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Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Why We Need to Talk About Mental Illness With Gabe Howard [INTRODUCTION] [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for Episode 431 of Live Happy Now. We've become more comfortable with talking openly about mental health, but we're still reluctant to talk about mental illness. Since September is Suicide Prevention Month, we wanted to open up that conversation on this important topic. I'm your host, Paula Felps, and this week I'm talking with Gabe Howard, author, speaker, and host of The Inside Mental Health Podcast by Healthline Media. After being committed to a psychiatric hospital in 2003, Gabe was diagnosed with bipolar and anxiety disorders. And today he uses his experience to help others navigate and understand that difficult path. Gabe is here to talk about not just his journey, but to help the families and friends of people who are struggling with mental illness. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:51] PF: Gabe, thank you so much for being on the show today. [00:00:54] GH: Paula, thank you so much for having me. [00:00:56] PF: You have done so much to create awareness around mental illness and really challenge the stigma that's associated with it. I don't know that there's any individual out there who's approaching it the way that you are. So, before we really get into this conversation, why don't you give us a little bit of your backstory and tell us about your journey. [00:01:15] GH: I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 26 after being committed to a psychiatric hospital. And if you would have asked me, well, hell, an hour before I was committed to a psychiatric hospital, if I had any mental illness, I would have been like, “No. I'm just fine.” My background is I didn't know what mental illness was and I believed all the stigma and stereotypes. Mentally ill people are violent. Mentally ill people rock back and forth and drool. They're antisocial. They're psychotic. They look a certain way. They come from bad homes. I always like to remind people of that one right there, because my home life was stable. My mom and dad loved me very much. They were engaged in care. I always say the worst thing my parents ever did to me in my childhood was give me a younger brother and a sister. [00:01:56] PF: I'm sure they love hearing that. [00:01:58] GH: I know. I always pause for laughter there. But sincerely, when people hear my story, they want it so desperately to hear that my father is an alcoholic, and my mother sat on the couch eating bonbons and beat us, or that they were disengaged, or that we were homeless, or that we didn't have health insurance. They want these things so desperately because then it's a protective factor. Right? If they keep their homes in order, their children will be safe. Unfortunately, that's not the reality. And people believe that it's the reality. So, if they have a good, stable, caring home life, they don't see it in their children. They don't see it in their spouses. They don't see it in their friends and family, siblings, et cetera. They're like, “Hey, we're all good and we all love each other. So, whatever's wrong with you is probably your fault, and we don't have to pay attention to it.” This becomes really, really problematic because it allows really sick people like me to go without care and help. [00:02:55] PF: Well, what was it that triggered you being institutionalized? How did that manifest itself? As you said, even an hour before you were committed, you wouldn't have thought you had mental illness. What was it that – was that breaking point? [00:03:07] GH: I thought about suicide as far back as I can remember. When I was five years old, I thought about suicide. Ten years old, I thought about suicide. Teenage years, young adult. So, I thought it was normal. That's really the key that I want your listeners to focus on. When you are born thinking a certain way, when you are born with your brain working a certain way, you have no reason to believe that that's aberrant, or an illness process, or sick, or different. When I looked out in the world, I thought that everybody was contemplating the pros and cons of life or death. I thought that everyone was suicidal. I thought that everyone's brains work this way. So, when my parents punished me and said, like, “You're bad.” I believe that I was bad. I believed it was a behavioral issue, just like they did. Where this is going is that by the time I was 26 years old, I just thought it was bad. I thought I was bad. My parents reinforced that I was bad. I was constantly being punished. Society wasn't happy with me. I was going through a divorce. So, I decided, you know what, I tried. I tried. So, remember that decision. I've been contemplating literally my whole life. I decided that now was the time. I made a suicide plan, and luckily, luckily, someone caught on. Someone who suffers from depression herself. Someone who's taken psychology one on one. Somebody was raised by a psychiatric nurse. Her mom was a psychiatric nurse. So, she just had a lot of the pieces of the puzzle that my family, friend, and support group lacked. She spotted it. She did the right things. She ultimately drove me to the hospital where I was committed, diagnosed, and I like to say that that began my four-year epic battle against bipolar disorder. [00:04:46] PF: How long ago was that? What kind of a timeframe are we talking about? [00:04:49] GH: That was 20 years ago. I am now 46 years old. [00:04:52] PF: All right. How did it go from your being institutionalized, to you have this journey, this four-year journey, and how did it then become a point where you are comfortable enough to talk about not just other people's mental illness, but your own mental illness? [00:05:11] GH: It went slowly. The example that I always use is true crime. I love true crime. America loves true crime, and everybody listens to this, like, few hour podcasts or watches a one-hour television show. They're like, “Wow, that's an amazing story.” We all tell like these details of the story, and we love it. But you ever actually look at the dates, the date from the crime – [00:05:34] PF: Like 18 years. [00:05:35] GH: Yes, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years. We were somehow able to take what is 5 years or a decade or 15 years of a bunch of people's lives and boil it down to the high points that took an hour. That is how my story with mental illness goes, of course. The first thing I want to say is I'm about to wrap up for years in like two minutes. I don't know that it does it justice. Because four years is a really long time to be suffering, and having ups and downs and trial and errors and goods and bads. I tried a lot of medications. I tried a lot of therapy. Obviously, I was in the hospital, then I went to a step-down unit. A step-down unit is where you sleep at home, but you spend eight hours a day in the hospital. It's sometimes referred to as intensive outpatient therapy or outpatient therapy. I did all of these things, and it took a really, really, really, really long time. There, that was like two minutes. [00:06:29] PF: Did you have support during that time? Was your family supportive? What kind – were your friends? Because I feel that's kind of important to know. [00:06:35] GH: Many of my friends were gone. My friends, they bought into the Gabe is just a jerkface. They weren't buying it. They judge me by my behavior and my behavior, make no mistake, was awful. It was awful. The way that I treated them. I lied to them. I was manipulative. I was not there for them. So, they moved on. Because who wants a friend like that? My first wife, the exact same way. I cheated on her. I was dishonest with her. I was not a good husband, and she left as well. But I had my family. Moms and dads, they are much, much, much harder to push away. My family got on board very quickly. [00:07:10] PF: Parents or family members, if they have someone they're dealing with, it's difficult. As you noted, it's difficult to help someone who is going through this. So, how important is it for them to be able to rally around you, and probably get their own support to deal with whatever they're dealing with their family member? [00:07:31] GH: That's definitely one of those how much time do you have. So many family members are just like, “You know what? The hell with you. I'm done. I'm not helping you anymore.” While I was going through it, I did not realize that that was a possibility. It never even occurred to me that my parents would abandon me. That was how good they did. I now realized that that's like, super – I call it luck, right? My mom and dad don't refer to it as luck. They're just like, “We would never abandon you. We don't care what you do.” But listen, there's so many families out there to get fractured and broken. As I point out all the time when I'm talking to people, my parents had other kids. They couldn't just abandon my brother and sister to save me. So, it's possible that they might have had to stop helping me so that they could start helping my brother and sister. Fortunately, my brother and sister did not need the kind of support and time that I needed. Paula if I can explain, anything to your audience and get them to take it away, it’s that families are super complicated, and many families they suffer and they cannot withstand the storm that is untreated, serious, and persistent mental illness, and it fractures them, and it breaks them up, and it costs people everything. To answer your specific question about how important it is. It's vital. [00:08:45] PF: How does a family get help? They're putting so much of their time and their resources into getting through this difficult situation and this difficult time, and it's such a long journey. So, where do they find support and understanding of what's going on? [00:09:02] GH: There's so many places they can find support. So, many family members don't realize that they need support. There is a magic duo. They’re in Las Vegas. They're super famous. They've been famous for 35 years named Penn & Teller. [00:09:13] PF: Oh, God. I love them.   [00:09:14] GH: Have you heard of Penn & Teller? [00:09:15] PF: Oh, love them. [00:09:17] GH: I love Penn & Teller. But Teller, he is referred to as the little guy, right? That's like, if you say Penn & Teller and you can't remember. It’s like, “Oh, I saw these magicians. There was like a big guy and a little guy.” And that's how they're always referred, the little guy, the little guy, the little guy, the little guy. Teller is 6’3”. He is taller than the average male in America by a huge margin. I think the average height for a man is what like 5’11”, six-foot, somewhere in that range? And he is three inches taller than that, four inches, five inches. But you know why he's called the little guy? Because he spent his career standing next to 6’8” Penn Jillette. So, it's all about perspective. I always give this example because so many family members, they see their mentally ill loved one, and they think that they have no problems. They personally, the family members believe that they have no problems, because after all, when you're standing next to someone who has serious and persistent mental illness, your mental health issues look small. But here's the fact, Teller from Penn & Teller is not the little guy. He is tall. He is taller than the average. That is a fact. Here's another fact, your mental health issues don't change because someone is sicker. One, that's just the suffering Olympics. But two, this is where perspective is really, really important. You can be having a serious mental health crisis, and just because your loved one is having a serious and persistent mental illness issue, or illness, or disorder, or problem doesn't change yours. I don't mean to beat this into the ground. But so many people believe in these families that they don't need help, because they need to be helping someone else. Here's where this is dangerous. Do you want somebody to come and save you that is suffering from a mental health crisis? If you were in trouble, do you want the person who shows up to be suffering from a mental health crisis when they are here to save you? No. You want the person who shows up to save you to be firing on all cylinders, to be 100%, to be well rested, well slept, have control of their faculties, and be in a good working order. That's what we want. But so many family members don't think they need therapy. They don't think that they need help. They don't think that they need to go to a support group. They don't think that they need to take a class. They don't think that they need to talk their general practitioner. They don't even think they need to take a break. They don't even think that they need to step away from the situation for a day or two, so that they can gain perspective and get well rested and come back. They believe that they have to be helping their mentally ill loved one 100% of the time, always and forever with zero breaks. This is a recipe for disaster and failure. But it's what the average person believes. Listen, Paula, if you ask any mom, if it's okay to leave your child alone for a couple of days to recharge, almost every single mother would say, “Absolutely not. Absolutely not. No, no, no.” I hear it all the time. And all I can think is, “Wow, that's” – I get it, you're a really good mom, like I love you and I want to hug you. But you're actually making the situation worse for everyone and you don't even realize it. [00:12:22] PF: We had a guest on recently, Dr. Laura Phillips, and she's with the Child Mind Institute, and she said a great thing where she said, “Self-care is childcare.” And I love that because her whole point is you've got to take care of yourself first, so that you can be whole and present for your child, and that's exactly what we're talking about. [00:12:41] GH: She sounds like she can say things shorter than I can, and that’s a skill that I do not have. But yes, 100%. One of the things I'd like to say to all of the moms out there, all of the parents out there, all of the frontline caregivers for teenagers, young adults, et cetera, is it doesn't have to be you. I know that's a hard thing to hear. But sometimes you got to call the favorite aunt. You got to call grandma and grandpa. You got to call the trusted friend and you got to say, “Look, I need you to step in. I need you to step in and take my child for the weekend. I need you to talk to them. I need you to go to the doctor's appointment. I need you to help me.” Many times, these people were like, “Yes, I just didn't want to offend you by offering my help.” Because that's another problem we have in our society. When we see parents struggling, we don't want to walk up and say, “Hey, mom and dad, you seem to be struggling with your young adult, or your teenager, or your toddler, or whatever. Let me step in.” Because then, “Oh, you think I'm a bad mom. You think I'm a bad dad. You think we're bad parents. You're judging us.” So, we've been so trained not to offer any assistance, and then parents have been so trained not to ask for any assistance, and this is the literal equivalent, and everybody sitting inside the burning house, not knowing what to do. The answer is so simple. Call the fire department. Get out of the house. Actually, I've said that wrong. Get out of the house, call the fire department. But imagine if the messaging was muddled. Hey, if your house catches on fire, that's your responsibility to put out. Well, hey, if you see a house on fire, you got to give the parents a chance to put it out themselves. You don't want to usurp their power. You don't want to make them look bad in front of their kids. Then, in the meantime, we just have all these houses burning down, and all these people getting third degree burns are worse, because we don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. We have to get away from that. Mental illness thrives in this atmosphere. Because it can run around unchecked. It can do whatever I want it. It's difficult to ask for help. It's difficult to offer help. I understand. But I'm telling you, it pays huge dividends for families, huge. [00:14:47] PF: One thing that's so different now than when you started this 20 years ago, is that we didn't talk about mental illness. We didn't talk about anxiety. We didn't talk about schizophrenia. We didn't talk about bipolar. It was whispered. So, what has changed? And how has that helped get treatment out there? Just how has that helped just being able to talk about it? If we continue as a society, do you become more comfortable talking about it? How is that going to change the way we can manage it? Because obviously, if you don't have to hide it, you can do so many different things with it. [00:15:27] GH: The faster you get to care, the better your odds are. That's not a mental health thing. That's just a fact. That's just a health thing. It's true in physical health. It's true in mental health. It's true in physical and mental health. It's just true everywhere. So, if people were willing to talk about it, I'm going to use myself, I'm going to make sure that I'm using myself as an example. I used to cry myself to sleep at night all the time. But I grew up in the eighties, and I absorbed these messages that men are strong. Men are stoic. Men don't cry. So, I told no one. I didn't tell anybody I was crying myself to sleep. I was ashamed and I was embarrassed. Now, I find out years later that I had I told my parents this, they would have asked why, what's going on? What's the problem? They would have been extraordinarily open, extraordinarily supportive. They would have gotten me all kinds of help. In fact, when they finally figured this out, they did in fact, take me to a therapist. They took me to the school psychologist, so I can talk to about this. So, I was 16 years old. I've been exhibiting this behavior for a decade, before I got even the most remote assistance at all and they feel bad about this. But the message of men are strong, and I'll give you something to cry about, was so there. It was there. Men my age, understand this. Adults my age understand this. So, just imagine if when I was 7, 8, 9, 10 years old, I mean, like I cry every day. Well, what's wrong? I don't know. Well, let's talk about this. I could have just had an open eye – I might not have needed therapy. I probably would have because the bipolar disorder was there. But I imagine that there are just so many people, so many teenagers who are exhibiting. I don't want to call them mild, because they're on the spectrum from suicidality to crying yourself to sleep. Crying is sort of a beginning symptom, right? There's got to be so many people who are experiencing depression and crying themselves to sleep at night, and they tell no one. If they could tell people, they could get support, they could get intervention sooner, and this would be so much better. So, much better, right? A stitch in time saves nine. That's what my grandmother says. I think it's an old timey analogy, but it works. I love it. I love it, just faster is better. [00:17:35] PF: Before I let you go, what is it that you most hope that you'll accomplish by bringing topics related to mental illness out into the open and really opening up that dialogue? [00:17:44] GH: I look at my family a lot. Remember what I said, my family were good, stable, engaged, loving parents that created a beautiful home, and yet they missed it all. They believe the stereotypes, and they did not have the information that they needed. This could have cost me my life, and it could have cost them their child, it could have cost my brother and sister, their brother, my grandparents, their grandson. The devastation of my suicide would have rippled throughout my family and friends forever. This is from a family that I know was doing everything. I don't have to guess. I know they did everything they thought was right. What I think about all the time is the fact that they did everything they thought was right. If they would have known it was wrong, they would have done something different. I hope to reach those families who are doing everything they think is right, and just letting them know, hey, instead of doing this, do this and here's why. Because these families, they're ready and they're willing, and they're able, and they're trying. They are doing everything they can for their children. What makes it horrible for me is knowing that it's not going to be enough. I want to make sure that everybody understands in mental health, that for all of the people who are ready, willing, and able to do the right thing, do this. Do this instead. Have this knowledge instead understand this instead, and that would have saved my family so much, so much, so much suffering, so much grief, so much unhappiness. And as I point out, I ended up okay. In the end, it all turned out okay. [00:19:22] PF: Well, Gabe, you're doing tremendous work. You're putting so much good out in the world and so much educational value. On the landing page, we're going to let people know how they can link directly to you, listen to you. I thank you for coming on the show and talking about it today, because it is super important topic and I'm so glad to be able to share it with our listeners. [00:19:38] GH: Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time and energy and effort and everything that you do. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:19:49] PF: That was Gabe Howard, talking about mental illness. If you'd like to learn more about Gabe and his podcast or follow him 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: Using Your Mind to Improve Your Health With Dr. Ellen J. Langer [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 433 of Live Happy Now. When it comes to our health, most of us believe that we just have to live with ailments and declining well-being as we grow older. But this week's guest is about to flip the script on everything you thought you knew about health and happiness. I'm your host, Paula Felps. This week, I'm talking with the mother of mindfulness, Dr. Ellen J. Langer. Ellen is highly regarded as one of America's most influential psychologists. In her new book, The Mindful Body, she presents decades of research that shows how our thoughts and perspective can change our health. She's here to tell us how we can use the mind-body connection to rethink what we believe to be true, and explains how our thoughts could be undermining our health and what we need to do about it. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:52] PF: Dr. Langer, thank you so much for being on Live Happy Now. [00:00:56] EL: My pleasure, Paula. [00:00:58] PF: You have written many books, but your latest one is truly remarkable. It has had me absorbed since the moment I got – well, actually before I even got it in the mail. I have to say that one of the first things that struck me about it was the subtitle and that is Thinking Our Way to Chronic Health. I love the idea of chronic health. Can you tell us what that means? [00:01:20] EL: Well, we have a sense of as we get older, we're going to become sick, and we have little control over being sick. All of the work, hopefully, we'll talk about some of it now, suggests to me that, no, we don't have to get sick. We don't have to go to doctors. I'm not putting down the medical world. Certainly, if I just broke my arm, I'd go to the hospital. But there are so many ways we can take care of ourselves. So much control that we have that people are totally oblivious to. So I saw it as an opportunity for me to make people aware of all this control by doing all of this research. [00:01:57] PF: Do you find any pushback from people initially when – [00:02:01] EL: You know what? It's really interesting. I would expect it, right? Doctors know or they don't know. But they're under the impression, I think, that you're going to heal faster if they pretend they know. I think that it depends on the particulars but most of the time that what we need to do is exploit the power and uncertainty. Let me talk to you about mindfulness because that's the basis of all of this. When I'm talking about mindfulness, it has nothing to do with meditation. It's the simple process of noticing. Now, why then aren't we all mindful all the time? Because most of the time, we think we know. When we think we know, we don't pay any attention. If you simply notice five new things about the environment, the person you're living with, talking to, five new things about your work, what happens is you come to say, “Gee, I didn't know it as well as I thought I did.” Then your attention naturally goes to it. When we're actively noticing, the neurons are firing. Our research has found that it's literally and figuratively enlivening. So it feels good and it's good for us. Now, what people are taught by parents, by speakers, myself excluded, are absolutes. You go to school, and they tell you things like, oh, I don't know, “One and one is two.” So, Paula, how much is one and one? [00:03:29] PF: Oh, I guess it's two. [00:03:30] EL: No, not always. If you're adding one wad of chewing gum plus one wad of chewing gum, one plus one is one. If you're adding one pile of laundry plus one pile of laundry, one plus one is one. One cloud plus one cloud, one plus one. So in the real world, one plus one doesn't equal two as often as it does. But once we think we know, we stop paying attention. So I'm sorry, Paula. For the rest of your life now, if somebody asks you how much is one and one, you're going to have to sit up and pay attention to the context to get the answer. Now, what – [00:03:59] PF: Well, because I’m already a writer, so they think I can't do math, and they're not wrong, so. [00:04:02] EL: Okay. That's great. Let me tell you something important that happened to me a while ago. I was at this horse event, and this man asked me if I'd watch his horse for him because he was going to get a hot dog for him. Well, I'm Harvard, Yale, all the way through. Nobody knows better than I. Horses don't eat meat. That's the starting point. He comes back with the hot dog, and the horse ate it. Oh, my. Everything I thought I knew now I realized I might not know. Now, some people in hearing this or figuring out that they don't know very much might be worried. But for me, I was excited because it meant all sorts of possibilities open up. That's what this book is about, possibilities. So there was a study I did. I don't know if it, although I talk about it in this book, so you'll pretend you did, even if you didn't read it yet. [00:04:54] PF: How far is it because I'm like two-thirds through. [00:04:57] EL: Okay. I'm sure. It doesn't matter. I'm sorry I put you on the spot. [00:05:01] PF: Oh, we're good. [00:05:02] EL: Okay. So basically, this was the first test of the mind-body unity idea, which goes through this new book. Now, mind-body unity means mind, body, they're one. If they're one, then wherever you put the mind, you're necessarily putting the body. You're thinking about, “My gosh, all the places I can go with my mind, and that's going to have an effect on my health and well-being.” So in this first study, we took old men to a timeless retreat that – oh, you know it. [00:05:30] PF: Oh, my gosh. I love this. I was telling a friend about this yesterday that this blew my mind, and now I want to create a retirement home like that. [00:05:38] EL: Okay. So what we did, we retrofitted the retreat to 20 years earlier. We had old men live there for a week as if they were their younger selves. That means that they talked about the past in the present tense, okay, as well as other things. Now, just a week, right? What we found was that their hearing improved, their vision improved, their memory improved, their strength improved, and they looked noticeably younger. To me, this was incredible because when have you ever heard a 90-year-old's hearing improve without any medical intervention? [00:06:12] PF: Exactly. [00:06:15] EL: So in this new book, I talk about all the new research testing this mind-body unity idea. The next study we did in that series was with chambermaids. If women are listening, they'll find this especially interesting. So we asked six chambermaids. How much exercise do you get? They said, “Oh, I'm too tired. Exercise is what you do after work, so I don't get any exercise.” So we divided them into two groups. We took one group, and we taught them that their work was exercise. They were told making a bed was like working on this machine at the gym and so on. So at the end, we have two groups. One who believes their work is exercise. The other group doesn't realize. We take many, many measures before we start. At the end, simply changing your mindset resulted in people losing weight, a change in body mass index, waist-to-hip ratio, and their blood pressure came down. All right, let me hurry along here to the newest research, although there are many in between these two testing this mind-body unity. So we inflict a wound. Now, it would have been more dramatic if I could really hurt people, but I didn't want to do that. [00:07:21] PF: Like cut an arm off or what. [00:07:22] EL: The review board wouldn't let me, even if I did live in that world. So it's a minor wound, and people are in front of a clock. For a third of the people, the clock is going twice as fast as real time. For a third of the people, the clock is going half as fast as real time. For a third of the people, it's real time. The question we're asking is how long does it take the wound to heal. Well, it turns out the wound heals based on perceived time, clock time, not real time. We have so much control over everything, and we're simply blind to it that I think, although I don't have data specifically for this, so you can imagine when I tell you how hard it would be to do the studies, that the major cause of illness is stress, major cause. Now, stress is psychological. So if you say to yourself – and it's also the case that when we're stressed, two things are going on. The first is we think something's going to happen. The second is when it happens, it's going to be awful. Well, it turns out we can't predict. If you think about it, you go back over the times you've been stressed, almost all the things we're stressed about never even happened. [00:08:37] PF: Right. It’s the stuff we're not thinking about that gets us. [00:08:40] EL: So if you said to yourself, what are three reasons this thing I'm scared of won't happen, and you're usually able to generate them. So you went from thinking it's definitely going to happen to maybe it will, maybe it won't, so you immediately feel better. But now, what I think people should do is say let's assume it happens. What are three, five reasons that it's actually an advantage? You can always come up with things. Now, what people don't realize is that events don't come pre-packaged. This is a good thing. This is a bad thing. It all depends on the way we understand our world. So the more mindful you are, the more potential understandings of any event you can come up with. An example I've used too often but I can't come up with another one on the spot now. [00:09:27] PF: So let's do it again. [00:09:28] EL: Okay. Let's say you and I go out to lunch, and the food is wonderful. Wonderful, it's a win. You and I go out to lunch. The food is awful. Wonderful, I'll eat less, and that'll be better for my waistline. [00:09:39] PF: I like that. [00:09:40] EL: All right. There is always a way of interpreting things. It's also true for people, which we don't tend to realize that we tend to see people by dispositions. Paula, you really are getting on my nerves because you're so inconsistent. I'm getting on your nerves because I'm so gullible. Well, it turns out for every single negative description we can give to somebody, negative way we understand what they're doing, there's an equally strong but oppositely balanced alternative. What is negative is equally positive. So you're not inconsistent. From your perspective, you're flexible. I'm not gullible. From my perspective, I'm trusting. This is true no matter what words we come up with to insult ourselves or other people. So now, all the times you're stressed because I keep trying to change you, I can't stand you’re so inconsistent. Now that I realize you're being flexible, hey, now I appreciate you. As I appreciate you, you appreciate me. Because we're both less judgmental, our relationship improves. As our relationship improves, we get more support. With that support, we're going to experience less stress, and we're and going to end up healthier. [00:10:54] PF: I love the way you tie that all back together. As we talk about health, it's really clear that we have turned the power of our health over to our practitioners. Will you talk about how we can kind of start reclaiming control of our health from our practitioners because to your point, they don't know everything. [00:11:15] EL: Oh. Well, you can challenge them, but why bother? What I would suggest is that we stay healthy in the first place and that when we have symptoms, we engage in what I'll talk to you about after, the next three things you want to talk about, attention to symptom variability. Let me throw one thing in there, is a one-liner that I've come up with that is so meaningful to me. You can ask yourself with anything. Is it a tragedy or an inconvenience? Almost all the time, you realize so what I burned the dinner? So what I missed the bus? So what I didn't get the project done on time? Just by asking that question then we relax. Again, as we're relaxing, we're becoming happier and healthier. What we need to understand is that symptoms, no matter what we have, if we're depressed, we're stressed, we have Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, a broad range of things, the mistaken assumption people make is that their symptoms are going to stay the same or get worse. Well, it turns out nothing only goes in one direction. Now, so what we did, we took people with major diseases, and we set this up where we were going to just call them at random times throughout the day, throughout the week, and ask them, “So how do you feel now? Is it better or worse than before, and why?” Okay, now what happens, the first thing you see is that, gee, I'm not stressed all the time, or I'm not in pain all the time. So you immediately feel a little better. Second, by asking why, why does it hurt now and it didn't before, you're going on a mindful search. I didn't mention it explicitly, but several experiments that we've done showed just by becoming more mindful, you live longer. So it's very potent, even if you stop there. Then finally, if you look for a solution, you're much more likely to find it, and you're engaged. Engagement itself is the essence of being mindful. You're taking care of yourself, so you feel good about it. We've done this now with people who have Parkinson's, stroke, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, chronic pain, depression, and just imagine stress. Paula, let's say you feel you're stressed all the time. No one is stressed all the time. It's just that when you're not stressed, you're not thinking about being stressed. [00:13:44] PF: Oh, that's a great point. [00:13:44] EL: Then you get stressed again. So point A, you're thinking about it. Point C, you're thinking about it, and you assume it's all the time. You do this thing. How do you feel right now? Are you better or worse than before and why? After you do this, you discover I'm maximally stressed when I'm talking to Ellen Langer. Well, if that's the case, the solution is easy. Don't talk to me or talk to me differently. Talk to me in the way you talk to people when you're not stressed. This is just part of the control we have over ourselves. That placebos may be our strongest medicine. As everybody knows, the placebo is a sugar pill, or it's something inert. You take this thing that's nothing, and you get better. Okay. So clearly, you're making yourself better. All of my work is designed to find out how to do that more directly where we don't need to go to a doctor. People would be surprised. I don't know if I should reveal this or not, but much of the medication that we're prescribed are, in fact, placebos. So you go to a doctor. You get a placebo. You take this placebo, and now you get better. One of the things that people don't realize, and there's no reason why people who aren't scientists necessarily should, is that experiments, the medical experiments, all experiments only give us probabilities. All right, now those probabilities say that if we were to do the exact same study again, and we can never do the exact same study, but let's say we could, we're likely to get the same findings. Those are translated as absolutes. You have cancer. Horses don't eat meat. One and one is two, so on and so forth. So the first thing we have to do when we're given a diagnosis is to say, “Well, okay. Maybe, maybe not.” Even if so, it doesn't mean it has to follow any particular course. Because once we assume that we have this disease, and this disease follows plan A, B, and C, then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I believe that way back when, when people were told cancer is a killer, that many of the deaths that occurred were not a function of the cancer but a function of giving up because of the belief that the cancer is a killer. [00:16:11] PF: You showed – you gave a wonderful illustration. It's early in your book, talking about being diagnosed as pre-diabetes and showing like that borderline, that 5.5 difference to 5.6. [00:16:24] EL: I'm glad you mentioned that. Yes. Okay. You want to tell everybody, but I want to tell everybody. [00:16:28] PF: No. I want you to tell it because I'm going to mess it up. [00:16:30] EL: Okay. I don't think so. But as I said, I'm on a roll. All right. So this – what I call the borderline effect, if people just imagine. So let's say, Paula, you and I take an IQ test, and you get a 70. That means you're normal. I get a 69. That means I'm cognitively deficient. What we used to call retarded. All right. Now, nobody in their right mind, even if nothing about statistics, would think there's a meaningful difference between 69 and 70, right? I could have sneezed, misread the question, so on and so forth. All right. However, once we're in those two different categories, our lives unfold in very different ways. Everybody knows we treat you differently from poor me who is cognitively deprived. All right. Well, it's the same for every diagnosis. There are some people who fall right above the line saying you're healthy, those who fall right below it, which means you have the disease. Now, if those two groups are not different at the start and go forward a month, three months, six months, and they're different, well, what's causing that difference? They’re the same, and now they're different. It's their psychology. All of that, again, speaks to the control we have over our health. [00:17:52] PF: If we have so much control over our health, how do we think better? Because as you point out in your book, every thought we have affects our health. [00:18:02] EL: Yes. That's the mind-body unity. It's one thing. [00:18:05] PF: So how do we think better. [00:18:07] EL: Yes. Okay. [00:18:07] PF: How do we start practicing that. [00:18:09] EL: Well, you don't have to practice it. All you need to do is recognize that the things you're taking as real can be understood differently from different perspectives. The more mindful you are, the more choices you have. So if you just recognize that things themselves, as I said before, are neither good nor bad, whether or not we experience things are good or bad depends on our perspective. The more mindful, the more choices we have again. Now, if you think of anything that you think is bad and just sort of think of your friends and all the people you know and have known, is everybody responding to it the same way? Well, if not, then what are they doing differently? That it's not the thing. Events don't cause stress and unhappiness. Our views of events cause stress and unhappiness. Let me tell you about something that had happened to me many years ago. I was at a friend's house for dinner. It was late, and I came back to my house, and my house had been burned to the ground. So the next day, I called the insurance agent. He comes out and he said in the 25 years he's been doing this work, this was the very first time that the call wasn't as bad as the damage. Everybody, “Oh, my God. Oh, my God.” You see it, and it's not so bad. Here was the reverse because I had already lost all of that. Getting myself crazy, throwing my sanity away also I wasn't going to help. There's so much to say about this, but let me jump to the end. This was around Christmas. So I was staying in a hotel. I went out Christmas Eve, and I got back to the hotel, and my room was full of gifts. Not from the people who own the hotel, not from the management, but from the so-called little people, the chambermaids, the waiters, the waitresses, the people who park my car. It’s only recently that I'm able to tell the story without it bringing tears to my eyes. Now, I'm not saying everybody should hope that they experience a major fire. But I must say that I remember virtually nothing that I lost in the fire. Every Christmas, I think about this, and it renews my faith in people. So was it good or bad? [00:20:23] PF: That's just incredible. The perception and the perspective makes such a big difference. I think that was so amazing throughout this book the way that's emphasized over and over. There are so many stories. First of all, you're such a wonderful storyteller. [00:20:37] EL: Thank you. [00:20:37] PF: And you have so many excellent stories and examples of how our mind can really change our outcomes. I do want to ask you one thing I hear a lot of probably because of recent birthdays. I hear so much my people around me talking about how I'm too old to do this. I can't do something like this because I'm old. To put that in perspective, my partner who is older than I am is participating in a CrossFit tournament tomorrow. So don't tell me – [00:21:04] EL: Yes, yes. No, I think it's terrible. The other day – [00:21:06] PF: How does that affect our aging process if you’re – [00:21:08] EL: Well, of course. [00:21:09] PF: Constantly saying that. [00:21:11] EL: Okay. So if we associate old with becoming decrepit, losing your memory, falling apart, as soon as you see yourself old, you're going to attend to the ways you're falling apart and so on. Some of it doesn't have to be a mystery. If you're 20 years old and you hurt your wrist, you do things to make your wrist better. If you're 70 years old and you hurt your wrist, too often people say, “Well, what do you expect? I'm 70 years old. I'm starting to fall apart.” So then it becomes you don't do anything, and so it does get worse. Yes. Now, I think – well, I may be strange in this regard. I don't know. The other day, I was helping a woman with something, an old woman I thought. My spouse told me, “She's probably 10 years younger than you are.” So I've never let age influence what I do. Now, there are changes as you get older. But I see the changes. Most of them is glorious. Not to worry about some of the silly things we used to worry about when we were younger. [00:22:11] PF: I absolutely love that, and one thing that you talk about, it's an assertion that we think we are doing the best we can, that we're doing great. But you say that we aren't, that we're not even close to doing the best we can. Talk about what you mean with that. [00:22:25] EL: Well, I don't want people feeling good that they're doing well to feel bad. All I'm suggesting is whatever is, there can be more and that we need to not limit ourselves with the notion of limits. This may be a little far afield again. But years ago, I was on the Committee on Aging at the Harvard Medical School. My friend, Jack Rowe, who was the chair, I called him and I said, “Jack, how long does it take for a broken finger to heal?” He said, “I don't know, a week.” I said, “What would you say if I said I could heal it in five days?” He said, “All right.” I said, “What about four days?” He said, “All right.” I said, “What about three days?” He said, “No.” I said, “Okay. What about three days and 23 hours?” Where is the point where here we can do it and here we can’t do it? So for anything that we want to do, there's a step that's small enough between where we are and where we want to get to that we can take it. If that doesn't work, make it a little smaller. Somebody is trying. So Zeno was a Greek philosopher, and Zeno’s paradox with respect to distance was if you always go half the distance from where you are to where you want to get, you're never going to be there. I'm an inch away. I'm a half an inch away. I'm a quarter of an inch. Zeno was [inaudible 00:23:47]. Langer's reverse Zeno is that there's always a step small enough from where you are to where you want to get. So you want to not eat the box of cookies you eat. Okay. Eat half the box. You can't eat half the box. Eat a quarter of the – everybody can eat it crumbless, and that's a new starting point. Then we're able to achieve all sorts of things that we were oblivious to before. I mean, there's so much that we have wrong, even notions of fatigue. We have lots of research that [inaudible 00:24:20] the book on this, but let me give you the overall, so it's easy to understand. If I say to people, “Do 100 jumping jacks and tell me when you get tired,” most people are going to get tired around 67. If I ask you to do 200 jumping jacks, most people get tired around 140. [00:24:40] PF: Amazing. [00:24:41] EL: So that's why I'm saying that what we build into everything we do is a mistaken notion of limits. You can never, there is no experiment, no science that can prove that we can't. All we can prove with science is that what we tried on our personal science, so to speak, what we've tried didn't work. Trying new things is fun. People think they want to be perfect at things. You can either be imperfectly mindful or perfectly mindless. Once you've got it, you don't pay attention to it anymore. You want to win. Play Tic-Tac-Toe against a four-year-old. You can always win. People who play golf think they want to get a hole in one in each shot. Well, if you do that, now there's no game. [00:25:27] PF: Yes. They lose their being special. [00:25:29 EL: Exactly, right. So trying new things with your health, with your performance is actually energy-beginning. Mindfulness we found and very clearly makes us more energized, happier. When you're mindful, people see you as more charismatic. They see you as more authentic. Relationships improve. Being mindful in this act of noticing way even leaves its imprint on the things that we do, so it feels good. It's good for you. Everybody responds. Why not? Because it's fun. It's what you're doing when you're having fun. So if you came to my house, Paula, you've never been here. You don't have to practice being mindful. You assume, “Gee, it's all going to be new,” so you take it all in. What I'm trying to explain to people is that everything is new. We just make it old by holding our mindsets about it still. The underlying phenomenon is always changing, always potentially exciting. [00:26:34] PF: Our job is then to notice it and curate our thoughts, as we walk through that experience. [00:26:41] EL: Enjoy our thoughts. Yes. [00:26:42] PF: Yes. I love that. So we are going to tell our listeners how they can find you, where they can find your books. But what do they do right now, as they're listening to this and they're saying, “Yes, I want to create chronic health in my life, and I want to notice more.” What are a couple of things that you would tell them to start doing right now? [00:27:00] EL: Okay. Well, the first thing is to make a universal attribution for uncertainty. I don't know. You don't. Nobody knows. We can't know because everything is always changing. Everything looks different from a different perspective. So you don't need to pretend, and not knowing is a good thing. It makes us curious. It makes us involved in what we're doing. Every time you hear yourself, call yourself something negative, or see somebody else in some pejorative way, recognize that there's an alternative that's equally potent to that that's positive, that's going to make you feel better and also improve your relationship. I think that just by realizing that this act of noticing is good, that no matter what we know, there's always a new way to know it. I think people will begin all of this. Now, we've all been trapped in being mindless. I asked you how much is one and one. You said two without thinking. But at the least, what people can do is when they're unhappy about something is to remind themselves of all that we're saying now. How else might they look at the situation? How might that thing actually have more than a silver lining, if silver lining sounds like it's just on the bottom. It's not so important. I'm saying the whole thing is actually an advantage. Then, of course, I must say that when you forget everything that I've said, you go back to the book, and you look at it again and reread it. [00:28:35] PF: I love that. I love that. You have so much to teach us. This information is truly life-changing, and I'm so happy that it was shared with me and that we were able to talk about it. I appreciate all the research and the information that you're bringing into this world because you really are changing the way that we look at our bodies and the way that we move through this world. [00:28:57] EL: Thank you very much, Paula. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:29:03] PF: That was Dr. Ellen J. Langer, talking about the mind-body connection and how it affects our health. If you'd like to learn more about Ellen and her new book, The Mindful Body: Thinking Our Way to Chronic Health,” learn about her other books, 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 happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Why More Money Doesn’t Equal More Happiness With Tal Ben-Shahar [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 432 of Live Happy Now. We've heard that money can't buy happiness. But how does our perception of money affect our well-being? I'm your host, Paula Felps. This week, I'm talking with author and lecturer, Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar, Co-Founder of the Happiness Studies Academy and creator of the Master's Degree in Happiness Studies. Tal is here to talk about recent findings that show our perception of money has changed dramatically, and it's damaging our happiness. He's going to break down what this survey tells us and why it's so important to change our view of money for the sake of our well-being. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:42] PF: Tal, thank you so much for coming back on Live Happy Now. [00:00:45] TBS: Thank you, Paula, for having me back. [00:00:47] PF: This is a really interesting conversation to have because as you know, Bloomberg just released a survey, and it had some really surprising results on people's perception about money. It really showed how things have changed dramatically. I wondered, to start it off, if you wanted to talk a little bit about what some of those findings were. [00:01:07] TBS: Sure. So the Bloomberg study very much aligns with what we've been studying in the field of happiness studies over the past few decades, which is that people's perceptions matter a great deal more than their objective circumstances. So what they identified were people who were making a lot of money. They were in the top 10th of the population in terms of income above $175,000. Yet a large minority were feeling poor, and the majority were not feeling comfortable about how much they were making. Now, most people, probably around 90% of the population would say, “What are they about? They're spoiled, and they have so much money. They should be, first of all, grateful. Second, happy. But they're not. They're neither.” Question is why. In the article, the research tries to give the reason. They say, well, things have changed. Many people living in New York, for them, 175,000 or 200,000 doesn't go far. At the same time, many of them have homes that are paid off, so they don't have that mortgage payment. Yet they feel the way they feel. I think what's interesting to do, Paula, is for us to explore why. Even more importantly, what can we do about it if we experience dissatisfaction? [00:02:29] PF: Absolutely. Yes, yes. Because that's why I wanted to have this conversation with you. I wonder too if what has caused that mindset to change because a few years ago, it was saying, okay, if you have an income over $75,000 that that was what it took to kind of get you into a good state of well-being. Then 2021, a study came out and said, “No, we need more than that.” So now, we're looking at really dramatically different numbers. What has changed in the way that we're thinking? [00:02:59] TBS: It's a few things. The first thing is COVID. It's easy to blame COVID for everything, but it really did change the world in so many ways and mostly not good ways. So what did COVID do? It essentially took away people's sense of confidence in the status quo because suddenly this came completely unannounced, and millions and millions of people lost their jobs. Even more extreme, many people lost their lives. The sense of security was understandably affected. If before COVID the question was am I making enough money to live well, the question post-COVID for many people is do I have enough money stashed away to survive a year without a job because that happened to many people. Even if it didn't happen to you, you read about people for whom it did happen. This was real. This changes the numbers because while those who were making $200,000 a year certainly have enough to live off, most of them would not be able to survive, certainly not with the lifestyle that they're leading if they lost their job and did not have that income for a year. That became a reality. [00:04:24] PF: Is there also a sense of fear of, in addition to having that money to live on, feeling like we're no longer being taken care of? I think there was a sense that we would always be okay. Like no matter what happened, someone will take care of us. Something's going to go well for us. Did we kind of lose that mindset? [00:04:45] TBS: I think so. So in the sense that when things are predictable. Well, if we're taken care of in the past, we'll be taken care of in the future. You just induce the future from the past. But suddenly, everyone was lost. I mean, governments were lost. I mean, we're still not sure today. Did we do the right thing? Should have we been quarantined or not? There are different models. The jury is still out, and maybe we'll always be out on it. Yes. Again, people lost their sense of confidence in the authorities, so to speak. Also in their workplaces because even in the most reliable of workplaces, well, they had to lay off people. They didn't have a choice. They did that. [00:05:26] PF: So is it healthy to have that I've got to take care of myself mindset? Or is it unhealthy because we are supposed to be connected? [00:05:33] TBS: So it can go either way. COVID was a trauma, a global trauma, societal-wide trauma. The question is do we grow from that trauma, or do we break down from a trauma? In psychological language, do we experience PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder? Or do we experience PTG, post-traumatic growth? Again, the jury's out on that. Not only is the jury out on that. It's very much dependent on individual perceptions and individual choices. Let's take two examples. One example is of a person who – again, let's use the numbers in the research. They're making 180,000; 200,000 dollars a year. They're saying, “I want to live the same way, and I'm staying in New York City. I'm going to spend as much as I did before and see where that takes me.” They're going to, obviously, be concerned because they know that if COVID happens again or something like that happens again, they are in trouble. Another approach would be the world has changed, and let me live more humbly. Let me maybe not buy a new car or a car at all if I'm in the city, a smaller home. Or maybe I'll move. This is something that they mentioned in the Bloomberg study. Many people are choosing to leave the city. Part of the reason they're moving to Texas, A, because taxes are lower. B, because your dollar goes a lot further there in terms of the home you can afford and even the restaurants that you can go to. So they have, in a sense, learned a lesson and said, “We're not making two million dollars. We're making $200,000.” A lot of money can go a lot further elsewhere. Maybe we can even put more money aside. Even if disaster strikes again, financial disaster strikes again, we don't need to worry for a year or two because we have enough stashed away. So these are two very different approaches. By the way, which one we take also depends on our personality. Are we more risk-averse? Are we more thrill seekers? So it depends on so many – is it possible for me to move to Texas or somewhere in Florida or somewhere in New York, where I may not be in the city, but life is cheaper. [00:07:57] PF: And it's accessible. You can get to the city. I think that's something too. You can find an area where you can access the things that you like about where you live but aren't paying the kind of rents or mortgages that you would pay in a city. [00:08:11] TBS: Yes. You know, I'm speaking here from personal experience. So we moved. Actually, just before COVID, we lived in Brooklyn, and we moved out of the city into New Jersey. We did it because we wanted quieter lifestyle, of course, but also for financial reasons. Not that taxes are not high in New Jersey. They're extremely high. But certainly, when it comes to accommodation, your dollar goes much, much farther when you're in the suburb. Of course, it is important to look at the big picture, to look at it wholistically, W-H, and to understand that there are individual differences. There are people who need the hustle and bustle and the speed of the city. There are people who would feel a lot more comfortable living by a quiet lake, where you hear the water and the birds when you wake up in the morning. Different personalities, it has to do with introversion and extroversion. It also has to do with how you've been raised and what you're used to or where you've spent the past 10 years. Because in a way, for good and ill, we become addicted to whatever it is that we're exposed to. Again, addiction can obviously be a bad thing. But if I'm addicted to the quiet and suns, or I'm addicted to going to the gym three, four times a week, that's not a bad thing. All it means is that we have neural pathways that have been reinforced over time. But there is something else that I want to say here. It's not just what I desire to do or want to do at the moment. We can also bring about change, specifically .We have become as a society addicted to noise, to novelty, to excitement, to the sensational. That is why we keep on checking our messages online because we're looking for something new and sensational. It's also why we get bored very quickly when we're sitting in our room and doing nothing or ostensibly doing nothing. You find more and more kids today saying to their parents, “I'm bored.” [00:10:21] PF: Ow. [00:10:23] TBS: You're right. More and more adults maybe not saying it but feeling it and then immediately filling up that void that is responsible for their boredom with something. Blaise Pascal once said that, “All of our troubles will be solved if we can find peace in solitude, in the solitude of our own room.” There is some truth to that, and the thing is that we can train ourselves to be less of sensation seekers and more at peace, quite literally at peace with ourselves, at peace with the absence of noise, with the absence of distractions. That would be very healthy, and one way to do that is, of course, through practicing meditation or by practicing being bored, by practicing doing nothing. We can actually get used to it. There are many upsides to silence, to solitude, to slowing down. [00:11:24] PF: Yes. It does. It absolutely changes your state. As you talked about, we're a very distracted society. There's a lot of noise, a lot of things going on. How is that playing into the way people perceive their finances and the economic environment around them? What role is that playing, and how then do they step away from that? [00:11:46] TBS: Yes. So in 1954, a leading psychologist by the name of Leon Festinger coined the term social comparison. Again, in hindsight, it seems obvious. Maybe it was also obvious in the 1950s. But we compare ourselves, and we constantly do it. It's part of our nature to do that. It’s not good or bad. It's like the law of gravity. It's a fact of nature. The question, though, is what do we do with social comparison, and how do we direct this need to compare ourselves? Do we, for example, compare ourselves to others, and that may drive us to do better and to improve and to learn from what other people are doing? Or do we become obsessed with what others have and can never be satisfied or happy because we don't have what they have? Right now, because of over stimulation, too much comparison, we, and I say we generalized, of course, not everyone. But in general, we have become, again, addicted and dependent on being better than, having more than. This plays out in terms of the statistics that we're seeing now. Yes, 180,000 is not a lot really when you compare it to someone who's making 1.8 million dollars. It’s nothing, and there are many people who make that. There are also many people who have billions of dollars, and we're exposed to all of them day in and day out through the media, through social media, or through the newspapers that writes about the very wealthy celebrities. Suddenly, what I do, oh, wow, or what I make is so little. Whereas in the past, let's say when you lived in your village, first of all, there was less discrepancy about what people made. But even the wealthy ones, first of all, they were not in my face all the time. The news isn’t in my face. [00:13:39] PF: They weren't on TikTok showing their latest acquisition, right? [00:13:42] TBS: Exactly, exactly. Also, there were many others that I compared myself to. Again, this is something natural. Who had as much or less than I did, so I felt okay when it came to social comparison. Also, you think about advertising. Advertising has one goal, to sell. Now, how does it get you to sell? It takes this tendency towards social comparison and exploits it. Oh, you don't have this new car yet. That means you can't be really happy because look at how happy those beautiful people driving that car are. Then you get that car, but there are always new ads coming on and luring. The sirens are calling you to get the next thing. Then we experience what Nathaniel Branden, the psychologist, called the nothing is enough syndrome. Nothing is enough materially. Because mind and body are connected, nothing is enough psychologically. [00:14:43] PF: Now, what does that do to our happiness when we are focused on what – our lack, the fact that we don't have enough money, even if that's just a perception? How is that undermining our well-being? [00:14:56] TBS: In the exact same way that objectively not having enough for our livelihood would influence our happiness. Because people who don't have the basic needs, of course, that's going to affect their impact. Poverty influences people's happiness. If I know that or if I don't know rather how I will get food on my table, for myself, for my family tomorrow, that I'm going to be concerned. I'm not going to sleep. Well, I'm going to be unhappy, obviously. In the same way, people who actually have enough objectively, even if they have enough for the next year to live off, but their perception is the perception of lack. Their happiness is going to be influenced just the same. Why? Because happiness depends much more on our state of mind than the state of our bank account. Again, with a caveat here, I'm not talking about extremes. Extreme actual poverty will lead to unhappiness. For those who are experiencing it or for us, we have a responsibility to alleviate that condition. That goes without saying. [00:16:03] PF: So what do people focus on? Here's where the professor really comes out. So what are the steps that people can take? How do they change their relationship with their perception of what is enough, and what do they focus on instead to start making a shift? [00:16:21] TBS: Seneca, the Stoic philosopher, who's really the father of cognitive psychology, says that one of the things that we can do is imagine ourselves without the things that we have. We're so focused on what we don't have. Let's think about what we have and imagine ourselves without it. So I have food on my table. Imagine if I didn't have that food. Well, that will make me more appreciative of the food that I do have. Or I do drive a car. Yes, I don't drive the latest model and fastest one. But it takes me from point A to point B, how convenient, how wonderful. Not to mention to become more appreciative of the things that don't cost money such – whether it's friends or family or health or nature, the gift that we received from evolution, God. Take your pick. [00:17:16] PF: So what are ways that people can start creating some sort of practice? Because we're not going to just inherently say, “Okay, those were great tips. I'm going to start doing that,” and everything changes. It gets tough because we are going to slide back in, and we are going to see that friend on TikTok who has a Lamborghini, and we're going to be like, “Come on.” So what are some practices that we can use every day to make this part of our insight? [00:17:43] TBS: I'm going to talk about some of the usual suspects here because I don't think it's rocket science. The challenge is not understanding or knowing what we should do. The challenge is to do it and to do it consistently. I will say a few words about that in a minute. But first of all, what are the things? First of all, regularly express gratitude. The key with expressing gratitude is not just, okay, so I'm sitting down now the end of the day and counting my blessings, writing down what I'm grateful for. We need to do it with what Barbara Frederickson, the psychologist, calls heartfelt positivity. So this is a practice that I've been doing since the 19th of September, 1999. I do day in and day out. The key, especially when you've done it often, is to really feel experience and savor what it is that you're grateful for. So if I write down my daughter. It’s not just writing down my daughter or her name. It's writing it down, and then I shut my eyes, and I imagine her. I see her in my mind's eye and feel the love. [00:18:48] PF: I love that. [00:18:50] TBS: There are so many reasons why this works so much better than just going through the motion. Or let's say if I write a meal that I had with a colleague, which was lovely. I actually closed my eyes and transport myself back to that experience, re-experience it. It's when we experience this heartfelt positivity as opposed to just cognitive positivity that makes a big difference in terms of the impact that it has on us. So this is one practice. The second practice, going back to sensationalism. I'm taking it from the work of Osho, who was a spiritual teacher, but also from the latest research on meditation. We can shift away from the need for sensationalism if we become more mindful of sensations. So if I sit down and focus on the air coming in through my nose and leaving through my nose and this tingling, whether it's in my nostrils or my fingertips, if I focus on that, there's so much happening there. If I learn to focus on it, I become more sensitive. When I become more sensitive, I'm more aware of sensations and therefore less dependent on sensationalism, which is sensations taken to the extreme. Again, this is not just then etymological word play. This actually works, but we need to put time aside for that by living any city. I'm outside, being constantly bombarded by these distractions which is noise, colors. Plus, I have my smartphone with me all the time that is providing me notifications or messages. I become addicted to those. Just like the antidote for taking things for granted is gratitude, the antidote to sensationalism is learning to focus on and become aware of, mindful of sensations. [00:21:03] PF: That's incredible. I love that. I know that we do have to let you go, but I really want you to put in perspective for us how imperative is it that we get our mindset about money in line for our overall well-being? Like where does that fall in importance? [00:21:21] TBS: We have within us, again, whether it's the creator put it in us or evolution put it in us, the need to accumulate. It's understandable because in the past, humans really didn't know whether they would survive the next winter. Or they only survived it if they accumulated. Unfortunately, for many people, this is still the reality. So this is, again, part of our nature; good, bad, both, neither. The question is what do we do with that. Do we take it to the extreme? Then that means even people who are making, objectively speaking, a lot of money still feel that nothing is enough. Or do we write about it, think about it, talk about it, find a more rational evaluation of what we have? So that's the first thing. The second thing, how about living a little bit more humbly? Because really, as we know from a lot of research and, Paula, you've talked about this multiple times before, yes, when we get this new thing, bigger, better, brighter thing, we'll be happy for a week or a month. That's not the path to lasting happiness. So let's be more humble about our acquisitions. Let's be more humble about what we really need. Spend more of our money and more importantly our time on cultivating those things that are free and yet so important, so fundamental for our happiness. Because spending time with my daughter or spending time going for a walk, playing with my pet, or reading a book, these are wonderful sources of what I've come to call life's ultimate currency, which is not dollars and cents. It's happiness. [00:23:18] PF: I love that. Thank you so much for your insight today. This is an important topic because it affects all of us. We all have our own mindsets about it. So I really appreciate you breaking it down for us and telling us how we can shift the direction we're going. We're going to tell our listeners how they can find you online and learn more about you. [00:23:37] TBS: Thank you very much, Paula. Again, thank you so much for all that you and your team are doing. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:23:47] PF: That was Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar, talking about money and happiness. If you'd like to learn more about Tal and the Happiness Studies Academy or follow him 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 happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: The Science of Positivity With Marsha and the Positrons [INTRODUCTION] [0:00:05] PF: What's up, everybody? This is Paula Felps, and you're listening to On a Positive Note. As we head back to school, there's no better time to talk to Marsha Goodman, a cognitive neuroscientist turned popular children's singer, songwriter, and recording artist, who performs under the name Marsha and the Positrons. As the name implies, her music is imbued with positivity and teaches listeners about things like kindness, friendship, and taking care of the planet, as well as the people who live on it. She also throws in some science and makes learning as fun and easy as listening to a song. Her third album, Energetic, is being released September 1st, and she's here today to talk about her music and what she hopes we all can learn from it. [INTERVIEW] [0:00:49] PF: Marsha, thank you for being with me here today. [0:00:51] MG: Thanks for having me. It's nice to chat with you. [0:00:54] PF: Well, you're the perfect guest to have on for back to school, because I think you might be the first artist I've seen that combines science and positive social messaging and music. [0:01:04] MG: Yay. [0:01:05] PF: Tell me how you draw all three of those things together to create Marsha and the Positrons. [0:01:12] MG: Yeah. I'm actually a former scientist, so I find science really fun and interesting. My goal is to make science fun for other people, make science fun for kids and families. I write for all ages, so all of my stuff is kid-appropriate and aimed at kids, but it’s also aimed – there's different levels. It’s also aimed at older kids, or grown-ups. I think that anybody can listen and find something fun in the music. That's a key goal for me and my songwriting, too, is making it fun. I don't want people to come to my music to learn a lesson, even though there's facts in there, but I want them to come in and have fun with science. Then I think it's really important to connect it to our humanity. Science is about learning about the world, learning about ourselves, learning about others, learning about other creatures, learning about the environment. I think it's important to bring that big picture in and think about what's important to our humanity, what makes us humans, and so it's kindness and friendship and things like that. I feel like that's important to put in there, because I want to say something in my songs and not just let it be a lesson, which has its own value, but I feel like, science is a vehicle for sharing other messages, too. [0:02:28] PF: You need to talk about the musicality, because you use a lot of different styles. It really is a fun, fun joyride through a lot of different topics. Talk about the different styles of music that you're using. [0:02:40] MG: Yeah. My musical influences are pretty varied. I grew up listening first to radio and pop. Then once I was a little bit older, I started picking my own music and was into different kinds of indie rock, and then started exploring jazz and blues and started singing jazz and blues. I feel like, all of those influences pop in there. When I'm writing a song, usually the melody and lyrics come together for me in my head. The songs have their own style already when they come to me. [0:03:12] PF: Oh, what a great gift. Thanks, universe. [0:03:15] MG: Yeah, right? It might be a little song snippet, but for me, I’ll have a phrase, or something that runs through my head with some music attached to it. I think just all those different influences that are there in my brain, sometimes pop out is a different kinds of musical styles. I run with that and let it go wherever the universe is leading me, I guess. [0:03:35] PF: That's great. It makes for a really fun variety of sounds. You don't get locked into any one sound as you're going through the music. Then also, with Energetic, it also really gave you the opportunity to bring in some really interesting guest players from different genres. That's what I found interesting, too. [0:03:54] MG: I feel like, one of the fun things about this genre of candy, kids indie music is that there's a lot of different people doing different things and have all kinds of different friends. Sometimes I'll write a song and I think, I hear something else in it and I bring in some other people. Also, my bandmates are really super talented and my producer is super talented. Sometimes they'll have an idea. One of my favorite things is going to the studio and recording and then seeing what other ideas come to the table based on everybody else's influences and ideas. I like to bring in all those ideas. Whatever someone has to add, I think it's just fun to add that to whatever we've got going on. [0:04:33] PF: Yeah, I think it's always interesting to see a song grow up in the studio. It comes in, it’s like this – [0:04:37] MG: A 100%. [0:04:38] PF: - as this infant and you think this is what it's going to be like, and then it evolves into something much different than you originally thought it would. [0:04:45] MG: Absolutely. My producer, I've worked with the same producer for all of my record so far. His name is TJ Lipple. He's super talented. Sometimes I'll bring a song to him and usually, when I send him a demo, it's just voice and acoustic guitar, but there's a rhythm to it. He'll hear that in there and then he'll add something. By the time we get to the mixing stage, he usually brings in other ideas as well. I'm like, I’m all for it. My bandmates, my piano player, David Durst is super talented and he's got a whole range of musical history as well. He’s done classical stuff and different kinds of chamber music writing, all kinds of different stuff. A pop background and then playing all these bands. I feel like, each of us has our own influences that have come in. I love exploring all that. [0:05:34] PF: That's wonderful. Because it definitely works in the finished product. It is very fun. I cannot be the only person with this question. I cannot be the first person who's asked you. You probably know what it is. How does one go from being a cognitive neuroscientist to being a children's music performer? And a successful one. It's not like you're doing this as a side gig. [0:05:57] MG: Right, right. Well, I mean, I've always been musical. I've been singing as long as I can remember and played different instruments all along and did musical theater and different things through school. Then also, really liked school and liked science, especially once I discovered science and was in full-on in a PhD program doing cognitive neuroscience, doing research about the visual system and developing this brain imaging technique in this lab with others. We moved and I had decided to leave my PhD program with my masters and wanted to take a little break from science and make sure that I finished my master's degree. The day that I sent my masters, I bought a guitar. I had already been writing some songs in my head. At that time, I was living in Boston in the guitar shop, was one of the teachers there, and he was a Berkeley grad. When I was younger, I used to play violin and cello, so I already had that string background and doing bowing and fingering. It was like, you flip it on a side for a guitar, right. Then it came to me pretty quickly. Like I said, it was already writing some songs in my head. I wanted to be able to accompany myself and thought I would follow that path for a little bit and see where it led. It's led me here. [0:07:10] PF: Wow. That’s amazing. [0:07:10] MG: Then, also, once I had kids, at the time when I was learning guitar, I was also singing around Boston and exploring the music scene a little bit. I would sing it like blues jams and jazz open mics and this piano bar. I frequented those places. I had the jazz and blues stuff happening. Then also, I would be learning indie rock songs, or pop songs on guitar at the same time. Then once I had my children, my daughter, I was singing to her all the time and was mostly singing jazz standards. Then I would start to entertain her and sing, makeup something while I was cooking dinner, whatever. One of the first kids’ songs I wrote was from my first album, it's called Spinach and Carrots. It was influenced by making dinner for my daughter. Then another, I think one of the next ones I wrote might have been The Penguin Song, which was by that time I had two kids, and my middle one was in preschool, and one of his friends was really interested in penguins. He came, they were doing a penguin unit to honor that. He would come home and tell me these penguin facts. A lot of those facts made it into the song. Different conversations with my kids inspired songs, and run with it from there. [0:08:24] PF: Well, so what had driven you to be a neuroscientist, because there's something that made you want to do that? Then how is that similar to your music? What is that driving force that connects those two? [0:08:37] MG: Yeah. I mean, I find the brain really fascinating. I think, it amazes me how flexible our brains are and how we can recover from brain injuries and how the brain works. I just find the brain to be super interesting. One of the ways that it connects for me with what I'm doing, working with music for kids, especially, is that with young children, music and movement is really tightly connected to language development in the brain. The more music and movement that you do with children, the more you're helping to develop all of these important systems. Music also ties together a lot of different areas of the brain. You're counting by tapping the beat, or keeping the beat with your body. You're involving your motor system and your sensory system and your vestibular system when you're moving to the music, but then you're also connecting social, emotional and memory and you're creating memories and you're connecting with others, whether it's a caregiver, or a friend, or a sibling, or even the emotions that the music drives and brings out in you. It's creating these physical pathways in the brain and these connections. The more that kids are doing that in that critical language development and brain development stage from birth to five, it sets them up for life in these cool ways. I think about that kind of someone, I might be throwing out a dance move and inviting people to clap along and sing along, but they're doing all these other things and their brains are putting it all together for them, right? [0:10:15] PF: That's fantastic. Because you probably think that through more than the average musician does. I'm just guessing. [0:10:20] MG: I may. I think that's a fair accusation, or fair observation. [0:10:28] PF: At what point did you realize like, this is really working? This is something. I can record albums. I can do live performances. How far into your journey were you when you're like, “Wow, this is really resonating with people”? [0:10:39] MG: Well, when I first started going out in Boston and singing at open mics and blues jams, it was the first time of doing that solo. I had done more group stuff before that and just see how people reacted to my singing was eye-opening for me, that just you could see the joy and people are like, “Come back. Come back again and sing again.” That was very encouraging. Then after, aside from singing for my children, I also, when my daughter turned three, I was invited to help celebrate her birthday at the preschool. She was my first, I didn't really know what you were supposed to do. I said, “Oh, shall I bring my guitar?” The teacher said, “Yeah, that'd be great.” I wrote her a little birthday song. I did like, three is a magic number. One other, I don't remember what the other song was that I did. It was interactive and fun. They ended up recruiting me to teach, and I did this training program. [0:11:33] PF: Oh, my gosh. [0:11:35] MG: And started teaching music at the preschool. That evolved. Went from teaching music classes to teaching also the drama classes there. I wrote a musical for the graduating five-year-olds. They added two-year-old classrooms, I started working with the two-year-olds. Then people said, “Oh, are you available for this to play at this birthday party, or this event?” I started playing out. Then at the time, I was also writing songs. Eventually, started doing covers, but then added in my own songs. But when I was pregnant with my third, I realized, if I don't record these songs now, it's going to be another five years before I can do anything – [0:12:17] PF: You’re going to be busy. [0:12:18] MG: Yeah. At that point, I had enough for an album, so I decided to make an album and I recorded my first record when I was nine months pregnant. I was two weeks away from delivery. Spent this long day in the studio and recorded all of my parts in that one day. That was how it all happened. [0:12:35] PF: It really feels like every step of your journey, you were getting a lot of confirmation that you needed to be doing this. It just sounds like it was so – it was so purposeful, and just every sign was pointing you, yeah, keep going down that road. [0:12:47] MG: Yeah. I think that the more that I performed, the more I saw. I see the joy in the audiences and I would get stories back. My first record is called Gravity Vacation. At this one show, this mom came up to me and said, “My three-year-old dropped her sippy cup and she said, “That's because of gravity.” She knew that because of your song. I was blown away by that, and just how really young kids can pick up these messages and that's just the coolest thing that kids are like sponges, and so they're absorbing all of this information. Let's put out these positive messages. Let me throw out some science facts and they'll pick it up at their own at their own pace, whatever makes sense for them. I think just putting that out there and letting that ripple out into the world is like, it's really cool. Then just seeing people having fun, having families dancing together and singing together and enjoying music and doing things together in the real world, that's really cool. [0:13:47] PF: Well, and I think too, that parents appreciate that it's easy on their ears, too. When I was growing up, kids’ music was not palatable for adults. It just wasn't. That's one thing that has really changed, I think, and your music is so inviting. You can't help, but sing along, hum along, start going with it. I think that's huge. [0:14:09] MG: Yeah. I would love to take credit for that. But I'm not the only one who's doing that. I think that the whole genre has really grown. I think there's an appreciation for children's musicians being solid musicians and bringing interesting perspectives to the table. The goal is to elevate that, whatever topic that you're singing about, and making it accessible to the kids, but interesting for anybody. I think that that's a cool thing. As a parent, I definitely appreciate that myself that if I'm listening to somebody else's music, it's something that I'm enjoying. I'm going to want to keep it on. Then it also inspires conversations and it brings you to different places, depending on how old your kids are and what they're interested in and stuff. I think, fueling that connection is important. [0:14:57] PF: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, because I grew up with schoolhouse rock. I feel like, that was broke the door open for this to, I'm going to learn and I'm going to learn with music and it's going to be cool. It’s so awesome to look back and see how it has just grown on the shoulders of that and continue to develop as a genre. [0:15:16] MG: Cool. Yeah. Also, Sesame Street. I think about it. If you think about Sesame Street, and I was a Sesame Street kid when I was little, and Mr. Rogers. You think about how there were always different levels there. There were lines in the songs that were meant for the – jokes for the grown-ups. I like throwing that in there. A kid might not get the joke, or they might think it's funny and not appreciate it until later and that's okay. That's cool that they may listen to something and realize something about it later, but also that the grown-ups have something for them in the songs. Also, all those, you know, if you think about how wonderful Mr. Rogers was with all of those important emotional messages. I think that those influences are somewhere in my brain as well. [0:16:02] PF: One of the things I really did want to talk about is positive messages that you bring into it. There's two components to this one. I want to ask about how it is in a post-pandemic world and how that might have changed some of your messaging. Talk about how you go about working that positive messaging into your songs. [0:16:23] MG: Yeah, that's a really great question. I think that when I'm writing a song, like I said, the song ideas come from different places. Sometimes it comes from a snippet of something somebody said, or an idea, or what have you. Then when I'm sitting down to write it, I think about, okay, how is this fun? What is the overall message that – what's the connection here to our humanity? Or, how does this make sense in the big picture? I think, those ideas just come to me. For example, in the new album, there's a song called Starlings. That was inspired by seeing a flock of Starlings. They have these really cool formations. I looked at the word for what those are called. It's called murmuration, so I put that word in the song. Explain about that. I was also just thinking about how it's just such a cool thing that they're so unified. They fly together. I thought about just how – what that means for us, and how we can accomplish more when we're unified and I was thinking about the Black Lives Matter Movement, and how as communities, we can help each other and lift each other up in different ways, so that is in the song as well and that idea of we can accomplish more when we're unified and working together. For me, that flowed. [0:17:47] PF: One of your songs is called New Leaf. That happens to be my favorite song on the album. Talk about that. I think that's a great one for back to school, because it's really about dealing with anxiety. Can you talk about that song? I want to hear, too, the story of how that came about. [0:18:02] MG: Yeah. I think that that concept of every day can be a new day and that I like that idea of you can wake up and start fresh every day. We focus on the new year sometimes. When we hit that new year mark, we think about New Year's resolutions and starting fresh and starting new. Any day can be the beginning of the next year. Every day is a new day. [0:18:26] PF: Exactly. [0:18:28] MG: That idea of that, okay, whatever happened before, whether if you think about the pandemic, or other things, other negative things that happen, everybody goes through stuff. You can choose how your day is going to be. You can choose what's happening, and so you can try to turn over a new leaf, start fresh and just how the idea that it's better with friends and better together. So, that if we can connect with others, that that helps us bring ourselves into a new space and with positivity. [0:19:00] PF: I love it. Because we have a back-to-school playlist, the Live Happy back-to-school playlist. [0:19:03] MG: Oh, cool. [0:19:03] PF: I'm going to add that to the playlist – [0:19:05] MG: Sweet. [0:19:06] PF: - this week, because it just fits right in. It's off at home. It’s a lot of fun. [0:19:11] MG: I mean, that song came to me around the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah. I was thinking about, there's apples and honey are bringing sweetness into the new year, the concept there. I think that idea of turning over a new leaf is also, it's part of that tradition. That was, I think, was running around in my head when that song came to me. [0:19:33] PF: That's so fun. You've got the new album coming out September 1st. We're going to tell our listeners how they can find it. We're going to include some things about it on our page. I think we're doing a little giveaway. [0:19:42] MG: Oh, yay. [0:19:43] PF: Yeah, it's going to be a lot of fun. As this comes out, what do you hope that people take away from it? Not just kids, but their parents as well. [0:19:51] MG: I hope that when people listen, that it makes them wonder about something, find something interesting to think about that maybe they hadn't been thinking about before. Maybe spark a conversation, or an exploration of some kind and just keep people having fun with science and being interested in science. I think that it can also help people to connect with each other, and whether it's a conversation, or just some ideas, I feel like, that would be my goal for people while they're listening. [0:20:23] PF: What a wonderful accomplishment for music to make. This is fun. Marsha, I appreciate you coming on the show. It really is a fun album. I'm excited to share it with our listeners and I'm excited to let them meet you and some of the work that you're doing. Thank you for sitting down and talking with me today. [0:20:38] MG: Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure chatting with you. I really thank you for sharing my music with your listeners. [END OF INTERVIEW] [0:20:50] PF: That was Marsha Goodman of Marsha and the Positrons. If you'd like to learn more about Marsha, listen to her music, or follow her on social media, just visit livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. You can also enter to win our back-to-school prize pack that includes all three Marsha and the Positrons CDs, signed and personalized by Marsha herself. You'll also win some other Marsha and the Positrons swag and a few gifts from Live Happy. Check out our landing page for this episode, or follow us on social media to find out how to enter. While you're on our site, shop our selection of teacher gifts and get 10% off with the code Live Happy Now. I hope you've enjoyed this episode of On a Positive Note. 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: Happy Activist Nancy Giammarco: Brightening Lives with Art [INTRODUCTION] [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for Episode 431 of Live Happy Now. This week, we're going to tell you how one happy activist is brightening the lives of children and their parents, one piece of art at a time. I'm your host, Paula Felps. And this week I'm talking with Nancy Giammarco, a musician who rediscovered her love of art during the pandemic. As you're about to hear, she started enhancing children's simple drawings just for fun, and that led to her creating the Joanne Project, which she named after her late mother. She's here to tell us what it is, what she does, and why it's so important to celebrate the artwork of children. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:42] PF: Nancy, thank you for being on Live Happy Now. [00:00:46] NG: Thank you for having me. I'm thrilled to be here. [00:00:48] PF: This is great. This is part of our happy activist segments. We really enjoy being able to share with our audience who other people are doing to kind of bring light into the world. And I love what you're doing with the Joanne Project. So, before we talk about, I guess I should have you explain what the Joanne Project is? [00:01:07] NG: Well, it is a program where I kind of tricked into it by accident. I take children's line art, and I enhance it, and add to the drawings, and color it and then send it back to the parent or grandparent and it all happened weirdly with a Facebook post by a friend of mine, and I saw her little kid’s artwork. I said, “Can I do something with that?” She said, “Of course.” So, that little girl ended up being my two-year art friend. From there – yes, we were doing art for over two years together, and then it spread out to some other families. That's kind of what it is. It's just a project where I tried to make little kids and their parents happy, by taking their little drawings and making them happier. [00:01:54] PF: Then, from your standpoint, where did you – what made you look at that piece of art and say, “Oh, hey, I could make this kid's day by doing something with it.” [00:02:06] NG: I think because I kind of saw something in it where I thought, “Hey, if I add a little texture here or a little color there, or add some birds there, or a bunny, and I send it back to the little kid, but it's still there drawing. The essence of it is still theirs.” So, I didn't take it and twist it up where it wasn't theirs anymore. Actually, it has that effect, the intended effect I wanted. Now, on the other hand, if you get the blanket color wrong – [00:02:32] PF: You're going to hear about it? [00:02:34] NG: Yes, my little art buddy, she let me know. That blanket is way too pink. I had to redo the blanket color and send it back to her. So, it's fun. It's just so much fun, because you ended up kind of inadvertently interacting with the kids too, through their parents most of the time. It's pretty hilarious. [00:02:52] PF: Once you started, how did that then grow? Because like you said, you were just doing it for one person, one friend's child. Then, how did that become a thing? Because now you've got a website with it, and people from anywhere can send you their children's art. Tell me how that unfolded? [00:03:08] NG: I think because I use social media. I use Instagram and I use mainly Facebook. People started seeing it and I was posting, this is still my favorite thing to do, and I would post the kids line art and then me enhancing it. People are like, “Hey, that's interesting. How do I get on in that?” But a lot of it was actually me going out and seeing my friend’s kids or grandkids, and openly soliciting them to come be part of the program. I'm pretty active about, “Hey, let me do this.” The one that got yielded from social media, though, just out of the blue, I never expected was, a lady from the Netherlands contacted me and goes, “Can you enhance my grandson's art?” I said, “Well, of course.” I did that and send it back and put it on a blanket for him for Christmas. [00:03:57] PF: That's adorable. [00:03:58] NG: Yes. It organically just slowly growing. It's not huge yet by any stretch of the imagination, but I really want it to be bigger than me. [00:04:10] PF: t seems like you get a lot of joy out of it. I know you're not getting rich off of this. So, it really is something you're doing, you love to do it, and I find it so interesting that you created a pay what you can model for this. You're not saying, “Hey, this is worth X amount.” Can you tell me why that was important to set it up that way? [00:04:31] NG: I wanted people to have the ability to choose, and I also wanted the people that are struggling to be able to participate. So, there are times where I've charged absolutely nothing, because I still want the kid to be happy, I want the parent be happy, and everybody should be able to just pay, as far as I'm concerned. Interestingly enough, if you say pay what you want, a lot of times they are very generous. Let's put it that way. So, it's crazy. [00:04:57] PF: Yes. I think when you give people that option, and they know that you're doing it from a really good place, it's not something that you're trying to mark it as something that's not. I think that really makes a difference in how they respond to you. [00:05:12] NG: I agree. I'm just trying to spread a little kindness and a little bit of joy. It's so fun when the parent gets back with me or the grandparent, they loved it. I mean, it makes my whole week when they say the little child liked it. That's really great. [00:05:27] PF: So how do you enhance it? What kind of – are you doing this by hand? Are you doing a computer program? What exactly, if I were to send you a crudely drawn picture, which is the only kind of picture I can draw, and you were to return it. What would my expectation be? How do you do this? And then how does it change it? [00:05:49] NG: Typically, you would scan that into your phone, your badly drawn drawing, right? You would send it to me as a JPEG. I would scan in that thing that you sent me, and from there, a lot of times, I'll trace over that badly drawn art, and then use different layering techniques and put in the color and the textures. A lot of times, I get tempted, and I'll put in little birdies or bunnies, or little enhancements that I think might be fun for the kid for me to add. Then, I send it back to the parent or grandparent as a JPEG for the little kiddo to look over. [00:06:23] PF: Oh, that's terrific. Then, does the child get to be the editor if they're like, because I've worked with art directors for 30 years, and we know what that's like. How do kids compare as art directors? Are they pretty demanding? Are they pretty easy to work with? [00:06:38] NG: I would say they're not demanding, but they are very honest, like I told you about that example. So, if there's something they don't like, they definitely let me know. I do edits. I will go back and edit that drawing and send it back. [00:06:51] PF: That is funny. [00:06:53] NG: It's hilarious. I laugh so hard. Because my ultimate goal is to make them happy. So, of course, I'm going to do rounds if they want them. [00:07:02] PF: Yes, that's hilarious. I just think it like a seven-year-old telling you to like do it over. [00:07:08] NG: Yes, it's happened. [00:07:10] PF: That's great. Well, I want to talk about your art for a minute, because I think it's really important to know that you come from the music industry. That's how I know you. I've known you, interviewed you before, as a musician. So, when did you make the switch? Why did this happen? Because you've really embraced the world of art. I'm not saying you forsake the music industry. But that's not where you are now. [00:07:35] NG: No, I’m not. When you knew me, back in the nineties, I was playing in bands. Incidentally, I did do a couple of our album covers. [00:07:43] PF: Oh, yes, that's right. [00:07:46] NG: I did art back in junior high and high school. Then, for some odd reason, when I got to college, and then beyond, I just dropped it. So, up until COVID hit, I was a live sound engineer. Basically, when the world shut down, I didn't have anything to do. So, I was like, “Oh, let's pick up the art pen again.” Like I said, I dove into those digital apps, Procreate, and started drawing, and I have never looked back. I don't know why they’ve gone for 42 years, to tell you the truth. It was crazy. [00:08:18] PF: That's really interesting, because I've watched you online as it's really evolved. It went from, you have your doodles section, you have all these different areas of art that you've explored. I think you got to deal with Chewy, out of doing that. How did that unfold? What was that like for you, especially through the lens of the pandemic? This came about during the pandemic, and it was a time where everything was shut down, and you use this time to start creating. A lot of people had nothing to do. So, what was that like to return to art? How did that kind of help you guide you through the pandemic? What was it giving you? [00:08:58] NG: It basically saved my sanity, because I was not going to sit around this house with nothing to do. I mean, you could only walk the dogs so many times. [00:09:07] PF: I don't know. If you ask the dog, they're going to say, “Yes, we can go again.” [00:09:11] NG: So, I had always had on my bucket list that I wanted to do a children's book. So, the first, I want to say six months of the pandemic, I just started making these drawings and wrote a little story, and got one of those out, and then did another one with a friend of mine. We're self-published on amazon.com, and I just, I had to find some creative, productive way not to go insane with being locked down. It's interesting because a lot of the artists in my communities that I'm with, the same thing happened. They picked their art up again during lockdown, because they were like – [00:09:49] PF: Really? [00:09:51] NG: Oh, yes. So many of us have a common story about that. [00:09:55] PF: Talk to me about what creating art does for you, for your soul, and how it's saved you, how it's saved other people? What is it that it provides? [00:10:06] NG: I guess just peace and joy, and you got to look in and say, “I got to put this thought down. But I'm going to try not to be so self-critical, and I'm just going to go with the flow and it's almost meditative.” Kind of like when you play a guitar or something, and you're just writing for yourself or just playing for yourself, when you're drawing for yourself, and just creating for creation’s sake, it brings you peace, and joy. It's very simple. I mean, it's the reason all artists, create art, I think. [00:10:46] PF: Right. Originally, when you started doing this, you were just doing it for yourself. You didn't think you were really going to do anything with it, did you? [00:10:53] NG: No, not really. Other than wanting to do the self-published children's book, I mean, and I didn't expect great sales on that or anything. It was just something I had always wanted to do, and then I suddenly had time to do it. Yes, no great ambitions. I just did it for me. I started posting a piece of art almost every day there before I really started building out my website again. I started getting some responses from people saying, “I was really feeling pretty cruddy today, and these little drawings, I look forward to when you're going to do them, so please keep doing them.” So, I put it on that platform, then I finally built out an Instagram account with my consistent lilmonsto handle. Then I went to Pinterest and started doing some things out there. I haven't got a huge following by any stretch of the imagination, but it's slowly growing. The thing that matters to me the most is, if it's helping somebody. Because I've had people tell me, “I really, really, I’m struggling, my brother's very sick. Would you send him a little something?” So, there's one guy that was in the hospital, and I started putting cat drawings on his wall every day. [00:12:08] PF: Oh, that's great. [00:12:10] NG: Yes, and we started – we even chatted on the phone, this man, and he passed away. His sister was like, “You made a difference in my brother's life.” And I was like, “Oh, my gosh.” I so miss doing that, just going out there and flunking something on his wall, because he was a big cat fan. So, it's social media, when you use it, I think in a good way, it can be a good thing. It can be a really good thing. [00:12:36] PF: Yes, originally, it was meant to be a connector, and we've managed to turn it into a divider. But there are ways you really can use it to connect and to provide a sense of good into the world. Really, that's what I see that you're doing with it. [00:12:53] NG: I'm trying. [00:12:55] PF: It’s an uphill battle. I know that you had some other things, other avenues that you wanted to explore, to kind of give back and really help children. Can you talk about that, and some of the things that you're wanting to do next with the Joanne Project? [00:13:09] NG: I have a friend that works at Children's Hospital here in Dallas, in information technology, and I thought it would drill through her, to try to get to the right person that can maybe connect me with parents that have a child that's maybe down, not feeling well, because they're in the hospital, and that I can maybe push a little project or two or three to some patients to cheer them up. I thought exploring children's hospitals might be a really good avenue to consider. [00:13:41] PF: That's a great way to give back, because oh, my gosh, children's hospitals are so – it's so sad. There's so much pain and uncertainty from the child, from the parents. I have a young child. She's a young teenager now, that I know who has gone through like this four-year cancer battle. And watching not just what she went through, but what her parents went through with her, it just is an unbelievable, painful experience. I love the idea that you're thinking of just delivering a little bit of light in a situation that is often bleak and uncertain. Then, what would you hope the child receives? When you've got a sick child or a down child, just someone who needs lifted up in some way, what is your intention and your hope when they receive artwork? [00:14:34] NG: Oh, man, just to make them happy for a minute. I have always loved kid art. So, just to see their creations and they're just so imaginative and stuff, so it's thrilling for me to take something and add to it. They're great artists, these little ones. What if through this process, one of them decides, “Oh, I want to be an artist when I grew up.” [00:14:56] PF: Exactly. [00:14:58] NG: Wouldn't that be great? [00:14:59] PF: Yes, you could be opening doors. I know that you talked about you'd really like this to grow and be able to involve other artists, what would you really most love to see happen with Joanne Project? What is your number one goal? [00:15:16] NG: I guess to continue in the vein of making people happy, and that's what I love about what you do. Because, oh, Lord, this Live Happy, when I'm feeling down, when I'm feeling down a lot of times, I'll just whip up one of your podcasts and it really helps. So, if I could just continue to make people bring them a little bit of joy, and then maybe grow the project so that it spreads, because we need to spread a lot of kindness and a lot of joy these days. There's just – [00:15:45] PF: There’s a shortage. [00:15:46] NG: There's a shortage of it. Everybody's focusing, or there's too much focus on bad stuff. I want the focus to be on good stuff, at least, for a little while. [00:15:55] PF: Yes, I like it, and you're bringing the good stuff. I think that's fantastic. But I love what you're doing. I think it's innovative and it really, like you said, it's not on a grand scale. You're changing people one drawing at a time, and I think sometimes that's the most meaningful way to do it. It's just like that one on one, one person at a time. You are bringing some great good into the world, and I appreciate what you're doing. I just wanted to share it with our listeners, and I appreciate you sitting down with me today and talking about it. [00:16:23] NG: I appreciate the opportunity. I cannot tell you how thrilling it is for me to talk to you like this. It's fun. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:16:33] PF: That was Nancy Giammarco, founder of the Joanne Project. If you'd like to learn more about Nancy, check out her website, follow her on social media, or register to win a drawing from her, visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. If you have a happy activist in your life that you'd like to tell us about, be sure to email us at editor@livehappy.com, and you might hear them on a future episode. That's editor@livehappy.com. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: IPPA Recap with Andrea Goeglein [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 430 of Live Happy Now. Every two years, the International Positive Psychology Association holds its World Congress. This week, we're finding out what they were talking about. I'm your host, Paula Felps. Over the next few weeks, we're going to have some conversations about some of the takeaways from this year's event which was held in July. First, I'm sitting down with Andrea Goeglein, who addresses some of the growing concerns about loneliness and the lack of social connections, as well as giving us a fresh perspective on the World Happiness Report. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:38] PF: Andrea, thank you for coming back and talking to me today. [00:00:42] AG: You know that it's always my pleasure. So this is like my happy place, and thank you for having me again. [00:00:48] PF: You just came back from the IPPA World Congress, which is an International Positive Psychology Association World Congress. It has been a minute since it was able to –was this the first one that was able to take place person to person? [00:01:00] AG: Well, they actually had one in ’21, but it was virtual. This is the first in-person for four years. [00:01:08] PF: Because it doesn't happen every year. It's every two years. First of all, going into it, did you have any certain sessions or certain ideas that you really wanted to explore? Or did you go there and say let’s follow what's going on? [00:01:21] AG: Historically, I never really even looked at anything other than knowing, okay, I am going, and I'm going to absorb because I always view myself as an interloper. I think I am exactly like all of our listeners. I'm the person who did not commit their life to doing the research, but I did commit my life to getting the message out. From day one, when I went to the conferences, it was like, “I'll take whatever they've got.” This time, because there had been a lull, and so much seems to have happened, ‘09 was the first conference. There's been 14 years just there of how it's evolved. So here's what I want to give you the difference of where the science has been and where the conference has been. I did actually for the first time, unlike my extroverted personality, when I got the links to what the session programs were, I mapped out who I wanted to see and why, who I wanted to hear. [00:02:32] PF: Who, that's nice. [00:02:33] AG: So to your question, yes, I didn't wing at this time. I felt it was too precious. It had been a while. Think about how many times we're all doing that now. I think we're being a bit more thoughtful when we do come together. [00:02:48] PF: That's interesting. That's something I haven't really thought about, but I do believe you're correct. We are more maybe judicious with how we use our time and how we spend that time together. [00:03:00] AG: So you have just mentioned what the overarching theme of the conference and how the science itself is clearly moving. So the theme of the conference was connect to heart. From the time I was in positive psychology and went to the authentic happiness coaching pre-map, what it was about was the individual learning their strengths and how the individual applies these strengths. Like everything was very individually. Even with one of the founders, Chris Peterson, bringing out the other people matter message. I know in my work, it was always that one-on-one. What are your strengths? How do you apply them? How do you get it better? Now, what the science has done is look at the overarching problems. Let's just start with loneliness. [00:04:03] PF: Interesting because the episode just before this that we ran last week is loneliness because it's such an epidemic, so great. Yes, yes, jumping on that place. [00:04:11] AG: Yes. I want you to know, Live Happy Now was very present in my spirit and in actual. I’ll talk a little bit about that, at it. But loneliness, what – they open the conference by basically saying loneliness is at epidemic proportions. I will paraphrase and say and we know what cures it. Okay. [00:04:38] PF: Yes. [00:04:38] AG: So, yes, the science is showing us is that epidemic proportion, and the same science is showing us how to – like I took away the word up-level. The science from me of positive psychology has been up-leveled from the strengths. It is how do I use my strengths and you use your strength so that together everything is stronger. I don't care if it's your community, the workplace, your family. It is that connect to the heart. Well, it's connecting to the heart. Loneliness is resolved. When I connect to the heart of you at a different level than me just having an agenda that, boy, I'm lonely. I want to be with you, you know, the thing. [00:05:34] PF: Right. So what did they kind of recommend as the approach for that? [00:05:39] AG: Oh, well. So, first, let me say there were 130 sessions. I probably went to 15, and I'm like every other carpenter, I pick my nails. [inaudible 00:05:51]. [00:05:52] PF: Right. [00:05:55] AG: So above all, active participation. You must self-initiate to get back out, whether it's at the virtual level, the family level, the community level, the work level. You must know that loneliness is solved and well-being enhanced when you take an action to come together and then the techniques that we were taught a zillion years ago about empathetic listening. I'll use you and I as an example. You and I met years ago at a taping for a show on happiness. We all had our own little bucket. But then you and I spent some time at the airport. [00:06:42] PF: That's right. [00:06:43] AG: Okay. We connected through the person who – Mary Agnes made us both know about that show. What they are finding is that your ability to engage empathetically and listen for the commonality is going to help with all of the various rifts and all of the various communities. So active and active in a slightly up-leveled way where I am listening, first and foremost, for the commonality. But I'm not sharing it. Put, no one needs this more than me, masking tape on your mouth and truly just listen. Don't listen to jump in, that type of thing. Doing those small steps actually helps increase what the relationship is, even if it's in a shorter time period because we're going to be meeting for shorter time periods face to face. There are certain changes that 2020 gave us that we are going to be using techniques better because we have to use them faster. [00:08:11] PF: Oh, that's interesting. Let me ask you one more thing related to that, though. In a world where most of us are on social media, people have gotten so used to sharing their message, promoting their brand. People consider themselves a brand now, not just a person, and they're so busy sharing their message that we're forgetting how to listen. So how does someone reacquire those listening skills? How do we start doing that empathetic listening and learn to step back and not interject? [00:08:44] AG: The one thing about science knowing the answer is we still have to do the activity. It’s so interesting. We actually have everything we need to have better levels of life satisfaction. What we miss or what we don't commit to as strongly is applying it, doing the steps such as coming together. One of the suggestions, this came up a lot in work, texting, emailing, not the best way to build the relationships. Go back to more phone calls. This medium works. Whatever time you're taking, so many times what you put in an email doesn't need to be an email. It's not fact points or a report. But we're using email or texting. Pick up that call. Do re-initiate. Just because social media has become more brand-oriented, we are giving up or sacrificing and forgetting we control everything. We have the choice. This science gives you the strength, no pun intended, to engage at that level. So it's an action. [00:10:20] PF: Yes, yes. I love the idea of picking up that phone once in a while and getting more accustomed to that. Because I was joking with a friend within the past week because she had texted me to say, “Can I call you?” It's like remember when we actually like had to take a chance. You picked up the phone and hope it's somebody you wanted to talk to. I think we've lost a lot by not having that ability to just pick up the phone and call someone. The fact that we do feel we're intruding if we call them out of the blue. So I do love that of making it a practice to pick up a phone and call somebody. It's amazing how much more enrichment, how much more information you get out of that. [00:11:01] AG: Yes. Well, and I'll give you two points on that. One, it's actually a sign of what I call evolved respect. Do you have the time? Because I do that with my friends because we know how crazy we allow our schedules to become and we – what you're really asking is do you have time to pay attention to me if I call. [00:11:22] PF: Oh, I love that. I love that framing. [00:11:23] AG: Okay. So as a habit to actively engage more, I use that technique because then I can say no this time or schedule. But I'll tell you a funny thing that just happened to me yesterday. I have a very diverse background. I've lived in all sorts of parts of the country and done all sorts of things. I have a media platform, yada, yada, so a lot of people in my life. One person from 40 years ago kept coming to mind, and I'm in contact with them maybe twice a year. We had a 12-year period where we were really together. I originally was going to text them but decided – when I knew I had some time, I picked up the phone. Funny thing, I couldn't leave a message because his voicemail was full, which is something that happens a lot. So I text him instead and just said, “Hey, I'm just thinking about you,” this, this, and this. Next thing I know, he calls. Well, I ragged on him about the voice message. He said, “What is it? You want to make sure that like please don't call me?” So I would urge your listeners to check that habit because I know that I encounter that a lot, full voice messages. I will also tell you, I've done a very funny thing on my own voicemail, which I like to use to make people smile. So my voicemail currently says some version of please leave your number. Then, “I'm making a lot of changes in my life. If I don't get back to you within 24 hours, you happen to be one of them.” Now, I got that from Joe Dispenza, but I love it. Then I say, “I hope I made you laugh,” because that's always been a goal for me that my ability to respond is going to increase. This goes across the board for all of us. So this is actually we will respond to people who made us feel lighter, who made us feel like more vulnerable, more receptive. So I make that statement in a way to say, okay, lighten up because don't think I won't get a text about like, “Did you not return my call because I no longer matter,” kind of thing. It's great. [00:13:39] PF: Exactly. I love that. I love that. So you talked a lot it seems like about loneliness and connection. What would you say was another thing that really made a big impression on you at that IPPA? [00:13:51] AG: Okay. So know that we started with the World Happiness Report, and one of them – [00:13:55] PF: Oh, yes, yes, which we talked about here a while back. [00:13:59] AG: Right. Okay. So one of the great things, now, if you take the theme of up-leveling the science, going from strengths of the individual to strengths of the group. Then one of the respectful things we were asked as the audience. For those like that are listening to us that are practitioners and disseminators of the information in your audience, what they said is one of the greatest problems, the theme was how do we get this message out to the mass audience in an accurate way. Because as you probably know, when the World Happiness Report comes out, what's the thing the world knows about? What's the – [00:14:39] PF: All they know is the happiest countries in the world. Some of them will know that US isn't doing that great. We cannot crack the top 10 to save our lives. They know that the Scandinavian countries are crushing it. That's what we know. [00:14:52] AG: Bingo. I know that I don't even look at the list because Norway, Finland, Sweden can be the happiest places in the world. [00:15:00] PF: Denmark. Yes. [00:15:01] AG: But they're also the coldest ones in the world. I'm not going there. That’s all there is to it. I’ll visit. But, no, no, I'm not to stay. So we – taking in information, it's an example of how the media uses us and how we have to take back control. I'd love to read the part of the World Happiness Report. True to my statement, if you don't do the free stuff, my fee is not the problem. The World Happiness Report is free. Type in World Happiness Report. Download the sucker. Although the media talks to us about country rankings, and then we get unhappy because we aren't able to crack the code, here is an interesting finding that they have, under happiness, the very first agenda item. Once happiness is accepted as the goal of the government, this has other profound effects on institutional practices. Health, especially mental health, assumes even more priority, as does the quality of work, family, life, and community. Now, you talk in our language. Well, we have problems in those areas. So if our government would make it a focus, not make the focus mental health only. But how do we up-level the components of not happiness the emotion, which is different from me and you, but that overarching well-being, life satisfaction, all of the components that are truly governmental and community issues? What the conference did was take a report that a lot of us know the top line of but say, “Wait a minute. What action can I take?” The action is start working towards your community, looking at mental health not as a social dilemma and a social disease but as a component that needs to be solved in a connection way so that overarching our community and our policies work better. [00:17:20] PF: That's interesting because how then does an individual that's such a huge problem to solve, and that shift is not going to turn around quickly. So how does the individual who's listening say, okay, I can be a small part of this, and how do they do that? What action was it determined that they can take? [00:17:39] AG: I'm going to use an analogy that my dad used to use with me, and it had to do with I may not be able to clean up the junkyard. But I've got a broom, and I can clean my stoop. [00:17:52] PF: I like it. [00:17:52] AG: The problem media does to us and we've done to ourselves by accepting it. Don't try to solve the world happiness problem. I don't even give a flip about the world happiness scale. I do care about my square block. I do care about the policies that impact how safely I can cross the bleeping street. I do care that if I get safe crosswalks that other neighborhoods that may not be as affluent have equally safe crosswalks. That's how you do it. You look at what does my square block need and how can I do that. Then build on it from there. Don't fall into the trap of globalizing because catastrophizing and globalizing are two of the things that take away our optimism. It works at every level. [00:18:48] PF: So it really comes down to looking at your immediate tribe and saying, “All right, what are my strengths? What are theirs? How do we do make this small difference together?” I love that. [00:18:58] AG: Okay, and I'll give you another one. So meaning and mattering. The up-level station was, historically, we talked about meaning meaning. Again, that's a very individualized how do I find meaning. Well, what we found the mattering part, the new up-level is the mattering part because I find meaning when what I do at every level of work, life, family, when actually I can sense the impact on you. That went across the board. That became the nuance. That's just one of those aspects that it seems like we're talking about the same thing, meaning and mattering. But it's the difference between individual and then realizing that the satisfaction you get is from how others are impacted. [00:20:02] PF: Interesting. Boy, we could do a whole episode on that. That is really, really – [00:20:05] AG: Oh, and do I have books for you. [00:20:07] PF: Yes. [00:20:10] AG: Do I have books for you. [00:20:11] PF: Yes, you do. [00:20:13] AG: Yes, yes. I walked away – having this conversation, as I said, 130 different things about schools and well-being and the isolation, the use of psychedelic drugs. I mean, the topics were deep. If I was to leave anyone with anything, the things that I cared about the most was the shift from the meaning to the mattering and strengths, the importance of strengths at a different level. One of the many researchers that I love a lot is Ryan Niemiec. [00:20:47] PF: I love Ryan since [inaudible 00:20:48]. [00:20:48] AG: Okay. How can you not love Ryan? A man who has devoted his life to values in action, and he lives it. From his Positive Psychology Goes to the Movies books, what Ryan and his teams have been finding out is that when you add the strengths, the difference between adding strength to the mindfulness. Your particular strengths apply to the mindfulness in all the various things that you do in life is what then increases the life satisfaction aspects. Again, seems like we're saying the same exact things, but we're not. They've up-leveled it. They have found the deeper way for the things such as mindfulness and enhancing your spiritual connection because spirituality is that attribute where there is a oneness mindset. That oneness mindset builds on the same theme. That whole we're in this together. They took that theme, the wearing this together theme of 2020, and have looked deeply at what does that really mean when it's in action. [00:22:09] PF: That's what really needed to come out of the pandemic because there were a lot of lessons learned about ourselves and our relationships and both good and bad. To have that new application, I think, is really important for us to be able to take away. It's like we have to have learned something from that. We have to have changed something because of that. [00:22:33] AG: For me, that is the greatest. I think it opened up some of the greatest potential for the future, starting with the most obvious of how we valued certain jobs in our society and what it will mean for us going forward to keep valuing. The US is a service economy. We know that those jobs and satisfaction in those jobs helps build the economy because I know I'm to the point. You do too with the tipping. There's lots of articles right now on tipping and the backlash. I'm going to say I'm a very generous tipper, and I'm getting cranky. [00:23:16] PF: Yes, I know. I don't want to start at 18%. [00:23:19] AG: In ’20 and ’21, I was wanting to make sure you could pay your rent. Now, it's like, “Could you at least be accurate on the stuff when we’re interacting?” [00:23:28] PF: I know. [00:23:29] AG: It is there but they're in lies, what we are learning. We go through. There was a great line by the man who heads the Center for Good Science in Berkeley. His last name is Hanson. I think it's Rick Hanson. [00:23:46] PF: Oh, yes. [00:23:48] AG: Yes. One of the greatest challenges that we have is our brains on bad things is like Velcro. On good things, it's like Teflon. [00:23:57] PF: Exactly. [00:23:58] AG: Okay. [00:24:00] PF: I would say relative to the lessons that 2020 gave us the opportunities is we have the choice of holding on to the good stuff and continuing to up-level the stuff that was a problem because we'll be refining our economy and our ability to interact in it in a more positive way than when we were making widgets. [00:24:27] PF: I love it. Andrea, that is so insightful. I do want to ask you before I let you go. [00:24:33] AG: Okay. [00:24:34] PF: Positive psychologists, we've talked about it's a relatively new discipline, and it's maturing, and it's changing. How have you – since you've been in it a long time, you've been there. [00:24:45] AG: Long time. [00:24:46] PF: How have you seen it mature, and where do you see it being different right now? Not just the conference but positive psychology as a discipline. [00:24:55] AG: Yes. So this is really interesting. The scientific model forces an artificial. We've got to have a sample that has a known outcome that we can say this about this group. What I heard, particularly from the president of IPPA, because her background is in genetics, our ability to individualize the findings, whether it be on life satisfaction, what causes happiness, how to overcome the loneliness, our ability, what well-being is to me, I mean, they have a zillion definitions. That's a problem for science, except it's not. They're working towards not making that the hurdle. That you can continue to create work that, in fact, helps impact people and also do good science. They're now staying in what I see is a more both lane. They're not going to give up the good model of what how you study science, but they are also looking to and respecting the individualized differences along the sphere. That matters a lot. [00:26:16] PF: Yes, it does. It does. That's terrific. Andrea, you know we'll come back and talk about more of this later. [00:26:22] AG: We will. [00:26:23] PF: Later. But I appreciate this. I did. I wanted to do a follow-up. I knew you'd be a great person to talk to about it, so I appreciate you spending this time with me and telling us about it. [00:26:33] AG: Thank you. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:26:38] PF: That was Andrea Geoglein, talking about her takeaways from the International Positive Psychology Association's World Congress. If you'd like to learn more, 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: Overcoming Loneliness With Dr. Randall Hansen [INTRODUCTION] [0:00:01] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 429 of Live Happy Now. We know that loneliness is a huge problem in today's world, and this week we're learning what we can do about it. I'm your host, Paula Felps, and this week I'm sitting down with Dr. Randall Hansen, an author, educator, and advocate for deep healing. His mission is to help others understand and heal from the trauma in their lives. In the wake of the pandemic, he is one of many thought leaders who are concerned about what loneliness and isolation are doing to us. He's here to talk about the dangers of loneliness, what's causing it, and most importantly, what we can do about it. Let's have a listen. [EPISODE] [0:00:41] PF: Randall, thank you so much for joining me on Live Happy Now. [0:00:45] RH: Paula, I'm very excited to join you on a – to discuss a very important topic today. [0:00:50] PF: Yeah. You and I are having this conversation, because of something that you wrote about loneliness. I follow you on LinkedIn, and you wrote a post that really spoke to me, because there's so much information coming out right now about how deadly isolation and loneliness are. It's just continuing to grow. It's like, even though we know what a problem it is, it's getting worse. I guess to start, tell me why it was so important for you to write that post, because you really took a deep dive into what it's doing to us. [0:01:18] RH: I've just seen too many people affected by it. I have a good friend who's a caretaker for a disabled brother and pre-COVID. He was already self-isolating as often caregivers do, because they have to spend their whole time with the person they're taking care of, but then with the pandemic, he just became further isolated, and I could actually see, I mean, not be, but I could see his brain changing in the sense of he was just becoming more pessimistic. He's a single guy, he wants to have a family. So, he just becoming more and more isolated and his attitude is just become more and more pessimistic, because we've actually seen, and this is part of my deep dive, but we've actually seen scientific studies and show that loneliness changes the format of our brain. It actually is almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy if we don't make changes, that the loneliness will actually, almost keep feeding itself and making it a downward spiral that will make it even harder for us to get out of. [0:02:29] PF: Is it similar to depression, where once you have depression, you can't just like snap yourself out of it and it keeps getting worse? As you said, a downward spiral, does loneliness make you continue to self-isolate? [0:02:42] RH: Bizarrely, it does. I mean, that's the crazy part of this thing. We have mechanisms that we think are designed to increase or decrease the loneliness, increase our connectivity like social media, but we're finding out now that social media is actually more isolating, because we have this comparison syndrome where we're looking, “Oh, look at all our friends who are doing these exciting lives who are leading and I'm stuck at home with by myself.” So that becomes this thing. Then also, or, “Oh, look at my friend has 10,000 likes and I have one like. I'm not loved. I'm not appreciated.” So social media which is supposed to bring us together is actually more isolating. So, yeah, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy that way. [0:03:30] PF: I want to ask you about social media, because you can create some guidelines at some point to make it a healthy experience for you by like, limiting your time and maybe monitoring who you're following and what you're doing. What are some of the ways that you recommend that we can use social media to cure our loneliness and not make it worse? Because I'll say, I've got a relative who's, she's in her 80s, she's in a nursing home. I don't know what she would do without social media. She uses it in that right way. She stays in touch with all her nieces and nephews. Tell us how to do this the right way. [0:04:05] RH: Yeah. I think especially for, I mean, again, that's what social media is all about for the isolated people, for rural people that are disconnected from friends and family that this is a chance just like FaceTime, or Zooms, or something like that. The same thing. We can connect face to face, but – so that is definitely a positive thing, but it hit me last year. I was just having this quiet meditation and it really hit me the strong, especially about Facebook, which a friend of mine calls fake book. [0:04:37] PF: Yeah. [0:04:38] RH: I'll come back to that in a second, but it just came back to me that so much of this doesn't matter. My rule would be, as long as you're not putting all your focus, emphasis on social media, that's number one. Definitely, limit the amount of time you spend and look at what your goal is. If your goal is something like, this grandmother that's trying to just want to connect with friends and family, maybe share the memories. I have some older relatives that are now going through their photo albums and posting old black and whites and it's awesome. Yeah, that's the part that's a good part of social media, but as soon as we start comparing ourselves to others. If we're looking at social media just to look at others and keep in contact, that's great, but if we're posting, hoping to get 100 likes, or 1000 likes, or 10,000 likes and we're going to be probably setting ourselves up for disappointment. I think the key is just expectations, what's our intention with social media. I think each social media is different, like Facebook, I think is perfect for family and friends. LinkedIn's you and I have talked about is wonderful for professional connections. I love that aspect. You and I wouldn't be talking otherwise. [0:05:52] PF: Exactly, yeah. [0:05:54] RH: Then Instagram, I use Instagram just for photos. I just love photos. So, that's a different vibe in all of them. [0:06:00] PF: How important could it be then to set an intention each time you're going to use social media? Would that be a good way to start building a healthier practice with it? [0:06:10] RH: Yes. I think that's an extremely good idea. You can, you can also be honest for yourself and just try to monitor it, but of course, you can also get an app if you're doing it on your phone and watch your screen time that way. The honor system says, “Oh, I'll only be on social media for an hour.” But then you have 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there. [0:06:32] PF: Right. [0:06:32] RH: All of a sudden, five hours, not one hour. So, having some device that maybe tracks you at least in the beginning might be another way to keep yourself a little more honest with it, too, if your intention is just to keep to maybe an hour a day or something like that. [0:06:46] PF: Right. Right. We know that beyond social media, there's other things attributing to our loneliness. But first, I do want to – you brought up a great point. That is the difference between loneliness and solitude. [0:06:59] RH: Yeah. [0:06:59] PF: Can you tell us about that distinction? Because I think this is a really important thing to think about. [0:07:04] RH: Yeah. I think solitude can be so life enhancing, so soul searching. So, that's not – if we seek out solitude and I'll give you an example. I've gone on a healing journey and my best modality for healing is nature. I instill the day it is. But I live, you can see behind me, I live on this, very gratefully, on a little hilltop above a lake. I walk this property almost daily. Anyway, but my healing journey in nature, I was alone for about five years in nature. Just rediscovering myself and trying to get rid of my ego and then deal with my traumas. I was alone in that process, but I was also in a community of other forest owners. We talked about how to manage our forest and best techniques and things like that. I was still in a – I was in solitude for my healing journey, but I had a community around me that supported me. The difference in loneliness is a sense of isolation, that social pain, that people don't care about you, and you're not connected, and you're alone. Where solitude is seeking that solitude for some kind of purpose, typically self-enhancing, educational learning process. That's a big difference. They can seem similar, but quite different purposes involved. [0:08:46] PF: Right. You can be lonely even when you're in a sea of people. [0:08:50] RH: Yes. [0:08:51] PF: It doesn't – [0:08:53] RH: Yeah. My other perfect example is when I was in freshman in college. I picked the wrong college. I was completely, lonely, isolated in a sea of thousands of other people around me. All these students were around me, but I wasn't connected to any of them. Yeah, that's the perfect example. We could live in a city with a million people and still be lonely. Yeah. [0:09:21] PF: Yeah. It's really important then to have community and you talk about that. Explain to us why community is so important. Especially now, it's even more so in this post pandemic world. Can you address that for me, please? [0:09:34] RH: Yeah. Well, I think let me just address the pandemic for a second too, because I think my wife and I, my partner and I, we talk about how we are the 1% in the middle. It seemed like everyone else is on the extremes. I think the pandemic – before the pandemic, we had some of that, but I think since the pandemic, we've had this splintering so much so that almost any issue seems to be political if you want to make it so. To me, it's so important to find community that aligns with your values. I think in today's world, it's a lot harder, because a subject like dogs, well, there's no political aspect of dogs, but someone's going to find something like, the dog food, you give your dog. Whatever. I mean, it's just – [0:10:24] PF: Right. There's always going to be a way to find that fault. [0:10:28] RH: Yeah. Yeah. I think it's community, because it's so blindered these days. It's so important to find people that support you, support your values. You don't have to support all your values or be 100% aligned with you. It's pretty rare to find someone like that. As long as there are maybe 75%, because you want these people to be able to agree with you, uplift you and you'd be able to uplift them at the same time, because again, communities is a back and forth street. [0:10:57] PF: It's also important to be able to realize that they can have different views. [0:11:02] RH: Yeah. [0:11:03] PF: I don't need to jettison them from my lives. I've seen people really cut off some longstanding friendships, because of political, or social beliefs. It’s to me very sad, because you're throwing out, talk about throwing out the baby with a bathwater. There's so much more than what your, say your political beliefs are. [0:11:23] RH: Yeah. Yeah, I have a friend who is completely opposite me about the pandemic and all things are about it. I could have easily written him off. He could have written me off, but there are so many other aspects of that relationship of that friendship that don't deal with that one little subject. I know the pandemic is a massive one, but it doesn't have to be. Yeah, I work around – you find to work around for those things, because we're all multifaceted. We're not – I can't imagine one person that's all about just one topic and that's it. Yeah. So, save some of those friendships. That's one of my things is if you're lonely and you're feeling like you're isolated and you want to move ahead, maybe go back and look at some of those friendships that maybe got dissolved in the last three or four years and see if there's a way to resolve them. I think we have a fear of rejection. I can tell you when I've reached out to a few people that I rationally did something wrong and I apologized or I just, depending if I did it wrong, or if I just reached out to them and said, “Hey, can we – I really miss you. Can we reconnect and see what's going on?” All those were positive. I didn't have one bad experience with that. One didn't take off back to the friendship, but that was fine. He didn't say – he didn't yell at me or anything like that, but just, “Yeah, I moved on.” But yeah. I mean, I think many people have gone through their contact list and said, “Oh, no they voted for that person. Nope.” Or, “They did that there in the pandemic. Nope. Gone.” But now where we have so many other qualities to us. [0:13:07] PF: That's it. Yeah. If you can really start looking for what you have in common with people. I moved out to an area where I will have less in common with the people than I did when I lived in downtown Nashville. That's been very key for me, is not focusing on the differences is looking at where do we find this common ground? Now, frankly, we have a swimming pool. For them, that's our common ground. They're like, “You have a pool? I like to swim.” I know, but you do need to look for things that, places where you can connect instead of being so quick to say like, “No, they're not right for me.” [0:13:41] RH: Yeah. Yeah. I just think it's so many opportunities. It's a good way to actually grow, because if you lean into some of that, just comfort like, “Oh, I don't know if I like that, their beliefs or their whatever.” But if you lean into a little bit you might even learn something. “Oh, I didn't know about that.” So, it can be a positive. Even if you don't become a friend with those people, you can still become a positive learning experience to grow your own knowledge about other things. [0:14:07] PF: Yeah. It's a good opportunity to find out why someone thinks that way. [0:14:11] RH: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. [0:14:13] PF: That will blow your mind sometimes. [0:14:15] RH: Yeah. Many times, it will. Again, The Four Agreements, great book, real short, it’s a tiny book, but one of them is don't make assumptions, but we do it all the time. [0:14:25] PF: Right. [0:14:26] RH: That person [inaudible 00:14:26]. Oh, they must be Irish or whatever. Whatever, but who knows, they just like green. Yeah, we need to get beyond our assumptions sometime. [0:14:36] PF: We do have this loneliness epidemic. What is really like the cause of the loneliness epidemic? Is it just so many different things or what's going on? [0:14:44] RH: That's really a good question. I've seen so many studies on impact of loneliness. We even have the search in general, released a report about a month or two ago about how dangerous loneliness is and more dangerous than almost a pack a day cigarette smoking issue. We know how dangerous cigarette smoking is. It leads to stress eating, further isolation, depression, self-medicating, all these things. I think it's just a tipping point. I was just having a discussion with a psychologist this morning in Ireland, of all places. She was saying that we have just gotten to this point where we are so, it's almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy that technology is supposed to make things easier. It's isolated us. The pandemic, illness and health, sometimes brings it together, but because, again, for whatever reasons, the reaction to the pandemic and all that became so political. Then from the pandemic, we also had the self-isolate. I have a brother who is still self-isolating, because he has just gotten into that. Again, it's almost like a – again, I don't want to label this like a, in terms of a medical diagnosis, but it's almost a little bit like OCD, where OCD is this loop that you can't get out of. So, it's a spot loop until your brain fixes it. I think lonely, we're seeing loneliness is almost something similar to that. So, for my brother, who, yes, he can travel now, he wanted to travel to Europe and he couldn't, because of the pandemic and the travel restrictions. Yet, he still hasn't left his house. I think there is a self-fulfilling aspect of it. Then the work from home is the other component to this. Maybe we all didn't have the greatest co-workers, but there's a certain human connection we have when we go into work and meet people. “Hey, how are you? How was your weekend? Catch the big game.” Whatever. There's some connection going on there. Now, I mean, we still have that with zooms and things like that, but it's just not the same or you don't have that – [0:17:10] PF: There’s nothing like face-to-face. Yeah. [0:17:11] RH: Person sitting next to you. Yeah. Yeah. It changes you. [0:17:16] PF: What can we do if we're out and we're in the world and we're feeling good about things, what can we do to help people who are suffering from loneliness? Because it's, as you said, it becomes this vicious circle for them. It's not something it seems they can pull themselves out of. How do we help people who are going through this? [0:17:35] RH: I love it. Two aspects. Number one, of course, first, I love that those who are doing better should always be trying to help others. I love that. Thank you for that, Paula. It's a beautiful message. I think the key is awareness. Look around to the people in your circle. Who haven't you talked to, who haven't you seen in a while, and who has suddenly dropped off and just reaching out is that I think a major, major first step and just saying, “Hey, I noticed – I haven't seen you in a while, I have been texting you or haven't seen you on social media.” Whatever your connection with that person is. Then maybe the next step is there are so many ways to meet new people. The next step after that would be maybe invite them along to something you're going to, a book club, or a social event, a conference, a club that you belong to. There are so many non-profits you can volunteer with. I mean, there are so many ways to get involved, but I think inviting them along rather than telling them. I mean, it's easy to say, “Hey, there's a book club over at the library.” [0:18:49] PF: Go check it out. [0:18:49] RH: Yeah. Go check it out versus, “Hey, I'm going to this book club next week. The book is fantastic. You don't have to read it all. You don't have to read any of it.” It's just a chance to talk about the book and meet other people. Then forced that we bring them along. I think those are two things. One, checking in. Then two, just recommending, “Oh, hey. Why don't you go to the gym? Why don't you just.” Say, “Hey, I'm doing this. Can you come along?” Or invite them along with you. [0:19:18] PF: I think for that, it's important to keep asking, because the chances are the first time, first three times, they're going to say no, but there's also something that happens within that person when they are being invited. Someone's extending a hand, someone wants to spend time with you. It's like that's, I think where you can really start helping them and not just giving up, not being like, “Well, they always say no.” Just continue to let them know that you're interested in their companionship. [0:19:48] RH: Yes, a 100%, because almost, especially depending on how long they've been in this loneliness cycle, their reaction is almost always going to be no, because, “Oh, I don't want to be a burden.” “No, no, you, you're an extrovert. I know you're going to have more fun than I am. I'm going to be a drag, blah, blah, blah.” But you're right. Every single time you ask them, it's a little change going on up in there. It might be the fifth time or the 10th time, but yes. I love that. Thank you. Keep asking, because it will flip that switch. It might take a little while, but it will. [0:20:23] PF: You just got to be patient and persistent. There's so many pieces to this. I appreciate you sitting down and talking about this. We can do an entire series on loneliness and, and still just be scratching the surface. I am going to tell our listeners on the landing page, they'll be able to find the column that you wrote about this. That also gives incredible tips for stepping out of loneliness. I really hope that people do listen and whether they're dealing with loneliness themselves and need some tips on how to take these baby steps. Things like adopt a pet. That was a great one. I mean, you gave just so many wonderful tips that are pretty easy to do and getting out in nature and. Then also, what we can do as people who are watching someone go through that. There's a lot of ways that we can reach out and help. I truly appreciate you sitting down with me today and talking about it. [0:21:12] RH: Well, thank you, Paula. I just so appreciate you reaching out to me and giving me this platform to talk about it, because it is a very important subject. Thank you. [OUTRO] [0:21:24] PF: That was Dr. Randall Hansen talking about loneliness. If you'd like to learn more about what he has to say about loneliness, check out his books or follow him on social media. Just visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: What’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: Easing Back-to-School Anxiety With Dr. Laura Phillips [INTRODUCTION] [0:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 427 of Live Happy Now. It's time to go back to school, and for some kids, that means a whole lot of stress. I'm your host, Paula Felps, and this week, I'm talking with Dr. Laura Phillips, the Senior Director in the Learning and Development Center at the Child Mind Institute. Laura specializes in working with children who have learning disorders, mood disorders, and anxiety, among other things, and she's committed to improving the social, emotional well-being of children and adolescents, so she's sitting down with me today to talk about how going back to school can create anxiety for kids of all ages and how it can also affect their parents. Then, she's going to tell us what we can do about it. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [0:00:47] PF: Well, Laura, thank you so much for coming on the show today. [0:00:50] LP: Thank you so much for having me. [0:00:52] PF: I wanted to talk to you, because back to school is on the minds of everybody, kids, parents, shopkeepers. We tend to, at this time of year, focus on the excitement of the new school year and all the great things, but there is a lot of research that shows that children are more anxious than ever about going back to school. I wanted to talk, first of all, and find out what you're seeing. [0:01:14] LP: I think, children are more anxious than ever, unfortunately, about everything. I think back to school is a transition which tends to be anxiety-provoking for children, particularly those who experience anxiety. The last three years, each transition back to school was anxiety-provoking, because kids didn't know what the year would look like in the fall of 2020. We had kids who were doing full-time remote instruction, hybrid instruction. Some kids were back in classrooms for the first time since the previous March, so that was really anxiety-provoking. Then the following fall, there was increased return to the classroom, but still some – I mean, really significant changes from what normal school looks like. Then there were really young kids who never really knew what normal school looked like, because they hadn't had a normal school year, because of where they were when COVID hit. The past couple of years, the back-to-school transition, I think, was anxiety-provoking, because kids didn't really know what that would look like. This year, we seem to be out of that pandemic phase, so it's a more normal return to school this year than I think the past couple of years had been. But that's with an atypically anxious population of kids and teenagers. As you said, general rates of anxiety are higher than ever before among our teenagers and children, and that's true for mood disorders as well. We have a group of kids and teenagers who are coming up, who are just really struggling from an emotional perspective. [0:02:42] PF: What is the biggest cause of that anxiety? Because I do hear a lot more about anxiety, and I don't think it's just because we're more aware of it. I think there's a greater amount of it. [0:02:54] LP: I think that's right. It's really not just COVID. This isn't a COVID relic, although I don't think that the pandemic helped, but we really did see these trends, rising rates of anxiety and mood disorders preceding the pandemic, and really dating back really to the mid-2000s. I think that there are a lot of things. I think that a really big contributor is social media. We have kids who are constantly connected to one another and to the world. That can take a hit on their self-esteem, because there's just this constant comparison game that's taking place and FOMO and the unkind behavior that used to end at 3:00 tends to follow kids now home at the end of the day, because there's just constant connection. There's also just constant information. The world is a scary place. I think that kids are really acutely aware of it, because there's a 24-hour news cycle and because of their constant access to information through social media and being on screens. They're hearing about school shootings. They're hearing about racialized violence. They're hearing about global warming. There's a lot of reasons for kids to feel nervous about the state of the world. There's also a lot of pressure on kids, which I think comes from very well-intended parents who also have a lot of concerns about the state of the world. They want to feel like they have some control over their children and their children's future. There's a lot of pressure put on kids to have academic success. From very early on in kids' school years, they're hearing that how important it is to do well in school and to get into a good college and to get a good job. Free time is pretty limited now, because kids are really involved in a ton of programming. Some of which is really good, but I think that downtime is really important, both from a mental health perspective, but also from a cognitive development perspective. I think that there are a lot of factors contributing to the rising rates of anxiety. [0:04:51] PF: For parents, how do they press pause on some of that? Because you want to keep up, and your child wants to keep up. They want to know what's going on with social media. Even though it's challenging and anxiety-provoking, they don't want to miss out on it. How do you take them away from that a little bit and find some mental health breaks? [0:05:15] LP: It's really, really hard. I don't envy parents of children who are old enough to have screens. I have very young children. I have a four-year-old and a one-year-old, and I am not looking forward to the day when my child asks me for a cellphone, or a Facebook account. Because to your point, you don't want kids to miss out, and that is the way that kids are connecting with their friends. That is the way that kids are staying in contact when they're outside of school. That's the way that they're making plans, and so you don't want your child to be isolated, or pulled out of that. But parents need to be monitoring. They need to be aware of who their kids are talking to, what they're talking about. There is a role for restrictions on certain types of programming, or access to people through programming, so you can certainly, you can restrict who kids talk to, and they can only talk to people if you're approved. I mean, there are ways to put in place restrictions on kids' access to screens and social media. But you said mental health break. I think that a break is also really, really important. Not just for kids and teenagers, but for adults too, and I wish that I practiced what I preached. But I talk to parents all the time about, really, we talk about screen contracts, or social media contracts, so coming up with a plan for when and how and for what purposes these devices will be used before giving children the privilege of having a phone, which having a cellphone really is a privilege, which I really try to reinforce with parents a lot. It's a privilege that they have the right to remove if these devices are being abused, or if kids are not following the rules that are set out for them in order to safeguard them and also, to protect their mental health. But within those contracts, should also be designated break times. There should be times throughout the day that kids are not on phones. I think that dinner time and I mean, families have obviously different schedules and different opportunities to be together for dinner. Meal time should be a time ideally where everybody, not just children are putting away their phones and really using that time to come back and connect with one another. The bedroom, designated so to screen-free times of day, also screen-free zones within the house, or the apartment. Maybe the bedroom is a place that we at least after a certain hour of the day, because certainly during the day, kids are going to insist that they need access to their phones and their screens. But maybe after 8:30 p.m., everyone turns in their phones and then there's just designated blackout time for screen media. I think that kids and adults really do need a break, and there's a lot of really compelling research showing mental health benefit of having designated time away from screens. [0:07:55] PF: Then how can you use that time at dinner to connect and find out what's going on at school, what's going on with them, and this is a two-parter, because a child isn't necessarily going to tell you in words, “I'm being picked on. I'm being bullied. I'm not happy. I don't feel comfortable.” How do you use that time at dinner and how do you get into what is really going on? [0:08:16] LP: Well, I mean, anytime you're talking about uncomfortable things, you want to ask open-ended questions. You don't want to ask leading questions and you don't want to plant affect, or emotional experiences into kids' minds. You don't want to say, “Are you nervous about your first day of school tomorrow?” You might want to ask them, “How are you feeling about starting school tomorrow and really see what they bring to you?” Yeah. I mean, kids may not come out and tell you how they're feeling. They might not tell you that they're feeling nervous, or scared, or if they had an unpleasant experience in school. You want to watch carefully for some red flags that we know kids tend to show when they are experiencing something that makes them feel uncomfortable. Changes in affect, changes in behaviors, if you're seeing increased irritability, reduced frustration tolerance, kids are having meltdowns more frequently than, or more easily than they tend to have. If you're seeing changes in sleep patterns. You're noticing that kids are having a hard time falling asleep, they're waking up in the middle of the night, they're waking up earlier in the morning, if they're more clingy than usual, somatic symptoms, so physical complaints like headaches, stomach aches, fatigues, etc., are all really good signs that something might be going on that's making your child feel uncomfortable, which can then be a reason to prompt that conversation either during dinner, or a really good time to have conversations about things that are difficult are when you're doing other things, but also have to be – you're forced together time, like a car ride to school. You're trapped inside a car, but you're also not looking directly at one another, which can make it a little bit easier sometimes for kids to open up about what's feeling uncomfortable for them. Car rides to school. Walks to school. If you have a younger child, bath time. I get a ton of information when I'm giving my younger child a bath. [0:10:00] PF: It's better than an interrogation, right? [0:10:02] LP: Right. I mean, you're together. It's again, it's like this forced together time, but it doesn't feel like an interrogation, because you're in the middle doing something else and you just happen to bring up. My daughter. I'm sorry, I keep bringing up my child, but she's about to – [0:10:15] PF: All good. [0:10:17] LP: - her deep-water test. Rather than saying, “Are you nervous with your deep-water test?” We might say something like, “What's happened? What are you thinking about swimming tomorrow?” Something very benign, something open-ended, and just see what happens to come up. In those moments where kids might be a little bit more willing to share information, rather than if you go into their room and say, “I want to have a conversation with you right now about going back to school tomorrow.” [0:10:42] PF: That's intimidating. [0:10:43] LP: Right. Exactly. Yeah. [0:10:46] PF: If a child does show signs of anxiety about going back to school, how do you differentiate between, this is just jitters of starting a new school year and something unfamiliar? Or there's actually an underlying anxiety situation? [0:10:59] LP: Yeah. That's a really good question, because back to school jitters, I mean, there's a term for it, because it's very common thing. A lot of kids really do feel – it's very normal to feel a little anxious, nervous, jittery at the start of a new school year. Some of that is really excited anticipation also. But you would expect those nerves, if it's just back-to-school jitters to dissipate within a couple of days of that new school year beginning. When we talk about, how do I know if this is something more, I like to talk about frequency intensity, duration, and impairment. The duration piece can be really important in this particular example. Again, if those signs of nervousness, or jitteriness persist beyond those first couple of days of school, and you're seeing more frequent occurrence of either worry thoughts, or stomach aches, or difficulty sleeping than normal, more intense occurrence of those symptoms than normal, and that they're starting to have some functional impairment, like my child is expressing that he doesn't want to go to school, then that suggests that this is more than just typical back-to-school jitters. [0:12:03] PF: Then the question, of course, is what do you do about it? Because when I was growing up, they're like, “Oh, just wait it out.” They're like, “Work through it.” There are better ways, I am sure to do it than just toughen it out. What does a parent do if they realize that their child is very anxious and that it's more than just a couple of days type of thing? [0:12:28] LP: Yeah. You seek support. I mean, I would – teachers are a wealth of information about how your kids are doing during the day they're on the ground. I might reach out to it. I might start by reaching out to a teacher, or if there's the dean, the head of the middle school who might have broader view of your child, because they may have known them over the course of a couple of years. I might reach out to them and say, “Are you noticing anything different? Johnny has been complaining of stomach aches really frequently and that's not very typical for him. I'm wondering if you're seeing anything in school.” I would I would look to teachers for as a really important source of information about how kids are doing during the day. They're usually your mental health professionals on site in school. Whether that's a school counselor, or a school psychologist can be another really second point of contact, either to help check in with your child during the day, or guide you towards whether it might be time to seek support outside of the school system with a mental health professional in the community. [0:13:27] PF: In our conversation, we're talking more about younger children, because, well, teenagers are a whole different ballgame. Once we get to that, they're not talking to us anyway. How do parents start monitoring that tween and teen situation and differentiate between what's just the moodiness of a teenager and an actual problem that's going on? [0:13:51] LP: I think parents have a long view of who their children are, if they're seeing really acute changes that that's suggested it's more than typical moodiness associated with hormone change and development in teenagers. But the same things. It is normal for kids to be a little bit grouchy and hard to wake up in the morning. But if they're refusing to get out of bed, if they're showing sleepiness during the day, if they're insisting that they need to take naps during the day, or if they're indicating that they don't want to go to school, I mean, the more intense communication of these impairment, I think parents would notice. [0:14:33] PF: Okay, that's really good. I guess, the same rules apply. It's like, understand when you need to seek outside help. [0:14:40] LP: I don't think that kids want to feel uncomfortable. I think that they might not know that there's a way for them to feel differently and they might be concerned that there's something wrong with them. Admitting that they need help can be scary. But normalizing it can be a really good way to get a teen to seek out professional help. [0:15:01] PF: Okay. What about children who are either ignored, or bullied in the school environment? That's as a parent, I can't imagine watching my child go through either of those situations. There's only so much that you can do. How can a parent help a child who's dealing with either of those? Then, how do you set them up for success and start changing things for them? [0:15:26] LP: It's really hard, because you also want to, as you said, you can't imagine it. I think that that's something that's really hard for all parents to watch their children go through feelings that their child is being mistreated, or feels uncomfortable, or unsafe in school triggers a lot of anxiety in parents themselves. You want to be really mindful of putting your own anxiety and discomfort onto your children, because then they have the double whammy of not only is school hard for me, but mom is also really upset about this, too. You want to be really careful in how you broach these conversations. You again want to ask open-ended questions about how they're feeling in school, rather than putting the affect into their minds. Like, “Are you nervous about going back to school tomorrow?” Were you going to sit with all your own racing thoughts that you might have? Leave those out of this. When they do communicate to you what they're feeling, you want to validate those feelings without reinforcing those feelings, without reinforcing the fear. You can say, “I understand you're feeling really nervous about the first day of school. I bet a lot of other kids are feeling that same way.” You don't want to say, “Of course, you're feeling nervous. Who are you going to sit with?” Listens to their own concerns. At the same time, if you know that there's something challenging for them, don't start the conversation with that. If you know that they feel nervous about finding someone to sit with at lunch, when they come home from school that first day, don't say, “Who did you sit with at lunch?” You want to start with something that's going to make them feel more positive about how those first days back at school have gone. The big thing is, I think there's this real desire, there's this urge for parents to take away their children's anxiety, either by dismissing it, or telling them these social struggles don't matter. “When you get out of school, you're going to look back at these days and you won't even remember them and you're going to have so many friends.” That's not helpful. Keeping them home from school. If they express that they don't want to go to school, because they're worried about who they're going to sit with at lunch, or they're worried that they're going to be made fun of, keeping them home from school is not helpful, because that's also just reinforcing their own fear. The goal really should be helping them learn how to cope with and tolerate the discomfort, or cope with the anxiety, manage those big feelings and learn skills to manage those anxiety provoking situations, rather than removing those anxiety provoking situations. Practicing with them, or problem solving. Let's think of some people that you can try to sit with at lunch tomorrow. Let's think of some conversation starters. Practicing, coming up with a script for how they might approach a new person in their class, some questions that they can ask and then you can practice asking those questions. Really, the anticipation of the anxiety provoking situation is the hardest part. You want to prepare kids for what those situations look like, previewing, actually visualizing what it looks like to walk into a big cafeteria with a lot of kids around, some of whom you know, some of whom are unkind to you. Another group who hopefully, you can feel comfortable approaching and then actually walking them through what it looks like to go up to a friend and ask if you can sit with them and practicing using their brave words to try to break into a social group. Previewing, practicing and also expressing really positive but realistic expectations about those fear situations. You can't promise your child that first day of school is going to be great. They're going to make a ton of friends. Because that may not be the case, it might be and you should anticipate that for kids who have social anxiety, or who have historically been bullied, first days back to school can be really stressful and challenging and they might have a couple of bumps in the road. You don't want to promise them anything that you can't deliver. You don't want to promise them that those first days of school are going to be easy. You don't want to promise them that they'll have a ton of people to sit with and talk to at lunch. But you do want to imbue in them the confidence that you have that they'll be able to get through it. You can validate, “Yes, this is going to be a – this can be a scary experience and I have faith that you can get through it. This is how we're going to do it.” You're communicating your faith and your confidence in them, validating their feelings and also giving them some tools and practicing using those tools. [0:19:46] PF: Then as they're going through those first few days, if it's not going well, if they are having a very tough time, how do you give them a soft landing when they get home? What are some things that you can do? You can't take away what has happened, or hasn't happened at school, but how can you balance out the day for them and make it less miserable, less uncomfortable for them? [0:20:08] LP: I mean, exactly what you said. You want to give them a soft landing. You want to be very positive. You want to ask questions about things that you know that they enjoy and really try to shine a light on things that were positive about those first days back at school. School is highly structured and highly scheduled. I think that especially in those first couple of weeks, trying to make sure that weekends at least have a lot of unstructured, or unscheduled time, so that kids can feel like they have some control over how they're spending their time. I mean, school is very, very heavily dictated for them during the school day. Giving them some sense of control, some sense of rest and decompression and sensory relief on weekends can be really, really helpful for kids to recuperate after having highly stimulating and stressful days back at school. [0:20:59] PF: There's another sector that we haven't talked about and that's college students going back to school. Only they're going off to school maybe for the first time. I have a gentleman who I know and he had twin sons and they went to separate colleges. One of them is very outgoing and went there and thrived, and the other one is very introverted and ended up coming home during the school year, because he couldn't handle it. How do parents prepare their children for going off to college? [0:21:28] LP: It's the same thing. You want to really help them preview. You can't take away the experience, but you want to help them preview, problem solve, practice how they're going to engage in those situations. I mean, ideally, there might be a person or two that a teenager knows at the school that they're going to, that they can try to connect with and a step, just that they have one safe person. If you have one safe person to go around with and start to meet new people, that can be really, really helpful. If you can find a way to arrange for a meet up with someone, just that there's a familiar face, that can be really, really helpful. Then just talking through, really helping them understand what those first couple of weeks at school might look like, and helping them problem solve can be really, really helpful. Again, validating that this is a new experience, that this is something that could trigger a lot of discomfort in you, and this is how we're going to deal with it, and I believe that you can get through it. [0:22:24] PF: Let them know, it's okay not to be okay, I guess. [0:22:26] LP: It's okay to not be okay. [0:22:29] PF: Then parents, they're also starting to get a little stressed, back to school, because and it's not just the shopping. I know it changes parents’ routines. They've been able to take it a little bit easier without having to carpool and commute with the children and drop them off. What can parents do? As now we get more demands back on our time, what are some great ways for them to approach back to school and breathe and make it a joyous time for everybody? [0:22:56] LP: Yeah. I change in routine is usually a positive one, because there's so much structure and routine that's associated with school. Well, I mean, it might take a minute to get back into that routine, but once you're in the groove and actually, there's something very safe that the school year provides to kids and families in really, the structure and the predictability that the school schedule provides. Yeah. I mean, if you're going from not having to manage carpool and early wakeups and making lunches, etc., there's definitely a lot that parents have to remember how to do. I would say, start early. The whole family, you really want to get people back into that school routine, at least the school schedule, at least before the first day. Start thinking about getting kids to go to bed earlier, waking kids up earlier in the morning and really getting back into the routine of mom and dad are making breakfast, or caregivers, or someone's making – we want to make sure that we're setting up that structure of the school day of where we're getting dressed, we're having breakfast and we're practicing, or thinking at least about what it means to get out the door on time. You want to make sure that you're pulling together school supplies earlier. You don't want to be racing the night before to find the right size binder that your teacher wants for your math class. Just to the extent that you can really do as much in advance those couple of days right before school starts don't feel as hectic. Just to the extent that that parents can really try to prepare earlier, rather than later, or getting back into school routines, starting to, I said, pull together materials, managing parents own anxiety. Thinking about what it is that they're feeling nervous about, whether it's the social piece, the academic piece, the time management piece and managing that outside away from children. I mean, children are so unbelievably perceptive. They really pick up on parent energy. It can be hard to do. But to really try to be mindful of your own emotions and your own level of stress when you're talking to kids about going back to school, because you don't want to put your own anxiety and stress onto children. [0:25:06] PF: Right. When is it a good idea, maybe even for a parent to get some outside help, talk to somebody about it, if they're having trouble managing at all? [0:25:17] LP: This is a Herald confluence quote. “That self-care is child care.” Parents cannot be the parents that they want to be if they themselves are struggling with anxiety, or feeling overwhelmed, or depression. When parents are noticing that they're having a hard time being fully present, it's important for them to take a step back and figure out what it is that they need. Whether they need to seek professional help, or it's just about carving out more time for themselves to exercise, to get sufficient sleep, to connect with friends. That's not selfish. It actually helps make parents better parents, if they're to the extent that they're managing their own anxiety and stress, they can be more available to support their kids through stressful situations. [0:26:01] PF: That's excellent. Laura, you've given us a lot to think about, a lot to learn, and I'm going to tell our listeners how they can find you, find your work, find the Child Mind Institute, and learn more about what you all are about. Thank you for coming on today. This is enlightening, very important topic. I know it's on top of mind for a lot of people right now, so thanks for taking time to sit with us. [0:26:21] LP: Thanks so much for having me. [OUTRO] [0:26:27] PF: That was Dr. Laura Phillips, talking about alleviating back-to-school anxiety. If you'd like to learn more about her work and the Child Mind Institute, just visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. Of course, if you're looking for some uplifting cool t-shirts for your child to wear back to school this fall, be sure and check out our selection at store.livehappy.com. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]