back to the world incrementally. It's a privilege to be sharing that information. [00:17:43] PF: Deb, I cannot think of a better way to end this that you've summed it up beautifully. This is a pleasure. It's an honor to get to do this. I love sitting down and talking about what we're going to do because it gets me so excited for this coming season. Thank you and for the opportunity to do this. Thank you for creating this for us all to be able to come play in the happiness space. [00:18:02] DH: Thank you for everything that you do to keep me on track. I appreciate it. Have a great season. [END OF EPISODE] [00:18:12] PF: That was Live Happy CEO and Co-Founder, Deborah Heisz, talking about what you can expect from season nine. If you'd like to sign up for our newsletter, tell us about a Happy Activist, or follow us on social media, just visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. You'll find that information on the landing page for this episode. 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: Growing Happiness by Gardening With Joeleen Davis [INTRODUCTION] [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for Episode 420 of Live Happy Now. This is National Garden Week, so it's a great time to talk about what plants and planting can do for you. I'm your host, Paula Felps, and this week I'm talking with Joeleen Davis, a master gardener and owner of Wine Cottage Gardens near Nashville. Joeleen has discovered the amazing power of gardening as a tool for social connection, exercise, helping others, and mental wellbeing. She's here today to talk about all those benefits and more. Let's have a listen. [EPISODE] [00:00:36] PF: Joeleen, thank you so much for joining me on Live Happy Now. [00:00:40] JD: Well, thanks for having me. [00:00:42] PF: This is an exciting conversation to have because I met you over a year ago, and you have this amazing place right outside of Nashville. It's called Wine Cottage – [AUDIO OVERLAP] [00:00:52] PF: – it's National Garden Week, let's kick it off by you explaining what Wine Cottage Gardens is. [00:00:57] JD: Okay. It all started with a sea shed. But how common is that? I wanted to create a wine shed. We call it the Wine Cottage. Then, we started to build raised beds. It just went off from there. Now, we are vegetable farmers and a little bit of flower farming, and also, beekeeping. [00:01:21] PF: It's pretty amazing. It's a magical place and it's extensive and just absolutely beautiful. When did you first start it and how long did it take for it to get to what it is now? [00:01:33] JD: We are going into our fourth growing season, and we had done row gardening, I would say about 13 years now. That was my husband's thing. I don’t like row gardening. I have no control over the weather. I don't like to till. So, I took it over and it's been four years now. [00:01:52] PF: You have accomplished a lot with it. I know people use it just as a place to come and really absorb the energy and reset themselves. But you've also used it as a tool for giving back – [AUDIO OVERLAP] [00:02:02] PF: – during the pandemic, I think it was five families, you said you were able to keep fed with the work that you were doing. How did that come about, where you started saying, “Okay, we want to do this as a way to give back to others.” Then, how did you find the people to give back to? [00:02:15] JD: Finding the people was the easy thing, just being social and conversations and going for a deeper relationship in those conversations. They don't always say that they're hungry, but you can kind of get those into windows a little bit and watching the kids especially. I would say, I started to seriously want to feed people during COVID. It wasn't necessarily a food bank, it was more like what can I do in my backyard to help these families. We abundance of tomatoes. Tomatoes are the easiest thing, because you can do so many things with them, from sauces, to chilies, to pasta, just whatever, and we gave bushels and bushels of tomatoes to these people. They would come pick it or we would take it to them. I would list it on Facebook, we've got this ready or that ready, and I wasn't really getting the engagement that I wanted. So, we chose individual families based on relationships in our lives and it really worked. Then, tenfold a year later, I realized that giving them food wasn't fixing the situation, but teaching them how to grow the food was where I wanted to go with it. [00:03:28] PF: That is so cool. How did you start teaching them? Is that when you became a master gardener? Or were you already a master gardener or what? [00:03:35] JD: I started master gardeners, for me, I read probably 35 books and then there's always Google. [00:03:44] PF: That's the thing. People need to know, you are the most voracious reader I know. [00:03:47] JD: Thank you. [00:03:48] PF: Oh, my gosh. You are always have a stack of books that, “Oh, I just finished that today.” [00:03:54] JD: I do, and I make notes when I read it because that's how I learn. I'm a visual learner. I write it down. I look back at it. I'm like, “Oh, yeah, that's right. Sunflowers are toxin miners”, because I wrote that down. I read all these books and it just didn't seem like enough, so I wanted to go back into the classroom and I did the Master Gardeners program that you met other people through that program, and I just started to have people want to come to my garden to do tours or see my setup, because they had seen pictures of it posted online, and it just started from there. It wasn't a teaching intention. It just turned into that. [00:04:30] PF: It's also been featured on PBS, right? [00:04:32] JD: It was on PBS twice, and I think it's because it's different. There's the Wine Cottage, made with recycled materials. There's the chicken coop, again, recycled materials. Then, there's a pergola we built ourselves. We did it all ourselves with the help of a few friends that really loved us, because it was hot when we're laying in August. [00:04:54] PF: Yes, you've got such a beautiful, beautiful place. When people come out, do they take classes? How do you go about teaching people? [00:05:03] JD: I just answer their questions. I never want someone to come to my garden and feel like they can't garden, because I'm going to bombard them with all these factual things. They just come through and start to ask me questions. If they're not asking me questions, I will ask them a question to draw something out of them. “Do you want to plant tomatoes? Do you want to learn how to grow these? Look how great these are doing. Are you curious why there's Basil with these tomatoes?” It's just saying things like that. But I find that most of the people that come out, bring their kids, which I love, and they start to ask me questions like, “How did you do this? How did this start? Did you do this all yourselves? This must have taken so long. I want to know more about it.” I just want everyone to feel like they can do this. It's not hard and it doesn't have to be hard and it does not have to be expensive. [00:05:54] PF: Yes, one of the things that's so interesting is the way that you discovered how powerful gardening can be. Can you talk about that, like, why you actually started gardening and how it has helped you with your mental health? [00:06:10] JD: My daughter lost her husband tragically. She had just had a baby and he was in the NICU. All of this happen within four days. [00:06:18] PF: Oh, my gosh. [00:06:20] JD: And we packed up our family here and went 14 hours south to spend time with her and help her through that. We were down there for 10 days, and my ex was there. He was my abuser for almost eight years. I couldn't function. I couldn't function through a dinner. I couldn't make decisions. I think that's the first time I realized that I had to share our grandchildren. They've always been mine. These kids were mine, I raised them. I always had possession of them, and protected them. Then, all of a sudden, this man that beat me for years was their papa. I couldn't cope with it. I put on a strong front, took all the emotions down, I get home and I can't function. I can't shower. I can't get up and have coffee. My husband didn't know what to do or how to help me. So, I went to the garden and I just thought this is where I need to be. I need to dig in the dirt, plant some stuff, and just let it all go. Listen to the birds and just be one with nature. [00:07:34] PF: That is so incredible. Because we now know that science shows there's so many benefits of the garden for mental health. We're going to talk about those in a minute. But at what point did you start realizing it was making a difference? [00:07:50] JD: Almost immediately. [00:07:52] PF: Really? [00:07:52] JD: Yes. I just knew that every time I went outside, I felt better and it was – the garden back then was not as elaborate as it is now. It was just a few raised beds, and there was meant growing, which is very evasive so you have to keep tending to it. I would go pull mint and I would feed it to the chickens. It was immediately that I realized that when I came back in, I felt better. I could function. I could think. Then, I was there for our children here and then our grandchildren here and it really did help. Then, the garden just started to get bigger. [00:08:29] PF: I love this because it's kind of like this upward spiral that it created. It's like you had created the gardens, and then you're using the gardens to make yourself feel better, and that in turn makes bigger gardens, better gardens, and more people benefit from it. [00:08:44] JD: There's such a joy in growing something. You plant a seed or plant, there's no shame in planting plants and you watch it grow, and you tend to it and you're taking care of it. Then, you wait for harvest. Hopefully, you get it before a worm does or the birds do. But you bring that in and you feed it to your family. Or you pick that and then you gift it to someone and it's just the joy that you see on their face is so impactful in your own life. [00:09:10] PF: That's really great. Because one of the things that I had read about gardening is it talked about how studies show it gives you a sense of purpose. It can be very good for someone who's suffering with self-esteem issues or feeling – maybe you've lost a job, maybe you've lost direction, maybe your life situation has changed dramatically and you're not sure where to go next. The studies were showing that this can give you something to focus on, give you that sense of purpose, and you get daily rewards of accomplishment because you do see it grow. That's exactly what you're talking about. You're watching it grow and you're caring for it and seeing it improve. [00:09:48] JD: One hundred percent. It's something that you have to do. So, you have a purpose when you wake up. I have to go outside and plant these tomatoes or I need to go tie these tomatoes up. Or after a rain shower, I need to go out there and see the magic that happened because your plants will just jump. You have a purpose and a reason for getting up. Even if you don't want to get out of bed, you have something that you're taking care of. [00:10:15] PF: That's really important because, especially, if you're dealing with depression, a lot of times it is difficult to get off the couch. You can't get out of bed. How can you use that as a motivational tool, if it's depression that you're dealing with? [00:10:30] JD: Depression is hard, because you basically just don't want to do anything. It's hard to even brush your teeth when you're depressed. I would say that just grab your coffee, or your water, or whatever that drink is in the morning and go sit outside in your garden, even if you haven't had a garden planted, but you just want to be outside. There's something about that, that is enlightening, and is so good for your soul just to be outside and not in the house, sometimes that can feel like entrapment. [00:11:01] PF: Yes. We know that fresh air sunshine that does something great for us. But what is actually putting your hands in the soil do? Because you had some interesting things that you had told me about this. [00:11:11] JD: Yes, there's actually an antidepressant that's in the soil and – [00:11:15] PF: It’s not like we have to dig for this, like it's a pill that we're digging for, right? [00:11:18] JD: No, it's a natural chemical compound and when you are in the soil, and you're breaking it up, or digging that plant, or just in it, just close to it, you inhale it, and it makes your serotonin just go crazy high. That is that good feeling. When you are outside, and you're inhaling just the air outside, you're inhaling this. It's incredible just to be in it and just releasing that chemical. [00:11:45] PF: That's amazing. What about anxiety and stress? How does it help with lowering anxiety, reducing stress? Because on the one hand, you could be like, I get stressed, if it's like, “Oh, my gosh, we need to weed the garden. We need to do all this. I get like really hyped up about like all the stuff that has to get done with it.” But it's actually an anxiety and stress reducer to garden. [00:12:06] JD: It is. The trick to not getting overwhelmed is just to start. Don't let your mind play those tricks on you. Just get up and go outside and start somewhere. Start in one bed and work your way down. Or just say, “Hey, today, I'm just going to pull weeds right here.” Then, just pull those weeds and you'll find that you're out there a lot longer than you ever anticipated. When you come in, you're tired, but you have this really good feeling. You don't have anxiety when you're listening to birds. You don't have anxiety when you're hot and that breeze comes. All of it is just tied in to being outside. I think that if we get outside more, we'd start to realize that our anxiety is in all the stuff in our head, like all the stuff we have to do. The dirty dishes in the sink, or the kids need socks. It's all of the stuff. But outside there's no stuff. There is just a garden and you're just planting, or harvesting, or just looking and just seeing. [00:13:03] PF: That speaks to the mindfulness aspect too, because to your point, you have to put all the other things out of your mind. You're talking about, okay, what do I need to do for this plant? What do I need to do right here? You turn your focus completely on your garden on your plants and the soil, instead of having your mind raced and be thinking about a million different things that need to be done. [00:13:24] JD: It's 100% true. You just go outside and even if you just go outside to sit there and you're not going to do something strenuous, it's just uplifting. Again, to hear the birds and to feel the wind or Tennessee summers are really hot, so you really have to go out in the morning, or in the evening. We have lights in our garden that come on. They’re solar lights. They come on at night so we can use our garden until those lights go off, if we want. [00:13:50] PF: Right. Nighttime garden. I really love that because you're also getting all the Biophilia benefits of just like grounding and earthing, being in that soil, and the way that it connects you to the energy of the earth. [00:14:07] JD: Yes. There's something to be said about that first tomato that you find or that first blossom that opened or watching people come through my garden with their kids and the joy they find when they go into the coop and get an egg, or they see a bird they've never seen before just perched on an arbor. It's amazing. When anyone, an adult or a child runs their hand through the mint, and they can just smell that aroma, and they're just shocked that you can eat that, but it's growing outside. You know what I mean? [00:14:40] PF: Yes. I remember years ago being in Cabo, and we were eating at a restaurant, and we were living in Dallas, pretty urban, and we're at this restaurant in Cabo, and the chef opens a window and reaches out and picks a sprig of mint and takes it in for our meal. We're like, “That would be the coolest thing ever, just to walk out and pick the stuff for your food.” Now, we're doing that and it is pretty amazing to just be able to walk out and pick your meal. [00:15:11] JD: Oh, the kids love it the most, I think. They can pick a flower and put it in iced tea or their water. Like nasturtium or mint, and they just get a kick out of it that it's not going to kill them, that they take something from the garden. It has to go back with teaching them when they're young to grow their food and know where your food comes from. The moms that come, single moms come all the time and they just say how can I do this? We just give them the lesson, like this is what you just need to do. We'll put it in one raised bed and go from there. [00:15:44] PF: The day this release is also National Gardening Exercise Day. So, nice little tie in. Let's talk about that for a minute, because it is great way to, in addition to connecting with the earth and calming your mind, it's a great way to get physical exercise. [00:16:01] JD: One hundred percent fantastic way, and you don't even know your exercising. [00:16:05] PF: That's the key. [00:16:06] JD: You have no idea. A few years ago, I had a pretty debilitating back injury. Two back surgeries, ended up with a spinal implant and sitting for me is the worst thing. But getting up and walking in the garden and being fluid and just lifting and pushing and pulling all of these things that you do, keeps me very active. It keeps me not pain free, but nearly pain free. It's just amazing. You can go from one side of the garden to the other and do all of these activities within 20 minutes and never feel like, “Oh gosh, can I get through this cardio?” [00:16:46] PF: Yes. It's not like HIIT. But it does. It uses all the major muscle groups because you're pulling, you’re raking, you're weeding, you're doing all these things. And you don't realize it till the next day when you wake up and you're like, “Oh, my God, why are my hamstrings” – [00:16:59] JD: And squats have never been easier. [00:17:01] PF: There you go. I love that. Yes, so that's so cool. I think that's a great aspect of it, too, is just the fact that it does give that physical movement that we try to get, but we feel like we can't fit in to our schedule. [00:17:17] JD: Yes, and you can. You can really do it. With gardening, when you plant a garden, you're excited, especially new gardeners. You're out there in the morning, you go out there midafternoon. If it rains, you run back out there. Every time you go back out there, you do something. Then, at nighttime, when it's cooler, you go back out there. You could be in your garden as a new gardener, three to four times a day just from excitement, not realizing that every time you go, you're going to pull weed, or swat down and plant something, or harvest something. You're constantly active. You're never still. [00:17:51] PF: Yes. Then, with yours, when you created a place that’s so beautiful, and then at the end of the day, you can sit, you can watch it, you can just look at it. That too has a great calming mental effect. It just is so relaxing to be able to do that and sit there and that sense of accomplishment like we created this. [00:18:10] JD: We added bench seating just throughout the garden. Then, we added a picnic table with an umbrella. We have a swing by our bird sanctuary, which we keep wild for nature. We just have different places to sit and rest, so you're not always having to work or feel tired. You can always just relax and take it all in, especially in the evenings when it's cooler. The birds are starting to calm down. It's just different. [00:18:34] PF: Yes. It does change throughout the day. So, you've helped other people start their own gardens, and you're even going to Portugal next year to work on a big gardening project there, which is super cool. What changes do you see in the people you work with? When they start gardening, how does it change them? [00:18:53] JD: One of the gardens we just put in for a friend of ours. She's a single woman, she runs a daycare out of her home. Most of her kids are babies to four years old, and she asked us to come look so we went and looked and she only wanted two beds. Well, we ended up putting in six, and I helped her plant it. I did our planting plan for her. She just loved it. Now, when those babies come, when they're dropped off at her house, they run outside with excitement because they want to know what's growing. They help plant the seeds. It was just like the involvement and just showing someone that you can do it. It doesn't have to be Instagram worthy. You can plant in a bucket. You can just do it. Just plant something and it's contagious. You'll start with one plant and you'll end up with 50. [00:19:43] PF: That's cool. Because another project you're doing and I don't know a lot about it is in downtown Nash – [00:19:50] JD: We're working with a woman downtown and she is in charge of a men's drug rehab facility and they put in some rooftop rice beds, and they're doing it to give them purpose to build, to grow. I believe they have a chef that pulls the spices and the herbs and create stuff for them. But they get up and they have something that they're in charge of. So, they're growing basil or oregano or just whatever and it just helps them. That serotonin again in the soil keeps them happy. [00:20:26] PF: That's amazing. That's a great way to go about it. [00:20:29] JD: Back in the 1940s, well, before the 1940s, mental institutions or homes had gardens, and all of the patients work these gardens. They grew their own food, they went and cooked it, they did all this stuff. And rehabilitation was like, I believe, 65% to 75%. Then, pharmaceuticals came and they started to treat them with pharmaceuticals. Then, the gardens came out. They took the gardens away. Now, they're trying to push gardens back in, because they realized that when you're outside, you're happier and you don't need the pharmaceutical. You can just garden. [00:21:08] PF: I love that. I hope that catches on because it is so – it's such a lifeline for people. What about people who don't have rolling acreage or any kind of acreage? If you're in an apartment? If you're in a in a townhouse? How do you go about starting your garden? Because your idea is you can grow plants anywhere. You can have your own garden even if it's on a windowsill. So how do they start doing that? [00:21:34] JD: All you need is soil, sun, and a seed or a plant. That's it. That's all you need. You can grow in a bucket, a box, a windowsill, as long as you provide those essential nutrients for your plants. Just water and you can grow anywhere. I would just say just plant the seed or buy the plant. If you fail the first time, just keep going. Don't give up. You're just trying to recreate nature. [00:22:00] PF: Yeah, because I killed an air fern once in high school, in all honestly. [00:22:04] JD: I can’t grow succulents. [00:22:06] PF: Okay, good. I don't feel so bad. [00:22:09] JD: I try to love them too much. [00:22:12] PF: That's funny. Oh, man. I love this. I love this topic. I love being able to talk to you about it. You're so knowledgeable about it. But what's your favorite thing? You're so passionate about gardening and everything that it does. What is your favorite thing about it? [00:22:27] JD: Currently, because it changes. There's always seasons. Currently, my favorite thing to do is to help one of our local nonprofits in Lebanon, Wilson County to put in school gardens. They put in a school garden and the teachers take care of it. Master Gardeners volunteer and take care of it. But the kids come out, and they weed, and they plant, and they take home the vegetables that they're growing. But it's really just the joy. It's the joy of growing a plant and sharing your knowledge. Your knowledge could be this is how you grow a tomato plant, or this is when you pick it. It doesn't have to be hard. It's not hard at all. It's just doing it. [00:23:07] PF: Joeleen Davis, I appreciate you coming in. So what, of anything, what do you hope that people take away from this conversation? [00:23:15] JD: That they can garden. You can plant. You can grow food. One tomato plant, you'll have fresh tomatoes by June or July. You can do it. It doesn't have to be hard or expensive. You just need some soil and a seed. [00:23:27] PF: I love it. Joeleen, thank you so much for talking with us. We're going to tell everybody how they can find your website, find Wine Cottage Gardens, and learn more about you. But thank you. Thank you for sharing this time with us. [00:23:38] JD: Thank you. It was wonderful. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:23:46] PF: That was Joeleen Davis, talking about the many benefits of gardening. If you'd like to learn more about Joeleen and Wine Cottage Gardens, or follow her on social media. Just visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Finding Comfort Through Music With Jan Stanley [INTRO] [00:00:04] PF: What's up, everybody? This is Paula Felps, and you are listening to On a Positive Note, where I sit down with a songwriter, recording artist, or music insider to learn how music can lift our spirits and heal our hearts. Death is inevitable. But as with many things in life, music can change how people experience the journey. Today, I'm sitting down with Jan Stanley to talk about Threshold Choirs, an international movement in which a trio sings healing and comforting songs for people who are nearing the end of their lives. Jan, a longtime Threshold Choir member, explains how sharing songs at this uncertain time not only brings comfort to the dying and their family members, but can be transformational for the singers as well. Let's take a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:50] PF: Jan, thank you so much for being with me here today. [00:00:52] JS: Hi, Paula. It's so good to see you again and to be together and to talk about something really special and meaningful. [00:00:59] PF: Well, I cannot believe we haven't had this conversation sooner because you're the person who introduced me to the idea of Threshold Choirs. That was probably six years ago that you first told me about that. We talked about it then, and I just think it's so fascinating. Can you tell everyone what a Threshold Choir is and what they do? [00:01:18] JS: Absolutely. So Threshold Choirs are choirs of predominantly women, although that's expanding, who sing for those at end of life and their loved ones. So picture someone on hospice who's at home or someone who's in an inpatient hospice care or even in a skilled facility like a hospital, nursing care, et cetera. The end is drawing near, and there are so many uncertainties for the person who's at end of life. Of course, no one knows what the great mystery is beyond this life we're living now. Also, for family members, they have all different kinds of – sometimes, they're very good, loving, grieving, sorrowful emotions. Sometimes, there's leftover family dynamics of people who didn't get along. Or maybe you didn't even get along well with them, or there was some rift with you and the person who's dying. So we're called into those situations, and we come in with what we call comfort, songs of comfort. That's kind of the essence of what Threshold Choirs are. I'd love to give a little bit of history, Paula, when you're ready for that. [00:02:34] PF: Yes, please do. [00:02:35] JS: So there's a woman named Kate Munger, M-U-N-G-E-R, out in the Bay Area of the US out in California. She is a beautiful voice, a singer. She had experiences where she would sing for those who are dying. She would notice that there was great comfort sand ease that the person experienced when the songs and music were kind of floating in the air. So after law, she decided, “I wonder if there's a way to kind of gather people together and start singing for people at end of life?” In about the year 2000, she created the first Threshold Choir out in the Bay Area. A couple of other choirs followed. Now, the last time I checked, there were about 150 chapters that go even beyond the US, so international chapters. Each chapter follows the same kind of threshold, what I would call principles or guidelines. The clientele is the same, so singing for those that end of life and their loved ones. But then each chapter has a little bit of autonomy to think about like what their cultural norms are or how they can best fit into the situation that they find themselves in. So I have been privileged to be able to have sung with the Madison Wisconsin Threshold singers and then also with a chapter in Manhattan, in the New York Threshold Choir. One of the things I love about it is the songs that are sung are mostly written by Threshold singers themselves, so not like – [00:04:16] PF: Oh, I was going to ask about that. [00:04:19] JS: Yes. They're not like popular songs. They're not necessarily religious songs, hymns, those sorts of things. Although, chapter by chapter, sometimes the chapter will adapt. If the religious preference of someone who's dying is known, we can sing a hymn or something of that religious background. But primarily, they’re songs of comfort, just kind of at the end of life. [00:04:44] PF: So when the members are writing the songs, how do they know what to write about? As you said, you've got to make it kind of fit all these different personalities, belief systems, situations. So how do – what is the songwriting process? [00:04:59] JS: It's such a good question. Like most things creative, there's probably some like little hint of inspiration from somewhere that's coming into the process. But basically, if you think about dying, if you think about death, and our society doesn't really like to think about it. [00:05:17] PF: Yes. That’s not our favorite topic. [00:05:17] JS: So if you think about this journey, that might be a little bit uncomfortable for listeners. But if you think about dying, it's like a great mystery. Life is a great mystery. We don't know how we came to be here and when our time will erode, those sorts of things. So Ramdas, who's one of the spiritual gurus of the, I guess, 20th century would be the best way to describe him. He had this saying that he used to say we're all just walking each other home. It’s such a beautiful saying. One of the women in the Threshold Choir actually put that to music. So we sing in three-part harmonies. So it's a very simple song called We Are All Just Walking Each Other Home. So that's one of the core songs that often will be song bedside. I give that background because that's sort of the overarching theme of the Threshold song. So it's how can we bring comfort? How can we ease in this transition? There's one that's probably my favorite bedside song, which is Let Peace be with You. So it's a four-line song and, again, in three-part harmony, and it goes – the first verse is let peace be with you. Let love be with you. Let grace be with you. It's a very just kind of calming, simple melody. When we sing bedside, we send either three or four singers. So we don't send a full – we might have 30 members, but we do all. [00:07:01] PF: Get a little crowded in there. [00:07:02] JS: Yes, exactly. Exactly. So it's soft. It’s like a lullaby in some ways. Another one that I love is Rest Easy. Another one is You Are Not Alone. So they're very, very simple themes. They're designed to kind of bring that state of calm, of relaxation and almost as if we're walking them home in that moment with our voices. We're kind of channels for the care that we all might desire at the end of our life. [00:07:35] PF: When you talk about it, and I remember the very first time you told me about them, I thought this would be such a difficult thing to do because you're going in. You're seeing what direction this is going. Especially in the US, in our culture, we see that as very sad, like that end-of-life thing. But from talking with you, it's not a sad experience. It's a very beautiful and an uplifting experience. Can you talk about that? [00:08:01] JS: First, from the singer’s perspective, there are rituals that each choir adopts and customizes to their own. But they often involve what I'll call a song mother. So we're lined up with texts, and we might get a text sometimes. As the dyeing process goes on, the health professionals can say, “Oh, you know,” where it’s in the final weeks or in the final days, that sort of thing. So sometimes, there's an appointment lined up for us. Other times, it's more on-demand or like an urgent call of like, “Someone took a turn, and we've sung for them before. Can you please come in and sing now?” The song mother, whatever the situation is, will line up the singers in the right range. So we have to have the middle singer who's singing the melody. Then we have a soprano above and an alto below. So she has to find the right singers who are available. Then we gather before we get to the room or the home or wherever it is that we're going to sing for the person who's dying. In that, we do like a little warm-up, a little kind of getting ourselves in tune with one another, both musically but also spiritually or emotionally. We set an intention for what our intention is for going into this home. It’s very simple. Over the years, we've gotten to do it with kind of almost a word or a couple of words. My intention might be gratitude for the privilege of being with someone at this most precious time. Someone else's might be love that they're wanting to convey that this person is loved, even though they might not even know the person. But still, through our voices, we can convey that. Then so we've kind of come into sync with one another, and we go into the situation. You never quite know exactly who is going to be there, what it's going to be like, what the kind of general energy in the room is. But as soon as we start singing, you can see the kind of almost like the exhale, the energy in the room, just kind of weird doing the work, right? Everyone else is kind of receiving. It’s one of the things that's interesting, Paula. The question I'm probably asked most often around my work with ritual and the fact that I've sung with Threshold is I'll get emergency texts or emails like, “Oh, my cousin is dying, and I'm heading out there. What do I do? What do I do when I'm in the room?” So when you have the Threshold singers, it's kind of like we're providing a way of being. We're kind of holding space, as they say, in the facilitator world, for all the emotions that might be present in the room to arise, both with the person in bed who we’re singing to. Just a little aside, we always bring our own like little lightweight folding chairs because we don't want to like look down on the person we're singing for. We want it to be heart-level. So we're singing kind of heart-to-heart with them. After the songs are done, we've sung, sometimes we sing never fewer than three, sometimes up to five or six. As I said, if the family requested a certain Amazing Grace or a Jewish, we have like a small repertoire of songs that they could say at request, and we'll do that. After we sing, we meet up again. The song mother reconvenes us, and we just process what that experience was like for us. [00:11:45] PF: That's interesting. How important do you think that is to the overall process? Because you're really recognizing what it did for you. I mean, that’s a very thoughtful approach. [00:11:56] JS: Absolutely. When we reconvene, it does a number of things. It kind of – I wouldn't say our job at all is traumatic. So there's no like real trauma associated with our job. However, we're seeing things that you don't normally see in a regular time period. So it's an opportunity to talk about what we noticed, what we observed, what we were feeling. Very occasionally, we're sort of trained not to be the ones expressing emotion. But very occasionally, I mean, music can carry you away. Sometimes, one of us has to pause from singing for a moment because there might be tears coming down. So it's an opportunity to really reflect on all of that. [00:12:42] PF: As you're doing that, obviously, as you said, music is such a powerful connector to our emotions. Even as you're talking, I'm thinking about when my mom was dying, and I was sitting by her bedside, and the music that we were playing for her. So how do you keep from having all those memories come in and be part of this experience? Or do you? Do you let it all come together? [00:13:08] JS: It's a good question. As a family member, all of those emotions and feelings are there. So I think, for me, when my sister died, which is now 10 years ago this July, so we had her – our whole – her four grown children, their partners, a few grandchildren. I was there, and her husband was there. So it was like this extended surrounding of her with just kind of love and care and helping her make that transition, walking her home, so to speak. So then it's fair game. Everyone was having every emotion, even though I was sort of the leader of the facilitator of the whole process. But you're having those emotions. As a Threshold singer, you're exposed to it more and more often. So it's akin to being like a hospice volunteer or a hospice worker. You're seeing people at the end of their days in all different circumstances, hopefully, with at least one person there with them. On the occasions where there's no one present, those are the ones that are really the most difficult ones for me when we're singing. We're just singing to the person who was very close to taking their last breath. For whatever reason, geography, deaths in their family, there's just no one there. Those are really the heartbreaking ones for me. But as a little small core group of three or four singers, we sort of support each other. If we notice one is experiencing those memories or emotions, the others take over. Soon enough, the person takes a few breaths, and back they come and join in. So my daughter's a veterinarian, and one of the things that I remember her telling me about their training in vet med school, of course, they have to euthanize pets. It's all around the compassion of kind of this pet is suffering to such a degree that it's time for saying goodbye. One of the rules of thumb that they taught her, which I've shared with all my Threshold singers is that it's okay to be vulnerable. It's okay to have emotions. It makes you human. We're human beings. We're not robots in the situation. But the guideline for veterinarians is you should never be the focal point of those emotions. So you don't want the family turning to comfort you as – [00:15:40] PF: Right. That’s a lot of work for them to that. [00:15:43] HC: Exactly. So that was a good rule of thumb for me, knowing that it's okay to experience those emotions, that the scene, that music, that all of it evokes. But just don't let it be the focal point of the moment. Keep the purpose of singing to the dying person and their family members as the key. [00:16:02] PF: Yes. I want to talk in a moment about how it affects the person in the family that's being sung to. But how has it changed you to be part of this experience? What has it done? Also, what do you think of in your own? I would think it'd be impossible not to think about your own end of days, as you're part of this experience. [00:16:21] JS: Absolutely. So the greatest gift for me of being a Threshold singer is the gift of community. So you have this really – I'll use the word sacred, meaningful. I'm not sure exactly the right adjective, but you have this bonding experience that's unusual that you're doing. You can see that it's bringing a positive effect. Sometimes, in our daily work, we're not able to quite see that as immediately or as vividly as the work of a Threshold choir. Because we're doing and we're engaged in such activities, there's a true bonding among the singers themselves. So we do other things like – of course, we have weekly rehearsals, but we'll also have potlucks, or we'll do other gatherings. So it's a true sense of purpose. We're doing something that's meaningful and belonging. We're doing it together. It kind of crosses almost like historic boundaries as well because singing has been a part of life and death for tens of thousands of years. So you just feel this real sense of connection. Personally, how it's changed me, I think you're exactly right. It's made me very much more conscious of the decisions I make in my life today. So when I counsel people, I don't do this like professionally, but friends or friends of friends, that sort of thing. I'll ask, “Do you have in mind like where you might like your ashes scattered?” Or now, with people's geography having shifted, sometimes even if they're going to be buried, they're not exactly sure where that might be because maybe their family has moved from place to place. They have loved ones at different locations. So we talk that through. Sometimes, people will say, “Oh, by the ocean.” Sometimes, people will say in the woods in Northern Wisconsin or whatever it is that might ring true for them. What I mean by living our lives more richly is we talk this through, and we thought, “Oh, that would be lovely. I could see that. Yes, that would be a great, eternal resting place.” Then the next question is when was the last time you've been there? Are you planning to go there again? [00:18:41] PF: Oh, interesting. [00:18:43] JS: So it's kind of how do we have that endpoint that we kind of yearn for and we think about and we can imagine it happening. But how do we back that up and say, “Let's put more of that into our days now.”? Then it makes an easier transition when the time comes. [00:19:01] PF: That's so thoughtful. That is an important thing for us to think about because you're right. We do start making those plans and say, “This is what I want to do,” and that had never even crossed my mind. [00:19:12] JS: Another one that's similar to that is who would you want your family members to notify when you're gone? So that might be friends, family members, former colleagues, whoever is on your mind that you want to have them notified to make sure they know, and they find out from a family member that you have passed. Then the same question applies. When's the last time you contacted them? When's the last time you did something with these folks? So it's a different way of thinking of life, really. [00:19:40] PF: I love that. Yes. Yes. It really reminds you to live while you're here. So when people are in a situation where their loved one is dying, how do they know who to reach out to? How do they find a Threshold Choir? How does that process start? [00:19:56] JS: I wish it was broadcast more publicly because in the US, for example, almost every major city has at least one Threshold Choir, and lots of other cities do as well, smaller cities. Usually, when I sang in Madison and in Manhattan, we were tied very closely with the health care systems and the hospice facilities. So often, staff would say, as end of life was approaching, one option is to have the Threshold singers come in. But I wish there was a way that was like more broadcast because it really is something that's comforting. One of the things I'll say, Paula, is in the same way that we have this aversion or fear around talking about death, the same thing about hospice. So one of my wishes is that people think of if you're going on hospice or receiving hospice care, that it means like you have a day left to live or something. It means like it's the very, very end. But, in fact, palliative care, hospice care, you can do it. I think the actual cut-off on the health insurance side is six months. But people don't take advantage of that ,all of the care and comfort and services that they could be having in those final six months. I think part of it is we just don't want to think that the end is near. So hospice is often called in those final few days. I regret that. I wish people understood or were less frightened by the idea of hospice because – I don't know how much contact you've had with hospice workers, but they're all just like amazing people. [00:21:37] PF: They’re angels. They are actual angels. [00:21:39] JS: [inaudible 00:21:39] to be compassionate, right? [00:21:42] PF: Yes. That’s interesting because my partner's aunt has been in hospice for a couple of months now. We talk to her about once a week, and she is thriving. I mean, she is dying and thriving at the same time. It's the most amazing thing that I've seen because she's in a facility where she enjoys the people. There's a woman down the hall that comes and drinks wine with her every night at five o'clock. She is having a full, rich, dying experience. It's the most amazing thing that I've seen. [00:22:12] JS: Paula, I'm so glad you shared that story. I love that story, and I hope you write about it or somehow get it out in the world. Because I really do think it's important for people to know that even though – maybe are our greatest hope is that this person won't die. Well, that's like not going to happen because we all die. We all have circumstances accompanying us on our end-of-life journey. If that hope is out of the question, what are the other hopes that might still be in play? Like having friends, having community, having people surround you, being able to go outside and listen to the birds sing in the morning. Or whatever those alternative hopes are can be realized. I just wish more people understood that. [00:23:02] PF: Yes. Because the last time we talked to Linda, she was saying that, at first, she was really angry because she felt like she shouldn't be dying yet. She's too young. She had things she wanted to do. Now, she's like, “Okay, this is going to happen. So I'm just going to enjoy what I have and take this time.” She is. She's got a little wine fridge. She's doing – [00:23:22] JS: I absolutely love that. [00:23:24] PF: So if someone wants to be a part of this, if they want to join a Threshold Choir, how do they go about it? What kind of commitment do they need to be prepared to make? What are the logistics of it? [00:23:35] JS: Yes. Each choir is a little bit different. But if you go to – I think it's thresholdchoir.org if you – we can put it in the note episode. [00:23:45] PF: Yes. We’ll put it on the landing page. [00:23:47] JS: But there's a full website of Threshold Choirs, and you can do a location search. So you can find out Threshold Choir chapters that might be close to you. Each one is a little bit different. But I would say, in general, there's usually a weekly rehearsal. Then you have to be available to sing once per month for those at end of life. It’s kind of a rule of thumb and, again, with some flexibility chapter by chapter. In terms of vocal training, I am not vocally trained. So you don't need to be vocally trained, although we certainly have some choir members who just have those ethereal voices. That's not me. But you have to be able to meet the minimum guideline of you have to be able to keep on pitch and tempo with the songs, including when people are harmonizing in three parts. So that if you start going astray, that's not going to work for the whole sound that's being created. So what I like to say, Paula, is I need those bare minimum requirements. But I'm never going to be one to stand up in the room and just like – [00:24:57] PF: You're not going to go audition for The Voice anytime soon. Is that what you're telling? [00:25:02] JS: I would say as a singer and other people who've worked in choirs, there's good research on this that there's an experience of community of – [00:25:11] PF: I was just thinking about that. I was wondering if you get that same thing because all the science it says of singing together, what it does for us, so. [00:25:18] JS: Exactly, exactly. The synchronous movements even, the synchronous sounds as part of that belonging. But there's also, I would say, uplifting experience, like an experience of transcendence or an experience of awe. For me, it always happened. When we would sing our songs, the first line would be the melody. Then the second line, the alto would come in beneath. Then the third line, the soprano would come in on top. When all three were there, it just – I had the feeling of being lifted, the feeling of being kind of carried away. I think that the recipients of some of the Threshold songs, hopefully, would have a similar experience. [00:26:03] PF: That's fantastic. This is so fascinating to me, I think. As you said, more people need to know about it. I think it's such a wonderful way as you approach the end of life. Of course, music has been there throughout our entire lives. What better way than to let it lead us home? So, Jan, thank you for talking about this. [00:26:21] JS: Absolutely, Paula. [00:26:21] PF: Again, I just appreciate it. I always love talking to you. But this is a topic I just think is so important for people to hear about. [00:26:28] JS: Really is, yes. [OUTRO] [00:26:35] PF: That was Jan Stanley, talking about Threshold Choirs. If you'd like to learn more about Jan or find out more about Threshold Choirs, just visit livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. I hope you've enjoyed this episode of On a Positive Note, and I look forward to joining you again next time. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Rediscover Your Sense of Wonder With Monica Parker [INTRODUCTION] [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 413 of Live Happy Now. We're all born with a sense of wonder, so where does it go? This week, our guest is going to tell us and help us rediscover it. I'm your host, Paula Felps, and this week, I'm sitting down with world-renowned speaker, writer, and authority on the future of work, Monica Parker. Monica has spent decades helping people discover how to lead and live wonderfully. Now, she's sharing what she has learned in her new book, The Power of Wonder: The Extraordinary Emotion That Will Change the Way You Live, Learn and Lead. Monica reminds us of the wonder we once felt, explains why it's so important, and then gives us great tips on how to reclaim it. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:51] PF: Monica, thank you so much for joining me on Live Happy Now. [00:00:55] MP: Thank you, Paula, for having me. I'm delighted to be here. [00:00:56] PF: You have written such a remarkable book, and I'm really excited to dig in and talk to our listeners about it. So, I make sure that we're on the same page. Can you explain what you mean, when you say we're talking about wonder? [00:01:09] MP: Absolutely. So, wonder has a couple of different meanings. It's sort of a shapeshifter as a term. We have wonder as a verb, to wonder, which is sort of curiosity. But then we also have wonder as a noun, which would be, a wonder, which might be something that would cause us to have awe. So, what I did is I wanted to link those two into an emotional experience. So, the way I describe wonder is it's an emotional experience that starts with openness, moves into curiosity, then into absorption, and then into awe. It's actually almost like a cycle. So, the more that we experience any of these different components, the more likely we are to experience them in the future. [00:01:51] PF: It's something that's very overlooked, and it's undervalued. One of the first things that struck me as I was getting into this book is wondering what made you decide that you wanted to study it. Can you take us back to why this topic? Because next we're going to talk about why it's so difficult to study. Why? Why did you want to do this? [00:02:12] MP: Sure. So, my whole life, I have been helping people manage big change, existential change. My work as a homicide investigator, obviously, helping people deal with the fact that the state wanted to deprive them of their life. Working with parents who have children with disabilities, and that is a big change in their expectation of raising a child. And then even working in corporate environments where people are losing their job. That is an existential change. It’s a huge ego blow. So, I actually set about to research and to write a book about change management, which in retrospect, is pretty freaking boring. So, I'm glad I didn't do that. And then when I started doing the research, and also reflecting on my own life, I don't think I had the language for it when I was observing it through time. But I realized that people who held their world in a sense of wonder, were more buoyant. They were more resilient and able to handle what life threw at them. So, that just sent me down wonder rabbit hole, and four years later, here we are. [00:03:08] PF: Well, it was four years that was well spent, because this is a wealth of knowledge, and you touch on it in ways I had never even thought of. We'll get into that later. But one of the things you do bring up is why it's so difficult to study wonder. I found this really interesting. Can you talk about that? Because that might explain why no one else is – I'm not saying no one else is doing it. But there's not a lot out there about it, and tell us why? [00:03:35] MP: Well, for starters, because it's a component emotion, right? It has a lot of different elements. Most people, if they wanted to study, say wonder, would just study awe. but I felt that that was too narrow. Because in fact, awe, it feels like something that is brief and fleeting. But more research shows now that we can have awe in everyday life. The other challenge is that just to study the catalyst of big wonder. So, awe, it's very difficult to find something in a lab that will give somebody a sense of actual awe or wander. In these lab environments, either they're putting somebody through an MRI machine, which is like the big doughnut where you have to stay totally still, or they put on this tentacle helmet for an EEG. So, it’s all very stilted. It's very difficult to study. What you end up studying is people's perception. So, they report to you how they feel. Of course, that's how a lot of psychology research is run, but it just becomes quite difficult to pin down the detail of why people are feeling these things, the intensity that they're feeling, the consistency. So, it's really difficult, in fact, a study any emotion and particularly difficult to study one that is meant to have such a grand reaction in our brains. [00:04:56] PF: Right. I love how you put it in the book, because you say, wonder is part science, and part soul, and I absolutely love that. Can you help us understand how you came to that conclusion through your research? And then what does that mean to us? [00:05:12] MP: Absolutely. So, there were a few questions through the research where the scientists would either demur and say, “That's not something that's really in my purview.” And some of them would just say that's not an answer that a scientist can answer. That is for the philosophers. I talk about the big questions, so we can answer something like, “Why do I feel pain when I put my hand on a stove?” But we can't answer using science at least, why does matter give rise to consciousness? Why, as humans, are we conscious? That's when we start to get into philosophy, religion, that's the soul part. And I was really conscious that I didn't want this book to be woo. I grew up in a household. It was great. But I wanted there to be enough science that people understood that there was something real here. But there is a point at which the science just doesn't explain everything that we experience, and that's when we get into the soul. [00:06:08] PF: Yes, and I think that's something that's so important about this book, because live happy as always science base, and there's so much science in it, but it is such an enjoyable read. It's very funny. I love your friend in the first chapter. He was amazing. So, it is. There's a lot of levity to it. But it's all backed up by science, and I really love that about the book, just as an aside. So, when we're talking about wonder, are we all born with a sense of wonder? Because I think about – I really thought back to childhood when everything was new, or when I'm now with, like a friend's children or grandchildren, and everything's exciting. Is wonder something we all have when we come into this world? [00:06:48] MP: Absolutely. Wonder is a universal emotion. The scientists have proven this. It is something we've all felt, and absolutely, when we're born, babies are little wonder machines. I mean, you can see, their eyes are wide open. It looks like they're tripping out all the time or just absorbing, and what's really happening as they're doing that, is they're building what's known as schema. So, schema are the building blocks of how our brains react to the world. It's basically the lens through which we see the world. As the schema build up, then our brains start to say, “Oh, I've seen that. I understand that.” And they try to put it into a box and explain it away. But when you’re children, everything is new, and so everything does create a sense of wonder. Everything does re-path your neural pathways and build the lens through which you see the world. But the problem is, is as we become older, we get a bit calcified. We feel that we don't have as much to see that has wonder in it. And that's one of the challenges is getting people to really be present enough to see through the eyes of a child, to see like a beginner. I love – [inaudible 00:07:52] says that, “Always be beginning.” [00:07:56] PF: So, are there people who maintain that? Because some people seem to have a greater sense of, “Oh, my gosh, look at that.” Even though they've seen that sunset hundreds of times, and they've seen things, but everything sparks them. So, is it kind of like a character strength? Or what is it? [00:08:11] MP: Within the wonder cycle, you've got openness, which is an openness to experience, which is a personality trait. Openness to experience, as a personality trait, one of the big five is going to be half set by your genetics, and half set by your experiences, by the time you turn 25. That latter set is really important. It's why the way we teach our children, literally forms their brain, et cetera. But by the time we're about 25, our personality is pretty set. Curiosity is both a state and a trait. So, what that means is that it can be dialed up based on what we're experiencing in our environment, or it is also – it has some elements that are just who we are, as in our personality. Absorption and awe appear to be just a state. So, it's what happens in our environment. There are certainly people who are more prone. But one of the messages that I want to deliver is that wonder is not about a moment. It's about a mindset. So, there are some people whose mindsets are going to be more naturally wonder prone. They're going to be much higher in openness to experience. They're going to be higher in trait. Curiosity will say, but certainly we can build a mindset that makes us more wonder prone. [00:09:25] PF: Let's talk about that. How do you create a wonder mindset? And how do you know if you have one? [00:09:31] MP: Well, there's actually an assessment that people can take on my website to see how wonder prone they are. It's based on the science, but it is just for fun. So, it will give you an indication. I haven't been able to test it and do all of that yet, but it is based on, and you'll be able to see the different scales that it's based on from different scientists. How can we build a wonder mindset? One of the first ways and the ways that is really primary is through what I call slow thought. This is any way that we can slow down our minds to be more present, to be more observant, in our environment. Those are things like meditation, narrative journaling, gratitude, nostalgia, any of the things that get your mind out of the rumination and into the present moment. That is one key element. We can practice novelty and trying to grow our openness to experience. Now, I say the openness to experience knowing that our personality is set, but the subset of openness to experience that actually is connected to wonder is openness to new ideas, to new thinking. So, if we can expose ourselves to new ideas, new thinking on a regular basis, that's very helpful. Novelty, just going to new environments, meeting with new people, taking a new route. I love to talk about museums or wander factories. Those are great environments. Reading, so exposing yourself to new thinking that way. So really, novelty is another great way, and then priming ourselves. So, priming is a very powerful mechanism, very easy. It's sort of when people talk about like, the secret or manifestation, a lot of that from a scientific point of view is just that you're telling your brain, I want to find this, and therefore it does. So, priming can be as simple as a one sentence. I'm going to find three things to make me feel wonder today. And now you've told your brain, there's a reward for this. I want you to go find it. It's just a little bit like, a bloodhound, go find it. Go, fetch. That’s what it does. It's now been told that it's something worth finding, and it will. [00:11:34] PF: And then as you do that, well, most people hit a point where their brain automatically starts looking for that, because I know that's how gratitude is so effective. When you start writing down, what you're grateful for, your brain starts looking for gratitude moments throughout the day. Does the same thing happen with wonder? [00:11:50] MP: Absolutely. There is an expression that says that when neurons fire together, they wire together. So, the reality is, is that any activity you do with enough practice will then become a neural pathway for good or for bad, right? This is how we have habits. So, it's really about just building that habit, building that muscle, in order to have your brain react in that way. We know that, we can see that from master meditators, how their brain has actually changed. It literally changes the structure of their brain. So, we know that with slow thought, with novelty, these things when practiced enough, and with priming, then we can actually change our brain and it becomes a mental rut that we follow, and a positive one. [00:12:36] PF: One of the challenges that, I think, people will have with slow thought is most of us feel like we don't have five minutes of silence and getting away. I know one of your tips for experiencing wonder is to let yourself be bored. So, I love that tip. I want you to explain why that's important, and then how do we hit that point? Because we're so inundated with information, with noise with everything, right now. [00:13:05] MP: It is a noisy world and our lives are noisy. It's really interesting. I spoke to one scientist who was doing research on happiness, initially, and then she started doing research on awe. She says she doesn't want to research happiness anymore, because she doesn't believe it's very attainable, because people don't know what makes them happy. They miswant what makes them happy and so that's a challenge. But she went to a kite festival. It’s a beautiful day. Everybody was flying these kites and she asked them, on a scale of 1 to 10, how busy do you feel right now? People were like seven and eight, at a kite festival, on a weekend. [00:13:38] PF: Really? [00:13:39] MP: She’s like, “This is a problem.” She says, “Because in our brains, we just think we're busy all the time.” Even though you know with technology and everything, we really don't need to be as busy. So, some of this is that we fill our life with a lot of activity. One of the challenges is as well, we have that expression to twiddle our thumbs, right? The idea of being bored. Well, it's almost anachronistic now. We don't twiddle our thumbs. We use them quite carefully on our phone, right? Pick up our phone the second we feel bored. I remember as a child sitting, and I'll probably date myself, sitting in the doctor's office and like flipping through the Highlights magazine to try to do the different puzzles. We don't have that anymore. So, I think just feeling a sense of boredom and letting that uncomfortable sort of itch, creep up our spine, and then questioning how we react to it. Instead of reacting to it with the way many of us do, which is to pick up our phone, instead react to it in a way that is going to fill our brain with something that gets us closer to wonder, with something that makes us epistemically curious, or with something that helps us with slow thought. But I want to be clear, I'm not good at this. So, I know, physician, heal thyself. I'm not good at it. I know what I need to be doing. But I'm still also on the journey with every other wonder seeker. [BREAK] [00:15:00] PF: I'll be right back with more my conversation with Monica Parker. But right now, it's time to bring back Kate [inaudible 00:15:05], to talk about the adventures of Kittles. Kate, welcome back.   [00:15:09] K: Thank you, Paula. [00:15:11] PF: So, how is Kittles loving his cat tree from Mau Pets? [00:15:15] K: He absolutely loves it. [00:15:17] PF: I wanted to talk to you about style because you have a really beautiful home, and sometimes it's hard to work a cat tree into your home decor. [00:15:26] K: I will just say, this cat tree, I cannot tell you enough how gorgeous it is. It just worked so well with our decor. We love neutrals and whites and it's not obnoxious looking. It looks like a work of art you would never even guess, “Wait a second. That's a cat tree.” It is so beautiful. But I also love that it gives back to animal welfare and environmental conservation. [00:15:53] PF: Oh, that's right. Yes. Mau Pets gives 5% back for every purchase, and it also uses sustainably sourced wood. [00:15:59] K: That's really important to me, Paula, and they also plant a tree which is incredible for every purchase. So, it's such a good way to give back. [00:16:07] PF: If you want to upgrade your kitty’s furniture, and save 5% off your order, visit maupets.com/livehappynow. That's maupets.com/livehappynow. Now, let's get back to my conversation with Monica Parker. [INTERVIEW CONTINUED] [00:16:24] PF: Yeah, it's such an incredible challenge. Because even if we go out and we say, “I'm going to seek wonder, and I'm going to look for three things that make me feel wonder.” For myself, I feel like still in my brain, it's like, “Okay, get that list checked off, because you have stuff to do missy. Get back to the computer.” How do we kind of balance that, because we want this, but shutting off that busy timer in our head? [00:16:51] MP: I think, carving out time for it. I mean, there's a lot of evidence around the power of wonder walks. So, what makes a wonder walk, a wonder walk, you decide it is. I mean, it's simple as that. There was research where they sent people, two groups of people on a walk. One group just said, “Go on a walk in nature that is beautiful.” The other group, they were primed with one sentence, find things that make you feel wonder during this walk. And the wonder walkers came back having not ruminated about their life. So, they had carved out that time just to feel wonder, whereas the other walkers were ruminating about I've got a pack for a trip. I have this project. And the wonder walkers experienced benefits that the regular walkers didn't. So, stress reduction that lasted for a week, lowers stress hormones, yeah, all of that. So, there are a lot of benefits. But how do we carve out the time? Well, there's sort of an interesting irony or paradox to wonder, and that wonder actually makes us feel like time is stretched. It actually gives us a sense of time slowing down. So, we can make the time for it, it will actually make us feel like we have more time. It really becomes an additive process. If we allow ourselves that time, then it will give us that time back in our own brains. [00:18:02] PF: That's terrific. It’s kind of like when you make time for exercise, you actually have more energy, so you get more hours in your day. So, that’s same of kind of – I guess, maybe we've convinced ourselves like, “Hey, if you want your time to last better, then go experience wonder and we’ll come back and do that.” That's great. One thing that you talked about that I'm really interested in, I don't know if this is something you develop, because I'd never heard of it before, and that is wonder bringers. [00:18:28] MP: That is my word. I definitely had to add to my dictionary when I was typing it. [00:18:34] PF: I love it. I love this whole idea and it makes it so simple. So, explain to us what wonder bringers is, and then how we find them in our lives? [00:18:45] MP: Absolutely. So, wonder bringers come in many shapes and sizes. What we know is the different elements that bring us a sense of our curiosity. They can come as nature. Nature is one of the chief areas where we feel a sense of wonder. They can also come socially. So, social wonder bringer would be like watching your child take their first steps. And then, we can have cognitive wonder bringers. And that's the idea of like, maybe studying the folded universe or something like that. Or the question I said, why does matter give rise to consciousness? That can be a cognitive wonder brainer. Then, under that, there's so many different strains of the way that we can find wonder and they may overlap. You and I might go to the Grand Canyon, and for you, it'd be a natural wonder bringer. And for me, maybe it'd be cognitive, because I'd be thinking about the geology and the first people who saw it. These are necessarily discrete categories. But one of the things that I encourage people to do is just to consider what gives them wonder, and one of the ways to know that is what gives you goosebumps? Or what gives you those little tears that spring to your eyes? William Brown called them tears of wonder joy and I love that. These little tears that start to – and you think, “Well I'm a little bit clunked.” So, that kind of idea and what are the things that do that to you, and then do more of them. I also want people to feel comfortable using the language of this brings me wonder, because I feel that so much of what brings us wonder, we may be put in the category of like a hobby, and I don't think that that's fair. It doesn't give it enough gravitas. So, if you and your partner. We’ll use an example, I think it can almost be like a love language. If you're a person who for you, your wonder bringer is going on long hikes in the woods, and your partner's idea of a wonder bringer is going to the opera. If the two of you say that, and you don't share that, then you're going to think, “Oh, that's just a hobby. They like the opera. Oh, they just like to be outside.” Whereas understanding that it's more than that is fundamental to who they are as a human. I think that that, understanding that, giving it the respect and the gravitas that it deserves to say, “No, this is a wonder bringer. This is actually what builds my mind and helps me see the world through the lens, through which I do.” [00:21:02] PF: Is this something people should sit down and consciously examine and say, “What are my wonder bringers?” And really identify them? [00:21:09] MP: Absolutely. Because I think the more that we identify it, then we can say, “Okay. I only have so many hours in a day. I have this much time. I have one night to go out. What am I going to do with it? Am I going to go out and have some margaritas? I love margaritas. Or if I know that music is my wonder bringer, am I going to try and go see a gig?” In that prioritizing, then you get the benefits of it. And it still can be obviously a pleasurable activity, most of the time. But recognizing that I think – and sharing it. Wonder shared is wonder multiplied. So, sharing it with your friends, even telling the story of something that brought you wonder with someone else will then amplify that experience. So, I think it's really about using the language of wonder bringers, sharing that with other people and then prioritizing it in your own life. [00:21:56] PF: Yeah, as you mentioned, if you share it with others, I think what a great weekend experience to have like a wonder weekend and you're going to go out and you're going to all do these things that bring you wonder, either individually or collectively. [00:22:09] MP: And then sharing it. I think that would be amazing. I'm talking with a friend about even trying to put together some small like wonder weekend trips that help people find that, and tap into it, whatever that might be, maybe a cultural one, a natural one. Because I think that we get so busy. And sometimes we don't honor those things that give us wonder. We think that they're just nice to have as opposed to being fundamental to our spirit. [00:22:36] PF: Yes. Or we think, well, you know what, I'm going to put that on the shelf for now and I'll do it when I'm older. I'll do it later. I'll do it whenever it loses its magic. [00:22:45] MP: Absolutely. [00:22:46] PF: So, we talk a lot about like, how we find it, and what to do with it. But you have some amazing research on all the ways that benefits us. I mean, this book, if you sit down with this book, you can't not want to explore wonder, because it changes everything. That's what amazed me, like all the different areas of your life that it affects. I wanted to start by talking about health. And can you talk about what wonder does for our health? [00:23:14] MP: It's really incredible, physiologically, and I think this is probably one of the things that struck me the most in writing the book was the physiological impact. I think I understood cognitively that it would have an impact psychologically. But physiologically, it decreases our stress hormones. It decreases our pro inflammatory cytokines, which is fascinating. So, I'll talk a little bit about that. So, when we're sick, our body releases pro inflammatory cytokines to try to make us well. It's a protein, and it releases this, and then our body counters with anti-inflammatory cytokines, and the two of them balance out, and that helps heal us. But the problem is, is that when we're not injured or sick, and our body releases pro inflammatory cytokines because of stress, or because of some condition in ourselves, then it actually creates problems for us. So, too high pro inflammatory cytokines have been linked to Alzheimer's, to heart disease, to diabetes. This is a mechanism for balancing these pro inflammatory cytokines in your body, and it's really – this is not junk science. This is really founded, fascinating work. There's also evidence around the connection between wonder and biophilia and what biophilia does for pain management, for helping in recovery after surgery. So, a lot of healing that can occur from the wonder of nature as well. [00:24:42] PF: That was so interesting to me, because first of all, I thought, “Oh, my gosh, if more people had had – if we had had this during the pandemic, people could have been exploring the world so much differently, because that was so difficult.” And also, as we're looking always, we're inundated with news about like, okay, Alzheimer's, and how to prevent this, and have to present that. It's so much simpler that without taking a pill, without having to do with these other things, like you have a very compelling argument for using wonder as a wonder drug, type of thing. [00:25:15] MP: Yes. I think, obviously, I'm not saying that wonder is going to cure Alzheimer's, but I think it opens a door into understanding. So, what we do is say, “Okay, there's some disease, we just don't really understand. We do everything. We can we know exercise is going to be good for us. It's always good for us. We know that meditation really helps our brains.” And I think that wonder is another way that we can just say, “All right, this is calming the reactive systems in my body. And we know that it's connected to the vagus nerve, which really manages that rest and digest, as opposed to the fight and flight.” So, if we are able to activate the vagus nerve, and we're able to calm our reactive systems, then that's good for us, and that will certainly help stave off certain diseases. There's no promises that this is going to cure anyone. And I say that. I say, “This is not going to fix everything. But what it does is, I believe, it opens a window for us to have a discussion about different methodologies and approaches to healing.” [00:26:15] PF: Yeah. Overall, it's a pretty easy arrow to put in your quiver, because it's not like, you know, meditation is challenging for a lot of people. Exercise, people don't necessarily want to be doing that as much as they should. Eating right, same thing. And wonder, is, you're getting an incredible benefit and an incredible experience out of it. [00:26:37] MP: Absolutely. I think it's so accessible, and I know that your podcast is about happiness. But I do keep going back to it's so accessible, even in dark times. This is one of the things that I found most heartening about it, is that happiness really is hard for a lot of people to find. There's this thing called affective forecasting. It's where we miswant what we think will make us happy. We're not very good at knowing what makes us happy. Frequently also, our goal, and our desire for happiness gets wrapped up in consumerism, and stuff and the idea of hedonic happiness. Whereas wonder, we can feel in the dark times and in the light. We can maybe look at the war in Ukraine and say, “That's terrible, I can't feel happy about that.” But you can be in a state of wonder. You can be in a state of wonder at the resiliency of people. You can be in a state of wonder at the people that are helping. You can even be at a state of wonder at the magnitude of what's happening there. And that, I believe, holding – I know, the research shows that holding mixed emotions, the positive and the negative, the yin and yang together, at the same time, is incredibly helpful for our resilience, and it really helps us manage traumatic experiences. So, holding wonder, I think, especially during difficult times, like COVID, and the war, and all of that is really helpful. It's really ameliorative for us. [00:28:02] PF: One of the points that you bring up is to stop chasing happiness. And I really love that, because the kind of happiness that we talk about at Live Happy is not the happy, happy, joy, Joy. It's the long term. It's our wellbeing. It's how content are you, overall. So, talk about how the pursuit of happiness is not making us happy. [00:28:23] MP: There's a term that I learned happychondriacs and I think that’s a really – [00:28:28] PF: I need a minute for that one. [00:28:29] MP: Yes. I think that that was – I read that and I was like, “Oh, my goodness, I know these people. I probably grew up with some of these people.” Or they're like, “No neggies and everything's positive.” It's like, no, everything isn't always positive. The world sucks sometimes. It's just the reality. When we engage in toxic positivity, we are losing out on the richness of our full emotional spectrum. So, we know that people who have greater emo diversity, which means they're able to call up a number of different emotions, so it's not just happy, sad, angry, you a really robust multivariate number of emotions that that's very good for resiliency, we also know that mixed emotions. So mixed emotions, like wonder, like curiosity is a mixed emotion We've sometimes are driven to be curious about things that aren't very positive. Nostalgia is another mixed emotion. Gratitude can be a mixed emotion. Sympathy. So, any of these mixed emotions where there is bitter sweetness. What's known as existential longing. Susan Cain wrote a book about that. Anything that combines the happy and the sad together, the positive and the negative, that dual experience we know is very, very good for us and it's much more attainable. So, I found it fascinating that this researcher, Melanie Rudd, who I talked about at the kite festival, she said I just don't study happiness anymore. I study awe, because I think that it just makes more sense to study that. It's more achievable. So, I thought that was really fascinating and the benefits are significant when you look at it. The quantum of benefits for people who experienced wonder are much higher. In fact, sometimes the scientists will compare happiness to wonder when they're testing it. They'll compare happiness to awe. And awe has a quantum of benefits that's greater than happiness. [00:30:13] PF: I think that's great for people to hear, because we put pressure on ourselves, the whole, I should be happy. I have this wonderful home. I have this life. [00:30:21] MP: Ad then, you feel guilty. When you put guilt on top of it, it's not helpful. [00:30:27] PF: Yes. Exactly. I would love to talk about, as well, how wonder affects our relationships, because that's the biggie for everybody. When we start practicing wonder, we experience wonder, how is it going to change our relationships, both romantic relationships, relationships within our families, and our relationships at work? [00:30:48] MP: So, that was one of the things I started to study as well. And I think of wonder, almost like a love language. I think that it's something that we should be talking about with our friends, with our partners, to say, this brings me wonder, so that that is something that then we value, and that we protect, and nurture within our relationships. I think that having wonder in the workplace can be really powerful. It makes our teams more bond in a different way. It makes them more inclusive. So, we know people that experience wonder are more welcoming to outsiders. Inclusion becomes easier. Leaders who are more wonder prone or who lead in a wonder way, are more communicative. They're more empathetic. They're more humble. They're more ethical. They're more authentic. So, all of these elements that we know we seek in the workplace, and frankly, in friendships as well, there is a fascinating piece of research that showed that people when they experienced wonder, not only did they feel more humble, but their friends thought they were more humble. So, it actually changes are an affect. I thought that was fascinating. Or people who are genuinely curious. So, if you show genuine curiosity about another person, which really is the basis of empathy, right? Empathy is being genuinely curious about the human condition about someone else. People who are genuinely curious and ask questions in that curiosity, the person that they're asking questions of will find that person more friendly, and also more attractive. So, anybody out there who's dating on the dating scene, ask genuine questions to someone with authenticity, and they will find you more attractive. [00:32:25] PF: I love it. So, we're going to give our listeners a free chapter of your book, and we're also going to, on the website, we're going to direct them directly to the Wonder Quiz. But where else can they start? If someone's listening to this and decide, “I need more wonder in my life.” What are a couple of things I can start doing right now, to make that change? [00:32:46] MP: Number one, you can take a wonder walk. Really, again, what's the wonder walk? You decide it. You try things that help you find wonder. A new route, anything that gives you a sense of vastness. So, anything that makes you feel like a smaller component part of a bigger system. And then also, slow thought that's just even taking five minutes to allow yourself to be bored, and just question what's happening in your brain. That's another great way. And then, I love nostalgia or gratitude or prayer. Any of those, just five minutes to reflect back on a happy time, to think about that, to journal about it, also helpful, narrative journaling. So, any of those. Just start with five minutes and see what it does and how it makes you feel. [00:33:32] PF: Hat's excellent. Monica, thank you so much, first, for writing this book. It's a book that we need. We needed it sooner. But that's all right. But it is remarkable. [00:33:41] MP: It’s here now. [00:33:41] PF: You are here now, and it is remarkable. I really hope people check it out. And thank you again. Thank you for coming on the show and talking about it. [00:33:50] MP: Thank you so much, Paula. I really appreciate the kind words and it's been delightful chatting with you. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:33:59] PF: That was Monica Parker talking about wonder. We invite you to check out her new book, The Power of Wonder: The Extraordinary Emotion That Will Change the Way You Live, Learn and Lead. When you visit our website at livehappy.com, we'll tell you how to download a free preview of the book, as well as a free wonder walk poster. You can also take her Wonder Quiz or sign up for Wonder Bringer newsletter. We'll also tell you how to find her on social media. To add more wonder to your daily feet. Just visit our website at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tap. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for all new episodes. And until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]

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