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Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Celebrate the Women in Your Life with Linda Allen [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 407 of Live Happy Now. We're celebrating International Women's Day this week, and it seems like a great time to talk about how we as women can support one another. I'm your host, Paula Felps, and today we're talking about how we can use this occasion to remind ourselves to celebrate the women in our lives. International Women's Day celebrates the diversity and achievement of women, gender parity, and inclusion, and that begins with how we as women support one another. Today, I'm being joined by Linda Allen, a Texas business woman who has realized that the best way for her to leave a lasting mark on the world is simply to touch one life at a time. She's here to talk about why it's important for us to truly focus on making sure that the other women in our lives feel seen and how she does that in the workplace and in the world. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:59] PF: Linda, thank you for joining me on Live Happy Now. [00:01:02] LA: Well, thanks for inviting me. [00:01:05] PF: One reason that I wanted to talk to you is a few months ago, we had a guest on, and she talked a lot about how women really don't have each other's backs and what a big problem it is like not just in careers but in social settings. Honestly, as I was having that conversation, I was thinking about you because you are the antithesis of that, and you're very good at making women feel seen. You make everybody feel seen, but you're very good about acknowledging women and promoting and supporting them. So that's where I really wanted to start is how do you see the world. Do you think that women really are bad about having each other's backs? Or is that your experience? [00:01:44] LA: Trust me. I've had my experiences with maybe the backstabbing or the snide comments. But I don't see it that way, that it's all women are out to get women. Who isn't a little bit jealous? Who isn't a little bit competitive? But that's not the way I see it. I don't see that way at all. I see it as women, we like each other for the most part. I think we're very curious about each other. But sometimes, we don't want to ask questions or we don't want to be supportive because we don't know what to say or how to say it. How will that woman accept it? So that's the way I see it. Maybe I'm a little Pollyanna, but that's okay. I like the way I live. [00:02:23] PF: Yeah. This is – We've got International Women's Day coming up this week, and that's all about inclusivity, equitability, equality. We want that gender parity, and it's important to talk about how we need to start by getting support from other women because it's not that the men – I mean, it's not just that the men need to recognize our value. We as women need to recognize our value and one another's value in our lives. [00:02:50] LA: No. That’s so great. I don't know about you, but I think of a woman's support, for me, is more important than a man’s support. I'm not talking about it in a personal way but in a professional way. Because women, we identify with each other. We know what makes us tick, sometimes what makes us not tick. So when I get a compliment from a female or a supporting comment, that's bigger to me than a man's comment or compliment. [00:03:23] PF: Yeah. That makes sense. [00:03:25] LA: Because I think we know we tick. For a female too, I think about – we struggle. And I don’t wanna put all women in one bucket here. But women are trying to wear a lot of hats. We're trying to be everything to everybody, including to ourselves, and that's a lot of hats. Most men don't try to wear all the hats that we do. We only have one head, but we try, what, like eight hats on at a time? Well, that's ridiculous. Who are we fooling? And it's going to be hard to keep them all on the head at one time. But it's a struggle, and I don't know why women feel like they've got to be superheroes at all times. But, hey, that's the way we're wound, and we are what we are. [00:04:07] PF: Well, is that why you're so diligent about making women around you feel seen? That is just your nature? Where did that come from, and why is that so important to you? [00:04:18] LA: Paula, as much as I hate to admit this, I don't think I've always been this way. But let me tell you how I think I got here. When I was much younger, I always had this idea in life that I wanted to be famous. I didn't know how I was going to be famous, but I wanted to leave this gigantic mark, that when I walk off the face of this earth, I wanted to leave the big mark. So my first career, I was in broadcasting. The reason I wanted to do that was because everybody would know me. Linda Allen's on the air. Linda Allen, Linda Allen. I wanted to be known. I wanted to be relevant. I wanted to be a part of history. I got into that business, and it wasn't what I thought it was going to be. I don't think I was going to leave my mark in that business. So I said, “Okay, what am I going to do to leave my mark?” So I got into corporate America, which was great but something that’s not going to make you famous, leaving that big mark. No matter what big job title I could grow into, I feel good about getting the new job. But then after that, I'd be like, “Did I really make a difference? Am I a part of somebody's story in life?” [inaudible 00:05:25] really. So then I jumped out, and I left corporate America, and I said, “Okay, maybe I can make my story. Maybe I could leave my mark by owning my own business.” So I jumped out. I opened my own business after being in corporate America for a long time, which was a little bit scary. What I've quickly discovered is, don't get me wrong, I do well in my business. So I really feel like where I can leave a mark and be a part of somebody's big life story was with my team members. When you own a small business, you get to know your staff, your team members very well. I really was feeling like I was making a difference in their lives. They would fall into a hole, sometimes. I was able to help them recover because you're never going to be able to climb out of a hole. You need somebody to help you get out of that hole. I was able to help my team members not just be the best at their job, but to help them to make good money, to feel good about themselves, which ultimately helped them be the best mamas if they were females, the best daddies if they’re dads, husbands, spouses, wives. I thought, “Wow, this is where I can really leave a mark in this world and be relevant in life.” So I've been in this business for almost 14 years. I really think, Paula, that's where I made this transition to find. I mean, I'm in the insurance business, and don't get me wrong. That's not a very sexy business. Okay, fine. But it's needed. [00:07:04] PF: But we all need it. [00:07:06] LA: Glad to do it. But that's not going to leave the big mark. But where I leave a mark is with the people that I touch. My staff is a big piece for me. Then if I got – Just I realized I could see the difference I can make in their lives. I started doing with other people. I mean, I would meet people, whether it be come to my house. I'm in a lot of organizations, and I would find ways to build them up. Not just try like, “Oh, your hair looks cute today.” Oh, that’s nice to hear. Don't get me wrong. But I would look for things that I felt I could say or do or contribute to them that I knew would make them feel better that day or perform better, to help them to see their value. Man, I'm going to tell you how I go to bed at night, and I sleep well because I feel like I am truly relevant in this world, and it is the coolest feeling. [00:08:01] PF: What differences do you see in women when you do make them feel seen, when you acknowledge their accomplishments and just the simple fact that they show up on a tough day when they've been up all night with their kids? What difference does it make for them and the way that they move through the world? [00:08:19] LA: I can speak, first of all, to the people that work with me and for me. They come to work some days, and you could just tell they don't want to be here. [00:08:28] PF: We've all had those days, haven’t we? [00:08:30] LA: I mean, sometimes, they look like they don't need to be here either. I love my team. Just by either acknowledging something that's going well, something that can help them with, as little as an extra spring in their step. As cliché as that may sound, it's noticeable. I'll hear them get – As the day goes by, their chatter builds up. The excitement in their voices is better. So I know when they leave here because I'm only eight hours of their day. They got a lot more hours, and they're going to do things and see people. It's going to help them to be possibly better with all their contacts that they make throughout the day. [00:09:13] PF: How does that change them, as they walk out into the world? Have you seen differences in people in terms of like how they start dealing with customers, with their family, things like that? [00:09:24] LA: Oh, 100%. My motto in the office is when you look good, you feel good. When you feel good, you do good. I learned that from a great mentor early, early on in my professional career, and I have made that my mantra and everybody that's ever worked for me. They hear it, they have to live it with me, and it shows. It absolutely shows. The energy is good. I always tell my folks here. I said, “Guys.” I said, “You know, you're going to spend a lot of time in this office and a lot of times with these people that we all work with, me and the customers. You got to make it your best, and you got to attack it as if you own it, just like I do.” It's really cool to watch the way my staff operates because they feel that sense of pride and ownership in the business, in the customers, and the success we have. It’s hard to leave that at the door, which is a cool thing. So they take it out with them. They achieve bigger things at home. They take on board positions with their booster club. They take on new positions in their churches. It's really cool how that just follows them out here when they leave here. [00:10:39] PF: I remember several years ago talking with a researcher named Shane Lopez, and he was talking about work and was saying that if you don't get things to line up for you at work, it's pretty tough to get things to line up outside of work because work is such a consuming big part of your day. So your ability to create an experience where they feel supported, they feel encouraged, they feel happy to be there is changing their life once they leave that office. It's also changing the lives of their kids and family once they get home. I mean, have you ever really sat down and thought about that kind of ripple effect that it has, simply by going to the office with the intention of making everyone feel welcomed and happy and encouraged? [00:11:25] LA: It is amazing when you think about how it multiplies? Absolutely, yes. Because I know if they leave here, and they've had a good day, and they feel valued, and they feel good about themselves, that their kids will have a better night, their spouses, their friends, their other family members. It’s crazy. So I don't touch just nine people. I'm touching nine times eight, probably, and that's powerful. That's just in one day. [00:11:50] PF: That's an incredible reach. I wish more people would stop and think about it that way, where this one interaction is going to change these multiple lives today, and you can get up and do the same thing again tomorrow. That's so much power that we have. [00:12:04] LA: It is. It's really kind of scary sometimes, and then what's sad is we don't actually use that power to build people up. [00:12:11] PF: Right. You had a Facebook post a few months back, and it stopped me in my tracks. It was so powerful, and it was about an encounter that you had with a homeless woman as you were leaving a store. I wondered. It really struck me in such a profound way. Would you talk about that? Would you tell us what that experience was and the outcome of that? Because I thought this was an incredible example of really your kindness and uplifting someone else. [00:12:37] LA: I have to give you a free story because I didn't put this on Facebook. I wasn't having the best day. I was already irritated with the store I was at. Things weren't going the way I thought they should go. So then I walk out to the store, and I say hi to most everybody because that's just what I do. [00:12:57] PF: Right, it is. [00:12:59] LA: When you're in other countries, they think you're a fool, but that's okay. I don't care. So I say hello to this lady, and she didn't have any shoes on. She's pushing a cart. So you could kind of probably determine what her lifestyle is. She looks at me and she says, “I'm better than you,” and she calls me a name, and it wasn't a very nice name. At that very minute, Paula, I was like, I wanted to call her a name back because I thought that was absolutely unnecessary. I'm being nice. I’ve been [inaudible 00:13:32]. But I said, “Nope, that's not the way I roll.” So I just asked her. I said, “So why did you call me a name?” She said to me, “Nobody is ever, ever nice to me.” I said, “So what is it that you need?” I will tell you my first thought. She's going to say, “I need some money. I need food.” You could tell she paused for a minute, and she goes, “You know, I'm homeless. If you couldn't already tell, I'm probably crazy. But I'm happy.” She said, “I just want to be at peace. I want people to leave me alone.” I asked her. I said, “So would you make me a deal? Just make me a simple deal, if I ever, ever see you again.” I think she hangs out in the area that I live in. I said, “Would you just say hello to me next time and not call me a name, and I will show you appreciation and value?” She looked at me, and she reached over, and I'm like, “Oh, here it comes. It wasn’t about to happen.” She gave me a hug. I was a little bit surprised. Then she just walked away. You know what? I thought a lot about her, and it was profound to me as well because I thought, “Oh, my gosh. Did I just put myself in terrible danger right there at the moment?” I cared about making a connection with this woman. But I really thought a lot about her, and I thought she's no different than me, in the sense that we all just want to feel appreciated in some way, and we want to be at peace. That is huge in life. I can't think of anybody, whether you're a female or a male or whatever. Who doesn't want to feel appreciated and be at peace? It was such a cool moment for me. I mean, even when I was talking on Facebook, I teared up because I can't believe that just happened. But it felt so good that I felt like she walked away feeling a little bit better about herself. I thought, wow, what a difference I could have made in her life. I'm just so glad I stopped and even said hello to her and took the time to do it. So I think that's a lot of it. We don't take the time, in most cases, to build people up, to say hello, to acknowledge what their needs are. We just are too busy with our own space. [00:15:47] PF: How do we really start adjusting our mindset to be more about supporting other people, even if it's strangers, even if it's women that we don't know? [00:15:57] LA: I think for me, and I'm a really big believer on a couple of golden rule type things, you get what you give. As I just said, how many people – We all want to feel valued. We all want peace. If we give that off to other people, if we give that feeling, those emotions to other people, we have a greater chance that we're going to get that in return. So that's part of the way I think we can be more, I guess, present, if we think about what it is that you want because karma will tell you, if you get it, you're going to get it back. [00:16:37] PF: So be careful what you give away. [00:16:38] LA: Exactly. So I live like that. I feel like if I give you something, I may get it back. Maybe it's a feeling. Maybe it's a thing. To me, that has made such a difference of getting this mindset really, I guess, kind of locked in for me. [00:16:58] PF: Let me ask you. I know when you start practicing gratitude, your mind then gets used to looking for things to be grateful for. There are so many cases where when you start focusing on something, your mind automatically does that. Do you find that is true with you now, where you are constantly looking for the good in someone? [00:17:15] LA: You know, I do. I absolutely do. Sometimes, you got to look. I mean, sometimes, you have to really be more mindful of what people are doing. But that's a big part is get out of your head and look out of what's going on around you. [00:17:30] PF: Are there any daily practices that you use to keep your positive mindset? I mean, I don't know that I've ever seen you without a smile on your face. You are always so positive and so filled with joy. So are there practices that you do on a daily basis to keep yourself in that mindset? [00:17:48] LA: I pause and just reflect on the day before. I am a very spiritual person, so I do believe that good things come to those who do good things. So that definitely drives me as well. [00:18:00] PF: I love it. Linda, you are a delight, as always, to talk to you. I appreciate you coming on the show and just chatting with me for a while. [00:18:08] LA: You are so welcome. And you as well are a delight, so it was my honor to be in your presence. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:18:19] PF: That was Linda Allen, talking about International Women's Day and how we can support and encourage the women in our lives. Now, International Women's Day isn't the only thing that we're celebrating in March. This is also our month for celebrating happiness with simple daily actions that we call Happy Acts. Visit our website or follow us on social media to discover new happy acts that you can do every day to make your world a happier place. Of course, we'd love to have you celebrate the International Day of Happiness with us on March 20th by hosting a happiness wall in your home, office, church, or school. To find out more, just visit our website at livehappy.com and click on the Happy Acts tab. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Celebrate a Month of #HappyActs With Live Happy [INTRODUCTION] [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 406 of Live Happy Now. It's almost March and here at Live Happy, it's our favorite time of year, and not just because of St. Patrick's Day. I'm your host, Paula Felps, and this week we are talking about happiness month, and how you can help celebrate it. Today, I'm being joined a Live Happy CEO and Founder Deborah Heisz, E-Commerce Marketing Manager, Casey Johnson, and Marketing Manager, Laura Coppedge, to talk about why we're so excited about this time of year, and how you can be a part of it. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:35] PF: I'm so happy to have all three of the ladies here at Live Happy. It's really exciting to talk about happiness month. We've been doing this for a while. And I'm so glad that we can sit down and tell everybody what all we have planned this year, because I feel like we're back for the first time in like three years. One thing people may not know about if they haven't been following Live Happy earlier, and we forgive them for that. They may not know what happy acts are and what this is all about. And Deb, I don't think anyone can explain it better than you can. [00:01:04] DH: Oh, thanks, Paula. Yeah, this is something we have been doing for quite a while. I think this is our ninth year of doing some sort of a Happy Acts campaign. I could be wrong. But I think it's year number nine. We better figure that out before it's year number 10. Really what we do is we take the month of March, and the reason why we selected March is because in 2012, the United Nations declared March 20th, the International Day of Happiness. So, March was kind of declared for us, but we take the month of March, and we use it as a month to share happiness and try and make the world a happier place through something we call our Happy Acts. That's Happy A-C-T-S campaign, and that's really composed of two different things. One is an online social media, people doing happy acts and sharing happy acts and pointing out the good things they see in the world, but also being intentional. And the other one is a walls project, which is walls that we put up. And we call them walls, but they're anything from a bulletin board to something stuck on your refrigerator, to a large wall in a public place like a park or a mall, more people make a commitment to do something to make the world a happier place. And we've been doing this for a while and every year it gets bigger. What we really want to use the month to do is to get people focused on the idea that they can take action, that people can actually take action to improve their communities around them and prove their own wellbeing and make a difference in the world. So, it's a lot of fun. We have a lot of fun around it. But also, it's a way of giving back. [00:02:40] PF: Can you tell us more about the 20th, which is the International Day of Happiness, and maybe some of the ways that people celebrate that? [00:02:46] DH: Well, the kingdom of Bhutan, actually, there was a study done a long time ago, they were kind of the happiest country on Earth. They petitioned the United Nations to declare that the International Day of Happiness. So, a lot of days, there's everything from International Donut Day to, National Take Your Dog to the Park Day, whatever it is, there's all sorts of days that are declared. But when we found out about that, it's about the same time that Live Happy was founding. So, we actually partnered with the United Nations for a couple years. I mean, we did presentations and got a group of speakers together to address the United Nations on happiness. And we did that for a few years. And then there are a lot of other organizations similar to ourselves that do some sort of social, or charitable reach out to celebrate internationally of happiness. But really, the concept of happiness is not – we've talked about this a lot, Paula. We're talking about happiness. We're not talking about taking that roller coaster ride that makes you have fun. We're not talking about whatever it is that makes you like jump for glee. We're actually talking about personal wellbeing. Being the person who you're supposed to be, being where you're supposed to be in your life, really being congruent in the choices that you make. And that's really what they mean by the International Day of Happiness. It's a day of how can we improve human wellbeing. And there's other organizations, like I said, that do similar things to what we do. But really, it has been a part of Live Happy from day one. We just think it's important for the wider world to know that you too, can make the world a happier place. You're not dependent on other people to do it for you. And so, it's International Day of Happiness. There's a lot of stuff going on around it. I know the World Happiness Report comes out on that day. I think this is the sixth one of those World Happiness Report, looking at which of the world's happiest countries and why, once again, happiest being a measure of wellbeing, population wellbeing. There are a couple of conferences that are held every year, but I really feel like we own the day because you don't have to do a lot to participate and anybody, anybody anywhere can participate in our Happy Acts campaign. It's super easy. It's super simple, but you have to take action and do something. You have to be intentional about it. And that's what I love about it. It's accessible to everybody. But it actually can make a difference and we have thousands of people involved every year and it's a wonderful experience. [00:05:12] PF: What I love about the happy acts is, if you're going to believe that it takes 21 days to build a habit, well, we have 31 days in March, and each of those days, you're giving us a happy act to perform. And I think it really gets your mind started of thinking of how am I going to do this? What am I going to do? I can see by the end of the month, where it's like, why do you need to quit? You're going to come up with your own ideas, your own thing that you could do to make somebody else happier, and we know that makes you feel happier. So, that's one thing that I really love about the whole Happy Acts approach. Casey, you always do an amazing job of putting together our happy acts for the month. You've done that again this year. Can you talk about the campaign, how it's carried out, and what some of the happy acts that you're encouraging people to do will be? [00:06:00] CJ: I would love to. So, as you mentioned, you know, we have 31 happy acts for the 31 days of March, every day in March. So, to make things easy, we offer a downloadable Happy Acts calendar that anyone can access for free at livehappy.com/happyacts. So, we encourage you to – you can follow along with our daily happy acts or you can make up your own. There's more than just 31 ways to spread happiness in the world. And we would love for you guys to share the way you're spreading kindness and happiness in the world by tagging us on social. We're basically on all social channels. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, we have a TikTok channel now, LinkedIn. And some of my favorite happy acts this year, just to give you guys a little sneak peek. They're small things like we've talked about, just small ways to make someone's day a little brighter, or even your own. But anyway, so for example, if you see like a cashier at the grocery store, having a tough day, buy them their favorite candy in the checkout line, and you'll see their face brighten up or make a funny TikTok with your friends or your pet, volunteer at your favorite charity or donate. They're small little things that make a huge impact. [00:07:14] LC: I think the one – this is Laura. I think the one that I love that’s new, because some of these we have been using for nine years, Deborah, if you wanted to clarify that. We've been doing him for a year as. I love that Casey, one of the ones you came up with this year was to plan an errand date with a friend. I mean, how great is that? It's making – and that's part of this too is like looking at our perspective of how can we make even our own day a little bit better. It's our mindset on it. We have to run errands, and it's drudgery, but we take a friend along, it's a whole different experience and I love the simplicity of that. [00:07:51] PF: I think it's really important that we start learning, it is small steps that move us into wellbeing. There are the big steps that everybody talks about making these huge shifts, and that seems overwhelming. But moving into a space of happiness and wellbeing really is about the small little habits that you build on every day, that you look back after a while and realize that you have changed your perspective, you've changed your mood, you've changed your life, because of those small changes. [00:08:16] DH: I think it's really important to point out something you said just a minute ago, Paula, which is some of the habit forming. Doing positive things, taking action, doing happy acts, can become a habit, but it only takes 21 days, really, to build the habit. A lot of studies say that that's the optimum time. And once you've done something for 21 days, it's easier to do than not to do. So, these happy acts, take this month and build happy acts into your regular every day. Form that habit. Form that habit of being optimistic. And these are not huge things. I mean, it is, buy a coworker a cup of coffee. Write a thank you note. Make a call to someone you haven't talked to in a while. Check on a neighbor. There are all sorts of things and the calendar that we've got out there on social media, great suggestions. It's wonderful to take March to do that. But after that, continue the practice, because our goal is not to have a really happy March. Actually, move the needle, right? [00:09:18] PF: Right. It’s the setup. [00:09:20] DH: It is the setup. Yes. [00:09:23] PF: Casey, where do they get that calendar? Where should they look for that? Because I've seen it. It looks terrific. It makes it fun. It's something they could print out, put up on their wall, put in their cubicle, whatever they want to do. Where do they go find that? [00:09:34] CJ: Yeah, they can find that on livehappy.com/happyacts, and we're really excited. We have a new format this year. So, we hope you guys enjoy it. [00:09:42] PF: And then each day on social media, they can look and see what the happy act for the day is, correct? [00:09:48] CJ: Yes, yeah. If you're following us on social, we'll be posting every day, so you can repost ours and make your own, just anyway, spread the word and just celebrate happiness. [00:10:00] PF: Very cool. [00:10:00] DH: Please follow us on social. Both social and then our email newsletter which goes out every other week. It's just content to help you improve your life and wellbeing and a lot of stuff that we put out there should make you smile. So, it'll make you pause and think. I mean, it's all good stuff to see in your feed. Right? I'd rather see something from Live Happy in my feed, than whatever the hot thing is that's being purchased, that's being pushed on you to buy right now or politics or vote for this or whatever it is. I'd rather – I mean, wouldn't you rather have your feet filled with stuff from Live Happy? [00:10:32] PF: I would. [00:10:33] DH: I would. [00:10:35] CJ: I would too. Maybe we're biased. [00:10:40] DH: Maybe a little, Casey. Maybe just a little. [00:10:43] PF: Well, Laura, you're really leading the charge on these happiness walls. And these are so cool. You and I actually really bonded over the very first happiness wall that we did in Chicago. We'd never met before. Brand new to Live Happy. [00:10:56] LM: 2014. So, yeah, 2014 in March 28th in Chicago, became my best thing. [00:11:05] PF: Yeah, so happiness walls have a special place for me. But you're leading that. Now, talk to us about what to do with them, how you can do it. Because what I do love is how you've really expanded the definition of what a happiness wall can be, and made it accessible to literally everyone. [00:11:19] LM: Right. When we first started out, they were these big, kind of – and they still are a very – it's just a social interaction campaign. We're not asking anybody to give us anything. We're not giving anybody – it is very much social awareness of what are you doing and what can you do to share happiness. How will I share happiness? In what Casey was talking about on social media, we're talking about 31 suggestions of doing it. When we really talk about the wall interactions we have, it's really kind of a pledge of what will I do. What little thing will I do, can I do, did I do today to share happiness.? The great thing about that, and Deborah started talking about that, is they can be. We've had these big orange walls of the Bean in Chicago and various places around the world, honestly, when we were really doing international interaction there for a while before the pandemic kind of slowed that down. But it's also like, it's a bulletin board. It's a wall in the middle of your mall. But it's also, we have a poster that you can get that talks about how you're going to share happiness and asking different people how they'll do that. One of the ways that we have been doing it in my house, and I know at Deborah's house, with our kids is we have one that we put on the refrigerator, and do every year. My kids, every year, we have done the paint positivity on a rock and leave it around the neighborhood somewhere. They still love that. When we started this campaign, Deborah and I, both of our kids were young, elementary school kids, and now we have teenagers. That's one of those things that the art on and the messages on the rocks have greatly improved, for sure. [00:13:01] PF: They’d come a long way. [00:13:03] LM: The sentiment is still been the same and they look forward to that interaction. And I think, talking about it being a social awareness campaign, our kids growing up with this concept, and knowing this is, like they know Valentine's Day is coming. They know that Easter is coming. For our kids, they know that the International Day of Happiness is coming and March is coming. That I think, has made them much more intentional with how they're doing small things that are good for the world, and still saw confidence in them. That's been a wonderful thing to kind of watch and see and how they ask deeper questions over the years about why they're doing this and what it means to do it. So again, Casey said that all of our resources are on livehappy.com/happyacts and we have on there. But what we really ask people to do, because we're interested in where people are doing this, is to go on and register your wall. And if you plan on doing something at your school or at your community, that's wonderful. We have some lesson plan guides for schools to use, for elementary schools to kind of talk about what the International Day of Happiness is, and talk about how they can do things for the world and people around them. But also, if you're just going to do it in your cubicle work, or at your home, let us know the name of the city and these of where you're going to do that. Let us know where we are spreading that joy in the world. We have walls in Mexico and Canada and across the pond in England and France and it's a wonderful thing to see. Again, for us largely too, the work that we do day in and day out makes a difference and people are paying attention and wanting to better themselves and wanting to better the lives of their communities. So, on the website again, there's like we have all sorts of has pictures of walls, like if you're like, “Okay, this sounds like a great idea”, but I'm not a Pinterest-y creative person. We have inspirations. There are all sorts of like, creative ways that people have done that. So, there's a whole page that can give you some ideas and inspiration on that. And again, we have the calendar, you can download. But we also have just a simple wall that you can place on your fridge that you can download that the kids can fill in, that you can fill in, that your coworkers can fill in at work. [00:15:31] PF: But all you're doing is telling them how you're going to share happiness. It's not – [00:15:35] LM: Yeah. It's kind of the flip side of what I want to do going forward, what I want to bring out to the world. Even if it’s, I'm going to be more mindful of parking streets, so I don't take it to places in the grocery store. I mean, it can be such a small thing, or I'm going to volunteer more of my time in the coming months. I'm going to reduce my carbon footprint. That's one of our 31 apps this year. It's taking that today and moving it forward in our lives. [00:16:10] PF: Yeah. And what's really cool about doing it is if you don't have any ideas, you can steal someone else's from the wall. [00:16:16] LM: Absolutely. Yes. [00:16:19] DH: So, I think it's interesting to talk about that this is what we're doing. But if you haven't done this before, this is the way a wall works. Wherever you are, it's a wall. We like it to be orange, for branding, and then there's a card that says, “I will make the world a happier place by”, and someone writes something down, and he put it on the wall. Now, if you haven't done this before, it's kind of an interesting experience. Because if you see someone in a mall or something like that, and there's a bunch of people walking around, you're thinking, they're trying to sell me something. And so, people are like, “I'm not interested.” And it's like, “You're not interested in happiness?” And then they kind of go, “What?” You go, “No, we're not selling anything. We just want you to fill out a card, make a commitment to make the world a happier place.” And they're like, “Oh, what religion are you?” “No, no. We're not a religion, either. We're just out here, it’s International Day of Happiness.” And you'd be surprised to how people engage. In order to have them engage, we've had that experience the grumpiest person will stick around for two or three hours and join in asking people to fill out cards. It's the craziest experience. Those are our big public walls. And it's phenomenal, because it really is good to be able to stop and go, “Hey, there's something good. I can do something.” But we made it – I'm going to say it's a huge change. But it's only a huge change, because we haven't made any changes in the past. We made a change to our in-home wall this year. And I think it probably sprung out of it fact that Laura and I have teenagers. So, teenagers and accountability don't really go well together. This year's downloadable wall is seven days, it's got seven spaces, so that every day, your teenager, or your child, or you, or your spouse, or whoever it is, can fill out for a week, one week, what did they do to make the world a happier place that day. So, this is a change for us. And I think it really kind of comes out of the fact that our families are getting older, and we start seeing it engaged and not a desire to change it up, but a desire to make it more meaningful. Because if everybody writes down what they did today, you can have a conversation about it. It's that dinner conversation that we try and have around our table. What good happened today? Well, as opposed to what good happy today it's, what good did you do today? So, I think it's going to be an interesting take on it. I encourage those of you who would love to host a public wall to find out more about that. Go to livehappy.com/happyacts. Or go to live happy.com, there's a Happy Acts on the navigation that you can see. Go there, read about happiness walls. If you're a teacher, we do them in schools, classrooms. I think pre-pandemic we had more than 2,000 walls in 37 countries, the last year pre-pandemic. It's a huge boost in the classroom to get kids thinking about it. I know our principal puts it on the calendar and asks us what day we're going to come in and do it. So, it makes a difference if you're a teacher. If you are a manager in an office, put one up on a bulletin board. If you own a small business, put one up where people can come in and see it. I think the person hosting the wall, the person doing it and taking the effort actually gets a ton out of it. Because you get to spend your day talking about happiness, and making the world a better place. And it really does give you that feeling of accomplishment, that feeling of I did something, but also you get to engage with a lot of people that you might not ordinarily get to engage with. So, check it out. Once again, live happy.com/happyacts. There's a lot of information there. Register your wall. We'll be doing a bunch of giveaways during the month of March. People who register their wall or share happy acts, random giveaways, would just like to spread some share by randomly giving away some Live Happy gears. So, check it out, register your wall, join us in celebrating Happy Acts. It's something we do for the month of March every year. But really, it's something we should be doing all year round. [00:20:14] PF: I love it. So, as we wrap it up, what looks like success for this year's Happy Acts campaign? [00:20:21] DH: Success looks like more people sharing on social media their happy acts and getting a lot – I mean, my goal is, we haven't really talked to number yet. I guess we probably should. But my goal is to get at least a thousand home walls, at least a thousand people to do a home wall, and add that to the schools and the businesses that we already typically. Get Happy Acts walls going forward, and just to grow this. That would be my goal. But also, sharing on social media. Wouldn't it be great to see in your feed all the happy acts are doing? Well, to do that we need more people participating, and we need more people to just go ahead and create videos, make your Reel about the happy acts you did that day. What about the happy act someone else did that day? Or something that makes you happy. Make your Reel, your TikTok, whatever it is, your Insta. Let's just flood social media with as many happy acts as possible for the month of March. We’ll have a larger impact that way. [00:21:16] PF: I love it. Well, Deborah, Laura, Casey, I appreciate you, as always, sitting down with me. You're doing such wonderful things to make the world a happier place. I'm excited to get going on this year's Happy Acts. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:21:32] PF: That was Deborah Heisz. Casey Johnson, and Laura Coppedge, talking about our Happy Acts campaign and the International Day of Happiness. If you'd like to learn more about how to join us for a full month of celebrating happiness, share your happy acts with us on social media, or post a happiness wall in your home, office, church, or school, to celebrate the International Day of Happiness on March 20th, just visit our website at livehappy.com and click on the Happy acts Tab. We’re for excited to see you there. 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: Connecting to Nature Through Yoga With Rebecca Wildbear [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 405 of Live Happy Now. Today, we're going to take a walk on the wild side. I'm your host, Paula Felps. And this week, I'm sitting down with Rebecca Wildbear to talk about connecting with nature through a program she developed called Wild Yoga. We know that being in nature is good for us, but Rebecca takes it to the next level and shows us how we can deepen our connection with the earth to better understand ourselves. Her new book, Wild Yoga: A Practice of Initiation, Veneration & Advocacy for the Earth, takes a deeper dive into how we can connect with the earth and what it will do for us. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:44] PF: Rebecca, thank you so much for joining me on Live Happy Now. [00:00:48] RW: Thank you. Thanks for inviting me. [00:00:50] PF: This is a perfect time to talk to you. People don't know we're recording this on the book launch day, so that's kind of exciting. It gives a great feel. This overall is really fascinating because I'm familiar with a lot of types of yoga. This was the first time I had heard of Wild Yoga and discovered this is something you developed. So let's start back at the beginning. Can you tell me what Wild Yoga is and how you created it? [00:01:16] RW: Yeah. Thanks for asking. It's the kind of yoga that involves loving ourselves, stretching our consciousness, connecting to the earth body as much as we might connect to our own bodies, delving into the mystery, listening to dreams, letting our yoga kind of take us back to the larger meaning of yoga, which is about our relationship to ourselves and our relationship to the whole world. So oftentimes, yoga is synonymous with asana, which is the physical postures and practices, which Wild Yoga definitely includes. But it also has the larger expanse that I think is rooted more in the depth of the original meaning of yoga, to route us in relationship with the depths in our bodies and our souls and also with the wild earth around us as part of our own body. [00:02:06] PF: So is it more of a meditative yoga or a physical yoga, or what can participants expect from it? [00:02:12] RW: Well, it has an asana practice that like doing a physical asana practice is part of it, and it includes a lot of imagery and poetry and metaphor to connect us to our bodies and nature. Kind of some of my yoga classes feel like a little bit like a journey, and sometimes they have different themes like connecting to our wild natures, connecting to our wholeness, connecting to our soul, courting our muse through movement. You can see in my yoga practice the poses have descriptions, which include imaginative practices, as well as the physical postures. Then there's a whole philosophy with teachings and stories just about motivated to bring us into relationship with our bodies, not only on the yoga mat, but all the time to promote a deep kind of listening to our body as an intelligent source that we can learn from. Also really opening us up to a broader spans of all intelligences including listening to the intelligence of nature and the earth and trees and listening to the intelligence of our dreams, listening to our souls, connecting to the sacred and the spirit, connecting to our muse, and sourcing all of that and how we relate and act into the world. I say that I use a term often, living amused directed life or living an earth-centered life, those kinds of things so that our life purpose and meaning expands beyond just our own individual selves and egos. [00:03:34] PF: How big a role does that nature connection play in self-discovery? Because we've gotten really away from nature, and I want to dive into that with you. But can you address how important it is to connect with nature in order to connect better with ourselves? [00:03:49] RW: Yeah. I mean, I think it's absolutely essential, and I think people might have noticed that if you've spent any time in nature or if you spent long times in nature, obviously, a lot of people seem to love nature connection. Like if you've noticed, if you go sit by the ocean for the day, or if you go out into the woods for the day, how it affects your body naturally, like you feel better inside yourself. You oftentimes can feel more like yourself. I always say the natural world is inherently itself. It has no confusion. A tree is a tree. It knows it's a tree, and it's a tree. Everything in nature is so much itself. Human beings, we have the thinking mind, which can often get us lost in this self and this self and that self, divided perspectives. It seems to me like being in nature, at least it’s been my experience with myself and others, brings us back into a connected place with ourselves because we're in good company. We're in an intelligent company. We're sitting with beings that are fully themselves and can engage fully with everything else around. So a lot of the practices that I offer in Wild Yoga are rooted in having a conversation with nature, beyond even just as a healing source and even a part of ourselves, but as an animate world, which is what most of our ancestors believed the earth to be, something that we can relate to and talk to and that has feelings and perspectives. So I take people back into that relationship as part of Wild Yoga. [00:05:17] PF: How surprised are they by maybe the emotions that come up, the relationship they start feeling with the earth? Because I love how you're really taking us back to something very primal, something we have gotten so far away from. So I'm just wondering, as people go on this journey, how do they respond to it? [00:05:35] RW: Well, my sense is they love it. I mean, it's surprising. Like you don't often know. You can't anticipate what exactly is going to happen if you go out and have a conversation with nature. Sometimes, if you haven't had done it before, it can be frustrating because there's like, “Oh, gosh. I’m trying to have a conversation, and nothing's happening.” But it takes kind of a patience and persistence. When people stick with it, they become so surprised and enlivened by the stories and connections that happen for them that they have, like who shows up to talk, what they say, what they learned, the new perspectives that come through. [00:06:12] PF: So let's talk about that. What does someone do when you say, “We're going to go out. We're going to talk to nature,” just as if you're walking beside me out there? What am I going to do? [00:06:21] RW: Well, a lot of it involves bringing like your child's self back in, the one who knew how to play and particularly the one that knew how to imagine. Imagination is a really big key in being able to talk and listen to the earth. It’s hard to communicate that idea at first because people in our culture have often been taught that imagination is kids’ stuff, and it's not real. When you're done with kindergarten, you just kind of move on to like what you know and what you can think. When I work with people, we really come back to play. We come back into the imagination and understand that the imagination is a really important way of knowing, maybe even more important than thinking. So even if you're not sure about it like, “Well, gosh. Is the world really alive? Can I really talk to trees,” what if you could just play and imagine that was the case? What might happen? That's often how I invite people into having a conversation with nature is not trying to think too much about like, “Oh, is it real, and did the tree really say that,” and letting them play with it. You can always decide later what you think of it. But right now, just be in it and play and go out. It involves a lot of attending to the natural world too, getting out of your thinking mind, getting out of your figuring out planning mind, which is very hard for people. A lot of times, when people go into the wilderness, especially for short times, it's almost like they never arrived in the wilderness. They might be sitting there, but their head is elsewhere. So you really have to come in and be present. It's so beautiful that it's a wonderful thing to be able to do and to get to do is to even just be present with the beauty and the magnificence of the life in the wild world around us. Then when you're pulled into that sense of looking at the relationships trees have with ants and wind have with leaves and soil has with roots, we're already pulled into the other. Then we can lean in with our own imaginations and join the conversation and see where our curiosities might be, where our passions might be. Introduce ourselves and then listen. There's all sorts of ways nature responds. It could be in synchronicities. It could be in encounters that come, weather changes. It could be in images that just arise inside of us, dream images or other images, memories that come up. It could be even in words that just arise into our mind that we know we didn't think of because they're just so different than anything we would think is they’re surprising. [00:08:47] PF: How difficult is it for some people to disconnect like that? Because we've become so connected to our devices. We've become so chained to our constant always on world. I recall a few years ago, we went to King Pacific Island up in Canada, and they told us we had to get on this whole puddle jumper, and they said, “Okay. As of now, you will no longer have phones. So for the next 10 days, it's going to be quiet.” One guy, you would have thought they had just told him, “We were going to cut your arm off.” I mean, it was like, “No, this can't happen.” So do you see that? Do you see where people are like, “I got to connect with nature, but I still need to be connected with the world.” [00:09:26] RW: That's definitely a way a lot of people think. I guide programs where I invite people to be in nature, and we highly recommend that they don't bring cell phones or other connective devices that they're offline for those days. In some ways, that's the best shot that we have a really did kind of listening. Sometimes, even going out for a couple hours, people want to bring their devices. Or even if it's only a couple of hours, sometimes it can be hard to disconnect your mind and really land in nature. When you know that you're off of those devices for a period of time, when you've committed it, when you've set a boundary, then there's a lot more possibilities for listening that can emerge. [00:10:04] PF: Is there a process that you see unfold regularly and people, as they start leaving that connection with electronics and the busy world behind, and they start getting into nature? Is there a certain step-by-step thing you see, “Ah, there you go. Next, this will happen.”? [00:10:20] RW: Well, gosh, it's all so very different. People are very different. So some people who get offline and go out to nature, there can be almost like an immediate connection, and it can be easy. It's almost like something in them was waiting for something like this to be able to happen, and things just start happening really automatically, and they're at home. Maybe they're remembering childhood or past connections to nature that were significant, and they're establishing new connections while they're out there. Then sometimes, if people come and they're just arriving, it can feel like a little bit of a slow start like, “Oh, gosh. I'm thinking about back home, or I can't connect to here. It seems like maybe I'm not doing it right, or nothing's happening.” Those kinds of like more fear-based thoughts. People can go and have a very deep conversation for several days. Then sometimes, they hit something that is like a material that feels scary or uncomfortable from the past or difficult feelings coming up. Then at that point, they might have been very open for days, but then other parts of themselves come to shut down. But I would say the one thing that I see across the board is nature in general, overall, most of the time, it has a very loving and nurturing quality. So I wrote about this in my book in chapter five, receiving the love of trees. But in general, whether it's trees or other places in the natural world, the natural world is very loving. We humans crave love and to be held. There's usually never enough, a sense of that, never quite enough. So going to nature is often a place that we feel renewed and loved and held. [00:12:02] PF: You talk about something I had not heard of before, and that is earth grief. That was very interesting to me. I wondered if you would explain the premise of earth grief, what it is, what it feels like, and what we need to do with that. [00:12:17] RW: Great. Yeah, that's a wonderful thing. Thanks for inviting that. In many ways, there's a sense in earth grief that feelings that are uncomfortable or unpleasant might arise in us. Grief can show up in many different forms, whether it's depression, or apathy, or lethargy, or just kind of feeling dull or feeling rage, or just despair or grief, crying. It can show up in all sorts of emotions. A lot of times, when humans have difficult emotions, we go to, “Oh, my gosh. I shouldn't be feeling like this. How can I fix it? How can I make myself feel better? It must be something I'm doing wrong in my life. Maybe I got to change something, so I can feel better.” But the idea of earth grief says that there are things happening on the planet right now that are just so sad and hard to be with that we might be actually having feelings come up that are difficult, and they might not totally even be just our feelings. They might be from the heart of the earth. It might be that if we're very connected to the earth and especially if we might be near places that we love that might be being harmed or destroyed, that there can be feelings that come up in us. Sometimes, we might not even know what that connection is. We just have these feelings, and we can't quite tell what it is, and it's important to be with that. But that it's important to attend these feelings that related to earth grief and to see what they are because they actually can be like portals themselves, transporting us into new imaginal or visionary possibilities. They also can awaken our hearts and change our actions in the world and change what we do. I just heard a story of somebody who was able to protect a land that they love because they were very connected to it. Sometimes, that can be the result. If we're actually feeling sad about ecological devastation and the harms that we see, the violence that we see to the earth is bothering us, it can motivate our actions. Those actions can change the state of what happens for the earth in particular places and then cumulatively. [00:14:18] PF: A lot of people feel like there's so much going on, so much destruction, both the people and the earth. There's a lot of bad stuff going on right now. But they also feel like there's really nothing that I can do that's going to stop that, that's going to change that. How does starting to connect with nature through the Wild Yoga, through really communing in nature, how does that change how you view what your role is and your ability to do something about it? [00:14:44] RW: Yeah. Thank you so much for that question. I think having a relationship with the earth, just listening and talking to nature and feeling with nature, brings us back into our inherent connection with earth's body and also what I would call right relation with earth of the world around us, where what happens to the earth impacts us, and we see and sense that our health and our wellbeing are not disconnected from the planet. They're actually very connected. I might try very hard to attend to my individual health and wellbeing, and there's definitely things that I can do as individual to improve my individual wellbeing. But there's also sort of a stopping point, like my individual health by itself is only going to be so well if the planetary and the others around me are being harmed. I will be limited. I can't be healthy if they're unhealthy on some level. I can't be as healthy as I would be if they were healthy. So we're linked in what happens to the planet happens to us. Feeling is a very big part of turning ourselves into having this right relationship, where we are related. Just like if our relatives are sick, that hurts our feelings. If our friends are hurt, we feel that too. The earth is our friend and our relative, and so what happens to it impacts us. So it brings us back into right relationship. It can be overwhelming and hard to feel. But that right relationship can take us places we can't even envision right now. There's a lot of reaction to the state of the planet, which is very understandable. That can lead to giving up. I always joke that the mainstream culture seems to have gone from, “There's nothing wrong. I don't have to do anything,” to, “Oh, my God. It's too big and too bad now. I can't do anything. It won’t matter.” [00:16:22] PF: It’s too late. Yeah. [00:16:24] RW: Both of those lead to inaction, both of those philosophies, which are seemingly opposite, but they're all related to. Really, we don't know the outcome. The future is uncertain. We do know what's going on now and that humans, overall, aren't in right relationship with the earth. We can change that. I mean, that is possible to change. Humans have been in right relationship with the earth before. It might be a huge change, and I think it will be. But it's still possible to change ourselves individually, to collectively join with other people and bring ourselves back. Is it too late? Maybe it's too late. I don't know. I'm not here to predict the future, and I don't necessarily think that trying to figure that out and decide my actions based on outcome is the relevant action. It's more about the relationship now. If I have a relationship now with the earth and that motivates what I do and how I respond, then the future will unfold as it unfolds. I imagine approaching the world that way. It will be a better unfolding than it will be if we're not in right relationship. [00:17:30] PF: Absolutely. So how often should people be out in nature? Is that something you think should happen daily, multiple times a day? [00:17:38] RW: Well, as much as possible. That would be great. I mean, it's nice. It depends where you live. Some people I work with live in cities and have very little nature contact. So we do a lot of imaginal connections to nature or connecting to the nature in city or the connecting to the nature beneath the city where nature once lived, connecting to the river or the trees that live in the city, or connecting in your imagination to wild places you've ever been. Fortunately, a lot of people in the United States still have a lot of access to wild places. If you can have access to outside and wild places, definitely. If you can go out every day and sit with trees, sit next to the river, why not? They're one of the wisest and most healing energies you could deal with. So I think regular immersion in nature or outside where you live would be the best, definitely. [00:18:33] PF: So is there like a minimal amount of time before you start feeling the effects of it? Or can just a few minutes of walking in nature have a difference? What's the prescription here, doctor? [00:18:46] RW: Well, I think a little bit of time in nature can go a long way. I mean, for me, even just going outside and taking a walk for 30 minutes or an hour, and if you can bring your attention, really bring your attention to the others around you. It’s a big shift. I take breaks often throughout the day, go outside, and look around, connect to who is around me. Also, it's great if you can take extended periods of time in nature. I take those two, were some of the year you're planning times where maybe for a weekend or a week you can be camping or out in nature more, where you can actually spend a lot of times listening. [00:19:29] PF: How do you see that changing people as they come back, when they do take those breaks, when they do get away? What’s their reentry back into city life? [00:19:36] RW: Well, I think there can be a renewal and a new perspective. When I take people out into the wilderness on journeys for a week or more, there's been a time of deep listening while they were out there, a time of actually going out in the land and having conversations and listening. So when they go back, they have, you could say, new instructions from their conversation with nature. Or they have had visions while they were out there with nature. They were given guidance. So when they go back, they route their lives in a new way, redirecting towards the new enlivened connection and the instructions and visions that they received. [00:20:17] PF: That's excellent. We mentioned earlier, it's the book launch of Wild Yoga. It's almost 300 pages. It is so comprehensive. How did you go about putting all of this together? Because it was really mind-blowing to see how much you've been able to include in that book and really takes us completely through it. [00:20:37] RW: Yeah. There's a lot of breadth and material. I mean, I probably could write a whole book sometimes on one of the chapters, instead of just [inaudible 00:20:42]. Maybe one day I will, but I wanted to include a book that included a lot of perspectives because one of the things that I see that can happen sometimes in spiritual platforms and personal growth platforms, yoga platforms, is that there's a limitation. Like just do this little thing and only this, and then it misses the comprehensive possibility. So I included everything to just show that there are so many. There's such a broad perspective of possibilities and practices to bring us into right relationship with the wild dimension of life, with dreams, with our nature conversations, with the spirit and the soul, with darkness, the dark night of the soul, with playing our part in the symphony. What is our individual role, and what is it to connect to the whole? With the idea in the last chapter of beloved world, that service is also a big part of personal growth that personal growth isn't necessarily for me to just go and receive. It is a big part of that because nature and dreams, they give us so much. So I do receive so much. That receptivity is also meant to be an offering to the world service and that helps bring the circle complete when we offer back in service what we were given. [00:22:00] PF: That's excellent. Look down the road five years from now. What do you hope Wild Yoga has accomplished in the world? [00:22:07] RW: I think some of the things I hope would be a greater listening. Listening is like one of the main words I associate with the whole book, that we're listening to these greater intelligences, rather than just our own human mind and ego. That we're listening to nature, muses, dreams. That that listening also takes us into a way of being, in a way of living and acting that communal and tender and vulnerable and that also protects our land base. In our reconnecting to the land base of the earth, that builds a natural instinct to protect also, and that that possibility expands. That through doing Wild Yoga and connecting to ourselves and being bold, personally and imaginally and connecting to our visions, that can also lead to actions that protect land and species, more ecosystems, restore ecosystems, so that the earth can also be in a better state for the future generations of all species. [00:23:01] PF: I love it. Rebecca, thank you for your time today. This was a wonderful conversation. You're doing some marvelous things. We're going to tell people how they can find you, how they can find your book, how they can find your website, and even go on one of your experiences. I just – I wish you the best of success on this because it's such important work that you're doing. [00:23:19] RW: Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. [END OF INTERVIEW] [00:23:25] PF: That was Rebecca Wildbear, talking about how to connect with nature through Wild Yoga. If you'd like to learn more about Rebecca, watch a video of a Wild Yoga practice, buy her book, or follow her on social media, visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. March is just around the corner, which means it's time for our annual Happy Acts Campaign. Throughout the month of March, we're offering a full calendar of daily suggestions to help you make your world a happier place. Of course, we want you to share your happy acts with us on social media. Visit the Happy Acts section of our website at livehappy.com to learn how you can be involved and how you can host a happiness wall in your home, office, church, or school to celebrate the International Day of Happiness on March 20th. That is all we have time for today. We will 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]