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Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Your Happiest Summer Yet With Maureen Healy  [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 372 of Live Happy Now. Summer should be all about fun and happiness. So this week, we're looking at how to make this your family's happiest summer yet. I'm your host, Paula Felps, this week I'm talking with educator and children's emotional health expert, Maureen Healey. Her new book, The Happiness Workbook for Kids, looks at how to navigate the difficult times we're in and create fun, positive experiences for children. She's here today to talk about some of the things we all can do to make this summer happier and healthier for the whole family. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:39] PF: Maureen, welcome to Live Happy Now. [00:00:41] MH: Thanks for having me. [00:00:43] PF: Well, we want to have you on the show because we're kicking off a month-long summer of fun here at Live Happy. You're all about fun and happiness, so perfect fit. I wanted to talk to you because summer is, obviously, all about fun. That's why we're doing this celebration. But the past couple of years have been so tough on everyone. Why does that make it even more important for us to get really intentional about having fun, not just for our children, but for ourselves this summer? [00:01:12] MH: Well, I think you we're all in the process to differing degrees and for different reasons for bouncing back and becoming resilient. I think that that resilience is sort of the foundation for emotional health and a happier life. We all want to become happier. It's just a natural inborn urge. The more we do that, it seems like every other piece of our life goes well. [00:01:33] PF: That's very true. But it can be difficult sometimes because there are people who still feel hesitant or feel like they're just not in a space where fun is really on the books right now. What would you say to them? [00:01:46] MH: Well, I mean, I think they are correct. Life has cycles. Sometimes, we want to learn how to expand the cycles that are really joyful and fun. If we're in a challenging cycle, I mean, we don't necessarily just put a motor on it and fly through it. But we want to move through challenges as rapidly and properly as quick and easily as we can. Knowing that, whoever's listening, you have power over your thoughts, right? You have power over when you think of that. You have a feeling, and that feeling could be, “I'm learning from this. I'm moving in a better direction today.” [00:02:17] PF: Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that you talk about is positive emotional health and how that's a route of becoming happier. I love that because that's exactly what we talked about here. So can you talk about that for children? Where can parents start, and what does it mean for children to have positive emotional health? [00:02:36] MH: It's a great question. We could spend hours on that. Let's see. What can I say? Well, I wrote a book The Emotionally Healthy Child for parents. Then my recent book, The Happiness Workbook for Kids, is really for children, so they can have their own emotional ahas. Because we really want to help them early on understand their emotions and how they work and discover what they can do to express them constructively versus destructively screaming and slamming doors. We've all done it, but having to make smart choices and then like helping them figure out what direction happier is in, right? So you really can't become happier until you, on a consistent basis, know how your emotions work and what you can do with them. You have the appropriate relationship to your emotions, knowing that you're bigger than your feelings. When I work with little kids, and they say, “Oh, I’m so angry,” I say, “Did the anger feel bigger than you?” They're like, “Absolutely.” So helping them understand they're bigger than their emotions, that gives them the power of choice and what does emotional health look like. I mean, it can look different. But I guess a good way to think of it is emotional health is a skill of balance, and it's learning how to get back to your center and get back on balance. It has to do with flexibility versus rigidity. You want to be able to have that flexible thinking. Things happen in our life that are challenging. How do we get back to center and make a good choice in the next moment? So emotional health is being able to find your balance once again and having that emotional toolbox and the thoughts and the people around you that can support you and help move you in the right direction. [00:04:07] PF: I know some parents are like, “Well, how can I help my child do that? Because I'm a mess right now.” A lot of people are very off balance right now. They're still trying to deal with what's happened and the uncertainty of what's going on right now and the greater uncertainty of the future. So how can parents who don't feel like they're in a good space help their children discover that positive emotional health? [00:04:29] MH: Yeah. It's great. I mean, that's why I wrote the book The Emotionally Healthy Child or the latest one, The Happiness Workbook for Kids. The biggest feedback I get from parents is like, “Forget my kids. These are good for me,” because it's true. Emotional Health is a lifelong endeavor, right? It's not a box we check. One week we're learning forgiveness. The next week we're learning like anger management. The next week we're learning tolerance. It’s learning together as a family or as friends. That is really helpful and that it's true. Everything does begin in the family and the more that parents can learn alongside their kids. That's why I really love giving kids like an activity from my workbook and saying, “Why don't you teach that to me,” and having them be the boss. Because all of a sudden, they don't even realize that they're learning, and it puts them in a position of power, so they feel all jazzed up. So there's creative ways to work with kids so that you can learn as well. [00:05:22] PF: Oh, I really like that. Because I think everybody wants a really good summer this year. Everybody feels like we've earned it. We've put in some really rough times. We want this to be something that feels better again. For you, what's a great starting point for such a summer? [00:05:39] MH: Well, I think it's like anything in the world. Like if you're flying a plane from New York to LA, you need to know where you're going. So it's kind of like envisioning in your mind. You’re creating some sort of like playful map or something. I would say to a child, “Like what would be the most fun summer? Like what would we be doing?” Maybe you can't do everything like Disneyland in Paris, but maybe you can put some things on the list that you can do and have things to look forward to. What's exciting to me may not be exciting to you. But having things that you do together that create positive memories, that you can take photographs and put around the house, and also things that just sort of are joyful, I think, fill your happiness bucket. [00:06:21] PF: I love that because the art of planning gives you that anticipatory savoring as you have things to look forward to, and that just elevates you way before the event ever happens, no matter how big or small that event is. [00:06:36] MH: Then if you take pictures of that event, maybe go to the zoo or Safari or something local. Afterwards, you can see. You remind yourself of that event and how much fun you had. That immediately boosts your happiness mood too. [00:06:48] PF: Yeah. I've seen a lot of articles, a lot of information about people. Just leaving pictures from your vacation in your cubicle at work can improve your work day because you think you'd be like, “Oh, I wish I was there.” Which you are but you also have that instant like, oh, those great emotions that are associated with it. [00:07:06] MH: Absolutely. [00:07:07] PF: So how can parents still help children bounce back from the challenges of the past couple years because they have been under stress, and we do want to move forward? But there's a lot of processing that needs to be done, and we've had some horrible events happen in the last couple of weeks as well. So what are some tips that parents can use as they move into a lighter mood? But how can they help children process some of the grief, some of the anxiety they might be going through? [00:07:34] MH: Yeah. I don't think it's a magic wand, but I do think there are a few key ideas. One of them is if – Depending on the age of your child. But oftentimes, if it's a scary topic, whether it's a school shooting or something else that's worrying your child, talking about it relieves that stress. So talking about scary things helps lower the stress, and you're going to want to do things, like you mentioned, that lower the stress, lower the anxiety, lower the worry, lower any of the challenging emotions so that they can come back to center and feel calm and make good choices. Part of that is not putting additional stress. Not that parents are, but some parents are like, “Oh, we're going to set you up with Kumon.” Not that Kumon’s bad, but you don't want to over schedule the summer either. Do you know what I'm saying? [00:08:17] PF: Right. Yeah. [00:08:18] MH: You want to actually just play and have fun and learn new things. Maybe we garden. Maybe we learn how to cook a new meal. We do something that's more organic and joyful, and helps us remember that we actually liked each other, and this can be fun. [00:08:34] PF: Kids are different. So how do you discover what is going to make each child happier at different stages in life? Because I know, as a child, what worked for me one summer certainly didn't work the next summer, and I was very different from my sister. So how do you kind of break that down? [00:08:50] MH: It's such a great question. It’s funny because as I look at my own life and look at the kids in my life, we're always given clues, right? Like we're always saying – Allowing kids to wear many different hats. Like you said, maybe one summer it's Girl Scout camp. Maybe the next summer it’s zoo camp. Maybe the next summer it's no camp but allowing us to try different things and to also explore. I oftentimes will ask someone, “Hey, make a list of all the different things you want to do this summer,” and get their own input. Have them decide what it is that's going to “ring your bell.” Like what is that going to be really cool this summer? Is it doing Lego camp? Or is it robotics or a Maker Camp? Or is it no camp, and you want to learn how to write a book or you want to learn how to design a website or you really just want to sit in the hammock in the backyard? I mean, giving them options. But I do think certain things, exercise, being in nature, having a creative outlet, something they really love, allowing them to have that free time to do something they love is really important. [00:09:52] PF: How important is it for us to get them outside this year? Because we've been kind of cooped up for a while, but I see now, what I'm hearing from parents is the kids don't necessarily want to leave indoors now. They've got games. They've got a lot of social online things that they're addicted to and don't necessarily want to explore the outdoors. So how do we get over that? [00:10:13] MH: I think there's a two-part answer to that question. [00:10:16] PF: Multiple. [00:10:18] MH: I think one part is we have to be really careful as adults because oftentimes children and kids mimic us. I'm saying that because I'm at fault too sometimes. I want to do work or I want to watch a movie or I want to – But when I get myself out hiking, oh, I love life. I feel free. There's an ease. So really making an effort and intention, and I don't think it's about forcing kids per se. But I think it is – I'm a big person, and I believe in family meetings. Everyone should have a voice. Maybe one child just doesn't like to be outside. They like to go to the mall or like to be on the computer. But for the sake of the family, everyone gets a day, and they pick something, and we all take turns. It's important to be cooperative, and it's important to step away from the computer, especially if you have a child that has a hard time or you have a hard time unplugging. I know that our nervous system really gets amped up when we're hooked into whether it's media or online or screens. So getting away, whether it's forest bathing or whatever we want to call it and just relaxing our nervous system really does so much good for us for our physical, mental, emotional health. [00:11:28] PF: Yeah. So oftentimes when – It was funny. I was interviewing some parents yesterday, and they talk about how they have four children and say three of them will be in agreement on, “Yeah, let's go do this.” Then one is like, “No, I don't want to do it.” She said, “So they'll just go ahead and start it. Pretty soon, that fourth child comes around because he sees they're having fun. Now, all of a sudden, that FOMO kicks in. It's like, “Well, wait a minute. Maybe what I'm doing isn't as great as I thought. Let's get out there and do it.” [00:11:54] MH: That's great. [00:11:55] PF: But let's talk about some of your strategies because, obviously, you have a whole workbook full of ideas. One thing I really wanted to jump on is your creativity. You say creativity is a great way to increase happiness, and I was so glad to see that. I've got a very good friend in Cincinnati who teaches creativity for kids’ classes. One thing she said is that she sees kids coming out of the pandemic with a lower creativity level. They've been sitting in front of screens, they haven't been interacting, and she's really having to do a lot more work. So kind of a two-part question is, one, how do we get children’s creative juices flowing again? Then why is it so important to practice creativity? [00:12:40] MH: So I'm a believer that creativity – We have to be courageous to be creative because you have to be okay with failing. Because when you're creative, there are things that work out and things that don't work out, and that's okay. But you really have to be okay with not always getting it right. So that's important to nurture that not only growth mindset but that mindset of progress, not perfection. Then the idea of why is creativity important, it's important because it gives us an outlet to express our emotions. That's one. But in another sense, creativity is important because on the very mundane level, like people think they're in competition, right? But when you get to the creative level, it's like there's more than enough space for everyone. Everyone's different. Everyone's unique. Everyone has unique talents. It allows for that joyful expression of who we are. So that's important. Also, creativity, if you can trust your instincts, you can trust your creative instincts. You can become a little more intuitive. You can get good instincts. You can be in the right place at the right time. Although it's not directly scientifically tied to happiness, most people who are uber successful have learned how to have. They trust their instincts, and I think that makes them happier. [00:13:52] PF: So what are some of the things that parents can do to help nurture that creativity and bring it out in their children? [00:13:57] MH: It depends on the child. I think you can be creative in any field. So you can be creative designing your website. You can be creative in the kitchen, cooking. You can be creative sewing. You can be creative outside. Like right now, I'm doing some landscaping. I had some friends and some other kids come by, and I said, “Well, how would you design this? Like let's map it out?” So there’s – [00:14:18] PF: Oh, I like that. [00:14:19] MH: Yeah. So I'm a big believer. Like ask kids what they want to do and nurture their interests and allow them to be creative. I think sometimes, as adults, we get used to this thing should be done this way. Or this is the only way. But look at the world. Adults have gotten us into a few little hiccups here. [00:14:38] PF: Track records are not great lately. [00:14:40] MH: Right. So we really need the creative, innovative solutions from this younger generation. Not that they're going to solve all these big problems of adults right now, but they are able to come up with creative solutions if we ask them and if we give them freedom, if we allow them to – Sometimes, they'll fail. Sometimes, they'll succeed. But give them the freedom to come up with new ideas on how to do something. Even if you help them and say, “All right, let's decide. You're going to have I don't want to say a vacation day or a fun day off. We're all going to go somewhere.” Think of different options and present it to the family. Like allow them to really get excited about things they think is important. [00:15:17] PF: Yeah. I love that idea because it feels like there just hasn't been enough to get excited about lately. I think having even small things that they can really, really get excited about is going to be huge. I think what a great emotional boost that's going to be for them. [00:15:32] MH: Yeah. It doesn't have to be a grand gesture. I just saw someone. They have a butterfly exhibit. Well, that's fantastic. It can be something local. It doesn't have to be enormous. [00:15:41] PF: Right. It can be a little day at the theme park or whatever you need. Another thing that you talk about is helping others as a way to boost happiness. One, this is such a great lesson to teach children. Just everything about this aspect is fantastic. So can we talk about that? Like why is it so important to teach our children the happiness quotient of helping others? [00:16:05] MH: Yeah. It's a good question. Well, first of all, I think we're all interconnected, right? We're ultimately – If the pandemic has shown us anything, it's shown us that we're in it together. But I would say that the me, me, me self-centeredness experience that we all sort of start out with as a young person, that just brings us unhappy feelings. But when we begin to extend ourselves, helping your friend with the homework, walking the dog for mom or dad, or doing little things to bigger things, we naturally feel helpful. We feel happier. It just gives you that boost. So recognizing the we, we, we idea of like we’re in it together is really something that can help boost mood. As soon as you help someone else, you forget about your own problems. Like you forget what you were worried about, what you were anxious about. So it takes you out of that thing that's been troubling you. It can even be something small like, “Mom or dad, what can I do around the house?” It can even be – Some kids are motivated by money. I remember when I was little. This is a silly story, but my parents knew that I always needed a project. I had a lot of energy. I did. I had a lot of energy. They're like, “We’ll give you a penny for every weed you pick in the backyard.” I'm like, “All right, I'll take them all.” So you can harness what motivates someone, and they can be helpful, and they can learn, “Oh, I actually enjoyed doing that.” [00:17:26] PF: Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's a great way to do it. Then what kind of skills are you setting them up for the rest of their life? Like when they discover, “Wow, if I'm doing something that's helping others, and it makes me happier,” I think how is that going to change the trajectory of their life? [00:17:42] MH: It also allows them to realize like, “I can choose a career later in life, or I can choose something to do with my life that feels more fun, more playful, and I can actually get paid for it.” I like that idea because we do need more people who are excited and interested about their work. [00:17:58] PF: At Live Happy, we talk a lot about gratitude. So you also talk about gratitude. I was so interested that you talk about starting a child on a gratitude journal because we've only ever discussed it in terms of adulthood, and I think maybe teens. But, wow, how do you start with a child, start doing a gratitude journal, and start them thinking about gratitude from their perspective? [00:18:23] MH: Yeah. It's a great idea. I mean, we can certainly harness technology as well. Sometimes, they want to take pictures of things they're grateful for. But, I mean, I really love Martin Seligman’s three good things every night, where every night before you go to bed, you think of three good things from the day. Oftentimes, we'll get up to 10, 15, 20, and it's really awesome and really feel those. But other days, it's like, I'm like, “Okay, I got one,” and I'm like waiting and waiting. I’m like, “All right, two. I'm alive. Three, I'm healthy.” So I think it's the practice. It's those little habits that help plant the seeds, moving your mind in a more optimistic positive direction and also the idea of being grateful. It’s really feeling the feelings of gratitude, really feeling thankful, and then taking it to appreciation, which is demonstrating that gratitude. But I think with kids, it's really not just writing thank you notes and not thinking about it but feeling the feeling and saying, “Mom, I'm really thankful for this.” Or saying to your friend, “Thank you for your help, for lending me your pencil,” like really meaning it. I think those are important lessons because they are lifelong seeds that get planted. Like you said, the more grateful you are, the happier you are. It’s not about – I guess what I'm trying to say also is like kids really mimic us. So for us to do the best we can to develop a gratitude practice. It could be a journal, but it can also be something out loud, driving to school, driving and go get a cup of tea together in the car. You can say, “All right, what are we grateful for today?” “Oh, I don't want to do this.” “All right. Well, do it for me. Help me.” You know what I mean? Do it. Make it fun. [00:19:54] PF: Yeah. I was going to ask. So what if you have a child who's too young to write and that's a great age still to instill this practice in them? How would you go about that with younger kids? [00:20:05] MH: Well, I would make it really playful. Like what are the five things we can be grateful for that are purple? We can come up with – [00:20:11] PF: Oh, I love that. [00:20:12] MH: Do you know what I mean? With something that's just they can hold on to that's just silly. But they're beginning that practice. [00:20:20] PF: Then you just through the years move them into a bona fide gratitude practice. [00:20:24] MH: Yeah, and to the best of their ability. I mean, I'm not a fan of forcing things. But I do believe that when kids like start to do something, something even simple like three good things, eventually they feel like – Or even I've had parents do it like around the kitchen table. Everyone pick one nice thing or good thing they can say from the day. It starts to open up the dialog. Oh, you did that today? Oh, I did this today. Oh, you did that today. It starts to feel good. Like you have a voice in the family, and that's special too. [00:20:50 PF: Yeah. I have one friend who he and his wife started this, and now they have two young children. It's called what went well. So every night at dinner, that's what they would do, instead of – Because that dinner is a place where you sit down. It's like, “Oh, my god. You wouldn't believe what happened today.” Instead, it's like they sit down and go, “What went well today?” Each person tells what went well. He says after doing that, suddenly whatever didn't go well, unless it was really big, you kind of feel silly bringing it up. [00:21:20] MH: That's beautiful. Because I think that those are the small little low-hanging fruit practices that make a mighty difference for a child and actually for an adult too because I think if you don't have, I would say, control. But if you can't focus your mind where you want it to go, our minds are – They’re like little monkeys. They'll go anywhere. They'll go to, “What went wrong today, and this went wrong, and that went wrong, and I'm afraid of that. What if this happens?” It's like, “No, no, no, no. Let's focus on what went well.” Then your mood boosts up, and then you had the courage to handle the challenges. [00:21:50] PF: Yeah. Then also, you spend your whole day thinking about, “Okay, what am I going to say tonight?” So you are going through the day kind of looking for what is going well. [00:21:59] MH: Absolutely. [00:22:01] PF: You give so many great tips and practices in your book, and it all speaks to your point that becoming happier as a skill. Can you talk about that? How do we start looking at happiness as a skill and taking it on just as if we were going to improve any other skill in our life? [00:22:17] MH: Yeah. I guess I would say an important point that happiness isn't static. It's dynamic, right? We have days that are lemons, and we can make lemonade some days, and other days they’re just lemons. The idea of becoming happier, which would be better than before and improving our mood is a skill. So it's just like we said, with your friend who did the what went well. It’s like we can intentionally and consciously make choices on what to think, and even when things are really stinky. You can say, “Oh, well. I won't do that again.” We can learn. I remember years, decades ago. I showed up somewhere, and I had one shoe was brown, and one shoe was blue. I was like, “Oh, my goodness.” So, I mean, we all do silly things. Just focusing our mind that happier is a skill. It's a practice. Learning how to do the things that if you think of your emotional toolbox that you put in your toolbox, when you need to feel calm, you do X. You have a whole bunch of tools there to get calm. When you're feeling angry, this is what lowers your anger. When you're feeling sad, maybe you write in your journal or talk to a friend or just take a nap and wake up and feel better. You know what I mean? You do things that allow emotions to go through you and that there are no bad emotions. It's just really what you do with them. They're sort of all signposts to what's going on inside. Beginning to understand how those emotions work is really why I wrote The Happiness Workbook for Kids because it is a skill. It is. I know from my own life, you do certain practices, think certain thoughts. Allow yourself to realize that you do have the power to become happier, and then you become happier. [00:23:51] PF: That's fantastic. Can you tell us a little bit about the workbook? Because we are doing a giveaway. People can – After the interview, I'll tell them how they can go sign up to be part of the giveaway, and we'll also put it on our website. But tell us about the workbook and what it's like and what parents can expect from it. [00:24:06] MH: Great question. So I divided the workbook into three sections. The first is understanding your emotions. The second is expressing your emotions, meaning like expressing them constructively, making smart choices with them, even the tricky ones. Then the third section is becoming happier. So really, like we talked about gratitude. Lots of different practices that help you become happier. The Happiness Work for Kids is interesting because it helps children go through it and have their emotional ahas. But it's also something that parents can go through and get some ideas. The other thing that I was so excited and interested is a lot of teachers have been using it in the classroom. [00:24:45] PF: Oh, that makes sense. [00:24:46] MH: So that I love because there are certain activities, whether it's a smart choice, which I explained is it's good for you and good for others. For example, a choice for you to get your anger out is screaming, but it's not good for the whole class. So it's learning how to make smart choices. Oftentimes, parents had to help the younger kids. Like what are some smart choices at school if you feel big emotions? Or what are some foreign choices at home? Because I do believe that if you can pre-pave the path and help children identify the choices they have, they can make better choices. But sometimes, they're not thinking and they're reacting so quickly that it's just knee-jerk reactions. So it's helpful to go through the activities. The book that works with this book, I wrote before this book, was The Emotionally Healthy Child, and that's for adults. This is really the translation of that book for children. It's really how to give kids the ideas directly that can help them have those emotional ahas and realize that they're powerful co-creators. They can choose to become happier if they want, and it may take some practice like teachers and books and assistants. But I'm a big believer that nearly anyone can do it. [00:25:55] PF: It's so encouraging. I love hearing that. This is a skill that we just do not talk about enough. I love that teachers are picking this up. But I think what a great way to change the world is by teaching the children this skill of how to become happier. So thank you so much for the work you're doing, for creating this book and this path. I think a lot of us adults are going to take it because we need the ideas, and we'll use them for ourselves. But, again, thank you for coming on the show and talking about it. [00:26:24] MH: Thank you for having me. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:26:30] PF: That was Maureen Healy, talking about how to make this summer happier for your entire family. If you'd like to follow Maureen on social media or learn more about her books, visit our website at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. Throughout July, we're celebrating Live Happy’s summer of fun month. As part of that, we're giving away some prize packs that include great Live Happy merchandise, Maureen’s new book, The Happiness Workbook for Kids, and some other very cool family-friendly gifts. Visit our website or follow us on social media to learn more and find out how to enter. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Making Friends With Your Anxiety With Liza Kindred  [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 365 of Live Happy Now. Not to sound like a broken record, but May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Here at Live Happy, we're using this time to take on some of the tough topics surrounding mental health. I'm your host, Paula Felps, and throughout the month we're focusing on tools for better mental health. This week, I'm talking with Liza Kindred, author of the fabulous new Calm Your Anxiety Journal. Liza is a licensed minister, Reiki practitioner, and meditation teacher whose work has been featured in publications around the world. She's here today to talk about why we're so anxious and how making friends with her anxiety can help change the way it affects us. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:46] PF: Liza, welcome to Live Happy Now. [00:00:49] LK: Hi, Paula. I'm really excited to be here. Thank you for having me. [00:00:53] PF: This is a great conversation that I'm really looking forward to because what you have done with your book, Calm Your Anxiety Journal, is mind-blowing. I have read many books on anxiety. This is hands down the best book on anxiety I’ve ever picked up. [00:01:07] LK: Oh, my gosh. [00:01:09] PF: So before we dig into what it's all about and how important this is, let's talk about you. You teach meditation and you use a lot of Buddhist principles. Can you talk about what led you down the path and how you got to where you are? [00:01:22] LK: Yeah, thanks. Like so many people I think who end up in this space, I had kind of different careers before. I worked in technology, and I worked in fashion, and then I worked in fashion technology, so wearable tech for a while. I was designing and helping people build these, well, wearable tech devices. At the same time, in my personal life, I had started studying Buddhism, going to retreats, trying to live this kind of uninterrupted life. Then at work, I was really like designing devices that actually interrupt, like they're designed to be disruptive. After a while, I was like, “This isn't adding up. I'm not living my values to be like working.” I think we can all kind of see now with a lot of the downsides are to big technology. I was just starting to feel like that's not what I want to be putting out into the world anymore. So I kind of have shifted to focusing on the things that are near and dear to my heart and have given me so much benefit, which are things like meditation and mindfulness, which stems from my Buddhist path, and also doing things like helping people with anxiety, like we're going to talk about today, and just a variety of different healing modalities. It feels like a really special way to be able to live my values and put that out in the world. So hearing you say those things, it's like it makes my heart just like sore and like, “Oh, my gosh. I'm doing it, I think. I’m putting some good into the world, so thank you.” [00:02:49] PF: You're doing so much good. How did you make that transition in a career sense? A lot of us might start applying these principles and using these practices, but it doesn't mean that we can parlay that into an actual career like you've been able to do. [00:03:03] LK: Sure. Yeah. I mean, it is difficult, but I kind of took some baby steps. I initially stepped back into focusing on mindful technology, so kind of just baby stepping a little bit out of technology, trying to bring it. I was doing keynotes around the world, talking about how to bring the principles of mindfulness and the practices of mindfulness into technology and really trying to help people to be very cognizant and thoughtful about the tech that they're building. That was a good baby step into a different zone, but I still felt like I was serving our tech overlords in a way that didn't feel right. So I’ve kind of taken another step out. But at the same time, I have not ever been a monk on the side of a mountain. I very much live in this world, in the world of tech, in the world of stressed out deadlines, anxiety. Just recently, I'm not a New Yorker anymore. So my first book about meditation called Eff This! Meditation and this book about anxiety is really meant to meet people who are like, “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.” But I'm a caregiver. I have a job. I have to do all this stuff. So how do we actually fit this stuff in in like the real world? [00:04:13] PF: Yeah. I think that's what's so amazing about it because you do show us that it can be done with this balance because I feel like sometimes books on anxiety are too academic. It's like, “Okay, that's great. But if I'm not a researcher, who's spending my life hold up studying this, how am I going to actually live this way?” [00:04:31] LK: Right. If you have to like look up what the words even mean. It’s nice to have like an academic foundation. But, yeah, how do I apply this? It's like, “Okay, I wrote all those big words, but like now I'm feeling more anxious.” Something else I found out there was like I also just – I looked at like everything out there, and there are some great books about anxiety. No offense to anyone but I haven't found any other good journals about anxiety. In fact, one of them I found, one of the practices, was like, “List all the things that make you anxious.” I'm feeling more anxious just thinking about listing. What? [00:05:04] PF: Yeah. Because like what you focus on is what is going to grow. [00:05:08] LK: Right. Right. Like this need isn't big enough. I'm already anxious. 00:05:14PF: I'm going to need another journal. So how did anxiety become such a central focus for your messaging? [00:05:20] LK: Yeah. Well, I mean, we all have it. Increasingly, a lot of the time that I'm spending with my meditation students, it's like when we're sitting down on the cushion, and we're trying to meet ourselves where we are, so often where we are is like super anxious, and it's for really good reason. Like that's something else that I really want to be able to get across to people is just how much like anxiety makes sense, looking at what's going on around us. One of my favorite quotes was – It’s almost 100 years ago. Indian philosopher and poet named Jiddu Krishnamurti said, “It’s no measure of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society.” [00:06:04] PF: That needs to be on my coffee mug. [00:06:06] LK: Yes, yes. [00:06:07] PF: That's really good. [00:06:08] LK: Isn't it? 100 years ago he said that. So I'm like, “Well, of course, we're feeling anxious and all kinds of disease and struggling with mental health. Look around us.” But yet when it comes to like my anxiety and my problems, it's like we kind of blame ourselves for not coping. But it's like, “Oh, my gosh. We're coping great compared to what's happening.” [00:06:32] PF: All things considered. Yes. Did you start this book pre-pandemic, during the pandemic, or kind of what was the – [00:06:40] LK: Totally during. Yeah. It was totally during, and I had the opportunity, I mean, during quarantine to go really, really deep into it and really try to create something. Take like the most helpful pieces, the most solid pieces of things like cognitive behavioral therapy, CBT, and ABT, and mindfulness, and really like go deep into what is actually the most helpful for anxiety in the long run. So I'm really grateful that I actually had the opportunity to do that, like spend some real time and do a real deep dive, because I feel like then the journal and all the practices in the journal and even the order that the practices go in, are very intentionally designed to make a difference in the long term. Like not just in the short term. I think there's awesome vagal system, nervous system practices we can use to help calm ourselves down in a short term, but like we got to kind of get out of the anxiety cycle for it to make last long term. [00:07:34] PF: Well, and this is so comprehensive. Like it addresses so many different aspects of how anxiety affects us and how we deal with it. How did you make sure that you were covering so many bases? Because I think that’s what was mind-blowing too. Yeah. I was like, “Man, she just really left no stone unturned here.” [00:07:52] LK: Thanks for saying that. I mean, I read all. I got very, very academic. Like I really got in there and reading these like six 800-page academic books about stuff and trying to really understand that. It does cover a lot. But I also feel like to really make changes to our anxiety, we have to kind of understand all those different things. Like we were talking just before we started recording. We were talking about how anxiety is actually biological. It's physical, and that's not like a metaphor to say it like lives in the body. But it's actually like physically resides in there. It resides in our tissues, in our nervous system and the way that our synapses are firing. So I think that's really important. [00:08:34] PF: Yeah. I think it's important to there's been a lot of studies coming out very recently that talks about intergenerational trauma. So my family has a huge history of anxiety, and there was up until this point. I think a lot of people just felt like, “Well, it's just because your mom was anxious, so you learned anxiety. So you grew up anxious.” But now, you see, it is truly like an intergenerational thing that happens as well. [00:09:00] LK: When we're born to someone who was anxious when we were gestating. We're in the womb. That affects us. That kind of stuff really does pass down. As far as what genes are turned on or turned off, and yet I still feel like so many of us still, yeah, blame ourselves or like maybe blame another person like, “It's on me,” or, “It’s on my mom,” or whatever. But it is so much more complicated than that, like you're saying. [00:09:21] PF: Would you see less shame around it? Because I know, say 20 years ago, you wouldn't walk around and say, “I'm having issues with my anxiety.” You just didn’t. You could not. [00:09:30] LK: That’s so true. That’s so true. Yeah. Yeah. [00:09:34] PF: Now, I see people being a little bit more willing to talk about it. I think that has to help with the healing of it too. [00:09:42] LK: Oh, my gosh. Yes. Like to be able to – If we're experiencing something in our body, like we're in a room or a conversation, and we're feeling anxious, to be able to say, “I feel anxious,” is the first step of in dissipating the anxiety. To stop fighting it and when we just like let it be, then we are actually do start calming ourselves down. So being able to do that in the moment or even, yeah, in the broader picture. Someone's like, “How are you?” It's like, “Oh, man. I've been anxious lately.” The response is like, “Oh, man. Me too.” [00:10:13] PF: Yeah. I don't think anyone's like, “Really? I've just been chill.” [00:10:16] LK: Yeah. Why? What's wrong? Is something wrong? Is something stressful? [00:10:21] PF: With the Calm Your Anxiety, I guess, I really want you to explain kind of the format a little bit because it's unlike most books. It's kind of like a workbook. It's kind of like a journal. It's kind of like a study guide. It takes all these different elements. It's also like having a really good friend walk you through it because the tone of it is not academic, even though it's very instructional and helpful. But you just kind of walk us through this. [00:10:47] LK: Thank you so much for saying that. I'm cherishing what you're saying. I’m so glad that that comes across. I kind of alluded to this, but anxiety is for sure something I've struggled with too. In fact, I feel like there's quite a few meditation teachers who struggle with anxiety. Not all of them feel comfortable talking about it I think because maybe that seems a little bit – It's like, “Oh, your meditation isn't working." But you can see from the book, it’s like there's eight sections. Mindfulness is one of them. So it’s like we have more to do there. But it really is about like, first and foremost, understanding what anxiety is. I feel like it's so important that people understand that, also, anxiety is something that like we're anxious about something because something went wrong in the past. We're not making it up. It might not be happening now, but anxiety always stems from a truth. So it kind of hurts my feelings sometimes to see – Not my feelings but I get a little like sad when I see people posting things like your anxiety is lying to you because it's not. Our anxiety is telling us a truth. It's just like maybe exaggerating or bringing it up at the wrong time. But understanding that I think is key. [00:12:00] PF: Yeah. Because it's kind of like a warning system that your body created to tip you off because of past trauma. [00:12:06] LK: And to keep us alive too. [00:12:08] PF: Yeah. That too. [00:12:10] LK: There’s like a lion coming. You should run. It’s like the same system. So it is giving us helpful messages, and that's part of why you can't just like shut it down because your body's like, “I need you to hear what I'm saying, or I can't go away.” So during these practices of like sitting with it and making friends with it, which is kind of where the journal goes next, is like how do we actually listen to our anxiety without like being mad at it. Or maybe we're mad at it, whatever. But if we're listening because that can actually start the physical process of our parasympathetic nervous system kicking in and us being able to actually calm down because we all know that we can't just be like, “Okay, Liza. Just relax. Just relax.” [00:12:48] PF: Stop it. [00:12:49] LK: Yeah. Calm down. It's like that doesn’t work. So we have to actually do things that will work, which is working with our bodies and working with our nervous system, which are all things that the journal covers as well. It’s like how do we make friends with that? How do we understand it? Then how do we step out of the cycle? [00:13:06] PF: What does it do when we befriend it? Because I love that, the way that that whole chapter walks you through it. It’s like then I started seeing in my head this whole little play of like your anxiety sitting down. You hate it at first, and then you're like, “Oh, it's not so bad.” That’s really what that chapter made me do. So tell us what that does when you make peace or make friends with your anxiety. [00:13:27] LK: Yeah. Or even just the beginning stages of that, like just like paying attention to what it's saying, like acknowledging, “Oh, did you have something to say?” It's like a really does – We can't actually get rid of anxiety totally. Like there's not like a cure, and that's because it is the same biologically wired system that's keeping us alive. It's like danger. It's our danger schema. It's like, “Hey, there's like something going on here. You might want to pay attention.” If it's bad, then we're like – We go into the different responses like fight, flight, freeze, fawn, collapse. But before that, we're just like, “Hey, pay attention. Hey, pay attention.” There's something going on here. So if we're able to just like, “Hey, pay attention,” if we could just like sit with it and be like, “Okay, hang on. What's going on?” By listening to it, it gives us the opportunity to then say like, “Okay, I've given my signal. I've been heard.” When we're pushing stuff away, it’s like, “Stop being anxious. Stop being anxious.” Like we're giving all this power to it. So it's kind of like, “You know what? Fine. You can sit down. Sit on the couch. What do you need? Okay, got it. I can hear you. I heard you. Got it. Thank you.” It’s like someone that loves us, like overbearing like parents that like, “Hey, be careful. Be careful.” [00:14:42] PF: I’m just trying to keep you safe. [00:14:43] LK: Yeah, yeah. Totally. It’s like that's our anxiety right there. I'm just trying to keep you safe. [00:14:51] PF: That's so good. I love what it does in your brain when you start thinking about it differently. Because then instead of when you start feeling your individual triggers kicking in and instead of being like, “Oh, crap. Here we go,” you can react differently to it. [00:15:05] LK: Yes. For me, I'm always like, “Oh, here we go again. What's wrong with me? Why is this making me anxious? No one else is anxious,” da, da, da. If we could just like stop that. In Buddhism, we call that the second arrow. So it's this idea of like we've been like hit with an arrow, and that hurts. But then when we like beat ourselves up for being hit by an arrow, that's kind of like sending a second arrow. So if we can avoid that and just not be like, “What's wrong with me? Why do I have anxiety?” If we could just be like, “What up anxiety? Okay, what do you need to say,” that creates a sense of ease, where before that it was maybe like all tension. That’s the beginning of it. That feels good. It can feel good. [00:15:44] PF: Yeah, yeah. It takes a minute I think when we’re good. [00:15:46] LK: Right, right. No guarantees. It takes a while. [00:15:51] PF: One of the things that I really liked it, anxiety isn't one size fits all because we all have our thing, but there are familiar patterns within it. So what really struck me with Calm Your Anxiety is how it personalizes each person's individual struggle with anxiety and give so many different ways to manage it. So was that designed to let each person find what works for them? Or is it do you want them to use all the things that were – How does this work? [00:16:19] LK: Yeah. In both of my books, I’m like, “Just take what works and like leave the rest, always.” It's like everything is so personal. Especially in wellness, there are so many people that are like, “I have the answer. It worked for me, so it will work for everyone.” It's like we're all so different, and we all need different things. The way we experience it is different. Where it came from is different. One of the things I was really fascinated to learn through the research of this book was the different ways that different cultures talk about anxiety. The language that they use is really different. Some cultures, and I'm sorry, I'm not remembering where right now, but in some places, the focus on anxiety is having a hot face is how it's described. In some other cultures, it's talked about like a rising wind, which I think must be like a tornado kind of. Even the way we talk about it, how we experience it, how we talk about it is all really personal. So what's going to work is personal. So I would just love for people to just try something. If it doesn't work, it's like, “Thank you, next.” There’s plenty to do. [00:17:24] PF: Yeah. That is – It’s like this little toolbox where you can just choose which one is most appealing to you and seems like most reasonable fit into your life. [00:17:35] LK: Exactly. Yeah. Because people are busy, and we have ups and downs, and highs and lows, and busy times and slow times. If people can just like work through the book as quickly or as slowly as it feels right, there is real change by the end. [00:17:51] PF: I love how you end it with a graduation certificate. [00:17:54] LK: A certificate of completion. Thanks for saying that. My publisher was like, “Well, how are they going to know if they've earned it?” I’m like, “Even if they just slipped through the book and just see it, they've already earned it. So I'm signing it already.” [00:18:08] PF: Yeah. It just gives you that – It made me smile because it's like, “What a great reminder.” If you're having an off day, if you're having a struggle with anxiety, where you can look at that and be like, “I got this because –” [00:18:19] LK: Right. I've practiced. I've got the tools. [00:18:21] PF: Yeah, absolutely. So one of the things I wanted you to explain to us is about morning meditation. Can you talk about how starting your day with a morning meditation can help us change our anxiety? [00:18:34] LK: Yeah. I mean, we all have anxiety at different times. But a lot of people do have it in the morning, waking up and just like the day starts, and we start – [00:18:44] PF: Well, and then we have to go to work. That doesn't help. [00:18:46] LK: Yes. I rush. A lot of times, I have to rush, right, which is like the worst for anxiety, rushing. So being able to take some time to like check in and see. Not try to change where we're at, but just see where we're at and just be where we're at. That's all we're really trying to do is like, “Hey, Liza.” I talk to myself a lot like, “Hey, self. Hey, me. How are you doing,” and being able to just start the day, checked in, and it was a mindful breathing and a little bit of mindfulness practice in the meditation. We're really setting the day up for success. If we can even bring an intention into it before, during, or after the practice where we can kind of come back to that throughout the day like, “Okay, I have this intention,” or, “I had this experience that I know that even if I'm not feeling calm right now, I know that calm exists, and it exists in me, and I can get back there.” It helps us to build confidence in getting back to that place. [00:19:45] PF: Yeah, definitely. How does it work to set an intention for the day? Because I know on days when I do that, there's a huge difference, and I don't know why I don't do it every day because I see the results. [00:19:56] LK: Because we're busy. [00:19:58] PF: Yeah. Talk about that. When you can set an intention, how do you do that? [00:20:03] LK: It’s almost like dropping an anchor. It's like I've seen some people, when they set intention, it’s set like pretty long sentence or a couple sentences about like, “Today, I'm going to be calm and open.” We always want to state what we want, not what we don't want. So we don't want to say like, “I won't get angry.” We're not trying to put our energy or use our words there but saying like, “I will be calm.” So really like giving it some positivity. I mean, we don't – We’re not going into like overly, “Everything is great. Everything is great.” But we’re just setting a positive intention, leaving room with a reality of what is, which is all the highs and lows. But like, “I'll meet things with calmness as best I can.” Or we can list a few things. Or for me, a lot of times, it's just a word that comes to me when I'm meditating. Sometimes, it's like the same word peace for a week or – Recently, it was clarity. I was just getting the word clarity again and again. Throughout the day, I would know if I'm starting to feel stressed out or struggle or just have a quiet moment, just coming back to that intention, whether it's clarity or it's a longer thing. It's like coming back home to yourself. [00:21:14] PF: I love how you say that. That's a beautiful thought. [00:21:16] LK: We dropped that anchor and the weather could get choppy. The boat could go around. But it's like but we can always kind of pull on that anchor and know that like, “All right, I put this here for myself.” Like, “Okay.” [00:21:28] PF: That's great. Yeah. Because we know that we can pull back to it and get there and make it through that day or just through that moment if we have to. [00:21:35] LK: Yeah. I have a lot of people tell me that they do it in the bathroom. It's like, especially at work, if we're in a busy office, just like kind of go into a stall or something and just like have a minute of like, “Okay, I'm coming back to myself, where I am.” [00:21:47] PF: Yeah. Yeah. That's so important to do, and we've been seeing a lot of material about how high our anxiety levels are, the increase in mental health problems. There was one stat that I saw a couple of weeks ago that talked about if all of the therapists practicing in the US today saw 3,000 patients a year, they would not be able to get through everyone that needs mental health assistance right now. So we look at it, and that's just overwhelming to look at that kind of a need. As we think about that, and I know that we get a lot of feedback, and people are dealing with so many different things, so what are the things that you would recommend right now to the people who are listening to where they start to reclaim better mental health? [00:22:34] LK: Yeah. Thanks for that lead in too because one of the things that that I feel like that really kind of like shocking statistics speaks to is how much more systemic help we could really use. I want every person who wants a therapist to have a therapist. Everyone should have that, and we don't. So what we're left with a lot of times are these tools, like personal tools for us to try. Tools like this journal, tools like some practices. So we kind of have to rely on ourselves in a way that we really should be able to be relying on the mental health system. [00:23:12] PF: That's a great point. Yeah. That is a really great point because not everyone has the resources to see a therapist. Even if they do, they may not be able to get in. It's – [00:23:22] LK: Yeah. It takes a while to find a good fit. Yeah. I mean, I have a therapist I love and I'm so grateful for that because that's hard to get. We all deserve good help. But I appreciate that lead into the question because I want to share some tools and some practices that people can do. I feel like it's really important that we all know that like we shouldn't have to be doing this on our own. To the extent that we can get help and support from other people, I wish that for you. Please fight for it if you can. But there are things we can also do for ourselves, and so that's where this book comes in and things like – My absolute favorite, this is the most simple thing that we can do, which is that when our exhale is longer than our inhale in our breathing, so if we’re breathing out longer than we're breathing in, that triggers the parasympathetic nervous system response and starts to calm our heart rate. It's a physical message that we send to ourselves. Calm down. It’s okay. It doesn't work to say it in our heads, but we can actually talk to our nervous system. Especially doing deep belly breathing, where if we put like one hand over our belly and when we inhale, we really try to fill our bellies up with air, and make them like big and beautiful. Then exhale slow, long and slow. A few cycles of that is one of the most powerful ways to shift the response and to start to be able to calm ourselves down in the moment. Some of the other practices that I like are like self-soothing, like just taking our fingers and gently rubbing our other arm. It's self-soothing. It feels a little bit. It can feel a little childish kind of. It's like the thing we do to soothe a child. But we're doing a bilateral movement, so we're engaged in both sides of our brain. We're coming back into our body. We'll go as fast or as slow as we feel that feels good. So we're always kind of doing it right for ourselves. It is actually self-soothing. If you're in a meeting, it's something you can do like under the table. Or like whatever. It just looks like you're kind of mindlessly using your thumb to stroke your arm or something. But these kinds of things where we can actually just really start to just break that like, “I'm freaking out,” cycle coming back to ourselves, coming back to our body, coming back to the present moment. Because anxiety, we spiral out of our body. We spiral out of the here and now. So these really simple practices can help just bring us back to the here and now. [00:25:50] PF: You have several great free resources on your site. You've got some meditations. You've got some other little goodies on. [00:25:55] LK: Heck, yeah. Thank you. Yeah. We’re building a whole resource library. We're feeling like really good about it. Most of it's free. Yeah. We have all kinds of meditations, meditation scripts, different journal prompts, things like that. One of the ones that I especially recommend for people who are interested in working with our anxiety is the body scan meditation, which we have on there for free, where we can do a shorter or a longer body scan. That can really help us to take that brief moment of coming back into our bodies and extend it out for even longer, and it can be very relaxing. [00:26:28] PF: Terrific. You have given us so much to work with, so much to help us manage our anxiety better. I'm really excited for our listeners to discover your site, all those great resources. [00:26:40] LK: Thank you. [00:26:40] PF: I hope they check out the journal. As we let you go, what's the one thing you hope everybody takes away from this talk we've had today? [00:26:49] LK: Yeah. This is it. You are complete. You're just not finished. [00:26:54] PF: Love it. [00:26:55] LK: You are whole. You have everything that you need. You are unbroken. Everything that you need already lives in. You're just kind of refining it still. You are complete, just not finished. [00:27:07] PF: I love that. Liza, thank you so much. Promise me you'll come back and talk to me again. [00:27:10] LK: I would love that. Thank you, Paula. Thank you to everyone for listening. I'm sending you the very, very best. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:27:20] PF: That was meditation guru, Liza Kindred, talking about how to make friends with our anxiety. If you'd like to learn more about Liza, follow her on social media or learn more about her new Calm Your Anxiety Journal. Visit our website at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. While you're on our site, remember you can get 20% off anything and everything in the Live Happy Store this month when you use the code SELF-LOVE 20. That's SELF-LOVE 20. 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: Awakening Our Inner Dreamer with Sylvia  [INTRO] [00:00:02] PF: Welcome to the very first episode of On A Positive Note. I'm your host, Paula Felps. Each month, I'm sitting down with a songwriter, recording artist, or both, to talk about music that can lift our spirits and heal our hearts. To kick off this monthly podcast, I'm excited to sit down with songwriter and recording artist, Sylvia. Her mega-hit, Nobody, made her somebody in the 80s. Since then, she's always wanted to record an album that could be enjoyed both by children and adults. Now, she's done that with her new concept album, Nature Child – A Dreamer's Journey, which is earning rave reviews and has put her back on the Billboard music charts. In this episode, Sylvia talks about how this album was 30 years in the making, where the songs came from, and why she wants to awaken the dreamer in all of us. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:56] PF: Sylvia, welcome to our very first episode of On a Positive Note. I'm so excited to have you as our inaugural guest. [00:01:04] S: Oh, thank you. I'm honored to be your first guest. That's just wonderful. [00:01:09] PF: Well, the timing on this was pretty spectacular. By the time this airs, your new album will be out. It is truly delightful. It's also a big departure from your previous work. Tell us, what inspired you to create Nature Child? [00:01:24] S: This album has been in the works, in a sense, since the late 80s. [00:01:30] PF: Oh, wow. [00:01:31] S: Yes. Six of the songs on this album were written – I wrote those six with Berlin Thompson, and they were written between 1988 and 1990. The idea came to me when I was processing all those years on the road during the decade of the 80s. I looked back and I realized, what a gift it was, all these children showing up at my shows, unbidden. I mean, it was it wasn't anything anyone thought would happen, but I mean, kids brought their parents to the show. [00:02:01] PF: Oh, that is interesting, because I listened to you in the 80s and I would not have thought to bring a child. [00:02:09] S: Well, it's interesting. When Nobody hit, when that song hit in 1982, that's when I began to see a lot of children show up at the shows. I know why it sold 2 million singles, because all those little kids, they told me, when I would sign autographs after a show, they said, “I saved up my lunch money, so I could buy your record.” [00:02:28] PF: Oh, that's adorable. [00:02:30] S: They would bring it for me to sign. When I would sing the song in concert, they would have little dance moves all worked out, and it was just so precious. When I was looking back on those days, in those concerts, I realized, “Oh, my gosh. What a joy it would be to actually sing to kids messages, things I would really want to say to a child and to their parents.” When I realized later, since it's been so many years, that this music isn't just for children. It's really for all. It's for the dreamer in all of this, and that's why I subtitled the record ‘A Dreamer's Journey’, because there's no age limit for dreaming. We can dream all of our lives. I think our culture sometimes tells us to put away our dreams and get serious and get a job and make money. All those things are important, but I think we don't have to quit dreaming. [00:03:23] PF: Yeah, I would agree with that. You had some of these songs set aside. How did you then decide, okay, it's time to parade them out? Write new friends for them to play with and create that album? [00:03:36] S: I love how you put it. That's really nice. What I did in the intervening years is I had a marriage and a dog and a life that just took off in another direction. I just set that music aside, the half that had been written, and just always felt, “Well, I'll get to it. I'll get to it.” Well, in 1996, I ended up creating my own record label, Red Pony Records, and I started recording my own music and my own records. I think, I had to get a few records under my belt as a co-producer with my friend, John Mock and get down the line, writing songs, recording songs to really get ready for this record. I don't think this record could have been made in the way it sounds, in the way I write now, just the maturity of living life. It's come about at the perfect time, though I would have never guessed it, it would be that long. I think it's absolutely the perfect time for this record to be out. [00:04:36] PF: Did you immediately know, okay, here's the gaps that we need to fill, here's the journey that this record goes on? Or, what was the genesis of the overall project? [00:04:48] S: Thank you. That's a good question. I didn't really know how this record was going to go. I knew that those six songs were where we needed to start. I told my friend, John Mock, I said, “Let's work on recording these six and we'll get just in the energy of this music.” Because I think from there, out of that energy field will come other ideas and other music. That's exactly what happened. Four of the songs were written in 2020 as we were recording the project, and those four, John Mock wrote the music for them. He's a composer. He doesn't really normally think of himself as a songwriter, though his composing has a folk element to it usually, and also, a Celtic influence. He and I both have some Irish ancestry, and I think, our DNA, it just comes out in our music. [00:05:37] PF: You feel that in each other. [00:05:39] S: I think so. We just allowed the record to evolve as we went. Those six songs became the foundation pieces. Then, we allowed this music that John wrote to fit with what all we were doing. Because we were in the soup of the record, of that energy field of the record. I didn't really know where these songs were going to go. John would put them down on an iPhone recording and he would send it to me, and I would just listen to the music over and over, until words just started coming, and images started coming. I would just describe those images. It really came out of the music he composed. It was very magical. The whole process of making this record was absolutely magical. [00:06:23] PF: What's so fun with this is there are so many different musical styles and textures. Now that you've explained John's writing, that makes so much sense. As I was listening to it, I really thought about that like, “Wow, how did we end up going from an Americana song to the one with the train whistle, to something that has a very Celtic feel?” Was it then intentional that you would have all these different textures, or is it just because that's how John wrote music and it fit? [00:06:51] S: Well, he wrote the music to every time a train goes by, which is probably the most rootsy sounding thing on the record. He also wrote the music to (Hey, Hey, Hey) It's a New Day in Nature Child, the title cut. John is a composer and he's a multi-instrumentalist, so he's playing a lot of the instruments on this recording. I think, it just weaves itself together in this really magical way that I can't explain. It's like, you can play and it's like, okay, we want all these songs to feel they're threads in a part of one fabric. I think we were successful at that. I feel like, there's enough variation between them that it keeps it interesting, but there's some things that really, what I call the ethereal vocals. This is something I'd never done on a recording before, but I've always loved the music of The Carpenters, and I've loved the music of Enya and Loreena McKennitt. People like that, who have this beautiful, mystical quality to their music and to their harmonies. All of that came to bear in the recording process, because I felt as – well, John and I always do. We always start with a vocal and guitar, acoustic guitar vocal, and we build everything around that. That's how our recording process always is. As we were building it, it's like, I don’t want the music to feel this mystical, magical feeling. I thought, what if we did ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ that were background, an ethereal feel that will support the lyric in this way? Because I intended and wanted this music to usher people into their imaginations without pushing them in. They're just inviting them in. I think those vocals became a really key component to the sound of this record. I think, it was one of the things that helped weave the songs together. [00:08:51] PF: Yeah. I grew up with Alan Parsons Project, Pink Floyd.  love the whole concept album idea. Talk about how that's different then, as you said, just individual songs. [00:09:05] S: Well, it's different in that there is a theme. I didn't set out really for there to be a theme, except that I wanted this music to all be things I would want to say to a child, or I'd want to say to a coaching client, which am I've been working as a life and career coach for the last 20 plus years. I'm often in conversations with people about, let's talk about what your gifts are. Because often, people come to see a coach when they're stuck and there's a lot of focus on what isn't working. I like to shift it around and say, “Well, what is working and what do you feel passionate about?” It doesn't have to be something you make a lot of money at. It can be just a hobby. There's a correlation there in that inquiring about our gifts and our passions and our dreams and then in this music doing the same. [00:09:59] PF: You do have so many different elements to this. Let's talk about the album as a whole, because I've listened to it, so I have a huge advantage over everybody listening to this podcast. Talk about what this journey is that you take them on. [00:10:12] S: The journey begins by talking about this place. It invites you to go to a place called Avalon. For me, that's a metaphor. Everything in every image, everything in this music is metaphor, really, as a good story is; any fable, or story we all have lived with, everything is metaphoric. To me, Avalon is a metaphor for our imagination, and it's inviting you just beyond the golden sunset. There's this magical land. That's what I'm ushering in, in that song. Then in the next song takes you into, well, what is your imagination and why should you use your imagination? Imagination is your friend. It's assuring you that you can come on this journey and you have everything you need to take this journey. Then the train song, it's called Every Time a Train Goes By, that the message in that song basically, is about facing your fears. [00:11:09] PF: We talk about how much music can help us heal. You've done a lot of work not only as a career coach, but you were on a board of a non-profit for people with mental health issues. How does all of that, then what you've heard from people, what you've taught to people, how does that inform the lyrics that you write now? [00:11:27] PF: Well, everything affects everything. I'll tell you a little story. I worked with a voice teacher, Gerald Arthur, every week for 32 years, I think. I had Wednesday, 11:30 was my appointment with him. One day, I was in the studio singing and I just – It was one of those glorious days, where you just can't hit a bad note. Just singing my heart out. The next week I came to the studio for my lesson, and I couldn't sing anything. I just felt like, “Uh, it just isn't happening.” I was complaining to him. I said, “I was singing like a bird last week. What happened?” He said, “Well, what happened between last week and today?” I proceeded to tell him events that had happened. He said, “You know, everything that has happened between last week and this week, it's in your voice.” [00:12:22] PF: Oh, wow. [00:12:23] S: I said, “Oh, I’ve never thought of that.” He said, “Even what you had for breakfast, it's in there.” He was joking with me, but it was true. He said, “Everything is in your voice.” He said, “What do you think about just maybe singing with the voice you had today?” [00:12:41] PF: Interesting. [00:12:42] S: It made my mind stand still. It was a pivotal moment in my work with him, because I wasn't trying to sing like I sang last week anymore. I thought, “Okay, I'll just sing with the voice I have right now.” It's amazing, because when I did that, and then he said, “Okay, now sing. Sing.” I was singing like a bird again. It was like magic. It's when I embraced all that is in my voice today and sang with that voice, suddenly, it was good again. [00:13:14] PF: That’s so cool. [00:13:16] S: I think, it's a long way around answering your question, that everything's affected by everything, and it's all in there, and you just sing, or show up with the voice you have right now. [00:13:27] PF: I love that. Yeah, show up with the voice you have today. That's something we can all do. Everybody can learn from that. As you think about people listening to this album and listening as families, how do you see them using this? [00:13:42] S: A whole bunch of different ways. I hope that people will listen to this record often, because I think it puts you in a space of openness into your subconscious, into your ability to dream, into the ability to believe that something different is possible, if that's what you want to create. I think, we humans are so much more powerful, powerful than we've ever dreamed that we could be. I think it's so easy, because we're so fixated on what's happening out there and oh, isn't that horrible? What is this? What of that? We keep looking out there and we keep looking out there for it to get all better, so that we can feel better. I would suggest, that's the other way around, that we look in here to find the peace and joy and the passion, the things we love and want to create in here. What I hope for families and for children, maybe parents and grandparents will sit down with their kids and listen to this album and talk about it song by song. Well, I love You for Who You Are is the finale song of the album. I think, it could be what we say to our kids and to our nieces and nephews and grandchildren. “I love you for who you are. You don't have to do anything to win, my love. I love you just as you are.” I think everyone needs to hear that every day. [00:15:05] PF: No matter what age. Yeah, exactly. I think, the timing of it is so good, because as you said, we're looking for things outside us to get better. The children are feeling the stress that we've all been under for the past two years. I cannot even imagine how it's affecting them in ways that we're not aware of yet. What I love about Nature Child is has this healing, soothing, a very understated joy to it. Where it’s not an – I wouldn't say, an exuberant album. It's a soothing journey that just wraps itself around you. I think that is what children with families need right now, is just to be able to enjoy that journey together and feel that peace and that sense of belonging and love that exudes through the album. [00:15:56] S: Thank you for saying that. That is just beautifully said. That’s really beautiful. That's what I wish for this music. I think, there's no accident that it's coming out right now, when we probably need it more than ever, I needed. I mean, this music helped me get through these last two years, creating this music. [00:16:15] PF: Oh, I'm sure. [00:16:16] S: Recording this music and getting into the creative energy of possibility. What can we do with this? What does it want to do? Adding some sound effects here and there. It's like, I wasn't trying to figure out sound effects. I was just talking with John one day and said, “Oh, we need to put a real train on this song. We need to put the train on there.” Because kids, I thought, kids want to hear that train and feel how it could be so scary, or the water sounds of being in a boat on Home Is. Those things would just come to me. I would just be listening to wherever we were in the process of recording, I'd be listening to the song and then suddenly, I just heard sails flapping in the wind, and a lighthouse horn going off in the background, and the sounds of water lapping up against the boat and that ended up being in the intro of Home Is. It was just magical, how just the music let us know what it wanted. [00:17:10] PF: Right, right. Yeah. Every song will tell you what it needs, if you'll sit down and listen to it. [00:17:16] S: Absolutely. Absolutely. [00:17:18] PF: Yeah. With the album out now, are you going to tour? Are you doing shows? What happens now? [00:17:24] S: Well, I want that to happen. We've got to see what's going to happen with the virus. My plan is to get out there and perform this music for families and kids. I really want to do that. I also would love to sing it with an orchestra. I've never done that before. [00:17:38] PF: Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Call the Nashville Symphony now. [00:17:44] S: Yeah. We're going to need to pitch it to them and say, Nature Child – A Dreamer's Journey could be a whole theme for maybe an afternoon children's program and family and children come, and then that night come to the other performance. Who knows? I'm just very open to possibility and I trust that when it's time to get out there with this music, it will open up and I'll be able to get out there and perform it, because I really am eager to do that. [00:18:11] PF: Absolutely. Do you have more songs coming, or what is – I know people are always – you write a book and people are like, “So what's your next book?” You're like, “Come on. We’re talking about this one.” I mean, you put together these family of songs. Is there another little group brewing inside of your mind? [00:18:33] S: I think there may be. I have no idea at this point. Right now, I’m at this point in time in my life, and I think maybe from being a coach, I've learned this, life is changing so fast right now. Technology is changing. Everything is changing so quickly. By the time you make a goal and you set that goal, everything has shifted in the world. You go, “Whoop. I guess, that's not going to work.” I'm more like, let's take one step at a time. There's a lot of energy right now around creating a series of videos, which we're calling storybook videos. One for each song on the album. [00:19:11] PF: Oh, nice. [00:19:13] S: We've done one on Avalon, and we're working on the second one. My plan is, I hope we can do this, is every month, release a storybook video for each of the songs, so that by the end of the year, we will have 12 storybook lyric video songs of the whole album. That's my focus right now. [00:19:32] PF: I love that. Yeah. We'll make sure we have the links from you and we'll put that on the landing page, because you'll have a couple of them up by the time this post. Then, they can go check them out and then start following it and collect the whole set. [00:19:46] S: Yeah, yeah. [00:19:48] PF: This is terrific. You've done so many different things with your music. You're evolving into a completely different voice than we heard with Nobody, which was really what introduced you to the world. What do you think that your legacy in music is going to be? [00:20:04] S: It'll probably be a mixed bag, because I think that Nobody was such a huge record. I think for most of my career now, that's been my signature song. Though, I had other hits and other number ones. Drifter and Tumbleweed and several other hit songs, but it just overshadowed all that, which is a wonderful thing. I would hope, though, in the long run, that this music would be what would be my legacy, the legacy that I care most about as far as it comes from my heart, it comes from a desire to connect in a genuine and heartfelt way with people through music and through story. That means a lot to me, because I think for thousands of years, humans on this planet have connected around story and around the fire, with a book for the last several hundred years. I would hope this would be what endures over time, long after I'm gone, because I think it's meaningful in a way that can be supportive and a loving message. [00:21:13] PF: It is. That's wonderful. Sylvia, thank you so much for giving me this time today and for creating this beautiful album. I'm excited for our listeners to learn more about it and be able to listen to it. We're going to give them links and let them know how they can learn more. I look forward to you going on tour. [00:21:29] S: Me too. I'm looking forward to it so much. Thanks. [00:21:33] PF: All right. Well, thank you again for kicking off On a Positive Note for us. [00:21:38] S: Oh, you're so welcome. I've really enjoyed it. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:21:43] PF: That was Sylvia talking about her new album, Nature Child – A Dreamer's Journey. You can learn more about Sylvia, where to buy her album, how to view her storybook videos and follow her on social media just by visiting livehappy.com and clicking on the podcast tab. We hope you've enjoyed this inaugural episode of On a Positive Note and look forward to joining you again next month. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Restoring Civility With Peter Montoya    [INTRODUCTION] [00:00:02] PF: Welcome to Episode 347 of Live Happy Now. As we continue celebrating March as the month of happiness, we're taking on civil war. I'm your host, Paula Felps, and this week, I am so excited to be talking to Peter Montoya, a speaker, thought leader and author who is truly committed to helping restore our civility. His latest book, The Second Civil War: A Citizen's Guide to Healing our Fractured Nation looks at the challenges we're facing as a society, how technology and media consumption, increase our anxiety, and what each of us can do to help stop that conflict. Today, we're talking about all those things, as well as talking about what he's creating, to help replace social media with civil media. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:45] PF: Peter, thank you so much for coming back on Live Happy Now. [00:00:49] PM: Paula, I'm thrilled to be here. You are one of my favorite hosts, I love your show. [00:00:55] PF: Oh, thank you so much. And we love it when you come and talk to us, because you always have such great new information for us, and as you know, as part of happiness month, we are looking at the theme of unity and that's why we talk to you. Because a lot of people were hopeful that this year was going to be one of like more unity, more civility, and that doesn't seem to be the case. What's keeping us so divided? [00:01:20] PM: We are inherently very, very tribal creatures. And that is our default mechanism. So, when I say tribal, we find various different ways of creating cohesive groups, and also creating out others or outside groups. We do this around national lines, political lines, religious lines, racial lines. So, racism is part of tribalism. Company around company boundaries, around sports teams, and even the cliques inside schools. We are tribal, tribal creatures, and that is our default. That's what we automatically go to. And over the course of our lives, we have become enculturated, into being cooperative with people who are not of our immediate tribe, which is actually somewhat of a miracle. It really is. So, look at all the ways we've been enculturated. So, when we first went to school in fifth grade, even before for fifth grade, before we’re five and went to kindergarten, we watch Sesame Street, and Sesame Street had different colored Muppets and people all cooperating and talking about sharing with the kindergarten. And we're talking about toll that everyone is the same. We live in a free country of equal rights, and we share with one another. We're all taught that everyone's the same and then we went to a church. And we're told to love thy neighbor as you love the Lord. I love everybody. The same with everyone else. And then we were taught the Pledge of Allegiance and how we all have the same allegiance to this flag, this country, and we all are all the same. This message is repeatedly beat into our heads over the course of our lifetimes. And so that's why it's such a miracle that we actually cooperate. So, there are uncontacted tribes still exist down in South America and other places in the world. And 30% of people die by violence, 30% of people die by human to human violence in those uncontacted cultures, and as the same number as it was 5,000 years ago, or 10,000 years ago, when we're still hunter gatherers. So, the fact that only 1% of people die in this country by violence is a miracle. The way we cooperate is a miracle. [00:03:55] PF: That's outstanding, because we don't think of that as being very cooperative right now. Because, we've had differences for a long time. These differences have always existed for us. But right now, there's so much more exposed and there's so much more of a, you have to be on a side. Are you vaccinated? Are you unvaccinated? Are you Republican or are you Democrat? I was talking to a friend who had lived in a purple state and she said, it used to be it didn't matter. She said now, people want to know where you stand. And so, why is that? Why is that bubbled up and become such a touch point of conflict for us? [00:04:36] PM: So, I've done a great – well, I'm an entrepreneur, and I've also been hired to go out and do leadership training. And now this is going to sound like a tangent, but please stay with me. I've oftentimes gone into companies which are falling apart and everyone's fighting and everyone's angry with one another. I go talk to the sales team, I talk to the customer service people, to the operations people. I talk to the engineering team. And what I do when I go out there is I find about all the things are good about the company. All the things are good about the products. Where are all the places that they agree upon, and it's like they agree on 80% or 90% of the things, and then I bring everyone together, and we talk about all the things we agree upon. The shared mission, the shared vision, the shared values, a shared culture. We talk about the things that we actually agree upon, and then once we're in agreement on that, then we say, “Okay, well, here are the couple things we need to fix.” I do not go in there and go to the sales team and go, “Oh, my God, have you heard what customer said about you? They said, you are the worst people in the world. And you are the devil and you're trying to bring down the company from the inside.” And when you watch the news, that is all they do. They spend 90% of their time vilifying another segment of the country. So, if you are consuming any news, and that means social media, podcasts, radio, cable TV, and 90% of the time is spent vilifying another person or another group, that media company is abusing you. They are manipulating you, so they can extract money from you. And how they do that is by getting your attention. They call fear mongering. They get you nice and riled up. Therefore, you watch their show more, you consume more other advertising, and those companies make more money, and they know it. So, this is not some secret conspiracy, like everyone doesn't know what the game is. That is the game. And if you hate half of America, you are a pawn in somebody else's chessboard. [00:06:47] PF: That was so well said, because let's talk for a minute about what it's doing to our communities, to our families, like whatever level you want to take it at. I've seen, there's so much conflict, even within families now over things they shouldn't be fighting about that, shouldn't be that big a deal because it doesn't – at the end of the day does not really affect them personally. [00:07:08] PM: You're absolutely right. It doesn't matter that much. So, Paula, I don't think you're as old as I am. But you might remember news in the television landscape in the 1980s. In the 1980s, drama was drama and news was news. We had three or four major news networks get Tom Brokaw, and Peter Jenning. And they all pride themselves on telling the truth. And being first those were the two major attributes. And then we also had these TV shows that got us to exercise our kind of ancient Greek archetypes, they were called Dallas and Dynasty. And news was news and drama was drama. We as human beings have a desire for both. We need more information. Because information we're taught basically, we believe we're very, very information hungry, because we want to keep safe. We want to survive. That’s how we're wired. And we also like drama. So, we also like these arc types of good and evil that also plays in our minds. And what happened in the 1990s and in the 2000s, and up until now, is that news and drama basically merged. Politics has become almost like a religion for us. And when we're watching cable news, or watching TV or listening to podcasts, what is happening is these media companies or personalities are creating these very ancient using the ancient archives in our brains of almost like gods and deities. And they are the almost like the Oracles who are helping you tell the future. And then you have the soldiers on this metaphorical battlefield, who are either fighting and thrusting or losing and being taken off the battlefield. And we're exercising this very, very naturally in our brains while watching the news. [00:08:57] PF: That's interesting, because nobody – I suspect that nobody listening to this has ever thought of it that way. [00:09:04] PM: So, when we go home, we used to watch Saturday Night Live, we used to watch the Oscars, we used to watch football. We used to talk about movies, we used to talk about everything else, but because now we're consuming so much media, that is the landscape that most people are now entrenched in, so it's all they think about and it seems really important. I mean, oh, my God, it’s going to be the end of the world. We're fighting for the soul of our country. The country is on the brink of extinction. I mean, it sounds absolutely horrifying to us. So obviously, it's the most important thing you need to talk about. And then we're incredibly tribal and we sit down at Thanksgiving dinner. And we you know, start saying, “Well, I heard that the election was stolen. I heard it was the safest and the most secure election in history.” And all we're doing is battling different tribal talking points. That's all we're doing. And the second hour I hear the wrong phrase come out of your mouth, let it be black lives matter or all lives matter, my ancient brain goes into fight or flight mode, even though you're my sister, my best friend, a coworker, and my little midbrain starts firing. As far as I'm concerned, I'm supposed to pick up a spear and kill you. Now, I've been enculturated well enough not to do that. [00:10:23] PF: You might throw the gravy ball. [00:10:26] PM : Right, exactly. Or scream or throw beer catch can at you. [00:10:32] PF: How do we change this? How do we get back to a civil discourse instead of a civil war? [00:10:36] PM: Great question. First of all, I stopped consuming media. I don't watch any media anymore. I only consume long form media. That means podcasts, documentaries, books, long articles. And they're usually happening well after the fact what actually happened. So, I only heard about that awful, terrible extraction from Afghanistan and heard stories about people falling off airplanes. But I'll probably wait a year until a book comes out which interviews all the people and I will spend an hour and a half or two hours watching a documentary, versus watching 20 minutes of news every single night that gets me all anxious and angry and upset in on trigger. I mean, that's what's happened. You go to dinner or lunch, and it seems like you're having a casual conversation. And before you know it, we're all triggered and all riled up. We talk about these very tribalistic issues. So, the first thing is, is you take yourself off the battlefield. That is the easiest thing and you do that by stopping consuming all the short form media that's making you anxious, angry and outraged. [00:11:41] PF: That's great. And what do we do when we are in environments with people who believe differently and who feel compelled to share those beliefs? And we know, we know that saying, no, but, or anything like that is going to start a war. But it's very difficult for people. I've talked with people who it's like, I knew I shouldn't have said anything, but like, because they, say I feel just as strongly as this other person does with a differing opinion, and it's hard to listen and listen and listen and not share your opinion. So, how do you take care of all this? Because that's where our problems are coming from. [00:12:22] PM: So, Paula, what you are going to do the next time you're in that scenario is you're going to access your wise mind. And your wise mind knows the following is you cannot change anybody's mind with facts. Absolutely cannot change anybody's minds with facts. The only way to change somebody else's mind is by a relationship, which means repeated long-term exposure to somebody and talking about things that are not in politics and non-religious. We're doing things we used to do, whether we’re playing games or board games, video games, hiking, camping, boating, shooting guns, whatever you do. But the only way to “change” somebody else's mind is through relationship. And next time you're in that moment, and you see it have compassion for this person who is actually genuinely hurting, and realize that when somebody is expressing their fear and anxiety about the future of the country, understand that they are sincerely in pain. And for anybody who has studied any kind of meditation, they are what the Buddhists call suffering, have compassion for them in where they are, and your job is just to love them and be in relationship with them. Because I promise you bring up the cudgel of facts, does not work. [00:13:44] PF: Right. And we see that time and time again and things end very badly. It hurts relationships, sometimes irreparably. [BREAK] I'll be right back with more on my talk with Peter Montoya about unity and civility. But right now, we've got another way that you can bring people together and that is through puzzles. I’ve got KC Johnson, our fabulous ecommerce marketing manager and we discovered Unidragon puzzles. KC, tell me what you love most about these these puzzles or wooden puzzles, for one. They're very different. It's not your average jigsaw puzzle. So, tell me what you thought about them. [00:14:19] KCJ: Yeah, they're not your average jigsaw puzzle. I love these. The colors are so vibrant. They have puzzles just in unique shapes. They have different animals like lion, tiger, elephants. [00:14:33] PF: Don't forget the wolf. [00:14:35] KCJ: Don't forget the wolf. I can't forget the wolf. Yeah, they’ve got wolves. They've got everything. And what I particularly love is that you can send gifts to your loved ones. And by gift, I mean, you can choose any puzzle and send it to your friends anywhere in the world. And it's super easy. Their website is very user friendly. I highly recommend it. It brings people together. There's so many just like mental health benefits to it as well. [00:14:58] PF: Absolutely. So, we're going to give our listeners a break on the price by ordering, they can go to unidragon.com and enter the code live happy now and get 10% off. Again, that is unidragon.com, enter the code live happy now get 10% off. And now let's get back to talking with Peter Montoya. [INTERVIEW CONTINUED] [00:15:18] PF: Let's talk about some tools that people can use to have a more civil discourse when these things are coming up. And sometimes it's at work, it can be at home, it can be with relatives. What are some of the things, what kind of conversations we need to start having, so that we can have more civil discourse and more unity? [00:15:38] PM: That’s a great question. I've got a bunch of questions that I have memorized. And they are, you know, just human. So, here's some of the questions that I use when someone starts to go political. I'll usually just go nod and go, “Oh, my gosh, yeah, I can see why you're really concerned about that.” And then I'll ask them a question. “What did you learn about your partner going through the pandemic?” [00:16:02] PF: Oh, wow. [00:16:00] PM: What did you learn about your relationship going through the pandemic? Here's another question. What made you smile today? What made you smile today? What was the most meaningful thing that happened to you in the last 24 hours? What are you most excited about that's coming up in your life? What is the most important thing, a tangible thing to you in the world? What's the most important thing to you in the world? Those are some of the questions that I have memorized at the tip of my tongue. I use those things freely and give them away, because they're really effective at making as human beings. [00:16:45] PF: That's fantastic, because everyone likes to feel included, and everyone wants to talk about themselves. And so, when you give them that opportunity and take their focus off of what's riling them up, I imagine there's an incredible physiological change going on with them. [00:17:03] PM: Absolutely. And you're connecting with them again. Because the truth is, this these studies are in my book, The Second Civil War: A Citizen’s Guide to Healing our Fractured Nation is my book. It's the first political self-help book. And one of the things that's in there, a whole bunch of charts, where they actually go and poll Americans on different issues, Republicans and Democrats. They asked the questions about gun control. Abortion, which is a really sticky issue. They ask questions about immigration and thoughts on the police. And guess what? On issue after issue 70% to 80% of Americans agree on even the most controversial issues. One of the questions is, should guns be more regulated? Yes or no? 70% to 80% of both Democrats and Republicans say yes. Now, you would think well, no Peter, that'd be 50/50. It would be half and half, or 100% of Democrats and 0% Republicans. It's not. It's 70% to 80% on both sides. But what we've been taught is by looking at the news is they only show the extremes of each of the other parties. They don't show the broad middle. They don't show all the stuff we agree on, they concentrate on the differences. So, walk into any conversation you're having here, looking for the 80% of agreement, versus the 5% of the most volatile issues you could possibly talk about, which is the news of war. The news of the day that people are both, just so you know, I really don't believe there are very few people who have original thoughts and that includes me. I don't think any of my thoughts are original. I’m always called a cryptonesiac. That means I consume so much information, I don't know where it came from. And then I spout all the information as if it's my own. And so, 90% of the time, most people are only spouting opinions, or catchphrases, or talking points that they heard from their “pastor”, which is their media source. And what their pastor or their media source told them is now cocked in their brain. And when they have a conversation, they bring out what they've been told, and all we're doing is repeating somebody else's thought. Very few people have really original thoughts. [00:19:23] PF: And as soon as someone disagrees with us, we dig in and go deeper into that thought. [00:19:29] PM: Because we're tribal. Our default mechanism is to look for people who are different than us, and then to expel them, shun them, or shame them out of the tribe. That is what our default settings do. [00:19:41] PF: So, as you've been studying this, you do so much research and look at what we're doing, do you have optimism that we're going to heal this divide? That we're going to come back together? And if so, please tell us how because not everyone shares that optimism. [00:19:58] PM: Yeah, I do. So, when the printing press was back in the 1400s, there was 30 years of global chaos. After the printing press was created, everyone thought all the intellectual thought leaders, the day basically thought, “Oh, my gosh, well, now the masses will be educated. We're going to make sure that everyone's able to read and write. We can disseminate human information.” And that was true. But also, what happened was massive misinformation was spread. All of a sudden people, one person was able to spread to many thousands, hundreds of thousands or tens of thousands of people misinformation. And after that there was massive war, massive political upheaval, and it took about 30 years for society to figure out the ethics, the stopgap measures, the measurements to put in place to get things kind of stabilized against, they could use this amazing information transfer responsibly. So, the first step of all problem solving of all leadership is to agree upon a common set of facts. And what has happened between the confluence of social media and cable media is now we've had massive misinformation, and it only takes 5% of all information, that is misinformation, to completely disrupt cooperation. That's it. [00:21:17] PF: Wow. [00:21:18] PM: So, if 5% is misinformation, of the available information, that's enough to disrupt cooperation. Basically, I would look at Facebook, its invention in 2014, as being the kind of the starting gun as to when like the start of the printing press. So, that was basically 14, 15 years ago, we're about 15 years away from solving this problem. And I really believe that a civil media, which is a different category than a social media platform, will be the solution to that. And that's what I'm doing, is building a civil media platform, which we think will eliminate bots, and trolls, dramatically reduce misinformation, so that we can all agree again on a common set of facts, so that we can then cooperate. [00:22:08] PF: Tell me more about what you're building, because I've looked at your site, and it is pretty fascinating. And I guess first, this is going to be a multiple part question, because I want you to tell us what it is you're building, and then how it's going to alter our experience with what we now call social media. [00:22:26] PM: Yeah, great question. So, that lends us to what we believe is what we're doing is we're creating a new category of media called civil media. And social media means a couple of things. Number one, nobody – you don't know who you're talking to. So, people use pseudonyms, they’re anonymous, and in which case, they have no reputational risk, which means that people behave on social media in very uncivil ways. There are the people who use their own names, their own pictures, and among their own friends, who usually behave the best. And if you want to see the most uncivil behavior, you look at platforms like HN or 4N, where everyone was anonymous, and you will find the most hateful, vile, disgusting, inhuman, uncivil behavior possible. So, we think we can introduce civility again, which means people will be kind and respectful, because, people will be who they say they are. They will have reputational risk. Their identities will be verified. And the second thing that we put in place is what's called trust score. And trust score is not created by a computer. The trust score is created the same way we create a trust score in the real world, and that is through your friend group. So, in the minds of every one of your friends, Paula, your friends go, “Is Paula a good person or a bad person? Do I trust Paula or not?” And we more or less have digitized that, such that it's not any one person who is basically saying your civil or uncivil, but a whole web, a whole collection, we built a very complicated algorithm that helps compute this trust score. And the higher your trust score, the more your content is amplified, and the lower your trust scores, the lower is amplified. I believe in freedom of speech. And if somebody wants to be a hateful, vile racist, and they want to spout racist epithets, they are free to do so in the privacy of their own living room. They just don't deserve necessarily to be on the front page of the newspaper or get primetime on any news channel. And the same thing with a social media platform, we just don't have to amplify people who are not trusted. So, between the trust score and identity verification, we think we can bring back kindness and respect. And the second thing that makes a civil media platform different is that not only emphasizes communication, but more importantly, cooperative action. And so, we are building tools that will help people, leaders, unifiers, gather people who care about causes to either give their time, their money or resources to solve problems. My heart has broken this last year at least twice as I've heard about pandemic outbreaks in India and 5,000 people were dying a day in the streets because they didn't have hospital bed. I heard the stories I shared earlier about in Afghanistan, people falling off airplanes, and I thought, “Oh, my God, this is horrible. What can I do?” And there was no button for me to push. There's nothing for me to do. I didn't know where to go. And so, what a civil media platform does is not only shares the information, but provides the tools for the organizations and the people who are on the ground, looking for support to solve the problems. So, the job of our civil media platform is to perpetuate the survival of our species by getting the right people, capital, and resources to the people who need it most. [00:26:01] PF: And you're really dialing down all the hate talk and acrimony that's going on right now. And as people are in that environment, how is it going to change in the real world? Like as we spend less time in these street fights of social media, and more time in like a genuinely nurturing, supportive environment, whether that's online or at home or in real world, how is that going to start rippling out? [00:26:30] PM: Oh, gosh. That’s a great question. I think about that, the answer, the question and the answer every single day. So, the goal of social media companies is to keep you on their platforms as much as possible. The average human being, or the average social media user spends 2 hours and 25 minutes a day on social media. They scroll through 325 feet of feed, which is the same height as the Statue of Liberty. And we think that social media is at its worst, when it's keeping you from having real world interactions with people sitting right next to you, or lying next to you in bed. That's when social media is at its worst. When civil media is at its best, it facilitates real world interactions. We are an incredibly social creature. We need the connection or the approval of other people. And so, what on Urth, which is the name of our platform, Urth, urtch.cc is about is about facilitating real world interactions, and actually minimizing the time they spend on our platform. [00:27:38] PF: That's excellent. So, you have a beta version coming up? [00:27:43] PM: Yep. Beta version should be out in early 2023. It's a big plot platform. It's a big product. [00:27:49] PF: Yeah. So, what do we do until then? Because we can't wait to get civil until then. So, what is it we need to be doing? We can't change others and we shouldn't try. So, what is it that we should be doing to promote more unity, and create our own community? Let's start there. [00:28:07] PM: I attended my first personal development course back when I 18 years old, or maybe 19 in 1987, that'll tell you how old I am. Well, I remember the following message. They told me this, 30 some years ago. They said, if you're in a relationship, you can't change the other person. The only thing you can do is change yourself. And I've heard that message and I remember that message from 35 years ago, and that is the absolute truth. For anybody who's been married, and said, “Well, my partner's broken”, and they've tried to fix their spouse, or their boyfriend or their girlfriend or their partner, you will learn very, very quickly, you cannot change them. However, if you change yourself, it changes the relationship. So, when you accept them wholeheartedly, you reduce your anxiety. You are healthy of mind, body, and spirit, and you bring yourself to that relationship, you will notice the relationship changes. You've never tried to change somebody else. You only change yourself. [00:29:13] PF: And for people that say, “But I don't need to change. They do.” Because that's the common response, right? [00:29:22] PM: Yeah, I'm done. I fully evolve. [00:29:28] PF: So, what’s our, like prescriptions, doctor? How do we start doing that? How do we start taking a step back, taking a breath, and coexisting more peacefully? [00:29:39] PM: Yeah. I think probably the first thing is to realize, and I've asked people that question before in training rooms, who here is perfect, and there's usually 10% of the hands that go up, and they kind of laugh when they're saying it. But there's a secret to that. When they actually are raising their hand, they actually believe it's true. And they're kind of joking about it, but no, that’s what they think. They really do think that they are perfect. And it is a trap that some people – I’m sorry, all of us to a certain degree fall into is that we think if we're perfect, we'll be more lovable. And it's exactly the opposite. The more “perfect” you are, the less likely you are to change. The more inflexible you are, the more righteous you are, the more intolerable you are, the less likely people want to be around you. So, thinking that you don't need to change or grow is a trap of the ego. And it is the best way to keep yourself lonely, isolated, and suffering. So, the first realization is, nobody is perfect. We are not a done. There's not ultimately who we are, there is a process of what we are, we are all in process. We are all in a journey. And as soon as you not only know that, like you heard me say it, but you know it into the fiber of your being that you are a process, that you are imperfect, and you'll never be done growing, and the best way to have connection with other people is humility and authenticity, not putting up this phony facade that you're perfect, the better off you will be and the less suffering you will have. [00:31:22] PF: I like it. Peter, thank you for breaking things down for us today. It's always a pleasure to talk to you. You always have so much wisdom to impart on us and I really appreciate you coming in and talking with me today. [00:31:35] PM: Paula, I could talk to you every day all day. [00:31:38] PF: we should do that. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:31:45] PF: That was Peter Montoya, giving us some great advice on how to help create a more civil world. If you'd like to learn more about Peter, follow him online, learn about the New Earth civil media platform, or check out his latest book, just visit our website at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. And remember to check out those amazing puzzles at unidragon.com and get a 10% discount by entering the code live happy now. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all new episode. And until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every, day a happy one [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: How Social Media Influences Your Happiness With Jessie Kanzer    [INTRODUCTION] [00:00:02] PF: Welcome to Episode 355 of Live Happy Now. Throughout the month of March, we're celebrating the International Day of Happiness, and a whole month of happy acts. As part of this year's celebration, we're looking at the theme of unity. I'm your host, Paula Felps. This week, I'm joined by Jessie Kanzer, author of Don't Just Sit There, DO NOTHING. Much of Jessie's work looks at social media and how we can become more mindful about it to minimize its negative impact. Sit back, and let's hear what Jessie has to say. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:36] PF: Jessie, welcome to Live Happy Now. [00:00:38] JK: Thank you so much, Paula. [00:00:41] PF: This is the perfect time to talk to you, not just because your new book is out, but because we are doing this whole month celebrating the International Day of Happiness on March 20th, and really doing a whole month of happy acts. Our theme this year is unity. Anytime we have a discussion about unity and conflict, it seems that social media comes up. This is something that you talk about. I wanted to talk today about how it affects the way we feel about ourselves and the world around us. To kick it off, you talk about why this one thing called social media is so powerful. [00:01:15] JK: Yes, and I do talk a lot about it. Because, like you said, it's so prevalent. Before we talk about what's wrong with it, let's just acknowledge what a big part of our life has become. In fact, in my book, Don't Just Sit There, DO NOTHING, I have a chapter called Stop the Thumb, which you can interpret it as you will, but it's about stopping that scrolling thumb that never stops itself. I do think that it's easier said than done. You could easily just tell people, just get off social media. I've heard that so many times. Just get off of it. Realistically speaking, for a lot of us, for creatives, like myself, for podcasts, there's a lot of need for social media, for the businesses and for the positive information we're trying to spread. We can't just get off social media, because that's where we now reach people, because that's where people are. It's not as easy anymore to just say get off of it, or cancel your accounts. Because for a lot of people, that's not something you can do. Our livelihood has begun to depend on social media as well. What's happened is, the lines have blurred between – There used to be clear cut marketing, clear cut advertising. That would be the commercial on TV, or the radio spot that played. Now, it's not quite so. We are on Instagram, on Facebook, on TikTok, seemingly just entertaining ourselves, or scrolling through what our friends are doing, etc. We are also being advertised to all the time. What I don't love, to start with social media, there's no longer a line between what's just content for you to consume and what's actually content that is trying to influence your behavior. [00:03:10] PF: Yeah. It can quickly change the way that you think and the way that you perceive things. If you've liked certain things, the algorithms are going to send material to you, and it can take you down a rabbit hole. It can start changing the way you view society, the way you view yourself, the way you view your neighbors. [00:03:29] JK: Yes. I don't know if you have watched the film Social Dilemma. I remember watching it last year. It's scary, right? I think that I actually wish everyone in the world would have watched it. Because what I now understand and what helps me a lot is knowing that this construct exists to learn me, to stay there as long as possible. That it is addictive to me, not because there's something wrong with me, but because it was formulated to be addictive. Once you realize that, you can at least start to forgive yourself a little for the time you're spending that you lose on social media without realizing, because we've all found ourselves in those holes that you mentioned. You're like, “Why have I just been on here for 20 minutes, half an hour?” [00:04:15] PF: I know it lift your head up and you're like, “What just happened to me?” [00:04:18] JK: Yeah. It was formulated to do that. That's what it's formulated to do. Like you said, it does – Unfortunately, the way the algorithm works is it picks up on what you're there looking at and what you're doing. It'll send you more and more and more of that. If we look at politics, we know what happens. What happens is we end up in echo chambers, where we just hear what we already believe, and then we become more and more convinced. It doesn't matter if it's truth or not truth, because it becomes our truth. [00:04:48] PF: Yeah, and one thing that's happened in this time of isolation and more people are working remotely and we're not interacting, so we don't have that time where we call it the water cooler, but where you’re grabbing a cup of coffee in the break room and you're talking to someone who has a different opinion, you had more balance, I feel. There was more of a balance of input of ideologies and just thoughts, and whether or not you agreed with them, you're hearing different opinions. [00:05:15] JK: I think that when you're speaking with a person, an actual person face-to-face, they don't become this demon that sometimes people become on social media. We're just people. For some reason, the screen of anonymity that Twitter, for example, can provide where just somebody's name, and it's not their real name; some name that they chose for their account. They can say pretty nasty things. They could say whatever they want. They wouldn't say that to you in real life, face-to-face. [00:05:46] PF: Oh, yeah. Getting on Twitter feels like going into a street fight. I'm like, “I need a helmet and a shield.” It's tough. [00:05:55] JK: Yeah. Then on the other hand, you have Instagram, which has been shown to be very detrimental to young people. I, myself as someone who struggled with an eating disorder as a teenager, and then in my early 20s, I really, really caution parents to pay a lot of attention to what their kids are consuming. It's hard. I'm not saying it's easy to always be on them. I know. I mean, my kids are only five and seven. Already, sometimes I look over, what is she watching? It's not easy, but I think it's super important. Because as we understood, Instagram will keep providing for you the content that you're looking at. If you're a young girl, and you're becoming obsessed with your body image, you will keep seeing things that will keep making you feel more insecure, and maybe take you down a rabbit hole of years of less than a healthy existence. That's what happened to me just from teen mags. I can imagine that being the age of social media is more challenging. [00:06:55] PF: Absolutely. As we've acknowledged, civility is a big issue. It is a big issue, even in the real world now. On social media, it is amplified. One thing I really want to talk with you is how can we start using our social media to become unified, rather than divided? By unified, I don't mean that we just find all these people who think the same way we do and it's, we're right, and they're wrong. How do we bridge that? [00:07:25] JK: I have a couple of suggestions. [00:07:27] PF: I was hoping you would. [00:07:30] JK: Yeah. With how we can create healthier relationships. Because, again, like I said, for a lot of us, just quitting social media altogether is not an option. I believe that learning how to live with something is the most, the strongest act that we can do for ourselves as someone. I struggled at an early age with bulimia. Now, I see similarities here because, well, in order to get over bulimia, you have to get over the behavior of binging on food. but you can't get rid of eating food as a whole, because we need food to live. What you need to do is actually change your entire relationship with food into a healthy relationship, and it takes time. Doing the same thing with social media, it's not going to happen overnight. One thing, for me, my social media is very healing. I made the algorithm work for me. When I go on my Instagram feed, I'm really posting and looking for spiritual insight, upliftment, information on well-being. The more I was paying attention to that and not allowing myself to go down the rabbit hole of what's Kim Kardashian doing, or what's whoever else, I just decided, this was my focus time to make it work for me. I would go on for short periods of time, I would post something, whether it be a quote from Don't Just Sit There, DO NOTHING, or maybe a little discussion about what's going on right now and some positive take on that. Then I would look for people, again, who weren't necessarily exactly my opinion, but people who were putting something positive out into the world. I follow, for example, podcasts that are positive podcasts, that are uplifting podcasts. The more I did that, I would also concurrently unfollow stuff that would trigger me. Anything I saw, which I realized was just putting more drama out into my feed, I would just unfollow. Simply, I would follow what lifted me up, unfollow what brought me down. Just paying attention and creating an awareness of how any post makes you feel is very important. If we can bring in mindfulness, which is a practice that can be brought into anything, like mindfulness can be brought into, even into social media. [00:10:02] PF: Yeah, that's good. I'm glad you brought that up, because I was going to ask you, what role mindfulness plays when you're managing your social media. [00:10:09] JK: I practice mindfulness. I try to practice mindfulness all day, every day. I mean, obviously, I'm not perfect. I'm human, but I try to be mindful when I'm folding my kids’ laundry, and when I'm trying to get them out and rush them out in the morning to their bus. I try to bring in a little mindfulness there, so that what mindfulness is, is being in the present and being connected to exactly what you're doing right now. We know that. I know that your audience knows that. You know what? It can be brought to, once you bring mindfulness into what you're doing on social media, you take yourself out of that dynamic that was set up, which was just to have you be a user. Let's remember that we're called users in the social media world. Not consumers, users. Okay, you pay attention, you go a little slower. First of all, you slow down that thumb. You go a little slower. You pause, every time you see something and you ask yourself, “Is this something I want to see more of?” If not, simply unfollow. Not that hard. Just unfollow. Something I want to see more of, press a like. What happens is slowly, your feed starts to look like yourself. My feed, if you looked at it, would be like, “Oh, I get who Jessie is. She's into the whole woo-woo world, she’s a wellness fanatic.” I think, that if everyone can do that, it will not be this alienating place anymore. I mean, for me, so I have a whole community on social media. My mentor, Laura Day, she's an intuitive. She holds morning meetings, where we just gather and we work on something positive for ourselves, and it's a short thing. You were talking about unity. I thought it's really interesting, because I found this community. She calls us the circle. These folks are just there. They're there. If I post something, they're there with some support. Like for my book launch, they're there with their positive affirmations, or helping to spread the word. In my experience, I now feel that I have unity in social media. [00:12:17] PF: That's amazing. Because so few people feel that way right now. [00:12:22] JK: Absolutely. That's why this is something. I discuss this in detail in the book, in the Stop the Thumb chapter. It's about, first of all, becoming mindful about what we consume. Also, this is an important one, be the change you want to see. You become mindful about what you post. [SPONSOR MESSAGE] [00:12:43] PF: I'm going to be right back with more of my conversation with Jessie. I wanted to take a moment to talk about one great alternative to social media. If you're looking to stop the mindless scrolling, how about putting your hands to use doing puzzles? Puzzles are a great gadget-free way to give your brain a break. We recently discovered Unidragon Puzzles, which you really need to see to believe. These gorgeous wooden puzzles are works of art that feature nature scenes, animals, Mandalas, and so much more. If you're looking to kick your social media habit, or at least rein it in, I can't think of a better way to do it than by spending time with these puzzles. Right now, you can get 10% off your order when you visit unidragon.com enter the code Live Happy Now. That's unidragon.com, and the code is Live Happy Now. Now, let's get back to my conversation with Jessie Kanzer and learn more about how to handle our social media habits. [INTERVIEW CONTINUED] [00:13:40] PF: I'm glad we're talking about this. Because there's something that you said that completely changed the way I was posting. That was, paying attention to your ego, and why I'm posting this. The fact that hey, I'm showing somebody I was having this great time, but how does this affect how somebody else feels? Can you pick that up? Because that is just beautiful insight that I needed to know. [00:14:05] JK: Of course. Paula, we're not, again, we're not perfect. Sometimes, I just have this freaking cute picture of the kids. I got to put it up and I just can't – You know what? The intention behind what you post is everything. Because if I just think this is the cutest, funniest thing in the world and I post it, often I get back, that made my day. I think, the intention behind what we post is very important. We all have an ego. It's okay that we have an ego. It’s okay that sometimes we want to show how well we're doing. It's all fine. We need to go back and remember that every time we post about what we have, somebody else is reminded, what they don't have. I remember this a lot during the days of everyone getting engaged in my own circle of friends. I remember this constant barrage. I had a lot of relationship difficulties at that time. I just remembered this barrage of engagement rings. It used to annoy me so much. If I look at it and why it annoyed me, of course, it's about what was missing in my own life, but also, was just – it felt so show-offy. I don't think that's what people are trying to do completely, but it's also the lack of bringing mindfulness into our post. It became what we're supposed to do. The second you get engaged, you post directly. [00:15:31] PF: I actually have a friend, who, when her son and daughter-in-law got married, the first thing the girl turned around, they kiss the bride, they turn around, they were announced as husband and wife and she yelled out, “Somebody change my Facebook status.” [00:15:43] JK: That’s really funny. That’s really funny. I get it. I get it. It's an exciting time. Boy, it felt like such a win for me, because I had such a long, barrage of heartbreaks. When I got married, I get it. Everything is okay when you put mindfulness into it, because at least you're aware, even if you're breaking that rule once or twice, you're aware, but you're not going to be sleepwalking anymore. That's really helpful. The other thing I say is, okay, fine. Once in a while, we want to post something that we did that was really fun, that was really beautiful, that we want to share. Remember to also, at least once in a while, share the vulnerabilities of your life, the stuff that maybe didn't go right. That's where actually, I found my sweet spot on social media, and maybe in my writing as a whole. I write a lot about my humiliations in life. I'm very, very open about all of the mistakes I made, because my goal is to help people feel less alone, if they are themselves finding that they're in this “loser spot” in their life, where they feel like a loser. I know what that feels like. I say, I try to hold on to the humility of a loser no matter where I am in life, because I really believe that if we open ourselves and show everyone the bad stuff, as well as the good stuff, we're doing a service to everyone else who may be struggling right now. [00:17:21] PF: Absolutely. I just love the way that because of you, I just do a little bit of a gut check before I post something now. It's like that. Okay, why am I doing this? Am I doing this for my own, because I want to show off, the fact that I got to drive this car? Or, am I doing it because I really want to share this experience? You know what? I'm leaving a lot of stuff off now. Because it's like, no, this was really not about uplifting someone else. It's about, “Hey, I got to do this really cool thing.” That’s how it feels. [00:17:51] JK: You know what, Paula? I love that you tell me that. That is so amazing to hear. Because, and again, if you do that gut check, and maybe you just saw a gorgeous sunset, and you want to post that, because you want to share the feeling of seeing this gorgeous sunset. Well, go ahead. That is a beautiful intention to have. It's not about, “Hey, look at me. What I get to see.” It's about, I want to share this with you. It's just about that small shift in intention that I think can connect us together. I try to balance. Obviously, I also promote stuff. I have to promote my book, because I want people to know about it. Again, I go back to the intention. I want to spread awareness about something I created out of love, because I want people to feel less alone, and I want people to have tools for healing. Then I say to myself, “That's okay to promote that, because I have an intention that's a loving intention in there.” [00:18:46] PF: Yeah. Once we get our own feeds under control, and we start curating what we're consuming, what do we do then about those posts? We cannot control what other people post. Sometimes it might be on our own page. How do we deal with those posts that immediately incite us? [00:19:03] JK: We take a deep breath. We pause and we delete. Seriously, or untag, or unfollow whatever you can do, but we don't engage. If it's something that is inciting you, I suggest you walk away from it. If it's something that you feel an hour later, or two hours later that you want to engage in, then go ahead, but from a commerce standpoint. Again, the intention of what you're bringing to this interaction is not that anger that you initially feel. It's not that triggered feeling. Maybe you're coming in to, because you feel that it's important to provide some truthful information. [00:19:41] PF: Well, a lot of times if we feel compelled to do that, and I've not done this, because I've seen what happens to people and it's a lot like a bunny rabbit walking in a herd of coyotes. It's like, someone feels compelled to explain like, “Look, this is why I feel differently.” They are pounced on and not – it doesn't stop and till they're a carcass pretty much. [00:20:03] JK: Yeah. I’ve seen that. [00:20:05] PF: Yeah. How do you do that? If it's someone, say, what's happening with a lot of people is someone they truly care about, whether it's a family, close friend, whatever, will say something that is so opposed to how they feel. That other person feels the need to – Like say, I might feel the need to say, “Look, that's really not where I'm coming from. This is why I think that way.” What's a better way to approach that? [00:20:26] JK: I would, in my personal experience, I probably would not. I would not engage in that in social media, on social media. If you feel strongly enough and if this person is in your life, there are other ways to connect with people. There's the telephone. I do find – [00:20:43] PF: Oh, is that still around? What? That thing? [00:20:45] JK: It's interesting. I find that the further removed we are from each other, right, so we're talking about the watercooler conversations. Then, you take that to a phone conversation, where you still hear each other's voice, and you can talk. Then you take that one step further removed, and maybe you're texting, and then a little further, and you're just posting something on social media for all to see. The further removed we get from each other as humans, the dirtier it can become. I don't see a need. Here's the thing. Yes, people post misinformation on social media. I say, and this is what the Daodejing has taught me; this is what I write about also in my book is, you cannot change the entire world. But in preserving your balance your sanity, in being the best you you can be, the changes that you provide for this world are going to be much bigger than you can imagine. Anything that is going to interfere with your well-being, don't do it. [00:21:50] PF: That's great advice. We know that, but we're not taking it. It's a weird time. One thing that you say – I know we're running out of time, but we've got to talk about this, because this is a great barometer. You say that people really need to pay attention to how they feel when they're on social media. We do not do that. Why is that so important? Then, what is it that we should be looking for? [00:22:14] JK: Yes. I think, we should pay attention to how we feel at all times. My joke of a title, Don't Just Sit There, DO NOTHING, the book is really, it's not about doing nothing, but it's about being able to disconnect from all of the messages, which because of social media, or just never-ending, to connect with our own inner voice. When we take the time to do that, when we connect with our own inner compass, we feel off. When we feel off, we know that we're off. In other words, I call it awareness. I say, your awareness is your superpower. The more you connect with your inner compass, the more you're able to feel when you're off. For me, honestly, when I get on social media, and I just started scrolling blindly, I'm often about 0.2 seconds. I realized that sometimes I do it anyway. I'm not saying that I'm perfect. The awareness is the superpower, because do I really want to be off 20 times a day? It helps us get that behavior under control, is by being aware and really being mindful of how we feel. What we should be looking for is a feeling of upliftment, connection, even neutrality, where you're just like, maybe you've learned something. The second you feel jealous, because jealousy is something that comes up a lot in social media, because people are posting from their egos. When the second you feel jealous, or you feel triggered, get off. Get off as soon as you can and do anything else. I even suggest to people, well, go turn on the TV. Even that is better than the way you get sucked in by the algorithms of social media. My other quick advice is to be mindful of the amount of time you spend. I say, if you've really gotten out of control, and you know when you have. We all know, do a timer, right before you enter your Instagram, enter your Facebook feed, press the timer, say five minutes. That's what I'm letting myself go on for. Then my one final piece of advice, which is really hard, but it's important. Don't sleep with your phone right next to your bed. [00:24:23] PF: Right. Yeah, that's super important. Because I know people that do that. I put mine on airplane mode at night. [00:24:30] JK: That’s really helpful. [00:24:30] PF: People are like, “What if something happens?” It's like, I will find out. I will find out later.” I will be rested and able to deal with it. [00:24:39] JK: Exactly. You'll be in your best shape. I tell people, so we cannot ignore the fact that we're all addicts when it comes to technology; social media, Google, etc. Google News, Apple news, whatever. We're all addict, because this is our first time in history where we're dealing with this kind of barrage of technology and information. Yeah, we're all addicted. We don't have to constantly put this source of addiction right in front of us. Somebody recovering from alcoholism would not sleep with a bottle of vodka right next to their bed. That's how we need to treat ourselves gently, but admit to ourselves that we're addicts, because we're human and we're dealing with machines created to lure us. [00:25:26] PF: That is so great, Jessie. Man, we could talk for hours, but they won't let us. This is terrific. You've given us so much to think about. Your book, we're going to tell people how they can find you, find your book, learn more about this. Thank you for the work that you're doing, and for spending time with me today to talk about this. This is such an important topic. [00:25:46] JK: It is such a pleasure for me, Paula, because my intention is to spread just a little bit of light. If we all do that, I think the world can change. [00:25:55] PF: I love it. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:26:01] PF: That was Jessie Kanzer, talking about how to create a healthier relationship with your social media. If you'd like to learn more about Jessie, follow her on her very healthy social media channels, or pick up a book. Just visit our website at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. Remember to check out those amazing puzzles at unidragon.com and get a 10% discount by entering the code Live Happy Now. 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]