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Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Overcoming Loneliness With Dr. Jeremy Nobel [INTRODUCTION] [0:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for Episode 472 of Live Happy Now. Loneliness is one of the major challenges facing our society today. Since this is Loneliness Awareness Week, it's a great time to look at what's behind this loneliness epidemic. I'm your host, Paula Felps, and this week, I'm sitting down with physician, teacher, innovator, and author, Dr. Jeremy Nobel. founder of The Foundation for Art & Healing, and the Project UnLonely initiative. Jeremy, who is also on the faculty of the Harvard Medical School and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, has published the book, Project UnLonely: Healing Our Crisis of Disconnection. He's here to talk about what loneliness is doing to us and what we should be doing about it. Let's have a listen. [NTERVIEW]   [0:00:50] PF: Dr Nobel, thank you so much for joining us on Live Happy Now. [0:00:54] JN: My pleasure to be with you. [0:00:56] PF: It's so important to talk to you any time of the year, but right now, we really are excited to talk to you, because we have Loneliness Awareness Week. Boy, loneliness is such a huge, huge issue for so many people today. I was curious, first of all, where did your interest in not just studying loneliness, but resolving the crisis begin? [0:01:16] JN: Well, actually, it really began in an interesting way after 9/11, but I didn't know that I was really focused on loneliness. I was actually very interested in the trauma of 9/11, as an experience for many people, particularly children. That's what got me started, and I started The Foundation for Art & Healing, 501(c)3 nonprofit. The idea was to promote creative expression as a path to health and wellbeing. Really focusing on the power of the arts to really help us make sense of the world in positive, healthy, stress-reducing, trauma recovery-oriented ways. As we started doing this work with the arts, we quickly found that many people with trauma and dealing with that stress were also quite lonely. They told us that the work we were doing with the arts to engage, and activate, and have kind of exciting conversations, storytelling, and so on, made them feel less lonely and more connected. That really got our attention, and that's what launched Project UnLonely. [0:02:19] PF: What is the connection between trauma and loneliness? [0:02:22] JN: When you're traumatized, so what is trauma? It's a painful, hurtful injury or experience. As you can imagine, when you have something painful, and even if it's something just like touching a hot stove, if you remember all those stories. You learn not to touch hot stoves, you back away from the threat of a hot stove. Many times, trauma is associated with engagement with other people. So, this could be everything from military trauma, to domestic violence, to the repeated marginalization of racism. This is all painful, and so, we withdraw. Almost anything that leads to trauma, in a way, does set you up for a kind of isolation, a kind of loneliness. That relationship is pretty clear. The real challenge, we'll talk more about it, is how do you move from that loneliness towards a sense of connection. [0:03:15] PF: Now, your organization started in 2016 and there was no clue at that point that the loneliness crisis was going to get so bad. In fact, as you mentioned in your book, 2020 was going to be a bang-up year for your organization. You had so much research that you were going to present, and so many speaking engagements, and then that all disappeared. Thank you, COVID. So, has your approach to loneliness changed at all since 2020, and how have you seen loneliness change in society? [0:03:47] JN: All great questions. First, just for clarity, Project UnLonely isn't its own organization. It actually is a project, it's the signature initiative of The Foundation for Art & Healing, which is the organization. Although we formally launched Project on lonely in 2016, we actually started doing the work to understand loneliness and how the arts connect well before that, around 2011 or 2012. Then, the question is, how did the pandemic change the approach to loneliness? I think what it did, in general, was shine a spotlight on it. As you mentioned, we had loneliness well before the pandemic, but somehow, it became part of all of our consciousness in a very different way. As you mentioned, I start my book, Project UnLonely: Healing Our Crisis of Disconnection. Very first page with how dramatically my world got upended in March 2020. Plans, relationships, teaching, travel, all of this just went on hold as we all tried to navigate this new reality, which forced us to have a kind of isolation to protect us and our neighbors from the virus. While isolation is different than loneliness, it's highly associated with it. So, many people experience loneliness in a way they had not before. [0:05:09] PF: I want to touch on that, what you just said, because we do equate isolation with loneliness. We have had an aunt who spent a lot of time alone, and she told me she's like, "I have never been lonely." Even though she was isolated, she didn't feel lonely. What is the difference between isolation and loneliness? Because you can be in a crowd of people and still feel lonely. [0:05:30] JN: Exactly. One of the real goals of my book is to demystify loneliness and humanize it. The first really important lesson, if you will, is that being alone is not the same thing as being lonely. Being alone is objective. It's the absence of social connection. This can be, if you're in a rural setting, or even isolated in an apartment in an urban setting, where, let's say, you've got a disability, you can't leave easily, or you're fearful about going outside. So then, you are alone. But being alone can be such a positive experience of thoughtful reflection, consideration, the bigger world picture, contemplation. We have a high-class word for it. We sometimes call it solitude, and we do need solitude, but that's different than being lonely. Here's what loneliness is. It's subjective, it's a feeling, it's a mood state. It's the difference between the social connections with other people that we would like to have and what we feel we do have. That gap is what we experience as loneliness. As you pointed out, you actually can be lonely in a crowd. It has nothing to do with whether there are other people around you. It's whether you have the social connections you want. If you're with other people, but don't feel connected to them, you feel lonely. That introduces what I found, a really important observation, and I think, maybe your community will also, is that they're different types of loneliness. [0:07:10] PF: I'm so glad you brought that up, because you talk about three types of loneliness. I was like, I thought there was just loneliness. Can you dig into that and tell us about that? [0:07:17] JN: Right. Well, I thought so too, until we actually started going out and talking about it. So, very simply, there's psychological loneliness, which is, "Do I have a friend? Is there someone I can tell my troubles to?" That's what many people think of when they think of loneliness. But then, there's also the loneliness of systematic exclusion. We call that societal loneliness, because of race, or gender, or disability. Do people evaluate you in that very superficial characteristic and treat you differently, and, in a sense, withdraw from you in a systematic way? That's very different than not having a friend. You could have plenty of friends, but if you feel, for instance, are in a racist workplace and it's not safe to be in certain conversations, you're going to experience loneliness in even though you might have friends. The third type of loneliness, which I am very interested in, and it's been around thousands of years, is where do I relate to the bigger world, the narrative of human experience. People with a religious orientation often call kind of the religious world, God, the universe. But you don't have to be religious to have a sense of curiosity about how your life fits into the bigger story. What was here on the planet before I arrived? What will be here after I depart? Does my life have meaning, consequence? If you don't have solid grounding and answers to those questions, you can feel quite lonely. I think that's the loneliness that's affecting a lot of what we know is the loneliest demographic, 18 to 28 years old. They have plenty of friends, they're connected on social media, but they're wondering, "What am I doing? What's my future? Does my life have meaning? Do I matter?" That could be quite distressing, and it's its own form of loneliness. [0:09:13] PF: Is the way that you address those different forms of loneliness, does that differ? [0:09:20] JN: Absolutely. As someone who in the public health world, and through Project UnLonely, we're trying to design interventions that are powerful for people, as you might imagine. If the loneliness is the loneliness of uncertainty about your meaning in the world, that's very different than the loneliness of not having someone to talk to. So, if you think, "Okay. What do I need to feel less lonely?" One of the first important questions to ask yourself is, what type of loneliness am I experiencing? In my book, I provide different questions we can ask, but they're kind of what you might think. Do I enjoy relationships with others where I can have a chance to have authentic conversations? Or, are those missing from my life? If they're missing from my life, how might I pursue having more of them? So, we lay out some of the strategies for that also. If your feeling of loneliness is uncertainty about your own positioning in the universe, of meaning, and is there purpose. Then, you might want to ask yourself more about how you want to relate to that, how you feel you can be more meaningful, and part of the bigger story. There's some strategies I talked about in the book for that too. [0:10:33] PF: How did you come up with these different strategies? Obviously, you're a fabulous researcher. How did you come to understand those different types of loneliness, and this is what would resolve them? [0:10:45] JN: It's a really great question. The way, again, research works, science works, it's driven by one thing. By the way, it's the same thing that drives the arts, and that's curiosity. As we started going out, and doing programs, and having conversations with hundreds of people about their loneliness and what their experience was, we began to see patterns and trends. It's also important to know that of these three types of loneliness, you could have one type, two types, or three types altogether. That was the first thing, was the observation, awareness. In terms of what works to impact it, some of that is based on psychology research in laboratory settings. We can study what seems to activate people, to embolden them, to be able to connect with others, and tolerate what I sometimes call discomfort of disclosure. Because if you reveal something authentic about yourself, and then someone says, "Sorry, you're too boring. I don't want to have a conversation with you."   [0:11:48] PF: Or, "That's just too much for me."   [0:11:50] JN: Exactly. Or, "I can't handle that." Then, you might feel rejected, abandoned, critiqued, and that hurts. So then, you're reluctant to do that. People, in a way, they connect with others, have to learn to tolerate the fact that you're not always 100% successful, and to keep going just like – you have to explore, and try different things, and see what works for you personally. [0:12:16] PF: That makes so much sense. There was a report that caught everyone's attention. I think it was within the last year, and it's really quoted quite a bit, and that is that loneliness is more dangerous than smoking. We hear that a lot, but we don't hear the reasoning behind that. Could you explain to us why it's so harmful, and also, physically, what loneliness does to us? [0:12:41] JN: Absolutely. That work, that sound bite about being smoking. It can be as dangerous as smoking – loneliness can be as dangerous as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Why is that? Because at its chronic extreme stages, loneliness actually changes how the brain functions, and it also increases inflammation, a real driver for illness, and it impairs immune system function. So, many of these excess deaths that lead to a 30% increase risk of a shorter lifespan are not because of suicides or overdose, drug overdoses. You could imagine loneliness could cause those, and it does. Those are factored out of these scientific analyzes. Most of the deaths are cardiovascular, it's heart attack, it's stroke, sometimes it's cancer death, or metabolic death. Disease and illness related to diabetes. It's important to know that loneliness unchecked, unattended to, when it spirals out of control can be very, very hard on our physical systems too, not just our mental attitudes. [BREAK] [0:13:50] PF: We'll be right back with Dr. Jeremy Nobel, but I wanted to take a moment to talk about how you can beat the heat and get better sleep this summer. I've become such a big fan of Cozy Earth sheets for a lot of reasons. But as the temperatures rise, I've found one more reason to make them the only sheets I want to sleep on. Thanks to their cutting-edge temperature regulating technology, Cozy Earth's bedding lets me stay cool and comfortable, even on the hottest days and nights. That means, I can wake up refreshed and ready for the day. Here's the best part, our exclusive offer for listeners like you gets you a 30% discount and a free item when you use COZY HAPPY at cozyearth.com/livehappynow. These sheets also offer the unbeatable combination of softness and durability, giving you an incredible, comfortable sleep experience. So, invest in your sleep health this summer and stay cool backed by Cozy Earth's 100-night sleep trial and a 10-year warranty. Visit cozyearth.com/livehappynow, and use the code COZY HAPPY to unlock this special offer and optimize your sleep for better health. After placing your order, be sure to select podcast in the survey, and then select Live Happy Now in the drop-down menu that follows. Now, let's get back to my conversation with Dr. Jeremy Nobel. [INTERVIEW CONTINUES]   [0:15:10] PF: I recall, even, probably about 20 years ago, having a friend who was going through a divorce and she said, "I'm lonely." It struck me, because I think, that was the first time it actually had somebody say that to me, like it was almost a shameful thing to say, "I'm lonely." What was that mindset and does any of that still remain? [0:15:32] JN: We started Project UnLonely with three goals, Paula. One was to increase awareness of loneliness, and how toxic it can be for your health. The second, which is what we're going to talk about, is to reduce the stigma that surrounds it. The third is to put these powerful imagination, creativity-fueled programs out in the community, so people can be better engaged. But let's talk more about stigma. Many people feel that if they're lonely, it's their fault, that there's something about them, that they're broken, they're flawed, they're incomplete, they're inadequate. This is all just a social personal construction. That's what they believe. The only good news about that is that, anything that's socially and culturally constructed can be culturally reconstructed. So, I think we have an enormous opportunity. I first heard this idea from John Cacioppo, University of Chicago, who died, unfortunately. Shortly before the pandemic, it's a real pioneer in understanding loneliness, and how it impacts not just our brains, but our behaviors. He said, "Why don't we think about loneliness as a signal that there's something we need, a biologic signal? Just like thirst is a signal, we need hydration. Loneliness is a signal that every one of us needs some degree of human connection." Obviously, most people don't feel embarrassed or guilty about thirsty. Why do we feel embarrassed about being lonely? It goes back to this cultural assumption, in our cultural kind of matrix of, kind of how we put things together. People, as I said, feel that they're flawed. What if we can shift that to just say, "Hey, it's just a signal. What do I need now?" Human connection. "How do I find it? What type of loneliness do I have?" Then, you follow the reasonable paths to get better connected, either psychologically, or societally. or spiritually. [0:17:30] PF: As people become more willing to explore that, how is that going to open up the world a little bit better? You reference Gen Z and how they are incredibly lonely despite being connected. How, as we change this conversation, do you see the world is going to open up? [0:17:48] JN: All right. Here's an experiment I do when I do public speaking now. I ask people, raise your hand if you know someone who is seriously and significantly lonely. Not if you're lonely, but if you know someone. Hundred percent of the hands go up. Then, I say, "How many people have you heard say out loud, 'I'm lonely.'"? Only 50% of the hands go up. If this were even five years ago, only 10% of the hands will go up. So, we're making progress. We have a long way to go, but we're making progress. So, that's encouraging. I think a lot of it is the younger demographic that I mentioned, the loneliest demographic, 18 to 28 do seem willing to talk about their mental health and so on, and take the risk of being judged, criticized, excluded. I admire that courage. What we're trying to do with project and lonely is to actually also give them workshops. and programs that they can participate in, that are delivered not by us. We develop our programs and then they're delivered by colleges, by libraries, by faith-based groups, by community centers. Because as our surgeon general calls for in the report, you mentioned, we need to create a culture of connection, where it's not viewed as an illness or a flaw, loneliness. The connection is valued as something we celebrate at a personal level. We do it with friends, with family. We actively look for opportunities to get together and have the, sometimes just very simple conversations that can still be quite meaningful. They don't have to be deep, heart-to-heart disclosure conversation every time. It can be, "Hey, what's lighting you up these days?" "Let me tell you." "Oh." It's so important, these casual networks of human exchange, and not just social media, memes, and likes, and follows around short videos, but actual conversations in real life. [0:19:54] PF: Can just the acknowledgement, even to ourselves that we're lonely. Does that start changing things for us? [0:20:01] JN: I think it does if it isn't also associated with guilt and self-blame. So, to say, "I'm lonely because I'm a loser, and I've always been a loser", is not a very helpful step forward. But to say, "I'm lonely." But loneliness, and I truly believe this is the world's most human feeling, the need for other people. It's a signal that there's something I need. How do I follow that signal and lead myself forward to a path of personal discovery? Because I think if we're not comfortable knowing who we are, it's hard to have authentic conversations, and friendships with others. But then, how do I feel part of a bigger world where, "Yes, I exist as a person, but I'm part of a much bigger story." That often makes people feel better and feel connected. [0:20:48] PF: We all feel lonely time to time. But how does someone know if it's a problem, if it's chronic loneliness, versus just something we're going through right now? [0:20:58] JN: That's a really great question. I think part of that is really to pay a lot of attention to how you're doing, feeling in kind of navigating the world. In the book, I call this the pyramid of vulnerability. Imagine a pyramid with three layers. The bottom layer is where we all are all the time. Every human being, as I said, can feel lonely from time to time, so that's us. At that bottom layer, we should be trying to do things to build our social resilience, our social connection levels. But yet, no matter who you are in your life and all of our lives, we will be faced with challenges that really do increase our risk of loneliness. That moves us to the middle tier. So, that could be loss of a loved one, the breakup of relationship, a new serious illness, whatever it is, loss of a job, concern about some future event like the national elections. That starts a kind of risk for a spiral, where you start to withdraw. That's when it's most critical to say, "Okay. Am I starting to feel more anxious? Am I having trouble sleeping? Am I having trouble concentrating? Maybe it's because I'm lonely." Ask yourself that. Then, if you are, to go through this exploration, well, what type of loneliness is it. Then, follow the strategies to get connected. Because if you can interact at that middle tier of vulnerability, and then reduce the risk to spiral down into a good direction towards the base, you avoid spiraling up into the highest tier of loneliness. That's where loneliness becomes a serious medical issue, where it is like smoking 15 cigarettes a day, where you have a 30% increased risk of heart attack. or stroke. or death from either. But we don't have to get to that level if we can engage earlier and kind of reestablish balance, and a sense of comfort and connection, calm it down, so we're back down to the bottom tier. Does that make sense? [0:23:04] PF: It does. I wondered as you were talking, because once you reach that top level, it seems like it's going to be most difficult to pull yourself out. What then should those around you – because if I'm your friend and I see this, it's probably going to take some sort of intervention or outreach from me. Because once you hit that top, you're a goner, but you're in deep. [0:23:27] JN: You are in deep, and that's when you're really most in need. As you point out, it's often where you are least able to navigate your way out of it completely on your own. That's where one of the things we can do in building a culture of connection, is to kind of keep an eye out on our friends, family, even neighbors, and not be their therapist, not be their parent, but be their friend. Bear in mind how even a simple kind word, when you're passing by somebody on the street can totally change their day, can totally change their sense of optimism, of positive possibility, curiosity for that day. Stabilize them from what otherwise could be very difficult thoughts, sometimes thoughts of self-harm, and just kind of remind them that, "Hey, there's some positive things going on in the world. I'm out here too, and you're not alone, you're not broken, and you're not defective." It doesn't require a therapist to have these daily reminders that we're all human, we're all connected. We all feel lonely from time to time, but we can be part of a larger and connected story. I think the arts and imagination, obviously, can give us kind of fun ways to tell that story of being connected, and then share those stories with others. [0:24:42] PF: Yes. I love that your solution goes to the arts. Can you talk about the role that creative and artistic expression plays in combating loneliness? Then, give us some ideas for how people can use that in their own lives? [0:24:56] JN: Absolutely. I think, first of all, it's now really clear that arts and creative expression change the brain. When we change the brain, we change our minds. We change our minds, we change behaviors. Here's how arts change the brain. One major way the arts and all the arts, by the way work. So not just the traditional arts like music, visual art, language arts like poetry, movement arts like dance, but culinary arts, cooking. The creative assembly of food ingredients, the taste, the smell, the sensation in your mouth as you eat fun food. So, that's a creative form. Textile arts, these have been around for centuries. Knitting, crocheting, quilting, these are wonderful creative activities. Then, gardening. Just bringing four things from nature, what a friend of mine calls the world's slowest performance art form.   [0:25:54] PF: I love that.   [0:25:56] JN: These are how the arts can change us. They reduce cortisol levels, the stress hormone that puts us on edge, drives fight or flight, which means we're always hyper vigilant. That does increase inflammation. It's what alters the immune system. But the arts also increase levels of dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, the so-called feel-good hormones. Then, very importantly, the arts also change how we make sense of the social world. What otherwise we might see as threats, like somebody walking towards us through the arts, particularly the ones that increase our sense of compassion, empathy, that person can look like an opportunity, someone I can have a conversation with. That's kind of the cascade of how changes in the brain from the arts, then literally change our levels of optimism, possibility. Sometimes, this is all in the positive psychology realm, as you know. But then, most importantly, it changes how we behave. We're willing to smile at a stranger, we're willing to take the risk of even a little piece of casual conversation in the grocery store. Then, if you take that risk and people respond, it starts moving your brain and mind in a more positive way, and the positive spiral happens. This is why the arts, I think, can be such a catalyst for connection. [0:27:17] PF: I absolutely love that. Big question is, where do people start? [0:27:22] JN: I think, if it's around the arts, I think it comes back to curiosity. Explore the world in some creative form that you enjoy. If you don't know what you enjoy, yet, try different things. Try drawing, try just kind of move with colored markers on white paper, and just say, "How am I feeling today? We have prompts and activities for this on our website. Imagine a time in your life that was meaningful to you. Then. don't draw the experience. Let yourself feel the feelings associated with that time, and then try to draw the feelings using color and shade. There's no wrong answer to these exercises. So. you get it all out on the page. Then, in many of our workshops, what we do is, we do this as a group. We make the art on our own, but then we pair up and we tell our personal stories. That's the second really powerful things the arts do. They invite and allow us to share our stories. Because almost every creative form, whether it's a casserole, a chocolate chip cookie, or a Picasso painting is a form of a story. It's a narrative, we're trying to express something. So, the arts enable that. Then, the last thing the arts do, and I particularly feel this with certain kinds of music, is they kind of transform us to a kind of awe and wonder about the world. I feel this in poetry also. I'm a poet, and reading a poem by who might no longer even be alive with us can still make me feel like I'm a small but important part of a very big and very wonderful story. [0:29:03] PF: That's fantastic. Now, we're going to tell the listeners how they can find your website, how they can find your book. As you said, you have resources on the website so they can start doing some of these exercises. Your book has prompts and walks us through this. What is it that you want everyone listening to know and understand about loneliness? [0:29:23] JN: Let me go back to some of the things we talked about. By the way, thank you for helping get the word out. The other thing we have that's a lot of fun for people who aren't immediately willing to, "Oh, I'm going to make some art." Is, we use the power of the arts in the form of short films. We're now working with Steve Buscemi, the celebrated actor and filmmaker. He's an ambassador for what we call Project UnLonely Films. You come to our website and there's a whole portfolio of short films that look at loneliness and some of the major social territories in which they exist. So, trauma, aging, illness, difference, the modern world. You get to explore loneliness through the lens, literally, of someone who's making a film on it. Then, if you watch it with a few other people, you can just say, "Hey, what did we just watch?" and have a conversation. Don't overlook the opportunity. Come to our site, watch some of our films, sign up for our newsletter, so we'll send you a little link every week or two with a film and some conversation starters. So, there are lots of ways we can move from being a little bit cautious in a defensive crouch, which we're all in post-pandemic, to something a little bit more open-hearted, a little bit more open-minded. [0:30:40] PF: That is fantastic. The work you're doing is amazing. It's very necessary, and I truly believe it's going to help move that needle on loneliness in our society. So, I thank you for the work you're doing, first of all. Then, secondly, I really appreciate your time. It was an honor to sit down with you and talk about this. I know our listeners have gotten a lot out of this conversation. [0:31:00] JN: Thank you. It's my absolute pleasure, and even this conversation makes me feel more connected. So, thank you for that, too, Paula. [END OF INTERVIEW] [0:31:08] PF: That was Dr. Jeremy Nobel, talking about loneliness. If you'd like to learn more about Jeremy, check out his book, Project UnLonely: Healing Our Crisis of Disconnection. Visit his website for resources or follow him on social media, just visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. While you're there, be sure to sign up for our weekly Live Happy newsletter. Every week, we'll drop a little bit of joy into your inbox with the latest stories, podcast info, and even a happy song of the week. 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 Driving Gen Z’s Anxiety (and What to Do About It) With Dr. Lauren Cook [INTRODUCTION] [0:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for Episode 471 of Live Happy Now. Younger generations are experiencing stress and anxiety differently than previous generations. That's something we're making part of the ongoing conversation here at Live Happy. I'm your host, Paula Felps, and this week, I'm joined by author and clinical psychologist, Dr. Lauren Cook. Her latest book, Generation Anxiety looks at why Millennials and Gen Z are so anxious and how that's affecting them. She's here today to talk about some of the things that are driving that anxiety, and importantly, offers insight into what we can do to help change this downward spiral, and what that will mean for future generations. Let's have a listen. [EPISODE]   [0:00:46] PF: Lauren, welcome back to Live Happy Now.   [0:00:48] LC: It's so good to see you again, Paula.   [0:00:51] PF: I'm really excited to sit down have this conversation with you because you're doing some incredible work with Gen Z and Millennials. As you know, you and I have talked about this. Live Happy Now is really concerned about the mental health of Gen Z. We're really committed to keeping that dialogue open. So, your book does an excellent, incredible job of looking at, not just Gen Z, but Millennials. I wanted to kick it off, I wanted to know if you could talk about why both of those generations are so anxiety-ridden. [0:01:23] LC: Yes. We are really seeing an increase in anxiety both in prevalence, meaning more and more people and severity. Intensity of symptoms is increasing as well. So, we're seeing it horizontally, longitudinally, all the ways. Anxiety is absolutely increasing for folks. I think it's happening both personally, but also very much communally. When you look at what's happened in our country in the last two decades, in particular, it's been one thing after another. There's a really interesting survey that asked people, "What's been the most significant effect generationally that's happened to you in your lifetime?" You, as Baby Boomers, you asked the great generation who experienced the depression, World War Two, Gen X. They all say – you can probably guess what it is. The number one significant event in their lifetime and Millennials will say this as well.   [0:02:18] PF: 9/11.   [0:02:18] LC: September 11th. There you go. However, if you look at what's happened in Gen Z's lifetime, we've got the Trump election, Black Lives Matter, George Floyd's murder, climate change events, the Me Too movement. I mean, I could keep going for quite a while about the long laundry list of things. I don't say that to be political. These are historical events that are happening. It is really affecting young adults to be living in this world where they're just inundated by chaotic and distressing news. And, you also have what's happening personally in their lives as well, with social media, academic pressure. These two generations, even though they're the most educated, are the most financially worse off than their previous generations. That's really frustrating, to feel like you're told this myth of like, "Work hard and you will be able to succeed." They're working really hard, and it's very hard to succeed, to own a house, all these different things. That breaks the person down over time. [0:03:24] PF: Can you talk about how they're different from previous generations? Because I want to dive into that a little bit, because I've heard people who seem to not really understand. They think like, basically, we're all the same. We were just born at different times. So, can you correct that way of thinking? [0:03:42] LC: Yes. Social media, it sounds almost like low hanging fruit at this point. But it really, I think, has made a difference for Millennials and Gen Z. They grew up at this time when – especially Millennials like myself, social media was just coming on the scene. We didn't know what was happening. Gen Z, in particular, have been the guinea pigs of social media, of having technology, getting a cell phone when they're 10 years old, right? We didn't necessarily know what effects this was going to have on the brain. But now, we're seeing this play out, where we're seeing social anxiety increased. So many young adults, they don't know how to answer the phone, they don't know how to have a conversation with a stranger. They also feel really unsafe in this world. The Stress in America survey asked young adults, "What are you afraid of?" Seventy-five percent said their greatest fear is gun violence. For this generation, to wake up and they see movie theaters, concerts, schools, places of worship, no place is safe. Now, everybody looks around their shoulder every time they go out. Am I safe? Is something going to happen to me? Is something going to happen to my loved one? We could have a whole conversation about separation anxiety, Paula, and how this generation really experiences it. Because our world just feels incredibly unsafe to these young adults. When you look at what has happened, I think it's understandable why. [0:05:10] PF: Does the fact that parents are also then trying to protect those children? We're doing it from a good place, but doesn't that also increase those feelings of the world's not safe and I should be afraid? [0:05:22] LC: Exactly, exactly. It's a really fine line, between wanting to protect our kids. And at the same time, not over protecting where our kids are learning this message, "I can't do anything in my life." I cite this in Generation Anxiety, my book, a really interesting study. That when parents give this message to their kids, that the world is unsafe, people are going to hurt you, we do see that there are increases in depression and anxiety for kids. When parents have a more optimistic outlook, go out there. live your life, yes, bad, scary things can happen. But statistically, the chances of that are pretty slim. Go out there and experience your life. Those kids are less likely to be anxious and depressed. Even though we turn on the news, and we hear these difficult things. We also have to remind ourselves, okay, what is the chance of that happening to me when I go to a movie theater, when I go to a concert, and not keeping ourselves in such a small box at the same time? [0:06:23] PF: You know, that's something Deb Heisz, CEO for Live Happy and I have talked about. We've talked about it on the air that when you're constantly watching the news, you do start seeing the world as unsafe, and very scary place. I think it is important for parents to be mindful of what children are being exposed to, in the home in terms of what kind of news, what kind of television is on at any given time, because that is having a deep, deep effect on them. [0:06:52] LC: It is. It is. There's really great conversations happening right now about parental attachment, and really taking time to be with our kids, to be present with our kids. I'm a new mom myself. My son turns one this Sunday. [0:07:07] PF: Well, congratulations, first of all. [0:07:09] LC: Thank you. I'm super excited about it. But we don't even, I think realize at this point how much we use our phones. I catch myself doing it where, "Oh, let me just answer a few emails. Let me get to a few text messages." Meanwhile, my son is right there by me playing, and he's, I'm sure, perceiving me being sucked into a phone. That's something Gen Z has experienced too. Even though I don't think it's intentional, we just haven't had as much face-to-face interaction with each other because we're face-to-facing with our phone. [0:07:44] PF: From a parent's standpoint, if you have someone who is part of Gen Z, what are some things in terms of that mindset of safety? Because, again, we want to keep our children safe, we want to be there. But how do we do that, and advise them without terrifying them? Because the world, we can make it pretty terrifying if we really talk about it. [0:08:06] LC: We definitely can. I approach things with this mentality, I call them powered acceptance. First piece is, we have to accept what's going on in our world. If our kids ask about it, we can't lie to them. We need to be honest about what's happening, and we need to really have a sense of what's going on in our world. If we don't know what the problems are, how do we fix them? But we also have to be empowered, we have to take action. This is the thing; anxiety makes people want to avoid. It makes people want to run away and say, "I don't want to get on that plane. I don't want to go to that show. I don't want to ask that new person to be my friend because it makes me feel anxious." Anxiety just grows bigger and bigger and bigger. So, we have to be empowered and start to kind of push the boundaries of what our anxiety is wanting to make us do. We have to take action to see, "Oh, I can ask somebody to hang out, even though that makes me feel anxious." Or, "I can go to that concert because I love Taylor Swift. Sure, something scary could happen, I will deal with that." At the end of the day, anxiety is about not wanting to face the reality of that things end, that things change, that we can experience pain. These are not necessarily warm, fuzzy ideas, right? But if we actually teach ourselves and our kids that we can sit with distress, we can sit with discomfort. The world opens up to us in a whole new way and we no longer have to be in fear of pain. [0:09:40] PF: How do you start sharing that message? Because that's huge, to be able to sit with discomfort, especially in a time when there are a million distractions that we can have at our fingertips. First of all, how do we as the adults in the room, how do we learn how to do that, and then, how do you pass that along? [0:10:03] LC: We have to model it ourselves. We have to show our kids that we're okay handling discomfort. They are watching us so closely to notice when we avoid when we lean in. Sure, sometimes we do need to take a step back and rest. It's not always about powering and pushing through. It's just as important to show our kids how we can set healthy boundaries, how we can say no sometimes. But our kids also need to see us getting a little bit uncomfy, even if it's something like giving a speech at work, or having a tough conversation with our partner, but in a healthy, appropriate way. These are all modeling examples that our kids are really taking in. Aat the same time, I think when we can show our kids and encourage them to lean into their discomfort, and cheer them on for that, that's so, so helpful. Because I do see a lot of parents enable their kid's anxiety, they feel like it's an act of love to let them get out of things. But if we can show them, hey, you can actually go to that soccer game when you felt really nervous about it rather than stay home. We're teaching our kids their resilience in those moments. [0:11:14] PF: I love that. I absolutely love that. What are some of the signs that we should be looking for that someone is struggling with anxiety? Because we can kind of tell internally, when we've got it going on ourselves, but we might not always see it in someone else. [0:11:28] LC: I'm really glad you asked that, Paula. There's a few things to really make note of. If you notice any sleep difficulties, that's a classic one of someone who's having trouble falling or staying asleep. If you notice somebody's having difficulty concentrating. Sometimes that can get a little confusing with ADHD, but that's also a sign of anxiety. If somebody feels or notices that they're really keyed up or on edge, it's like a hamster on a wheel, go, go, go. Here's one that people often miss, irritability. We think irritability is its own thing, but irritability is actually often a sign of anxiety and depression. So, if you notice somebody's getting snappy or quiet, that's something to pay attention to. Again, any kind of avoided behavior, if you notice your kiddo or yourself, "Oh, we used to always go out to dinner together, and now my kid doesn't want to go out for a meal." Or, "I'm noticing my kiddo doesn't want to go on car rides, or plane rides." All these different things where avoidance could be really coming into play, that's a hallmark of anxiety. [0:12:32] PF: So then, once you start seeing it, and not just as a parent, because I'm not a parent, but I have a lot of young people in my life. You're in it, it's a different situation, because there's a lot of things you cannot do. So, what is it? If you see anxiety, if you start recognizing, "Hey, this person might be struggling with anxiety." What are some things that you should start doing to reach out to them? [0:12:59] LC: Self-disclosure here is really powerful. Anxiety is something that, just about everybody has some touchpoint with. Self-disclosing when you yourself have felt anxious and humanizing yourself in that way is so relieving to someone with anxiety. Because the thing, and I see this with so many of my clients, they don't want anyone to know they're anxious. They think it's so embarrassing, and it's like, welcome to the human club. If we can make it okay to be anxious, ironically, that's actually when anxiety starts to go down. But people get so much anxiety about hiding their anxiety. "I don't want anyone to notice." It really magnifies it for them. So, if you yourself, show your humaneness of like, "Oh my gosh, I felt really anxious about this or really worried about this, how do you feel about it?" It really opens that door for someone to share what's behind their own curtain. [0:13:57] PF: Then, once they start sharing that, and once they kind of start unpacking the cause of their anxiety, where do you go from there? I mean, one thing is, I'm reading your book. Just the depth and the breadth of how far-reaching anxiety can be, and how deeply emotional river that runs through it is, it made it a bigger issue than I even really had looked at it from. So, once someone shares with you, then what do you do? Other than say, "Call Dr. Lauren Cook." [0:14:28] LC: Thank you, Paula. Well, I'd like to take a holistic approach. That's something I really hope comes across in the book to move beyond just a westernized model of care. I am all for therapy, I'm all for medication. I'm a psychologist, so I'm very much for those things. However, I also believe there's a lot of different things that can work for people with anxiety and anxiety is such a physical experience. I mean, especially when you look at the gut brain access connection, and how much of our anxiety really can settle into our gut and our stomach. We've got to look at all of those different things. The food, the drinks we put into our bodies. Amazing book on this is Dr. Uma Naidoo's This is Your Brain on Food, and really getting curious about what we're eating is either inflaming or healing our gut. Quick tip, everybody listening, please get your bloodwork done. Because people can spend thousands of dollars on therapy, when something is going off in your chemistry. Your vitamin D levels are low, magnesium, B12. If those things are out of whack, doesn't matter how much cognitive therapy you do, you're going to feel anxious, my friend. It's important to do the due diligence of looking at yourself holistically, not just from the neck up, but really looking at our entire physical body for overall healing. [0:15:54] PF: I love that you brought that up. Because for myself, I'm very big on what I eat. I know that everything has – there's a cause and effect. So, being very careful about avoiding preservatives, and dyes, and sugars, and things like that. I see that as an area where that does get overlooked, because so much of what we have on our shelves today is – well, it's not food, actually. It's just chemicals in a really nice package. So, I'm super happy to see you bringing that up. Do you see that when people change some of the things that they're eating, they start having a different experience with anxiety? [0:16:33] LC: Big time. big time. Yes. It's everything from cutting back on preservatives, cutting back on sugar. That's hard for me, because I'm such a sweet tooth myself. Alcohol is a big one. A lot of my college-aged clients will tell you, "Oh, I have anxiety" on the next day. They get bad anxiety with the hangover. So, a lot of them are starting to get sober curious, as we say, and starting to play with, "Okay. What happens when I'm not drinking for a while?" Because, even if someone's drinking every other day, their sleep patterns never have a chance to equilibrate. Sleep is a huge part in anxiety and treatment. So, this is all wrapped up in itself. Even hydration, staying hydrated with water. We see when the brain is not getting enough water, things spiral quickly. So, absolutely, I think that's something that has been missed in the narrative, because it seems so simple. We're told from a young age, eat your fruits and veggies, blah, blah. It has a real effect on brain health. [0:17:39] PF: That is great. I hope more people will jump on that and look at what they're putting in and what that's doing to their bodies. I know Dr. Drew Ramsey, is someone we've had on the show before. When someone comes in with depression, the first thing he does is look at what they're eating. Before he tries medication, he will have them change their diet, and most times, medication is not needed. That just really supports the kind of work that you're doing too. [0:18:07] LC: That's incredible. I believe it. [0:18:10] PF: So, as I said, your book really outlines just how massive this issue is right now. Do you see this as a solvable problem? Because it is huge. It's kind of like, can we have world peace? I feel like this is somewhere out there with it. [0:18:25] LC: I did have a stint in beauty pageant days. So perhaps, this is my world peace moment. I don't know. I am forever an optimist. I love Seligman's work on positive psychology, and the effects of optimism. I do believe that things can get better. I always have that hope. I'm also a realist, though, and the book is not about trying to make anxiety go away. It's about learning how to live with anxiety. I think that's something people get a little bit lost on. They feel like they're a failure if they can't get their anxiety to stop. The reality is, sometimes your anxiety may be here to stay. But the more you fight it, the more the beast is going to grow bigger in you. But if you embrace what I call your inner sea otter, lay back in your waters, and say, "All right, I'm anxious. So, what?" It really starts to lose its power. I've seen that in my own life. I'm very open about my own lived experience with anxiety and emetophobia in particular, which is a phobia of vomit, really fun. But I'm very open about how I've lived with that and have worked hard to not let it stop me living the life that I want to live. [0:19:40] PF: Yes. What's interesting in your book, you also explained where that came from. I found that very, very fascinating. I'm not going to tell the listeners how because now they have to go find your book and look it up.   [0:19:51] LC: Tease.   [0:19:52] PF: It is. That actually played into another question that I had for you, which is about generational trauma and epigenetics is such a huge area of study. I think it's been disregarded a lot in the past, where we don't look at the effect of what happened with our parents and our grandparents, and how that anxiety and other types of traumas get passed along. Can you talk just a little bit about what role that intergenerational trauma plays and how we kind of can use that and correct the trajectory of that trauma? [0:20:27] LC: I'm really happy that you reference that, because I think we can get very quickly into the blame game of, "What's wrong with me? What am I doing wrong?" It is generational buildup, it's like emotional tartar that has been passed down. One study, I found this so fascinating in the research for the book about Holocaust survivors, how it was actually their grandchildren that had more anxiety than the Holocaust survivors themselves. Really seeing how this generational trauma gets passed down. Now, I also found research though that it can be changed as well, in a better way as too, that diet, nutrition, what people eat can really make a positive impact for people. But it makes us really think about. "Wow, the choices I'm making for myself now, it doesn't just affect me. It affects my kids and even my grandkids." You even look at studies with smoking, and how that impacts people for generations to come. This is something I think we can get more curious about. I think we were really just at the tip of the iceberg with epigenetics research. I'm staying closely aware of it, because I think we're only going to see more and more. This is where I do have an optimistic lens here, that we can make better choices that are going to be good for more generations to come. [0:21:51] PF: If we don't figure this out, what are the consequences for future generations? Knowing what we just said, that it's passed down. If we cannot start correcting the true trajectory of happiness for Gen Z now, what is the consequence? [0:22:09] LC: Unfortunately, I think it means we're only going to see more anxiety, more depression, and potentially even more suicidality. That's something that I think is very important for us to talk about, as well, that we lose on average 12 people a day to suicide between the ages of just 15 to 24. That's one every two hours. That's incredibly concerning to me. This is something we're all going to have to collectively get on board with, especially when it comes to climate change for example. There is more and more research about kids who grow up in environments where there's a lot of smog in the air, that we're seeing increases in anxiety and depression for those folks. How do you tackle that? That is going to be more than just food and drink. That is something we are all going to have to really get on board with. I think part of it is really tapping into our empathy for the human experience. My husband and I were just talking about this the other day about how we live in such an individualistic society. You see cars cut in front of each other, people cut each other in line. We're so much thinking about what's fastest and easiest for me. I think we really have to get into our empathy of, how might someone else be experiencing this, what is it like for the life of someone else, and how can I make changes in my life? Not just to self-serve me, but to serve someone else. We know that is so good for our brain, ultimately, to tap into altruism and generosity, but it's a practice. I think as we become more isolated, we have become more individualistic and selfish, so we've got to really start pushing up against that. [0:23:57] PF: I agree. I know during the pandemic; they saw empathy decline greatly. We weren't face-to-face, we were in our little silos, and bubbles, and didn't interact. I don't know what current research shows if we're bouncing back from that at all. But what is your recommendation? Okay, doctor, what's your prescription for us? Where do we start and how do we start changing things for Gen Z and for subsequent generations? [0:24:26] LC: I think this is one of the greatest strengths of Gen Z. They really care about other people, even though they may be more socially anxious around other people. They do really have compassion for one another. You see that when they have these protests on gun violence, when you see them protesting what's happening in Gaza. They're doing it because they're thinking about somebody who's thousands of miles away. So, that ability to empathize with another person's experience in that lens, I think is really inspiring. I think it's something that we all need to get called back into, of realizing a lot of us got a lucky draw, honestly, to be born where we may live, have the families that we may live. I think sometimes, we can think like, "Well, I earned all this." Sure, we all work very hard, and at the same time, realizing when we wake up, I could have just as easily been that person down the road or that person in another country. How can I have empathy for that experience, even though it may not be my own lived experience that's uncomfortable? But the more we build our distress tolerance skills of being willing to sit with discomfort, I think the better off we'll be. Lastly, I'll say, giving ourselves the permission to hold the dialectic, because I see people get a little bit all or nothing with this of like, "Well, if I sit with the sadness of what's happening in the world, I'm never going to be happy." But really, we can expand it where our human emotions can hold great capacity to say, "I feel the pain of the world, I acknowledge it, I feel it, and I still can give myself permission to enjoy and savor the life that I have at the same time." Both can exist. [0:26:17] PF: I love that. it also can just be a way to encourage us to do something for others. Being able to sit with that and say, "Alright. What can I change? I cannot change what's going on across in another country. But I can change what the experience is for my neighbor, or for this person down the street. or for the homeless person on the corner." [0:26:38] LC: Yes. I really do believe that the tiniest little things make a positive impact. If we would just smile at each other, the world, would feel that change. So, I'm always encouraging my clients and young adults that I work with, lift your head up from the phone, share eye contact with someone, feel another person's humanity, things will start to feel a lot different. [0:27:06] PF: That is excellent advice right there. That's what we all need to be doing. This is fantastic. I know your book gives so much information, so much insight. It's obviously a labor of love and research, and very, very well done. I'm excited to tell our listeners about it. I think we might be having something from you on the website coming up. We'll keep talking because Gen Z is front and center in our minds right now, and we want to keep this conversation going, and I appreciate you sitting down and being a part of it. [0:27:39] LC: Paula, the feeling is mutual. Thank you so much for caring about this and bringing a microphone to it. I'm grateful for you. [0:27:47] PF: All right. Well, Lauren, until next time. Thank you so much.   [0:27:51] LC: Thanks, Paula. [END OF INTERVIEW] [0:27:55] PF: That was Dr. Lauren Cook, talking about anxiety and Gen Z. If you'd like to learn more about Lauren, check out her book, Generation Anxiety or follow her on social media. Just visit us at livehappy.com, and click on the podcast tab. While you're there, you'll also find an article from Dr. Lauren, explaining why the world looks so different for Gen Z and how that's affecting them. We hope you enjoy this episode of Live Happy Now. If you aren't already receiving us every week, we invite you to subscribe wherever you get your podcast. While you're there, feel free to drop us a review and let us know what you think of the show. 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: Create a Healthy Relationship with Social Media With Giselle Ugarte [INTRODUCTION] [0:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 470 of Live Happy Now. As we wrap up Mental Health Awareness Month, it's a great time to talk about something that many experts believe is contributing to the problem. I'm your host, Paula Felps, and this week I'm joined by coach, speaker, and influencer, Giselle Ugarte, who helps people learn how to build their confidence, reframe their relationship with social media, and show up more authentically at work and in their personal lives. Giselle has seen firsthand how learning to use social media more mindfully can help deepen relationships and improve self-confidence, and she's here to tell us how we can make the most of those social media moments. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [0:00:46] PF: Giselle, welcome to Live Happy Now. [0:00:49] GU: Hello. I'm so happy to be here. [0:00:51] PF: Oh, my gosh. I'm so excited to talk to you. We want to talk about mental health and social media, and that is a huge topic. We could talk all month about it. [0:00:59] GU: No kidding. That’s my department. [0:01:00] PF: Oh, my gosh. [0:01:01] GU: I'm glad to be here to talk about it. [0:01:03] PF: Yeah. So, to start the conversation, I really wanted to talk about how oftentimes, when we have this discussion about social media and mental health, we're talking about younger users. It's not just kids that it's affecting, it's affecting older adults as well, right? [0:01:18] GU: It's affecting all of us, honestly, because even if it isn't social media, you know, social media is a reflection of the way that we use technology, and even the way that we have notifications running so much of our lives. Where we worry so much about today's kids, the reality is, is that the kids are also reflecting the habits and also, the insecurities of adults. We're hearing a lot of commentary right now about how this is the most anxious generation, I would also then challenge to take a look at some of our older generations as well in the ways in which we might be addicted to work, or perhaps, validation, or people pleasing. I really just think that social media is a mirror, or perhaps, amplification of some of what actually and already has been happening for decades long before social media existed. The difference is that now we can carry it in our pockets and take it home with us even when we are all alone. There are some benefits of that too, because there's also the side of, well, but wait a minute, with social media, we never actually have to be alone. It's actually removing a lot of stigmas and we talk about Mental Health Awareness Month. I know that for me personally, someone who has dealt with anxiety and spells of deep depression and even PTSD, I've changed my relationship with alcohol over time. For me, social media has actually been where I've gone to for conversation, for confidence as I learned to embrace my body and what healthy looks like to me. Social media has been where I've been able to create conversations with people who I perhaps never would have met in real life. Or maybe it was chit chat at a party, but we started following each other and realized that we were both on this same path of wanting to better ourselves. Social media was where we were able to find that community. I'm really excited to go into this conversation and explore different angles. Most importantly, to discover where we are in control and how we can better have a better relationship with social media every day, no matter how old you are. [0:03:18] PF: Right. I think some of the people that have the healthiest relationship with it are the elderly. I have an aunt who's 87, and she uses Facebook. Now, granted, she's not what I would call tech savvy. But if it weren't for Facebook, then we would not be in touch. She's not someone that's going to pick up a phone. We're not going to be in touch. And we have a very large extended family. Because of that, she doesn't have children of her own, but she is in touch with all her nieces and nephews and reach out. She's going through a lot of health challenges right now. She is getting the support that she simply could not have if it weren't for social media. [0:03:55] GU: I like to say that if you're not taking your online relationships offline, then you're seriously missing out. Absolutely, it is one of those things where we're able to keep in touch with people who, maybe we wouldn't otherwise. I would also say, and that brings up a really awesome point too, is that sometimes I have friends who will say, “Well, if I didn't have social media, then my family would never see my kids, or they'd never keep in touch with us.” To which I go, “Wait, hold on a second. Have we now gotten to a point to where social media is the only way that you're keeping in touch with your family, versus now we have things like group text and FaceTime where we actually need to take that relationship to another level?” [0:04:39] PF: So, are you indicating this might be a problem? [0:04:42] GU: Well, no. I'm not. But we all have to really take a look at our online habits and why do we do the things that we do. You mentioned you have this friend who had health challenges. How awesome how, for example, you have people who might be having health challenges, or God forbid, they go through something really tragic, they can use social media as a way to update a lot of people that otherwise, energetically, they might not be able to, or physically able to do so. Or you're able to maybe donate to someone who is seriously in need and going through something really, really difficult and you're able to have that support, maybe even from people who you haven't talked to in a really long time. With every ounce of negative, there's positive with positive, there are more ways to do good and in person, but I simply want people to be more intentional about all of their habits online and especially off. [0:05:33] PF: I love the positive things that can come out of it. I love seeing the fundraisers that take place and just the sense of community that you can create when you are intentional about it. We know that it's also doing a lot of things to knock people's self-confidence. That's something that you've addressed very well. I wondered if you could talk a little bit about what kind of impact it can have on your self-confidence. [0:05:57] GU: Absolutely. Well, I want to go back even 10 or 20 years ago. We can go back even further than that. I know that right now, we're getting a lot of that conversation around the millennials and then Gen Xers who are saying that social media is horrible for confidence. To that, I say, hold on a second. Let's go back to a time when our only media was TV and magazines. There was one standard of beauty. She was one color and one size. She was usually a size zero, or double zero and her legs were a million miles long. Maybe you would see her in that magazine and perhaps, that's what she looked like naturally, or maybe they did start to doctor some of those images. You wouldn't even necessarily know, because the FTC was not what it is today. Now you log into social media, you can see beauty in every single shape and color and size and age and level of success in a way that we never have been before. That's where I want to challenge anyone who says, “Hold on. Social media is killing my confidence,” to go, what are you looking at? Because now, you have choices. Before, we didn't have choices. We only had a certain amount of channels and whatever magazines that you were subscribed to. You get to decide who you follow. Now our feeds are a direct reflection of us. If what you're seeing is making you feel bad about yourself for any way, then you really need to either get your head right, or get your feed right. Typically, I then hear the argument, “Oh, but comparison is the thief of joy.” Comparison is only the thief of joy when you're coming at it from a place of lack, when you yourself are unhappy. That's where I really want to challenge you. Again, get your head right, get your feed right. Start your day rooted and gratitude with what you are thankful for, with what you are proud of, with ways that you do see yourself as beautiful. Because otherwise, yeah, everything you see, you're going to project your insecurities on that. I want you to follow people who look exactly like you. I want you to follow people who look nothing like you. I want you to follow people who give you aspirational and inspirational goals and motivate you without making you feel less than. If everything is making you feel less than, then maybe it is time to perhaps pause, or close the apps, or unfollow, or mute, or maybe even block for a moment because that does happen. But the conversation is so much bigger than just a social media feed. It's also, when you're dropping the kids off at school and you're seeing all of the other parents around you. It's also, when you're opening up your phone and you don't like what you see, or you're looking in the mirror and you don't like what you see. To which I say, it's time to own it or change it. Own it. Or if you don't like what you see, then change it. Even if you decide to change it, you still have to own it in some way, shape, or form. What I instead see people have happened is they end up turning on filters, for example, or multiple filters, for example, and they say, “Oh. Well, I'm just putting makeup on with this filter. Oh, I'm just giving myself some a tan.” Well, hold on a second. Why does that filter make your face look like a totally different shape? Why is it putting somebody else's eyes on top of your eyes? Why have you just aged 20 years less? Why do your pores not exist? All of a sudden, what you're doing is on your phone, you're creating this image that isn't actually real. It's no wonder that when you look in the mirror, you hate what you see. [0:09:30] PF: Yeah. Can we talk about this a little bit more? Because I recently went through this. I saw a friend. I was just like, “Oh, my God. She looks amazing.” I was talking – we used to live in Dallas, this woman lives in Dallas. I was talking to some other friends in Dallas, I'm like, “She looks so great. What is she doing?” They're like, “Filters, Paula. It's a filter.” I was like, “Oh, man.” What does that do to our psychology and our psyche when we are presenting ourselves one way, but that's not who we really are? How does that affect us? [0:10:03] GU: Absolutely. What it’s doing is it’s telling your brain that you don't think that you're good enough. For me personally, I believe things like makeup and fashion are actually a form of self-expression. Sometimes they can be disguises and armor, and that's fine, but the difference between a filter and say, filler, the injectable, is the filler goes with you, the filter does not. [0:10:27] PF: Right. [0:10:28] GU: My conversation and my expertise is purely around the use of technology and social media. The conversation around plastic surgery and makeup, that's something different entirely. Again, the difference is the filler will go with you. The filter does not. When you then look in the mirror at night, or when you look in somebody else's camera, or when your child takes a photo of you and you don't like what you see, a lot of that is because what you are lying to yourself doing. What I find to be so interesting is that a lot of my clients, I have a rule, no filters. No filters on Zoom. No filters on social media. To remove that filter. What's so interesting is how every single person, every single time, well, first of all, there's the resistance, which if it's not that deep, Giselle, if it's not that serious, Giselle, then why is it so hard for you to do? Why is it so hard? Once they actually remove it, what's so wild is the way that they begin to realize other ways that they've been creating filters in their life. Because you might even be thinking, “Well, Giselle, I don't even use filter,” which congratulations, you are miles and light years ahead in the confidence game. Where might you be hiding, or where might you perhaps be creating that highlight reel? Because I believe that there is this highlight reel of perfection that we are seeing, but oftentimes, the ones who are only seeing the highlight reel, you're also the one who's creating it, too. I believe that your highlight reel is actually comprised of the highs and the lows of the in-between moments. You can have your best day and your worst day on the same day. It's so important that we recognize that what we're seeing is just a fraction of someone's life. I hate when people say, social media is fake. Are there people online who are fake? Yes. Are there people who are in real life fake? Also, yes. The question is, is it actually fake, or is it just that you are creating a judgment on a single second of time? In that single second of time, it's possible that that family was happy and smiling and in the next second, it's possible that they were fighting. We've all had those days and those vacations where you were at screaming each other the whole time. Does that mean that you don't love each other? No. If somebody posts a picture of their happy family and then announces the next week that they're getting a divorce, does that mean that they were being fake? Or was she just doing her best on that particular day? You can have your best day and your worst day on the same day. That's part of the mental health acceptance that I want people to understand is that no, social media isn't fake. I actually think we were talking about, what does your mind tell yourself? When we say things like that, we're actually canceling ourselves out for achieving that thing ourselves. We're believing that, “Oh, that type of happiness can't be achieved. Oh, that type of family can't be achieved. Oh, that type of success can't be achieved,” because of the ways that we're knocking it from someone else, or we're trying to chip it away somehow. I wouldn't even realize the ways in which that too is also her bringing out confidence by saying, “Oh, you don't deserve that. Oh, you'll never have that.” Versus, “You know what? Good for her. You know what? Good for him.” [MESSAGE] [0:13:43] PF: We'll be right back with Giselle Ugarte. But right now, let's take a quick break to talk about clothing from Franne Golde. If you're hitting the road this summer, you'll want to check out this amazing line of wrinkle-free staples that you can dress up or down depending on the occasion. They're the perfect traveling companion, because they're flattering, comfortable, and were created by a Grammy-winning musician who knows the importance of looking good on the road. See for yourself at frannegolde.com/podcast and you can get 20% off your first order of $75 or more when you use the code HAPPY. That's F-R-A-N-N-E-G-O-L-D-E.com/podcast for 20% off your order of $75 or more with the code HAPPY. Now, let's get back to my talk with Giselle to learn more about how we can use social media more intentionally to improve our mental health. [INTERVIEW CONTINUED] [0:14:39] PF: If you start creating a practice where you do that, or you intentionally tell yourself, “I'm going to congratulate in my head, each person who celebrates something on Facebook.” Will that make a difference? Or you're saying like, you're cheering them on, whereas before, you might have been sitting there judging a little bit. [0:14:58] GU: I honestly believe it does, and I love how you said practice. Or maybe you didn't say it, but I heard it. But we do have to practice being happy for other people. I do believe that when we do that, it will come back in a form of gratitude for ourselves. It might feel sweet irony, a little fake and uncomfortable when you're forcing yourself to do that, but you're doing it for the goodness of your mind and perhaps, to melt away at your cold heart. It's gotten bitter over the years. Because let's just think about that for a moment. If you can't be happy for someone on their happiest day, whether it's their wedding, or their kid’s graduation, or they just got a new job, or they just bought a new house, or they moved, and your first instinct is, “Oh, must be nice. Oh, well, that's great that her husband got that or, oh, well, yeah, it must be easy for her to lose the weight.” Let's think about, hold on, where is that coming from? Where is the projected self-loathing frankly coming from? Where you decided to rule yourself out from that, or you became so bitter and nasty? We wouldn't want someone to be like that towards us on our day. Why are we doing that to them? Yes. Rather than just liking or continuing to scroll, something that I have also noticed with my clients is I always give them an assignment to turn passive scrolling into an actively engaged activity. Again, whenever we're scrolling, sometimes we're scrolling to numb, or we're scrolling because we want to be numb. We're just scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, not even paying attention, no concept of time. Maybe every now and then, we'll hit a like, or we'll double tap. I will give my clients the assignment of every time you open up the refrigerator, that is your social media, I want you to engage. If you see something, maybe it's someone you know, maybe they just accomplished something, or maybe they did something really difficult, or they shared something very vulnerable, rather than just to double tap something, write something, comment to them. Not just a little emoji, or a heart, but acknowledge it in a meaningful way. “Oh, my gosh, that's so exciting. I know how hard you have been working on that marathon. Oh, my gosh, you finally did it. I remember you talking about this years ago. Now you're finally learning how to ballroom dance. That's so awesome.” One more way that I've noticed my clients who were anxiously sometimes opening up that empty refrigerator that can be social media sometimes, all of a sudden going, “I think I got my fix.” They're not opening it up as often, because they were able to feel as if they did something productive. Whereas before, sometimes we open it up mindlessly hoping for that dopamine hit. Instead, they created their own dopamine hit by finding gratitude and happiness and celebration for someone, or something else. Then they end up putting their phone away. It makes sense if you think about it, don't you think? [0:18:13] PF: I love that. I love it, because we've all had that practice where we're like, just scrolling through there. It's like, there's nothing here. We hit refresh. Hoping better things will show up in our feed. If you think about it, these are people sharing their stories, however genuine or heartfelt they might be at that time. All we're doing is like, “Eh, that's not quite enough to keep me engaged.” Which is pretty crappy, because if they called you and said, “Hey, this happened,” you wouldn't be just like, “Mm. Call me back when you have something better.” [0:18:42] GU: Right. Or you would just ignore them completely from answering the phone. [0:18:47] PF: Right. I love that. What other tips do you have for being more mindful as you use social media, instead of being used by it? [0:18:54] GU: I love that you said that, because it's a phrase that I use very often, which is, is social media running you, or are you running your social media? The number one thing that I tell all of my clients is turn off your notifications, all of them, the likes, the comments, the DMs. The only time that I ever have notifications on for social media is if I'm specifically waiting for a message from someone who maybe doesn't have my phone number. It might be Facebook Marketplace, for example, or it might be my primary inbox on Instagram. It will be temporary. Only when that person really needs to get a hold of me, and they don't have my phone number. Otherwise, everything is turned completely off. When I'm checking my notifications, it's because I'm in control of it. I sometimes even take it a step further from my clients and I say, no email on your phone. No email on your phone, which sounds terrifying for so many people. What that ends up doing is oftentimes, whenever we get that email notification, even if it's from work, all of a sudden, that becomes the most important thing. [0:20:00] PF: Right. [0:20:01] GU: You will interrupt, disrupt whatever conversation, dinner, errand, or other important tasks that you were doing. It ends up actually taking up a lot of time for where you thought it only took five or 15 seconds, it maybe took 15 minutes. Or you ended up having to start that task that you were working on over again, or start that conversation over again. What ends up happening is if you take your email off of your phone, when you do your email at your desk, at your computer, you become more intentional and focused. Then you put your phone on do not disturb with the notifications turned off, and you have that time specifically to respond to whatever requests and clients that you need to get to as many times a day as you need. Hopefully, it's no more than maybe two to four times a day, versus every single 15 minutes of every single hour of every single day. [0:20:47] PF: Yeah. You start feeling yanked around. It's just like, I'm doing this, but then I just get pulled over here. One thing I've started doing is I don't even turn my phone on until after I eat breakfast, which a lot happens from the time I get up until after I eat breakfast. it was very difficult at first, because it's always like, “Okay, what work? What do my clients have? What do I need to do?” To be able to just breathe and say, nothing that that has to be done in the next two hours. It doesn't have to be done before 8.30 AM. Just enjoy life a little bit. [0:21:20] GU: That's absolutely one way to do it and determining what actually needs notifications, what actually needs sounds, what actually needs the flags and then visuals. I mean, some of you just have that default, everything has notification. When was the last time you really took the time to go, “What notifications are turned on? Which ones can I turn off?” Because I am someone who I do check my phone first thing in the morning. For me, it's a healthy experience. I have a healthy relationship with my phone. I want to make sure everyone is good. That doesn't mean that I'm then replying back to everybody. It does give me a sanity to be able to just unlock my phone, is everything good? No one's on fire. No one's in the hospital. Great. Now I can begin. Or I might use that as my inspiration and motivation, because when I do open up my feed, I see people who inspire me. I see things that motivate me, or I have my affirmation or my Bible versus that get me going on that particular day. I am in control of it. It's not in control of me. notifications, that is the biggest one. I even find sometimes that people feel they're going through withdrawals. Where because their phone isn't buzzing constantly, they then are flipping their phone over constantly. [0:22:32] PF: Really? [0:22:33] GU: Yes. That's where we sometimes have to take it a step further and go, okay, well, do we then have to have the phone in a different room? Because if you can't go to the bathroom, or sit in an elevator, or wait in a line without looking at your phone, we might need to check ourselves with where is that coming from? Where it's coming from is typically, validation, need for validation, or it might be an unhealthy relationship that you have with your job, or your boss, or your superiors, or your clients where you have no boundaries, whatsoever. That's also where we run into lack of confidence, because you are then running in this people pleasing loop, where you're constantly seeking the attention of other people, and/or how often have we gotten to the end of the day and it feels like we haven't done anything, because the whole day has been reactive. You're answering the email, answering the phone, answering the client, and never did you prioritize what you needed to do for yourself. That's also where I established a practice of making sure that somewhere in your day, you do have calendared in a phone-free section of time. Also, in your day, you do have calendared in the three most important things that you need to do today. You're three non-negotiables that you need to do today. Because where a lack of confidence also comes from is a lack of productivity, or feeling lazy, or feeling like you amount to nothing, or can't do very much. Even if you are going through a season of burnout, for you, the three most productive things that you might do might be going for a walk, might be taking a nap, might be writing in your journal. That might also be your unplugged moment of meditation. Having time that's carved out specifically and only for you, and not tied to your electronics. Those are little ways that if we keep those commitments to ourselves, we can also build off of confidence and also get rid of some of those addictions that we didn't even realize, “Oh, my gosh. Not only is my social media running me, but I am a slave to it. I didn't even realize.” [0:24:45] PF: Right. [0:24:46] GU: My gosh. If that's you, you can also set screen limits on your phone. That's where you can put time limits for your screen time, or time limits for specific apps. I have a social media screen time limit, so I actually just clump all of my social media apps together in that. Then I'll have the phone say, “Hey, you've hit your limit, or you have 15 minutes left.” Will I extend it? Yeah, I will sometimes. I totally will. At least I'm then becoming more aware versus not having anything at all. Or sometimes I might have it password protected if I need to, or if I'm feeling easily distracted. That's one more way that I'm able to stay focused and still make sure that I have control over my apps. Those are a few ways to get started, but I'm sure we could go on and on and on, but those are at least a couple places to keep going. [0:25:35] PF: That is such great advice. I wondered, you've worked with so many people. What changes have you seen in their wellbeing, in their – I know you're not a mental health professional, but you do see people and deal with their mental health struggles. What changes do you see in their wellbeing and mental health when they start implementing these practices? [0:25:56] GU: Yeah, and that's the thing too, is that I'm a certified high-performance coach. I work on confidence and clarity and time management and energy. At the root of it, it's a lot of those things. I see that people are better at managing their time, because of some of the simple ways in which they end up not having that same relationship with technology. I see confidence soar. Even taking it to the next level, one little productive thing that you can do is change your profile picture to your face and make sure that that face actually looks like you. When you have a face attached to your name, it makes your social media that much more personal. Also, when you can finally embrace what you look like now, versus maybe a headshot that you took before the pandemic, where we've all aged 20 years since. Things like that, it brings that relationship back. When we're engaging more, or even sharing more of ourselves, we see confidence go up, because you feel confident in your voice and that what you have to say matters. I actually see a lot of my clients feeling more comfortable, public speaking, or engaging in conversations, because of how they're active on social media. Setting boundaries. When we set screen time limits, or when we delete emails from our phone, or set our phone to do not disturb, or maybe we let our clients know that, “Hey, I don't take work calls after three,” those are things that we're doing as technological habits. I also see that crossover into other habits and boundaries and relationships as well. It's tiny little micro ways that we don't even realize we're taking our power back, that it starts showing up in every single area of your life. That's why I get really passionate about it, because where we can be so quick to blame social media and us as the victim, the reality is, is that you have a lot more power than you think. As soon as you start to slowly take that power back, it really does snowball into something so bigger, and you start to see the ways in which it's showing up in other areas, too. [0:27:53] PF: I love it. Giselle, that is a great way to wrap this up. You have so much to teach us. We are going to tell our listeners how they can find you. See, continue teaching us and we can keep learning from you. Thank you. Thank you so much for sitting down and talking to me about this today. [0:28:08] GU: Thank you. I love talking about it. My messaging, my inboxes are always open. If you found this conversation helpful, please, I would love to hear from you. Don't be passive. Send me a message, letting me know what you love most about this conversation. [0:28:22] PF: Thank you so much. [0:28:23] GU: Thank you. [END OF INTERVIEW] [0:28:28] PF: That was Giselle Ugarte, talking about how to use social media to support our mental health. If you'd like to learn more about Giselle and the work she's doing, or follow her on social media, just visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of Live Happy Now, and if you aren't already receiving us every week, we invite you to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. While you're there, feel free to drop us a review and let us know what you think of the show. 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: Supporting Mental Health Through Music With Brandon Staglin [INTRO] [00:00:04] PF: What’s up, everybody? This is Paula Felps, and you are listening to On a Positive Note. We've talked about how music can boost our mood and even help our bodies heal. Today, we're looking at what it can do for our mental health. For this episode, I'm talking with Brandon Staglin, co-founder and president of One Mind, a mental health nonprofit organization committed to improving brain health by supporting research and providing resources. Central to their mission is music, which Brandon explains has been an incredible healing tool in his own struggle with mental illness. He's here to talk about the One Mind music festival for brain health, and how that has helped build awareness for their mental health mission, and how he uses it for healing and connection in his own life. Let's have a listen. [EPISODE]   [0:00:51] PF: Brandon, thank you for joining me on On a Positive Note. [0:00:54] BS: Thank you, Paula. So much happy to be On a Positive Note, and it's a great day to talk about music and mental health. [0:01:00] PF: And you're a fantastic person to talk to about this subject. I've been following One Mind for a while. The work that you do is absolutely amazing. For those who haven't been following you, let's start by talking about what one mind is and what it does. [0:01:15] BS: One Mind is an organization that started 30 years ago, and it was founded by my family. My family founded One Mind, thanks to our shared experience with my schizophrenia diagnosis and recovery. I was diagnosed when I was 18 years old, back in 1990. It was an incredibly scary and dark time in my life, and in that of my whole family. There was a stretch of about a year when we didn't really know whether there would be any positive future for me at all. I was terrified that at any moment, I might go straight to hell, like I had this delusion in my mind that demons were after my soul, and that if I made any slight moral mistake, they pounce on me, and drive me off to hell for all eternity. It's just a terrifying thing to think every moment of every day, if you can imagine that. That drove me to exhaustion, and despair. Even though I was getting treatment for my mental illness, it wasn't working very well for the first six months. There were moments when I was so depressed that I felt suicidal, and moments where I seriously considering ending my life. Fortunately, I'm very grateful to be alive today. What saw me through those really dark times were three main factors in the beginning. One of them was the unconditional love of my family. They made sure I knew how deeply they loved me by telling me so in ways that reached me. There was a moment when I was shuffling around the house, just so dark, just so down, and depressed. My dad saw me there in the kitchen. He said, "There's a lot of love coming from here, Brandon." Even though I had not, I couldn't feel the love back at that moment. I wanted to feel that love again. That drove me to want to recover again, to be able to feel that love again for my family back with them again. That was a major factor in driving me to continue to work for getting well again. Then, other factors included a sense of purpose through staying involved with community activities, and volunteering, and education while I was recovering. As well as, early science-based medical care. From those experiences, I've learned principles that love is an important factor for life. That curiosity is also an important driver of motivation for people, and can lead to discoveries that can help people out there in the community. And that having a sense of purpose is essential to drive people forward toward recovery and toward a good life. Based on all we've learned through my experience in schizophrenia, my parents decided to found One Mind in 1995. They started out with the realization, learning from me, and from other families around us who had experienced similar challenges with our young ones. That the science was not up to par in terms of its ability to enable people to access treatments that were helpful for them in a way that would help them to get all the way to recovery. I was taking medications at the time that were somewhat helpful. But as I mentioned, they had not the full effect that I wanted, had terrible side effects. My parents realized, and now it's an important part of One Mind that precision medicine be a part of mental health care. Meaning that, science must develop ways to develop treatments that can help people right from their diagnosis, right in the very beginning of their illness. And not have to go through months and years of trial and error, and agony for finding something that could help them recover again. That was how we started One Mind. The very first event we had ever in 1995 called the Music Festival for Brain Health, and that's how music comes into play here in the conversation. [0:05:00] PF: I'm really curious to know why they built it around music, because you and I know now that that's such a natural tool for healing and for bringing people together. Wat was their thinking behind using music as the central focus of that event? [0:05:15] BS: The music festival was launched in 1995, with the intent that music could bring people together, as you say, in a way that transcends inhibitions, that transcends fears, and then brings people to have a deeper pour for each other, and love for each other in the moment, celebrating together. We call the music festival a celebration of life. Ever since the beginning, it's been like that. I remember in 2001, when September 11th happened in the United States. There was a lot of trepidation about whether we could put on the music festival. It was just days after that took place. But we did, we were able to get conductor to come, and orchestra to come. They played Ode to Joy during the music concert of that event, people were in tears. The conductor was just so overwhelmed by the response that he just – we have a photograph that he gave my mom this enthusiastic hug, and just the embrace was just great to see. But that's an example of how music can bring people together, and transcend fears, and overcome barriers to connection. Then, we make that a hallmark at the festival today. Basically, I make sure that everyone understands when they come to the festival, that it's a safe place to open up to each other about the challenges that they're facing with their mental health, and their families, and open place to talk about and share those experiences with each other. [0:06:45] PF: What else goes on? You have a concert, but you have events leading up to the concert as well throughout the day. Can you talk about the other things that happen before the music? [0:06:54] BS: Absolutely. It's a really special event, the music festival for brain health. It starts today with a science and innovation symposium, where we have the scientists who we fund, and support give talks about the amazing discoveries they're making. Every year, they come out with something new that blows me away, and really thrills the audience to know that these nutrients are coming down the line to help them and their families. We added on a component in the last year, in 2023 of innovation as well. We have a program called the One Line Rising Star Awards, which enables young, promising mental health scientists to make these discoveries toward better treatments, by giving them funding, and by giving them leadership training, so that they can grow their careers as influencers for better mental health research. And improve the field in ways that reflect the interests of people like me, like people, so many people out community who live with mental illness, and work to improve their lives. The other program that we offer through a science and innovation division at One Mind is called The One Mind Accelerator. Through this program, we help entrepreneurs who are taking some of the discoveries, like those our scientists have made, and turning them into products, and services, that can then be commercialized and scale to reach people all throughout our society. This is a kind of an outgrowth, our focus on science toward innovation. So, it's been a very successful 30 years of doing these programs now together. We've made some great breakthroughs, including ways to treat mental illness with electricity that are safe and actually remedy the symptoms using brain stimulation, including microbiome-based treatments for mental illness. Like what happens in your gut, the bacteria in your gut to treat depression, for example, and including peer support models for young people facing suicidality. Happy to expand more if you're interested later on. The gist of it is that, the scientists and innovators speak during the symposium of the music festival. That gives the audience so much hope to know that these innovations are coming down the line to help them and their families. [0:09:13] PF: Who's likely to attend the festival? [0:09:15] BS: Well, because the festival includes not only the science innovation symposium, but also, the most amazing wine tasting anywhere. [0:09:24] PF: Yes, you got three different – I feel like you have three different audiences for this. [0:09:28] BS: Yes. The festival goes like this. It includes the science innovation symposium, the wine tasting reception, following symposium. Then, there's the concert, which is kind of the highlight of the day. Then, there's the exclusive dinner up at my parent's home, at the top of our vineyard property in Napa Valley, which is where it takes place. That combination of events is something that really revs people up to be excited about the future for mental health and their families. Because it's a fundraiser, it helps them want to donate to support cause. Those are the four parts of the event. The kind of people coming would mainly include people with lived experience in their families of mental illness. So, families that have got young people, or brothers, or sisters who live with schizophrenia, who live with bipolar disorder, who live with major depression, eating disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder. We aim to help them have that sense of community at the festival, so they have that common bond, and reveling each other's company as well as in the events taking place. [0:10:35] PF: Let's talk about the music component of it and how that's really grown. When you first started, what kind of artists were you bringing in? Because you've got some – you have some very impressive lineups in the last few years. Talk about, when it first started, what was that like? [0:10:48] BS: Yes. We started out with orchestras playing, and we had celebrity conductors, conducting the orchestras. First year, we had Richard Williams, and another year, we had Ben Zander of the Boston Philharmonic, very charismatic conductor, who wrote a book called, The Art of Possibility. He's the one who conducted during the post September 11th festival that we had. Then, we evolved into jazz. We had Ramsay Lewis and his trio play. Then, we evolved into pop, and country, and R&B. Had artists like Gladys Knight, Brian Wilson performed, who was amazing. He totally brought it, he did it for no cost for us, because he believed in what we're doing. Then, we found artists like Jennifer Hudson, we had Tim McGraw, Sheryl Crow, and Lyle Lovett, and Jewel more recently. There's some really great stories about these artists and how they've been part of the festival. [0:11:42] PF: I know Jewel. I saw a lot of posts and things that she said about this, wrote about this. I would love to hear their experiences, because it's touching to me that there are so many artists are being so open about mental health, and how music has helped them. [0:11:57] BS: Yes. It's great to know that artists are being open about that, because it lets people know it's safe for them to talk about it too. These are role models for so many people, or at least people that feel close to through the music that they produce, and that they hear. So, yes, Jewel is actually a One Mind champion. She's an official ambassador for One Mind. We've worked with her for a few years now. She performed in 2022, as well as in 2014, so twice for us over the years.   [0:12:24] PF: Wow.   [0:12:24] BS: Yes. Had her back. She's just so great. She's been very open about her experiences, mental illness, and that's inspired a lot of people to know that recovery is possible for them to other artists who stood out, include Lyle Lovett, who lent me his guitar to play a song that I wrote about recovery from schizophrenia. That's a cause that is very dear to my heart to help people recovery is possible even from serious mental illness. There's still amazing things you can do left in life after recovery, during recovery. That song is called Horizons Left to Chase, and it's available on YouTube. When he lent me his guitar, like he was handing it to me like it's a baby or something. It was very gently, and making sure that I held it carefully. And I had it, and I say, "Okay. Well, here we go." I played it, and played my song. He listened very intently to the song like he was very interested. But people loved hearing the song too, which really gratified me. [0:13:19] PF: You have artists who perform who have talked openly about their struggles with mental health. Then, you have others who are just supportive of the mission. Is that correct? [0:13:28] BS: Yes. Yes, that's right. When Jennifer Hudson performed, she spoke a lot about her family's experiences with mental health. When Tim McGraw performed, he also supports brain injury, causes, and One Mind was involved in Brain Injury Research at that time. He was deeply involved in that. So many of the artists that I featured on brainwaves, that webcasts that I hosted for about 11 years were very open about their experiences with mental health, and mental illness. Artists deal with a lot of challenges with their mental health, and music is a way to kind of process those. I've personally discovered those experiences with music. [0:14:04] PF: That's what I'd really like to talk about, is how does music help people who are struggling with mental health. And if you have your own experiences that you can give us examples, that'd be fantastic. [0:14:14] BS: Yes, I'd love to do that. When I was about 35, it was about 17 years after I was initially diagnosed. I was into my recovery, but not fully well yet. I wasn't very socially adept, and so I didn't have a lot of friends or social connections that I could turn to for support, or just have fun with. So, I realized that if I learned to play guitar, I'd have a hobby that would be something that connect me to other people, as well as be something that I could really enjoy on my own. I took up guitar lessons that year, that was about quite a while ago, almost 20 years ago. I began to practice, and I found that playing guitar offers me amazing benefits. Not only is it a lot of fun, but it also helps me to focus, and to understand that I can feel real emotions. When people live with schizophrenia, we take medication so often, dampen our emotions due to the dopamine effects in the brain. The illness can have that effect to for people. Feeling the genuine emotions that the music brings out in me, is something that reconnects me to more parts of myself and makes me feel more whole as a human being, and a more spiritually full. Then, also the mastery aspect, like getting better at a practice is something that I love to engage in. It gives me a sense of humility to see how I'm not that adept yet at playing guitar, but I want to be better. So, it's a driving force for motivation in my life. [0:15:52] PF: Then, physically, it has so many great benefits too, because when you're playing and you sync with a rhythm, and you start, it has so many different physiological effects that you can benefit from as well. [0:16:05] BS: Yes. Just hearing the strings ring out when I'm tuning the guitar, focuses my mind, my attention, and it calms me down. I'm reading a book now called Your Brain on Art by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross. It was published last year, it's a New York Times bestseller, and it features my story in it, and how I've used music for my recovery. Susan Magsamen, who's the head of the International Arts and Minds Labs at Johns Hopkins University interviewed me year before and put my story in the book. But she talks about how music does affect the brain in the body, and how it can lower cortisol release, which is a stress hormone. It can put your body into a parasympathetic nervous system framework, so that you calm down and it aids your sleep. I experienced that too. I sleep so much better if I play guitar recently. It also brings in together so many different aspects of brain activity in sync with each other. That can kind of account for the experience I have of feeling more like a whole person after I play music, I think. [0:17:10] PF: Now, what about if you're just listening to music. Because I am a big proponent of playlists. I have a playlist for every mood, everything that can possibly happen in my life, I've got a playlist. I go to a playlist for it. How about that? Do you use recorded music as a way to manage emotions and regulate yourself? [0:17:28] BS: Yes, I do. I do. I really do. Like every morning when I'm driving to work or driving home from work, I put out some music to start the day well with things that are meaningful to me. Like songs that I really love, and bring me a sense of peace or inspiration. Many years ago, when I was first ill with schizophrenia, it was immensely beneficial to listen to my favorite songs that helped me to refocus on the moment and stopped associating into the psychosis that would be creeping up on me from time to time. Listening to music has been really something part of my life for like my entire life. It's a touchstone for me that helps me to cope and feel good. [0:18:08] PF: What are some of the things that musicians that you've talked with that perform at your festival? What are some of the ways that they say that it's helped their mental health? [0:18:17] BS: The musicians who perform the festivals, I haven't talked to them directly about how music benefits mental health, except for Jewel. She and I, during the dinner portion of the Music Festival event, in 2022, sat together at the dinner. So, I had a long conversation with her. For her, music has been a double-edged sword, it helps her to work through the challenges and experiences in her life, by articulating them, and kind of processing them through that lens of seeing them out there as a creation. But the thing that has come with her music is something that she wants to not have too much of, because fame can change people's perceptions of themselves, of the world around them, of reality. It can also impact your private life in so many ways. She has changed her genres many times throughout her career, and I really respect that she does this as a means to [inaudible 0:19:13] to be creative and create the kind of music that she wants to, and that's innovative for her, and brings her a sense of fulfillment, but keeps her fans guessing and on their toes at the same time. I have followed her throughout her career ever since the early 2000s, and all of her albums, even though she's been very multifaceted and eclectic in the genres that she's used. [0:19:33] PF: Yes. I had read an interview with her, where she said that she had intentionally stepped away right after she hit big, and she knew that this could be – it would be phenomenal for her career, but it can be very damaging for her mental health. So, she took a step back. I thought that was so wise and insightful for her to recognize what that could do to her. An artist, you're there to get famous, you're there to have a living you, and to have that right in front of you, and to be able to say, "But my mental health is more important," it's just absolutely incredible. [0:20:05] BS: Yes. It's incredibly wise to do it, like you say, and she has a song called Goodbye Alice in Wonderland on her album of the same name. She talks about in the song, in the lyrics that there's a difference between dreaming and pretending. She's found in her life through the fame that she's found that she doesn't want to pretend anymore. She wants to live a genuine life, and that's why she's leaving Wonderland, so to speak in the song. [0:20:32] PF: That's fantastic. There's so much good that comes out of music. One mind is doing so much good to help bridge music and mental health. For the people who are listening to this, if they have a family member who has recently been diagnosed, and things are becoming clearer, or if they have been living with this for a while, what is the thing that you want them to know about the journey that they're on? [0:20:57] BS: Yes. They should know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, that recovery is possible, even from the most serious of mental illnesses. That if you love somebody who's living with mental illness, you should also know that they're still them, even though they may not seem like them. Medication can change people's personalities, so can the illness. But deep inside, they're still who they who you've always known. And they can live a full and meaningful life again, if you continue to love and support them and access treatment that can help them. [0:21:29] PF: That's terrific, Brandon, we're going to tell everybody where they can find out more about the One Mind Music Festival. [0:21:35] BS: It's the One Mind Music Festival for Brain Health. This year, it's our 30th anniversary event. It's on September 7th 2024. We invite people to check out our website at music-festival.org to learn more about that wonderful event. [0:21:49] PF: All right, that is terrific. I appreciate you sitting down and talking with me today. It's been a pleasure to talk to you. Like I said, I've been following you for a while. It really is an honor to be able to chat with you about it. [0:21:59] BS: Thanks, Paula. It's great to talk to you too. I love your podcast and it's been great to be on. Thank you. [END OF INTERVIEW] [0:22:07] PF: That was Brandon Staglin of One Mind, talking about music and mental health. If you'd like to learn more about One Mind, or the one Mind Music Festival for Brain Health, explore some of their resources, or follow them on social media, just visit livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. I hope you've enjoyed this episode of On a Positive Note and 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: Changing the Conversation on Mental Illness with Patrick J. Kennedy [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 469 of Live Happy Now. May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and today's guest reminds us that we can't just be aware of the problem. We need to take action. I'm your host, Paula Felps. This week, I'm joined by mental health advocate Patrick J. Kennedy, whose new book, Profiles in Mental Health Courage, shares the dramatic stories of people who are living with mental illness. Because of his own challenges with mental illness and addiction, the former congressman is on a mission to change how we view mental illness in this country and, importantly, change the way we treat it. His bold plan for the future of mental health includes bipartisan action to identify, treat, and manage conditions earlier to enrich the lives of all those affected. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:54] PF: Patrick, thank you for joining me on Live Happy Now. [00:00:56] PK: Paula, it's good to be with you. [00:00:58] PF: Well, this is Mental Health Awareness Month, a fantastic time to talk to you. I'm so impressed because you have been very open with your own mental health and addiction struggles. So I wondered what led you to initially disclose all that. [00:01:12] PK: Well, I didn't really have a choice. Being a Kennedy and in the public eye, I tried to keep my addiction secret as all of us try to do because of the shame and stigma. But I had a roommate in drug rehab who sold his story of being in rehab with me, with a Kennedy, back when I was starting my political career. Of course, I thought my political career would be short-lived after that disclosure. But I was fortunate to represent a district in Rhode Island. My constituency, the only thing they disliked more than drug addicts were people who ratted on drug addicts. I survived that election, and then I went on to Congress. Because I had been outed, I was able to put my name on mental health bills, whereas my colleagues might have been more reticent because it was already out. I wasn't afraid like most of my colleagues would have been to be asked, “Well, why is this something you're signing on to? Does it perhaps maybe – do you have a mental illness or addiction?” Of course, most of my political colleagues don't want to go down that rabbit hole. But I had already been out it, so it was less of a risk for me, obviously. [00:02:30] PF: Being part of such a high-profile family, obviously, that was why your roommate from rehab wanted to sell the story because it had a net worth to it. But what was that like then for the extended family? Because most families – I'm not a scientist. I won't say all, but I would say most families have an issue of mental illness and addiction somewhere in their family. But they work very hard to keep that quiet. For it to come out in such a public family, how did that play out? [00:03:00] PK: Well, power of the silence and the stigma is so overwhelming. My family was well-known to suffer from addiction. They say addiction, alcoholism runs in families. In my family, it galloped. It was just serious, and everyone knew it but us. There was – if you went through the Kennedy section of the bookstore, two-thirds of the books would have been covering the various “scandals” that my family, my father, my mother had been through because of a direct result of their alcoholism. Yes, the problem with me coming out is that it kind of added to that narrative. I felt shamed by it because I grew up with a mother who was shamed because of her alcoholism. I would literally try to hide her when my friends’ parents would come over to pick up my friends from our house. I'd be trying to hide my mother because I didn't want any of them to see her inebriated in the middle of the day. I used to watch Saturday Night Live, and they'd do skits about my dad. I mean, it was really powerfully painful. I mean, being open about it now is kind of a way I fight against that shame which still exists. I can't help but cringe when I have to talk about this to some extent. But I find that it's therapeutic because this is a brain illness. No one wakes up, Paula, and tries to shame themselves, their family. Put their own physical lives at risk, become potentially at risk for being arrested. People don't choose to live on the streets. They don't choose to have untreated mental illness and end up in our criminal justice system. I mean, we still have not turned the corner to really understanding that these “behaviors” of people with brain illnesses are symptoms, and they're not reflections on a person's moral character. Now, being in recovery myself, I have a moral responsibility to do everything I can to keep myself from falling back into addiction. I attend 12-step meetings. I have addiction-certified psychiatrist. I worked the program, as they say. I have a moral obligation because if I drink or drug, I put not only my own life at risk. I put others at risk. I had three DWIs, and I'm – by God's grace, no one was injured. But I can't take that chance again and none the least of which I just don't want to go down that path again. I'm so grateful I have the life that I have today. [00:05:55] PF: Do you think it's more impactful because you are in a position of being able to – people will listen to you. You're in a higher-level position. Do you think it makes it more impactful, your story is more impactful, and that it feels more universal to others if you can be open about it? [00:06:12] PK: Well, when I came back from one of the DWIs and I had to go to rehab, I was asked to come and meet with so many of my congressional colleagues in Congress who I thought wanted to talk to me about legislation. Of course, I'd show up with my staff because the staff do majority of the work in Congress. My colleagues would always say, “Could you and I just talk?” Then they would tell me their own stories. [00:06:39] PF: Oh, wow. [00:06:39] PK: It occurred to me that I was the only person they knew in Congress that has a drug addiction and alcoholism. What was amazing to me is because of the anonymity and the shame of these illnesses, they knew no one else that they were working with who also shared their own illness except for me. I met with colleagues who none of them knew each other had these illnesses, and they would walk around in the halls of Congress not knowing they were walking by someone who had similar life experiences they had and were suffering from similar struggles. I wrote this Profiles in Mental Health Courage because it's still a big deal for people to share their stories. As I said, I didn't choose to do this, but these people who are in my new book, they chose to use their real names and their real stories to try to break the stigma. Unlike a lot of these self-disclosures, these people really told it all. Today, you hear a lot of people say, “Oh, I have a diagnosis,” or, “I'm in recovery.” But they don't really describe what it's like to live with these illnesses. Yet in this book, these 12 people really tell their full experience. It's a very diverse group of people who have different illnesses. I hope it's going to be helpful to people who may think of themselves as being unique and all alone. In 12-step recovery, we have some big book, and we get to read about others who also like us have had these experiences suffering from alcoholism and addiction. I have found those so comforting reading these stories because then I realized I'm not alone. Yet most Americans don't often benefit from that experience of being in recovery and having all of those tools easily accessible, especially hearing that they're not alone and what they're going through is really quite common. That was kind of the point for me to try to interview these people and have them share their full stories. [00:08:53] PF: It is so thoughtfully written. One thing that really struck me is how it shows just the universality of mental illness, of addiction. It's indiscriminate. It can take out anyone from any walk of life, any profession, vocation. How did you identify who to write about? It sounds like it wasn't very difficult to get them to open up and tell their stories, which was amazing to me because they are so personal. [00:09:21] PK: They opened up to me because, frankly, I was able to ask them to do it for our country. It’s not me, but I have this great last name. When my uncle challenged the country to ask not what their country could do for them but what they could do for their country, that kind of feeling is alive when I talk to people. They want to be part of something bigger than themselves. I just gave them that opportunity and platform and told them, yes, they were taking a big risk at disclosing their own challenges. But they also felt they had an opportunity to help others. For those of us in recovery, that is the key to our own recovery is making our own experience worthwhile, so we can try to help someone else. In helping others, we get liberated from our own self-imprisonment and our own self-centered selfish behavior. It's really the antidote for our illness to speak out and not be shamed and to help others. That's the way we get freedom from ourselves. [00:10:35] PF: Do you have an overall goal for the book? I imagine your goals for this book are not measured in sales. I feel like you have such a grand plan for this. What do you hope to see as a result of this book coming? [00:10:47] PK: Well, thank you, Paula. I started a campaign. It's not a political campaign for office. It's a campaign to build a movement for those suffering from mental illness and addiction, which of course, are treated separately in our reimbursement systems. We do not have a system, so to speak, that treats these as biopsychosocial illnesses. Biological because they're brain-based; psychological because they're mental health; and social because if people don't get support of housing, support of employment, they're just not going to have the same opportunities to succeed in recovery, which of course, we don't emphasize in the treatment of these illnesses. We only treat them in acute episodic fashion, as opposed to treating them as the chronic illnesses that they are. I have something called the Alignment for Progress because I believe we have to align financial incentives. We spend tons of money on the criminal justice system, on fire and police, on emergency rooms, on lost days and productivity and disability. I mean, we are spending so much money not taking care of these illnesses that I think if we align the budgets to actually prevent many of these illnesses from pathologizing, i.e. let's treat these like we do cancer, which is screen for stage one. Not wait till people are at death store and in a stage-four crisis. These are the things that I think we need to build into a national agenda. When I was in Congress, I could go to any special interest group, and they would tell me. The labor unions would tell me, “This is what is overtime pay. These are health benefits. This is pension and retirement. These are safe working conditions.” They literally have their whole agenda organized. I hate to say it but in mental health and addiction, we do not have a consumer-driven movement like every other patient advocacy movement. We don't have a common agenda. Everyone is marching up to Capitol Hill with their own diagnosis and bipolar over here and depression over here and anxiety over here and alcoholism over here. Even alcoholism and opioid use disorder are treated separately in terms of people's mindset. You could go on and on. The problem is we're all united on 99% of the same things, and yet we're not organized like a AFL-CIO or a League of Conservation Voters. [00:13:21] PF: Why do you think that is? If you look at the sheer volume of people who are suffering from it, you would think that someone else would have thought of this before now and started bringing it together under one umbrella. [00:13:33] PK: Well, the psychologist can't convene the psychiatrist and vice versa. The peer support people can't convene the social workers and marriage counselors. The schizophrenia people want SMI as the priority, which they deserve. Then we need mental wellness, but we don't really have that covered because that's not a diagnostic group. That falls into public health category. My point is no one's been able to kind of bring them all together. As I said, I was really honored to be the author of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act because as I said, I was outed, so I had no choice in the matter. I felt like I could put my name on a bill that had mental and addiction in it because, essentially, I had already been outed. That bill really affects all groups because it calls for reimbursement by insurance companies, including the federal government, for mental illness and addiction in a way that's no different from other chronic illnesses like asthma and cardiovascular disease and cancer, so forth. That is a bill that is kind of like a medical version of civil rights. It affects everybody that's kind of marginalized from these illnesses. Because of that, I have kind of a unique opportunity to kind of pull everyone in together because everyone, whether you're a psychologist, social worker, peer support specialist psych, you all benefit from this. If you're an inpatient hospital or an outpatient clinic, they all benefit from ending discrimination in reimbursement and coverage by insurance companies. I'm the guy that brought that, so I can call these people and basically say to these folks, “This is the new frontier for us. We need to band together and build a voice.” I often say it's like that Godfather film where they say, “We're bigger than US steel,” back in the fifties, talking about organized crime. This is the biggest special interest group in this country. If you count all the families affected by overdose, suicide, those living with these illnesses, there's no doubt everybody's affected by these illnesses, including the family members who are often left out of the narrative. If we ever organized, can you imagine the power we would have to transform the system? That's what I'm after. In the back of the book, I have a QR code which links people to a policy guide. I'm literally trying to get donors to allow us to build literally a movement. Let's get the number of people that care about this on listserv. If someone's running for office, they know how many people in their district, whether it's a state or federal office care about this issue. If we start doing those things, I am telling you we'll get more than the money we're getting today, and we'll get more of the urgency than we're getting today. [00:16:47] PF: How are you seeing the attitudes changing? How is that going to affect how it moves forward? Then part three of this question is in what still needs to happen. [00:16:57] PK: If we normalize this, if we allow people to get screened at every place of their medical system, if they're a cancer patient, they had better be screened for anxiety and depression and trauma. If they're having heart disease, they're four times more likely to die of a heart attack if they have depression. If they are diabetic and they don't have their alcoholism treated, just forget treating diabetes and so forth and so on. Our whole medical system ignores mental health and addiction. I think the more people we normalize this and just treat it as part of treatment for every illness, the less kind of bound up and stigma will be. Look at what we've done with HIV/AIDS. You look on the TV and you see ads for HIV drugs. Look on the TV and there's ads for erectile dysfunction and STDs. I mean, there's no difference in terms of the stigma that those illnesses had to overcome and the stigma we have to overcome. We can do this. We just have to do it as soon as possible because too many people are dying out there. [00:18:16] PF: Do you see it getting worse or getting better? Are there higher incidents of mental health problems? Or are we just more aware of it? What's the research and numbers showing? [00:18:25] PK: Well, the bottom line is we're playing a lot of catch-up because we've never invested in this space. Today, there's greater demand. Part of that's reduction in stigma. But part of it is the real trauma that people are living with today and the toxic world that we're living in and the ubiquitous technology that's sapping us. I think we're going to continue to see tragically worse and worse statistics in terms of the number of people dying of suicide and overdose, unless we take a fundamentally different approach. That means not just treating these illnesses after they occur but doing our best to try to prevent these illnesses from occurring by embedding, if you will, coping mechanisms, stress management, problem-solving skill development for our kids in elementary and secondary education. If kids cannot learn to self-modulate, in other words, understand how to manage their emotions, they can learn all the numeracy and history and literacy and not be successful in life because if you can't manage your feelings, then you're just not going to be successful in life. Then what we need to do is, just as I said, screen early so that for those who have kind of more predisposition for illnesses, severe mental illnesses, schizophrenia, bipolar, we know who's at risk. We could deploy a lot better early detection and screening. We need to be doing that because if we intervene, for example, with people who have their first psychotic break, we can dramatically reduce the disability that comes from that illness. We just don't treat people with schizophrenia, and we don't get their coordinated care, which is the evidence form of intervention put in place until after they've had multiple psychotic breaks, which frankly really pathologizes their illness, which means they have to take higher medications for their illness. If you have to take higher medications, then there's higher side effects, which means people don't want to take those medications. Imagine if we treated them early and they didn't have to take those high doses. They could probably stay compliant and live much more productive meaningful lives. [00:20:58] PF: Is this a solvable problem? Can we manage it if we start really working together and implementing these solutions that you're talking about? [00:21:07] PK: 100%. We can do this. We could literally – if we have this as an objective, we can align all of our federal agencies and departments and coordinate with county and municipal and states to really address this in a comprehensive way. I said there's so much cost to us not doing this. We just need to organize ourselves with all the resources. Now, when there's a tornado or hurricane or fire, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, comes in to manage the aftermath. We need a FEMA for our homeless population with mental illness. We need a FEMA for the scourge of addiction in this country, which means we need a comprehensive approach. When FEMA comes in, they support the housing. They support the employment. They give small business loans. They help with food. They will help with clothing. They coordinate with Social Services. We need that type of approach for these illnesses. We need a multipronged systems-based approach to addressing these. If we do that, and we can do that, we will dramatically reduce the number of people dying of these illnesses and people who are suffering. Keep in mind, even if someone's not dying, they're dying inside. They're not living their full lives, and they're not living their lives. It's one thing to live physically. It's another to live spiritually and socially and emotionally. We don't look at that in our medical system and understand the value of people living free, of being hostage to their brain illness. [00:22:58] PF: You're doing such incredible work. We're going to let our listeners know how they can find your book. We'll give them links to the work that you're doing, connect them with that QR code, and so they can really support this. Because I know it's something everyone's concerned about, everyone is affected by. I think a lot of times, we don't know what to do, and we feel like, yes, there isn't a joint movement. There isn't something that I can do that can help affect change. I so appreciate all the work that you're doing and the fact that you're going to let our listeners jump in and help you on that mission. Patrick, I wish you the best of success with Profiles in Mental Health Courage and with all the other amazing projects you're working on. [00:23:33] PK: I want to thank you for allowing me to come on, and I appreciate the chance to speak to you and your listeners. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:23:44] PF: That was Patrick J. Kennedy, author of Profiles in Mental Health Courage, and an advocate for mental health and addiction education and treatment. If you'd like to learn more about his initiatives, discover his book, or follow him on social media, just visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. While you're there, be sure to sign up for our weekly Live Happy newsletter. Every week, we'll drop a little bit of joy in your inbox with the latest stories, podcast info, and even a happy song of the week. 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: Repairing the Mother/Daughter Relationship With Leslie and Lindsey Glass [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 468 of Live Happy Now. Mother's Day might be behind us. But for many moms and daughters, that holiday can be less about celebrating and more about surviving one another. I'm your host, Paula Felps. This week, I'm joined by co-authors and mother-daughter duo, Leslie and Lindsey Glass, who have just released the book The Mother-Daughter Relationship Makeover. They know all too well how fraught this relationship can be. They're here to talk about what makes this relationship so difficult for some and how you can rebuild that relationship, find a positive pathway to peace, and finally restore the love between you. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:47] PF: Leslie and Lindsey, thank you so much for joining me on Live Happy Now. [00:00:51] LESLIE GLASS: Oh, we're delighted to be here. [00:00:54] LINDSEY GLASS: Yes, good to meet you. [00:00:55] PF: I want to start with the big question, and that is the one most of us have, and that is why is the mother-daughter relationship so challenging. [00:01:04] LINDSEY GLASS: I'm going to start because I – [00:01:05] PF: Let the daughter start. [00:01:09] LINDSEY GLASS: I think there are a lot of reasons, and I will certainly let Leslie jump in. One of the things that I think is the biggest factor is that often moms feel that daughters are reflective of them. If daughter isn't dressing right, if she isn't acting right, if she's doing things that are embarrassing, that is a reflection that maybe mom didn't raise her right. I also think in a situation like ours, I look just like her. My mom was perfectly dressed at all times and quaffed, and that was not my style. She likes to call me, what a street rat, which is very kind. But it was the eighties and the nineties. It was grunge. It was hip-hop. I did not follow her style. I did not follow her interests. She cooked. She knitted. She planted flowers. Now, the irony is I do now, but then I didn't. That's what I think is a big trigger for moms. This child looks like me but is nothing like me. [00:02:15] LESLIE GLASS: All right, I'm going to take us on a completely different track here. [00:02:19] PF: I love this. [00:02:21] LESLIE GLASS: I think the conflict between mothers and daughters begins with the fact that mothers have control in the young years, and they need to have control. Moms are the ones who tell you what to eat and when to go to bed and how to do everything. I think that moms do this because it's their job to keep their children safe, and it's their job to kind of raise their children well. I think what happens when daughters go to middle school and high school, that's where the independence, the – of course, starting at the age of two, they want their own independence. But going into middle school, when girls have their own secrets, they have their own friends, they have extreme challenges, especially nowadays. Wanting to have moms not in their head, not telling them what to do, not telling them how to look, all of those things create conflicts that begin kind of in the teenage years, and they can get stuck there. Lindsey says it's about daughters being the reflection of moms. I think moms want their daughters to be safe. I think they want them to be safe. I think they want them to behave well and achieve well. Who wants to do that when you're a teenager? [00:03:38] PF: Exactly. Well, how is it different than sons? I have friends. I don't have children but I have friends. Pretty much all my friends have children, and I see a big difference with those who have boys and those who have – I have one friend, very good friend, and she's like, “I would much rather have my two boys and put up with all the things that come with boys than navigate with girls.” What's the difference? [00:04:01] LESLIE GLASS: I'm going to start. I think that very often, you just give your sons a lot of slack. You think they're handsome. You think they're wonderful. You think they're doing well. But we can't make generalizations about anything. I think we’re – I would say girls are prey animals, so we are very, very concerned about keeping our daughters safe. I will say that over and over and over again. Your son is going to get into fights. He's going to tussle. He may start drinking early and do bad things. But you kind of let it go because you think they're tougher, and they can handle it. Of course, some mothers in many cultures think their sons are perfect, no matter what. [00:04:42] PF: Absolutely. [00:04:43] LESLIE GLASS: What would you say, Lindsey? [00:04:45] LINDSEY GLASS: Yes. I think it's just less emotionally charged with boys. I've certainly seen dads who are really hard on their sons, and let the girls get away with everything. I do think the wanting to protect the daughter and keep her safe and know everything has a lot to do with it. Yes, I think boys just share less also, so you don't necessarily know. A mentor, and I was talking to one of my colleagues there, and I was like, “How are you doing?” She goes, “I've got a teenage daughter,” and I just started laughing. [00:05:20] PF: It’s like that’s all you need to say. [00:05:22] LINDSEY GLASS: I said, “What's going on?” She goes, “She's in her feelings.” No one needed to say anything else. Everyone in the room understood. [00:05:31] PF: It's like a moment of silence for Mom. [00:05:32] LINDSEY GLASS: That 13, 14-year-old. Yes, inner feelings. I think that's part of it. The girls will come home, and sometimes they share. Sometimes, they don't. “Oh, they cut me out of the friend group. I didn't get invited to the mall.” I think it opens the door for a lot more drama. [00:05:50] PF: Right. Now, you all have an interesting relationship, and this book is a product of that. First of all, I have to say this book is so insightful, and it takes us through so many areas of conflict that makes us realize how universal this is. Just that recognition is incredibly helpful. But can you talk a little bit? Tell our listeners a little about your relationship and how that led to writing this book. [00:06:16] LINDSEY GLASS: I'll jump in on this one. We went off track in my teen years, and we got into the fighting habit. I call it the fighting habit. We had different communication styles. We had different personality styles. We just started clashing at a certain point and really struggled as the years went on. We were always close. There were times we were very close, but we would just battle. As the years went on, it becomes more and more toxic to have somebody in your life that you're battling and issues of control, issues of boundaries. That kind of split us up. We both went off and did a lot of our own work and found our way back. Here are a few of the things we realized. Almost everybody's struggling with a few of these issues. Too, we're so busy pointing fingers at other people. We forget sometimes to step back, stop fighting, and look at ourselves. There were so many universal things that we were experiencing that we were seeing happening with. I'm in recovery. I sponsor young women. I’m sponsored, which means I work with younger sober people, and we were hearing the same things, and nobody had tools. We were seeing tons of people who just were screaming at each other with no tools on how to stop. We've been writing for our website for 12 years on relationships and mental health and behavioral health. We said, “Hey, we actually have a story to share, and we have the tools to share.” Because we're a family in recovery, we're very solution-based. We'll talk about the problem, but we want to move on to the solution, so less takeover. [00:08:01] LESLIE GLASS: You did that really well, Lindsey. I've been a good trainer as a mom. I think that – [00:08:08] LINDSEY GLASS: She talks about it like a horse trainer. [00:08:10] PF: Exactly. [00:08:10] LESLIE GLASS: She's got a great gate. She can [inaudible 00:08:13] a pony. [00:08:14] PF: She can move her head the right way. [00:08:16] LESLIE GLASS: I think that Lindsey hit the nail on the head. We've been writing about relationships for 12 years, and I've been a novelist for 30 years before that. I'm a novelist. I was a journalist before that. When Lindsey and I started working together, our whole purpose was to try and create the content, a body of content that would lift the stigma from addiction and explain what life in recovery looks like. In order to do that, we had to kind of out ourselves. I mean, we had to say, “You want to know what recovery looks like or if you think recovery isn't working, we're in recovery. This is what recovery looks like. It looks like the two of us.” [00:08:58] LINDSEY GLASS: Not always but sometimes. [00:09:00] LESLIE GLASS: Well, yes. I mean, it doesn't always look like us because there are some families where part of the family is in recovery and part of the family isn't in recovery. There are a lot of clashes over that. We had a mission. I think that Lindsey and I have been writers forever and ever and ever. That is part of our solution. Our part of our solution is creating the tools and being able to understand what's happening. We've been writing about this family function, dysfunction, addiction, what is addiction, what is recovery for a lot of years. We decided because self-help books can be kind of descriptive in terms of telling you what to do prescriptive but without having the background of being able to say, “Well, how does change really happen?” The evolution was to take the knowledge that we had acquired over 12 years and put it in one book. [00:09:51] PF: One thing I really liked about this is you have the journal prompts at the end. It is a very interactive book because it's not something that you just read and you're getting information thrown at you. You actually participate in it and decide how this affects you and what you need to do. I really love that about this book. [00:10:09] LESLIE GLASS: Not everybody likes to write, but there are ways that you can use the journal prompts. The idea is to start in the beginning by telling your story and getting some understanding about where you and your mother come from. What are your backgrounds? The idea is to start getting in the habit of kind of writing things down and with the idea that in the beginning of the book, you think one way, and then you go through these 61 journal prompts. At the end of the book, look at it and say, “Oh, wait a minute. Okay, I'm different now. Or I can look at it, and my perspective has changed.” [00:10:43] PF: That's super important, and I love that you brought up the fact that you dive into your background because so many books, so many resources, they look at the immediate problem. Can you explain to us why it's so important for you to go back? You went way back, not just how your mother was raised. I found it fascinating as you tied all these threads together and showed the way that your great, great grandmother's upbringing influenced you. Can you talk about that, why it's so important to dig back into that? [00:11:14] LESLIE GLASS: I will because I think when we just look at our mother, we're just looking at this person who irritates us. No matter how great your relationship is, this person who raised you is going to be irritating or in some way or another. But how did she get the way she is, and how did I get the way I am? As we started to write our own stories, I wanted everybody to go back and be able to see, “Well, my mother was an immigrant,” or, “My grandmother was an immigrant.” Or she was Greek or she was Irish or she was Swedish. How does that culture inform our behavior? A lot of our behavior, a lot of our beliefs come from our culture and our religion. How do those different components on make our mother act the way she did, our grandmother act the way she did? Now, I'm acting the way I am because the way I act are things that were taught to me by my grandmother who lived a hundred years ago and my great-grandmother who raised her. When you understand the components and the history of the women in your family and what they've been through, maybe the traumas that they've been through, you have more perspective, and you have more compassion for the way you were raised. All of us have toxic aspects to our relationships. [00:12:35] LINDSEY GLASS: I think that's really, really good. I think one of the things I just wanted to expand on for a second was it's that compassion and that point of view. I was so angry at my mom about certain behaviors and certain things. Now, I'm an adult. I'm in my 40s, and I'm writing a book, and I'm reading about how she had nobody to help her when she had young children. Her mother died when she was young. People were trying to get her not to work. All she wanted to do was work, and they didn't want to let her work. There were just so many things and traumas that happened in her own life that I didn't know. As a teenager, you’re so angry like, “What's wrong with you?” Then as an adult, you're like, “Oh, my gosh.” She was dealing with mental health stuff, whatever the situation was. She was in a tumultuous marriage. She had no female support in her life. We didn't live in a world where we could talk about how we were feeling. This is a relatively new thing. Learning that mental health history is also really important, so you're not sitting here going, “Why do I feel crazy? Why do I –” Well, maybe there are reasons. [BREAK] [00:13:42] PF: We'll be right back with Leslie and Lindsey Glass. But I wanted to take a moment to talk about how you can make your day more comfortable and more stylish with help from Franne Golde. This line of clothing was created by a Grammy-winning musician who knows the importance of looking good on the road. But she didn't want to sacrifice comfort, so she created a line of wrinkle-free essentials to build a wardrobe that feels as good as it looks. Right now, Franne Goldie is providing Live Happy Now listeners 20% off their first order of $75 or more. You can go to frannegolde.com/podcast and use the code HAPPY for 20% off. That's F-R-A-N-N-E-G-O-L-D-E.com/podcast for 20% off your order of $75 or more with the code HAPPY. Now, let's get back to my talk with Leslie and Lindsey to learn more about how to repair a fractured mother-daughter relationship. [INTERVIEW RESUMED] [00:14:41] PF: As you came to grips with everything, your relationship, all the dynamics of it, how did you outline how to put that into this book? It's very thoughtfully arranged and it takes us through this. As you said, these steps at the end, you're like, “I'm a changed person.” How did you come up with this outline? [00:14:59] LINDSEY GLASS: What most people don't know is we actually wrote a different version of this book 14 years ago. We were glad that version never made it because we had so much more to go through, and it was a much darker story. It didn't have the self-help stuff because that's something our business has grown into. We had a lot of the story that we wanted to tell about ourselves already in our heads. Then as far as how we actually outline the steps, we really wanted to take the reader on kind of a transformative experience so that when they started, they were over here thinking, “Oh, she's the problem. This is what's happened in my life.” We followed almost a 12-step formula, which is we want you to get some understanding about who you are and what's happened. Then we want you to understand what the issues are, so we chose the eight biggest issues that mothers and daughters fight about for part two. Then for part three and part four, that's pretty much all self-help. Part three, obviously, if you're in this situation, you need healing and forgiveness. We spent four years doing that. We're going to talk about all the things we did. Then the end is some people are not going to be able to reconcile if there's addiction or serious mental health issues or somebody is unsafe. These situations happen, and we wanted to create a section for what to do if you can't reconcile. Because we love recovery, it changed our lives. We did a whole recovery lifestyle piece because any family that's been through dysfunction, everybody's recovering from something. Has a family member been sick? Has there been suicide in the family? Did somebody lose a job and it created financial instability? All of these things you can find recovery from. That's the sort of model we followed, and we got a lot of good advice along the way. [00:17:06] LESLIE GLASS: I think it's funny because our contract says that we need to write kind of a self-help book in 165 pages, right? When Lindsey and I started getting into it, we knew that the issues that mother and daughters fight about, the eight issues that we chose, was almost the book contract. [00:17:24] LINDSEY GLASS: Length of the book, yes. [00:17:25] LESLIE GLASS: Yes, the length of the book. You can't just start with triggers and traumas. You can't start a book with what are your triggers because you have to first understand who you are. What is it about my daughter that's making me angry? Does it come from me or does it come from my mother, right? We really felt that you need to have a background for everything that you're talking about. You can't just – Lindsey, you said it perfectly. So many self-help books that we read, they're taking the problem. You're fighting. You may be addicted to fighting because it's bringing those bad hormones front and center. [00:18:01] LINDSEY GLASS: We used our own story for there always to be a little bit of background. Here's what happened to us. Now, you can figure out what happened to you. [00:18:11] PF: I like that because kind of like sitting down with a therapist where you're not just having to say, “Okay, here's what's going on.” Or it's like you soften us up a bit by sharing you're so vulnerable and open with us about your story, which makes me as a reader more willing to be open. I think that's very well done with this. [00:18:29] LINDSEY GLASS: It's just interesting. When you start to actually talk about these kind of – I don't want to call them shameful but issues that nobody likes to admit. People don't like to admit that there are problems in the family or that somebody's lying or that somebody has an addiction. I'm sure you know as well as I do. Addictions don't have to be just to drugs and alcohol. [00:18:50] PF: Right. I would love for our listeners to hear about some of the universal conflicts because you do break it down where someone might be reading it thinking, “I thought it was just me and my mom that went through it about this topic.” Let's talk about what are the major areas of conflict between mothers and daughters. [00:19:08] LESLIE GLASS: I'm going to start with food because I think food is a big one in this country right now, and we do talk a lot about food. I was overfed as a child. That meant that people were pushing a lot of food into me all of the time when I wasn't hungry, but I wasn't allowed to have snacks. Now, all day every day in America, people are feeding their children snacks all day long. Then they're worried about whether they're too heavy or they're not too heavy. The whole idea of what the food industry has done to us in terms of not eating meals anymore. We used to eat meals. We used to have breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Now, it's like snack time all day long. [00:19:49] PF: We graze. We don't eat. We graze. Yes. [00:19:51] LESLIE GLASS: I think it's very difficult to be thin in a family where people are big. I think it's very difficult to be big in a family where the people are thin. I think there's a lot of conflict around food and culture and confusing food with love and all of that. I would say food is a big one. [00:20:14] LINDSEY GLASS: I'll list them out, and then I'll tell you the ones that we struggled with. We did boyfriends, girlfriends, romantic partners. I mean, come on, endless possibilities. Does mom not like the boyfriend, the girlfriend? Are there sexuality questions that family members don't understand? Romantic partners was a huge one. That wasn't an issue for us actually. She was very, very accepting of my friends and partners, so we didn't actually have that one. We had money. Money was one of our biggest trigger issues because my mom was successful. She spoiled me, and I grew up thinking that what she had I had. We had to do some real boundary work. We can talk about money in a second. There was food, independence, and codependence. [00:21:05] LESLIE GLASS: Codependence. [00:21:06] LINDSEY GLASS: Those issues of mom wanting to know where you are, what you're doing, are you calling me, what's your curfew, and daughters wanting to be more independent. Or for every one of these situations, there's the opposite. There's the good girl with a party-girl mom. Why aren't I being picked up on school? Why am I the only one left over at the sleepover whose mom hasn't picked her up? My mom would forget me and bring me places on the wrong day. Guess what? So did her mom, did the same thing. Full taffeta dress, party gift in my hand, knocking on the door. “Leslie, today is not the birthday party. Take her home. It's next week.” [00:21:44] PF: Oh, no. [00:21:47] LESLIE GLASS: I have trouble with numbers. [00:21:50] PF: That's because you're a journalist. [00:21:51] LINDSEY GLASS: And I inherited that. Appearance and style, that's another big one. I was a club kid and a grunge kid, and that was infuriating to my mother, boundaries and detachment. Then the last two, and this isn't for every family, but when these are involved, they're a huge deal, drugs and alcohol and mental illness. Those to us and from a little bit of research seem to be the biggest global issues that mothers and daughters fight about. For us, obviously, drugs and alcohol, independence and codependence, those were our big ones. [00:22:31] PF: Right now, mental health is such a huge concern. We just did something, the World Happiness Report, and it showed how Gen Z in particular is suffering. Their mental health is very, very poor. Then the millennials aren't doing great either. Gen X is a little better, and then the boomers are fine. What then, as parents, if you're a mother and you have a daughter who is part of Gen Z, who is going through this mental distress that's happening globally really, what are some of the ways that they can navigate that? [00:23:05] LINDSEY GLASS: When I talk to parents, one of the things we want to have them do is really pay attention. Don't look the other way. It's not a phase. It's usually not a phase. Or the boys will be boys, that's not acceptable. These are not acceptable things anymore. We have to really look at the behavior and ask questions and not all always – here's the thing. No one wants to believe their child lies, no one. But some do, and it's very hard when you talk to parents because they say, “My child would never lie to me.” Then I get in the room with the kids, and I'm like, “How many of you are actually telling your parents everything that's going on in your lives?” Not one hand goes up, so they have to check. My mom talks. She goes, “I never called any other parents.” I believed her. I was never where I said I was. Had she called once, she would have known. I was never where I said I was. I mean, I might have gone to that person's house at the end of the night, but we certainly weren't sitting home baking Toll House cookies and watching movies. [00:24:10] LESLIE GLASS: You said you were. [00:24:10] PF: That is not what was going on. [00:24:13] LINDSEY GLASS: That's what I kind of say to parents. Take it really seriously, and always feel good and okay about getting outside help. Kids don't want to talk to their parents. They're going to talk to somebody else. When you ask kids why they don't want to talk to their parents, they don't want to disappoint them. They don't want to worry them. They don't want to start a fight. Kids aren't being bad. They're just – I didn't want to say to my mom, “I think I'm a drug addict at 15.” Mom, do you want to add stuff? [00:24:43] LESLIE GLASS: I do because you write a lot about despair. I think what happens in middle school and high school, kids experience trauma, a lot more trauma than in earlier generations. I think a lot of the trauma happens then. It happens because of drinking. It happens because of bullying. It happens for a myriad of reasons. But kids are – threefold concern is how am I achieving, how do I look, and how do I behave. That's how parents and their teachers are looking at them. They're being judged by their looks, their behavior, and their achievement. Basically, what makes us good human beings and what makes us happy human beings later in life have nothing to do with how we look, how we achieve, and how we behave. It's what's happening inside. The one thing that parents are not talking about, except your friend who you were mentoring the other day said inner feelings, but basically parents are not really connected with their children's inner feelings. They don't have the tools for children and young adults to be able to talk to them in a way that inspires them and helps them move past whatever destructive feelings or conditioning they're getting elsewhere. We just aren't helping our teens and our young adults. They don't have that drive and ambition. A lot of them don't have it, so it may be because marijuana is more prevalent, and it makes you not care a lot. I think that we're missing a step in development, and that's emotional development. Because we're not working on that piece of human development, our young people are feeling empty, lost. They don't know what their place is in society, and they're scared. [00:26:32] LINDSEY GLASS: Let's be honest. There were no shootings in schools when I was growing up. There was no climate catastrophe. We were way, way more protected in the world in the early nineties than we are now. [00:26:44] LESLIE GLASS: I think every student, every young person, whether it's a high school student or a college student, knows somebody who's died or maybe a number of people who have died. Their siblings are may be using drugs. They may be incredibly frightened. We're concerned about mental health, but are we using the kind of tools that we need to stay connected emotionally with our children? Mental health is not jumping off the roof. It's finding ways to live happy. Live well and be happy. [00:27:13] PF: It is. It is. When children are born, you hear parents say, “I don't care. I just want them to be happy and healthy.” Then by the time they're three years old, they're like, “I want them to get into this school, and I want them to do this, and I want them to be a doctor or a lawyer.” It’s interesting to see how every parent wants their child to be happy, but we're not really equipping them with the tools and skills to achieve happiness. We teach them how to be successful, but we don't teach them how to be happy. [00:27:40] LESLIE GLASS: That's right. Yes, that's right. [00:27:42] PF: One thing that struck me as I was reading your book is how this is about changing the relationship between the current mother and daughter. How, in doing that, is that going to change subsequent generations? That’s what strikes me is like this is a book that does just change the two – the mother-daughter. You can affect generations by making these changes. Have you talked about that? [00:28:06] LESLIE GLASS: Absolutely. It's like breaking the cycles, breaking the cycles, breaking all destructive cycles, whether it's a fighting habit, whether it's being judgmental about everything the other one does, whether it's that fight or flight kind of slamming doors or that being silent, that being silent and being cold to each other. The whole idea is to find compassion for the other person and have the tools, have the actual ways to stop your fighting, have the – we talk about triggers and how to stop your triggers. I think that once you create new habits and new cultural habits with your mother and daughter, your grandchildren are going to repeat it, your sons. It will also work with all your other relationships. [00:28:56] PF: About that, go ahead and answer. I was going to ask about that, too. [00:28:59] LINDSEY GLASS: Well, I'm going to lead right into that question because often when one person changes, people follow. If one person gets sober, sometimes other people get sober. If one person in the family says, “Hey, I'm not going to fight anymore. You want to talk to me. Here's how you have to talk to me,” and it sticks. Then, yes, you're going to be moving forward. I think the whole thing about stopping the generational stuff is clarity because people are walking around not even understanding that they're behaving in ways. I have heard so many women tell me how crazy their mother is. Then I'm looking at their lives and their behavior and their relationships, and I'm like, “Apple doesn't fall far from the tree, honey.” In our family, we said, “Hey, we've got X, Y, and Z going on, and we don't want this going on to the next generation. So here are the things we're willing to do.” Here's the problem with outing yourself. Once everybody knows, you have to be accountable. There's a certain amount of accountability that we're forced into just by – I'm like – now, I can't scream at people in the car because somebody will recognize me. [00:30:15] LESLIE GLASS: She's not so recovered. [00:30:18] PF: As I said, this is an incredible book. It has so much advice and so much insight to give. What is it that you hope to see come out of it? [00:30:25] LINDSEY GLASS: My big thing was hope because when we were in that bad place, it felt hopeless. It wasn't until I went into certain kinds of groups that I even knew other people were dealing with it. My hope is that it shares with a lot of people that a lot of us are going through this and that you're not alone. If you struggle with your mom or daughter, you are just not alone, and there are some solutions. What about you? [00:30:50] LESLIE GLASS: I just want people to understand more about the female experience. I want people to be able to look and say, “Oh, my gosh. I didn't know that about women. I didn't know that about women. I didn't know.” It was looking back a hundred years of the way my great-grandmother probably didn't know how to read. She raised nine children, and they all went on to be successful people. I just want people to understand how much trauma and how difficult it is to be a woman. How great we are. The Chinese say that we hold up half of the heaven, but we probably hold up the whole heaven because there wouldn't be any humanity without us. I want mothers and daughters to have more compassion for who we are and what we've accomplished in the world, what we have to go through. [00:31:44] PF: Lindsey, Leslie, fabulous spending time with you today. I know our listeners are going to love this. We're going to tell them how they can find you, how they can find your book, and how they can start healing their own mother-daughter relationships. [00:31:56] LESLIE GLASS: Awesome. [00:31:57] PF: Thank you for what you've done. [00:31:57] LINDSEY GLASS: Thank you. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:32:03] PF: That was Leslie and Lindsey Glass, authors of The Mother-Daughter Relationship Makeover. If you'd like to learn more about them, discover their book, or follow them on social media, just visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of Live Happy Now. If you aren't already receiving us every week, we invite you to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. While you're there, feel free to drop us a review and let us know what you think of the show. 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: Discover Harmony and Healing Through Jin Shin Jyutsu With Adele Leas   [INTRO] [0:00:08] PF: Welcome to Happiness Unleashed with your host, Brittany Derrenbacher, presented by Live Happy. As companions for our animals, most of us like to take a hands-on approach. But today's guest shows us how we can use our hands to help our animals find better health and harmony. I'm Paula Felps, and I'm joining Brittany as she sits down with Adele Leas, internationally known teacher and originator of Jin Shin Jyutsu for animals. Although this practice was originally designed for humans, Adele discovered its amazing ability to balance the body, mind, and spirit in diverse species of animals to deepen the human animal connection and keep everyone happy and healthy. Let’s have a listen. [INTERIVEW] [0:00:50] BD: Hi, Adele. Welcome to the show. [0:00:52] AL: Hi there. Thrilled to be here. [0:00:55] BD: So, Jin Shin Jyutsu. Did I say that correctly? [0:01:02] AL: You're perfect. [0:01:03] BD: What does that mean? [0:01:05] AL: So, it translates from the Japanese as Jin is man or person of knowing, and compassion. Shin is the Creator. But this is not a religion. Jyutsu, the art of. So, you string it all together. You've got the art of the Creator, through compassionate person of knowing. Ain’t that pretty? [0:01:33] BD: Yes. That's beautiful. So, this is a healing modality that can be used on animals. It’s often associated with humans, but this is your life's work to use this modality with animals. [0:01:47] AL: Exactly. [0:01:48] BD: How would you describe to the listeners just a very easy way to describe what Jin Shin is, just for maybe someone that's listening that has never heard of it before? That has no idea what this modality is? What's the most accessible definition of what this modality is? [0:02:08] AL: I would say that it's the harmonizing art, based in the breath, using gentle, non-invasive touch that balances body, mind, and spirit. [0:02:20] BD: How did you get into this? How did this come about in your life? [0:02:26] AL: Totally by accident, but I think, I mean, in air quotes, I in 1988, I was in a drowning accident and I was with my fiancé. He died. They brought me back to life with the paddles. I lost a third of my left lung. So, I had a whole lot of grief. I couldn't breathe. Without breathing and grief, your immune system cycles down. Did the western route and I just wasn't getting better. Someone I worked with gave me a gift certificate for this thing that we've already shown. It’s hard to pronounce. At least until you know it. I went and got on our table and she very gently said, “How about if we take off the oxygen mask?” I was just terrified, and she said, “It'll be right here. You put up one finger or something and I'll put it back on.” That's where it started. [0:03:25] PF: So, what exactly is it? You and Brittany are obviously very familiar with it, and I only know it through Brittany and knowing that she has this worked on her animals. What exactly does it do? [0:03:37] AL: So, as I mentioned, its history is an ancient Japanese hands-on harmonizing art. Healing, being a byproduct of harmony. The woman who brought it to this country in the 1950s, Mary Burmeister says that, “When you are in harmony, there is no imbalance.” Another one of her quote is, “You're never in disharmony because of what you lack, but what you haven't let go of.” So, maybe that hit the nail on the head. The idea of the work is based in the breath. And while we have to inhale, the most important part of it is the exhale. The letting go. From that letting go, we can come back to the state of the energy of our blueprint. What we were intended to be. So, it balances spirit, mind, body. I work with people who have cluster migraines, and I work with dogs who have had a leg amputated. I work with cats who, his person has passed away, and they have been given to the refuge where I'm on staff, and they're untouchable. You can meet these beings where they're at. [0:05:11] BD: So, Jin Shin is understanding that animals have energy bodies, just like we do, and that if we are willing to first regulate our own nervous system, we can then be agents in working with the nervous systems of the animals in our lives. [0:05:34] AL: Absolutely. Oh, well said young lady. It's really, again, I quote Mary Burmeister a lot. But she has a quote that says, “It is complicatedly simple, not simply complicated.” You can learn a few basics, and then be with these animals, and they're going to guide you to a very large extent. They're going to show you – [0:06:08] BD: How can animals teach us harmonizing? Because I feel like that, what is harmonizing? And how can animals teach us that? [0:06:18] AL: I think, harmonizing, I think it's being in the present. I think they are champions of that. They don't have taxes that are due. They don't have social media praise them. They don't have term papers due or cars that need to get to the repair shop. They're where they are. And they don't hold on to things. So, for me, always my way to touch base, my way to come back, is to get with my animals. [0:06:54] BD: What is your hope with teaching Jin Shin as a healing modality for animal companions? [0:07:02] AL: You are an angel. Just yesterday, I was journaling on this and meditating on this. I would love this to become common knowledge, like they used to say, “Mom’s home remedies.” If people build this way of connecting to their animals into their way of living, we always said that Jin Shin Jyutsu works best when nothing happens. Because it goes on in harmony. There aren’t big crises as often. I'm not saying it can't happen. But it deepens the connections with your animals. For me, I don't believe you can do this very long, without becoming better and better at intuitive communication. Because they're telling us, and if we’re hands on, and we're focused on them, we're in the right space to hear. So, I would just love it to be kind of an everyday thing. Take the woo-woo and exotic out and make it a way to be with our animals. [0:08:15] PF: What are some other results that people will see if they're like, “Well, this sounds interesting, but I don't know. My pet has been sick for a while. My pet is emotionally distraught all the time.” What are some changes you'll see in animals as they are treated this way? [0:08:31] AL: It's a great question. So, it's a cumulative art. Mostly, you see – and that's why I love people to learn it to share at home, so you see little incremental changes. [0:08:45] BD: Adele, tell us about you have an upcoming workshop in Louisville, Kentucky at the end of May and tell the listeners what that's about. [0:08:53] AL: Yes. I'm really looking forward to it. It is a three-day workshop from May 31st through June 2nd, and it's a first. I am co-teaching with two of my faculty. Susan [Name inaudible 0:09:08] who I mentioned earlier, and Kelly Mount, both fabulous, longtime Jin Shin Jyutsu practitioners and longtime animal people. We are going to be at Windy Meadows equestrian farm, which has a combination of rescue horses and dogs and retired horses, I believe. It's going to be a lovely time to go in depth. We'll work on ourselves, we'll study, and then we'll work on the animals. You'll get different species. And I always want people to work on themselves first so they understand how that feels, what you're sharing with the animals. [0:09:54] BD: Adele, thank you so much for coming on the show and hopefully all the listeners feel just as harmonized as I do by listening to the sound of your voice, while we talked about this topic, but we really appreciate your time. [0:10:08] AL: Well, thank you. This is my idea of absolute fun. So, I appreciate it. Thanks for your interest. [END OF INTERVIEW] [0:10:14] PF: That was Brittany Derrenbacher talking with Adele Leas about Jin Shin Jyutsu for animals. If you'd like to learn more about this art, you can check out Adele's book, Jin Shin Jyutsu For Your Animal Companion, watch a video to learn how to practice it yourself, or check out her three-day animal retreat in Kentucky later this month. You can find information for all of those when you visit our website at livehappy.com. Of course, Brittany will be back next month to talk about how pets bring us joy, help us heal, and can be some of our greatest teachers. So, until then, for everyone at Live Happy, this is Paula Felps reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Becoming a Mindful Mother With Jennifer Mulholland [INTRODUCTION] [0:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for Episode 465 of Live Happy Now. In just a few days, we're going to celebrate Mother's Day. But the fact is, all the moms out there need to take time to celebrate themselves every day. I'm your host, Paula Felps, and today, I'm sitting down with Jennifer Mulholland, a working mom, conscious leadership expert, and co-author of the book, Leading with Light: Choosing Conscious Leadership When You're Ready for More. Jennifer's work focuses on cultivating presence and rediscovering the light within, and she's here to talk about how we can bring that business principle into our lives as mothers and how it can change the world for us and around us. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [0:00:47] PF: Jennifer, thank you for joining me on Live Happy Now. [0:00:49] JM: Thank you. It's so wonderful to be here today, Paula. [0:00:53] PF: We have a big day coming up, and that's Mother's Day. So, that's the perfect time to talk about something that you call mindful mothering. I was really taken by that phrase. I may have heard it before. But it landed with me differently when I received that email about you talking about that. So, I wonder to start things, if you could explain what it means to be a mindful mother. [0:01:16] JM: Lovely. Yes, I think, well, first of all, being a mother is such a gift that we've been given for those of us that have children, or mothering our pets, or mothering our parents. It comes in many different forms. But I really feel like we've just been given such an incredible gift to be in that role. Being a mindful mother really means being more aware, aligned, and intentional, and how we nurture those we care for, and how we nurture and care for ourselves. It's all too easy to be the givers, and the doers, and the coordinators, and the schedulers, and the lovers, and the band-aid-ers, and all the roles that mothering comes. It's too easy to leave ourselves out of that equation. So, being a mindful mother is really slowing down to be present with your way and how you care for others and how you care for yourself. [0:02:23] PF: That sounds amazing. We know that would have incredible results. You can tell just from thinking about it and how it feels when you think about that, you know it's going to have an incredible effect. But what happens in real life, when you're burning the candle at both ends, and the kids are going crazy, and all kinds of chaos is happening around you. How do you maintain that mindful mother state when everything around you is chaos? [0:02:49] JM: Yes. It's such a practice and it's a giant experiment. So, what works for me, may not work for you and we're all trying to figure it out. I would say, the old adage that we can't give what we don't have, I feel like is the routing of where I'm coming from with this kind of idea, in the sense that, to be mindful is to really be aware of what works for you and what doesn't. To be aligned with that and then be more intentional in how you show up. One of the greatest ways we can practice is practicing presence. Literally, being present with the micro-moment that shows up. Oftentimes, we are so hijacked as mothers, where we're doing one thing, and then we get a call from our child, or depending upon the age of your children, like you have a tug on your leg, or the door opens and it's all of a sudden, you're constantly distracted and multitasked and taken away from being present. So, practicing being present, pulling yourself back with whatever is in front of us. Because if a child or if a loved one comes in, then how can you be attentive with them fully? One of our greatest gifts is our presence. It's not necessarily what we're saying all the time, or the decisions that we're making, or the advice we're giving. It's the energy, it's the essence at which we show up in that exchange. Oftentimes, it's not verbal. Oftentimes, it's just the way we are when somebody is needing something from us. That can be a choice of whether it's frenetic, and distracted, and frustrated, and irritated because we've been interrupted for the 10 millionth time. That's human and we all get that place. Or it can be practice in a way that we really slow down and look to the other person of what are they needing from me right now? Do they need a solution? Do they need to be told? Do they need advice? Or do they just need my love and care, and I need a hold space for them, so they feel heard and seen and supported? So, they can figure it out. Man, that's the art of parenting, of just, when do you know when to shut up? When you don't know just to let your child figure it out for themselves? But you are really with them in that discovery. I feel like one of the routing of a practice is making sure that we are present with whatever is showing up in our field. Because when we are we actually take in more information. That's the awareness. We're able to see and sense and feel a lot more information coming in, that helps us attune and align to what is needed in the moment for ourselves and for the other person that's showing up. [0:06:10] PF: That goes completely into what you talk about in the business realm with conscious leadership and being present. How, as parents, as mothers, as women, do we learn how to start doing that? Because again, you talked about. It is a practice. It's something you can get up in the morning and say, “I'm going to be present today and I'm going to do this.” Then the fires start and they plan to go out the window. So, what are some of the tools that you use and that you give to others to help them learn how to be present? [0:06:42] JM: Well, one of the things, mantras I say, as soon as my feet hit the ground, when I wake up in the morning is, “I am fully embodied.” What that means for me is like my presence is fully in this vehicle and vessel. Because if it's not, we often kind of live in the realm of our heads. A lot of thinking. So, we kick into automatic habit of doing, doing, doing, and coordinating, and scheduling, and showing up, and driving, and all of the things that we do. Oftentimes that's coming from our headspace. So, really try and bring my awareness into my heart space and into the full body vehicle just with that mantra. It helps me ground so that I can listen to my body's cues. That is probably the number one hack that I think we miss a lot and in how our body speaks to us, giving us cues throughout the day of when we are feeling alive and aligned to our light within and when we're not. When we want to leave the room, when we want to procrastinate, when we want to pull back. When we live in our head, we kind of check out of our body's innate wisdom that's constantly giving us the cues of what works for us and what doesn't. One of the practices of being present is just tuning into how does my body feel in this moment? Am I leaning into this conversation? Am I feeling engaged? Do I want to learn more? Stay here? Am I curious? Or am I wanting to get the hell out of here as fast as I can? Am I frustrated? Am I distracted? Am I bored? Our bodies tell us that information all the time. So, I think as moms, as we're spinning a lot of plates and trying to be more mindful in the automatic role of giving, giving, giving, we forget that actually, if we can tune the attention back to mothering ourselves first, what does my body need in this moment? What is it telling me? What does my spirit soul, light, whatever you name it to be need, to feel calm, to feel peaceful, to feel connected? Your body will tell you. A great practice is, I love journal journaling. My business partner and I journal all the time. One great exercise is to literally write a letter to your body, or write a letter to your soul, or spirit, or light, or essence. And ask it what it needs from you, as if it was your inner child. So, if I'm exhausted and I am so tired at the end of the day, and I don't have any energy, and I'm gaining weight, and I'm feeling down, and I can't figure that out, write a letter to your body and ask what it needs. Your body will tell you. Just write, write, write what it’s saying. Or if you're feeling like, “Wow, I am so scattered and depleted by giving to all my relationships, and my partner, and my family, and my parents, I am just feeling depleted.” Ask your spirit, your light, what it needs to feel more alive, more connected. You'd be so surprised of the wisdom that you already have, we just forget to ask it. [0:10:26] PF: I love that. We do forget that we can tap into ourselves. We're always looking for a cup of coffee, or something else that's going to do that for us. You really talk about – what you're talking about is extreme self-care. It's not just taking a bubble bath. It's really taking care of your soul. It's more like soul care. As moms, it's often difficult to put ourselves first, to say like, “I am going to shut everything out and take care of myself.” But why is it important that women do that and take that time for self-care? How does that make them better as mothers? [MESSAGE] [0:11:03] PF: We'll be right back with Jennifer's answer about how moms can practice self-care. But right now, I wanted to share one of my favorite new indulgences. Discovering the incredibly luxurious bedding from Cozy Earth has completely changed the way I sleep. If you want to get some of the best sleep you've ever had, you need to check it out. I never dreamed that bedsheets could change your life. But Cozy Earth made a believer out of me with these super soft bamboo sheets. They not only feel amazing, but they come in so many beautiful colors that you'll find at least one that fits your style. What's even better is Cozy Earth is as convinced as I am that you'll love these sheets. So, they're offering a 100-night sleep trial and a 10-year warranty on every purchase. What have you got to lose? Not sleep. To sweeten the deal, we're giving you a discount so you can enjoy the luxury you deserve with Cozy Earth. So, head over to cozyearth.com and use promo code Happy 35 for an exclusive 35% off. That's cozyearth.com and use the promo code Happy 35. Now, let's get back to my talk with Jennifer and find out how practicing self-care makes us better mothers. [INTERVIEW CONTINUES] [0:12:14] JM: The world needs more love and care and connection and community and peace. I really believe like the feminine principle, the Divine Mother is here to help cultivate that state of being for ourselves and for all. If we desire that out there in a world where we wish that there's no more war, and we wish for more peace, the only way we are going to get to that as a society is to have that individually in ourselves. There's no better person equipped for that than the mother. Learning what self-care looks like to you, is I just want to say, it’s a giant experiment. Because I have gotten so frustrated myself of like, “Well, I know I need to care for myself. I don't freaking know how to do it. I don't know what I need and it changes.” So, give yourself more grace in experimenting and checking in, like, “What do I need and want in this moment? What would feel good?” I think that question, what feels good to me now is so helpful, and following the feeling of feeling good, is likely to lead to peace, and love, and more care, and nurturing. So, that feels like the playground. If we could follow the feeling of feeling good, more for ourselves, whatever that is, and that can change 10 times throughout the day, then we can really bring that state of calmness, of more peace and groundedness and connection to anybody we connect with, especially our families and loved ones. [0:14:14] PF: Yes. As you were talking, I could see just like putting it across my computer, what would feel good right now? Just so you have that constant reminder until you get into that rhythm of looking for that and seeking that out. In your work, because you work with so many different people. What do you see as the biggest obstacle to finding what is good for them? Because I know it's probably an obstacle we're putting up ourselves. [0:14:39] JM: I see so a lot of caregivers, that they're so good at caring for others and they've lost themselves, that they haven't put themselves in that relationship. Over time, that depletes us all, right? I've been one of them too. Just going, going, going and not even catching myself that – because it felt selfish in a way. Self-care, caring for self is not selfish. I just want to rearchitect that unconscious belief system that somehow we have to be humble, and be the givers, and the Wonder Women, and have the red capes to be able to come in, and be strong, and resilient, and know the answers, and know where we're going. And it's just bullshit, we don't, right? So, experimenting and being more gentle. One of the greatest barriers is lack of self-worth. I don't feel enough. I feel like I have to lose weight to be better. I have to dye my hair to be better. I have to have the right job to be better. I can't just be a mom. I have to be a working mom and I have to have a business and I have to be on this ladder and this trajectory. There’s so many conditions, unconsciously, I think that we have kind of layered ourselves with, and it's tricky, because it's not obvious. I think what I would love to, for other people, to give themselves permission to be human, and hear, and know that you're enough right now. That you have everything that you need to not only nurture others, but to nurture yourself in a more mindful, intentional way. We get to choose if the monkey mind, if the inner critic is getting louder and louder, and my confidence, or your confidence is going lower and lower, we get to choose when we're going to say, “How is that working for me? Is it working for me? Is it giving me the results I want?” If it's not, we get to choose. That's free will. We have this incredible ability to choose to not feed that narrative anymore. That's what gets in the way. The self-worth and society is, especially, in the United States. We are just being bombarded with Instagram ads and like model-type bodies, and this is the house you need to have. It beats you down after a while. [0:17:31] PF: How does that affect people as mothers? Because, again, they're getting that message of you shouldn't be doing this, and you should be all these things. And the normal female is like, “I'm not and I can't.” What does that do to us emotionally and mentally, when we're getting all these messages, that we should, we should, we should, and we're like, “I can't?” [0:17:56] JM: Right. Well, what has happened is that it's kicked in a response to do more. The opposite is the antidote, honestly. The less we do, the more space we have, the more space we create, the more space we give ourselves to be ourselves fully. We kind of can then start to subtly unplug from those unconscious messages, and cultural conditionings, and programs that kick us into this idea that we need to have more, do more, to be more. Where I'm sitting in practice is, “Well, what if I just were to be me? What would that look like?” That takes a lot of practice, to bring more of my full self to my children, instead of having such a schedule, to have space where there's no schedule, and there's room in those spaces for new connection, new insight to come through. If we're so overscheduled and we're on the hamster wheel seeking to be more, to do more, to have more, which is the kind of cultural machine in the United States. We just start to deplete because we're not restoring, we're not remembering who we are, and that who we are is a being, it's a human being. It's not a human doing, as we've all been kind of tricked to believe. [0:19:36] PF: I'd love to talk about how if a mother can change and learn to be a mindful mother can become more present, what is that going to teach her children? Because one thing we've talked about, just last week's podcast, we talked about Gen Z and the horrible state of mental health among young people, and what the surveys are showing us. Obviously, so much of it is your product of the home in which you're raised as well. So, if you become a mindful mother, what kind of gift are you giving your children? And how are you changing their experience when they become parents of their own? [0:20:12] JM: I come back to presence, because I think that is really getting hijacked to use that term, again, in society and with the technology that our attention spans have become so short in what we're able to sit with and be with. A mother's presence, unspoken, it's like the healing ointment that is needed. That may look like a deep connection with your child in that moment. It may just be sitting with them, not saying anything. It may be really deeply listening, not to fix, not to solve, not to give advice, but to listen to where they're coming from, as they share it. That seems to be a real helpful tool that if we can practice being present and not meeting our children in the frenetic bounce of subject to subject, multitask, multimedia, kind of state of affairs. If we can ground in learning how to quiet our own minds, we become less reactive, and we become more intentional in how we respond and participate in the care that we're giving. Again, we can't give that care unless we are giving that care to ourselves. So, I think with the Gen Z, we’re kind of in the state with mental health, where we have really bought our thinking. We're buying our low-quality thoughts. And we – [0:22:08] PF: I love how you put that. I've never heard it put that way and I love that. [0:22:12] JM: We're not taught to question them. We're taught to identify that those things, thoughts are me. That's who I am. Versus I'm in a low mood, I woke up feeling shitty, or whatever, and I'm having low-quality thinking right now. So, I'm actually not going to take my thinking so seriously, because I can't really trust it, because it's not really helpful. We get to choose what we're buying, and we just haven't really been educated or taught that we have a say in which thoughts we're going to digest. We do it so unconsciously. And the moment, we pull a thought down and digest it, guess what it does? It creates a feeling. That feeling then emanates and then we attract people that match that feeling. So, we have a society right now, and especially with the Gen Z generation, I feel like that they're being bombarded with so much negativity, and we don't have tools to help them navigate which thinking, which thoughts they're choosing, and which thoughts they're not. Now granted, there are many people that are in different states of mental health, that I don't want to diminish the causality, and the conditions that are so many different flavors that people have. But I do believe when we are present, we get to then more consciously choose which thoughts we're buying, and we want to bring into our digestive system, and create the feelings we want to have throughout the day and which ones we don't. [0:23:46] PF: I love the way you present that. It paints such a wonderful picture, and really sums it up. So, what do you want moms to think about? If you're talking directly to all the moms out there, what is the one thing that they should keep in mind say, beginning with this Mother's Day and then hearing through, to become more mindful, and to enjoy this journey of motherhood and life more? [0:24:12] JM: What do you really need for yourself to feel mothered? If you were to mother yourself, or if you are your own best friend, and you could wrap yourself in the care and the love and the nurturing that you really need, what you need today, tomorrow, this week, to feel more cared for? To feel more supported? To feel more gotten? To feel more loved? Try those things. Just do something for yourself. I would so encourage you to create space for yourself with yourself, with no one else. That can look like meditation. It could look like going for a walk outside in nature. It could look like journaling for five minutes on what you have to be grateful for. It could look like taking a yummy bath and putting bubbles in it. But just really mothering yourself is a learned practice. I didn't learn how to mother myself from my mom. I learned how to be a great mom to my children from my mom. But now, I'm like having to learn how do I mother myself? Mothering the mother within, I do feel like is a game changer to unlock this next level of capacity for our divine feminine that is wired to nurture. It's wired to naturally love, and include, and care, and create peace and harmony. Don't we want that for our families and communities in the world? So, I would encourage you as we go up to Mother's Day, to put yourself at that center and say, “What do I need to feel mothered? To feel nurtured? To feel loved?” And try it. [0:26:14] PF: I love it. That is a perfect way to wrap this up. You have a lot to teach us. We're going to tell our listeners how they can find your book, how they can find you, and learn more. But thank you. This is incredible conversation and I appreciate you coming and hanging out with me. [0:26:27] JM: Oh, thank you so much. To all the mothers out there, you're doing a great job and you're worth every single penny, every single second, and we're so grateful. I'm so grateful to walk this path with you. Thanks, Paula. [END OF INTERVIEW] [0:26:46] PF: That was Jennifer Mulholland, talking about mindful motherhood. If you'd like to learn more about Jennifer, discover her book, Leading with Light, or follow her on social media, just visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. While you're there, be sure to sign up for our weekly live happy newsletter. Every week, we'll drop a little bit of joy in your inbox with the latest stories, podcast info, and even a happy song of the week. 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: Gen Z and Mental Health With Deborah Heisz [INTRODUCTION] [00:00:03] LM: Thank you for joining us for episode 466 of Live Happy Now. May is Mental Health Awareness Month. And while we look at mental health all year long, this is the perfect time to take an even closer look at something we all should be talking about. I'm your host, Paula Felps. And today I'm joined by Live Happy CEO and Co-Founder, Deborah Heisz, to talk about Gen Z and mental health. According to recent studies, Generation Z is experiencing unprecedented levels of anxiety, depression, and other mental health concerns. Today, Deb and I are talking about what's causing this Mental Health crisis among young people and what we all can do about it. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:43] PF: Deb, thank you for coming on the show. [00:00:47] DH: Thanks, Paula. It's always a joy when I get to spend some time with you talking about things that we're both passionate about. [00:00:53] PF: Yes. And May is Mental Health Month. We're doing this. This is the last episode of April. Tomorrow we start a shiny new month looking at mental health awareness. And this was a fantastic time to sit down and talk to you. You and I had had this conversation offline about The World Happiness Report and specifically its findings on Gen Z. And so, that conversation was so good. It's like let's do this on the air and talk about it. [00:01:20] DH: I think The World Happiness Report, for us it's kind of a landmark thing. It turns out we started Live Happy while they were working on the World Happiness Report. We of course didn't know that at the time. It's kind of we're parallel in age. We have the same age. What's interesting to me is the World Happiness Report really has started to take a deep dive into human well-being, which is something that wasn't taking place before that. I mean, positive psychology wasn't that old to begin with. And then for governments and for social agencies to really start looking not just at health concerns of their population. But, also, mental well-being of the population really hits the world happiness. A lot of that data is in the World Happiness Report. It's really kind of a cool thing for us. But I think for this year, it's interesting because something appeared that we hadn't seen before. Something really near and dear to my heart. And I kind of want to preface this conversation by reminding everybody or telling everybody if they don't already know, neither Paula nor I are scientists. Paula is an editor, gatherer of information, interpreter of information extraordinaire. One of the best interviewers I've ever met. And truly passionate about what we do at Live Happy. I am an MBA who runs businesses. I'm also a parent of teens who happen to – that's why this episode is particularly interesting to me. We're going to talk about a lot of stuff. But anything we say might be or actually is opinion. This topic is one that needs to be talked about. Needs to be talked about broadly. Which is why even though we don't have the scientific background, it's such a passion thing for us. And I know that you think, just like I think, people need to be talking about this. And what they need to be talking about is the well-being of Generation Z. I mean, when I'm retired, they're the ones who are going to be leading the world. We should really, really care about how they're thinking about themselves. What they're feeling and what they think of the world around them. There's a lot of concerning information in this year's World Happiness Report. [00:03:16] PF: Yeah. Because the thing that really struck me is, overall, in most countries, the happiest generation is the youngest generation. In the US, we were exactly the opposite. Our happiest generation is the Boomer. And then each subsequent generation just gets less happy. And by the time we get down to Gen Z, it's dismal. And that's alarming. Because we know that how happy you are in adolescence is a predictor of your happiness in adulthood. Where would you like to start unpacking this ginormous subject on? Because I'd really like to talk about what's driving it. And then, also, what we can do? Because there's no easy way to turn this around. [00:03:56] DH: No. No. There isn't. When you just mentioned that how happy you are at a young age, in your teen years, is a predictor of how happy you'll be later in life, the truly disturbing fact is that tends to be your happiest point in life. Your teenage years, you tend to be happier than you are later. If they're starting at a lower set point, that does not bode well for the future. If they're already less happy than 30-year-olds, how much less happier are they going to be when they're 30 than 30-year-olds right now? It's very concerning. And the question that everybody has to be asking is why are they less happy than prior generations? Why are they less happy than their peers in other countries or in other regions of the world? It's very concerning. And it's something that people really should be standing on the rooftop screaming, "We've got to do something about this." [00:04:47] PF: Yeah. I think it's like an all-hands-on-deck kind of crisis. Because if they're not happy, then they're giving birth to the next generation. You can just kind of extrapolate what goes on down the line if we can't turn this around. [00:05:01] DH: It's not something that's going to fix itself. It's something that people need to start looking at and saying, "Okay, what's causing this? How do we make changes? What is controllable?" It's always like, "Well, that's great. But I can't really control that." But there's a lot more that as a society we can control and influence that I think we realize. But we have to start. And the way to start is by at least talking about it. [00:05:24] PF: Absolutely. After we had talked about that, you were going to look up some things. Because you were very inspired not just from a professional standpoint. But as you mentioned, personally, you have children who fall into this age group and below. What were some of the things that you found as triggers that are preventing children from being happier? [00:05:45] DH: Well, I think two things really struck me as being things that impact the younger generations right now. And one of them is directly related to where they are in life. My kids – this is not being a scientist. Everything in the world around children is going to somehow be related to my children and to my brain. My kids are looking at college. They're looking at going to college. They're looking at what kind of life am I going to have after college? And I've had several dialogues with my son and his friends about I'm never going to be able to buy a house I'm like, "You're 16. What makes you think you're never going to be able to buy a house?" And they look out and they see the economy and they see all of the information about how expensive you're looking at going to college. How expensive going to college has become relative to what you earn afterwards. They see rising interest rates. They see rising home prices. And if you tell someone who's 16 years old that they're going to have to graduate from college $200,000 in debt and buy a house that's going to cost them $300,000 $400,000, they're like, "What? I will never be able to do that." Numbers they can't get their heads around. But more importantly, the media and the economy is telling them they won't. When we're looking at what's going on in the world and we're exposed to media, our kids are super exposed. I mean, they're on their phones. They talk to their friends. We all know that depending on which version of the internet you're looking at, which site you're looking at, you get different views. And their views may not be what we're seeing. But we do know that they look at the world very differently than the way we look at it. There's a great book by Jason Dorsey called Zconomy which really examines the difference about how young people approach business. How they approach looking for a job. How they approach everything in life. And how different it is from the way the Millennials, the Generations Z and how they approach it. And one of the interesting things to me that he points out is they're more like Generation X. They're more like my generation. How they think about it than they are with the Millennials. And what's cool about that to me is, first of all, I'm Generation X. Therefore, I can relate. And my kids think I'm cool. No. But I like to think they think I'm cool. But when I was growing up, we were coming out of massive inflation. We were coming out of the Reagan Era. There was a concern about jobs. We were pre-recession. But there was this hugely unstable economic outlook in our minds. And so, we all became focused on doing better, on personal achievement. Generation X is very focused on doing what they can do to control their environment, and career path, and working harder. And what's interesting is Generation Z is like that. Although, they don't have the hope that we had. We were always kind of told we can work really hard and control our future. And for some reason, all of this financial information and all this financial fear is manifesting differently in them. I don't think they have the hope they're going to be able to achieve what their parents achieved. That American dream of every generation's better. Maybe we've kind of reached the end of that where they're thinking I just want to catch up. I'm not looking to being better. I'm looking to not falling backwards. [00:09:03] PF: And do you think, too, growing up with parents who maybe are millennials or even Gen X and those parents were given everything and didn't learn how to save in the ways that they spend their money differently? And now Gen Z is like, "I don't want to be broke. I want to be able to do these things." [00:09:24] DH: I will say that Gen X and Millennials, as we know, are more likely to have credit card debt than Baby Boomers. Right? And they're more likely to be in debt. And I do think that there is a debt fear that the next generation doesn't want to be in debt because they've seen the oldest part of that generation live through the 2008 economic crisis. But the youngest part didn't. My son is 17. He was born in 2007. He does not remember 2008 when people were losing jobs and homes. But it does have a follow-on effect. There's that I don't want to be in debt. I don't want to owe people money. I just want to live my life. One of the good things I think though is, like the millennial generation, they care more about the environment. They care more about the planet. They care more about all of that. Here's the challenge. That doesn't necessarily manifest itself in hope. Right? [00:10:14] PF: And right now, it's more like a discouraging thing. Because every day we're seeing like, "Oh, here's one more atrocity that's being committed against the planet." And it's like just that constant drum beat of one more thing going wrong. One more species being extinct. [00:10:30] DH: And you look at it from a standpoint of – last night I was talking to my son and he needed to buy something. I pulled out my phone. I was going to order on Amazon. He's like, "Mom, don't order it on Amazon." I'm like, "Why?" He goes, "That's bad for the environment." Like, what? Everything gets trucked. Everything gets moved. But in his mind, having an individual package sent to the house is bad for the environment. Versus him going to the store and buying it. And I'm like, "Well, you use the same gas in the store to get –" never mind. Let's not introduce logic into the conversation. And he said, "I don't want to support big business. I want to support small business. I don't want conglomerates." That's what's in their head. They're scared of the environment. They're scared of their financial future. They don't see enough action being taken to improve those things. They don't know where they're going to end up. They don't know that the same jobs are going to be there. We look at AI like, "Oh, this is really cool." They look at AI like I was going to be a developer. I was going to be a writer. Am I going to have a job? [00:11:24] PF: Right. Do I just need to learn how to write prompts? Is that what my future holds? [00:11:29] DH: The future holds – scarier, right? A little scarier. I do think that that – now describing a problem, you hope there's a solution. I don't know what the solution is. But I do know that I think that has created a lot of what they're seeing and feeling. And as parents and as people interact with young people, we need to be cognizant of that's their starting place. Their starting place is the world is not healthy. Our generation is killing the Earth. Our opportunity isn't the same as your opportunity. I'm never going to be able to afford a house. I'm going to graduate – if I graduate from high school and go to college, I'm going to end up in a ton of debt. If I graduate from high school and get a job, I'm not going to have the same opportunities I would have had had I gone to college. It's a horrible choice to have to make. For some reason, that generation is focused on not what could be but what is right now. [00:12:18] PF: It's so very interesting. And as you and I have talked, one of the big things driving their mindset is what they see on social media. Because unlike where we grew up with television. And let's face it, it was a pretty sugarcoated TV land when you and I were growing up. We didn't have Dateline with a new dead person every week. It was a completely different world. the social media and how it is just constantly exposing them to new tragedies, to new dangers, to new ways to bully one another, what do you see that doing? You and I have talked about some of the studies that we've read. Can we kind of unpack that a little bit? [00:12:59] DH: I do think social media is a huge. And we go to conferences where they talk about social media having a huge negative impact. We need to acknowledge though social media has a positive impact as well. The positive impact is the ability to communicate, to build relationships, to find like-minded people. Maybe you live in a small town and no one around you seems to have the same interests as you have. You can go on social media and actually interact and have some meaningful touch points with people that are like you and figure out that you're not that weird. That there are other people like you in the world. Or have a conversation with somebody that maybe lives a long way away or maybe still talking to friends at school but you're able to communicate with a larger group and it feels more social and a little less isolated. Because we all know, social isolation is a big driver of depression and negative outlook on life. I do think, in a lot of ways, social media has helped kids feel more involved, more included. Flip side of that of course is the bullying and stuff like that. Is tragic and is an issue. But for me – we could do a whole episode on online bullying. But for me, I think the bigger thing is this FOMO, right? And this not having a good image of yourself when you engage not in that dialogue nature of social media. But in the observing nature of social media. There's this great study that was done. I think it was done by the Mayo Clinic. I'm not sure. Don't quote me on that once again. Not a scientist. But it talks about how, in adolescence, the part of your brain that processes emotions, it develops faster than the part that develops judgment critical thinking. You can have emotions and you can make decisions emotionally as teenagers are prone to do. We all know teenagers do not necessarily stop and think. That critical thinking isn't there. You can respond emotionally to content you're seeing on social media and not really think about it critically. That can develop body image issues in girls particularly. Well, although, boys as well. My son goes to the gym all the time and he really is focused on how he looks as well as being healthy. But body image issues can come into it. Because even though you're seeing it on social media, you don't necessarily think that's not real. Unless it's obviously not real, right? And the other thing is they can see people doing things. And those people look really happy. And they can emotionally react and go, "All those people – that looks like so much fun because all those people are doing it." And then they think, in order to be happy, they need to do that. [BREAK] [00:15:32] PF: We'll get right back to my conversation about Gen Z and mental health. But in addition to this being Mental Health Awareness Month, we have Mother's Day right around the corner. And if you have a new mom in your life, why not give her the gift of a good night's sleep? Did you know that 70% of new parents lose about 3 hours of sleep every night during their baby's first year? Why not help her make the most of the hours she does get with luxurious bedding from Cozy Earth? These super soft bamboo sheets will immediately become her favorite thing. 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Franne Golde is providing Live Happy now listeners 20% off their first order of $75 or more. Go to frannegolde.com/podcast and use code HAPPY for 20% off. That's frannegolde.com/podcast for 20% off your order of $75 more with code HAPPY. And now, let's get back to talking about Gen Z. [INTERVIEW CONTINUED] [00:17:35] DH: There's this discordance between what they're seeing and what's real. You brought up we watched television. We watched television. We knew that wasn't real. [inaudible 00:17:44] wasn't real. We knew the Loveboat wasn't real. [00:17:48] PF: Wait. Wait. What? [00:17:52] DH: Fantasy Island wasn't real. We watched it and it was entertaining. But we knew that wasn't real life. Social media, I don't think kids get that the image – I think they get it if you talk to them about it. They know it's not real. But, emotionally, they're reacting to it. And so, they may know it's not real. But they still create worry and concern in them. Too much social media, it creates this image that they think they need to live up to. And then they add on, "I'm never going to have enough money. I'm never going to be cute enough. I'm never going to –" whatever it is. It creates a problem. And I do think that's a big driver of why they're unhappy. [00:18:29] PF: There's an organization called Ruling Our eXperiences and they deal with how social media affects young girls. And one of the things that they found is how greatly it – as you had talked about the eating disorders. But it said it also is leading to mental health things like suicidal ideation. And it's become more accepted among teenage girls to go to that place. We didn't have that issue growing up. You didn't think these kids are picking on me, I'm going to go kill myself. And I've seen things recently where there was like an 8-year-old boy that committed suicide after being bullied. And it's just online. And it's just astounding to me that these things are filtering through to our children. Those are the outcomes that we're getting because they somewhere are getting the message that that's the only way out. [00:19:18] DH: Yeah. It's tragic. And we do know – we do know that there's more suicidal ideation comes along. But the question is, for me, it's always is it just that people are talking about it more? Or is it actually new? And then when you start looking like an 8-year-old, thank God, that's a huge outlier. But it's not as taboo to talk about as it was when I was growing up, for sure. It was a really rare occurrence that you heard about it or thought about it. Heard about it at school. It just was not that prevalent. And so, you kind of wonder how much just introducing an idea is part of an issue. Right? But then again, if you don't talk about it, then you can't solve the problem. This stuck. One of the things that I thought was really interesting, and I know I started off this way on social media, was we always want to point at the negatives without pointing at the positives. And I think when we look at generation, we really need to look at the fact that they were hit much harder by the pandemic than any other group. And social media helped get them through that, that isolation sense. [00:20:23] PF: Yes. [00:20:25] DH: But that pandemic I also think significantly contributed in our country overall negative outlook. By social isolation, I mean kids staying home for two years as opposed to going to school. [00:20:38] PF: And this was during key times of development. How does a kindergartner learn social skills if they've been at home for two years? [00:20:47] DH: Right. And then a lot of them, homeschoolings weigh up as a result too. Kids didn't go back to school. They continued their social isolation, which is interesting. Like, "Oh, they could go back to school. But now they're comfortable at home. They don't want to. They don't want to go back out and interact with people." And you hear about people that were at the wrong time in terms of development and they missed their prom, they missed their graduation. They started school. But I'm not as concerned about them. Because that's going to end up being – that was a really sad thing. But you kind of got your social skills by the time you're 16 or 17. But you're right. 10-year-olds are very different. They're not fully socially developed. They haven't figured out how to interact. Doing team projects at school. Just playing on the playground. All that stuff, which decades of research showing how important that stuff is to kids is just gone for a couple years. And they ended up in their little cocoon and their little bubble. And there's fear of social interaction. Learning how to interview for a job, learning how to write a resume, all that stuff that we need to teach not in college. You need to learn how to do that in high school. Well, there were no jobs to go get. You missed that too. There's just so much that they missed. I look back and I'm like I would be so sad if I didn't have that part of my life. And they didn't. [00:22:08] PF: Yeah. Like you said, there's no way to go reclaim that. We don't get a doover starting in 2020. Although, I think we all deserve one. But, yeah, especially the kids. How do we start reaching out? And how do we start creating a different world knowing what they're going through? [00:22:28] DH: Well, I think, first thing, except there's a problem. First of all – and the World Happiness Report is great. There's a problem we have to start talking about. I don't think anyone knows the answers. They kind of know the answers to various smaller issues, like social media intrinsically is not bad. But we should monitor what our children are doing on social media. We should know what they're doing. We should monitor the amount of time. We should balance online interactions with real-world interactions. Don't leave them to their own devices. Don't say, "Oh, well, here – literally device. Here's your iPad and go." In fact, my kids call – probably not a nice word, but they'll call not a nice descriptor. But they'll say that's an iPad kid. Meaning that kid doesn't socially interact. [00:23:14] PF: Wow. That is amazing. That is amazing that it now it actually has that phrase. [00:23:19] DH: It's a negative connotation. And I'm like, "Don't say that." But that's what they mean, "Oh, that's an iPad kid." We as parents need to acknowledge that we're responsible for how much time, and how much interaction, and what they're doing, and knowing what's on. I mean, my kids hate it. But you will keep your find my phone on. Because if I can't find your phone, I can't find you. And if I can't find you and I can't find your phone, you don't need a phone. And I'll know where it's going to be. It's going to be here in the house. Right? But we need to take responsibility and not demonize social media. Because if you tell your kid it's all bad, you don't need to be doing it. You're not telling them the truth. I mean, when we did research for this podcast, as light as it was, being that we're not scientists, but when we did research for this podcast, where did we go? We went online. [00:24:08] PF: Internet. Yeah. [00:24:09] DH: We went to the internet. I mean, the internet's a tool. It's pervasive in their life. Y ou can't take that away. That's not going to work. And social media is part of that tool. I need to do a deep dive into X, Y, Z. And I find a Facebook group that talks about X, Y, Z. It's part – actually, they wouldn't find a Facebook. They'd find an Instagram. But – [00:24:30] PF: Or TikTok. Until it's banned. [00:24:31] DH: Or TikTok. Exactly. But it by itself is not evil or detrimental. But we have to monitor what they're doing. We have to know what they're doing. We have to set limits and boundaries and be parents. And we also need to encourage them to develop face-to-face social skills. Actually, get out and talk to people. Learn how to shake somebody's hand. Learn how to have a conversation. Learn how to interact with somebody who's an adult on a regular basis. But we're not going to fix it by fixing social media. Social media itself doesn't fix it, right? But I do think it all stems back to having the dialogue. Understanding that where the youth go is where we go. This country, the United States, was really built in its current form by the Baby Boomer generation. I mean, I'm Generation X. I'm right behind them. But if you look at everything in our society in general, it's Boomers that are – which is a negative word too. iPad kids and Boomers. It was really built by that generation. And as Millennials and Generation Z move into positions of power and authority, they're going to have control over our economy and over our lives. And what they care about is different than maybe what the Boomers cared about. And acknowledging that, and having dialogue, and caring, and paying attention to what they care about and starting to work on some of those things. I mean, I don't know or care what any listener's position is on global warming. But I will tell you that our generation, our generation Z, they aren't talking about global warming. They're talking about impact, litter, oceans being dirty, air being dirty. They are looking at the whole thing of are we taking care of the Earth. In a way, I think past Generations really didn't. Even though they said that they did. That generation is fully embedded in polar bears are dying. We need to take care of the oceans. And we're missing out on animals that used to exist. And we have too much pollution. And they'll even tell you, "But electrical cars aren't the answer because there's battery parts that are bad for the –" they're looking for answers that they don't have. [inaudible 00:26:56] find them. [00:26:57] PF: Yeah. And I think this this is where it's really – where you talk about social media and the internet having so much purpose. What is done – we used to be so removed at polar bears are dying. But that didn't affect me. Now they're watching a video. They are seeing things in real life. And it affects them profoundly. [00:27:16] DH: It does. And a lot of it has to do with – back to the point that they are emotionally developed but not critically developed, critical thinkers. Has to do with their source. If somebody is attaching great meaning to something, they're incredibly smart, they don't have the cognitive reasoning that jumps in to say, "Is that right?" right away. They can be easily swayed by what they're seeing. And I'll tell you one thing that drives me crazy is advertisers know that. [00:27:45] PF: Yes. [00:27:45] DH: They know that if they drop that ad into social media and they get an emotional reaction either because it's funny or because – it's not as simple as we were. It's like it was cool. No. They actually make them laugh or they make them cry. They know that whatever it is they're advertising is going to be affiliated with that emotion. They know that. And that there's not necessarily critical thinking to parse that in younger people, in teenagers even. And so, they take advantage of that. We just have to be cognizant of the fact that they don't have straightforward news like we used to have. Just the facts, ma'am. Right? That doesn't exist anymore. They get all of everything that's going on in the world from a million different directions. Some of it's cultivated. Some of it's made up. Some of it's got meaning attached to it. We need to have those offline conversations. And as non-parents, have those offline conversations. Don't just assume it's just going to happen. That somehow these people are miraculously going to figure out that that's not real, or that this is real, or that this isn't important. And know that everything that we're bombarding everybody with, including ourselves, is manipulating us in one way or another. Try not to do that. They need to know that it's going to be okay. And I don't think the way our media is set up, you and I have talked all about, I can't tell you how many times I've said be wary of what you put in your head, my kids, to people we've talked about, Live Happy, you worry what you put in your head. So you start believing it. And they are inundated with stuff that tells them they're less than, that tells them there's something to be scared of. We've got to start balancing that with the other side. There's a lot to hope for. There's a lot of good coming down the pipe. We've got to spend time and energy creating that content. And aren't we lucky that we get to do that for a living, Paula? [00:29:35] PF: I love that. But you know what? I'd also love to hear is what our listeners think. I'd love to hear what they're doing with their children, with other Gen Z. If they want to drop us an email, editor@livehappy.com, and let us know. And let us know what you'd like to hear more on this topic. Because it is a mental health crisis that we've got to resolve. Because it's not going to resolve itself. [00:29:59] DH: Well, and our commitment to our listeners is you're like, "Yeah, you guys have been babbling about the problem. Didn't feel any better today." That's okay. Our commitment to our listeners is we're going to try and get some of the experts out there that are studying this on the podcast. Not next week. We're going to be doing some additional podcasts on this topic in the future. Some more expertise than we have. But it was such a standout moment in the World Happiness Report this year. We felt it was worth talking about. And at least creating the thought or the dialogue where people can say, "Hey, we need to be talking about this." Because we do. We really, really do. I think if you don't know how disenfranchised that generation is feeling right now, you just need to be aware that that's what's going on with them. And we've got a moral obligation to help them find success and find happiness in their lives. And they're not starting from a good spot. [00:30:55] PF: All right. Well, we'll do what we can. We'll start working on it. [00:30:59] DH: All right. You get on that, Paula. [00:30:59] PF: Yeah. I'll put it on my to-do list. But, thank you. Yeah, thank you for having this conversation. As you said, we are going to be talking with some experts about it. Bringing some other people in to really look at specific areas that we can make improvements in. Specific things that we can do. And, again, we'd love to hear from our listeners, editor@livehappy.com. We want to know what you want to hear and what you're. [OUTRO] [00:31:27] PF: That was Live Happy's CEO and Co-Founder, Deborah Heisz, talking with me about Gen Z and mental health. We'd love to hear what you think about this topic. Be sure to drop us a line at editor@livehappy.com and tell us what you think. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. And until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]